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CHAPTER FIVE

Thanig was a small town hidden in a fold of the Jarrya hills: small in size, smaller in fame. It served the needs of surrounding farmers and herders with simple goods, most of them locally made, the rest imported once a year from Athoa, the nearest larger Jarryan town. Aside from pack merchants and tax collectors, no one had much reason to remember its name. Neither did travelers, other than the occasional tax clerk or peddler, visit it from one year to another. Since the Ancar invasion, some ten years back, even those visitors had grown few.

Therefore it was a matter of no little excitement and concern when the townspeople first observed the column of dust, and then the strange entourage causing it, approaching by the main—and indeed the town's only—road.

The townsfolk reacted swiftly: mothers hauled children indoors, craftsmen carried display tables of their wares back into their shops, older children chased family livestock safely out of the street, householders pulled doors and window shutters closed and peeped out through the cracks. Only the innkeeper left his door open, and even he took care to hastily hide his better bottles. That done, everyone watched the strangers approach.

The spectacle was indeed something to see, remember to tell one's grandchildren about. In the lead marched two big men in long iron-colored robes and hooded cloaks, carrying iron-shod staves bound with green branches. At the rear came four similar figures, slighter in stature. Between them rolled a huge wagon, covered with iron-colored sailcloth, driven by a tall man in the same dark vestments as the others while beside him sat an imposing woman garbed in green and crowned with a garland. The wagon was painted with stylized designs that suggested ancient letters, garlanded with leaves and flowers, hung with iron chains and brass bells, and drawn by a pair of large iron-colored mules. The mules' harness was hung with brass bells and luck charms of polished brass and iron, and jingled with their every step. The dark-robed figures were chanting softly, in what the more experienced townsfolk recognized as quaintly accented Sabirn, a hymn to Deese of the Forge—with proper reference to his Lady, Kula of the Wood. The procession marched into and through the village, not glancing to left or right, heading for the long building toward the far end of town whose chimney belched smoke and sparks even at this hour of day.

"Goin' to the forge, they be," the town potter noted, much to everyone's agreement. "Pilgrims might be, but priestish sure as rain."

And, right enough, the strangers drew to a precise halt at the doorway of the town's smithy. With the precision of courtly dancers, the two men in the lead stepped back to hold the mules' bridles, the four at the rear rearranged themselves at the wagon's back and sides, and one of them stepped forward to knock formally on the doorpost.

"Blessings to all within," he intoned, in only slightly accented Jarryan. "Blessings to forge and fire, roofbeam and hearthstone, in the name of Deese of the Forge."

Dunosh, the town blacksmith, carefully set down the horseshoe he'd been shaping, while his apprentices scurried for cover. "Uh, blessings to you, also," was all he could think to say. He tucked his trusty middleweight hammer into his belt, just to be safe, and edged toward the outlandish strangers at his door. "What would ye be wanting here?"

"Food and shelter for two days, and trade also," the stranger recited as if he'd practiced it a long time. "In exchange for your assistance, brother-in-trade, we'll gladly share our knowledge with you."

Dunosh blinked, taking all that in. Too much, too strange: best deal with one problem at a time. "Ah, the inn be back down t'street, six doors down on t'left. The beer be good, and the shepherd pie likewise, but touch not the stew . . . And warn 'em well t'air out the bedding." He guessed he was babbling like a fool, but better that than to seem unfriendly—especially since he had no idea what to say to the fellows other requests.

But the speaker smiled wide and thanked him profusely, ending with an elaborate blessing in the name of the Forge Lord. "And more," the man finished, with a conspiratorial wink, "would you like a useful bit of magic to help your work?"

"Magic?" Dunosh lifted his head like a bird dog scenting game. In his trade there was so much that could go wrong, any helpful charm would be welcome. "Eh, a spell against splashing, p'raps?"

"Better." The speaker grinned and waved one of the larger men forward. The fellow had to stoop to get in the door, and he rolled up his sleeves as he came, revealing arms as thick-muscled as an ox's leg and streaked with the identifying scars of a smith. Dunosh stepped back respectfully.

The big stranger went to the forge, mumbled something over it, took up the tongs, and studied the horseshoe between their jaws. He waved his other hand over the darkening iron, mumbled something that included the name of Deese several times, then pointed to Dunosh and said something straight and clear in Sabirn.

"Er, what'd he say?" Dunosh asked of the first speaker.

The man leaned closer and whispered in his ear: "He said: Temper with cold oil instead of water.'"

"Ey, I should do that . . . and that's all?"

"That's all. The rest's already been spoken."

"'Temper with cold oil' . . ."

Dunosh was still thinking that over when the strangers rolled out of his dooryard and back down the street towards the inn. Cold oil? Where could he get that hereabouts? Butter? Far too costly. Seed oil? The same. Meat fat? Now that was possible. Rendered sheep fat was cheap enough. Cold? The town boasted no icehouse, but the inn's cold cellar might do. Best go ask at once; he wanted to try that spell quickly, while the strangers were still in town.

Besides, if he followed them to the inn, who could tell what other secrets and charms he might learn?

