They were on him in an instant, pushing him hard onto the rough wood of the cart. Someone’s knee drove in between his shoulder blades; invisible hands bent his arms backwards. When he opened his mouth to scream, a wad of heavy cloth was shoved in so deeply he gagged. A leather strap followed, keeping it in place. He didn’t know when his legs were bound, but in fewer than twenty breaths, he was immobile—his arms chained painfully behind him at his wrists and elbows, his mouth stuffed until it was hard to breathe. The knee moved to the small of his back, digging into his spine with every shift of the cart. He tried once to move, and the pressure from above increased. He tried again, and the man cursed him and rapped his head with something hard.
“I said no talking,” the commander murmured, and returned to peering out the opening in the back cloth. Otah shifted, snarling in impotent rage that none of these men seemed to see or recognize. The cart moved off through the night. He could feel it when they moved from the paving of the main road to a dirt track; he could hear the high grass hushing against the wheels. They were taking him nowhere, and he couldn’t think why.
He guessed it was almost three hands before the first light started to come. Dawn was still nothing more than a lighter kind of darkness, the commander’s feet—the only part of the man Otah could see without lifting his head—were a dim form of shadow within shadow. It was something. Otah heard the trill of a daymartin, and then a rough rattling and the sound of water. A bridge over some small river. When the cart lurched back to ground, the commander turned.
“Have him stop,” he said, and then a moment later, “I said stop the cart. Do it.”
One of the other two—the one who wasn’t kneeling on Otah—shifted and spoke to the driver. The jouncing slowed and stopped.
“I thought I heard something out there. In the trees on the left. Baat. Go check. If you see anything at all get back fast.”
The pressure on Otah’s back eased and one of the men clambered out. Otah turned over and no one tried to stop him. There was more light now. He could make out the grim set of the commander’s features, the unease in the one remaining armsman.
“Well, this is interesting,” the commander said.
“What’s out there,” the other man asked, his blade drawn. The commander looked out the slit of cloth and motioned for the armsman to pass over his sword. He did, and the commander took it, holding it with the ease of long familiarity.
“It may be nothing,” he said. “Were you with me when I was working for the Warden of Elleais?”
“I’d just signed on then,” the armsman said.
“You’ve always been a good fighter, Lachmi. I want you to know I respect that.”
With the speed of a snake, the commander’s wrist flickered, and the armsman fell back in the cart, blood flowing from his opened neck. Otah tried to push himself away as the commander turned and drove the sword into the armsman’s chest. He dropped the blade then, letting it fall to the cart’s floor, and took a pose of regret to the dying man.
“But,” the commander said, “you should never have cheated me at tiles. That was stupid.”
The commander stepped over the body and spoke to the driver. He spoke clearly enough for Otah to hear.
“Is it done?”
The driver said something.
“Good,” the commander replied, and came back. He flipped Otah onto his belly with casual disregard, and Otah felt his bonds begin to loosen.
“All apologies, Otah-cha,” the commander said. “But there’s a lesson you can take from all this: just because someone’s bought a mercenary captain, it doesn’t mean his commanders aren’t still for sale. Now I will need your robes, such as they are.”
Otah pulled the leather strap from around his head and spat out the cloth, retching as he did so. Before he could speak, the commander had climbed out of the cart, and Otah was left to follow.
They had stopped at a clearing by a river, surrounded by white oaks. The bridge was old wood and looked almost too decrepit to cross. Six men with gray robes and hunting bows were walking toward them from the trees, two of them dragging the arrow-riddled body of the armsman the commander had sent out. Two others carried a litter with what was clearly another dead man—thin and naked. The commander took a pose of welcome, and the first archer returned it. Otah stumbled forward, rubbing his wrists. The archers were all smiling, pleased with themselves. When he came close enough, Otah saw the second corpse was on its back, and a wide swath of intricate black ink stained its breast. The first half of an east island marriage mark. A tattoo like his own.
