“I would think, Princess,” Chantmer began, “that any slave of yours in these troubled times should double as a bodyguard.”
Sadira turned her head and looked up at him. Her eyes widened slightly, but she controlled her reaction, and Chantmer could only guess at what she might be thinking.
“There were more than a hundred men in the palace guard, and they couldn’t protect my brother,” she said. “What use is a pair of slaves? I am still here by the grace of King Toth, may he live forever, and my existence depends on the good will of the king’s pasha. A noble, enlightened man, I assure you. No, I have no need of guards.”
Was that irony in Sadira’s tone? It wasn’t obsequiousness, as he might have expected.
“What about the eunuch at the door?” he asked. “Isn’t he a guard of sorts?”
“For show. So that the palace gossipers will not question my virtue.” A slow, languid smile. “Except for with my beautiful slaves, but that is to be expected.” Sadira reached out and caressed the hand of the young woman, who was kneading the small of the princess’s back. Then her voice turned demanding. “Remove the oil—I wish to enter the bath again.”
The two slaves took a pair of wooden paddles and scraped the oil from her skin. Narud returned as they were finishing, but the princess merely glanced at him before she slipped into the hot water with a gasp that turned into a sigh.
“I am Chantmer, and this is Narud. We are representatives of the Crimson Path.”
“I am aware of who you are. Nathaliey Liltige’s companions. The traitor’s daughter.”
“Is that what they call the vizier? A traitor?” Chantmer looked down on the princess with disdain. “A strange choice of words for one who risked his life to defend the khalifate from enemies.”
“Kandibar fought the high king. That makes him a traitor in the deepest sense of the word. And from what I understand, you are traitors, too.”
“We don’t serve the so-called high king, and we never will. The Crimson Path never bent its knee to Omar, either, so there is nothing and nobody we could have betrayed.”
“Why are you here?”
Chantmer hadn’t known whether Sadira would prove to be a half-wit, a cunning striver, or something else entirely. He hadn’t answered all his questions, but she was not stupid, that much was clear.
“You know why we’re here. Or you are clever enough to guess, at least.”
Sadira laughed and slipped lower in the water until it rose to her chin and steam enveloped her head. “You are fools, the both of you. Don’t you know they’re hunting you? Why stay in the palace? Flee to your gardens and prepare yourselves for death. My king will find you and end your little order of pretend wizards soon enough.”
Narud tugged on Chantmer’s sleeve. But he wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Send away your slaves so we can speak frankly.”
“I am speaking frankly, you pompous excuse for a man. But if it will make you leave me alone more quickly, so be it.”
Sadira snapped her fingers and made a waving motion toward the private door behind them. The slaves bowed and backed their way out of the room. When they were gone, the princess lifted herself to the stone lip of the basin, and water ran down her skin, which still gleamed from the oil.
“They are beautiful,” she said, “but I didn’t choose them for their appearance. I needed them simple—that was intentional. They’ll relay what they heard, how loyal I seemed. How I rebuffed you in clear terms.”
Chantmer nodded. “I thought it was an act.”
“But was it?” Narud asked him. “You haven’t proven otherwise.”
“No, he hasn’t proven it,” Sadira said. “And he won’t, either.”
“Is it true that you’ll marry the pasha?” Chantmer asked.
She didn’t answer the question. “Would either of you like to enter the water? That work you do—hunched over books, skulking about—must leave you stiff and aching.”
“Thank you, but I just arrived from the gardens this morning,” Narud said. “We have baths there. Water from hot springs—it is cleaner and more refreshing.”
“And you, tall proud one? Chantmer, is it?”
The truth was, Chantmer hadn’t bathed properly since leaving the gardens, and wouldn’t mind a good soak while they continued to talk. But he’d been wary since his encounter with Zartosht a few days ago, and there was no way he would lower his defenses here. The two slaves might not be so simple as the princess claimed, or the eunuch might wake from the stupor Narud had left him in. Or the dark acolytes might sniff their way down here looking for them.
