“I would not like that, my tyr.”
“So, she can come with us if she wants to make herself useful to us. Or she can stay here to assist Mister Farrabell. Or she can strike out on her own.”
“That is a generous definition of the relationship between a tyr and his subjects.”
“A man with nothing to lose can afford to be brave. A tyr without lands or taxes can afford to be generous. Find a place to sleep for the night. We still have much to do.”
She nodded and went downstairs. Tejohn examined the three shields on the wall. All were heavy and solid enough for campaigning, but two had old-fashioned single-grip handles--a design that was out of date before Tejohn was born. The third was sensibly designed, and even had a small spike on the bottom. He’d owned a few like it. The spike was supposed to be jabbed into an enemy’s foot during a shield-on-shield push, but Tejohn always forgot it was there in the crush of battle.
Best of all, the shield carried the insignia of Second Splashtown. It wasn’t quite his old unit, but it felt good to hold it nonetheless.
He stripped off his armor and underpadding, then climbed into the feather bed. It was the softest mattress he had ever slept on and he fell instantly into dreams.
He woke late. Passlar had made a thin rice soup for their breakfast. In fact, she seemed to be keeping herself busy cleaning their kits and preparing foods for them as a show of gratitude. Tejohn asked to inspect her wrist and she showed it readily. Arla had made her cuts carefully. Even though Tejohn knew where to look, he couldn’t see any trace of the old tattoo. He nodded his approval and gestured for her to sit with them. She did, and she ate greedily.
Reglis seemed uncomfortable with her and excused himself to take a watch atop the tower. Wimnel had already lain down on the sleepstone.
After eating, Tejohn cut the clothes off the paunchy corpse and dropped him into the pit. As he feared, the king had devoured the first man down to his bones. He glanced over at Wimnel’s sleeping form, wondering if he would have the stomach to do the same. The grunt ate just as greedily as Passlar had.
Next, Tejohn went into the yard. Arla assured him there were no ruhgrit above, so he wandered freely through the camp. There were no tools in sight. The Durdric had thrown the metal tools and weapons into the mine. Tejohn fetched the largest hammer he could see, then returned to the forge and smashed it to dust.
Sweeps steel was the best metal in the world, and no Durdric, Indregai, or okshim herder should be allowed to see how it was made. Someday, he knew, Alliance soldiers would battle imperial troops with their own version of Sweeps steel, but it would not be because he failed to act when he had the chance.
They did a quick survey of the mine, too. There was nothing inside but the tools, a wheelbarrow, and a string of lightstones. Tejohn put the stones in his pack.
They re-provisioned from the warehouse, loading up on meatbread and filling canteens with a thin yellow tea that Arla boiled up. It made Tejohn nervous to be traveling through the wilderness without a scholar to create clean water for them, but the Sweeps had almost as many streams as the Waterlands did. Among the many dangers they would face, dying of thirst was surely the least of it, even if their guide insisted that many of the streams were poisonous or brackish.
“My tyr!” Arla sounded panicked. Tejohn went to the doorway and looked out.
In the center of the yard, a ruhgrit had landed beside one of the corpses. It gripped the dead man in a talon, then hopped into the air, beating its wings furiously to gain altitude. A second landed, then a third.
Arla had already strung her bow and nocked an arrow. “My tyr, should I?”
“Where are Reglis and Passlar?”
“In the tower.”
Tejohn nodded. “If one of the ruhgrit attacks someone living or goes for the pen, take your shot. If they just want to carry off corpses and save us some shovel work, let them.”
She nodded back. It wasn’t the proper way to address a tyr, but this wasn’t a time to stand on formalities. They watched the creatures swoop down and snatch up corpses on the wing. They did not try to break open the pen.
When they were gone, Arla unstrung her bow. She and Tejohn checked their packs one more time, then went to the tower.
Passlar waited for them beside the fireplace in the bottom floor of the tower. “The birds are called ‘ruhgrit,’” Tejohn told her. He might as well start spreading the story now. “They’re gone for the moment. But the smell of these corpses will draw lions into the compound. Will you be coming with us through the pass to Splashtown?”
