Restoration (32 page)

Gods have mercy ...
I discovered more than I bargained for. The fifth rider had emerged from the mountain path and was racing into the open, toward a blot on the night that made my stomach constrict long before I saw anything but pricks of torchlight against the darkness. You always smelled it first—the stench of fear and filth and desperation. And then you heard the drone of moans and weeping and muffled prayers, punctuated by soul-rending screams. I did not need to see the horror in order to name it. A slave caravan.

The soldier halted beside a sentry, pointing back the way he had come. I flew on past him, out over a broad meadow lit by massive bonfires. Facedown upon the ground lay at least a hundred men and boys roped together. One by one they were being detached from the others and taken to Veshtar smiths who seared the crossed circle into their shoulders with a red-hot iron and sealed steel bands around their wrists and ankles. Veshtar slavers in striped haffai then cut off their hair and chained them to the others newly readied for market. A small detachment of Derzhi in Nyabozzi colors guarded the encampment.

I had to get Aleksander and the others free before they reached the meadow. I flew back up the ravine and settled on the rocks above the path. The prisoners' column reached the gap between the narrowly spaced rocks. Good. The warriors on the sides had ridden ahead, so that they were separated from the two soldiers at the back. None of the riders could have the whole column in sight. I would take the two at the back quickly, then cut Aleksander's bonds and give him his sword. He would be waiting for me. I forced everything out of my mind but my own form...

In one long interval of fire and nausea I made the shift from bird to man, then stood heaving, readying myself to shape wings. But before I could begin that change, a black cloth was dropped over my head, and I was dragged off my rock with someone's arm uncomfortably tight about my throat and something uncomfortably sharp poking into my ribs.

“Over here! Look what I found sneaking about in the rocks.” The intense whisper was somewhere behind me. Understandable, since my hooded face was smashed firmly into the ground. The attacker's knife was still threatening my ribs. “What'll we do with him?”

“If he twitches, kill him. We've got to go on. This is too good a chance to miss.”

Lost in my uncomfortable transformation, I'd not heard the footsteps come up behind me, and now precious time was passing while I sorted out my confusion ... and my shape ... and the identity of my captors.
All right, no wings.
So I had only my human self to work with. My frantic human self.
Kill the bastards now, while they're not expecting it.
Quieting my anxiety so that my senses could work, I felt the position of the knife and judged the man's posture—half straddling me, knee in my back, his left hand twisting my right arm behind me. Holy gods, I wished he wouldn't do that. Easy enough to dislodge for all that.
How many others?
The second speaker was a few steps away. And another person behind him. I reached out with my hearing and all my senses. Three. Four ... Damn, there were twenty or more of the newcomers! Twenty caravan sentries? And why were Derzhi sentries whispering?

“Look here. Look at his sword!” My captor was yanking my weapons from their sheaths and tossing them aside. “Derzhi bastard ... who are you?” Oddly enough, he was speaking to me.

While I tried to comprehend, his companions were slipping silently past us. Soon I heard a few muffled blows nearby. More shuffling steps. Hushing noises. A suppressed choking sound. Snuffling, as if someone were weeping. Whinnying horses quickly silenced. A great deal was going on in the dry streambed ... and very stealthily. They were attacking the slave takers.

I was so profoundly astonished and engaged by this turn of events, that it was almost as an afterthought that I managed to cast an illusion on my captor's knife—something I had been working on since Tanzire. The weapon should soon feel as hot as if it had just been pulled from a blacksmith's fire. When the man dropped it with a quiet curse, I twisted myself around, and came near breaking his arm as I flipped him onto his back. I did everything by feel, a skill I'd often needed when I fought demons. But when I pounced on top of him, pressed his own knife to his throat and ripped off my stifling hood, I almost started laughing. His face was stained black with coal, and from jaw to brow across each cheek was painted a white dagger.
Yvor lukash
... sword of light. My captor was Blaise's man.

“Go ahead, Derzhi scum,” he whispered bravely, clearly offended at my grin. “The others will see to you, whether I'm dead or no.” The accent told me he was Kuvai. The bravado said he was approximately seventeen.

“My friend, we have some talking to do,” I said, bending low to speak quietly. “If you look carefully, you will notice that I am no Derzhi. In fact, I think we're here for the same purpose.”

“Not likely,” he said sullenly.

“Who's commanding? Farrol? Gorrid? Blaise himself? Are they going after the caravan?”

The boy recoiled and clamped his mouth shut. I jumped to my feet, retrieving my own weapons and Aleksander's before tossing the paralyzed youth his knife. “Go on and join your comrades. Stay healthy, and I'll be along to help.”

He crept backward slowly, his eyes on me, as if he couldn't quite decide whether to attack or run. Happily for me, he ran, and I could go back to the business of shifting. Once I had shaped my wings, I drew my sword and took flight, pleased that I'd not have to fight this battle alone.

Strangely enough, the column of prisoners was still moving down the rocky defile. If I'd not seen the four soldiers lying dead in the shadows, I'd have been more worried. The riders flanking the prisoners wore Derzhi cloaks, easily recognizable from a distance, but they had pulled up the hoods to shadow their faces—faces stained black and painted with white daggers. A skilled observer might also have noted that the prisoners were walking more easily than before, their rope hobbles cut, and though their hands still appeared bound and linked to each other, I had no doubt that they could easily pull the knots apart. The prisoners were needed only for the approach, to get the first outlaws past the waiting Veshtar sentries.

