by Carol Berg
The young Suzaini glared at me, swelling in indignation. Evidently he heard a personal reproach I did not intend. “Indeed, sir, my eyes betrayed me only for a flea’s heartbeat. The sun scarcely moved in the time. The Aveddi says a hundred fifty are housed here, and I respect his word, though were it not for his saying, I would mention otherwise that the fortress is oddly quiet for so large a force. So—they’ve not a sign that we’re here, and the Aveddi will smite them with his mighty arm should they show a nose once we’ve got into the mine.”
At only the slightest expression of my amusement at this earnest pomposity—I had taken great care not to smile—his wounded pride sagged into misery. His heavy brows came almost together in distress. “Truly I am shamed at my laxity, sir—and Gossopar surely punished me with the most dreadful dreaming. Last night, good Admet agreed that my friend Jakor could take this post at sunset, so that I could join the Aveddi in his first riding—to represent all Suzai on this glorious occasion. You’ve not come to tell me I have to stay here all night? I’ve waited my whole life to get into a fight. Jakor is a good boy and will wind his horn if the Derzhi garrison rides out.”
His yearning to strike a blow was so vivid that my own fists clenched. You remain somewhat . . . attached... to the person who brings you through, Nyel had said. I sighed and smiled at the eager fellow. “No, you’re to come with me, and you’ll not have to wait until sunset. What’s your name?”
“Feyd al Marsouf de Sabon ak Suza, sir. Anything I can do. Anything—” Suza was the ancient name of the vast lands east of Azhakstan. Only its Derzhi conquerors had named it Suzain—“little Suza,” the first of so many humiliations.
“I’m Seyonne. You must learn to trust your own seeing, Feyd. The Aveddi relies on your skills to confirm or counter his information. If all he wished to hear were his own words, he would not have sent you. Now, go fetch this Jakor and his horn.”
While the young Suzaini scrambled down the track, I peered over the edge of the rock and passed the back of my hand before my eyes. With every sense I could bring to bear, I examined the Derzhi fortress. Though the distance was great and the fortress walls were thick, by the time my dreamer returned accompanied by a stubby youth who carried a curved bronze horn, my head was ringing with warnings. Feyd’s instincts were right. No warriors were inside that fortress. I knew it as I knew my own name.
“Be alert, Jakor,” I said as I grabbed Feyd’s black shirt and shoved him right back down the path. “Stay down and stay awake.”
The thought of leaving Feyd behind never occurred to me, though traveling in bird shape would have been much faster than negotiating the hair-raising, one-boot-wide goat track to get down from the rock. And to explain to the small party of Suzaini raiders how I’d gotten up the wicked thing without anyone noticing or why I needed to borrow one of the group’s horses to be on about my business was deucedly awkward. “You’ll understand everything later,” I said to Feyd as we mounted up and set out westward, leaving his small troop scratching their heads. “We just need to get to the Prince—the Aveddi—or to Blaise as quickly as we can. The Danatos warriors are not in that fortress, and someone had damned well better find out where they are. Tell me what you know of tonight’s plan, Feyd. I want to make sure you’ve got it clear.” Being “attached” did not mean I had to tell him everything.
“The commanders entrusted their plan to me when they honored me with this post,” said the young nobleman proudly as we rode through an interconnecting maze of narrow sandy-floored gorges. Twilight had already reached these shaded rifts, the red walls so high you could see only a ribbon of deep blue far overhead. “Blaise alone will take on the archers at the watchpost, and remain there on guard to see that they’re not replaced. Farrol and three others are to silence the watch on the mine entrance just after the watch change at sunset. That leaves six hours until the next guard change. As soon as Farrol’s signal is given, the Aveddi will lead Gorrid and Roche and five others to take on the guards in the mine and clear the way for the rest of us to come in and free the slaves. At the same time Admet will lead three fighters and Pherro the water worker to the sluice gate to open and ruin it so it cannot be repaired. It was my father’s advice to bring Pherro, who devised the water system at Taíne Horet. The Aveddi shows great wisdom. Have I said the plan rightly?”
“Well-done,” I said, my mind racing faster than we could ride through the twisting gorges. “It’s good to rehearse a plan in your mind before the time comes.”