She seemed confused for a moment. It occurred to Tejohn that no one had ever asked her what she wanted, ever. When she answered, her tone was firm. “No. Never.”
She trilled her Rs just like Arla, which meant she was Chin-Chinro. Where would she go if not back into the empire? Life in the wilderness was dangerous if you didn’t have a clan to protect you. “Will you stay long enough to assist Wimnel? Take the bodies out of the compound, drive off any lions, that sort of thing, at least until he wakes? I can pay you for your work, of course.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” she said. “I owe my freedom to you. I—”
“Nonsense. If you truly owed me anything, you’d still be my servant, so be careful how you talk. I was a farmer once, you know. My own brother was a servant in the Finstel holdfast because he got into a drunken fistfight. He died there. My own wife was a debt child once. You should be careful when you speak about debt.”
“Thank you, my Tyr,” she said carefully, her gaze directed toward the floor. “If you please, I will take my payment from the camp. Two steel knives should serve.”
In Tejohn’s grandfather’s time, a steel knife was a gift for a king. The world changed quickly. “Fair enough. Take the bodies out into the orchard where they can fertilize the trees. Have clean water ready for Wimnel if he needs it. When he wakes, take your knives and go or stay as you will.”
“Yes, my tyr.” There was a coolness to her tone that Tejohn wasn’t sure how to read. When he’d settled her debt, he’d expected gratitude, possibly even a pledge of her loyalty, freely given. Instead, she seemed chilly to him and anxious to be out of his presence. So be it. She was free now and could hate anyone she liked for any reason.
It was traditional for a journey to start at dawn, but Tejohn didn’t have much interest in tradition. They set out after the midday meal and were well away from the compound by the time night fell.
They camped in a low, tree-lined place out of the wind. Tejohn hoped the branches would discourage the ruhgrit. Arla started their evening fire with a flint and a tiny piece of steel, a technique Tejohn had never seen before. He studied the method carefully; it was certainly an improvement over twirling a stick.
That night, there was little talk around the campfire. Tejohn had never been a brilliant judge of human nature, but he could see there was a problem, and that Reglis was at its center.
“I have never sat at so many silent campfires as this trip,” Tejohn said. “Have we lost the will to sing?”
Reglis did not look up. “It’s because of you, my tyr,” Arla said. “You are the man who wrote ‘River Overrunning,’ who made the Evening People weep like children. We are all too self-conscious to play or sing in front of you.”
“Fire and Fury, I’m the worst singer in the world. Scout, I know you have an instrument in your pack. Fetch it. We’re going to have music after we eat.”
“Yes, my tyr,” she said hesitantly.
“Reglis,” Tejohn said, spooning another mouthful of mush from his bowl, “this is the best jerk stick stew I’ve ever eaten. “
The young captain’s look of surprise made his massive brow wrinkle. “Really?”
“No. What’s troubling you?”
Reglis looked at Arla, then Tejohn, then down at his bowl. Tejohn didn’t have the patience for this. “Come on, soldier. Your tyr is ordering you to unburden yourself. If you have a complaint, I want to hear it.”
Reglis set his half-full bowl on the ground in front of him and laid his hands on his knees. “If you order it, my Tyr, I will. When I left my family to take up a spear, my father told me the empire would turn me into a butcher. We argued for many hours, and I insisted that I would fight with honor.”
Tejohn had expected this. “But you have not.”
“Last night, no, I did not. I was a butcher, and today I discovered I was butchering those men to fill ruhgrit bellies.”
Tejohn nodded. Reglis’s glowering expression was as stoic as he could make it, but Arla’s gaze was utterly flat, as emotional as Monument. “First of all,” Tejohn said, “this is all imperial land--Italga land, in fact--even if”--he glanced at Arla—”the people here don’t realize it. So, every meal the ruhgrit take from those corpses is a meal they won’t have to make out of a living person.”
