With the first faint wash of dawn, an elite platoon rode out of Hasty northwest up the Cloud Road, commanded by Captain Kaarlo Horn, a kinsman of the late queen and General Jarvi. Eldred's orders to Horn were to capture the Higuchians, killing only in self defense—a reluctant concession to Clonarty and Jarvi, who were strongly against killing churchmen.
By the time Horn's platoon set out, the Higuchian refugees had been gone more than twenty-four hours, but as Jarvi had pointed out, it was not a twenty-four-hour lead. The Higuchian horses would have been resting part of that time, and the Higuchian stable had lacked horses enough for remounts, so they couldn't keep the pace Horn would.
Jarvi had pointed out that to accomplish much, the Higuchians would have to get the dukes to rebel, which meant stopping long enough to convince them. Their first target for subversion would be the Duke of Cloud, and by the time they reached him, Horn's well-mounted force would be close behind. And if Horn caught them still in Cloud, the duke could hardly protect them.
Jarvi had talked Eldred out of sending a full company to chase them. A platoon, he said, was enough to intimidate a duke. As for the Higuchians—most were novices, and not dangerous, nor would the nobles readily embrace the cause of fleeing refugees. In fact, he said, Horn's task was less military than political: he'd remind the nobles where the real power lay.
Eldred had already considered the Duke of Kato the main danger. Edward might be frail, but both king and general believed his ambition had survived his accident, and that his injuries had probably been exaggerated. In the back of Edward's mind would be a vision of his son Donald on the throne in Hasty, with himself the power behind the throne, and Keith Frazier as military commander. Edward would know the prospects were poor, but Higuchian support might fan his flame and heat his dynastic ambition.
To quench that flame, Jarvi proposed leading an overwhelming force to Kato. Edward had never been self-destructive. A bit reckless, but not self-destructive. Confronted by sufficient force, he'd back away, and renew his oath of fealty.
Eldred and Jarvi were operating on a faulty premise: that the Higuchian's central goal was rebellion. Eldred was convinced this was the opening act in a factional schism between the peaceful Carlians and a power-grasping faction led by the Higuchians. The invasion threat was a ploy for support.
Jarvi wasn't convinced by Eldred's case, but clearly the Higuchians were inspiring insurrection, which had to be prevented. Their first stop would surely be at Cloud, whose Duke Jonas Duonelaitis was a long-time friend of Edward's. And if they got safely away from Cloud, Jarvi believed they'd ride west to make their case at Zandria, on the prairie marches. Its Duke Marcel Boileau, his duchy wounded by past Dkota raids, might well be susceptible to the Higuchian story of a new and greater Dkota threat. From Zandria, they'd no doubt ride south to Grove Falls, with its own unfortunate memories of Dkota raids.
But a powerful royal army in Kato would effectively deter rebellion in either Zandria or Grove Falls. And when Jarvi had finished laying out his strategy, Eldred couldn't imagine a rebellion succeeding. All that was needed was hard pursuit of the Higuchians, and a royal army occupying Kato Town.
As an eleven-year-old captive boy, Gavan Feeny knew the Dkotan legend that pre-Armageddon dirt-eaters had conquered and humbled the buffalo peoples. It was a minor part of Dkotan lore. Little had been made of it by the teller, his foster grandfather. Armageddon and the Shuffling had neutralized old wrongs.
Much more recently he'd heard that the dirt-eaters intended to repeat the performance, and that Mazeppa Tall Man wanted to launch a great war to drive the dirt-eaters far away from the grasslands. Gavan had talked to Pastor Morosov about that. He didn't believe that people like his birth parents had designs on Dkota land. If for no other reason, how could they farm it? There was too little forest to provide fence rails and firewood and building logs. Nor would his mother, nor Sotan women in general, be willing to live in a tipi or soddy, with only hanging racks and back rests for furniture.
Morosov had pointed out that the choice to take the warpath was the individual's, not Mazeppa's. If Gavan didn't wish to go, he was free to stay behind as a hunter and safeguard. But Gavan was not relieved. He'd long since come to think of himself as Dkota, rather than Sotan. Not that he felt animosity toward his origins; he simply preferred the Dkota way of life.
But now he lived in a bachelor lodge with other youths, most of them excited at the prospect of war, and when he'd shown no enthusiasm for it, they'd questioned him. Yes, he'd said, if the Dkota took the warpath, he too would go, but he hoped no harm would come to his birth-father and small nieces.
His reply had satisfied his questioners, but not himself. For it seemed to him he'd lied—a sin considered more serious among the Dkota than among Sotans.
If Dkota youths were unanimous, or nearly so, in their eagerness for this war, Gavan was aware that many grandfathers felt differently. A chief had no authority to make such plans for the people. Old Standing Bear said openly that the whole idea had come from Sky Chief, and that Sky Chief had been sent by Skunk Bear, Satan, to trick Mazeppa.
