Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The country offered poor cover. The trees were small, and even if any overhung the road, she wasn't sure they could boost the wheezing divine up one. His white robes, dirty as they were, would shine like a beacon through the leaves. They'd show up for half a mile through the scrub, as would his mule. But then they topped another rise, temporarily out of sight of their pursuers, and at the bottom of this wash . . .

  She lashed her horse forward beside Ferda's, and shouted, "The divine—he must not be taken!"

  He looked back over his company and signed agreement. "Exchange horses?" he cried doubtfully.

  "Not good enough," she shouted back. She pointed ahead. "Hide him in the culvert!"

  She slowed her horse, letting the others pass her, till dy Cabon's mule labored up. Foix and Liss reined back with her.

  "Dy Cabon!" she cried. "Did you ever dream about being pulled out of a culvert?"

  "No, lady!" he quavered back between jounces.

  "Hide you in that one, then, till they all pass over you." Foix—Foix was in hideous danger if taken, too, if the Quadrenes should learn of his demon affliction. They might well take him for a sorcerer and burn him alive. "Did you dream of Foix with you?"

  "No!"

  "Foix! Can you stay with him—help him? Keep both your heads down and don't come out, no matter what!"

  Foix glanced down the track at the cover she pointed to and seemed to understand the plan at once. "Aye, Royina!"

  They scraped to a halt over the culvert. The streamlet here did not fill it full, though it would be a cramped, wet, uncomfortable crouch, especially for dy Cabon's quivering bulk. Foix swung down, threw his reins to Pejar, and caught the gasping divine as he half fell from his animal. "Wrap this around you, hide those white robes." Foix tossed his gray cloak around dy Cabon, hustling him off the road. Another guard began grimly towing dy Cabon's mule; relieved of its great burden, it broke again into a canter. A canter wasn't going to be enough, Ista thought.

  "Look after each other!" she cried in desperation. The pair was already scrambling into the low mouth of the culvert, and she could not tell if they heard her or not.

  They started forward once again. There was another here who must not be taken by the rough soldiery, she thought. "Liss!" she called. The girl rode nearer. Ista's horse was dark with sweat, blowing; Liss's tall bay still cantered easily.

  "Ride ahead—"

  "Royina, I won't leave you—"

  "Fool girl, listen! Ride ahead and carry warning to anyone you pass, Jokonan raiders are coming. Raise the countryside! Get help and send it back!"

  Understanding dawned in her face. "Aye, Royina!"

  "Ride like the wind! Don't look back!"

  Liss, face set, saluted her and bent over her horse's neck. Its stride lengthened. The three or four galloping miles they'd covered so far were clearly but a warm-up for it. In moments, the bay outpaced every horse in the party and started to draw ahead.

  Yes, fly, girl. You don't even have to outride the Jokonans, as long as you can outride us . . .

  As they topped the next rise, where the road swung out around a bulge in the hill, Ista looked back. There was no sign whatever of the divine or Foix. The first Jokonan riders were galloping across the culvert without pausing or looking down, intent on their quarry ahead. The tightness in Ista's chest eased a little, even as she gasped for breath.

  At last, her whirling brain began to take thought for herself. If captured, should she maintain her incognito? What worth would a minor female cousin of the rich provincar of Baocia seem to them? Would Sera dy Ajelo's status be enough to buy safety for her men as well as her? But the dowager royina of Chalion, Royina Iselle's own mother, was far too exciting a prize to let fall into the grubby hands of a pack of Jokonan soldier-bandits. She glanced around at her grimly intent outriders. I don't want these loyal young men to die for me. I don't want any man to die for me, ever again.

  Ferda galloped up beside her horse, pointed back. "Royina, we must cut loose the mules!"

  She nodded understanding, gulped for breath. Her legs ached from gripping the heaving sides of her mount. "Dy Cabon's saddlebags— they must be got rid of—hidden—all his books and papers will reveal him, they might go back and search! And mine as well, I have letters in my own name—"

  His lips drew back in a grimace of understanding; he stood in his stirrups and fell behind. She turned in her saddle and scrabbled at the rawhide ties holding her bags behind her cantle. Happily, Liss had tied them intelligently; the strong knots came loose at Ista's pull.

