Karavans (40 page)

Timmon was affronted. “Who would, of us? We swore oaths. Each of us, even you.”

Brodhi shrugged lightly. “Those oaths, when weighed against the brutality of the Hecari, mean less than nothing.”

Timmon and Alorn exchanged startled, outraged glances.

“
Every
courier,” Brodhi emphasized. “Not one in ten, intended as a lesson in numbering. All will be killed. The warlord uses us now because his attention is more firmly fixed on subjugating a province, and because it is always easier to leave in place such infrastructure as a courier service, men and women who know the roads and settlements better than he. We are of use to him, so long as we do not upset that infrastructure.”

Bethid’s eyes narrowed. “Then tell us another way. A
better
way.”

“Leave,” he said simply.

That baffled all, but Bethid found her voice before the others. “Leave?”

“Leave Sancorra,” Brodhi elucidated. He looked at Mikal. “You as well. Pack up this tent and your supplies, and go across the border. Get out of Sancorra.”

The one-eyed man was stunned. “You’re suggesting we run away?”

Brodhi suppressed a sigh of disgusted impatience. “Is it running away to go to a safe place? No. It’s expediency. If all of you persist in believing that you can successfully rebel against the Hecari warlord, you might consider moving across the border to another province.” He paused, noting an array of expressions running the gamut from shock to anger. Invoking extreme patience, he said, “The warlord would not necessarily expect a
Sancorran
rebellion to germinate in another province. And he is so busy now establishing his hold on Sancorra that he can’t afford to deal with another province … at least not yet. In time he’ll take them all, if he isn’t stopped.”

“That’s the
point
,” Bethid said sharply.

“Of course it’s the point,” he agreed. “In the meantime, consider taking yourselves elsewhere. We are not so far from the Atalandan border, and there is a shortcut.”

“What, do you mean the road that runs beside Alisanos?” Mikal shook his head. “Only a fool would take it. I realize these three couriers, being but children in their twenties, have no memory of the last time Alisanos moved, but I do.” His mouth jerked. “I was not so very old, but I recall it. For more than a year my family lived in fear that we would all be swallowed up.”

“And therein lies the choice,” Brodhi said. “Remain here and risk another culling; or go to Atalanda and risk Alisanos.”

“An ugly choice,” Bethid declared. She flicked a glance at Mikal. “It’s true I wasn’t born the last time Alisanos moved, but I have heard the tales. I find it far safer to stay here in Sancorra, even if the Hecari return with another culling party. We are couriers, Brodhi … that buys us time. Provides opportunity. For now, the warlord doesn’t bother us—but Alisanos might.”

Brodhi inclined his head in graceful concession; he would not maintain a debate when his points were ignored. “Do as you will.”

“We would work better from here,” Mikal persisted. “This place exists because people
are
leaving Sancorra. People who are fleeing one place are not expected to rebel. Only to run.”

“Do as you will,” Brodhi repeated. “I merely offered an alternative.”

Bethid’s expression was hard. “Last night, when I spoke of this plan, you told me I was a fool.”

“No. I said it was a fool’s quest. And so it is.” He let that settle a moment, noting simmering anger, annoyance, and frustration among the others before he continued. “But without fools undertaking such quests, many things in the world would not exist.”

Timmon’s brows met over the blade of his nose. Straight light-brown hair brushed thin shoulders as he leaned forward. Sharpness shaped his tone, lent intensity to blue
eyes. “Be very clear with us, Brodhi—is this some sort of Shoia jest?”

Brodhi raised his brows. “I think it would be fair to say that among you all I am never inclined to jest.”

At that, Alorn laughed softly. “Among other things.”

