Restoration (30 page)

I could not stay with the Prince forever. Was it foolish for me to continue this journey, when what strength I had left might better be saved for a more serious struggle that I alone could face? Was I staying for Aleksander, for the elusive promise of his feadnach, or was I just too cowardly to face my own future?

Distracted, worried, I wasn't paying enough attention to the night. But because I lingered at the edge of the dark stable yard weighing possibilities, I heard the whispers from the shadows by the tannery wall and the light footsteps running away. Two pairs of them.
Damn!
I dodged a stack of empty ale barrels, knocking them tumbling, and leaped over the broken cart frame and rusted stovepipe that were piled at the edge of the yard. I turned left by the tanner's wall, stepping lightly over scrap heaps, only to trip over a wooden staff thrust across the narrow alley right where it entered the street. The one who held the staff tried to bring it down on my head, but I rolled, leaped up, and was on his back before he could raise it high enough. My scrawny assailant wriggled and poked and bit my arm, but I held him tight and dragged him back into the dark alley, casting a futile enchantment toward his escaping companion. I had not seen or touched the runner, and so my working would do little more than slow his steps as he ran to tell what he had seen.

“Where is he going?” I said, snarling at the sullen boy pressed hard against the tannery wall with my arm across his throat. “Who will your friend tell?”

“I won‘t—”

“Don't think you can lie to me or hold back what I want to know,” I said harshly, letting my eyes flare blue. I could imagine how strange and fearsome my eyes would look. Of course the boy, who was no more than thirteen, could not realize that my anger was directed more at myself than at him.

“The first m-magistrate is his uncle,” squeaked the boy, spittle leaking from the side of his gaping mouth.

“And who is the magistrate's lord?” No hope that he was Bek's man.

“Lord M-Miron.”

“Rhyzka?”

The boy nodded and slumped to the ground, shaking fiercely, tears streaking his dirty face as my knife pricked his belly. I could have threatened him with all manner of torments to force his silence or to counter his friend's tale, but he was already blubber ing.

So I ran back to the tavern and burst into the room, catching Aleksander just as he was pulling out his braid. He frowned. “Where have you—?”

“We've got to run, my lord. I was careless. Right now some stupid boy is telling a Rhyzka magistrate about what he saw in the stable yard behind the tavern. I'd swear they weren't there while you were talking with Sereg, but we can't risk it. We'll hope it takes some time for them to come looking.”

Aleksander reached for his haffai and pulled himself to standing. “I've no wish to sleep in this rathole anyway.”

“I'll saddle the horses,” said Malver, starting out the door.

Ten minutes later, we rode out of the tavern stables. No sign of a hunt as we rode through the almost deserted streets. Slow. Agonizingly slow. Our horses' hooves were already loud on the hard-packed dirt; we dared not draw notice by our hurry. But as we approached the market district, I knew something was wrong. The market in a desert town never truly slept. Too many things needed to be done in the cool night hours between the last of the evening shoppers and the first of the morning. Yet the dark square was illuminated by only a few flickering braziers, and the silence was oppressive.

Aleksander felt it, too. Just at the point our narrow street opened into the market, he reined in, pointed to his ear, and then to me. I passed the back of my hand before my eyes and listened. Smelled the dry air that hung in the dark streets. Tasted the silence. Men were waiting in streets just off the square... a goodly number, ten or more. I heard their breathing. Shallow. Ready. I smelled the oil on their blades and the nervous sweat soaking their shirts. If we rode into the marketplace, we were going to have a fight. How had they gotten into place so quickly? The boy's tale could not have set this in motion.

I jerked my head toward the market and held up ten fingers, indicating five on the east side, five on the west. Then again three or four more at the gates. Caution demanded that we abandon W‘Assani and find a stealthier way to leave Tanzire. But Aleksander pulled back his haffai to expose the hilt of his sword. At the Prince's gesture, Malver relaxed and exposed his own sword. Aleksander signaled that Malver was to go straight for W'Assani. The Prince and I would stand between him and the waiting Derzhi; then we would all make for the gates together. Aleksander cocked his head at me, waggled his elbows, then raised his eyebrows. I grinned, shaking my head, and drew my sword. As he split the night with a Derzhi war cry, I followed him into battle. No wings tonight.

