by Ed Greenwood
By then, The Masked and Tantaerra had been handed their saddlebags and invited to dine while they waited for dark.
They accepted, finding the stew and hardbread of the soldiery quite palatable as they sipped watered smallbeer and listened to the hammers and mallets of Molthuni working on the fire-rafts. During their meal, the officer politely asked them endless questions about their dealings with Lord Telcanor and their past careers, and The Masked politely supplied him with endless falsehoods as answers. And asked a few questions of his own, which is how they learned that the war had settled down into a ceaseless, fairly balanced, back-and-forth affair. Molthune mounted foray after foray into Nirmathas, seeking to slay Nirmathi warriors, burn crops, and destroy weapons and fortresses—and then withdrew, because they knew if they tarried overlong, it would mean death by guerrillas and snipers that killed and poisoned before slipping back into the trees. Still, Nirmathas had not the strength to mount any concerted invasion of Molthune, and death by death, season by season, Molthune was emptying Nirmathas of effective opposition. Someday, Nirmathas would again be part of Molthune. As it rightfully should be.
Tantaerra and The Masked nodded and mumbled assent in the right places as the officer warmed to his argument. Why did the stubborn Nirmathi refuse the good roads, better laws, and surer supplies of abundant food and wine that Molthuni citizenship would give them? No sane man would refuse such things! It must be bad leadership, bolstered by the resentment and blood-feuding of all these years of strife, it must, and...
The officer waved his hands, almost spilling his tankard, and Tantaerra saw a silver ring on his hand that matched the one worn by the soldier who'd lifted her down from her saddle. And suddenly she remembered where she'd seen it before: on the plump red finger of one of the bath women back in the Telcanor mansion.
A mark of Telcanor, then. Which meant this officer probably knew all about them, and was intended to help them across the Inkwater—indeed, had probably known it before they blundered into his stretch of riverbank. One fast rider sent out from Braganza before dawn could have forewarned him.
And Tarram had been supplying him with outrageous lies this entire meal! Oh, gods! But how to tell him, before his tongue hastened their common doom?
If she caught his eye and used one hand to rub a finger of the other—the same finger and spot on it where the officer was wearing his ...
She did, and was startled to see The Masked wink at her, then—while agreeing aloud with the officer's praise of the benefits of Molthuni society—he casually waved a hand in the man's direction. Tantaerra looked where he was gesturing, and found the officer giving her a smug smile. Damned if the deep-voiced Molthuni didn't wink at her, too!
So the officer and The Masked had both known that Lord Telcanor's mission into Nirmathas was to be aided by Telcanor Molthuni on patrol. This was all a big game to them.
She felt her face flaming, and raised her almost-empty mug to cover most of it. These damned men! They were enjoying this! Both were acting like ...
Like the very spies she and The Masked were pretending to be.
Or was The Masked pretending? Could he really be a Telcanor spy, or working for the Lord of Braganza? Or even the General Lords?
Tantaerra let a little of the thin, sour beer slide onto her tongue, held it there, and thought hard.
She couldn't tell. She just couldn't tell.
He was keeping secrets from her, details not from his long and colorful past, but rather having to do with this task they'd been set, this Shattered Tomb and the dead wizard and the Fearsome Gauntlet. But how to get him to spill them?
And did it matter, when they might both be dead before morning?
∗ ∗ ∗
Where was Ahrkholm? There'd been no sign of him since back in the hollow, but he was out there somewhere in the night, watching; Tantaerra could feel the cold weight of his sneering gaze.
Yes, even in the numbing cold that was leaving her gasping, too chilled to do more than feebly fight the rush of the river.
The Inkwater was even colder than she'd feared, and was sweeping them northeast at a great rate, as if impatient to leave its headwaters far behind and greet its end in Lake Encarthan.
There was bright moonlight and there were few clouds this night, of course; that was merely the mirth of the gods. So the river was shot through with silver here, there, and everywhere as it flowed, far too strong for even The Masked to pull his fire-raft much across the river. And then there were their clothes and weapons each lashed to one leg, making swimming in this rushing water like hauling along a heavy monster that had its jaws closed around your knee ...
