Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (11 page)

“The Civid Sein argue they
are
hard-working country folk,” Sasha replied.

“I was raised in Varne,” Muline said. “It’s a little town in the east, not far from the Saalshen border. My father is a miller, my uncles farmers and tradesmen, and none of them loves the Civid Sein.” Sasha was coming to suspect as much. “They are from the countryside, yet they take advantage of that status, as though it gives them special rights. They claim support of the farmers in this courtyard, and probably they did have some support a month or two ago when they first arrived. But now that support runs short, and the farmers ask us to come and clean up the mess…only for the Nasi-Keth to intervene on the Civid Sein’s side, without asking questions.”

He glowered at her. Sasha sighed. “I apologise for my friends,” she said. “I’m new to Tracato. I’d like the Nasi-Keth to be more thoughtful about this than I’ve seen. But they dislike the nobility, and so assume the Civid Sein are their friends.”

“Because they’re poor and downtrodden,” the lieutenant said sarcastically. “I was born as poor and downtrodden as any of this lot, yet I rose to this
station because I believe in law, justice and the security of Rhodaan. Ask this lot what they believe in, they’ll give you only complaints.”

Sasha glanced back at the courtyard. The stall owners looked as displeased with the Civid Sein as with the Blackboots, perhaps more. And now, her Nasi-Keth lads were taking sides, perhaps the wrong one.

“I can’t promise I can help much,” Sasha told the lieutenant, “but I can get the boys out of it.”

She walked toward the confusion, beckoning to Daish, who darted between stalls to reach her. “The tall lad is Palis, the younger Torine…who’s the darker one?”

“Alfone,” said Daish.

“Hey!” Sasha yelled. The squabbling was mostly about the Civid Sein’s makeshift tents, which the Blackboots were attempting to take down. No one listened. Nearby was a wagon, doubling as a stall for sacks of grain. Sasha climbed up onto the sacks. “Hey! Palis, Torine and Alfone! Nasi-Keth!”

In amongst it, on the Civid Sein side, the three lads looked up at her.

“You get the hells out of there!” she yelled at them. And when they hesitated, “Now!”

Two of them moved. A third, Palis, stayed where he was, pushing Blackboots away from the tents.

Sasha leaped from the wagon and pushed through the crowd. She came up near Palis and grabbed him by the arm.

“If you won’t use your ears,” she snarled, “I’ll cut them off and grant them to someone in need!” He moved, but several Civid Sein men saw and grabbed him back. Another grabbed Sasha. She twisted, and in the blink of an eye had a knife at the man’s throat. He froze, and the others backed off. The nearby Blackboots also stopped.

“No grabbing!” Sasha insisted.

“You’d draw steel against sons of the soil?” exclaimed a Civid Sein man.

“These are the sons and daughters of the soil!” Sasha retorted, pointing angrily at the stall owners looking on. “
They’re
the ones who asked for the Blackboots to come, to get you off their damn market so they can make a living!”

“Lies!” shouted the Civid Sein man. “The nobility are scum! They’ve been trying to get rid of us for weeks.” The shouting and shoving along other parts of the line was lessening as attention turned to this new confrontation.

“What makes you think you have the right to camp before the Mahl’rhen gate for weeks anyhow?” Sasha replied. “Harass the serrin, deprive country folk of their livelihood and locals of their peace?”

“We come to appeal to Saalshen!” shouted the man. “To resist the
snivelling demands of the nobility! General Zulmaher, even now, marches at the head of our army in Elisse, befriending the noble families there rather than defeating them—”

“Have you talked to the serrin?” Sasha cut him off.

“They don’t talk to us, they’re bought and paid for by the nobility.” There were angry shouts of agreement from other Civid Sein.

“Let me tell you one thing about the serrin, friend!” Sasha said firmly. “No man or woman, ever, has bought and paid for their opinions. I’ll get you in.” The man stared at her. The commotion had nearly stopped. “Don’t just stand there, choose three men from amongst you, and I’ll take you to see someone senior.”

