Spirit Gate

44

Keshad was tired of trudging. Mostly he thought about how he was going to get away from Rabbit, Twist, and the rest of his new comrades, all of whom were the kind of people you never ever did business with unless you were already on your way out of town. It was as if someone had swept up the worst criminals into one band, on purpose.

What was he even thinking? That was exactly what had happened.

It was almost dark when they caught up with the strike force, a group of several hundred soldiers. This was the group Bai had counted two nights ago. Three hundred and twelve, she had said, but as he walked into the rough encampment the soldiers were setting up alongside the road, he wondered if there weren't more. Canvas was rigged up along ropes to form shelters. Grooms walked the horse lines. Men piled hay along the rope line, feed filched from village storehouses. Although dusk was falling, no one had lit any fires. Wagons were driven across the road to form barriers before and behind the line of march.

"Heya! Second Company! Over here!" A captain called out their sergeant. "We'll reach Olossi tomorrow. The last village we came through was already abandoned, so it seems someone had news of our coming. We're covering three watches, not two, tonight. On high alert. Your men will take all the watches. Double your normal numbers."

"That's not fair!" Twist muttered. "They always give us the watches, like we're not worth any other duty. Aui! I liked it better when we were on our own."

Keshad forbore to remind Twist that he'd been complaining all day about not getting first pickings with the rest of the strike force.

How had his luck changed so fast? He had gambled, and won freedom for himself and for Bai, but now he was no better than a captive in enemy hands. They'd as happily cut his throat and rape his corpse as give him a handful of rice, and certainly no rice or even a hank of stale flatbread was forthcoming tonight. Nor dared he try to purchase anything, which would mean he'd reveal his coin. Stomach grumbling, he stuck close by Twist as they found a bit of ground to rest on. When Kesh rolled out his blanket, the others hooted and called him names.

"Very particular!"

"Quite the merchant's son. Southern silks never too good for you!"

"Nah, he's hoping for a bit of company."

"Rabbit here won't do it. You're too wiggly for his tastes."

One thing Keshad had learned in the marketplace was not to let your opponent smell blood or weakness. "I'm wanting a bit of sleep, if you don't mind!"

"Oooh. Isn't he particular!"

The ginnies opened their mouths to display their wicked teeth. The men looked away.

"Just shut up and leave the lad alone," added Twist. "And if you don't mind my saying so, I can't sleep with your chatter. So just shut it, all round."

They settled down, but Keshad could not sleep. As soon as he shut his eyes, he saw that hideous, distorted creature descending out of the night sky and onto the road. Yet when he opened his eyes to banish the vision, there were a dozen snoring men scattered around him, lying on the ground at all angles like a crazy fence, trapping him. There was no way he could escape.

And they all stank.

The air was clear, untainted by smoke or moonlight. He turned onto his back. The ginnies shoved into the gap between his arm and his body. With them pressed against him, he stared at the sky. Each star had a name and a classification in the lore of Beltak, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, but he did not know more than the two every believer must recognize or be subject to the lash. There: the Royal Road that spans the heavens. There, low and in the north: Iku, the Head of the King, around which the heavens spin.

Older tales whispered in his ears as if the trees were mocking him, reminding him of the Tale of Plenty and the Tale of Fortune. There came the Carter and his barking Dog, rolling slowly up out of the east. In the north, the Sacred Tree had fallen sideways. The Three Footsteps trod west. Tree cover hid the southern sky. But these were Hundred tales. They were all lies.

He dozed off, woke at the sound of hooves, but it was only a man walking a horse along the road. A normally shaped horse. The other vision had been a lie.

Next thing he knew, the butt of a spear slammed into his ribs.

"Eh! Aui!"

Magic clamped his jaws over the shaft.

"I wouldn't have to do it this way if those things didn't bite," said Twist.

"Let go."

The ginny let go, and Shai had to rub him to calm him down. Mischief "smiled," as if amused.

"Come on. Up! Our turn at watch."

Up he dragged himself, sticking close to Twist as they got their assignments.

"Smart of you to bring your bundle with you," said Twist. "Someone will steal it, and you'll never know where it's gone."

"Thanks."

It wasn't that he trusted Twist, precisely, only that he mistrusted him less than he did the others. They'd been assigned to the rear guard, and fortunately that meant the wagon barrier. He found a comfortable spot to sit, on the driving bench of one of the wagons, and wedged his bundle in beside him. The ginnies draped themselves over the bundle, snugged together, and closed their eyes. He amused himself by whistling under his breath to pass the time, every tune he could think of and then over again. Twist dozed, leaning against a wagon. A pair of other men paced, arguing in low tones about a bet one had lost and the other had won. After a while they fell silent and shared a smoke, off by the edge of the road, huddled close to hide the spark of its burning.

