Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) (33 page)

             
“Where?” Raven asked, and sniffed.

             
“To the south,” Glynn said, stepping forward. Xinto wanted her to stop crowding the young girl but couldn’t think of a way to tell the Uman-Chi to stop. Men were especially aware of their personal space and would react unpredictably if trapped.

             
He finally stepped to one side, away from the girl toward the bed she shared with the old man. The quilt stank of the smells of Men, but he ignored it.

             
The girl sighed, a little more relaxed.

             
“We must go ourselves, and find this one,” Xinto informed Raven. “We need you to come with us.”

             
“Why not just tell the Emper—tell Lupus?” Raven argued.

             
Xinto looked into her brown, doe eyes. The girl had already answered this question in her own mind. Xinto just needed to reinforce it.

             
“Because if we tell the Emperor, he’ll send one thousand Wolf Soldiers and capture this person,” Xinto said. “Most likely, he’ll kill the man. We can go ourselves and speak with him. He’s already identified himself to Glynn—he knows her and he’ll trust her.”

             
Melissa sniffed again. “So we’ll bring him back?”

             
Xinto and Glynn exchanged a glance. Raven saw it and stiffened. She wasn’t foolish, this one, she could at the very least keep up with them, if not exceed them.

             
“We need to know what this new person can tell us,” Xinto said. “The addition of a new member to our group has brought another member each time. You arrived and added Glynn. Glynn identified you and added me. I was brought here and this new person arrived.”

             
“He’s here?” Raven asked, squinting her eyes.

             
“He was,” Glynn said.

             
Xinto wanted to curse her into silence. The girl might have the wisdom of a century and a half, but she had been taught to be so self-assured as a Caster she couldn’t believe the whole world didn’t see things her way, if properly educated. This made for an ally who could undo his plans without trying.

             
“He left, from fear of the Emperor,” Xinto said, covering for Glynn. “We suspect he could be a Wolf Soldier deserter.”

             
Raven nodded. She looked past the two of them to the door.

             
“How can we get out of here?” she asked.

* * *

The Andaran warhorse Melissa rode was nothing like the palfrey she’d ridden in Outpost IX. For a week she’d been trying to get used to it; its fearlessness, its tendency to want to put its head down and push things out of its way. A mare, it didn’t know a lot of fear and it relied on a lot more attention from its rider. A twitch to the reins could have it wheeling to one side or charging—responses that could save a warrior’s life but which came as a huge surprise to a novice rider.

             
Xinto rode behind her, his hands on his waist or creeping to other parts of her anatomy. He complained about every bump in the road, every quick turn, start or hesitation. Her father would have described him as a guy in an expensive car complaining that the radio was too loud.

             
They’d informed her they’d found another person mentioned in the song, and Glynn had arranged to meet him in the south. The Emperor would
never
allow them to leave on their own; he’d prefer to send a thousand Wolf Soldiers to the place where Glynn knew he was hiding and capture him. Melissa knew Lupus well enough to believe Glynn and Xinto on this. She needed more information on these people mentioned in the song; she needed time away from the influence of the people who would cage her.

             
With the Emperor chasing after his own daughter and the palace and the city already having been searched, it wasn’t all that hard to get out of the city through the Imperial stables. They acted as if they were doing what they were told to do, and they kept Xinto out of sight. They rode out of the gates with nothing more than a wave to Wolf Soldier guards.

             
No sooner was Raven out the gate than she saw that same movement in the winter hay to the west of Galnesh Eldador again. Her ‘not there,’ a whisper through the hay where there was no breeze, gone before she was really sure that she’d seen it. She rode her mare with an eye to the left as both horses moved south, but never saw it again.

             
They travelled less an hour than before they met the first Wolf Soldier patrol. Fifty warriors with an officer on horseback leading them. They marched north along the road to the capitol and met the three of them moving south.

             
“My Lord,” Glynn said, inclining her head to the mounted officer.

             
“My Lady,” he said. He was a Man, dressed in Wolf Soldier greys with steel sleeves on his upper arms and steel greaves on his shins.

             
“What is your purpose on this road?” the officer demanded of them.

             
“We were bound for the capitol but were turned away at the gates,” Glynn lied to him, her face unreadable. “I’d thought to be received in the High Court.”

             
The officer tipped his head to Glynn. “I apologize, my Lady,” he said, “however the capitol is closed for at least the day. I believe there are estates to the south…”

             
“Yes, yes, Sirrah,” Glynn assured him, and painted on a smile. “We stayed at one last night and will be returning, I fear. Perhaps better luck to us on the ‘morrow?”

             
Melissa and Glynn reined their horses over to the side of the road and let the Wolf Soldiers pass. A few looked curiously at the pair but most simply stared straight ahead. Xinto kept himself hidden behind Melissa the entire time.

             
When they passed, she said, “Little man, if you like those hands attached to those wrists, then keep them out of my lap.”

             
Glynn sighed and Xinto chuckled. They kicked their horses and pressed south.

* * *

              Bill returned to the capitol with Lupus, their horses lathered, just as the sun was setting. The Empress met them with a compliment of Wolf Soldier guards, her children and Nina.

             
The latter seemed shy around the Emperor. M’den Grek knew why.