  Ferda again galloped up beside her; now he had the divine's heavy pair of bags over his pommel. She glanced back. The loosed baggage mules and dy Cabon's white beast were falling behind, stumbling to a halt, wandering gratefully from the road.

  They were approaching a bridge over a strong freshet. Ferda held out his arm in demand, and she swung her bags over to him. He reared his horse atop the bridge and violently heaved first one set of bags, then the other, over the crumbling stone balustrade to the downstream side. The bags floated away, bumping on the rocks, sinking slowly out of sight. Ista briefly regretted the divine's books, and their purses of money—but not their damning correspondence and other signs of identity.

  This prudence cost them still more of the implacably closing space between them and the Jokonan leaders. Ista put her weight in her stirrups and concentrated on urging her flagging horse up the next rise. Perhaps turning aside to capture the baggage mules would slow their pursuers. Some of them. The enemy had plenty of men to spare, it seemed. She had glimpsed the beginnings of their column; she had yet to glimpse its end.

  What they were seemed plain enough. Both sides had played these evil games of raid and reprisal across the borders here for generations, the boundaries that the Chalionese Quintarians were slowly pushing back to the north. In the disputed regions, men grew up expecting to raid for a living as though it were some job of work. Sometimes the game was played by elaborate rules of etiquette, with businesslike arrangements for ransoms mixed with bizarre contests of honor. Sometimes there were no rules, and it was no game, and honor dissolved in sweaty, screaming, bloody horrors.

  How desperate were their pursuers? They seemed to have dropped from the very sky. They were a province and a half away from the borders of Jokona, hustling down an obscure hill road. Fresh troops, circling to attack some target, or worn ones, running for home? If they wore the prince's tabards, they at least were not a spontaneous gang of semi-bandit younger sons and ruffians out for what they could grab, but men of greater discipline bent on some larger mission. Presumably.

  Atop the next rise, her horse stumbling, Ista again gained a long view of the road ahead. Liss's rangy bay was well out in the distance, still galloping.

  Ista's heart caught. Plunging down the scrubby hillside toward Liss pelted another dozen Jokonan riders. A scouting screen of cavalry, sent before the main force, clearly. Ista's eye tried to guess angles, distances, speeds. The Jokonans descended as if to pluck Liss from the road as a hawk snatches a squirrel from a tree branch. Liss had not seen them yet, could not possibly hear Ista if she screamed out a warning. Ferda rose in his stirrups, a look of helpless horror on his face; he whipped his mount, but could beat no more speed out of the strained animal.

  Closer, closer the raiders drew—Liss looked aside at last, saw them. Surely even her great-hearted horse must be reaching the lim95

  its of its endurance . . . She flashed past the leaders. A crossbow glinted, a quarrel sped through the air. Ferda yelled in anguish, but the shot, loosed at too great a range and from the back of a heaving horse, went wide.

  The patrol reached the road. Their officer gesticulated. A pair of riders split off and rode in pursuit of Liss. The rest wheeled around and bunched to a halt across the road. Waiting.

  Ferda cursed, looked back, looked forward, teeth gritting; he threw back his cloak and touched his sword hilt. He cast a worried look aside at Ista, obviously trying to think how to screen h
er if his dwindling company attempted to burst through the new blockade. Ista followed his glance back. More and more riders were pouring over the ridge behind them, seemingly without end.

  Once blood was drawn, events would spin rapidly out of control. Death would cry for death.

  "Ferda!" Ista screamed. It came out a croak. "There is no way. We must halt, surrender on terms!"

  "No, Royina!" His face bunched in agony. "By my oath and honor, no! We will die to defend you!"

  "You will better defend me alive with your wits and self-control, Ferda!" Except they'd left the best wits and self-control in the party back along the road in a culvert. She drew a long breath, pinned a moral fear vaster than her physical terror by its neck to the ground, pushed the words past her lips. "By my command! We must halt!"

  Ferda clenched his jaw, but really, it was hardly a decision anymore. The main body of Jokonans was almost on their heels, squeezing them up against the line across the road. Ista could see half a dozen crossbows raised among the waiting riders, from steadier platforms this time.