The raiders' plan was obvious. While the larger number of the band held back in the scrubby trees and rocks where the defile opened out onto the road, the four disguised outlaws rode with the men of Andassar into the middle of the encampment hoping to surprise unsuspecting guards and free enough slaves to be of help. The terrain could hardly have been worse for their plan. Once their fellows had revealed themselves, the lurkers would have to charge across a wide expanse of the road and the open meadow, right into the arms of the alerted sentries.

Though the detachment of Derzhi warriors guarding the caravan numbered no more than eight, the common soldiers another eight, and the Veshtar slavers perhaps twenty-five, I had no illusions about the outlaws' chances. Both Nyabozzi and Veshtar were ruthless and expert at killing, and they were guarding their lord's property worth thousands of zenars. Blaise's fighters were devoted and courageous, but woefully unskilled.

Aleksander remained in the prisoner's column. He would have realized the flaws in the plan immediately, and with his limited movement, he had no business in a fight on foot. But he would know, too, that any hope of success would be dashed if the fifth soldier spied out the ruse too soon. And if any of the prisoners stayed behind, the game was up. I saw the Prince glancing upward, scanning the night sky. He was waiting for me. Foolish. We were all foolish.

The outlaws herded their “prisoners” through the line of Veshtar sentries. Just as the last rider passed, a bearded Veshtar slapped the outlaw's horse on the rump and called out to another sentry,
“Vysstar haddov Derzhina!”
The disguised outlaw must have panicked; he drew his sword clumsily and swung at the Veshtar. His inexpert movement cost him his life; the young outlaw slid from the saddle, almost cloven in two by the Veshtar's curved sword.

Fool!
I swore as the alarm was raised. The sentry's words meant only “good Derzhi rump.” Wings spread, sword raised, I streaked down from the sky as two more of the disguised outlaws fell. Aleksander was shoving the villagers to the ground as they stood gaping at erupting chaos. The outlaws burst from their hiding place across the road, drawing the attention of the guards long enough for me to swoop close and toss Aleksander his sword and Avrel the Prince's knife. My own dagger I gave to a wide-eyed Dorgan, another village man who was trying to shield the two naked boys with his broad arms. “Stay low and follow me out,” I shouted. “Get any freed prisoners to come with you.” After a short, fierce skirmish, I dispatched a Veshtar who had attacked me, unfazed by my spread wings. The Veshtar believed they lived in close proximity to evil spirits, so the appearance of a winged warrior was no more to them than a realized expectation. They assumed that every man would someday encounter such a being.

Mounted Veshtar rode through the churning mass of slaves, shouting at them to remain facedown on the ground, lashing at them with steel-tipped whips. The smiths waved torches at any unfortunate who tried to get up; two screaming captives were in flames. But while the main body of Blaise's men engaged the Derzhi and the Veshtar sentries, other outlaws wielded axes furiously, hacking through ropes and chains, yelling at the dazed prisoners to turn on their captors. One of the Andassar men grabbed up the sword of a fallen Veshtar and joined the outlaws, slicing the ropes that bound the prostrate slaves.

While I ducked a slashing blow and flew up and around to drag a Nyabozzi rider from his saddle, Aleksander dueled with a Veshtar. At first I couldn't see how the Prince was managing to stay upright, but as my opponent leaped to his feet, I caught a glimpse of Avrel, his broad back steady at the Prince's left shoulder, supporting Aleksander and protecting his vulnerable side. I could not watch for long, for the unhorsed warrior was a skilled fighter. I battled the Nyabozzi, beating him back again and again until he tripped over a bleeding slave and fell to the ground. Then a swarm of freed prisoners disarmed him, and I was no longer needed.

I shouted to the remaining Andassar men to send their charges after me, and I fought a way through the converging Derzhi and led the stumbling group across the road. Then I took wing, circled, and went back for Aleksander. He refused to budge, drawing the snarling warriors to himself as dead meat draws flies. So I fought on, too, letting the fever of battle mute the pain in my side, indulging myself in blood and death until the night was won.

By the time the moon rose to illuminate the broad meadow, the three surviving Nyabozzi were chained together and had white daggers painted on their chests. The dead prisoners were buried, the dead slavers left lying in the grass. Every Veshtar was dead.

Most of the captives who could travel had already fled. Those too injured or sick to return home were being carried up the hill to Andassar, where they might have a few days to recover. The men of Andassar would return home, too, but they knew their time of safety was only a matter of days. They would have to abandon their village, for the three surviving Derzhi would bring down the wrath of the Empire on their mud hovels. Several of the villagers were injured—the one man who had been wounded back in Andassar had lost a good deal of blood—but they were all alive.

Some among the survivors wanted to execute the three Derzhi, but the commander of the outlaws had spread the word that it was forbidden.

“What kind of fools are these not to finish them?” asked Aleksander as he sat on the rocks at the opening of the defile, binding up a gash in his right arm. “When Edik learns of this battle, every village within a league will be destroyed no matter what. But these three Nyabozzi will never let this go. They'll hunt your Yvor Lukash and these villagers to the netherworld to avenge such a defeat. Not to mention carrying tales of the winged warrior.” He glanced up at me.

I was standing nearby, slumped over a rock, still sweating and nauseous from my long-held shifting, trying to talk myself out of a retreat into the rocks to vomit and take a nap. I needed to speak with the outlaw commander as soon as he had time. I didn't recognize his or any of the painted faces that moved through the thinning crowd, encouraging, soothing, hurrying the prisoners to move on before anyone came looking for the missing caravan. “Blaise forbids them to kill unarmed men,” I said.