Hour of the Octopus

by Joel Rosenberg

  I was going to muffle a couple of comments— something about how I had no idea whether we were first going to see a quail as opposed to a deer and doubted he did, either; something about how I would be lucky to be able to shoot an arrow well enough to hit the ground— when a covey of quail took flight across the field from us, their wings making the muffled applause sound of feathers beating against feathers.

  Arefai’s string twanged. I wasn’t watching closely enough to mark the arrow’s flight, but I did see a bird fall from the sky, its head tumbling in a different direction than its body.

  The body had barely bounced once on the ground when a huntsman leaped out from the brush, snatched it up, and disappeared back into the leafy cover.

  “That was a plump one,” he said. “And it will be tasty at dinner tonight.”

  Arefai’s smile was modestly modest, but it disappeared when he looked down to see that I hadn’t shot my arrow.

  I shrugged, as though to point out that everything had happened so quickly that I hadn’t had time to even think about shooting, but he dismissed it with a glare. If it had been anybody but Arefai, I would have wondered at what secret motivation caused him to care one way or another, but it was Arefai, after all.

  “The arrow, please,” he said, holding his hand out, palm up.

  I handed him the half-moon arrow; he set it down on the table.

  “The fishing arrow is next,” he said, as we walked down the path to where it exited into darkness on the far side of the meadow. “We shall see if you can manage a trout.”

  The fishing arrow, I discovered, was headed by a triple prong, each prong barbed, and it was marked halfway up the shaft by a thin gold ring. A length of silken string was secured to the head of the arrow, which fit loosely over the shaft.

  I was going to make some mention of that until I noticed that Arefai had removed the head of his arrow as though to check it, then slipped it back on.

  The path snaked back and forth down a steep slope, each turn rimmed in gold leaf, until it dumped us out next to a bridge over a stream that was perhaps two manheights wide, no deeper than knee-high anywhere.

  The sandy bank had been smoothed into shape and ripples had been combed into the sand. Despite the cool of the morning, it warmed my feet pleasantly.

  A manheight oaken column stood on the bank, weathered and varnished to a rich texture and high sheen, a burnished brass ring projecting from its top. Arefai quickly bound one end of his silken line to the ring, paying out silk as he walked away.

  Stepping stones crossed upstream of the bridge. Each stone, about the width of a dinner plate, had nesting curves carved into its top, like the floor of the baths. Arefai leaped lightly from the bank to the nearest of the stones, then step-step-stepped out to the middle of the stream, nocking his fishing arrow as he did, careful to keep it clear of the line. He stood, immobile as a statue, waiting.

  I took up a position on the next two stones. There were no fish in the stream that I could see, from where the water rippled just beneath my feet to where the stream appeared from around the bend. I opened my mouth to make some comment, but Arefai’s glare kept me silent.

  We hadn’t been waiting long when the water rippled ahead, just at the bend.

  Arefai drew his bow back to a light extension, where the bowstring touched the gold ring on the arrow. I pulled mine back all the way, to where the head of the arrow almost touched the bowstring. He was a warrior and I was just a newly made bourgeois, but I had spent most of my life as an acrobat, and there’s something about tumbling, highwire, and flying that does give you a lot of physical strength, even more than that of somebody who spends his days chopping warriors and peasants into a fine puree.

  But something about his stance impressed me. It took me a moment to realize that the only tension was in his arms and shoulders, that the muscles not involved in drawing the bow were loose and relaxed. I didn’t have the slightest idea whether or not that helped with shooting, but I liked the look of it, of taut shoulders and forearms, right hand held in a clench like the talons of a falcon, the neck relaxed, the set of the feet easy and flat.

  He released his string in a smooth loose, without any pluck. The bow made a deep thrummm, the bass note of a raw young zivver that hadn’t been broken in properly. But a fish leaped from the stream, its body impaled on the barbs, then flopped down into the water, flibitaflibitaflibitting madly up into the shallow water of the bank.

