Traitors Gate

5

Stuck all day up on Law Rock because Tumna was out on her hunting day, Nallo had had enough.

'Sit your stinking ass down and keep your mouth closed, ver.' The snap in her voice made the cursed merchant take a startled step backward, out of her face. 'I'm tired of hearing you complain, and so is everyone else, neh? You'll have your turn to get your rations and make your complaints when it comes to you.'

'I'm a respected guildsman! You've no right to talk to me in that way, some village girl thinking she's as good as me just because-'

'Just because I have an eagle that can rip your head off? End of the line, ver.'

Nallo signaled to the firefighters who made up what passed for a militia atop the rock. Using their fire hooks as prods, the young men chivvied the furious merchant out of his place and to the back as he protested in an obnoxious voice while onlookers smirked. He'd made no friends with his demands for special treatment.

She surveyed the folk waiting in line for their daily rations. 'We mean to hold Law Rock. So you've got to bide your time, do your part, accept your rations, keep calm. Those of you who can train to fight, will train. Those who are hoping for a lift off the rock will have to wait your turn.'

At the head of the line, on the long porch fronting the militia barracks where many of the stranded people slept, a shaven-

headed clerk sworn to Sapanasu the Lantern made a mark in her accounts book as the fire captain ladled out a ration of rice porridge to a woman with two children hanging on to her taloos. The clerk called for the next person in line, and bent forward to hear his name.

We're Toskala's last defenders, Nallo thought, and a sad herd of bleating goats we're proving to be.

The cadre sergeant beckoned. 'Heya, Nallo! You're called to a reeve's meeting.'

'Hold the line,' she said to him. 'Anyone who bawls out of turn gets sent to the back like that one. Better we had a sack of mildewed nai than him. At least we could dump the rotten nai on anyone trying to clear the steps.'

'Heh, that's a good one.' The firefighters liked her irritable temper and sharp tongue, although few others she'd known in her twenty years had appreciated it. 'Wish I'd seen your eagle rip the head off those men who killed the two eagles on Traitors' Night.'

But Nallo remembered how her friend Volias had dropped dead beside her in the instant his own eagle had expired. That her own eagle, Tumna, had slaughtered the murderers didn't make her feel better. 'I'd have ripped off the heads of those gods-rotted, hells-bound traitors if I'd gotten to them first.'

'Aui! I'll bet you would have!'

She trotted over to the gate that led into the reeve compound, where she found Pil waiting. She paced beside him into Clan Hall, an impressive complex with its skeletal watchtowers where eagles could perch, the two vast lofts for shelter, a long, narrow parade ground for training, and a sheltered garden tucked away behind it all near the edge of the cliff where the commander of Clan Hall had her office and chamber. The commander was dead, of course, murdered with so many others on the night they were all now calling 'Traitors' Night.' Odash, the old reeve who had acted for years as hall steward because he was too crippled to fly, had taken the cote's porch for his headquarters as he tried to keep Clan Hall functioning.

The forty-eight reeves remaining, not counting the four who were on patrol and the thirty-three who were in some stage of flying individual refugees down to Nessumara and returning with sacks of rice and nai, gathered in the commander's courtyard. Seventy-two fawkners, stewards, hirelings, and slaves were also

stuck up on the rock. Odash sat on a three-legged stool, looking as exhausted as ever.

He raised a hand and everyone quieted. 'We've held this rock ten days. We're helpless to stop the murders going on below. However, we've now established communications with the city, via the auxiliary basket on the north cliff. Yesterday a message was left in the basket. Here's the news: There's been extensive looting. The army is forcing all refugees to leave the city. Anyone who speaks out against the army, and people who have ties with militia or specific clans are executed immediately. A governing headquarters has been set up in Flag Quarter. Taxes are being levied compound by compound. Wherever weapons are found, they are confiscated. A curfew's been established. The markets are closed, and people are hungry.'

Pil made a gesture that caught Odash's notice.

'What is it, Pil?'

It wasn't easy for Pil to speak up, but he managed to force out words. 'The army wants to rule the city. If people have hunger and have fright, they then will obey the ones who rule, if they fear them.'

'That something your people used to do, out in foreign lands?' demanded one of the older reeves, a man named Vekess. He eyed Pil with suspicion.

'It is an effective method.'

Some of the reeves hissed, but Kesta moved closer to slap Pil on the shoulder. 'Cursed glad you're here with us, Pil. Gives us some insight into what these gods-rotted criminals might be doing.' She bent her fierce gaze on Odash.

The old reeve made a business of clearing his throat to focus attention back on himself. 'My contacts want to send a person up here to meet with us.'

'Could be a trap,' said Vekess.

