Pain-anger-fear radiated up from her. Mako reined her horse in beside them, then slid down, automatically adjusting her riding-slit robe.
“Let her up, she’s just a child,” she said, but though the soldier pinning the girl glanced up at her, he did not move. His face was fixed sternly in the shadow of his helm, and with his other hand he worked to pry the knife from the girl’s clenched fingers.
“She’s dangerous, scryer,” said another soldier, who then swung down to nudge the fallen boy with a boot. “What the pike happened to this one?”
“I happened,” said Mako, irritated. Behind her, her Sky horse shied as a few more men on Tasgards reined in to join the crowd. “Stop doing that. Give me a moment.”
The soldier grunted and Mako took that for assent. Narrowing her eyes at the fallen boy, she pierced his mind again and felt his struggles like moth-wings fluttering against her face.
Quickly, clinically, she flipped through his sense of identity.
Eston Vier, fourteen, orphan, harvest man, Mist Forest border camp under boss Silus.
A bandit, then. One of the many that the Crimson Army had hunted through the grasslands and the woods, along the coastlines and through the abandoned villages. No different from the men they had been rounding up in the smugglers’ coves.
But not part of the Cray family.
She chewed her lip, then looked to the girl, who had finally relinquished the knife. Laying there in the dirt, she seethed with sick anger, but her mind worked quickly—not in panicked circles like many would, but clearly, outlining thoughts like flirt and bribe.
Mako arched a brow. The girl could not be more than thirteen.
Then again, that was the customary age of consent.
She tried to probe for identity, but her psychic needle hit a wall. Not a thick or sophisticated one; like a sheet of mud, it would have been easy for Mako to puncture. But she did not bother. Brute-force tactics could shatter the defending mind, and the very existence of the defense told her enough.
This girl had the mentalist spark.
“Let her up, by the authority of the Silent Circle,” Mako said, more forcefully this time.
The soldier gave her a puzzled look. “Scryer?”
“You heard me. The girl has a talent. By the Circle’s agreement with the Imperial Armies, I am authorized to take custody of her. Are you going to refuse me?”
The soldier blanched and withdrew his knee from the girl’s back. “Uh…it’s not my place to refuse or concede,” he said as he tucked the confiscated knife into his belt and pulled her up by the wrists. “We’ll have to talk to the captain.”
“Very well,” Mako said coolly, then looked from him to the girl. Grass in her hair and mud on her face, she glared through hostile dark eyes; she was nearly Mako’s height—not that it counted for much—and firm-shouldered like any farm-child. In the future she might be tall and pretty if she ever learned to moderate her scowl.
“You, behave,” said Mako. “I’m doing you a favor.”
The girl spat at her.
“And now you get to experience mind-control.”
*****
Captain Sarovy frowned as Scryer Mako approached, noting the two children moving mechanically in her wake: a black-haired girl in early adolescence and a younger boy, his expression vague and dreamy. Several soldiers accompanied them, looking uneasy. No one liked being reminded of what a mentalist could do.
“Captain,” the scryer called, “there’s another boy in the field, but he’s not of the family. I wasn’t sure if we wanted him.”
“No. Only the Crays.”
“And this girl is a proto-mentalist. I’d like to take her back to the Citadel as per our agreement with the Armies.”
Sarovy narrowed his eyes at the scryer. While he knew about the policy, he had no way to verify the truth of her claim, and he had heard of mentalists declaring people ‘talented’ just to get them out of the Armies’ hands. While he could sympathize—he did not understand the Field Marshal’s need for the children—he could not let that prevent him from carrying out his mission.
“I was instructed to retrieve all of the Crays, scryer,” he said flatly, “and I will not deviate from that. Before you object, I swear to take your concern to the Field Marshal or his proxy, but I cannot promise a positive outcome.”
The scryer’s expression tightened, then she wrinkled her pert nose and waved a hand dismissively. “Fine, keep pushing it up the chain of command, I know how it is with you soldiers. Someone take care of these children.”
