“Sod the girl, tell more of the Maizan.”
“Sweepin’ ’cross the land like a tidal race, they are,” muttered the Factor.
“A what?”
“Like locusts then, like a herd o’ buffalo, like the flamin’ light o’ day!”
“Heard tell,” came a surprise interjection, “the lord o’ them Maizan, their Castellan what’sisname—?”
“Mohdri,” said Hanray.
“Aye, that’s the one. Heard tell he set his pet hunters on the girl’s tail.”
“The Black Rose?” the Factor asked.
“Aye.” And with that acknowledgment, a ripple of nervous commentary made its way around the small assemblage. Everyone had an opinion, none was comfortable voicing it aloud, almost as though they feared one of the Maizan might be hidden nearby, listening. Or worse, lurking among them.
“Ain’t they killers, belike?” someone else inquired.
“Can be, if it’s needful. As assassins, they’re s’posed to give even the Chengwei a decent run for their money.”
“Get out!”
“I swear! The gods’ honest truth.”
“They are reputedly,” Hanray nodded agreement, “as good as their reputation, which is considerable.”
“An’ now, gentles,” the pipe smoker announced, “they seek the Sacred Princess.”
“How’s this madness to be stopped, can anyone tell me that?”
Elora’s ears perked up slightly. The exchange, the undertones that often belied the actual dialogue, crystallized the feelings she’d had since she started eavesdropping. These were merchants who made their living in the wildlands, who thrived on risk and viewed the unknown as merely another challenge, or a market to be opened. She’d never heard such fatalism from them before, nor even imagined such an attitude possible. In their souls, many in the tavern had already conceded victory to the Maizan.
“Who’s to say it’s madness?” offered the smoker. “The tales I’ve heard from those who’ve been conquered, they’re not so bad.”
“Somethin’ else,” scoffed Hanray, “y’ know for fact?”
A ripple of laughter swept the gathering, but faded quickly.
“I get around, Factor. I see things.”
“I didna’ know the borders were tha’ open.”
The smoker chuckled. “It’s a big country. Most times, I didn’t know there were borders.” That provoked another round of laughter.
“Hardly likely to talk ill o’ them tha’ rule ’em, are they, these folk y’ speak of?”
“They speak of fair treatment and just laws. And in truth, I’ve seen little evidence to the contrary.”
“Take up arms against the Maizan,” another interjected, “they’ll kill you fast an’ that’s no error.”
“Chengwei out east do worse.”
For the next few exchanges, the men compared notes on which state was the more brutal. Some of the group excused themselves and returned to their businesses while others drifted in to take their place.
“I’ve also heard,” again from that pipe smoker as he brought the discussion back to his baseline topic in tones of absolute certainty, “that where the Maizan rule, there is no sorcery. That the Veil Folk no longer dictate to the Daikini. That the World Gates to the realms beyond the Veil are shut and sealed, and the earth left for humankind alone.”
“Not possible,” snapped Hanray, in an equally flat and absolute dismissal. “The Veil Folk, they’d ne’er allow it.”
“Mayhap, that’s what this war is all about?”
“That’s why I’m for hearth an’ home,” a new voice piped up, “to defend what’s mine.”
“Think, will y’! If what he says is true—blessed martyrs, who’s to say you, or any of us, will have hearth or home to return to? To throw down the gauntlet to the Veil Folk!” Hanray sounded aghast at the thought.
“Ain’t’cha bin lis’nin’, Factor? The Maizan, he says they’re winnin’!”
“Consider tha’ a breath or two, my friends?” Hanray challenged them. “The Veil Folk are part of the fabric of the world, we depend on them in more ways than we can number.”
“Is that a good thing?” the smoker wondered. “We depend on them for so much. It’s they who define the form and fabric of our world. And our lives. Because we allow it. I mean, look at the lot of you, listen to what you’ve been saying, arguing over whether or not a girl who’s not seen even a score of summers is the rightful savior of the world. Simply because some prophecy”—and there was no hiding the contempt invested in that single word—“names her so? Pardon my bluntness, gentles, I say the devil take that. Mayhap the time’s come we stood for ourselves. Held destiny in our hands.”
The man was a spellbinder. There was no need to raise his voice or pound the table, the others listened because it seemed the right and natural thing to do. He was the kind of man who’d make himself heard in the heat of battle or the madcap din of a parliament. Elora wanted a look at him, but she’d angled herself the wrong way. The pipe smoker was just out of eyeshot and all her own instincts were screaming at her that this was not the time to draw attention to herself.
Desperation proved the sire to inspiration. Without conscious thought, she cast her awareness free of her physical body, to flow into the being of the nearest animal to hand. This was another skill Thorn had taught her, how to tap the power of her InSight, allowing her to see the world through the eyes of another, in this instance one of the mares corralled behind her. It was a clumsy transition, the animal recognized an intrusion and reacted by dancing on all four feet, pounding her forehooves against the earth as though she was striking out at a foe. Quickly, praying none of the merchants—and especially the pipe smoker—noticed what was happening, Elora tried to gentle the mare, but her own agitation fueled the horse’s. She wouldn’t calm down.
