“How many more do you think will come looking before they start to wonder what’s going on?” I asked Prax.
“One more, if we’re lucky.”
“Let’s wait a little longer. Give our eyes more time to adjust.”
The last of the slaves were coming out when the next guard approached. He hesitated well short of the door and called, “Methodios? What the hell are you doing?” Pause. “Methodios?”
I turned to the slaves. “There are sixteen guards left. Each of you has a weapon. Kill all the guards, and we will have a stable of horses to take us to join the Alashi. Go.” I turned to the door and ran toward the guard with drawn sword.
This was the first guard who was actually prepared to be attacked. His sword was out by the time I reached him, and it was clear very quickly that he was a much better swordsman than I was even when I was not hungry, bleeding, and half blind from the bright sunlight. But Prax was on my heels, and three more slaves armed with hammers, and he fell beneath our blows like a felled tree.
“Come on,” I shouted. “You know who your enemies are. Take them down!”
The rest of the guards knew now that something was horribly wrong, and were running toward us from their positions along the wall. One was pulling out a spell-chain, and I felt a malicious sense of triumph that I’d denied them that weapon, at least. The slaves who were sorting rocks began to pick up large chunks of stone as their own weapons. From the corner of my eye, I saw the cook running out of the tent with a large butcher knife. There were slaves who were falling back and doing their best to hide, but most were fighting like rats in a tunnel.
We can do this. We’re going to do this.
In battle with the Alashi, I’d always felt a mixture of terror and exhilaration. Exhilaration that I was fighting my enemies, sword in hand, free to defend myself in any way I could. Terror because I was usually facing a better fighter than I was. Now, the heat of battle was in my blood, burning away the shadow, at least for now. I caught a guard across the wrist with my sword; he fell back a step, then was forced to the ground by my allies with hammers. Another guard had a long spear, but someone threw a hammer at him hard enough to knock him off his stride, and then he was lost, fallen.
Then we heard a horn, blasted long and loud. Summoning back the ones who rode out looking for bandits. Shit.
There was no time to think about it. There was only time to raise my stolen sword to defend myself against the next guard, to hope that the slaves with hammers would be able to overwhelm him before he killed me. There could be no retreat here. There was nowhere to run. We would kill or die until only they, or only we, were left standing.
Then suddenly there was no one in front of me. I looked around wildly, just in time to see arrows. The remaining guards had scrambled up on to the wall, lined up beside each other, and were shooting down at us. “Spread out,” I shouted. “Scatter!”
We needed something to hide under, or behind. I found myself with Prax and one of the slaves who’d gone with Boradai, behind a building I thought was probably the kitchen. “We could hide inside,” the slave panted. I noticed that he still clutched his hammer, and that it was red with someone’s blood.
“They’ll trap us there,” I said. “Burn it down around us.”
“But out here—they’ll circle around to the other part of the wall. Shoot us down. How are we going to get out of here? How can we fight against bows?”
“We should move now,” Prax said. “Charge them before they get a chance to spread out.”
In the shelter of the building, my blood was still racing, but my mind had slowed again. I had no idea what to do. On the other side of the building, I could still hear cries of pain; not everyone had found shelter. We need to get out of here. We need to kill those guards before we can get out of here. We need to protect ourselves from the arrows . . . “Is there anything we can hold like a shield?” I asked.
“The pans for sorting the rocks,” Prax said, pointing. The pool of water for washing and sorting was a short sprint from where we sheltered, across open ground.
“This is all your fault,” Boradai’s slave said, turning on me.
I closed my eyes. “Shelter in the kitchen if you want. I’m running for a shield, and then toward the guards with the bows. I don’t see as we really have much of a choice.”
We ran for it—Boradai’s slave following along with me. I snatched up a tray, unscathed, and held it up like a shield, then whirled around, trying to see where the bowmen were now, where I needed to hold the shield to protect myself. Come on. Come on. Djinni help me, have they spread out already?
But no more arrows came.
“Lauria! Help me close these doors,” a familiar voice shouted.
“Is that your ally on the outside?” Prax asked.
I ran toward the gate. It was Tamar, still clutching her bow. “What,” I gasped, helping her to pull the gate shut. “How . . . ?”
“There are more out there, hunting the bandits they thought I might be scouting for. But we can close the doors and shoot down at them. Who knows how to use a bow?” she shouted down at the slaves who were stumbling out from their makeshift hiding spots. “Come on, surely some of you must have seen one used. Get up here!”
“The rest of the guards . . . ?”
“There’s no time . . .” Tamar glanced over the wall, then shrugged. “Yesterday evening I rode up to the gate and told them I represented the Younger Sisters, and was here to make them a very lucrative offer for whatever karenite they were finding.”
“Karenite? They mined gems here!”
“I figured that surely they found karenite occasionally.”
“Did they really believe that you were a sorceress? You’re not old enough.”
