Traitors Gate

PART FIVE
Weapons
23

'We're back in the Hundred at last,' said Keshad to Eliar.

At the side of the road stood a white post. The name of the road, West Spur, was carved below the top in the old writing, and a single groove marked the first mey of the road. A wayfarer's lamp could be fixed to the post at night or in a storm. Today, although cold, was quiet, not even very windy. The caravan had climbed through snowfall on the southern side of the pass as the seasonal rains began their cycle; here on the northern side, they walked into the dry season.

But they hadn't left the worst tempest behind.

She approached on horseback. Her headdress glimmered with enough gold and gems to tempt the most cautious bandit. Why the old woman nrust flaunt her wealth Kesh could not imagine, but he supposed the five hundred Qin soldiers who accompanied rhem would slaughter importunate thieves.

With ten stolid Qin soldiers in escort, she reined in beside Keshad. Over the weeks, she had adapted her dialect of the trade speech to mimic Kesh and Eliar's by insisting they instruct her — and her chief eunuchs — every night. 'This is the border gate, is it not? I will speak to the captain in charge.'

'Your Excellency,' said Kesh quickly, 'of course you shall speak to the captain in charge. Please offer to me a moment's generosity and allow me to present our party and its purpose to the officer before you convey your requests.'

Captain Anji had her eyes: handsome, dark, and cutting. 'You fear I will offend some minor functionary, who will then refuse us entry simply to spite any woman who speaks bluntly to him.'

'Maybe that is how it works in the empire, Your Excellency, but I assure you that in the Hundred, women speak as bluntly as men. Let me first explain why he should admit five hundred out-lander soldiers. Unless you would prefer to send the military escort back to the empire and proceed with only the wagons.'

'Not at all! My old friend and ally Commander Beje sent these troops to me as a gift.'

'Naturally, Your Excellency, you can then imagine-'

'You need not repeat yourself!'

'I beg your pardon, Your Excellency.'

'You do not.' She was not angry, merely speaking exactly as she thought. 'However, you are right. I have endured the distrust meted out to a foreigner for all of my adult years. As you are a son of this land, you are correct to remind me it will be no different here.'

He glanced at Eliar, but the Silver was stalwartly staring up at a rugged mountain peak just off to the east, its bare summit surrounded on all sides of cliffs. Was that a wink of light on the high peak's icy summit? Surely not; the sun was concealed behind clouds.

'Eliar, call the party to a halt in sight of the gate but at a prudent distance. I'll go ahead.'

Without waiting for Eliar's reply, he urged his mount forward. Behind, brakes screamed as wagons hit the incline. Kesh approached the wall. Armed men watched from the parapet as the caravan lumbered to a halt. Kesh rode across the big ditch on the same plank bridge he'd used every time he'd come back from the south. He hoisted his travel sack with his permission chits, ledger, and tax tokens.

'I'm Keshad, riding under the direction of Captain Anji of the Olossi militia. I request to speak with the captain in charge.'

The guardsmen were staring at the party behind him, and Kesh turned in his saddle, abruptly seeing from their perspective: this was no caravan but a significant military force with remounts, supply wagons, grooms, servants, and slaves. Why should they even be allowed into the Hundred?

'Master Keshad?' Kesh looked up at a Qin soldier. 'I'm Chief Deze. I know of your mission. These Qin soldiers fly Commander Beje's banner together with that of Anji's clan.' He eyed the caravan without even the flicker of a smile. 'Someone wanted to make sure you arrived safely.'

The white mountain peaks of the Spires loomed behind them, a seemingly impenetrable barrier between the Hundred and the empire. It was a fence Kesh would never again cross, not if he wanted to stay alive. 'I don't think my safety was of concern. This troop escorts Captain Anji's mother.'

Some might call the Qin callous and hardened for their lack of emotion, but Kesh was pretty sure they had simply learned in a hard school to mask their feelings behind impassivity. Chief Deze's astonishment flashed brightly as he leaned on the parapet.

Then he barked an order and vanished. Shortly, a big basket was swung over the lip of the parapet, and Deze climbed in and was lowered down. He sprang out of the basket and, after hurrying over to Keshad, grabbed his arm in a powerful grip to tug him out onto the plank bridge. Adders writhed and hissed in the ditch below, provoked by the movement. As the planks shifted under Kesh's feet, he was dizzied by an overwhelming sense that he was about to plunge into the pit and be bitten to death.

