"Ve don't use bows," she said, showing her teeth. "We use—vat's the vurd—" She mimed putting a tube to her lips and blew sharply.
"Blowguns."
"F'oison," she amplified.
"In here!" Amourgin called.
They ducked into a gunsmith's. Amourgin looked smug. A dozen pistols lay on the table before him, which was a minor miracle when you thought how many well-heeled cavalry had been through, buying. Nor was that all. He grinned broadly and held up a carbine. It was a wheel-lock, the powder in the pan ignited by a flint on an arm that pivoted down into contact with a spring-driven revolving steel. Common for pistols, but far too expensive for musketeers.
"The latest thing," he said. The trigger guard had a handle attached to the rear. He swung it forward and a threaded bolt screwed down, leaving a hole in the rear of the barrel. "Make up a ball and charge in a paper roll," he said. "Put it in here. Turn the trigger guard back one full circle." The screw plug came back up, flush with the top of the barrel. "That cuts the rear of the paper roll and seals the breech. Prime the pan, wind up the action with this spanner, and you're all set to fire. It's rifled, too."
"Fancy," Karah said, bringing one of them up to her shoulder. There was a notch at the rear and a pip at the muzzle for aiming. "I'll stick to my horn bow."
"Yes," the gunsmith said mournfully. That's what they all say. The cavalry prefer their bows, and the infantry use matchlocks—I've only managed to sell a dozen carbines in the last sixmonth. Thirty-five crowns each."
Karah yelped. That was what a top ranch hand made in a year!
Amourgin grinned and produced their money pouch with a flourish. "The joys of spending somebody else's money," he said. "All the pistols and five of those carbines, please, with powder flasks, bullet molds and saddle scabbards."
Ufff, Karah said, heaving the corselets into the wagon. They were double-ply nosehorn hide boiled black in vinegar, latched with bronze and stripped with steel for reinforcement, and heavy. She and the others packed those and bundled swords, carbines, and other assorted gear. All of them paused wearily, handing around a water bottle. The liquid inside was stale-tasting and warm, yet still delightful after heavy labor in such heat. Even so, Karah thought longingly of a spelled canteen her uncle had, ever-filled with pure, chilled springwater scented with lemon and full of little bubbles. Of course that was an heirloom, and priceless, far too valuable to be taken on campaign.
"It could have veen much worse," Eowlie said suddenly, breaking a long silence.
The mule flattened its ears as Sergeant Ddrad climbed onto the seat and flicked the reins. They all began trudging beside the two-wheeled cart, blinking into the low sun ahead. Heat radiated up off the slimed cobbles. Amourgin stopped for an instant to buy a watermelon from a vendor; they split it with a dagger and began eating as they walked. Eowlie gobbled hers rapidly; her mouth really wasn't constructed to catch juice, so she held the wedge of melon over her head and snapped at it.
"I thought you didn't eat anything but meat?" Karah asked, spitting seeds.
"Not vread or vegetables," Eowlie said "Fruit yes, sometimes."
"What could have been worse?" Karah asked, suddenly recalling Eowlie's earlier remark.
Eowlie caught up with her. "I was just thinking—it's not vad to ve in the scouts. Vetter than veing a whore. And we could have ended uf in the musketeers. Or the fike."
"Fike?" Karah was puzzled.
Eowlie made thrusting motions with her arms, and Karah caught her meaning.
"Oh. Pike. I suppose so—but it doesn't really matter to me. My parents will be along in a day or so to get me out of this mess. Konzin should be arriving on the ranch about now."
"You think the army will let you go home?"
Karah nodded. "My parents will bring down a couple of good horses to exchange—war-trained horses. They're worth more than I am to the army. Godsall—the army paid me seven crowns each for the green-broke horses I brought down here. They offered more than thirty for Glorylad without knowing he was war-trained. He'd be worth five times that to any warrior who knew how to ride him."
Ddrad called back over his shoulder, "I don't think much of that—wantin' to get out of the service. Won't make your fellow recruits think well of you, girl."
Karah shrugged "Maybe not But I didn't volunteer to this unit. I planned to serve with the Farbluffs County Horse. As an ensign."
