by Chris Bunch
Voices grew closer, and I knew one of them, that confident rumble, then others, agreeing, some lilting in fear, some soothing, and they were close, very close.
I tore the curtain open, and a man shrieked in terror, screaming like a woman, and King Bairan was standing no more than three feet away. He’d unclasped his cloak, and an aide was lifting it off his shoulders.
He saw me, and his mouth opened. I’m not sure, but I think he remembered me, knew me, and I leapt across the distance like a tiger, and Yonge’s silver dagger buried itself to the hilt in his guts, and I drove it upward, turning the blade, feeling it tear and rip his heart open.
Bairan made a terrible noise, a gagging groan, and blood gouted from his mouth into my face, and I kneed him away, pulled the blade free. A fiercely bearded man wearing the emblems of a rast was pulling at his ornate sword, and he died, and I was running toward the door.
Standing beside it was Ligaba Khwaja Sala, once almost my friend, and I think he knew what I had to do, for he was the best Maisir had, their hope with their king dead, and my blade flickered through his throat under his moustaches, and he spun and fell, and I was out the door.
A sentry saw me, waved feebly with his pike, dropped it and fled.
“This way,” I shouted, and Yonge and Svalbard ran toward me. All behind was screams, shouts, frenzy, and I paid no mind but ran for the side of the house, running for its rear, hoping to break away in the confusion, my mind drumming over and over, he’s dead, the king is dead, Karjan is revenged … I am revenged … the bastard is dead, the king is dead …
Bugles hammered to my left, and the king’s escort turned back, and, lances leveled, was in a ragged line, charging away from the drive after us. All of us knew better than to run from a horseman, and so we stopped, spread out, steel in hand, ready to take as many of them to the Wheel as we could.
This was the end, but it was a warrior’s end, and who could die more easily than a soldier who’d slain his country’s greatest enemy?
I felt the smile on my lips and felt a strange, singing joy I’ve known but seldom, as the first rider’s lance drove toward me.
I brushed it aside with my sword, stepped forward, and sliced his horse’s throat. The horse screamed, went to its knees, pitching the rider into a tree, and there was another rider beside me, and I drove my sword into his side, and he rolled out of the saddle, and now there was a whirl of horses and men, the cavalrymen taken aback at the temerity of three men attacking an entire squadron. But the surprise would last only a moment, and then we’d swiftly be returned to the Wheel. I had time to wonder how Saionji would judge me, would judge the killing of Bairan, but there were two men coming at me, swords flashing.
Then came the coughing roar of a lion. I flashed a glance to the side and saw the great beast as it leapt completely over me, onto the back of a horse, its claws ripping the rider away, but the beast was green, green as grass, and behind it an elephant, also green, trumpeted its challenge and rumbled forward, trunk coiled, then hammer-striking a cavalryman out of his saddle with it.
The horses, untrained around elephants, went momentarily mad, kicking, bucking, stampeding. There were soldiers afoot, but there were other beasts attacking them, tigers, strange winged snakes, claws, fangs, all of them green, and this was Cymea’s promised surprise, her magic had animated the topiary bushes, as great a spell as any I’d seen cast by the greatest of wizards, the Seer King Tenedos.
Other beasts were roaring out of the garden, boars, enraged gaurs, and I shouted to Svalbard and Yonge, and we were running. Blood was trickling down Yonge’s arm, and Svalbard was favoring a leg, but we ran hard, behind the mansion, cutting behind the stables and through the orchards. One farmworker saw us, thought about shouting alarm, dove into a pig wallow instead.
I heard distant shouting, which would be my raiders feinting again against the Maisirian positions, but only a feint, intended merely as a diversion to help our escape, and then the back wall was there.
We scrambled over it and ran for another mile, then slowed to a walk, sheathing our weapons, as we came on another camp, trying to look like no more than Maisirian soldiers heading for a post somewhere. We tried to look solemn, but were hard-pressed to not laugh, not caper like fools.
We’d done the impossible.
