As soon as they cleared the gate, Zania ran to the body that lay nearest the tall wheel of the caravan, and this time Dhulyn Wolfshead did not stop her. Zania knelt and, picking up the corpse’s hand, laid her face against it and began to wail, her voice rising higher and higher. Edmir stepped forward, biting on the inside of his cheek as he fought tears.
Movement caught Dhulyn’s eye and she turned toward Parno, who gestured her toward the sobbing girl. She raised her eyebrows at him. He rolled his eyes, pointed at Dhulyn, pointed at the girl, and made shooing motions with both hands. Her stomach sank. The girl would have to be cuddled and quieted, and Parno could not do it. Not now, not with the attack in the square so fresh in the little Cat’s mind. It will have to be me. Was that a grin her blooded Partner was hiding? She gave him a look that told him it better not be, and went to comfort the weeping girl.
I’m no blooded good at this, she thought, as she wrapped her right arm around Zania’s shoulders, drew the girl into the circle of her arms, and covered her mouth with her free hand.
“Stop crying, or I’ll have to kill you,” she murmured in the girl’s ear.
Zania stiffened, flashed Dhulyn a disbelieving look, but fell silent, pushing herself free of the Mercenary’s arms, and drying her tears with the trailing end of her sleeve.
“Get your things together,” Dhulyn told the girl. “We must be gone.”
The little Cat straightened to her feet, smoothing her hair back from her face and automatically adjusting her clothing. She looked around her, eyes blinking and mouth twisting in the effort to keep from crying. She coughed, took in a deep breath, and released it.
“I want the caravan.” The girl looked from Dhulyn to Parno and back again, her jaw firm with determination, her voice steadying as she spoke. “My caravan, your horses. We should manage very well together.”
“No offense,” Parno spoke up before Dhulyn could. “I see the advantage to you, but what’s the advantage to us?”
“Because no one looks at a troupe of traveling players and sees Mercenaries.”
“And why should that concern us?”
“He says you’re his bodyguards.” Dhulyn wondered what the Prince of Tegrian thought of being referred to with a hooked thumb. “If that were true,” the little Cat continued, “you wouldn’t be going so quietly, and watching around every corner. The Nisveans and the Tegriani have been squabbling over the border for generations. Why would you need to hide from either side? Why would they interfere with Brothers going about their legitimate employment? Therefore, either you, or the one you guard, must be kept hidden from the Nisveans, or the Tegriani, or both. I can help you do that.”
Dhulyn turned to Parno and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “You see? I told you that reading poetry and plays was not a waste of time.” She turned back to the girl. “How?”
Zania gestured at the wagon. “In there I have all the disguises and costumes we could need. By sunrise tomorrow, even your own Brothers wouldn’t recognize you. As an acting troupe, we can go anywhere unquestioned.” She took a deep breath. “And we already have an engagement.”
Warhammer and Bloodbone were not cart horses, but this was not the first time they had been used as such. Though they snorted a bit at first, they gave no real trouble, and with Zania’s help Dhulyn had them harnessed in very short order. Parno got Edmir to help him move the bodies farther out of the way, and stow their gear into the caravan itself. Dhulyn’s Mercenary badge was covered with one of Zania’s colorful head scarves and his own with a peaked hood. He and his Partner had armed themselves only with axes and stout sticks, the weapons generally used by travelers such as Zania and her family. Edmir had wanted a crossbow, but Zania insisted that no player would ever expect to use such a thing, except as a prop on stage.
“We’re like Scholars that way,” she said. “No one bothers us. Or at least, nothing that sweet words or a little money can’t turn away.”
“That what happened here?” Edmir said.
Zania pressed her lips together and looked at the Mercenaries.
“Likely they were trying to help their friends and got caught up in the frenzy,” Parno said when the silence grew strained. “Once killing begins, it’s hard to stop.”
“And once the dying begins, that’s hard to stop as well,” Dhulyn said. “Go,” she said to Zania, “say your farewells.” She turned back to Parno and Edmir. “Is Stumpy tied on?”