Dunosh barked an order to his apprentices to bank the fire, and hurried off after the strangers.

* * *

By late afternoon, everyone who could leave work had gathered in or around the inn, trying to look casual while ogling the strangers. The innkeeper and his serving maids, of course, had the best excuse to chat with the odd visitors and entice information from them. The strangers proved amenable to enticement, quite glad to chat with the smiling innkeeper and his buxom serving maids, past platters of tough beef, fat pork, and underspiced mutton.

Oh yes, the strangers were devotees of Deese of the Forge—see the pretty amulet pendants: stylized iron hammers inlaid with brass flames—and yes, they were on a pilgrimage to the fabled River Gol and some ancient monuments on its banks. Yes, they knew smithcraft, and engineering, and many other bits of magic besides. Why yes, they'd be happy to talk about some of it. Headaches and joint pains? Invoke Kula three times, and drink a cup of willow bark tea. Cattle plagued with worms? Dry their feed in the first light of the morning sun, bless in the names of Deese and Kula, and feed the cattle lots of raw garlic. How to improve a lady's looks? Hmm . . . Invoke Kula thrice and wash with soap, every day. How to make that marvelous ointment? Invoke Deese's aid, boil fat in water soaked through wood ashes, skim off the result, and pat it into cakes.

And who were these accommodating, fascinating strangers? Ah, that was more fascinating still.

"We are the ancient Sukkti folk," explained one of them—quite young, to judge from the voice. "The lords of Sabis suppressed our worship everywhere, save in the Lost City of Itoma. There we hid, and practiced our craft, and waited. Now, with Sabis overthrown, we dare emerge again into the light of day and visit the ancient sites of our elder worship."

After that revelation, the landlord brought fresh jugs of beer without anyone's asking.

"Ey, but now the Ancar be come," said the nearer serving maid gloomily. "'Tis new masters now, and worse than the last, if any."

"Ah well, they know nothing of us," said another visitor, a tall skinny one with curly, wild hair. "And surely they know nothing of our magic. Let us just keep this as our little secret, shall we?"

Everyone in the inn hastily agreed. The gods knew, they had secrets enough to keep from the new crop of masters. In exchange they were happy to tell all they knew of the roads, towns, and lands to the north—though precious few of them had ever traveled far from town.

The strangers were in the midst of discussing the best place to set up shop for a day or two and sell some of their metalwares when another, less welcome, racket came from outside.

The townspeople froze, recognizing the sounds.

There were multiple hoofbeats, creakings and groanings of ill-made wagonwheels, shouts and curses in a totally unfamiliar tongue—and all coming toward the inn.

The serving maids hopped off their assorted perches and ran for the kitchen. Several of the smaller and frailer patrons followed them. The innkeeper whisked his better jugs out of sight and shoved his money box into a hideyhole in the floor.

The strangers looked at each other, pulled their cloaks and hoods closer about them, and began humming a quiet, oddly soothing, holy song.

The newcomers came tramping through the doorway, slamming the already open door all the way back to the wall, and tromped loudly up to the inn's serving counter. There were half a dozen of them, dressed in coarse homespun wool and roughly cured leather, hung with assorted bits of horn and plate for armor, and fairly dripping with weapons: daggers, short swords, long swords, bludgeons, horn-tipped longbows and quivers grain-sheaf thick with arrows. Their hair, beards, and even moustaches were braided, and the braids were strung with odd trinkets intended as jewelry. They wore identical scowls, as if they'd practiced the look, and they glared about the interior of the inn as if expecting an armed host and a pitched battle. Despite their carefully cultivated beards, they were surprisingly young; not one of them could have been over twenty.

The Deese priests made no move, only chanted softly and stared as if they'd never seen Ancar warriors before.

The apparent leader of the small invasion force, seeming a bit surprised to find his host so thoroughly outnumbered by civilians, looked around again, bristled and scowled even more fiercely, stamped up to the serving counter, and slammed his fist on it, making the jugs and cups rattle.

"Bur!" he announced. "Dimme bur!"

The innkeeper blinked, gaped, and asked, "Huh?" No one could have mistaken his meaning.

The rest of his troop crowded closer to him, either for better defense against the motionless customers or to better intimidate the innkeeper. The leader grabbed the front of the innkeeper's apron and tried to yank him forward, but succeeded only in pulling the apron off. He threw it to the floor, peevish at his failure.

"Bur!" he yelled again. "Von ol ugat!"

"Huh?" said the landlord again.

The squad leader stamped in frustration. He could slaughter everyone in sight if he chose, but he couldn't make himself understood; it was an embarrassing situation for a proper conqueror. He took a deep breath and tried again. "Bur," he said, miming a cup in the empty air and then drinking from it. "Hu noe, Bur."

"I think he means, he wants beer," one of the Deese priests said quietly.

"Ah!" said the landlord, and reached for a mug.

The young Ancar turned, automatically striking a fierce pose and look, to see who had spoken.

Almost as one, the Deese priests pressed their hands together and solemnly bowed. They went on with their quiet hypnotic chanting.

