Cordimancy (8 page)

“Don’t blame me for a burden that you are eager to carry!” Toril shouted. He saw the shocked looks on the faces of his peers and suspected he’d gone too far, but the anger he’d tried so hard to repress came tumbling out. “You arranged this conference at the worst possible time, hoping Kelun wouldn’t come at all—or that if we did, it would be in the form of some puppet whose strings you could pull. You’ve given rumors of a threat, not proof. And you want an irrevocable commitment to an open-ended war. Well, Kelun does not dance at your bidding!”

Toril stopped.

He listened to his breathing against the silence around the table, and grew sick.

He cleared his throat. “I am sorry. My feelings got the better of me. I have no wish to be defiant, only careful and kind. I trust the raja to understand that when he hears me out.”

The shimsal slowly stood. “As far as you’re concerned, I
am
the raja,” she whispered. Her eyes were locked on Toril’s; she kept them there until he blinked uncomfortably. “You’ve heard our plan to protect the raja’s subjects, and you refuse to support it. How much zufan blood will pay for your foolishness?”

Then she glanced at the other members of the council. Her lips tightened. “Nevertheless, you are young, and I have no wish to punish a whole clan for your inexperience. I am willing to give you some time—a brief time—to reconsider.”

She gestured to the guards at the door. “Take our young friend here to a place where he can ponder. Treat him well, but do not let him wander. Those of us with the stomach for battle have further plans to make, and for now he doesn’t get to hear them.”

8

sacks of barley ~ Malena

Malena’s
first hint of trouble was a whiff of smoke. She was leaning on a balcony overlooking the courtyard outside her new living quarters when a stray breeze brought the smell.

It wasn’t the odor of a cooking fire. This was more acrid, more dirty. She scanned the sky, thinking she might see evidence of flames where they didn’t belong.

A moment later, she heard shouts beyond the walls of the compound.

She dropped the daisy she’d been fingering all morning and hurried down the long, half-open hallway, nearly colliding with the Voice who sprinted out of an adjoining room at the same time.

Sidestepping one another wordlessly, the two women mounted steps in a rush and emerged onto a terrace that overlooked the town.

A dozen rooftops away, smoke billowed from thatch. A crowd was gathering in the streets, buckets dangling from several hands. The main structure would not burn—like most of the town, it was adobe—but the roof appeared to be smoldering everywhere.

They should wet the roofs around it
, Malena thought.
Sparks will travel.

It was too late. As if her worry had been a curse, Malena saw fire rise in two new places. The air filled with more shouts, now tinged with fear.

“What can we do?” she asked, turning to the Voice.

The woman’s answer was a bewildered stare. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. It took Malena a full five heartbeats to notice the arrow protruding from the Voice’s side. By then the woman’s knees were buckling, red blossoming near her elbow. She slumped into Malena’s arms, still eerily silent.

Malena felt for a pulse with shaking, sticky fingers. Nothing. Then, realizing how exposed she was on the terrace, she glanced around in terror. Where was the archer? Somewhere south of the fire, judging by the angle of the arrow...

She crouched and ran toward the nearest merlon. Just before she skidded into safety in the lee of the granite, she glimpsed a trio of men at the eaves of the paoro beyond the wall of the durga. Two had ropes in their hands; one gripped a longbow.

What was happening? First she’d thought of the fire as a random emergency, but the Voice’s death and the way flame spread ruled out such a convenient explanation. Had no one else noticed strangers skulking?

They were under attack, but who was the enemy? Kelun Clan was at peace with its neighbors. Or had Toril antagonized someone at his meeting? He could only have arrived a few hours ago...

A further import of the men with ropes and the death of the Voice leapt into focus in Malena’s mind. Out in the town, people were worried about fire. But that must be a distraction; the men behind this attack had already cut off their best means of communication and were now intent on breaching the central stronghold.

Gathering her courage, she flew back to the stairs, half expecting a piercing missile in her back.

None came.

She took the steps three at a time, grateful now that she’d changed into loose-fitting pantaloons. It made the running easier.

This time she went down two flights, to the same level as the courtyard. A knot of men had formed around Hasha, who gestured to convey assignments. The men were soldiers, but most carried buckets instead of swords.

Noemi was a relatively small town, situated in a saddle between two mountains. The site, centuries old, had been chosen for convenient access to mines, and to the pastures that goatherds required, not for sophisticated defense. It had no moat or death traps.

Nonetheless, Toril’s ancestors had given thought to fortifications. A stone wall enclosed the core of the town, and its center and high point was the stronghold where Malena now stood. Besides the tower and the stables, it contained a well, a gatehouse, a carefully stocked cellar, and an armory—tools to withstand a siege, as long as the enemy remained outside its walls.

“They shot the Voice!” Malena gasped, shoving her way through Hasha’s troops. “They’re coming over the wall from the paoro.”

Hasha paused in mid gesture, took in her trajectory and bloody hands at a single glance, and paled. “Drop the gate!” he shouted. “Drop it now!”

The portcullis began to rumble as horseshoes clattered on cobblestone. Wooden buckets dropped; steel rang as swords left their scabbards. In the distance, Malena heard an abrupt shift in the tenor of voices from the town. There were shrieks now, not just calls of alarm.

“Take a squad up to the terrace,” Hasha said to one of his lieutenants. He pointed to another man. “Go see why we had no warning from the bastion. That wall is supposed to be watched always. Are they already inside? Report back at all costs.”

Before the man had saluted, Hasha was already rounding on another group. “Half of you to the gate. The rest, see about the back wall. If they’re trying to climb in one place, they can try in another.”

As men scrambled to their stations, Hasha turned back to Malena and grabbed her shoulders. “Go to the tower. Find the other women. You’ll be safe there.”

