by Deborah Hale
Delyon nodded his acceptance of her apology. “Let’s go. It may do us both good to get some sun and mix with other people.”
They headed toward the center of town where they found a busy market. Maura was relieved to see few Hanish soldiers in evidence. She made her food purchases at a number of different shops and stalls so as not to rouse suspicion of her well-laden coin purse.
Just as she was paying for a parcel of flatcakes, Delyon tugged on her sleeve. “Maura, look! That sign!”
“In a moment, Delyon.” She tried to keep the impatience from her voice, but it was not easy.
The vendor woman was jabbering on in Comtung about the distance to Venard. It was difficult enough for Maura to follow without Delyon pouring a rapid stream of Umbrian in her other ear. She glanced over her shoulder to see what had him so excited.
A large sheet of coarse parchment had been nailed to the side of a building across the street. The message on it was written in Umbrian and another language…Hanish most likely. It urged people to ignore rumors and to report any suspicious activity.
Maura gave a derisive chuckle. “I wonder who they reckon will be able to read that.”
The Han had discouraged all use of the Umbrian language. On this side of the mountains, they had been all too successful. As far as Maura knew, there was no written form of Comtung, the bastard language that bridged the gap between Umbrian and Hanish.
For now, she was having enough trouble understanding spoken Comtung. She turned back to the vendor to collect her change.
Meanwhile, Delyon kept talking with rising excitement. Something about ancient twara being the parent of both Umbrian and Hanish and how the sign might be the key to…something.
Maura could not concentrate properly, for the vendor woman was repeating something about the distance to Venard, holding up fingers to reinforce her words. Ten…twenty…thirty…Maura’s heart sank further every time the woman clenched her hands then opened them again to add another ten miles.
She had signaled sixty and did not look ready to stop soon, when Maura heard the sound of a scuffle behind her.
She spun about to see Delyon being restrained by a Hanish soldier. It looked as if he’d been caught trying to take down the sign. With a groan, Maura dropped her parcels and reached for her sash.
“Maura!” Delyon cried, staring straight at her. The fool!
She had a pinch of genow scales in her hand, ready to cast the invisibility spell, when rough hands seized her.
13
“M aura, do something!” Delyon cried.
Do something? If the zikary who held her had loosened his grip for an instant, Maura would have done something, all right—grabbed the cursed sign out of Delyon’s hand and flogged his fool head with it!
What had possessed him to tear an official Hanish sign down off a building? Had he not thought how that would look to them and what it would provoke them to do? If only he had not looked straight at her and called her name, she might have had time to aid him somehow. Now she could only wait and hope for an opportunity that might never come.
She tried to break free from the man who held her, just long enough to grab a pinch of genow scales, but the vendor woman seized her right arm in a powerful grip. “I knew there was something not right with this one. Asking how far to Venard. Talking strange, like.”
What would Rath do if he were here? Maura wondered. “Delyon!” she called in Umbrian. “Make yourself invisible!”
But it was too late. He had gotten into a tug of war with the Hanish soldier over that cursed sign when he could have let go and used his hands to dig out some magical ingredient.
Instead, the soldier let go first, then used his free hands to grab Delyon by the neck and slam his head hard against the side of the building. After the second such blow, Delyon fell limp to the ground.
What now? Panic caught Maura by the throat. Even if she could break free, then turn herself and Delyon invisible, she would never be able to drag him away without leaving a trail a blind man could follow.
Suddenly a bold, impossibly risky plan took shape in her mind. If it succeeded, several of her problems would be solved in a single stroke. But if it failed…She did not dare let herself think what might happen if it failed.
“We are not spies for the Waiting King!” she cried, praying the soldier would understand her mangled Comtung.
“Spies, is it?” The young Han scowled as he glanced from the unconscious Delyon to Maura and back again.
So he was open to have ideas planted in his mind. Good!
“You must not send us to Venard to be questioned by the Echtroi!” Maura did not have to feign the pleading note in her voice. “I beg you!”
“Silence!” The soldier marched toward her with a menacing stride. “No spy tells me where I can and cannot send her!”
Under her breath, the vendor woman muttered, “Should have kept yer mouth shut, fool. Ye’ll be worse off than ever now.”
Was she a fool? Maura wondered. Had she only made things worse for herself and Delyon by not keeping silent?
Several more Hanish soldiers appeared, summoned by Umbrian collaborators, like the two who held Maura. The officer in charge questioned the young soldier on the scene, who rattled off his report in Hanish. By the way he pointed to Delyon, the parchment sign and finally to her, Maura could guess what he was saying.
The Hanish officer turned and stared at Maura. His cold, ruthless gaze made her blood feel as if it were freezing in her veins. He snapped a curt order in Hanish, upon which two of the soldiers hoisted Delyon to his feet, while the other two seized Maura from her Umbrian captors and marched her down the street.
Please, she sent a silent petition winging to the Giver, do not let them deal with us here!
Almost as an afterthought, she added, And please do not let Delyon be hurt too badly.
Vexed as she was with him for landing them in this predicament, she did not wish him any worse harm. She was a poor one to sit in judgment of Delyon’s actions, after all the trouble she had landed Rath in by offering her aid to every person in need they’d met on their journey.