The Ancar youth looked them up and down, scratched his head, shrugged, and turned back to the counter. The landlord pushed a large mug of beer at him. He whooped in satisfaction, grabbed the mug, and emptied it in one long pull. His cohorts looked expectantly at him. He grinned and nodded. In a moment, they were all crowding the counter, yelling for mugs.

The landlord sighed and handed out the foamy cups, clearly not expecting to be paid for this.

In the corner, the Deese priests continued to chant quietly.

Halfway through his third cup, the young Ancar squad leader hit on another thought. He snagged the landlord, shouted unintelligibly in his face, and hand-mimed something bigger, then pointed at his mug. The landlord shook his head, bewildered. The youth went through the pantomime again, yelling louder.

"I think he wants a whole barrel," said one of the Deese priests again.

The Ancar warriors didn't seem to hear, but the landlord caught it. "A whole barrel?" he groaned. "Gods, you know they won't pay for it. . . ."

Nonetheless, he went to the end of the counter and rolled a sloshing barrel into sight.

The Ancar troops fell on it with whoops of delight, and began rolling it toward the front door.

"My pay," the landlord tried, chasing after the yelping squad with his hands held out in the unmistakable gesture.

The last Ancar out the door only laughed, tugged one ear, shook his head, and trotted after the others.

The landlord sighed, watching them go. Everyone else in the room quietly relaxed.

One of the Deese priests got up and peeped out the door after the retreating noise of the Ancar troop. "They've got an oxcart," he noted. "They're loading it on, next to lots of other loot. I think . . . yes, they're leaving."

"Thank the gods for small mercies," groaned the landlord. "At least it was only a barrel of cheap beer."

"Could've been much worse," the Deese priest agreed. "They're going off down the southwest road."

"Oh, my sheep!" one of the locals wailed. "I graze 'em near the road these days!" He snatched up his cap and ran out the door.

"Keep to the back trails!" the landlord called after him.

The other priests of Deese stopped that soft chanting of theirs, and stood up. One of the two biggest came quietly over to the landlord, pulling something small out of his robe.

"I think we'd best leave now," he said quietly, "before those louts tell anyone that there's a small gang of pilgrims available for robbing. Er, could you change this?"

On his calloused palm he held out a small coin, no bigger than his fingernail, but winking unmistakably golden in the candlelight.

The landlord gaped. "Gods, no! I've not seen . . . er, such a coin in years." He glanced about worriedly, watching for unwelcome ears. "Lords of heaven, I've not seen even much silver from year's end to year's end. Have ye no other coin?"

"Unfortunately, no." The priest leaned closer and spoke lower. "Give me what coin you can lay hands on, and a keg of the best wine you have, and we'll call the deal fair."

"Er, a whole keg . . . ?"

"And two sacks of grain for our mules. Keep the rest as, hmm, compensation for your lost beer."

"Ah, ay, that'll do," the landlord agreed. "And, er, not a word to any Ancar louts about seeing the lot of you, eh?"

"Not a word to the Ancar about anything." The Deese priest smiled. "A word to a wise ear: best if your folk learned to understand the Ancar tongue as soon as might be—but never let the Ancar know it."

"Aye," the landlord grinned, showing gapped teeth. "A good word 'tis. Shall I carry out the keg for ye?"

"Best I do it—hidden under the cloak," the priest smiled back.

A moment later the party of Deese pilgrims departed the inn, two carrying grainbags and one toting a keg under his cloak. The innkeeper and his customers watched them go, already framing the tales they'd tell their assorted kin that evening. Two sets of strangers in one day: quite enough excitement for a town this size.

"Strange that those barbarian lads didn't start laying about with their irons," the blacksmith noted. "Mayhap they're settling down a bit."

"More like, the chanting o' those priests had a bit to do with it," the landlord considered. "It sounded most sleepy-like, did you note."

"Why, so it did," the blacksmith considered. "Hmm, a good magic, that, if they be going northward."

"Aye," The blacksmith nodded soberly. "They'll need all their magic there, right enough. Ancar thick as fleas . . ."

"Oh, great doings there!" the innkeeper laughed. "Ancar warriors against Sukkti wizards: yon's a fight I'd love to see—from a safe ways back."

The blacksmith nodded dreamily, thinking about that. From such beginnings were legends born; with any luck, he'd have tales to win him drinks for his whole life long.

* * *

Once out of the tavern, the dark-robed pilgrims headed for the stables at the best speed they could make under their burdens.

"The mules . . . ?" the tall thin one panted.

"Safe," retorted the big man with the keg. "Vari sat on the wagon playing with the whip until the stableboys went away. Then she rehitched the mules and took the whole lot around behind the stable. Those Ancar pups couldn't have seen them."

"Pups! If those are the puppies, Zeren, what are the wolves like?"

"Bad enough, but all gone south where the fighting is. Those were bored brats, not fit for the front lines. We'll doubtless meet more, probably house guards of older officers, petty chiefs and the like, who've settled down to enjoy the spoils. Here . . . mind your feet! Let's load these quickly."

