The Kan’an made swift passage upriver toward Renan. Coded heliographs had already gone to Renan, and couriers would speed the news to Jarrah, so I could be met at the appropriate point by the Negaret, Maisir’s border guards.
I took five men, with Captain Lasta as my aide and section commander. I thought of taking Seer Sinait, but Tenedos said that would be a violation of protocol. I wonder now if that was the truth, or if there were other reasons.
Out of pure malevolence, I promoted Karjan troop guide, but was disappointed. He merely looked at me with a baleful glare, muttered something about all things coming around in time, and went to our quarters to pack. The others with me were Lance-Major Svalbard, the morose roughneck; the archer Lance-Major Curti, another Lancer whose talents I well respected; and Lance Manych, whose skills with the bow I remembered from Kallio. I made him lance-major, to his considerable astonishment. Then he realized he was still the lowest ranker, and grumbled to Karjan.
Karjan chuckled. “Since y’re th’ junior one amongst us, there’ll be no need for searchin’ about when someone orders a fire t’ be built. An’ th’ reason y’re promoted, you’ll find, is m’ master buries as many as he promotes. P’raps more. Y’r widow’s death benefits’ll be greater. A kindly man, m’ master.” I withdrew, grinning, before Karjan could realize he was spied upon.
We would get horses and remounts in Renan, ride south and west, until we crossed into the Border Lands just west of the Urshi Highlands, and then strike for Yonge’s secret track.
Yonge and I had spent four days going over and over the route, not only using the sketchy maps of the areas around the Highlands, but also Yonge’s commentary, which was exact, in its way: “Turn off that trail when you come to the third fork of the creek. There’ll be a tall tree at the fork, with a limb near as big as the trunk, that hangs off to the left. You’ll know which one it is, because there’ll be remnants of a rope around the limb. I hanged an old friend of mine there for being discourteous in a business matter. Might still be some bones around the tree, if the jackals haven’t scattered them by now.”
Yonge grudgingly gave up the trail’s secrets, since he had meant to go with us, for flatlanders would never be able to find the trail’s beginnings, let alone hold to it over the mountains. I said no, flatly, and he argued, threatened, and even begged. But I held firm. He knew better than to think I’d allow a tribune, head of all Imperial scouts and skirmishers, to ride off into the unknown, no matter how important the emperor considered my mission.
He glared, then nodded once. “I hear your command, Numantian. Very well.” He appeared to drop the matter. I should have known.
I didn’t leave my cabin for the first two days after sailing from Nicias, having about three hundredweight of orders to read and sign. But at last there was nothing left to remind me of Nicias, desks, or paperwork, and I went on deck. It was misting, not quite rain, and I let the moisture wash my face, my mind, and my soul, putting everything behind me.
We were still in the Latane River’s delta, and the banks sometimes came quite close, although the channel was dredged deep. I was watching a particularly vivid waterfowl, marveling at its wonderful plumage, paying no heed to someone I took to be a sailor lounging nearby, back to me.
“That bird’s lucky, Numantian. If you were ashore, with a bow and arrow, it’d no doubt end up as plumage for one of your hats.” It was, of course, Yonge.
I started to ask questions, but caught myself. That would only increase the Kaiti’s glee. I remembered my drill instructor days and painted anger on my face. “How dare you, Tribune! You’ve broken my explicit orders!”
“This is true,” Yonge said.
“I could put you under close arrest, have you taken back to Nicias in chains.”
“You could try,” he agreed dangerously. “Or you could take what is done as done, and buy me a drink.”
At last I had him. “There’s none on board,” I said. “Since I don’t drink, and since we’re on imperial business, I specifically ordered the purser to bring no alcohol aboard.”
“You … you evil snake!” Yonge hissed. “You must’ve known! You must’ve guessed!” I put one finger beside my nose and looked wise.
• • •
We disembarked at a small dock on the far side of Renan, not particularly wanting to attract notice and lose a week being feted by every politician and officer in Urey. Our horses were waiting. We loaded our gear and rode through the beautiful city’s outskirts and into the rain-drenched countryside. The farther from civilization and the closer to the unknown and danger, the happier I became.
The trail was wide, inviting, and all of us, without orders or comment, loosened our weapons in their sheaths. “You flatlanders can learn, sometimes,” Yonge said. “This is an ambush route, for fools. Wise men use it as a marker, to reassure themselves they’re on the right track.”
I paid no attention to his insults, for I was intent on following the instructions I’d memorized. I spotted the cone-shaped rock, waited until it was aligned with the dimly seen grove of trees halfway up a slope, then looked for the turnoff. “Here,” I announced, and pulled my horse’s reins toward what looked like nothing more than a crevice. The crevice widened into the real trail, and Yonge grunted approval.
