Staying within the shelter of a patch of woods, they crossed the low hill and descended into the next valley. There she found several other boys, with horses. They began to chatter away in Kassid until their leader reminded them that they were to speak Ertrian. He smiled apologetically at her.
“Please do not take offense, Jocelyn. It is just that we all wished to see the battle. But we would not have been permitted to be there even if it hadn’t been for you. Promises were made to our parents.”
“I understand,” she said, “and I’m not offended. But there won’t be much to see in any event, will there? Daken plans to sneak in through the tunnel.”
“Yes, but then he will open the gates for the others.” He shrugged unhappily. "We won’t even see that."
Jocelyn stared into the darkness where she could just make out the intervening hillside. "We could if we went back up there.”
The boy hesitated. "Jakka told us to stay down here until someone comes for us.”
"But if I were to insist upon staying up there, you would have to join me, wouldn’t you? I cannot bear not to know what is happening.”
"Uh, well . .
What followed was rapid-fire Kassid as the other boys overheard the conversation. Finally, the leader gave her a grin and another shrug. "You are right. We would have to stay with you."
So they tethered the horses and went back up the hill, stealing through the woods until they reached the top, where they could see the garrison clearly. Lights gleamed in the tower, and the reflected glow of torches could be seen beyond the high walls.
They had brought their sheppas along, including one for her, and now they arrayed themselves at the crest of the hill, crawling into the sacks, then turning over onto their stomachs so they could watch the garrison. Jocelyn was surprised at how quickly she felt warm inside the bulky sack.
Nothing happened for a very long time. The Kas- sid camp was quiet, with only a few campfires burning brightly. As the moon rose high, the guards on the garrison wall and in the towers could be seen.
And then, just as she was losing the battle to stay awake, the howling began. She drew herself up quickly. It wasn't like the other night in the mountains; there were far fewer of them here. But the sounds were just as eerie.
Josek, the boys’ leader, began to laugh softly. "That should give the Menoans something to think about.”
"Have they followed you?" she asked.
"Probably. But they will go no farther than here. The mountains are their home.”
The howling would reach a crescendo, then die away, only to begin again some time later. She thought that if the creatures were capable of thought, they couldn’t have designed a better torment for the Menoans. Silence punctuated by renewed howling was sheer torment—even worse than the continued howling of the other night.
Then, in one of the silences, it occurred to her that these might not be ordinary wolves. She turned to Josek, but found she could not ask the question. Even in the darkness, she had seen his pale eyes. He was one of the "blessed,” though he couldn't be old enough yet to make the change.
She began to drift into a doze, stirring only when the howling was renewed, so she wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she was suddenly jolted awake by other sounds—distant shouts.
"They’re in the garrison!” Josek exclaimed in a loud whisper.
They all strained their ears, listening to the rising sounds of men shouting. Jocelyn knew that the boys must be envisioning the battle even as she tried not to. Where would Daken be? Was he in danger? She could not let herself believe that he was.
Then the big doors of the garrison were suddenly flung open, visible because of the fires revealed in the courtyard beyond. Dark figures could be glimpsed moving about in the flames. And then darker figures could be seen advancing up the hill to the open doors. In the space of a few seconds, it seemed that the entire Kassid army had sprung to life.
The shouting died away gradually, and the flames were extinguished except for torches. The Kassid army began to retreat back down the hillside, but at a leisurely pace.
"It's over,” Josek said happily. "We’ve got the garrison."
A short time later, several Kassid rode into their little camp just as they themselves were returning to the spot where they were supposed to be. They confirmed that the garrison had been taken, and with no loss of life for the Kassid, although there’d been a few injuries.
“Daken sent us to fetch you, Jocelyn,” the one man told her. “He thought you might prefer to spend the remainder of the night in more comfortable surroundings.”
“Is he all right? Was he hurt?”
“He is well,” the man assured her. “The Menoans were taken completely by surprise, thanks to the tunnel."
“And my men—are any of them left alive?”
“Only the garrison commander. He's been badly beaten, but he’ll survive.”
Chapter Ten
As soon as she rode into the garrison, Jocelyn asked to be taken to see Daken. She knew she should also visit the garrison commander, but at the moment, she badly needed to reassure herself that Daken was whole.
She was led through a maze of unfamiliar corridors and then shown into a small room. Daken had been seated on a chair at the bedside of the man she assumed must be the commander. Several Kassid physicians hovered about them.
He turned and rose when she entered the room, blocking her view of the commander, to whom she paid no attention in any event as a surge of relief carried her into Daken’s arms.
“It’s over, maiza,” he murmured against her hair, using the Kassid word for wife that was also a term of endearment. “For now, at least.”
She clung to him, totally oblivious of the man on the bed, who had struggled into a half-sitting position and was gaping at her unabashedly. The empress would surely have remembered her duty to a loyal follower; the woman did not.
Then, as Daken reluctantly released her, she caught sight of the injured man and gasped. “Revi! You are the new commander here?”