The grain and wine went into the wagon, where Vari and Tamiri tied them down with respectable speed.

"Are we moving on again?" Tamiri wanted to know. "I wanted to sleep in a bed. It's been so long, Mama. . . ."

"I know, dearest, but it isn't safe here. Back inside, now." Vari shooed the grumbling girl back into the body of the wagon, and held the end flaps open. "Inside, fast. There won't be much room, but—"

The others scrambled in without ceremony, climbing onto whatever seats they could manage. Doshi, the last one in, retied the flaps tightly. Zeren and Sulun went to the mules, took off their now empty nosebags, led the reluctant animals out from behind the shed, then climbed up on the driver's box and flicked out the whip. The mules plodded sullenly out onto the road.

"North, but for how long?" Sulun asked, encouraging the mules with a few hints of the whip. "The sun's low."

"Just out of sight of the village, then into the first woods near the river." Zeren reached under his cloak and tugged his sword to a handier position. "We haven't time to do better, Hmm, and I don't think it will rain tonight. Bad, bad . . . We'd best take precautions."

"And hide the fire, too." Sulun hitched his shoulders in a sigh. "Well, so that was the enemy. Can they do anything besides fight and steal?"

"Not that I've seen. Gods, that was close, in there. I expected they'd start laying about swords, drive everyone out, steal what they wanted and set fire to the rest."

"Eloti's magic seems to be improving with practice."

"Yes . . ." Zeren set his eyes on the narrow road ahead, and said nothing further for a long while.

* * *

Choma's Chargers had grown up behind the lines, never been in on the sack of any of the large cities, only heard secondhand about the Sack of Sabis, and considered themselves most ill-used by Fate. Their older brothers and cousins, they very well knew, were busy down in the fabled southlands fighting heroic battles, collecting fabulous loot, making great chiefs and small kings of themselves—and here were they, Choma's company, good as any warriors in all the tribes, stuck patrolling the roads in these dirt-poor backwater lands. Wasted, they were: and all because old chief Borath had taken a bad wound in the campaigns ten years ago, and had chosen to settle here and let the rest of the war go on without him. Oh yes, he'd sent troops south with the main army, but Choma and Ruek and Lumaj and their friends had been too young to go with them. Now, by Vona's Lightning Mace, it was too late; the greatest war in history had passed them by. It was the chief complaint of their lives, and they complained about it often—especially when there was, as now, enough beer to keep their voices lubricated.

As always, it was Lumaj who pointed out the necessity of keeping the ancient warrior skills sharp lest they be lost. He explained solemnly, past a few belches, that practice—even with no better foe than a bunch of dumb dirt-farmers—was a duty to themselves and their ancestors. Better to chase sheep than chase nothing: they must patrol the district regularly, as if it meant something.

Ruek added, as usual, that there were a few benefits to such circuit riding—such as this pretty good beer and that well-roasted sheep, and the occasional local wenches.

"Women? Where?" one of the Thona brothers complained. "We've hardly seen any in two days."

"There weren't even any barmaids at that tavern," their cousin Dak agreed. "Gods, you can't compare this goat-snatching to the sack of a real city. Uncle Framm will most likely come home with a dozen mule loads of gold and jewels and . . . and all kinds of loot." He took another long pull of beer, trying to imagine the loot from a fabulous city like Sabis.

"Half a moon of riding round these hills, and we haven't seen so much as one gold coin," the other Thona brother added. "Pah, not even a handful of silver."

"I'll wager those priests had some gold," Choma considered, chasing an elusive flea in his leggings. "Lots of silver, anyway. They wore good cloth, and had plenty on their table. Aye, they were rich enough."

"Priests?" Lomaj hiccuped. "What priests?"

"You remember: the ones at that tavern. They were sitting in the corner, singing some chant or other, remember?"

"Oh yes, those strange-looking ones." Ruek slapped his knee. "They didn't come from anywhere around here. I've never seen robes like that before."

"They must have come from the south," Choma considered. "Hey, maybe they're spies from one of the river towns, maybe Sabis itself. We should go and, uh, question the lot of 'em."

"What, now?" Dak groaned. "In the dark? We don't even know where they are."

"No, not now, of course," Choma snorted, conjuring up rough plans. "Tomorrow we go back to that town, pound on a few farmers, and ask 'em where the priests are."

"What if they don't know?" Dak yawned. "What if they've gone?"

"Then we track 'em." Choma put on his best glower and stared at everyone in turn. "Do you think we can't track a bunch of fat priests?"

"Don't waste time trying to get any story out of the farmers," Ruek laughed. "None of 'em understand us, anyway."

Choma glared at him, wishing he knew how to Strike Terror With His Glance, as his grandfather was said to do. "So it'll be a proper hunt," he growled, "an exercise in tracking. Gods know, we need the practice."

The others groaned, but had no real counterargument to that.

* * *

The farmers' road meandered about the feet of hills where thin patches of woodland grew. Zeren automatically noted the signs of infrequent logging, the many birds and occasional deer. Doshi, eyes bright with childhood memories, pointed out the names and uses of the various plants and animals.

