Courage of falcons

by Holly Lisle

  "What did you give her?" Ry asked.

  "Gold," Rrru-eeth said. Her voice held neither anger nor compassion. "It covers a multitude of sins."

  When the dockworkers had handed the bags to Kelje, Rrru-eeth turned away from the shore and gave the order to sail. Ry stayed by her side.

  "I want to know what happened," she said. "Why did my men come after you, why did they kill that innkeeper, why did you fight with them, then run with them? In your bare feet, no less."

  Ry watched the sailors clambering through the rigging, freeing the great silk sails to drop and catch the wind so that they snapped in the breeze and bellied out. He felt the thrum of life surge in the ship beneath him as it started to move. Ships were made things, inanimate constructions of wood and metal and cloth and bone but when the wind stirred the sails to life, those same inanimate creations began to breathe. He did not wonder that people named them, spoke of them as male or female, revered them and loved them they were, he thought, in some ways as worthy of love as people. Certainly and he glanced at Rrru-eethmore worthy of love than some.

  "Your men... questioned our loyalties. The trouble between us was a misunderstanding, and a bad one. We fought for our lives, and I am lucky to stand here right now."

  "I would say so they outnumbered you four to one. I would think you would have had no hope of surviving."

  "Had we continued to fight, Yanth and I would have died with Jaim. But we did not. We convinced them instead that we were not traitors. Then, sadly, those below us woke and found the innkeeper dead and that is as much a tragedy as any of the rest of this, for he was a good man, and deserving of a better end and we had to run."

  "But why did you have to run? You were attacked surely you would have been asked only to testify. But by running, you as much as attested to your guilt when you had none."

  "Your crewmen would not have stayed to stand trial. Yanth and I would have been alone, with three dead men in our room and another downstairs in the hearth, with only each other to swear that we were attacked and that we had done nothing to deserve the attack, and had nothing to do with the death of Shrubber. Strangers without resources in a town that had lost a man it cared for... I didn't like our chances."

  "Nor do I, when you describe them in that manner."

  They stood on the deck together, watching the K'hbeth Rhu'ute make its way through the scattering of other ships that dotted the harbor, heading for open sea.

  "I will have to try my own men," Rrru-eeth said. "And you and your man, as well." Her voice had no more emotion to it than it had when she gave the gold to the dockworkers to pay off Shrubber's death. "I am little concerned about the death of a landsman; there are more of those than the world needs, and one or two removed from the world by accident matter not a whit to me. But I am concerned about why my men should so greatly question your loyalty that they would leave this ship without my knowledge to try to kill you. I am equally concerned by the manner in which you went from enemies to allies."

  "I explained "

  "You did. But a trial brings out truths that explanations often don't. You can explain before me once you've sworn to the gods. With your soul forfeit, you can tell the same tale and the matter will end there."

  Ry nodded.

  Rrru-eeth smiled a tiny, thoughtful smile. "Or perhaps a different story will come out and then I'll have to get out the gallows and have a hanging or two. It's a bad thing for a captain to wonder too much at the activities of her crew, and not to know why they should behave as they have."

  "You won't have cause to wonder," Ry said.

  "No. I won't."

  He knew then that any hope he might have had of keeping his purpose and his true loyalties secret until he reached Calimekka had died with the attack. He and Yanth and Ian's loyalists were going to have to take Rrru-eeth prisoner, try her, and hold her for sentencing by Ian when at last the Peregrine reached him.

  He wondered how many of the crew had sailed with her to Novtierra, and how many of those remained loyal. Probably a lot, he thought. The wealth they'd gotten from the sale of the Ancients' artifacts would buy a fair amount of goodwill among the crewmen.

  This business promised to turn into a bloody mess. He wondered if he would ever see Kait again anyplace but beyond the Veil.

  * * *

  Ry? Can you hear me?

  Ry, resting in his new bunk after the midday meal, opened his eyes, feeling Kait's presence for the first time in a long time. He had almost dared to hope that she was truly nearby, but as he let himself reach out to her, he could feel the long leagues that separated them leagues growing longer by the instant. Her shields were down, though, and he sensed that though she had been in terrible danger, she was safe for the moment.

  I hear you.

  Beloved, please forgive me. I was wrong to want to change you, and wrong to want you other than as you are.

  I forgave you before I even left.

  I love you.

  He wished he could pull her into his arms right then he had to satisfy himself with touching her in his thoughts. I love you, too.

  Come to me. Please. Find me again. I don't want to be without you anymore.

  What happened?

  The pictures that flashed through his mind of Crispin's attack, of the turning of the guards, of the mob led by Anwyn and Andrew, who had destroyed Crispin before turning to attack Kait and all those with her chilled him. He could have lost her that night, and he would have felt the truth only at the moment of her death, when she lost her grip on her shields.

