Traitors' Gate Read online

  The sergeant designated a pair of reluctant soldiers to haul the prisoners forward one at a time. The first man had been beaten so badly he could barely walk, and his head swayed on his neck as if he were not quite conscious.

  The woman held a writing brush and a neatly trimmed sheet of mulberry paper. Her cloak’s hood was thrown back to reveal a nondescript face, pleasant enough in its lineaments and near in age to Nekkar, who had at the turn of the year made forty-seven and counted his thirtieth year in service to Ilu, the Herald. The prisoner’s gaze was forced to meet hers.

  She marked on the paper like a clerk. “Veron, son of the Ten Chains clan of Toskala. You have committed a terrible crime.”

  The man collapsed. After a moment, it became apparent he was dead. Just like that. His spirit had fled through the Gate, leaving its husk.

  A soldier retched. Two others grabbed the dead man’s ankles and dragged him out of sight as another prisoner was shoved forward. This one, a woman Nekkar knew by sight from the market square, sobbed noisily as she confessed that her clan had hidden its gold beneath the planks of their weaving house.

  “Were you not commanded to reveal all coin and stores in your household’s possession, as well as provide a full census of household members including any outlanders or gods-touched residing there?” asked the cloak, her tone calm. “Why do you not obey when you know there will be a punishment?”

  “We cleanse them who disobey our orders so flagrantly, Holy One,” said Sergeant Tomash. “As an example.”

  The woman began to scream, pleas for mercy, anything but to be hung by her arms from a post until she died of exposure and thirst, but the cloak gestured and she was dragged away. Another was hauled forward in her place.

  So went the weary round. The sergeant was a cunning man in his own way; every person here had triggered his suspicion, and every one now confessed either to some petty crime or to concealing valuables or in one case an outlander slave. A merchant babbled about how he cheated on his rice measures. All were condemned to the post.

  One frail old fellow fell to his knees as he begged her pardon for having killed another laborer back in his youth.

  “You killed him? You confess it?” She lifted her brush, touched it to the rice paper.

  He croaked a gasp, or perhaps it was meant to be a word, but like the first man he tumbled forward onto his face. Dead.

  Nekkar shut his eyes as the corpse was dragged away.

  “This man turned himself in to spare his clan,” the sergeant said. “He confessed to hoarding nai—”

  “Look at me,” said the cloak. “Sergeant, lift his chin—”

  Nekkar opened his eyes just as the sergeant wrenched the man’s chin up. The prisoner was young, hale, and with the thick arms and powerful legs of a laborer. He struggled, keeping his head down, but his eyes flicked up anyway, as though gauging his distance.

  She took a step back. “Kill him.”

  As soldiers drew their swords, the young man fought free and tugged a knife from his boot; he leaped toward the cloak, but spears pinned him before he reached her.

  “He concealed no nai.” Her tone remained even as she watched him thrashing, still fighting forward despite flesh pierced and his blood flowing. “He came to attack me. That is why he hid his gaze.”

  “No heart can be hidden from you, Holy One,” murmured the sergeant. “Cut his throat.”

  The young man screamed; his failure was worse than the pain, no doubt. At least this one had fought back instead of waiting passively, too fearful or too shamed to stand up.

  “Enough,” Nekkar said aloud.

  What a gods-rotted fool he was, knowing he was responsible for the temple and yet staggering to his feet because he could not bear to watch this perverse assizes any longer. He straightened, grimacing at the stabbing pains in his abused body.

  “Heya!” barked the sergeant. “Stop, or you’ll be cut down likewise.”

  Nekkar faced the woman in the cloak. “Enough! Why do you do this? Are you not a Guardian? For by your look, and your power, you seem to be one of those who wear Taru’s cloak and wield the second heart and the third eye to judge those who have broken the law. The orphaned girl prayed to the gods to bring peace to the land, not cleansing.”

  “Does cleansing not bring about peace?”

  “As well argue that fear and terror bring about peace. Guardians are meant to establish justice. Is that what you call this? Justice?”

  “Stay your hand,” said the cloaked woman before the soldiers could rain blows down upon him. She captured his gaze.

