by Kate Elliott
“Peace,” he whispered as it blew up and away over the trees, fading until he could no longer see it.
He laced his vest back on and trudged to the abandoned hamlet, where he restored the shovel to its place in a humble shed.
Scar was waiting, curious at his absence; he dipped his head to look at Joss first with one eye and then the other, as if a raptor’s vision might see different aspects of a man’s heart and spirit depending on which eye he was looking with.
“I’m content,” Joss said to the eagle, and for once in his life, since that last day with Marit, he was. He spotted a damaged covert on Scar’s tail, but only one, not enough to interfere with flight. He circled twice until he was satisfied there was nothing else amiss.
They launched, and he retraced his path east to the river. The afternoon sun gilded lonely pools. Narrow tracks wove through the landscape, and twice he glimpsed folk walking briskly toward unseen destinations, almost as if they were no longer afraid.
Late in the afternoon, the spiny ridge above Skerru hoved into view. Lanterns lit the town as if it were festival. The army had settled in for the night on the battlefield below the town, protected by the river on either side, although a huge herd of horses was grazing beyond the eastern crossing. A number of eagles were floating off in the distance, with no reeve dangling below. Out hunting.
Wagons were being unloaded, food prepared over campfires, horses watered and groomed and fed grain. Canvas had been set up in orderly units. The singing of victorious soldiers spun a joyful tune into the breeze.
The bodies of the enemy dead were being dumped in the river, swept away by the powerful current, carried away like so many petals torn from the flower necklaces worn at festival time; down to the sea with a single song sung over their departed spirits.
Yet what they had given, they had, in the end, received. The Four Mothers would take their bodies and turn and turn them until they became part of the land once again.
Four reeves, aloft as sentries, flagged him. He descended and was met by soldiers who kept a respectful distance from Scar as they looked Joss over with startled expressions.
“Commander Joss? The commander wishes to see you at once.”
He slapped dirt from his hands and checked his vest and trousers, everything in place, quiver buckled tight, baton and sword swinging from his belt, his pack slung over a shoulder. Was there dirt on his face? Was that why everyone was staring?
An escort accompanied him through camp, folk turning to watch. Women, wagon drivers, stopped stock-still and stared; one whistled boldly as Joss blushed and the soldiers snickered. The command awning had sprouted wings, and a pair of curtained private chambers, but the central area looked the same as ever: a long low table, many camp stools, soldiers and reeves clustered in a meeting. Two rings of black-clad Qin guards eyed him with various expressions of dismay except for the one local man who looked him up and down with a smirk of appreciative interest.
He recognized Kesta from the back; she turned, having heard the murmur following him, and took a step back. “Joss! The hells!”
He stepped under the central awning as Anji rose from his camp stool. The captain cocked his head, eyes narrowing as he examined Joss with the expression of a man who has just conceived an intense distrust, but he said nothing as Kesta strode forward and grabbed Joss by the arm.
“The hells! You went missing, and I didn’t know—So I came to report—But that hierodule said she’d seen you before the battle’s end—I didn’t know—” Tears streaked her face.
He was panting, sweating, dizzy.
“Aui!” Kesta’s grip burned on his bare arm. “You look ten years younger, Joss, and twice as handsome. If that’s possible, which I would have doubted. What happened to you?”
He and Anji’s gazes had locked. It wasn’t, Joss thought, that Anji was envious of him, or that he desired Joss’s looks or charm for himself. It was that Anji was sure that a man as handsome and charming as Joss must lure away any beautiful woman who is offered such a choice. Therefore, let a woman—let Mai—not be allowed to face temptation, not as his first wife had been, coaxed away by a handsome outlander.
Yet how is it possible to fence in temptation unless one controls every road and gate?
“Joss!” Kesta shook him with an impatient grimace born of years of friendship. “Have your wits been addled?”
Joss blinked, and after all, Anji looked like an ordinary man, bemused but concerned.
“Bring drink, and food,” the captain ordered, and men ran off as Chief Deze and Chief Esigu moved up to flank Anji as though they wondered if Joss meant to strike. “Do you need to sit, Joss? You look dazed.”
