Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy)

by Bell, Hilari

  But a lone man on foot could reach the tunnel’s hidden entrance just as the sky in the east began to brighten. The wheel that opened the hatch had been oiled; it still grated a bit, but not nearly as loudly as it had before.

  Kavi hurried down the walkway making all the noise he could, for he wanted the tunnel guards to intercept him. It took them a cursed long time, but finally a lance shot across his path, into the water.

  “Halt, and remove your—”

  “I don’t have time for that, and it doesn’t matter,” Kavi interrupted firmly. “I am marked as a Hrum spy, and the council knows it, and if I know Mazad, every apprentice and kitchen girl knows it too. I need to see Commander Siddas. Now.”

  IT TOOK A BIT MORE ARGUMENT, but Kavi had never been shy about arguing. He was sitting in Commander Siddas’ spartan office before breakfast time. He ignored the two guardsmen who stood by the door, but they made up for that by never taking their eyes off him. They looked quite disappointed when the commander came into the office and closed the door behind him—like a pair of hounds watching a bone they’d hoped for, thrown into the soup pot instead.

  “I understand your news is urgent,” said Commander Siddas, sitting down behind his desk. Kavi appreciated a man who could get to the point.

  “I hope it’s not,” he said. “By the Wheel, I’m praying I’m wrong, but if I’m not . . .”

  He told the guard commander all the girl had said, watching his worried frown deepen. The more Kavi talked, the slighter his evidence sounded. “I know it’s not much,” he finished. “A few fragments of sentences. But Garren . . . He’s a cold bastard. Not the sort to be hitting someone for no reason. Not a man to lash out in anger. If he hit someone, there’s a reason for it. Though that girl could enrage stone, if she was trying,” he added ruefully. “I expect you think I’m a fool, running all this way with so little, but . . .” But what? Away from the girl’s dark-eyed urgency, with the sun shining through the narrow window, the whole seemed nothing but moon wisps.

  Commander Siddas leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “I wish I thought you were wrong. This explains some things I’ve been wondering about as well. But we’ve no proof, and without it . . . What a flaming mess.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked tired, though the day was just starting. And he hadn’t been running across the countryside all night.

  “Explains what?” Kavi asked.

  “Shortly after you brought in that food shipment, Hrum activity around the city increased notably,” said the commander.

  “I saw the patrols on my way in,” Kavi confirmed. “I’ve a second shipment all but ready to move, but I’ve no idea how to get thirty wagons past all those eyes. Not to mention the swords,” he added.

  “Yes, well, I found myself wondering why they suddenly became so active,” Siddas went on. “It was as if they’d learned that we got the food—just days after we received it—but they didn’t know how we brought it in. They searched the area near the city thoroughly—we could see them from the walls. Fortunately the aqueduct entrances are farther out than they thought to look. And they weren’t paying particular attention to the riverbank, which made me certain they didn’t know what they were looking for.”

  Kavi frowned. “How could they know about the food at all, unless—”

  “Someone told them,” Siddas agreed. “That was my thought. We expelled all the Hrum spies before the siege started—and they were easy to find.” He gestured to Kavi’s shoulder. “So whoever it was had to be a townsman the Hrum had suborned, but not marked. But if it was a townsman, then why didn’t he tell the Hrum about the tunnels?”

  “Anyone who grew up here would know,” Kavi agreed. “It’s not something we talk about with outsiders. It’s part of Mazad’s defenses, after all, but everyone knows about it.”

  “So the Hrum agent has to be an outsider,” said Siddas. “Someone the townsfolk wouldn’t talk to. Someone the Hrum wouldn’t dare mark.”

  “But the governor has to know about the aqueducts,” Kavi protested. “They were built by that old gahn, with the city’s defense in mind. The governor back then probably oversaw their construction!”

  “True,” said Siddas. “But there’ve been lots of governors since. Governors who died in office and didn’t have time to train their successors. Governors who wouldn’t have given a thought to where the water came from, or the sewage went, so long as it worked. Nehar’s that type. I doubt any thought of water or sewage has ever so much as crossed his mind. And you may think that the secret of those tunnels is badly kept, but I didn’t know you could get into the aqueducts from inside the city till the council told me, and I’ve been a guard here for almost twenty years. It was townsmen’s business, and the guard wasn’t town. Not then.”