But it was the young men, not the grandfathers, who would take the warpath. And even most of the able-bodied older men would go, because the story about the dirt-eaters' plans was widely accepted. Besides, with emotions as they were, it was easier to go than to stay.
Gavan's frame of mind had worsened when Mazeppa said the Wolves and Yellow Bears were coming to join them on the warpath, and already had entered the land of the Ulsters. Together, the tribes would drive out the dirt-eaters, and become masters of the Misasip. Then they would set fire to the forests as often as needed till Sota was grassland, fit for buffalo and the buffalo people.
Finally Gavan had stood with other youths, watching four chiefs of the Wolves ride into the hoop to pay their respects to Mazeppa. The rumor was, a hundred Wolf warriors were setting up war camp only a mile west—no tipis, only travel shelters—and that hundreds more were coming.
On the evening of that same day, Gavan took his bird spear, making sure he was noticed, and trotted off on foot as if going fowling. As he left, grief blurred his eyes, but he would not turn back. His decision was made.
He trotted not east toward the Sota River, but north, toward Lake-With-Floating-Shores. Bordered on the long, far side by floating bog, it was used by countless geese, ducks and swans for nesting. Small fowling rafts made of cattails were stashed along the near shore. His plan was simple: a drifting raft carrying a dead goose, a duck impaled by a spear, adrift with its bladder floating, and carved with marks identifying it as his . . . Cramps happened, and young men's bodies were not buoyant.
That night he'd steal two horses from the herd, sneak off southeastward, then ride hard to Kato, where Captain Keith would know what to do. Gavan had grown up Dkota, needing neither saddle nor bridle. Nor food, for the time it would take. And the ponies he'd ride were strong, fast, and tough.
He would be there before the fourth day.
(Luis)
I'd left Peng hidden in the woods a few miles south of Cloud, to watch the road. The choice had been Peng or Carlos; none of the brothers were approved to know about coms, short of serious emergency. My muse hadn't been fussing at me about pursuit, but I was pretty sure Eldred had sent armsmen after us, and I wanted to know if they were catching up. It depended mostly on when they'd started. Eldred could have gotten word from Soggo the same night I got back to the brother house, or sooner, though that seemed unlikely. If he had, we'd already have seen pursuers.
It appeared they hadn't gotten away from Hasty much before noon of the day we left, but they'd have remounts, and if they pushed hard . . . I didn't realize how long it would actually take them to start.
I found Duke Jonas Duonelaitus a rough old warrior, with no use at all for Eldred or any other mollies. To begin with, he didn't take the Dkota threat seriously. He was just happy to see Donald—"the new Donald," as he told Peng later—and to hear that Edward was mending.
Eldred's savage revenge at Austin and Nona may have sobered would-be rebels, he said, but the king no longer had any support among the dukes except at Nona and Austin. Like Keith Frazier, he'd fought in the Anti-Pope's War; involvement by the Order, he said, would make the nobles bolder. And when I insisted the Dkotan threat was real, he actually brightened! Mobilized to defend the kingdom, the militias might afterward be marched against Eldred.
I pointed out that we needed to stop the Dkota first, and Jonas gave me his firm agreement to set up a defense, to blunt and bloody any Dkota move east toward Cloud.
All this took place with my com on, so Peng heard it all; Peng and Tahmm. Duonelaitis would have fed us, but we needed to be on the road. Peng would arrive soon after we left, and stay with the duke as my liaison, dressed as a duke's man. Unless the king himself was leading the pursuit—and he almost surely wouldn't—Peng wouldn't be recognized as Higuchian, even if seen. Peng and I would keep each other informed by com, as necessary, though of course Jonas couldn't know that.
Regarding Peng's liaison role—ever since the Saint's time there'd been stories that Higuchians could communicate mentally with each other, even when the Higuchians hadn't heard of radio. And most people had heard such stories, whether they took them seriously or not. With Peng as liaison, Jonas would start believing, to account for what Peng knew about what was going on in Kato and Zandria, and wherever else.
For some of us—though not me so far—explicit mental communication did happen occasionally, but coms almost always worked.
When we left the duke, we headed west toward Zandria. Cloud had been a good start. And our pursuers would almost surely pause at the duke's manor; Peng could let me know how far they were behind us.
He let me know sooner than I'd have liked. We'd been traveling at a brisk trot, when I slowed to a slow trot, dropping back. Carlos realized why—he'd felt his com vibrate too—and held to a brisk trot, taking the others with him and leaving me behind. A platoon of kingsmen, Peng reported, had galloped up to the duke's manor some five hours after we'd left. The duke offered to feed them and grain their horses, but the officer in charge—a Captain Horn—wasn't interested. He was hot to catch us. His only questions were if we'd been there and when we'd left. The duke told him, adding that I'd warned him about a Dkota invasion. He also told him our horses looked pretty well used up, which was only half-true. We'd been rotating our several remounts.
