7.

 

“Just a mercenary,” the exiled Baron of Kein said. “That’s all.”

He had not given up his weapons, but he had not been asked to do so. Nor was he chained or guarded, though the eight soldiers circled both Orlan and himself. But they did so loosely, informally.

Bueralan understood why. Unlike the raiders, the five men and three women around him had armor made from polished chain mail and oiled leather, all of it well cared for and sitting with a seasoned ease on each. And, while there were no bars of rank on any of them, it was clear that the seven took their orders from a brown-haired man of indeterminate age, whose tanned face could be at any point past his youth, but who moved with a swiftness and ease that suggested that the activities of those in the summer of the strength were not beyond him.

He called himself Dural and offered no rank and no affiliation. “A mercenary with Samuel Orlan?” He was the only one of the eight to have dismounted and he stood before the saboteur, a full head shorter. “For ransom.”

The way the word ransom emerged from his thin lips did not sit well with the saboteur. “I was hired in Mireea.” However, he could not change his lie now. “I didn’t think much of the work, but there is not a lot for men like me in Mireea.”

“Men like you?”

“I don’t know how to fight in a siege.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t want no trouble. This is just a simple transaction to me.”

“Do you always betray your employers so quickly?”

“I am always honest to myself, first.”

That was a mercenary’s answer, an answer Dural could accept with a grunt. Glancing around the saboteur’s shoulder to the cartographer, he said, “Not your day, old man.”

Orlan was silent.

“Will I need irons?”

“No,” he said, finally.

The soldier nodded. “Both of you on your horses, then. We’ll take you to the general.”

It was not right. Bueralan pulled himself into the saddle, glanced at Orlan, but the old man did not meet his gaze. He knew as well, the saboteur was sure of that. He knew there was something wrong with this, a gut-level reaction, but he knew that the die were cast now. Bueralan’s horse moved slowly along the road, Orlan and his old pony behind him, the silence of Dirtwater lingering until they rode through the dismantled fence, and the swamp crows lifted into the air in a series of screeching calls.

The soldiers did not react to the sound. They followed the trail as it narrowed into single file and became overgrown, two hours of a solid pace until the trail ballooned and the sound of people began to emerge. It was a growing susurration of voices and pots being packed, of the stamps of horses and the bark of dogs, of pigs and cows and more.

The Leeran Army soon appeared as he was led through low, green-gray trees, and it defied his gaze. He could not take the size of it in easily: it was too much for a single man, too large, too complex to make a quick appraisal of. It was much larger, much more diverse than what he had seen in the morning, but riding through it there was no sense of disorganization. There was a sense of everything being where it should. A hundred horses greeted him first, lightly armored soldiers feeding and rubbing them down. Lean, young, eager. They saluted Dural as he passed and he greeted them by name, with nods and smiles. Wagons followed, more than Bueralan could clearly identify in the density that grew around him. The livestock was similar, but here the saboteur could count the stockhands easily, since they numbered three. Two men and one woman, each with whips and dogs.

More soldiers followed.

Bueralan’s hand tightened on his reins. Around him, the cannibalized building materials were clear: long fence palings, thatches from roofs, doors, and more. But for all that the siege towers and wagons and catapults were an uneven collection, the men and women he passed were not. Not one was of a skin color other than white, and in most the saboteur saw a commonality that suggested a nationalism—surely they were bonded by more than military organization? They were, he was sure, a civilian army and more. As he was led deeper and deeper into the press, he thought it possible that they may well be a nation, but the organization and discipline that defined them did not sit well with him. He had not yet seen anyone who, through armor or insignia, revealed themselves to be part of the chain of command.

Until he was led into a small opening. It was dominated by a large, solid-oak map table, the size of it suggesting that it would take four or more people to move it, and not the tall, middle-aged man who stood over it.

In appearance, he was not a distinctive man. Much like Dural, the man at the table was a white man with brown eyes and brown hair; his face was neither blessed nor cursed with a trait that left it memorable in either grace or ugliness. There was no sense, either, that the man was a warlock, that blood had ever stained his hands. There was a quality about the men and women who used such power, a blemish in their gaze, as if each had seen a part of the world that those who did not draw from the dying could not possibly begin to understand, and there was no such look in the eyes of the man before him. If anything, his was the face of a clear and honest man.

Dural stepped from his mount. “My General.”

“Lieutenant.” The man wore a white shirt and brown leather trousers, with no weapon in sight. “What do you have there?”

“A mercenary—” Bueralan’s hands refused to release the reins “—who has bought us Samuel Orlan.”

The general’s smile was faint. “Is that true, Samuel?”

Behind him, Bueralan heard Orlan slide from his saddle. On either side of him, the horses of Dural’s soldiers shifted and the weight of their riders, followed by their steel grasps, closed in on his still limbs. “I am afraid my hand has been played early,” the cartographer said, walking up to the man before him. “For that I do apologize.”

“You are unharmed?”

“But for my pride.” Orlan turned, his cold blue eyes meeting Bueralan’s. “The cost of it does present a small gift though. Perhaps you have heard of Captain Bueralan Le, of the saboteur group Dark?”