Ahead, the hills grew into treeless, forbidding mountains.
• • •
The temple loomed out of the blowing snowstorm quite suddenly, overhanging the narrow valley like a brooding eagle. It was built of dark wood, elaborately worked, and there were great stone statues of fabulous creatures unknown to any myth I’d heard. Statues of demons ornamented the uptilting eaves of the roofs. I wondered who’d built this temple, and when, for there was no way, even with an eternity to work in, the men and women who peopled the few dozen huts below it could have performed the labor, even with the strength of gods. I looked at the blank empty spaces of windows, innocent of glass or curtains, and shivered, without knowing why.
Yonge was staring at the huge building, or rather connected series of buildings, with an expression of baleful hatred. His instructions had said nothing about this place, other than that here was where we’d trade our horses for more surefooted animals. I dropped back beside him and began to ask what was wrong.
He shook his head. “No words,” he said. “Not now.”
I said no more, but signaled to my men, a tap on the pommel of my sword, and another on my gloved right hand. The signal went down the line, and we were ready for any surprise. A gong boomed across the valley as we rode up to the temple steps, and huge doors swung open. A man came toward us. He was very young, barely out of his teens, slender, shaved-headed, and wore, in spite of the storm, nothing but a light robe, shimmering with all the colors of summer. He walked as if he were royalty, surrounded by an invisible entourage.
He stopped, waiting, arms folded. “I greet you,” he said in highly accented Numantian, voice soft, almost feminine.
“We greet you, Speaker,” Yonge said.
“You know my title,” the man said. “You have been here before.”
“I have, but my friends have not.”
The young man looked carefully at each of us, and I felt his gaze like a wind more piercing, more chill, than the unheeded storm. “You travel light for merchants,” the Speaker said. “Or do you carry gold in your bags, to make purchases in Maisir?”
“We are on a different errand.”
“Ah,” the Speaker said. “I should have sensed that. You are soldiers. I can tell by your dress, by the way you sit your saddles. You desire …?”
“Pack animals,” Yonge said. “A resting place for the night. Perhaps food. We are prepared to pay.”
“You know the custom?”
“I do.” Yonge had said each of us must make a gift when we reached this village, a gift of warm clothing. I thought this more than reasonable.
“Then you are welcome,” the Speaker said. “But only until dawn. Then you must move on.”
“We shall obey,” Yonge said. “But why do you put limits on our visit? This did not happen the last time I was here.”
“I was not the Speaker then, nor do I remember you,” the young man said. “But I sense blood. Blood is about you, blood is behind you, far greater blood is before. I do not wish you to linger, lest you leave your mark on us.” He pointed at the village, and I saw two doors standing open, one of a hut, the other a stable. “Go now,” he said, not harshly, not kindly, and walked back inside the temple.
• • •
Two men helped us curry our horses and three women fed us, a thick stew of lentils, tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables, highly seasoned with spices I’d never tasted before. After we ate, we unrolled our bedrolls on the wooden benches we’d eaten on. Even though there was a thick wooden bar, I put my bench across the door, so no one could enter, and had my sword ready.
I slept poorly, and had bad, barely remembered dreams, dreams of strange monsters, snowy battlefields strewn with dead, rivers that ran red with blood, even redder flame, and the echoing screams of dying women. I awoke intermittently, listened dumbly for a time to the storm raging outside as if drugged, then fell asleep once more.
The night lasted an eternity before there was a thudding at the door. I slid the bar away. The three women were there, one with a steaming basin of water, the second with towels, the third with a great bowl of steamed oats. We washed, ate hastily, and as we finished, heard the stamp of hooves and the snort of animals.
There were ten zebu outside, long-haired, snow-frosted, with wooden X-shaped pack frames already strapped on, and firewood lashed below each pack. Each of their horn tips was protected with a bright red metal ball, which would lessen our chances of getting gored. We approached them cautiously, and they seemed to eye us with equal suspicion. But they were quite tractable, and responded well to a nose rub or a scratch behind the ears. Captain Lasta, in fact, seemed quite at home with these strange animals, and I wondered if he’d been a teamster in another life, and then wondered whether being reborn a soldier was a reward or a punishment.
We lashed our gear onto the frames and were ready to march, each man leading one zebu, a second tied by long reins to the saddle of the first. We offered silver to the male villagers, gold to the women, but they would have nothing more than the garments we’d already given them.
The Speaker was standing in the middle of the path out of the village. “You are content,” he said, and it was not a question.
“We are,” I said. “I thank you for your hospitality.”