'Cursed well could be, but there's little danger for us if we haul the contact up in the auxiliary basket. The one in the basket and those who must set him there are the ones who might be caught.'

'That's fair to let them take the risk,' said Vekess. 'They're more expendable than eagles.'

'Reeve Vekess is right,' said Pil unexpectedly. 'There are few eagles, and many people.'

At Vekess's flush, some chuckled. Pil's mouth quirked, as it did

when he was practicing archery and scored a solid stream of bull's-eyes.

'It's a fair argument,' agreed Odash. 'I'll give the signal. Expect someone to come up in the basket tonight.'

The meeting dissolved into the usual chorus of indignant comments and exchanges of angry recriminations, not for any of the assembled reeves, of course, but for the army, the traitors in Toskala who had opened the city gates to let in the enemy without a fight, the other reeve halls that had not responded to their pleas for help. The general disorganization of it all. A wind wafted the smell of rotting waste off the city; as the breeze turned, Nallo caught the sweet scent of the late-blooming vine roses growing in the troughs that rimmed the commander's cote. The sliding doors were closed tight. Odash slept on a pallet on the covered porch, like a dog waiting for its master to return. She couldn't decide whether she found it touching, or idiotic. Sheh! What was she thinking? He was doing his best, accustomed to carrying out the orders of a leader who had been horribly murdered just ten days ago.

'Heya!' Simultaneous shouts rose from the watchtowers. 'Eagles coming in.'

Reeves ran for the parade ground.

Kesta said, 'That's Peddo and Jabi. Aui! There's Scar!'

The eagles came in with wings outstretched and talons lifted, thumping onto the big perches in the middle of the parade ground. Unhooking, the reeves dropped from their harness and stepped out from under the shadow of the eagles.

Peddonon, grinning as usual, called out. 'Heya, Kesta! How'd you fare at Copper Hall?'

Her shrug was a negative. 'They arranged for us to get supplies off the local merchants. But they wanted us to retreat from here and reinforce them. So, we're on our own.'

'Iron Hall? Gold? Bronze? Are the reeves who flew there back yet?'

'Bronze Hall wouldn't even let our messenger meet with the marshal, just said they'd consider sending a legate, typical brush-off. Iron and Gold said they were too overstretched to spare even a single reeve to meet with us — but we're welcome to keep them up to date on our situation.'

Peddonon's grin widened. 'So I win! I told you he would come himself. What do you owe me?'

'A kick in the ass, just like always.'

The reeve sauntering forward beside Peddonon Nallo knew well enough, for he'd been the one who had first tried to coerce her into becoming a reeve, back when she'd been a refugee out on the roads. She had not understood then that no person chosen by an eagle had a choice about becoming a reeve. Nevertheless, he had handled it poorly, for all his charm.

He made a big show of greeting everyone, and truly everyone did know him; he'd left a posting at this hall to become marshal of Argent Hall in the southern Hundred less than a year ago.

'How are you faring?' He strolled up to her with an irritating smile on his handsome face. How she hated people who assumed you would be happy to see them just because they were so good-looking, even a man as old as he was, fully forty years if he was a day. 'It's Avisha, isn't it?'

'It's Nallo. Avisha is my stepdaughter. The pretty one.'

He blinked. 'That's right.' He laughed at his awkward words. 'I meant, that's right that you're Nallo and she's Avisha. She got married.'

Nallo flushed, thinking of poor Avisha, orphaned and kinless with two small siblings to protect and thereby having no better option than to marry one of the Qin soldiers because they were rich and without wives. 'I hope he'll treat her well.'

Pil said, 'Who chose her?'

'It doesn't work quite that way,' said the reeve, scratching his clean-shaven, noble chin. 'I've forgotten your name.'

'It's Pil, Marshal.'

'Pil. That's right. Men can offer, but it's the woman who must accept or refuse.'

'How likely is it that a woman will refuse if her entire clan insists?' asked Nallo curtly. 'How much of a choice does a poor woman have if she has only one offer?'

Marshal Joss's glance at her was keen. 'That's right. In this case, your pretty stepdaughter had more than one suitor. One was Chief Tuvi.'

Pil whistled under his breath, but said nothing.

'However, she chose a tailman. A decent fellow, everyone says.'

'Jagi,' said Pil, and an unexpected grin flashed.

Joss shrugged. 'I don't recall the name.' He smiled winningly again and walked over to greet Odash. The two men moved down the alley between barracks and storehouse toward the

commander's cote, and most of the reeves followed in a shuffling, uncertain crowd, not sure what to expect or what to do now that help had come from the south in the form of a single reeve known to be a drunk and a womanizer. Nallo walked to the gate, Pil pacing alongside her.

'Will he treat her and the children well?'