Reglis nodded and picked up his bowl again. He began to eat.
Tejohn kept talking. “As for honor, warriors win honor. Soldiers win wars. The Indregai are warriors. The Durdric are warriors. They win battles sometimes, yes, and they like fights that will show their prowess. Soldiers hate fair fights. Soldiers take every advantage the way a starving child snatches food from a cart. And I’ll tell you this: you will meet many more old soldiers than old warriors.”
“Is that why we do this?” Reglis responded. “To grow old?”
“I’m about twice your age,” Arla put in, “and I didn’t get that way by giving my enemies a fair chance. Putting an arrow in my enemy’s back suits me, and if I die in the field, that’s how I expect it will happen.”
“How long until you muster out?” Tejohn asked.
“I could have taken my ribbon two years ago,” she said. “But for what? A plot of rice paddy I could hunch over day after day? It’s not like I have children who could inherit from me. I was born in this skinny strip of mountain and I have no plan to leave. As soon as the king gives out ribbons for prospecting, I’ll take one. Until then, I’m one of Gerrit’s bows.”
Tejohn nodded. “I have a wife and children back in the world.”
“The wife who was once a debt child, my tyr?” Arla interrupted.
“The very one,” he said, his tone careful. “I may be willing to die--and never see them again--in the defense of my king, but not to give a pack of Durdric raiders a fair chance. We fight when we are commanded to fight,” Tejohn said. “We take every advantage and show no mercy unless mercy itself is an advantage. Our honor comes in the way we die, not in the way we fight. “
They ate in silence for a while. Reglis did not seem mollified, but his manner had changed. Tejohn had never been very good at reading people. The best he could do was bull forward and hope he was not making new enemies.
When the food was finished, he set the bowl on the ground. “Happy songs only tonight. Peradain has fallen and the king is hidden away. The only thing keeping the Tyrs in line is honor and tradition, by which I mean they are utterly unrestrained. I expect honest warfare to find us soon enough.”
Chapter 17
The men took their spears away but did not kill them. No one asked for their knives or packs, so Cazia had hope that they wouldn’t be robbed and murdered.
“How did you know to say that?” Cazia asked.
“A story my uncle told. An awful lot of what I know comes from stories about other people’s lives.”
“And you speak their language?” Cazia had not let go of her translation stone.
“No,” Vilavivianna answered, giving Cazia an odd look. “They speak mine.”
Three women came out of the tall grass, bows slung over their shoulders. Their long spears, like the men’s, were tipped with sharpened copper. The shafts were so thin, they wobbled. “Outwitted you, did they, Kell?” They sounded like they were teasing him, but there were no smiles on their faces.
“They are devils,” the man answered. “We should make—”
“You will make to shut up,” the oldest of the women answered. She was tall, lean, and obviously strong, with a lot of gray in her hair. “They are just young girl-devils. What ho, youngsters! What brings you here?”
That was Peradaini. Vilavivianna answered quickly. “We sought safety among my people.”
The men and women looked over the ruined camp, their faces grim. “There is no safety to be made in the Sweeps. Not any more. “
The gray-haired woman introduced herself as Hent. Scowling, she asked, politely and in Peradaini, if the girls would parlay with their clan chief.
She’s addressing me, Cazia realized. Of course she was. Cazia was the elder. Did they think Vilavivianna was her younger sister? Her owner? All the warriors but Hent glared at the girls with undisguised hate.
Well, if there was one thing Cazia knew, it was how to talk to Enemies. After glancing at their confiscated spears—and noting the greedy way the warriors studied the iron blades--she and Ivy followed Hent across the grasses.
Cazia had seen okshim in Peradain of course, but never more than four together. This was the real thing: a full herd. Just like in the city, they clustered together, their bodies touching side to side. The largest stood at the far front like the tip of an arrow or a flock of migrating birds. The animals that behind it were progressively smaller toward the center of the herd where the youngest ones clustered, then toward the edges and rear she saw more large ones. Cazia tried to estimate their numbers and guessed there must be more than a thousand, possibly as many as two.