"Oh, look: Constable Jays!" he noted, as a flock of crested blue birds took to the air above them, screeching protest about the invasion of their territory. "They cry like that when anyone comes near their trees. Ah, and that's a holm oak: no better wood for long fires—"

"There'll be no long fires until we find a safe place to settle," Sulun grumbled in the wagon bed behind him. "That will be a good ways north, yet."

"How shall we know a good place when we see it?" Eloti asked. "The towns we've met so far are most unpromising."

"All we've gained," Vari added, "are some small coins and a few supplies. What should we expect in the north?"

Sulun ran his fingers through his hair and tugged his curls abstractedly. He'd thought of little else since they left the river and started overland. "We'll want a town or large villa, big enough to have need of us. It will have to be close to the old mines near the Gol. . . ." He peered again at Doshi's maps, which were never out of reach these days. "And it must be long enough conquered by the Ancar that they've settled down to trade and farming, not just looting at random, as those louts back there were doing."

"Well into Torrhyn, then," Eloti considered, craning her neck to look at the map. "Perhaps on the far side of the Gol, where the Ancar have lived for two generations at least."

"I pray not." Sulun shivered in the sunlight as the wagon pulled out onto another long stretch of sheep meadow. "We don't speak the language, and I'd rather not approach the Ancar close enough to learn it."

"Somewhere along the Gol, then, or a little south of it." Eloti peered out at the long, rolling plains ahead. "How many days, think you?"

"Who can tell?" Sulun shook his head. "So many more farming towns to try, so much time in each to gather news . . . A moon, perhaps, to reach the river, the gods alone know how much time to scout the land along it. Or perhaps we'll have a sudden windfall of luck, and find what we need in the very next town."

"Not the next," Doshi put in. "There are nothing but tiny farm villages for the next forty leagues, nothing bigger this far from the river. Expect no such luck until we pass into Torrhyn."

"Can we dare seek the larger towns then?"

The discussion dissolved into a low-level, three-way argument, an intellectual game to pass the traveling time. Zeren listened with only half an ear, keeping most of his attention on the empty land around them. Poor pasturage, this, little to attract anyone. No wonder the land was so empty, the road so narrow and little used.

Behind them, the Constable Jays rose up screeching.

Zeren thought for a moment, nodded grimly, then said quietly to the others, "Ready your bows. We're being followed."

Half a moon or half a dozen towns ago, they might have questioned, argued, otherwise wasted time, but not anymore. Sulun pulled his bow and quiver up from the bottom of the drivers seat. Tamiri and the smaller children burrowed down between sacks of clothing and food. Omis and Vari rolled the bottom of the wagon's roof cloth up a handspan from the sideboards and tied it in place. Everyone else slung on quivers, wriggled down below the sideboards of the wagon, and nocked arrows to their bowstrings.

The mules plodded on, unknowing. No one watching would have seen any notable change about the wagon, only perhaps noticed that the sound of conversation had dropped off.

No attack came, no sign of followers, though keen eyes raked the open ground that widened, moment by moment, between the wagon and the last stand of trees. "Nobody . . . no sign . . ." the news was whispered back up to the drivers box. Zeren considered that carefully.

"They don't want to charge across open ground," he guessed. "They'll stay out of sight until they can get closer. Maybe in the next patch of woods."

"What if we stay in open fields?" Sulun asked, just as quietly.

"Hmm, then they'll have to wait until dark. They probably mean to attack late at night, anyway."

"We can't drive on all night. Shall we camp in the open?"

Zeren peered down the winding road ahead, calculating chances. "No. We'll need the cover of trees. Go as long as you can, then camp in the woods . . . and set traps." He turned and called softly into the wagon, "Eloti, can you bespell a party of unknowns?"

"Not well," she answered. "If I don't know who they are, I must at least know where they are."

"Where they are . . ." Sulun considered. "Could you, then, set a spell on a section of ground, so as to take effect when, hmm, our guests cross it?"

"Hah, I hadn't thought of that." The lady, Sulun noticed, sounded much more animated these days; she seemed to take on more eagerness for life with every league that grew between her and Sabis. "Yes, a sort of reversed house-blessing. Stationary . . . A trap spell, in effect. Yes, I can do it, but it will cost me some little time. I can't just cast it on the ground as we pass."

"Could you cast it in a circle around our campsite this -evening?"

There was a long moments silence, then a laugh. "Certainly. I can do it while we cook dinner."

Zeren smiled slowly. "Magic traps and common traps: aye, I think we'll live through this night."

* * *

By dusk, the Thona brothers were grumbling: they'd wasted a whole day following those pilgrims back north, never had a good chance to jump them, and hadn't collected any more food, beer, women, or other goods. Lumaj insisted that one day's march was no hardship for real warriors, especially since the reward at the end would be much better than they could get out of the dirt-poor farming towns to the south, but his argument lacked a certain enthusiasm. Dak and Ruek were mostly silent, but occasionally speculated about how much food, beer, and other wealth those pilgrims must be carrying; the mules and wagon alone would be worth the effort, and they could have some fun with the pilgrims, too. Choma silently noted the morale of his troops, and made attack plans.

