The Paladin Part 28

We won't plan to stay there. Let them send after us. -I'll tell you: you're better than most. And you're getting smarter."

She said nothing. She only stared at the darkening water, dusky profile against that s.h.i.+mmer. He saw her look toward him, and expected her to say something-but her head lifted subtly, her shadowy face showing dismay at something behind him.

His muscles tensed. He did not turn at once, thinking someone might be there. He waited for her to cue him, and she said: "Master Shoka, the sky. ..."

He did turn. The sky beyond the willows, above the dikes, held a red taint like a beginning dawn. And the smoke had been there all along.

Fire. A huge one.

"That's toward Ygotai," he said, getting to his feet. The ache in his knee bothered him still, but it was inconsequence of a sudden, against the cold suspicion of disaster.

Taizu headed down the sh.o.r.e, around the willows, up the slope of the dike. He followed, slower, feelingthe climb in his knee, slipping on the gra.s.s, seeing the glow brighter and brighter until he reached the crest and saw the red with no bright rim of near fire.

Not toward Ygotai.At Ygotai. Not some burning straw-stack. Much, ominously much more than that.

"It's in the town," Taizu said.

"Come on," he said. "If we're going to get through, let's make a try at it."

She followed him down the slope and down beneath the willows where the horses waited. They led the horses up again, a slanting course up the tall face of the dike, and mounted up, feeing toward that glow.

Taizu did not speculate aloud. He did not. But he put them to a faster pace than he would have, thinking that if the fire was accidental, some cooking-pit blazing up to catch a house-it might still draw the soldiers the judge had talked about; and if they came there early enough in the commotion they might pa.s.s, two shadowy figures on horseback, along the fringes of calamity, to the bridge and across, while the town was still occupied.

It might be, aside from the calamity of the property-holder, a piece of luck too good to let pa.s.s.

But he feared otherwise. He feared shapeless things-like rumor and birds. . . .

The further they rode, the brighter the glow, the more pungent the smoke, until there appeared a seam of yellow fire along the horizon, and it was abundantly clear it was more than one house or one barn.

"It must be the whole town," Taizu said at that sight. "The wholetown's burning."

He thought of accident. He thought of their transit through the place.

And the bridge, which was one narrow bridge, and the way anyone who wanted to escape the province south would have to go-if they had no boat.

They might perhaps give up the horses, and hope to steal a boat at Ygotai's riverside. They might cross the Hoi, and be afoot in Hoisan with only their armor and their weapons. -Give up Jiro and the mare, in the hope that they could get away and escape the traps laid for two riders....

If it had to be, it had to be, dammit. The old lad would find his way, he hoped, to the judge's mares, and not to the hands of mercenaries. He was only a horse. Dammit.

"There's boats," Taizu said. There were, several of them, running dark on the water. Then more and more as they rode, until they reached level ground and trees came between them and the river.

People ahead, afoot, without armor, people with baskets and bundles, fleeing the nightmare of fire and stinging smoke. Shoka reined back, confronting that movement around a turning of the road, and the mare danced anxiously past and around again under Taizu's hand.

"It's townsfolk," Taizu said. "Running from the fires."

Worse and worse, Shoka thought. Much worse. The fires involved houses, barns. He had a surer and surer feeling of disaster. Thatd.a.m.n horse of Taizu's. It's our fault. It's our doing.

"Come on," he said, and rode forward, slowly. People scattered from them, through the trees, people shrieking and crying.

It's the soldiers, he heard.

It's the soldiers.

And when they had come closer to the town, they caught sight of riders pa.s.sing against the light of burning houses; and saw people lying dead, pale blotches on the firelight ground.It's the soldiers.

"d.a.m.n them," Taizu said, in a hoa.r.s.e, demon's voice."d.a.m.n them!"

He reined in, caught up the helm that had rattled useless by his knee till now, and put it on, making the ties carefully, precisely, while Taizu put on her own.

