Traitors' Gate Read online

  “The delvings can be cursed touchy, not that I blame them,” said the steward. “It doesn’t pay to insult them. Your grandchildren might find themselves with a ban still held against them when they least expect it.”

  “What is a delving?” asked Pil.

  “No time.” She glanced at Nallo. “How in the hells did an outlander get to be a reeve?”

  “No time,” said Nallo with a grin meant to have an edge, but Ju’urda laughed with real amusement, then set off at a trot, leading them down the alley. Nallo could see nothing of the hall grounds or the city beyond because they were hemmed in by buildings, none more than two stories tall and all with railings along the flat roofs and canvas set up over bare roof beams as if folk lived up there, too.

  Ju’urda was soon flagging, although the jog seemed easy enough to Nallo. Pil, of course, was as tough as any man she’d ever met. Born, raised, and trained as a Qin soldier, he would die rather than show weakness.

  Which made it all the more curious, Nallo supposed, that when he saw a creature he did not recognize, he immediately identified it as a fearful demon. Maybe they had more demons in the lands outside the Hundred. The gods had ordered the Hundred; naturally they had desired variety, for weren’t there three languages spoken in the Hundred, and weren’t there Four Mothers, and eight “children”—thinking creatures—shaped by the Mothers? Weren’t there five feasts, six reeve halls, and seven gods?

  That’s what made this marauding army all the worse. They all wore a medallion they called the Star of Life. They didn’t respect the gods. They burned altars and ransacked temples, and worst of all, they flouted the law on which the Hundred was built. It was like digging out your foundation from under your house without concern for what would happen afterward.

  They emerged onto a clear area of docks emplaced along a channel of murky gray water. The slimy stench made Nallo flinch. The water heaved with sludge and garbage. On the far side of the channel, buildings crammed the far bank. Boats and barges and slender canoes clogged the waterway.

  A barge lodged at the dock had disgorged a pair of men wearing the distinctive wrapped turbans that marked them as Silvers. The elder was arguing with a furious Kesta.

  “—bare-faced and parading around half naked—” The Silver was very old but vigorous despite the wrinkle of years on his face. He spoke in the loud voice Nallo associated with people who, having lost their own hearing, assume no one else can hear well.

  “You might as well throw swill in my face,” said Kesta, a flush darkening her cheeks. “How dare you speak to a reeve—?”

  “Throw swill I would, for it’s the only fitting punishment for a woman who flaunts herself—”

  “Here, now, Grandfather,” said the weedy grandson with a fluttering gesture.

  The old man whacked him across the back with his cane. “Shut your mouth, pup!” He looked up, seeing Pil. “Here, now, ver. You’re one of those Qin outlanders I’ve heard story of, aren’t you?” The women might as well not have existed. “I brought rice and nai to feed one hundred adults for one month, a generous allotment, if I must say so myself. Five cheyt for the lot. To be delivered in an even split of unhusked rice and whole nai. Nai flour will spoil, so you’ll have to pound your own.”

  Pil looked at Kesta, but she was too choked with anger to speak. He looked at Nallo and lifted a hand, palm up: What do I do?

  Nallo was no clerk of Sapanasu, to add up such staggeringly large numbers in her head; she had never even seen a gold cheyt coin, not once in her twenty years of living. But she’d fed a household. In the village, a tey of rice sold for ten vey and was enough to feed one adult for one day. Nai was more filling, and cost less. Sixty vey equaled one leya, and sixty leya one cheyt. . . . “It seems like a fair price.”

  “I-It’s—cursed—generous,” huffed Ju’urda in a low voice. “Just—cursed—clasp—agreement—so—his—hirelings—can—unload.”

  Pil looked uncomfortable as he addressed the old man. “It is agreed to be a fair price, ver.”

  “It’s not a fair price! It’s a bargain, a steal, a quarter of what I could get on the open market, and no doubt in these dire times I could raise my prices to gouge the desperate if it weren’t forbidden to make a profit from the suffering of others.”

  “Yes, Grandfather, you’re as generous as the sun. Everyone knows it. Especially since you’re expecting a favor from the reeves in return.” Silver bracelets ringed the grandson’s forearm halfway to the elbow as he extended the arm.