Mostly, they were swept helplessly along, and had probably left behind the stretch of river under the Telcanor officer's command long ago.
Which meant, sooner or later, and probably sooner...
"Foul Nirmathi spies!"
Sooner.
That angry shout had come from a Molthuni officer, and his next words were some sort of snarled order that urged his patrol into a gallop along the well-used road that followed the Molthuni side of the river.
Either this was a ruse to make any watching Nirmathi think she and The Masked were Nirmathi—or these particular Molthuni truly thought they were Nirmathi. Her head was starting to ache again. Damn all humans and their trickery and double-dealing.
"Die!" the officer shouted, and Tantaerra ducked down under the swirling water and started to claw her way along the lashings that held her ungainly fire-raft together. It was blazing away merrily, of course, the strong reek of rotting wolf turning to the stronger stink of cooked rotting wolf, but if she could get between the two rotting hulls, or at least put one of them between her and the Molthuni crossbows ...
Bolts thudded into the wood above her with strikes she could feel, and plunged into the water around her with surprisingly loud plooshing noises. She could hear them hitting The Masked's raft, too, sharper and louder slammings like cobblers' hammers missing leather and hitting wooden lasts. She kicked and clawed frantically, starving for air now but determined to get past the first hull. They couldn't all miss ...
She came up out of the face-slapping water with a gasp, past the hull, the rope she was supposed to be towing the raft across to Nirmathas with now hopelessly tangled around her neck and shoulder and breasts. Gods damn all conniving Telcanors! Why—
Suddenly the leaping flames above her and the starry night sky above them were full of hummings, menacing racing hums, west to east, that tore through flames and charred wood and Molthuni horses and Molthuni throats.
A volley of Nirmathi arrows from the far bank! A hail of racing arrows that just kept coming, hissing and humming through the night like so many angry wasps—arrows that brought crashes and screams and hoarse cries from the Molthuni patrol. Tantaerra saw moonlight to her left, and risked thrusting her head up through that hole into the smoke and sparks and still-hungry flames, to look toward Molthune.
Riderless horses bucked and galloped, tossing their snorting heads in fear. Though the arrows had now stopped, they'd struck home; there wasn't a mounted warrior to be seen anywhere on the riverbank road. The entire Molthuni patrol was unhorsed!
Suddenly, a hand grabbed her from below.
Tantaerra let out a scream of her own that became a gargling, glubbing choking as she went under. An instant later, that same hand rammed her up against the burning boards above her, banging her head and shoulders but slamming a lot of that water back out of her. Helplessly she coughed and wept and spat, writhing in pain as the racing river slapped her across the face again, and then ...
She was blinking into a face she knew. Or rather, a mask she knew.
"How—?" she managed to choke out.
"Abandoned my raft," he panted, holding her out of the water so she could drool out the last of what had been flooding her and gasp in air again. "Let's pick the right time ...to leave yours."
Tantaerra nodded, or tried to.
She was still tryi
ng when The Masked looked into the bright wash of moonlight ahead, pointed at a bend where the Inkwater turned east to carve into Molthune, and gasped, "Now!"
And before she could even protest, he'd hauled at her, easily breaking her numbed grip on wet lashings. Her tow-rope sawed and burned under one breast, tumbling her—
And was abruptly gone, and the raft with it.
Moonlight bathed her as she bobbed, a strong arm hooked under hers. It caught the flash of The Masked's knife as he put it away. Then he was swimming strongly, heading for Nirmathas as the river bend brought it up in front of them like a wall. Dying flames were swept away off to Tantaerra's right as The Masked fought the flow, spume bubbling around them and racing on.
It seemed so close, but root after leaning tree after rock-studded overhang swept past and was left behind as the river clawed them on.
The Masked was swimming more feebly now, stroking in fits and starts and being swept along between them. Would he ...
Slimy rocks bruised their knees and hands and they were tumbling again, evil smells rising around them as they rolled in river mud, slammed into the upthrust roots of a tree that had drowned long ago, and ...
