The Providence of Fire (58 page)

“We still don't know if the
kenarang
is responsible for your father's death,” Talal pointed out. “Balendin might have been lying.”

Valyn nodded. “He might have been lying, but I doubt it. Balendin was frightened when Long Fist questioned him, almost terrified. You both saw him.” He hesitated, then decided to leave out the fact that he had also smelled the leach's fear, had tasted it, like a thick, bilious skim over spoiled milk. “Either way, there's no reason to take chances. We stay out of sight until we have some 'Kent-kissing idea what's going on.”

“I liked it better when we had 'Ra,” Laith said, shaking his head. “I hope she made it clear of the steppe. No telling what those Urghul bastards might do with her if they took her down.”

“I'm sure she's—” Talal began, but Valyn cut him off with a curt chop of the hand.

Somewhere behind them, off to the north but hammering closer in a dull tattoo, Valyn could make out the sound of horses.

Laith cocked an ear, then half spread his hands. “What?”

“Riders,” Valyn said, “pushing hard.”

The flier glanced at Talal. “You hear anything?”

“Just the wind,” Talal replied.

“They're coming,” Valyn said, crouching down to set an ear to the earth. He listened a moment more, then nodded. “About a mile off. Riding at a canter.”

“A canter at night over this ground?” Talal shook his head. “Dangerous.”

Laith pressed his own ear to the dirt, waited a long time, then stood. “I have no idea how you heard that, but I hear them now. Sounds like they're on some sort of path. The earth is packed.”

Talal had cocked his head to one side, twisting the iron bracelet on his wrist absently as he did so. “I think they're going to pass us to the west. We should be all right.”

“You using some kind of secret leach trick?” Laith asked.

“Yes, very secret. Very tricky. It's called listening.”

Valyn figured the angles in his head. Four horses pushing south hard in the middle of the night weren't a routine patrol. Even on a path, they were taking a risk with their horses, which meant urgency. Urgency meant information, and the only information this far north was information about the Urghul. Valyn gritted his teeth.

He'd intended to stay out of view, to slink into Annur—past the border first, then into the capital itself—and locate il Tornja without anyone the wiser. Maybe he could meet up with Kaden before choosing his course, maybe not, but waiting for Kaden to tell him what was going on hardly made for a complete plan. Sooner or later he was going to need to decide whether or not to actually kill the
kenarang,
and to do that he'd need to decide whether Long Fist was telling him the truth. The Urghul chief had insisted that his massive camp of horsemen was a purely defensive measure, but tens of thousands of mounted warriors could turn aggressive in the time it took them to mount up. For all Valyn knew, Long Fist was playing him. Either way, this was a chance to get some unfiltered, unblemished, unprepared intelligence. Not only that, but they'd have horses.

“Modified dead-man ambush,” he decided abruptly, turning toward the hill and breaking into a jog.

Laith didn't budge. “What about sneaking
past
the patrols?”

“We need the intel and we can use the horses,” Valyn called over his shoulder.

“And the soldiers?” Talal asked. The leach had fallen in beside him immediately, but when Valyn glanced over he could see the concern written on his face. “They're Annurians.…”

“I'm aware that they're Annurians,” Valyn replied, trying to think through the attack. It was hard to say just how far off the horses were, but they only had a few minutes. “We're not going to kill them.”

“Captives,” Laith observed as he caught up to them, “are complicated.”

“We take them,” Valyn replied. “Tie their legs. Drop them five miles off the path. Should take them a few days to wriggle back, by which time we'll be well south. With any luck, they won't even know we're Kettral.”

“Luck,” Laith said, shaking his head. “I'd like to start needing it less or having it more.”

As he spoke, they crested a gentle rise, and Valyn paused, scanning the land below. It was almost as bare as the steppe, but there were a few withered pines, a couple patches of twisted alder, limbs silver in the moonlight—enough cover for a dead-man. And there, the only straight line in a landscape of slopes and curves, the hammered earth of the Annurian track, striking south toward the horizon.

“I'm the deader,” Valyn said, considering the contours a moment more, then pointing, “right there. Four horses most likely means two riders, with two remounts.”

