Now with at least a half-dozen Daulmen already inside the building, a stream of swarthy artillerymen could be seen fleeing out the back and away with all haste, red cloth trousers flashing.
“They’re going to fire the powder kegs,” someone said, and the Leftenant sighed.
“This is going to be very loud.”
“Does anyone feel up to carrying me down into the hole?” Zeb asked.
Across the distance came the dull bang of a handgun and the men all flinched, but it was followed only by shouting and the clash of arms, echoing from the hollowed-out cavern of the manor. There was a clear, pained scream.
“The redlegs have all cleared out,” someone said. “Who is it at that?”
“Maybe the Daulies are fighting over who gets to light the fuse.”
Men fingered their axes and crossbows, but no one felt like rushing toward a building that might ignite explosively at any instant. It seemed to have gone quiet over there anyway. A minute passed that seemed much longer.
“Who’s this, then?” someone said.
The men watched a figure exit the manor and approach but from his position Zeb could not see who came, and he was becoming too lightheaded to ask. The voices of his companions were making little sense to him.
“Is that a Destroyer?”
“No, they wear black plate with spikes.”
“That is part of a helmet, right? Not your man’s face?”
“What’s with the birds?”
“Good gods, is that a woman behind him?”
“That’s a Farthest Westerner, else I’m an elf.”
The Leftenant stepped to the front of the band, the others moving aside for him. Zeb saw the subject of speculation arrive, and was himself perplexed.
In addition to too many wounds and more than enough battle, Zeb had seen a great deal of armor over his military career. Leather cuirbolli, plate and chain, banded and splint. Scale and studded. Spiked and hobnailed and bronzed. But he had never seen anything quite like that adorning the man who stepped up to face the Leftenant.
It was beautiful, in its way, and altogether more complicated than seemed strictly necessary. It was composed of angular pieces, light blue to a dark gray and laced together with reddish cord, oversized at the joints to turn aside any thrusting or cutting blade. It covered the fellow almost from head to toe. Decorating the chest, arms, and legs were single rows of stylized images of white birds, little herons or cranes with wings that seemed to flutter as the man strode forward. At his waist were two sheathed swords, black pommels with matching diamond-pattern designs, one sword much longer than the other. On his head was a great helm with long neck guards extending around a banded steel dome, framing a leather half-mask of grinning lips and a pronounced, hooked nose, above which the man’s own dark eyes were set deeply beneath his brow, and at a slight tilt. They flashed about at the Axmen before settling on the Leftenant in their fore. The stranger stopped and undid the cords at one side of his half-mask, dropping it to hang free from his helmet and revealing a full face of olive complexion and indeterminate age, with a hard line of mouth framed by a long, wispy black mustache. He spoke with a thick accent.
“Zay-bu-ron Baj-an-if.”
Zeb would have winced had he not been doing so already. A few of his fellows glanced at him, but at least none of them actually turned around and pointed.
“Pardon me?” the Leftenant asked.
Everyone’s attention was on the swordsman, though the fellow was not alone. Two more people had followed him from the manor and now reached the cluster of men, one a frowning Ayzant in the silver armor of a Kingsman and the spiked helmet of a sergeant, carrying a large mace. The other now drew many stares from the Axmen who had been staring only at each other for weeks.
She was a woman and pretty, though she could have been far more so. She was as Far Western as the swordsman with fine narrow features and eyes at a graceful tilt under thin, jet black brows. But she was garbed rather rudely in a battered, shapeless brown coat from throat to thighs, with patches on the elbows matching those on the knees of worn cloth leggings. She wore gray woolen socks and strapped sandals with wooden soles that clopped even on the bare ground. Finally her hair was just a fright, a tangled mass of inky black, unkempt and unacquainted with a brush.
The swordsman said something in a foreign tongue to her, barked a command really, and she spoke in halting Codian. That language was close enough to Kanalborg Common to be understood by the Axemen.
“Is one of you men called as Zebulon Baj Nif?”
No one, bless their hearts, said anything. Neither did they glance again at Zeb, who for his part continued to bleed quietly.