“That’s why we’ll need your robes, Otah-cha,” the commander said. “This poor bastard will have been in the water for a while before he reaches the main channel of the river. But the closer he seems to you, the less people will bother looking at him. I’ll see whether I can find something for you to wear after, but you might consider sponging off in the brook there first. No offense, but you’ve been a while without a bath.”
“Who is he?” Otah asked.
The commander shrugged.
“Nobody, now.”
He clapped Otah on the shoulder and turned back toward the cart. The archers were pitching the corpses of the two armsmen into the water. Otah saw arrows rising from the river like reeds. The driver was coming forward now, his thumbs stuck in his belt. He was a hairy man, his full beard streaked with gray. He smiled at Otah and took a pose of welcome.
“I don’t understand,” Otah said. “What’s happening?”
“We don’t understand either, Itani-cha. Not precisely. We’re only sure that it’s something terrible,” the carter said, and Otah’s mouth dropped open. He spoke with the voice of Amiit Foss, his overseer in House Siyanti. Amiit grinned beneath his beard. “And we’re sure that it isn’t happening to you.”
The first few breaths after she woke were like rising new born. She didn’t know who or where she was, she had no thought of the night before or the day ahead. There was only sensation—the warmth of the body beside her, the crisp softness of the bedclothes, the netting above the bed glowing in the captured light of dawn, the scent of black tea brought in by a servant with cat-quiet footsteps. She sat up, almost smiling until memory rushed in on her like a flood of black water. Idaan rose and pulled on her robes. Adrah stirred and moaned.
“You should go,” she said, lifting the black iron teapot. “You’re expected to go on a hunt today.”
Adrah sat up, scratching his back and yawning. His hair stuck out in all directions. He looked older than he had the day before, or perhaps it was only how she felt. She poured a bowl of tea for him as well.
“Have they found him?” Adrah asked.
“I haven’t heard the screams or lamentations yet, so I’d assume not.”
She held out the porcelain bowl. It was thin enough to see through and hot enough to burn her fingertips, but Idaan didn’t try to reduce the pain. When Adrah took it from her, he drank from it straight, though she knew it must have scalded. Perhaps what they’d done had numbed them.
“And you, Idaan-kya?”
“I’m going to the baths. I’ll join you after.”
Adrah drank the last of the tea, grimaced as if it was distilled wine, and took a pose of leave-taking which Idaan returned. When he was gone, she took herself to the women’s quarters and the baths. She hardly had time to wash her hair before the cry went up. The Khai Machi was dead. Killed horribly in his chambers. Idaan dried herself with a cloth and strode out to meet her brother. She was halfway there before she realized her face was bare; she hadn’t put on her paints. She was surprised that she felt no need for them now.
Danat was pacing the great hall. The high marble archways echoed with the sound of his boots. There was blood on his sleeve, and his face was empty. When Idaan caught sight of him, she raised her chin but took no formal pose. Danat stopped. The room was silent.
“You’ve heard,” he said. There was no question to it.
“Tell me anyway.”
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“Otah has killed our father,” Danat said.
“Then yes. I’ve heard.”
Danat resumed his pacing. His hands worried each other, as if he were trying to pluck honey off them. Idaan didn’t move.
“I don’t know how he did it, sister. There must be people backing him within the palaces. The armsmen in the tower were slaughtered.”
“How did he find our father?” Idaan asked, uninterested in the answer. “He must have found a secret way into the palaces. Someone would have seen him.”
Danat shook his head. There was rage in him, and pain. She could see them, could feel them resonate in her own breast. But more than that, there was an almost superstitious fear in him. The upstart had slipped his bonds, had struck in the very heart of the city, and her brother feared him like Black Chaos.
“We have to secure the city,” he said. “I’ve called for more guards. You should stay here. We can’t know how far he will take his vendetta.”
“You’re going to let him escape?” Idaan demanded. “You aren’t going to hunt him down?”
“He has resources I can’t guess at. Look! Look what he’s done. Until I know what I’m walking towards, I don’t dare follow.”
