by Kate Elliott
Shai toppled forward, landing beside the bundle, the chains a finger’s breadth from his nose. He smelled: the snap in the air before lightning strikes. He tasted: the flavor of a cloudburst, rain pounding on stone and muddying dirt. He felt: the cooling breath of a mountain wind on his blistered, reddened skin. He heard: Bai’s words like the purl of cooling water over exposed rock.
“Let me tend to him. Shai never faltered. His courage is worthy of a song. As for the other, Captain Arras, I know a commander who can use your skills and the loyalty you would offer a commander who will treat you with the respect you deserve. I am his agent, following the orders of my Hieros, who together with the council of Olossi and the council of temples in Olo’osson has put their trust in him. Will you join us?”
“What surety can you offer me? What if we surrender, and your commander simply orders us executed?”
“If you want surety, I’ll give you this.”
“That’s a blanket.”
“Neh, Captain Arras. It’s a blanket wrapped tightly around a Guardian’s cloak. You can use it to buy a new life for you and your soldiers.”
Arras’s harsh laugh cracked against the fragile shell that bound Shai to consciousness. Splintering, he shattered, and fell into blessed darkness, where all wounds are healed.
47
OVER THE NIGHT, the reeves slept hard, and at dawn launched from the prow of Law Rock. All day Joss patrolled the skies above Toskala as Peddonon’s two flights and the two flights flown in from Horn Hall harassed the routed garrison. They rained arrows down on desperate companies marching in ragged columns north toward High Haldia; they drove desperate men into ambuscades they had set up beforehand by lifting cadres of soldiers into position ahead of the fleeing soldiers. Their orders weren’t to capture the enemy and bring them before the assizes to face judgment for their wrongdoing. Their orders were to kill.
They weren’t the orders Joss had given. This wasn’t justice, as the reeves were taught to serve justice. But as the reeves gathered on Law Rock late in the afternoon to seal their victory by breaking out the last of the hall’s stores of cordial, even Peddonon was laughing with a grim sort of exaltation.
“Cursed hells-ridden bastards mown down like grass! Whew! Did you see that, Pil? When those militiamen caught them with their trousers down taking a—”
“Commander Joss!”
Joss left the gathering of whooping, drinking reeves and crossed Justice Square to meet a delegation from the city. They’d been winched up in the main baskets, now free to haul supplies and people up and down the rock.
“Chief Toughid.” The chief offered a forearm for the traditional Qin bash, and Joss slammed him harder than he might have otherwise but he was still the one who winced. “Ostiary Nekkar.” He had to be introduced to the other notables. “Is there to be a council? Might the city be better served to hold it below, where anyone who wishes can come and listen?”
The chief shook his head. “Too many voices will drown out the necessary orders.”
Joss paced him into the council hall, the dusty benches of which betrayed it as the one building up on the rock that hadn’t housed refugees over the long months of occupation. No one wanted to sleep in the place where so many people had been murdered on that long-ago Traitors’ Night. Now voices rang with triumph as eighteen notables from the city in addition to Toughid and Joss settled on the benches. A number of the firefighters, reeves, and militiamen who had stuck it out atop the rock stood to listen, quieting as the ostiary rose.
The slender man nodded wearily, a fragile smile lighting his face. “Our thanks to Chief Toughid, and to the reeves. Yet the danger is not passed. We’ve driven out the garrison, but many survived to flee north while others ran south to join up with their brothers near Nessumara.”
“A substantial number survive.” Toughid’s manner was brisk and unemotional. “We don’t have a full accounting of the situation in Nessumara. We should hear midday tomorrow. However, the enemy has fifteen cohorts. Even if as many as five cohorts were disrupted in the last few days, that leaves ten cohorts unaccounted for.”
“What do we do?” the council members demanded. Joss couldn’t keep their names straight, making it seem as if they spoke with one voice. “There’s not much oil of any kind left in the city.”
