The Three Lands Omnibus Part 36

Faintly above us, I could hear once more the eerie howl of the jackal as it closed in on its spoils. Angry at myself now for my impetuosity, I thrust the dagger forward once more and said, "Here. Clean it before the blood dries on the blade."

John searched my face with his eyes before saying, "You didn't finish the vow. You have to offer your sacrifice."

"Oh, that," I said carelessly. "I don't know what sort of sacrifice the G.o.d would like me to make, so I'll let the G.o.d choose whatever he wants. I'll give him anything I have."

John said quietly, "You ought not to make that sort of offer unless you mean it."

"I'm not afraid," I said with a laugh. I barely heard what I was saying; I was simply trying to hide my continued annoyance with myself at forcing my peacemaking friend to swear a murder vow. "I know that the G.o.d won't take anything from me that I truly need, and you may be sure I'll make good use of whatever he leaves me." I tossed the dagger into John's hands and then, since there was little room to move in the small pa.s.sage, I twirled in one place like a bird caught within the vortex of a death wind.

When I finally stopped, clutching the wall to steady my dizzy body, I saw that John was smiling as he wiped the blade clean on his tunic. He said, "Let's go see the Jackal now."

"You mean it?" I bounced toward him in delight.

John nodded. "Not to offer him our service a just to tell him about our vows and how we made them because you saw him. He'll be pleased to hear that."

I did not wait for John to have doubts again but began to race down the dark pa.s.sage toward the cave. I knew the pa.s.sage so well that I could do this without fear of running into any obstacles. I had nearly reached the boy-sized opening that led to the final, shadowy stretch of the pa.s.sage when John grabbed hold of me from behind and whispered, "Quietly! You can't burst into the G.o.d's presence like that. Pretend that you're a bottom-ranked soldier meeting your commander."

This image sobered me, so I followed John's lead as he wriggled through the hole and began walking quietly toward the golden light. Already I could hear the sound of men's voices. Before we had stepped out of the masking darkness, I stopped to stare at what lay ahead.

The glowing stone always filled the main cavern with dim light, but now the cavern was daylight-bright because a large bonfire had been built in the center of the area before us. The smoke, tickling our noses with the scent of pine needles, rose into the high ceiling, leaving the cave floor free of the dark mist.

There would hardly have been room for the smoke in any case, so close-jammed were the men. Dozens of them stood near us, all dressed in soldiers' armor and all going about their business with an efficient intensity. Their hurried yet steady movements reminded me of the visits I had made as a small child to where my father worked. There at the Koretian army headquarters I had watched soldiers burnis.h.i.+ng their s.h.i.+elds, whetting their blades, and securing their spearheads. Here too I could see all these activities, but with one difference. As I felt John draw close to me, I realized that he too had noted the difference: these men had skin the color of sandstone.

We had found the Emorian army.

CHAPTER TWO.

It was not the entire army, of course. Most of the Emorian soldiers must still be fighting in the north, fooling our subcommander into thinking that the Koretian capital remained safe from attack. What we were seeing, at a guess, was the Chara's vanguard, the section of the army that attacks first and swiftest. Only the vanguard could make its way down Daxis quickly enough to arrive at the Daxion side of the mountain without forewarning.

Even then, if the troops attempted to circle Capital Mountain by going around its sides, the Koretian divisions left guarding the city would receive advance notice, and the Emorians would lose their element of surprise. Instead, the Emorians a having persuaded the Daxions to break their alliance with Koretia, having prepared to sneak through the back door of Koretia a had added to their cleverness by plotting to pour down the mountain by way of the cave. The head of the vanguard was already stationed here, awaiting the right moment.

All of this came to me later. At the time, I underwent only shock at the Emorians' knavish scheme and a it cannot be denied a keen pleasure at having found out their secret. I looked around at the soldiers. The rank insignia they used was familiar to me, for the colors of the cloaks and tunic borders were a universal sign within the armies of the Three Lands of the Great Peninsula. But instead of the Jackal-black uniforms that Koretian soldiers wore, these soldiers were dressed in brown, as though they were peasants or priests. It seemed an odd color for the rich land north of us to choose for its army.