'This means that Commander Beje — of his wife Cherfa — has been in contact with the captain's mother all along,' said Deze in a low voice. He rubbed his wisp of a beard, a man whose thoughts were spinning new threads into the weave. 'Take your party to Old Fort and there take the road to Astafero.'

'Astafero? Where's that?'

'The naya sinks. That's what folk now call the settlement out in the Barrens. Do not go to Olossi.'

'Why not?'

Chief Deze began to speak, stopped himself, and began again very like a man who has changed his bargaining position in the middle of negotiation. 'You can see that a big force of outlanders will scare the Hundred folk.'

Kesh had gotten used to the soldiers. He liked them. But they were cursed intimidating, if you took a step back from familiar faces and considered them as a group. There was a reason the Hundred folk called them the black wolves for their black tabards and Captain Anji's black wolf banner. And honestly, it was difficult to imagine how Anji's mother would react to a delegation of Olossi merchants and clan-heads traipsing out to greet her with all the flourish and babble so beloved of Hundred merchants.

'I'll do it. Do you want to greet her?'

'Hu! If the var's sister wants to speak to me, she'll call me to her.' Having reached a decision, the chief moved with dispatch. The gates were opened; the caravan trundled through, and the beasts set to water. Anji's mother took her attendants to the camping field where her servants set up screens of cloth so her veiled women — she was the only female who rode — could emerge from their wagon hideaways where no one could see, or count them. Anyway, their heavy robes and veils made them appear all alike. Most of the wagons conveyed their luxuries.

One of the eunuchs emerged from behind the screens and set up a padded stool fringed with gold tassels. The old woman sat down with her back to the cloth as a slave fetched Chief Deze.

'The Qin are cursed odd,' muttered Eliar as he and Kesh watched the man approach. 'Look how he comes like a dog to her call.'

'He's not being servile, just respectful. No dog would be given such a consideration.' Kesh smirked at Eliar as a folding stool was brought so the chief could sit. The old woman proceeded to ask him questions, or so it appeared, because he did most of the talking and she did most of the listening.

The caravan waited until she dismissed the chief. Then the veiled women climbed back into the wagons; servants took down the screens; the wagons were rolled into line.

'Did you see the reeve go?' said Eliar as they took their usual places at the front.

'What reeve?'

'You didn't notice, did you?' Eliar's self-satisfied smile at having noticed what Kesh had overlooked was, like a point scored in hooks-and-ropes, an unspoken boast. 'A reeve flew, with a passenger in harness. The chief has wasted no time in sending word forward. A lot of trouble for one old woman, don't you think? The sooner the old bitch gets back inside the women's quarters, the better.'

'Aui! You Silvers! Captain Anji's got no "women's quarters."' The train started moving, local guardsman falling in as guides. 'It's not "a lot of trouble." It's just the respect you would show any eminent elder.'

Yet Kesh wondered.

'Clan Hall doesn't have the means to house and train you,' Joss said to Badinen as they stood on an eyrie at the southeastern tail of the Liya Hills. 'I'm taking you to Copper Hall. That's where I trained as a young reeve.'

Whether Masar would curse him or thank him for bringing in a novice whose speech was difficult to understand and whose eagle was also young and untrained he did not know. But he'd not yet made contact with Gold Hall in Teriayne where they likely housed other reeves with a northern way of talking. Masar he could impose on. The old marshal owed him that much.

The lad was staring at the astonishing vista: not, mind you, at

the cultivated plain, but at the vast forest spreading southward. He asked a question which Joss puzzled out as 'What is that?'

'That's the Wild.'

'The Wild? As in the wildings?'

'Indeed, wildings live there. It is forbidden for any human to enter its boundaries. Have you wildings up in the north?'

Yes, he did. He told an incomprehensible story about a tribe of wildings and a cliff and a valley and someone's child falling into a fell stream — or maybe a fallow field strewn with seed, hard to say — but his nonchalance in recounting the tale made Joss wonder what in the hells it was like growing up in the uttermost north where you might see a trading ship twice a year and now and again an outlander's fishing boat blown to shore in the storm season. He could barely imagine a place where all you knew of the Hundred were the tales handed down by your grandmother and the same everyday local faces. Which evidently included wildings.

