Halls of Law

by V. M. Escalada

  Ker clenched her jaw. So that was how he saw her? Not part of “we,” but part of “you”?

  And that’s why I won’t tell him I think they’re Feelers, she told herself. “I’ll take the first watch.”

  Tel didn’t argue; proof he was exhausted. Ker settled down cross-legged, her back against the sleeping ledge. Tel curled up on the ledge above her, lying on her cloak, and using his own as a blanket. Had they been in a safer place, it was cool enough for them to be lying down together like two spoons, to share body heat.

  For a moment Ker imagined lying with her back against Tel’s chest, his arms around her, his breath making her hair move—

  No. Wouldn’t happen. We’d have to keep watch. Ker rested her forearms on her knees. She had the glow stone in her left hand, planning to switch it back and forth at intervals to time her watch. Tel was a soldier, and the light wouldn’t affect his ability to sleep. If she should happen to fall asleep herself, her hand would relax, and the sound of the glow stone hitting the rock surface between her feet should wake her up—though she was going to do her best not to put that to the test.

  It had been a long time since Kerida Nast had been expected to keep watch and she’d forgotten how boring it could be. Usually there was something to watch—gates, the approaches to the gates, the edges of forests, that kind of thing—in addition to things to watch for. Here she had nothing to look at but the rock walls and the curtain of their alcove.

  “Nothing to see here,” she whispered to herself. She wished it was as easy to convince herself that she hadn’t seen anything after all. That Ganni hadn’t healed Tel. She twisted around.

  He looked younger asleep, she thought. His beard was growing in, but so lightly he probably didn’t need to shave every day. Sleeping, she could no longer see his most remarkable feature, his pale eyes. In some lights they looked a bit green, in others gray, but most of the time they were so pale as to seem colorless, especially when contrasted with the deep tan of his skin, the tan of someone who spent most of his life out of doors. The tan of farmers, of builders, of herders, and of soldiers. His hair must have been blond to start with to have been bleached so white by the sun, much lighter than her own dark brown hair. Ker wondered whether he had siblings with the same unusual coloring. The same long limbs, the same graceful way of moving.

  Ker sat down again, and took a firmer grip on the glow stone. Had Tel Cursar ever said anything about his family? About where he’d come from or how it was he’d become a soldier? There had to be some military background for him to be Third Officer of a Company so young, since junior officers usually rose from the ranks. Sometimes senior officers were idiots from good families, rather than good soldiers, but as her sister Tonia used to say, war had a way of taking care of idiots fairly quickly.

  Kerida herself might have been a Third Officer by now, or even a Second, though she was younger than Tel. That’s what it meant to come from a famous military family. Ker pressed her lips together. That was all behind her. She had Matriarch to thank for opening her eyes to what her powerful Talent actually meant, and Barid for showing her another and more interesting path.

  Much more interesting, she had to admit, than the path that might have led to a Wing Faro’s cloak like her sister Tonia’s. A Griffin Class Talent? Never mind a Matriarch; she could have been Grand Inquisitor one day. Could have been. She shook her head.

  As little as a month ago, Ker would have said she was ready to give anything to leave the Hall, to be a soldier again. She shivered. Now? She’d happily scrub pots for the rest of her life if it would bring the old world back. Cana, Barid, the Luqs. Even Matriarch.

  “Thinking about tomorrow?”

  “What?” Ker was so startled she almost dropped the glow stone. “No. And why aren’t you asleep?”

  Tel sat up, swinging his long legs off the sleeping platform. “Maybe you’re thinking too loud. Maybe I’m cold.”

  He sat down next to her, dragging the cloaks with him, using both hands now, but still moving his right arm with care. He shifted closer, arranging the heavy folds of cloth over their knees and feet. He put his left arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  “What?” He grinned as she gave him the sourest look she could. “I’m freezing. You wouldn’t want my fever to come back, would you?”

  “Uh-huh. Like I haven’t heard that before. It’s not bad enough you’re the size of a twillbeast anyway, you have to take up all the space?”