“Very well,” Sadira said when he didn’t make a move. She slid back into the water. “As to your question, why wouldn’t I marry him?”
“The pasha is old, fat, lame, and blind in one eye, for a start,” Chantmer said.
“Very true, but I wouldn’t marry him out of love or passion. What do you mean, for a start?”
“He also had your brother killed.”
“That was King Toth.” None of that “may he live forever,” nonsense now. “Izak wasn’t even in Syrmarria when it happened.”
“But Izak was complicit,” Chantmer said. “Once Pasha Malik fell, Izak became Toth’s general in Aristonia, and that means that the torturers work under his command. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that Izak is a gentler soul than his predecessor.”
Sadira let out a bitter laugh. “How could I think that? If I stand on my balcony, I can see my brother’s skin flapping in the wind. They brought me to the dungeons once, and let me see the vizier in chains.”
“Oh, yes, the vizier. The traitor. Isn’t that how you put it? And how did his screams sound to your ears?”
“They terrified me, wizard,” she said. “What else would they have done?”
Chantmer glanced at Narud, who stood silently with his hands clasped in front of him. He couldn’t tell if his companion had already given up hope on the princess, or if he was thinking other thoughts.
“It didn’t arouse any compassion?” Chantmer pressed.
“Compassion is a virtue I cannot allow myself. If I feel compassion, then I start thinking about how to free the man. And then maybe I talk to someone—maybe the pasha, maybe only my slaves—and then what do you suppose happens?”
“I see.”
“They’re going to kill Kandibar Liltige,” Narud said. “He’ll be dead in two days if we don’t free him.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Why would they do that?”
Chantmer lifted an eyebrow at the naivety of the question. “As an example to others, of course.”
“My brother Omar is example enough. You can’t enter the city without seeing what’s left of him. The vizier is a different sort of example.” Sadira rose from the water and took a folded towel from the edge of the table where her slaves had left the oil and combs. “They want him down there languishing, with occasional reports of his pain and suffering, for as long as possible. Weeks, months. Maybe years.”
“Even if you’re right,” Chantmer said, “you’re still abandoning him to suffering at the hands of the enemy.”
“Your enemy, not mine.”
“What is wrong with you?” Chantmer asked. “Don’t you want the vizier freed?”
“The pair of you came here hoping to bend me to your will. You would make me promises of the kind that could never be fulfilled in return for my help. That I would organize a palace uprising, or maybe step forward when you brought Syrmarria to revolt. We’d free the vizier from the dungeon, and with a loyal minister at our side, the people of Aristonia would rise in righteous fury. Somehow they would accomplish what the whole of the khalifates haven’t yet managed, and that is to defeat King Toth—his pashas, his armies, and the gray-skinned warriors who make people afraid to leave their homes whenever they are in the city.”
Chantmer had no response. This was, in fact, more or less what he and Narud had discussed, what they had hoped to accomplish.
“Again
st this plan of certain and catastrophic defeat,” the princess continued, working the towel at her hair to absorb the excess moisture, “I have been given the option of marrying the pasha, lending legitimacy to his rule as a loyal servant of the high king in return for a life of ease and pleasure in his palace.”
“A coward’s path,” Narud said in a low voice.
She twisted the wet towel between her hands. “They’ve turned my brother’s skin into a kite, damn you. A banner to flap in the wind. They skinned him so slowly and lovingly that he was still alive when the last of it came off. They made me watch—did you know that?—and I heard the torturers chanting their evil spells to keep him from dying. I wouldn’t be surprised if his skin was already flying in the wind before he finally died.
“Now go,” she snarled. “Leave me and never come back. If you do, I swear by the Brothers that I will tell the pasha and do everything I can to make sure he catches you. Then maybe it will be your skins flapping in the wind.”