At Sarovy’s gesture, two lancers stepped forward to grab the boy and girl, and Scryer Mako shook her head as if clearing an unpleasant thought. The children’s stiff postures relaxed, the boy slumping in his captor’s grip, but the girl immediately twisted as if she had been waiting to escape. The man who held her shouted with alarm as her shawl came off in his hands.
Instead of running for the fields, she darted forward to jab a finger at Sarovy. “You can’t do this! I aided you! I was promised gold if you caught that man! Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Taken aback, Sarovy said nothing. The lancer who had let the girl slip came after her, cursing, but Ammala stepped in first. Mouth open to loose another demand, the girl turned toward her mother and Ammala slapped her hard across the face.
“Fool child!” she said, even as Sarovy caught her by the arm and hauled her back. The lancer grabbed the stunned girl. “You dealt with the enemy?” Ammala raged on. “You sold our secrets? Do you know what ill you’ve wrought?”
“He promised me!” the girl shouted, kicking wildly but ineffectually as the lancer lifted her off her feet. “The blond man! He promised me gold when he came back!”
Hunter Trevere, Sarovy thought, and shook his head. That explained a few things. “He will not return,” he said. “You may plead your case to the General but I doubt you will be paid.”
“But I helped you!”
“The Empire appreciates your assistance, but our current orders take precedence.”
The girl spluttered, and Sarovy gestured with his helm for the lancer to take her to a horse. The one with the boy had already done so, and Lieutenant Linciard sat with the crone ahead of him, the very image of seething awkwardness. As the girl was forced up into the saddle, Sarovy turned to regard Ammala Cray.
Though her face was grim, with more lines seeming to carve it as he watched, Ammala met his gaze firmly. “I will not be so troublesome as my daughter, captain. If we must go, then let us be on with it.”
“I appreciate your cooperation,” said Sarovy, then nodded past her. “Sergeant Benson, if you will take the little girl.”
“Yes sir,” said the sergeant, and with an admirably gentle manner he crouched by the child, spoke a few soft words then detached her hands from her mother’s skirts. Ammala stared after them as he led the child to his horse and hoisted her up.
Sarovy gestured to his own steed, and with a stiff nod, Ammala allowed him to boost her up. Then he swung himself ahead of her and took the reins from the man who had held them. As the rest of the lancers mounted up, he felt her arms lock around his waist, her forehead coming to rest against his backplate. Her sigh was a wretched thing to hear.
Clapping his helmet on, he gave a last glance for the cottage—for the cat huddled on the roof and the goats and gartos milling in confusion, and the odd little doll swinging from the eaves. Then he hauled on the reins, turning his horse north toward Bahlaer. The harvest men could take what they had left behind; the Empire wanted only the Crays.
It seemed to him at that moment that such was always the way. Territory, resources, money, all were treasured, but it was lives that kept the Empire running. Lives that fed it.
Banish such thoughts, he told himself. They are the witch’s words working upon you.
But he could not say he had never considered it before.
*****
Far to the east, curtains were drawn open in a wooden house on a cobbled street,
and two startled faces looked out upon the white-armored soldiers at their door. One occupant, the man, growled his intent to fight, but the woman set a hand on his arm and bid him in a watery voice to look more closely at the soldier who led them.
After a soft yet steely conversation, they opened the door, and both crossed from the red-lined shelter of the house to the undefended step.
“How can this be, Malin? We were told you died in battle,” said Vriene Damiel, her hands outstretched toward the commanding soldier. Along the street, other citizens had gathered—men, women, children, all tense, all keeping their distance from the soldiers with their white, flame-marked armor. A few gestured subtly toward the husband, Sogan, indicating that they would come to the couple’s aid if required.
But the commanding soldier smiled ruefully, his helm tucked under his arm, black hair pulled back from his bluff features and a golden pendant gleaming at his throat. “Such are the miracles of the Imperial Light, mother,” said Malin Damiel. “I have been sent to see that you witness them first-hand.”
And at the glimmer of tears in his beloved wife’s eyes, at the ache in his own chest, Sogan found he could not call the townsfolk to war. When his wife took his hand and stepped down to the street, he could only follow.
