Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy)

by Bell, Hilari

  The four volunteers in the other wagons—experienced carters all—had enjoyed a good laugh at his antics as he tried to convince the stubborn beast to do as he wanted, but if he really got in trouble they would come to his aid. Several people had tried to convince Kavi to let them do it all—and he wished he could agree—but Kavi didn’t trust anyone but himself to negotiate with the Hrum patrol.

  Another thing that hadn’t concerned him was finding a Hrum patrol—they’d been so thick around Mazad that Kavi, alone and on foot, had trouble avoiding them. He hadn’t been able to get his final message into Mazad to tell Commander Siddas to expect them tonight, but the commander knew it would be soon and Kavi had decided it wasn’t worth risking a life to try to send someone else.

  So five oxcarts that were looking for a patrol shouldn’t have any trouble finding one. Of course, there was always a chance that the officer in charge wouldn’t be an arrogant fool, but a bit of rudeness would change that, even if the man wasn’t an ass to start with.

  All he needed now was a patrol. But since the Wheel never spun as you wanted it to, the small cart train had almost reached the road that turned off to the city before a patrol came marching toward them. A foot patrol, who’d likely been walking all day. Bound to be tired and cross. And thirsty. Kavi suppressed a grin.

  “Off the road,” he shouted, flourishing his goad. “Make way, make way.”

  A few of the men started to shift their formation to the side, but the officer, predictably, came to a halt in the center of the road and folded his arms. His men, seeing his intention, dressed their lines behind him.

  Kavi began trying to stop the ox, but the ox didn’t seem to be interested in stopping. Despite Kavi’s increasingly frantic shouts, it lumbered on toward the Hrum commander, who appeared to have made up his mind to let the beast trample him before he yielded the road. Though surely if it came to the test . . .

  Trampling the patrol wasn’t part of his plans. Kavi jabbed frantically with the goad, but the ox ignored him. The officer was crouching to leap aside when the ox finally braced its feet and came to a stop, right in front of him, huffing hot breath into the man’s face through its great nostrils.

  The officer settled back into place, warily enough that Kavi suppressed another grin. Then he changed his mind—why not begin as he meant to go on? He’d already made a fine first impression.

  “I told you to clear the road,” he snapped, just as the officer opened his mouth. “I’ve a load of fine, strong beer for the mining camps, and I want to make it to the foothills by sunset. So if you’d get your . . . selves off the road, I’d be appreciating it.”

  He was tempted to make the speech longer, to annoy the officer even more, but he didn’t want to overdo it. Judging by the color rising in the man’s face, he was close to overstepping that line, so he folded his arms and waited.

  The officer, having lost his chance to speak first, made up for it by taking his time to reply, but eventually he spoke. “All carts on this road are subject to search, by order of Substrategus Arus. All citizens of the empire are required to give way to units of the army on the road. In your ignorance, you may not have known this, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  His tone implied that Farsalans were ignorant to the point of barbarism, and that Kavi was the worst of the lot. But for all his annoyance—it’s alarming to have an ox and loaded wagon rolling down on you like an avalanche—he seemed to be an honest man. Curse him. But Kavi could change that.

  “Search?” he sputtered indignantly. “What do you mean, search? You think Sorahb is hidden among my casks? Or in one?” He snorted. “I’d think you wanted to steal a nip, but beer this strong is a man’s drink. And I’ll not have you breaching my casks—it’d drive down the price. But feel free to search for all the warriors you fear . . . ah, imagine might be there. The sooner you’re done, the sooner you’ll clear the road.”

  Several lances, which had been carried at rest, were now pointing in Kavi’s direction. The officer’s face was flushed with annoyance, but he only planted his feet more firmly and studied Kavi with insulting deliberation. Kavi returned his gaze, unflinching.

  He’d considered, and rejected, the idea of growing a beard or mustache. Almost all Farsalans were clean shaven, and he’d feared it would only make them pay more attention to his features. In the end, all he’d done was to cut his hair shorter than he usually wore it, and darken both hair and skin with walnut stain. His general description already matched half the peasants in Farsala—this just made him match the description of the other half. There were advantages to being ordinary.

  The hard part would be to keep them from noticing his scarred hand—but he’d feared that gloves, like a beard, would draw more attention than they diverted.

  “We will search the carts,” said the officer finally. “And you needn’t fear it will affect the price. I’m confiscating this beer for the use of the imperial army.”

  “What!” Kavi squawked. Took you long enough. “You can’t do that! I demand to speak to your commander!”

  WITH NEAR PERFECT TIMING, they rolled into the camp right at sunset, so Kavi’s negotiations with the camp’s ordnancer took place in the dimming light of dusk.

  Kavi drew out his protests and negotiations as long as he could—just like any merchant trying to make a profit. If the Hrum had bought his beer in the market, he’d have been able to set the price and they could pay or leave it, like any other buyer. Because they’d confiscated his load, the ordnancer could set his own price for recompense. The price he held fast on was fair, though on the low end of fair. With a pang of remorse Kavi accepted the purse the clerks finally brought out.