'We won't fly over it today,' Joss added, 'but in your training you'll get a taste of how big it is. Come on.'

They hooked in. Scar launched, and Sisit beat after, keeping her distance. She was very young, unsure of how to respond to another eagle except that she always kept her feathers up. Of course all eagles were hatched and raised in their early months in the distant mountainous wilderness of Heaven's Reach, but usually the fledglings returned to the halls with a parent in tow and learned to recognize their family group within the eagles. Within these groups the eagles could be remarkably cooperative. Outside them, training taught most to subdue their territoriality when in company with their reeves.

They sailed over the wide coastal plain. Farmers turned no earth; dug no ditches; trimmed no mulberries. No one was hauling water. No young shepherds guarded grazing flocks. When the first burned villages came into view, Joss knew he should have expected it, yet even so the sight shocked him. Lord Radas's army was spreading its blight.

Lord Radas, whom he might kill if Marit had told him the truth.

Yet thinking of Marit caused him to recall the way she had responded to his kiss.

The hells! He had to focus. With Nessumara under siege, the old Silver had ceased providing bags of nai and rice, and it had therefore become urgent to clear Law Rock of anyone not contributing

to the defense. But because the town of Horn had refused to take in a single refugee, they had to haul the hapless refugees all the way to Candra Crossing from which staging area the refugees could slog the rest of the way to Olossi on roads made safe by Captain Anji's militia. It took a cursed long time to transport hundreds of people hundreds of mey, one at a time, but just seven days ago Nallo and Pil had lifted off with the last two. Now, at last, he might send messengers to the other halls to get their news and call for a council to coordinate plans. Meanwhile, Clan Hall's stores were running low, and it took too gods-rotted long to haul sacks from Candra Crossing. You couldn't feed a reeve hall, even a small one, one sack at a time.

Smoke billowed skyward in the distance. He tugged on the jesses to shift Scar's trajectory, and Badinen and Sisit followed. The lad handled the eagle cursed well for someone without a single day's training.

Seen from the sky, events unfold like tales: burning cottages and shouting farmers, bawling sheep and barking dogs heard intermittently as the wind changes. Folk fled a village; soldiers set torches to thatched roofs while others heaped wagons with sacks of rice and nai, cages of chickens, baskets of radish and rope. The villagers saw him; he knew by the way tiny figures hesitated, waved arms, then stumbled onward.

With the lad in tow, and him alone, he could not stop. What could he do for them beyond telling them to run and hide? He had the luxury to rage, on high, yet as always it seemed he could do nothing to stop injustice. For that was not the only village under attack along the coastal plain near his own birthplace. Smoke rose in bloated, expanding pools, dissipating as plumes reached the upper air. The watch beacons along the shore were on fire up and down the coast.

Had the army reached the town of Haya? Beyond it, to his childhood village?

The hells! Copper Hall's high bluff was surrounded by a full cohort. Incredibly, the army had brought up a fleet of fishing boats and coast-hugging trading ships that were roping in the skiffs and shore-boats used by Copper Hall's population to fish and collect kelp. The cohort had massed on the landward side to cut off retreat by foot, forcing thereby every eagle remaining in Copper Hall to take off from the training ground — no difficult feat, naturally, but those fawkners and assistants and slaves who

had not already gotten out were trapped, so every eagle leaving was weighed down by a passenger.

An intelligent mind commanded the enemy. Archers launched volleys as each eagle banked up, vulnerable before it caught an updraft. Two eagles were already down. One lay lifeless, both reeve and passenger sprawled dead in the harness. The other was wounded, a wing trailing uselessly as it struggled to right itself on an injured leg. In its fury it dragged the harness, its reeve limp and unresponsive but the passenger fighting to get out of the tangle. Joss winced as arrows punctured the helpless eagle's flesh; blades flashed in sunlight as armed men closed in for the kill.

Another raptor was hit, but it kept climbing. Struggling. Listing. Tumbling into the sea as its reeve and passenger unhooked just in time to fall free into the rolling waters.

Blessed Ilu! How could this be happening?

He had taught Badinen four flag commands, the least you needed to know. Now he flagged: Stay aloft.

