Diplomats and Fugitives (The Emperor's Edge Book 9) (35 page)

“Sicarius?” came a soft call from the bank. Corporal Jomrik.

Basilard stepped around brush and over driftwood to reach him. Jomrik jerked, noticing his outline against the night. Basilard lifted a hand, hoping the man could tell it was he. Jomrik did not have his rifle nearby, but he
was
gripping an axe.

“Basilard?” he asked warily.

Basilard risked stepping close enough to pat him on the shoulder.

“Gonna assume that’s you. The Kendorians don’t usually want to touch me. Not the men, anyway.”

The women do?
Basilard signed reflexively before remembering it was pointless without any light.

“Had one woman once,” Jomrik said, perhaps guessing at the question. “Down when I was stationed on the gulf. Might have been she just wanted to ride in my lorry, but I wasn’t above going balls out to impress her.”

Basilard was trying to listen for more noises, so he put out a hand, hoping a pat would tell the corporal to be quiet.

“Uh, that wasn’t untoward, by the way. That’s a Turgonian expression. On the engines in the older model lorries, there are these ball-shaped metal weights on a rod that—”

Gently but firmly, Basilard laid his hand across the corporal’s mouth.

The man grew still.

“Got a touch of trouble?” Jomrik whispered when Basilard lowered his hand. “Never mind, I see the light.”

Light?

Basilard stepped closer to the bank, peering upriver. The ramp they had come down earlier was not visible, but he
did
spot a torch or lantern moving in the distance. A second later, another light came into view. Then a third and a fourth. A faint grinding noise accompanied the lanterns. Wheels rolling over dirt? His stomach sank. Whoever was coming, it wasn’t Amaranthe and Maldynado.

“We’re going to need to hide,” Jomrik whispered. “Where’d Sicarius go? He’s been glaring at me all night, and now that I wouldn’t mind a glower, if it’s a commanding one, he’s gone.”

Basilard pointed toward the canyon wall. He doubted Jomrik could see the movement, but he was probably thinking the same thing. If those people were coming down the path, he and Basilard needed to be elsewhere. Unfortunately, Basilard did not know if there were any good hiding spots nearby. There weren’t any trees growing in the canyon, and most of the bushes weren’t much more than waist high.

“Lead the way,” Jomrik whispered and put a hand on Basilard’s shoulder.

Basilard weaved through the brush, wincing at the corporal’s heavy boots crunching on twigs and dry grass. He hoped the newcomers were making enough noise of their own that they wouldn’t hear other sounds in the canyon.

The first cart came into view as Basilard and Jomrik reached the wall. Dozens of torches were visible now, gleaming against the dark, scaly skin of the lizards plodding along, pulling wagons. There were people, as well, more blond and brown-haired Kendorians. Dozens of them. Maybe more than a hundred. This group was as big as the last one. As if the Kendorians needed any more reinforcements.

As Basilard peered about, he worried anew whether they would be able to hide. With all of those torches, the caravan ought to be able to see from canyon wall to canyon wall and everything in between.

Jomrik jerked, looking at something past Basilard’s shoulder.

Sicarius ghosted out of the shadows, stopping next to them. “The shaman and two dozen soldiers are coming from downriver,” he breathed, his voice barely audible over the approaching carts and the gurgle of the river. “I considered attacking the practitioner, but he had bodyguards and was alert. He’s older, experienced. He may be able to create a protective barrier around himself and his men. I sensed him probing the brush too. He may have known I was there.”

“We can’t hide then, can we?” Jomrik whispered.

Sicarius did not answer immediately. He was looking toward the dam. Was he thinking of trying to destroy it early? To send the flood downstream and hope to do some damage?

Even though Basilard had not seen much of it in the dark, he hadn’t had the sense that a great deal of water had built up. As Sicarius had said, it was premature. And if he ran out there, he risked being seen by an army. An army that was closing in and could trap them if it knew they were here. With a shaman helping search, that seemed inevitable.

“They will see the dam,” Sicarius said. “There’s little to be done. We need to leave, or the shaman will find us too. Bushes will not hide us from him.”

“Leave?” Jomrik asked.

Sicarius pointed upward.

