Spirit Gate

19

"I'm sure we're not yet facing the worst," said Peddo with a rare look of disgust.

"That's what you said yesterday."

Joss had climbed up a stunted pine tree, scraping his hands in the process, and now angled his body out over the edge of the drop-off. Yes, indeed, the pack of men who had started shooting arrows at the two reeves yesterday at dusk had tracked them down and assembled at the base of the rock on which Peddo and Joss and their eagles had taken refuge for the night. The company below had rope, axes, and plenty of arrows. They had torches and, here in the tail end of the dry season, more than enough parched vegetation to get a conflagration going.

"I said it yesterday," said Peddo. "And I was right, wasn't I? But I was only thinking of what the Commander said-when was that? The hells! That was almost a year ago. Do you remember it? We had to do that escort duty along the roads for the first time, and then the town of River's Bend was burned down. 'Not yet facing the worst.' Truer words were never spoken."

Joss shinnied back, scraping his hands again on the bark, and jumped down beside Peddo. "Good thing they didn't find us while it was still night, or we'd be smoked with no way to fly out. Anyway, you weren't at that meeting. That was for legates only. How do you know she said that?"

Peddo had lost weight over the course of the Year of the Silver Fox. He looked hunted, harried, and worn, but when he grinned, you just had to grin with him. "I got you drunk and you spilled every word said in the meeting."

"You didn't get me drunk."

"That's true. You talked without being drunk. It must be part of your charm. Not that I can see it, mind you."

The first soft tendrils of smoke rose on the updrafts swirling around the huge rock formation. Peddo shaded his eyes and scanned the heavens, east against the rising sun, north, west, and south, but neither raptor-perched well away from each other at opposite ends of the highest spur-had seen anything in the hard blue sky, so that meant no reeves from Iron Hall could possibly be within human sight.

"What do you think?" Peddo asked more softly. "Those Iron Hall reeves swore to meet us near this landmark. Think they ran into an accident? I fear me-" He hesitated, rubbing his left shoulder where he'd taken an arrow wound two months ago. Glancing toward the edge, he did not attempt to look over at their assailants. "I fear me that they might have."

"Best move out, and fly upland. See if we can spot them, or they us."

"How far?"

Joss shrugged. "All the way to Iron Hall, if we must."

"Eagles are getting touchy. We might be attacked by one of our own for flying into their territory."

"We have to try. Anyway, that accident-four months ago, was it?-with that Copper Hall eagle was completely unexpected. That's the first time in years one eagle has attacked another for flying through its territory. Everyone-reeve and eagle alike-we're all agitated. We have to try, Peddo. We haven't had a messenger out of Iron Hall for a month."

And they'd been too overwhelmed to send a messenger of their own, just to trade reports, get up to date on the worsening situation across Haldia and the lowlands. Not enough reeves, and far too much violence.

We're helpless, but we have to try.

Below, enough brush had caught that the sound of fire crackling could be easily heard. The two raptors were getting anxious. Scar yelped. Jabi shifted restlessly, and as soon as Peddo fastened into the harness, the eagle thrust upward, beating hard. Arrows spat up from the ground below. Joss unhooded Scar, but then stepped away to the opposite side of the rock, to the lip where it tumbled straight down. He scanned the landscape, splendid to survey but pitted with traps for the unwary eagle: copses in which folk could hide, gulches into which a man could duck, clearings in which archers could raise their bows, sight, and loose, as they were doing now, knowing they had the shelter of trees nearby. There were many more men out there than he had first imagined. He sucked in smoke, coughed, but held his place, watching as arrows sped up from the ground in the wake of Jabi's flight. Jabi had served through three reeves; he was smart enough to gauge his distance, and keep clear, but those men would keep shooting and it was obvious to Joss that there were at least a hundred men scattered within eyeshot of the outcropping.

Scar kekked. Joss spun just as a scrape and rattle of stone betrayed the man scrambling up and over onto the height. Some damn fool had climbed, risking everything for the chance to kill a reeve.

Scar was a big bird. But that didn't mean he couldn't move fast.

The man shrieked, seeing that massive form as it struck. He stumbled backward. Scar's foremost talons raked over the thigh, hung in the flesh. Then, as the man slipped, flailing, into the gulf of air, the flesh ripped free, and he was gone over the edge, screaming.

"The hells!" swore Joss.

He heard the crash of the body as it smashed into rock and rolled over dry brush, and then a shout from wherever the fallen man had come to rest. A yammer rose from the men below like that of hungry dogs circling in for the kill. It was definitely time to go.