He sent Scat'down the well-remembered landing path to the training ground just as a huge yammering shout rose from the gatehouse where soldiers had broken through. The raptor thumped down hard. Two eagles launched from the adjoining parade ground as Joss unhooked and dropped out of his harness.

Masar recognized Joss with a start of amazement, quickly controlled. 'Can you take a passenger? What of that other eagle, the one with you?'

'He's freshly jessed and the eagle is still a fledgling. I can take two. Scar's strong enough.'

'Strong enough, but you can't risk two. Arrow shot — they're so close now-'

Beyond the gate, guardsmen fought a hopeless rearguard to buy time, but the clash ended with a shout cut off in the midst of a word. Hammering shuddered on the closed gates that walled off the training ground. There were three eagles left, in addition to Scar, and seventeen fawkners, hirelings, and adolescent debt slaves watching with not one begging for passage despite the army killing their comrades outside.

'Masar! I can take two.'

Masar's age already weighed on his shoulders; he seemed to wilt, his spirit burdened until it might break as he scanned those who remained.

'You two,' Masar said, 'and you three.' The five he indicated

were experienced fawkners, not the youngest by any means. Not the prettiest. That unfortunate distinction went to a young woman whose strained expression trembled, then firmed, as she realized — or perhaps she had already known — that she was to be left behind.

'Jenna,' the marshal added, 'take the rest to my cote and hide in the cellar. They'll burn everything, but you can wait it out as long as they don't find you. We'll send sweeps and pick up the survivors as we can.'

'Yes, Grandfather.' She turned to the others. 'Move!'

'Masar!' Joss cried as the girl led her companions away. 'You can't possibly be leaving-'

'We must save the experienced fawkners,' said Masar. 'You take Gerda and Eiko, they're the smallest.'

Two small-boned women trotted up. They had the wiry toughness of fawkners who have survived many years caring for the raptors. Their expressions were fixed and bitter. Eiko carried a spare harness and leashes.

He weighed their builds, Eiko's height. 'Eiko, you first and Gerda below,' he said, knowing full well that the outermost person took the greatest risk of being hit. They nodded. They'd faced death before. He had often thought fawkners were the most courageous people he knew.

In silence the last reeves hooked in themselves first and the five fawkners after. One by one they flew, Masar lifting with his eagle Shy only as the gates came down. Up and up, with arrows flying. Gerda grunted, rocking in the harness. Scar's trajectory staggered momentarily; the raptor dipped, then caught a draft and pushed sloppily upward.

Two eagles were hit, their wings a broad target, but they labored on. One passenger shrieked, caught in the leg, his blood raining down over the compound as the enemy swarmed in. Torches were thrown onto thatched roofs of the outbuildings, while the gates of the big storehouses were thrown open. Copper Hall's guardsmen and hirelings lay scattered throughout the alleys and at walls and gates, having given their lives to allow others to escape.

Joss tugged on his jesses to get Scar turned north.

'Reeve,' said Eiko, 'Gerda's hit.'

Unbelievably, he hadn't even noticed. No doubt he'd been too busy searching for sign of Masar's pretty granddaughter.

He reached past Eiko's torso and patted Gerda. His hand came away slick with blood. Impossibly, she had been hit in the throat, her life's blood pouring down her chest and legs. She hadn't made a sound, hadn't even kicked or thrashed, just crossed the Spirit Gate that quickly.

'She's dead,' said Eiko. 'I'll cut her loose.'

'Eiya! Are you sure?'

'She's my good friend and comrade. I'm not about to cut her loose to settle an old score or save myself. She'd tell you to do it, to spare the eagle.'

His breathing pinched, making it hard to force out words. 'Do it.'

She fished a knife from her vest and sliced the leashes. The body plummeted. He looked for Badinen because he could not bear to watch the impact. The lad trailed behind obediently. The hells knew what he was thinking now. If Eiko wept, she did so silently.

Lightened, Scar found a thermal and rose. Wind blustered against their ears. After a while Scar tipped out of the thermal and started the long sail to Clan Hall.

'If you don't mind my asking,' said Eiko, 'I don't know your name.'

'I'm Joss.'

'Joss?' The timbre of her voice changed.

'Yes, that Joss.'

She snorted, finding a moment of humor in a grim day. 'Aren't you the new commander at Clan Hall?'