Horn demanded a one-for-one horse trade—worn-out horses for fresh. Acting for the king in hot pursuit, he had the right, and besides, his platoon outnumbered the duke's. But Duonelaitis was allowed to hold back his own personal favorite. He was as slow about the exchange as he dared, but Horn rode out of there maybe half an hour after he rode in.
Not long after Peng reported, there was another call. I ordered a break, and the men dismounted to relieve themselves, while I walked on ahead a little, to handle the call.
This time it was Tahmm. I got a big twinge—part hope and part anxiety—that he had news about Lemmi. No such luck. He was out in a courier, scouting the Many Geese region from above. There was a large temporary encampment near Mazeppa's hoop, and a sweep to the west had found sizeable groups of men riding toward it, armed and painted for war. The closest thing to good news was Tahmm's estimate that some of the groups were still three days ride west of where the armies were gathering.
I suspected his main reason for being out there was to make sure the Helverti weren't flying air support for the Dkota. If they did, or if they attacked his courier, a marine detail would fly in from the Belt and nail them.
As I ordered my people to mount and move out, it occurred to me to wonder if Mazeppa had maps. Probably. The Helverti's shipsmind could make them, just as some COB computer had made ours.
>From time to time we passed someone traveling east. Or west as we were, but more slowly. Horn could ask them about us, and with his platoon of armsmen, anyone he questioned was bound to be intimidated. Probably even Duke Jonas was less enthused about rebellion just now, which was fine by me, as long as he took the Dkota threat seriously. Anyway Horn would get occasional position checks on us. So it was time for a change. Our horses weren't getting any fresher, and the men dozed in the saddle. Riding at a trot, as we were mostly, falling off your horse could cause serious injury, especially if you got stepped on.
On the move again, I made another decision, because I really needed to have someone at Kato with a communicator. That was one of the reasons I'd been keeping Freddy up to date on the project. And now was the time. So again I dropped back, and called Tahmm.
Yes, he said, he'd provide transportation for Freddy. So I called Freddy, who said he'd been looking forward to the call. Tahmm arranged to pick him up at Moleen as soon as it was dark enough, and drop him off in Bishop Joseph's pasture outside Kato. I felt really good about that, probably from something my muse knew that the rest of me didn't.
Meanwhile the sun had set and it was getting dark. I wanted to leave the road, find a safe place to sleep, where our horses could graze and rest. Shortly I saw a stretch of rolling prairie ahead that might fit our needs, so one at a time we left the road, entering the forest. From there we rode to the prairie edge, and along it three furlongs or so, to bed down behind a little rise, out of sight from the road.
Then shouldering my bedroll, I hiked back, lay down in the woods a few yards from the road, telling my muse to wake up if anyone came along. By that time it was so dark back in the woods, I couldn't see to pick my nose; way too dark to be seen by anyone riding past. It took me two or three minutes to get comfortable—pick the sticks and stones out from under me—and only one or two more to go to sleep.
I woke up twice to a late traveler riding by. The second time, dawn was silvering the northeastern sky, and our pursuers hadn't shown up. I used my com to call Carlos. He'd already wakened, and had the others out rounding up our cross-hobbled horses. We agreed our pursuers must have camped too, hopefully not close behind, that it was time for the fox to stop running, and use his wits, and we discussed what I had in mind. Then I walked to the prairie's edge to wait for him, and listened to the birds wake up. Soon our crew arrived, Carlos leading my horse. We started down the road, and when it was light enough, I got out my mapbook. I didn't know exactly where we were on it, but not too far ahead was a village, Novo Cechov. From there, a substantial road wound south through country rich in lakes.
A night of rest and grazing had helped the horses, but it would take days to renew them entirely, so I kept the pace moderate. We reached Novo Cechov about two hours after sunup. The junction with the south road was in front of the general store, where loafers on a bench eyed us warily, curious about so many armed men. We gathered in the middle of the junction, in a tight circle, and I murmured brief instructions. Then we turned south and rode out of town at a brisk trot. About a mile south of town, the road topped a ridge, and we stopped to look back. I could see the Zandria-Cloud Road disappear over a hill a mile east of town. There was no sign of the dust cloud a platoon would raise.
We continued south at an easy trot, Carlos beside me, and entered an area of forest and lakes skirted on the east by the road. Ahead the road curved west around a hill, past a small marsh-ringed lake. The lake was fed by a small creek that crossed the road.
"That's it," I told Carlos. "Donald, you and I will take to the creek."