The night wind whispered its tale in the trees. The horses moved restlessly on the rope line. The stars remained silent.

A woman laughed.

He started up, but no one else seemed to have noticed. The pair sucked on their smoke. Its dizzy-sweet smell pricked his nostrils, and he shook himself. That laugh had sounded like Bai. He squirmed around, peering along the stretch of road. The shelters had been strung off the road, along the cleared ground and back under the woodland cover. The horses formed an irregular line of shadow along the river side of West Track, although the river lay too far away from the road in this spot for him to hear its running. He could not see the other barrier. The road had a strange quality in the darkness, the barest hint of a shine that made it possible to travel at night, even during the dark of the moon without lamp or candle or torch to light your way.

He yawned, sucking in a sudden cloud of sweet-smoke that had drifted his way. The flavor punched into his lungs and sent him soaring.

He is aloft. Alone. The wind is a high road under his feet, under the hooves of his mount, which gallops on air as easily as if it were on earth. Its great, slow wings are like bellows pumps, displacing air with each squeeze. The beast nickers, alerted to horses below, dark shapes moving in the night through the trees. "What's there?" a man's voice mutters. "Best we go check." They begin to turn. Shapes scatter along the ground below as the winged beast snorts.

The hells! The nightmare just would not leave him!

Then comes the kick of surprise as the man swears under his breath. "How can it be? How came Shai here?"

"Hei!" Twist shoved him hard in the ribs with the butt of his spear. "We'll get whipped if they catch you sleeping! Here they come. Thank the gods! I was ready to doze off myself."

Keshad looked up at the sky, but nothing disturbed the spread of stars. Nothing flew overhead. Reeves couldn't fly at night anyway. Nothing could, except owls and nighthawks and such creatures. He was just dreaming. Shaking, he clambered off the wagon as their relief walked up rank-smelling and yawning and belching to take their place. There was Rabbit, scratching himself.

"Heh. Heh," he said by way of greeting, when he saw Twist and Kesh. "I'm hungry. When we going to eat them lizards?"

Magic bobbed his head aggressively, but Rabbit never noticed. Kesh gathered up his gear, and the ginnies, and followed Twist.

"Did you hear a woman laughing?" Kesh asked as they walked back to their doss.

"Whew! You're dreaming! There's a couple of bitches marching with the strike force, but they'd as soon cut off your cock and cook it for their dinner as pay you any other kind of mind. Best get some rest. If we're lucky, we'll see action tomorrow. Earn some pickings."

Kesh picked a spot at the edge of the group, outside the sprawled bodies. With some difficulty he convinced the ginnies to curl up inside his cloak, with their heads peeking out one end and tails from the other. He lay on the ground with grass and twigs and stones poking into him. From this uncomfortable bed, he monitored Twist's breathing. After a long while, he rolled to one side and levered up onto a knee, testing the air and the silence. He rose to his feet, tucking his bedroll and pouches under his arm. The ginnies he slung over his back, already trussed up in the cloak. As if they knew what he was about, they remained quiet.

"Any problem?" said the sergeant in a low voice, off to his left.

"Got to piss." Kesh was surprised at how cool he sounded when for an instant all he could see was a flare of bright red anger, and the shadow of a twisted black fear.

"Need to take your gear with you to piss?"

"Twist says if I don't carry everything with me, it'll be stolen when I get back."

"Huh. That's true enough. I'll come with you." The sergeant was a stocky man, almost a head shorter than Kesh, the kind of man you never dared grapple with. The kind who could likely rip your arm from its socket, and would.

"Always a pleasure," added Kesh, "to piss in company."

A Sickle Moon was rising, its fattened curve lightening the eastern sky. A cloaked man walked along the road, leading a horse burdened by panniers. Or maybe those weren't panniers. Maybe those were folded wings. He shuddered. The horse line was still restless, as he was. He grunted in surprise as a hand slapped onto his shoulder.

"You coming?" muttered the sergeant, who paused to survey the road, then turned away in disinterest. For once, Kesh was glad to follow him, to turn his own back on that sight. The wind crackled in branches. The air smelled of the coming dawn, floating a memory of yesterday's heat. A bird whistled its morning tune, but there came no answer to that call. It was still too early for waking.

They pushed a little way into the woods and found a stand of young pipe-brush that rattled a friendly chorus as they peed onto them. The sergeant said nothing. He didn't need to. As they finished their business, Kesh wished that for once things could run in his favor. Had he heard Bai's laugh? He'd been separated from Zubaidit for so long that it was more likely he couldn't recognize her laugh at a distance, at night, in strange circumstances when he was wishing more than anything that she would return and get him out of this. Was she even coming back to get him? This means of escape obviously wasn't going to work, but if Bai was in camp searching for him, he had to go back and look for her.

