by Kari Cordis
“I didn’t know what role you were playing, if any. If mercenaries were after you, you obviously had some value, to somebody. You could have been a pawn. Still could be. There’re so many question marks punctuating the air right now, I have no idea where you fit in.” He sounded more like the usual Melkin, irascible and impatient. “I was hoping that brainless young chit of a Whiteblade might drop a hint about you. They’re notorious for playing games with people’s lives, knowing things they have no right to know.”
Whiteblades, Ari thought with a dull stab. Well, there went that secret hope. No Illian that lived to destroy the evil forces of Enemy was going to raise one. It wasn’t like it had been a serious possibility anyway, he sighed in silent resignation.
“Perraneus knew you, though.” Melkin’s eyes narrowed and his lip curled. “Had ‘foreseen’ you,’ though he shed about the same amount of light on that as anything else.”
Ari suddenly remembered his bout with eavesdropping, but apathy seized him before he thought to confess. Why bother?
“The Warwolf,” he said dully instead, several things suddenly becoming clear. It had leaped past three people, ignoring them to try and pounce on him.
Melkin looked out at the Daroe. “Aye,” he growled softly.
“Not letting me go out at the Kingsmeet…”
“If you’d stumbled into a party of Rach…well, you saw what almost happened outside the Meeting Chamber.” He turned to fix his piercing grey eyes onto Ari’s. “I suggest you never go to the Ramparts.”
Breathe, Ari told himself. Just breathe. He nodded calmly. “That’s why we were called to the ’Meet.” He’d been wondering about that…why the boys but not Cerise.
He gave a faint nod, but only said, “Cyrrh would be a good home…they’re an accepting sort of people.” He stood, looking down at the glowing, miserable red head. “I have no doubt about your innocence now. I just have no idea where you fit into this mess. I’ll do everything I can to buffer you from any ignorance or violence we may meet,” he said gruffly, then turned quickly on his heel as if embarrassed. Ari experienced a little jolt of amazement through his pain, that this man, concerned with items of state and secrets of Realmswide security, would spend so much time considering him.
If anything, the days grew hotter, and the humidity skyrocketed. Their blouses clung fitfully to them and the horses’ coats grew damp early and stayed that way all day. The Daroe was narrowing too, as it approached its source in the foothills, and they missed the cool breezes that had come off of its wider version downstream. Now, the big country stretching beyond it to the south was nothing but flat pastureland, simmering with heat waves, where Rach worked their enormous herds of cattle. The breezes from there felt like they’d skipped that section of terrain and were right off the Sheel far beyond. The bugs took advantage of the shade, and they weren’t shy about their affection for the Northerners, either. The whole party was covered in welts from mosquitoes, gnats, deerflies and a host of the unnamed…one could say the average Northern spirit was sinking a little.
None of it made any difference to Ari.
One night, as the breeze ruffled their sweaty hair and the frogs chorused deafeningly around them, they broke through a rare opening in the trees just as the moon was rising. A huge, torrid, orange-red moon, it was shocking, almost eerie. Ari had never seen a moon that color or size.
“Ugh,” Rodge said, staring at it. He absently slapped at a mosquito. “How ghastly.” But he was as fixated on it as any of them; there was a sort of primal fascination with it, an instinctive awe at such an enormous cosmic oddity. They all jumped when an owl gave its haunting call from almost over their head.
A red moon, Ari thought dully. How appropriate: the color of Enemy hair, of the Sheel, of Raemon’s Triele. He SO needed a reminder. But, face lifted to look at it like everyone else, it occurred to him—desperation, maybe—that there was a sort of beauty to it. It made him think of Il, strangely, because he hadn’t for so long. Selah claimed He saw all the happenings in the world, to the smallest detail, had a plan for everybody. Which made Ari think rather unkindly of Him for the choices concerning him, but on the other hand…to whom else was he supposed to go? He obviously did not belong anywhere in the Realms now, including at the feet of their various gods. What would Vangoth, who got mortally peeved at indiscreet Magi, do to him, of Enemy blood? Why now, when he was miserable enough he could use a little divine comfort, was there none available? Where was Il?
