“Marblecrest?” the gunman said, then spoke rapidly to his comrade, asking if that was a warrior-caste name.
“Does anyone among your people speak Turgonian?” Amaranthe asked. She had been smiling easily during the conversation, and the Kendorians’ weapons had lowered enough to point at the ground instead of at the group.
As Basilard had observed numerous times in the past, Amaranthe had an utterly honest face with doe-like eyes that made it hard for a man to think of her as an enemy. Basilard himself had been talked over to her side on the first night they had met. Of course, Basilard had loathed his employer back then, a wizard who had kept him as a slave even after supposedly liberating him from the pits and promoting him to security chief.
“Take them to see Major Diratha,” the bowman said to his buddy.
“All of them? We don’t even know…”
Basilard didn’t understand the rest.
“What are three people going to do? Shaman Tladik is there.”
Amaranthe stood calmly during this discussion, her hands clasped behind her back. Basilard eyed the canyon walls and the ground on either side of the stream. In spots, scraggy green bushes grew out of cracks in the rock, tenaciously finding life. There were numerous places where a man or even a group of men might have hidden.
“Take their weapons,” the Kendorian conversation continued.
Maldynado shifted. He might not understand the words, but the man had pointed to his rifle. He could guess the intent. From the other Kendorian’s nod, he was about to agree.
Do we allow that? Basilard signed subtly, catching Amaranthe’s eye.
She lifted her brows, giving him a pointed look. Oh, right. He was in charge.
He was certain they could overpower these two, but there might be other Kendorians watching from some of those bushes, including the shaman. If they wanted to talk to the leader, it would be better to go along with the soldiers’ demands, to walk in peacefully. And yet, would the Kendorian leader respect them if they came stripped of their power?
“Your weapons.” One man pointed at Amaranthe’s sword.
“They’re nice, aren’t they?” Amaranthe said. She pointed at Maldynado’s rifle. “This is a newer model, Starbird repeating rifle, made by a manufacturer in the capital. Powder and ball combined in one shell. Lever-action, capable of firing ten times in a minute, including time taken to reload. Turgonian firearms have made a huge advancement in the last few years. You wouldn’t want to come up against them in a fight, not with a bow or an old muzzle-loader.” Her gaze twitched toward the Kendorian’s musket. “That’s a certainty.”
“Uh,” the speaker said, glancing at his buddy.
Basilard doubted either man had understood a quarter of what she was saying, but they probably thought she had misunderstood their request.
“Just take them to see the major,” his comrade said. “Their weapons mean nothing against so many.”
The other Kendorian shrugged and waved for Amaranthe, Basilard, and Maldynado to follow before heading downriver.
Maybe you’re the one who should be the diplomat, Basilard signed, making sure the soldier’s back was to them.
Is pretending obliviousness an important part of the job? Amaranthe asked.
Knowing more than you appear to is often useful.
The Kendorian glanced back at them every few seconds, so Basilard lowered his hands. He shouldn’t assume that these people wouldn’t recognize the basics of his sign language.
As they walked, he observed their surroundings. When he had scouted the area the day before, he had only seen the river from above, so it was hard for him to judge if the water flow had lessened. Probably not yet. Sicarius and his assistant engineer couldn’t be far along with their dam improvements yet, especially if Sicarius was keeping an eye on Amaranthe from afar. Basilard imagined poor Jomrik left alone to push logs to the river by himself.
A branch stirred in a bush near the cliff on their side of the stream. Basilard thought he glimpsed peach coloring through the leaves. Someone’s skin?
Their Kendorian guide glanced toward the bush too. Maybe he had some ally there that he knew about, another guard stationed along the canyon. But he tensed, his hand tightening about his rifle.
He held up a hand, squinted suspiciously back at Basilard and the others, then frowned at the bush. There were several types of foliage in that area, as well as a thick log that must have been carried into the canyon during a flood.
More branches stirred, not in the bush they were all looking at, but in one farther downstream. An animal raced out from the leaves. A badger. Though not normally a creature dangerous to humans, this one raced straight at the party. Actually, it raced straight at the Kendorian.
He jumped to the side, bringing his firearm to bear, but the brown furry creature was faster than it looked. It veered away, and his shot bounced harmlessly off the rocks. The badger lunged in and bit his leg.
“Uhm,” Amaranthe said, as the man yelled and tried to smash his attacker with the butt of his musket. “Should we be helping?”
“The man?” Maldynado asked. “Or the badger?”
Suspicious, Basilard pulled out a knife and ran toward the bushes where he had seen the original movement. This animal was acting as strangely as the grimbals.
He reached the bush at the same time as someone stood up. Basilard lifted his blade. Then he recognized the short blond hair and green eyes of one of his own people. The young man wore beaded buckskins and a stone amulet on a woven grass cord, one that indicated he was studying to be a priest and was someone with mental powers. Three other men rose from cover to the sides of him. They carried bows and were even younger than the priest.
A thud came from behind Basilard. He turned in time to see the Kendorian topple to the ground as Maldynado lowered his firearm.
“Oops,” Maldynado said. “His skull fell against the butt of my rifle.”