A short distance from the market, they came to the garrison compound, identical to the one in Windleford, though perhaps a little bigger. This was one familiar sight that did not make Maura long for her home village.
At a shouted word from the officer, the garrison gate opened. The soldiers dragged Maura and Delyon inside, across a wide bare courtyard, through a door and up a steep flight of stairs to a large room with windows facing out onto the courtyard. Several tall, flaxen-haired soldiers were standing around a table upon which was spread a crudely drawn map. Even from across the room, Maura could make out the familiar crescent shape that gave the Blood Moon Mountains part of their name.
The men looked up when Maura’s party entered, and the one who looked to be in charge barked a question at the officer who had brought her. The officer made some kind of salute with his fist then spoke rapidly in Hanish. Maura wished she knew what he was saying.
The commander dismissed the other men with a glance and a nod. Once they had departed, he strode toward Maura. She flinched in fear as he reached beneath her cloak, but he only grabbed a corner of her sash and pulled it toward him for closer inspection.
“What is this?” he demanded. “What does it contain?”
“Only harmless herbs, my lord, for healing.”
He let go of the sash as if it had turned into a hissing serpent. “The strong who are sick or wounded heal without stinking poison herbs. Weaklings who need such things are better left to die!”
Maura clamped her lips shut. She dared not argue the point with this man, who held her life in his hands. But neither would she give the smallest sign of agreement.
Fortunately, the commander did not appear to want an answer from her. He turned his attention to Delyon instead, hauling the scroll from his belt and unrolling it. For a moment he stared at the markings, his full brows knit together.
She was able to answer truthfully, “I know not, my lord. If you wish to find out, you must let me tend my friend and hope I can revive him to answer your questions.”
“Pha!” The Hanish commander dropped the scroll and kicked it aside with his foot. “It will take more than this to make me care whether some Umbrian lowling lives or dies. There are too many of your kind as it is. We do your race a service by winnowing out the weak.”
“You mistake tyranny for strength.” The words came out before Maura could stop them.
Fortunately, they came out in Umbrian, and the Hanish commander ignored them. “Lurgo tells me you are spies.”
“No, my lord.” Maura hoped her denial sounded false enough to rouse suspicion. “Only harmless travelers, detained by mistake.”
“When it comes to detaining your kind, my men never make a mistake! Travel except in the service of the empire is forbidden. If you do not know that, you are far from harmless. Where have you come from and where are you bound?”
“We come from the south, my lord.” Maura offered a lie she hoped the commander would recognize as such. “A village called…Woodbury, and we are bound for…Talward.”
“Never heard of either.” The Han sneered, as most of his race did when speaking to lowlings. “What is your business in this Talward place?” He nudged Delyon’s unconscious form with his foot. “And why did this one tear down an official notice?”
“An unfortunate mistake, my lord. My friend…merely wanted a closer look.” Fie, but lying was a tiresome business—even when she did not want to be believed! “As you see from the scroll, he has a great interest in written words.”
“Lying sow!” The commander lunged toward Maura, thrusting his face within an inch of hers. “If Oseck were here, he would soon bleed the truth out of you, and enjoy doing it, I daresay.”
He laughed, a sound like falling splinters of flint. “But since Oseck has been summoned to Venard just when I need him most, I believe I will send you there for him to question.”
“Please, my lord! Not Venard!” Maura willed her muscles to tense even tighter, rather than relax with relief at his words. “Not the Echtroi!”
His lips curled with cruel pleasure at her pretended distress. How could such a handsome surface encase such ugliness of spirit? Maura wondered.
The commander’s large, hard hand thrust out to take her by the throat. “Tell me the truth, and I will spare you the pleasure of Oseck’s attentions.”
“I swear, my lord.” Maura’s eyes bulged and she gasped for breath. “What I have told you is the truth!”
“Weak, deceitful and stupid, like all your kind.” The commander shot her a look of bottomless contempt as he released his grip. “You have decided your own fate.”
Maura slumped forward, her chest heaving. If not for the soldiers who held her arms, she would have pitched to the floor.
The commander barked some orders to the other soldiers, who dragged her and Delyon from the room. She kept her head bowed in case her face should betray her true feelings. It looked as if her desperate gamble might pay off after all.
When she glanced at Delyon and saw a trickle of blood oozing down his forehead, a dark shadow fell across her fragile hopes. If he did not waken soon with his wits intact, what chance did she have of finding the Staff of Velorken?
“If this keeps up, we may not need the Staff of Velorken to win Umbria’s freedom.” Idrygon strode into Rath’s tent looking better pleased than Rath had ever seen him.
“Could you call out next time to let me know you’re coming in?” Rath growled to cover his alarm at being burst in upon.
The hour was late and his daily dose of growth potion was wearing off. He’d feared that one of his men might catch him in his true, unimposing form.
Idrygon laughed. “Who else would dare walk into your quarters, unannounced, at this hour? Never fear. The lads I have guarding your tent know their orders well. You won’t be disturbed by anyone but me after you retire for the night. In an emergency, I will come and fetch you.”