The Ayzant sergeant started bellowing, in Zantish naturally, which of the group Zeb alone understood as he knew the related Ghendalese dialect. His Leftenant did not turn around to ask Zeb for a translation, but with a sigh Zeb started speaking anyway, from habit.
“He says they have it from Colonel Rierden himself that this is the post of the platoon of Leftenant Kagsfold, under whom is ordered the soldier Zebulon Warchild, who himself has knowledge of both the Zantish and Codian tongues.”
Zeb blinked.
“So, I’ve pretty much just given myself away then, haven’t I?”
Indeed, the woman frowned at him and stepped forward. Zeb liked to think his fellows might have moved to obstruct either the swordsman or the sergeant, but they politely if uncertainly moved aside for the woman. She knelt and looked closely at Zeb’s arm. Her face and neck could have stood a washing, Zeb noticed, though of course so could his.
“You are wounded.” she said.
“That is what they tell me. I am trying not to look at it.”
“It is very bad.”
“Yes. Thanks.”
The woman spoke over her shoulder and the swordsman snapped an answer. The Westerners’ language between themselves was a rush of short vowels, similar in sound to what Zeb had heard a time or two from an excitable half-Zokuan bartender he knew in Bowgan, the only Far Westerner he had ever met. Zoku, the Celestial Empire of Cho Lung, and the islands of Ashinan were the three fabled realms located far, far to the west of Noroth and Kandala, beyond even the Miilark Islands and all the way across the vastness of what was accurately known as the Interminable Ocean.
“Lie still,” the woman said.
“Well, if you insist…” Zeb began, but stopped with a sharp intake of breath as the woman laid one cool hand on his forehead, and jammed the fingers of the other into the shredded remains of his right elbow.
The seashell roar returned, the rising sun blazed and washed out the sky, and a wall of pain allowed not even a peep through it. But it was only for an instant, and then Zeb felt as if all his remaining blood was draining out of his body and sinking into the ground. The pain went with it, but so did his awareness. He felt himself sliding into a void.
“Are you…are you a priestess?” he managed. The last thing Zeb could see, and that but dimly, were the woman’s two narrowed eyes. He heard her voice in the darkness.
“No.”
*
Amatesu had to tug her fingers free as the wounds closed. The man Zebulon Baj Nif’s clear blue eyes rolled to white and his tense body went slack. With him well and truly out, Amatesu took a hold of his right wrist and lifted the arm, bent his elbow, and moved it side-to-side. The joint moved smoothly without grinding, and Amatesu felt a moment of satisfaction before reminding herself that this was the will of the spirits and the gods, not her own. The strength for the healing had in main been Baj Nif’s own, though that had not really been necessary. Amatesu could have drawn power from the land and the wind and the sun, but this way the man would likely be unconscious for several days. That should make things to some degree easier.
Not a bad piece of work, all the same.
The other mercenaries made various murmurs to see their companion’s arm healed, and as Amatesu stood and looked around at them their faces were reverential. Their office
r, a thin yellow-haired man, took a step closer.
“Ah…thanks for that, your Holiness.”
Amatesu did not quite get the last word, as the dialect spoken by these men was a bit more stilted and formal than the simple Codian she knew. She got the gist, and nodded in return.
“This is the only of you men who speaks Zantanese?” she asked. At her feet, Baj Nif’s mouth hung open and his chest rose and fell steadily. The officer nodded.
“Zantish, yes, but again thanking you for your services, Ma’am…I don’t think that ol’ Zeb is going to be up to any translating for a while. You are of course welcome to wait…”
“No, we must take him with us.” Amatesu looked toward the Ayzantine sergeant who had led them up here and was now lurking behind Uriako Shikashe. The ronin samurai stood with his arms crossed in their ornate kote sleeves, eyeing the mercenaries. The sergeant had apparently decided his own part in this discussion was over, and was now determined to go overlooked.
“Pardon me,” the blonde officer said. “Not to deny your abilities as a healer, but at the moment Axman Baj Nif does not look up to going, or being taken, much of anywhere. Further, this whole platoon is under orders to maintain our post, as a body.”