'He will.' The certainty in his tone brought tears to her eyes.

'Good, then. Good.'

She settled against one of the gateposts and, crossing her arms, stared out at Justice Square. The rations line had gotten shorter; about forty people, including the fuming merchant, waited to receive their portion. Others had retreated to the porches to sit in the shade. From the direction of the militia barracks came the call and clap of drill.

'Heya, Pil.' Kesta smiled, and settled in beside Nallo. 'They want you to report on the incident you observed on the river.'

'Now?'.

'Now.' Her smile collapsed into a brooding frown as Pil strode off toward the commander's garden. She looked at Nallo. 'So here we stand, surrounded by countless enemies, plagued by self-important merchants, and hoping we can fly in enough food to keep us going while we stick it out here more for the show of the thing than for any purpose. Does Clan Hall even serve a purpose? Do the reeve halls want to work together to battle this army, or are they only going to look after themselves?'

'If they do that,' said Nallo, 'we'll fall one by one.'

'You don't need to tell me that. When the commander and senior reeves were murdered on Traitors' Night, I felt like the reeve halls were murdered, too. She did her best for all these years to be a fair and effective commander. Yet who now listens to Clan Hall? Why should they? We're as barren as a woman without a basket, as impotent as a man with no plow.'

'There has to be something we can do!' But in swiping strands of hair off her sweaty forehead, Nallo measured the fragility of her words, how they might penetrate the air with seeming force only to dissipate as if they had never been uttered. 'Maybe Marshal Joss can do something.'

Kesta mopped her own brow as in imitation of Nallo. 'So here we all wait to see what Joss will say and what Joss will do! Eiya! I don't know whether to laugh or to cry'

'We've been fortunate so far with the provisions from Nessumara,' Odash was saying as Joss picked up his cup of rice wine and, with a grimace, set it down without drinking. 'But it can't go on forever. We'll need another source of rice and nai. We've flown off forty-eight refugees, mostly children, but that still leaves us with one hundred and fifty-seven in the reeve hall, ninety-eight firefighters, militiamen, and ordinands, thirty-eight clerks of Sapanasu, and four hundred and sixty-three refugees from Toskala of whom two hundred and three have stated they are able and willing to join the defense of the rock.'

Joss turned the cup around. 'I'm not sure reprovisioning is our biggest problem. We can continue to delegate less experienced reeves to fly supply and take off the remaining refugees. As long as we are careful to ration the food strictly and control what numbers we allow to remain up here, we can hold the rock. The cisterns and the deep well will supply water indefinitely.'

'What do you think is our biggest problem?' Peddonon's earnest expression reflected all their worries.

'The top leadership and all their years of experience were wiped out ten days ago. Not to mention Volias dying like that. He may have been a prick, but he knew what he was doing.' He downed the rice wine in one gulp, feeling the burn, then wiped his mouth. 'That's one thing. The other is that the army took Toskala through treachery. We don't know who we can trust. Finally, setting aside the matter of what the enemy intends to do next, these demons who call themselves Guardians can fly onto this rock and kill any of us.'

'Do you think they're demons?' Odash asked.

'Captain Anji does. He's the outlander captain who saved Olossi. But I'm not sure he means the same thing by the word as we do. For myself, I don't know what to think.'

'It was swords killed all the men and women in the council hall on Traitors' Night,' said Odash.

'You're sure? In the tales it's said Guardians can kill with a word and a look alone.'

'The only survivor of the massacre was one of the traitors. She said the cloaks promised order and wealth to anyone who aided them. Afterward, the cloaks turned on the traitors who had done the dirty work of actually murdering the council, and killed them — with a look and a word, like in the tales.'

'Used and discarded! So the question is, why didn't the cloaks kill the council themselves? Can I interview this survivor?'

As Odash hesitated, all the others drained their cups. 'She threw herself off the promontory.'

'Eihi! Just like in the tale. What did she tell you?'

'Nothing but how if she'd known otherwise she wouldn't have done it, useless apologies, if you take my meaning. All I know is that she's from the Green Sun clan, and they all cleared out before the attack. If we can get more information from the city about what other clans cleared out, we might know who betrayed us.'

'We'll send that message as a warning to Nessumara,' said Joss as folk nodded.

'Why, just so!' cried Odash as the others looked at Joss and then at their empty cups. 'That's why we need a new commander.'

'Commander of Clan Hall? Over all the reeve halls? Are you asking me?'

Odash bent a baleful glare on Peddonon. 'Surely Peddo mentioned-'

'I thought he was joking!'

'We didn't kriow who else to turn to,' added Odash.