“May I speak freely, sir? One matter troubles me. As you know him so well, perhaps you can tell me if I have mistaken the Aveddi’s intent.”
“Certainly. With me you are free to question as you will. It does you credit to speak up.”
Feyd dropped his voice as if the breeze might waft his voice to Aleksander and again risk his participation in the night’s doings. “Some of these outlaw fighters are—holy Gossopar save us, sir—they are women. We never thought the Aveddi would accept it, as Derzhi seem to understand the proprieties. The good Blaise has these odd ideas—and we have great affection for Blaise—but we thought—The Aveddi says he will accept all who raise a sword in faith and honor, but perhaps he might be saying this only to respect Blaise’s wish on this occasion and so it would not be necessary to reconsider our own positions for the future. Can you explain the Aveddi’s mind?”
I laughed and thanked Gossopar—or whoever else might be in charge of the mystery I lived—that I was riding to Aleksander’s side on this night. “The Aveddi grows in wisdom every day, Feyd. Watch him and learn.” I spurred my horse faster through the towering rocks. “Now turn your talented observations to something else. What might need to be different about our plan if the Danatos were prepared for our arrival?”
Feyd’s brow creased ponderously. “I suppose they would alert the archers and those who watch the mine entrance, which would mean great danger for Blaise and Farrol.”
“No,” I said, letting my own thoughts feed on his. “Think. If those two initial ventures fail, the signal to go ahead will not be given and the rest of us will never show up at the mine. If the Danatos’s only objective is to protect the mine, that would be enough. But if they’ve been warned of this raid, then they’re going to be determined to catch whoever’s planning it, don’t you think?”
Feyd was quick. “Of course! Then the Danatos might let their own watch be taken, even the archers, to deceive us.”
“Exactly. Once Blaise and Farrol have taken their targets, everything will go forward. Our leaders will be drawn out ...” And Aleksander and seven others were to enter the mine first. What if there were a hundred and fifty to greet him inside the mine instead of only a few guards and overseers? No. The mine would be too cramped for so many. The warriors inside the mine would be alerted, but the main body of the garrison would be waiting to close in when the outlaws showed themselves. I explored every other scenario I could devise and discarded it almost as quickly. “So how can we see if my fears are justified without jeopardizing our surprise?”
“We cannot search every rift and cave around here for the garrison. There are hundreds of places men can hide. That’s what makes our own plan work.”
“Tell me, Feyd, do you know where the archers’ watchpost is?”
“Yes, sir. Not far from here. But Blaise won’t be there yet.”
“Show me the archers. If I can get near enough to see who’s at the watchpost without revealing myself, we’ll have an idea of how much we need to worry.” It would be less trouble than finding Blaise. My shapeshifting friend could be in any one of a hundred places at the moment, and he might be in no danger at all.
We had perhaps two hours until sunset. A short distance further and we came to a break in the cliff wall, where several side rifts came together, much as a number of streams join to make a wide river. The cliffs were pockmarked with caves, and to my surprise, instead of taking me up one of the steep tracks like that back at his own watchpost, Feyd led me down another fla
t-bottomed gorge, plodding along, peering into holes and behind rocks, unsure of himself. After a few hundred paces, he dismounted and led his horse into a low cave.
I followed him, protesting. “This post would be high in the rock. I thought you knew—”
“Did you not hear the Aveddi’s tale of this place?” he whispered, looking at me askance. “I thought you were his beloved friend.”
“I had to go away for a few days,” I said. “He didn’t have a chance to tell me.”
Feyd pointed deeper into the cave. “If I’ve found the right place, then just there past the bend on the right, we should find a chute—a narrow, angled passage that leads steeply upward. The Aveddi says that if you climb this chute all the way to the top—a considerable way, he says—and then step out on the ledge and ease around it to the left without falling to your death in the chasm, you’ll come on the archers’ watchpost. I don’t know how Blaise is planning to come at it, or how you’re to get close enough without letting them see you, but I said I’d show you and so I’ve done.” His broad chest stretched a little further.
