Traitors' Gate

by Kate Elliott

  He weighed their builds, Eiko’s height. “Eiko, you first and Gerda below,” he said, knowing full well that the outermost person took the greatest risk of being hit. They nodded. They’d faced death before. He had often thought fawkners were the most courageous people he knew.

  In silence the last reeves hooked in themselves first and the five fawkners after. One by one they flew, Masar lifting with his eagle Shy only as the gates came down. Up and up, with arrows flying. Gerda grunted, rocking in the harness. Scar’s trajectory staggered momentarily; the raptor dipped, then caught a draft and pushed sloppily upward.

  Two eagles were hit, their wings a broad target, but they labored on. One passenger shrieked, caught in the leg, his blood raining down over the compound as the enemy swarmed in. Torches were thrown onto thatched roofs of the outbuildings, while the gates of the big storehouses were thrown open. Copper Hall’s guardsmen and hirelings lay scattered throughout the alleys and at walls and gates, having given their lives to allow others to escape.

  Joss tugged on his jesses to get Scar turned north.

  “Reeve,” said Eiko, “Gerda’s hit.”

  Unbelievably, he hadn’t even noticed. No doubt he’d been too busy searching for sign of Masar’s pretty granddaughter.

  He reached past Eiko’s torso and patted Gerda. His hand came away slick with blood. Impossibly, she had been hit in the throat, her life’s blood pouring down her chest and legs. She hadn’t made a sound, hadn’t even kicked or thrashed, just crossed the Spirit Gate that quickly.

  “She’s dead,” said Eiko. “I’ll cut her loose.”

  “Eiya! Are you sure?”

  “She’s my good friend and comrade. I’m not about to cut her loose to settle an old score or save myself. She’d tell you to do it, to spare the eagle.”

  His breathing pinched, making it hard to force out words. “Do it.”

  She fished a knife from her vest and sliced the leashes. The body plummeted. He looked for Badinen because he could not bear to watch the impact. The lad trailed behind obediently. The hells knew what he was thinking now. If Eiko wept, she did so silently.

  Lightened, Scar found a thermal and rose. Wind blustered against their ears. After a while Scar tipped out of the thermal and started the long sail to Clan Hall.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” said Eiko, “I don’t know your name.”

  “I’m Joss.”

  “Joss?” The timbre of her voice changed.

  “Yes, that Joss.”

  She snorted, finding a moment of humor in a grim day. “Aren’t you the new commander at Clan Hall?”

  “I am.”

  “Copper Hall in Nessumara is under siege and couldn’t have taken us anyway. They’ve not had the room for a full complement for generations.”

  Each reeve hall housed by custom six hundred reeves, although at any given time many fewer were actually present in the halls: some eagles would be absent for their breeding season in Heaven’s Reach; many would be out on patrol or, in more peaceful days, presiding over assizes. If what Marit said had been true, then in the days long ago reeves had spread themselves farther afield in outposts built to house family groups rather than the larger aggregations found in the halls.

  “Copper Hall can’t take you in,” he agreed, “yet neither can Clan Hall. We can’t even feed ourselves.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  The land unrolled below, under siege or overwhelmed. Scar shifted, adjusting to the current, and Joss hitched his own position to accommodate the eagle’s flight.

  We will kill the Guardians.

  Even to think it was like breaking the boundaries and violating the gods’ law.

  “We’ve lost, haven’t we?” she said.

  “We haven’t lost.” He wiped his eyes, but he only smeared the sticky remains of Gerda’s blood on his face. “We’re developing a new plan of attack. We’ll set up outposts. Change our patrol tactics. We’ll leave a contingent on Clan Hall. As long as we hold Law Rock, we can say we guard the law, can’t we?”

  “But where are we going to go?” she demanded.

  It was so cursed obvious, death falling everywhere to remind him of what had been lost.

  Horn Hall.