'I'm the only one who answered the call?' He rested his forehead on fists, his head so heavy he thought he might never again raise it. 'Let me sleep on it. I'm cursed tired from the journey and everything we've had to deal with down south.'

'Allies from Toskala are sending up a messenger tonight.'

'All the more reason to sleep now.'

Peddonon hung back after the others had gone. 'I wasn't joking. We need you, Joss.'

'Let me sleep first!'

Peddonon grinned. 'Can't keep your looks without enough rest, my friend. Wise of you.'

'I wouldn't want to end up looking like you, true enough. Say, how are the two recruits doing? The young Qin reeve gave an excellent account of the encounter on the river.'

Yet he wondered: had Zubaidit been on that barge Pil had seen on the river? Was she still alive?

'He's exceptional, it's true.' Peddonon scratched his chin. 'What's his story? Can we trust him?'

'Eh?' Joss slapped a hand down on the table so hard Peddonon startled. 'Has he caused trouble?'

'Not at all!'

'Neh, I meant nothing bad by it. I just wondered because Captain Anji specifically asked me to move him north to get him

away from the other Qin soldiers. I'm not sure if it's considered ill luck that he was chosen by an eagle… or a disgrace… or if Anji means him to serve as a spy in our midst-'

'Think you so?'

'Does he behave suspiciously?'

Peddonon grinned in the way Joss had come to associate with his admiration of certain firefighters. 'No. He's cursed good with his weapons and his eagle, and he's very shy. That Nallo is like his older sister, always ready to tear your head off if you even look sidewise in the wrong way at him.'

'Is that how it is? What way have you been looking at him?'

Peddonon sat down again. 'He's fashioned like me, not like you, I'm sure of it.'

'You're usually right.' -

'In this matter, I'm always right. But-'

T knew there was a but.' Joss stifled a yawn. 'No luck there, I take it.'

'Maybe I'm feeling cheated out of a bit of flirting, but I think it's more than that. A young person is shy about these things. That's to be expected. That's what Ushara's temples are for. But he's of age, plenty old enough.'

'The Qin aren't like us, that's true. Captain Anji has forbidden any Devouring temple to be built out at his settlement in the Barrens west of the Olo'o Sea. Maybe it's just inexperience, as you say.'

'Sheh! Maybe. Yet I wonder if there's more to it. It's almost as if he's ashamed of looking at a man, and he sure as the hells never looks at women in that way.'

This time when the yawn rose, Joss could not hold it in. He raised both hands in apology. T don't know. Keep an eye on him. Report anything suspicious. Otherwise, we have to assume he's just what he is, a young outlander suddenly harnessed to an eagle and torn from the company of his familiar comrades. Fortunate for him he has Nallo, eh?'

Peddonon laughed. 'She scares me!'

'That Tumna chose true, neh? Listen, post a steward to wake me when we get the signal.'

Peddonon slid the door closed behind him. With some trepidation, Joss ventured into the sleeping chamber behind a screen of doors. He'd known the commander of Clan Hall for many years; they'd been lovers for a short time, not that she'd gone any easier

on him for it afterward. Exploring the sparsely furnished room now, he wasn't sure if Odash and the hall steward had already cleaned out her belongings or if she simply had never accumulated anything. The pallet was rolled up along one wall. The shelf held two neatly folded jackets of the kind that could be wrapped around any size body and a pair of loose trousers. An alcove in which an ornament appropriate to the season might be displayed sat empty. A pitcher had been recently filled with water and placed beside a bronze basin. He poured water, then washed his face and hands. Afterward, he unrolled the pallet and lay down on top of the coverlet in his clothes.

Yet he could not relax. Zubaidit's scorching gaze and shapely form kept intruding. Pil had seen Tohon. Tohon had ridden out with Zubaidit. The last time he'd seen her, she had slapped him. Aui! Why should that memory arouse him so?

He fell from uneasy waking into unsteady sleep, sinking into an old dream whose contours had become an achingly familiar landscape: a woman wearing a bone-white cloak walks away into a veil of mist, and he cannot help but run after her although he knows he will never catch her.

Twenty years Marit had been dead, and yet she still walked and spoke in his dreams. She called herself a Guardian now, although he could not understand why his dreaming mind, or the gods, made her do so. Yet strangely, her warnings to him in dreamtime always bore fruit.

'Marit!' he called after her fading form. 'What should I do?'

'Joss.'

He startled awake to find Peddonon jostling his shoulder, a lamp shining behind his broad body. 'Heya, Joss. You're mumbling in your sleep. Signal's come.'

