by K. J. Parker
That made him laugh. “You really don’t like us, do you?”
“I don’t, no. I think you’re poisonous.”
He shrugged. “That’s so perverse,” he said. “Still, if that’s what you choose to believe. The offer stays open as far as the border, by the way. Think about it. Twenty angels, pre-war. You’ll never get a chance like it again.”
She snored.
Not just ordinary snoring. It was like some monstrous industrial activity – a sawmill or a foundry, where the roof and the floor shake, but you put up with it because you have to. Out in the open it was bad enough; what it would be like in a confined space, he couldn’t bear to imagine. Her poor husband. The man was a saint.
But you couldn’t fake a noise like that; therefore she was asleep, profoundly so. Fortunately it was a clear night with a bright, helpful moon. He got up slowly, watching her as he did so, stepped gently over to the horses, took great pains over saddling and bridling, because one clink or creak could spoil everything. When his horse was ready, he crept back, picked up her bridle, wrapped it carefully in his scarf and tucked it away in his saddlebag. A bit hard on her, he reflected, but much kinder than cutting her throat or hamstringing her horse.
He could still hear that terrible noise a hundred yards away.
She caught him up just after noon the next day.
He was impressed. He wouldn’t have thought you could jury-rig a functional bridle out of a few bits of rope, a stick and strips of plaited cloth. And she must’ve ridden like the wind to make up the time.
“You can’t have imagined you’d get away with it,” she said. “So I can only assume it was spite. Really rather petty, don’t you think? But, then, you’re a spiteful man.”
“I never said I wasn’t,” Corason replied.
“Who likes playing nasty tricks on people.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ve had a lucky escape, haven’t I? Just think, I might have married you. Can I have my bridle back now, please?”
Corason fished it out of his saddlebag. It only took her a minute or so to change over; good with horses, no doubt about it. “Thank you so much for waiting,” she said, as she swung lightly into the saddle and gathered the reins. “I’d hate to think I’d inconvenienced you in any way.”
Later, after a period of stony silence, he said, “If it makes you feel any better, I really was trying to get rid of you.”
“Not really, no. It means you were prepared to leave me to walk back to Choris, which for a woman on her own probably constitutes attempted murder. Also, you thought I was too stupid to improvise a bridle. On balance, I’d prefer it if it was just a mean-hearted prank.”
“Ah. In that case, it was.”
More silence; during which he concluded that she probably wasn’t wearing armour, because nobody could spring into the saddle like that carrying an extra thirty pounds dead weight, not even if they were used to it. Nor, in all likelihood, was there a sword under that cloak; he’d have seen it stick out when she bent her knee. Not that any of that meant he could downgrade the threat level. Was it really likely that she’d been sent to kill him? If so, when, or conditional on what event? It all seemed wildly improbable in the daylight; but, then, so did his way of earning a living, if he thought about it long enough.
From the Cascanis plateau to the Horns is thirty-seven miles, and nobody enjoys that section of the road, not even in summer, when the sky is blue and the strange white flowers bloom in the shale. Before the war, elegant young ladies and artistic young men used to go as far as Laxas-in-Cascana to sketch the dramatic basalt outcrops; only professional silk-painters ventured beyond Laxas, to capture the majestic canyons, which look so well on those great long wall-hangings that drape all round a room. Eremite priests and cenobite monks occasionally set up cells in the strange egg-shaped caves in the rocks or on top of the inexplicable chimneys; mostly they never came back, which was probably just as well. There’s water, if you know exactly where to look for it, and from time to time desperate men have raised sheep and goats there; occasionally, travellers driven off the road by thirst have come across their homes in the honeycomb caves, perfectly preserved, as though the occupiers had just stepped out for a moment. It’s one of the few places in the Western empire where you never see crows. Instead, you quickly get sick to death of the sight of the red-collared kites; big, noisy, clumsy, slow, living on snakes and lizards when they can’t get carrion. They aren’t afraid of humans, even when you throw rocks at them; they can judge range to perfection, and tend to gather, in groups of four or five, just over a stone’s throw away, waiting patiently for you to die of heatstroke.