"Don't matter now. Service is service—and this is where yer needed. First Captain was glad to get you."
Eowlie interrupted. "Karah, what is a war-trained horse? We do not much use horses where I am from—how is such an animal different from other horses?"
Karah glanced back at Amourgin, who was examining his new corselet dubiously. The stiff leather had been patched; when he opened it, the inside showed a star-shaped hole, just the sort a pike point would have made. She didn't feel like discussing horses around him.
"A war-trained horse will fight alongside you. He kicks your enemies, and bites, and will stand on them and crush them for you. He is trained to walk on narrow cliff trails, to cross bridges…"
"The things you and the law-sveaker did yesterday with your horses. The fancy tricks. Those are war training?"
"Yes."
"And you have some of these horses at home, and your parents will bring them to trade for you?"
Karah nodded again.
Eowlie sighed. "That would ve so nice. I would like one of those horses, you know? Vut more, I would like my parents to come take me home."
"Can't you write a letter, and send a messenger for them?"
Eowlie laughed. "My home is on the other side of the, um… you call her the Kadash Ocean."
"In Melcan?" Karah was amazed She'd never actually known anyone from that far away. Tykissian explorers had only discovered the land a century ago.
"No. Melcan is close. My home is much further than that—other side of Melcan and over another ocean—narrow ocean, how do you say?"
"Straits?"
"Yes, straits. No one would go that far with a letter—and the ocean is very dangerous. Full of monsters."
Amourgin had been listening. "So how did you get here?"
"Vy accident."
Eowlie shoved her hands into the pockets of her dark-green uniform tunic and stared off into space.
"I was fishing with my v'rother. He was in one voat, with the anchored end of the net—and I was sailing out to set the far end to start taking the fish out of that end, and to vring in the net. There was a vad storm coming—vut that is when the fish run high instead of deef."
"Deef?" Karah repeated.
"Deep," Amourgin said.
"Yes." Eowlie nodded at Amourgin and smiled appreciatively—and Karah felt a twinge of jealousy. "So we were trying to outrun the storm, and to fill our voats."
"But you didn't make it."
"No. The storm caught voth of us. We were washed out to sea. I don't know if my v'rother is alive or dead—and I'm sure my family thinks I'm dead, at least."
Karah noticed that Ddrad and Mercele were silently taking in every word, as well. She sighed and bit her lip. She needed better tales to tell, obviously. Men seemed to pay attention to anyone with a story.
"Then what happened?" the law-speaker asked.
He was staring at Eowlie as if her story was the most fascinating thing he'd ever heard.
"I was washed out to sea. The storm was terrivle. My voat was destroyed vy sea monsters, and I managed to hang on to the wreckage—I was in the ocean for days, and the currents carried me to Tovor."
"To Tobor?" Karah was astonished in spite of herself. "Why, even from Melcan to Tobor would take a week, sailing fast. What did you drink? How did you survive?"
"I almost didn't. When I washed uf on the Tovoran shore, I was almost dead. That's when that vastard Zeemos found me, and fut a collar around my neck. He fed me, and vrought me vack to health. For mayve two or three months, I was too sick to move. Vut I got vetter eventually—and then he
told me how much money I owed him, and that I would have to whore for him. So I fretended I did not understand what he said. Vut that did not matter to him. Not to his customers, either."
Eowlie frowned, and Karah could suddenly empathize with her. It must have been terrible to survive such an ordeal, only to find yourself a captive. She felt sorry for the odd creature.
"I waited a long time," Eowlie said. "A long, long time. Now I am free. And some day I will kill Zeemos. Or at least I will see him dead."
Amourgin had quit paying attention to Eowlie's story. Karah felt a twinge of satisfaction at that Amourgin was attractive… in a stuffy, difficult way. And he knew a bit about horses, for all that he'd tried to hide the fact. She thought she would like to get to know him better. Perhaps a lot better. But she didn't think she wanted to find herself jealous of the ugly, strange Eowlie in the process.
Amourgin rejoined them. "Here," he said, and smiled awkwardly, and handed a fancy dagger to Eowlie. "For you. Don't ever use it on Zeemos unless he comes after you."