Reeves learned the knack of waking to alertness. Joss rolled up to his feet as Peddonon stepped back, and they hurried outside, slipped on sandals, and followed the steward and his lamp through the darkness. Clan Hall had been built along pretty much the entire northern rim of the rock, with various launching points over the drop from bare scaffoldings that also served as secondary watchtowers. Where clouds parted, a half-moon appeared low in the west. They hurried along the wall walk. Fires glimmered where the enemy had set up guard stations along the Istri Walk. They descended a ladder into a pit hewn out of the rock, musty with damp and mold. A gate was set ajar.

The steward halted. T can't go out on the ledge with the lamp. Be careful.'

Joss and Peddonon paced along a stone-walled corridor, the echo of the river's voice murmuring around them. They emerged cautiously onto a ledge with the wind tearing along the cliff face to their left, upriver. Downstream and curving away to the right, the prow rose to its peak. A pair of burning lamps marked the humble shelter protecting the stele for which the promontory was named. Four reeves lowered a big basket over the edge and eased out the ropes.

The ledge was a sheer drop to the water many hundred baton-lengths below, where a sliver of rocky shoreline was hidden behind broken boulders. The shoreline was pretty much impossible to reach, since you either had to battle the nasty shoreline current in a boat and cut a treacherous angle in among the rocks, or climb out along the lower face of the cliff.

Of course there were folk so reckless and stupid as to enjoy the challenge; he'd been one back when he was young. One time he'd dared a particularly fabulously defiant lass, a banner clan girl, to meet him there at sunset. That had truly been a memorable night.

'Thinking of that banner clan girl?' Peddonon whispered.

'Aui! How'd you know about that?'

'Everyone knows all about your adventures. They're famous in Clan Hall. They'll make a cycle of stories from them someday, the tale of the Handsome Reeve.'

'A comic tale, no doubt.'

Peddonon snickered.

The reeves handling the rope tensed. 'Got it. Hauling up.'

Peddonon grabbed the safety rope and braced himself against a pair of stakes hammered diagonally into the rock face. Joss stayed out of the way, rubbing his chin, enjoying the feel of the bristles. He needed a shave. How in the hells could he sort out the complications that dogged him?

Last year, a huge army had swept down out of the northern wilderness under the command of Lord Radas. The army had overwhelmed cities and villages across Haldia and now Istria, throwing the land into chaos; they'd even sent a second army south to attack the city of Olossi. In the south, Captain Anji's out-lander Qin soldiers had, with the aid of the reeves of Argent Hall, defeated that second army. At the behest of Olossi's new council, the captain was training an expanded militia to protect the entire

region of Olo'osson. Meanwhile his soldiers were beginning to marry local women under the supervision of his beautiful and extremely clever wife, Mai. Who had ten days ago given birth to a boy child over whom Joss now stood as uncle.

Aui!

The reeves and eagles of Horn Hall had vanished. Folk claimed to see Guardians walking abroad, while others called them demons or cloaks and identified them with the leaders of the marauding army. His own work as marshal at Argent Hall had become complicated by the arrival of numerous unjessed eagles seeking new reeves, so many that they'd had to establish a secondary training hall. Naya Hall had been raised on the western shore of the Olo'o Sea near the settlement founded by Captain Anji on land deeded to him and his wife as part of their payment for aiding Olossi. Elsewhere in the Hundred, folk burned out of their villages wandered the roads. Children went hungry. Half the people Joss met while on patrol no longer trusted reeves. And now the desperate reeves of Clan Hall, blindsided by the murder of their most experienced reeves, wanted him to sit as commander over all the reeve halls. Yet the other reeve halls were beleaguered and uncooperative. Why should they agree to a new commander, much less Joss? He rubbed his head, wondering if he was going to get a headache.

It was difficult to imagine how his life could become more tangled.

'Here we are,' muttered a male voice.

They heaved the basket up over the edge and dragged it back from the brink. A single person sat inside.

'Eh, that was a ride, I'll tell you,' she said as she clambered out. 'I thought I was going to pitch right over and fall to my death. And I'll tell you — that path out along the rock isn't a path at all! It's not even a goat track. I slipped into the river twice. I'm soaking wet.'

Joss sagged against the rock as his pulse hammered in his ears.

'Best we know who you are first.' Peddonon stepped out from the wall.

She chuckled, as Joss knew she would. 'I'm called Zubaidit. I convinced some brave clan folk within Toskala to get me up here. I've a message from them. But truly, I come from the south, from Olo'osson, at the behest of the Olossi council and their allies. I have news to pass back to Olossi, if you reeves will carry it.'

'Do you know about this, Joss?' Peddonon asked.

'Surely not Marshal Joss of Argent Hall?'

'The same,' Joss said, surprised at how smoothly his voice came out, not much of a croak at all. 'Well met, Zubaidit. What of the other scouts?'