Chapter 22 – Ghost Town
Cob and his companions did not stay long in the caravan-shelter. The white hawk plagued Cob’s dreams, pulling him awake well before dawn to pace restlessly while the others rubbed sleep from their eyes. Though he waited until they finished drying clothing and mending gear, cooking, packing, it was hard for him to focus. The hawk kept calling.
On their way out the door, Lark asked him why he was barefoot. Too edgy to answer in words, he summoned his antlers and the thick sheets of bark and stone that made his armor. It was easy in this healthy land, and from Lark’s expression, no further explanation was needed.
That day’s travel went swiftly and smoothly, with Cob breaking trail for the others like the prow of a ship, every hoofbeat on the snowy earth invigorating him. His strength was his herd’s strength, flowing from him to the others, and though he felt Dasira and Ilshenrir hanging back from his aura, Fiora and Arik and Lark took tangible comfort from it, their steps sure on the uneven ground, their skin unchapped by the cold wind.
So steady was the run that he did not want to pause for anything. Not dinner, not nightfall. At some point, though, he sensed protests from the others. The white hawk flew onward, and he wanted to follow it through the thickening forest, across the heightening hills, but he knew he should stop. Clouds huddled ahead, spreading grey tendrils across the star-strewn sky. It would be wrong to drag them into the teeth of a blizzard.
Still, it took a tin cup to the back of the head before he realized that he had just thought of stopping, not actually done it. Even then he merely slowed, looking back to see what was wrong.
That was when they tackled him.
Three women and a wolf were not so much weight as to hold him down, but after flinging Fiora off and seeing her barely miss a tree, he managed to control himself. Initially their words sounded like gibberish, and it took him a while to focus well enough to understand what they were yelling about. Finally though, 'freezing' and 'sleep' broke through.
After carving a shelter from the crisp-frozen snow, he let them guide him into it so they could huddle around their little fire, and accepted the bowl that was offered though he felt no hunger. When Fiora snuggled up to him afterward, he could not focus on her. He wanted to, but the white hawk kept drawing his eyes, hovering above the shelter and glowing through the ice. It would not let him concentrate on anything else.
The next two days passed in the same way: a fugue state of constant travel broken only by the needs of the others. He dreamed ancient dreams as they drew closer to the Trivestean Tablelands. In them, the hills lowered and the valleys filled until all was a warm, shallow sea. Stars wheeled in the sky, witnessed by trees of stranger kinds, and dense flocks of birds passed overheard, each twice the size of a man.
The tin cup intruded periodically. He learned how to ignore it then forced himself not to, because though he could measure the heartbeats of each member of his herd—except for the wraith, who had no heart—he could not read their minds. Once or twice, he stopped at their behest only to realize a storm was already upon them, thick curtains of snow obscuring the path as lightning crackled in the heights. That he had not seen the flash or heard the thunder only told him that he had gone past needing eyes or ears. He sensed with his hooves, with his memories. All else was transient and thus unworthy of attention.
By the fourth day, they had mounted a good distance through the slow upthrust of the landscape and were running toward low canyons—the toehold of the Trivestean territory. He sensed the checkpoints ahead, the palisades of dead wood and the hollows in the rock walls where keen-eyed men and women kept watch. There were no roads in this land, only the canyon paths, and all had been bottled up by the Trivesteans.
He did not stop—barely even slowed. The palisade stakes were embedded in the ground and so they easily became trees, their limbs stretching to trap the watchers inside their shelters. The gate spread open before him, pulled by fresh vines, and he charged through with the herd on his hooves, the wraith’s magic keeping back the arrows that sprang for them from all sides. Shouts rang out but only briefly. None gave pursuit.
As they passed into the shadows of the plateaus, he heard the tolling of an alarm-bell far above. He marked it, but was not concerned.
Unwise, perhaps, since the next two days were spent evading the Trivesteans through the landscape they knew so well. In the shadows of the canyons, the chill in the air never lifted, and light sliced down like a narrow knife to reflect on cascades of ice. The white ringhawk led Cob onward through a maze of gullies, tunnels and eroded pillars, and his hooves stayed steady on the frozen rock, his herd sustained by his stability.