  As senior reeve, Kesta took a step forward in response.

  The old man’s forearms were entirely bound in silver rings, jangling and flashing every time he shifted, as he did now, thwapping the lad on the rump. “Touch her, and you’ll never be allowed to marry, stupid pup. I’ll toss you out the door and you’ll have to live on the street.”

  Nallo nudged Pil from behind, the movement unseen by the older man but in clear sight of the younger, who had the grace to look embarrassed. Pil knew how to obey orders. He and the other young man exchanged the traditional clasp of agreement.

  “It’s no wonder this unholy army is stampeding across the Hundred,” shouted the old man, stabbing at the air with his cane. “Where are all the men, if they are not in their proper place?”

  He stomped to the barge and shouted across the gangplank. Laborers swarmed up, hauling sacks off the boat and dumping them on the dock.

  The young Silver released Pil’s hand and blushed, easy to see on his paler skin. “The old goat is in a particularly foul mood. My apologies.”

  “What gives him leave to think he can talk to a reeve that way?” Kesta said.

  “He calls it an affront for women to stand in authority in public,” said the youth.

  “An affront to women, you mean! Him talking like that!”

  “He’s gotten worse as the gout has ailed him, and his hearing has gotten very bad, so he tightens his hold on his memories of the past, although I admit to you I’m sure the old days weren’t as he pretends to recall them.”

  Ju’urda pressed a hand on Kesta’s arm. “No use digging into this wound, eh? Say nothing more of it, Yeshen. It’s a cursed generous offer, well under market value.”

  Kesta whistled. “It’ll take us some time to haul it all north, one sack per eagle.”

  “What will happen now the commander of Clan Hall is dead?” asked Ju’urda. “There’s no one in charge.”

  “We’ve sent messengers to the other halls.” Kesta’s gaze drifted to the sacks piling up in rows. The hirelings worked efficiently despite the old man throwing comments like knives.

  “Don’t drop that, you clumsy nit! Aren’t you strong enough? Move faster!”

  Kesta shook her head. “Is that scrap of coin all he really wants? Hard to see him as generous.”

  Yeshen frowned. “He’s got an affianced bride in Olossi he wants flown up here.”

  “Reeves aren’t carters whose services can be purchased with coin!” objected Kesta.

  He shrugged. “I’m just telling you what he expects. Anyhow, verea, three houses of Ri Amarah in High Haldia were killed, every man, woman, and child they got their hands on, and their holdings looted and compounds burned. A few escaped to Nessumara to tell of it. Whatever else, he knows what will happen to us if Nessumara falls.” He rubbed a sweaty forehead with the back of a hand as if that could wipe away the fear. “Even so, I don’t see how the enemy can hold High Haldia, Toskala, and the countryside, and attack Nessumara as well. No one can have that big an army. Can they?”

  Nallo snorted. What a gods-rotted pampered youth he was!

  He flushed.

  Ju’urda flashed an annoyed glance at Nallo. “It does seem impossible, doesn’t it? But we’ve got every reeve out on patrol and our hirelings detailed to build barriers and strengthen the gates on the causeway. Better to be prepared than taken by surprise, eh?” She nodded at Kesta. “So it falls to me and you to deal with old goat-shanks besides.”

  “His il
l temper is worth enduring to get these provisions. I’ve dealt with worse-tempered mules.” Kesta considered the sacks. “We’ll need to store these in your warehouses until we can haul them north.”

  The young Silver gestured. “My hirelings will move them wherever you’d like, verea.”

  “My thanks.” Ju’urda left with a hireling to show him the warehouse, while the young Silver retreated to the boat and the shadow of his glowering grandfather.

  Kesta stalked over to Nallo and Pil. “Grab a sack and let’s get moving.”

  “There’s more than five hundred people trapped on Law Rock,” said Nallo. “Is there any chance we’ll lift some of them off to get them out of the way?”

  “It’s not my decision to make,” said Kesta. “There’s a hundred children, and another two hundred adults useless for defense and hard to feed. We need a commander, but Peddo and the other messengers aren’t back yet.” She loosed a glare at the back of the old man, for all the good it did. Then she grinned. “You kept your mouth shut tight, Nallo. That’s a wonder!”