  For a moment, I thought it had dislodged the fishing arrow, but it was only the loose shaft. The fish lay on the bank, anchored by the barbs and the silken cord, its gills slowing opening and closing. There was a rustle in the bushes beyond the bridge, and a hand quickly reached out to snatch the wooden shaft as it washed by.

  Arefai was waiting for me.

  I had been so impressed with his performance that I had slackened the bowstring and let some fish slip past me, but I took aim along the shaft and pulled the arrow back to its full extension, trying to stand tall and easy, just like the warriors did.

  I waited until the arrow was lined up with a large fish, and tried to loose the string with one easy motion—

  “Oww!” The bowstring slapped me hard on my bare forearm, abrading flesh just this side of bloody, while my arrowhead bounced hard off a stone, sending the loose shaft tumbling through the air until it fetched up in the mud on the edge of the bank.

  No fish.

  Arefai glared at me. What use are you? he didn’t say, so I didn’t answer.

  Not that I would have. A thick skin behooves us.

  The stone path split four ways beyond the stream, each subordinate trail indicated by a small plaque set into the stone, and by carvings in the stone of the trail: a deer, a snake, a boar, and a dragon. A flufftailed deer’s hoofprints led morningwise, curving back toward the town of Den Oroshtai and the meandering stream. Twisted indentations marking the surface of the path of the snake pointed a few grades to the south, toward Stony Buthen; the path of the boar, marked by deep hoofprints, led to the south and sunwise.

  The path of the dragon, marked only by a cluster of curlicues representing a dragon’s breath, led downslope, almost directly sunwise, disappearing in the trees. Perhaps a slight breeze blew out of the path, because I smelled something off in the distance, something cold enough to make me shiver.

  I don’t react to cold too well. “I take it we’re not hunting dragons today,” I said, trying for humor. I rubbed at the area where the bowstring had slapped me. Angrily red, it still hurt.

  “That’s not—” He looked at me, exasperated. “Ask Narantir sometime about the charms put on the paths. The path of the deer tends to lead to game for the pot: rabbit, deer, trelinger. The path of the snake is likely to pass by foreseeable danger—snakes, pit spider, razorfoot; the path of the boar leads to proof of bravery: boar, say—and make no mistake, Kami Dan’Shir, there are lions back up in the hills.

  “The path of the dragon leads to that best left alone.”

  I could see the use of the first three. Fairly obvious: members of our beloved ruling class like to kill their food themselves, hence the path of the deer. They have to prove they’re brave, and facing off against a lion or boar demonstrates something they can decide to call courage. Running into a dung spider or a razorfoot could help to sort out the careless.

  But…

  “If I may ask, why is there a path of the dragon?”

  He looked at me like I had dung on my face. Sometimes I should learn to keep my mouth shut.

  ‘Today we will take the path of the deer,“ he said. ”I suspect we may find some game down there.“

  There seemed to be a fair chance of that, all things considered. After the fish and the quail coming along at precisely the right moment for a convenient shot, I didn’t have to raise kazuh to figure that both had been prepared, that hidden huntsmen had released the quail into flight and freed a couple of fish from around the bend.

  Odds were some deer stood bound and blindfolded so
mewhere near the path of the deer, ready to be freed and slapped on the rump, sent bouncing down the path toward our waiting bows. Taking it a step further, the odds were equally good that a backup deer was waiting.

  He had his arrow in the hand he used to pull an arrow from my quiver. “Here. And try to shoot at the game this time.” He gestured that I should precede him. “After you.”

  The path widened ahead, lined on both sides by a carpet of well-trimmed grasses.

  It was hardly a surprise to me when a three-point buck soon bounded across. He paused for a moment, eyes wide.

  I pulled back my arrow and let fly, again slapping the bowstring against my hurt forearm. Needless to say, the arrow went Powers-know-where, but a breeze brushed my cheek and an arrow spunged into the deer’s side.

  The deer gave me a reproachful look and took a half step before his legs went all loose and disjointed, and he dropped to the ground, legs splaying this way and that.

  A brace of huntsmen leaped out of the brush and were already dressing it out before it stopped twitching.