“That was our guide,” Amaranthe said dryly, glancing back up the canyon. They were out of sight of the other guard, but Basilard worried the noise of the animal attack might have traveled to his ears. Probably not with the sound of the river rushing past.
“The badger didn’t like him. I was trying to help nature.”
The badger let go of the Kendorian’s leg and scurried back. It bared its bloody teeth and growled at Maldynado.
“Are these your friends, Leyelchek?” the priest asked.
Basilard did not recognize the man, but he was quick to nod and sign, Yes.
A couple of months earlier, he had been home for the Final Suffering religious ceremony where thousands of his people had gathered. He had received a lot of looks ranging from curious to hostile, and he was sure his scarred face had stuck in people’s memories.
The priest waved his hand, and the badger raced for the river. It disappeared into the undergrowth on the bank. Maldynado’s assistance must have been efficient, because the Kendorian wasn’t moving.
Who are you? Basilard signed. He scrutinized the other faces and thought he recognized one young hunter from his own clan. The priest had a scraggily beard, but none of the others were old enough to have more than wisps of facial hair. What are you doing here?
The priest sighed. “I’m Hykur. And we’re… debating.”
“Ah, Basilard?” Amaranthe asked. “Should we tie this fellow up, or… Hm, he may need some bandages.”
“The critter chewed through his trousers,” Maldynado said. “Bloodied him good.”
Basilard rubbed his face. While he was pleased to finally meet some Mangdorians, this wasn’t a good place to encounter them. What kind of official government emissaries left people mutilated and tied up on the way to a negotiation? Though perhaps that was fitting for a team of Turgonians.
Tie him, please, Basilard signed, hoping this hadn’t ruined their chances of a peaceful meeting with the person in charge. Major Diratha, he reminded himself. Whoever that was. Also, place him somewhere he won’t be stumbled acros
s easily.
“Like at the bottom of the river?” Maldynado suggested.
Amaranthe swatted him. “We’re not here to kill people.”
“The badger was. I’m just going along with nature’s will.”
That wasn’t nature, Basilard signed and faced Hykur again. You controlled that badger?
Something tickled the edge of his mind. Hykur? Did he have telepathic abilities? Basilard tensed, not comfortable with someone touching his mind, even one of his own people. Especially a priest, a person who spoke with God’s will, the kind of person who always pointed out that he was condemned and going to Hell.
“I’m not condemning anyone,” Hykur said, grimacing. “I can’t understand you completely when you make up words, so I have to… I talk to animals. In their minds. I can understand people a little too. Yes, I was controlling the badger. I thought you were being taken prisoner. We—” he gestured to his comrades, “—were sent to try and turn back the predators that the Kendorians have driven into the lowlands, out to the highway and other areas that are populated. But their shaman is much more powerful than I am.” Hykur lowered his head, but not before Basilard saw the slump to his shoulders and the defeat in his eyes. “We’ve been useless here. And I should not have used the badger in such a manner. She could have been hurt. My father would not approve.”
The three hunters were alternating between watching the conversation and looking up and down the river. They appeared less chagrined than Hykur about the badger attack—or the fact that a Kendorian was being tied up.
You’re here to spy? Basilard asked. And keep the Kendorians from calling more grimbals down this way? Who sent you?
“My father, Chief Relikor. He didn’t send us to spy, just to try and turn the animals back to nature’s path.” Hykur waved toward the north, the usual grounds of the big predators. “But there is no point in trying to find each individual predator, when it’s clear their minds have been tampered with by a human. It makes more sense to stop the human.” This time, he pointed downriver, toward the camp. Was the shaman Sicarius had sensed nearby the same one responsible for the wayward animals? “But I don’t know how to do that without… displeasing God.”
Even if God had nothing to say about it, Basilard doubted young Hykur would be a match for the shaman who had hurled him against a tree and flattened Ashara.
“We want to fight,” the youngest man said. He was more boy than man, perhaps thirteen or fourteen. “To drive these people out of our homeland. Do you see what they’re doing to the mountains? Every morning, there are explosions. They’re scaring away animals and defacing hunting and fishing lands, lands that are ours, not theirs.”
“They belong to God, not us,” Hykur said with a sigh. “That is what my father would say. That is what all of the elders are saying. If God wanted them to leave, he would send a flood to wash them away. It is not our place to attack them.”
Basilard thought of Sicarius and the flood Amaranthe wanted. Not exactly an act of God…
But you are here. Basilard arched his eyebrows. Aware of Amaranthe and Maldynado walking over, he knew he should send the young men away or leave them where he had found them and continue with his mission, but this was his first opportunity to speak with some of his people, and he hated to rush it.
“We’re here,” Hykur agreed, his hooded eyes acknowledging that they probably should not be.
Where is everybody else? We’ve encountered abandoned villages.
“Probably still at the solstice meeting grounds. Everyone was gathering there. I think from there, my father and the other chiefs will recommend taking the clans north until the Kendorians are done and have stopped their tricks with the animals.”
“Tricks,” the talkative youth growled. “They’re using grimbals to kill our people. My brother—” His freckled face scrunched into a pained expression, and he looked away.