"We stay here till they've crossed the ridge," he announced, "then we hurry up to the ridge line and watch where they go."

"Hurry? With these damned oxen?" Dak grumbled, but not loudly.

"We'll make 'em hurry." Choma glowered and smacked a fist into his other hand. "The spies go into woods, or cross another ridge, and we catch up again. We follow out of sight until they stop."

"We can't charge a mule wagon on foot," Ruek pointed out. "Nor with oxen, either."

Choma casually clouted his head. "Not by daylight, you stupid turd. We wait till they've stopped for the night, set up camp, gone to sleep. Then we take 'em."

"Oh, right," Dak grinned, showing gaps in his teeth.

"That'll be hours," one of the Thona boys gloomed.

"What, can't you hold your water that long?" Choma gave everyone his best glare. Nobody answered it.

They're over the ridge," Lumaj announced. "Gimme the whip for these damn beasts."

The whip flailed. The pained oxen broke into a trot. The laden cart rumbled out of the cover of trees and into the open pastureland.

* * *

"Oh Mama, why do I have to feed Mido and the baby?" Tamiri complained. "They're so dumb, they're spilling it all."

"'M not dumb," Mido grumbled, smearing stew across his nose.

"You have to, because everybody else is busy setting the traps." Vari studied the fire a moment, then chucked in some more wood—two good-sized logs that would burn half the night and leave a respectable bed of coals without much care or attention. "Now keep quiet, all of you, while I help Ziya with the mules."

Tamiri sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward, silently calling the gods to witness what she had to put up with. Mido shovelled more stew into his mouth. The baby grumbled, but accepted mouthfuls of the savory mess with not much bad grace.

Vari got up and went to the far side of the fire, where the mules were tethered. Ziya had filled their nosebags with a good mix of dried peas and grain, and was busy hauling a second bucket of water up from the small stream a dozen yards off. The mules hadn't been curried yet, and dried sweat tufted their grey coats. Vari took the curry-comb and brush from under the driver's seat of the nearby wagon, and started work on the nearer mule.

Ziya set down the water bucket, checked to see if the mules were still emptying the nosebags, and went to the wagon for a long weed-cutting knife. "Will we sleep first?" she asked Vari as she passed.

"Most likely, dear." Vari didn't miss a stroke with the comb as she answered. "Remember to keep your bow covered by the blankets."

"I know." Ziya went off to cut some fresh greens for the mules, somber-faced, and with no wasted motion.

Vari was just finishing with the second mule when Eloti came out of the wood, Zeren close behind. She looked flushed, tired, but smug; had Vari not known better, she would have guessed that Zeren and Eloti had been off making love in the bushes.

"Is the trap spell set?" Vari asked, setting the brush and curry-comb aside and reaching for the hoof pick.

"Set and ready, twenty-five paces out," Eloti smiled. "Here, I'll do that; the mules know me."

"Oh, tush, I'll manage." Vari lifted an uncomplaining mule's hoof to prove her claim to expertise. "After all these weeks, I've gotten a knack for it. You go get some dinner, and rest."

"She's right." Zeren tugged gently at Eloti's sleeve. "You've worked harder than any of us. Rest for the first watch."

"Very well." Eloti let herself be led away to the fire. "And you?"

"I'll take first watch, just in case our guests are the impatient sort."

"And if they're not?"

"Heh! I assure you, I've had years' practice at waking quickly to fight."

Vari watched them stroll off to the fire, and chuckled to herself between the mules' hooves.

* * *

"How much longer?" Ruek whispered, surreptitiously scratching a flea bite.

"Awhile yet," Choma growled. "Their fire's still at flame, not coals."

"So?" the elder Thona brother grumbled, easing away from a troublesome rock that poked his belly.

"That means they're still awake," Lumaj loftily explained. "Flames means new wood, fresh put on the fire, see? That means someone's still awake to've put it there."

"Oh."

"Also means someone's awake enough to need light, firelight to see by. Get it?" the younger Thona smirked. "Fire goes down t'coals, they can't see us."

"Uh, then we can't see them, neither."

"We'll have our eyes used to the dark," Dak volunteered, unsnagging a twig from one of his braids. "Besides, they'll be asleep."

"Just a matter of waiting," Ruek sighed, rolling over on his back. "Wake me when it's time."

"Don't sleep too sound," Choma grumbled, swatting him. "Another hour, maybe two, then we go in."

* * *

Slowly the fire sank down to coals. The mules, freed of their nosebags, slurped the buckets half-empty and turned their interest to the piled weeds. Very little sound came from the wagon, or the humans stretched out around the fire, or those whom the mules could smell in the woods beyond. There was no sound or scent of any preying beast larger than a fox anywhere in the small stretch of forest, and no snakes nearby.

Reassured, the mules munched their way through the herbage, then put their heads down and drowsed.

* * *

"'S time," Choma grunted, booting and elbowing his troops into action.

"Which way?" Ruek grumbled, rolling over. "Can't see the fire . . ."

