Traitors Gate

38

In the late afternoon Sixth Cohort weathered a barrage of rocks dropped by successive flights of reeves. Huddling under tortoised shields as stones cracked wood or thudded into moist ground, Arras contemplated reeves. A smart commander could do a lot with reeves, if he had them on his side. If he wasn't obsessed with destroying them, as the cloaks were.

The attack ceased when the reeves emptied their baskets. He

cautiously, stuck his head out from under the shields. 'We'll stay under cover until dusk. Eat, drink, and sleep. At dusk we push the last distance, across the worst ground. By dawn at the latest we'll attack.'

At dusk, drums beat up and down the line. It was hard going, the men in front probing in pairs, one man hoisting shield and lamp while the other probed with his spear for krokes, mud sucks, and mires. Men got stuck in mud sucks, but they'd learned to use poles and brush to lever out the victims; scouts tested for firmer routes; on they crawled, as the stars wheeled overhead and the Embers Moon rose. Twice they crossed shallow channels; as they waded, the soldiers joked to cover the fear of a kroke attack. Arras slopped through calf-deep water, squelching as he climbed onto dry ground.

'We're especially vulnerable crossing the channels' he said to Giyara as they paused on the far shore after the second crossing. The moon by now had climbed halfway up the sky. It was very late, and soon the dawn would make them a target again for the reeves. 'Yet they don't attack.'

She took a swig of water from a leather bottle and spat it out. 'Maybe the reeves are all the attack they have.'

'I wonder. Maybe they're luring us in. Maybe they're poorly led. Or undermanned.'

'Maybe they're running away while the reeves cover their retreat.'

He chuckled. 'That hadn't occurred to me.'

As they moved forward, as midges clouded his arms and the night breeze wafted the acrid scent of tarweed, he kept wondering. What was going on in Nessumara? The quarter moon reached zenith as the eastern sky paled toward dawn. Hummocks of earth and stands of spiky brush began to appear in silhouette against the flat landscape.

'Subcaptain Piri approaching,' called a runner.

Piri appeared with an escort of two soldiers, one with a lamp and one with a spear and axe. 'Captain, there's a canal ahead, proper brick sides and three narrow plank bridges with the planks pulled free and abandoned on the far side. I've already got men across and laying the planks back in.'

'Either the defenders left in haste, or they're cursed stupid. Go on.'

'Beyond the canal is an island with pasture and field. At the far

side of the island stands a wall, mostly brush, broken wagons, boats, and rubbish thrown up between sheds and stables. It extends in either direction as far as I can see, maybe all along this front. They've erected platforms atop it, with archers. To reach the wall, we have to advance across all that open ground.'

Arras nodded. 'There's why they didn't attack us. Can we burn it? The smoke will shield us from the reeves, likewise.'

'With the breeze out of the southwest, the smoke'll blow right back on us. Best we pull it down. I'll need, a company of archers to check their archers. It's a hastily built wall. We can use hooks to tear it up. But I wouldn't march the cohort over the bridges until we're rid of those platforms. The open ground makes us cursed vulnerable.'

Arras nodded to Giyara. 'Detach a company of archers and shields. Piri, your company will open breaches in the wall. We'll attack in force once we've got an opening.'

Piri and Giyara hurried off as the order passed down through the cohort and men settled under shields to rest and eat. Arras with his aides walked the shore of the canal. In the shade of a fisherman's rush-woven lean-to he surveyed the island beyond as the archers turtled their way onto the open ground and set up a steady fire from behind braced shields. Soon the platforms were cleared. Cadres pressed forward behind shields. More men scrambled up atop the platforms, but Sixth Cohort's archers had gotten their range and pinned them down as the cadres hacked and hooked where the makeshift wall looked most vulnerable.

'Captain! The lord commander!'

He stepped out from the shade as white wings floated to earth.

Lord Radas sat astride the winged horse in a swirl of sun-bright cloak. 'Captain Arras! Why are you not advancing with your entire cohort?'

He ducked his face behind open hands. 'Lord Commander. We deemed it more prudent to clear the platforms while providing cover to a few cadres cutting a breach rather than offer a wide target with my entire front line. In addition, I'll exhaust only a few cadres while attacking with a rested force-'

'Your orders were to advance. We must reach the center of Nessumara. I'll tolerate no more delays! I have personally flown over the city. This is the only defense. All my other cohorts have crossed the channel already and are attacking the wall. We must overwhelm them.'

