The Horsemen's Gambit bots-2

by DAVID B. COE

  "I understand," Besh told him.

  Torgan glared at each of them in turn. "Damn you all to Bian's demons."

  Ignoring him, Grinsa turned to Sirj and nodded. Sirj began to dig through the rubble, pulling out broken wooden beams, half-burned blankets and pieces of furniture, and occasionally pots or pans. Grinsa sorted these things into piles, and tried to clear away some of the stone that littered the road. After only a few moments, Sirj pulled from the ruins the body of what might have been an old man. The smell was so bad that the Mettai turned away and gagged, though he managed to keep from being ill. Grinsa reached into his carry sack and pulled out an old shirt, which he tore into wide strips. He handed one to each of his companions, and they tied them around their faces. Then they went back to work.

  "This is pointless," Torgan said, his voice carrying through the ruins. Several of the Fal'Borna looked up from their work.

  Grinsa barely even glanced his way. "Keep quiet, Torgan."

  "At least let us work, too," the merchant said. "Sitting here doing nothing… I might as well help."

  "Not here," Grinsa said. "Not near me."

  "Fine then. Let us go down the street." He waved a hand in Besh's direction. "Your friend here will keep an eye on me, won't you, Besh?"

  Grinsa turned to the old man. "Are you willing to do that?"

  Besh nodded. "Yes. I'd rather be helping, too. And I won't let him get away. I killed Lici with magic. I can kill this one, too."

  Clearly he said this more for Torgan than for Grinsa. Grinsa didn't really believe the old man would kill Torgan. But the merchant scowled again and began to walk away.

  "Be careful," Grinsa said, lowering his voice. "I really don't know what he's capable of doing."

  "All right." Besh walked after the merchant toward the pyre.

  Grinsa and Sirj returned to their grim work, and for a long time neither of them spoke other than to ask for help with a heavy object or warn each other of a splintered end of wood or a stray nail.

  At midday, the bells in some of the gates rang, though not all of them. One of the Fal'Borna children working nearby explained that the other gates had been been so badly damaged that their bells didn't work anymore. Q'Daer and Jasha joined them, both of them looking weary and somber.

  "We should be going soon," Q'Daer said.

  Grinsa had stopped working for the moment, but Sirj did not. "They need our help," the Mettai said.

  "I know they do," Q'Daer told him, his voice hard. "But it's more important that we find the other merchants and keep this from happening again."

  Sirj had pulled out a long, charred piece of wood. He paused now, holding it as he stared at the young Weaver. Then he threw it on the pile of beams and nodded, exhaling heavily. "You're right."

  "Where's Torgan?" Jasha asked, looking around for the other merchant.

  Grinsa indicated the end of the lane with a nod. "He's down there, with Besh."

  Jasha scanned the street, shading his eyes with an open hand. "Where?" Grinsa turned to look. "They were just… Damn." He started down the lane. "Come on," he called to the others. "This might take all of us."

  Chapter 19

  Besh didn't relish the idea of keeping watch on the one-eyed merchant, but with Grinsa and the others, including Sirj, busy helping with the bodies and the wreckage, he could hardly refuse. As he followed the Eandi to the end of the lane, he scanned the ground surreptitiously. With stone and dust and debris scattered everywhere, it wouldn't be easy for him to grab a handful of earth. He'd spoken bravely of using magic to control the merchant if the need arose, but if he couldn't find dirt, he wouldn't be able to do anything at all.

  Torgan walked a few paces ahead of him, his head down and his shoulders hunched. He seemed to be muttering to himself, no doubt still put out by Besh's threats. The old man barely recognized himself. Only a season before he'd been in his home village of Kirayde, playing with his grandchildren and tending his garden. Now, for the second time in less than half a turn, he'd threatened someone's life. The last time he'd done it, he'd made good on his threat. Would it come to that again? Was he a killer now?

  Look what you've done to me, Lici. Look what I've become.

  "Is it magic that does it?" Torgan asked suddenly, his voice so low that Besh wasn't certain he'd heard him correctly.

  "What?" Besh said, walking quickly to catch up with the man.