I thought I glimpsed a couple of men uniformed in grey, chatting with ease with one of the Emorian lieutenants. I stared hard at the Daxion border guards, wondering what had happened to the Koretian border guards. Had the Daxion guards let arrow-armed men through to kill the Koretian border guards? Or had the Emorian army taken care of this task? Or perhaps the Daxion guards, pretending to meet with the Koretians over some routine border matter, had turned with treachery upon the other guards and had slaughtered them in a moment meant for peace.

All of these images sent a chill of thrill through me. I looked over at John, eager to exchange a grin with him, or, if this were too much to ask, at least a rea.s.suring look. But John's eyes were still on the men before us. I followed the direction of his gaze to a single, tall soldier.

Amidst the brown tunics and black leather armor of the soldiers, this man would have stood out, if only for his peac.o.c.k-proud display of colors. He wore a flame-red tunic beneath his armor, and the sword by his side glinted silver and gold. Most of the soldiers around us had reddened faces, wet with sweat a I supposed that these northerners were too frail to stand a Koretian midsummer. Despite this, the tall man was wearing a thick cloak that fell from his shoulders like a smooth fall of water and was woven in the highly impractical color of gold. There did not appear to be a single spot of dirt on the cloak, and I concluded from this, with not a little contempt, that the man's finery was not usually put to the test on the field. Like the other soldiers, however, he was wearing a thick helmet, pushed up slightly. The cheek-guards hiding the sides of his amber beard caused his eyes to stand out like bright blue sapphires upon his pale face. Above those eyes, attached to the helmet and glimmering gold, were the ruby-studded points of a diadem.

I only became aware that my breath had travelled swiftly inward when I noticed John looking my way. His eyes were sober, but he still made no gesture indicating that he wished to retreat. It was unlikely, in any case, that anyone would look our way, for the Emorians were busy with other matters: the lieutenants of each unit were issuing orders to their men, the subcaptains were checking that each unit was ready, and the captains were gathered in a cl.u.s.ter around their commander. He scarcely moved from where he stood, but at each sweeping movement of his arm, one of the captains would turn without a word and leave the gathering. Moments later the captain would give word to his subcaptains, the subcaptains would spread the word to their lieutenants, and within a short time, several dozen men would move a all of this the result of one man's single movement. Watching the commander, I could not help but feel that the energy of the entire vanguard was contained in each carefully controlled gesture.

"We ought to go," John whispered in my ear. "They may see us at any moment."

I frowned at him and shook my head. To my relief he did not press the issue, perhaps because he feared that the soldiers would hear him speaking. I waited until John's gaze was firmly fixed on the scene before us again, and then I let my thoughts wander to the commander. One man, directing all the destructive force around us. One man, deciding the fate of Koretia. If that one man were gone ...

I am not sure that I thought through what I was doing. I certainly did not think as far as realizing what danger I was placing John in by my actions. I simply pulled out my slingshot, armed it with a stone, and stepped out of John's line of vision so that he would not see what I was doing. Then I lined up my shot.

It was hard to get a clear line; I did not want to chance having my shot land on the head of one of the captains. There, right on the forehead, was where I wanted the stone to land a right below the commander's royal helm... .

The crowd around the commander s.h.i.+fted slightly. There was a clear s.p.a.ce now between him and me. I pulled the sling back ... and at that moment the crowd s.h.i.+fted again, and I saw the boy.

He was facing in our direction, his head turning this way and that as he stared at the soldiers around him. He was about a year older than John, and he was wearing a shapeless brown tunic similar to John's. He wore no armor, which made him look defenseless in this setting. His hair, lit by the nearby fire, was as golden as the sun, and his eyes, which I could just see, were grey like brook-pebbles. He stared around with distinct eagerness; then he turned toward the commander and tugged at his cloak.

The commander was in mid-sentence of issuing an order. He looked down instantly as the boy said something. The boy's words did not carry as far as my ears, but he was pointing toward the Koretian entrance to the cave, and it was obvious that he was asking permission to explore further. The commander answered with a decisive shake of his head, and then turned back to his captains. The boy let go of the commander's cloak, his expression falling into disappointment, but he made no effort to argue the matter. Instead, he began walking around to each unit, ignored by the men who were feverishly preparing for battle. He stared up at the soldiers with hungry eyes, and once, when no one was looking his way, he went over and touched the commander's sword sheath lightly with his hand, as though placing his palm on a sacred object.