'Begging your pardon, Lord Commander, but there are two edges to war, subtlety and brutality. I think-'

'You think too much of yourself! How can you imagine you understand more than I do, who can fly above, who can see into your pathetic hearts, know your weakness, your crimes, your petty fragilities. Look at me!'

Arras winced. His aides, huddling in the lean-to's humble shade, groaned and gasped as if they had already been eviscerated.

'You fear me because I am more powerful than you are,' said Lord Radas. 'Because I can have you cleansed. You don't respect me. You think well of yourself but you do not understand how my plan plays out over the years. To you, it is all about today. I must consider tomorrow. Once we take Nessumara, we control the entire length of the River Istri. After the rains, we will strengthen our army with new recruits from Wedrewe, turn south, and destroy Olossi. Had we pushed forward the first time, months ago, we would have overwhelmed them. We will not make that mistake a second time. Now, move your cohort immediately. The cursed reeves will be out soon, but the day, and the victory, will belong to us. If Lord Blood visits your position, tell him to report to me at once.'

His horse sprang into the air, and Arras dropped to the ooze as hooves flashed above his head. When he rose, hands and knees dripping with muck, he stared after the lord commander's progress until the wings were caught by sunlight and abruptly vanished from his sight. The hells!

'Captain?'

'Sergeant Giyara.' He could speak, just barely, with an even voice as he tried to clap the muck off his gloves. 'Get the men over the bridges and form up for a frontal attack.'

Gods-cursed cloaks. As if he hadn't been the one who had argued against retreat in that first attack on Nessumara. Half his aides trotted away with the sergeant while he fumed on the canal's shore. The sun had risen high enough to spill its light over the canal's glossy waters. With Giyara in the van, troops began to funnel across the bridges. More enemy archers appeared on the wall platforms, but his archers kept up an efficient stream of fire.

Odd, really, how ephemeral that wall was, little more than planks and brush and hope. Surely they were not hinging their defense on it. He could not see Eighth Cohort much less the Eleventh and Ninth holding the right flank a mey upriver from his

position, but he heard the murmur of distant shouting, men eager to get to fighting and looting. An eagle glided past above, the first he'd seen. Otherwise, the sky remained empty but for a dark haze towering along the northern horizon.

Have Lord Blood report to me at once. Didn't Lord Radas know where his subcommander, his brother cloak, was?

A round back rolled out of the water and vanished so quickly he wasn't sure if he'd truly seen it. A rainbow of colors skimmed the surface where light glittered. A water bird — not one he recognized — floated past the lean-to, preening viciously at its feathers like a dog with the mange. Odd that it ignored them, for surely folk in this part of the world hunted fowl just as they did everywhere else. Instead, it labored at its brilliant plumage, then lifted its beak as though struggling to swallow.

The hells. Either the defenders left in haste, or they were cursed stupid.

Or it was a trap.

He ran a hand through the water. It was strangely slimy to the touch. He sniffed a finger, licked it.

Oil.

'The hells!' His words startled his aides. 'Call a full retreat. Get everyone off that island and form into marching order. We're moving back. Now.'

'The lord commander gave the order-' one protested.

'This is a trap, and the lord commander is too stubborn, or too vain, to see it. He's cursed puffed up with his gods-rotted power. But I see it, and I won't allow my cohort to get caught in it. Do as I say, or stand aside.'

They obeyed. They abandoned the wall, the island, and the bridges, and began a disciplined retreat across the ground they had so laboriously trudged over for the last two days. When men from the cadres who had been working on the breach reported that the debris was damp and slimy with oil, he sent a runner to the Eighth Cohort. Not in time.

They'd retreated not a quarter of a mey from the canal when flights of eagles swooped low, loosing arrows tipped with fire, and the land burst into flame. It was spectacular, really, easily seen across the flat landscape. The wall burst to become a ridge of fire, while flame skimmed along the canal like a coruscating snake racing along the ground. Bridges exploded into flame in sparkling yellows, whites, and blues like fireworks shot off at festival time.

The screams of the other cohorts, caught between the oil-soaked canal and the oil-soaked debris, chased his soldiers as they slogged across the mire to the causeway. Once up on the wide stone roadway, they marched unmolested and at double time toward Saltow. Away to the north, the haze was thickening, pillars rising into the sky. Something huge was burning. Had the defenders done what he'd not dared do: set fire to the land?

