“I didn’t trick him,” Dhulyn said, ladling a measure of broth with a few chunks of rabbit into a bowl for Parno before she served herself. “I’ve done three drug Shoras, ioca among them, so I could drink the iocain and feel no effects.”
“Neither good effects nor bad,” Parno added. “Because of the Shora, she can’t chew the leaves for pain as you did when she brought you out of your tent, nor can she use the drug to sleep through a surgery or recuperation, as you did today.”
“Not ever?”
Dhulyn swallowed the bit of rabbit she was chewing on before answering. “Well, no. That’s the drawback to the drug Shoras.”
“And the reason so few of the Brotherhood learn them.” Parno took another mouthful of his own stew.
“You needn’t look quite so worried, Lord Prince. There are other pain drugs I can use, if I wish to.”
“She never wishes to,” Parno said. “Don’t listen to her.”
The young man looked between them, a smile flitted across his face, and then he lowered his eyes again.
Dhulyn knew that look. Something he’s trying not to think about.
“But you may wish to take iocain again tonight,” Dhulyn said, as if it was a thing of no consequence. “After sleeping all day you may have trouble falling asleep naturally. A little iocain will help you drop off, and you will awaken in the morning refreshed.”
Before Edmir could answer, Parno held up his finger. “Let’s see how much there is left before we start dispensing it. There may be a greater need for it later.”
They had unpacked very little, merely relieving the horses of their burdens and taking the bare essentials required to make a quick camp. Among those essentials, Parno’s pipes had been set down on the bedroll he and Dhulyn would take turns using. Parno set down his stew bowl and dragged the bag closer to him. He undid the closures, slipping his hand past the bulge of the pipes into the bottom of the bag.
“Dhulyn, my heart,” he said after a moment. “Did you take out the brandy flask already?”
“No,” she said, a note of warning in her voice.
“Well, it isn’t here now.”
Dhulyn set down her own bowl and took the bag from her Partner. She took out each piece of his pipes, the air bag, the chanter, the drones, and laid them beside her on the ground. There was one of her books, a travel volume, the paper cut and bound between covers. A roll of thick felt proved to contain only the blue-glass cups she expected to find. There was no sign of the flask of iocain-laced brandy.
She looked up at Parno, as a mental picture of Jedrick handing the bag to him flashed through her mind.
“Jedrick,” they both said at once.
“He admired the flask,” Dhulyn said. “He asked me for it and I said no.” She could feel her ears burning. How had she relaxed her guard so much?
“This is my doing.” She began replacing the contents of the bag. “I was so sure I was tricking him, I did not watch for his tricking me.”
“That may not have been his purpose—the snail dung may simply have wanted a flask from the Tin Isles.”
Dhulyn pulled the bag’s ties closed once more. The fact that Jedrick might only be a thief would not save them. “It’s only a matter of time until he tries the brandy. He may have done so already.”
Parno was shaking his head. “The horses are too tired—look who I’m advising about horses! I’m too tired; never mind the horses. We can’t go on tonight.”
“I’ll take the first watch.” Dhulyn stood, picked up her sword and crossbow, and stepped into the dark beyond the fire’s light.
Four
EDMIR WOKE SUDDENLY, a hand over his mouth. For an instant he thought he was back in Commander Lord Kispeko’s tent, but the pale dawn light filtering through the trees, and the feel of cool air on his face soon told him where he was—as did the stiffness in his leg. The Mercenary Brothers had wrapped him well, using all their own bedding as well as their cloaks, but after Dhulyn Wolfshead had put out the small campfire by the simple expedient of kicking it apart and then smothering it in the folds of the fire cloth, the night had grown colder and colder.
When he sat up, the Wolfshead spoke in that eerily quiet way they called the nightwatch voice.
“Five horses come down the road. They must have stopped just long enough to rest during the night, and started after us again long before dawn.”
“Five? All they sent was five men? Are they mad?” Lionsmane squatted on Edmir’s other side.
“Mad or not, they will reach us before the sun clears the trees.”
Edmir froze. How could she know that?
Lionsmane whistled softly between his teeth.