We’d killed the king of Maisir and his most trusted adviser. Now all we had to do was the impossible once more and escape with our lives.
SEVENTEEN
HUNTED
Our intent was to loop south, then west and north, through their lines to the pickup point, where horses were to be waiting for us.
But this was impossible. The Maisirians were like wasps that have just had their hive banged on by a child’s stick. They swarmed here and there, sometimes in regimental formation, sometimes squads, sometimes single men. I couldn’t tell if they were looking for us or just stumbling around, confused and enraged by the loss of Bairan.
But they were everywhere, and one incoherent stumbler could be as fatal as an organized sweep.
We went south almost to the ends of the valley, then ran into a cavalry screen that stopped us cold. I decided to go to ground for a time. We refilled our canteens at a stream, waded up it to leave no sign to either tracker or magician. The stream wound past a knoll high enough for an overlook that would give warning of intruders, and its top was covered with brambles.
We forced ourselves into its midst, then waited. The elation drained away, and now there was nothing but fear. If we were discovered, we’d have to go down fighting, for the most creative torturers the Maisirians had would be turned loose on us.
The day ended, and a long, cold night crawled past. I hoped Cymea and Curti had better luck than we did and had gotten through to safety. I realized I was worrying more about her than if she were just another soldier. Very well, I thought, it’s because she’s a woman, and, yes, very beautiful, but that still wasn’t enough explanation.
I turned away from those thoughts and took out my map. Nothing much came, except to stay where we were until the heat died. The word heat brought shivers … it was getting colder, and I sensed a storm coming.
Then dawn came. Yonge dug a tunnel, a mole tunnel, to the outside of the thicket, not for entry or exit, but for observation. Sometime about dank midday he finished his slow, silent digging, and everything was quiet except for the rattle of raindrops and the occasional dejected chirp of a wet bird.
I admired Svalbard, for he had the ability to sleep or become a silent stone for hours.
As for myself, I tried to think beyond this dripping clump of thorny brush. The memory of warm fires came, honey-sweetened mugs of spice drink, and that led naturally to food. We hadn’t brought anything to eat, not wanting to burden ourselves, and no one had been vaguely hungry until now.
I remembered one meal in the greatest detail. It was years ago, and I’d been assigned by the Emperor Tenedos to a mission in Hailu, one that, strangely enough, didn’t involve applying the empire’s iron boot to someone. I’d been returning from consultations with a local official, on a dreary day like this one, without escort, without bodyguard, when night caught me on the road and I was sure I’d be stuck, trying to pretend a tree was a proper roof, when I came on a tiny country inn.
The innkeeper wasn’t the best-tempered sort, nor were his half-dozen children and slatternly wife. But the room was spotless, the linen was clean, and the meal, ah, that meal. It began with a clear soup, with two mushrooms, spices, and a few diced green onions. Then there was a country pâté; trout broiled and seasoned with a strange spice that was alternately bitter, then sweet; young lamb chops in a mustard sauce with the freshest of garden vegetables; a cool drink of various fruits, followed by —
Yonge hastily crawled backward out of the tunnel. He motioned us to him, whispered, “The whole fucking Maisirian army’s on the march! Straight toward us!”
I was halfway down the tunnel, forcing my bulk through places Yonge would’ve slid through like a s
erpent, peered out.
The Man of the Hills wasn’t exaggerating. On both sides of our knoll were long columns of infantry and cavalry, all moving steadily south. Back toward Maisir!
We’d won! Then I saw smoke clouds billowing across the horizon to the north.
The Maisirians were retreating, but taking vengeance as they did, burning everything, fields, houses, villages as they went. I knew there were sprawled bodies and screaming innocents below those distant flames.
Once again, Urey was being put to the sword, and I’d been the cause.
I’d been afraid this would happen if I was successful. But I’d seen no other choice — it was either Numantia or Urey.
This was the sort of high judgment kings make and possibly glory in their great vision and power, but it nauseated me. I didn’t want to see any more of my handiwork and crawled back.