“The warlord would not expect couriers to be the heart of the matter,” Brodhi continued. “He knows us merely as servants. We own no dwellings or farmsteads, nor the horses we ride—” he gestured, indicating the table with its weight of blue wool, “—nor even the cloaks on our backs. All belongs to the Guildhall in Cardatha. Even all but a few coins are kept for us at the Guildhall, because we are fed on the road by those who hear our news.” He glanced at Mikal, who was nodding in agreement; no courier was required to pay for food or the drink accompanying it, only when he or she drank for pleasure after duty was discharged. “It would be far more likely that couriers might turn rebel if dismissed from the service and left to fend for themselves. When we are fed, clothed, horsed, and housed at no cost to us?” Brodhi shook his head. “The risk lies not in the warlord suddenly assuming couriers have turned rebel, but in a courier who thinks he—or she—may be well-rewarded for betraying our confidence
to
the warlord.”

“So?” Bethid said. “How would you have us begin?”

“Sow your seed,” Brodhi answered. “As we four have shared a common tent here, you also share courier tents in other settlements. Or in the cities, when we share rooms in the lesser Guildhalls.” He nodded at Bethid. “You said it last night, that we as couriers are in a better position than anyone to learn without prejudice what others across the province feel. But you must not put your trust in a person simply because he or she is a courier. First, you must learn their hearts.
Earn
their hearts. Any courier may say a thing simply because of the moment, but when put to the question, does he mean what he says? Truly? Enough that he will risk his life? Put your trust only in those whom you know without question would never take money to sell your names to the Hecari.”

Alorn’s damp hair had dried into its customary wiry, dark curls. “No courier would do such a thing!”

Brodhi looked at him. “What convinces you that
I
never would?”

Bethid frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know my name and my race,” Brodhi answered. “Nothing more. Is it enough to convince you, to make you believe in your heart of hearts that, offered something I wanted badly—and, suffice it to say, you have absolutely no idea what I might want so badly—I would not betray you?”

Timmon’s expression was unsettled as, in deep thought, he repeatedly traced with a fingertip a crude, cross-hatched pattern carved into the tabletop. “I see.”

“In fact,” Brodhi continued, “as I now know your intentions while you know so little of mine, you would be wise to kill me.”

Bethid’s tone was exquisitely dry. “How many times?”

He ignored the pointed sally. “Would you do it? Could you? None of you are killers. I’d wager what fighting skills you have are with words, not knives, not garrotes. Nor even hands naked of weapon. You must be certain—sure that every courier you speak to of your plans will make the same commitment you have, even to being willing to kill one of his own.” Brodhi looked into three troubled faces. “You may argue that you are couriers, and so you are; that you have sworn an oath to the service, and so you have. But that oath binds you always to be truthful with the news you give or receive, to remain neutral and dispassionate, and to carry, word for word, the messages others entrust to us. That is an oath we must honor to remain in the service, and so we do. But is it worth
dying
for?”

“We wouldn’t be dying for the service,” Bethid answered. “We’d die for Sancorra. Just like the lord did.”

“He was a lord,” Brodhi said matter-of-factly, “and it was known from the moment the Hecari crossed over Sancorran borders that, if captured, his life was forfeit. But we are merely couriers carrying word of his death; we are not expected to do more than that.”

Bethid stared at him a long moment. Then she took up the courier’s brooch she had placed on the table before her, and set it down decisively in the center. “My pledge,” she declared.

Timmon and Alorn, following her lead, tossed their brooches to clink against hers. Mikal, with a wry hook to his mouth, slipped off his eye patch and dropped it atop the pile of brooches, baring the puckered, twisted lid of his missing eye.

Brodhi rose then, gathering up his courier’s mantle and brooch; the humans would wish to discuss his words without his presence. “Anyone you doubt, anyone at all, once you have spoken of your intentions, cannot be allowed to live.”

Alorn’s expression was outraged. “We’re not assassins!”

“Then would you have yourselves be martyrs?” Brodhi shifted his gaze briefly at Mikal, then at each of his fellow couriers. “This is not what you were meant for, this rebellion. You have not the training that soldiers or mercenaries do, let alone the Hecari. But if you believe it worth the doing, then see it through.” He looked at Alorn. “And remember, when you speak of your plans to another courier, when you commit yourselves to a course that could end in your deaths …it is easier to die than it is to kill.”

DARMUTH SAID, “YOU can bleed yourself dry, but it changes nothing.”