'Giyara,' he said, as they strode along in the rearguard, 'Lord Radas will have me cleansed for sure, but cursed if I'm going to sacrifice my soldiers for his ignorance. I'll do my best to protect the rest of you from his wrath. I'll face him alone.'

'What do we do when we reach Saltow?' asked Giyara.

Behind, Eighth Cohort soldiers came running, entirely routed.

'Hells if I know. But I'd be cursed curious to know who planned this defense. For that's a man who knows how to fight.'

Nallo had been pacing or sitting restlessly all day, too nervous and eager to rest, although Pil had lounged on a bench with his eyes shut, a repose of calm that would have irritated her if she wasn't so fond of him. He was the brother she'd always wished she had, wasn't he? Not the braggarts and teasers who had ceaselessly bullied her time and again until, time and again, she lost her temper — no difficult task — and got in trouble with this uncle or that aunt, who never liked her much anyway, her being lanky and cranky and, as they always said, not worth the food she scraped from the bottom of the clan pot.

She was cast of them now.

She had a new clan, among the reeves.

An eagle appeared downriver. Flags flashed the signal — battle had been joined in Nessumara! — and the two flights of reeves atop Law Rock leaped to their harness. Up they spiraled as the fire bell clanged three times, and then twice, and last once, alerting their allies in Toskala. Heavy amphorae whacked her knees as she guided Tumna in a swing downriver over the sparkling current and back around toward the city below. Smoke already trailed up from a bright blue fire within the Ilu temple in Stone Quarter, and fireworks burst from a Thunderer's temple in Flag Quarter, and last from one temple in each of the other three quarters, according to the plan. The flight glided around the rock and over Toskala. Markets cleared as folk ran for their homes, but from the height she saw men and women forming up inside compounds with staves

and shovels and hooks and work blades. Men pulled out wagons and carts. Then she was over the main garrison headquarters in Wolf Quarter. She cut the ropes that held one of the amphora. It plummeted, and shattered on the tile roof. She cut free the second, which crashed through the thatched roof of a shade awning in the courtyard, splattering soldiers come running to stare up.

Arrows tipped with flame flashed as Pil glided past on Sweet. Fire rippled down the roof tiles and caught in dry thatch. More arrows, unlit, struck among the soldiery, who scattered. Flame eddied along the packed dirt of the courtyard. More amphorae hit; then they passed over the gates to the tents and corrals of the garrisons, livestock herds and auxiliary encampment. She released the last two amphorae over the command tents. Pil shot, striking true. Flames stuttered and caught. The horses went wild.

The eagles swung wide. Coming around, she saw smoke and fire rising in the garrison strongholds. She headed back for Law Rock to pick up the second and last load of oil — mostly common cooking oil — while Pil and the other reeves who were decent archers spiraled low over the city in support of the locals streaming out of their compounds.

Toskala had risen.

Nekkar sat in the shade of the porch on a thin pillow, teaching the apprentices the intricacies of the Tale of the Guardians, as it was chanted on the new moon. It was a good way to pass the time in the heat of a dry-season afternoon when everyone was exhausted from the months of occupation and weak from hunger. The young ones drooped; several dozed off and snorted awake as his voice startled them.

'When we speak of the orphaned girl who calls to the gods, we change the timbre of the chant to show respect for her courage and honor. The signs begin at chest height, close to the heart to show our connection to those who came before us, our ancestors. Then' — his own hands sketched the gestures — 'rise to show her courage and honor rising as she dares the dangerous path to Indiyabu. Her path is our path, for we must all rise in the quest for justice, we must brave the dangerous path because to stand aside and do nothing is a form of death. We turn our back on the gods when we turn our back on justice. We strive to show the same courage and honor that she displayed-'

The fire bell atop Law Rock clanged three times. He ceased

speaking. Every apprentice looked up, eyes widening. The silence opened as hearts raced.

The fire bell rang twice. Envoys scurried into the courtyard, abandoning their daily tasks.

He rose, leaning on his cane, as a final clang resonated.

'Light the fire,' he said.

Kellas leaped up from the porch with a pouch of copper salts and ran to the open hearth where wood had been laid days ago in expectation of this moment.

