Them, it would hurt.
Nana Cray had risen from her nap and sat at the table by the hearth now, a carving knife clutched in her withered old hands. Ammala caught her breath, but the lieutenant was still outside calling some orders, so she rushed to the old woman’s side.
“You cannot threaten them,” she hissed.
The old woman stared back at her through narrowed, rheumy eyes, then pursed her lips with great distaste but let Ammala take the knife. “The children…you sent them away?”
“Yes. None should be back before supper. They’ll be safe.”
“I told you that lad was bad business.”
Ammala grimaced, then tucked the knife into the folds of her apron as a heavy boot-step fell on the tiles. Looking back, she saw the lieutenant in the doorway, drawing off his helm respectfully. Beneath it he was a light-skinned easterner, his face narrow as a blade, with sharp black sideburns and a serious mouth. Salt in his hair--perhaps mid-thirties. A career soldier. For a moment he scrutinized the women, then stepped forward to beckon the mage inside.
“You may stay where you are,” he told them. “Do not move except by order.”
Ammala exchanged another look with Nana Cray, a look of mutual tension and fear, then she sat down in the second seat. Beneath her apron, the knife was a dire weight.
*****
Izelina watched from behind the orchard trees. Further away in the tall grass was Eston, her young suitor, who had spotted the riders first. He had come to them at the pond, and Izelina had ordered her sister to stay there with the goats until someone came to fetch her.
Now she wondered if she should have stayed as well. The yard swarmed with redcloaks, and one of them was even going into the house, with a fellow who had to be a mage because everyone knew that Imperial mages wore dresses, even though nobody had ever seen one.
Now I have, she thought as the robed man stepped inside, and suppressed a shudder. Whatever tricks her mother had, they had failed, as Izelina had always known they would. The paint and the colored cords held no real power. They had not even been able to keep Paol home.
Hands spread on the rince tree’s bark, Izelina watched the soldiers and quietly seethed. So rich and arrogant in their polished armor. Everything they had, they had stolen from her people. Eston should have run to the harvest men in the woods, not to her. They would have come with weapons and showed these soldiers the wrath of Illane.
Someone shouted orders then, and the soldiers broke into clumps, a few keeping control of the tall horses while others spread out to inspect the grounds. Izelina crouched lower, frowning. This was not what they did when they came to extort tax money. They had never cared about the goat-pen or the toolshed before.
Cob, she realized suddenly, and her dark eyes narrowed. He must have tattled. She and Nana Cray had been right from the start, but Mother had not listened. Mother had gone on pretending like Paol had come home. All that Hearth stuff she was always nattering about, that was only to justify herself.
Eston shouldn’t have warned Mother about the harvest men, she thought bitterly. Eston was in awe of her mother, which had always annoyed Izelina, but this time it was almost enough for her to put an end to their courtship. Never mind that he was the only boy her age who hadn’t been snapped up by the army or hidden away in the forest camps. Never mind that he was funny and always looking out for her. If he liked her mother so much…
And now Cob had escaped to tell on them, and that was all Mother’s fault too. Everything was her fault. Soon they’d all be in jail or unhomed and huddled in the woods. Izelina hated--
“Hello, child,” said a smooth, malevolent voice behind her.
Izelina froze. Her heart thumped like a running rabbit. I watched all the soldiers! Nobody even came near here!
Slowly, with nightmarish terror, she turned to face the man behind her. He was crouched just out of arm’s reach, the sunlight gilding his hair but making no impact on the dead blackness of his uniform. He looked young, but she knew instantly that he was not; there was something about his smile, about the wet-metal gleam of his eyes, that told her he had watched years pass like a stone gargoyle on a roof.
He had been with the other soldiers but she had just…stopped noticing him.
“I have a question,” he said. “I would like you to answer it.”
Beyond him, in the grass, Eston should have been hiding. She could not tear her gaze from his strange eyes to look, but she knew the boy would do nothing to help her. Probably he had already run. He had never been very brave, only eager to please.
“W-what do you want?” she whispered, horrified by the quaver in her own voice.
