Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy)

by Bell, Hilari

  The Hrum’s mounted scouts took off at a gallop after the fleeing Farsalans—not to catch them, Kavi knew, but to keep them in sight and signal the foot soldiers, who now broke into not a run but a ground-eating jog. No man could catch a galloping horse, but a fit and determined man could outlast a horse and run him down when he tired. Jiaan’s order to rally on Sorahb had encouraged a lot of determination.

  But they were still competent. The Hrum were almost always competent, curse them. The officer in charge of the troop that followed the column took two thirds of his men with him, racing to join the others in chasing a myth down the dusty road. But that left fifty armed soldiers guarding about sixty slaves, who were chained to piles of very flammable wood.

  The score of Farsalan archers who remained, with most of their arrows wrapped in pitch-soaked rags, couldn’t possibly defeat them. And those towers had to go.

  “This is Garren,” Kavi repeated, looking down at the black-haired deghass who could order his death. “Trying to force us to be as bloody as he is. Don’t let him do it, girl. Lady. Don’t let him bring us down to his level. Let us try, Hama and me. Trust me that far.”

  It maybe wasn’t the most eloquent speech he’d ever made. As a peddler, Kavi took pride in his ability to talk people into buying whatever he happened to be selling. But his words came from the heart, and sometimes that would make folks loosen their purse strings when nothing else would.

  The girl was looking at him, but her expression was distant and still, and for a moment her eyes didn’t seem to see him at all. It was an expression Kavi had seen on Suud tribesmen’s faces a time or two, and his shoulders shifted uneasily. Then she blinked, and the familiar sharpness returned.

  “Yes,” said the girl. “Go, both of you. And hurry. If they’re too far from the towers, the soldiers might decide to keep chasing Sorahb, even when they see the smoke. I’ll signal the archers to fire the moment everyone is clear.”

  Without waiting to hear another word—she could always change her mind—Kavi turned and crawled down the hill, keeping to the cover of the brush. He could hear Hama behind him, and without even looking back he knew she was doing a better job of keeping quiet and concealed than he was. It was supposed to be good to have a student surpass you, and Kavi was proud of her, but to be out-sneaked by a girl four years younger than he was still annoyed him.

  In a sense it didn’t matter how stealthy they were, for most of the remaining Hrum soldiers were staring down the road after their departing comrades and, from the sound of it, cursing their bad luck at being left behind—though one decimaster had mustered enough wit to send his men to tend the wounded who had been left beside the road. The man who had screamed was moaning; Kavi hoped he’d be all right, but right now he had other matters on his mind.

  Hama edged away, making for the wagons at the rear of the column. Kavi forced aside the thought of what her mother would say if she came to harm, and slithered through the bushes at the edge of the road. The only Hrum soldiers in sight were far ahead of him, with their backs turned to boot, but several of the slaves noticed him.

  They had dropped to the road to rest when the wagons stopped. The wagons—specially designed to carry the siege towers, Kavi realized—were low enough that the slaves could sit on the ground with their wrists suspended at about the level of their shoulders. Now they stared at him, and one young man started to his feet in alarm.

  “Shh!” Kavi whispered. “Stay down. No, stand up, and spread word for the others to do the same.” His drab clothes weren’t so different from their rough tunics and britches. “I’m going to pick the locks and free your wrists, but no one is to run until I give the signal. You got that? No one runs till all of you are free!”

  Half a dozen heads nodded agreement, and a middle-aged woman set the example, climbing casually to her feet and stretching as well as she could.

  “We’ll be passing word down the lines,” she murmured as Kavi slipped in behind her and pulled out his lock picks. He’d taken to carrying them on his person at all times, since he’d first started spying for the Hrum. As he’d taught Hama, if you engaged in a risky trade, it was best to be prepared for things to go wrong.

  “Are you working for Sorahb?” the woman whispered.

