Traitors' Gate (11 page)

“So I said, ‘You've not fattened up that veal yet.' Heh. That's when I called you two over. We'd have given that foreign
slave something to trim his pinched face, eh? Thinking he had the right to say no to us, eh! If sergeant hadn't called up formation just right then, I'd've bust him down.”

A comrade answered. “You report him? That you saw an outlander, I mean?”

“Sure I did, but I got no coin because their tent wasn't there no more when I led the captain over that way. I wonder what happened to that lot of young whores.”

“If they tried to set up in the city, they'll just be thrown out, neh? Like the rest of these gods-rotted refugees.”

Their laughter faded into the gloom.

His shoulders throbbed and his ankle burned, and he was furious and shaking, but he crept after his companion to the next roof and after that to another, the huge rations warehouse overlooking Terta Square. There, arms hugging the roof ridgeline, they rested.

The square was lit by lanterns fixed on poles. Directly opposite, the temple dedicated to Kotaru was flanked on one side by a militia barracks brimful with enemy soldiers and on the other by a fire station left without a night guard except for its loyal dog. The rest of the square's frontage was taken up by several large inns and substantial emporia now shuttered and dark. There were four wells sunk into the center, guarded by a contingent of soldiers. A long line of people still waited outside the Thirsty Saw, guarded by yet more soldiers. Several shuffled in through the door while, from the alley that led into the back courtyard of the inn where he had seen the Guardian, ten or more hapless folk came staggering out into the square clutching their left forearms. These refugees were prodded into line. Over in the gloom by the alley entrance lay a pair of discarded bodies.

“How do we get to your temple from here? Which street?”

“Lumber Avenue. Who are you?”

“I am a spy. Not from around here.”

“That I can hear in your speech. Yet there are people who sell information or their services to the army, in exchange for coin or preference or safety.”

“True enough, Holy One. But I'm not one of them.” He sensed a smile from her tone. “I need something from you I can't get from the army.”

“This reminds me of an episode from a tale, verea. Cruel soldiers. A chatty, attractive spy. A decrepit man of middling years.”

“How do you know I'm attractive, Holy One?”

“You've held me close a time or two as we've made our way here. I know the feel of a shapely female body. I'm not dead. Yet.”

Her body shook with suppressed laughter. “Then we'll hope for a happy ending as in the tale, eh?”

He smiled but could not sustain it. “How can I trust you?”

“How can any of us trust, in days like these with an army rampaging down the length of the River Istri, burning and killing as they go? Just like in ancient days, as it says in the Tale of the Guardians: ‘Long ago, in the time of chaos, a bitter series of wars, feuds, and reprisals denuded the countryside and impoverished the lords and guildsmen and farmers and artisans of the Hundred.' ”

Nekkar mumbled the next line reflexively, overcome with bitter memory of the Guardian he had met. “ ‘In the worst of days, an orphaned girl knelt at the shore of the lake sacred to the gods and prayed that peace might return to her land.' ”

Below, soldiers whipped the detainees out of the square as those in line watched helplessly, unable to flee or to fight.

“I'm a hierodule,” whispered the spy. “An assassin, sent from the south. I mean to kill Lord Radas, who walks in the guise of a Guardian wearing a cloak of sun. He commands this army. If we can cut off its head, then we can hope the body will die. Will you and your people help me?”

Her words struck him harder than the blows that had felled him. “Is this even possible? Guardians can reach into your mind and heart and know what it is you intend. I have faced one. I could hide nothing from her.”

“I will do it, because I must.”

She was so sure of herself! Not in a boasting way, but in the
way master carpenters surveyed roofs and made pronouncements about what it would take to fix them.

“And when Lord Radas is dead, the soldiers and their captains and sergeants will run away and we'll go back to how it was before?” he asked wryly.

For a while, the assassin remained silent. When she spoke, her words weighed heavily in the humid night air.

“There comes a time when change overtakes the traveler, as it says in the Tale of Change. Hard to say what lies beyond the next threshold. We must be ready for anything.” She brushed her fingers over his hand as a young woman might greet her uncle, not sexually but affectionately. “I'm called Zubaidit.”

