“Some Naor general I’ve never heard of.” Varama handed the missive to her matter-of-factly.
“They sound pretty sure about breaking the walls,” Toln said. “If you’re going to work any magic you’d best get on it. You think they have some mages of their own?”
“I doubt they’ve anyone approaching our skill,” Cerai said confidently. “And they can’t have expected Varama to turn up with most of the squire corps, some of whom are mages.”
That was an excellent point. Probably no one among the city’s usual spell casters approached Cerai’s ability; hopefully no one among the Naor did, either.
Varama looked across the table to Toln. “Summon your best. Cerai and I will start work immediately.”
“Very good, Alten.”
Varama’s eyes flicked to Rylin, and her voice was low. “Examine the body. Closely. Ignore nothing. I’ll need a report.”
He started to reassure her he would, then realized that she stressed the first because she expected, or hoped, to find something and couldn’t be there.
Rylin had wished a private word with her after the meeting, particularly about their search for Kyrkenall and how to deal with the conspiracy. He’d yet to speak with her alone since he’d flown with Lelanc yesterday morning. It didn’t look as though he’d have the chance now. Fair enough. He supposed that an invasion took precedence over everything else. “Acknowledged.”
“We’d best convene again after Aradel’s funeral,” Varama suggested to Feolia. It was scheduled to be held that evening.
“Certainly,” the acting governor said.
At unspoken agreement, they all stood. Cerai and Varama left with Toln, who followed the governor. Rylin turned to the young woman warrior. “Denalia, can you show me the way to the body?”
Her eyes flashed warning. “It’s not very pleasant.”
“I have my orders.”
Denalia’s head scarf bobbed as she nodded. He watched her turn and enjoyed the view.
They followed the rest down a long flight of wooden stairs. Denalia looked back at him. “It’s truly barbaric, Alten.”
“I’m sure it is.” He tried to shift his mind from the mystery of her hair to the unpleasant task that lay before him.
At the main floor they left the others and turned down a wide hallway. Denalia spoke over the smack of her strap sandals on the granite floor.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m sure you Altenerai are used to this sort of thing.”
“This is all new to me, I’m afraid.”
When they arrived at a two-story brick barracks across from the stables, Rylin spotted a small pile of bloodstained squire gear beside its doorway and his heart dropped. How was he supposed to examine anything if others were already rifling through it all? Stepping inside, he discovered the squires had laid the body on a table. They were dipping into buckets with cloths to wash him clean.
“Stop.” Rylin’s voice was harsher than he intended.
They looked up, their faces stricken with grief, then struggled to come to attention.
“At ease. Varama wants the body and all of his belongings examined carefully,” he explained as he came forward.
The squires stepped aside for him. Each wore the gray tabards typical of their position.
“It’s Danik, sir,” said one with a sob, a wide-hipped blond third ranker.
“Well, damn,” Rylin said quietly. Danik was Lasren’s preferred squire, the one he usually took on patrol runs. He’d taken him along on the search for Kyrkenall. Did that mean that Lasren was somewhere nearby?
And might Lasren himself be dead?
Rylin decided that unlikely. If Lasren were dead, the Naor would have sent his body rather than a squire’s, the better to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Alantris.
Possibly the squire had been sent toward Alantris to deliver a message, although for all Rylin knew the Naor might have found him on the way to some other destination.
Sighing sadly, Rylin stepped forward to consider Danik. He almost didn’t recognize the fifth ranker. His chest was a horror of blood and torn skin. His face was bruised and bloody, the chin twisted out of line. His eyes were open and staring, locked somehow in rage and pain both.
“Do you think they tore his heart out while he was still alive, Alten?” the squire asked, her eyes intent upon him. “Or did they just make it look that way?”
A fair question. He hated to think Danik had suffered. How to tell? Of course. “Are his wrists chafed? His ankles?”
The squires stepped forward at his question and looked. Rylin gratefully tore his eyes away from the poor man’s face.
Danik’s legs and ankles were free of any bruises or lesions. One of his hands had skinned knuckles, but there were no marks on his wrists.
The female squire came to the same conclusion. “It doesn’t look like it, sir.”
“Then they did this after his death. Danik didn’t die easy, but he didn’t die on their altars.” He was startled to hear his voice crack a little. “He was a good man.”
Rylin forced himself to look at the body again. Though he had no experience “closely examining” dead people, he’d seen enough battle casualties to be aware of some general principles. “He can’t have been dead very long. He’s not stiff yet.” Danik’s condition suggested that he’d been killed somewhere close, so he most likely was sent to Alantris specifically. Had it been to tell them reinforcements were on the way, or to request assistance in Denaven’s search for Elenai and Kyrkenall? Or could Danik have been contacting them about something else altogether?
Rylin grasped the dead man’s shoulder, thinking of how he’d sometimes patted him there when he’d shot well.
He rolled the body onto its side so he could look at his back, noting that the head lolled oddly, even for someone loose with death. Danik had taken a nasty gash to the back of his neck, right near the base of the skull. Rylin pushed hair aside to look at the injury. “I think a spear blow here’s what killed him.” Gently, he returned the body to its back.