“Uhhh.”

Basilard might not have the voice to say it, but a similar drawn-out syllable came to his mind.

“There are many handholds,” Sicarius murmured. “Climbing up is a simpler matter than climbing down.”

“That has to be two hundred feet, easy,” Jomrik added. “It’s vertical.”

“You would prefer to deal with the shaman?”

“I’d prefer to hide in a bush and wet myself.”

“Stay if you wish,” Sicarius said, his tone emotionless, as if he did not care one way or another. He probably didn’t. He might care if Amaranthe wanted to sacrifice herself, but what was Corporal Jomrik to him? Was Basilard even anything to him? After more than a year of fighting and traveling together?

A question for another time. Now, he must consider the wall. Basilard tilted his head back, staring at the starry black sky stretching like a fat ribbon between the lips of the canyon. If he had not blown up the Kendorian supplies, he might have considered letting them capture him with thoughts of escaping later, but he had struck a great blow against them. In addition to destroying the supplies, he may have caused injuries or even deaths. That shaman would kill him outright.

Basilard touched the porous rock, found a handhold, and pulled himself up.

“Suicidal,” Jomrik whispered again. He made a soft kissing sound, then pushed off the ground, finding a handhold. “Need more than lucky duck feet to survive this.”

“If the shaman is distracted by the arrival of the others, we may be able to climb up only a ways and hide in the shadows, wait for the caravan to pass, then climb back down,” Sicarius whispered from above them.

The idea of hiding out in the open on a wall seemed ludicrous to Basilard, but he admitted that it might work. How far could a torch’s influence reach? Thirty feet? Forty? If they hugged the wall or found a small cave or crevice, they might be invisible to those walking right below.

Bolstered by the notion that they might not have to climb all the way to the top, Basilard reached up, patting around until he found another handhold. Planning a route in the dark was impossible. With each move, all he could do was reach up and hope. Jomrik kicked a pebble free. Basilard could hardly blame him, but he winced, afraid the Kendorians would hear them. What if the shaman was sweeping out with his senses and
felt
them? Mundane torchlight might struggle to reach more than thirty feet, but a practitioner could summon something far more powerful.

Before he had climbed more than fifteen feet, he was certain this was a horrible idea. But he kept going, because the lights had grown closer, the first of the carts nearly reaching the dam. More torches were visible in the other direction, as well—the shaman and the two-dozen soldiers Sicarius had seen.

Voices floated up, greetings in Kendorian. Basilard knew he had to focus on the climbing, but he couldn’t help but glance down, taking in the long line of carts rolling toward the camp. There had already been hundreds of Kendorians, and now there would be hundreds more. Blowing up the cave seemed so insignificant. What had he accomplished? Very little. More supplies were coming in right now, and more people. What could he and his tiny team possibly do against them all? He had been foolish even to try.

When he reached forty or fifty feet in height, Basilard stopped looking down. He was not usually afraid of heights, but everything about this situation daunted him.

“Brace yourselves,” came a whisper from fifteen feet above them. Sicarius. “Don’t think. Don’t react.”

Before Basilard could wonder what he meant, a wave of sensation washed over him, almost like spiders crawling all over his skin. The shaman.

He stopped all movement, three fingers curled around a ledge while his other hand hung in the air, halfway toward a new handhold. He stared at the wall, trying to banish all thoughts, trying to look, feel, and think like a rock.

Gradually, the sensation diminished, but he had no idea if he had succeeded in fooling the shaman.

“Keep climbing,” Sicarius whispered down.

His usually emotionless voice sounded grim. Basilard worried that meant he knew they had failed, that they had been discovered.

A soft grunt came from below them, and pebbles clattered free. Jomrik cursed under his breath. Even though Basilard had not known the man long, he would hate to lose him. The corporal had done everything Basilard had asked of him, and he had already lost more than he should.

Down below, the cheerful calls of greeting had grown more subdued. The two groups had come together. People were still speaking, but quietly now, the smaller team warning the newcomers about the intruders who had blown up their camp.

Basilard peered upward, trying to gauge how far he was from the top. Was it possible he might actually make it? A breeze gusted through the canyon, tugging at his shirt, as if to warn him not to be presumptuous.