Toughid nodded. “What advantage we have gained from oil of naya we cannot expect for the next phase of the campaign. In the morning I’ll send a messenger—” He quite deliberately cleared his throat before starting again. “In the morning, Commander Joss will send a messenger to the main army to inform them of Toskala’s rising. The soldiers lifted in will remain here to coordinate defensive measures. We must expect cadres and companies and even full cohorts to retreat from Nessumara past Toskala. Desperate men driven by fear are dangerous and unpredictable. I’ll leave my best sergeant in charge of the defense. Place your militia under his command and use your reeves wisely, and you’ll be able to hold the city.”
“Where do you mean to go, Chief Toughid?” they demanded.
Joss sat on the end bench, shoulders braced against the stone wall and legs extended with feet crossed at the ankle. Not one person looked Joss’s way. For all that the Qin soldier threw bones to the reeve commander, no one paid any attention to the faithful dog, not if he wasn’t barking.
“For myself,” said the chief, “I’ll go on to Gold Hall. We’ve made an arrangement to launch an attack on High Haldia’s garrison.” He nodded at Joss. “Is there anything you’d like to add, Commander?”
Joss raised a hand in the gesture of agreement. “You have things well in hand, Chief Toughid. Our thanks to you and your men. However, the one consideration reeves must deal with before all others is the health of our eagles. If we push them past their strength, they’ll grow sick and not easily recover. Our eagles need rest. I’ll release a pair to lift you north to Gold Hall. We’ll have to run short patrols here for as much as a week. No carting. No long flights. No raids. I’ll carry the message myself to Captain Anji.”
Toughid nodded, and the ostiary rubbed his chin thoughtfully, but the cursed council members would natter on like so many whining gnats. “We need flights to harass the enemy. How will we know what’s going on if the eagles aren’t flying? Those Qin soldiers keep riding and riding, never faltering—”
“If your horse or dray beast goes lame, then you can’t ride or cart, can you, eh?” Joss said irritably. “And there’s a cursed lot more horses and dray beasts than there are eagles. The reeves have been doing their part, and like all men and women can endure plenty, but the eagles are being pushed to their limits and I’m the one who has to protect them. That’s all I have to say.”
After the council ended, Toughid walked aside with him, carrying a lamp while Joss spun his baton through his fingers.
“You know my goal, Commander. Since we know there may be a demon in High Haldia, I must hunt him down and kill him if I can.” Toughid’s grin was as light as day. “Sengel got one. Can’t let him have all the glory, can I?”
“I’ll send Peddonon with you. He can nurse his eagle another few days. He’s an experienced and trustworthy reeve.”
They halted by the barrier blocking off the steps, Toughid wincing as at a bad smell. “Hu! If you don’t mind, maybe one of the other ones. Vekess, perhaps. That Peddonon I hear is one of those—like Pil—you can see why it was for the best Pil was sent off to be a reeve.”
“Why was it for the best?”
“It’s not proper for men to behave that way. I’d prefer Vekess. He’s steady.”
Joss shook his head. “Chief Toughid, you’ve done well, and in truth we’d be in a cursed bad place without you Qin. I’ll send you with Vekess if it’s your request, but I feel obliged to say that you’re in the Hundred now. Not in Qin country. How a man, or woman, worships the Devouring One has nothing to do with what manner of man he is. And I’ll thank you to remember it.”
The soldier nodded, his placid expression impossible to f
athom. Was he offended? Understanding? Dismissive? Who in the hells could tell with these outlanders and their quick grins floating atop an implacable reserve?
“We’ll have to clear this rockfall,” Toughid said. “Difficult work but possible to manage if we work down through it a step at a time.”
Laughter and singing swelled from the city below, where torches and tapers bobbed along the avenues and canals, a festival of lights as folk danced in the street. On the balcony, reeves and firefighters were jostling, joking, drinking, roistering. In the light of their last few lamps, Peddonon had pulled a knife and was waving it in front of Pil’s face. The young Qin reeve was laughing, just like the rest of them, rather drunk and leaning casually in that way reeves had with a friendly arm around Nallo and a shoulder pressed companionably against one of the young firefighters.
“Heya! All that hair just gets in your way! You don’t look like a proper reeve,” the reeves were shouting as the firefighters egged Pil on.
Toughid’s gaze narrowed as he watched.