The plan was failing. Danat was staying safe in his walls with his armsmen around him like a blanket. Idaan sighed. It was up to her, of course, to save it.
“Adrah Vaunyogi has a hunt prepared. It was to be for fresh meat for my wedding feast. You stay here, Danat-kya. I’ll bring you Otah’s head.”
She turned and walked away. She couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t invite him to follow her. He would see it in her gait if she were anything less than totally committed. For a moment, she even believed herself that she was going out to find her father’s killer and bring him down—riding with her hunt into the low towns and the fields to track down the evil Otah Machi, her fallen brother. Danat’s voice stopped her.
“I forbid you, Idaan. You can’t do this.”
She paused and looked back at him. He was thicker than her father had been. Already his jaw line ran toward jowls. She took a pose that disagreed.
“I’m actually quite good with a bow,” she said. “I’ll find him. And I will see him dead.”
“You’re my child sister,” Danat said. “You can’t do this.”
Something flared in her, dark and hot. She stepped back toward Danat, feeling the rage lift her up like a leaf in the wind.
“Ah, and if I do this thing, you’ll be shamed. Because I have breasts and you’ve a prick, I’m supposed to muzzle myself and be glad. Is that it? Well I won’t. You hear me? I will not be controlled, I will not be owned, and I will not step back from anything to protect your petty pride. It’s gone too far for that, brother. If a woman shrinks meekly back into the shadows, then you be the woman. See how it feels to you!”
By the end she was shrieking. Her fists were balled so tight they hurt. Danat’s expression was as hard as stone and as gray.
“You shame me,” he said.
“Live with it,” she said and spat.
“Send my body servant,” he said. “I’ll want my own bow. And then go to Adrah. The hunt won’t leave without me.”
She was on the edge of refusing, of telling him that this wasn’t courage. He was only more afraid of losing the respect of the utkhaiem than of dying, and that made him not only a coward but a stupid one. She was the one with courage. She was the one who had the will to act. What was he after all but a mewling kitten lost in the world, while she … she was Otah Machi. She was the upstart who had earned the Khai’s chair. She had killed her father for it; it was more than Danat would have done.
But, of course, truth would destroy everything. That was its nature. So she swallowed it down deep where it could go on destroying her and took an acquiescing pose. She’d won. He’d know that soon enough.
Once Danat’s body servant had been sent scampering for his bow, Idaan returned to her apartments, shrugged out of her robes and put on the wide, loose trousers and red leather shirt of a hunter. She paused by her table of paints, her mirror. She sat for a moment and looked at her bare face. Her eyes seemed small and flat without the kohl. Her lips seemed as pale and wide as a fish’s, her cheeks pallid and low. She could be a peasant girl, plowing fields outside some low town. Her beauty had been in paint. Perhaps it would be again, someday. This was a poor day for beauty.
The huntsmen were waiting impatiently outside the palaces of the Vaunyogi, their mounts’ hooves clattering against the dark stones of the courtyard. Adrah took a pose of query when he saw her clothes. Idaan didn’t answer it, but went to one of the horsemen, ordered him down, took his blade and his bow and mounted in his place. Adrah cantered over to her side. His mount was the larger, and he looked down at her as if he were standing on a step.
“My brother is coming,” she said. “I’ll ride with him.”
“You think that wise?” he asked coolly.
“I have asked too much of you already, Adrah-kya.”
His expression was cold, but he didn’t object further. Danat Machi rode in wearing pale robes of mourning and seated on a great hunting stallion, the very picture of vigor and manly prowess. Five riders were with him: his friends, members of the utkhaiem unfortunate enough to have heard of this hunt and marry themselves to the effort. They would have to be dealt with. Adrah took a pose of obeisance before Danat.
“We’ve had word that a cart left by the south gate last night,” Adrah said. “It was seen coming from an alley beside the tower.”