“Give me up,” Edmir said. “Leave me. Don’t come to harm because of me.” He clamped his mouth shut, glad it was too dark for them to see his chin tremble. He pushed the images of the battlefield, the dead and the dying back into the darkness in his mind. No more. No more dead because of him.
“Speak more softly, Lord Prince. You’d be surprised how far sounds will carry, even here among the trees.” The Lionsmane began to unwrapEdmir’s bedding, carefully easing the folds of cloth from around his injured leg.
“I say leave me.” He took hold of Parno Lionsmane’s wrist.
“We will not.” The Wolfshead had risen to her feet and her whisper now floated down from above.
“Might they pass us by?” Edmir stifled a gasp as his leg was jarred.
“They might at that,” the Lionsmane said. “They might be farmers going to market.” He shot a glace at the Wolfshead and flashed her a grin. “Or a flock of sheep and not men on horseback at all, if you really believe my Partner could be mistaken. But do you know what the Mercenary Brotherhood calls those who prepare for what might happen, instead of what can happen?”
Edmir shook his head.
“We call them the dead. Up you come, Lord Prince.”
Edmir looked at Parno Lionsmane’s outstretched hand and swallowed. His thoughts seemed to throb in time to the pain in his leg. It shamed him, but he was relieved that the Mercenaries hadn’t accepted his offer to leave him. Relieved that his mother wouldn’t have to rescue him at the Caids’ alone knew what kind of diplomatic price. But he didn’t think he’d be walking—let alone fighting—any time soon. Not with his leg.
“I don’t think I can,” he said, even as he reached up. Parno Lionsmane grasped him by the forearm, and Edmir in turn locked his own hand around the Mercenary’s wrist.
“Not to worry,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said. “Parno Lionsmane can carry you.”
Edmir grimaced. Yes, of course he could. The Wolfshead could probably carry him herself, if she had to. He took firm hold of his lower lip with his teeth as the disappointments of the last three days came crashing down on him. All he’d wanted to do was show his mother that he was as capable as any of her generals. What would she think if she saw him now? Unconsciously, he stood up straighter, choking back a hiss as he put his weight on his injured leg.
But Parno Lionsmane had seen it, and gripped him once more by the arm, placing his callused hand under Edmir’s elbow.
Edmir held up his free hand. “Wait,” he said. Even in his own ears, his voice sounded tight and breathless with pain. He took a slow deep breath to steady himself.
“Dhulyn Wolfshead,” he said. “Are there more of those ioca leaves? I might be of more use to you if the pain was dulled.”
The Wolfshead turned back into the clearing, reaching into the small pouch she kept at her waist and withdrawing a fold of oiled silk. She opened the tiny packet with care, frowning as she exposed the ioca leaves.
“These are the last. Let’s hope we find no reason to regret using them now.”
Edmir took the two almond-shaped leaves from the woman’s long fingers and placed them on his tongue. It seemed that as soon as he tasted their sharp bitterness his leg throbbed less.
“Bring him to the horses.” Dhulyn Wolfshead took two steps, and vanished.
Edmir lo
oked at the spot where she’d disappeared. It was darker there, beyond the edge of the clearing, but surely not that dark. Edmir glanced at Parno Lionsmane, looked back again, and closed his mouth. The Lionsmane twitched the unrolled bedding off the ground one-handed, slinging it over his shoulder.
“Come,” he said, handing Edmir the bag that held his pipes. “We’ll want you with the horses.”
Once in the thicker part of the trees, the light from the rising sun seemed to make the dark places darker, and the shadows more mobile and deceptive. Edmir had to be careful where he placed his feet, as his leg was apt to turn under him—just because he couldn’t feel the pain, didn’t mean the injury wasn’t there. The Lionsmane, on the other hand, walked as though he was on a city pavement in the full light of the sun. Once Edmir stumbled, and the Mercenary turned back to help, but Edmir waved him on. He’d thought that his own training, supplemented by weeks in the field with the army, had toughened him. But a few hours with the Mercenary Brothers were enough to make him feel he was no soldier, but an actor playing a part. And a poor actor at that.