Bursting out of the lane, we made it more than halfway across the square before the first warrior reached us. Aleksander disarmed him with a single stroke and howled in victory. W‘Assani's wagon was parked just past the middle of the square, about two-thirds of the way to the gate. At least she should be well awake by now.

We were woefully outnumbered. Soon I was engaged with two warriors at once, one on either side, and not making much progress with either of them. Aleksander was somewhere to my right, battling a large man whose horse bucked in terror when the Prince's sword cut him. Aleksander's mount kept steady as he wheeled and struck.
Keep your seat, my lord,
I prayed.
Fall off and we're done for.
But I had little time to worry about the Prince. A huge blade whistled over my head, and I came near falling myself. Fighting on horseback was out of my experience; demons did not use cavalry. Gods of night, if only we had Sovari. I stabbed at a charging warrior and wrenched my arm as he slipped sideways from his mount. Every stroke of my sword had my side screaming.

Using my left hand to haul on the reins and keep my mount steady underneath me, I raised up in the stirrups and slashed at an attacking Derzhi. From his vociferous oath, I gathered I had cut him, but I was too busy countering another man's blade to look.
Duck. Slash again. Hold this one. Counter. Yes. The rhythm's there. Just find it. Be still, you stupid beast. How can I get the feel of this if you're running out from under me?

“Seyonne!” While keeping my hand occupied with one fighter, my mind engaged in convincing another man that snakes were slithering up his back, and watching Aleksander dispatch a massive Derzhi who was aiming to slice off his arm, I cast a quick glance behind me. W‘Assani was mounted. Blade in hand, she was holding her own with a slender Derzhi, smiling as she fought, her lean body strong and agile. Malver, his sword in one hand and his long dagger in the other, skewered a warrior lunging for my back.

“My lord!” I cried. “Time to go!” Past time.

Aleksander dispatched one more opponent, then began his retreat, circling, slashing, always in control. His boot stuck out awkwardly, and one of the Rhyzka warriors struck at it. But the sword hit the steel rod and glanced away, and Aleksander ripped the man's shoulder, laughing.

I beat off another attacker and bent my mind to enchantment ... wind... sand... not the easy shifting to cover our tracks, though not a paraivo, either. Just enough to obscure our attackers' vision and allow us to make a graceful retreat. A bit more in reserve.
Ready . . . split the gale and hold it. Almost to the gate.
Newcomers ran for the walls, but we were already through the gates. With an explosion of melydda, I released a blast of contrary winds that dug out the last of the sand piled against the gates and, with a thundering crash, slammed them shut in our pursuers' faces.

“I
will
find out how you do that!” shouted W‘Assani over the roar of the wind, wagging her long finger at me.

I nodded. Something to look forward to. Promising.

We had only a few scratches among us and were ready to set out on our way victorious, but our smiles died unborn when we looked back over our shoulders and saw what had been left for us to see. A wooden beam had been mounted atop the city walls, and from it a man hung by his feet. Just as with those in Karn‘Hegeth, his lips and nose had been cut off, and his shorn braid tied to his tongue. He was dead, at least. His belly was ripped apart until he could have had nothing left inside. An imperial sash dangled from his neck.

“No!” Aleksander's cry of anguish could have been heard in Zhagad, and it was all I could do to restrain him.

So that was how they had known to lie in wait for us... and why they had not known where to find us. Sovari had yielded the one secret, but held the last. They had sent spies to every inn to search us out, the clumsy boys to the poor place where we were housed, never expecting to find the heir to the Empire meeting his subjects in the squalor of a tannery yard.

“We have only minutes, my lord,” I said, my voice harsh in the sudden silence. “Make his sacrifice worthy. We must go now.”