  KAVI TOLD HER YES, and replied similarly to other questions as he worked down the line, assuring folk that once they escaped the Hrum, Sorahb would see to their safety. Even the ones who weren’t Farsalan had heard of the rebel leader and seemed willing to trust Kavi’s statements in his name. In fact Kavi thought that most of the men would choose to join Commander Jiaan’s army, and welcome he’d make them, for he needed all the recruits he could get. As for the women and the sane men, Kavi would get word to the nearby villages to take them in.

  In the Hrum Empire, he’d been told, the government kept track of folk and all their kin, since they had to know who was to be drafted and who was to be taxed. But here in Farsala they’d barely begun working up their tally of the populace. If someone claimed this woman as a niece or that man as a grandfather, they’d have no reason to suspect a lie.

  The first side of the two wagons Kavi was working his way down proved easy enough, for the wagons were parked close to the edge of the road, and the Hrum guards, even when they carried the wounded to a resting place, had stayed on the other side, where there was level ground and space. They were settling in for a wait now, arguing about whether they’d have enough time to build a fire and brew tea.

  The lock on the last shackle on this side yielded to Kavi’s probing. He was getting better, swifter with his picks, for all the locks were similar—the last lock had only cost him half the time the first one had. But it was still taking too long, and here, at the head of the wagon line, he was only half done.

  He couldn’t see Hama, but he knew she hadn’t been caught, and a message passed up the slave line told him she was doing fine. The slaves had developed a fairly efficient system of communication, and fortunately for Kavi, their guards felt confident enough to ignore it. Unfortunately, he still had to unshackle the slaves on the side of the wagon where the Hrum were gathered, and there was hardly any chance they could miss that. But he had to try.

  After a careful glance to be certain none of the guards were looking his way, Kavi grasped one of the siege tower’s beams and pulled himself into the skeleton of the tower. It didn’t provide much cover. A startling number of thick beams crisscrossed the tower’s interior, some of them serving no purpose Kavi could see, but there were plenty of gaps between them—and Hrum soldiers on the other side of the line of slaves. Several of the slaves were staring expectantly at Kavi, making it even more likely that the Hrum would look in and see him.

  Kavi flattened himself onto the wagon’s floor as well as he could, since there were a number of beams there, too, and he had to crawl over them on his way across the wide tower. Once he arrived, he rolled thankfully into the cover of the low wall of planks that made up the wagon’s side. At least now he wasn’t visible to any Hrum who might glance that way—unless, of course, one of them came to see what the slaves were staring at. “Look away from me, Flame take you!” Kavi barely breathed the words; even a whisper would be too loud now. “You’ll attract their attention!”

  The slave he was watching started and looked away, a movement so obvious it would be a dead giveaway if any of the soldiers were paying attention. Kavi waited, his heart pounding so loudly he thought the Hrum would hear it, but there was no sound of approaching footsteps, no startled shout of discovery.

  Evidently the Hrum weren’t paying attention. Good. Get on with it.

  “Turn around, casually,” Kavi breathed. “Put your wrist over the side so I can reach the shackle. One at a time!”

  Three of the four wrists clanked back out of the wagon, and Kavi caught the one next to him before the man could remove it. He set to work on the lock. They were frightened, and small blame to the poor bastards, for the Hrum didn’t deal kindly with slaves who tried to escape.
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br />   They dealt even worse with traitors. Kavi felt the tattoo the Hrum had scribed over his biceps as if his flesh still ached from the needle. All Hrum officers had rank tattoos. Patrius, the officer who had talked Kavi into becoming their spy, had assured him that the mark they put on their spies was a closely guarded secret that wouldn’t betray him but would give him access to any Hrum officer whose assistance he needed. And indeed, the simple band of diamonds on Kavi’s arm was nothing like the elaborate insignia the soldiers bore.

  But the Hrum’s great secret had lasted about as long as most secrets did, in Kavi’s experience—word had gotten out all over Farsala within months of the conquest, and that tattoo had almost gotten him hanged.

  If he were caught today, it would buy him a traitor’s death, instead of the relative mercy the Hrum offered honorable enemies.