  Ferda flung up his hand. "We halt!" The spent horses of his company stumbled to a ragged stop. Men threw back cloaks, reached for weapons. "Do not draw!" Ferda roared.

  Some cried aloud in dismay and protest. Some were red-faced with tears of frustration and hot strain. But they obeyed. They knew how the game was played, too, as well as Ista. And knew as well as she how it was violated.

  The Jokonans, swords out and spears and bows at the ready, crowded up on both sides of them and slowly closed in.

  Chapter Seven

  ISTA STOOD IN HER STIRRUPS. WRAPPED HER DRY TONGUE around her rusty Roknari. -I cry ransom-. And in Ibran: "I am the Sera dy Ajelo, and the provincar of Baocia is my patron! I pledge his ransom upon myself and upon all these men of mine! All of them!" And repeated in Roknari, to be sure: "Ransoms for all!" An officer rode forward from his men. He was marked by a better grade of chain mail, fine decorations in pressed gold leaf on the leather of bridle, saddle, and scabbard, and a green silk baldric worked in gold-and-white thread with the flying pelicans of Jokona. His typical crinkled Roknari bronze-blond hair was done up in crisscrossing rows of braids ending in a queue. His eyes summed the Chalionese numbers; perhaps took in the garb and badges of the Daughter's Order with a slight tinge of respect? Ista, who had silently repudiated her prayers in her mind during all the weeks of her pilgrimage, though she'd moved her lips by rote in the responses, prayed now in her hammering heart: Lady, in this Your season of strength, cast a cloak of protection over these Your loyal servants.

  In passable Ibran, the officer cried, "Throw down your weapons!" One last, anguished hesitation; then Ferda shrugged back his vest-cloak and pulled his baldric off over his head. His scabbard and sword struck the dirt with a clank. His belt knife succeeded them. The men of his company followed suit with equal reluctance. Half a dozen crossbows and the pair of spears were lowered more carefully on the growing heap. Their lathered, blowing horses stood quiescent as Ferda and his men were made to dismount and sit on the ground a little way off, surrounded by Jokonans with drawn swords and cocked bows.

  A soldier seized the bridle of Ista's horse and made motions to her to get down. Her legs almost gave way as her boots hit the ground; her knees felt like custard. She jerked back from his raised hand, though she realized almost at once that he'd only meant to grab her elbow to keep her from falling. The officer approached and gave her a demi-salute, possibly meant to be reassuring.

  "Chalionese noblewoman." It was half a question; her plain dress did not quite support her claimed status. His eyes searched for, and did not find, jewelry, rings, brooches. "What are you doing here?"

  "I have every right to be here." Ista lifted her chin. "You have interrupted my pilgrimage."

  "Quintarian devil-worshipper." He spat, ritually, but to the side. "What do you pray for, eh, woman?"

  Ista raised one brow. "Peace." She added, "And you will address me as Sera"

  He snorted, but seemed convinced, or at least grew less curious. Half a dozen men were starting to poke in the saddlebags; with a spate of Roknari too fast for Ista to follow, he strode among them and shoved them back.

  She saw why as the rest of the column draggled up, and a couple of men carrying the green pouches of royal clerks rode hastily forward, followed by what were obviously the senior officers. Now the bags were all pulled off and looted in a much more systematic fashion, with a running inventory. The clerks were there to make sure that the prince of Jokona's one-fifth share was properly counted. One of them walked about, stylus busy upon his tablet, noting the horses and their gear. No question but that this was an official expedition of some kind, and not some spontaneous banditry.

  The officer reported to his seniors; Ista heard the word Baocia twice. One of the men rummaging through the saddlebags straightened up with a glad cry; Ista thought he might have found a purse, but instead he waved Ferda's maps. He rushed over to his officers, crying in Roknari, "Look, my lords, look! Charts of Chalion! Now we are not lost!" Ista blinked. Then she began to look around more carefully.