But we weren't fast enough, and in my distraction, I had failed to hold the wind as firmly as I held the Prince. From the walls came a volley of arrows, flying true in the still air. From behind me I heard one make a solid hit... and then another. I whirled to see W‘Assani twice struck, slumping in her saddle. Malver reached for her, only to have an arrow slam into his back and another and a third until brother and half sister toppled in a grotesque embrace onto the barren earth. So much for victory. And promise.

“We have to go,” I said, struggling to rein in the creeping... no, the raging darkness. “They're dead. All of them dead.”

Aleksander and I rode the paths of Manganar and Azhakstan for the rest of that summer, hiding, running, seeking shelter in herdsmen's shacks and caravans, in villages and alleyways and stables, as the Prince tried to find a Derzhi lord willing to shelter or support him. I tried to act as intermediary as Sovari had done. With some effort I managed to alter my features to be more Derzhi-like, but no one would trust a stranger, and I never got past a steward. We dared not commit Aleksander's presence to writing, for Derzhi lords did not read, and scribes were notorious for selling information. With no one to trust with his messages, the Prince had to risk approaching the houses himself. Twice he found the heged strongholds taken over by representatives of the Twenty, and he left without revealing his identity. Twice he was rebuffed completely. Five lords granted him an interview, but gave the same answer as the Mardek and the Bek; they would not commit to Aleksander without evidence of other heged support. Once we had to fight our way out of a walled garden and barely survived it. Yet the Prince would not give up. He was grim and driven, speaking little save of how to get from one town to the next, constantly seeking news of houses he thought most likely to support him, stopping only long enough to keep our horses living.

Though there were more than twenty prospects yet to approach, we were rapidly running out of time. Not only had we lost Sovari and Malver and W‘Assani in the debacle at Tanzire, but also most of the funds that Kiril had supplied. By the end of the summer we were dreadfully bedraggled and eating lean. We could scarcely muster a decent set of clothes for Aleksander to wear when meeting a heged lord, and he refused to wear a haffai lest they think he was hiding something.

Two weeks after our flight from Tanzire, Aleksander had discarded his riding boot. Every time we got off our horses, whether in city or desert or village, he would walk for at least an hour, working to recover his strength and flexibility. By the time our plight got desperate, he had thrown away his crutches and used only a single walking stick. The healing had been straight and clean, and I had no doubt that he would recover full use of his limb, but what should have been a reason for rejoicing was only a reminder of everything he had lost.

“Perhaps it's time to contact your cousin again,” I said one night as we walked up a desolate track behind Andassar, the village where we had been hiding for the past few days, waiting for the First Lord of the Naddasine to return from Zhagad to his nearby castle. “We can't let Avrel feed us anymore. Marya told me their village taxes are due in ten days. They've four months until their winter harvest is in, and I don't know how they're going to eat until then.”

“I don't want Kiril dead, if he's not already. But we'll leave if you wish. Eat grass if we need to. Go back to the desert and hunt.”

The argument was always the same.

“We can't go into the desert,” I said. “We've nothing to feed the horses, and we can't afford to buy anything. If the horses die, we're afoot, and although you're progressing well, I'm not sure you're ready to walk to Vayapol. And we can't get into a city because we haven't bribe money to get us past the gates. Illusions of money never work; people handle it too much, look too closely. In a town of any size, I could scribe for wages, but only for someone who doesn't question a scribe who looks like a beggar and smells worse. I could do any number of jobs, but the only people who can afford to pay anymore are Derzhi, and no one would hire an Ezzarian with a slave mark on his shoulder. My lord, I understand your urgency, but it's time for you to stop and think.”

I hadn't meant to go so far. Perhaps what drove me to it was the view of the pitiful village just below us, the tiny hovels set in the midst of fertile fields of potatoes and barley. The twenty men and women of Andassar worked without respite to produce two crops a year of barley and one of potatoes, harnessing themselves to their plows because they had no beasts of burden, forbidden to hunt the abundant game of the nearby hills because it belonged to their lord. Yet the entirety of their crop could scarce pay their new tax levies, and if we were still here ten days from this, we would witness the harsh result.