'I'd be happy to give my report. But must I stand here in these wet clothes, with the wind chilling me?' she asked, the curl of her voice such a blatant tease that his ears burned. 'Or is there somewhere I can take them off?'

Cursed if every gods-rotted reeve standing there didn't start snickering, trying to hide the sound beneath hands clapped over mouths.

Smothering his own laughter, Peddonon said, 'It seems you two know each other. But if you don't mind, can we get off this cursed ledge before one of us falls to his death? I mean, the one who hasn't already taken the plunge.'

Snorting and chortling, the other reeves hurried away through the arch and down the corridor, leaving Joss to follow Peddonon and Zubaidit. The glow of the steward's lamp illuminated the assassin as she looked over her shoulder at him.

It wasn't that he'd seen her so cursed many times in his life, since that first day less than a year ago when she had flirted with him and afterward tried to kill him. It was just that he remembered so well every curve, the way her hips tilted as she walked, the lift of her chin. The way you knew she knew how to use her body, trained in Ushara's temple as the most deadly of assassins. Her vest and kilt were soaked, the cloth clinging to her like a second skin. Whew!

She grinned.

He was like a man staggering after a blow to the head.

'You're the messenger?' asked the steward, drawing her attention.

'I am.'

'You fell in the river?' Neffi asked with an appreciative grin. 'I did that once, climbing the same route.'

'Does every local in this city know it?'

'We here in the reeve halls do, obviously. We try to keep quiet about it.' He winked past her, at Joss. 'Some managed better than others.'

The reeves clambering up the ladder were laughing, bolder now inside, where there was no chance they'd be spotted by the

enemy. 'Trust Joss to know every adventuresome female…' one was saying as his voice broke into guffaws.

'Let's get on with this,' said Joss curtly. 'Neffi, can you get her dry clothes?'

'I was joking about the clothes.' The jesting tease molted right out of her tone. Her brows drew down as Neffi, frowning in confusion, lowered the lamp. 'Best I deliver my report right here and then you lot lower me back down to my contact so I can return to the city before daybreak.'.

Peddonon called to the reeves. 'Heya, boys. Go get Odash and the other seniors. Then get back here yourselves, or get fresh muscle. Move!'

'We can fly you back to Olossi,' said Joss.

She shook her head. 'I haven't completed my mission.'

He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to look nonchalant. 'Go on. What of the other scouts?'

'What other scouts?' Peddonon asked.

'Seven scouts walked out of Olo'osson. We were delayed by lendings for a few days and lost our horses to them, but carried on, on foot. One of your reeves spotted us outside Horn and flew down to deliver a message to Shai. Now I don't know if it was him coming down with that cursed eagle, or if we had already been seen anyway, but a cadre of outlaws attacked our encampment on his heels. They killed Edard and captured Shai.'

'Edard was the censor.'

'That's right. One of Kotaru's Thunderers. Pretty cursed useless, if you ask me, but Tohon and I managed despite his clumsy attempts at leadership. Anyway, our lad Shai was captured and we had to follow that cadre lest they hand him over to one of those cloaks. As it turned out, we weren't the ones who rescued him. The outlander demon the reeve came to warn us about, an ugly pale girl with demon-blue eyes, she killed the whole cursed cadre with her magic and left us with Shai and the children the cadre had taken as slaves.'

Peddonon whistled, and the steward shook his head.

'Those children were badly misused.' Her expression darkened until she looked as if she'd have been happy to cut the throats of every one of those outlaws. Which, no doubt, she'd have done, given the opportunity. 'I'll cut the rest of that tale short. Eridit, the two militiamen, and Tohon went south with the children to Nessumara, which we thought would be safe.'

'They were spotted, safe on the river.'

She smiled, then lifted her gaze as her smile faded. 'As you know, I was given another mission.'

'A mission that will almost certainly lead to your death. Why go on?'

'Because I'll die anyway, whether today, or tomorrow, or when I've reached the venerable age of eighty-four, having seen seven rounds of the year cycle. It's necessary to take the risk to achieve the ends. Things are worse than you know. The news I bring from Toskala tonight is that the army is marching south on Nessumara.'

'The hells!' exclaimed Peddonon and Neffi in unison.

'They're driving out all the refugees from Toskala. They've ruthlessly cut loose all the camp followers who marched with them from Walshow and sent them away. They intend to take hostages from every clan and family and guild compound in Toskala. Those hostages will serve the army on the march through Istria. The hostages also will stand as surety for the good behavior of the Toskalans. The army will leave a garrison behind, but the threat to the hostages will be what keeps the population in order. I hope to go with the army as a hostage. Once with the army, I'll keep my eyes open, and strike when opportunity arises.'

'A dangerous venture,' said Peddonon with an admiring whistle.

