Authors: Daniel Hardman
Cordimancy (26 page)
Shivi
coughed apologetically.
Toril looked up.
“Hika seems a bit dazed, but I think she’s more bruised than seriously hurt,” the old woman said, stroking black and white fur. She gestured to the limp piles of gold in the dirt. “All the ahu are dead.”
“Except Oji,” Paka supplemented, who was kneeling beside Toril’s friend. “He’s got a couple slashes on his arms, but mostly seems to be in one piece. Breathin’ steady, anyway.” He leaned forward and pressed a palm to the warrior’s forehead. His eyebrows shot up, and his hand jerked back. “He’s burnin’ up! Hot to the touch.”
“Aiki trance,” Shivi offered quietly.
Paka and Toril both gaped. Toril felt Malena’s breathing change and her posture stiffen.
“Are you sure?” he said.
Shivi shrugged. “It’s a guess. But a good one, I think.”
“But... he said nothing...” Toril faltered. He recalled the curl of Oji’s lips as the small warrior dismissed the empty ivona that Toril had found him wearing, the casual reference his friend had made to being jumped by ten men. What man needed to be subdued by ten
ahu
?
“I’m guessing you didn’t split the attackers evenly?” Shivi said.
Toril shook his head. “I had my hands full with one. Even with a staff and Hika’s help, I only lasted a few moments. Oji took the other three himself.” He thought of the blur his friend had made as he leapt between opponents.
“Just one kind of warrior fights three ahu and lives.”
“They were afraid of him,” added Malena, rolling onto her knees and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “He said he was going to kill all four, and they knew he meant it.”
Paka sighed. “So our little friend has a more complicated history than we thought.”
“Most people do, Pakatita,” Shivi said. She patted the dog, pushed herself stiffly into a standing position, and limped over to Oji. “Wish I’d brought more of my herbs and bandages from those saddlebags.”
“Oji is Luim’s son,” Malena announced.
Toril nodded to answer the surprised looks of the older couple. “They claimed his father would take him back into the clan if...“
“If he came back with my blood on his blade,” Malena finished. She blinked rapidly, turned her head to the side. “He said he would die for his friends instead. And I... was calling him an... ‘almost’...”
Incongruously, Paka laughed.
“Well, cheer up, lass. You’re not the first to underestimate one of the fast folk. You can make it up to him. Like I said, he’s breathin’ fine and doesn’t look that hurt.”
“This is not the most extreme trance I’ve seen,” Shivi said. “My guess is the heat from the trance fades in an hour or so.”
Toril eyed the old woman speculatively. “Where have you seen an aiki trance before? To my knowledge, no aiki ahu had left Merukesh in living memory, until I saw one in Bakar.”
“I... we... had a son...”
“He chose the golden fork,” said Paka. “We followed him south after his naming day.”
Shivi closed her eyes as if to soften difficult memories. “I lived with him and his new... clan... for a season, so that I might understand his life better. I saw much of osipi culture there. The People have many beautiful qualities, but it is hard on a mother to walk away from the little boy she suckled. Perhaps you caught my sadness when I lectured Oji the other day about how choices affect one’s family.”
“I’m sorry,” Malena said.
“For what?” Paka said. “Nanar was an honorable child. We are proud of him.”
“But you lost him, didn’t you?”
Shivi nodded. “I am told that he lived to be twenty-four. He married and had children. And they doubtless had children as well. But I have never met any of my golden grandchildren or great-grandchildren. They migrated far to the south, and I lost track of Nanar’s tribe entirely. I suppose even if I knew how to find them, my descendants would find me strange. Large and slow and foreign.”
“Now you see why we have a soft spot for little ones,” Paka said with artificial heartiness. “Frustrated nurturing.”
Malena stood and walked over to Shivi. She hugged the older woman and whispered something in her ear that Toril couldn’t make out.
Shivi smiled and pushed Malena’s braid back into place, then turned back to the group. “Anyway, as far as Oji is concerned, I suspect he’s just exhausted,” she said. “We had no sleep at all last night, and precious little in the days before. That’s hard enough on an ordinary human, but it’s almost impossible for an osipi to sustain. Endurance is not their talent. And then he tops it off with pitched battle in an aiki trance? No wonder he’s unconscious; he’s lucky he didn’t burn himself out worse. Give him a while to rest, and he’ll be back to normal. Or as close to it as any aiki ahu ever gets.”