“I killed Lord Radas.”
The words sucked out the last of his strength. His legs gave out, and Kesta tugged him up before he hit the ground; an instant later, a stool appeared and he sat hard, sagging forward, head in hands. Trampled grass was crushed beneath his boots. The leather of his boots looked oddly mottled, charred and flaking, as though he had walked through fire. Why hadn’t he been burned? Marit had told him that anyone who tried to take a cloak off a Guardian would suffer terrible agonies. Masar had died.
A cup of cordial was thrust into view, and he downed it, the sharp flavor slamming straight into his head.
“Can you repeat that?” asked Anji.
“I killed Lord Radas. The lord commander is dead.”
Within the stunned silence, commonplace noises rolled on: horses whickering; a fire crackling; fat sizzling; a knife being sharpened whsst whsst; a woman’s cheerful whistle as she wound down the old familiar tune, “Oh to clasp a man like that in my arms!”
A guardsman poured more cordial into Joss’s cup, and the tinkle of falling liquid shook him out of his daze.
He looked at Kesta. “Is there a fawkner here? Scar needs tending, his harness shed for the night. I just—”
“I’ll take care of it.” She released him. “I was just afraid something had happened to you, Joss. If that’s all—killed the gods-rotted demon, the enemy commander—the hells! Wait until I tell the other reeves!” Her grin was as bright as a lamp. She swatted him on the shoulder, spoke a courtesy to Anji and his chiefs, and strode away into the gathering dusk.
“Where did it happen?” asked Anji in a low voice. “Where is his cloak?”
“At an altar right where the Istri splits at Kroke’s Ridge. As for his cloak—”
He met Anji’s gaze again, but it was only a man like himself who looked back, worn by days of travel and given strength by the ferocity of his determination. What kind of man was Anji, really? A man who had killed a Guardian and bound its cloak in chains because he thought thereby that he was saving the Hundred from the rule of demons. But the Guardians weren’t demons, not as Anji defined demons. They were just men and women, who might do the wrong thing believing it was the right one, or the right one hoping for the wrong; they might rise to the best in themselves or fall into what was worst in their hearts. You could not choke justice into existence. It had to live in the bones of the land.
“On law shall the land be built. I released the cloak to the gods.”
Anji’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of anger that flashed like a blade’s edge. Then his expression smoothed, and he took a step back as two soldiers came forward, bearing trays that they set down on the camp table beside the unrolled maps.
“Eat with me,” said Anji, and yet the words sounded more like a command than a request.
“I’d like to know,” said Joss, hearing words pour out of his mouth as impelled by a lilu he hadn’t known dwelt inside him, “if you have some objection to what I did, considering you may have had other ideas of what would best serve the Hundred.”
“My concern is solely to win this war. Lord Radas’s death aids us. Your courage and determination are to be praised, Commander Joss.”
The appreciative murmur that greeted these words reminded Joss that he and Anji were not alone. No, indeed; Anji sat at council with
many men—all men, an odd enough sight to Joss’s eye. Chiefs Sengel, Deze, and Esigu sat closest to Anji, flanked by Captain Targit and two Qin chiefs unknown to Joss. Captain Arras was sitting at his ease among several militia captains, two wearing the kroke badges common in Nessumara and another wearing Skerru’s forked lightning. Arras leaned over and whispered something, at which they grinned. There were other captains: a pair wearing badges from Horn and six bearded men most likely from Olo’osson. No reeves. No merchants or artisans. Not a single priest. All military men.
A tiny jeweler’s chest, bound with chains, sat tucked between Arras’s feet.
Anji set down his cup. “And if Lord Radas is truly dead, then we have a significant hope of victory.” He broke off, his gaze catching on movement behind Joss.
Reeves approached, caught by the gatekeepers before they could come too close, but a stockier man striding in their wake pushed between them.
Joss leaped up with a grin. “Tohon!”
Sengel stepped forward on one side, Deze on the other, like shields. Tohon’s gaze flicked from one to the other, assessing their movement and his risk, but his jaw had a determined jut that made Joss step aside, making space for him.