  "It's like you're one of them now. You act like the Fal'Borna and like that Forelander. You said you'd kill me if you had to."

  "I was only-"

  "I know what you were doing. And I'm asking you if it's the magic that makes all of you like that. You have power over people, is that it? You're stronger than the rest of us, because you can conjure and the rest of us can't. Is that what makes you threaten and bully?"

  Besh would have laughed had Torgan not sounded so earnest and so hurt. He had never thought of himself as a bully; he still didn't. But here was this great brute of a man-Torgan was a full head taller than Besh and he probably weighed half again as much-claiming that Besh had browbeaten him.

  "Have you ever used your size to intimidate others?" Besh asked him. "Perhaps to get your way in a negotiation?"

  Torgan glanced his way, though only for an instant. "Maybe. I don't know."

  "We use what weapons we have," Besh said. "I'm not a big man, Torgan. And I'm probably older than you are by four fours, perhaps more. But I wield powerful magic. That's my strength. I'd be mad not to use it, wouldn't I?"

  The merchant shrugged. "I suppose."

  Reaching the end of the lane, they found three young Fal'Borna men digging through the rubble. All of them bore cuts and scrapes on their arms, and one of them had a nasty burn on the side of his face that he must have gotten the night the pestilence struck. It had healed somewhat, as if treated by magic. But it looked as if it still hurt, and Besh thought it likely that the man would bear the scar for the rest of his life. The three men stopped working as Besh and Torgan approached.

  Off to the side, the pyre smoldered, its dark smoke still staining the sky overhead.

  "We've come to help if we can," Besh said. The men stared back at him, saying nothing.

  "We can do whatever you need us to do. We can dig. We can pile the things you find."

  "We're searching for the dead," one of the men said, his voice flat.

  "We can search as well. Or we can place the bodies you find on the pyre. As I say, we've come to help."

  "We don't want you touching them," said the burned man. Torgan bristled. "Well, then-"

  Besh laid a hand on the merchant's arm, silencing him.

  "I understand," Besh said. "If I was in your position, and two Eandi men came offering help, I'd probably send them away, too. But we're here, and you've a grim, difficult task to complete. So perhaps we can help in some other way."

  The third Fal'Borna looked at the other two, a question in his bright yellow eyes. After several moments, the scarred man shrugged.

  "Fine then," he said. "You can dig over there. Call us if you find anything. Or anyone."

  "We will, of course," Besh said. He started toward the ruins the man had indicated.

  Torgan was close behind him. "Ungrateful bastards," he whispered. "We should have just left them to do it alone."

  Besh said nothing, and soon they were fighting their way through the massive pile of shattered stone and twisted wooden beams. Almost as soon as they began to pull away some of the rubble, Besh caught the foul scent of rotting flesh. There was at least one body beneath the wreckage.

  "Damn," he muttered.

  "I smell it, too," Torgan said. "We should tell them."

  "Not yet," Besh said. "We'll clear away what we can, but we'll honor their wishes. When it comes time to pull out the dead, we'll call them."

  They continued to move away the wood and stone, saying little. Torgan, not surprisingly, was a poor worker. He rested often, pausing after every scrap of wood and every chunk of rock, and even when h
e did work, he did so slowly, as if refusing to exert himself. Besh kept these thoughts to himself. He didn't expect Torgan would take criticism well.

  The stench from the rubble grew steadily worse as they worked. The scrap of cloth that Besh had wrapped around his face helped a bit, but his eyes were watering, and he felt ill. It took all his will to keep working, particularly with Torgan doing so much less than his share of the labor.

  So it was that Torgan's whispered words caught him completely by surprise.

  "This can't be good," the merchant said.

  Looking up, Besh saw the two soldiers from the gate approaching from the far side of the pyre. It almost seemed to Besh that they had taken a route that would keep them away from Grinsa and the others.

  "Mettai!" the scarred soldier called. He had a predatory grin on his face, as did his companion.

  The three Fal'Borna looked up at that, and then turned toward Torgan and Besh.

  "That's right," the soldier said, looking at the other Qirsi. "That one, the old man. He's Mettai. Didn't they tell you?"

