The Horsemen's Gambit bots-2

by DAVID B. COE

  But she shook her head. "That won't work." She squatted and picked up a handful of dirt, all the while keeping the spear point level with his eyes. Then she scratched at the back of her hand again. Once more blood began to flow from the marks there. "What would it take?" she asked, seemingly speaking to herself. "How would I make this curse?"

  "What are you doing?"

  "I've told you. I'm making a new spell. I have you here; I can see what works and what doesn't."

  Besh reached for the ground with his bloody hand.

  "Stop it!" Lici said, smacking the side of his face with the flat of the spearhead.

  Besh glared up at her, but he kept his hand moving.

  "Stop!"

  He ignored her. She could hurt him all she wanted, but he wasn't going to allow her to use him to make a Mettai plague.

  He placed his hand on the ground and wrapped his fist around a clod of dirt. "Blood to earth, life to power," he started to chant.

  "No!" she screamed.

  And raising the spear shaft over her head, she stabbed down on his hand, the point piercing flesh and bone and flesh again, before digging into the ground.

  Besh howled, the agony in his hand nearly robbing him of consciousness. His stomach heaved and he vomited down the front of his shirt. But even through the haze of anguish that enveloped him, he was aware of the blood running from his hand into the ground. He didn't have to make a fist-he couldn't have had he tried-but the magic was there. He wouldn't have much control over it, not in this state. But the time for that had passed. Any hopes he had for Lici and what she could do for them were gone. He cared now only for his family and his village, and yes, here at the end, for his own survival.

  "Power to thought," he gasped, finishing the spell he had begun. "Magic to magic!"

  He couldn't throw the magic at her. He didn't have to. It shot up the shaft of the spear like a bolt of crimson fire, crashing into Lici's chest and knocking her backward as if she were but a child's doll. She sprawled to the ground, her eyes still open wide, but she didn't move again and smoke rose from a blackened spot over her heart.

  Besh took hold of the spear shaft and tried to pull it free of his hand, but all he managed to do was grind the base of the metal tip against the shattered bones in his hand. His vision swam and he fell back into darkness.

  Besh?"

  The voice reached him first-Sirj's voice-but immediately he became aware of the blazing agony in his hand.

  "Heal me," he muttered. "Take that damn thing out of my hand and heal me."

  He heard Sirj say something, realized that the younger man wasn't alone, but he couldn't even bring himself to open his eyes.

  He must have passed out a second time. The next thing he knew, he was sitting up, and someone was giving him water to drink. He forced his eyes open and found himself looking into Sirj's concerned face. Several Qirsi stood behind him. Fal'Borna. The pain in his hand had dulled to a throbbing ache; his shoulder and legs felt better, too. No doubt he looked a mess.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "I only did part of it," Sirj said, glancing toward the white-hairs. "And I wouldn't thank them, yet. I think they're going to kill us."

  Besh looked past Sirj at the nearest of the Fal'Borna, an older man with long white hair and a white stone hanging at his throat. The Qirsi stared back at him until at last Besh faced Sirj again.

  "It seems you haven't done much better than I have today."

  Sirj shrugged. "I haven't done very well, but I managed not to get stabbed, so I think I'm still ahead."

  Besh had to grin. "Help me up," he said.

  "I don't think you're ready."

  "I don't care. Before these men kill me, I want to look them in the eye."

  Sirj nodded and helped him to his feet. His legs trembled and the pain in his thigh returned, but after a moment he found the strength to stand without Sirj's support.

  The old Fal'Borna gestured at Lici's body. "This is the witch who cursed my people?"

  "Yes," Besh said.

  "And you killed her."

  "I had no choice. She was going to kill me. She was going to curse the Mettai as she did the Y'Qatt."

  Sirj gaped at him, but Besh kept his attention fixed on the Fal'Borna. "Your friend said that a merchant is still wandering the plain selling her baskets."

  "We believe he is, yes. We know his name and what he looks like, but we have no idea where he is right now."

  "Is it still your intention to search for him?" the Fal'Borna asked. "A'Laq-" one of the warriors said in a low voice.