  Aui! There it all tumbled as she spun the threads out of his heart: the mistakes he had made, the harsh words he had spoken, his youthful temper and rashness and the fights he’d gotten into, breaking one man’s nose and another’s arm, the girl he’d impregnated the month before he had entered the temple for his apprenticeship year. He had afterward lied outright, saying it wasn’t his seed, to avoid marrying her, and afterward taken seven years of temple service to make sure they couldn’t force him, although many years later after being humbled and honed by the discipline of envoyship, he had made restitution to her clan. And what of his twenty years bedding Vassa? Yet what had he and Vassa to be ashamed of, he an ostiary forbidden to marry and she a young widow who had preferred her widowhood to a second marriage arranged by her clan? They did nothing wrong by sharing a pallet; he served the temple as he had done for thirty years and she cooked in her family’s neighboring compound as she had done her entire life.

  Enough! The cloak’s gaze pierced him, but it did not cripple him. He had made peace with his mistakes and his faults.

  She regarded him with a sharp frown. “The gods enjoined the Guardians to seek justice. People suffer or die through a recognition of their own crimes, in their own hearts.”

  “It looks to me like you kill them. Or hand them over to your lackeys to be cleansed. If you believe that to be justice, then you are no Guardian!”

  The sergeant snarled. The soldiers hissed with fear.

  “You are bold in your honesty, Ostiary Nekkar,” she said, having gleaned his name from his thoughts. “You provided a census of your temple to the authorities, I see. Know you of outlanders in this city? Know you of any man or woman, outlander or Hundred folk, who can see ghosts, as the gods-touched are said to do?”

  He did not want to tell her, but his thoughts spilled their secrets and she lapped them up however he struggled to conceal what he knew of Stone Quarter’s clans and compounds. He wept furiously, hating how he betrayed them: He knew of eight outlanders who were slaves in Stone Quarter, and he’d glimpsed others in Flag, Bell, Wolf, and Fifth Quarters as well. They came from foreign lands and usually served out their days with the clan who had purchased them. There was a young envoy stationed in Flag Quarter known to be gods-touched. Some years ago he’d met another at the Ilu temple up on the Ili Cutoff, an older man. A pair of gods-touched mendicants were said to wander the tracks and back roads of lower Haldia, aiding troubled ghosts in crossing away under Spirit Gate. Shouldn’t such holy ones be left in peace to do what the gods commanded?

  She released him by looking away to pinion the sergeant. “Sergeant Tomash, you will accompany me to Flag Quarter. I must search out this young gods-touched envoy. After that, I have a new assignment for you. Collect all the census records. I want a hostage taken from every compound and handed over to the army.”

  “But my work in Stone Quarter, Holy One?”

  “Is no longer your concern. There are two cohorts marching down from High Haldia to take over administrative duties here once the army marches on Nessumara. You will report directly to the main command as my personal adjutant, with your rank raised to that of captain. I’ll call on you and your company as I have need of them.”

  “You honor me, Holy One. Shall we cleanse the ostiary, Holy One?”

  “No. The gods will dispose of an honest ostiary as they see fit. Come. My errand is urgent. The gods-touched are our enemie
s. All must be brought before me.”

  The soldiers shrank back as she skirted the bodies of the fallen to reach a gate that led into the alley separating this compound from an adjoining emporium. She opened the gate and walked through.

  The new captain paused under the lintel, a malicious smile slashing his face as he contemplated his enhanced authority. “Dump that one in Scavengers’ Alley like the rubbish he is. Then we’ll see how the gods choose to dispose of an honest ostiary.”

  The blow took Nekkar from behind. A second smashed into his shoulders as laughter hammered in his ears. Distantly, a man sobbed. He toppled dazedly to the dirt, wondering why there was a salty taste in his mouth. What had Vassa cooked tonight for supper?

  With the third blow came oblivion.

  4

  HOW TO DESCRIBE what you grew up never having words for? Nallo had been born and raised in the rugged Soha Hills, where a person might stand on a ridge path and survey higher slopes where rock broke the surface of the soil like old bones, and deeper gullies where streams ran white. But to fly! To hang in the harness below an eagle as the land unrolled beneath you like so many bolts of multicolored cloth!