Imperial couriers, trained and mounted at public expense, cover this section of the road in one gruelling, breakneck day. Lesser mortals are strongly urged not to; don’t feed the kites, it only encourages them.
“You can’t still be cold,” she said. “You just can’t.”
She’d long since taken off her cloak, revealing no armour, just a sensible riding outfit, the sleeves of which she’d rolled up to the elbow. She’d tied a scarf round her head to keep the sun off, and kept shading her eyes with her hand.
“I don’t know,” Corason replied. “There’s a bit of a nip in the air, don’t you think?”
“You’re mad.”
“It gets very cold at night.”
In truth, he was starting to feel a trifle close; but the sight of his multiple layers seemed to irritate her beyond measure, so it was worth it. A drink of water wouldn’t be unwelcome, however. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a freshwater spring just round the next bend, about four hundred yards up the slope. She could probably do with one, too; no water bottle, he’d observed, which showed how much she knew about the road east.
“Won’t be long,” he said, dismounting briskly and handing her his reins.
“What? Where are you going?”
“For a shit in the rocks.”
Some springs dry up unpredictably, others are infallible. This was one of the latter. It was somewhere between a drip and a trickle, but you could bet your life on it, as generations of travellers had. He was thirstier than he’d thought, and it took him a while to catch enough in his cupped hands. Then he began to fill his pewter pint flask, eagerly anticipating the grateful, angry look on her face when he produced water out of nowhere when she was truly desperate.
“What are you doing up there?” came a voice from below. He grinned. Then he caught a glimpse of movement in the valley on the far side of the ridge, and forgot all about water for a while.
“Corason? Where are you?” The sound of her voice made him wince; he’d forgotten her, too, and now she’d come to look for him. He craned his neck round and saw her, clambering unsteadily up through the loose rocks towards the top of the ridge. He leapt like a lion, grabbed the backs of her knees and sent her toppling; then he grabbed her face and pressed the palm of his hand into her mouth.
“Never,” he hissed, “never ever stand on a skyline. Got that?”
A frantic mumble implied that she’d got it just fine. He let go, then shushed her. Then, keeping his arm bent and using only one finger, he pointed.
“I can’t see anything,” she whispered. “It’s just – oh.”
Well, she could be forgiven for that. It was only movement that had caught his eye. Whoever they were, they knew what they were doing; no flash of sunlight on spear blades or armour, presumably they’d painted them or allowed them to rust. It was only once you’d noticed them that you realised how many of them there were; the whole mountainside was moving, crawling with them. The closest thing he’d ever seen to it was a flow of lava.
“Who are they?”
“Well,” he said quietly, “they aren’t Senza’s lot, so they’ve got to be the West. Other than that, I haven’t got the faintest idea.”
“There’s so many of them.”
A tiny shake of the head. “You’re just not used to seeing armies,” he said. “That’s probably o
nly four or five thousand. My guess is, though, that that’s just a vanguard. See how they’re picking their way? They’re light troops, well ahead of the main body. If the usual ratios apply, you multiply them by twenty.”
She tried to wriggle away; he clamped a hand on the back of her neck, and she stopped still.
“We stay here till they’ve gone,” he said. “Doesn’t matter how long it takes. They’re well down the slope, we’re on the bloody skyline. If they see us, they’ll have to catch us. Do you understand?”
He felt her head nod, and let go. “Now then,” he said. “A question for you. Apart from Senza Belot, who do we know who’s mad enough to bring a hundred thousand men through this appalling place, and brilliant enough to actually be able to do it?”
She turned her head and stared at him. “He’s dead,” she said.
He remembered the flask, groped for it with his left hand, found it. Empty, of course. “The spring’s just behind you,” he said, handing her the flask. “Very carefully, squirm your way round and fill this. Don’t raise your hand or any part of you more than fifteen degrees above the horizontal.”