" I am.'

'Copper Hall in Nessumara is under siege and couldn't have taken us anyway. They've not had the room for a full complement for generations.'

Each reeve hall housed by custom six hundred reeves, although at any given time many fewer were actually present in the halls: some eagles would be absent for their breeding season in Heaven's Reach; many would be out on patrol or, in more peaceful days, presiding over assizes. If what Marit said had been true, then in the days long ago reeves had spread themselves farther afield in outposts built to house family groups rather than the larger aggregations found in the halls.

'Copper Hall can't take you in,' he agreed, 'yet neither can Clan Hall. We can't even feed ourselves.'

'What are we going to do?'

The land unrolled below, under siege or overwhelmed. Scar shifted, adjusting to the current, and Joss hitched his own position to accommodate the eagle's flight.

We will kill the Guardians.

Even to think it was like breaking the boundaries and violating the gods' law.

'We've lost, haven't we?' she said.

'We haven't lost.' He wiped his eyes, but he only smeared the sticky remains of Gerda's blood on his face. 'We're developing a new plan of attack. We'll set up outposts. Change our patrol tactics. We'll leave a contingent on Clan Hall. As long as we hold Law Rock, we can say we guard the law, can't we?'

'But where are we going to go?' she demanded.

It was so cursed obvious, death falling everywhere to remind him of what had been lost.

Horn Hall.

Captain Arras walked through the marshal's cote of Copper Hall pulling scrolls from cubbyholes and unrolling them to squint at the undecipherable writing before he tossed them on the low writing desk for a clerk to read. They would burn what was useless. In the marshal's sleeping chamber, an unlocked chest stored jackets, kilts, and sandals in different sizes. On top sat a basket of fruit, including a half-eaten plum hidden beneath two green globe-fruit, as if a child had taken a bite of the plum when he wasn't supposed to and decided he didn't like the taste. The storage cupboard contained five rolled up sleeping mats, old harness, a pair of cloth dolls, a basket of combs and brushes, two sun umbrellas, and several rain cloaks folded and stacked. It had mice, too; he heard scrabbling and then, as a board creaked under his weight, silence. He'd always imagined reeves lived more grandly, dining on rich folk's china with lacquered spoons and silk hangings to decorate their halls. These folk seemed pretty cursed lacking.

Sergeant Giyara clattered into the audience chamber. 'Captain Arras?'

'Here I am.' He stepped back into the main room.

The six subcaptains tramped in with boots on. Arras sat on the pillow behind the writing desk and pushed aside a bowl of half eaten nai porridge, now cold and congealed.

'Your reports?'

Over the past months he had trained them to give efficient and effective reports: all the information he needed but not more, delivered in a straightforward order.

Casualties. Eight eagles were definite kills, six bodies recovered and two lost in the bay. Eight reeves also dead, thereby. How many wounded eagles and reeves none knew for sure, but they'd done damage. On the ground, they'd collected seventy-eight corpses and one hundred twelve prisoners, adults who had been working as slaves, hirelings, and assistants at the reeve hall as well as thirty-seven additional folk who claimed to be fishers and farmers, refugees come to Copper Hall to beg for food.

Their own casualties were minimal: five dead, ten with serious injuries, and about thirty with wounds that would need a couple of days rest as long as they did not get infected.

'What are your orders concerning the prisoners?' Giyara asked.

'Let me consider,' said Arras. 'What about supplies?'

'Plenty of tools and weapons,' said Subcaptain Orli, 'but their supplies of leather and harness are cursed thin.'

'What about food supplies?' Arras asked, for this was his major preoccupation these days. He could not feed additional slaves when it was difficult enough to feed his soldiers.

'We've done a sweep of the storehouses,' said Subcaptain Piri. 'Eight bags of rice and twelve of nai. Not enough to feed a hall with this many people for but another few days, eh?'

'Aui! The wine cellar's well stocked!' Subcaptain Eddon was the newest and youngest of the three subcaptains; he laughed recklessly now. 'That new sergeant, Zubaidit-' Then he flushed and broke off.

Orli and Piri eyed Arras, searching for a flinch of satisfaction or shame at the name, but he'd promoted her based on performance, not favoritism. It wasn't as if he'd gotten any cursed benefit out of the deal beyond a decent cadre sergeant for that group of floundering misfits salvaged from the ruin of First Cohort.