In the midst of the herd stood a tall wagon. It was built of dark wood, complete with huge wooden wheels and a fluttering green pennant affixed to a tall pole bent by the steady wind.
Behind that was a second wagon, then a third. Neither of these had windows or shutters, and the last held racks of spears, small round shields, and two young men with strung bows.
They approached the herd at about the center. They were far from the front, but the adults at the edges were huge, much bigger than the beasts she’d seen in the city. Their fur was also more yellow than the mottled brown and gray of city animals, and had added streaks of black.
Cazia approached warily, remembering the warnings the master of the pen had given her long ago. Their fur was soft and their ears long, but they could kick hard to the side with those large, flat feet, and their horny soles could pulp flesh and bone. And while they rarely bit, the curling round horns above their eyes were almost as dangerous as their kicks.
“Have you crossed the top of the herd before?” Hent asked.
“Never,” Cazia answered.
The woman grunted. “I will boost you. Kell, make to bring them to the Chief’s wagon. Try not to be the fool about it.”
Kell scowled, then hopped easily onto the back of the nearest okshim. Hent lifted Vilavivianna by the hips--the girl yelped at her unexpected touch--and set her atop the nearest animal. The princess spread her stance by bracing her foot against another okshim. Hent held her hand while she steadied herself.
“Ready?” the woman asked in a tone that suggested the only acceptable answer was yes.
Vilavivianna nodded, her gaze downward. Hent let go. The princess managed to lurch unsteadily from one flat back to the next without falling. Kell did not offer to help.
Hent turned to Cazia and knelt on one knee. “You are too big to lift.”
Cazia didn’t detect any nastiness in the woman’s tone but she assumed it was there anyway. Not that she could argue the point. Hent slapped her knee, indicating that Cazia should step there.
Well aware of her muddy boots, Cazia tore up a clump of tall grass then laid it over the flat part of Hent’s thigh before she stepped on it. Let her make nasty comments. Cazia would prove she was above all that.
Walking across the back of the okshim was not as difficult as she’d expected, even with her heavy pack. They weren’t conveniently flat, like a palace corridor, but they were flattish--certainly not as rugged as the broken stones north of Fort Samsit. Even better, the animals bore her weight
without staggering or shuffling around.
There were gaps, though. Near the tails and around the heads there were spaces where she could fall, and she didn’t want to imagine herself trapped down there under those big, hard, heavy feet.
Kell hopped lightly from back to back, never stepping on an animal in front of its shoulders or at the joint of the tail, and the girls followed his example. Once again, Cazia was struck by the oddity of her situation. Who could have foreseen her here, in this moment, hopping across the backs of an okshim herd far out in the wilderness? How Colchua would have laughed.
Ivy had learned so much from her uncle’s stories, and now they were living one. Unfortunately, there was no one left to tell it to.
She stopped and looked across the top of the herd. It looked like a single huge animal with many legs and backbones, huffing and snorting. She glanced back at the muddy bootprints she’d made on their downy fur.
Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.
The wagon wheels were very tall and very wide, probably to help them through muddy ground. There was also a stout hide-covered frame around the wheels. That, presumably, let them roll along in the middle of the herd, okshim pressing on all sides, without... What? Splitting apart and fleeing? Attacking?
The three wagons were hitched together and the front was pulled by reins attached to eight--no, ten different yoked okshim, the largest animals near the front of the herd. The lead animal was unburdened.
Cazia hopped onto the bumper of the first wagon, then followed the princess to the rear. The wagon walls were made of rough planks covered with pitch, but the roof was heavy cloth. Kell mounted his spear in a rack, knocked on the flimsy door, then opened it without waiting for a response.
Cazia and Ivy followed him inside, standing close together. An older woman, square like a stone block with a head of steel-gray hair and narrow, suspicious eyes, scowled at them. The wispy hair growing from her upper lip and chin was as long as Cazia’s middle finger. Ivy bowed politely to her, but the woman just sat on her stool, frowning.
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