  “So you think Nehar doesn’t know about the tunnels,” said Kavi. “And he somehow got word to the Hrum that we’d got food in, but he couldn’t explain how.”

  “It would fit with the way they’ve been acting,” said Siddas. “But until now, I thought it was probably one of the guardsmen who are loyal to the governor, not the governor himself.”

  “The guardsmen who are loyal to him,” Kavi repeated. “Would there be a lot of them?”

  “Almost a third of the guard,” Siddas confirmed grimly. “So just arresting him probably wouldn’t work, even if we had solid evidence, and as it stands . . . I can’t allow an internal war to break out inside these walls. If it did, the Hrum would be at our gates in moments. We can fend them off now, united. If we were fighting each other, we couldn’t.”

  “So what can you do?” asked Kavi, chilled. “If a third of the guard is prepared to betray you—”

  “I don’t think the guardsmen themselves would betray us.” Siddas sounded as if he was working it out as he spoke. “Not most of them. Not if I had time to explain, and evidence to present to them. So the first step is to get that evidence. For that I have two men I trust, close to the governor. A gift from the other Sorahb, they were.”

  Why did that make him smile? “Is there anything I can do?”

  Siddas’ sober gaze was suddenly laced with amusement. “There are several things you could do for us,” the commander said. “Important things. If you care to try.”

  “What?” Kavi made no attempt to keep his sudden suspicion out of his voice, and Siddas smiled again.

  “I admit it’s a lot to ask,” he said. “But the thing I want most is the next shipment of food.”

  Kavi opened his mouth to repeat that he couldn’t get past the patrols, but Siddas lifted a hand for silence. “And that’s not all I want—I want to distract the Hrum from the tunnels, so I want you to bring this shipment in by some other route. And I want the Hrum to know that you’ve done it.”

  Kavi frowned. “Except for the aqueducts, the only way into the city I know of is through the front gate.”

  “Then it will be easy for the Hrum to find out about it, won’t it?” said Siddas.

  “You expect me to drive thirty wagons through the front gate in full view of the entire Hrum army? How?”

  “I have no idea,” Siddas admitted. “But if you could do it, it would not only get us the food and distract the Hrum from the tunnels, it would probably force Nehar to report. If we can find out how he’s contacting the Hrum, perhaps even catch him in the act, then maybe we can convince his guardsmen to give him up without a fight.”

  “But that’s impossible!” Kavi exclaimed. “The whole army would have to be asleep on their feet, or . . . hmm.”

  Siddas waited patiently, but after a long moment he said, “ ‘Hmm’ must be promising.”

  “What? Oh. I wouldn’t go as far as promising,” said Kavi. “But it’s maybe worth some thought. Maybe even worth a visit to the town’s apothecary . . .”

  HE DID VISIT THE APOTHECARY, and they had a long chat. After he left the city, he located an empty barn outside the area the Hrum were searching, and sent for the scattered supplies.

  And
while he waited for their arrival, he’d have time to take the girl to the Suud, as she’d requested.

  Kavi’s informants had told him a lot about the army that young fool had gathered in the mountains, and Kavi didn’t want to run into them—if news of the meaning of the tattoo on his shoulder was out, who knew how fast it might have spread, and where? So instead of passing through the croft, he took her down the dizzying trail he, Jiaan and the girl had first used to descend the great cliff to the desert.

  The view over the maze of stone spires and twisting canyons was as awe inspiring as ever, and the drop from the edge of the trail as sheer, but the girl paid little heed to either, rushing down so fast that Kavi reached out to restrain her several times. It was good that she wasn’t afraid of heights, but still . . .

  “I know you’re in a hurry to get to the bottom, lass, but the fastest route isn’t always the best! Especially not in this case.”

  “I won’t fall,” she said impatiently. “This . . .” Her gesture seemed to take in the towering rocks, the open sky, even the heat of the late-afternoon sun reflecting off the barren earth. “This is home.”