'-found a cellar, here in the garden, and cursed if there weren't twenty casks of wine and cordial.'

'Twenty casks!' Arras laughed. 'I guess wine and cordial will keep your stomach warm when it's empty. Sergeant.' He nodded at Giyara. 'You're in charge of those personally. Hold out five for the senior command staff, but the rest will be rationed to the soldiers as their victory badge.'

'Yes, Captain.' None of the subcaptains protested; they knew Giyara couldn't be bribed. 'What about the hall, Captain?'

'Burn it. As for the prisoners, those with a slave mark may be allowed to serve the cohort. As usual, watch for any who seem like potential recruits and for those who seem likely to cause mischief.'

'And the other prisoners?'

Footsteps pattered up the steps. Giyara slid the screen a hand's-breadth open, a smile touching her lips as she flicked a gaze toward Arras. She shoved the door open to reveal Zubaidit, kitted out like the rest of the soldiers and sporting a sergeant's badge. The subcaptains glanced at her and then at Arras. Why everyone thought he and the young woman were having sex he could not figure, since he had never touched her.

'Captain Arras?' she asked, cool as you please for all that she had intruded on his command council. 'A word with you?'

Eddon snorted.

Orli rolled his eyes and nudged Piri, who frowned. The other three subcaptains looked elsewhere.

Arras gestured for her to enter, and cursed if the others didn't simply take this as a dismissal.

Giyara, pausing on the threshold, spoke. 'Captain?'

Probably he was a little flushed. He sent her off with a lift of his chin. Zubaidit slid the door closed with a foot and leaned against one of the load-bearing wooden pillars. She had a way of lounging while standing up that made you think of what she would be like lying down.

He let irritation show, instead of desire. 'You've served ably enough to be promoted to sergeant very quickly given how few months ago you were a hostage. But you must know how it looks to the others, you walking in like this.'

She looked the hells more comfortable than he felt, because she had that quality that did get him bothered. 'Captain, what would you want in exchange for you doing something for me that would cause no harm to your soldiers or your command? A one-time thing.'

'I'm the captain of this cohort. Why should I want anything?'

She smiled.

He rubbed his jaw because he had to move something to scratch the restless itch crawling through his body. 'Without more information, it seems to me you're asking a cursed lot just on the belief that I'd like to devour you.'

'Wouldn't you?'

'It demeans me — and you — to have sex if it just becomes a matter of coin or barter. Where I grew up, we had a proper respect for the Merciless One.'

'Better to take coin, or barter, than be forced against your will, don't you think?'

'Forced? It's true some criminals and sick-minded folk might do such a thing, but that's what-' Then, sitting in the reeve hall which would soon be burned down, he heard his own words and stopped talking.

'That's what reeves and assizes are for?'

'Law courts will be set in place once the Hundred is under control.'

'Meanwhile, soldiers will do as they please.'

'What do you mean?'

'Surely you can't be so naive, Captain.'

'I have expressly forbidden-'

She shrugged, the gesture as good as a slap, cutting him off. 'Think so if you must. I had three men whipped until their backs bled because they forced themselves on village folk. I won't allow that under my command, and I made sure the rest knew what would happen to them if they tried it. Yet if soldiers can steal rice and nai and anything else they want from a cottage, why not sex as well? Who will stop them?'

'Those are First Cohort men, those in the cadre you were given to command!'

'I just thought you would want to know it's going on among your own troops.'

'You're putting me off my guard because there's something else you want. What is it?'

'I can't tell you without you giving me your word you'll let me do what needs doing.'

'I could give you my word and then change my mind.'

'Not you, Captain. You're an honorable man.'

He laughed, although the way she said the phrase stung him. 'I'd say you were flattering me, but I don't think you flatter.'

'A man who would do this favor for me would seemed cursed attractive in my eyes.'

'Neh, you're still bribing me. Let me ask you a question, then. You served your apprenticeship in the Merciless One's temple.'

'That's right.'

'If you were a hierodule and I was a man come to the temple to worship, would you devour me?'

Her amused smile was an honest answer, enough to make him feel like he wasn't begging.

