by Kate Elliott
“He’s seen us,” she said unnecessarily. “The hells. Come on. Best we try to make our escape through the forest. The trees give us an advantage.”
“But that’s a reeve.” He waited on the roadway, watching the eagle bank around in a wide curve. “A reeve could help us.”
“Gods curse you, Keshad. Why are you so stupid?” She shrugged off the wine bladders that were slung over her shoulders. “Never mind. Maybe you’re right. Just follow my lead and keep your mouth shut. Take these.”
He took the sacks of wine, leaving him burdened and her free.
More quickly than he would have thought possible, the eagle swooped low, running straight down between the trees and dropping into the canyon made by the cleared road. It hit the roadway with a solid whomp that made him skip back in fear. The reeve unhooked swiftly and swaggered forward with a baton held at the ready.
“Who are you?” Bai pounced so aggressively into the silence that the reeve actually came to a halt, as if she’d slapped him. “You’re out of Argent Hall, by that badge you’re wearing. You look familiar, but it seems to me you were gone for a long time and only recently returned.”
“I know who you are,” said the reeve, clearly surprised. He was an ordinary man of middling years and middling height, slender, fit, with a broken nose long since healed and a vicious scar on one bare, brown shoulder that cut through the triple ring of flame tattoos on his upper arm. “You’re the Devouring girl they brought in to warm up old Marshal Alyon. But he died anyway.”
“So he did.”
“Did you murder him?”
“As it happens, I did not. Was that the rumor?”
The reeve’s mouth twisted as he thought this over. His eagle fixed its intimidating stare on them. Keshad felt he would be slaughtered if he so much as took one step sideways. Falling to an eagle would be a very bad way to die. He wasn’t quite sure which would be worse: gut punctured by the talons, or head torn off by that wicked beak.
“We hear lots of things,” the reeve said finally, “so it’s hard to know what to believe.”
“I was with the old marshal when he died. He was clean of poison. But he was old and frail and heartbroken. That’s what killed him.”
“Huh. Good riddance to him, then.” There it was again. He had a tendency to drawl out a rounded “oo” and to slurp his “r”s. He was definitely not born and bred on the Olo Plain.
“Were you always at Argent Hall?” she asked, as if she had gleaned Kesh’s thoughts. “Or did you come from elsewhere?”
“None of your business. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged, with an unconcerned smile. “A habit I got into after Marshal Yordenas took on my contract. Just helping him out.”
The reeve cracked a smile. “I hope he got more pleasure of it than Marshal Alyon did.”
Oh my. Keshad was not much for women. They were complications, and he had never had time for complications. It wasn’t his fault that Nasia had fallen in love with him. Now he watched as Bai gave a certain kind of smile with a certain tilt of her hips that got the reeve roped in tight. This could not be his sweet little baby sister!
“We Devouring girls have our secrets,” she said to the reeve with that offering of a smile. “We’re not allowed to tell. That would be going against our oath to the Merciless One. What man or woman would come to the temple to worship if they thought their dearest secrets and desires were talked about later?”
“Sorry I asked, no offense intended,” he said, stumbling over his tongue as he tried to apologize. “What are you doing out here, though? If I may ask.”
“Oh, just an errand, like you. There was that border guards captain that I had to kill, for he was breaking the law, as you know, and he broke faith with the Thunderer, and with the Merciless One, I might add. You don’t want to face her anger. His death was easier than it might otherwise have been. Now I just have one last loose end to tie up, and my contract is finished at Argent Hall.”
“What’s that? I can’t figure out how you got behind the strike force. They should have stopped you on the road.”
She glanced at Kesh with an anger that silenced him, not that he had anything to say. His chest was so tight he could scarcely breathe. Even she tensed, one hand squeezing into a fist while the other waved in a casual gesture meant to suggest a carefree lack of worry. It didn’t look very convincing to Kesh, but that reeve was almost licking his lips and anyway his interest was flagged by a significant stiffening in those tight leather trousers.