  His fingers quivered with haste and fear, but the locks answered sweetly to his picks, as metal always seemed to answer him. The touch of it soothed something deep inside him, which was good—it helped to keep his panic in check.

  At least the slaves had settled a bit, talking quietly among themselves, trying to behave normally while Kavi crawled out into the wagon bed to get around the junction of several beams. Going around exposed him more than he liked, but he’d have been even more exposed clambering over, and the slaves themselves gave him some cover, providing movements and small noises so that his movement and the noises he made didn’t leap to the Hrum’s notice.

  The soldiers were less than ten paces from the other side of the wagon now, sitting around their fire waiting for the tea to steep.

  The day was cool, but sweat soaked Kavi’s shirt, and the picks slipped so often that he had to stop and wipe his hands. The metallic snap of the opening locks was lost amid the metallic clanking of the chains as men and women tethered to a wagon tried to move in a normal fashion. Garren’s savage cleverness in setting this little snare had proved to be a weakness as well, and Kavi took great satisfaction in exploiting it as one shackled wrist after another came over the wagon’s side.

  After he finished with that set of chains, he had one of the slaves signal when no Hrum was looking his way; then scrambled to the other side of the wagon and over the rail. With the jumbled timbers of the siege tower and two lines of bodies between him and the Hrum, it was easy to make his way to the next wagon. Climbing in was still a terrifying risk, but once he’d gained the shelter of the wagons far wall, he was farther from the Hrum than he’d been before, which allowed him to work even faster—though not too fast.

  The mastersmith who had taught Kavi his craft had said that careless haste slowed a job even more than laziness. Getting himself caught would bring this job to a screaming halt, so Kavi took care, crawling softly around the tower’s joints and trying to keep his flying fingers from fumbling. His right hand, with its weakened muscles and warped tendons, had begun to ache by the time he neared the end of the last wagon. This work didn’t require a strong grip, but it used the small muscles of his fingers hard, and he was no longer accustomed—

  The slave woman’s wrist twisted in Kavi’s grip, almost tearing the picks from his hands. She grasped his own wrist, squeezing hard.

  A warning. But what—

  Very cautiously, Kavi raised his head to peer over the wagon’s low side. One of the Hrum soldiers had abandoned his tea and was walking down the line of wagons, inspecting them—just as a proper guard should, Flame take him!

  Kavi dropped into the wagon’s bed, his heart hammering. The guard had started at the head of the line, so he was still one wagon away, and his examination of both the slaves and the wagon was cursory. But he could hardly miss seeing Kavi crouched inside! Kavi had to get out, had to flee. If half the Hrum army came after him, then at least there’d be fewer to seize Hama when she was forced to run for it.

  He slithered frantically between the timbers to the wagon’s far side, and was about to scramble over it when several slaves reached in and pressed him down to the floor. They wanted him to stay there? Why?

  They weren’t looking at him, and several were chatting with their neighbors. Still, so many reaching into the wagon in the same place had to look suspicious.

  Kavi forced his tense muscles to relax, and the hands holding him down withdrew.

  What were they planning? Whatever it was, it had better be good. And happen fast. He was trusting these people with his life, just lying here…. But even trusting these strangers to save him seemed like a better idea than trying to outrun a Hrum troop across the countryside.

  Kavi willed his thundering heart to slow, and discovered that slowing his heartbeat under such circumstances was beyond his will. A man’s voice rose slightly, addressing the guard, but Kavi couldn’t hear what he said.

  Then more than a dozen hands descended, dragging him out of the wagon like a netted trout, and he suppressed a startled yelp.

  He was sitting on the far side of the wagon, among several other seated slaves, before his head stopped spinning. One man glared a warning, grasped his hand, and raised it to the same height as the others’ chained wrists.

  In his drab clothes, with the wagon between them and the other slaves to disguise his presence, Kavi would be well hidden. The guard would pass him by and go on to …

  Hama!

  Kavi barely remembered to keep his arm raised as he spun around to search the line of slaves attached to the wagon behind him. She wasn’t there.