The Masked was dragging her, no longer swimming but crawling, splashing up onto a slope of mud that was studded with sharp stones and crisscrossed with weed-shrouded roots—and suddenly alive with men and women in leather, swords in their hands and angry glares on their faces as they burst from the dark trees above the riverbank, a dozen or more.
"Die, Molthuni!" one hissed, as they clambered down to meet The Masked.
Tantaerra looked up at the dripping and exhausted man she'd hired and come so far with, as he hurriedly let go of her and snatched at his daggers.
He could run, she thought. Without her short legs slowing him down, he might make it to the trees. Yet he placed himself between her and danger, time and again.
She reached up and touched his side. He looked down at her, eyes curious behind the dark mask.
Then he turned back to meet the oncoming Nirmathi.
Chapter Ten
Welcome to Nirmathas
Now!" a voice snapped, from across the river behind her.
Tantaerra whirled around in time to see Molthuni soldier after Molthuni soldier stand up amid the tall grass on the far riverbank, aim and fire a crossbow, then duck down again to bob up once more, mere moments later, with a second cocked and loaded crossbow, and fire again. Flame flared among them, and became a high-arcing bolt trailing blazing strips of cloth, that fell into the river and went out with a sigh. A second fire-quarrel followed, and a third, the last one landing high in the leaves of a Nirmathi riverbank tree, that promptly blazed up with a sudden crackle.
In its light, The Masked and Tantaerra could clearly see that of the score or more Nirmathi who'd emerged to capture two wet invaders, only three were unscathed, with five groaning wounded—and all the rest now fallen, sprawled still with bolts protruding from them, and dark trails of blood sinking into the mud.
"Thank you!" called the voice that had snapped the order to fire, and this time Tantaerra knew it. The deep-voiced Telcanor officer who'd fed them back in the hollow. He and his men must have been moving downriver under cover all this time, just waiting for Nirmathi to show themselves.
Then branches snapped and underbrush crackled, and the three surviving Nirmathi who'd been crouching and drawing back from the exposed riverbank were joined by a dozen more.
Three had bows, and died under a hissing hail of fire from the Molthuni force. The others surged down the bank at The Masked.
From the Molthune side of the river arose a great whirring of windlasses as crossbows were hastily cranked, but with seven or more swords against The Masked's sword and dagger, wielded by a man lower than his assailants and mired in the soft and sucking river mud, the Molthuni would have to reload very quickly, or their next volley would come too late ...
Tantaerra hurried to a stone she could see protruding from the mud, hoping it was large and settled enough to be stable under her as she threw daggers. Not that she had enough of them to bite all the Nirmathi now warily advancing on The Masked, even if every hurled blade counted.
The Masked didn't wait to be hewn down. He backed into the water toward Tantaerra, snapping, "To me!" over his shoulder at her.
The one Nirmathi who decided to rush him discovered the hard way just how soft and deeply sucking the mud where The Masked had been standing was. He struggled to stay upright, plunging to his knees in the wet holes the masked man's boots had left behind. It was a fight he lost.
The Masked pounced ruthlessly, slashing the back of the man's neck and then springing onto his falling body with both knees, driving the Nirmathi's face deep into the slurry of water and mud and water trying to be mud.
The man writhed briefly, then lay still—and The Masked stood on him, going into a warrior's crouch, sword and dagger ready.
The Nirmathi drew back, looking to the trees behind. They were still contemplating returning to cover when a tall, broad-shouldered man strode out of those trees, hefting a battleaxe. Grinning savagely, he stalked down the muddy bank right at The Masked. The other Nirmathi parted to let him through, and he loomed up over the intruder from across the river, let out a triumphant yell, and raised his axe high for a vicious chop.
He was still bellowing bloodthirstily when a crossbow bolt took him under the chin with a thud that rocked him, set him to gargling, and made the axe fly from his hands. It struck the Nirmathi beside him senseless and toppling into the moonlit river with a mighty splash.