  But she slowed her headlong pace a bit and they all reached the bottom in one piece, to Kavi’s relief. “What next?” he asked, scratching Duckie’s ears soothingly, though the mule appeared to have no more fear of heights than the girl. “This being your home, and all.”

  While he was in Mazad, Soraya had purchased a small bag of dried beans to give to the Suud, saving the money from the scant funds he’d left her. When he asked about it, she shrugged. “It’s symbolic,” she’d said, and added nothing more.

  Now she stood with her head cocked, listening. Kavi heard nothing but the soft sigh of the wind—a wind too soft to lessen the heat that was already making him sweat.

  “They’re here,” she said.

  “Who’s here?” He couldn’t see anyone.

  “The Suud. They must be posting watchers on all the cliff trails, even in the day.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted a string of bouncing, liquid syllables that echoed off the rocks.

  “You speak Suud?” Kavi was impressed.

  “I had most of the winter to learn it,” she said. “Now we wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For night.” You idiot, her sardonic glance added. It was obvious, now that she’d said it. Kavi knew that the Suud were nocturnal.

  “You don’t need to stay,” she went on. “I owe you more than I can ever repay, for freeing me, for bringing me here. But I’m fine now.”

  “I’ll see you into your friends’ hands, nonetheless.” Kavi looked around till he found a patch of shade big enough to shelter Duckie, as well as himself and the girl. It was a good thing darkness was only a few marks off, or they’d need more water than they carried. “As for owing, the news you brought to Mazad will more than make up for any trouble I went to. Though I do have a question for you. You know that the Hrum’s swords are better than ours?”

  Soraya nodded. “Ours break and theirs don’t. At least, that’s what the soldiers said. There’s some secret about the way they make them, but I never heard what it was. Most of the soldiers didn’t know.”

  “Part of the secret seems to be that they’re forged in layers,” said Kavi. He fished the chip of watersteel out of his purse and turned it in his fingers, feeling its cool smoothness, its strength. It felt different than any other steel, though he couldn’t quite tell what the difference was.

  “Here.” He held it out to the girl. “Take a look.”

  She reached for the chip of steel, but the moment her hand touched his, she jerked back, staring at him with widened eyes.

  Kavi frowned. “It won’t bite you. You could cut yourself if you really tried, but it’s not going to slice your fingers off on its own.”

  “No.” Her startled gaze narrowed in speculation. She was looking at him, not the steel. “No, I don’t suppose it will.”

  “What’s the problem?” Kavi asked. “Did I suddenly grow a third eye or something?”

  “No. Well, actually yes, in a sense. Never mind.”

  She took the steel crescent from his hand. “I see the layers. Is that what makes it stronger?”

  “Not entirely,” said Kavi. “I’ve a friend, a sword smith, who’s been trying to duplicate this. He can make the layers, but the blade still doesn’t turn out like the Hrum’s. It takes a better edge than ours, but it’s brittle.”

  “So the layers aren’t the secret,” she said, passing the watersteel back to him.

  “I think they’re part of it,” said Kavi. “But there’s something else, as well. There are rumors that there’s some kind of superior ore in the desert. I was wondering, since you’ve obviously spent time here, if you’d heard anything about it?”

  “No.” She said it without hesitation, but her eyes flicked away. “No, I don’t know anything about that.”

  It felt like a lie to Kavi, the first she’d told him. But here, with the silent rocks looking down on them, and perhaps Suud watchers listening, he decided not to pursue it. If the desert held secrets, it could keep them, as far as Kavi was concerned.

  THEY CAME SHORTLY AFTER SUNSET—far sooner than Kavi had expected them—two dozen Suud, streaming out of the shadowed canyons like pale ghosts. Except that ghosts didn’t wear striped robes, or carry such wicked-sharp spears.

  The girl wasn’t intimidated. She shot to her feet, smiling a welcome as her eyes raced from one face to another until she found the one she was looking for. She ran past the threatening spears without a glance and into the arms of an old woman, several inches shorter than she was, but who hugged her like a mother hugs a daughter who’s been gone too long.

  Even as Kavi smiled, he noticed that most of the Suud who carried spears were looking at him. And they didn’t look friendly. Clearly the girl was right about being welcome here, and clearly he was not.