“Why not use the packhorse, rather than one of your own?” Edmir said, as he tied Stumpy’s reins to the hook near the caravan’s rear door.
“What is it you have against Stumpy?” Parno asked. “That’s the second time you’ve spoken against him. He’s too small to be paired with either Warhammer or Bloodbone. Those two are closer in size, and that makes a difference. That’s the real reason coach horses are matched as closely as possible, not to make things pretty.”
Parno was looking up at an ominously darkening sky when Dhulyn stuck her head around the corner of the caravan.
“We go,” she said.
“Have you Seen something?” Parno hoped his tone made it clear what he meant.
“Just a bad feeling,” his Partner replied, shaking her head. “I’ll get the little Cat.”
Zania Tzadeyeu returned from saying farewell to her family with her face as stony as bruising and swelling would allow. She joined Edmir on the driver’s seat with Parno. It was a tight fit, but he’d rather they were with him than floating about loose where he couldn’t see them.
“I’m sorry we can’t give them any better rites than this,” Dhulyn called to Zania from her position at the horses’ heads. “But they’d want you safe more than anything else.”
“They’re in the hands of the Caids now,” the girl said.
They had no more than cleared the gate of the inn, with Dhulyn jogging ahead with the horses, when a bolt of lightning struck the gatepost. In moments the entire front of the inn—old timbers and plaster—was engulfed by flames.
“Dhulyn!” Parno called, but she was already in motion. Their horses were too well-trained to bolt even at this, but Dhulyn had swung herself onto Bloodbone’s back, to help calm them even more. Parno let the reins go slack, she would do the guiding for the present. From the stable yard to the north gate was only a matter of turning the right corner and negotiating a few spans of mostly deserted streets.
The ground rumbled and another bolt of lightning fell. Stumpy squealed, but when Parno looked around, he saw the packhorse running alongside the caravan, eyes wide and neck at its full extent. A building ahead of them was already on fire, with people running into the streets from suddenly unbolted doors.
“Dhulyn!” he called again. This time all she did was point to the left.
“Grab hold of something and get ready to lean all your weight to the left, as soon as we turn the corner,” Parno told the two youngsters. He wrapped the reins around the cleat in the center of the foot-boardin front of him and took hold of it himself, his eyes glued to his Partner.
Dhulyn led the horses around the next corner at a speed even Parno found unbelievable. At the very last instant she pointed again.
“Now!” Parno yelled, leaning all his weight to the left as the caravan careened around the corner. Zania fell against him, gripping Edmir’s arm with both her hands.
The caravan righted itself, and Dhulyn was already pointing to the left again.
The entire right side of this narrow street was in flames, but Dhulyn kept the horses galloping, and suddenly they found themselves in the small open space in front of Probic’s north gate. The gates were open, the portcullis raised, and bodies of guards in dark blue showed how that had happened. Even here the smoke was thick enough to make them cough, and the ground was trembling once more. A ball of flame leaped from the nearest building to the gate itself, and the ropes that connected parts of the mechanisms began to smolder.
Dhulyn spoke to the horses, patted them both wherever she could reach them. Stumpy wou
ld not have her presence to calm him, but he was the most phlegmatic of the three in any case—she would just have to hope for the best. None of them could keep up this pace for long, but they had to get as far away from Probic as quickly as they could. Bracing herself with her hands, Dhulyn kicked up until she was standing crouched on Bloodbone’s back. The rhythm of the horse’s movement was as natural to her as the beating of her own heart, so she wasted no time in turning to face her Partner.
Parno grinned at her, and touched his forehead with his fingertips. She laughed, and did the same.
“That was not natural,” she called out.
“The Mage,” Parno answered. She should have known he would be thinking along with her.
“Take up the reins,” she said. “I’ll slow them very soon.”
When she saw him comply, she turned back again to face the road, letting herself down once more to a sitting position astride Bloodbone’s back. She began to sing, and the horses pricked their ears, waiting for the chorus, when they knew they should begin to slow.
