Blood Road

by Amanda McCrina

  Five years ago, the chieftain of the Dobryni had died screaming as much. Torien remembered it very clearly. He had been fourteen years old, almost but not quite a man, still young enough to be bored and restless all through the trial, resentful that he must sit for hours to watch and listen (what did it matter to him, anyway? He was the second-born, the soldier son; Taure as the heir was the one who must learn to judge and pass sentence)—but the Dobryno’s death had impressed and scared him. In Cesino fashion they had hanged him with a leather rope from the branch of an oak tree, and while they were putting the noose around his neck his frost-gray eyes had come up to the governor’s seat, and for some reason he had found Torien’s eyes and fixed his gaze there. “Remember this, boy,” he had shouted. “One day the Wolf will rise, and on that day they will hang you before the doors of your own house. Remember my words. Each time the Wolf rises, remember this is the penalty for blood traitors. Remember—”

  Tauren had signaled one of his guardsmen, then, and the guardsman had reached over swiftly and silently with his belt knife and cut the Dobryno’s throat. They had pulled him up on the branch already dead. There were other executions afterward. Torien remembered none of them so clearly. Tauren had taken him by the arms when it was done and said, in a low voice, “Superstition, Torien—comfort only to those who fear death, do you understand?” And he had dipped his chin and said, “Yes, sir,” and they had neither of them spoken of it again. But each time the Wolf rose he remembered.

  It was, he supposed, something of a reassurance: if he were to hang as a blood traitor before the doors of the house in Vessy, he could not very well die here in the desert with a signo’s spear in his back.

  They rode loosely in file. Two of the signi rode ahead: the older signo, whose name was Nerix and who had murdered a senator’s son in Salina, and the younger, hot-headed, freckle-faced one, Miro, a thief. Torien rode behind them. The rest of the signi followed in pairs. Alluin brought up the rear alone. Mounted at Torien’s side, so close their knees were almost touching, the signo from Puoli lay against his saddle unmoving. They had tied his wrists one to each of the saddle’s fore-horns, tied his ankles together with a rope beneath the horse’s belly. A tether ran from his horse’s bridle to the fore-horns of Torien’s saddle. The signo’s head was hooded, his feet bare; beneath his loose tunic his body was swathed in bandage cloth. He had made no movement or sound since they had lifted him into the saddle at the fort. Except for the fact that his hands were clenched to white-knuckled fists over the saddle-horns, Torien would have supposed him dead.

  At first there was other traffic on the Road: salt-laden mule trains coming up from the mines, or camel trains bearing figs and dates and almonds and spice and silk cloth. In the last of the twilight, they overtook a chained slave train working sluggishly south and west. The driver recognized Torien’s harness and hailed him. Torien raised a hand in return. The driver urged his horse over and fell in at Torien’s left knee. Torien guided his horse aside to let the rest of the column pass on his right. Under his headscarf, the driver’s face was sun-cracked and humorless, all harsh angles as though wind-blown sand had carved it from stone. His eyes went briefly over the slumped signo. He said, in fluent Vareno, “You’re headed into Mayaso territory, Commander?”

  “My understanding is that the Road passes through Mayaso territory, yes.”

  “Take care, Commander. There are raiding parties on the move. I’ve had word.”

  Torien ran his eyes along the slow-moving line of slaves. They were not mine labor—were not, therefore, the Modigno’s contraband. Most were women and children. All seemed to be Tassoan; he did not know enough to distinguish further between Mayaso and Asano. “No concern to you, I take it.”

  The driver’s lips split in a swift smile. His fingers brushed aside the loose folds of his outer robe to reveal the sword at his belt. “I know how to deal with Mayasi.”

  Torien dug his heels into his horse’s ribs. There was a sourness in his mouth. “My thanks for the warning.”

  The driver reached a quick hand to the cheek-strap of the horse’s bridle. He leaned in low and close at Torien’s shoulder. “Beware your signi, Lord. Men with no tribe are men with no honor. They’ve taken Mayaso coin before.”

  “I’ve no need for a slaver to school me in the meaning of honor.”

  For a moment, the driver was frozen, his fingers tight around the bridle strap. Then he let go the strap as though it had seared him. He straightened and bowed very stiffly. He kicked his horse away without another word.