The hand holding my slingshot had fallen to my side; I had forgotten everything now except the yearning boy. I jumped as I felt a touch on my arm. John whispered, "Let's go now while n.o.body's looking this way."

I nodded without removing my gaze from the commander's boy. "You go first," I whispered back, and then was barely aware of the sound of John retreating back through the pa.s.sage. The boy was coming closer. At any moment he would turn, and I would be able to see him more clearly... .

He turned, and our eyes met.

I felt a roaring in my ears, as though a great wind had suddenly rushed into the cave, obscuring the sounds of the army before me. I could no longer see the soldiers. All that I could see were the grey eyes, staring at me with astonishment and something more that I could not identify.

Part of me knew that I should run, but some other voice seemed to whisper in my ear, "Stay." So I stood where I was, motionless and mute, and the boy stared back at me, his eyes wide, his lips parted slightly. Then he opened his mouth.

I never learned what he was going to say. At that moment I heard a shout, and my thoughts were jerked back into awareness of the scene around me. I looked beyond the boy and saw that the commander had evidently been alerted by his son's gaze. He had seen me and was shouting orders to his captains. The boy swung his head around in response to the shouting, and as he did so, I turned, squeezed my way through the hole, and fled up the pa.s.sage.

I was less afraid than I might have expected to be. I knew that the soldiers could not enter the pa.s.sage, and I was sure that I would be able to escape from the cave before they arrived at the entrance. My mind was focussed on the sound of my footsteps pounding soft against the rock floor and the echo of their sound beating against the walls.

I reached the pa.s.sage entrance, scrambled through the other hole, and stood listening. Faintly I could hear the sound of men shouting through the main tunnel, but more clearly than that I could still hear, in the narrow pa.s.sage from which I had just emerged, the sound that I had taken to be an echo: the soft rhythmic pounding of a boy running. I waited.

A hand pulling at my arm jerked me out of my silent contemplation of the sound. "They're coming!" said John in soft desperation, and at his anxious look I remembered whom I was supposed to be protecting. Grabbing his hand, I fled a short distance. Then, envisioning the easy target that John and I would make for the soldiers' spears if we tried to flee now, I thrust us under the p.r.i.c.kly-leaved cover of a wild-berry bush and pulled us both to the ground.

Silence followed. John had buried his head in his arms, but I lifted mine and peered through the thin s.h.i.+elding of needle-pointed leaves to look at the cave entrance. There, standing within the sheltering arms of the entrance rocks, was the boy. I could barely see his head, swivelling back and forth to take in his surroundings. He took a hesitant step forward, then stopped and looked back. The shouting had stopped, but the sound of thundering footsteps was clear amidst the drowsy hum of the late-afternoon cicadas. The boy turned abruptly, took another long, anxious look at the unknown surroundings before him, and stepped out of the shelter of the rocks.

At that moment, three things happened simultaneously. I half-rose from my hiding place; the commander suddenly emerged from the main tunnel and s.n.a.t.c.hed the boy back; and a dagger, soaring swift and clean as a swallow, travelled over John's buried head and shot up to the cave entrance, landing where the boy had been the moment before.

I caught a glimpse of John as he suddenly raised his face, his eyes staring blindly at something other than the scene before us. Then I fell once more to the ground and tried to flatten myself like a blood-worm against the piercing leaves that were our bed. All about us I could hear the thunder of men's feet and the sound of softened commands; evidently the commander did not want to alert any more Koretians to his army's presence, even at this moment. Then, after a while, there was silence again.

I looked up and saw that the cave mouth was once more empty. Beside me, John was beginning to sidle out from cover.

"Wait!" I hissed, grabbing his wrist. "We don't know whether they've gone uphill or down."

"What do we do, then?" John whispered back. "We can't stay here."

I pulled the front half of my body up like a baby trying to rise to its feet, frantically listened for the sound of returning soldiers, then grabbed hold of John and said, "This way!"