He missed Selah so bad it hurt.
The next day he rode up beside Melkin’s blue roan, whose long legs always paced it out in front. The Wolfmaster had been edgier than ever, keen eyes roving constantly, as if feeling either an increased threat or the lack of means to handle it. Ari and Loren were pretty good now with a blade, but they were no Kai or Banion, still back at the Kingsmeet.
“Do you think the gods actually talk to people, like King Kane and Vangoth?” he asked after a few minutes of companionable silence. “Give them signs, listen to them? Or do people just imagine it? Sort of WISH it into happening?”
He got a glance, scalpel-sharp. “I leave the gods alone, boy, and hope they do the same to me. They’re real enough,” Melkin added warily, “but dangerous, unpredictable, like spoiled children that hold the keys to the world.”
“So,” he guessed sardonically, “no Great Deed?”
Melkin snorted. “I don’t care what the priests say, Marek doesn’t keep track of who’s done their One Great Deed or not.”
“Il doesn’t require one, and he’s all about charity and compassion,” Ari said, hardly aware he was thinking aloud.
Melkin shot him a look of disbelieving scorn. He rattled on, “So, what’s the truth? How can there be all these different gods, each one saying different things, each one claiming to be right?”
“The truth is what every man makes it,” Melkin growled. “Take your comfort where you can—and keep your own counsel about it.” He loosened up the reins, done with theology, and his horse began drawing away.
Ari stared after him. How could it be truth if it changed for every single person? Wasn’t there something universal out there, say, like justice, that wasn’t susceptible to individual perception or the phases of social fashion? It seemed to him, with his world on its head, that there should be.
Tekkara screamed suddenly, crow-hopping and whirling viciously to bite at her flank, such a violently contorting combination that anyone but Cerise would probably have been thrown. A horsefly roughly the size of a robin had assaulted her, and the other horses switched their tails nervously. It all reminded Ari so strongly of the incident with the Warwolf that he felt a quick rush of adrenaline, cold fingers of premonition running down his spine. He snapped his head forward, scanning the trail.
He’d just started to laugh at himself when the incoherent version of no, this can’t be flitted like quicksilver through his mind. His voice cracking, he yelled, “AMBUSH!!!”
A short distance ahead, where the party would already be if it hadn’t been for the horsefly, armed men were coming out of the trees—and they weren’t a lost party of lumbermen.
“Behind us!” Cerise cried, shrill with fear, and fumbled for her bow. He couldn’t believe this. He threw his head around to look wildly behind him, then quickly back to the bigger group of men in front.
“Run!” Melkin roared, and set his heels to his horse’s flanks. Reacting more than thinking, they plunged after him towards the group taking over the trail ahead, the boys awkwardly drawing swords and feeling very much like they were in a nightmare. This kind of stuff just didn’t happen, especially not repeatedly.
Ari hadn’t seen how many were behind, but there had to be almost two dozen waiting for them ahead. Panic raced through him, pushing a faint, frenzied despair out of the way. Now, now when neither Banion nor Kai was with them!
Then they were joined and there was no time for thought. If he and Loren had had the skill, they could have used the advantage of bein
g on horseback…but, alas. Ari parried a blade, driven as much by instinct as conscious thought, thrust, swiped, parried again, whirled the brown instinctively with his knees. It was probably fortunate that he was too busy and too caught up in the desperation of the moment to realize he was many times outnumbered; in fact, were it not for the fact that only so many bodies could get next to him at a time, the bladeplay would probably have already ended. This all occurred to him later, but at the time other things had his attention. With the sharpness of coursing adrenaline, he was aware of Melkin, already with several men down, his bloodied longsword flashing in the light as he fought with silent efficiency. Behind him, Cerise was incredibly managing to hang on to both horse and bow, but not accomplish much else. Fortunately, though she had yet to nock one of those slender golden arrows, Tekkara was such a squealing, overwrought whirlwind of hooves and teeth, the brigands were keeping a respectful distance around her anyway.