Elora was on the brink of casting herself loose and returning to her own body when she felt a hand on the mare’s neck, another on her broad forehead, heard soothing words from the mouth of the very man she sought.
In her own mind, the girl cursed to high heaven, certain that her deception would be discovered. On another level of herself, though, she had to admire his skill with animals, as she did his skill with his own kind. A few words, a few more caresses, restored the mare to a state of tranquillity, and he closed the moment with an apple for the animal to munch on, which she took with eager gratitude.
His hands were callused, that Elora could feel through the mare’s skin. A confirmation of his trade that was just as soundly belied by his appearance. A handsome man, but not exceptionally so, half again her height and surprisingly thicker about the middle than she would have expected, until she realized that much of the bulk was padding. His clothes were a masterpiece of design, the robes of a middling successful merchant making the transition to middle age. Broad of chest, thick of gut, with the air of a man for whom the road held less and less allure. Power going to seed.
An artful deception, on a par with her own, one of the best she’d ever seen short of an actual magical glamour. His eyes looked sleepy but they missed nothing, and lingered on the mare’s for a fraction of a look longer than Elora would have liked. She felt no probe, though, nor any manifestation of either Greater or Lesser Art. If the man had sorcerous abilities, they were beyond her ability to detect. Given his skill with disguise, he didn’t much need them. She came away with a strong sense of his features, coupled with the absolute certainty that they were all wrong. She might know him from his voice, the next time their paths crossed, or more likely from the seductively commanding way he used it. But not from his face.
As soon as he turned his back to rejoin his fellows, Elora slipped free of the mare. She stayed seated where she was, though her hour was very nearly up. She would not leave until the merchants had, and especially not before the warrior—for that was the smoker’s
true occupation, regardless of his outward seeming—was long departed.
“Which side’s Elora Danan on, I wonder?”
“Should we care?” came from the pipe smoker. “Whichever, it’s the likes of us most likely to get crunched in the jaws of the nutcracker.”
The mare started her dance again but this time it was none of Elora’s doing. The breeze was off the plain and through the animal’s ears and nostrils came double confirmation of the approach of other horses, racing flat out. Something in their scent, the pattern of their hoofbeats across the smooth terrain, transmitted agitation to the mare, which in turn registered to her as a potential, onrushing threat, to which there was but one acceptable response: flight.
Elora didn’t try to calm the mare, her panic was almost more than the young woman herself could handle. Instead she broke contact, tucking her senses once more firmly within the confines of her own body, and waited to see what happened next.
She could hear the horses with her own ears as their riders brought them across the face of the encampment without the slightest moderation of their headlong charge. It was one of the Cascani patrols. To judge from the sight and sound of their mounts as their officer reined them to a halt before the tavern, they must have galloped the entire length of the plain. The horses were heavily lathered, sweat thick as foam on their necks and shoulders. Their heads bowed as they stopped, lungs pumping like bellows in the furnace, nostrils flaring visibly with every great breath.
The officer tossed his reins to his sergeant, with the command that the mounts be walked around the paddock until they’d calmed down, then fed and watered and put to bed. The undertone to those orders was an injunction that they’d surely be needed in the morning, if not sooner. The man’s features were equally grim.
“Courier, milord, from Testeverde,” he told Hanray.
“It were a caravan I was expecting, Alyn.”
“Not this season, mayhap not ever again. The city’s fallen.”
“Damnation.” There was an air of rote to the factor’s profanity, though. This news wasn’t altogether unexpected. “When?”
“A fortnight past.” Hanray cocked an eyebrow in sharp and silent query, prompting his officer to come to the courier’s defense. “He had no remounts, milord. He came as fast as he was able.”
“And the Maizan? How fast did they follow?”
“Not at all, he says. He’s told me already and I think it’s a report best made in private.”
“Tha’ bad?” The officer replied with a curt and shallow nod. “Sound officers’ call, then. Boots and saddles for all our troopers.”
“Done and done, milord.”
“Ahead o’ me as always, Captain?”
“With respect, milord, this strikes me as more of occasion for speed than deliberation.”
“One man’s dispatch is another’s panic. Damnation and bloody hell, word’s running through the camp already, like a bloody wildfire!”
All around Elora the air began to fill with the sounds of outcries, hurried voices, and scurrying feet, some hearing the news with a studied air of nonchalance while others lit off like field mice stampeded by a pouncing cat. Everyone had somewhere to go and things that needed doing. For those in a sudden panic to break camp there were others who saw that haste as an opportunity for profit. Wranglers dashed for the paddocks to claim their stock while a delegation of merchants struck out for the Cascani pavilion, to demand further news from the Factor. Freelance teamsters found themselves suddenly in a seller’s market as every trader in the bazaar decided to strike their tents at once. Bidding for their services quickly shot out of hand and more than a few negotiations exploded into outright battles as hard feelings found their expression more in fists than words. Hanray’s troops did their best to keep order but the lunacy was too widespread to be completely contained.