He managed to draw his badly swollen mouth into a sad sort of smile. “My first command—and my last, I'm sure. I’m sorry, Jocelyn.”
Jocelyn turned to the curious Daken. “Revi is an old friend of my brother’s, and he’s married to my cousin.”
It was obvious that he was in considerable pain, but Jocelyn was reassured when the physicians told her that he was in no real danger.
“Some broken bones and bruises—and a badly wounded pride,” Revi told her. "They tricked me."
She would have asked more, but Daken intervened, saying that Revi had already given him an accounting and he would tell her later. Revi needed to rest. So she left him to the ministrations of the physicians and followed Daken from the room.
“It appears that the Menoans have a fondness for disguise. The garrison has always been open to Baleks. Merchants and others come and go all the time. The Menoans had left their camp near the Western Road, and garrison scouts saw them headed back toward Menoa. But it was only a ruse. Over a few weeks’ time, they managed to sneak men into the garrison disguised as Baleks. They apparently hid in the unused portions of the garri-
son and then struck in the night, opening the gates to the rest of their men, who had returned by another route.”
"Poor Revi,” Jocelyn murmured. "To lose all his men on his first command. He's right. Hammad will never give him another command.”
“He’s young and inexperienced, and he simply followed the loose security of his predecessors. Hammad should take that into account."
"Yes, he should," Jocelyn agreed. "And I will speak to him about it. Unlike most of the nobles, Revi truly wanted a career with the army, and I think he is a good officer, despite this.”
"And he will be a better one in the future,” Daken stated.
Then he stopped outside a door that was guarded by two of his men. "We spared the lives of three Menoans so they can carry the news back to Arrat. They’re in here."
/>
One of the Kassid guards opened the door, and they walked in to find three young men dressed in the dun-colored uniforms of the Menoan Army. All three stared fearfully at Daken, then gaped at Jocelyn with a faint light of hope. They assumed they would not be killed with a woman present.
"Do you speak Ertrian?” Daken asked.
One of them nodded eagerly, and Daken addressed him in that language.
"Your lives will be spared so that you can carry a message back to Arrat. You will tell him that the garrison has fallen—and you will also tell him that the Kassid have allied themselves with Ertria. I am Daken, leader of the Kassid—and this, as you surely know, is the Empress Jocelyn, who is also my wife."
He paused to wrap a long arm about Jocelyn's waist, then continued in an almost jocular manner. "You may also tell him that any army that can walk through the stone walls of a garrison can easily trample his army."
Then he released Jocelyn and took a few steps toward the three men, dwarfing them all. They all cringed and staggered backward, one of them knocking over a chair in his haste to get away from this giant.
"Tell Arrat to remember carefully all the legends of the Kassid—because they are all true. If he persists in this foolish war, he will learn far more than he wants to know about Kassid magic."
Then he called out to the guards at the door and told them to take the men to the gates and give them horses and weapons, after which they were to be escorted to the Menoan Road. The badly shaken men stumbled out of the room, and Jocelyn turned to Daken with a smile.
"So you walked through walls?" She laughed. "Will they really believe that?”
He returned her smile. "I have no doubt that they will. They know nothing of the tunnel, and they know we didn’t come in through the gates.” Then he quickly sobered again.
"But I also doubt that it will prevent war. By all accounts, Arrat is a stubborn man. However, those three will spread tales about our magic, and that should strike fear into the hearts of Arrat’s army. Fear can make men careless."
"Daken," she said, drawing herself up as though anticipating an argument, "I want to know how you knew about the tunnel.”
He took her arm and began to lead her from the room, but she resisted.
“Come along,” he urged, "so that we can both get some sleep. We knew about the tunnel because this garrison was built by the Kassid centuries ago. We built it for the Baleks’ protection, and for years, both Kassid and Baleks served here.”
"But who were you protecting the Baleks from— and why did you abandon it?"
“We abandoned it because a decision was made by our people to stay within our mountains. The Baleks themselves used it for years after that, and then the Ertrians came.”
"You didn’t say who you were protecting them from,” she reminded him as they entered the garrison commander’s suite.
"From the Ertrians, of course,” was his calm reply-
"I don’t understand, Daken. The Kassid fought alongside my people, not against them.”
"That’s true—but that was long before the Ertrians decided to conquer Balek."
"But if the Baleks regarded you as their protector, how could your people have simply abandoned them?”
"For the same reason we left Ertria. A decision was made not to involve ourselves further in the wars of the time. We simply went back to our ancestral homelands.”
There was more to this, she thought, but he was already stripping off his clothes and she became aware of just how tired she was and how she wanted nothing more now than to fall asleep in his arms.
Beyond the walls of the garrison, the Menoans climbed on their horses and rode off into the waning night, turning back regularly to make sure that the Kassid weren’t following them.
From time to time as they rode toward the border, they heard the howls of wolves that seemed to be keeping pace with them.