  “Made another friend?” Alluin said. The column of signi had gone past. They were alone at the column’s tail, he and Alluin and the signo from Puoli.

  “I’m about to lose one,” Torien said, “unless he shuts up.”

  After that they met no traffic. The air was still and hot, the desert silent. The moon and stars were very bright, and by their light the column cast long blue shadows over the dunes. The signo beside him had been either asleep or unconscious and came awake with a start, jerking awkwardly in his saddle. He struggled frantically with his hands for a moment before he seemed to remember his wrists were tied. He lowered himself in his saddle, rested his hooded head against the horse’s neck, and was once more still.

  Nerix dropped back from the head of the column. “It will be good to rest soon, Lord Risto,” he said. He kept his face turned away. They had all of them so far deliberately avoided looking at the Puolian. They seemed determined not to notice his presence. They had made no mention of it at the fort or since. They assumed, perhaps, that he had been brought along as a reminder—as a threat.

  “Pass the word,” Torien said.

  They had come down the southern slope of a long, low dune to the scrubby mud flat at its base. There was a breath of wind coming off the slope. Eastward, over the shoulder of the dune, he could see a low bank of cloud building at the sea-line, black against the indigo sky. Dismounting, he unbuckled his helmet and took it off and held it in his hands, tilting his head back against his saddle. He closed his aching eyes and let the wind cool his sweaty face. He was thick-headed and tired. The cuirass was as heavy as an iron casing over his chest. He opened his eyes unwillingly. Alluin was coming up on foot, leading his horse. He had forgone his helmet entirely and had instead draped his cloak over his head and around his face, leaving nothing uncovered but his eyes. The narrow strip of visible skin was caked with sweat and sand. “You can ride rear guard after this,” he said. “I’ve had enough sand in my face. I’m practically a portable dune.”

  Torien picketed his horse and the signo’s and took down his pack from the saddle. “You’ll ride rear guard for as long as I deem it entertaining.”

  “Consider this,” said Alluin. He threw his reins to Torien and unwrapped his cloak and shook it out. “Consider that we’re in the middle of the desert with a detachment of signi, none of whom much care about that braid on your shoulder; and consider that I offer them equal share of the ransom I’ve demanded of your father.”

  Torien knelt to loop the reins around the picket. “This is how you’ve occupied your mind for two hours?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it in some fashion since Espere’s office—he’s the one who gave me the idea. But I hadn’t realized the immediate practical benefits until now.”

  “Help me with the signo,” Torien said.

  They untied his feet, first, then his wrists. Alluin, who was taller, pulled him out of the saddle by the waist. Between them they brought him away from the horses. When they let him go, he sank to his knees in the sand, leaning forward on his hands to steady himself. He sat back on his heels, dragging two fistfuls of sand with him. Torien crouched before him. The signo sensed him through the hood and flinched violently and then was very still. Torien leaned over and lifted the hood away. The surgeon had salved the side of the signo’s face that had been burned, and in moonlight now the sight of the face was not as jarring as it had been that morning in the gu
ardhouse. Torien could see the shadow of the signo’s face as it had been, or he could imagine it with less difficulty: always a bony face, wide at the cheekbones and narrow at the chin, the mouth small and straight and solemn, the nose slightly hooked—a peasant’s face, sun-tanned, expressionless by habit. The signo’s eyes were closed, his teeth clenched. Torien untied the water-skin on his lap and lifted the signo’s chin with his fingers and held the skin to his lips. “Drink,” he said.

  The signo opened his eyes and looked at him, blinking. Slowly, as though it pained him, he parted his teeth and drank. He closed his eyes again as he drank. His thin shoulders were drawn up very tightly, his fingers still curled to fists in the sand. Every now and then a shudder went through him, and his eyes came open briefly and warily upon Torien’s face.

  Alluin, watching, said, “When were you expecting Tarrega’s friends?”

  Torien let go the signo’s chin. He sat back on his heels. He lifted the skin to his own lips and drank, swirling the first mouthful around his teeth and spitting it out to rinse away the grit. When he was done, he handed the skin to Alluin. He shook his head. “By now, if they were anything more than a fiction of Tarrega’s.”

