Traitors' Gate (111 page)

“If you three will report on your observations, we'll listen and ask questions.” Anji offered the reeves stools and gave Tohon his whip to point with.

The reeves deferred to Tohon, offering asides only when he could not explain or had missed some typical local object or tree or landmark. They had flown above the Istri Walk to Toskala and thence along the Ili Cutoff and across the vale of Iliyat to the Liya Pass.

“That's Candle Rock,” Joss said when they described a high sanctuary where they'd camped for the night. “You can see Ammadit's Tit from the rock. It's a Guardian's altar. And that abandoned compound you saw, on the way up? That was once a temple to Ushara, although it was popularly supposed that they trained assassins there. There was a woodsmen's encampment near there, although it's likely long since grown over. That's where Reeve Marit and her eagle Flirt were killed. Theirs are the first known deaths definitely linked to Lord Radas. I think it might have been the first cadre of his army.”

The curtained entrance off to one side swayed, and a woman ducked out. Tohon smiled, making room for her, but she snagged a stool, walked around the table as if to peruse the map from all angles before she fetched up, quite as if by accident, next to Joss. She set down the stool and herself in it. Her hip pressed against his. She leaned over the low table, one of her breasts brushing his arm as she used the hilt of a knife to tap the spot on the map he'd just been discussing.

“The temple of Ushara was attacked and all its hierodules and kalos murdered.” She straightened, setting the knife back to hold down a curling corner. “The many hieros across the land have never let any hierodule or kalos forget it, either. Didn't you ever hear the rest of the story, Reeve Joss? They
found a young hierodule—barely fourteen—chained to a death willow and raped and abused, as if to spit on the generosity of the Devouring One. She was dead, a knife to the heart.”

“I was one of those who found her corpse,” said Joss so quietly that everyone looked at him. “Which is a moment I will never forget as long as I live. As you say, a knife to the heart.”

The words had an odd effect on Anji, whose gaze had drifted past Joss toward a movement in camp beyond the awning. His expression tightened in a puzzled frown, then opened to a look of sheer violent falling helplessness as he recognized what he was looking at. He leaped to his feet, his stool tipping and falling behind him. He fisted a hand and for one breath Joss could have sworn Anji swayed as though he had taken a knife to the heart. Sengel caught his arm. Stepping sideways, shaking off Sengel, he strode around the table and out from under the awning. Joss twisted to see.

Out of the dusk settling its wings over the encampment limped Chief Tuvi carrying a bundle in his arms. Neh, no bundle but a living, squirming baby. Tuvi was carrying Anji's son.

Joss stood, intending to follow, but Chief Esigu blocked him. Sengel and Deze trotted up on either side of Anji as Anji halted in front of Tuvi and engulfed the baby in his arms. Tuvi's lips moved, speaking words Joss was too far away to hear.

Sengel and Deze grabbed Anji under the elbows, and Tuvi swept the child back. The two chiefs held their captain as his legs gave way.

Had the wind failed? For it seemed the entire camp was holding its breath, taking in the news with the captain, still supported by his senior officers.

Kesta and Peddonon jogged out of the dusk, circling wide around the knot of Qin, who stopped Peddonon at a distance but allowed Kesta to hurry up to the awning.

She grasped Joss's arm, pulling him aside. “Siras flew Chief Tuvi in from the Barrens. The captain's wife was murdered up the Spires, that place they call Merciful Valley.”

“Murdered?” As well say the sky was green, or that folk preferred bread to rice given the choice. “Who would murder Mai?” Beautiful, clever Mai.
The Ox walks with feet of clay,
but its heart leaps to the heavens where it seeks the soul which fulfills it.

“One of her slaves stabbed her. Siras says she fell into the pool, and her body was lost in the depths beneath the falls. Maybe that makes sense to you.” She caught him as he sat heavily, almost tipping over the stool.

Siras came running, but Qin soldiers halted him beside Peddonon as the chiefs steered Anji in under the awning and sat him down on his stool beside the camp table.

“How did she outflank me?” Anji asked, the question all the more wrenching for his even tone, like he was asking for a report on the weather.