“We sacrificed a lot to get ahead of Gorumim,” Toril said. “We just killed all four of the scouts he sent ahead, which may keep him in the dark a bit longer. We can’t squander that advantage.”
“Of course not,” Paka replied. “Why don’t you and Malena go ahead to Two Forks, and Shivi and I will stay behind till Oji has rested? The dog would love a nap, too.”
“Hah!” Shivi snorted affectionately. “My virile husband doesn’t want to admit he’s a bit footsore himself.”
Paka pulled on his beard and raised his eyebrows.
“Yesterday I didn’t want to be left behind,” Shivi continued, eyes directed at Toril, “but today the sun is bright, the road is broader and better travelled, town’s not far off, and I have an aiki ahu to defend us. And my old bones need a rest. We should have two or three hours buffer, at least, before we have to worry about the main group getting here. We’ll make sure Oji’s awake and we’re on the road long before then.”
Toril glanced at Malena.
Paka walked over and pushed him gently between the shoulder blades.
“Go,” he said. “We’ll meet up with you soon enough.”
A
ferry had just pulled away from the riverbank when Toril and Malena rounded a bend of the road and emerged from beneath the shade of sal and asna. They blinked in the sunshine.
Grassy slopes led down to the water they'd abandoned upstream, before sunrise. The current seemed as swift as before, but now the river was broader. Its surface was flat, with no turbulence or eddies, suggesting increased depth as well.
Both halves of Two Forks spread before them as they stared north. A scattering of huts and rambling trails threaded through willows and cattails along the near shore. Five or six bowshots distant, a grid of cobbled streets and stone buildings was visible across the water. Masses of people bustled, indifferent to the tragedy that impelled Toril.
A line of peaks jutted through cloud in the backdrop—the edge of the Kestrels. Beyond them, Toril knew, lay the Blood Rift—a desolate valley of rock and vapor that ran west all the way to the sea, and that slashed east nearly as far. Legend said the river had once flowed straight north, through the mountains, making a short trip to Kikal Pilar in the plain country. The mountains had been lower, then, until violent magic had torn the land and heaved the mountains up. Now the river flowed east a hundred leagues to where mountains and rift petered out, before doubling back into the lowlands and joining its original course to the capital.
Toril observed the turning winch, the taut cable at the far nose of the ferry, and the slack rope trailing into the current at its stern, and cursed under his breath. From his prior visits to Two Forks, he remembered the ferry as the only convenient means of crossing the river. It kept a lazy schedule.
"What's wrong?" Malena asked.
"Ferry won't be back for an hour or two. We need to get across now."
"Catch a ride with one of the fishermen, maybe?" Malena gestured to a cluster of boats circling in the horseshoe bend downstream, just above the split that gave the town its name.
Toril sighed. "I guess we could walk down there and try to get someone's attention," he said, not moving.
"We could swim again."
Toril glanced sideways. "I heard your teeth chattering after the river last night.”
Malena shrugged.
“You know, I think I could like being married to a woman who wants to solve problems more than she wants to stay comfortable." Toril reached a hand toward Malena's tangled hair, then hesitated when he saw her flinch.
He felt his eyes narrow, his pulse quicken.
A silence stretched out awkwardly.
"Maybe someone who lives along the shore here will have a better idea," he said, breaking into a half-trot. "C'mon."
A
short while later, Toril dropped a rope over the mooring post along a dock at the busier side of Two Forks, pushed his staff ahead of him, and flopped onto damp planks. The dinghy they’d chartered had no keel and was too small for stability; his motion rocked it in the opposite direction. The girl who’d piloted them across backpaddled competently, though; in a moment she had herself sideways again, with hull kissing wood. Toril grabbed the gunwale and reached a hand to Malena.
Her grip was firm, and wedding memories flashed onto Toril's mind. He remembered how her fingers had trembled as their hands were bound by the braid of two parijans. How distant the alchemy of that moment had seemed, these past days.
They stood together as he pulled her forward onto the dock—he from a half-kneel, she from a crouch. He didn't release her hand. Instead, he leaned in, conscious of the sensation of her knee inside his own.
Malena didn't pull away, but she didn't meet his gaze, either. "Thanks for the ride, little sister," she called to the girl.
"Thanks for the coppers," the girl chirped. “I’ll look for the older couple, like you said, and bring them across when they come.”
Toril stepped back with a sigh.