The gesture sealed his heart. “Very well, Zubaidit. Our resources are limited, but if you can get me back to the temple alive, I'll do what I can to help you.”

“My thanks. Tell me one thing, Holy One. Have you heard they are searching particularly for anyone?”

“Indeed, yes. I heard it from the mouth of a Guardian, wearing a cloak of night. She seeks the gods-touched, and outlanders.”

Her body tensed. “Would you hide a gods-touched outlander, Holy One? If I brought such a one to you?”

He thought of the man killed in the alley because he had tried to run away to find his children. He thought of the dead in the courtyard of the Thirsty Saw and those being dragged away for cleansing. He considered his apprentices and envoys, whom he must protect. The army would come round and take a hostage soon enough. But his temple had no protection if they thought to trust to the whims of those who held the whips.

“I will do what I can. That's all I can offer. I'm Nekkar, by the way. We can't climb roofs all the way to the temple. How do you mean to get me home when I can barely limp along?”

“Wait here for as long as it takes to chant the episode of Foolish Jothinin from the tale of the Silk Slippers. After that, move down to the alley behind this warehouse. You keep the rope. Stay on the lowest roof. Do you see it, there?”

“Yes.”

“Be ready to move.”

She slid backward. Nekkar heard faint scrapes, and even that slight noise faded beneath the buzz of soldiers chatting and folk shifting and coughing and crying in despair. A guard slapped a kneeling woman until she struggled to her feet. From off over in another quarter of the city, dogs started barking, and an outcry rose into the night like so many wildings on a howl, as it said in the tales. Soldiers tensed. A man trotted out of the inn and cast his gaze toward the sky, but not—thank the Herald!—toward the rations-warehouse roof.

After an intense shower of noise, the storm of distant trouble quieted, the soldiers relaxed, and the man shook his head and strode back inside as the people in line extended hands toward him like beggars hoping for a handout. His soldiers used the hafts of spears to push them back.

The tale! He murmured the chant under his breath. Wind breathed over the square, marred by a tincture of smoke.

The brigands raged in,
they confronted the peaceful company seated at their dinner,
they demanded that the girl be handed over to them.
All feared them. All looked away.
Except foolish Jothinin, light-minded Jothinin,
he was the only one who stood up to face them,
he was the only one who said, “No.”

It was one of his favorite episodes, even if it took place in the city of Nessumara, which claimed to be most important of cities in the Hundred when everyone knew Toskala was the holy crossroads of the land, keeper of Law Rock itself. All those apprenticed to Ilu loved the tale, since Jothinin had been an envoy of Ilu, although not a very good one. His hands twitched, wanting to sketch the tale as the words flowed, but he dared not move, not even at the dramatic conclusion when Jothinin's brave stand was all that prevented the innocent girl from being slain as, with his lengthy speech, the envoy roused the populace into the revolt that would overthrow the rule of brigands and restore the law. His final silence, the gaps in the
chant where his words would have gone were he not dying from stab wounds, always made Nekkar's eyes mist over.

The wind turned. He licked his lips, feeling the greasy taste of scorched oil on the air. What was he thinking, to put the apprentices and envoys at risk? How could this self-confessed “assassin” possibly get him back to the temple with the city under curfew?

Screams burst as fire blazed up in the upper story of the closed emporium on the opposite side of the square. He stared in awe and horror as the people in the square cried out, as soldiers grabbed buckets stored in the fire station. Stone Quarter could burn down! Everyone was running, most for the fire station, setting up lines at the wells, while others dashed away into the darkness of back streets, escaping while they had the chance. The fire bell atop Law Rock clanged in the distance.

Obviously this was a diversion! Time to go.

He scraped palms as he scrabbled for purchase on the tiles, jamming his right leg as he barely caught the gutter instead of tumbling over the drop. Pain stabbed through his left ankle, blinding him. Then he breathed out of it and found the strength to heave himself onto the lower roof and roll to lie precariously along the edge.

“Holy One?” Her voice drifted up from the alley below him.