Denalia had watched silently from afar until she addressed Rylin in a soft voice. “If he had a message, do you think he could have hidden it on his clothes?”
“No.” Rylin shook his head. “It would have been verbal.”
“And do you think it was about reinforcements?”
“It’s hard to know.” Rylin mulled over what else he could learn from the body. What, he wondered, would Varama do?
Rylin couldn’t be sure of that, but he guessed that she’d somehow pull more information out of the scene than he’d managed.
He wished Varama’s own squires were on hand rather than these lower rankers. Both Sansyra and Lemahl were more used to her methods of thought than he was. But they would likely be busy with the city’s defenses until the Naor attacked.
He stared uselessly at the body, doing his best to ignore the way the squires watched him. It was as if they expected him to say or do something amazing, and he had nothing to give.
Finally, resigned that there didn’t seem to be much more he could learn from the corpse, he told the squires they could return to preparing it for burial, and bent to examine the dead man’s clothing. Information there proved elusive as well. There were certainly no hidden pockets in his tunic, and his storage pouches were gone. The armor was savaged and bloody and splattered with mud. Dirt caked his riding boots.
“Have you found anything?” Denalia asked.
Rylin set aside the second boot and shook his head no.
“What were you looking for?”
“I’d have known it if I found it.” He offered a weak smile. No one could accuse him of failing to be thorough. “I’d like to wash up.”
“Of course.” She appraised his appearance with a quick glance, and he was suddenly aware of his beard stubble and the dust and dirt clinging to his own clothing. He’d washed face and hands after he’d returned from his scouting trip, but he felt grimy. “Can you show me to the
baths?”
“Certainly.”
“Lead on.” He gestured for her to precede him.
Aradel’s niece guided him to the governor’s own baths on the ground floor of the citadel, stating she expected he might want some privacy, then ensured there was a supply of soaps, oils, and towels before shooing servants away and opening the door into a tiled room with steaming, recessed pools.
“That one on the left is the warmest.” Denalia raised one arm so that it brushed against his own. She looked at him through long lashes. “Do you need any help?”
Yes, he thought, gods yes, that would be lovely, but for some reason, he only smiled. “I think I can manage.”
Hearing a footfall, he turned to discover Varama had advanced into the area behind them and was now stepping closer, having scuffed her heel on a tile.
“Now that the bathing arrangements are settled,” she announced, “I hope I might have a moment with the alten myself.”
Denalia reddened. “Of course, Alten. He … I … Yes, here he is.” And Denalia darted quickly away without even a backward glance.
Amused, Rylin noted with approval the way she swayed even when she hurried.
“It’s nice to see that you’ve retained your priorities,” Varama told him.
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon. I need to wash up.”
“That can wait a moment.” She closed the door, leaving them alone in the baths.
He supposed it could, although perhaps she’d forgotten he’d been handling a corpse.
“How did the examination go?”
He offered empty palms, wishing he had more to tell her. “He’d been killed from behind, by a spear thrust, and slain before they mutilated him. He clearly went down fighting.”
“Do you have any idea from which way he’d come?”
Rylin shook his head.
“I think we should link.”
He nodded once, and sighed inwardly. He didn’t relish the inevitable criticism for failing to do or think something.
“Order your thoughts,” she said. He wondered at the sharp tone to her voice. She was almost snapping at him. “Think about what you saw.”
“I’m ready.”
He willed his ring not to defend him as her mind touched his own. It was simpler to share his thoughts than it had been the previous time, for there was but one incident, rather than a whole series of them, and he’d been so consumed with both regret for what had happened to the squire and mild disgust to be inspecting him, that those emotions pushed most stray thoughts aside.
She drew back after only a few moments, and blinked at him. “Your conclusions are accurate, if a little elementary.”
“You mean they’re wrong?”
“I didn’t say that. But there was more to be gained by what you saw.”
“What did I miss?”
“A dozen details about his personal habits, but more important for our purposes: the wear on the inseam of his breeches, compared to the better condition of other parts of the garment, indicates a great deal of hard riding, and the dirt on upper sole seams was the chalky soil of the mountainous uplands to the northeast, not the richer loam of the valleys in the southern Fragments.”
Damn. He could only stare, dumbly. How had she known what dirt to expect from different parts of the realm?
There was no missing the disappointment in her eyes, and he fought against rising resentment. He shouldn’t resent her, he knew, but his own inadequacy. If he’d been paying attention, he might well have noted the color of the earth of various places. His eyes worked as well as the next person’s, after all, and so did his memory. How was it that Varama seemed always to be aware? Could he really learn the trick himself?
“So they’re to the north of us, then.”
“Yes. Apparently Kyrkenall and the squire have thus far evaded Denaven’s party, hence the great deal of time and toil in the saddle, but they almost surely dispatched Danik to Alantris from the northern Fragments because they’ve found Kyrkenall and need some additional support. It’s possible something is wrong with Wyndyss as they could hardly fail to seek Belahn’s aid first. It’s also possible that the Naor have encroached up there, but Denaven’s group would have traveled to Alantris directly if they’d learned the extent of the Naor invasion, rather than sending a lone squire. And if that were the case they could hardly have departed for the longer journey to Arappa without sending one or two Altenerai here.”