Then Rodge yelled, and Ari’s glance flew to him—to realize in horror that he’d been pulled off his horse. Cold fear and desperation seized Ari in a vice. With a lunge, he knocked aside a blade, driving his own more by luck than skill into a chest. Pushing the brown past the man, he made it to the melee around Rodge, who was flailing on the ground under three or four of the bandits—fortunately all in each other’s way.
His blade bit deep into a neck and blood spurted, obscenely satisfying. Bending low, trying to keep the brown moving so his back was protected, he went after the next one. Rodge was punching and kicking under the press with voluble vengeance—surely nothing that energetic could be too seriously hurt. Ari didn’t even know he knew those swearwords. An unprotected underarm fell to Ari’s swipe, and then he felt hands latch onto him and start dragging him off his horse.
He reared up to bring his sword down in a great overhead swing, shocked to see a crowd of men close around him, when an arrow shot right over his lap. It landed, audibly, in his present attacker’s neck and they both paused, staring at each other in surprise, Ari’s sword stopped over his head. The arrow was no delicate thing of golden oak, he noticed in adrenaline-induced detachment—it was a short, sturdy war arrow, with red and white fletching. And along its shaft nestled the snow and scarlet chevrons of the Empire.
The man holding it in his larynx began to gasp for air, releasing Ari and scrabbling at his throat as he fell back into the press of men. Quickly, Ari parried the sword stroke that took his place, then, his reflexes sharpened by the close wrestling-style swordwork of the Merranics, twisted his blade around to strike deep at the man’s unprotected chest. The brigand screamed, and Ari found to his horror that his steel had wedged itself into a rib. Panicked as another sword came rushing towards him, he frantically freed a foot from its stirrup and kicked the new attacker away, the man’s blade skirling erratically in the air and lancing his gelding’s shoulder. The brown neighed and jerked away, squealing in pain and protest and freeing Ari’s sword, but not before he’d seen another arrow blossom in that man’s chest as well. Another, then another arrow appeared, and before Ari knew it, the press was over, and he was guiding the brown in agitated circles to face enemies either already down or hobbling into the trees.
Panting, soaked in sweat, blood pounding in his ears, he swung his head around, scarcely daring to believe that they’d all made it. There was Melkin, bleeding but alive and furious. Loren, looking around wildly while trying to staunch the blood from his chestnut’s back. Cerise, shaky and wide-eyed, dismounting a still-skittish Tekkara—there wasn’t a scratch on her and a wave of relief that left him weak washed over him. He’d never been more grateful for that idiot mare.
Rodge stood in the middle of the trail with his thin chest heaving, black hair sticking straight up, a sword in his hand. He was holding it like a torch, true, but he looked crazed enough to use it. Melkin was walking his horse back to him—Radish was possibly the most excited he’d ever been in his life. Blood from steelbite was soaking the Master’s breeches where his arm rested on his lap, and he had a long gash where a blade had licked at his face and neck. But his voice was brisk and healthy enough when he rasped out:
“We owe you our lives, Sergeant.”
Everyone except Rodge, still searching for enemies, turned to look in the direction of his gaze. The source of those wondrous, miraculous, timely arrows stood there calmly, drawing one out of a corpse and cleaning its steel head. He was neat enough, but obviously living in the wild, his leather breeches travel-stained and worn, the white blouse tea-colored from sweat and dirt and staining. Around his neck hung the limp, soiled scarlet rag that would double as kerchief or headband, and across his chest, faded red and white chevrons decorated his quiver strap. An Imperial Border Patrolman.
“My pleasure.” His neat, rusty beard split in a courteous smile. “I’ve been tracking this party for four days now—I would have arrested them long ago if I’d known they were up to this sort of mischief.”
“Your delay almost cost us our lives!” Cerise snapped at him in sudden frightened fury. “Anyone can see they were rough, base men, up to no good.”
“It is no crime to live rough, my Lady,” he answered, with a little self-mocking bow. “I could hardly arrest them just for traveling without bathing.” He didn’t seem intimidated by her at all. In fact, his whole manner was charmingly un-Northern.
“Quiet, Cerise,” Melkin growled irritably. The Borderman, spying his wounded arm, moved quickly forward.