This time, when Narud pulled on Chantmer’s sleeve, he didn’t resist. They retreated from the presence of the princess, who muttered angrily as they left. The eunuch sat at the door with his legs pulled up and his head between his knees, snoring lightly, and they pushed past without waking him. A few minutes later, they were outside the baths in the open air. Night had fallen, and crickets chirped from their cages.
“I think she wants to help,” Narud said, “but she’s just afraid.”
“Sadira is a spoiled child who has never sacrificed for anything or anyone,” Chantmer said. “The part about not killing Nathaliey’s father was her excuse, nothing more. A way to ease her conscience.”
“I’m not so sure.”
Chantmer stopped Narud in the middle of one of the courtyards. “What should we do about him? Trust the princess and let him languish down there?”
“I’m not sure what else we could do. We can’t get through the enemy’s wards, and we can’t turn Sadira.”
“We could probably poison the vizier’s food,” Chantmer said. “Put him out of his misery.”
“That’s . . . hard.”
“So is letting them torture him over an extended period of time. We poison the food and release him from his suffering. Then you return to the gardens and tell the master what we did.”
“I’m supposed to stay here and help you strengthen the library against fire.”
“The library isn’t going to burn,” Chantmer insisted. “It would take dragon fire, and one could never squeeze through the corridors to the vaults.”
“Nevertheless . . .”
“I won’t be defeated,” Chantmer insisted. “Zartosht and his ilk are fighting us—they’re the ones who put those wards outside the dungeons. If we can’t get through, if we can’t rescue the vizier, they’ll bring the fight to us instead. And that will be far more dangerous to the library than any risk of fire.”
“And how is poisoning the vizier going to help with that?”
Chantmer waved his hand. “We’re not going to poison him. That was me thinking aloud. I have a better idea.”
“Very well,” Narud said after a long moment of hesitation. “What do you propose?”
“I propose we find these dark acolytes and crush them.”
Chapter Seventeen
It was midmorning on the third day after the fight at the stone circle when a flock of griffins attacked. Markal and Nathaliey were up front with Captain Wolfram, with the rest of the company strung out on foot behind as they followed a ridgeline, the mountain heights frowning down on them from their right.
Nathaliey seemed to have an instinct for finding the gentlest paths, for carrying them wide of ravines and impassable ledges, while Markal had the better eyesight, and so it was his duty to watch the skies, while the paladins kept vigil for threats from the ground.
And yet the griffins seemed to come from nowhere. One moment Markal was staring up at blue sky, shielding his eyes against the sun, and the next, huge winged shapes the size of horses came hurtling downward. He could only think that they’d been lurking near the mountain heights, approached with the sun at their backs, and used its brilliant light to hide their approach until they swooped for an attack.
There were more than a dozen griffins in all, wings tucked into a dive, and as they dropped, they opened their beaks and screamed in unison, a long, terrifying cry that sent a shudder down Markal’s spine.
On every griffin was a rider, men and women with lithe muscular bodies and long braided black hair. Some clenched slender swords, others spears. Cords and tethers held them in place. At first, they flattened themselves to the backs of their mounts, but as the griffins pulled up, they leaned, acrobat-style, for maximum reach.
Wolfram shouted at his paladins, who drew into four distinct knots of defenders rather than waste time trying to gather into one force. The paladins around the edges of each group raised their black shields, while those in the middle worked at crossbows or raised swords to form a hedgehog-like thicket. Wolfram had drilled his forces every morning before setting out, and the Blackshields had nearly formed ranks before the first griffins fell upon them. Markal and Nathaliey found themselves in the center of the forward company.
The lead griffin rider, a woman whose fierce glittering gaze matched that of her mount, gave a sharp whistle, followed by two short blasts, and the entire company changed course just before they slammed home. They blasted overhead with a rush of wind from flapping wings, and charged the second collection of paladins, who were slower in gathering. The lead paladin in this group was Marissa, who seemed to be Wolfram’s closest confidant among his lieutenants, and she gave a warning shout just before the enemy struck.