That kept her busy while he thought. She would, of course, insist on trying to tell Senza. Did he have a problem with that? Not really. Except – he had no idea why, he just knew. Senza wouldn’t need telling. Senza Belot, sprawling in atypical idleness under the walls of Rasch. He’d never intended to take the city. He’d known this army was coming. He’d been waiting for it. And now, thanks to Commissioner Axeo and Commissioner Corason of the Lodge, he’d be meeting it at a place he hadn’t chosen, outnumbered five to one, with no prepared resources, no diabolically ingenious strategy. And all for a stupid pack of playing cards.
“Change of plan,” he said.
“What?”
He kept his eyes fixed on the stream of movement. “We need to get off this ridge,” he said. “We need to get our horses, get back on the road and ride like lunatics till we meet Senza. Agreed?”
“You want to warn him?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. Well? Are you coming or not?”
Only Imperial couriers and lunatics venture beyond a cautious trot on the steep climb up from the Crossed Hands to the Horns. Corason had never been so scared in his life. He didn’t spare a single thought for his companion until he saw the crumbling rock-carvings of Horn Gate and knew the worst of it was over; downhill, and a straight, flat road. Then he looked over his shoulder. She was still there, about seventy yards behind him, going well.
They reckon the winged gods of Horn Gate were put there to commemorate some battle or other. It’s exactly the place where you’d expect a battle to have been fought; five hundred men holding off a million, or something of the sort. If so, it would follow that the commander of the million was an idiot, to have brought so many men to a place with no water or shade, where the road crawls between two soaring mountains. Two thousand men could beat five hundred there; a million wouldn’t stand a chance.
He waited for her. She drew up beside him and gasped, “What’s the matter? Why’ve you stopped?”
“He’s not here,” Corason said. “I was sure he would be. It’s what—” He laughed; it came out as a snorting noise. “It’s what I’d have done, so of course Senza wouldn’t, because he’s a genius, et cetera.” He breathed out slowly. “In that case, we don’t have to kill ourselves hurrying,” he said. “Beyond the Horns, the road ceases to matter. It’s irrelevant. There’s another way round, quicker, it cuts a great fat dog-leg off the road.”
“Not on the map.”
“You believe in the map, how sweet. It’s there all right, as seventy thousand Esjauzida found out the hard way about six hundred years ago, when they tried to invade the empire.”
“Who?”
“Precisely. Things did not go well with them, and all because they didn’t know about the back road. Senza knows about it, you can bet your life, and so he’ll stop short. Which means they, that lot, the lot we’ve just seen, will get there before we can, no matter how fast we go.” She was staring at him, which annoyed him. “We’ve failed,” he said. “We can’t warn Senza. Our chance at a place in history – gone. Oh, well, never mind.” Suddenly he realised what was eating him, and he tore off his heavy coat and threw it on the ground. “God, I’m hot. Let’s stop and let the horses catch their breath. No point being cruel to dumb animals.”
“We can’t just—”
“I can.” He dropped his feet out of the stirrups, stretched his legs and more or less fell out of the saddle. “You go on if you like, you’ll be wasting your time.” He peeled off a jerkin and an arming coat; they were soaked in sweat. “I’ll say this for failure, I feel wonderfully relaxed.” He tucked the end of the reins under a heavy stone and sat down on the ground. “Takes all the pressure off you.”
She stayed where she was for a while, then got down and sat next to him. “Aren’t you boiled in all that lot?” he asked.
She was staring at her toes. “Do you really think that could be Forza Belot?”
“Can’t be, he’s dead.” There were a few grey lines in her hair, he noticed. Well, he had that to look forward to, if he lived that long. “So, presumably that’s another general of equal brilliance and daring that Central neglected to brief me about. Come on, who else could it be?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, I haven’t got a clue about war stuff. I’m only here to stop you sending news of Senza’s withdrawal to the West. I think I’ve had a wasted trip.”