Rylin nodded. Her deductions were as logical as ever. “So what are we going to do with that information?”
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about it, now. If all goes well with your expedition this evening, you can try flying north and looking for signs of Kyrkenall via Denaven’s encampment. The latter will be more obvious than the former, I’m sure.”
Finding Denaven’s camp would be nearly impossible in the forested mountains and dales to the north, and spotting a wily pair of fugitives under those circumstances even worse. But he supposed he’d “eat that bread when it was baked,” as Denaven himself might say. Surviving his mission tonight into the heart of the enemy’s camp should be his main concern at the moment.
He half expected her to suggest even more outlandish assignments for him when she added. “Tell me what you plan after you freshen up. Food, I suppose?”
“A little something,” he admitted. “I haven’t eaten properly yet. But I mean to walk the walls,” he added quickly.
“Yes. Walk the walls. Note where the best archers should be posted and where the fire brigades should be stationed. Learn the number of soldiers at each gate, and the names of the commanders.”
“If you like,” he said. That sounded a bit much.
“It’s not what I like, it’s what’s needed, Rylin. I need,” she said as she stepped closer to him, “to depend upon you. I need to know that you’re not distracted, and that you’re fully engaged. Not watching women’s legs or thinking about their breasts or dreaming of cool wine or whatever else.”
“Right, I understand.”
“Do you? When the pieces are in motion you always find focus. But I want you to be thinking about the pieces all the time. Do you understand?”
“You think I’m not being observant enough.”
“Yes. Observe more. There’s much more going on here than an invasion.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked over her shoulder as if to verify that the door was closed. He then saw her ring flare and she glanced all around, presumably sensing for others somehow hidden and close enough to hear. Satisfied at last, she addressed him softly. “I’ve finally examined the keystone and it’s very different from other hearthstones.”
“How?”
“When you link to it, instead of finding a subtly subversive source of power, you’re looking on stunningly realistic portrayals of the realms. I don’t mean of landscapes from a window, I mean painted from on high as if you’re on the highest cliff imaginable.”
“Like very detailed maps?”
“Precisely.”
“What would the point of that be?”
“I hope the answer will be more obvious after further study.”
It was probably useless to ask her to speculate, so he decided to ask after a more immediate concern, her caution earlier in relaying this information. “But why does it worry you?”
“I’m worried because I think it’s why Cerai came.”
How did she come to that conclusion? “If that’s all she wants, she could have overpowered us a while ago.”
“It’s not all she wants. She also wants to know our plans.”
“But she’s helping to defend Alantris.”
“She’s stuck here, now,” Varama pointed out, “even if she doesn’t want to defend it.”
He had to remind himself that Varama was usually right, even as he continued to doubt. “So do you think she’s in league with Denaven and the queen?”
Varama’s frown deepened. “I don’t know.
I don’t understand her anymore. Her power’s grown, Rylin. And she’s put an awful lot of effort into changing herself. And she fashioned that animal. That’s…”
“Astonishing?”
“I was going to say horrifying. It has to have taken an inordinate amount of time, not to mention a frightening level of power. It means she’s been working on honing those skills rather than defending the realms or even finding hearthstones.”
“Maybe she’s been trying to improve herself for the good of the realms.”
Varama smiled drolly. “Yes, I’m sure that’s why she made herself more beautiful.”
“She hates Denaven,” Rylin pointed out.
“I’ve no doubt of it. It doesn’t mean she’s not working with the queen.”
Another thought had occurred to him. “I notice there’ve been no attacks from the queen since we arrived in Alantris. Could that be because she knows Cerai’s here?”
“Possibly. Or it might be that she can no longer sense whom to attack because I’m keeping the keystone as far away from other people as I can. Or she may be biding her time so we can defend Alantris.”
“What do we do? Trust Cerai, or not? And what about Kyrkenall? How do we help him?”
Varama frowned. “I’m overwhelming you, aren’t I?” Her eyes bored into his. “First priority is defending the city. Don’t be complacent. The Naor are planning something to breach these walls.”
“Fine. But we’ll stop them. And then what?”
“You’re assuming it will be easy. Don’t do that.”
“I’m not assuming that. I’m just trying to piece out what to do about the whole reason we fled Darassus—Kyrkenall.”
“Kyrkenall’s not the reason we fled. We fled because we had evidence of a grand conspiracy that he was framed by.”
He just managed not to sigh. She’d known what he meant.
“Kyrkenall’s going to have to be on his own for now. His logical choice was to run for Aradel, but he clearly made a decision based upon circumstances I hadn’t accounted for. We’ll just have to pray that he chose wisely. As to Cerai: she’s already asked me about you and your capability, and whether I thought you would take offense to studying with her for a while.”
For the Killing of Kings Page 42