Laith nodded. “You want to go with a V or a half-hatch?” Once the flier got his griping and theatrics out of the way, he actually liked to fight. Not as much as he liked to fly, but then, there wasn't much flying to be had without a bird.

“Half-hatch,” Valyn said, indicating a gnarled trunk and a waist-high line of scrub on the far side of the road.

“It's going to be tight,” Talal said, turning an ear toward the drumming hooves.

Valyn nodded.

“What's the play?” Laith asked.

“After the halt,” Valyn said, spinning out the possibilities as he spoke, “I'll take the dismount.…”

“
If
there's a dismount,” Talal said.

“No dismount, and we ditch it,” Valyn said. “We let them ride.”

“You take the dismount,” Laith urged, waving a hand impatiently, “then—”

“Spark and bang,” Valyn replied. He glanced at Talal.

“Yeah,” the leach replied. “I can manage it.”

“All right then. Standard. One moves for the bridle. The other takes him down. Don't worry about sound. We've got to be five miles from the river by now. Just make sure he doesn't bolt.”

“And if there are more?” Talal asked.

Valyn paused to listen to the drumming hooves. It was tricky to unthread the different gaits, but the horses were close now. He was all but certain there were only four beasts. “Four men means no remounts,” he said, “and that pace without remounts would be idiocy.”

Laith nodded, then turned to jog into position.

Talal hesitated.

“Say it or stow it,” Valyn said. “They're almost on us.”

“Seems right,” the leach said after a moment. “Standard protocol. Four horses. Two men.” He turned to follow Laith.

*   *   *

Valyn realized the approaching soldiers had buggered the 'Kent-kissing protocol the moment the horses hammered into view.

Four horses. Four men.

Either they had a remount not far to the south or they were utter fools. It hardly mattered. Valyn lay just to the side of the road. Had there been even a little cover, his blacks might have concealed him—the men were riding hard, and couldn't expect a body here, near the very fringe of the empire—but then, Valyn had chosen his spot precisely for the
lack
of cover. A dead-man ambush wasn't much good if the mark rode by without noticing the deader. Cursing under his breath, he rolled toward the low gully a few paces distant, but the soldiers were on him before he was halfway there, the leader calling out to his companions over the clatter of hooves, all of them hauling up short, horses blowing.

“Stand and show yourself,” one of the soldiers called out. The command was followed by the uneasy scrape of steel over leather as the men freed their swords.

Valyn rolled slightly onto his side, slipping his belt knife from its sheath as he tried to recalibrate tactics. Three on four made perfectly acceptable odds for the Kettral, especially in an ambush, but you had to be willing to cut some throats.

“It's an Urghul, Kidder,” another soldier said, voice high and tight. “A 'Kent-kissing scout.”

“What's he doing here then?” A third voice. “Where's his horse?”

Valyn risked a glance at the riders. As he suspected, they wore the light leather armor of legionary messengers. The leader's horse was out in front, but the other three were clustered tight together. Laith and Talal were on the far side of the road, which meant two of the four men were partially shielded from attack. If the first man dismounted, if Valyn could take him down quickly enough, he might be able to hamstring the nearer horse, which would solve one of the problems.…

“Stand,” the closest rider said again, “in the name of the regent, or I will ride you down.”

“No,” Valyn moaned, raising a hand, “please. No. I'm wounded. I'm Annurian. Legion.”

“Sound like an Urghul to you, Arin?”

“They don't all talk nonsense,” Arin replied stubbornly. “Maybe this one's a spy.”

“All the legion up this way is tied to the forts,” the leader, Kidder, said carefully, turning back to Valyn. “Are you with the Thirty-second?”

Valyn hesitated. Legionary deployments were constantly shifting—generals didn't want their men to get too comfortable in a single place—and the Kettral rarely bothered studying the latest configuration. There was nothing to do but throw the dice.

“Tenth,” he groaned. “Please. I'm hurt.”

Kidder reined in his horse. “Tenth's way west in the Romsdals,” he said guardedly. “What're you doing here?”

Valyn paused. The longer they talked, the more time Talal and Laith had to shift position and rethink tactics, but a large part of the success of the ambush relied on surprise. Even as they spoke, the other riders were spreading out, staring worriedly into the surrounding terrain.

“Messenger,” he moaned. Paused. “The Urghul hit me. My partner's dead.”