“Where has he gone? Cobrin, KRD1184.”
Don’t you know? she almost said, but caution held her tongue. If he didn't know, then maybe Cob really was a slave. A runaway.
She did not want to believe it. No one was honestly that thick-headed.
“I don’t know,” she said. Those shining eyes drilled into her, green-tinged grey, like moss grown on drowned steel. “I-I didn’t even know he was gone.”
But she did. Eston had told her all about his flight, and the wagon with the hammer on its side.
The man tilted his head slightly, then tucked a hand into his belt-pouch. Izelina stiffened, sure he would pull out some weapon, some horrible hooked thing that people with such eyes would have. But instead, he lifted a thin coin into view.
A gold coin.
Izelina’s eyes locked on it and widened. Gold—real gold—was worth more than jewels these days. More than blood. The southlanders lusted for it as a symbol of their dragon-gods; the Imperial war-machine enslaved and conquered for it. A single coin was leverage, prosperity, freedom. It could buy the Crays’ farm a dozen times over. Izelina had never seen a speck of gold in her life. Having a complete coin so close sent a little shiver up her spine. The way it glowed in the light was far more fascinating than the man’s eyes.
“Silver for information,” he said. “Gold if it leads to his capture.”
With gold, we could flee this wretched place, thought Izelina. Escape the war. Buy passage to the islands, maybe, or Jernizan, or the southern continent. One coin…one gold coin would go so far…
“You swear you’d come back and pay,” she said. The fear was gone. Fantasies swirled in her head.
“Of course.”
“And you’ll give me silver right now?”
He shook the pouch. It gave a muffled but enticing jingle.
“How many?”
“Five.”
“Fifteen.”
“Six.”
“Fourteen.”
“If you take my coin for weak information, I will kill your entire family.”
She leaned back, shocked by the ease in which he said that. His expression had not changed, but those strange eyes held her like the gaze of a viper. Like he could squeeze the very truth from her mind by the grip of his stare.
“T-ten,” she managed, greed well-balanced with fear. “I know things!”
“Speak.”
“It was only a few marks ago. He went north. He got picked up by a Hammer’s wagon—that’s one of the—“
“The Justiciars, the Trifold Goddess’s lawmen.” He frowned, but she was relieved to realize it was not at her. He was staring into nothing, as if considering the future.
“What else?” he said after a moment.
“He’s dressed like us. Like an Illanite,” she said, racking her memory for something worth the gold. "Oh! And I heard about a pilgrimage."
The black-clad man looked to her sharply, and for a moment there was only fury in his eyes. “What?” he snapped, and she recoiled against the tree.
“I don’t know, I just—“
“He’s going on the piking pilgrimage?” the man snarled, his anger turning just as suddenly elsewhere. He lurched to his feet, and she saw his black-gloved hands fist, the thin gold coin bending in his grip. A spate of curses and he started away.
&
nbsp; “Sir?”
“What?”
Izelina flinched again, but with anger distorting his face, the man’s eyes had lost their power. Now he seemed like any furious boy, ready to stomp a hole through the earth but nothing more. “Payment,” she said crisply, hardly knowing how she dared.
He gave her a long, hard look, then tugged at the cords of his coin-pouch. One after the other, he tossed silver coins at her feet.
“Don’t leave the area,” he said as the last chimed down onto the pile. “You wouldn’t want to miss out on the gold.”
And with that, he stalked past her, around the tree and into the yard. She scooped up the coins quickly into the pockets of her apron, trying to peer after him at the same time, but all she saw was his black-clad form move to the doorstep of the cottage, then away. The soldiers still milled around, the horses still stamped restlessly, and no screams had come. No cries, no crashes of furniture, nothing to show that things had gone wrong.
She looked to the grasses and knew Eston was not there.
Just as well, she thought as she stood. Her apron felt heavy for the coins. I will be the rich one, and I will have my way. My own way at last.
*****
The white hawk alighted on the icy rock, and shimmered, and became a boy. A familiar boy, a friend from long ago.