"Stay with me!" Carlos called to the others. "Luis is turning off here." Donald and I stopped at the creek while the others trotted splashing across, then we walked our horses into the foot-deep water and turned downstream.
After seventy or eighty feet, the creek slowed, entering the marsh. There we left it, slopping through cattails, and entered young aspen forest, our horses walking. We stayed near enough to the edge toward the lake, we could see the road curving round the hill.
"Where are we going?" Donald asked.
"I'll tell you pretty soon."
When we reached the far end of the lake, we stopped and tied our reins to slender aspens, then sat within the edge of the trees, gnawing on hardtack and watching the road six furlongs away, my spyglass ready on my lap.
It was time for a quiz. "Why did we leave the Zandria-Cloud Road?" I asked Donald.
"Because the kingsmen were gaining on us. But . . ."
"Right. You and I are going on to Zandria, while hopefully the kingsmen follow Carlos and the others. Just now I'm watching the road back there, so we'll know for sure if they're following, and that they don't notice we left the others."
I paused. "Why did we stop in the middle of the junction in Novo Checov?"
"To tell us we were turning south." Even as he said it, Donald realized that wasn't it. All I'd needed to do was turn. The rest would have followed.
"No, we stopped so the men hanging around there would get curious and pay attention. They probably would have anyway, because we're well armed, but that assured it. When Horn and his men reach the junction, assuming they haven't already, he'll question any loiterers, to learn we turned south."
"Then they'll still be following us."
"They'll still be following Carlos and the others, not you and me. Hopefully. That's why we're sitting here watching; to make sure. If Horn's as good as he should be, his scouts will be watching for sign of anyone leaving the others. And maybe the current, and sediment, haven't smoothed our tracks out below the ford. We'll see."
"What about Carlos and the others?"
"We're not entirely sure, Carlos and I. That's another reason you and I are sitting here watching." I gestured at the ground. "Take a nap if you want. You might as well."
A while later I suggested it again, and that time he did. I spent another hour watching before anyone showed up. "There they are," I said sharply, nudging Donald awake, and picked up my spyglass. The armsmen trotted across the ford without pausing. Their guidon was the royal standard; kingsmen for sure.
"I thought there'd be more of them," Donald said. Our eyes followed them out of sight around the swell of the hill.
"There were."
"How do you know?"
"Good question."
I laid down my spyglass, but still watched the road in case other kingsmen came along. Then I took my com from its belt holster, for Donald to see. "Each master carries one of these," I told him. "If anyone asks, it's a religious amulet, very personal. We call them coms, or radios. Ordinarily you wouldn't learn about it. They give the Higuchian master an important advantage, and if the world finds out, a lot of that advantage will be lost." I glanced at him, then turned my eyes back to the road.
"You're not supposed to know about coms, but this is a special mission, and you're a special part of it. Now watch and listen." Raising it near my mouth, I switched it on, at the same time thumbing the sound up so he could hear it when Carlos answered. Carlos's com was my default setting now. "Carlos," I said, "this is Luis." To Donald I added, "his com will have buzzed. He can feel it. He'll drop back, to answer without the others knowing."
Donald's eyes widened, remembering. Seconds later we heard Carlos. "What have you got for me, Luis?"
"Twenty-four kingsmen just crossed the ford at a brisk trot. They didn't notice a thing. You're still two hours ahead of them. Donald and I will stay where we are awhile longer, to see if the rest come along. I'll let you know if they do. Anything I need to know?"
"Nope. Thanks, Luis. If you're done, I am."
"Fine. Luis out."
"Carlos out."
I gave Donald another glance, grinning now. His mouth still hung open. I gave him a closer look at the com, indicating the tiny clock. "And that," I told him, "tells us what time it is. Just now a quarter past ten."
"Good lord," he said, hardly more than breathing it.
Then I told him about Peng, and how I knew there were two more squads. And what he and I would do next, unless something happened during the next hour to change my mind.
Now Donald asked another question, a bit hesitantly. "How will Carlos and the others keep ahead of the kingsmen?"
"They won't. They'll split off two at a time, wherever it won't be noticed. Like creeks and well-tracked crossroads . . . Carlos will ride alone to Hasty. The others will work their way back east and north, and join Peng at Cloud."
After another hour, no other armsmen came by, so Donald and I rode off west through forest, and after a time, prairie. A country lane took us north to the Cloud-Zandria Road. Several hours ahead of us should be another twenty or so kingsmen riding west toward Zandria.
The only loose end I knew of was the two squads chasing Carlos's folks. When they lost them, their commander would most likely return to Hasty, to report that the Higuchians had scattered on the back roads north of Kato. But they might go on to Kato themselves; I'd call ahead and warn Freddy, just in case. An unlikely third alternative—the one I liked least—was, they might ride back to the Zandria Road and arrive at Zandria behind us.