Scar was furious, head lowered, feathers raised along the back of his neck. He was twittering angrily, and although the sound seemed incongruous, coming from such a huge bird, Joss knew what it meant: A blooded eagle who had lost his prey was a bad-tempered eagle, roused and dangerous.

But the smoke was getting thicker. Others would climb, or were climbing. He had to act. He put the bone whistle to his lips, and blew the command meant to rouse any eagle to return to its reeve.

Scar lifted his head and opened his wings. Joss fastened into the harness. Up! Arrows rose, like rain falling upward, sheets of them, but Scar had grabbed an updraft with the first beat of his wings and kept rising, out of range. Far above, Jabi circled. Below, men scattered into hiding places, making it impossible to get an estimate of their numbers. Scar spiraled up on a thermal. Below, the fire began to spread. Joss and Peddo, keeping their distance, traded flag signals, then flew north in parallel tracks, within human visual range of each other. Gliding and spiraling, gliding and spiraling, the effortless flight of the healthy eagle. For a long time they could see black smoke from the fire, spreading as the blaze got out of control. No doubt, thought Joss sourly, the men who had started it would flee with no concern for what damage the fire would cause. But then, the Year of the Silver Fox had lived up to its worst characteristics: a contentious, difficult, dangerous year colored by ashes and gloom and death, one setback after the next.

As the day rose, they passed over empty tracks and roadways, flew above villages and hamlets where folk turned their fields or trimmed their trees and field shrubs to ready them for the rains due to arrive next month, after the turn of the year. What folk they saw who were out or abroad stuck close by the often pathetic palisades thrown up around every habitation; in many cases, people were raising or repairing walls.

They'd been aloft most of the morning when Jabi screamed an alert. Scar answered him. Both sets of raptor eyes fixed on a sight beyond human range. Soon enough Joss-and Peddo-saw it, too: another eagle and its reeve, circling high, riding a thermal but not really going anywhere. Plumes of smoke cut up from the land. Had they somehow swung around and were returning to the outcropping they'd started from? Or, the hells, was this a new conflagration?

They had flown well north into the uplands of Haldia. The River Istri, no larger than a stand of blue-green ribbon, snaked along the ground off to the west. The foothills of Heaven's Ridge swept the north and northwest; the upland plains to the east were lost in heat haze, although at this height the high plateau could be guessed, even at a distance of tens of mey, by the yellow shimmer smearing the eastern horizon. Just a few mey ahead lay the city of High Haldia, one of the Thirteen Bannered Cities in the Hundred. And it was the city, surely, that the smoke surrounded. As they flew closer, he caught sight of a second eagle, then counted four. Ten! More like vultures than eagles, circling as if waiting for the death throes to cease.

Whenever Scar shifted his wings, the movement of the raptor's breast muscles bunched and eased against Joss's back. After so many years, Joss could anticipate the changes. The muscles tensed, Scar dipped, then pulled up; Joss scanned the ground to see what Scar had seen and brought to his notice.

Files of men, everywhere.

Sometimes, when you were on patrol, the sights you observed hanging in harness at the breast of your eagle seemed absurd, unreal, a tale unfolding in the movements of tiny carved toys on a rumpled blanket. A mob was converging on High Haldia, whose attendant villages and fields were abandoned and whose gates were shut. Ants might swarm toward a nest of sweets in this same manner. Men were coming from all directions, grouped in companies and ranked by banners to mark their leaders and cadres. Every village claimed a rough and ready militia of thirty-six able adults; every town boasted a militia and guard of one hundred and eight who would run to serve if needs must. Every Bannered City paid a permanent guard to patrol its walls and streets and in addition organized a militia of folk able to stand up with weapons if they were called for, a full six companies if they could manage it or more in the largest population centers like Nessumara and Toskala. But such massed armed forces had become rare in recent times, in the days of Joss's mother and grandmothers. Even in the north, in Herelia, Iliyat, and Vess, where the ancient custom of lordship still held sway, a lord ruler could rarely afford to house and feed more than a single company of one hundred and eight.

There was a name, rarely used, for the creature pulling its net tight around the fields and walled precincts of High Haldia: an army.