  “I feel safer close to you.” His tone was laughing, but Ker saw his eyes were not. He’d been quick to say his fellows had been right to leave him, but those few days he’d spent alone and fevered couldn’t have been easy.

  “Used to having your brothers and sisters around you, huh?” Ker said. As good a way as any to introduce the topic of his family.

  “Used to having my Company, at least. So were you?”

  “Was I what?” It was warmer sitting this way.

  “Were you thinking about tomorrow? Can you track the griffin?”

  “That’s not what’s worrying me.” Ker thought back to the feel of the claw in her hands. “He’s so young, and he’s alone and afraid.”

  “You know how it feels?” Tel peered at her, his face inches from hers. “I thought you couldn’t do that?”

  “Not with people, at least not yet. Maybe it’s because he isn’t a person . . .”

  “Or maybe it’s what you’re feeling.” Ker stiffened and Tel shrugged, wrinkling his nose as he moved his right shoulder. “Think about it. Maybe you’re not alone, but you know you’re worried about your family.”

  Ker clenched her teeth. She had thought more about Ester in the last two weeks than she had since the day Inquisitor Luca had taken her away, but . . .

  “It still seems wrong. He’s just a baby, lost, alone, scared.”

  “They don’t want to hurt him.” There was certainty in Tel’s voice. “And helping the Miners may be our way out of here.”

  “Uh, I don’t think they’re exactly ‘miners.’” The words were out before she knew she was going to say them.

  “No, I don’t think so either.” Tel’s arm tightened around her. “I think—I swear this isn’t my fever coming back—”

  “Just say it.”

  “I think they might be Feelers.”

  • • •

  “I’d like to Flash the claw again,” Kerida said. They’d had a chance to eat, and been shown a place to wash not far from their sleeping alcove, before being joined by about a dozen of what they’d agreed it was safer to call miners. Some were carrying nets, though there were a few spears and a couple of archers as well, carrying heavy war bows. “I could get a more accurate feel for where the griffin is this morning.”

  As she’d suspected, Ganni had the claw with him. He passed it over to her without hesitation. She took off the cloth and handed it him.

  “She must have been very interesting,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “The woman who wove this. Karal? Karan? I can’t quite catch the name.”

  The old man looked from Ker’s face to the cloth and back again. “She’s been dead for years,” he said finally. “Since—years anyway.”

  Ker almost caught what it was the man had meant to say. She nodded. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Can you tell—no, never mind.” Ganni pressed his lips tight before continuing. Again, Ker caught a wisp of thought. There was something unusual about the woman’s weaving. He folded up the cloth and placed it in the satchel at his waist.

  Ker looked away from the emotion on the old man’s face and focused on the claw. Paraste.

  “He’s scared,” she said aloud, turning the claw over in her hands. “Scared and lost. He wants his parents.”

  Ganni was handing Tel a net, but this made him pause and look over at her, his hand still on the loops of cord.
“Somehow, you don’t think of them feeling the same as we do.”

  “Why not? Doesn’t a dog or cat feel things?” Tel said. He made a face as the woman with the scarred cheek they’d seen once before hefted her spear. “We seem to be awfully well-armed if we don’t mean to kill it.”

  The woman’s smile curled her lip back from her teeth. “And if we have to stop it from killing us?”

  “Enough. There’ll surely be no need for killing.” It was hard to tell who, exactly, Ganni was trying to convince. “It’ll speak to us, you’ll see.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Scar-face was respectful, but firm.

  “Then we show it a way out. We show it our good faith.” He looked around at his fellows. “This may be a test.” Her lips compressed, Scar-face nodded, and the others finally did the same. Ganni turned to Ker.

  “Girl, do you have a direction?”

  Ker turned slowly. Three tunnels opened into this space, and Ker turned to the one on the left. “That way,” she said.

  “There’s branchings up that way,” Ganni said. “Maybe that’ll be a problem, maybe it won’t. You’ll have to go in front,” he added.

  “Not alone,” Tel broke in. “At least give her a weapon.”