'Bring out the wagon. Your staves. You younger ones go into the sleeping quarters and remain there. As for the rest, it is time to rise with the courage and honor shown by the orphaned girl.' He tested his ankle, found it firm enough for the purpose. An envoy brought him his staff, and he marched to the gates as fire caught in the hearth, blazing blue as smoke rose.

The lass up on the gate watch called down: 'Fireworks from Kotaru's temple in Flag Quarter, Uncle Nekkar. Heya! The Lantern's temple in Bell Quarter has lit its fire. And Wolf! And Fifth! Look, Uncle! Look! The reeves are coming!'

'We march.'

They had two cadres, trained in staff fighting, common to Ilu's Heralds who walked the roads and might have to beat off importunate wild dogs both canine and human. They pushed open the gates and emerged onto the empty street. Voices swelled as the city awakened from its imprisonment. In Lele Square they met a mixed group of folk, another two cadres.

'Holy One! How do we proceed?'

'Those with padded garments and weapons go to the front, behind the wagons and carts. The rest hold the line behind them. We must hold forces and not break. The soldiers will kill some of us, that is to be expected, but if we hold, we will overwhelm them.'

As they headed down Lumber Avenue toward Terta Square, more folk joined them. It was a rash venture, peaceful folk as they were accustomed to being, and yet what choice did they have?

Aui! It was hot. Smoke rose in waves as the reeves targeted the garrison headquarters and the encampment outside the city gates. Horns blatted as Toskala's lazy garrison woke belatedly to the danger. From every street and alley, they poured into Terta Square pushing the wagons ahead of them. Soldiers were battling a fire on the roof of the Thirsty Saw, but the sergeant in charge called them to form up in a disciplined line. Arrows flew, hissing into the

crowd. Men and women, lads and lasses, went down, and a young woman pushing a wagon crumpled as blood gushed from her throat. Her companions faltered.

'Push forward!' cried Nekkar, and the cry rose until it became a howl.

That was enough to spur them on.

The young men and women pushing carts and wagons broke into a run, and the vehicles crashed into the line. Soldiers fell beneath the wheels, while others scrambled to join their fellows, retreating toward the barracks. But the crowd was emboldened now; the months of curfew, of hunger, of humiliation had seared them; the young struck recklessly, pouring into the gaps within the army's lines, hitting the doors and windows, climbing the roofs to get over into the courtyard behind, so as to attack from the rear. His first cadre of envoys surged forward with the rest, but others held him as he tried to move forward.

'We need you here to command us. Stay back, Holy One.'

Folk from all over Stone Quarter surrounded him, bearing planks and barrel lids for shields. A man five paces away, an arrow in his shoulder, toppled into the people behind him. The crowd lurched forward, then staggered back, then forward again, bodies pressed together, everyone caught in the crush. Weapons clashed and rang, but he couldn't see above the crowd. Far away, the fire bell clamored as reeves glided low over the city. A pot plunged out of the sky to break across the top of the barracks, and in its wake an arrow blazed down. Fire chased down the sides of the tile roof. A scream of triumph rose from some furious young person, hard to say if male or female, and the crowd broke forward until people were stumbling, trying to keep their balance lest they be trampled. Nekkar tripped over a body and hit his knees hard on the ground, bracing himself on a hand as he stared into the open eyes of the sergeant who had ruled Stone Quarter for the last months. He'd been wounded in the side, but he wasn't dead; he was awake and aware, and Nekkar felt obliged to speak a word of comfort, but before a single word escaped him a figure dressed in a ragged taloos dropped down beside him. Fala held a dagger in her hand, and she paused only long enough for the sergeant to see in her his death, and then she plunged the dagger into his chest once, and twice, and three times, and four times.

'Enough, niece!' Nekkar cried. 'Enough!'

She looked up, hair falling over bruised shoulders; her cheeks were sunken. She was panting, licking her lips as blood leaked over her hands. 'My thanks to you, Holy One. This is your doing, isn't it?'

'We found allies,' he said.

Then she began to weep, and a pair of brothers or cousins shouted her name and pulled her away from the dead sergeant.

Others lifted Nekkar. 'We've won, Holy One! To the gates!'

'Leave two cadres to make a sweep of the neighborhoods. There will be soldiers who escaped, desperate men who must be caught.'

'Caught and killed!'