An eagle dropped down to their elevation and sheared off toward the southwest. Joss flagged Peddo, and they both banked, and followed the Iron Hall reeve ten mey at least, an unexpected distance. The reeve brought the eagle down on a narrow ridge, the last outthrust of a bank of hills. The River Istri churned below, forced to bend sharply here on its seaward course. A ferry banner marked a crossing point below the stretch of whitewater, but no one was out on the river or waiting at the shelter. The Istri Walk, that wide road that ran the length of the River Istri from Nessumara to Seven, was entirely deserted; at this time of day it ought to be alive with the flow of traffic. As Joss and Peddo circled in, testing the air currents, the Iron Hall reeve hooded the eagle and trudged to the far end of the ridge to wait.

"The hells!" cried Peddo when he'd landed a safe distance from the other two eagles, and unhitched. Joss beckoned, and together they walked over to the Iron Hall reeve.

"The hells!" said Peddo again, as they came up to a tall, rangy woman with shadowed eyes, a chin scarred and twisted as though it had been broken but healed crooked, and silver streaking her black hair. "What's going on? How can it be Clan Hall has heard nothing of this?"

The reeve's expression tightened. A muffled chirp came from the other end of the ridge, her eagle sensing trouble. It was a big, big female, the kind who could cause a lot of damage.

Peddo barreled on. "Why aren't you reeves doing anything but riding the winds and just cursed watching it all happen?"

She raised a fist. Joss stepped forward before she could slug Peddo.

"I'm Joss, out of Clan Hall. This is Peddo. Mine's Scar, and his is Jabi. Greetings of the day to you. I don't mind saying this looks like a rough one."

She lowered her hand.

"Sorry," muttered Peddo.

She relaxed infinitesimally. Not that she looked like she remembered how to relax. "I'm Veda, out of Iron Hall. Mine's Hunter, there. Give her a wide berth. They gave me the duty of calling you Clan Hall reeves off, when you came. So now I've done. Best you go back to Toskala and tell the Commander-" Her voice, on that word, came edged with scorn, but Joss wasn't sure who or what she was aiming at. "-that the council at High Haldia has sworn to hold out against the attack for as long as they can. How long that will be, I couldn't say. But they've dug in. They're expecting to be besieged. They're as scared as any folk might be. They've heard the stories of villages burned and folk murdered or disappeared. High Haldia is a fine prize for a ruthless thief to grab."

Peddo opened his mouth, but Joss pressed a hand to Peddo's elbow to shut him down.

"This is all a shock to me, I'll tell you," Joss said, careful to mix geniality and genuine outrage. "Where did all those armed men come from?"

"Where did they come from? Out from under our noses, that's where! The first cadre came marching down out of Heaven's Ridge two weeks ago. Then the floodgates opened."

"They'd been hiding there and you never spotted them?" demanded Peddo. "That's a lot of men to hide."

"Where the hells are you from, boy?" snapped Veda. "Do you know those mountains? That's a lot of mountain to hide in, all the way from where the Fingers clutch at the northern seas down to the south where the Barrens kiss the Spires. Hundreds of mey, and with caves and crevices and overhangs and box valleys and scarred heights aplenty. There's a reason they call it the graveyard of runaway slaves. That's a lot of cursed mountains to hide in! And die in. Not that you and your cursed eagle could likely fly that far!" Her voice rose on the words.

Joss had heard men turn hysterical in just this same way.

"That's right," he interjected hastily. "That territory is far too much ground to cover, and impossible to track given all the places a man could hide himself away."

Given rope, she kept hauling. "We're shorthanded. We've had to concentrate on settled areas. People demand protection. Arkhons demand protection. Councils demand protection. The cursed guilds demand protection. They want the fields patrolled, the roads patrolled, their stinking outhouses patrolled. And then when an attack like this comes, they're after us for not having spent enough time searching the wilderness for signs of trouble!"

"Neh, neh, don't think we're criticizing you. We're in no better order. Clan Hall is down to three flights, including the retired and fledglings."

Her wild look eased slightly, although tears had begun to flow. "Three flights," she muttered. "Not that you have much area to cover."

"We know what you're up against. The town of River's Bend was burned at the beginning of the year. That was just the beginning. We've lost control of the upland reaches of Low Haldia. Almost all trade has ceased with the valley of Iliyat. Oh, I could go on, but I won't. Tell me what's happened at High Haldia. Who is attacking? What do they want?"

She sucked in air between gritted teeth, then wiped tears from her cheeks. "That's the question," she said. The wind whined, here at the height of ridge. Reeves became accustomed to the incessant growl, moan, howl, whine, flutter, and roar of wind, but for some reason the way this wind whistled over and through the rocks grated on Joss's nerves. His headache was back.

"What's the question?" said Peddo, looking ready to pop with frustration.