“Sun blast, Moon drown you!” Avylos put Tzanek’s left hand on Tzanek’s chest, feeling the heart pound like a fast drum, the breath short. He had missed them. Missed them! His right hand formed a fist and brought it down again and again before he turned and started down the stairs that would take him back to Tzanek’s chamber.
This time he leaned heavily against the wall as he went.
With Parno on the reins, and Dhulyn to encourage the horses, they continued traveling well into the night, having turned off the main road out of Probic on the first track leading toward the Household where Zania’s family had their next engagement.
“Even if we don’t perform, we’ll be welcome for the news we bring and we’ll be that much farther along our road,” the white-faced girl had pointed out.
“At the moment, any road that takes us from Probic is a good one, but first chance we get, we decide where our final road must be,” Dhulyn said. All four of them were on foot to spare the horses as much as possible, with the two youngsters taking it in turns to ride up on the driver’s seat. Hardy as both of them might normally be, they were not Mercenaries, and it was all they could do to keep up with the horses for even a short while.
“Somewhere safe, is my suggestion,” Parno said. When Dhulyn glanced over to him, he winked at her. It was his job to play the prosy oldster when they had to deal with outsiders. Especially young outsiders.
“Well if that was the Mage in Probic, he’s stopped now,” Dhulyn said. “And we’ve no way of knowing whether it was us he was after.” Once again Dhulyn caught his eye and he knew that her thoughts on that matched his own. Too much coincidence, he thought, that they, and the Nisveans, and a freak storm with fire falling from the sky should all arrive in Probic on the same day.
Parno hated coincidence. It wasn’t natural.
He was more than ready to stop by the time Dhulyn called a halt, leading them into a clear spot off the track just large enough to squeeze the caravan through the trees. They could not have gone much farther in any case, the waning moon had set and taken what little light there was with it. Parno let the caravan pass into the trees and looked back in the direction they had come. The moon might have set, but there was a glow to the southeast.
“Probic.” Dhulyn’s voice at his left elbow.
“Nothing else it could be,” he agreed. “Amazing there’s still something left to burn.”
“Mage fire,” Dhulyn said.
“I did not think the Mage had such power.”
“I don’t think anyone did.”
Eight
AVYLOS’ FOREHEAD SLAMMED down on the tabletop and he groaned. Somehow he had managed to bring Tzanek’s headache back with him. He tried to push himself up, but his head was too heavy; he ended by having to lift it with his hands. Once upright, he could, with great care, balance his head on the top of his neck. It felt like trying to balance an apple on the tip of his finger. Fortunately, he had once been very good at that kind of trick.
He did nothing for several minutes but breathe deeply and try to still the pounding in his head. When he thought he could manage it, he reached to his left and put his hand on the casket that held the Stone. Getting the key out of the pocket of his gown almost defeated him, but after several tries his trembling fingers managed to fit it into the lock. With the casket open, the Stone in his hands, he already felt much better, just knowing that restoration was so close.
“Aharneh.” His throat was so dry, his voice so weak, that had there been others in the room with him, they would not have heard the word. But the Stone heard. His teeth closed on the inside of his lip as his head fell back. The power washed through him, the headache vanished, and his feeling of fragility lightened but did not disappear entirely. Avylos drew a symbol in the air. It appeared, wavered a moment, and faded away.
Avylos tasted the blood from his lip. He had used too much power in Probic, enough that the magics had drawn on the strength of his own blood and bones. His rage had consumed him in more ways than one. Instead of filling him once more, restoring his Magehood, the power he could tap from the Stone had only restored him to normal humanity.
And that was a lie. His right hand closed into a fist. He was not a normal man, without magic and without power. That was the lie his family, his Tribe—his lip curled back and he resisted the urge to spit— had tricked him with for so long. But he had punished them for that, and when he mastered the secrets of the Stone, that lie would be banished forever.
There would be a page standing his post at the entrance to this wing. Avylos stood, dusted down his gown, made sure that the folds of his cloak fell straight, and headed for the door. The page would fetch him Olecz the guard. And the guard would fetch him the dice boy.