When they reached the border two nights later, the howling abruptly stopped. And by the time they carried their message to Arrat, they had also spread the word about the sorcery of the Kassid—and about their giant leader, who had taken the Empress of Ertria as his wife.
They remained at the garrison for several days while Daken and his men recruited Baleks to man the garrison, together with a small group of Kassid. Since it was clear that Revi, the garrison commander, would be unable to travel for some time, Jocelyn accepted the offer of a local Balek nobleman to accompany them to the city, together with some of his own men. All agreed that the presence of a well-known Balek, together with her own presence, would serve to allay the fears of the people they passed along their route.
Two young Baleks were dispatched to the city, carrying messages from Revi and Jocelyn for Ham- mad, informing him of the garrison’s fall and recap-
ture by the Kassid, and alerting him to their arrival as well.
Finally, they set out. They rode hard, covering the distance in far less time than Jocelyn had when she’d first come to the Dark Mountains. She was by now eager to return to the palace, but still she kept swiveling about in the saddle to catch her final glimpses of the mountains as they retreated from jagged peaks to a dark smudge on the horizon, and then vanished.
Both Daken and his men were clearly uneasy as they left behind the low hills of Balek and entered the vast plains of Ertria. Jocelyn felt some of that uneasiness herself, but quickly readjusted to the land she'd always known.
It was easy for them all to believe that war was no more than a vague possibility. Traffic had resumed in earnest on the Western Road, with the coming of spring and the absence of the Menoans, and everywhere the land was being readied for the spring planting.
The long line of Kassid warriors seemed incongruous here even to them, and despite her presence and that of the Balek nobleman and his entourage, the many people they encountered gaped at them in both awe and fear.
They stayed each night at an inn, the proprietors of which were given advance notice by the Baleks. The Kassid army spread themselves about in camps, hunting whenever possible to replenish their food supplies.
On these occasions, which afforded Ertrians their first close look at the Kassid, Jocelyn saw how
they shied away from Daken, while attempting to appear natural and at ease.
When a maid was sent to their room just after their arrival at the first of their inn stopovers, the girl was so uncomfortable in Daken’s presence, and he was so clearly unhappy about her that Jocelyn sent her away, then made sure that none were sent at future stops. But she worried about how he would adjust to the constant presence of numerous servants at the palace. She couldn't very well get rid of them.
“What is their purpose?" he asked when she tried to prepare him for life at the palace. "What do they do that you cannot do for yourself, apart from bringing bath water and tending your clothes?"
"Daken," she said, tired and exasperated after a long day on the road, "I lived as the Kassid live in the Dark Mountains—and you will have to learn to live as I do when we get to the palace."
He gave her a baleful look, then finally nodded. "Very well, but keep them away in the morning. When I awaken, I want to be with you—and you alone."
That, at least, she knew she could do, so she felt somewhat better. But having spoken those words, she now saw the full truth of them—she could and had adjusted to his way of life, but he could never live as she did.
And that, of course, thrust her once more into the darkness that lay ahead—because Daken would never have to adjust to her way of life. After the war—if there was a war—he would be gone.
Still, her eagerness to be home again and to plunge herself into the affairs of state kept her from dwelling overmuch on the future as they rode across the sun-warmed plains. Deep inside, she knew that she would not be returning to things as they’d been before, but she ignored those warnings.
Then one day on the road, an incident occurred that was to trouble her greatly, though she took care to hide it at the time.
&nbs
p; She was riding with Daken and the Balek entourage at the head of the Kassid army when they came upon a group of Sherbas, the strange sect she’d encountered on her trip to the Dark Mountains. They were traveling in the opposite direction and as the two groups drew near, the Sherbas pulled their horses and their black-painted wagons off the road.
Then, to Jocelyn’s amazement, they all prostrated themselves on the ground in front of the party. Both Jocelyn and the Baleks stared at each other in surprise; no one had ever seen them do that before. And then it dawned upon Jocelyn that the object of their adoration was Dakenl At first, she assumed they must be terrified, but before she could think of a way to deal with that, they had risen again and she saw no fear at all in their faces.
Daken merely inclined his head to them and thanked them for moving from the road. As soon as they were out of earshot of the Sherbas, she commented on their unusual behavior, keeping her voice as level as possible.
"Most likely they were just afraid of us,” Daken replied with a shrug.
"Do you know anything about them?” she asked, still in a casual tone even though she was now deeply troubled.
"Not much,” he replied. "They have been around for centuries and cause no harm to anyone as far as I know."
“But what about their beliefs?" she persisted.
"I know nothing of that. They live in your land. Surely you must know something of them.”
Jocelyn admitted that she knew nothing of their beliefs, only that they seemed to have no home, but always traveled about, trading their herbs for their needs.
“They have fine herbs," Endrok, the Balek nobleman put in. "Although I've always wondered how they grow them when they seem to travel all the time."
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