He reached up for a new handhold, surprised that he could make it out with his eyes and not just his hands. The air had grown brighter. Had the moon come out? He glanced up, but the night sky remained unchanged. No, the increased light level was coming from below. When he peeked under his armpit and saw the reason why, a sick feeling radiated from his stomach.

A silvery ball of glowing light was floating upward from the floor of the canyon. It reflected off the water in the river—and off all of the upturned sets of eyes staring toward Basilard and the others. Among the Kendorian troops, a single man stood with his legs spread and his arms lifted above his head, palms toward the heavens. The shaman. Even if Basilard could have slung his rifle off his back without falling, he doubted he could have shot the man. He was over a hundred meters away, and two grim-faced guards stood at his side, swords out, ready to protect their master.

“Go,” Sicarius urged, even though he had stopped to wait.

He hung above Basilard, one hand and both legs on perches, but the other hand hanging free, a throwing knife in his grip. The weapon would be useless at such a distance. Why hadn’t Basilard thought to keep a couple of those blasting sticks?

With more than sixty feet to the top, Basilard doubted he could make it before the Kendorians spotted him, but there was nothing else he could do but climb.

“Up there,” someone cried from below.

“Shoot them,” a familiar voice ordered. Major Diratha.

Basilard did not have to look. He could hear the movement below and had no problem imagining the Kendorians lifting bows and firearms. If he was lucky, his rucksack might stop an arrow, but he couldn’t count on that. As he climbed, his hands moving more quickly than was safe, he scoured the rock above him with his gaze, searching for a cave, a crack, or a ledge—anything they could use for cover. The silvery light illuminated the rock face, but it did not show any obvious hiding spots. He found handholds more easily now, but it hardly mattered. There wasn’t enough time to reach the top, not unless those Kendorians were extremely poor shots.

As he drew even with Sicarius, Sicarius threw his knife. Someone shouted with alarm down below, but the shaman’s light did not falter.

The first arrow struck the wall less than a foot from Basilard’s head. The metal gouged the stone and broke off, the shaft bouncing away.

Basilard gulped, trying not to imagine the next arrow piercing him through the back of the skull. He forced himself to focus on finding handholds, on climbing. But his nerves made his fingers shaky. He didn’t test the next slender ledge sufficiently, and it crumbled when he tried to pull himself up. His arm fell away, his pack shifting awkwardly on his back. Basilard dug in with his feet, the fingers on his other hand trembling as they strained to hold him up.

A hand gripped his arm. It almost surprised him into losing his balance again, but Sicarius’s grasp was as firm as steel and held him fast. Basilard took in a quick, steadying breath, then found another handhold. Firearms cracked down below, and musket balls slammed against the cliff face. It was only a matter of time before someone struck them.

“Need to put out that ancestors-cursed light,” Jomrik panted, glaring over his shoulder at the floating globe.

“Keep climbing,” Sicarius said. “There’s a ledge in fifteen feet. It might be wide enough to shelter us.”

Basilard couldn’t see it, but he kept going. One hand in front of the other. It was hard not to rush with arrows slamming into the wall inches from him, but every time he went too fast, he slipped. If he fell… the arrows wouldn’t matter. A drop from this height would be deadly.

Another startled cry came from below.

“Get that one in black,” someone yelled. “He’s throwing—” Basilard didn’t know the word. Knives, rocks, it hardly mattered. Sicarius couldn’t do much from up here. None of them could.

He finally spotted the ledge. Not much more than a foot wide, it did not offer nearly as much “shelter” as he would have liked. The only good feature was that it stretched for twenty feet or more—it almost looked like part of an old trail that might have led down to the canyon floor eons ago. All of them could lie flat on it—if they all made it.

Jomrik gasped in pain. Perched precariously with the toes of both feet on a small protrusion, Basilard could not risk looking down to check on him. With a great heave from his arms, he pulled himself over the ledge, flaying the skin off his stomach as he scraped over it. He slung his legs up and collapsed on the narrow perch. As much as he wanted to do nothing but bury his face in the corner and rest, hoping the arrows could not reach him now, he wriggled about until he could remove his rifle from his back.