His mention of the Urghul caused some consternation, the other men circling warily. It seemed, however, to earn him some trust with the leader, who dismounted after a moment, then approached slowly, sword drawn. He stopped a couple of paces from Valyn, blade leveled between them.

“What's your message?” he asked.

Valyn shook his head weakly. “For the garrison commander…”

“Where's your horse?”

“South,” Valyn moaned. “Maybe a mile. I crawled.…
Please
.”

The man glanced over his shoulder, and in the short moment his head was turned, Valyn rolled to his feet, knocked the sword aside by the flat, then struck out at the soldier's neck with the heel of his hand. It wasn't a killing blow, wasn't intended to do much more than stagger the man for a few heartbeats, but Valyn felt something crunch, and the Annurian sagged, gagging. There was no time to think about what he'd done, not while the other riders were in play, and Valyn stepped forward, twisted the long blade free of the soldier's grip, then spun away, slashing through the neck of the nearest horse. He needed three mounts, not four.

The beast recoiled, then, before its rider could leap free, collapsed thrashing. The soldier screamed as his leg broke, and then Valyn was on him, knocking him unconscious with the sword's pommel.

That made two down. He turned to find that Laith had already knocked a third clear of his saddle. The fourth, however, the one farthest from the center of their attack, had broken free, and was hammering up the road to the north, his companions forgotten. Valyn cursed and cast about for one of the two remaining horses. The beasts were panicked, rolling their eyes and snorting, and when Valyn edged close to the nearer of the two, it reared up, lashing out with a hoof. He sidestepped the blow, trying to come in close, but the animal pivoted, keeping him at bay.

“Talal!” he called. The whole thing was a goat fuck already, but if the last rider got away they'd have half a legion on them by the time the sun rose.

The leach stood a dozen paces off, chin lifted, eyes fixed on the rapidly retreating figure. As Valyn watched, Talal made a slight gesture with his left hand, like swatting a fly away from his fingers, and, with a scream, the horse collapsed, front legs buckling abruptly. The rider, suddenly free of the saddle, soared through the air, arms scrabbling at nothingness, then hit headfirst with a vicious crunch. Talal went after him, but it was already over. Though the horse thrashed furiously, lost in pain and panic, the slumped shape of the man beneath remained horribly still.

Valyn took a deep breath, then turned back to the scene at hand. The first soldier was bent double, straining to haul breath through his shattered windpipe as he clawed at the dirt with one hand. The man trapped beneath the horse lay still, but it was clear from the awkward angle of his body that his leg was broken. A heavy horrible stone settled in Valyn's gut. In just heartbeats his neat ambush had spiraled utterly out of control. The men down weren't traitors or barbarians; they were Annurians, soldiers of his own empire, loyal troops following orders as best as they were able, and for that loyalty Valyn had attacked them, crippled at least one for life, and possibly killed another.

“Is he alert?” Valyn asked roughly, turning to Laith. The flier had the fourth soldier pinned to the earth, a knee in the small of his back.

“For now,” he replied, lacing the man's wrists with a length of light cord. He glanced over his shoulder at the surrounding violence. His eyes showed bleak in the moonlight. “Holy Hull. What did we do?”

“We did what we had to,” Valyn replied, trying to shackle his own nausea and horror.

“Had to?” Laith demanded, gesturing at the bodies with a hand. “How did we have to do this?”

“It's done, Laith,” Talal said quietly, rejoining the two of them. “It went wrong, but we all did it, and we can't take it back.”

“What about him?” Valyn asked, nodding toward the soldier up the road. Talal had slit the horse's throat, and both beast and man lay still.

The leach shook his head. “The fall snapped his neck.”

Valyn stared at the shadowy forms of man and horse, then turned his back on them, crossing instead to the soldier with the injured windpipe. The Annurian knelt on his hands and knees, hacking out a shattered sound, half cough, half retch, his body quivering in the still air. For a moment, Valyn could do nothing but watch. Between the moon's light and his own eyes, he could see everything, even the details—the small tattoo of a mouse behind the soldier's ear, the scarring across his right knuckles, the uneven patch where someone had hacked away too much hair with a belt knife. The man had managed to crawl maybe a dozen paces, no goal beyond escaping his own terror.