“I had that spell-chain you made back in Casseia—I linked the two ends together and kept it as a necklace. They didn’t get a good enough look at it to see what was missing. If they’d asked for me to summon my djinn, I’d have given them a stern look and said that my aeriko was already on an errand that was far more important than any silly games for their benefit. Anyway, when I realized you’d made your move, I was in a private conference with the officer in charge. I stabbed him in the heart before he knew what was going on, and then got my bow and found a spot where I could be useful. And I think I was pretty useful, taking out the five men on the wall like that.” She looked over the wall again, then eyed me. “And you didn’t think I could talk my way out if they caught me.”
I knew what she wanted and was more than happy to provide it. “I was wrong. Oh, was I wrong!”
“You’re lucky, did you know that?”
“I am far luckier than I deserve.”
“And don’t you forget it. Now go get the bows and see what you can do about teaching a bunch of slaves to defend a fortress.”
Prax was already pulling bows loose from the twitching fingers of the fallen guards, and digging out the quivers of arrows. “I’ve never used a bow before,” he said.
“You’ll be great at it. It’s not that hard.” We found three more slaves who were willing to give it a try—the nervous cook was one, to my surprise, and one of the others was one of Boradai’s.
The wall was built to defend the mine against bandit raids, and provided shelter for us to crouch behind while occasionally leaning out to shoot arrows. “Put your bows down,” Tamar said. “Wait until I give word to pick them up. There’s no point in shooting at them until they’re within range.”
We could see them coming, now, five men on horses riding together down the road. Tamar’s own bow was in her hand, the arrow ready. “Right,” she said as the men slowed to a walk. “Pick up your bows . . .”
Another pause. I heard one of the horses snort.
“Arrows ready . . .”
The men came to a dead stop, staring at the closed doors.
“Now,” Tamar whispered. Her arrow hit the lead horseman square in the chest; the rest of the arrows went wild. I’d expected them t
o charge forward to come to the aid of their fellow guards, but instead the four survivors wheeled their horses around and ran, as fast as they could, in the other direction.
“We’d better get out of here,” Tamar said.
“First—” I grabbed her arm. “Prax, this is Tamar. Tamar, this is Prax.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Tamar said.
Prax gave her a slightly hesitant nod.
“Where’s the stable?” Tamar asked. “We’ll make better time getting out of here if we’ve got horses. Unless you’re hiding a djinn up your sleeve . . .”
“I freed the djinn.”
“You did? Well—good.”
We climbed down from the wall, and for the first time, I had a moment to survey the damage. My elation began to fade. Of the mine slaves, fully half had been killed or were dying; of the survivors, most nursed an injury, minor or severe. Some of the slaves knelt over the bodies of friends, trying to stop the bleeding, or whispering to them to open their eyes. Others stood stunned, blood-slicked hammers drooping from their hands, waiting for me or Prax to tell them where to go next.
“Have you had enough of slavery?” I asked. There was no response. I looked around, wondering about the slaves Boradai had brought here. I could see at least one dead on the ground; another was standing, shocked and empty-handed, in the courtyard. The one who’d whined to me my first day held a blood-soaked hammer and looked like he was actually ready to climb on a horse and find the Alashi. “Listen up,” I shouted. “We’re leaving as soon as we can get the horses ready. We, as in me, Prax, and all of you.” There was still no response.
I turned to Tamar. “Get the horses ready. I’ll send someone to help you if I can figure out who’s taken care of the horses.” And then I went to the cook. “It’s time to go,” I said. “Do you know anything about horses?”
“No.” His voice was shaky.
“Riding isn’t that hard, honestly. Do you want to go wait by the stable?” I moved on to one of the slaves who stood with a bloody hammer, staring in horror at the blood on his hands. “You can go wash off, if you want, and then get ready to go. Freedom is within reach.” He seemed as half-asleep as I felt, and I shook his arm gently. “We need to hurry. But we’re going to make it; the desperate part is over.” I went next to one of the ones who knelt beside a body on the ground. “We have to leave the dead. Even the dying. Freedom is within reach, but we need to hurry . . .”
A ragged line was forming beside the stable; others were following my lead, gathering their friends, washing their hands, getting ready to go. “Find waterskins,” I told one of the men who looked a bit less lost than the others. “We’re going to need water.”
“Have you had enough of slavery?” I asked one of the slaves who’d gone with Boradai.
It took more time than it should have, precious minutes when the four surviving guards had gone to get reinforcements, but then we were picking up the waterskins and the sacks of food, loading up horses from the stable, and then setting out, over the hills and away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There was no real hope of hiding that night, just hope that it would take the surviving guards time to stumble back, convince someone to take them seriously, bring reinforcements. If they come after us, we’re dead. Following the lead of Prometheus—rob your enemies—we’d taken bows and swords from the fort, but I was the closest thing in the group to a competent swordsman. And Tamar was the only one who was good with a bow. The djinn promised that Prax would reach freedom, so clearly we’re going to survive, because he’ll die with the rest of us if we’re attacked. Then again, it’s possible that this counts as freedom.
Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, so I might as well stop worrying about it. Somewhat to my surprise, I was able to thrust the fear aside and think about other things, like finding water and reaching the Alashi.
“Are they still at Spring Gathering?” I asked Tamar.