“Did you find Wedrewe?” Anji asked casually. Yet his own cursed chiefs subtly shifted position as if they had some notion that Tohon—Tohon!—might be a threat.
“I did. Commander, I hear you’ve found Shai. That he’s grievously injured.”
“We’ve recovered him. He lives. After you give your report—”
“I’ll see him now,” said Tohon in a friendly tone no man could possibly misunderstand. “My report can wait, if the lad is doing so poorly that, as I heard as I walked through camp, it’s rumored he’s like to die. Where is he?”
Sengel coughed as might a man reminding a comrade he’s forgotten his manners, but Tohon’s gaze was fixed on Anji and did not waver.
Anji gestured to one of the curtained chambers. “The hierodule is nursing him.”
“That’s something,” muttered Tohon. He nodded a greeting at Joss, then looked again, as taken aback as a man might be to wake and discover his wife has become a kroke. “What happened to you?” The words were only a reflex. His brow creased; a frown darkened his expression as his thoughts scouted elsewhere. He walked to the curtains and vanished within. It had grown so silent under the awning that Joss heard the murmur of voices, male and female, as Tohon and Zubaidit greeted each other, but he could not make out what they were saying.
“Commander?” asked Sengel, so softly Joss heard the word only because he was standing next to Anji.
“We’ve no proof he’s anything but Beje’s man,” replied Anji, equally softly. “Not my mother’s. Not my uncle’s. He’s served faithfully enough. Let it be for now.” He picked up his cup, gesturing to the captains. “Now. About our lines of supply. We must not strip what remains in the countryside and the towns lest the population starve. Our task is twofold. Obviously, we must hunt down and destroy the remnants of Lord Radas’s army, any companies or captains who might dream of restoring the army. This could take months, or even years. But we cannot achieve these objectives if those we’ve fought to protect die. People are afraid to return to their villages. Supplies are low everywhere. Reserves are depleted. People cannot plant until the rains, and then must hope for an uneventful growing season while waiting for the crops to ripen.”
“So you’re saying we’ll be eating a lot of se leaves?” asked one of the Olossi captains, and men chuckled.
“ ‘Better to live on sour se leaves than die with your hand in an empty rice bowl,’ ” Anji replied to approving laughter, having learned at least one common Hundred saying. “Even if all that goes well, which it will not, for you can be sure no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, then what about Wedrewe? Captain Arras?”
Arras rose. If some regarded him with suspicion, the rest waited to hear what he had to say. “Wedrewe is where all the orders came from, although I never went there myself. More cohorts will be training there, and I’m cursed sure all the coin and precious loot and best silks were sent there, so no doubt they guard a healthy treasury. There’s also Walshow. That’s where many cohorts were raised, including mine. It’s isolated, hard to reach, and easy for folk to scatter into the wilderness and hide should they be attacked.”
Arras kept a foot pressed against the jeweler’s chest, keeping track of what was, after all, the prize that had earned him Anji’s acceptance.
Anji was standing next to the table, his own boots blocking a gap where two small jeweler’s chests bound by chains rested under the table. Joss’s heart took a sudden lurch; he sank down on his stool as flashes of memory blinded and deafened him: the billowing cloak as bright as sunlight; Lord Radas’s limp body; the way one arm, stuck in rigor, had seemed impossible to cover with dirt, fingers clutching for air as Joss had ruthlessly buried him.
“We cannot relax our vigilance,” Anji was saying. “Only six of the demons have been killed, while three remain at large.” He loosed a glance at Joss. “The cloak of Sun will rise to corrupt another man, who can take control of remnants of the army.”
“Hold on,” murmured Joss. “I only know of four.” Anji had killed Earth; Masar had unclasped Blood; Shai and Zubaidit had killed Night and given the cloak to Arras. Joss had released Sun. “How did there get to be six? We agreed no hunting beyond those allied with Radas and Night.”