They marched to Toskala's gate, a roaring, singing mass, swarming out to the garrison encampment, which had already been subdued by a company of militiamen flown up from Horn. Already the uprising was losing cohesion as folk streamed toward the main road and its line of posts, to release the dead and dying who had been condemned to cleansing.

A pair of reeves landed hard in an open field, and a passenger unhooked and jogged across the field, heading straight for Nekkar.

'Holy One! I'm Chief Toughid. We met before.' The outlander was a good-looking fellow, not very tall but hale and strong, a bit younger than Nekkar. Once you got accustomed to his accent, he was easy enough to understand. 'Commander Anji's orders, Holy One, to speak to you first. I will order sweeps of the city to look for rogue soldiers. Also, we must set up a perimeter. Enemy soldiers from this region and from the lands down the river will attempt retreat. We must stop and kill as many as we can.'

'What news from Nessumara?' asked Nekkar.

'Chief Sengel's trap was sprung at dawn. I tell you, Holy One, it is a poor commander who does not learn from his mistakes. The demon who commands the enemy did not anticipate that we might use oil of naya again. Hard to imagine such a creature can hope for victory. Good for us, though.' He shaded his eyes against the late-afternoon sun as the giant eagles rose into the sky. A frown chased across his face as he examined one of the reeves; then he looked back at Nekkar. 'What is it, Holy One?'

Nekkar had not realized how his fears and hopes were made plain on his face. Eiya! He was so weary, and yet elation lifted

him. 'I'd like to walk out to the brickworks, Sergeant. They were forcing children to make bricks, and I just wonder-'

I just wonder about those poor orphans.

But the words choked him. Across the encampment and from the city, people began to sing the famous 'Prayer that lifts good news' from the Tale of Fortune.

'This is a prayer that lifts good news. An offering of fresh flowers in thanks, This is a prayer whose seeds scatter. Our voices honor you, who birthed us.'

The chief whistled. Soldiers whose faces Nekkar did not recognize — Olossi men — converged to form a disciplined cadre awaiting orders. 'Escort the holy one to the brickyards and wherever else he wants to go, and then bring him back to me. I'll be setting up an administrative center. Where do you recommend, Holy One?'

'Eh. Ah.' He wiped moisture from his forehead and discovered, to his shock, that his hand came away smeared with blood. What a terrible day, for all its triumph. 'Law Rock would be the proper place for an administrative center, as it's always been. That way no quarter feels slighted or honored. But the stairs will need to be cleared. That will take time.'

The chief nodded. With a gesture, he sent the cadre off with Nekkar, with a special escort of two young Qin soldiers for the ostiary. Wagons had ground ruts into the ground, cracked in this season of dry soil. Folk from the city had already run before him to the yards seeking kinfolk enslaved to the work; the place was a hive of weeping and wailing as people found their lost ones or heard tales of death and despair. The Qin soldiers took in this scene without comment, sticking at his heels like dogs, quiet and respectful.

He trudged among ragged shelters, scraps of cloth fixed to broken planks to form caves against the sun. Thin children staggered in the heat, seeking a friendly face, but others remained in hiding. He would have missed them had they not recognized him, even after so many months.

'Holy One?'

The voice was little more than the brush of wind through delicate leaves. Under a grimy bit of canvas held down by the broken

stubs of bricks a dusty skeletal hand lifted the cloth as a thin face peered out. A second body moved in the shallow pit the canvas covered.

Were these the same orphaned children he'd lost in the alley? Did it even matter?

'Come out now,' he said in the voice he used to calm homesick young novices crying through their first month at the temple. 'We're going to the temple. There'll be food and a bath and a pallet to sleep on.'

'There's soldiers with you, Holy One. They look funny.'

'They've come to set things right. Just like in the tale: "And an outlander will save them."'

The child crawled out, and after her — impossibly — the smaller and the smallest. All three had survived their months in the brickyard, although they were weak, emaciated, and covered with dirt and filth. The soldiers muttered to each other, and at first he thought they were disgusted and then he realized they were appalled, however little they revealed in their expressions. Such young men might well have younger siblings, lost to them now. Without hesitation they each picked up one of the smaller ones without regard to the reek and filth.

Nekkar took the hand of the eldest, a brave soul too weary and hungry to cry. 'We're safe now.'

'What if they come back?' whispered the child. 'The bad ones.'

Nekkar gestured to the Qin soldiers, who were gently cradling the littler ones. 'We'll make sure it doesn't happen again. All will be well.'