She glared at him, the only target she'd had in days, maybe. "The question we can't answer. We have captured a couple of stragglers. Did you think we hadn't done even that much? Some had debt marks and no accounts bundle to prove they bought their freedom under the law. Others were free men, the usual scum. Anyway, those who would talk under pressure spouted nothing but nonsense: any desire may be had in exchange for pledging loyalty to the cause; all the bad things done to them would be avenged. They would babble on so about the gaze that burns and the shadow flung down from the sky. Then would come stories of proving themselves worthy, such cruel and nasty things they claimed to have done as would turn your stomach. I don't know how much of them were true. As likely understand the barking of dogs as learn anything from their gabble. They have this medallion they wear like an amulet, to protect them from evil, but it's a flimsy thing, hammered tin. I could fold it with my own hands-" She mimed the action with her hands, front back front back. "-until it snapped in two."

Joss grunted. "A tin medallion? By any chance, an eight-tanged starburst?"

"That's right! You've come across it as well."

"Only in the ruins of burned villages. What of the other men, the ones who wouldn't talk under pressure?"

"They didn't talk, did they? Tough bastards, I'll give them that. They died, rather than talk."

DROPPING DOWN OVER Toskala, skimming over the rooftops, Joss saw the truth that could no longer be ignored. Within the five quarters of Toskala, in every neighborhood, every courtyard and spare arm's span of space in and around the warehouses or along back alleys was woven with a network of ropes over which were slung heavy canvas roofs and walls to build makeshift shelters. The neighborhood watches patrolled a tight web, working the streets and alleys to stop problems before they spread and to control garbage and pick up night soil. There were a lot of scared people here, torn out of their homes.

The reeves were helpless against this threat.

Everyone knew it. That's why they were all building walls and running to walls. It was the only thing left to hide behind.

" WE CAN SEE now that River's Bend was simply the opening attack in a careful strategy," said the commander. "They're encircling us."

Like all reeve halls, Clan Hall's architecture included a small amphitheater. In this case, the curved tiers were cut from the rock at the edge of the promontory, and offered a view beyond the proscenium to the river flowing past below, the wide Istri Walk on the far shore, and fields and orchards opening out to the horizon. The commander was seated on a chair, on the proscenium. Reeves sat in the lower tiers; in a former time, they would have filled the tiers, but not now. Joss sat in the front row with the other three legates who remained. Peddo had slipped in beside him. The rest of Clan Hall's reeves who could be spared from patrol or who weren't fit for patrol held the other seats. Their tension was a presence of itself, a huge beast, waiting to rip them apart. Fear is its own challenge, the first battle that must be won. And after that, the war on despair.

Naturally, on top of all that, he had a pounding headache.

"In the eleven months since the burning of River's Bend, we can see the pattern emerging."

At the base of the curve of seats lay a huge rectangular low-sided box in which was molded a large map of the Hundred as seen with an eagle's sight, from the air. Normally covered, it sat glittering in the sun with canvas rolled up to either side. With a half-length field staff, her baton, the commander pointed here, and there, showing the growth of the rot as it crept out over the land.

"At first I thought our situation was the same as that in Herelia, fifteen years ago, when isolated villages began throwing out any reeves who came to stand at their assizes. There were targeted attacks to disrupt trade and disturb normal patterns of interaction between settlements. Both Copper Hall and Gold Hall had to withdraw their reeves from one area after another when it became clear that if they continued to interfere, then hamlets would be razed and innocent folk murdered. Well. They're moving more quickly now. And it seems we now know why."

She looked up, noting first Joss and then Peddo in her audience. "They have more forces at hand than they did fifteen years ago. That is how they've spread so quickly this past year. That is how they've increased their attacks on reeves such that we've had to combine patrols, send out two reeves as a unit, which limits how much territory we can cover. It limits the ability of the halls to communicate with each other, since we are each one of us so overwhelmed by local problems. These are not random attacks, a spasm of angry young men casting stones where they may. These attacks are carried out with a clear understanding of the limitations of eagles and the reeves. They hide in deep cover during the day and move, or attack, at night. The only calm periods come at the days of the Lamp Moon, when certain eagles are able and willing to patrol even at night if the skies are clear. Yet now, with the new year coming and the rainy season bound hard upon it, the cloud cover will leave us helpless always at night, even when the moon is at his brightest."

Like the wide Istri, she poured on relentlessly. With one metal-capped tip of her staff, she indicated the location of each of the six halls.