  When the deghans’ armies had confiscated something—and they often did—they had hardly ever paid. Soraya’s father had been one of the few exceptions to that rule. Kavi wished that the Hrum would just take the beer—he’d feel less guilt over what he was about to do. But Hrum law insisted that confiscated goods must be paid for.

  They were better than the deghans, in every way but two. And if he’d been taken as a slave, or drafted into their army, he might not think they were better at all. Having all or part of your life stolen was the ultimate confiscation.

  So Kavi shrugged off regret, and after the bargain had been struck, he fell into grumbling conversation with the clerks. He was even able to work in his tale that there’d been sickness in the town where he picked up the beer.

  “Not serious,” he assured them, as they counted the casks and made note of the brewer’s mark. That didn’t worry him either. In the twilight it looked very like the three hop flowers with twining leaves that a well-known local brewer branded onto his kegs. In the daylight they would soon see that the delicate stems that connected the leaves in the real brewer’s mark were absent, and the flowers themselves were smaller, and less well defined. Tebin had done a brilliant job of forging the brand, once he’d been assured that the apothecary’s potion wouldn’t kill anyone.

  “It spreads like lightning,” Kavi told the clerks. “One day there’s just a few with their bowels disturbed, and the next day half the town’s perched in privies, or on their slop pots. The good news is that it’s not lethal. At least, no one had died of it when we left, and pretty much everyone was recovering. A couple of my carters had it, and they felt good enough to set out yesterday.”

  The clerks exchanged glances. “Maybe you’d better talk to the surgeons,” one said. “I think a couple of our men were having trouble with their bowels this morning.”

  “I’d be glad to,” said Kavi cheerfully. “Though I can’t tell them much more than I’ve told you.”

  He’d been delighted when the apothecary told him the chief symptom of his chosen potion—for in any group of thirteen hundred men, a few were bound to be having trouble with their bowels. And if they were worrying about disease, it might take them longer to realize the truth and start searching for the carters.

  So even as the strong beer—and it
was strong beer—was served in the meal tent with dinner, Kavi went to the surgeon’s tent to talk about disease. As he crossed the square, he heard several of the men who’d come off duty praising the brew and urging others to try it. He had little hope that those about to go out on night patrol would do so—or at least that they’d drink enough to affect them more than mildly—for the Hrum were as well-disciplined about drunkenness as they were about everything else. But he did have some hope of snaring the officers.

  The surgeons showed a fine, professional interest in the disease, speculating on which of several common disorders it might be. Though they made him nervous when they added that contaminated water or food supplies were the most common cause of a sudden, widespread outbreak.

  Kavi was still talking to them when the first man stumbled in, clutching his belly and grimacing. It was one of the clerks who’d inspected the casks, and Kavi guessed that he’d taken advantage of the moment to closely examine a healthy draft of the brew. For all their laws and discipline, the Hrum were human after all.

  Kavi professed ignorance as to whether this could be the same disease they’d been talking about, excused himself to the surgeons, and slipped off to find his carters.

  He finally located them at a table in the meal tent, where they sat with four tankards in front of them that hopefully held something besides the beer they’d brought in. Kavi wondered how they’d turned it down without making anyone suspicious, but they weren’t under guard, so they’d evidently succeeded.

  They looked up and grinned at his approach. “They’re guzzling it down,” one of the men reported softly, “like . . . um . . .”

  “Like soldiers who’ve been marching in the heat all day?” Kavi suggested. “We were counting on that. But it’ll be acting soon, and those surgeons aren’t fools. We’d best be out of sight by the time they figure it out.”

  The Hrum located every tent in each of their camps in the same position, so Kavi had no trouble finding the laundry tent. It was empty now, the workers off duty for the night, and hopefully drinking beer. Kavi fought down another surge of guilt, as he and his carters traded their peasant clothes for Hrum tunics and scarlet cloaks—long-sleeved tunics to hide their lack of rank tattoos. Azura be thanked, the nights were colder now. They buried their own clothes under a pile of dirty bedding. They would no doubt be discovered tomorrow, but by then it would be too late.

  “Should we wait here?” one of the carters asked.

  “No,” said Kavi. “I want to be ready to load the carts with Hrum supplies and we’ll have to do that fairly fast, so we’d best stay near the carts. But not too near. And remember, if anyone says anything to you, just clutch your belly and moan, then head off toward the surgeon’s tent. Your accents won’t pass.”

  Kavi was the only one who spoke more than a few words of Hrum, and he feared his accent wasn’t the best. But for just a few words, in a night full of chaos and confusion, it should do. At least, it might. It would have to.

  They knew it would take several long, unnerving marks for the apothecary’s potion to have its full impact. Kavi and his carters found a shadowy nook near the supply tent, where the wagons were still parked. Best of all, if he peered around a corner, Kavi could see the surgeon’s tent on the other side of the square. He worried about all of them staying together, but one man produced a small set of the Hrum’s battle dice, so they could account for their presence if they had to.