  Alluin had tilted his head back to drink, holding the water-skin in both hands. He paused and looked at Torien sidelong over the skin. “Was that your working assumption—that it was a fiction of Tarrega’s?”

  “I didn’t make assumptions. I’ve no interest in Tarrega, whatever his intention, whatever his reasons.”

  Alluin poured water into his mouth and lowered the skin to his lap. He tied up the skin while he swallowed. His face was suddenly and carefully blank. “You had your own reasons, of course.”

  Torien jerked his chin to the signo. “You think I should have left him in Tarrega’s hands?”

  “All right,” Alluin said, “all right, but don’t act as if Tarrega and his reasons don’t matter.”

  “In all honesty, I don’t see how they do.”

  “You don’t see?”

  “It was my decision. I am in command, after all.”

  “I thought we’d better trust between us than that.”

  “Ask the signo,” Torien said. “Maybe he can tell you what Tarrega wanted, provided he can remember how to put words together without the encouragement of a cattle iron.”

  Alluin said nothing. His mouth was a thin, tight line. His eyes were cool and distant as they always were when he was angry.

  Torien dropped the hood over the signo’s head. He got to his feet. He buckled his chinstrap and bent to take the signo’s arm. “Come on—let’s go,” he said to Alluin.

  They lifted the signo to his feet between them. “It would be more a mercy to cut his throat,” Alluin said. He was looking away over the slope of the dune.

  “Take the head,” Torien said. “The signo and I will ride rear guard.” The thought had crossed his mind more than once since they had left the fort.

  They rode down the flat, between the dunes. The wind came in from the sea, carrying the clouds with it. The air was cool now and the sky dark, and they rode close together and slowly so as not to lose each other. At the head of the column, Nerix was turning this way and that in his saddle, trying for a glimpse of the stars behind the clouds. Alluin dropped back. “He’s afraid we’ll lose the Road,” he said. In the darkness and in profile under his draped cloak, his face was unreadable.

  “Does he recommend we stop?” Torien said.

  “If the wind keeps up, it might clear.”

  “Ask him if he recommends we stop.”

  Something flew between them in the darkness on a sudden breath of wind. Alluin dropped against him. Torien’s horse shied away and Alluin slid from his saddle, his reins slithering loose from his limp hands. He landed awkwardly on his right hip and shoulder, his right arm curled under his body, his left arm flung wide, feet splayed apart. He lay face-down against the sand, unmoving. He had been unconscious when he first fell and had made no noise. The spear which had grazed him had been deflected to the sand and was sticking up at an angle in the sand at his feet.

  Torien slipped from his saddle by reflex. He thought, at first and dazedly, it must have been a signo who had thrown, and he reached the spear in the sand and hoisted it up and stood stupidly with the spear in his hands while the column of signi rode ahead, heedless. His head cleared very slowly. The spear was unfamiliar to his fingers. He held it up and looked at it closely in the darkness. It was not an Imperial spear. The shaft was smooth, oiled wood, long and light. The head was thin steel hammered wide at the neck where it joined the shaft, tapering along a curve to a fine tip like a palm leaflet. He looked up. A lone horseman was silhouetted at the ridge of the eastward dune. As the horseman urged his horse down the slope, more horsemen crested the ridge to join him. They came at a rising gallop down the slope, flinging up sand in a trailing sheet.

  The signi had heard them and seen them now. Torien shouted to the signi above the thunder of hooves: “Form up! Form up! Get your shields up!” It had occurred to him with a jolt out of the darkness that they might run. He could see them turning in their saddles to look at the oncoming horsemen, then twisting further to look back at him. He stood with the palm-blade spear loose in his hands. He was on foot and could do nothing if they chose to run.

  One of the signi jerked his reins and kicked his horse around and came riding back down the sand. Torien caught a glimpse of his face when he came close—Nerix. The signo reined up at the foot of the dune, his face to the horsemen, his shield slung on his left arm, spear hefted at his right shoulder. The rest of the signi followed him. They formed up on either side of Nerix, closing a circle around Torien and Alluin and the signo from Puoli. They couched their spears and waited.