'What do you think, Marshal?' Her gaze challenged him.

He wasn't about to show how much it bothered him to think of her risking herself like that. 'What about the seventh scout? What did you say his name is?'

'Shai?'

'Isn't he the uncle of the captain's wife? He's an outlander, but not Qin.'

Her lips quirked. 'Those outlanders all look alike to me, Marshal.' But she didn't mean it; she was just goading him, because sometimes a person took you that way, that you had to constantly be poking at them to get a reaction. It was not quite, and not only, lust, and it wasn't truly love; sometimes two bodies just fell out that way, impossible to explain why.

They'd had no chance to act.

Maybe they never would.

'It's gotten cursed hot in here,' muttered Peddonon.

Neffi said, without anger, 'Oh, shut up, Peddo. This is cursed serious, you idiot.'

Joss pushed away from the wall as he heard voices. Odash, Kesta, a fawkner, and another senior reeve climbed down the ladder. A flurry of questions filled the dark chamber. Zubaidit restated her news about Toskala. He could not look away from her as she talked in that forceful, silky voice.

'What help do you want from us?' he asked when she was done.

'I was told the commander of Clan Hall is a woman. Where is she?'

Haltingly, Odash relayed the tale of Traitors' Night, and as he related the story of betrayal and the murder of Toskala's council and all the senior reeves, her gaze flicked from Joss's face to each shadowed face of the others listening.

When Odash had finished, Zubaidit looked at Joss. 'So. All the witnesses counted six cloaks departing from the rock after the murders. It seems the ghost girl has joined their ranks. Some call them Guardians, and they ride winged horses, as it says in the tale. But I also hear people call them demons. What are they?'

Witnesses had reported that one of the demons seen in Justice Square wore a cloak that gleamed in the night like polished bone; it could not have been Marit. She walked in his dreams, not on earth. Yet the strange words she spoke in his dreams haunted him: I see with my third eye and I understand with my second heart that they are corrupted, so I dare not approach them. They will destroy me if they find me.

A person can be destroyed in many ways, not just through death.

His clenched jaw was going to bring on another gods-rotted headache. 'How can any of us know what a Guardian is? Or what they want. A cloaked man called Lord Radas commands this army, that I am sure of.'

'Lord Radas is the one I mean to kill, but if Clan Hall's commander is dead, then who stands as commander over all the reeve halls now?'

All looked at Joss.

'You?' she demanded.

He sighed.

She made a noise rather like a chuckle and something like a

cough of disdain. 'Have you any plan other than holding out up here as kind of a stick poking them in the eye?'

'HeyaP objected Kesta furiously. 'If we hold this rock, then we give hope to others.'

Zubaidit's grin caused Kesta to settle. 'It's a brave choice, and the right one. But you'll need a plan.'

'What do you suggest?' drawled Joss, annoyed at her way of blowing in like a strong wind and expecting everything to bend before her. 'Since you seem so cursed sure of yourself.'

Her grin sharpened as with anger before it curved into a frown. 'I don't know what's to be done in Toskala, with hostages being taken and none to stop it. If the city folk rebel, their relatives will be killed in retaliation. I don't know what you here on the rock plan to do, and I'll thank you not to tell me in case I'm caught out and forced to stand before one of the cloaks. For you know they can see into our hearts with their third eye.'

'That's what it says in the tales,' said Joss. 'But what does it really mean?'

'It means what it says. They can see into our hearts. You can feel them walk into your mind.' She shuddered, the movement so subtle he stepped forward, thinking to reassure her with a touch, but he stopped himself and wiped his brow instead.

'Don't try to face them,' she added. 'You've no shield. Not even the strongest of you.'

Yet Anji had faced one of the cloaked demons and not flinched. Anji's soldiers had suffered the same reaction described by Zubaidit, and Joss had taken the testimony of numerous other witnesses from the day the ghost girl had invaded the Qin compound in Olossi and killed two men there; her demon's gaze had brought even Chief Tuvi to his knees. Why was Anji not affected, if everyone else, even other outlanders, had no protection against the third eye and the second heart?

'Locate Tohon, and fly him back to Olossi,' she went on. 'He has valuable information for Captain Anji. He's surveyed the land and the army. His report is crucial. Get Eridit, Ladon, Veras, and the young ones out if you can, too, lest they betray my purpose if they are captured when the army takes Nessumara.'

'You think the army will defeat Nessumara?' Joss asked.

'How can they not? We in the Hundred have no militia that can stand against such an organized force.'

'They're a formidable enemy, but surely they can be defeated, as their secondary army was at Olossi.'

'The soldiers sent to Olossi were the dregs. These are real soldiers. Not so easy to defeat. You've seen how many there are.'