The Trivesteans never showed themselves in the canyons. Always they were above, on the swaying bridges that linked the plateaus or on ledges or at cave mouths, always shooting or dropping stones but never approaching. Black-headed eagles screamed in the sky, circling like sentinels, and Cob knew them as extensions of his enemies. Pets, perhaps, or working beasts. No friends to the natural order.
The deeper they went into Trivestean territory, the more thoroughly the cliffs were carved. Isolated ledge-villages, elaborate cliff-towns, towering fortresses. At night the canyon walls were freckled with light that reflected endlessly from the ice, and he sensed the living souls within the stone. Loving, sleeping, standing watch—every one encased by the plateau rock like a firefly in a loose fist, oblivious to the peril that passed below them.
He did nothing. Arrows could not faze him. There was no need to retaliate.
By the end of the sixth day, canyon-land gave way to mountains. Without the confining walls around them, his herd—which had been quiet throughout the Trivestean crossing—suddenly mutinied. He broke from their tackle easily and ran a good hundred yards before he realized that they were not following.
Reluctantly, he compromised. He would stay still until dawn, and they would stop throwing things and yelling. Arik sat on him when he suggested that he could just carry some of them, and when he contemplated aloud what wolves tasted like, the girls said dirty things. He threw sticks at them, and when they threw them back, he declared that they were violating the terms of their agreement. Nevertheless, a nice campfire was eventually had, during which no one else sat on him.
Early the next morning, the six ran the rugged foothills, followed by the howls of wolves and the gazes of other, stranger creatures. Some tried for his attention, but he only had eyes for the hawk. Ahead, nearer and nearer, the firebird glowed in his mind, and he raced toward it with a fervor that bordered on madness.
For those who followed him, there was some debate as to whether he had already crossed the line.
*****
Now, midway through the seventh day,
they were fully within the tree-shrouded Garnet Mountains. From beneath those interlocked boughs, it was impossible to see either the plateaus below or the peaks above, only to watch their feet as they scrambled over ungainly roots and jumped the many narrow clefts and ice-filled runnels that split the rock. The sunlight that managed to slant through the trees made the landscape glitter painfully.
Dasira moved mechanically, numbed by something more than the cold. The Guardian insulated them from the season; though she could feel the chill, it did not penetrate her skin. Likewise, the wind did not burn her or kick fine grains of ice in her face due to Ilshenrir, who maintained a wedge of energy around them that parted the air as easily as Cob parted the snow.
Nor was it the Guardian’s aura, for after the first debilitating touch, it had changed as if it could sense her distress. It was no longer a crushing weight but a current that pushed her forward, moved her in time with the others.
Which was a blessing. Their incessant travel—more than a hundred miles thus far—had drained her of all but their continuing momentum, especially since she could not share in the spiritual bond that connected the others. Her bracer lay dormant on her arm, and though her body had mostly mended, she was inundated by aches and exhaustion any time they stopped.
The others fared better, but their supplies were nearly gone, and the Garnet Mountain Territory was just wilderness. There would be no chance to restock unless Lark called upon the Shadow Folk.
Lark had tried to get Cob’s permission for that, but he had been too deep in the Guardian to acknowledge her, and so she had not dared it. No one knew what the eiyets might do around Cob in this state. He paid no attention to anyone, only stared into the empty sky during the few marks they were stopped. Though Dasira was privately amused to see him ignore Fiora’s advances—especially by the look on the Trifolder’s face—she worried for him.
For all of them.
Even with a map, she could not have pinpointed where they were. The Garnet Mountain Territory encompassed thousands of miles of trackless terrain, and though it was inhabited, none of its ‘people’ built towns because none of them had to walk on two feet unless they felt like it. The Trivesteans stood vigilant against feral skinchangers or the occasional war party of boar-folk, but their own war parties rarely found anything to attack; it was too easy for the natives to melt away into the woods, the mountains, the river-cut cave systems that riddled this land.
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 64