“She had an agent in your midst all along, that slave named Sheyshi,” said Tuvi. “None of us suspected. The girl played her part, and none of us suspected all that time.”

“Commander Beje must have known.”

“That Sheyshi was your mother's agent? It's likely. That your mother would strike through the slave? How could any Qin man guess? There was nothing you could have done, Anjihosh. The princess was caged in the women's palace for many years. She is far more skilled on this battlefield than you or I. She defeated you with a superior flanking movement.”

“I should have known,” said Anji as he reached for a knife that Chief Deze snatched up before Anji could touch it. Anji went on as if he had not noticed, hands splayed open on the careful detailed lines of the map. “I should have suspected. Mai is the sharpest knife a man could hope to possess. The biggest threat to my mother's power. I should have brought Mai with me, never let her leave my side—” His hands fisted. He bent as in a gust of wind, and his eyes lost focus. A sound more gasp than moan strangled in his throat.

The baby had begun to noisily fuss, wanting his father, and Tuvi thrust the angry child onto Anji's lap, anything to take that stunned blank expression off the captain's face.

Joss had known these feelings once. Nothing would make the killing blow easier to absorb; nothing could ease the searing pain. Only the baby, who demanded his father's attention by beginning to cry.

“What have you been feeding him?” asked Anji in a harsh, hoarse voice.

“Goat's milk and nai porridge,” said Tuvi. Revealed in lantern light, his face and hands were netted with scars, as though he had plunged into a burning spider's web. He stood awkwardly, and when a soldier brought a stool, sat gingerly as if every movement was agony. Yet his gaze was bent on his captain as Chief Deze sent soldiers to find goat's milk and nai porridge. Anji soothed the child by speaking in another language, the words flowing like a chant. His expression was scoured raw; his eyes flared white, like a spooked horse, and yet, every time he ceased speaking even for a moment, his jaw clenched as tight as if he were choking down a scream.

Kesta patted Joss's shoulder and jerked her chin toward the spot where Siras was confined between a pair of watchful soldiers. Joss stepped away from the table. Sengel glanced at him, nodding to acknowledge his leave-taking, but Anji did not look up nor did Tuvi register their departure. He hadn't looked at Joss once.

Siras was bouncing on his toes as Joss walked up with Kesta. “The hells, Commander! What happened to you? You look gods-rotted younger, or something.”

The Qin soldiers delicately stepped away, one lifting a hand to show they were moving off now, no trouble.

“Keep walking,” muttered Joss.

Soldiers approached the awning with bowls and bottles and by lamplight Anji bent over his son to coax food into the squalling visage as his chiefs gave orders for the night's sentries. The four reeves strode away, Kesta leading them toward the river's shore where they might hope to find some privacy.

“What in the hells happened?”

“The captain sent Mistress Mai and a few attendants and guards to Merciful Valley. To keep her safe while he went on campaign.”

“From the red hounds? Those Sirniakan spies?”

Siras shrugged. “The rumor runs that the captain's mother had Mai killed.”

“The hells! That's what Chief Tuvi implied. Why would his mother kill his wife?”

“She brought a Sirniakan princess from the empire. She wanted him to marry the outlander, but he refused.”

“So she killed Mai? How in the hells would that serve to persuade her son to marry the woman she'd chosen for him? Aui! How can anyone understand outlanders? Is this what we have to hope for?”

“To hope for what?” asked Kesta.

“Not here,” said Joss, lowering his voice. They walked awhile until they reached the low bluffs that ran along the western channel. It was impossible to penetrate the river's layers, the surface glitter, the streaming deeps, the muddied eddies where sticks washed up. This conflict was like the river. They thought they were fighting a single war, when in fact multiple wars were raging around and above and beneath their feet, unseen but nevertheless permeating the land until the Hundred overflowed with hostilities.

“Lord Radas is dead.”

“Thanks to you,” said Kesta.

He shrugged, shaking off the compliment. “Anji and his army have defeated major contingents of Lord Radas's army.”

“Thanks be to the gods,” said Peddonon with a fierce sigh.