Griffins slammed into her shield wall. There was a flurry of swords from both sides, coupled with talon and claw attacks from the half-lion, half-eagle beasts pressing down from above. And then, as quickly as the battle had begun, a whistled signal had the griffins pulling away. The whole thing had lasted ten seconds, no longer. The griffins had knocked several paladins from their feet, and one man had an ugly gash across his cheek, but miraculously, nobody had been killed.
Markal shielded his eyes. The griffins were wheeling in a big circle overhead, positioned to renew the attack. When it came, they’d only have seconds.
“Hold your men, Captain,” he said. “Brace for another attack.”
Wolfram told his fighters to maintain a defensive posture, an order that was shouted from group to group. Markal and Nathaliey pushed out of the cluster of paladins to get a better view. The flock of griffins was still climbing, now several hundred feet overhead. They were drifting gradually west. One of the griffins broke off from the rest and made for the highest peaks.
“Do you suppose it’s injured?” Nathaliey asked.
“The way it’s racing out of here?” Markal said. “Doesn’t look like it. The rider looks fine, too.”
“Then what? Fetching reinforcements?”
“Most likely, yes.”
They went back and reported what they’d seen to the captain.
“I’ve seen it before,” Wolfram said. “A probing attack to test our preparedness, followed by a serious assault.” He shoved his sword into his sheath. “We’re only three miles from Lucas’s encampment. It’s a box canyon—they’ll have a harder time hitting us there.”
“Assuming we can make it in time,” Markal said. “How many riders can they muster?”
“I’ve seen flocks as big as thirty.”
“That sounds . . . intimidating.” Markal glanced at Nathaliey and tried to think of what spells they might throw into the sky when the griffins returned. “They’re creatures from the north country, from a land of ice and snow. They prefer the heights, where it’s cold. We can add heat to the battlefield. That might help.”
“I’d like to avoid an open battle,” Wolfram said, “especially without our horses.”
“And you’re sure it’s a fight they want?”
“They don’t wan
t us dead, just gone from here. But they’ll fight if they have to.”
Markal feared the griffin riders, but he didn’t hate them. From what he’d learned these past two days, the flocks were enemies of anyone who entered the mountains, including King Toth. Maybe more so, given that the king was building castles to control the mountain passes.
“You’ve spoken to them before,” Markal said. “Couldn’t you explain? Tell them we’re leaving?”
“This might not be the same flock. Anyway, it’s not like they came down and asked what we were doing here.”
“That’s true,” Markal admitted. “Hard to parley for a truce when the first encounter is all sword, beak, and talon.”
Now that the threat of imminent attack seemed to have passed, Wolfram called up the rest of the paladins until he had them in a single group. It would take longer to travel bunched up, but it would be safer so long as they were exposed on the ridge. They’d follow the ridge, he said, which continued another half mile or so, but instead of climbing the grassy mountainside beyond as had been the plan, they’d skirt the edge, sticking to the cover of the woods. A longer, but less exposed route.
The paladins were tired after nearly a week of traveling on foot, carrying their own supplies and gear, not to mention hungry, as their already slim rations had run out that morning. A few people suggested they should stand on the most exposed part of the ridge and lure the griffins into a battle. Kill a few of the beasts and teach them a good lesson.
Wolfram merely listened, then reiterated his earlier command. First the ridge, then the forest, where there was cover. There was no more argument.
They were almost to the woods when the griffins returned in greater numbers, at least two dozen this time, though Markal didn’t stop to count, instead joining the general scramble into the trees. The scream of a score or more griffins and the piercing whistle of riders communicating at distance was enough to put the fear of death in them all. And as the griffins swooped overhead, their powerful wings making the treetops shake, there was no more nonsense about taunting the riders into an attack.
The Black Shield (The Red Sword Book 2) Page 17