'I was a hierodule once,' she added, 'so I honor the Merciless One. Within the temple, the hierodule and the kalos are the equals of those who come to worship. Not their hirelings. Not their servants. Not their slaves. Not their conquest.'

'Yet I've heard it said that of all those who serve the gods, those who serve the Merciless One are the most like slaves.'

'At the temple, the hierodules and kalos choose as they please, and refuse as they wish. I admit, sometimes an unscrupulous hieros will pressure her apprentices to do what they might otherwise feel reluctant to do. However, such a hieros will find it hard to keep apprentices.'

'What do you want?'

'I need to get something out of Copper Hall before you burn it. I'd like to get these items out untouched and unharmed.'

'Wine? Jewels? Silk? Gold cheyt? I wondered where the reeves were hiding their wealth.'

'Something a cursed lot more valuable to me.' Her expression darkened in a way that surprised him, and he sat up, taking her presence far more seriously. 'There's a chamber dug below this cote. I found about thirty youths, mostly debt slaves and hirelings. I hate to see children broken into slaves, Captain. And I truly despise seeing helpless young persons abused, as some will do, given the chance. I don't like to owe anything to anyone, but if you'll get them out no worse for what they've otherwise endured today, I'll be in your debt.'

'They might be better off serving as slaves to this cohort than sent to wander the roads with the risk of falling afoul of a less merciful cohort.'

'They might. It's a generous offer, but I don't think you can keep feeding more dependents.'

He turned the bowl of cold nai halfway around just to do something. 'I could have you executed for this conversation.'

Her smile was cursed relaxed. 'So you could.'

'Aui! Does nothing fluster you?'

'Not much.'

'Will it content you if I order all refugees and debt slaves released?'

'You'd have my thanks.' Her smile offered more.

'I want nothing in exchange,' he said curtly. 'I'll have the refugees and debt slaves assembled here in the marshal's garden. Sneak the others in among them, and they'll all be escorted from the compound before we put it to the torch. You're dismissed.'

'Captain.' She slid the door open and went out.

He turned the bowl all the way round, then tapped it on the table's top as he frowned.

'Captain?' Giyara looked in.

'Did you hear all that?' he asked, because Giyara's expression reminded him of a darkness in Zubaidit's eyes.

'I did.'

'What do you make of it?'

'She's a strange one. Yet she's right. No matter what you've proclaimed, there are soldiers who will force sex on captives. It's just wrong to steal what the Devourer offers. I hope most of your veterans would agree. You've got to come down hard on the First Cohort soldiers.'

'The commanders of this army won't care one way or the other. Maybe those who order cleansings have no argument with other forms of torture. Where does that leave us, Giyara?'

She'd seen too much to make light of his concerns. Like him, she'd walked a hard road to get to this place. She was good at what she did. She trusted him, and he trusted her, because they'd set their boundaries and stuck to them. There were things a person simply refused to do, because they were shameful.

She knew what he meant without him having to explain himself. 'We walk cautiously, Captain. And try not to attract much notice.'

'These children Zubaidit found hiding — Eiya! That wasn't mice I heard!' She looked a question at him, but he waved a hand. 'Never mind. Look over the prisoners. We'll release the refugees, and recruit or release those with debt marks and any young ones.'

'And the hirelings and assistants from Copper Hall? Cleanse them?'

Someone had to take the blow. War was a hard business. It was idiotic to pretend otherwise. 'No cleansings. Kill them, but make it clean and quick. When the compound burns, let it have a necklace of dead to remind the people hereabouts that the reeves, and those who support them, are going down to defeat.'

Stage by stage, day by day, the caravan journeyed to Old Fort. The amount of local traffic on the road shocked Kesh. Men led donkeys piled high with firewood. Lads and lasses shepherded flocks in grassy clearings. Women walked — alone! — with baskets of mushrooms gathered from the forest, calling out a cheerful greeting to the soldiers. Now and again they saw an eagle and reeve overhead, patrolling. At every village they crossed a guard post with a barrier blocking the road while the escort sent with them from Dast Korumbos cleared their passage.

'I've never seen the roads so secure,' said Kesh for the hundredth time. 'You could send a cursed child walking from here to Dast Korumbos and not fear for its safety.'

'All under the watchful eye of the Olo'osson militia,' said Eliar.