  Kavi took Duckie’s lead rope, nodded politely to the folk with the spears, and led the mule back to the cliff trail.

  The moon was just rising, nearly full. He would make camp at the top of the cliff and get on his way tomorrow. It would take several days to get back to Mazad, and he had a lot to do before he could move the shipment.

  Halfway up the trail, he turned to look back. The Suud and the girl were gone, as if they’d never been there. It looked as uninhabited, and uninhabitable, as any place Kavi had ever seen, but he wasn’t fooled. The spears were there, waiting for any who tried to enter the desert without the Suud’s permission. No wonder the miners who went in search of that superior ore never came back. Kavi wouldn’t have tried it, even for watersteel.

  HIS NEXT MEETING, four days later, was easier to arrange, but reaching a satisfactory conclusion proved harder.

  “You mean to poison the whole Hrum camp?” one of his most reliable agents asked incredulously. “I didn’t think you were that . . . um . . .”

  “I’m not going to kill them,” said Kavi. “Just make them sick for a while. And I probably won’t be able to get the whole camp—two thirds, if I’m lucky. But that will be enough to force them to bring the patrols in to protect the camp, and we can get the wagons to the aqueduct entrance and get the supplies inside.”

  “All the wagons except the five that you’ll be driving,” said his agent. “You and four volunteers, assuming you can find anyone crazy enough—”

  “It’s not as crazy as it sounds,” Kavi insisted, hoping he was right. “Any scheme based on human greed has a lot going for it. But I’ll be needing a copy of a brewer’s mark. Someone who’s been selling to the Hrum. They’ll trust casks with a familiar mark on them more than casks from a brewer they don’t know.”

  The agent was eyeing him warily again. “There’s no one I hate that much. Even if they do sell beer to the Hrum.”

  Kavi sighed. He didn’t hate them either, although the brewer who supplied most of the beer to the Hrum’s camp at Mazad had just suffered the misfortune of losing an enti
re shipment to a barging accident—courtesy of Sorahb. Kavi couldn’t risk the Hrum ordnancer putting his “Sorahb brew” into a supply tent and leaving it there for the next month; it had to be served while Kavi was in the camp. Kavi knew the financial loss would hurt the brewer, but it wouldn’t bankrupt him altogether. And as for getting some other brewer killed . . .

  “What makes you think I’ve gone bloodthirsty all of a sudden?” Kavi asked. “I’m going to forge a copy of the brewer’s mark you give me, but with several things different. Enough that anyone who looks closely will know it’s a forgery. The brewer won’t suffer for it.”

  “No, but you might, if they look too close at your clever, forged mark before they start drinking.”

  “Until they start getting sick, they’ll have no reason to look closely.”

  “Unless they taste the poison, or—”

  “They won’t,” said Kavi confidently. “My brewer and the apothecary worked together for three days to get it right.”

  And if the curses of the brewer’s assistants had any effect on the Wheel’s turning, Kavi was due for a long spell in the Flame. They had been recruited as taste testers.

  Eventually Kavi got the information he needed, and promises for the help he’d need as well. But it took more time and argument than any other plan he’d proposed. Admittedly this scheme was wilder than most. But it was the only thing he could think of to accomplish all Siddas’ goals. It should work. It had better work, for if it failed, Kavi, and the four other men who’d volunteered to help him, would be taken by the Hrum. And while the other men would be sold as slaves—far from trivial!—Kavi was marked as one of their own. The Hrum had a very short way with traitors.

  A WEEK AND A HALF LATER, about two marks before sunset, Kavi drove an oxcart loaded with beer barrels up the road that led past Mazad. Of all the things that worried him, the most pressing was that he wasn’t a very good ox carter. The man who’d volunteered the wagons had also agreed to sell them the oxen, but given the likelihood that they’d be trapped in Mazad and eaten, the master carter had offered only his oldest oxen. That was fine with Kavi, since the oldest were also the cheapest. He’d soon discovered another advantage in that the oldest oxen were also the most placid and best trained. The beast Kavi was driving didn’t pay much attention to Kavi’s commands, but he took the wagon where Kavi wanted it to go and stopped when Kavi wanted him to stop. Well, more or less.