“Getting past the strike force was no problem. They know I’ve been working for Marshal Yordenas, just as you are. I’m on the track of that reeve—what was his name?—the one who got away from me at Argent Hall.” She touched her bruised cheek. “I have a personal grudge to settle with that one, I’ll tell you.”
“Him?” He sneered. “Our allies in Olossi threw him in the dungeon.”
“Did they? That makes my job easier, then, because I’ve been wandering out here on his trail and my feet are sore and I had just about given up. Heya!” Her face changed expression as quickly as sun brightens when it comes out behind cloud. “I don’t suppose you could give me a lift? To Olossi? I think that eagle can carry two for a short way. If it gets too heavy, we can always stop along the way for a, umm, rest.”
“Oh, ah, yes, ah.”
“What’s your name? Marshal Yordenas kept me away from the rest of you, and I can see why he’d be worried. I see you’re Fire-born. I really like Fire-born men. They have a certain . . . heat about them that warms us Water-born.”
“Oh, eh, ah, Horas. My eagle is Tumna. But I’m carrying a message uproad.”
“Really? How far?” She glanced at the sky. It was not yet noon.
“Not sure. Two days if you walked it, so by midafternoon today, since they’ll be on the road and easy to spot with all those thousands. It just depends on how far they’re running behind the strike force.”
“I’m actually in a lot of trouble for letting that reeve get past me. It would be such a help to me if I went by Olossi straightaway, before getting back to the temple. I’m not usually so clumsy as to let them get away once they’re marked.”
“Yes, Yordenas was furious,” he said, snickering. “That was a sight to see.”
“Aui! He was mad, wasn’t he? I was happy to leave his service, I’ll tell you. Truly, I wish he’d had as much vigor in his other, um, pursuits.”
This was really too much, but the reeve was swallowing it whole. It was true that lust blinded you. That’s why Ushara, the goddess of love, death, and desire, was known as the Merciless One.
She pushed her advantage. “But a contract is a contract. I’d like to finish off that reeve and be shed of my obligation.”
“Well, uh, then, it wouldn’t do any harm to take you along . . . I’m going back downroad to Argent Hall after I deliver my message.”
“Oh, yes, your message to them. If I went along with you, do you think you can drop me just out of sight of Olossi’s walls before nightfall? I would be so very very appreciative.”
“I . . . I should do. I mean, I’m to deliver the message, and return with an answer, if there is one. I’m expected back at Argent Hall tonight in any case. Tumna’s a strong girl, it’s not too far for her to carry us both.”
“Not many eagles could manage it.”
The reeve preened. “No, I don’t think they could.”
Kesh strangled a cough. He was sweating with the sun beating down on them and not a cloud in the sky, and that eagle’s stare grinding into him as though to wipe him into the dirt. He dared not move, or laugh, or speak.
“I’m not sure what to do about my hired man. I don’t want him to run into trouble. He’s, well, if you take my meaning, he’s good for carrying a heavy load and not much else.”
“He hasn’t much to say,” agreed the reeve, looking Keshad over and dismissing him as no rival to his evident ambitions. “I’m not sure I can help you with him, though. Every member of
the army wears a special coin around their neck to mark their allegiance to the Star of Life. That medallion would give you safe passage, although if you ask me, it’s a bit simpleminded to think you couldn’t just steal or loot one and pretend to be what you weren’t. Still, no one has been able to stand against them once they set their sights on a town, so it doesn’t matter. Olossi will be defeated without much of a fight, more’s the pity. I was looking for some fun.”
She sighed extravagantly. “So was I.”
With a lift of the shoulders, she sauntered over to Kesh and bent close, ostensibly to unwrap one of the wine bladders from his shoulder.
“Go back and grab one of those medallions from the dead men,” she whispered. “Then head for Olossi, but this time stay off the road, you idiot. And stay away from reeves, in case you haven’t figured that out. The Argent Hall reeves are not any friends of ours.”