“Then let us follow it,” Danat said. He turned and rode. Idaan followed, the wind whipping her hair, the smell of the beast under her rich and sweet. There was no keeping up the gallop, of course. But this was theater—the last remaining sons of the Khai Machi, one the assassin and servant of chaos slipping away in darkness, one the righteous avenger riding forth in the name of justice. Danat knew the part he was to act, and Idaan gave him credit for playing it, now that she had goaded him into action. Those who saw them in the streets would tell others, and the word would spread. It was a sight songs were made from.
Once they had crossed the bridge over the Tidat, they slowed, looking for people who had heard or seen the cart go by. Idaan knew where it had really gone—the ruins of an old stone wayhouse a half-hand’s walk from the nearest low town west of the city. The morning hadn’t half passed before the hunt had taken a wrong scent, turned north and headed into the foothills. The false trail took them to a crossroads—a mining track led east and west, the thin road from the city winding north up the side of a mountain. Danat looked frustrated and tired. When Adrah spoke—his voice loud enough for everyone in the party to hear—Idaan’s belly tightened.
“We should fan out, Danat-cha. Eight east, eight west, eight north, and two to stay here. If one group finds sign of the upstart, they can send back a runner, and the two waiting here will retrieve the rest.”
Danat weighed the thought, then agreed. Danat claimed the north road for himself, and the members of the utkhaiem, smelling the chance of glory, divided themselves among the bands heading east and west.
Adrah took the east, his eyes locked on hers as he turned to go. She saw the meaning in his expression, daring her to do this thing. Idaan made no reply to him at all. She, six huntsmen of the Vaunyogi loyal to their house and master, and Danat rode into the mountains.
When the sun had reached the highest point in the day’s arc, they stopped at a small lake. The huntsmen rode out in their wide-ranging search as they had done at every pause before this. Danat dismounted, stretched, and paced. His eyes were dark. Idaan waited until the others disappeared into the trees, unslung her bow, and went to stand near her brother. He looked at her, then away.
“He didn’t come this way,” Danat said. “He’s tricked us again.”
“Perhaps. But he won’t survive. Even if he killed you, he could never become Khai Machi. The utkhaiem and the poets wouldn’t support him.”
“It’s hatred
now,” Danat said. “He’s doing it from hatred.”
“Perhaps,” Idaan said. Out on the lake, a bird skimmed the shining surface of the water, then shrieked and plunged in, rising moments later with a flash of living silver in its claws. A quarter moon was in the sky—white crescent showing through the blue. The lake smelled colder than it was, and the wind tugged at her hair and the reeds alike. Danat sighed.
“Was it hard killing Kaiin?” Idaan asked.
Danat looked at her, as if shocked that she had asked. She met his gaze, her eyes fixed on his until he turned away.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes it was. I loved him. I miss them both.”
“But you did the thing anyway.”
He nodded. Idaan stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek. His stubble tickled her lips, and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she walked away, trying to stop the sensation. At ten paces she put an arrow to her bow, drew back the string. Danat was still looking out over the water. Passionlessly, she judged the wind, the distance.
The arrow struck the back of his head with a sound like an axe splitting wood. Danat seemed at first not to notice, and then slowly sank to the ground. Blood soaked the collar of his robes, the pale cloth looking like cut meat by the time she walked back to him. She knelt by him, took his hand in her own, and looked out over the lake.
She was singing before she knew she intended to sing. In her imagination, she had screamed and shrieked, her cries calling the hunters back to her, but instead she sang. It was an old song, a lamentation she’d heard in the darkness of the tunnels and the cold of winter. The words were from the Empire, and she hardly knew what they all meant. The rising and falling melody, aching and sorrowful, seemed to fill her and the world.
Two hunters approached her at last, unsure of themselves. She had not seen them emerge from the trees, and she didn’t look at them now as she spoke.
“My brother has been murdered by Otah or one of his agents,” she said. “While we were waiting for you.”
The hunters looked at one another. For a long, sick moment, she thought they might not believe her. She wondered if they would be loyal enough to the Vaunyogi to overlook the crime. And then the elder of them spoke.
A Betrayal in Winter (The Long Price Quartet Book 2) Page 22