  "Mettai?" asked the young Fal'Borna with the scar. "You're Mettai?" Besh was bent over, and he straightened now, though not before he took a handful of dirt from the lane. There was a good deal of dust from the stone walls mixed in, but he thought that he could conjure with it, provided he could get his knife out. None of the Fal'Borna appeared to notice what he had done. "Yes," Besh said. "I'm Mettai. I'm also the person who killed the woman responsible for the pestilence."

  The young Fal'Borna's eyes widened. "You killed her?"

  "He's Mettai!" the soldier said, drawing the man's gaze. "Never mind the rest of it. Our people are under attack, and his people are the enemy."

  "Your n'qlae didn't see it that way," Besh said.

  The soldier shook his head. "No, but the a'laq would have. She's not our leader, not really."

  "And you are?" Besh asked. "I've been declared a friend of all Fal'Borna by an a'laq on the plain. You would put yourself above that man as well?"

  "Keep quiet, Mettai!" the man said. He looked down the lane back toward where Grinsa and Sirj were working. Then he pulled his sword free and waved it at a small alley off the lane. "In there. Now." He pointed his blade at Torgan. "You, too, dark-eye."

  The alley appeared to be cluttered with broken stone, but it was open enough for a small group of men; a perfect place for the soldier to kill them both. But Besh noticed that the Fal'Borna was relying on his weapon, rather than on his power, and he wondered what magics the man wielded. He was tempted to pull his knife free right away, but quickly thought better of it. His best hope was to catch the Fal'Borna unaware.

  He started walking slowly toward the alley. Torgan fell in step beside him.

  The guard and his companion followed. "The three of you stay out here," the soldier said. "Watch for their friends."

  "What are you going to do to him?" the young Fal'Borna asked.

  The soldier looked at him, as if trying to decide whether or not to answer. "This is war," he finally said. "And like I told you, these men are our enemies."

  "Aren't you going to do something?" Torgan asked, his voice low. "You can do magic, right?"

  "Yes, I can. Get directly behind me as we walk into the alley."

  "What?" Torgan asked. "Why?"

  "I need my knife. If you can block me from view for a moment, I can get it free without anyone noticing."

  Torgan nodded. "All right."

  "Once I have it out, you'll need to get out of my way so that I can throw my conjuring at him. I'll tell you when."

  "Right."

  They neared the mouth of the alleyway, and Torgan fell in step behind Besh.

  "Now," Torgan whispered.

  Besh pulled his knife from its sheath on his belt, quickly cut the back of his hand, and gathered the blood on the flat of the blade, no small feat while walking over the wreckage of the buildings.

  "After the third element in the spell, you need to get down," Besh said. "What? The third what?"

  Besh didn't wait; Torgan would just have to figure it out. "Blood to earth," he said. "Life to power, power to thought." He spun around. Torgan's eyes widened and he dropped to the ground.

  Too late, the Fal'Borna soldier realized the danger.

  "Earth to fire!" Besh shouted. And as he said this, he threw the blood and earth at the man. Instantly, the clump of dirt changed to a ball of flame that soared toward the Fal'Borna's chest. The soldier lunged down and to the side, avoiding the attack, but his companion was not so fortunate. The fire crashed into his shoulder, the force of it knocking him to the ground.

  Besh stooped quickly to grab another fistful of dirt, but before he could do anything more, the Fal'Borna's magic hit him. It was also fire, and Besh had no warning at all. Suddenly his shirt was burning, searing his arms and chest. He fell over and writhed on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames, though it was difficult to do with the debris all around him. By the time he'd managed to put the fire out, the soldier was standing over him, the tip of his sword hovering over Besh's heart. Torgan merely sat where he was, doing nothing, seemingly afraid of alerting the man to the fact that he was there. But the merchant's clothing bore burn marks as well, mostly on his left arm and shoulder. Apparently the fire magic had been directed at both of them.

  "Mettai scum!" the Fal'Borna said to Besh, still menacing the old man with his blade. "Drop that knife."