“Meanwhile, there remain remnants of that army wandering in the countryside, an outpost at Walshow, and headquarters at Wedrewe in Herelia. Why can't Anji just take over the entire apparatus and stand as—what do the Qin call their ruler?—stand as
var
over the Hundred, with an army he trained and which is loyal to him to enforce his will?”

The river's voice had the clarity his own lacked. The danger seemed so cursed obvious to him. How easy it was to cross under the gate of shadows, never knowing you passed the threshold of corruption until it was too late to turn back.

“Joss,” said Kesta in the voice of an auntie who is about to tell you that the woman you're hankering after just isn't interested no matter how many smiles and songs and silk scarves you ply her with, “don't you think you're spinning a tale out of your own fears? Have you thought maybe you're a bit envious?
I admit I've been startled by how quickly Commander Anji and his chiefs have taken to giving orders to the reeve halls, but hasn't it worked? Aren't we at the threshold of victory, after all the terrible things we've seen?”

“When in the hells,” Joss demanded, “did everyone stop calling him ‘Captain'? This isn't about being commander of the reeve halls. For sure I never wanted the position, and if we can ever get the reeve halls to meet in council, then I'll be glad to follow a new commander. But tell me this, Kesta.” He grabbed a rock off the ground and pitched it toward the river, waiting until he heard, like an echo of his doubts, its hollow splash. “If the reeve halls met today in council, if Anji stood up before them with his eloquence and persuasiveness and his good-humored smiles, what makes you think they wouldn't elect
him
?”

S
HAI WAS CONSCIOUS
, and he was hurting, and his ears were filled with voices that nagged as stubbornly as young nieces and nephews wanting a ride on his broad shoulders.

How do I get home? Can you tell me?

I never wanted to march with the army. But it was cursed sweet to have my belly full every cursed day, eh? I don't feel hungry at all now.

Aui! It hurts! I'm scared!

Gods-rotted cowards, falling back like that. If only we'd listened to—

Ghosts plagued him, worse than a horde of nieces and nephews because there was nothing he could do for them. He wanted to shout “I can't help you!” but he had no throat, no tongue, no mouth. Sand had been poured over raw flesh and rubbed in until he was a single screaming wound.

Cursed if he would cry about it. Others had endured worse. This was only physical pain.

“Out!”

The voice rang strong, startling in its fury. The whispers
snapped out, the ghosts fleeing as Shai took a breath, although even a simple breath hurt, scouring his lungs.

Yet he was still not alone. Two voices disturbed his peace.

“Now we talk, Captain Arras, here in this private place where no one will disturb us. Just you and me. I have a sword, and you have no weapon but your wits. Zubaidit served my army well, so as a favor to her I did not kill your soldiers or you immediately, although I could have. I have accepted the cloak you brought as an offering, and I'm appreciative that you have hauled this man Shai to my camp. I have allowed you to sit in my council and pretend to be my loyal officer. But you're not. You're a traitor.”

“I would argue it was Lord Radas who betrayed me and the soldiers who served him.”

“Go on.”

“The truth, Commander, is that I joined up with Lord Radas's people because I was an ordinand of Kotaru who got into some trouble and I had no where else to go. I didn't kill anyone, mind you, nor abuse those weaker than me, as some men will do if they can get away with it. But those who commanded in Kotaru's temple didn't like my attitude, and I didn't like their incompetence. I sought scope for my talents. I served in Seven's militia for a while, and that worked out all right, they are decent people there, except I wasn't a local man and only local men got raised to positions of command. So then some men came recruiting, and what they promised sounded good to my ears. I came in as a sergeant and soon got rewarded with a company and later a cohort of my own. I had hopes of really doing something when we started our campaign. But as it turned out, Lord Radas was just as incompetent as my other commanders had been, in his own way. I suppose I thought a cloak who could rip out the hearts and minds of those who opposed him would be a better commander than ordinary fellows, but I guess after all that the magic a Guardian bears is meant only for the assizes, not the battlefield. The cursed cloak could look right into my heart, and steal my understanding of the tactics and strategy that
would have worked best for the army, and still he made one bad decision after the next.”