Into the heart of this man, The Masked sheathed both blades, then leaned over in the mud with arm outstretched and plucked Tantaerra off her feet. Hauling her against his chest, he snarled, "Play dead!"
His other hand grabbed a good fistful of the gurgling, dying axe-man's tunic-front and pulled the Nirmathi down on top of them both as he flung himself over backward into the Inkwater.
Tantaerra's gasp was almost a shriek, but the icy chill robbed her of breath. Amid all the humming crossbow bolts, thrumming arrows, and eagerly murderous Nirmathi, it suddenly struck her just how shockingly, breath-robbingly cold it was.
They went deep, bubbles thundering and coiling around her, unseen slimy rocks bruising and bumping, then slowly rose back up toward the moon ...probably a long way downstream of where all those Nirmathi now lay dead. The Masked was hauling her face free of the river, but he wasn't thrashing about or swimming, just drifting as the racing river swept them along.
He was playing dead, just as he'd commanded her to. Well, this was one order she'd obey. Tantaerra blinked water from her eyes and let herself go still, staring up at the stars.
And promptly saw arrows speeding past over her, from Nirmathas.
Then came a hail of Molthuni crossbow bolts racing past in the other direction. Grunts and choking cries arose, then splashes, as dying and dead men toppled into the Inkwater to join her. Nirmathi casualties, all, but then she was too far from the Molthuni bank to see or hear any dead soldiers of Molthune falling in.
She started to shiver, and knew The Masked could feel it. His arm was under and around her, and he gave her shoulder a squeeze of reassurance. She felt his body twist in a slow, careful kick that sent the dead Nirmathi toward Nirmathas ...but not away from them, which meant the masked man must have his foot hooked around the corpse.
Would they get tangled, and dragged down? Did he need one of her knives? No, this must be deliberate, must be ...she felt the corpse strike something that bumped and slowed it, then hit something else, then snag.
Of course. The Masked was using the dead man like an anchor or grapple, to snag on rocks and roots and suchlike along the Nirmathi bank. While trying to look to any watching Nirmathi eyes as if they were all dead bodies being swept downstream by the river.
Suddenly the moonlight was blotted out, and the corpse, which had been rolled free of the snag by the relentless Inkwater, caught on something else.
/> In a trice The Masked was kicking and clawing in the river, dislodged stones rolling under them as he snatched and thrashed and finally caught hold of something, rolling them both clear of the rushing waters, into a tangle of exposed roots and heaped stones. A leaning overhang of trees that were well on the way to toppling into the river hid them from the moon—and hopefully from any watching Nirmathi.
The axe-man's body was thankfully gone, swept farther down the river. Tantaerra discovered the bundle lashed to her leg was gone too, lost somewhere in all the tumbling and tumult—and she knew from seeing The Masked facing those Nirmathi on the muddy bank earlier that he'd lost his. Which meant they were without food, wineskins, blankets, and any clothes beyond what was plastered to them now, sodden and cold.
"C-c-cold," Tantaerra hissed at him, through blue and trembling lips, just in case he was thinking of hiding here.
"We'll warm up by getting as far from here as we can before dawn," he muttered back. "Come on!"
He clambered up over the edge of the overhang, drawn sword menacing boughs, thick leaves, and Nirmathi foes who weren't there. Tantaerra swarmed up some of those branches after him, and he set off along one edge of the bushes in a cautious crawl, heading inland.
Only to freeze, as someone groaned very close by. A wet drizzling sound followed, then a man said roughly, "Ohhhh, that's better. What was in that fireguzzle, anyway? Teach me to trust Zostur!"
"Wasn't Zostur's cheap wine," another man replied sourly, from farther off. "'Twas the stew."
"The stew? I hardly had any!"
"Doesn't take much, Keln. I watered half riverside Nirmathas the last time I tried Braeron's stew. Learn this well, lad: you have to pay attention to who's doing the cooking, and eat accordingly. That's just wise strategy, that is!"
"Hunh," Keln commented, stumbling away from where The Masked and Tantaerra lay motionless. "Wouldn't it be tactics, now? Or not ...I never could keep those two straight."