             
He’d had a report made to him, as J’her’s second in command, that the Emperor’s Watch Bitch had actually snapped at her master last week, and he’d rewarded her with a beating. He’d asked about this when he saw her limping, and seen bruises under her clothing when she moved, which could only come from combat. In general even Wolf Soldiers feared the purple-haired guardian whose gaze found anyone within a stone’s throw of the children. Behind her back, they often called her ‘Mistress of Pain.’

             
She stood back from the Emperor now as the Empress threw her arms around her husband, still clinging to their youngest child.

             
They spoke softly as man and wife will. M’den stood the guard over the royal family with six squads. Part of him would have liked a hundred, his entire Millennia on watch and alert now. Part of him, the part that made decisions, knew better. The walls and the city stood armed. No one would come here for them through all of that. Even six seemed excessive.

             
The youngest of the Emperor’s children had been thought gone. They could be excessive.

             
Chawnaluh Nanahee Nudageehay hadn’t left the Empress’ arms for hours. Of all of the things she’d become, Shela Mordetur called herself a mother first. Her child had been used against her—she wouldn’t put that baby down for days.

             
“Nowhere to be found?” Lupus demanded of J’her.

             
J’her had been one of the first Wolf Soldiers. J’her had become a legend among them. He had protected the Conqueror from the Battle of Tamaran Glen, through the Sack of Eldador, and in many major battles until becoming Lupus’ Supreme Commander of the Wolf Soldier guard, responsible for the security of the palace and the training of all new recruits.

             
“Gone, Lupus,” J’her told him. “Two mounts are missing from the royal stables, a gelding and a mare. Xinto of the Woods disappeared earlier in the day, even though under double guard. Glynn Escaroth is gone with this Raven.”

             
The Mountain, this kinsman of the Emperor, looked gravely concerned. M’den would, too, if he lost such a sweet young wife at this gaffer’s age.

             
“Did they leave or were they taken?” he asked the Imperial couple.

             
Lupus shook his head. “I’d be guessing if I told you,” he said. “Someone knew right where to hit us, right where we were vulnerable. Even Shela didn’t know her own magic wouldn’t work in the nursery. This is Uman-Chi cunning. Glynn might have done it, or her countrymen might have wanted her back.”

             
“Lupus,” J’her said, “I don’t think Trenbon would take us on now—”

             
“No?” Lupus turned on him. His temper, M’den Grek thought. That was his failing—his temper. Lupus acted from his heart. Lupus would have had the whole Millennia turned out to protect them now. In fact, Lupus had turned out the whole Pack to recover his daughter, and left the city defenseless.

             
Lupus had never found himself in a situation he couldn’t get out of. He put his head down and charged in, and he won, or he backed out, charged back in and won.

             
“If Trenbon had arranged this, then they would have the city,” M’den said, and every head in the stables turned to him.

             
They stood in the half-light, enchanted orbs lighting the rafters where it wasn’t safe to use fire. It would have been better to have this discussion in the war room, but the Imperial family would want to cling together after such a shock. Horses neighed, Blizzard was munching grain and groomsmen were currying Little Storm. Others put the two horses’ tack away and hung their saddle blankets to dry.

             
“Meaning?” Lupus demanded.

             
M’den looked him right in the eye. “Meaning we turned out the whole city. Trenbon wouldn’t have wasted an opportunity like that. If it killed half of their Wizards, they would have moved enough troops here to overwhelm the guard while most of our strength was out. Why else do it? Because they want to save a woman they abandoned to us?”

             
“Uman-Chi think on more levels than that,” Lupus said.

             
“But not fewer,” Shela said. “He’s right. Trenbon would have taken the advantage. They would be drinking our wine now in our throne room to toast us and their own victory. This was not Angron Aurelias.”

             
“Having spoken to him, this sounds like something Xinto would have found hilariously funny,” the Mountain said. “I don’t know the Uman-Chi like you do, but it’s too big a coincidence that he escaped with the others.”

             
“I should have killed him—” Shela began.

             
“Where are they now?” Lupus interrupted her.

             
She focused, and she shook her head. “I cannot see them—any of them. Either they are warded, or my strength is gone. I did everything I could to find Chawnaluh Nanahee Nudageehay.”

             
“Another guarantee this was not the work of Trenbon,” M’den said. “It would be the highpoint of his thousand years if he found you like this now.”

             
“You sound like a man trying to make a point, M’den,” Lupus said, his voice almost sinuous now. The Emperor squared off on the Major, looking right into his face, searching it. “What would that point be?”

             
M’den looked Lupus right in the eye. The first Wolf Soldiers had been convicted criminals. Now there were vagabond swords, or a loser in life’s game. Every one of them had come to Lupus’ Wolf Soldier guards and pledged his life for three years, to get a second chance, to make something of his or her future.

             
Over 95% didn’t leave after three years. And of those who did, most came back in a few months. Of those who didn’t, they were statesmen, military minds, warriors of repute.

             
Because Lupus let them be what they could be, not what they’d become. When Lupus asked your opinion, you got to give it—and that was rare on Fovea.

             
“This was terrible, and it was despicable, and someone should die for it," M'den informed him. "But this is the type of trick our enemies should use on us, because it will work. And even if Trenbon is not pursuing us, their spies are here, and the spies of other nations are here, watching us, because how else would they know and exploit our weaknesses?”