“Let me have a look at that,” he murmured. As Melkin dismounted and the man began to inspect his forearm, the Master said brusquely, “I can tend to this. You should be going after those survivors.”
“They’re no woodsmen,” the man assured him in that low, steady voice.
“You said you’ve been tracking them,” Melkin asked, possibly to get his mind off the wound the man was beginning to probe and clean with water from one of the waterskins. “Where from?”
“South,” he said absently. “They appear to be White Asp mercenaries.”
Everyone went still.
“Blood and fire,” Melkin swore in a dead voice.
Cold fingers seemed to grope Ari’s insides. Mercs. The same ones that Kai had found in their room months ago. He looked helplessly at Melkin, who had a black scowl. And this was ambush number two.
“Why would they be interested in you?” the Borderman asked casually. He looked up, right into Melkin’s eyes, and Ari felt an immediate surge of secrecy. This was an Imperial Policeman, after all.
“Probably figured if we were coming from Crossing with all of its goings on, we had something of value with us,” Melkin shrugged. “It may have been just bad timing.”
“Maybe,” the man allowed noncommittally, still with that probing look. Finally, he turned back to the arm, taking one of Melkin’s clean shirts and tearing it up into a bandage.
Where are you all headed?” he asked conversationally. “Norvonton-on-Daroe, a town about half the size of its name, is the last village on the Southern Way, and it’s about three hours behind you.” He grinned disarmingly. He’d be an easy fellow to chat with, if one had no secrets that might be difficult for a representative of the law to understand.
“To the Emerald Pass,” Melkin said shortly, wisely keeping it as brief and close to the truth as possible. He cued Cerise with a look.
“We’re on Queen’s business,” she said, prompt and rather frosty.
He looked up at her, her fine traveling splitskirt, the aristocratic features, the arrogance that comes from certain people of authority. “Ah. I should have realized, my Lady,” he said, slipping in a mollifying compliment.
He caught sight of Rodge and paused, a glimmer of a smile tugging at his face.
“Uh,” Loren said, moving towards his friend. Rodge was still quite vigilant, eyes huge and wild, staring into the trees with the sword held aloft. “Here, put it down, Rodge, just give it to me, easy—EASY—that’s it. It’s all over.”
“Monsters,” Rodge breathed, a lit
tle insanely. “Why is everyone trying to kill us?!” The Borderman raised an eyebrow. Loren, far more used to keeping secrets secret, tried to cover this potentially revealing statement with an ingratiating grin at the Borderman.
“He’s a physics major,” he explained.
The Patrolman blinked. There was a second’s silence before he said smoothly, “Yes. Well. Jagstag is still a good two days’ long journey, so I’ll let you get back on the road. There’ll be a healer at the Pass that can see to that arm.” He rose from Melkin’s side, brushing aside the various murmurs of thanks, but froze before he’d even taken a step. His eyes wandered intently over the bodies lying around, and he very slowly walked over to one, pulling a gory arrow from its chest.
Melkin, watching him closely, said, “What is it?”
“I didn’t kill that man,” he said softly. “That one either.”
“They’re your arrows,” Cerise pointed out caustically. It was hard to mistake them for anyone else’s, their being so nicely marked and all.
“Yes…and I didn’t shoot them…”
“Well, the day’s full of mysteries,” Melkin said briskly, hurriedly motioning everyone to mount up. The last thing they needed was to get embroiled in an Imperial investigation. Not even a Letter of Marque would help them escape that noose.
The Borderman let them go, and they rode off with a good deal of glancing around into the heavy trees, suddenly more ominous for what they concealed than welcome for their coolness. He was still standing in the trail, face thoughtful, when Ari glanced back.
As soon as they were out of sight, the group bunched up around Melkin. He didn’t slow, was pushing the roan, even.
“What do they want with me?” Ari demanded in frustration.
“You?” Cerise asked shortly. “What makes you think they’re after you?” Loren looked at him curiously, eyes still red-rimmed from the recent excitement.
“Monsters,” Rodge hissed from his fat pony. Loren patted his shoulder soothingly. “You did really good, Rodge. REALLY well.”