"Copper Hall's territory has shrunk. Gold Hall has confined its patrols to the Arro Mountains and the central Zosteria Plain. As we speak, Iron Hall contends with a siege on High Haldia, and the northern reaches of Haldia are in chaos. The northern plateaus remain silent, difficult to patrol in the best of years and as good as closed to us now. Herelia and Vess and the northern coast, as we know, we lost years ago. Of the southern halls, Bronze Hall and Horn Hall remain in communication. We trade a messenger with Bronze Hall twice a month. Mar has suffered no incursions, but in the last four months they've dealt with some troublesome elements pushing down out of the Beacons. Marshal Dessara at Horn Hall sends a messenger at the first and the middle of the month, always the same report: No change in our circumstances; we can spare no legate or reeves for Clan Hall at this time. I admit, however, that their latest messenger is four days overdue. As for Argent Hall, Legate Garrard departed eleven months ago, at the advent of the Whisper Rains. At first we received regular messages from him regarding his concerns about the health of Marshal Alyon and the difficulties besetting Argent Hall and the southern roads, but we've heard nothing in six months. The one reeve I sent south to the Olo'o Sea did not return. I've not had the luxury to send another, under similar risk."

She raised her head and studied the faces of her reeves, one by one. Joss nodded, to acknowledge her, but she merely touched on him and moved on along the row of legates, the experienced reeves, the cripples and retirees and fledglings. Clan Hall had a higher percentage than other halls of reeves who could no longer fly, men and women who transferred in to help with the recordkeeping, mapmaking, and other administrative chores with which Clan Hall was burdened. Gods! And there sat that rancid spot of pus, the Snake, whispering in Sadit's shapely ear. Sadit caught Joss looking, and flushed, and grimaced with anger, and looked away, which movement caused the Snake to note her action and glance Joss's way. With a smirk, the Snake rudely flicked a finger.

Joss's whole body went rigid, ready to smash that slithering sack of shit's nose down into his ass… and then he thought of the reeve-Veda-who had lashed out at Peddo only because she had no one else to be angry with. Volias was a snake, all right, and Joss had seen him at his poisonous worst, but this situation was not Volias's fault. He rubbed his head, but the pain did not go away. It was always worst in the season of Furnace Sky, in the last month before the rains brought relief.

The commander smacked her staff on stone. The crack resonated in his skull, making him wince. Her voice was sharp, cold, and flat. "They're tightening the net, and drawing it closed around us. And we don't even know who they are, or what they want."

She stared for a long time at the map of the Hundred. It was a crude thing, really, once you had flown over the land with all its glorious variation, viewed it aloft from the vantage of the eagle: a prize beyond any other. Once chosen as a reeve, you were, in a way, a slave to the halls. No reeve could turn away from the eagles. The eagles did not allow it.

Yet for all that, he craved no other life. Not even the quiet routine of the Haya fish ponds.

"So," the commander finished. "What do we do now?"

Joss stood immediately. A man snickered; certainly that was Volias, but he refused to notice him. "I have said for months that we need to investigate the situation at Argent Hall."

"So you have," said the commander in her kindest and thus most dangerous voice. "That's why I sent Evo south. Evo never returned, and is presumed lost, and dead."

Joss sat heavily. The Snake coughed like a man trying not to vomit. Others whispered, scratched their heads, shuffled their feet on stone; someone was crying softly. The river rushed on. The late-afternoon sun dragged shadows across them, a mercy in this heat.

"But." The commander's voice cut through their restlessness, their uncertainty. "The siege of High Haldia has changed all this. All my accounting must alter. If High Haldia falls, and in the face of such numbers I cannot imagine it will survive for long, then everything changes. The nature of what we are up against changes. The power that works against us has chosen to move out into the open. We are helpless to act as we have done. We reeves must find another way, or we will be destroyed, for that is surely their plan. The Guardians are dead. And the reeve halls, indeed the very sanctity of the laws and the Hundred, are under attack."

Such a beautiful, hot, clear day, to hear such bitter words.

"I've selected three reeves to fly south, to investigate the situation at Horn Hall and at Argent Hall. Joss."

"Of course," muttered some wit in the audience. "They always choose him."

"Peddo. And Volias."

"The hells!" cried the Snake.

Peddo scratched his chin thoughtfully, then patted Joss's knee in a brotherly fashion. "This doesn't sound good," he said in a low voice.

But Joss smiled. His headache had vanished, and for the first time in years, he felt an upsurge of recklessness overwhelm the long slide of despair. Exhilaration tugged at his heart as it had not done since the old days.

"I'm ready to go," he said.

The commander nodded. She'd known that was what he would say.