  Besh took a breath and said, "No," as bravely as he could, knowing what the man would do, hoping that the blow wouldn't be enough to sever his arm.

  Just as Besh had expected, the soldier slashed at his forearm. Besh cried out in pain and grabbed at the wound with his other hand, which already held a fresh handful of dirt.

  "I told you to drop the blade!" the soldier said.

  Besh did as the man commanded, but already he was speaking the spell under his breath. He'd used this one on Lici during their first encounter and it had distracted her without killing her, which was just what Besh hoped it would do now. "Blood to earth, life to power, power to thought, earth to swarm."

  He flung the dirt at the soldier, and as it flew from his hand it became a cloud of yellow and black hornets. Beset by the insects, the soldier dropped his sword to swat at them. He backed away, then turned and ran, the hornets following him.

  "That was remarkable!" Torgan said, staring at Besh as if the old man had transformed himself into a god. "I'd heard people speak of Mettai magic, but I'd never seen anyone actually do it until now. Very impressive."

  "Thank you," Besh said, still clutching his injured arm.

  The merchant climbed to his feet, and helped Besh up. But the old man hadn't been standing for more than a heartbeat when pain exploded in his right leg and he collapsed to the ground again, crying out as he fell. Only after he had fallen did he realize that he'd heard the bone in his leg snap.

  "I'll do the same to you, dark-eye," came a voice. "Back down on the ground. Now!"

  Looking up through a haze of agony, Besh saw the other soldier approaching, the one he had burned with his fire spell, the one who, it seemed, possessed shaping magic.

  Besh reached for another handful of dirt.

  "Stop, Mettai! Unless you want that arm shattered, too!"

  He'd been willing to risk a cut from the other man's sword. But whatever this soldier had done to his leg hurt nearly as much as what Lici had done to his hand. He stopped moving.

  The soldier grinned. "That's right. Your magic might be able to do us some harm, but it's nothing compared with the power of a Qirsi." He walked to where Besh lay sprawled on the ground and kicked his injured leg. The wave of anguish that broke over Besh in that moment almost made him pass out.

  "How should I kill you, Mettai? I'll give you the choice. Magic or steel?"

  "Just make it quick," Besh said, staring at the ground, trying to keep from being ill.

  The soldier placed the tip of his sword under Besh's chin and forced the man to look up at him
. "I don't think so."

  This was another way his life had changed in the last few turns, Besh thought. Not only was he threatening to kill people, but others always seemed to be looking for reasons to hurt him, to make him suffer. I'll make you a deal, he said within his mind, speaking now to the gods. Stop the torture and I'll stop the threats.

  With a flick of his sword, the soldier cut his cheek, this newest pain making Besh gasp. So much for prayers, he thought.

  "Who says I need to choose?" the man said. "Magic and steel will do nicely."

  Besh expected at any moment to have another bone explode within him, and so at the next snapping sound he winced and shuddered. An instant later, though, he realized that this sound had been different. There'd been a metallic ring to it. Opening his eyes, he saw that the soldier still stood over him. The man's sword, however, lay in fragments at his feet, and all the soldier held in his hand was the hilt of his weapon.

  "Get away from him!"

  The soldier spun. Besh looked toward the entrance to the alley. There stood Grinsa, Q'Daer, Sirj, and Jasha. It was the Forelander who had spoken.

  For several seconds it seemed that nothing happened and no one spoke. Then the Fal'Borna roared in frustration, and Besh understood that something had indeed been happening, but it had been beyond his comprehension.

  "That's right," Grinsa said. "I'm a Weaver. You won't be using any more magic against that man. And if you don't get away from him now, I'll shatter every bone in your body."

  "He's Mettai!" the man shouted, grief and rage mingled in his voice. He held up his hands, gesturing at the ruins around them. "His kind did all this to us! Don't you understand that?"

  "The woman who did this may have been Mettai, but that doesn't make her his kind. Now one last time, get away from him. Or I swear I'll kill you."

  The man stared down at Besh for a moment, as if contemplating whether it was worth dying if he could take Besh with him. In the end, he seemed to decide that it wasn't. He started forward toward Grinsa and the others.