The man still stared at her, not knowing what to say. Sasha clapped her hands impatiently, and he jumped to choose his men. Sasha pointed firmly at the line of Blackboots, indicating that they should stay. They stayed. She turned on her heel and strode back to the Mahl’rhen gate.

“The commotion will stop if they get to speak to someone,” she said to one of the serrin there. “I said I’ll bring three of them inside.”

“Must we?” said the serrin, drily. “Speak to them?”

Sasha was astonished. She’d finally found a group of people the serrinim found too tedious to muster any enthusiasm for debating. They had, she guessed, been putting up with this for years. Decades, even.

“Would you rather have blood spilt on the courtyard?”

The serrin actually appeared to think about it, and be uncertain of the answer. Then he sighed. “Bring your men. I shall select the lucky interlocutor.”

Someone else edged through the wall of armed serrin. It was Errollyn. He came to her side and looked out at the courtyard. “What happened?”

“Civid Sein trouble,” Sasha explained. “I settled them down. I’m escorting three inside for talks.”

Errollyn stared at her. “You!” he said with astonishment. “You broke up a commotion? You’re certain you didn’t
cause
this?”

Sasha punched at his arm. Errollyn dodged and laughed.

R
HILLIAN TORE ACROSS NEWLY PLOUGHED FIELDS
, skirted a vegetable patch bordered by several peasant hovels, and leaped a fence. Ahead, the last of the bandits were galloping for the forest. No matter, she thought, leaning low in the saddle. That way was not a good way for them.

She pulled back on the reins to stop the grey mare from charging too far ahead of those riders fanning on her left. To the right, more riders formed their position by looking to her. Another fence, which she jumped, and then they were slowing further to ride amongst the trees.

She allowed the mare her head, weaving between trunks, supplying only a general direction while ducking the branches. The mare was not as large as some lowlands warhorses—she was
elur’uhd
, a Saalshen breed of stamina and swiftness combined. The
talmaad
did not fight as humans would, and had little use for animals built like battering rams of muscle and hide. It was dark under the canopy of leaves, and the gloom and speed combined to play tricks on her eyes…but if it was difficult for her, it would be doubly so for the bandits.

Rhillian tore through undergrowth, skirted an impenetrable tangle of roots and brush, and dug in her heels as the mare showed uncertainty, tossing her head. She turned onto what she decided was the straighter course, and heard a scream from ahead. Suddenly there was a horse and rider before her, a brown tunic and hood of smallfolk’s dress over mail, a sword in hand. Left-handed, Rhillian saw, swinging her mare to the left and cutting past his weakside before he could adjust. Her backhand tore through mail on his back, and he fell with a scream, crashing into tree roots.

Now there were more horses ahead, plunging through the trees, rearing, wheeling in desperation. One man held a shield with two arrows in it, even as a third took his companion in the eye. Rhillian reined past another rider, slumped with a shaft in his throat, and galloped toward another yet unfeathered. He saw her and raised his shield and blade to greet her with a cry, and was promptly cut from the saddle by a third rider who flashed past his side. Rhillian paused and circled to look around, but it seemed to be over, the few remaining bandits yielding with desperate cries for mercy, throwing aside
their blades. Rhillian did not need to give orders. Her
talmaad
knew what to do, and closed in on all sides to take prisoners.

She urged the mare to the side of the rider who had flashed by and deprived her of another victim. Aisha sat astride near where the prisoners were being herded and searched for weapons. Her naked blade remained in hand, ready to ride down any others who tried to run or fight. None looked likely to try. Clearly these understood the nature of their opposition, for there was terror in their eyes and cringing obedience in every posture.

“That was a lovely cut,” Rhillian complimented her friend. “Your horsemanship remains superior to mine, despite my practice.”

“City girl,” Aisha said, which explained everything. “You’ll not rid yourself of me that easily.”