I ought to have given Feyd a lesson in too easy trust—he seemed to take my word in any matter. Perhaps our “attachment” was working both ways. He was proud and foolish, good-hearted and inexperienced, and, against all reason and expectation, I would have trusted him with my life.
“You’ve done well,” I said. “I’m not going to endanger Blaise’s scheme, just see if I can get a peek. Stay close here. And, Feyd”—I gave him my most serious expression—“do not go to sleep. I’d need to report it to your palatine, and he’ll have your balls, if not your head, for it. Do you understand?”
Of course, the young warrior could not understand the true implications of his falling asleep, but I didn’t think I had to worry. He hung his head like an overlarge child. “Never again, sir.”
“Good.” I hurried into the cave, casting a faint light to search for the chute. Damn! It would take me a half hour to climb. I would have to change a little sooner than I’d planned. I assumed Blaise was going to get there the same way I thought to do it—fly. Thankful for my newly easy shifting, I shaped my falcon’s form and fluttered up the long chimney, then swore at myself that I should have devised a shape more suitable than a large winged bird for the cramped space. But when I emerged in the evening sunlight, I was happy for the broad wings. The “ledge” that was the path around the cliff wall to the watchpost made the goat track down from Feyd’s rock look like the Emperor’s Road.
Only a few moments more and I had my answer. To my immediate left was the stomach-heaving depression in the sheer cliff that was the archers’ watchpost. From a perch on a nearby outcropping, I could look down and across the gaping chasm and see what the post was set here to protect. A sizable stream threaded its way across a broad green shelf, only to have its flow aborted by a rounded earthwork that caused the water to back up and form a small lake. A few goats grazed in the green little spot, and two men sprawled on the grass just beside a rectangular structure of iron and wood that was set into the embankment. This was the sluice gate that could allow the water to flow through the earthwork and into a series of rocky trenches that headed down the mountainside to service the mine. No sign of extra guards or watchfulness at the sluice.
As for the watchpost designed to protect the sluice and its guards, the three men who sat in it were no elite archers whose families lived in gold-endowed luxury. They were not even common soldiers, but ruffians as one might find for hire in city alleyways or lurking in the wake of caravans looking for easy money. One of the slovenly trio was regaling the other with an unseemly story of a Zhagad brothel as the two played at ulyat with chips of rock. The third was pissing down the plunging cliff side and taking bets from the other two on whether he could hit one of the goats with a shot from his bow.
“They’ve not put you in this crow’s eye to shoot, Rakiis,” snorted one of the ulyat players. “Until they pay you archer’s gold, you’d best not waste your pittance on a fool’s gamble.”
“Swallow your prick,” snarled the bowman as he tied up his breeches and snatched up a bow. His arrow came nearer killing his companions than touching a goat. Exactly as I had guessed. These three were naught but fodder for the outlaws’ strike. The Danatos knew we were coming.
A few more questions to be answered before I joined Aleksander. Of primary importance—where was the missing garrison? I made a quick survey of the terrain between the sluice and the mine entrance, which, according to Feyd, was half a league to the west. Surely somewhere I would glimpse the missing soldiers. But I saw no one, and instead of hunting farther afield, I found myself circling back toward the watchpost, the chimney, and the cave underneath it where the nervous Suzaini sat waiting for me. I couldn’t leave him behind. Attached. Perhaps if I were to change to my own winged form rather than the falcon’s shape, I might be able to escape my dreamer’s binding, but for the moment I just swore a bit and sped downward through the chute.
Somewhere out of my range of vision, the sun was plummeting toward the horizon. It had taken us far too long to get to this place where the slotlike rift we were traveling opened into another, wider gorge—the spot at which Admet, the Suzaini outlaw with the crippled shoulder, had commanded Feyd to await Aleksander and report on the doings at the garrison. Feyd held up his hand for caution. We slipped off our horses and peered around a great pillar of rock that marked the junction. To our right, two thousand paces down the shadowed gorge, was the entrance to the mine, a large dark blot at the base of the cliff wall, obscured by thick yellow smoke from the burning octar seeps in front of it. Between our position and the entrance, deep wagon ruts and evidence of many horses suggested that the gold shipment had gone out on schedule.