She turned toward the reeve and raised her voice. “Will your eagle tolerate my ginnies?”
“They look pretty big. That’s a lot of extra weight to add on. Heh. Don’t know if she’d fancy them for an appetizer before her supper.”
“That settles it!” she said with a laugh.
She transferred the ginnies to Kesh, where they dug in hard enough that he squeaked.
“Hush, now!” she scolded him, or maybe the ginnies. She dropped her voice to a murmur. “Magic. Mischief. You’re to stay with Brother until I get back. Don’t let him get into any trouble.” She kissed their snouts and tickled them under their scaly chins, and they replied with chirps just as if they could understand exactly what she was saying.
To Kesh she said, softly, “I’ll expect to meet you in Olossi at, oh, there’s a tavern called the Demon’s Whip in an alley within the entertainers’ district in Merchants’ Walk.”
“You owed him seventy-eight leya—for what I’m not sure! I remember that place!”
“Yes. And it was worth every copper. Tell Autad that I’ll work off your bill, if you don’t want to spend any more of your precious coin. It won’t be a problem anyway, since I’ll likely get to Olossi before you do.”
“Bai!” he said, hard, under his breath. He couldn’t believe this was happening.
She slapped Kesh, as Master Feden and his wife used to do. “Do what I say!”
“Trouble?” The reeve had moved closer, trying to overhear.
“Not at all.” She turned her back on Keshad and strolled over to the reeve. “He’s scared of being on his own.” She whistled breathily and seemed by the motion of her head to be looking the reeve up and down. The man actually flushed.
“Too bad about those awkward tight trousers,” she said as she came up to him and pressed her palm against his leather vest. “I guess you can only get into and out of them while you’re standing on earth. I wonder if it would be possible to, you know, do it while you were flying and holding on to each other.” She took one step back and rested that hand atop the swell of her breasts under her tight sleeveless jacket.
The reeve swayed as if he had been hit on the head.
“You haven’t been to the temple in a good long time, have you?” she said sympathetically.
He gave a little involuntary groan. “Not allowed,” he gasped. “The hieros at the temples aren’t sworn allies to the Star of Life. So it’s forbidden to go. Yordenas is a real bastard about it. That’s why it surprised me to find a Devouring girl working at Argent Hall.”
“You know what they say, the master eats the meat he refuses to his dog.”
Horas sucked in a sharp breath. “Isn’t that right!”
“As for the temple, you know we are bound to accept all worshipers within the walls. As for outside jobs, we take whatever hire comes our way, as long as the customer matches our price. Are you ready?”
“Aui!” He wiped his brow, then licked his lips. “Surely I am.”
He called the eagle by putting a whistle to trembling lips, but Kesh heard no sound. Bai did not shudder or shrink as that huge creature came up behind him so he could hook in. He even had extra harness to strap her in, tight against him. With a sharp cry, the eagle thrust and lifted. The last Keshad saw, the reeve was working to insinuate a hand inside Bai’s jacket as the poor eagle beat hard to get all that weight above the trees, banked low in a wide curve, just skimming over the tree-tops, and headed Hornward along the West Track.
Kesh stood there like a lack-wit until Magic bit his ear.
“Ouch!”
Were the damned ginnies laughing at him? They had bright, knowing stares. He didn’t like them, but they seemed to accept him as, well, as their idiot brother. You had to be loyal to family.
He shuddered. He had no choice but to go along with Bai’s crazy plan, whatever it was. He trudged back the way they had come and at length and with sweat pouring freely he got back to the stinking massacre site. The vultures considered him such a paltry threat that they merely lifted their heads to observe his appearance before going back to their feeding.
By now he could ignore the scene by pretending it did not exist, by covering his mouth and nose with cloth to mask the odor, and by keeping his gaze fixed on the stony roadbed. Only those puddling bodies existed, those two men that Bai had killed, and they were just corpses, nothing that could harm him. Ghosts couldn’t hurt you. They had no substance; they were only emotion and spirit.