"The bridge," he reminded her harshly. He drew his sword, and sent Jiro ambling forward, the mare beside him.

The steel of Taizu's sword rasped out of its sheath.

That d.a.m.ned white-legged horse . . .

"Let'sgo , girl."

Faster now, running flat-out, the whole night narrowed to what came through the face of the helm: fire, clouds of smoke, the bright fire of a burning barn, the black shape of an abandoned cart-He whipped a glance rightward as they bore left down the street, and saw it clear from that direction.

"Master Shoka!"

Riders in the way ahead of them. He went clear and cold, measuring the strides, their horses' and Jiro's.

And hers."Haii!" he yelled, and gave Jiro a kick that the old lad was well-trained to. Jiro surged forward and Shoka laid about him with a vengeance, one, two, three men out of their saddles before one got past him.

Not far. He heard Taizu yell.

Four, five, before Taizu caught up with him and they broke through to the riverside road- There were no boats beside, except one burning, with the light flaring out on the waters: with the light showing the road ahead.

And a troop of foot guarding a barricade ahead.

He spun Jiro sharply to the right, hard about with a yell at Taizu: he had notseen the bows, but heknew -he swept Taizu up as she reined the mare around; and rode, down the rutted shanty street, past the burning wreckage of buildings.

Four riders ahead. He gave Jiro his heels again, and yelled at Taizu:"We're going through! Stay withme!"

He took two men out of the saddle and did not appreciably slow down. He wheeled about for a third and got him off Taizu's back. "Get the horses!" he yelled, and herded one riderless horse against the wall, but it and Jiro took exception to each other, a teeth-bared encounter that was going to cost dangerous time. He let it go."Never mind!" he yelled at Taizu."Get the h.e.l.l out of here!"

She had snagged a horse. She nearly came out of the saddle trying to hang onto it, the animal backing wildly. It slipped free.

"Never mind!" he yelled at her, and the mare bolted into a run as Jiro came past her.

"Where are we going?" Taizu yelled. "Where are we going?"

"h.e.l.l if I know!" he yelled back. "We can't make the bridge. Out of here!"

There were carts on the road ahead, in the dark. People left them and ran when they came by. There were soldiers plundering one.

"Stay back with that d.a.m.n horse," Shoka said to Taizu, and rode up on the soldiers alone.

"What are you doing?" he asked them.

And killed both of them.

When Taizu caught him up he was waiting quite calmly, quite numb, thinking over the archers on the bridge, the ruin of the town.

"We can go west," he said. "Down the Yan. Toward Dai, as far as Muigan, then cross south."

"All right," she said in a thread of a voice. And then, in a creaking squeak. "I'm sorry about the horse.

I'm sorry. I couldn't hang onto it."

"It's not your fault," he said, very quietly, very reasoned. "It's mine. The best thing we can do for these people is get out of Hois.h.i.+, as far as we can. As loudly as we can."

She said nothing for a moment. Her face showed between the steel cheekplates of the helm, the metal s.h.i.+ning with the distant glare of the fire.

No protests, no arguments. Just that grave, large-eyed stare. And a sniff and a discreet wipe at her nose.

"Probably it's a good thing you stay with that horse," he said. "Attract all the notice we can. We get out of this if we can. I'm not going back to Mon. We're not going anywhere but to the border, and over." He turned Jiro's head to the road, started them moving. "We save the horses for times we have to run. And we'll have to."

There were no more soldiers on the road, just peasants, farmers out of Ygotai and G.o.ds knew where-folk who abandoned their belongings as riders came by, threw them on the roadside or left handcarts standing and fled, dragging children or carrying them. In some cases they hid very near the road, old folk, perhaps, desperately afraid. But before long they pa.s.sed beyond all such refugees, onto a clear road, across a flat, wild land, They were on the Keido road, Shoka reckoned. There were hills westward, that would make pursuit harder and give them a chance-as long as they could keep the horses sound: that was his greatest concern, and for that reason he wanted to keep to the good road as long as they dared, as long as it tended generally toward the hills. They kept an easy pace, rested the horses when they tired, keeping, Shoka figured, only a minimal distance between themselves and the trouble flowing outward from Ygotai toward Keido.