  • • •

  CAPTAIN ARRAS WALKED through the marshal’s cote of Copper Hall pulling scrolls from cubbyholes and unrolling them to squint at the undecipherable writing before he tossed them on the low writing desk for a clerk to read. They would burn what was useless. In the marshal’s sleeping chamber, an unlocked chest stored jackets, kilts, and sandals in different sizes. On top sat a basket of fruit, including a half-eaten plum hidden beneath two green globe-fruit, as if a child had taken a bite of the plum when he wasn’t supposed to and decided he didn’t like the taste. The storage cupboard contained five rolled up sleeping mats, old harness, a pair of cloth dolls, a basket of combs and brushes, two sun umbrellas, and several rain cloaks folded and stacked. It had mice, too; he heard scrabbling and then, as a board creaked under his weight, silence. He’d always imagined reeves lived more grandly, dining on rich folk’s china with lacquered spoons and silk hangings to decorate their halls. These folk seemed pretty cursed lacking.

  Sergeant Giyara clattered into the audience chamber. “Captain Arras?”

  “Here I am.” He stepped back into the main room.

  The six subcaptains tramped in with boots on. Arras sat on the pillow behind the writing desk and pushed aside a bowl of half eaten nai porridge, now cold and congealed.

  “Your reports?”

  Over the past months he had trained them to give efficient and effective reports: all the information he needed but not more, delivered in a straightforward order.

  Casualties. Eight eagles were definite kills, six bodies recovered and two lost in the bay. Eight reeves also dead, thereby. How many wounded eagles and reeves none knew for sure, but they’d done damage. On the ground, they’d collected seventy-eight corpses and one hundred twelve prisoners, adults who had been working as slaves, hirelings, and assistants at the reeve hall as well as thirty-seven additional folk who claimed to be fishers and farmers, refugees come to Copper Hall to beg for food.

  Their own casualties were minimal: five dead, ten with serious injuries, and about thirty with wounds that would need a couple of days rest as long as they did not get infected.

  “What are your orders concerning the prisoners?” Giyara asked.

  “Let me consider,” said Arras. “What about supplies?”

  “Plenty of tools and weapons,” said Subcaptain Orli, “but their supplies of leather and harness are cursed thin.”

  “What about food supplies?” Arras asked, for this was his major preoccupation these days. He could not feed additional slaves when it was difficult enough to feed his soldiers.

  “We’ve done a sweep of the storehouses,” said Subcaptain Piri. “Eight bags of rice and twelve of nai. Not enough to feed a hall with this many people for but another few days, eh?”

  “Aui! The wine cellar’s well stocked!” Subcaptain Eddon was the newest and youngest of the three subcaptains; he laughed recklessly now. “That new sergeant, Zubaidit—” Then he flushed and broke off.

  Orli and Piri eyed Arras, searching for a flinch of satisfaction or shame at the name, but he’d promoted her based on performance, not favoritism. It wasn’t as if he’d gotten any cursed benefit out of the deal beyond a decent cadre sergeant for that group of floundering misfits salvaged from the ruin of First Cohort.

  “—found a cellar, here in the garden, and cursed if there weren’t twenty casks of wine and cordial.”

  “Twenty casks!” Arras laughed. “I guess wine and cordial will keep your stomach warm when it’s empty. Sergeant.” He nodded at Giyara. “You’re in charge of those personally. Hold out five for the senior command staff, but the rest will be rationed to the soldiers as their victory badge.”

  “Yes, Captain.” None of the subcaptains protested; they knew Giyara couldn’t
be bribed. “What about the hall, Captain?”

  “Burn it. As for the prisoners, those with a slave mark may be allowed to serve the cohort. As usual, watch for any who seem like potential recruits and for those who seem likely to cause mischief.”

  “And the other prisoners?”

  Footsteps pattered up the steps. Giyara slid the screen a hand’s-breadth open, a smile touching her lips as she flicked a gaze toward Arras. She shoved the door open to reveal Zubaidit, kitted out like the rest of the soldiers and sporting a sergeant’s badge. The subcaptains glanced at her and then at Arras. Why everyone thought he and the young woman were having sex he could not figure, since he had never touched her.