Amatesu lowered her eyes and bowed to the officer.
“My apology, sir, but we have the word of your Colonel from himself. We have need of the Zebulon Baj Nif’s…mouth, and so he has been…ordered new.”
She must not have said that quite right, for there were some bemused looks exchanged among the mercenaries. Their murmuring stopped as Uriako-sama spoke. His lordship had a voice which always drew full attention, even though Amatesu was the only one present who understood his words.
“What is this delay?” the samurai asked in their native Ashinese. Amatesu answered in the same language.
“These men do not wish their companion to be taken from here.”
Uriako-sama’s o-yori armor creaked as he looked slowly left and right.
“Of course not, these are soldiers. They will not let one of their own be taken away by strangers.”
Amatesu frowned. “But they are only mercenaries.”
Uriako-sama flicked a sour look at Amatesu, and she lowered her eyes to the ground again.
“Forgiveness, my lord, but their commander sold us this man without scruple.”
Uriako-sama snorted. “I speak not of officers driving men for pay, but of soldiers in the field. They live and fight and die together, and together they will stay.”
Only a few minutes ago in the broken manor house with its false-log cannons, Uriako Shikashe had dispatched a half-dozen Daulmen to the hereafter. He did not seem to judge the dozen men standing around at their ease now as much more of an impediment. With an unvoiced sigh, Amatesu turned to the yellow-headed officer.
“My apology, sir. I should explain more all. The man-axe Baj Nif will be asleep this day, but should be fine by the night. We take him to the headquarters, where there are books in the Codian words that the Ayzants must know. He will have time to be clean and well-fed, and in one day or two, or three, he will be finished and brought back to here.”
“I should have learned that Ayzant talk,” one of the other men muttered. Their officer however was frowning.
“Ma’am, this platoon might not even be in these works three days from now. As their Leftenant, I can in no case permit them to be detailed without a direct order from a regimental officer.”
Amatesu took a humble step forward, though instead of further lowering her gaze, which would have been the done thing at home, she met the man’s eyes with her own. She had learned that was more effective on this side of the Interminable Ocean.
“Please, Left-tenant sir. I understand you, but I have orders of my own. I do promise to you that I myself, in four or five days, a few more at longest, will find where you are and myself bring Zebulon Baj Nif back to that place. This I do promise, by my Holiness.”
The officer said nothing for a moment, but another of his men interjected. “Well if she won’t have me, let her take the oaf.” Others chuckled, and the officer finally nodded.
“I thank you, Left-tenant-san. Is there…does Zebulon Baj Nif have equipments?”
The officer waved at one of his men, who hopped back into the gaping hollow and soon returned with a jerkin of poor armor wrapped around a pack and a crossbow, all tied in a bundle to the haft of a long, double-bladed axe. A few others fetched water and wiped the blood from Baj Nif’s arm, expressing wonder to find only the faintest scarring, seemingly years old, from a wound that had been fresh minutes before.
The man with the equipment offered it to Uriako-sama, who did not uncross his arms nor otherwise acknowledge the fellow. The Ayzant sergeant finally took the gear, muttering to himself.
“I should detail a party to carry Zeb for you,” the officer said. “He is not the lightest log in the bundle.”
“No thank you. We can manage,” Amatesu said. She knelt, hoisted the unconscious man up to a seat and drew his arms forward, twisted the back of her neck to his belly and with a good deal of tottering regained her feet. Zebulon Baj Nif murmured dreamily as Amatesu hooked an arm around his neck and the other around one leg. Most of his fellows only stared agape, but a few bit their knuckles and looked as though they might collapse, laughing.
“I will see you again,” Amatesu said to the officer. Uriako-sama had already turned to march away, and Amatesu hobbled a few steps after him before finding a stride she thought she would be able to manage all the way back down to the docks, though it was going to be a travail. The Ayzant sergeant brought up the rear, still griping under his breath. Behind them, the mercenaries began jeering, blowing kisses and catcalls in their wake.