Ddrad said, "Or the First Captain will see you hang. Remember that."
Eowlie grinned her sharp-fanged grin. "What if I'm sure I won't get caught?"
Amourgin laughed. Ddrad did too, but he shook his head.
"Self-defense the army will forgive. A vendetta, never. And don't think you won't get caught. Isn't worth it. They'd bring in a priest and geas-question everyone in the troop."
Karah strode ahead of them, feeling unreasonable and angry. It doesn't matter that he bought her a knife. He didn't buy it with his own money, but with company money. And it isn't as if a knife is a suitor-gift. She walked faster. It doesn't matter. It doesn't.
She reached the end of a row of stalls, and saw a tavern lying straight ahead. The shopkeepers were closing up for evening.
She looked over her shoulder and called, "I'm for a drink and some shade." Then she hurried on, not even checking to see if she were being followed. "Its on Zeemos."
Bren Morkaarin tugged at the locket chain around his neck. He often did that when he was nervous; it held the image of his father, an eidolon spell frozen into a slice of clear quartz crystal, visible only to Bren and his close blood-kindred. His mother had promised to tell him the name when he turned nineteen and came of age; she probably would have, if she hadn't broken her neck riding after a boar three weeks before the birthday in question. Futility, Mother, he thought Like so much of your life and mine.
There was a good deal of that attached to being the last of an ancient line. Who would sacrifice at the Morkaarin family altars when he was gone? Hopefully his father's kindred were doing better, whoever they were. All in all, his personal life held even more futility than his professional, and that was a considerable amount. It seemed especially so since he'd just spent an entire day being passed from hand to hand in the Quartermaster-General's headquarters.
"You think too much," Father Solmin said, taking another swig at his beer.
"Odd thing for a priest to say," Bren replied. "Aren't you supposed to be wise and thoughtful?"
The XIXth had a good priest, which was a comfort—besides presumably keeping them in touch with the gods, it gave a soldier someone to talk to when there wasn't anyone else.
"True, but that's my penance—you don't get paid to brood like I do," Solmin said His small blue eyes almost disappeared as he smiled. "Your lady mother was just the same. Thought a lot. Tis one reason Ddrad and I promised to look after you; a man who thinks too much misses things."
Bren snorted. "I've been thinking about those weird ones," he said. "The recruits."
"The Karah girl? She's no more strange than fresh bread," Solmin said. "A good wholesome Tykissian girl, for all her looks."
"Waking up covered in seaweed and glowing is wholesome?"
The priest frowned "I checked No malign magic involved. Possibly a hint of god-touch." At Bren's alarmed look, he went on. "Beneficent only. It happens—rare, but it happens. Her and the law-speaker both; they're consecrated to the Three, and other deities know better than to poach. Gods alone know what it signifies, of course."
When a priest said that, it was more than a conventional turn of phrase. Bren shrugged.
"As if I didn't have enough to worry about," he grumbled. "With Gonstad screwing up and—"
Meanwhile there was duty to attend to. He sighed, finished the last of his beer, and swept up helmet, gloves and sword from the table. The tavern had been a brief escape, but the regiment was waiting for him. Then he saw Father Solmin's face change, looking over his shoulder.
"If it isn't the bastard Morkaarin," a voice said behind him. A cultivated central-provinces voice, and full of sadistic relish.
Bren turned, carefully and slowly. Whoever it was, wasn't going to stab or shoot him in the back, or they'd have done it already, and he wanted to be calm.
"Takes one to know one," he said cheerfully, with a slight bow of courtesy. "But you have the advantage of me, sir, with my name on your lips. I don't know quite which bastard son of a whore you happen to be."
The tall blond man was certainly a Tykissian, and from the cut of his black Olmya-city style clothes looked to be of gentle birth. The five bravos behind him weren't, but their scars and the worn but well-kept weapons indicated a degree of competence. The tavern's courtyard was emptying out rapidly as the patrons scrambled for safety, leaving a scattering of cushions and stools on the tile. They were darkening fragments of color in the moving leaf shade of the grapevines that covered the arbor overhead, going dim as the sun dropped below the buildings round about. He rutched his feet slightly, testing the footing the hobnails gave against the brick pavement.