  The Fal'Borna raised a hand, silencing him. "Is it?" he asked again. Besh nodded. "Yes. I swore an oath to the leader of my village that I would find Lici and stop her. I found her and she's dead. But I won't have fulfilled my oath until I've ended this plague she loosed upon you."

  The a'laq nodded. "Then you'll need food."

  Sirj gave him a puzzled look. "I thought that Fal'Borna law gave you little choice but to kill us."

  "That was before," the a'laq said. "Now, your friend has killed an enemy of the Fal'Borna. By custom that makes him an ally, and you as well." He smiled, the change in his expression transforming his appearance. All the severity vanished, leaving a face as friendly and open as any Besh had ever seen. "Come, friends. We'll feed you and give you more food for your travels."

  "We can pay you," Sirj said.

  The a'laq grinned. "Oh, you will." He turned and started toward the Fal'Borna's mounts, which stood clustered together a short distance off. "What about her?" Besh asked.

  The a'laq paused and glanced at Lici once more. "We leave her to the crows."

  Not long ago Besh would have objected. He thought he'd come to understand Lici; not to sympathize with her, but at least to recognize the dark path that led her to the terrible things she had done. He could tell that Sirj expected him to argue with the Fal'Borna, to plead for a more dignified end for the woman. But his hand ached, and his legs and shoulder still pained him, and he couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened to Elica and his grandchildren and the people he had known all his life if she had made good on her final threat.

  Silently, he followed the a'laq. And as he passed her body, he tapped two fingers against his lips four times: the Mettai warding against evil.

  Chapter 8

  QALS YN, STELPANA

  For the first several days after the Harvest Tournament it seemed to Tirnya that nobody in the city spoke of anything except her failure to draw blood from Enly while the lord heir was down, and her subsequent defeat in that final match. Most thought they were doing her a kindness by telling her how honorably she had fought. Others made it clear that they thought she was too soft to be an effective warrior, or an effective captain in His Lordship's army, for that matter. As her father had counseled that first day, she tried to listen only to those who saw the virtue in what she had done, but ignoring her doubters proved nearly impossible.

  Soon enough, however, her days and nights were occupied with more pressing matters. The brigands who had been harassing peddlers on the roads south of the city were expanding their assaults, striking at travelers from the north as well. At any time, the lord governor had little patience for such lawlessness in his lands. But with the Harvest trading well under way, he seemed to view these attacks as a personal affront, as if the brigands were plundering gold from His Lordship's treasury. He ordered his captains to rid the lands around the city of all the outlaws and he made it clear that he didn't care if any of his soldiers ate or slept again until his orders had been carried out. He even went so far as to offer a bounty of ten sovereigns for each brigand killed or caught.

  Needless to say, Tirnya's soldiers spent nearly as much time planning how to spend the gold they expected to earn as they did actually hunting for the road thieves. To their credit, Oliban and the other lead riders in her company kept the foot soldiers on task much of the time. As a result, Tirnya's riders claimed a good portion of His Lordship's gold as thei
r own. As had always been her way, Tirnya ordered that any gold earned by soldiers in her company be shared equally by all, regardless of which man struck the wounding or killing blow. She had learned this policy from her father, who had once told her that the worst thing a commander could do was to pit one of his men against another.

  "They live and die as a company," he had told her, when she was first learning the rudiments of command. "They ought to share equally in everything. The glory of one is the glory of all; the same is true of failure."

  Maisaak's rewards struck her as being no different, and her men appeared to agree. That said, she took no share of the gold for herself. She earned enough as their leader.

  Enly's company and that of Stri Balkett also claimed a fair amount of Maisaak's gold, but by the end of the waxing, small bands of brigands still remained at large. His Lordship's patience, as all of them knew, was far from boundless, and most days Tirnya and her men were on duty from midday to dawn. In the few hours afforded them in the mornings, they slept and ate, and saw to whatever other duties their lives demanded. Her men were ragged with fatigue, and Tirnya was not much better off.