  “I was too shocked to say anything. I just kept wondering if he has horns under that turban! Seems like he would, doesn’t it?”

  Kesta snorted.

  “Anyway, Pil and I, we saw a delving. It was working in the smithy.”

  The news did not cause Kesta to gasp or goggle. “Copper Hall has a dispensation from the delving assizes, as repayment for an ancient favor done to aid the delvings. I think it’s in one of the tales. They get seasonal work from a chain of delvings out of Arro—Here now, why am I babbling on? Grab a sack, you loafers. You’ve got the hauling harness with your eagles. Make sure it’s bundled tightly. Let’s move.”

  As Nallo shouldered one of the heavy sacks, she caught a glimpse of the old man looking her way with a grimace so ugly a spark of anger flared and she found herself taking a step toward him. There was a man who needed a few blunt words shouted in his griping face.

  “Nallo,” said Pil in his soft way.

  With a sigh, she followed him. Toskala could not wait. He was just one cranky, selfish, old, and very rich man. Maybe all Silvers were like him, or maybe he was an unpleasant old coot whose wealth had purchased him the right to bully those within reach of his cane. She’d been mean to those in her care a time or two, just because she let her temper and her resentment get the better of her. Who was to say she couldn’t become like him, if she wasn’t careful?

  It was a sobering thought.

  UP!

  Nessumara and the delta fell away behind and below as streaming air wicked away the stench of brackish water and too many people crammed onto too many islets. The smithy had smelled a cursed lot fresher, nothing fetid or decomposing where metal was forged. Nallo kept seeing the delving in her mind’s eye, the way its head had turned at the sound of their voices. You could tell if someone was looking at you across a distance; eyes had a way of holding and meeting, or maybe it was just the way bodies tensed and shoulders straightened or dropped. It had heard every word.

  About forty mey separated Nessumara from Toskala, as the eagle flew. It was difficult to get used to flying in half a day a journey that by river or road might take as many as eight days. The huge river wound a convoluted course, with the wide roadbed of Istri Walk cutting a course more or less parallel to the main channel of the river. The road below was clogged with traffic: people in wagons, pushing carts, trudging with children hoisted on their shoulders. Folk were fleeing from the army that had betrayed and conquered Toskala.

  At the sight of those cursed helpless refugees, it was as if a hand reached right into her heart and squeezed until tears like blood oozed up out of her eyes, she who prided herself on being too tough to cry no matter what was thrown at her. She’d had plenty of cause to cry, growing up as a daughter more tolerated than liked in a large clan that couldn’t afford to keep so many children, especially one burdened with such a foul temper. They’d been thrilled to marry her off to a much older man she’d never met. For her part, she felt the gods had been kind in sending her to a gentle man whose patience had been as wide as sky and as steady as earth. Her clan hadn’t cared what manner of man he was; they’d gotten a better bride-price than they expected.

  Now he was dead, killed by the Star of Life army, and she was a reeve, safe up here while others trudged vulnerably down there, not knowing who might clatter up from behind and rip the breath out of their bodies. Wasn’t the entire point of being a reeve to be able to help those in need? In the tale, hadn’t the orphaned girl begged the gods for a way to restore justice?

  The hells! She’d lost track of both Kesta and Pil. She didn’t know how to hasten Tumna along, and the cursed lumpy sack of nai was bumping her knees to bruises. Tumna did not like the extra weight, and she was not a raptor to cooperate when she was disgruntled.

  As they got closer to Toskala, the traffic fell off to a trickle. Soon, no movement stirred at all, although hamlets and villages lay everywhere on this rich land. Paddies lay close to harvest, untended. No one was turning the fallow fields for the dry season.

  An orange flag flashed to her left. Pil and Sweet hung above the river. She tugged on a jess—the wrong one—and cursed as she corrected. Tumna beat in a long curve toward the river. As they flashed over the muddy gray-green current, a barge was being poled away from the west bank while a gang of men pursued it along the shore with swords and bows. Cargo in tidy rows took up much of the barge, and passengers—children!—cowered among the sacks, barrels, and chests as arrows rained over them.