  Now she was on an airible with Ian and Dùghall and Alcie and the rest, fleeing south.

  I have news for you, too, he told her, and showed her the images of the ship he was on, and the woman who captained it.

  Shall I tell Ian?

  No. If I triumph, I'll bring the ship and the mutineers to you, and Ian will have his justice. If I fail, better he does not know what I had hoped to accomplish.

  Don't fail. I need you.

  He felt her worry, and as best he could he reassured her. If I failed I would never see you again. So I cannot fail it is my fate to die in your arms.

  And mine to die in yours. Promise me.

  I promise, he said.

  The strain of reaching each other across the spaces became too much then, and Kait began to fade away from him. For as long as they could, they held each other, but at last she vanished from his mind.

  But now he could not lose.

  I promise, he told her, though she could no longer hear him. I will find my way back to you. And I will never leave you again.

  Chapter 41

  The main body of the Army of the Thousand Peoples moved into the pass, covering the ground like a living carpet as far as the eye could see. They rolled forward in a wide column, mounted outriders to either side, regular cavalry inside of their lines, foot soldiers in solid phalanxes inside of those lines, and in the center, the noncombatants mothers with children, the elderly, the wives and young sons and daughters of various officers and the supplies, loaded on sleds and wagons and travoises.

  From the top of the pass, Har, the youngest of Dùghall's sons who had followed his father when he came requesting volunteers to fight at his side against a threat that back then was still hypothetical, watched them coming.

  "We haven't a fraction of the men they have," he said. "And if our weapons are better, it won't matter much because they have so many more of them."

  "Go." His older brother Namid, who watched the pass with him, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. "Tell Ranan what comes. We'll need men at Long Fall and Third Point and Highbridge to work the rockfalls. A goodly supply of fire arrows. The bags of poison powder for the catapults...." He stared down at the enemy, who covered the ground beyond the pass like blades of grass, or like grains of sand on a beach. "And for the gods' sake, tell him to hurry."

  Har fled, feeling death on his heels. The enemy scouts would be into the pass soon, and they needed to believe no resistan
ce awaited them. If they gave a report of all clear, the enemy would march into the pass unaware, and perhapsperhaps Dùghall's army could trap them and slaughter them without being wiped out in the process. Har knew the stories of small forces who had held off massive armies by benefit of terrain and intelligence and planning and he and his brothers and their men had planned, and prepared, and made use of every niche and cranny and drop the mountains offered.

  But who could have imagined so many would come against them? The land was blackened with the enemy as far as the eye could see. How many arrows did they have? How many bags of poison powder? How many deadfalls, how many rocks?

  He raced into camp, and men raised their heads to stare after him and eyes went flat and faces grew grim. Soldiers put aside their guitars and their wenches and their cook pots, and stood, and shook off all vestiges of play. In his eyes and his expression they saw a small reflection of what he had seen, and they knew.

  Ranan caught him by the shoulders as he bolted toward Ranan's tent. "Tell me."

  "They... come..." he gasped. "Thousands of thousands. In lines. Like... army ants. Namid said... fire arrows. And men at Highbridge and... Long Fall and Third Point. And the poison powder for the catapults. And hurry."

  "Scouts?"

  "Not yet."

  Ranan nodded.

  Another brother, Tupi he from the island of Bitter Kettle and a mother who had begged him not to go raced into camp from the western side and charged up to Ranan. "Men to Second Pass now," he panted. He stood for a moment with his hands on his knees, his head hanging down while he tried to catch his breath. The watch-point above Second Pass was farther from camp than that above Main Pass.

  "How many?" Ranan asked.

  "We thought at first a shadow moved across the distant hills toward us, but there were no clouds. We could not believe what we saw."

  "Scouts?"

  "We could see them breaking off in the distance. Mounted, some of them. And the enemy has fliers of some sort."

  "The Scarred would."

  "We're well hidden. But we'll need all the reinforcements we can get."

  Ranan nodded. "Both passes, then."

  Har watched his oldest brother's eyes, and shivered at the bleakness in them. People were going to die this day, and Ranan was the one who would command them to their deaths. And one of those so commanded might be him.

  "Get back to your post," Ranan said, looking at Har but seeming not to see him. "Tell Namid he'll have full forces. Don't touch the scouts unless you're in danger of being discovered, and if you have to kill them, try to do it discreetly."

  Har nodded.

  "Run," Ranan said, and turned to Tupi.

  Har ran back the way he had come, praying that he would survive to see another sunrise.

  * * *

  The scouts came first a dozen beastly riders astride their deformed mounts galloping into the pass, a dozen more batlike flying Scarred soaring overhead. The men who held the foremost positions lay flat beneath their camouflage of cloth painted to look like rocks, grateful then for Ranan's repetition of Halifran's Maxim: "What the enemy might do is irrelevant; plan against what he can do."