John, ever trusting, followed me as I ran straight back toward the cave. A second's glance showed me that the entrance was empty. I dived my way through the rocks and began running toward what now seemed appropriately named our sanctuary.

I placed my arm around John when we reached there, squeezing him tight to rea.s.sure him, but quickly let my arm fall as he winced. "You're all covered in scratches," I said accusingly.

John put his hand up to his mouth to smother a half-sob, half-laugh. "Well, look at you."

I stared down at my green tunic, which was now torn and covered with purple wild-berry juice. One thin red gash made its way down my arm from elbow to wrist, just missing the line of my blood vow. I began to s.h.i.+ver, and to cover this fact, I said, "We'll be safe here. They'll never guess that we've returned to where we fled from a and they can't get in here anyway."

I left unvoiced my thought that one Emorian could come here. I doubted that the commander would let the boy out of his sight again after what had happened at the cave entrance.

John had his arms folded tight against his chest, but he said nothing. He was staring at the dark pa.s.sage we had just left behind, and I realized that his thoughts were not on the Emorians. I asked in a hushed voice, "Was it the Jackal?"

I had no doubt that John would know the answer. He stared for a moment longer, and then said in a low voice, "I think so. I felt something even before I saw the dagger. He was- I can't describe it. But I'm sure it was him."

"But he missed!" I said. "G.o.ds don't miss when they try to kill, do they? Or perhaps it's like Lovell said, that the Jackal can't always use his G.o.dly powers."

"Maybe," said John slowly. "Or maybe he wasn't really trying to kill the Chara's son. Maybe he was just trying to frighten him."

"But why would he-?"

I closed my mouth. Faintly through the pa.s.sage, toward the cave entrance, we could hear the sound of men once more. John stiffened and raised his jaw, but he did not move. His left hand was still hanging loosely by his side, not touching the dagger.

I whispered, "You had better let me take the dagger. That way, the soldiers won't kill you, because you'll be unarmed."

"Death isn't what I fear."

John had a way of speaking, softly and simply, words that were most chilling. I stared at him, and then looked back down the pa.s.sage toward where the sounds were continuing. I said finally, "Would we have to wear masks, do you think?"

John shook his head. "Lovell told me that slaves in Emor don't wear masks a no one performs the death rite on them, and they're treated just like any living person. They can speak to other people, and people can speak to them. I suppose," he added in a tone oddly reflective for such a tense moment, "that if I had to be a slave, I'd rather live in Emor than in Koretia."

"I wouldn't," I said flatly. "Imagine being away from your homeland, living amongst those G.o.dless men! I'd rather be one of the Living Dead than serve our enemy."

"But you could still find a way to serve the G.o.ds even if you were living in-" John stopped. He had heard, as I did, the growing silence at the cave entrance. Impetuously, I began to tiptoe forward, not looking to see whether John was following. I reached the hole and peered through it to the shadow-mottled entrance.

A unit of soldiers was just pa.s.sing into the main tunnel. The only men who still stood in the entrance were the Chara Nicholas and a subcaptain. The latter was pointing with his finger toward the mountain slope and shaking his head. It was clear that he was reporting he had failed in his mission. The Chara had an expression on his face that appeared to be carved out of the stones around us; it made me more nervous than I had been all that day. He whirled suddenly, his cloak billowing forth like a sun-gilded cloud.

As he did so, I saw that standing behind him was the boy, his bowed face even whiter than before. The Chara placed his hand firmly on the boy's shoulder. Without looking up, the Chara's son allowed himself to be driven back into the cave.

I hesitated, looking over my shoulder at the pa.s.sage that would take us back to the cave, but I could feel John standing warm against me. So I whispered, "Now!" and began to scramble out of the hole.

John caught hold of me, pulling me back. "Uphill or down?" he asked.

Uphill meant that we would head for the priests' house. "Down," I said firmly. "We have to let our army know about the Emorians."

"But they won't believe us," said John, his voice low. "They'll think we're just telling boys' tales."

I leaned against the pa.s.sage stone, which was beginning to turn cool with the arrival of evening. "They'll believe my mother a the soldiers know her. We'll tell her first, and she can come with us to the headquarters."