  The river fell behind as she overshot. She tugged until Tumna with the greatest reluctance began a sweep back around while Nallo could not even twist to get a look because of the heavy sack of nai. By the time she got the river back in view, Pil had vanished. But then Sweet appeared from downriver, beating straight up the central current. Pil was loosing arrows, and at least one man on the bank went down. The barge had caught the current; men on its deck had their own bows at ready. A man clad all in black loosed, his arrow flew, and a man on the shore staggered and fell into the river, the waters taking him as his companions grabbed hopelessly after him.

  Pil and Sweet cut hard around as the black-clad man, below, raised a hand in acknowledgment. The enemy dropped away, no longer a threat. Tumna set her head north, following the river and, perhaps, Kesta’s Arkest, by now out of Nallo’s sight.

  “Cursed bird,” muttered Nallo, but it wasn’t Tumna she was angry at. She knew what it was like to flee on the roads as a refugee. Months ago she’d walked homeless and hungry and scared, and sold herself into debt slavery besides in order to get a meal. She had rejected the reeves once, but in the end, as that cursed handsome Marshal Joss had warned her, the eagle had gotten what it wanted: it had wanted Nallo. She had come to Clan Hall to be trained as a reeve, but there’d been no time or thought for arms training in the confused days after Toskala’s fall. Without training, she was useless.

  “You’re going to have to help me out, you ill-tempered beast.” Her knuckles were white as she gripped her baton, surveying the earth for any sign of enemy whether on the march or sent out as strike forces to harry the countryside south of Toskala. Maybe they saw her from their hiding places; she did not spot them.

  This region of lower Haldia was rolling plain, and soon the distinctive rock marking the prow of Toskala like an upthrust fist came into view and grew until it loomed huge as Tumna glided in, extended her wings, and pulled up short for the landing. The sack whumped down so hard Nallo feared it might burst, but it had been bound with heavy leather belts in a doubled sacking.

  Fawkners came running together with stewards to carry the sack to the store house, but as soon as her harness was shucked, Tumna warbled her wings and walked in her clumsy way over to a rope-wrapped perch to preen, ignoring the fawkners.

  “I like the bloom on her feathers,” said one of the fawkners. “She’s beginning to grow out those fret marks. Have you coped her beak? Or talons?”

  “I have not
. I don’t know how to do anything!”

  “Aui! No need to snap at me! It was just a question.”

  “My apologies. I’m hungry.”

  “If you’re sharp set, then go eat.”

  Still no sign of Pil. The promontory of Law Rock was an astounding physical formation, with its sheer cliffs and flat crown wide enough for an assizes court, a militia and firefighters barracks and administration compound, and four grain store houses and the city rations office. Clan Hall was built along the northern rim. Beyond the reeve hall lay a tumble of boulders surrounding a string of ponds running the curve of the northeastern rim, where raptors liked to bowse and feak.

  Law Rock, the actual stele, stood near the prow under a humble thatched-roof shelter. The rest of the space was dusty, open ground suitable for drilling, assemblies, festival games, or eagles landing in waves. Four new perches had been erected in the last eight days, the logs hauled up from distant forest by the most experienced reeves and strongest eagles. The fresh-cut smell, the litter of wood chips from shaping and sawing, lingered as Nallo raced past the newest one and headed for the promontory’s prow, where she could scan for Pil.

  “Heya!”

  Nallo turned as Kesta ran up.

  “Where’s Pil?” the other reeve asked, wiping sweat from her neck and brow.

  “He must have turned back. I saw soldiers—an enemy strike force—attacking a barge. It was so far behind the main flow of refugees that I’m thinking they were folk who escaped Toskala after the siege was set. There was a Qin soldier on that barge.”

  “What would a Qin soldier be doing all the way here? They’re all with their captain in Olossi, aren’t they?”

  “Except for Pil.”

  “Pil’s a reeve. He’s no longer one of them.”

  A reeve who knew what he was doing. Who could sweep and turn and yank on the right jess to go the right direction; who could shoot arrows and kill men from harness. Who could actually do something.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Kesta, grasping Nallo’s wrist and leaning toward her with lips parted in alarm.