  “You’ve got to get Hama out!” he hissed to a middle-aged woman seated next to him. “Before that cursed guard gets there!”

  “Don’t whisper,” she said softly. “It’ll attract his attention.”

  Kavi turned again, and felt the blood drain from his face as he saw the Hrum’s trousered legs on the other side of the wagon.

  “A diversion,” he told her with quiet urgency. “Like you used to distract him from me. Have someone over there complain that you need water.”

  Her brows rose. “We stopped for water, and a rest break, just before this started.”

  “Then tell him you need food! Tell him your feet are sore! Tell him you’re putting a curse on all his family, from his grandparents to the newborn babes! Tell him—”

  Several of the slaves around him chuckled, and the woman’s sudden smile made her look years younger.

  “Relax,” she murmured. “Diverting the guards from what we don’t want them to see is something we do all the time. They’ve got—”

  Before she could finish, a man on the other side of the wagon called the guard back.

  “What is it now?” Irritation sounded in the guards voice, but no suspicion. Peering beneath the wagon, Kavi saw the man’s legs turn till he was facing the slave—with his back to the last two wagons.

  Kavi turned just in time to see Hama dragged out of the wagon and land among the slaves. To him it seemed that the flurry of movement was guaranteed to draw the attention of every Hrum in the troop. But no alarm sounded. After several aching seconds, he closed his eyes and let his head fall forward against the wagon’s rough wood, listening to the conversation between the slave and the guard. He could barely hear them over the pounding of his own pulse.

  “… I’m just saying, if we’re going to be stopping here much longer, we’re going to be marching after dark.” The slaves voice sounded elderly and petulant.

  “And I’m telling you that’s not your affair,” the guard replied. “You’ll march where we say, as long as we say. It’s not as if the oxen are going fast enough to tire you out.”

  “Well, I’m just saying …”

  The old man’s voice trailed off into muttered curses. Kavi looked under the wagon and watched the Hrum guard’s legs walking away.

  Kavi waited while the guard completed his inspection. It wasn’t much of an inspection; he missed the fact that half the slaves he saw had slightly open shackles. Though no doubt the slaves knew to turn the open seam away from him.

  He waited until the guard had returned to the fir
e and taken up his tea. Until the slaves, whose watch Kavi was now perfectly willing to trust, signaled for him to climb into the wagon once more.

  It still wasn’t long enough for the terror racing through his veins to subside, and his fingers were slippery with sweat when he tackled the next lock. If the slaves hadn’t been so competent, so quick, he might have been shackled to this wagon himself by now. And Hama with him.

  At least his fingers weren’t shaking. Yet.

  When he reached the wagon’s end, he sent a whispered query back down the line and learned that although Hama had freed everyone on the far side of her two wagons, she was only half way down the dangerous side of the first.

  Kavi sent back a message that he had finished his two and would deal with the last side of Hama’s second wagon himself. He added that when Hama finished with the wagon she was working on, she was to slip out and stand with the slaves, running with them when Kavi gave the signal. He knew she’d obey, with no nonsense about taking equal shares of the risk, for she was a sensible girl. The slaves were being just as sensible, standing or sitting idly, chatting among themselves as the Hrum poured out their tea and dug bread from their packs.

  Only Kavi, slipping cautiously into Hama’s second wagon, could feel the tension in the slaves’ muscles as he pulled their shackles open, leaving only a crack that wouldn’t betray them unless the Hrum looked closely. It was a miracle that none of them had broken and run, and he hoped that the spin he was giving Time’s Wheel today would bring them better fortune in the future. Azura knew they’d earned it.

  He wondered how best to signal the slaves to run. A shout would do it. But would Soraya have the archers ready to fire? If flaming arrows didn’t start falling the moment the slaves were free, the Hrum would chase them. And if a Hrum soldier had his hands on an escaping slave when the fire arrows arrived, and himself duty-bound to save the towers above all else, would he let the slave go? Or just slit a throat and be done with it? Kavi couldn’t discount the second possibility, but there was nothing he could do about it except pray that the girl had her archers ready.