  “What do you think I’m for, you daft lad?” Ganni twisted his head up to look Tel in the eye. “Did you hear nothing we’ve said? She’s as important to us as she could possibly be to you. Far more important than you are, if it comes to that.”

  “He’s important to me,” Ker said into the silence that followed the old man’s words.

  Ganni took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And we’ll remember that, Talent. No fear.”

  Tel pressed his lips together and looked at her. Ker raised her eyebrows and gave her head the smallest of shakes. Tel shrugged and stepped into place behind her, rolling his eyes a little when two other Miners moved in behind him.

  They walked for some time before they reached the first crossroad and Ker stopped. Holding the claw in one hand, she crouched down to touch the floor with the other. Flashing, her awareness of the griffin was like a straight line in her head, but there was no tunnel that went precisely that way. Ganni stood almost over her, with Tel hovering at the old man’s elbow. She hoped no one would touch her while she was still Flashing.

  She straightened. “It’s this way.” She indicated the right-hand tunnel with her chin. “Sort of.”

  Ganni’s brow furrowed. “Ennick.” A younger man, as tall as Tel but bulkier, came trotting from the group of Miners behind them. “Am I right? This leads to the Rose Warrens?”

  Ennick’s eyes darted everywhere, never stopping on anything for long. His mouth hung a little open, his lower lip slack. There was a tremor in his left hand, and he looked as though he wasn’t sure of his name. “Right, Chief. The Rose Warrens. Two turns, left and right, seven tunnels, Rock Face Nineteen.”

  “Any shafts?”

  “The Clear Water Shaft, but that’s past Nineteen, Chief.”

  “Cross points?”

  Ennick frowned, squinting his eyes almost shut, and looking as though he might start to cry. Finally, he tilted his head to the left, and his face cleared. “Three. Tunnels Twelve and Nine, Nine and Eighteen, Seventeen and Thirty-four.”

  Ganni patted the younger man on the shoulder. “Good, Ennick, thanks. Good remembering.” The slack mouth stretched to a smile that showed well-spaced teeth, and Ennick moved back to his position in the rear.

  Ker shivered. The boy—which Ennick surely was, regardless of his age—reminded her of Orris back in the kitchens at Questin Hall. That same slack face, that same absolute lack of focus until someone asked him to recite a recipe. Then, like Ennick with his directions, Orris never faltered.

  “I’ll want six of you,” Ganni said, pitching his voice to the Miners behind them. “Two at each of the cross points Ennick mentioned. Make sure the griffin doesn’t come back this way. If we can’t communicate with it, we’ll need to encourage it to move past Rock Face Nineteen, to Clear Water Shaft.”

  Ker could hear the sounds of running footsteps as the Miners disappeared into the dark.

  Ganni looked between Tel and Kerida. “We’ll hope it can get out at Clear Water Shaft. It should fit.”

  “‘Should’ seems a large word just now,” Tel said. “Could it get above us there?”

  The old man was already shaking his head. “Shaft’s wider than this tunnel.” He indicated the rock above them with a toss of his head. “But it’s mostly straight up.”

  Tel whistled through his teeth, his fingers twisting the net he was holding. “And if it won’t go, or it won’t fit? Beasts fight more fiercely when backed into a corner,” he pointed out.

  “It’s not driving it out we want, lad.” The old man looked at Ker as he said this. “We want the Talent to speak with it.”

  A SHARP sting on his upper right arm and Jerek Firoxi stepped back, lowering his sword. At the look on Nessa’s face, he stifled his protest.

  “That’s what you get for watching the people coming up the road instead of paying attention to the swords. You’re lucky we’re using black blades, or I’d have had your arm off.”

  “I don’t feel lucky.” Jerek rubbed his arm. “How did you know anyone was coming? You weren’t looking.”

  “I knew because you were looking,” Nessa said. This time she grinned and lowered her sword, finally turning to look for herself. “What’s interesting enough to take you away from your sword lesson?”

  Jerek shrugged. “These people don’t look like the other refugees.”

  Nessa raised her eyebrows, her smile becoming fixed. She nodded slowly. “Explain your reasoning to me.”