  That was something.

  She had never seen a river so wide that a shout might not carry across it. To the north, forest tangled the earth. To the south, on the far side of the river, neat rectangles marked densely packed fields, and every village boasted a flagpole and one or two small temples, each one easily identifiable from the air. There lay a quartered square, a temple built for Kotaru the Thunderer, the god she had served for one year as an apprentice. Here rose the three-tiered gates holy to Ilu the Herald. Roofs thatched with fanned leaves from the thatch-oil tree covered altars raised to Taru the Witherer, their bright green color withering as the rains faded. She spotted a walled garden sacred to Ushara the Merciless One, a few people loitering in the forecourt, too tiny to distinguish male from female; in the Devourer’s garden, such distinctions did not matter as long as you brought clean desire to the act of worship.

  She glanced toward her companion reeves. Kesta led while Pil flew the west flank. Ahead lay the ocean, a seething expanse of water that fell into the sky far to the east.

  Tumna chirped, jerking Nallo’s attention to a discoloration lying athwart land and ocean dead ahead. It was hard to fathom until the eyes began to identify the multitudinous strands of water plaiting the land and the rank upon rank of wood and stone buildings rising on islands within the delta as though they were a crop of stone being raised out of the earth. Was that Nessumara, the jewel of the sea, the city of bridges, the largest city in the Hundred?

  I’m just a hill girl born to goat herders! I’ll never get used to this!

  Following Kesta’s eagle, Arkest, Tumna dropped toward one island among many within the branching arms of the great river. Nallo laughed with the blend of fear and thrill she’d not yet gotten used to. The wind rumbled in her ears. The city flew up to meet her, and Tumna banked to overfly the largest parade ground, where Kesta and Arkest were just setting down. Nallo counted four parade grounds, separated by a maze of walls and lofts, as Tumna veered toward an empty one. Jessed eagles concealed in lofts called out in challenge, but Tumna ignored them. Extending her wings to their greatest extent, she raised her talons to make a perfect landing on a massive wooden log set horizontal to the ground.

  “Whoop!” Nallo shouted. Tumna chuffed, shaking herself as Nallo unhooked from the harness and dropped to the ground. Two fawkners jogged out from the lofts.

  “Heya! I’m Nallo, out of Clan Hall. Greetings of the day.”

  “Yeh, yeh, you’re new, aren’t you? Your eagle did all the work, that’s for sure. What’s your eagle’s name? Anything we should know?”

  The brusque voice brought her up short. “She’s called Tumna, and”—she paused to get their attention—“she ripped off the head of her last reeve.”

  “Deserved, no doubt,” said the stouter one, who did all the talking. The wiry one nodded with a sneering grin.

  They were experienced fawkners and she a novice reeve, not even yet able to steer her eagle properly. Sparring with them was not a battle she could win. “We’re here to pick up rice and nai for the siege.”

  “So we heard. You can’t possibly ferry enough sacks of rice and nai by eagle flight to feed Toskala.”

  “We’re not feeding Toskala, only the defenders up on Law Rock.”

  “Why stay in Clan Hall at all? Why not evacuate? Copper Hall could use reinforcements at our main hall on the Haya shore. And Horn Hall is abandoned.”

  “We can’t abandon Law Rock and Justice Square to those who mean to overthrow the law.”

  The fawkner shook her head. “Maybe not. But we’re overrun with refugees from Istria and Haldia. We’re starting to see hungry and sick refugees out of Toskala, and for sure there are more to come, eh? Our reeves are buried under fights and altercations all along the roads, even with the militia out patrolling.”

  The wiry fellow spoke up for the first time. “Seems selfish of you Clan Hall reeves not to disperse to reinforce the other halls. Work together. Be of some use.”

  “We’re not giving up Law Rock,” snapped Nallo. “Now, can you show me where we’re to pick up the grain? I hope the merchants of Nessumara are more polite than you.”