His anger blazed. “It could burn down the entire quarter. What of the poor folk who own that shop, whose entire livelihood is going up in flames?”

“Their goods had already been looted.” The assassin's voice was staggering in its calm intensity. “Anyway, that fire is nothing to what I've seen this army do, and what worse things they'll do if they're not stopped. Now is the time to go, if you mean to come with me, Holy One.”

She was right.

When he threw his legs over and eased himself down, bruised arms and shoulders screaming at the effort, she caught him. He showed her the way, and she supported him through the empty night streets as the fire drew the attention of the army. Past Lele Square, they reached the temple gate, locked
and barred, but the dogs whined to alert the night guard and the small gate was cracked open to allow him in.

She waved him on.

“You're not coming in?”

“Neh. I must retrieve my comrade. We'll return tomorrow night or the next. Watch for us, Holy One.”

Then she was gone into the night, and the gate was closed and barred behind him. As he limped into the dark courtyard, all the envoys and every apprentice flooded out of the sleeping house, crowding him, touching him, weeping with relief, until he thought he would faint for needing to sit down. He was bereft of speech. The fire bell had ceased ringing. Smoke scented the air. One of the night guards called down from the sentry post: “Looks like it's stopped spreading!”

Vassa pushed her way through the acolytes with sharper words than he had ever heard from one who was always gentle. When she shone lamplight in his face, everyone gasped.

“Gather a few things and sit out here in the courtyard until we know the danger is passed,” she said to the envoys and apprentices. “Kellas, haul out the litter in case we must carry the ostiary.”

“I can walk—” Nekkar croaked, and put his weight on his twisted ankle. The light hazed. The world spun. Many arms took hold of him and lifted him.

“You'll take a wash and some poultices for your injuries, some food and tea, and then you'll lie down.”

“I must talk to you—”

“Yes,” Vassa agreed, and he realized in a distant way that she was trying not to cry. “Here, you lads, carry him.”

He was too weary and too much in pain to struggle. Tomorrow or the next night, the assassin had said. Tomorrow would be soon enough to see what trouble he had called down on the temple. They had to be ready for anything.

D
ON'T OPEN THE GATE
.

That was the last thing Zubaidit had said to Shai before leaving on her spying expedition yesterday. Now it was dawn, Bai hadn't returned, and someone was rapping hard on the nailed-together planks set against a gap in the abandoned storeroom in which he had slept.

“Open up!”

“The whole compound looks abandoned to me.”

“The dog thinks otherwise.”

A dog snuffled along the exterior of the planks. Shai tucked his sword along his torso and slid a hiltless knife into a sheath cut into the leather of his boots just as the soldiers kicked down the planks. Shards splintered.

He pretended he was just waking up. He'd successfully played stupid before. “Eh, ver. Eh. You frightened me.”

Burly soldiers prodded spears in his direction. “Heya, Sergeant! Got an outlander here. Whew! He stinks.”

“That's because we're in an old tanning yard, you imbecile,” came the reply. “Bring him out.”

“Out!” They treated him as they might a dog whose temperament was chancy.

“Eh, ver, Mistress told me to wait here for her. She'll whip me if I leave.”

“Our orders are to kill anyone who disobeys.”

“Maybe he can't understand you,” said the second man.

Shai had already cut a hiding place for his sword into the foundation. He rolled over the sword, shoved it into the gap, and covered it as he kept talking. “Please don't hurt me, ver. My mistress, she said she would whip me. Please don't.”

He crawled on hands and knees, feeling the points of the spears like stinging scorpions along his back, but once he got outside into the colorless dawn, the soldiers drew a step back and let him stand. He shook out his loose trousers, flicked dust from the sleeveless leather vest that covered his chest, and
wiped a smear of dust from his lips. This tannery compound hadn't been used for some time, and lay far enough away from Toskala that Bai had thought it safe to use as a hiding place. But every structure in this entire area where the camp followers had set up days ago was being searched and their occupants driven outside and rounded up. Women were arguing, children crying, old men fumbling as they tried to keep their bundled possessions slung over thin shoulders.