Thunder rocked the gate, followed by a screeching of metal, battle cries, and terrified whinnies from several horses. Hasha looked up in shock, and then, realizing that Malena had not moved, shook her shoulders again. “Go!”

Time seemed to slow.

Malena stumbled backward, regained her balance, and turned to run.

An arrow skipped across flagstones and nicked her ankle.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hasha lift an axe and lunge forward to meet a hulking shadow that ambled through billowing chips of mortar and brick with a club over its shoulder. She had never been in the presence of a
rakshasa
before, but the scaly hide, neckless shoulders bulging with muscle, and long yellow tusks matched the descriptions that had kept her awake and sweating as a child.

Yet it wasn’t the monster, or the tattooed bandits with filed teeth swarming into the courtyard in its wake, that brought Malena’s flight to a halt as quickly as it began. It was a horse.

One of the horde was mounted on a pinto—a slender mare with a splash of white on her nose, a ribboned tail, and a large crescent splotch on her left shoulder.

It was Tupa’s horse—the same animal her sister had ridden when she left for home with Malena’s parents after the morning meal. Malena had groomed that mare dozens of times, even taken her for a ride on occasion; there was no question about its identity.

“Tupa!” she screamed, tears springing to her eyes. She darted back toward the stairs, needing to see the streets, the victims the attackers had left in their wake, the rest of the horses they rode.

But even as she ran, she saw commotion spilling downward from the terrace. Two of Hasha’s soldiers stood back to back, their swords flashing against a tightening cordon of enemies who carried spears and bows.

She turned to the fortified tower, but its doors were already swinging shut as several thugs approached it at full tilt, ululating wildly.

The rakshasa now had a pair of men on his back, and was swinging its club in an attempt to dislodge them. A horse crumpled under a random blow. Hasha went down on the backswing.

Where could she hide? They’d go through the living quarters with a fine-toothed comb, empty the armory, plunder the cellar...

Hoping desperately that battle was occupying the attention of everyone in the courtyard, Malena dashed around the corner of the stable. If there was any mercy in the heavens, and someone saw her, maybe they’d assume she was headed for the kitchens in the corner of the living quarters.

Instead, as soon as she was out of sight from most of the fighters, she doubled back and climbed into a low-lying stable window. She scraped her shins and elbow on the rock, but she scarcely noticed in her urgency to be hidden.

After she’d flopped into an empty stall, she crouched for a moment, listening. Ponies and horses whinnied, but the sounds of battle were blunted. Her own ragged breathing was the only human noise nearby.

Now what? The stalls held no useful concealment, other than a thin layer of straw. Pitchforks would soon probe that. She could try to hide behind a horse, but they provided poor cover, especially if they were spooked.

She peeked around the corner, wishing she’d paid more attention to the layout of the building when she’d spoken with Toril last night. At one end, double doors hung across a shaft of sunlight. If men entered the stable, they’d come from that direction.

At the other extreme, the building was dark, and Malena smelled grain. She scuttled out of the stall and into shadows, fighting paralysis when a shout sounded just beyond one of the stable windows.

She crept behind a barrel of apples, in among sacks of barley, and pulled them around her like a cocoon. Once surrounded, she began to shudder, as terror and grief overpowered adrenaline.

The shudders turned to muted sobs—convulsions of shock and horror that were all the more jarring for their silence.

Where was her sister? What had happened to her parents? She replayed the Voice’s collapse in her mind, the crunch of Hasha’s body against the club of the rakshasa, the savagery on the features of the man astride the horse she knew so well.

Time passed—how long, Malena wasn’t sure. Motes of dust floating in the lone ray of sun just beyond her sacks of barley faded. Shadows lengthened. A rhythmic pounding from the direction of the tower gave way to the crack of splintering timbers and a chorus of triumphal jeers.

Malena’s trance of panic turned to grim, rational dread. She forced herself to think about the men who’d attacked. They had bandit’s faces—dirt, scars, whorls of greenish ink on both cheeks, shards of bone in their ear lobes. Bandits were ruthless thieves who preyed on weak travelers.

Malena knew they had an organized brotherhood of sorts, but she’d never heard of them attacking a healthy town. Certainly not one guarded by disciplined troops, and in broad daylight. Not this far from the pass. Not in such a large group.

What did it mean? And how had they enlisted the cooperation of a rakshasa? Such beasts did not speak; it took a powerful wielder of magic just to communicate with them, let alone bend them to a consistent purpose.

Wails and screams from townsfolk continued to reach her ears, though they were much sparser now, and Malena recalled the little serving girl she’d met the night before. Kinora. Had she found her own hiding place?

What do I do now?
Malena wondered. The prospect of sneaking out of the stable petrified her, but if the marauders had overpowered the entire stronghold, this was only temporary refuge.

As if her fears had attracted fate’s attention, a voice spoke beyond the far gates of the stable.

“Did you find anyone else?”

“Just a couple of servant brats who’d wet themselves. The tower?”

“A few old women and a handful of guards. After we hacked them up, we fed them to the beast.”

“I’ll be happier when it’s back in its cave instead of here with us. Gives me the willies, the way it watches when I walk by.”

“Relax,” said the first voice. “The spell wears off at midnight, and by then its belly will be too full for much except sleep. We’ll be long gone.”

The sound of spitting was followed by a curse and a grunt. The gate creaked.

“I think they already looked through the stable. Someone said there are eighteen horses, but you can count them again if you’re worried about getting your fair share of the loot.”

Malena froze. She hadn’t heard anybody searching; perhaps someone had come and gone while she was in a stupor.

The first voice chuckled. “Actually, there’s a particular filly I’m after. I saw her head this way when we first came in, and I’ve been meaning to circle back to see if she’s still here.”