  “Whoof! Don’t cross this one, eh, Arvi?” said the woman before she hawked and spat on the dirt. Hostility was easy to see in the creases of her mouth. “You’ve got that gods-rotted old Silver to bargain with. He’ll suck you dry.” As one, they took a step back as Sweet pulled up neat as you please to land on the other side of the parade ground. “The hells! We heard rumor an outlander had jessed, but we didn’t believe it. Is he human?”

  “As human as I am,” Nallo retorted. “Although I wonder about you two, not even giving a proper greeting and then speaking ill of some old man I’ve never even met.”

  “Whew! My ears are burning!” They sauntered away to get a look at Pil.

  She turned back to Tumna, awkward with the hand signals. “Remain” was easy enough, a sweep and clutch sketched in the air. Then she ran after the fawkners. “Heya! Where am I supposed to go?”

  Copper Hall’s island was larger than Argent Hall. To make it all more confusing, this parade ground was rimmed on all sides by buildings, lofts, barracks, store houses, even a smithy roiling with smoke and noisy with beaten strokes, wang wang wang! Her head hurt already, and in addition to the iron sting wafting from the smithy, there crept into her nostrils a slimy fragrance that dwelt in the air the same way a winter byre full of goats has a smell as much texture as scent.

  “To the docks,” they shouted back before they approached Pil. He had climbed up the ladder to the fawkner’s board just below the perch to examine Sweet’s wings. Sweet was a good-tempered bird, less territorial than most not so much because she was friendlier but because she seemed bored of going to the trouble of posturing over each least perch. Nallo suspected that things wouldn’t go so smoothly if you really crossed the old bird.

  Pil satisfied himself on the matter of the wing feathers—how he fussed over that eagle!—and descended the ladder. His exchange with the fawkners was briefer than hers had been; then he jogged to meet her, gesturing toward a gap between the smithy and a warehouse.

  “That way,” he said.

  The experienced reeves assured her she’d eventually get the hang of retracing, on earth, ground she’d flown over. Pil could already backtrack easily. She hurried after him, the fawkners staying with the raptors.

  He stopped short, and she barreled into his back.

  “Oof! Aui, Pil, what’s—?”

  Few things surprised Pil, but right now he was gaping like a dumbstruck child. A creature, human in shape but stout and hairless, had backed out of the enclosed smithy to slop a bucket of steaming water over the paving stones. Its skin, like coals, was charred black and broken with veins of fiery red.

  “A demon!” murmured Pil.

  With t
he clamor hammering within the smithy and the distance between them, no ears should have been able to catch that muttered comment, but the creature swiveled its head as if identifying distance and direction.

  “Heya! Are you two the other reeves from Clan Hall?” A steward came running down the alley between smithy and warehouse. She wheezed to a stop beside them, bent to rest hands on thighs as she caught her breath. “Hunh! Eie! Your other reeve . . .” A spate of coughing calmed her. “She needs a hand there at the dock. Old Iron-goat-shanks is in full spout.” Excitement gave air to her voice. “Despicable man! We hear a rumor he’s getting a new bride from Olossi. Poor lass. They’re already running bets in the hall over how long she’ll survive his beatings. Two years, maybe; five if she’s strong. I’m Ju’urda, by the way. I hope those cursed fawkners Arvi and Offina weren’t rude. My apologies on behalf of the hall.”

  “What is that?” Nallo gestured toward the smithy.

  “Eh?” She looked around in the manner of someone who can’t see anything except what she expects to see. “What?”

  “That, uh, that—oh, the hells!” Cursed if the creature wasn’t already looking in their direction as if it could hear every word over the boom and hammer coming from inside the confines of the smoky forge. “It’s a delving, isn’t it? Just like in the tales.”

  “A delving?” asked Pil.

  “Country cousins, eh?” Ju’urda laughed in a way that stung, but immediately she tipped back her head and spoke past them, not shouting as a normal person would have to, to have a hope of being heard above the racket. “Heya, Be. These are reeves visiting from another hall. One’s an outlander and the other has never seen your kind before. Their apologies.”

  It raised an arm to acknowledge her speech and glided back inside the smithy carrying the empty bucket.