"Let's go find the prefect," he said.
Urchins
darted along the waterfront, clamoring at a game of tag as they weaved among tangled piles of fish net, bundles of canvas, and palettes of cargo.
As she walked, Malena absorbed their prattle with a sort of numb wonder. These young faces were… happy! It felt inconceivable to her that the bleakness and horror that had crushed Noemi and blighted every moment of their journey since, should not have penetrated this neighboring land as well—and yet, here there was no pall of smoke from funeral pyres, no stench of death, no buzzing of flies, no flapping of vulture’s wings. If they’d heard any news at all, they weren’t dwelling on it.
A fleeting temptation to anger vanished.
No. She could not wish true knowledge of Noemi on anyone here, young or old. Let the children laugh.
Was this how soldiers felt, returning from battle with scars upon the soul, and beholding innocence with haunted eyes?
Almost as if the thought had conjured a vision, Malena’s eyes settled on a nearby street corner, where a man knelt, embracing his young son.
The man could only be a conscript, answering an unwanted summons. He had some trappings of a soldier—a scabbarded sword hung from the scarlet slash around his waist, and a helmet of plated leather was tucked behind one elbow—but his trousers had been patched and repatched, and his boots were built for hard labor, not marching. His voice box bobbed as he smiled and tousled the boy’s hair. The expression looked forced to Malena—a brave face for the benefit of the young. Some day soon, he might be the hardened veteran she’d just considered; today, he looked nervous about impending battle.
What was this man’s real profession? Did those gauntleted hands normally knead flour, or plane shingles, or swing a hoe? Had a woman kissed them recently, wet the fingertips with tears of worry?
Malena thought of the predatory grace of the ahu they’d faced on the trail. She remembered the way her skin had crawled, her stomach flipped, when as a young girl she’d watched Gorumim on parade.
Her soul grew cold.
She glanced to her side as she stepped over a hole in the cobblestone. Her husband’s jaw was set, his face pale, his eyes fixed on the rock wall above the man’s shoulders.
Yes. He, too, had seen this soldier’s goodbye. And he didn’t like it any more than she did.
Had he imagined this, understood what Gorumim’s muster necessarily entailed, when he’d argued for Sotalio? Perhaps he’d been more than simply selfish, to plead with her that he be allowed to lead the clan out of war.
Did her sister deserve rescue more than the little boy now refusing to loose his father’s hand?
She lowered her gaze and concentrated on Toril’s steady footfall instead of the trembling of her chin.
The
prefect, it turned out, was not available. According to the rather ancient-looking sergeant that they found at the gate of the fort, the prefect and his lieutenants were out drafting men from the lumber encampment in the hills above town. They'd been given a quota for the fighting force that Two Forks would be contributing to put down "the yolk-sucker incursion," and they were struggling to meet it.
A rush of anger warmed Toril's face. The general’s fictional war had pulled him away from home as his father and his wife were attacked; now was it going to foil his attempt to undo a kidnapping? He needed attention, help, a posse...
He realized he was clenching his jaw and his fists, and forced himself to take a deep breath.
"When will the prefect be back?" he said, through gritted teeth.
"Few hours, maybe. He'd be taking dinner here in town, so he said." The sergeant eyed Toril speculatively. "You wanna join up? Ain't seen you in town before."
“I’m Kelun, not Umora clan,” Toril said. “I’ve come to Two Forks on urgent business.”
The sergeant leaned his stool sideways to spit away from Toril’s boots. "Well, I can’t help you much at the moment. It’s just me and a couple guards over at the jail. Everybody else is out packing gear and kissing their women goodbye. We're supposed to muster in the plaza later this afternoon for formal orders."
Malena stepped forward. “What about a Voice? You must have one in a town this size.”
“Got a shimsal, matter of fact,” the sergeant said, shifting his eyes to Malena. “But you’d need money. She asks a high price.” He looked skeptically at the pair, and Toril was reminded of his own dirty fingernails and unshaven cheeks. He’d pulled his tousled hair back with a band around his forehead, but his lips were cracked and sunburned, and the half-formed scab on his chin itched. His stomach had been rumbling. At least last night’s dunking in the river had washed most of the grime and sweat of the journey away.
Malena bore the rumpled imprint of wilderness travel as well, but her eyes were clear, her cheeks and lips smooth. Aftereffects of her supernatural healing?
“Money’s not a problem,” Toril said. “Where can we find her?”