  “Well shot, Kami Dan’Shir!” Arefai exclaimed. “Well shot, indeed!”

  I turned to see him standing with an arrow nocked. Another arrow.

  “I had no chance to shoot, but no need,” he said. “A heart shot, and for your first time out, magnificent!” He clapped a hand to my shoulder. “The huntsmen will dress it out and lash it to your saddle; you will take it back to the keep. You must join me at table tonight to celebrate this meal. I’m sure Father will insist.”

  “Yes, I am sure your father will insist, Lord Arefai,” I said. “I’m very sure of that.”

  Now I knew how a waterwalker felt. You run just as fast as you can over the surface, not stopping for a moment as you dip your beak here and there, because if you stop to think about how impossible your position is, you’ll sink beneath the waves never to be seen again.

  I should have known this hunting expedition couldn’t have been as simple as it seemed. Thank the Powers I faced only another week of this; Toshtai, Arefai, and Edelfaule would be off to Glen Derenai for Arefai’s wedding, probably leaving Den Oroshtai under the care of Dun Lidjun, and that would give me some time to breathe. Dun Lidjun didn’t care if I plucked a flower, or produced a puzzle; all he wanted me to do was to stay out of his way.

  Arefai, on the other hand, had been just a tad too clever, just a crumb too indirect. Not his way at all.

  I should have spotted it earlier: a horse had been waiting for me. It had always been Arefai’s intention that I go on the hunt with him, and it apparently had always been his intention that I kill some game, thereby giving him a credible excuse to invite a lowly bourgeois to dinner.

  That was subtle, and indirect, and very much unArefai.

  Things were starting to get complicated, and when things get complicated, it’s good to talk them over with a friend. Sometimes it’s necessary to talk them over with somebody.

  The trouble, of course, was that I didn’t really have any friends, not in the keep. The closest thing I had to a friend was Arefai, and he had just gone through a performance intended to bring me to the formal dinner that evening. It wasn’t his idea; Arefai didn’t have ideas. He wasn’t built for it.

  I didn’t have many other choices. Crosta Natthan and I were hardly boon companions. TaNai and I had another agenda, and I wasn’t going to complicate that.

  Narantir would have to do.

  Chapter 3

  Narantir and other friendly acquaintances.

  A procession was arriving on the main road as the riding path dumped me out near the main entrance to the castle. I was bound for Narantir’s workshop, intending a quick detour to leave the meat at the kitchens and the sad little gelding at the stable.

  Ver Hortun, one of Lord Toshtai’s soldiers, beckoned me to stop and dismount. I could almost see him debating with himself how to treat me. Here I was, only a bourgeois, but I was not only mounted but carrying an unstrung bow and a parcel that looked more than slightly like a deerskin filled with butchered meat strapped to the rear of my saddle. It didn’t take a dan’shir to figure that out, what with the way it was leaking deer blood down the horse’s flanks, attracting flies.

  No three ways about it: either I was absolutely begging to be killed or this was authorized by at least concatenated authority from Lord Toshtai.

  He decided to assume that I hadn’t gone crazy, which was just as well for me. The Foulsmelling Ones of Bhorlan are said to treat insanity with herbs and magic, but we are a simpler folk, with simpler solutions.

  “Meat for the kitchen, eh?” he asked, not quite looking at me. I was, at worst, a pushy bourgeois; but the soldiers around the approaching palanquin were fellow warriors, and watching them Ver Hortun’s first responsibility.

  The horse pranced and tugged at the reins. I pulled hard, only making it more nervous; Ver Hortun had to help me calm it down.

  I nodded. “Lord Arefai invited me to hunt with him this morning. He wishes this delivered to the kitchens.”

  “Mmm.” He nodded. “Venison needs curing or marinating.” Wrapping his fingers tightly in the horse’s mane, he eyed the crowd of soldiers at the gate. “It might be wise to wait here,” he said, over the saddle. “Lord Minch arrives. One wouldn’t want to get bound up in that.”