“More’s the pity.” Aisha had completed her journey from Enora to Elisse barely ten days ago, to retake her accustomed place at Rhillian’s side. Rhillian was delighted to see her again, and even more delighted that her wounds suffered in Petrodor had healed so completely. But, in part, she still wished that Aisha had remained safely in Enora with her family, and had not come here to Rhodaani-occupied Elisse, and the newest front in the latest chapter of the never-ending series of wars that was the Bacosh.

Arendelle arrived at Rhillian’s other side, his bow in hand. “Three escaped,” he told her. “Gian and Leshelle are after them, I don’t expect they’ll get far.”

“No,” Rhillian agreed. Gian was the second-best archer Rhillian had ever seen. He alone would probably have done. “A good ambush.”

Arendelle shrugged. “They rode straight into us. If all irregulars are this clueless, we shall be done with them in weeks.”

Rhillian did not reply, lips pursed, watching her
talmaad
disarming the terrified prisoners. Men-at-arms in smallfolk clothes, she thought. Their armour gave them away, and their horse skills. Cavalry fighting was a rich man’s sport in the Bacosh, or the sport of those in their pay. Someone was trying to scare the true smallfolk into not helping the invaders, again. It was a predictable horror, and she was growing thoroughly sick of it.

They escorted the prisoners the short distance back to the village, not bothering to tie more than their hands behind their backs. It was almost an invitation to any who might think to try to run. Prisoners were useful, but not essential, and Rhillian was certain she could do without whichever of their number might think to try the accuracy of mounted serrin archers. Half a year ago, such thinking might have disturbed her. That was before Petrodor, and the War of the King. Now, the fate of a few murdering bandit prisoners barely troubled her at all.

The countryside in spring was beautiful, with hills and pasture slopes alive with wildflowers. Ploughed fields made a patchwork of brown against the green, with little huts for shepherds and farmers clinging to the rickety fencelines, beneath the shade of grand oaks.

The village itself was not so beautiful. Little more than a huddled mass of tumbledown shanties, small mud walls clustered as if for warmth, thatched roofs in various states of disrepair. Some goats, roped to a stake, made a meal of garden refuse, and geese honked and waddled away from the massed hooves approaching. Even the village dogs looked dispirited, running away with tails low and without so much as a bark. This was the land of a certain Lord Crashuren, Rhillian had learned, and these villagers owned nothing. Not even their pathetic little homes.

Further along the main “street,” muddy with recent rain, they came upon the scene of the bandits’ work, before Rhillian’s party had arrived. Truthfully, there wasn’t much to destroy. But there were doors and window shutters broken, precious clay pots smashed on the ground, and equally precious white flour strewn across the mud. And other, equally senseless destruction.

In a small, muddy square fronting a little stone temple lay five human bodies. Three were men of fighting age, but one was a lad of perhaps twelve, and the other a girl several years older. About the little square, doors were opening, fearful folk peering out to see the strange, wild-haired serrin dismounting about a cluster of eight human prisoners. Ahead, the temple door was guarded by a rough, balding man with a hoe. But others were seeing it safe, and two women pushed the man aside, and rushed to the square to resume their sobbing over the bodies of the dead. More joined them, and suddenly there were perhaps fifty gathering about, some men armed with makeshift weapons.

Rhillian stepped forward and stared down at the bodies. Their throats had been cut. Even the youngsters. She looked up and beckoned the rough man with the hoe forward. He came, and she realised his anxiousness was not fear, but rather deference. His gait was bent and he did not look her in the eye, but placed the hoe on the mud before her and knelt. Rhillian refrained from exasperation, and took his arm, gently, pulling him back to his feet. He might have been fifty, she saw, with a rugged face and very few teeth. More likely, she knew, he was about thirty.

“Do you speak Larosan?” Rhillian asked him in that tongue. A nervous shake of the head. “Aisha.”

Aisha came forward, small, blonde and pretty. The man bowed to her too. “What happened here?” Rhillian asked him, and Aisha repeated it in Elissian.