“I know.”
We’re going to try to get them to leave, Basilard signed.
Hykur tilted his head. “How?” He glanced at the knife in Basilard’s hand, and his lips thinned.
The young priest did not want to lie down and accept whatever the Kendorians did, but he was not ready to pursue violent methods, either, at least not more violent than badger attacks.
Allies, Basilard signed as Maldynado walked past, the tied and gagged Kendorian slung over his shoulder.
Whistling, Maldynado deposited his burden behind a bush, brushed off his hands, eyed a stack of rocks, then grinned. He started laying flat rocks on top of the Kendorian.
“What are you doing?” Amaranthe asked, coming up behind him.
“Entertaining myself.”
“Burying him alive?”
“Just a little. Giving him a few additional obstacles to overcome when he wakes up. We don’t want him charging into camp right behind us, after all.”
“Make sure he can breathe.”
“Naturally.”
The Mangdorians watched on, wearing bemused expressions.
“They’re Turgonian?” Hykur asked.
Basilard nodded. I intend to tell the Kendorian leader that the Turgonians are preparing an army to send to deal with them.
“Are they?” Hykur’s eyebrows rose hopefully.
No. But the Kendorians are not the only ones who can use tricks to get what they want.
“The coyote shows us that trickery is a valid way of dealing with aggressors,” Hykur said.
That she does.
“Do you want us to do anything?” the freckled boy asked, his expression hopeful.
Basilard prayed he would not disappoint these young men. Or get them killed. It would be useful to have a telepath on his side, but he did not want to get them involved in case nothing came of this plan. Or in case the Kendorians simply decided to shoot his team.
I suggest you stay out of the way for now, Basilard signed. We’re going in to talk to the leader. He paused. Do you know anything about the leader? Anything that could help us?
“It’s a woman, an army officer. She looks ruthless. I’ve seen her order her people flogged as punishment. The Kendorians are in a hurry, it seems like. They want their mines established and a fort built, so she’s not patient. I don’t know why the hurry.” Hykur’s expression turned bitter. “It’s not like our people are going to do anything.”
“I’m going to do something,” the youth muttered.
Hykur gripped his shoulder. “Do not allow your need to avenge your brother drive you to your own end.”
The youth glared sullenly at the ground and did not respond.
Let us try our trickery first, Basilard signed, the message as much for the young man as the rest of them. That one might act rashly and make trouble. Even if Basilard did not have much hope for his crazy plan playing out as he hoped, he did not need anyone riling up the Kendorians ahead of time. Do you have any intelligence about the shaman?
“Just that he’s powerful. I think he knows we’re out here somewhere. I don’t think he’s worried about us.” Hykur’s mouth twisted in distaste. “Also, the army leader doesn’t try to order him around.”
Basilard wondered whether this Major Diratha was truly in charge or if the shaman was the ultimate decision maker. He should have asked Ashara if she knew anything about him, but he hadn’t wanted to test her allegiance too much. Mostly, he hadn’t wanted to learn for certain that she would choose the Kendorians over him. Somehow suspecting that she would was not as bad as knowing it. Her actions and opinions shouldn’t matter to him, but he wanted her as a friend rather than an enemy, whether it made sense in this situation or not.
“We might want to get going,” Amaranthe murmured. “It would be better to arrive and make our claims before this fellow wakes up and comes charging into camp after us.”
Maldynado stepped back, admiring the rock cairn he had stacked atop and around the man. “We’ll just tell the truth if he charges in while we’re chatting. That a badger attacked him.”
�
�Are we also going say that the badger was the one who stacked rocks on top of him?”
“Sure. Aren’t badgers nature’s engineers?”
“You’re thinking of beavers,” Amaranthe said.
“Really? What do badgers do?”
“I think they’re just tough and surly.”
“Like Sicarius?”
Hykur couldn’t have understood much of the conversation, but perhaps he was monitoring their thoughts, because he seemed to grasp what they were talking about. “We can confuse him when he wakes up,” he said, eyeing the cairn, “without showing him that we’re here. It’s our fault he was attacked, so perhaps we can make him believe that God—or his gods—was trying to tell him something.” He waved at the rocks.
Basilard nodded. Good, but please do it from an elevated position. He pointed toward narrow ledges that ran along the canyon walls in places. The weather up north looks iffy. You never know when floods will come.
At first, Hykur shook his head, appearing confused as he gazed toward the clear northern sky, but then he squinted thoughtfully. “I see.”
Be careful, Basilard signed, then waved in parting. He wondered if he should have told the young men to go home, to do as their parents would have wished. With so few allies here, he was reluctant to send any away.
“Did you learn anything about the leader?” Amaranthe asked as they headed downriver again. “This army major?”
Yes. She sounds challenging.
“Challenging?” Maldynado asked. “As in, she might want to arm wrestle with me before believing in my Turgonian supremacy? Or as in, she won’t believe anything Amaranthe says no matter how charming she is?”
You may have to be the charming one. Basilard had seen Amaranthe talk a few women over to her side, but her smile definitely worked better on men.
Diplomats and Fugitives Page 23