Pil released his topknot, and his long black hair rippled down over his shoulders, chest, and back as women and men whistled appreciatively.
Peddonon stepped back, eyes wide and expression as startled as if he’d been slapped. Joss chuckled, having seen Peddonon through many a sudden infatuation. Pil was faster, though; he grabbed the knife out of Peddonon’s hand and hacked off his beautiful hair as the others cheered and Peddonon pretended to mourn.
With a grunt, Toughid turned away. Walked away, pausing to call over his shoulder. “Commander, are you coming? I’ve maps to go over, more plans to consider.”
Joss shook his head. “Neh. I’ll meet with you at dawn, Chief. For now, I’ve a mind to celebrate. With my reeves.”
“JOSS?”
He startled awake to find Peddonon jostling him in dawn’s gloom. “Eh? What?”
Peddonon kept his voice low, as though he were trying not to wake someone else up. “You were talking in your sleep, Joss. You were saying her name again.”
“Marit.”
His frown swamped Joss with friendly disapproval. “Twenty years dead, and you’ve never let her go.”
“What if I told you she was a Guardian now?”
“I’d wonder how much you drank last night.”
Peddonon stepped back from the humble pallet unrolled on the mats of the sleeping chamber. One door was slid halfway open, and through the gap Joss saw a thin pallet stretched in front of the doors of the outer chamber. A naked man, his back to them, seemed to be asleep, sprawled on the pallet.
Peddonon grinned. He wore a kilt, hastily wrapped around his hips, but it was obvious by his sleepy eyes and mussed hair that he’d just woken up.
Joss mouthed, without voicing the words, “Is that Pil?”
Peddonon’s grin widened.
“And yet I’m the one with the reputation,” murmured Joss, groping for and finding his leathers. His mouth tasted sour and his stomach was curdling from too much cordial.
“Anyhow,” Peddonon went on, “wouldn’t that be a worse thing than her being dead? That she’d become a demon?”
“The Guardians aren’t lilus, or demons, or any bad thing! Some may have become corrupted—”
“If some have, then how can we trust any of them? Ask yourself: Why do we need Guardians at all? With a militia to keep order, reeves to patrol the roads coordinated with guard stations on the ground, and reorganized assizes to oversee justice in the towns, we can do it ourselves. Cursed if I want cloaks creeping into my mind and heart like folk say they can do. When I was with the army yesterday I talked to some of the Qin soldiers, and they said—”
“They say whatever Anji tells them to say.”
“Aui!” Peddonon retreated as if Joss’s breath had driven him back. “Sheh! He might be an outlander, but where would we be if he hadn’t agreed to put his life and his troops on the line for the Hundred, eh? Would else could have marched against Lord Radas and his army? We have hope, at last, for peace.”
“The hells! I meant no criticism. It was just a statement. The Qin soldiers are loyal. Everyone knows that.”
Movement stirred in the outer chamber as the young Qin reeve woke up. Maybe he had only been pretending to sleep. Peddonon slid shut the door to give Pil privacy, then grabbed up a cup from a tray sitting on the low table.
“You’re sour this morning, Joss. Do you need cordial? Maybe a little rice wine?”
“At dawn?” Joss splashed water into the basin and scrubbed his face with a scrap of linen. We have hope at last. Was that uneasy worm curdling in his gut jealousy? Anger? Relief that he would not have to make decisions he wasn’t entirely sure he was competent to make?
“Anyway,” said Peddonon. “Pil cut off his topknot last night. Eventually the Qin will all become Hundred folk, like us.”
“Peddo,” he said to the water as it rippled to a standstill to form a dark mirror; his cursed handsome face stared back at him. How long had he let his vanity and charm carry him through life, soaked down with one cup of rice wine after the next? “I’m a good reeve, I think. I’m doing my best to be a good commander.” He looked up.
Peddonon folded his arms. “What’s this about?”
Joss wiped his face and pulled on his trousers. “The reeve halls are taking orders from Anji now. As if we’re part of his militia. I see a danger in that.”
“I see more danger in this cursed enemy that’s rampaged across half the land! Are they defeated yet? Fifteen cohorts they’ve raised.”
