by Kate Elliott
Two weeks ago Argent Hall had been ruled by a marshal whose very breath “was like the taint of corruption,” as it said in the tale; whose presence had driven reeves out of Argent Hall and halted the return of eagles seeking new reeves. Two weeks ago the town of Olossi had been besieged by an unstoppable army of criminals, bandits, and despicable outlaws who wore cheap tin medallions stamped with a sigil they called the Star of Life.
Now that army was on the run, with a troop of excellent soldiers and their doughty allies in pursuit, and Argent Hall was free of the corrupt marshal and reeves who had tried to poison it. Joss had been perfectly content to remain a simple reeve, as content as he could ever be with the demons of grief and reckless anger that had chased at his heels for half of his life. He hadn’t wanted to be named marshal of Argent Hall, but sometimes you didn’t get what you wanted.
He thought of the glorious Zubaidit, whom he had met briefly in the course of these troubles. Not that she had necessarily returned his interest. It was difficult to tell with a woman like that, although he was certain she would not be pleased to hear that the Hieros, and the temple, had reclaimed her life and her freedom.
She had walked north with her brother straight toward the advancing army. He did not know if she had even survived.
PART THREE: DEBTS
Fourteen Days Earlier
9
“ARE YOU SURE it’s safe to light the lamp?” Keshad asked his sister.
“That’s the third time you’ve asked. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t have lit it.”
Keshad stood beside a stone pillar, the only one left standing atop Candra Hill. In ancient days, according to the tale, the beacon fire had roared in times of trouble, but all that remained of the old tower complex was fallen walls and the bases of seven other pillars. From the treeless height, he stared over the town of Candra Crossing. The main district massed in the center; homes, shops, gardens, temples, fields, and refuse pits stretched east and west along West Track until woodland took over. The River Hayi widened here to make a good ferry crossing in the rainy season and a passable if dangerous ford in the dry season.
He had already seen everything he needed to know, but he could not stop looking because the sight so unnerved him: The town was deserted. Emptied. Swept clean.
“I know the main force of the army passed us already, but what if there are outriders coming up behind? Sweeping for stragglers? Looking for more villages and hamlets to burn? Women to rape? Children to bind into slavery? Hands to hack off?”
“Kesh! Get hold of yourself!”
He sucked in a breath and let it out, shaking.
“There’s no one here,” she went on. “The townsfolk have fled. The army is marching on Olossi. We’re safe enough tonight to light a fire. Do you trust my judgment, or not?”
He shuddered as he turned away from the view. Someone could easily creep up the hill’s steep slope under cover of night. Maybe it was best to get killed from behind, not knowing death was stalking you. That way it would come as a surprise. No fear and no anticipation meant no pain, surely. But it was already too late. As he looked across the ruins of the old tower complex at his sister, he was already afraid.
A single lamp illuminated the tumbled stone walls and dusty ground. Most likely, the folk in Candra Crossing had experienced relative peace for so long that no one had thought they needed to repair the beacon tower. No one had thought an army would appear from the east, devastating all the towns and villages in its path.
In the remains of the ancient tower, Zubaidit had discovered a fire pit, sheltered from the wind, that had seen recent use. A stone slab protected an old cistern, which was half full of reasonably fresh rainwater. It was a good place to camp.
As he came up beside her, the fire she was making kindled and caught. She sat back on her heels and waited until the fire took hold, then pinched out the lamp and set it beside the saddle bags. The two ginny lizards, Magic and Mischief, were dozing side by side on a strip of cloth. Bai grabbed the cloth by two corners and gently pulled them closer to the heat of the fire. The ginnies stirred, giving Kesh indignant looks as if to accuse him of disturbing their rest, but settled as Bai scritched them. The three horses were already watered, fed, and hobbled for the night, penned within the higher walls of an adjoining chamber, heard and smelled but not seen. Their presence, at least, was a comfort.