John was silent a while, and I began to wonder whether he was afraid of coming near soldiers again, even those on our own side. Finally he said softly, "I have to go tell the priests about the Jackal. They'll want to know that he's here."

I swallowed my disappointment and said, "We each have our separate duties a it often happens that way in the army. I tell you what I'll do: I'll go down and warn the soldiers, and then I'll come back here and fetch you before the fighting begins. Then we can watch the fighting together." I grinned at the knowledge that I would finally have the chance to witness a battle.

John did not reply with a smile. Instead he placed his palm upon my forehead and whispered briefly. My body tingled as I realized that he was placing me under the protection of the G.o.ds, in the same manner that priests bless soldiers before battle. Then, as though anything he could have said after that was superfluous, he slid past me and wriggled through the hole, leaving me to make my way down to the city alone.

It was fire weather. The air was flat and motionless, and there was little chance that any city fire would spread to the countryside. Even so, I took a moment when I arrived at the city wall to stare at the shallow moat surrounding it. It was tinged brown with silt and was lower than usual, as there had been little rain since early spring, but it was still wide enough to form a rea.s.suring barrier. I stepped into the water and waded through to the wall. Ordinarily, I would have stripped myself first, but my clothes were in such a ragged state now that mud could not hurt them. When I reached the wall, I crawled into my secret tunnel.

John and I had discovered this tunnel under the wall during the previous winter. It had not been there in past years when I explored the dry ditch that hugged the inside of the city wall. When I consulted him, John suggested that it might have been dug by the Jackal. I thought it was more likely a smuggler's route, aimed at avoiding the taxes on importation of goods from Daxis to the capital city. But we never met whoever had dug it, and as far as we could tell, no other boys had discovered it, for it was well hidden by a tree within the dry ditch.

Most likely the tunnel was of no interest to any boys other than ourselves. The main roads from the city departed from the east and west gates, and this tunnel only led south to the trackless mountainside. But it served as a great boon to me, for it saved me from having to walk down the winding road from the priests' house to the main road, and then travel from there to the west gate.

Now I scrambled out of the inner ditch, checking first, in proper soldier fas.h.i.+on, that no one would notice my unorthodox entrance into the city. As I emerged, I saw that further impediments lay on my journey. It was twilight, and the stall-keepers were beginning to close the market that spread from the open square before me to the northern side of Council Hill. Wooden boxes were being loaded onto carts, streams of men and women were entering a new tavern just opened on the square, and soldiers released from their day duties poured out of the army headquarters nearby. If I tried to take the straight route home, this crowd might delay me for ages.

Instead, I chose a road I almost never followed, partly because my father had long ago forbidden me from doing so. The other reason was because, on one of the few occasions on which I had disobeyed his order, I had run straight into a group of council lords. They had laughed and let me go my way, but I had learned my lesson.

It was a road that skirted the army headquarters, ran up the side of Council Hill, and pa.s.sed straight through the hilltop courtyard between the magnificent Council Hall and the shabby wooden slave-quarters opposite. From there, the road led down almost directly to my own house, which was at the foot of the wooded hill-slope.

Judging that my father would have understood the necessity of haste on this day, I ran up the tree-arched road, my mind less on the news of danger I was carrying than on the grey-eyed boy whom I had seen. I wondered whether his father would allow him to witness the battle or whether, having disobeyed his father's order to stay in the cave, he would be punished by being left behind. To my mind, there was no greater punishment that any boy could endure than to miss seeing a battle.

My thoughts were so far from the present that I barely noticed when I ran under the low, unguarded arch leading to the council courtyard. I only became aware of where I was when I ran into a man.

Speaking swiftly in order to get my apology out before the n.o.bleman before me grew angry, I said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Then I stopped. I had tilted my head back and could now see what I was speaking to.

He was holding me back from him a an automatic reaction, I imagine, since I had run straight into him. Now his grey-gloved hands fell to his sides, and he looked mutely down at me. He was dressed from toe to neck in funeral ash-grey, and this color was matched by that of the iron death-mask that he wore, like all corpses. I caught a glimpse of his eyes, staring at me with surprise, before I realized what I was doing and looked quickly away.