“We broke them,” Yonge whispered fiercely, and Svalbard nodded, a broad smile on his face. I’m sure they thought there was something wrong with me, that I felt no second onrush of joy.
The Maisirians grew closer, and there were more of them. Svalbard put an ear to the ground, waved at me, and I did the same. The ground was rumbling faintly from the million marching men, their wagons and horses.
All we had to do was wait until they passed, then make our way into Kallio and reunite with my army.
I no longer dreamed of meals but relearned the stoicism of a soldier, to simply wait until something came, without fear, without hope, without, in fact, thought. We just sat, half-asleep, swords ready, boots touching so anyone hearing anything could alert the other two.
In midafternoon, Yonge kicked me. But I was already alert. I’d heard the sound a moment after he did. Someone was pushing his way slowly into our thicket, moving directly, like a pigeon in sight of its coop.
Svalbard moved to one side of the tiny clearing, Yonge to the other. The intruder would come out between them and be dead before he could sound the alarm.
The rustling came closer, then stopped. A voice came.
“This is Cymea. Don’t kill me.”
There’s an old vulgarism — I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind — and that perfectly describes the three of us.
I finally managed: “Come ahead,” and the bedraggled magician pushed her way through the last brambles and I had her in my arms. She looked startled, then gave me a one-handed hug. The other still held her ready sword.
Embarrassed, I let her go.
“They backtracked us after I cast that spell against the garden,” she said, without preamble. “The king’s magicians must’ve been very alert, if slow. We cut our way out the back of the tent we’d been hiding in, and there were five soldiers coming toward us.
“We ran, but Curti’s leg slowed him. He told me to go on, that he’d hold them.”
Now tears came, in a slow trickle.
“I refused, and he cursed me. Then I did as he told me. There wasn’t time for me to cast a spell. Did I do right? Should I have stayed with him?”
Before I could answer, Svalbard rumbled, “You didn’t do anything wrong. What would two deaths rather than one have gained?”
She dropped the sword, slumped on the ground. “That’s what my mind says. But not the rest of me.”
“He told me his doom before we left the castle,” the big man said. “Perhaps he wanted death. Perhaps he’d had enough. I’ve seen it happen before. And he died saving somebody else, which isn’t a bad way to go back to the Wheel.”
Yonge said, correctly but a bit coldly, “A magician is harder to replace than any archer.”
Cymea looked at me. For a brief moment I mourned Curti, who’d been with me since Kait, the best bowman I’d ever know, yet a man I’d always taken for granted, a friend but not a friend, and I should’ve told him how much he meant, always at my back, never someone I doubted for an instant. Slowly the best of the warriors were being taken away, and I could only hope Saionji judged them mercifully.
All these thoughts flashed, and I knew I couldn’t hesitate.
“Cymea, there wasn’t anything else to be done. Forget about it. Every time you fight, someone dies, and all you can do is keep going. We’ll sacrifice for Curti when we’re safe, and drink to him until we die.”
I’d said — and meant — words like that before. This time, they felt hollow. But I couldn’t think of anything better.
Cymea took a deep breath. “All right. What happened, happened,” she said. “Your plan worked. The Maisirians are fleeing Urey. What do we do now?”
I told her what I’d planned.
“So we just wait?” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Once it’s dark, then perhaps we’ll chance moving. Or wait until the morrow.”
“I don’t suppose,” Svalbard said, a bit of hope in his voice, “you’ve brought anything to eat?”
“No, unless you like dried herbs that might turn you into a mandrill.”
“My belly isn’t that pissed at me,” he said.
“Then we just wait,” Cymea said.
But we didn’t … not for very long.
It was almost dusk when we heard the drum rattles. The sound swept an arc east northwest, and this time I went up the tunnel.
It was bad, very bad. About a third of a league distant, two lines of soldiers swept toward us, movement regulated by the drummers. They were sweeping slowly, methodically, and they could have but one prey. I craned out and saw, to the north, a single robed figure directing them.