The sergeant gestured up the hill. “The sisterhood keeps a house at the top of the street, just west of the paoro. I’ve heard she spends most of her time there.”
Toril turned to go.
“Interesting weapon, son,” said the sergeant. “Where’d you get it?”
Toril saw Malena’s eyes narrow, and wondered if his own expression mirrored her reaction. He felt his grip tighten on the staff.
“Inherited it. Been in the family for years,” he said shortly.
The sergeant pursed his lips, nodded slowly. “A Kelun staff’s gone missing,” he said. “Special staff. That’s the latest gossip, anyway.”
“What else does the gossip say?” Toril asked.
“The yolk suckers burned Noemi, killed everybody. Hasha’s son’s gone crazy with grief, or ambition, or both. He’s out in the wilderness chasing ghosts or bandits, and refusing to help Rovin defend the border.”
Toril opened his mouth to respond, but Malena beat him to it. “No osipi attacked Noemi!” she snapped. “Your imaginary border threat is just a distraction. Hasha’s son is chasing children—children kidnapped by bandits, children of the clan, children that Rovin hasn’t lifted a finger to rescue.”
The sergeant rocked back on his stool, uncomfortable with Malena’s intensity. “I was just repeating what I heard.”
“What you heard...” Toril began.
Malena cut him off again. “Next time you gossip, tell your friends that Hasha’s crazy son rode out to do battle for those who couldn’t help themselves, and he had to do it alone because Rovin was too yellow to join him. Tell them he carries the staff on an errand Kelun himself would be proud of. It can’t be missing when it’s in the hand of its rightful owner!”
Her eyes flashed. She’d taken a step forward in her heat.
Toril felt a flood of warmth and hope. Was he wrong to imagine more than dutiful loyalty in Malena’s defense? Was it possible that his wife understood, in some measure, the sacrifices he’d been making, the burdens he’d shouldered? He’d felt so lonely these past days, felt such distance and rebuff from her... Was she willing to forgive him for being gone in her hour of need, for losing his magic when the children needed it most?
His eyes were swimming.
“Let’s go,” he whispered.
Malena
caught up after a few strides. “I thought the shimsal was up the hill,” she said.
Toril nodded. “We need money first.” He wiped a sleeve across his cheek, and covered by gesturing across the intersection to where a road wound parallel to the river. “I only scrounged a few coppers before we left, and that'll never be enough to pay the shimsal. Our family has an agent here in Two Forks to manage shipments we send down from the mines. He keeps a small treasury for us.”
He noticed Malena’s dubious expression.
“I don’t plan to dawdle, but we do need to stop. Besides a fee for the Voice, we need supplies, new horses, food, weapons. Perhaps I can hire myself a posse if I’m willing to pay enough.”
“I haven't had news of my parents or my sister since we left, and we don't know how close behind us Gorumim is. Couldn't we get the money after? Would the shimsal know your agent and take a pledge from him?”
“Corim is well known here in town, but I am not. Besides, folks think I’m crazy. Remember?”
Toril threaded his way through a collection of stalls clogging the street corners. Colorful pottery was for sale in one; slabs of drying fish hung from horizontal slats at another. The smell of
chotra
floated out of a shop window.
His stomach lurched. Their food on the trek had been sparse, especially since they'd caught a glimpse of Gorumim's party at the distant side of the valley. He'd been so consumed with worries and adrenaline since then that the fasting had scarcely registered.
His companions had said nothing.
A copper wouldn't pay the shimsal, but it would buy a pair of millet cakes…
He ducked inside the shop and emerged again a moment later to find Malena waiting, her arms folded. He offered her one of the small, flat loaves. "Just realized we hadn't eaten in a while."
Malena stared at the cake, obvious frustration on her face.
"Didn't you hear me worry that Gorumim might be close behind?" she said, making no move to accept the food.
"A few hours. We don't have lots of time, but that detour won't make any difference."
She rolled her eyes, grabbed the bread, and turned to continue walking. "If we have to stop somewhere, then let's at least hurry."
"Fine!" Toril stepped around her and began wolfing down bites as he strode forward.
He passed a donkey carrying a heavy load of blankets, and turned down a narrow street. A sightless beggar sat cross-legged on the cobblestone, a cracked wooden bowl in his hand. It was empty.
Toril hesitated, then dropped the remainder of his cake in the dish, squared his shoulders, and walked on.