Lerien, he thought, and the boy grinned and held out his hand…
“Here, you’d best wake up,” said a rough voice in his ear, and Cob nearly tumbled from the wagon-seat in surprise. He blinked blearily at Jasper, who chuckled and looked back to the road.
Cob looked too, rubbing his grit-filled eyes with the edge of his hand. He must have been lulled to sleep by the heat of the day, for Bahlaer loomed before him now, its baked-clay walls massive above the dry plains. Nothing remained of the tent-cities that had clustered around it; the Crimson Army had seen to that. Refugees, those squatters had been conscripted or run off, their goods and possessions confiscated, their shanties destroyed. They had not returned—at least not outside the walls.
With night still a few marks away, the great wooden gates stood wide. Beyond them, the main road cut north into the city, thick with wagons and horses and darting children, hollering vendors and hand-carts, women with baskets, the life of trade and commerce. Bahlaer was the last real civilian stop on the southward trade route now, what with the post-riot lockdown of Fellen and the siege-blockade of Kanrodi. Goods came in along hundreds of farmland trails.
“I have some business here, lad. You don’t mind tagging along?” Jasper said, steering through the wide mouth of the gates. A few city guards patrolled the wall above, their tabards a vivid, repellant green.
“No. S’fine,” Cob said. Suddenly, with those memories of the tent-cities— of the buzz and stink of the place, of herding weeping women and children from their dismal homes at spear-point, of the ones who hid knives beneath their rags and waited patiently until someone with a badge of rank came close…
He did not want to be in Bahlaer alone.
“All right, as long as you’re in no rush,” said Jasper. “The Rift won’t go anywhere.”
In his half-asleep daze, with the bad memories still swarming, Cob did not remember he had not mentioned the Rift.
Chapter 6 – Bahlaer
Horse and wagon threaded through the dense crowds on Bahlaer’s main road. From his vantage on the carter’s bench, Cob found it easy to pick out incongruities and outlanders among the press: fair-haired Jernizen, bronze-skinned Padrastans, darker folk from the serpent-south.
And ogres. Ogre-bloods from Gejara and the northern lands, who stood like towers over the sea of short dark Illanites, their skin odd colors—greenish, reddish, deep dense black—and their mouths contorted by tusks. Most were in mercenary chainmail, some in the tabards of the city guard.
That they were tolerated here, perhaps even respected, put Cob’s hackles up. Gejara was a snowbound land north of the Pinch—the narrow pass that separated Kerrindryr’s Thundercloak Mountains and the Rift. While nominally a human territory, it had been invaded so thoroughly by the ogre tribes that most ‘humans’ there blatantly showed their ogre blood. One of the few lands on the northern continent that had held out against the Empire, it had also invaded the Kerrindrixi lowlands many times, both in history and recently to harry the Imperials and their followers. Technically the Empire and Gejara had a truce now, and were even exploring an alliance, but Cob did not look forward to fighting alongside his people’s enemies.
Alongside… Think, Cob. You’re a deserter, you’ll never fight alongside them.
He grimaced and tightened his grip on the bench as Jasper scraped the wagon past two entangled carts and their hollering carters. Even though he had only ever been a slave-worker, he could not shake the association of himself as a soldier. He had aspired to it, not because he loved fighting but in the hope that it would give him direction like the Light had.
As just a civilian, he knew he would be lost.
“It’s bloody packed today,” Jasper grumbled as he worked to steer them around a trio of Jernizen riders in tan coats. His horse snarled audibly, tawny mane bristling, and the Jernizens’ steeds made way despite the consternation of their riders. Cob blinked, surprised that none had snapped back; they were all Tasgard horses, with the dangerous teeth that marked their omnivorous scavenging breed, and not known for their good tempers. But beyond a few sharp looks from the long-faced riders, they passed unharried.
“Y’travel here a lot?” Cob said, more bemused than curious.
“Few times a year. You’d think they would have spread out a bit; they’ve got the space now. But I suppose people prefer to stick close to home.”