  They had muttered, "Can our enemy see through solid stone? Can he fly?" when creating the shelters and Ranan had shrugged and said, "Perhaps. We won't know until we find out who our enemy is."

  And now they found out they, who had thought the whole exercise a waste of time, and Dùghall and Ranan deluded, and the gold Ranan spent to have men trek into the mountains to haul rocks and paint canvas and build deadfalls money for nothing. Ranan looked increasingly brilliant as the scouts flitted overhead, blind to the traps that lay ahead of them, and soared back the way they had come.

  When the scouts were gone, the full force of Ranan's troops moved into position. Still hidden beneath painted awnings, they loaded the sacks of poison powder into their catapults and tested the wind to make sure it carried down into the pass from them. They moved their fireboxes close to the fire pits where wood and tinder, neatly piled and dry, waited to fuel the fires from which they would light their arrows. They tested the blades with which they would cut the ropes that held back the great stone deadfalls. Then they crouched, barely breathing, watching the massed forces of the monsters beginning to move forward, and their guts clenched and twisted, and their hearts beat against their ribs, and their mouths went dry and tasted bitter with fear.

  Har, still in the foremost position, offered fervent prayers to the island gods of home, and a quick, hopeful prayer to the Iberan gods who watched over the mountains and the cold, foreign land in which he huddled.

  Then the first lines of the fighting forces arrived, and he and those who hid with him waited for the signal. He knew it would be long in coming the pass needed to be full of the enemy before the defenders dared attack.

  So the first hundreds of the Scarred monsters passed unaccosted beneath the waiting, huddled humans, dragging catapults and siege engines and weapons Har could not identify on great wooden-wheeled wagons behind them. The pass was broad enough that a dozen men could ride abreast it easily accommodated the attackers and their weapons and their hideous war beasts. The enemy moved forward alertly, keeping scouts constantly in motion, but the troops of the Scarred showed no fear and no awareness of the trap into which they moved they chattered among themselves, clusters of enormous gray shaggy beasts bellowing at each other as they marched, and little black-and-silver furred things chirping and squawking, almost like monkeys except for the clothes that they wore, and brown-furred monsters with faces like friendly bears who growled and trilled at each other, their ears flicking as they sauntered toward disaster.

  The first part of the pass filled, the troops below moving out of sight around the sharp curve the defenders named First Point. There seemed as many of them yet to come as there had been before but now some of the noncombatants were moving into range, traveling in the center of the thinned-out column. Females with their babes in arms; children running among the wagons or riding atop them, playing games and shouting; the old and the infirm clustered together on the padded benches of special wagons. Watching them, Har began to feel sick in a different way. He had feared his own death at the hands of the soldiers below had feared their retaliatory strikes on their preemptive attacks should their scouts discover him and his comrades before they could strike.

  Now, though, he realized that innocents traveled among his enemies, and that those innocents would die, and that he would have a part in killing them. Being from the Imumbarran Isles, he had never developed the hatred for the Scarred that Iberans had the Scarred traded with his people often, and some made their homes in the outer isles. He saw the creatures below as people and he wanted to cry. How could warriors bring their wives and children with them? How could they risk everything they held dear? What did they hope to gain?

  "They want Ibera itself," Namid said, when he dared a whispered question. "They're leaving the Scarred lands of the Veral Territories, looking for a home well away from the poison of the Wizards' Circles." He sighed. "I guess attacking Ibera looks easier than attacking Strithia."

  "Well... Strithia ..." Har said, and fell silent, thinking that no one could be mad enough to try to invade the Strithians.

  They stared down at the unending column that poured beneath them. The fighters kept their places to either side, the flying scouts soared past, usually still below Har's position high on the side of the mountain but sometimes above it, noncombatants traveled in the center with the weapons and supplies, and the whole force looked to Har like it would never end.

  "At the speed they're going, they'll be to Third Point at any time."

  Har said, "There aren't enough of them in the pass yet."

  "As many as will fit. We can't help the fact that there are too many of them still outside it."

  "Their fighters will come up over the sides at us."

  Namid nodded. "When we drop our deadfall, we're going to have to run. The ones outside the pass
will mark our position quick enough, and some of those flying scouts carry arms, too. We can't hope to have much effect on them."

  "So we'll run to First Point."

  "Have to. They have archers there. They'll be able to give us some cover."

  Har nodded. "If I don't live, tell my mother I fought well, would you? And that I thought of her."

  Namid held out a hand. "I'll swear on it. And you tell my mother the same thing, should I die."

  "What about Father?"

  "He'll know. He's always known what happened to all of us."

  Har took Namid's hand and said, "You're right. So I'll swear to tell her." They clasped hands, then quickly turned back to the pass.