Bai unfolded a small iron tripod and hung a pot over the fire. Firelight softened her face. “I’m brewing khaif,” she said, without turning to note that he had come up behind her, “so stop complaining.”
When he did not reply, she rose easily; every movement she made seemed effortless and powerful. Beside her, he felt clumsy and weak.
“Kesh, what is bothering you? You’ve scarcely spoken ten words together since we escaped that skirmish on West Track days ago. And those words were mostly to question my judgment and, if I must say so, to whine. Just as you’re doing now. This isn’t the big brother who gave me courage, who pulled me out of the water when I fell in over my head. We’re free, because of you. Free to walk where we want, free to start a new life.”
“Unless the Hieros sends someone after us, hoping to get you back into the temple’s clutches. Unless Master Feden concocts an excuse to question my debt payment and tries to chain me back into his service. We made them our enemies when we bought our freedom because they didn’t want us to go.”
“Are you still afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
Afraid of a little sister who had grown up to become someone more frightening than death.
“Nothing.” He picked his way around the ruined wall, felt for the fallen gate, and sat down on the stones blocking the passage. Past this gate stood the horses, drowsy and calm. Their big bodies soothed him. Horses liked familiarity. They liked to know where they fit in. But Bai, born in the Year of the Wolf, had become a wolf in truth: Everyone knew that wolves will gladly tear apart a man even if they aren’t hungry. You never knew when they might strike.
For a short while there was silence, then he heard her moving about.
“I’m going to make the prayers for a safe night. You want to help me?”
“No.” He touched the blessing bowl that hung at his belt, but he did not pour water into it and murmur the proper blessings for day’s end. At the edge of the firelight, she stamped the rhythm with her feet and sketched the story with hands and body as she sang.
“The Four Mothers raised the heavens and shaped the earth,
and then they slumbered.
and then they grew large.
and then they gave birth.
The seven gods are Their children,
who brought order into the world.
who built the gates that order the world.
who sawed the wood and split the wood and planed the wood and carved the wood and dug the iron and forged the iron and hammered the tools and put piece into piece to form the arch and gathered the harvest and bled the sap and colored the resin and coated the lacquer and sprinkled the dust of gold and the dust of silver into the base and polished the surface.
and thus Shining Gate rose and Shadow Gate rose.
and thus day and night gave order to the world.
Look! Look! Look at the horizon! A voice calls.
Shadow Gate rises.
Night is come.”
This late in the year it was still hot even with the sun set and the night rains coming in. Her skin glistened. She brushed moisture from her eyes and swiped the back of her neck. She glanced toward the gate, where the shadows hid him.
“You don’t pray with me. You carry one of the bowls that the slaves of the southern god carry. It imprisons their souls. But you don’t pray their prayers, either.”
Uncomfortable, he shifted to ease the pressure on his seat.
“If you truly believe in the southern god, Kesh, then you should pray to him. If you don’t, you shouldn’t carry that bowl.”
S
he strolled back to the fire, poured a sludgy mix of khaif and rice porridge into their cup, and held it out to coax him out of the darkness. “Aren’t you hungry?”
He slouched into the light. She waited until he took the cup, then spooned gruel for herself straight out of the pot. They ate in silence. The khaif went straight to his head. As always, the buzz made him feel reckless and irritable.
“Why should I pray to any gods? What have the gods ever done for me?”
“Sheh! For shame! How could we be here, without the gods? How could anything have come into existence? The gods ordered the world. But it is our prayers that hold it together.”
“You have to believe that because you served in the temple.”
She lifted the spoon to her lips, sucked in the gruel, then licked clean the spoon. All the while she stared at him. He didn’t like that look.
“What are you accusing me of?” he demanded.
She gestured, and he handed her the cup. She measured out another portion and returned the cup to him. Then she removed the pot from the tripod and scraped out the leavings.
“Well? Say something!”
She finished eating and set the spoon into the pot with a gesture of closing. “We’ll ford the river at first light.”