All was quiet, save the birds that screeched and twittered from their roosts in the rift walls. My imagination had to conjure the muffled thud of rock hammers, the creak of wooden ore carts, the curses and shouts of overseers, and the groans of the laboring captives chained in the flickering torchlight under the rock. I was almost sick with my sense of that wretched place and the dangers that hung about it as thick as the yellow smoke.
Somewhere above us was the mine watch, where guards stood ready to signal the garrison should anyone untoward approach the mine entrance. Whoever watched there would be sacrificed, too, I guessed, to draw the outlaws deeper into the trap. And somewhere close would be the hundred and fifty warriors from the fortress. Despite a number of side excursions, including my circling flights in falcon’s form, Feyd and I had found no sign of the missing Derzhi as we raced toward the mine.
“I’m going to shift again,” I whispered to Feyd. “Don’t be afraid.”
Poor Feyd had almost shed his young beard when I had come screeching down the chute, flown right into his face, and proceeded to transform into my own shape. But after his initial astonishment, he had accepted my hurried explanation as if he met shapechangers every day of his life. Only his mumbled prayers every time I shifted revealed the depth of his fear and his courage. This change was going to be a bit more difficult for him, I thought. Suzainis had a particular dislike of bats. Unlucky, they said.
“Don’t follow me, no matter what. If the Aveddi arrives before I return, it’s up to you to warn him. Use my name. Tell him that Seyonne is sure the Danatos have been warned. Do you understand?”
“But I should be with you.”
“Only if you can sprout fur or feathers in the next breath. I’ll be back, lad. Your duty is here.” I was getting the feel of the distance we could be comfortable apart. And so, praying he would stick to his post and neither run away from me in terror nor after me in dream-induced fervor, I considered bats, swallowed my own unpleasant boyhood memories of the creatures, and shifted.
Bats are not blind. So my teachers had told me. But then, neither can they see with as great a clarity as a falcon nor even so well as a sorcerer with or without his melydda to help him. I had thought to enter the Danatos mine unremarke
d, and that was indeed the case, but I was unprepared for the confusion of sight caused by weak bat eyes and sputtering torchlight and large men moving in and out of patches of unrelieved darkness. Somewhat disconcerting also was the need to hang upside down to do any stationary observations, as my wretched feet were too weak to hold me up. Bats don’t perch. Fortunately I could hear very well, else I would have given it up and chosen another form. And eventually I managed to decipher what I was seeing.
Massive beams supported the weight of earth and rock above the mine. The cavernous atrium was lit by torches set in iron holders bolted to the rock, and was piled with barrels and crates, coils of ropes and chains, grinding wheels, and bins of tools. The small two-wheeled carts lined up beside the doors would be used for distributing rations of water and food to the slaves bound within the mine, and for hauling out the gold they hacked from the earth. Under the supervision of a bearded overseer, two slaves were unloading barrels from a large wagon and stacking them. The smell told me that these particular barrels contained octar, not water. A great deal of octar. Two slaves began soaking fresh torches in the contents of one barrel and throwing them into the carts. Three more overseers hovered about a group of some twenty slaves, all strongly built, horribly scarred, and hobbled by short lengths of chain stretched between their ankle bands. The sullen group stood waiting in front of a massive pair of iron doors set into the back wall of the atrium—the doors to the network of shafts that were reputed to riddle this entire ridge. Rumors said the tunnels spanned some twenty leagues or more.
Everything was wrong. From the first moment, I felt it. Smelled it. Tasted it. Why so many barrels of octar? Yes, torches dipped in octar would be the only light inside the mine, but why so much at once? And where were the Derzhi warriors? I fluttered from a corner near the entrance back into the shadows of the cavern, dodging the disgusted swipe of an overseer’s hand as I passed close over his head. I saw no one else. Not only were there no extra guards awaiting the outlaws’ assault, but there were no guards at all. How could they have left the mine undefended? From their huddled terror and mumbled curses and prayers, I would have thought the slaves were new workers being introduced to this living death. But their scars were old, and even the youngest of them wore the distinctive hunch and permanent squint of mine slaves. And where was the noise? Truly the sounds I’d heard from back in the rift had been my own imagin ings, for the mine was profoundly silent, save for the activity I saw right before me.