“What did you say to them?” Uriako-sama asked as they approached the rear side of the ridge.
“Nothing but lies,” Amatesu huffed.
Chapter Seven
It was hours before anything was explained to Tilda.
She and Captain Block had only stared as Dugan announced the dwarf’s identity to the Trellane guards at the bridge, who in turn had looked deeply befuddled. It was not until the Captain drew back his hood and let his braid hang forward over his shoulder that the guards whispered between themselves before one led the three travelers across the bridge and to the cluster of buildings around the flagpole. The guard took Block and Dugan into the barracks to speak with someone of more authority, while Tilda was left outside with the horses. Some men leading a pair of ox-drawn wagons from the docks down the road toward the town eyed her curiously and one whistled, but Tilda ignored them.
After only a few minutes another guard left the barracks, hurried to the adjoining stable for a horse, and galloped down the road toward Trellaneville. A few minutes more and Block and Dugan emerged with an officer of some kind, who bowed politely to the Captain. Block had reversed his Guild cloak so that the satiny green lining flashed in the sun, but his face was set in a scowl and his brow was so furrowed it nearly shaded his dark eyes. While he and Tilda had not exactly been traveling through the Empire incognito, announcing real names and House affiliations to all and sundry was not something Guilders did when they were abroad.
Four more guards trooped out of the barracks and their officer gave them a quick inspection while Block and Dugan crossed the square to where Tilda waited. They started speaking to each other quietly when they were halfway across, and Dugan kept talking as he boosted the dwarf up onto the pony.
“No, you don’t need to make up anything. Just tell the baron your business is only with the King, and he will send us on our way. I’ve thought this through, Cap’n. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Block growled, his eyes fairly burning into Dugan’s skull. “That is a laugh.”
“Yes, I can see you are amused.”
With Block in his saddle, Dugan nodded at the Trellane men, who marched over. Tilda climbed up on her own horse and Dugan led the two animals onto the road and toward the town. The four guards
walked around them in a square formation, which Tilda hoped was meant as some sort of honor guard.
It was not far to the town, which was surrounded by a tall wall with towers and battlements of gray stone surely quarried from the nearby mountains. The portage road passed flush against the wall on one side, with warehouses and inns lining the other. Only about half of them seemed to be doing business at this time of year. The group was passed through an open gate onto the streets of the town after a few words were exchanged between the escorts and the gate guards. The latter drew to attention and saluted Captain Block as the Miilarkian Guilder rode by, his back straight and face frozen in a deep frown. Tilda returned the salutes, as it seemed like somebody should.
Inside the wall, Trellaneville was revealed as an old settlement of obvious affluence. The other villages and small towns Tilda had seen in Orstaf were not unpleasant but they had all shared a certain haphazard look, with low, circular houses usually made out of mud-brick. Most were rather randomly arranged, as though houses had been built on spots where the Orstavians’ ancestors had once erected hide tents in a time when they still lived as roving tribes of Kantan horsemen.
Trellaneville however was a town of ruler-straight streets and stone houses, many with paned glass in the windows of multiple floors. The roofs were all sharply peaked, making Tilda think it must snow heavily here in winter, and each house had narrow side and front yards divided from both their neighbors and the streets by stout wooden fences. The businesses that Tilda saw near the gate were housed in longer single-story buildings, also of stone. Judging by the hanging signs most specialized either in local produce or in finished goods imported from beyond Orstaf.
The group did not linger to window-shop for the escorts led them swiftly through the streets, barking at pedestrians to clear the way. The townspeople did not look any more Orstavian than did their surroundings to Tilda’s eyes. They wore a higher class of dresses, breeches, jackets, and coats that looked tailored rather than homespun, and the material was far more colorful than the practical wear of the steppe. The men mostly had mustaches but not full beards, and the women wore their hair down rather then up in bushkas. Several people stopped and looked curiously at the Islanders for a few moments, but then they were back on their way as if they had little time to gawk.
The Sable City (The Norothian Cycle) Page 8