He knelt beside the man she had knifed in the chest, because this body was less soaked with fluids. She’d taken her knife; he hadn’t noticed that at the time, or had he? The ginnies scrambled down off his back and away from the bodies, not liking the tang. He fumbled at the man’s garment, found a leather thong along the hairy neck, and with distaste wangled it over the head and fished it off. It was a medallion, like an oversized coin with the usual square hole through the middle but an unusual eight-tanged starburst symbol stamped into the metal. He sniffed it, and bit it. It was tin, not even silver. Allegiance came cheaply, it seemed. He wondered what else the “Star of Life” was offering. Or what it was; perhaps some kind of secret society banned by guild and council alike.
None of it made sense.
He rose and, reflexively, dusted off the knees of his trousers, then scooped up the ginnies. Yet he paused, there on the road. Bai was gone off on some fool’s errand. He had food, and drink, and a decent string of leya as well as a few items that could be sold to set up in a safe town as a laborer or to hire his labor out to a local merchant somewhere.
Should he really chance going back to Olossi? He could not imagine what Bai thought she was up to, or what all that talk had meant between her and the reeve. He had no loyalty toward Olossi Town, or the temple, or the reeve hall. He wanted to start a new life, while Bai had abandoned him in the service of whatever old-fashioned notion of duty she had imbibed at the breast of the Merciless One. Maybe, after all, it was best if they split up, if he never met her at the Demon’s Whip.
Maybe.
For the first time since he had been sold into slavery by his greedy relatives, he had no fixed purpose to guide him. So of course, standing there like the idiot he was, he waited too long. The ginnies hissed, and flattened against him as if they expected him to protect them from a threat he could not see. Crows and vultures deserted their carrion in a chaos of caws and wings.
About twenty mounted men appeared out of the east, from Hornward, blocking the road. They were riding toward Olossi. Each man wore a staff tied up against the back of the thick leather jackets they wore as armor, and on each staff, over their heads, flew four long ribbon-like yellow and red flags rippling in the wind. When they saw Keshad, they all drew their swords.
35
After the last years with his luck turning sour at every chance just to spite him, Horas knew that fortune had finally given him an armful of the very best. He’d been happy to fly messages for Marshal Yordenas these past months since he’d come to Argent Hall. For one thing, it gave him insight into the plots and plans of those who played the pipes to which the rest of them d
anced. And anyway, it was better flying messages than having to cool his heels at the hall with all manner of restrictions set on him while the master ate the very meat he refused to his dogs.
“Heh,” he said, liking the phrase. He’d gotten his hand inside her vest, and he tweaked a nipple.
“None of that,” she said sharply. “You’ve no idea what I can do to you if you make me mad. Aii-ei!” She gave a yelp as Tumna dipped, and pulled sharply up again. Then she laughed as folk do when they are scared and thrilled at the same time.
A hot shiver coursed through him. Her breasts were firm and shapely, and her tight buttocks ground up against him because he had hitched her into the spare harness with her back to his front. He was a little taller, and could see over her, which was a good thing since Tumna was huffing and beating hard trying to get loft. They hadn’t found a good updraft yet, no doubt because they were too close to the river, but he didn’t care. It had been months since he’d worshiped the Merciless One, not for lack of trying.
“We’re forbidden to enter a temple,” he said.
“No one can be forbidden the temple.”
“But he’d know. He killed one reeve for disobeying.”
“I don’t remember that! Whoo-ei! How do you get used to this?”
But he was used to flying, the dips and turns, ups and downs, heights and dives. It was the memory of the quick and brutal death that softened him, and she seemed immediately aware of his distress.
“In all that time, there’s one thing I never did discover,” she said over her shoulder. “Where Marshal Yordenas came from.”
“Don’t know and don’t care.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Haldia.”
“You’re a long way from home.”