Steel rasped on leather as Bren drew his sword. His mouth was a little dry, and he wished very much he'd worn his armor today, even if it would have looked ridiculous among the Quartermasters clerks. Solmin made a gesture of blessing, then drew his tomahawk and took up a stool by one leg.
"Valwer Tornsaarin," the other man said, bowing in his turn and drawing his sword. The elaborate guard was gilded brass set with onyx, but the straight blade was water-pattern steel, a yard long and sharp enough to cut sunlight on both edges. The dappled lines in the surface of the steel were more emphatic towards the point. Blood etching, which meant it had seen plenty of use.
The bravos spread out to either side of him and a little back.
"The name should be sufficient reason for this affair, I think," Valwer went on pleasantly.
"Father Solmin, get out of here," Bren said out of the side of his mouth.
Then he continued, in a calm, friendly tone, to the man in black: "Ah, the Grand Admiral's kept poor-relation bootkisser." I knew she hated all of my name. I didn't know it was this specific. "The law, however, forbids duels between serving officers."
"But I'm not a serving officer—and this isn't a duel," Valwer pointed out, and lunged.
Bren threw himself backward in a huge bound. In the same motion he threw his helmet into the face of one of the bravos, and kicked a stool into the path of another.
The helmet clanged against a sword, and the second bravo skipped nimbly over the flying furniture, a gap-toothed grin on her face. Bren drew his dagger left-handed and backed away from the line of six points. Despite anything the old songs or the trashy new printed novels said, nobody won a sword fight with six competent opponents. Not unless he was using a cannon loaded with grapeshot. Not even with a fat, middle-aged priest on his side.
One of the bravos gave a warning lunge at the cleric. The sword stuck in the pine board of the stool, and the swordsman jumped back with a yell as the not-so-ceremonial tomahawk flashed by his eyes.
All right, so it's six to two. Still bad odds, Bren thought.
The Idlers were professionals. None of them wasted time on further words; they spread out in a semicircle and closed, blades poised for long-line thrusts with the flats parallel to the ground so they wouldn't stick on ribs—his ribs, to be exact. He could block two at most; that left four.
One for Father Solmin, that left three to kill both of them.
"Father, Mother and Child receive me," he muttered to himself. "And One swallow these seal-rapers."
"May They hear your prayer, my son," the priest said, sidling around to guard the officer's back.
Valwer lunged again, and Bren parried with a quick beat and skipped back again.
"Morkaarin!" he shouted.
Karah stopped, puzzlement breaking through her sullen mood. The tavern ahead was losing its usual late-afternoon crowd in a hurry. Some of them still had napkins or handkerchiefs tucked into the necks of their shirts as they spilled out and scattered in all directions… and some of them looked to be the tavern's staff. The wide carved bogrin doors with their copper studs swung back and boomed against the adobe walk of the courtyard, and she could see a flicker of steel in the dimness within.
"Morkaarin!" a deep voice shouted, and there was a clash of steel.
Ddrad didn't waste time on words. "Comin', captain!" he bellowed, leapt from the seat of the cart, and landed running; the mule walked on a few paces and stopped, head drooping and ears twitching through the old straw hat it wore. It wouldn't go anywhere on its own. The others charged after Ddrad.
Karah missed a half-step. Why am I running into a fight for that bitch's get who pressed me? she thought, with her sword half out.
Because these are my friends, she answered, completing the motion and pounding after them. She remembered the First Captain grinning at Zeemos. And, oh—shut up, you cow.
The setting sun was still bright in the street, but the courtyard was doubly darkened by the wall and the thick vines overhead. Karah prudently halted for an instant to let her eyes adjust; Pa had been most particular about that sort of thing. The first thing she saw clearly was Eowlie dropping flat beneath the lunge of a swordsman's point. Her breath caught for a second, before the other woman came up off the ground like something on steel springs and fastened her long teeth in the upper part of the arm holding the sword. The two went over together with a shriek of pain and a muffled howl of rage.
The Rose Sea Page 10