  Jerek twisted his mouth to one side as he thought. “For one, they’re all men, and they’re all mounted. Their horses move like they’re well-rested and have been fed and watered recently. So they’ve stopped somewhere close. For another, they aren’t carrying anything with them but saddlebags, as if they expect to stop at inns. The others we’ve seen—well, they were all carrying a lot more stuff.” He glanced at Nessa. “Should I fetch my father?”

  Her eyebrows were lowered, and she studied the men as they approached. “Not yet. Three of them are soldiers. Eagle Wing if my eyes don’t trick me. Let me see what they want first.”

  Jerek drew himself up straighter. Nessa hadn’t sent him away, she hadn’t even told him to put his sword down. Of course, it was a practice sword, but Nessa had told him you could kill people with one, even though she hadn’t shown him how. Yet. Point was, Nessa was treating him like one of his father’s guards, someone she wanted near her if it came to a fight. Not like a child.

  Three of the men were wearing the green cloaks and tunics of the Eagle Wing, Jerek saw. One had a round metal helm with a horsehair brush—he’d be the officer.

  “Can you see their sleeve colors?” he asked Nessa.

  “I don’t think it matters to us which Cohort they come from.” Nessa lifted her empty left hand in greeting. Her right hand still held the sword. “It’s who the civilians are that interests me.”

  The two civilians were wearing taller boots and longer tunics under their cloaks, one black, one blue. As they rode nearer, the man in the black cloak pushed back his hood, revealing a neat metal cap made of small rings that covered his head and neck. Nessa put her hand on Jerek’s shoulder.

  “That’s not Polity armor, is it?” she said.

  “No.” Owning the land meant Jerek had no career in the military, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  At that moment Black Cloak looked toward Jerek and smiled. His face was friendly, his smile the same, but though he smiled back automatically, Jerek’s stomach clenched a bit.

  “Gentlemen,” Nessa called out when the visitors were near enough. “Welcome to Brightwing Holdin
g. I’m the Factor, Nessa Grassmeadow. How can I serve you?”

  “You confirm this is Dern Firoxi’s holding?” That was the Eagle officer.

  Nessa hesitated, her mouth set in a thin line. “Well, if we’re being all legal about it, Lord Firoxi stands as guardian to his son, Jerek.” Nessa nodded at him. “Whose holding it is by inheritance from his mother.”

  The officer nodded, smiling, and gave Jerek an abbreviated salute before turning his attention back to Nessa. “You won’t mind fetching his lordship, then.”

  “Not at all, once you tell me what brings you here asking for him.”

  The officer’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced at the two civilians before looking once more at Jerek. “You’d best get your father, Lord Jerek.”

  Nessa’s hand on his shoulder tightened, and Jerek hesitated, unsure which of them he should obey.

  “Something I can do for you, gentlemen?”

  Jerek wasn’t usually so relieved to hear his father’s voice. The man himself appeared in the main doorway and advanced until he stood close to Jerek’s left side.

  “Lord Dern Firoxi?” the military officer said. “Of Brightwing Holding?”

  It was safe for Jerek to wince, since his father couldn’t see him. Dern didn’t like to be reminded that the lands had been his wife’s. Since her death, some people had started calling the place “Firoxi Holding,” and his father had stopped correcting them.

  “I am Dern Firoxi.” His father’s voice was brittle, and Jerek swallowed.

  “Fair day, my lord.” The officer dismounted nimbly and tossed his reins to Jerek with a wink. “I’m Kran Luxor, First Officer, Blue Company, Pearl Cohort, Eagle Wing. I’ve brought a Barrack with me, but I left them in the olive grove. I didn’t know whether you’d have room for them all.”

  That was considerate, Jerek thought, eyeing the horse, who eyed him back.

  “Not at all,” his father said. “Plenty of room for them in the kitchen, and for the night, if they don’t mind the hay barn.”

  Jerek shuffled his feet.

  “They won’t,” First Officer Luxor signaled, and one of the other soldiers immediately headed back up the track toward the olive grove.