Elora lost her hiding place behind one of the dray wagons right at the start, and from then on she was forced into a madcap scramble that had her dodging every which way to avoid Daikini, horses, mules, trucks, merchandise, tents, and cordage as the bazaar was deconstructed before her eyes. There was short-term purpose: get packed. There was an immediate goal: get out and away from here. But no one stopped to think whether either made the slightest sense. It was as though the enemy was just over the horizon, when for all anyone knew they were still hundreds of miles away and not even coming this way at all. This was the reputation of the Maizan.
Elora took a wrong turn somewhere, heard the thunder of hooves, found herself in the path of a charging picket line of horses. All the activity had churned the ground to mud beneath her feet, deep as her ankle, but even on solid ground there was nowhere to go for cover before they reached her. The wrangler on the lead mount saw her but there was precious little he could do. Instead Elora remembered something Thorn had told her, a wayward scrap of Nelwyn knowledge, gleaned from his own encounters with Daikini on horseback: when confronted with an obstacle in their path, horses will do almost anything to avoid trampling it. Thought and execution came in that single flash. She stood stock-still and presented her back to the horses and prayed her mentor had known what he was talking about.
To her amazement, he had.
She caught a couple of blows but they were accidents, a horse not quite picking its feet up high enough to miss her. Soreness today, a possibly spectacular set of bruises on the morrow, nothing lasting much beyond that. Otherwise she emerged unscathed as the charge flowed around her or leaped over her and continued on its way.
She screamed as the horses thundered past, a bellow of primal defiance with only the smallest scrap of fear, as though she was daring the animals to do her harm. There was an instant of tumultuous noise and then she was spitting grit from her mouth, wiping it from her eyes, amazed to find herself still in one piece, delighted to discover that the pieces all still worked.
She knew she should get up and out of the way. This was evidently a major thoroughfare and she might not be so fortunate a second time. She found, though, that she couldn’t move. The sheer exhilaration of survival had turned her into a statue that was grinning like an idiot and trying to manage coughs and laughter with every breath.
Both Torquil and Hanray reached her at the same moment.
“Elora,” cried the forgemaster in his bull voice, the need for secrecy swept away by concern for her.
“By my oath,” returned the Factor, equally upset, equally relieved.
“What the hell was that all about!” Torquil raged.
“Are y’ determined t’ make us all ancient b’fore our time, then?” demanded Hanray.
She had no answers for either of them, nor wit to form them or breath enough to give them voice. She could only smile and hope that charm would win her the engagement.
“How far…” she managed as they yanked her to her feet and frog-marched her between them up the slope toward the Cascani pavilion. “…Testeverde?”
“Far enough,” was Hanray’s terse reply.
His pavilion and the Chengwei were the only oases of calm and relative sanity in the entire bazaar. All around them, tents were collapsing, men groaning under the burdens they had to hump aboard their wagons, the wagons themselves compressing their springs flat as they were fully loaded. Every man and woman Elora could see wore arms, regardless of whether or not that was their profession, and those who had no transport were starting to look increasingly desperate.
“Alyn,” called the Factor to his captain as they crested the mount and came up to Torquil’s wagon. “Pass the word, we’ll look after all of those who require safe passage. And we’ll charge no more than the standard fare.”
“Some down there’ll bless you for that, milord. And others curse you.”
“I’ll live with both. Just see to it, will y’, lad.”
“With Testeverde gone,” the Captain said, “there’s no through road to the wes
t.”
“The east is open.”
“I think most here would rather leap down the tiger’s gullet than trust their fates to the Chengwei.”
“North, then. For those who can’t afford pathfinders, offer them maps. But keep our own people close and secure.”
“Lord Hanray,” Elora asked, managing to squeeze in a question, “are the Maizan coming?”
“So everyone believes,” was his terse reply, but the bulk of his attention was on Torquil. “We need to talk, Master Smith.”
“Manya can convene the council. You’ll join us for dinner.”
“Perfect. That might even give me time to try to sort out this lot.” He waved a hand across the encampment.
“Good luck there, Hanray.”
“I’m Cascani, Torquil. Don’t believe in it.”
“You believe most will travel north?”
“It’s the harder trail but in the eyes of most, the safer destination. Not a few down there, though, might choose the Maizan over the Chengwei.”
“And Sandeni’s caught between them both.”
“Not for the first time.”
“Will the Republic fight?”
The Factor shook his head as he helped Elora clamber up beside Torquil on the wagon seat.
“If the report out of Testeverde is true, all bets are off. One way or t’other, though, they have t’ be next on the Maizan list. Move east or west across the continent, eventually y’ have t’ face the Wall, an’ tha’ means dealin’ wi’ the Republic of Sandeni.”
“Can they win?”
The Daikini shrugged. “They have till now. But so had Angwyn. From what I’ve heard, Sandeni’s given sanctuary to the Sacred Princess and her protector. An’ acclaimed her as their talisman.”
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