'Is there anything else we need to know? Or that you need from us?' Joss asked her.

She shut her eyes, thinking it through. 'The demons are looking for outlanders and the gods-touched in particular, taking them into custody. The army shows little respect for the gods, and there's a cursed lot of talk among the soldiers about how the cloaks have defeated death. The soldiers fear the cloaks, but they also want what they believe the cloaks can give them: wealth, life, land, power. Sex.' When she opened her eyes, her hot gaze seemed to burn him to ash.

Peddonon said, 'Heya, Kesta, get this lot out to ready the basket, will you? Odash, we'll need to assign someone to go after these scouts that went to Nessumara. Warn the other halls about this business with the gods-touched and outlanders. And the Green Sun clan, the traitors.' He grabbed the lamp out of the steward's hand. 'You go, too, Neffi. You're getting cursed old. You need your sleep, neh? I'll keep the light until she's down safely.'

'Eh, yes, Peddo. Right away'

They went, Kesta down the corridor with the other four reeves while Odash and Neffi climbed the ladder.

'I've got to take a piss,' added Peddonon, setting the lamp on the floor. 'Be right back.' He scrambled up the ladder.

Joss hadn't known that stone breathed, but he swore he could hear its exhalations in the silence that followed, or maybe it was his own breathing gotten cursed irregular as he became exceedingly aware of how very alone they were, caught within the glow of light and with folk busying themselves nearby but out of sight.

'Are these soldiers really our enemy, or only the worst reflec-tion of our own selves?' she asked in a low voice. 'We made them. We have to unmake them, not just defeat or kill them.'

'What do you mean?'

She shrugged, looking angry. 'It seems to me that when an army can recruit so many discontented men and convince so many of them to act in ways they would once have considered criminal, then it is only building with bricks already formed and

baked by others. Why do so many men march with the army? Spit on the gods? Steal what they could earn by their own labor? Rape when they can walk into Ushara's temples and worship? Why didn't they just stay home in their villages and towns, marry, tithe, and sire children? The Hundred has let itself rot from within. Now the contagion of discontent and anger is spread by those greedy enough to encourage the worst in those too weak to resist.'

'Harsh words,' he said.

'True words. We must all take responsibility for the troubles that engulf us.'

He did not know what to say because every word seemed meaningless compared with her presence as she stood there with wet cloth stuck to her skin and her body balanced with deadly grace. Her glare forced him a step back, and he bumped against unyielding stone. He was trembling with the effort of staying where he was, as his pulse throbbed and his breath caught in his throat.

She shook her head, no smile, no frown. 'A woman can look a long time before she finds a man who can really take his time.'

'A woman can look a long time if she never pauses long enough to try this man.'

She laughed.

'Aui!' He pushed away from the wall.

She met him, and for a glorious moment he held her as they kissed, and kissed.

And kissed.

Just when he thought they might have to do something very reckless despite knowing how close all those other reeves were in the covering darkness, a discreet cough interrupted them.

She broke away. Riven of contact, he swayed, and as Peddonon caught his arm to steady him, she vanished down the corridor toward the ledge.

'You've got it bad, my friend,' murmured Peddonon.

Joss brought a palm to his face. 'Am I crazy?'

Peddonon snorted.

'She's leaving!' He pulled out of Peddonon's grasp and stumbled after her.

'Don't go over the edge, Joss.'

Too late. She was sworn to the goddess, a trained assassin, fixed on her mission. She'd already been lowered over the cliff,

the reeves letting out the rope hand over hand. He stayed out there in the night and the wind until they received the three tugs that indicated she'd gotten down safely. Until they hauled up the empty basket and stowed it under the overhang where it couldn't be spotted in daylight by an enemy patrolling the far shore. Until they'd all gone away, leaving Peddonon and Kesta waiting for him in a patient silence that hurt more than the hollow feeling in his gut.

The cooling breeze off the water reminded him that the dry season lay ahead. He rubbed his arms, but the ache did not go away.

'Heya,' said Kesta softly. 'Come on, Joss. Let's go have a drink, eh? We've missed you these past months. It's not the same without you here at Clan Hall.'

'I might never see her again.'

Peddonon whistled under his breath. Kesta sighed. The river rushed toward the distant sea, just as the army would, marching south through fertile and heavily populated Istria toward Nessumara, said in the tales to be the second-oldest inhabited place in the Hundred and certainly its largest city now. He must do what was required of him, just as she would.

'The first thing we must do,' he said, 'is warn Nessumara's council and Copper Hall to seek traitors in their midst. And get Tohon and his group out of there.'

Only then, as he turned to go with his companions, did he realize she had never said what had happened to the outlander, Shai.