  The mounts of the men who'd overtaken them were every bit as lathered and exhausted as their own, and Ista, remembering Liss's remarks about horses flagging late in the race, wondered if her party might not have out ridden them after all, but for being trapped by the advance patrol. The men looked hot, worn, filthy, stubbled. Their fine Roknari pattern-braids were in disarray, as if they had not been redone for days or even weeks. The men riding up late looked worse. Many were bandaged or bruised or scabbed, and most of them led extra horses with empty saddles, sometimes three or four in a string. Not booty, for most of the animals were decked in Roknari-style gear. Some might be remounts. Not all. The baggage train that limped up behind them all was strangely scant.

  If the baggage train marked the end of their company, and there was no sign of Foix or dy Cabon among the prisoners . . . Ista permitted herself a shiver of hope. Even if the clerks counting horses counted men as well, and noted the two empty saddles, by the time they circled back to search, Foix would surely have moved the divine and himself to better cover. If Foix was as quietly sly on his feet as he was with his tongue—if the bear-demon had not put his mind in too much disarray—if the Jokonans had not simply slain them and left their bodies by the roadside . . .

  One thing was certain. These Jokonans were not men moving to some secret attack. They were fleeing a defeat, by every sign, or some dreadfully costly victory. Running north for home. She was glad for Chalion, but increasingly anxious for herself and Ferda and his men.

  Tense, exhausted, strained men on the ragged edge of their endurance made worrisome captors.

  The officer came back and directed her to sit by the roadside in the mottled shadow of a small, bent tree, some odd northern species with wide palmate leaves. Foix's bags yielded a purse of gold that cheered the prince's clerks, and the officers eyed her with a shade more respect, or at least, calculation. They pulled apart the baggage from the captured mules, as well. Ista turned her face away and declined to notice the soldiers raucously playing about with her clothing. The officer inquired more closely into her relationship with the provincar of Baocia, and Ista trotted out Sera dy Ajelo's imaginary family tree. He seemed anxious to ascertain that the wealthy provincar would actually deliver a ransom for her.

  "Oh, yes," said Ista distantly. "He will come in person, I expect." With ten thousand swordsmen at his back, five thousand archers, and the Marshal dy Palliar's cavalry as well. It occurred to her that if she did not want men to die for her, she'd gone about it in exactly the wrong way. But no. There might yet be chances to escape, or be traded out at a tiny fraction of her real worth, if her incognito held. Liss . . . had Liss made it away? No soldiers had yet returned along the track dragging her resisting behind them, nor as a limp corpse tossed over a saddle.

  The officers argued over the maps, while the men and animals rested in what shade could be found, and the flies buzz
ed around them. The Ibran-speaking officer brought her water in a rather noisome skin bag, and she hesitated, licked dusty cracked lips, and drank. It was fairly fresh, at least. She indicated he should take it to Ferda and his troop, and he did. At length, she was put back up on her own horse, with her hands lashed to the pommel, the horse in turn roped with several others following the baggage train. Ferda's men were towed in a like line, but farther forward, surrounded by more armed soldiers. The advance scouts were redeployed, and the column started north once more.

  Ista stared around at her fellow prisoners, tied to horses as she was. They were oddly few in number, some dozen debilitated men and women, and no children at all. Another older woman rode near her, jerked along in another string of tired horses. Her clothes, though filthy, were finely made and elaborately decorated—clearly no common woman, but someone whose family might offer a rich ransom. Ista leaned toward her. "Where do these soldiers come from? Besides Jokona."

  "Some Roknari hell, I think," said the woman.

  "No, that would be their destination," murmured Ista back.

  A sour smile lifted one corner of the woman's mouth; good, she was not shocked stupid, then. Or at least, not anymore. "I do pray so, hourly. They took me in the town of Rauma, in Ibra."

  "Ibra!" Ista glanced leftward at the mountain range rising in the distance. They must have scrambled out of Ibra over some little-used pass, and dropped down into Chalion to cut north for home. And the pursuit must have been fiery, to drive them to such a desperate ploy. "No wonder they seemed to have fallen from the sky."

  "Where in Chalion are we?"

  "The province of Tolnoxo. These raiders still have over a hundred miles to go to safety, across the rest of Tolnoxo and all of Caribastos, before they reach the border of Jokona. If they can." She hesitated. "I have hopes that they have lost their secrecy. I think some of my party escaped."