  The horsemen rushed down to the foot of the dune and swept up to the circle and broke against it like a wave, falling back and then rushing down again, battering the circle until it broke. One of the signi was carried out of his saddle by a palm-blade spear and lay kicking to stillness in the sand, the spear through his chest just below the hollow of his collarbone. The circle buckled then. Torien lifted the spear to his shoulder and let fly at the first horseman to push through the gap. The horse stumbled in a shower of sand. The rider fell, sprawling.

  After that it was useless. He drew his sword knowing it was useless: a sword was no good against mounted spearmen in daylight and certainly no good in the dark, but he had the stupid thought that he would at least die with the sword in his hands. A horseman bore down on him, hoisting a spear to his shoulder. Torien faced him and waited. The horseman drew back, preparing to loose. His arm dropped, abruptly. The spear swung down from his hand. There was a signo’s spear coming out below his ribs. The horseman slid from his saddle almost gracefully, the spear slipping from his fingers.

  Torien bent to pick up the horseman’s spear. Something solid and heavy slammed into his stomach as he straightened. His knees buckled. His sword went flying. He staggered back, dazed and gulping. He lost his feet and landed flat on his back beside the dead horseman, his throat closed, his breath gone.

  After a moment, he pushed himself up on his elbows, blinking away blackness, feeling with stumbling fingers across his middle, finding nothing. He flung out an arm. The horseman’s spear was beside him in the sand, and another spear which had glanced off him harmlessly—poorly thrown and too lightweight to penetrate the steel-braced leather of his cuirass. He snatched up both spears, one in either hand, ducking a horseman’s swung sword as he rose; the horseman rode past, unable to check his momentum. Another followed. Torien thrust a spear at him, and the horseman caught the shaft in a quick hand and jerked it from Torien’s hand and jabbed it back into his face. Torien reeled away. The spear butt crashed against the cheek-piece of his helmet and sent him spinning.

  He hit the sand face-down this time and lay still on his spread palms while the world exploded in red above him. He spit blood and a broken tooth. He shook his head. He made h
imself move. He found his other spear in the sand and pushed himself up on it to his knees.

  A heavy blow fell on the back of his neck. He sprawled flat on the sand again and lay now very still, dribbling blood over his numb lips. His throat was closed and he could not swallow. He turned his cheek on the sand and lay looking at the dead horseman. The wind had stopped, and it was very quiet except for the pounding of blood in his ears. He thought the clouds must have cleared a little, because he could see, very clearly, the details of the dead horseman’s face—and he could see now, blinking at it in the half-light, that it was a woman’s face, bronzed and solemn, marked across the brow and cheeks with concentric lines of blood-red paint.

  At length, and at a very great distance across a painful space, there were voices.

  He felt the spear being eased from his unresisting fingers. The fingers felt detached from the rest of his body, his body from his mind—discrete pieces joined only by a thread of pain. Someone knelt beside him in the sand and pushed him onto his side and unbuckled the chinstrap of his helmet, lifting the helmet away. Lukewarm water ran over his face, between his lips. He dribbled it back out. His tongue refused to cooperate. The voices conferred. Strong hands jerked him up by the arms and dragged him across the sand.

  They settled him on his knees. Fingers under his chin forced his head up. There was white-hot pain splitting his skull behind his eyes, pounding with the pulse at his temples. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain and felt the need to be sick. He leaned over his knees and vomited on the sand. They let him go while he vomited, but when it was done they pulled him back up by the arms and held him, tightly. He opened his eyes. He was kneeling at Alluin’s side. One of the horsemen was turning Alluin onto his back and unwinding the cloak from Alluin’s head. Across Alluin’s right brow, the skin was split clean to the bone in a long, furrowed line from the bridge of the nose to the hairline. Blood had gone in ribbons over Alluin’s face. The horseman traced the furrow under his fingers. He leaned over Alluin’s body and unbuckled Alluin’s sword belt and pulled it aside. He unbuckled the cuirass. Another of the horsemen knelt to help him. Between them they stripped the harness away by pieces. Torien watched, blinking. While the first horseman unlaced Alluin’s jerkin, the second spread Alluin’s arms wide across the sand and unstrapped the vambraces from Alluin’s wrists.