Well, I am injured, he said to himself. That has to count for something.
They slowed as they neared the other clearing where the horses had been left, the Lionsmane making comforting sounds under his breath both to warn and reassure the animals. This clearing was larger than the one in which they’d camped, the canopy of the trees thinner, and there was enough light for Edmir to see clearly.
Or maybe my eyes have finally adjusted. When they had camped the night before, the Mercenaries had not unpacked more than the night’s bare necessities, though they had unburdened the horses for comfort. Only one, the larger packhorse, was hobbled. Of the other three, Edmir recognized the two cavalry horses, the gray and the spotted mare, from his first encounter with the Mercenaries. The fourth was a sturdy bay beast and looked to be what his mother’s stableman called “a horse-of-all-trades,” useful for both riding and hauling. Each animal stood near a tidy stack of packs, saddles, and saddlebags, though the gray gelding left his position and came to snuffle at the Lionsmane’s hands.
“Hah, Warhammer, no fruit for you, greedy beast,” Lionsmane said to the horse, rubbing its nose before he pushed the large head out of his way.
Dhulyn Wolfshead was on her knees, unrolling a long bundle that lay among the packs of the hobbled horse. From it, she extracted two unstrung recurve bows, and two shorter thicker bundles that Edmir recognized as quivers. She tossed one bow to Parno Lionsmane. Could they shoot in this light? He shook his head. They were Mercenaries. They could probably shoot blindfolded.
The Wolfshead gestured with the end of the unstrung bow in her hand. “Edmir can set up over there. Leave the horses where they are.”
“I’ll come with you and help,” Edmir corrected her.
“You’ll help best by staying here with both crossbows, Lord Prince,” Lionsmane said, unhooking the two crossbows that normally hung from their saddles. “If anyone gets around us, it will be for you to stop them and keep them from the horses. So if you hear someone coming, shoot them.”
“What if it’s you?”
“I said shoot anyone you hear,” he said, pushing the bundle that was their tent to one side. “Come, sit here.” Edmir obeyed, setting one crossbow on his lap and laying the other down on the ground to his left next to the extra bolts. These were light bows, meant to be fired from horseback, and easily armed by a man sitting down.
“Where will you be?”
“Closer to the road.”
Dhulyn Wolfshead had finished stringing her recurve bow and set it down against its quiver on the ground. She then went from horse to horse, catching and holding their heads in her hands, while she breathed into their nostrils, and spoke, murmuring words in a language Edmir had never heard before. The two warhorses quieted instantly, as did the other, smaller horse, but the fourth horse, the hobbled one, took a little longer to soothe. “What is she doing?” Edmir said, as the Lionsmane drew near him.
“Asking the horses to stay quiet and still, no matter what they see, or hear, or smell.”
“Will it work?”
“It always has before.”
“That’s good,” Edmir said. That’s good, he thought again as he watched them disappear into the dark. The Lionsmane was right. They made no noise.
When they were nearly at the wide track that served as the road through this section of the Nisvean West Forest, Dhulyn stopped Parno with a click of her tongue, signaling him with a patting motion of her hand to wait as she stepped out into the road. Holding her bow out to her left, she squatted on her heels, resting her right hand on the track. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted as she listened. The colors of her Mercenary badge were bright in the light of the rising sun.
She straightened, made sure he was looking at her and tapped her ear, silently asking, “Do you hear them?”
Parno pressed his lips together and shook his head, then raised his hand to say, “Stop.” There. A muted thunking of horses’ hooves on the packed dirt of the road, a murmuring of voices in the still air. Dhulyn rejoined him under the trees. He pointed upward and, when she nodded, made a cup of his hands and braced himself as she placed her foot in it. She disappeared into the branches over his head with no more sound than the wind would have made moving the leaves. After several seconds a silk rope as thick as his thumb fell out of the trees over his head. Parno hung his bow across his shoulders, grasped the rope with both hands and pulled himself upward.