  Her father complained bitterly about how hard the lord governor was pushing them, but when Tirnya pressed him he admitted that, if he were ruler of the city, he would do much the same. The brigands' attacks had taken a heavy toll. Dozens of peddlers had lost their gold and their wares over the past turn and a half. Many had been wounded, and, to date, eleven people were known to have been murdered. The thieves had also taken a heavy toll on trade throughout the city, and would continue to do so until they were wiped out. Already there was talk in the marketplace of merchants avoiding Qalsyn, of traders in other towns and villages saying that the city was no longer safe. Crafters in the city and farmers from the surrounding countryside had goods to sell; they needed gold so that they could buy their provisions for the coming Snows. Tirnya was desperate for rest, and though she had no affection for Maisaak, she understood why he was demanding so much of her and her company.

  Yet, even with all of Qalsyn gripped by talk of the brigands and the skirmishes being fought beyond the city walls, Tirnya also managed to listen to other tales being bandied about among the peddlers' carts and stalls of the city marketplace. These stories had nothing to do with thieves, or for that matter with this city. Rather, they pertained to the outbreak of pestilence in the Central Plain.

  Since hearing of the pestilence at the Swift Water Inn just after the tournament, she had thought about it in odd moments, and had sought out any who might bear tidings from that part of the land. Word from so far off was hard to come by, but occasionally she found merchants, many of them Qirsi, who had journeyed from the West. She generally avoided white-hairs-her family had fought against the Fal'Borna for centuries and though she had never so much as had an argument with one, she hated them for what they had done to Deraqor. But she would have spoken with the a'laq of her beloved city if only he could tell her something about what was happening on the plain.

  From what little she did learn, it seemed that the pestilence had struck most fiercely at the Y'Qatt settlements near the Companion Lakes, but that it had spread westward as the Harvest went on. She had not heard of it striking any villages to the east of the Silverwater.

  On this morning, she had circled twice through the marketplace looking for merchants to question and was debating whether to walk around a third time or return home to snatch a few hours of sleep before beginning her next patrol. She had nearly made up her mind to make her way to bed when she saw another merchant steering his cart into the market. He was an older man, Eandi, with brown hair that was thinning and turning silver. His cart looked to be nearly as old as he, and his horse could hardly be called young. His clothes fit him well, but they were plain and threadbare. In short, there was little about him that would have caught her attention on any other day. But she noticed immediately that he carried animal skins prominently displayed on his cart. Rilda skins.

  She watched as he selected a spot to stop his cart-a narrow space between two other Eandi merchants, both Qosantians by the look of them. The newcomer looked to be one of the Wolf People as well. He had the fair complexion of the lowlanders, and his horse, a small roan, also put her in mind of the mounts she had seen from Qosantia. As he began to set out his wares, Tirnya approached him.

  One of the other merchants must have said something to him, because he turned quickly and smiled.

  "What can I do for you, Captain?" he asked, his accent subtle, but definitely Qosantian. "A sword perhaps?" He began to search through those items that he had yet to remove from his cart. "I've shillads, Aelean steel, bodkins from Tordjanne." He glanced back at her, a conspiratorial grin on his angular face. "I even have a few daggers forged by the T'Saan. Very rare in these parts."

  She shook her head, wondering if there were really Eandi soldiers who would deign to carry a white-hair blade into battle.

  "No," she said. "I'm not looking for a new blade."

  "Of course. Jewelry then. A woman as lovely as you-surely there's more to your life than training and battles."

  "No, I'm not interested in jewelry either." Tirnya raised a hand to keep him from offering more goods. "I need information."

  His face fell, and he went back to sorting his goods, setting some out on his blankets, leaving other items in the cart.

  "I have precious little of that," he said, his voice flat.

  Tirnya grinned at how quickly he'd gone from charming to sullen. "You've been in Fal'Borna land."

  "What makes you say so?"

  "The rilda skins. Only the Fal'Borna can tan so well."

  The man straightened, smiling again, perhaps sensing that he might make a sale after all. "They are fine ones, aren't they? Four sovereigns apiece, and that will also buy all that I know about the Fal'Borna, and anything else you might ask."