Anji was in many ways an ordinary-looking man, if you surveyed what appeared on the surface: Of medium height and neither slender or stocky, he was strong with the fitness that comes from constant relentless movement. He had the broad cheekbones of his mother’s people and the hooked nose common in the empire. But the land cannot be understood with so cursory an inspection. Nor could a man. Handsome eyes redeemed his face, but that was not what commanded the eye. His gaze was as bright as steel, and it penetrated not to your heart or mind, as the gaze of Guardians did, but to your gut, where you decided not just whether to trust this man but whether to place your life and welfare in his hands. He had powerful hands, not big but graceful and masterful, a man who held on to what he possessed and never let go.
Once Anji got hold of the Hundred, why should he let go? The Qin soldiers were conquerors, weren’t they? That’s what they trained from boyhood to be. Brutal. Effective. Relentless. Utterly reasonable, with those cheerful grins and easy laughs.
Anji’s gaze narrowed as he studied Joss studying him. “I haven’t finish briefing my captains,” he said as Sengel took a step closer to Joss. “Did you have a report the officers need to hear, Commander?”
Maybe such thoughts were crazy, an artifact of walking the altar. Maybe Lord Radas’s poison was corrupting his mind. Maybe he was just exhausted after two days without sleep. “I need to talk to you privately. After your council. For now, I’d welcome a chance to rest.”
“Sengel will show you to where the reeves are camping,” said Anji.
Sengel smiled that easy Qin smile and walked away with Joss as if they were old comrades accustomed to walking out in company.
“You did well in Nessumara,” said Joss.
“I did what needed doing,” remarked Sengel.
“There are three chests under the awning. Wasn’t one already taken to Olossi?”
“Toughid died in High Haldia getting the cloak off a demon calling himself Lord Bevard.”
“Toughid!” It was impossible to grasp that Toughid, with whom he’d so recently argued—as much as you could argue with the Qin, who receded before disagreement until you realized you had nothing to push against—was dead.
Sengel’s stride betrayed no weakness. His expression betrayed no sentiment. “The chest arrived midday soon after our victory. Here are your reeves, including the ones who brought the chest.” He gestured toward an encampment set up within the boundary of a shallow ditch and berm, dug in haste by Lord Radas’s soldiers. “I’ll return to Captain Anji.”
“One question, Chief Sen
gel.”
“What’s that?”
“Whyever would you think Tohon could be your enemy?”
The man blinked, taken by surprise. “Tohon?”
“Just because a man expresses a desire to look in on a badly injured comrade before he gives a report doesn’t mean he’s not a loyal soldier.”
Sengel brushed a hand over his creased brow, and Joss realized the man was likely exhausted, held under a taut rein. “Commander Joss, with all respect, you do not understand the factions within the Qin. Nor are we likely to explain them. For we’re not in Qin lands anymore, are we?”
“Are we?” Joss asked sharply.
At once, he was sorry he had spoken so recklessly. Sengel smiled with a grace and speed that was frightening. How could you tell if a man was sincere when he could smile like that no matter what you said to him?
“I’ll leave you with your reeves,” Sengel said. “Commander Anji will come by later to offer thanks for their good work. And to let you know what needs doing tomorrow.”
With that, he walked away.
Lord Bevard, wearing the cloak of Leaf. That still only made five.
Joss scrambled down to a makeshift encampment where about forty off-duty reeves had set up awnings. They were a mix of people he knew and others he did not, mingling with the comfortable familiarity of folk who did the same work and knew the man or woman standing beside them would understand their complaints.
“Joss! The hells! What happened to you?” Peddonon strode forward with a big grin. “You look like a gods-rotted lilu come to lure us to our deaths, although in a most pleasurable manner, I am sure. Die with a smile on your face, that’s what I say.”
Reeves slapped him on the back or embraced him, as they chose. Even sharp-tongued Nallo looked not displeased to see him. She might even have looked startled.
“Cordial for the man who killed that gods-rotted lilu, Lord Radas,” called Peddonon.
Cheers and whoops rose. Reeves he didn’t know grasped his arm. One attractive young woman offered a juicy kiss, which made everyone shout with laughter.