Dhulyn had found a place where a thick limb of the oak tree grew almost parallel to the ground. She pointed at it, then at Parno; pointed at herself, then at another fork just above where they were standing. With the habit of caution, Parno glanced around. From here they had good angle and height on the road. And they could reach the ground quickly if they had to. He beckoned Dhulyn closer and put his lips near her ear.
“Permit me to point out—just this once—that I suggested the sea route,” he said. “It was you who insisted on going overland through Nisvea. I won’t mention it again,” he added. As he leaned away from her, Dhulyn grasped his shoulder and pulled him close again.
“You do, and it will be the last thing you ever mention.”
“Now, now, be careful. You know they say Partners don’t survive each other.”
“It would be worth it.”
Parno grinned at her disappearing shadow. “In Battle,” he whispered.
“Or in Death,” she said.
Avylos the Blue Mage ran his index finger along the spines of the seven books he kept on the high shelves behind his worktable. To the untutored eye, they were unremarkable, three herbal lexicons, two works of early philosophy based on the writings of the Caids, and two books of poetry. Avylos took down the larger of the philosophic works and sat down at his table. He centered the volume carefully on the tabletop, opened it to the middle, exposing the blank center pages. Noticeably different from the other pages of the book, these were folded once from a single piece of parchment made from the skin of a pure white kid goat. Matching pages, cut from the other half of the skin, and as identical as two halves of the same thing can be, occupied the central position in another volume of philosophy. One that did not sit on Avylos’ table.
He waited until the rays of the setting sun moved to shine directly upon the blank pages. He made a sign in the air above the book.
“At my command,” he said. “Speak to me.”
“I am here.” As he watched, the words appeared on the page as though they were being written by an unseen hand.
“You have failed me,” he said. For a moment it seemed the page trembled.
“Please my lord,” appeared on the page. “It was the Mercenaries.”
“Tell me.”
“Two Mercenaries,” appeared on the page. “A man, Parno Lionsmane,and an Outlander woman, Dhulyn Wolfshead. They discoveved and claimed the prince. I refused their claim, but they tricked us and took him. I have sent men after them, trusted m
en who will follow your instructions.”
“Do they know the instructions are mine?”
“No my lord.”
Avylos straightened, his shoulders pressed against the carved back of his chair. Mercenaries. He had met a Mercenary Brother once, a long time ago. The Brotherhood was ancient, much respected. Followers, some said, of the Sleeping God. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
“See that your men are successful,” he said. “Make sure of it. In the meantime, send out word that Edmir of Tegrian is dead.”
A pause before the words appeared on the page. “I don’t understand, my lord. You mean before we find and deal with them?”
Avylos cracked the knuckles of his left hand one by one, resisting the desire to look at the casket that held the Stone. “These are Mercenary Brothers,” he said dryly. “How would it be if you do not ‘find and deal with them’? Let us prepare for the possibility that they might yet escape with their captive. Announce, therefore, that the man the Mercenaries took is not the prince. Prince Edmir died on the battlefield, and these rogue Mercenaries play some trick of their own. Find a suitable corpse, and use the excuse of its return to Tegrian to march on Probic.”
“So the original plan holds? And I am still to have Probic?”
“Of course.”
Another long pause. Avylos could almost hear the other man thinking.
Finally. “Very good, my lord.”
“At my command,” Avylos said, and the page turned blank once more. He shut the book, and sat very still, with his hand on the cover.
Many spans away, Commander Lord Kispeko looked down at the blank pages in front of him and let go the breath he was holding. So, that’s the way it will be. Not exactly the way Avylos had planned it, but this was better for the Nisveans. Let the Mercenaries be blamed for everything. If anyone could deal with the Mercenary Brotherhood, it was the Blue Mage. Kispeko shut the book and rose to return it to the chest beside his camp bed.
Parno was settling into the spot Dhulyn had found for him—back braced against the trunk, but at an angle to leave his bow arm free— when he heard the slow notes of the owl call that was Dhulyn telling him the troop of Nisveans were in sight. He did not see them himself until a few minutes later. There were five, as Dhulyn had said, and— what she couldn’t have known—one of them was Jedrick.
The Soldier King Page 6