“Don’t you see the danger in a man who breaks the boundaries, kills a Guardian, and then binds her cloak instead of releasing it to the gods?”
“Lord Radas broke the boundaries before we ever did! He had your lover’s eagle killed, didn’t he? We’re only protecting ourselves. The hells, Joss! Can’t we have this conversation when we have space to breathe? We’re still at war!” He grabbed the linen towel out of Joss’s hands and washed his face, swabbing down his chest and arms.
Joss fished his vest off the floor, taking a couple of calming breaths. “We are still at war. So I need to piss, and eat a bit of bland nai porridge, if there is any, before Scar and I head out.” He grabbed his harness, his reeve’s baton, his short sword, quiver, and empty provisions pouch. “You’re staying here in charge of the rock. Your flights need rest. Vekess will convey the chief to Gold Hall.”
They headed out to meet the day.
But late in the afternoon, after hunting along the wrong roads and down empty paths, Joss thought about Pil’s topknot as he quartered Istria in search of Anji’s army. The emptied countryside west of the River Istri was ragged with fields going to seed or never planted, harbingers of bare store houses in the months to come. Hamlets and villages rose everywhere, and were everywhere abandoned. Where had the villagers fled to? Once he skimmed over woodland in whose depths he spotted canvas strung between trees, visible only because late in the dry season the foliage grew sparse. Later, he swooped low over a company of soldiers escorting a train of some forty wagons laden with sacks of rice or nai. They pointed at him as half their number readied bows, eager to have at him if he dropped into range. They were ready for a reeve attack. He swung wide to turn, heading west and north.
So was Anji’s strategy to use the reeves already ineffective?
Wouldn’t it have been better for the reeves to stand aloof from the conflict so they might better administer justice? And yet, if Lord Radas’s army won, what justice could anyone hope for? The mey flowed past below, offering no reply.
He caught sight of a trio of eagles spiraling up very high, and another trio west of them, gliding low as if following prey on the ground. Soon after, he caught sight of a cohort of mounted soldiers riding down a path leveled on a berm that cut through fields. He identified the horsemen as Qin, no doubt the group that had come up from Sirniaka recently. They’d made exceptional time, and as he turned again and pulled out in front of them he found, at last, the rearguard of Anji�
�s army.
Horns blew and drums beat as the rearguard caught sight of the Qin cohort coming up behind. Joss and Scar skimmed low over an impressive mob of unsaddled horses, the army riding in disciplined ranks in staggered companies. Most of the young local militia men had grown out their hair to pull back in topknots. So who was becoming whom, eh? Pil was one Qin soldier. Here were hundreds of young Hundred men trying their best to look like their Qin sergeants and captains.
He set down in a clearing a short walk from the road. In this isolation he examined Scar’s feathers, his bloom, his beak, his talons. The old bird was getting a bit sharp-set, so Joss checked his harness and when he found no raw skin or wearing, he released him to hunt, watching to see if there was any hitch in the motion of his wings as they beat upward to find the wind. The raptor looked well enough; he was tough and in his own way as even-tempered a raptor as Joss had ever met. A hunt and a rest would settle him.
As Joss was wrapping up his own harness in its sling, a cadre of horsemen thundered into the clearing, a young Qin sergeant in the lead, his face vaguely familiar.
“Commander Joss?” He dismounted and trotted over. “I’m Sergeant Jagi. I’ve a horse, if you’d like to ride with us back to Commander Anji’s headquarters.”
“Jagi? Aren’t you the one who married that girl Avisha?”
A brilliant smile flashed. A cursed man couldn’t look any happier. “She ate my rice, that’s right.” Then he laughed and blushed, as if he’d just that moment understood there was another meaning to the phrase. “We’re expecting a third—”
“A third child? But you can’t have had two already, in less than a year, surely.”
“We’ve the two older children, her young brother and sister. And a new one coming. We live out at Dast Welling. She’s using her seed money to set up a business. She’s very clever. Making healing drinks and such things to rub into sore wounds and—ah—” His knowledge of the finer points of Hundred lore failed him as he rushed headlong into his praise of his new wife. “She’s very happy. Plenty to eat and a good house.”