He stared at her. “You’re kidding,” he said. “That’s what they sent you for?”
She nodded. “They think your lot are on the West’s side,” she said. “That’s why you stopped Senza from taking Rasch. They think you’re spying for the West, and your job was to report about troop movements. And I’ve come all this way for nothing. And Senza’s going to walk straight into a trap and be slaughtered, and we’ll lose and there’s nothing I can do about it. Not that I care all that much, except those bastards killed my husband.” She sighed, and stretched out her legs. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to eat, have you?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you, but it’s all right. I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do next.”
Corason yawned. “It’s not like we’re awash with options,” he said. “We can’t turn round and go back to Choris, the horses would starve even if we don’t. Therefore—”
“We?”
“Sorry, I’m being presumptuous. I’m going to carry on, at a gentle ambling pace, until I reach either Senza Belot or the huge flock of kites feeding off his dead army. In the former instance, I shall cadge food, water and possibly a fresh horse; in the latter, I guess I could sit around and wait for Ocnisant to show up. Or I could follow Forza and try my luck with him.” He paused. There was no reason why he should add anything. “If you want, you can come with me.”
“Tag along with Senza’s army and get slaughtered. No thanks.”
“Cadge what you need to get home, then make an excuse and leave. That’s what I intend to do, I just told you. We can go together.”
“Really. Where, exactly?”
“It’s not going to matter terribly much, is it?” He hadn’t meant to shout. “If Senza’s army gets wiped out, the war will be over and your side will have lost. Unless my people can work another miracle, Choris will be rubble and ash, and you won’t have a home or a life to go back to. Just for once, try listening to what I’m telling you, instead of scoring points all the time. There’s a fair chance that the world is about to change out of all recognition. We’re lucky, we can see it coming. If we’re very, very lucky we might just be able to get out of the way before the sky falls on our heads.” He hesitated; he no longer seemed to be in control of the words tumbling out of his mouth. “Come with me to Lodge Central. They can find work for you there, you can pretend to be a craftsman. No, listen. If you’re with the Lodge, you might stand a chance of finding out if your family’s ma
de it through. We might be able to reach them, bring them out. We can do that sort of thing. Looking after our own is what we’re there for. I know you’ve got a whole bunch of silly prejudices about us, but if everything collapses in ruins, we’re your best chance of seeing your son again. Well? Or are you just going to wander around here among the rocks and give the kites indigestion?”
She was quiet for a very long time. Then she said, “Is that what they are, kites? I thought they were some kind of buzzard.” She stood up and brushed dust off her skirt. “It’s a very kind offer and you may possibly mean it, but I think I may have other options you haven’t mentioned. No, don’t get up.” She walked past him, then half turned and kicked him hard just above his ear. And that was that, for an indefinite period.
When he woke up, he was stone deaf. He could see blinding light, and his head hurt unbearably, and he couldn’t hear anything. Maybe there wasn’t anything to hear. He raised his boot and banged his heel on the ground. Nothing.
He dragged himself on to his hands and knees and loomed round. No horses – no, not as bad as that. His horse was gone, but hers was about fifty yards away, nibbling a tiny clump of grass sticking out of a crack in the rocks. Had she really kicked him in the head? It made no sense. Could it possibly have been, well, an accident?
He considered the memory, which was quite clear and sharp; no, not really. I may have other options, she’d said, and then, wham.
He tried to stand up, but that made him dizzy and sick. He squatted down on a stone until the world stopped spinning, and tried to think; not easy, in a bobbing, silent world where he’d just been kicked stupid by a lady clerk.
His horse was gone; therefore, she’d taken it in preference to her own; also the saddlebags, containing two and a bit days’ rations of dried fruit and biscuit and a three-quarters-full leather bottle of water. Nice of her to leave him her horse; a delicate, graceful thing whose legs might well snap off under his weight. Was there a spring near here? He couldn’t remember.