“This is a duty given us by our god, who must not be named,” he said. “It needs no thanks. But you behaved well last night, offering no arrogances to my men, no insults to my women. For this, I shall grant you a gift, a riddle for you to work at as you travel. Last night, I cast certain spells. Our god permits us curiosity. Now I shall pique yours:
“The god you think you serve, you do not serve. The goddess you fear is not the one who is your enemy, but your enemy is one who seeks to become more, to become a god, yet, in the end, shall be no more than a demon, for demons are already his true masters. The final part of the riddle is this: Serve who you may, serve who you might, you serve but one, and that one will grant you naught.”
He bowed his head, and I swear a smile flickered, then he strode off into the temple.
“What th’ hells does that mean?” Karjan growled.
“Who knows,” I said finally. “But have you ever known a priest who didn’t try to keep you fuddled?”
Someone managed a chuckle, but when we went on, we were silent, full of unease.
“Who were those people?” I asked Yonge.
“I don’t know … but there’s tales of the village — and that temple — being there forever. From my grandfather’s time it was known as a place of ancient mystery.”
“What god do they worship?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“Why do you hate them? They fed us, gave us shelter, traded for our horses.”
“Because,” Yonge said carefully, “I hate those who know more than I do, and refuse to teach it. I hate those who have more power than I do, with no reason for having it. I hate those who know someone will be betrayed, but stand back and let it happen. And I hate those who have some sort of tin god whispering in their ear and think they’ve been adopted into his son-of-a-bitching family!
“There was once a time when I, and three of my men, came here, sore hurt, and were turned away by this sanctimonious little snot’s bastard father, for reasons I still do not understand, and for which I hope he was reborn as a slime-worm. Now, Numantian, are those reasons enough?”
I left Yonge alone for the rest of the day.
• • •
“Tribune, it’s starting to feel like a storm coming on,” Captain Lasta said. The wind was building, chill and wet.
“The trail goes down toward the rising ground as I recall,” Yonge said. “We can take shelter — ”
“Great gods!” The exclamation came from Manych. He pointed up the slope rising above us. For an instant, I could make out nothing, then the snow blew away, and I saw, standing perfectly motionless on a crag, a leopard, but a leopard marked as none I’d ever seen in a jungle. Its rosettes were very dark, and the fur around them pure white. It was huge, almost the size of a tiger. It gazed at us unmoving, curious.
“Will it attack?” Manych whispered.
“I’ll not take th’ chance,” Curti said, moving slowly toward his zebu and cased bow. He froze as a man came out of the blowing storm and walked up to the huge cat. He was big, and had long hair, longer even than mine, and a full beard, dark as his hair. He wore a sleeveless fur vest, fur pants and boots, with a woolen shirt under the vest. He stood as still as the leopard, studying us with interest. The man’s hand stretched out and stroked the leopard’s head, and the beast preened under the touch. Snow flurried around the rocks, and when it cleared, neither man nor beast could be seen.
• • •
We reached the head of the pass. On our right was a nearly vertical cliff, on our left a bare mountain slope, deep with snow. I heard a clear, distinct voice: “Stop. Go back.” It was a gentle voice, a woman’s I thought, coming from nowhere.
“What?” My voice was very loud in the crisp, frozen stillness.
“What is it, sir?” Lasta asked. I heard the voice again, and knew I must obey.
“Get the animals back,” I ordered. “Now! Move!”
There was confusion, but my men obeyed, turning our tiny formation in its tracks. I swore, knowing somehow we must move fast, faster. The men looked at me as if I’d gone mad. Then a rumbling began, a low drumroll that came from everywhere.
“Look! Up there!”
At the top of the slope a cloud of snow boiled, growing larger and larger as it moved. The mountain was coming down in an avalanche, boiling, smoking as it came. There was no more need to hurry the men, no need to shout orders, and even the zebu seemed to know how close death was, and they broke into a clumsy near-gallop through the withers-deep drifts.
We were moving slowly, far too slowly, and the roaring was louder, very close, and I dared not look back, dared not see the death that was coming. It took me, hurling me forward, and I was buried in a cloud of stinging ice and soft down, cold, spinning, buried alive and choking, soft, gentle, killing snow filling my mouth, my nostrils.
Then all was still. I could see nothing. I tried to move my arms, found I could, and flailed wildly, close to panic. I saw the sky then — gray, sullen — and realized I’d been buried in less than a foot of snow, at the very edge of the avalanche. I lay still, thinking I’d never seen a sky so pretty as that gray storm-bringer, feeling icy water trickle down my back.
I stumbled to my feet, realizing I’d been the last to run and the only one buried. My men gathered around me and I gaped at the mountain slope. Where there’d been thick drifts, there was nothing but gray rock. High up, where the avalanche had begun, I saw tiny dots moving, dancing around, and faintly heard screeches of disappointment and anger. I knew the emotion, but the voices were not human.
“What are they?”
“Dunno,” Karjan said. “They’re movin’ on two legs … but not like men do.”
The dots grouped together, went over the crest, and were gone.