  The camp was quiet, however, and they were sufficiently well hidden that the night watch passed them by. At least, the camp was quiet until the potion began to take effect. First a few men, then a handful, then a small stream headed for the surgeon’s tent. A surgeon’s assistant summoned one of the sentries, who ran off in the direction of the officer’s quarters.

  “So it begins,” Kavi muttered, trying to rub the tension out of his neck muscles. “But will they think it’s a disease, or poison?”

  That question was answered when another surgeon’s assistant trotted over to the supply tent with an armload of empty jugs, and came out a few moments later. But now he carried the jugs as if they were full.

  “Fetching samples?” one of the men asked.

  “I told you they weren’t fools,” Kavi replied.

  “Will they be able to figure out what we used?” another man asked.

  “They might.” Kavi shrugged. “It’ll make no difference in the end. There’s some standard remedies that will help with the symptoms, but the apothecary said there’s no cure except to let the stuff work its way through your system.”

  Many men were going to the surgeon’s tent, but still more, Kavi saw, were heading straight for the latrines. Lines were forming, and he didn’t think these men would be able to wait.

  “So even if they realize it’s poison, it won’t make any difference,” the first of his volunteers concluded hopefully.

  “Well, just one difference,” said Kavi. “If they know it’s poison, they’ll start looking for us.”

  A handful of healthy men lit torches along the main streets, allowing the stumbling, moaning men to at least see where they were going.

  Kavi saw several officers, including one he thought was Substrategus Arus himself, being helped to the surgeon’s tent by their servants, most of whom looked as if they could use some help too. But there were some men his beer hadn’t tempted, and clearly one of them was in charge.

  Five men hurried into the ordnance tent and came out with armloads of shovels, which they carried off to the men lined up by the latrines.

  The men toward the back of the lines seized them, and took off as rapidly as they could across the small rise behind the latrines. It was far enough from both the camp and the river not to contaminate anything—at least, assuming they made it over the rise. The way they were walking, Kavi wasn’t sure they would. It had been dry for several days now, and though the nights were growing cooler, it wasn’t so cold that a night on the ground would kill anyone, even a man too sick to make it back to his tent. The apothecary had promised that no one would die from this, so Kavi suppressed his sympathy. A task that became easier as four of the night watch came into view.

  When Kavi had seen them before, they’d been patrolling on their own. Now they stayed together, and while two of them carried torches, which they used to look into the dark alleys between the tents, two carried drawn swords.

  “Looking for us?” one of his men murmured.

  “Most likely. It may be time for us to split up, my friends.” But instead they huddled closer, to Kavi and each other, and he didn’t order them to scatter. He wasn’t looking forward to wandering through this bedlam, trying to pass himself off as a Hrum soldier—and he spoke the language.

  The watch searched the empty buildings as well as the alleys, so their approach was slow. But Kavi was drawing a breath to order his men to leave this secluded trap when a group of five soldiers caught his eye. They were clearly healthy for they moved rapidly, almost running across the square . . . straight for the supply wagons.

  Kavi’s breath hissed through his teeth as one of them mounted the first wagon and goaded the ox into motion. His whole plan depended on stealing those wagons back! The soldier guided the ox forward and stopped it in front of the supply tent, where his comrades had already gone in. Now they began to emerge, rolling beer kegs in front of them.

  It was a perfect chance . . . if he dared take it. Kavi took a deep breath, which did less than he’d hoped to quell the shivering in his belly. “Follow me.”

  He strode out of the alley, trying to look as if he’d just used it because it was the quickest route, and went up to the soldier who’d driven the wagon.

  “Our tactimian sent us to help you,” he said. “To take over, if that would be better. We didn’t drink any beer, so we’re working tonight.” He tried to sound like a soldier roused from sleep to deal with a minor emergency—half excited, half disgusted. He tried to sound like a Hrum, and to his own ears didn’t quite succeed. But after all, the
re were many lands in the empire and many soldiers had accents.

  The soldier he spoke to didn’t look suspicious. “Good. We’re to help the surgeons when we’re finished, but they could use us now. They could use five of each of us. Great Lokkar, what a mess. Do you know where to dump the stuff?”

  “Out of camp, away from the river,” said Kavi. “That’s all I was told.”

  “Out in the farmland,” said the man. He pointed toward the fields, now rank with weeds, that surrounded the suburbs of Mazad. “Hey! Head on over to the surgeons and make yourselves useful. These men will handle the loading, and get rid of this stuff.”

  “And good riddance to it,” said Kavi. “Have they thought to bring in the patrols yet?”

  “Almost a mark ago,” the Hrum confirmed, to his great delight. “They should start coming in any time. Though I think if someone was going to attack us, they’d have done it already. At least, goddess be praised, they’re still coming after us and not the hidden camp.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Kavi. “They won’t be attacking us tonight.” Hidden camp? What hidden camp? And where, and why?

  The man was turning away—how to phrase it! “But I think we’re every bit as important as the hidden camp. Probably more. After all, they’ll not take Mazad without us.” His urgency made his accent slip. He held his breath.

  “Yeah, but we won’t be able to get past those walls without the siege towers.” The man was moving off, his reply barely audible. “So they’re every bit as . . .”