'As long as they're protecting me.' Kesh pushed forward to keep pace with the soldiers assigned them at the border. 'Are the roads safe all the way north, even to Nessumara?'

They were local lads, clear-featured and well disciplined, wearing their black hair up in topknots to mimic the Qin. 'Neh, things are cursed bad in the north,' they said with serious looks.

Kesh bit back a grin to make it a grimace. 'No one traveling up to trade in Nessumara and Toskala then, eh?'

They scoffed. 'Tss! You'd be good as dead, you would. But we hear-' They bent closer, confidingly. 'As soon as our army is ready to march, we'll do to them gods-rotted Stars of Life criminals, won't we?'

'Surely you will,' agreed Kesh, surprised by the fervor in their expressions.

They descended toward a familiar hill, its ancient ruins overlooking the glittering expanse of the Olo'o Sea caught in the ruddy light of late afternoon. Old Fort's palisade gates were open. Folk worked in fields and orchards scattered all the way up to the upland highlands where the southern shore of the grassy Lend washed against the foothills. They labored in stinking butcheries and tanning yards, sawed and sledged in the big lumber yard by the water where ten ships were drawn up awaiting logs and planks. No sooner had their caravan rumbled in to the large encampment grounds then young and old alike swarmed them with wares to barter or sell, freshly roasted meat on skewers, kama juice, barsh. A pair of young women had set up a slip-fry stand and got to work as the newly arrived Qin solders stared.

In procession with her eunuchs, the captain's mother presented herself to the slip-fry girls. Kesh hurried over, Eliar at his heels.

'What are these items? In what manner are you cooking them? Is this typical in this country? What do you charge? Extra for use of a bowl?'

The girls did not know to be intimidated. Even the watching Qin soldiers did not frighten them, being, evidently, so common a sight in these days they were considered as unexceptional as passing sheep. 'This is radish, verea, very crisp from my aunt's garden. Oil pressed from olives, verea, very healthy. For you, a special price because we've never seen a woman of your years come out of the south. We would never haggle with an auntie.'

They then named an outrageous sum that made Kesh choke and even Eliar change color, a flush rising in his cheeks. The girls saw him, and they giggled and goggled at the young good-looking Silver in their midst, just as the newly arrived Qin soldiers stared at the girls, although without the lighthearted laughter.

The old woman speared Keshad with her gaze. 'You will obtain a sample of local food so my people may taste what they can expect to eat. It smells awful.'

She swept away with her attendants.

'The hells!' exclaimed the older slip-fry girl. 'That was rude!'

Kesh distributed vey to the first dozen soldiers. 'You pay this much and then return the bowl and leave,' he said to them. 'Make a line. That's how we do things here.'

Mollified by paying customers, the girls got to work.

'This will be interesting,' said Eliar in Kesh's ear.

'Did you ever believe otherwise? Now help me do as she asked. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to stand before Captain Anji after she's filled his ear with complaints of our service.'

'It must be twenty years since he's seen her. Didn't she send him away?'

'Yes, at the age of twelve, so he wouldn't be murdered in the imperial women's quarters you are so fond of. What's that to you?'

'That the Sirniakans are barbarians isn't my fault! I'm just remarking that it's not as if she raised him after that time. It's the age a boy leaves his mother's care and moves among men into a man's life. Why should he listen to her after all these years beyond the kindly respect any son must show a mother?'

You're an idiot. But Kesh held his tongue, thinking of Miravia. Maybe she had months ago been married off to the old goat, but perhaps there was time, since the roads north still weren't safe. Old goats died, and left the young goats behind. There was no telling what had happened while he was gone. He had to be patient.

'Heya! Heya!' The local guardsmen waved to get his attention.

A party of mounted men were riding up from the track that led west around the Olo'o Sea. The incoming troops were about one third Qin, the rest young local men who dressed and acted as if they wished they were Qin. Kesh was surprised to see Chief Deze at their head.

'Chief?' He hurried to meet them as the wiry soldier dismounted. 'How are you come here so quickly? We left you at the border.'

'The reeves gave me a lift. I'm traveling with you to Astafero.'

'Is that where Captain Anji is?'

Chief Deze had a likable smile, and it slammed like a closed door on a question he had no intention of answering. 'We'll re-supply here and leave at dawn. I'll take charge now.'

Never in his life had Keshad been happier to give up control.