  “Captain Arras?” she asked, cool as you please for all that she had intruded on his command council. “A word with you?”

  Eddon snorted.

  Orli rolled his eyes and nudged Piri, who frowned. The other three subcaptains looked elsewhere.

  Arras gestured for her to enter, and cursed if the others didn’t simply take this as a dismissal.

  Giyara, pausing on the threshold, spoke. “Captain?”

  Probably he was a little flushed. He sent her off with a lift of his chin. Zubaidit slid the door closed with a foot and leaned against one of the load-bearing wooden pillars. She had a way of lounging while standing up that made you think of what she would be like lying down.

  He let irritation show, instead of desire. “You’ve served ably enough to be promoted to sergeant very quickly given how few months ago you were a hostage. But you must know how it looks to the others, you walking in like this.”

  She looked the hells more comfortable than he felt, because she had that quality that did get him bothered. “Captain, what would you want in exchange for you doing something for me that would cause no harm to your soldiers or your command? A one-time thing.”

  “I’m the captain of this cohort. Why should I want anything?”

  She smiled.

  He rubbed his jaw because he had to move something to scratch the restless itch crawling through his body. “Without more information, it seems to me you’re asking a cursed lot just on the belief that I’d like to devour you.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “It demeans me—and you—to have sex if it just becomes a matter of coin or barter. Where I grew up, we had a proper respect for the Merciless One.”

  “Better to take coin, or barter, than be forced against your will, don’t you think?”

  “Forced? It’s true some criminals and sick-minded folk might do such a thing, but that’s what—” Then, sitting in the reeve hall which would soon be burned down, he heard his own words and stopped talking.

  “That’s what reeves and assizes are for?”

  “Law courts will be set in place once the Hundred is under control.”

  “Meanwhile, soldiers will do as they please.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you can’t be so naive, Captain.”

  “I have expressly forbidden—”

  She shrugged, the gesture as good as a slap, cutting him off. “Think so if you must. I had three men whipped until their backs bled because they forced themselves on village folk. I won’t allow that under my command, and I made sure the rest knew what would happen to them if they tried it. Yet if soldiers can steal rice and nai and anything else they want from a cottage, why not sex as well? Who will stop them?”

  “Those are First Cohort men, those in the cadre you were given to command!”

  “I just thought you would want to know it’s going on among your own troops.”

  “You’re putting me off my guard because there’s something else you want. What is it?”

  “I can’t tell you without you giving me your word you’ll let me do what needs doing.”

  “I could give you my word and then change my mind.”

  “Not you, Captain. You’re an honorable man.”

  He laughed, although the way she said the phrase stung him. “I’d say you were flattering me, but I don’t think you flatter.”

  “A man who would do this favor for me would seemed cursed attractive in my eyes.”

  “Neh, you’re still bribing me. Let me ask you a question, then. You served your apprenticeship in the Merciless One’s temple.”

  “That’s right.”

  “If you were a hierodule and I was a man come to the temple to worship, would you devour me?”

  Her amused smile was an honest answer, enough to make him feel like he wasn’t begging.

  “I was a hierodule once,” she added, “so I honor the Merciless One. Within the temple, the hierodule and the kalos are the equals of those who come to worship. Not their hirelings. Not their servants. Not their slaves. Not their conquest.”

  “Yet I’ve heard it said that of all those who serve the gods, those who serve the Merciless One are the most like slaves.”

  “At the temple, the hierodules and kalos choose as they please, and refuse as they wish. I admit, sometimes an unscrupulous hieros will pressure her apprentices to do what they might otherwise feel reluctant to do. However, such a hieros will find it hard to keep apprentices.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I need to get something out of Copper Hall before you burn it. I’d like to get these items out untouched and unharmed.”

  “Wine? Jewels? Silk? Gold cheyt? I wondered where the reeves were hiding their wealth.”