BEFORE DAWN, THEY led the horses down the path into Candra Crossing. The ginnies, riding on Bai’s shoulders, were drowsy and irritable. In the heavens, the boldest stars still shone, while a blush lightened the east. Birds twittered. No wind stirred. It was already hot.
They approached along a dirt path that ran parallel to West Track behind the riverside row of buildings. Trampled fields marked where a large host had camped, and animals had grazed. The army had left shallow ditches stinking with refuse and offal, still swarming with bugs many days later.
A few buildings had burned down. The doors of the temple dedicated to Sapanasu had been smashed, and the counting house was singed. The compound dedicated to Kotaru, the Thunderer, was stripped of weapons and stores. Bai paused outside the gates of the temple to the Merciless One, carved with Her sigil: the bloom of the lotus pierced by a dagger. Like the rest of the town, the Devourer’s temple was abandoned. When Keshad peeked through the half-open gates, he saw only dust and dead plants, and a solitary stone bench where a single passionflower had fallen, its color withered to a pale pink.
Was that a noise? The scuff of a foot? A voice, speaking soft words?
Magic lifted his crest and hissed.
“Keep moving,” whispered Bai.
Kesh kept glancing back over his shoulder as they walked away. Surely those noises had only been rats scrabbling through the leavings or birds fluttering in the abandoned buildings. There was no one here. No one at all. The army had poured past Candra Crossing, and the town’s population had drained away after them, dead or fled or taken captive.
“Careful, now,” said Bai as they approached the River Hayi. “Listen.”
A shallow river sings with a different voice from one at flood: water babbles over smoothed rocks along the bank, purls above barely submerged sandbars, shushes through a backwater of reeds. Through the gaps between houses he saw the ford. Where the water rippled and lightened, poles had been hammered into sandbars that almost breached the surface. Where the current dug deep, the water ran dark and swift, and from this bank that gap looked wide and dangerous.
“I wonder where they came from,” said Bai as the ginnies bobbed their heads.
Four people stood on the bank, two adults and two children.
Kesh choked down a yelp. “You said no one was here.”
“Those are refugees. I’m surprised they’re not running. Here, now, fetch those skiffs pulled up on the bank. I’ll take your leads.”
“What do we need a skiff for?”
“Those children can’t swim the ford.”
“We’re not going to slow ourselves down by helping them?”
Bai called. “Do you need our help getting over the water?”
She strode away. With a curse he trudged over to the skiffs. Most were dragged well up onto the shore, but two had been shifted down to the waterline and left there, sterns rocking. He checked around nervously but saw no sign of a struggle, of any poor townsman struck down while attempting to escape, of goods and possessions abandoned midflight. He grabbed the towline of the smaller skiff and shoved it around until the water lifted it; here in the shallows the current wasn’t overwhelming and he could haul it upstream toward Bai.
What was she about? She had halted a prudent distance from the ragged group: two young women not much more than girls with dusty clothes and hair matted with leaf and twig, and a pair of grubby children. The littlest, likely a girl, was very young, old enough to walk but small enough to need carrying most of the time.
The young boy’s piping voice raised as Kesh splashed within hearing. “They can’t be thieves,” he was saying indignantly to his elders, “for no person can steal the holy ones. She must be a holy one, too. Maybe she ran away from a temple to get away from the bad people.”
Bai laughed, rubbing the jowls of the ginnies. “The offer is sincerely meant, but I can see you’ve had trouble, so if you’ve a wish for us to move on without bothering you, we’ll just ford the river and leave you be.”
“Where are you going?” demanded the elder of the young women.
Magic lifted his crest and opened his mouth to show teeth, a mild warning. Bai’s smile sharpened, just like the ginny’s. “We’re going away from the place we came from. Where are you going?”
“Our village was burned down. We’ll take your help. I’m called Nallo. These are my children: Avisha, Jerad, and Zianna.”