The sergeant grunted. His knees sagged, and he folded over. Kesh blinked. The sergeant crumpled into the stand of pipe-brush, snapping stalks as he went down. Magic stuck his head out of the sling made of the cloak and closed his mouth over Kesh's elbow. The pressure was less than a bite but more than a kiss, enough pain that Kesh dropped to his knees as he hissed out a curse and reached for the lizard's crest to dislodge him.

An arrow passed over his head. He threw himself flat, arms out. The ginnies scrambled out of the cloak and onto his back. With his head twisted to one side, he saw with one eye as their crests flared and they opened their mouths wide to show threat. Mischief's claws poked into his butt. A stone dug into his cheek right below his eye, and Magic, that bastard, raised himself up with his forelegs on Kesh's head, pinching claw cutting hard right over his ear.

A foot slammed down a finger's breadth from his nose. It was a foot shod in leather trimmed and shaped unlike Hundred footware, which was mostly sandals. He'd seen such boots recently. Those Qin mercenaries had worn such boots, sturdy, strong, and indestructible. Too heavy and hot to market in the Hundred.

"If you keep quiet and don't move, Master Keshad," said a voice as soft as the breeze, "you'll live through this."

From this angle, he could see into the length of camp along the road. Fire flashed into life along the horse lines, eating out of the piles of hay. The horses screamed and bolted. They had all been cut loose. He could tell because they broke away from the ropes and stampeded in all directions, frantic to get away from the flames. Arrows whistled out of the night, some tipped with fire. Canvas shelters caught as men stumbled up to the alert. Burning hay spun in the wind. A man fell beneath the hooves of panicked horses. The captain hadn't cried out the "Beware!," but sergeants shouted at their men to "Come alive," "Get up!" "Rise! Rise!" "Get those beasts under control!"

His sergeant lay dead in the dirt beside him, lifeless fingers inert, just within reach of his left hand.

The boot was gone, the man wearing it vanished into the darkness. Kesh stirred. Magic shoved his head against Kesh's ear, took hold of it, and closed his mouth with the greatest delicacy around the lobe. He didn't bite. Not yet. Kesh didn't dare move.

A man who travels a great deal in troubled times knows himself wise if he has learned enough of the arts of war to defend himself, and enough of the arts of prudence to keep out of fights. Kesh had avoided many a fight in his years trading at Master Feden's behest, but he had also scored a few wins when forced to the wall.

Not today. Today, with the dawn scarce breathing its first light, he lay as flat and still as he could with the pressure of ginny claws on his tender skin. He smelled smoke on the air, tasted floating ash and scorched hay on his tongue as the camp went up in flames.

He listened.

Branches snapped. Arrows sighed. Swords sang a bright rhythm where men fought. Horses thundered past, escaping the tumult and the burning.

Men shouted; they grunted; they screamed. Men ran, heard in their stampeding footsteps. They fell. The blood of the sergeant crept close to his fingers before the earth drank down these scantling rivulets and that spring dried up once and forever.

The course of the battle ebbed and flowed along the road. Twice men sprinted past him into the trees. Once, no more than a stone's toss away, he heard a man gasp as death overtook him, as metal struck to the bone.

The Qin were Death's wolves, ghosting out of the night to devour their foes.

A soft footfall trod the ground behind him. The ginnies chirped in welcome. A slender, sandaled foot pressed down the undergrowth an arm's span from his staring eye.

"Up," said Zubaidit. "We're getting out of here."

The ginnies scrambled off him, but circled her warily, tongues tasting her savor. Rising to hands and knees, he realized belatedly there was light enough to see. Blood spotted her feet and legs. She had blood on her kilt, and a stripe of blood on her face, as though she had forgotten blood was on her hands and tried to wipe something else away.

"Follow close," she added. "You'll carry the ginnies. I have to be free to strike if anyone attacks us. They're not all dead, and even the least of them will kill us if they can. And there are other creatures abroad we must avoid."

"Like what?"

Like the ginnies, she tilted her head and licked. "Something that tastes very bad," she murmured, "and feels very old. We've fulfilled our obligations, yours to your old master, and mine to the temple. They can fight their own battles now. We're getting out of here. And we're never coming back."

From the road, the sounds of fighting were dying down, and what cries he heard were those of helpless men as their throats were cut. Bai did not flinch, not as he did. Gliding away, she seemed no different from the black wolves who had raced past him earlier.

As he got to his feet and grabbed his gear and chased the ginnies into the sling, he remembered that after all she was born in the Year of the Wolf. Generous to those they love. Loyal to clansmen. Sentimental, uninhibited, forthright, and courageous. Yet a wolf will tear apart any creature that falls into its clutches, even if it is not hungry.

She looked back at him. The blood slashed her skin like shadows. She half blended into the woodland cover.

"Kesh!" she hissed. "This is no game! Hurry!"

For the first time in his life, he was afraid of her.