“Probably. It hasn’t been that long since we freed the harem. I know it feels like months.” It did, in fact. “Someone will still be there. There might be groups that have left for the summer . . .”
Groups. The sword brotherhoods and sword sisterhoods. Janiya, Zhanna, Ruan . . . Don’t think about what you can’t have. I swallowed hard. “Maybe someone closer?”
“Maybe. I’m going to try to ask a djinn.”
I lowered my voice. “If the Alashi were annoyed with us for sending them freed slaves before . . .” I looked around the camp.
Tamar followed my gaze with a smirk. “You didn’t free them and I didn’t free them, though we provided some important support at times. They freed themselves. If they hadn’t picked up those hammers and gone after their masters, we’d be dead and they’d still be slaves.”
“I kind of forced their hand. If you’re told to fight or die, and you fight, is that taking your freedom?”
“Hell, yes. Besides, they didn’t have to fight. If they’d come up and then hidden in a corner and waited for the fight to be over—it’s awfully expensive and troublesome, killing all your slaves. You kill the leaders, you make examples of anyone who might have blood on their hands, you beat the rest and you send them back to work.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Probably? You should just learn to trust me on some things, Lauria.” She was still gloating over her ability to fool the guards.
“How did you know they wouldn’t just say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve heard of the Younger Sisters, and we’re turning you over to the Sisterhood, who we’re loyal to’?”
“Well, I didn’t know for sure. It was a calculated risk. But the Younger Sisters are clearly causing all sorts of trouble for the Sisterhood; he’d have been a fool to just discard my offer out of hand. I thought the spell-chain would boost my case, and also I told them Melissa had sent me, since we know Lycurgus’s friend is involved with the rogue Weavers. I stirred in a little flattery. I’d figured out by then that they were finding at least a little karenite—not a great deal, but some—and I told him that they were finding more than any other mine, and if the Sisterhood of Weavers said otherwise, they were lying to him. I thought it was possible that the Sisterhood had hinted to him that they thought maybe he was pocketing some of it and reselling on the black market. And sure enough. The Sisterhood should be more careful about alienating their servants. Just look at you; you were loyal to them once and they screwed it up.”
I laughed a little at that.
“So what did Prax think of you? Are you friends now?”
“He didn’t try to kill me, like Uljas said he was going to.”
“Well, clearly Prax is smarter than Uljas.”
“Either that or he saw that I was his most likely way out.”
“Have you talked to him since we made it out?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I think it’s his right to approach me. Or not.”
“Coward.”
I shrugged.
When I slept that night, I had a vivid dream. All my djinn-sent dreams were strikingly vivid, but this one left the others behind. The light was bright enough to make me wince, the sounds loud, realer than real. I felt someone gripping my hands tightly enough to cause pain, and when my eyes finally adjusted to the light, like they had when I’d come out of the mine, I saw the djinn I’d recently freed. It looked like a woman, facing me, gripping my wrists. “I have a message for you,” it said, very simply. “I was sent to tell you this. The slave you seek, Thais, is in Elpisia; she’s owned by Zopyros.”
Then it vanished, and the dream vanished, too, and I was awake in my blanket, cold with sweat. Elpisia? We went down to Casseia to look for her and she’d been bought by someone back in Elpisia? It fit with what little we knew about what had happened: she’d been bought by a Greek officer who’d taken her somewhere far away. Zopyros was one of the officers from Kyros’s garrison. If he’d wanted Thais, it was strange that he wouldn’t have boug
ht her in the first place, but thinking back to her escape, I was pretty sure Zopyros had been away at the time.
Even if she was in Elpisia, why would the djinni suddenly decide to hand me information on a plate? This is a trick, they’re up to something, I thought, but as the melancholia faded, I’d learned to distrust my own distrust. Tamar didn’t leave me and wasn’t betraying me. I’ll go to Elpisia, carefully, and take a look to see if Thais is there. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. It’s worth a look. I certainly don’t know where else to find her.
The journey across the steppe was going to take some time. Tamar knew where to find water; that was our salvation. I vividly remembered our desperate search for water after we escaped together from Sophos. The memory made me thirsty enough to want to drain my waterskin just thinking about it.
I was beginning to itch, though, wanting to go find Thais. After a half-day of travel I asked Tamar what she thought. “You’re needed here, as a guide. I’m not. Alone, I could make it back to Elpisia in just a couple of days. If Thais is there, if she wants to come with me . . .”
“I don’t want you going without me,” Tamar said.
“Just because I needed you at the mine, as it turned out, that doesn’t mean I need you holding my hand in Elpisia.”
“You’ll need me for something. You’ll need me to find you water, if nothing else.”
“I’ll carry water. It doesn’t take that long—if I have two horses, one for me and one for Thais . . .”
“No. Just no.”
I brooded about it through the afternoon. As we were cooking up a pot of lentils to feed everyone, she turned to me and said, “Promise you won’t just take off.”
“What?”
“Promise you’re not going to do something stupid like leave in the middle of the night. Do I need to recruit future blossoms to set a guard on you? Because I’ll do it.”
“Are you trying to humiliate me to death? What did I do to deserve this?”
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