Cob frowned and squinted around. Here, only a block from the gate, the buildings were squat heavy hulks of brickwork, covered in signs and banners that proclaimed all manner of services—most prominently taverns. Pitchmen shouted from narrow balconies, extolling their business over that of their neighbors, and small stalls selling roasted squash and sausages and pickled plums crowded the walkways, forcing pedestrians to dodge in and out of traffic. On the street, the wagons crowded shoulder to shoulder, with hogs and gartos and children scurrying fearlessly between them. Ahead, a great white building split the road in two like the prow of a ship, one side heading west toward the river and the other northeast, but down both paths Cob saw no end to the crush.
Shooing off a garto that had fluttered onto the bench, Jasper added, “This is a big place, lad. Miles and miles. Mind you don’t wander off while we’re stopped.”
Cob nodded distractedly. It was hard to hear over the din, and he had to keep kicking away furtive hands that tried to grab at the packs under the bench. All told, this was not how he remembered Bahlaer.
He had been here with the Crimson Army when it marched through almost a year ago, two months after the successful recapture of Savinnor. Bahlaer had fallen to its knees before them—no siege, no skirmishes, just wide-open gates and barren streets, the prickling sensation of being watched through shuttered windows the only sign that the place was populated. None of the city-dwellers had given them trouble, and the city council had bowed easily to the Crimson General’s demand for funds and supplies, for conscripts, for a Crimson barrack and a new regime.
Only the shanty-town had required force, but that was gone and the empty streets were full now, and Cob saw no sign of Crimson uniforms.
“So where are we goin’?” he said.
Jasper pointed at the great whitewashed building. “Whitemane’s Inn. They keep a room for me. We’ll need to do some walking from there, but you’re a sturdy lad, you can keep up.”
For a moment Cob considered not following, but Jasper seemed harmless enough, and there was no hurry. If he had wanted to do Cob in for being an Imperial, he could have just driven by instead of picking him up. And a sure but slow ride was better than a quick trip to a dungeon.
The crowd around Whitemane’s was no smaller than anywhere else, and Cob peered
up at the bleached façade as they angled up the westward side toward the stables. The building’s wedge-shape extended back for half a block and rose to three stories, the tallest he had seen outside of Savinnor. An odd, patterned out-thrust of bricks buttressed its red tile roof, too distant to discern the design, and from the myriad balconies the inn’s residents watched the passing throng. Cob squinted at them thoughtfully. Not many looked well-dressed enough to afford such lodgings. A small child waved at him from the third floor, and he reluctantly waved back.
The cart-horse muscled them through the crowd by the stables, snapping at the others of its breed as if enforcing some horse-hierarchy, and finally they pulled in parallel to the wall to await the stablehands. The white brick to one side and Jasper to the other, Cob managed the breath to sigh. In the crowded street, it had felt like being packed in a box with a thousand angry gartos.
The riders ahead dismounted and handed their reins off to two girls in tunics emblazoned with a white lion-head—evidently the tavern’s insignia. Cob squinted after them as they led the horses into the cavernous expanse of the stables; as Jasper pulled up to the doors, he saw lanterns on sturdy hooks, stalls big enough for draft-hogs, wider bays for wagons, and more women in pants and tunics handling the beasts and their feed, their hair bound back under kerchiefs or in tight tails. It was bizarre.
Another girl came out to take the cart-horse by the bridle, looked up at Jasper and blinked. “Oh, sir!” she said. “Just pull in, I’ll get the stable-mistress.”
“Yes, lass, if you would,” said the old man, then dug up a coin-purse and looked to Cob. “Down you go. I’ll be out shortly.”
Cob nodded and grabbed his bundle from under the seat. Stick over one shoulder, he slid off the bench and stepped away as Jasper snapped the reins and pulled the wagon into the vast stable.
Positioning himself against the far wall, out of the way of new arrivals, Cob watched the street. It was not difficult to tell why people lingered on the balconies; there was much to see. A fistfight outside one of the taverns that lined this new block, the ruckus of farm carts and foreign traders’ wagons, stray goats, cats, the flocks of women in their brightly-colored dresses and market bundles, the further profusion of stalls and strolling vendors selling trinkets…
The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 13