“We’ll take your help with thanks,” said the pretty one, Avisha, as she flashed a hesitant smile.
“Can I touch them?” asked the boy.
Mischief tilted her head and gave the boy a keen and almost flirtatious look. There was no accounting for the taste of those animals.
“These two are Magic and Mischief, and yes, if you move slowly, and follow my directions, you can greet them. I’m Zubaidit. This is my brother Keshad. Kesh, get the boat in and load it. Put our gear in as well. The horses will do better without the burden.”
“Those can’t be your children,” said Kesh to the elder girl. “You’re far too young.”
“I’m the second wife. Their mother’s dead three years past. Died bearing Zianna, or how else do you suppose the poor little girl got such a name?”
She was the kind who bit first!
“Where’s your husband, then?” he retorted.
As soon as he uttered the words, he felt shame. Avisha looked at the ground, a spasm of grief twisting her expression. The cursed ginnies eyed him, as if saying Kesh, you stupid idiot! Change the subject, already!
The boy said, “I want to touch the holy ones!”
“Keep your mouth shut!” snapped Nallo. She flicked a glance at Bai and then, oddly, flushed. “Here, now, Jer,” she added in a voice meant to be kindlier but which only sounded curt, “just get in the boat.”
Cursing the wasted time and his own stupid mouth and the pointless bother of stopping to assist useless refugees who were no doubt doomed despite whatever help they might receive, Kesh untied the others’ gear and settled it in the skiff. Their possessions seemed to consist of an impressive coil of heavy-duty rope and a single large bronze washtub carefully packed with scraps and oddments: cloth tied around a scant tey of rice; a few scraggly bundles of herbs; a stand for making cord; a pot of sesame oil; an iron knife with a charred wood handle; an iron cooking pot; and two whole leather bottles grimy with ash. He peeked inside a singed leather case to find, within, a dozen untouched first-quality silk braids, colorful work suitable for fancy cloaks, festival jackets, or temple banners.
In they all must go. The little girl woke and cried, then subsided. The boy trembled with excitement. Bai peeled the ginny lizards off her shoulders, introduced them to the boy, and draped them over the mound of gear. They chi
rped, and Jerad, in imitation, chirped back. Zianna scooted to the bow of the boat as far away from the ginnies as possible; she sucked on her thumb, her gaze troubled.
Bai said, “We’ll need to string rope along those poles to give us a handhold. That’s what they’re there for. The water’s come up some with the rains, I’m guessing, so with everything we’ve got to get across I want that rope for a safe hold.”
“I can swim,” said Nallo. “I’ll help you. We’ve got enough rope to string across the ford.”
Bai grinned at her. “Good. You can strip down if you don’t want your taloos wet. Although it’ll dry quickly in this heat. And you might be cooler afterward for leaving it on.”
The young woman blushed again. “I’ll leave it on. Vish, put my pack in the boat.”
“You’re limping. What happened?” Bai asked.
“Turned my ankle on the road.”
Bai glanced at Kesh and shrugged. She waded into the river with the coiled rope. Reaching the first pole, she tied a loop and placed the line. The sun’s light flooded the horizon as true dawn raised. The two women plunged into the deeper current.
Avisha sidled over to Kesh, where he waited beside the horses. “Do you know who those soldiers were? Those locusts swarmed into the village one morning. We were lucky to escape.”
“They marched out of the north, that’s all I know,” he said reluctantly, not wanting to be drawn into this conversation.
“We hid in the woods.” She hesitated, as if waiting for him to reply, and then went on. “Our house was burned down. My father’s dead. We’re going to the Soha Hills where Nallo’s family comes from, only she doesn’t think they’ll want to take us in because they never liked her much anyway because of her bad temper. She does have a bad temper, not like my dad. He never loses his temper. He’s the kindest and gentlest man. Everyone said that’s the only way he could stand her, Nallo that is, my mother talked a lot but she never lost her temper at anyone.”