"Straight ahead, and quietly!" Choma got to his feet with elaborate care, setting an example for the others, and inched forward through the dark brush. Too bad, he considered, that they hadn't had time to scout these woods beforehand, let alone divide the company and send half around to the other side of the spies' camp. Now they'd have to do it all in one short charge: messy, no real strategy, and some chance that a few of the outlanders might escape into the woods. Still, they'd catch some; certainly they'd get the wagon and the mules and any goods laid out in the camp. But quietly now, quietly, sneak up all the way to the campsite. Thank the gods, his boys at least knew how to move quietly in the dark.

They'd gone maybe twenty paces toward the fire when they came across what felt like a bank of mist: cold, thick dampness hanging in the air and confusing the senses. But they couldn't see any mist.

Dak swore softly. Lumaj shushed him, and they moved on.

One of the Thona brothers put his foot wrong on a tree root and fell, clumping and clattering, right into a thornbush. His squawk of pain seemed loud as thunder in the thick dark.

"Shh!" Lumaj whispered fiercely.

Next instant, he put his foot on something that wriggled, hissed, and sank outraged fangs into his leggings. Lumaj fell backward, howling, "Snake! Snakebite!"

"Vona's balls!" Choma drew his sword and plunged forward, swearing. No hope of a good silent sneak-up now; best to charge ahead, screeching war cries, and hope that the prey would be too confused to know what was happening. "Charge!" he bellowed, followed by a good imitation of his grandfather's favorite war whoop.

The others came yelling and rattling after him, all but Lumaj, who was still rolling around in the bushes clutching his leg and screaming about snakes.

Running through the dark forest turned out to be much more difficult than sneaking through it: overhanging branches snagged at hair and helmets, lower boughs swatted at faces and impeded hand and foot, unseen roots and rocks tripped running feet with what seemed to be calculated malice, and the wild beasts proved numerous and troublesome.

The elder Thona got a spider down the back of his neck, which made him stop to dance and squirm and jab at it with his sword until he got a nasty cut on his back. Dak put a foot squarely into a badger hole, with the badger still in it, getting not only a badly turned ankle but a good fierce bite in the foot. The younger Thona stepped on something squashy and wiggly, which made him both jump and skid—smack into a tree, which thwacked his helmet down over his eyes and snagged him unmercifully by the beard. Ruek hit a hanging wasps' nest, which made him run faster, howl louder, and pay even less attention to where he was going. Choma ran right into what he thought was a rabbit—until it proved in the time-honored fashion that it was a skunk.

Screeching, howling, rattling and clattering mightily—and stinking to high heaven—Choma's Chargers came clanging through the woods toward where they'd last seen the campfire: out of the big trees, and into the low brush.

Then Ruek's foot hit the first trip-cord. He went sprawling flat—into a thornbush—and a big deadfall of a tree fell neatly on top of him. Choma, just a few steps behind him, ran into the tree and fell across it, adding to the volume of Ruek's howls. Somewhere nearby, brass carriage bells tinkled madly.

Off near the campsite, someone shouted authoritatively in an unknown tongue, possibly Sabirn.

Traps! Choma had time to think, as he pulled himself off the log. They set up trip-cords, alarms— 

Then a trio of small, tumbling flames came whirring through the air toward him. They hit just ahead and to either side, with a sound like smashing pottery.

Then Vona's own fire lit the earth.

Flames exploded from the ground, searing the eyes, lighting up the woods like midday sun, accompanied by a roar like small thunder and clouds of heavy white smoke that stank nearly as bad as the skunk.

Ruek screamed once, impossibly shrill, then went silent. Choma fell backward, clawing at his flare-blinded eyes. Around him, the others screeched in shocked terror, turned to run, fell against unseen trees.

That same foreign voice snapped out another order, and then the arrows came: a rain to match that wizards' thunder and lightning.

The Thona brothers howled and died together, pinned to trees and earth. Dak went stumbling off blindly through the trees, trying to pluck the arrows out of his arm, side, and leg; a second volley of arrows caught him amid a snare of bushes, and he fell into a waiting cloud of wasps. Choma, crawling away through brush and jabbing tree roots, heard Dak screeching for a long time.

They really were wizards, They really were . . . Choma thought inanely as he crawled through the darkness. Somewhere out there Lumaj was still alive—if he hadn't died of snakebite. Sometime the sun had to rise, the light had to come—if his eyes were capable of seeing it. Somehow the two of them could get to the oxcart, wash and bind their wounds, come looking for other survivors—or at least ride back to Borath's holding for help. Oh gods, Borath's holding was at least five days' ride away.

Choma crawled on, listening for some sign of Lumaj, until he collapsed in exhaustion on the edge of the wood.

The team of oxen, tethered less than twenty yards off, blinked in mild surprise at the bizarre sight, and then went back to their grazing.

* * *

In the morning Zeren took Sulun, Doshi, Ziya, and Arizun out to search for sign of the attackers. They all carried bows at the ready, save for Arizun who held an amulet and chanted protective countercharms against their own trap spell.

The first thing they found was an armored body pinned under a deadfall, head and hands hideously burned.