Rhuan didn’t question how the demon could have come upon him unaware as he stood behind the wagon, absenting himself from the karavaner’s death rites. Darmuth did that with great regularity, even if no one else could. And at the moment, his body afire with the humming vibration, he doubted he would hear anyone’s arrival. Not a safe thing, but for now there was no surcease.

“Not to change,” he said tightly. “Delay. Misdirect.”

“Stop it, Rhuan.” But there was no urgency, no censure in Darmuth’s tone as he leaned a casual shoulder against
Jorda’s wagon, bare tattooed arms crossed. Merely resignation. “If you’re not careful you’ll bring down Brodhi on us; you and he renewed the blood-bond, remember? And I suspect he will have far fewer polite words for you than I do when he finds out what you’re trying to do.”

“This has nothing to do with Brodhi.” But even as he said it, Rhuan knew Darmuth was correct. He flipped his left hand palm up, then curled fingers and thumb into a fist. After a moment the blood stopped flowing. The cut closed. “When they invoke the gods in this kind of ritual, they tempt Alisanos.”

“A man died. It’s the human thing to do, is it not, to see him across the river?”

“They’re ignorant of what such rituals can do at this particular time,” Rhuan insisted. “They’re opening the door to an enemy far worse than Hecari warriors.”

“Yes,” Darmuth said, “but you are not to interfere.”

Rhuan closed his eyes before the red haze slid across his vision. Blind, he nonetheless still retained a voice—and an opinion. “It’s not your place to command me.”

“And so I didn’t. I merely reminded you. It is my place to do that. If you like, I’ll remind you again:
You are not to interfere.
”

“I’m not.” But an inward wince underscored his awareness that such words sounded childish. “These are innocent people.”

“So innocent that one of them attempted to rape Ilona.”

The haze faded. Now Rhuan contemplated his healed hand. “I suspect perhaps he, too, was innocent. Oh, he did indeed attempt to rape her, but it’s entirely possible that Alisanos, as it wakes, is beginning to affect people as it prepares to move elsewhere. That it’s warping how they think.”

“As it affects and warps any human who winds up
in
Alisanos.”

Rhuan nodded. “Exactly.” He cleaned the blade of his knife and returned it to its sheath at his belt. “I have but a few human months left to me. Can’t it wait that long?”

“Alisanos waking has nothing to do with you,” Darmuth
declared flatly. “It’s simply grown bored with its current location after forty years—forty
human
years—and is taking itself elsewhere.”

He gritted his teeth. “And it kills people, Darmuth—or, perhaps worse, takes them into itself. Makes them
of
itself.”

“It does what it does. Opening your flesh changes nothing. Letting blood changes nothing. Alisanos, for the moment, has no awareness of you whatsoever.”

Rhuan glared at him.

Darmuth remained unperturbed. “What you’re feeling isn’t sent to afflict you personally. It’s simply a side-effect of the waking process. As you have told the humans many times, you’re sensitive to such things. So is Brodhi. But to assume you are being specifically targeted is to claim yourself
important.
To claim yourself
worthy of attention.
”

Bitterly, Rhuan said, “And I am neither, is that it?”

Darmuth laughed. “Oh, very much neither!”

“And if I go closer? If I accompany the farmerfolk on their journey via shortcut to Atalanda?”

The demon’s laughter died. “Then you would be as a mouse walking very near the rousing cat. And the cat, upon waking after a forty-year nap, will undoubtedly be hungry.”

Rhuan stared into the distance a moment, then lifted one shoulder in a slight, lopsided shrug. “I’d be a tough morsel to swallow. Too much gristle.”

“For Alisanos?” Darmuth’s toothy, gem-sparked grin faded into incredulity. “Rhuan, you can’t seriously be considering this!”

“I can. I am.” Rhuan met the demon’s pale eyes. His own, with effort, held steady. “You are not the arbiter of the tests I face. You’ve not even been told what is and isn’t related to my journey. How can you know this is not another test? You overstep your bounds to counsel me against accepting the task.”