“The Wolfshead says we’ll stop here,” Zania was saying to Edmir, with the unnecessary precision of the exhausted. It was Edmir’s turn on the caravan’s high seat, and the girl’s face, ghostly pale in the darkness under the trees, was peering upward at him from the ground.
“Be careful getting down, Edmir,” Parno said as he neared the front of the caravan. “Your leg may have stiffened.” He needn’t have bothered warning him, the boy lowered himself from the seat with the movements of a man twice Parno’s age. And a sick man at that.
“Get inside, you two,” Dhulyn said, leaving off stroking and praising the horses to join them. “Find us something to eat and drink—and for the Moon’s sake, don’t wait for us, eat something yourselves.”
She beckoned to him, and Parno joined her at the horses, first rubbing Warhammer’s nose and praising him before beginning to undo the harness attaching him to the caravan’s central shaft. Dhulyn was doing the same to Bloodbone, crooning to her in the language of the Red Horsemen. Like anyone from a Noble House with country Holdings, Parno had been taught to take care of his animals. Dhulyn’s approach made even Parno’s training look like neglect, but he had to admit, time-consuming as it was, the results made it worthwhile.
“At least we won’t need a fire for warmth, not tonight at any rate,” Dhulyn said, as she tugged at a stiff knot on Bloodbone’s harness.
Parno nodded. “The bunks are large enough for two to sleep, if they’re friendly.”
“We’ll see how friendly the prince feels.”
It wasn’t quite a smile Parno could hear in his Partner’s voice, but it was close. “What about you?”
“I’m far enough away from my woman’s time to share a bed, if that is what you ask.” The last bit of harness undone, Bloodbone moved free of her own accord, and Dhulyn coiled up the trailing ends of leather harness and hung them in their places before coming to help Parno.
“Any wagers on which one wants to sleep with you?” he asked, moving aside for her.
“My wager is neither,” Dhulyn said. “Since we met with the Clouds, the prince looks at me with eyes that see something uncanny, and the dancer girl is still not comfortable enough in her skin to be close to anyone.”<
br />
“Don’t fret, my heart, that still leaves me.”
“We should be so lucky. We’ll have to take watch turnabout. Neither of them will know what to watch for.”
“Do we?” Without meaning to, Parno had glanced back over his shoulder to where the glow from the destruction of Probic could still be seen in the sky. “What did City Lord Tzanek mean when he said that the Brotherhood was banished from Tegrian? The wall guards certainly seemed to know nothing of it.”
“Today’s trouble today.” Dhulyn put her hand on his arm. “We’ve seen worse than this,” she said. “And we are still here to talk about it.”
“In Battle,” he said.
“Or in Death,” she answered.
Free, the horses shook themselves and immediately went to investigate the tufts of grass by the side of the clearing away from the road. Parno unhooked a bucket from the caravan’s side and filled it with water from the barrel fastened next to it, as Dhulyn rounded the caravan to untie Stumpy.
“Why do you call her dancer?”
“That’s what her name means in the old tongue, the language of the Caids.”
“Tzadeyeu?”
Dhulyn slapped Stumpy on the rump and nodded. “The word has changed a bit in the passage of time, as our old friend Gundaron the Scholar would tell us, but it’s the same word.” Dhulyn joined him at the water barrel. “Did you see their faces?”
Parno shrugged. “They’ll be twitching for hours.”
“A long day, and a bad one. For them both.” Her fingers felt rough and cold on his wrist. “Play for them. Play them to sleep.”
The interior of the caravan was as compact and well-arranged as a ship captain’s cabin. Two benches—wide enough, as Parno had said, to hold two people who were friendly—ran lengthwise down each side, and the netting above them held all manner of parcels and packages— and would hold people, too, Dhulyn thought, if the packages were on the floor, and more beds were needed. Cupboard doors under the benches showed where more supplies, and probably the bedding, could be stowed.
The Soldier King Page 13