“Is this an emergency, then?” Rath sank back down onto his bedroll. “What’s wrong?”
He’d been so startled by Idrygon’s sudden appearance that he hadn’t paid proper attention to what the man was saying.
“Wrong?” Idrygon dropped onto a large canvas cushion that served as a seat. “Why, nothing in the world. My plans are unfolding better than I dared hope. Today’s battle was a stunning victory for us.”
“That wasn’t a battle. It was a rout.” Rath reached for his drink skin—the one containing sythria so potent he was amazed it did not eat through the container. “And it wasn’t a victory, either. It was a butchery.”
He’d reckoned the life he’d led had hardened him to any depth of brutality. Since landing at the head of his small army in Duskport, he’d discovered otherwise. “We never should have let it happen like that. Did I not make it plain after the bloodletting in Duskport, I wanted no more of it?”
Idrygon threw up his hands. “My men had their orders, and obeyed them as far as I could see. The slaughter was all the mainlanders’ doing—today and back in Duskport. They have decades of hatred boiling inside them. You of all men have reason to know that.”
Rath tipped his drink skin and let a long draft of sythria scald its way down to his belly. He hoped it might purge his mind of some of the sights he’d seen today.
“I do know. I suffered plenty from the Han. Still…” He shook his head.
Idrygon shook his head, clearly bewildered by Rath’s attitude. “Do you suppose our enemies would have shown us any mercy if the tables had been turned?”
“I know they would not.” Rath took another drink. “How does that make it right?”
“What would you have us do?” Idrygon’s voice took on a tone of calm, rational persuasion. “Offer them terms of surrender? You know we do not have enough men to guard prisoners or the means to feed them. Even if the Han would accept, which you must know they would not. They are a warrior race. Horribly as many of them died today, I believe they would have chosen such deaths over the dishonor of surrender.”
Rath replied with a grunt. Idrygon was a hard man to dispute. He seemed to have an endless cache of solid, sensible reasons for everything he did or wanted to do. And he had barely begun to tap his supply when it came to this matter.
“To fight warriors—” Idrygon’s fist clenched “—we must think like warriors. We must become warriors. True, we have had strength of numbers in our battles so far—that was always our aim. But we do not have sufficient force to stand against the whole Hanish army of occupation. We must weaken them in small bites. You knew our battle plan before we set out from Margyle. I thought you approved.”
“I…I did.” But those had been tiny wooden markers moved around on that map board. Not men who screamed and bled and had their bodies torn apart for sport.
He leaped to his feet and began to pace the tent, still clutching the drink skin.
“I know all this, Idrygon.” He jabbed his forehead with his thumb. “Up here, I know it. But here and here—” he thumped his chest and then his belly “—it sickens me. I have spilled plenty of Hanish blood in my day—but never like this. When I had no other choice but to kill, I always tried to make it as quick and as clean as I could.”
“Very noble of you.” Idrygon’s voice betrayed no obvious mockery, but Rath sensed it just the same.
“If we are to become no better than the Han—” Rath shook his drink skin at Idrygon “—what are we doing all this for? Will Umbria be any better off?”
He heard his voice beginning to slur and he still had enough sense to know he should quit talking and go to sleep before his runaway tongue got him into trouble.
“Calm yourself,” said Idrygon. “And sit down before you fall. I am certain this…savagery on the part of the mainlanders is a passing fever that will so
on burn itself out.”
“A fever, is it?” Rath planted his feet wide to keep his balance. “Then they need a good physic, and if you will not dole it out, I will. Tomorrow, I will issue orders about honorable conduct in battle and set penalties for any who disobey.”
“Don’t be a fool!” Idrygon sprang to his feet and grabbed the drink skin out of Rath’s hand. “The mainlanders have flocked to you just as I said they would. Without their numbers, we might have had a more honorable fight on our hands today, but we would have lost a good many more of our own men. Is that what you want?”
“No, but—”
“In case you have not noticed, the mainlanders outnumber our Vestan soldiers these days. If you try to prevent them from taking their legitimate revenge, they will turn on you, Waiting King. And if they do, the Han will be the least of our worries.”
He pointed to Rath’s bedroll. The fierceness of his tone and stance eased. “Now lie down and get some sleep. You are too…overwrought to be making any plans just now. Tomorrow everything I’ve said will make better sense to you.”
It wasn’t that, Rath wanted to protest. Idrygon’s arguments all made sense, but they did not change the way he felt about any of this. It was not the kind of glorious, honorable conquest he’d imagined they would make. Perhaps there was no glory or honor to be found in conquest.
He settled himself onto his bedroll as Idrygon had bidden, hoping the sythria would numb him to sleep and keep his nightmares at bay.
“Enough talk for tonight.” Idrygon pulled the blanket over Rath. “We must be on the move tomorrow. Up into the mountains as I promised you. Perhaps when you see the mines again you will not feel so sorry for the poor ill-used Han.”
“This is not about the Han,” Rath murmured as drink and sleep joined forces to overpower him. “It is about us.”
That was it—not that the Han should be slaughtered the way he had seen today, but that his countrymen should take such brutal delight in killing.