  "Four is high, for the skin and the information." She scanned his blankets quickly, her gaze coming to rest on a curved knife with a polished stone handle. She pointed at it. "But I'll give you two for that. And some answers."

  He shook his head and frowned as if the tale he was about to tell her was too sad to bear. "Would that I could sell it for so little, Captain," he said. "But that's as fine a blade as you'll find in Qosantia, and what's more, it may well be the last of its kind. The man who made it, a smith named Clarton, died this past Growing. Tragic tale, actually. His poor wife and children-"

  "I haven't time for tales, tragic or otherwise," Tirnya said. "And I won't pay more than two. Now, I can ask you questions with your blade on my belt and my gold in your pocket, or I can simply ask. One way or another, I intend to have answers. It's your choice."

  "He had children, you know," the merchant said, looking wounded. "Now they're orphans."

  She raised an eyebrow. "His widow died, too?"

  "What?"

  "The children are only orphans if both parents have died."

  He opened his mouth, then faltered, his brow creasing.

  "You might want to work on your story a bit more," she said. She heard one of the other merchants snickering.

  He stared at her another moment, his mouth twisting sourly. Then he picked up the blade, handed it to her, and held out his other palm for her coins. "What do you want to know?"

  She didn't give him the money right away. "Where were you before you came to Stelpana?"

  "The plain, just as you said."

  "And you were trading with the Fal'Borna?"

  The man nodded. "I was after skins: rilda, wildcat, wolf. Didn't find much by way of cats or wolves, but they had plenty of rilda. I also found some wooden bowls and a good deal of the grain the white-hairs grow. It fetches a fair price as you head farther east. I had some blankets, beaver and stoat pelts, baskets, even a bit of Tordjanni wine. I did well, considering."

  She narrowed her eyes. "Considering what?"

  The merchant shrugged. "Considering that I was trading with the Fal'Borna. They're a di
fficult people."

  That much Tirnya knew. "Was there any talk of the pestilence in the septs you visited?"

  "There's always talk of the pestilence, Captain, particularly when it's been found in other places, like the Y'Qatt villages." He frowned. "But now that you mention it, I did hear, a few days after stopping in one sept, that it had been destroyed by disease of some sort. They weren't calling it the pestilence. It was some white-hair plague that they talked about."

  "Who talked about it?"

  He shrugged. "Other merchants. They say it strikes at their magic. It makes them sick-the white-hairs, that is-and then it attacks their magic, so that they destroy themselves and their homes." The man shook his head. "Bad business, if you ask me. I'm no friend of their kind, mind you, but I'm a merchant before anything else, and I'm telling you that if we can't trade with the Qirsi, there's going to be a good deal less gold in the sovereignties."

  "You can't expect it to kill all the Qirsi," Tirnya said, thinking that the man must have been listening to some wild tales.

  "No, I don't. But I know for a fact that the Fal'Borna are starting to turn merchants away. They think that the plague is being spread by Eandi traders."

  Tirnya shivered in spite of herself, as if a frigid finger had traced the length of her spine. "Why would they think that?"

  "Because none of us even gets sick, and all of them die."

  "None of us…?"

  "By all rights, I should be dead, Captain," the merchant said. "I was there just before the outbreak started. I heard things about it-" He broke off, swallowing and looking away briefly. "I should be dead," he finally said again.

  Tirnya wasn't certain what to say. In the end, she merely nodded once, placed the coins in the man's hand, and walked away.

  She didn't have long before her next patrol was to begin, but still she returned to her home and lay down for a time, hoping to sleep just a bit. She barely even closed her eyes. It didn't help that Zira, her mother, made no effort to lower her voice when speaking to Tirnya's brothers. But Tirnya doubted that she would have slept in any case. She spent the entire time turning over in her head again and again all that the merchant had told her. As when she first heard of this outbreak of the pestilence, she couldn't say why it occupied her mind so. There seemed to be little danger of the disease coming to Qalsyn; the Companion Lakes, where it seemed to have begun, were far from here, and the disease was spreading westward, away from Stelpana. She wasn't afraid, either for herself or for her people.