My heart beat hard. No one, I was sure, would report a young boy for talking to a slave, even if I had been overheard in this empty courtyard. But would the G.o.ds curse me for what I had done? I wondered how they would judge me for talking to a man who was G.o.d-cursed a a man who, though his body had mercifully been spared death, was now treated as though he were a living corpse, exiled from all human contact.

I could no longer see the slave's eyes, but as I moved past him a it, I corrected myself a I saw its shoulders slump and its spine bow forward. I had a sudden, terrible vision of what it must be like to live one's life under the complete mercy of others.

Since I could not know how the G.o.ds would judge my actions, I thought instead of John, for I was sure he knew what the G.o.ds wanted better than any of the priests. And I instantly knew that John would never silently pa.s.s by anyone who was suffering, G.o.d-cursed or not.

I turned back and said in a low voice, "I'm sorry."

The slave had been on the point of entering its quarters; now it looked back at me. Its expression was hidden under the mask, of course, and I could not tell what it was thinking. Unwilling to look at its eyes directly, and unable to voice the thoughts that were truly in my mind, I said softly, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to knock into you like that."

For a moment, the slave was still. Then its back straightened as though it had just been given a healing drink. With slow dignity, the slave bowed its head in acknowledgment of my forbidden words.

I waited for nothing more. Already warm with embarra.s.sment and fear at what I had done, I turned and fled the courtyard. I did not stop running until I reached my house.

I paused at the open threshold, both to recover my breath and to steady my thoughts. My mother could not afford to light fires in the warm summer evenings, and so the room was dim with dusk-light. But I could hear the clatter of the loom, and between the rhythmic pa.s.sing of the shuttle I could see my mother sitting, using the last fragments of daylight to finish her work.

She had already reached her twenty-fifth year. This was due to the fact that she had married late, provoking good-hearted jokes from my father about how he preferred mature women to youthful ones. I could detect a trace of silver in her earth-brown hair that made me wonder what it was like to grow old. For a moment I was glad that my coming of age would not take place for another eight years. Then my mother looked up and saw me, and her smile was so full of beauty and affection that I forgot all about pitying her.

The smile did not last long. In the next moment she had leapt up from her stool and was hurrying over to look at me.

"By the G.o.ds of day and night!" she exclaimed. "What have you been doing with yourself? Just look at those scratches, all covered with mud! Come over here and wash yourself- No, wait, drink this first."

I automatically took and drank from the small skin of wine that she pulled out of a chest and thrust into my hands. I was thinking that any other parent would have immediately scolded me for ruining my only tunic, but my mother, as usual, thought first of my welfare.

"G.o.d of Mercy, Andrew," she said with a laugh that indicated she had already forgiven me. "How do you expect to live long enough to become a soldier if you keep tumbling down the mountainside? You ought to let John plan your expeditions. He has sense enough to keep the two of you from trouble if you'd only let him have his way now and then."

I submitted to her vigorous scrubbing with a wet cloth only because I did not wish to fall into an argument about irrelevancies. "Mother, I saw the Chara! He's here with his army!"

My mother, who had been trying without much success to remove dirt from my long hair, stilled her cloth. "What do you mean? The Emorians are up north."

I explained, at first quickly; then, once I saw that I had a rapt audience, with as much detail as I could muster. Only two facts did I omit. One was the Jackal's strange a.s.sa.s.sination attempt, if that was what it had been. The other a for reasons I did not try to a.n.a.lyze a was my sighting of the Chara's son.

Not far into the story, my mother went over to the door and shut it, and then shuttered the windows so that we stood in near darkness. By the end of my narrative, I felt dizzy from the telling and went to sit on my floor-mattress, which was tucked into the corner of the single-chambered house. The pallet was big enough for two, and I had often wished that I had a brother or sister with whom to share it. Now it served as a place for my mother to join me as I finished my tale.

She interrupted me as I began to tell her about talking to the slave a I had long since forgotten about omitting irrelevancies, and in any case, I was hoping for her rea.s.surance that I had done the right thing. My mother, though, had her mind on other matters.