I went back and reported.
“They’ve tracked me,” Cymea said. “Hells!”
I was puzzled.
“A magician leaves, well, a scent, sort of,” she explained. “Another magician can use his wiles to follow that trace. If I’d had time, I could have swept my tracks clean, but I didn’t have that luxury. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d have to.
“And now I’ve led the Maisirians to you.”
“The hells with blame,” I said. “What can we do about it? Run?”
“If they’re almost all around us,” Yonge said, “aren’t they like the peasants you hire to drive sambur into the trap? Don’t they want us to move south, toward what looks like the only way out, where they’ve got to have a killing team waiting?”
“Probably,” I said.
“I’d chance a seeing spell,” Cymea said, a bit forlornly, “but that’d be like a lodestone to iron.”
“What’ll they have waiting for us, if we do run?” I asked. “Magicians,” Cymea said. “Soldiers.”
“The only way to break a trap,” Svalbard said, by rote, as we’d all learned, “is to do something unexpected. Bust an ambush by going straight into them.”
“We’re a little short of troops for that,” Yonge said.
“If we could get rid of that magician,” Cymea said. “Then, maybe …”
“At least we’d better get our gear on,” I said, “and get out of this hidey-hole that’s become a snare.”
We worked our way to the fringes of the thicket. The sweepers were closer now, working methodically, and yes, I was reminded of beaters driving game.
I scanned the terrain around us, looking for an escape. The brook we’d waded up swept past the knoll, then on, curving north, bare brush on its banks, which were about four feet above the shallow water.
“There’s a way out,” I pointed. “But that gods-damned sorcerer would surely sense us … Yonge, could you hit him with an arrow at this range?”
Yonge considered. “Not I. Not even, given the wind’s against us, could this great lump beside me, even if he had both arms and an eye like mine.”
Svalbard curled a lip, said nothing. An idea came:
“Cymea, do you know a spell that’d draw that wizard to us?”
“Of course, but — ”
“Could you reverse it?”
“Oh,” she said, understanding. “Easily.”
“And is there any reason you can’t make an arrow fly like a bird?”
“Simple.”
“Course she could,” Svalbard said. “That’s why they don’t allow witches anywhere close to a shooting match.”
Cymea scrabbled in her pack for the necessaries. Yonge spotted a rather bedraggled bird’s feather in the brush, brought it to her as she scribbled on a bit of parchment, strange letters I didn’t know. The parchment itself was odd, dark green in color, not cream or white. As she wrote, she was whispering, the same words over and over.
“Now, Damastes,” she said, “give me one of your arrows.” I obeyed, and she touched its fletching with the feather, chanting softly:
“Remember what you were
Before man
Before pain
Remember wind
Coursing under your wings
Turning
Floating
High-flying
Now you live
Elyot claims you
Give heed
Give speed
Take flight.”
Perhaps it was my imagination in the fading light, but I swear the arrow stirred, as if coming alive. Cymea used a bit of string to tie the parchment around its shaft.
“Now, give your best aim at that wizard.”
“Don’t blame me,” I said, “if the arrow comes out spinning like a whirligig. Just getting it away’ll be a bit of a miracle.”
“I deal in miracles,” Cymea said sharply. “Now shoot!”
I closed my eyes, half to sense the wind, half to pray to Panoan, to Isa, to Tanis, then brought the bow to full draw.
I opened them, looking at that distant wizard, the man who sought our doom, considering him coldly, without anger, as my prey.
I wished Curti wasn’t dead, for he might make this shot, which I could not. I remembered all he had taught me over the years about archery, how a master archer waits for the moment when the arrow is ready, when it shoots itself.
Perhaps his spirit came back from the Wheel or wherever it’d gone, or just his memory, for my fears dropped away, and I felt one with yew, with ash, with the string, and my fingers opened and the arrow sped away.
It curved high, sailing farther than I’d ever shot in my life, then dropped, as if traveling on a line strung between my bow and that distant, robed figure.