  “Something a cursed lot more valuable to me.” Her expression darkened in a way that surprised him, and he sat up, taking her presence far more seriously. “There’s a chamber dug below this cote. I found about thirty youths, mostly debt slaves and hirelings. I hate to see children broken into slaves, Captain. And I truly despise seeing helpless young persons abused, as some will do, given the chance. I don’t like to owe anything to anyone, but if you’ll get them out no worse for what they’ve otherwise endured today, I’ll be in your debt.”

  “They might be better off serving as slaves to this cohort than sent to wander the roads with the risk of falling afoul of a less merciful cohort.”

  “They might. It’s a generous offer, but I don’t think you can keep feeding more dependents.”

  He turned the bowl of cold nai halfway around just to do something. “I could have you executed for this conversation.”

  Her smile was cursed relaxed. “So you could.”

  “Aui! Does nothing fluster you?”

  “Not much.”

  “Will it content you if I order all refugees and debt slaves released?”

  “You’d have my thanks.” Her smile offered more.

  “I want nothing in exchange,” he said curtly. “I’ll have the refugees and debt slaves assembled here in the marshal’s garden. Sneak the others in among them, and they’ll all be escorted from the compound before we put it to the torch. You’re dismissed.”

  “Captain.” She slid the door open and went out.

  He turned the bowl all the way round, then tapped it on the table’s top as he frowned.

  “Captain?” Giyara looked in.

  “Did you hear all that?” he asked, because Giyara’s expression reminded him of a darkness in Zubaidit’s eyes.

  “I did.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “She’s a strange one. Yet she’s right. No matter what you’ve proclaimed, there are soldiers who will force sex on captives. It’s just wrong to steal what the Devourer offers. I hope most of your veterans would agree. You’ve got to come down hard on the First Cohort soldiers.”

  “The commanders of this army won’t care one way or the other. Maybe those who order cleansings have no argument with other forms of torture. Where does that leave us, Giyara?”

  She’d seen too much to make light of his concerns. Like him, she’d walked a hard road to get to this place. She was good at what she did. She trusted him, and he trusted her, because they’d set their boundaries and stuck to them. There were things a person simply refuse
d to do, because they were shameful.

  She knew what he meant without him having to explain himself. “We walk cautiously, Captain. And try not to attract much notice.”

  “These children Zubaidit found hiding—Eiya! That wasn’t mice I heard!” She looked a question at him, but he waved a hand. “Never mind. Look over the prisoners. We’ll release the refugees, and recruit or release those with debt marks and any young ones.”

  “And the hirelings and assistants from Copper Hall? Cleanse them?”

  Someone had to take the blow. War was a hard business. It was idiotic to pretend otherwise. “No cleansings. Kill them, but make it clean and quick. When the compound burns, let it have a necklace of dead to remind the people hereabouts that the reeves, and those who support them, are going down to defeat.”

  • • •

  STAGE BY STAGE, day by day, the caravan journeyed to Old Fort. The amount of local traffic on the road shocked Kesh. Men led donkeys piled high with firewood. Lads and lasses shepherded flocks in grassy clearings. Women walked—alone!—with baskets of mushrooms gathered from the forest, calling out a cheerful greeting to the soldiers. Now and again they saw an eagle and reeve overhead, patrolling. At every village they crossed a guard post with a barrier blocking the road while the escort sent with them from Dast Korumbos cleared their passage.

  “I’ve never seen the roads so secure,” said Kesh for the hundredth time. “You could send a cursed child walking from here to Dast Korumbos and not fear for its safety.”

  “All under the watchful eye of the Olo’osson militia,” said Eliar.

  “As long as they’re protecting me.” Kesh pushed forward to keep pace with the soldiers assigned them at the border. “Are the roads safe all the way north, even to Nessumara?”

  They were local lads, clear-featured and well disciplined, wearing their black hair up in topknots to mimic the Qin. “Neh, things are cursed bad in the north,” they said with serious looks.

  Kesh bit back a grin to make it a grimace. “No one traveling up to trade in Nessumara and Toskala then, eh?”