  “Lord Minch?” I asked. The name was familiar. “From Lair Tiree?”

  He shook his head. “No. Another one. House Menfors from Merth’s Bridge; fealty-bound to the Agami Lords. Famous archer and lecher,” he said, then, as though realizing that he had talked too much, gave me a sideways glance.

  I ignored the indiscretion. “Far from home,” I ventured. I had found that if I was careful, if I didn’t push too hard, I could sometimes make a member of our beloved ruling class treat me like I was a real person. Soldiers were tricky.

  Ver Hortun nodded, his eyes on the arriving party. “He is that. On his way to Glen Derenai for the wedding.”

  Despite the wars that wash up and down our country like a wave in a bathtub, many members of our beloved ruling class seem to spend most of their time traveling back and forth across the face of D’Shai on any pretext available. In part, I suppose, it’s a way of reconfiguring the constantly changing set of alliances that keep the Long War going at a quiet simmer most of the time. I suspect it’s also largely a matter of he who can, does. Most D’Shaians grow old and die within less than a day’s walk from the hovel where they’re born. Then again, most D’Shaians are peasants.

  The arrival of a distant noble is more of a dance than anything else, as stylized and formal a set piece as you’ll find on a Wisterly stage—which is why I would normally have skipped it; dance bores me.

  The chief of the visitor’s bodyguard approaches to exchange a few respectful words with the captain of the guard, and to receive the implicit and sensible assurances that the local lord will not refuse hospitality to an important personage standing outside his gates, an assurance that will always be given. Forgetting—just for a moment, if you please!—the likely penalties resulting from attacking a guest, such could be more easily accomplished within the walls than without.

  Think on the legends, and the history; even ancient Lord Creer made ancient Lord Dilpa welcome and fed him a fine meal before he hamstrung ancient Dilpa and threw him to the pigs, after all.

  I couldn’t see Minch; he was presumably further down the road with the rest of the party (and a large party it would be; members of our beloved ruling class do not travel with a pair of sacks on their backs), waiting out of sight for the expected—required, actually—invitation to stay.

  The representatives of the two sides met barely a stone’s throw from the gate, under the spreading limbs of an old jimsum tree, its boughs heavy with clumps of the thick, bitter nut.

  Minch’s chief bodyguard was almost a pastiche, a caricature of a warrior: he was a tall and rangy man, his broad shoulders straining against the dull green silk of his tunic underneath the reticulated bone armor, a
rmor that had been coated and polished until it seemed to shine with an inner light. He stood with his legs planted arrogantly apart, a massive fist on his left hip, his right hand in front of his waist, just hovering near the hilt of his sword. I just knew that beneath his helmet his hair was properly oiled and pulled back into a warrior’s queue, and while his visor shaded the upper part of his face, there would be carefully drawn dark half-moons of kohl under his eyes.

  I hadn’t heard about the arrival of a dignitary, but Minch must have been an important one, because old Dun Lidjun himself was acting as captain of the guard, and facing off against the visitor’s chief bodyguard.

  Superficially, Dun Lidjun wasn’t much to look at. An older man, limp hair an infinitely dull gray, slim to the point of skinniness, his tunic and pantaloons unfashionably loose at the wrists and ankles, belted tightly across his hips. Narrow eyes and mouth; nose like a knife-blade. There was no overt menace in his manner; his hands didn’t hover near the hilt of a sword that I happened to know was a fine Eisenlith blade. No braggadocio in it, either: the hilt was of plain wood, cord-wound. I wouldn’t have even known that his sword was particularly fine if I hadn’t once seen the naked blade, and I wouldn’t have known it was an Eisenlith blade if somebody else hadn’t mentioned it.

  But then I noticed the small details; that is part of the Way of the Dan’Shir.

  I saw how his thin bangs were trimmed so that they barely brushed his eyebrows; how the rest of his hair was bound back tightly into a warrior’s queue. How his unshifting, steady eyes seemed to take in everything at once. How he never worked to keep his footing, even on the loose stones outside the guard station.