"It's going to be hard tomorrow," he said when Taizu protested they were stopping too often. "Get your breath now." He sank down by her, Jiro's reins in hand, and found his own stomach empty and aching.

"We're doing all right. Don't worry."

She was scared, he thought, sitting by her in the dark. It took a great deal to frighten Taizu, but she was living a great deal with memories tonight. He longed for daylight, and dreaded it; and saw it coming in the dimming of the stars.

"Sleep," he said. "Can you?"

A sigh beside him in the dark. She leaned against him, a grating of armor-plates, hers and his, and she put her arm around him. In a little time she went limp that way, and he lay back on the embankment, in the gra.s.s, trying not to fall asleep himself, or lose track of the horses that grazed on their leads, the leads wrapped about his left hand. It would be so d.a.m.ned easy. And he was being a fool, he thought: the young could go so much longer.

But he knew how to sleep in the saddle. If she was rested she could shepherd him while he caught a nap. They could go off the road in the morning, cut across the rocky highland fields-leave tracks, G.o.ds knew, thanks to the recent rains, but hewanted to be tracked, if not closely; he trusted that the peasants who had hidden from them would describe them to anyone who asked.

And draw their pursuers away from Mon. G.o.ds hoped.

He moved finally, pushed at Taizu. "Sorry. We can't stay longer."

Dawn was coming-a gray definition of trees and rocks, a seam of red along the east that was not burning Ygotai.

Taizu moved, and looked around her. "How long?" she asked. "How long?"

"It's all right. We're still ahead."

He said.

But when he checked Jiro's girth and climbed into the saddle: "Oh, d.a.m.n."

"What?" Taizu asked.

"Riders," he said. There were, three of them visible on the crest of the hill ahead. Taizu climbed hastily upto the mare's back and had a look for herself.

"What do we do?"

He was not himself sure. He looked at the land ahead, the rough land to either side. He started Jiro moving, in that strange nowhere calm of hours like this before hostilities, two forces camped close to each other.

He wished Taizu were not with him. He wished- He was not sure.

More of them came over the rise.

Twenty, thirty now.

"G.o.ds," Taizu breathed. But he kept riding and she did, calmly, slowly.

The road out of Keido, he thought. Lord Reidi's home. A Hois.h.i.+ town burned at the hands of mercenaries and an army came down the road from Keido. Perfectly reasonable: the lord wanted to know the reason. But not reasonable that the town burned at all. It was a good part of lord Reidi's income.

"I don't know what we're into," he said. In the dim gray light he could see banners. The white showed most. If it were indeed lord Reidi's men, it would be a black lily on a white banner; and there was white enough.

"Taizu."

"I'm not going anywhere you don't!"

"Easy. Easy.Whose are the mercenaries back there? Who do you think?"

A pause. "I don't know." There was an edge of panic in Taizu's voice. "They could be from Keido. I don't know whose they are."

"Taiyi?"

"I don't know."

"The peasants are goingtoward Keido."

Taizu was silent a moment. "Likely they're going everywhere. But where they thought it was safe...."

"I want you to do something for me. Just stop on the road. Let's give them a parley signal-"

"No."

"Shut up and do what I tell you. One of us. One of them. If they do something else, I'll be coming back in a hurry. Just stop in the middle of the road and wait. Hear me?" "I don't like this. Let's get off the road. G.o.ds, there'smore of them. ..."

There were ranks behind the ones in the lead. It was a cavalry on the move.

"Stay here," he said, "Doit, girl. You might string your bow-in case. But don't be obvious."

She reined back. He tapped Jiro with his heel and Jiro took a breath and collected himself. He held that in, took his sword and laid it crosswise of the saddle.

Slow advance then. He reached a point outside bowcast from both sides and stopped, and waited.