“Sir? What made you stop us?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Hells, maybe I’m just lucky.”
There were nods — Damastes á Cimabue was known to be most lucky. Any other explanation would have been most worrisome.
We calmed the animals and went on, over the crest to begin the long descent into Maisir. And every step of the way I wondered who that woman’s voice was. I wonder if it was even a woman. The man who called himself the Speaker had a very soft voice. Was it he? If so, why did he warn me … warn us? I have no answers.
• • •
We came to a narrow defile, and saw a narrow draw leading to one side.
“Will you stop for a moment?” Yonge said.
“Of course,” I said, and ordered a halt.
“Come with me, if you would,” the Kaiti said. I obeyed. “Leave us alone,” Yonge told the others.
I followed him into the draw, to where it was blocked by a chest-high wall of boulders. Yonge stood at the wall, waiting. I peered over it. The draw continued for no more than another fifty yards, and was closed by vertical cliffs. The walls sheltered the draw from snow, and there was no more than powder on the rocks. Bones, human bones, littered the ground. In and around them I saw rusting armor, broken bows, a shattered sword, and animal bones.
“Fifty men,” Yonge said. “Good, honest smugglers. They had five new members in their party when they made this crossing. The new men betrayed them.”
Yonge pointed to a skull that was still encased in a half-helm. “That was their leader. Juin. A good man. He had time to cut down four of the traitors, then ordered his men back here, to fight to the death. Before they were slain, they fired and despoiled their goods, so the raiders gained nothing. He was the last to die, and his sword sang a deathsong for many of those who came to him.” Yonge stopped talking. There was silence, but for the whisper of the wind.
“How do you know what happened?” I asked. “Were you here?”
“No.”
“Then …”
“I knew,” Yonge said. “The last traitor told me before he, too, died.” He looked again at the helmeted skull. “A good man,” he said once more. “My brother.”
I jolted. “Why … why didn’t you bury the corpse? Or give it to the flames?”
Yonge’s cold eyes met mine. “You mourn in your manner, Numantian, I mourn in mine.”
He started toward the column, then turned back.
“None of the men who lay in wait for Juin now live,” he said. “Not one.” He smiled terribly, and his hand instinctively touched his sword’s pommel.
• • •
Yonge’s mood passed, and he reverted to his usual cheerily roistering self as we moved lower and lower toward the flatlands. Now we were truly in Maisir.
Everything smelled and felt different. Kait had been foreign, but very like the crags and ravines of the Urshi Highlands or the borders of Urey itself.
Trees rose around us, but now instead of the jungled growth of Numantia, these were high conifers, pines, cedars, whose branches whispered secrets of this unknown land as the wind blew through them. We saw bears, some larger than any I’d hunted in my own country, and the tracks of huge cats. The air was crisp, clean, and Nicias and my own problems seemed a world away.
Yonge, who normally walked slack — last man — in the column, came up beside me.
“It’s a pretty land, Numantian,” he said.
“It is that.”
“And do you know why?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s because there are no people.” We grinned at each other equably. “I’ve dreamed of building a little hut somewhere around here,” Yonge went on. “Pack in what few supplies I’d need — corn, salt, arrowheads, some seeds for the winter — then live on what I could fish and hunt.”
“A nice dream,” I said.
“And there’s only one thing wrong with it,” he said. “Which is?”
“This is Maisir.”
“So? I doubt if any of them would begrudge you the odd bearskin or salmon.”
“Perhaps there’s more to the story than that,” he said, looking mysterious. He clapped me on the back. “At any rate, Tribune Damastes á Cimabue, you’ve done well under my leadership, and I want to tell you that, perhaps, especially in view of the shortage of truly qualified men, you might, just might, be able to lead a patrol of your own. You can call yourself a scout, if you wish.”
He was joking, but I was touched, and took the title to heart. “I thank you, Tribune.”
He, too, turned serious. “So should I be suddenly called away, I know everything will be in good — well, perhaps not good, but at least not-too-palsied hands.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Aren’t you tired of asking me that question?” he said, and dropped back to his normal position.
• • •
The fog was thick, and we moved slowly along the trail. We walked quietly, boots and hooves muffled by the thick needles along the path. We rounded a bend, and they were waiting for us.
Fifteen men sat astride matching black horses. All wore dark armor. Spread out to either side was a rank of archers, shafts steadily aimed. I knew the men from engravings at Irrigon. These were Negaret, the border guards of Maisir.
“If you move, you will die,” a heavily bearded man said. “Keep your hands away from your weapons.” He walked his horse forward.
My men stood as motionless as I did — but Yonge had vanished! His zebu’s reins dangled to the ground.
“Give good report — or make your last prayers to whatever gods you have,” the bearded man ordered.
The tip of his lance touched my chest.