"Your firepot must have hit right on top of him," Zeren deduced, studying the burn marks around the corpse.

Sulun turned quickly, thrust his head into a tangle of bushes, and retched hard and fast.

The others looked a while longer at the corpse, Doshi and Arizun paling and shaken, Zeren and Ziya impassive and thoughtful.

In a moment Sulun rejoined them, looking not far from dead himself. "I didn't know it would do that," he muttered to himself. "Before all the gods, I swear, I didn't know. . . ."

"There should be more this way," said Zeren, turning off to his right. "We saw one of them go down here." Almost absently, he plucked the harness bells off their station on a branch and stuffed them into his belt pouch. "Right. There."

The others looked where he pointed, and saw the body of another Ancar lying in a patch of brush. Arrows studded him like the quills of a hedgehog, and every exposed inch of his skin was swollen with wasp stings. Sulun closed his eyes; Arizun and Doshi looked away. Only Ziya and Zeren gazed calmly at the body.

"Best collect our arrows," said Zeren, reaching through the brush to pull them free.

"Gods," Doshi moaned, "can't you leave them there?"

"No, we'll need them." Zeren tugged at a stubborn arrow wedged through the sodden leather armor. "Besides, if any of his friends survived they may come looking. Much can be learned from an arrow; best to keep them ignorant."

They found two more arrow-bristled bodies back beyond the burned corpse, and scrape marks on the ground where a fifth Ancar had dragged himself away.

"No blood," Zeren noted. "That one might yet survive. We'd best collect our traps and be gone soon. We should leave right after breakfast."

But nobody wanted breakfast.

* * *

They broke camp and left within the hour, pushing the mules to a steady trot, otherwise quiet and subdued. Clouds sped over the sun, and light, steady rain fell as they crossed the next stretch of meadow and mounted the next hill.

Doshi, sitting next to Sulun on the driver's seat, spread his cloak to protect the map he studied. "Another town, perhaps eight leagues west of this track," he noted. "We could reach it before night. Should we go there?"

"No," said Sulun, huddled small under his cloak.

"Just as well." Doshi folded the map and peered at the rain-greyed land ahead. "Let's leave these lands soon as might be. They're . . . ugly."

"Your old home," Sulun murmured, surprised.

"No longer." Doshi shivered. "It's all changed, nothing like what I remember. I don't want to see any more of it."

"Nor I," Sulun admitted.

"We'll be safe in Torrhyn. Safer than here, anyway. Torrhyni dialect isn't much different from Jarryan, and we've heard enough of that to understand it. There were some small cities near the old sulfur mines, should still be there, even with the mines shut down. I don't imagine the Ancar having any use for sulfur . . . but they might have kept after the black glass, mined enough for that. They'd probably use it for pretty jewelry, or surgeon's knives. Find black glass and we find the sulfur. We can settle close enough to the mines—"

"We don't need the sulfur," Sulun snapped. "All we need is a sizable town."

"But—but we need the sulfur to make the firepowder—"

"No more firepowder! Never again!" Sulun slapped the reins fiercely on the startled mules' rumps, whipping them to a faster trot. "Gods, you saw what it did, back there. . . ." He drew a deep breath, and shuddered.

Doshi half-turned, suddenly aware of the listening silence in the wagon behind him. All the others, they were waiting for him to answer. Doshi shrugged off the awareness, and looked back at Sulun.

"You saw the other bodies too, didn't you?" he said. "Forested with arrows, and one of them swollen all over with wasp stings—were they any prettier? Were those deaths any better?"

"Not . . ." Sulun rubbed one hand across his forehead. "Not the same."

"No." Doshi gnawed his lip and made himself remember. "I think they were slower."

"Oh, gods!"

"I can't remember when I last saw a . . . a good death, Sulun. Not even back in Sabis: hunger, disease, drowning, death in burning buildings or riots—"

"Stop it!" Sulun almost dropped the reins, shaking so hard.

Doshi took a long, slow breath. "What I mean to say is that the only 'good' death I can imagine is a quick one: fast, painless—like a high priest knocking down a sacrificial goat. If you must kill, do it fast. It doesn't matter how the body looks afterward—not to the dead, anyway; that's only a trouble to the living. Firepowder kills faster than arrows."

"Uglier . . ." Sulun whispered, head bowed over the reins.

"So, leave that to trouble that Ancar warrior's friends. Perhaps they'll be encouraged to leave us alone."

From the wagon bed behind them came a quiet sigh. Doshi glanced that way, thinking it was Zeren. Instead he saw Ziya peering at him, face revealing nothing, as always.

Beside him, Sulun huddled over the reins and wept quietly, tears merging with the steady rain on his face.

Doshi sighed and unrolled the map once more. "The nearest sulfur mines, if we keep our present course, should be near the old villa of Ashkell. That's on the northern slope of the Torrhyn hills, near a tributary of the southeast fork of the Gol. Nothing's been heard of it since the old war, more than fifty years ago. The gods know what it's like now, but there was once a prosperous mining town there."

The rain continued on, all that day and into the next.

 

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