The Paladin Part 33

"Weapons," Shoka said. "Nature and number. What do you have?"

"Bows," Kegi said. "Spears. -They took most of our horses, m'lord Saukendar. The mercenaries were down here four days ago, they marched away every man between sixteen and forty, except those I could plead were my guard and my servants; even boys out of the fields, and they-"

"There's a long ride between us and Lungan," Shoka said quietly. "And one can cross the Paigji virtually anywhere. But the bridge at Lungan-"

There was profound silence at the fireside, quiet enough that the snap and spit of the fire wore at the nerves. Kegi was sweating. He had that much sense.

"I couldn't prevent them," Kegi said. "I sent a message-to Hois.h.i.+ and to Feiyan-"

"It didn't catch up with us," Reidi said.

Moving too d.a.m.n fast. The statement hung there, for anyone to understand. Ghita knows. He's moving to strip us of support. Does he know yet how close we are?

And how few we are?

"The Hisei and the Chaighin," Shoka said. "The two dragons about the walls of Cheng'di, my lords. A barrier and a trap. If they bar that bridge, as well they can, then we're put to swimming the Hisei-or ferrying an army across, an army we haven'tgot , my lords, so we can't rely on it."

He could see Taizu's hands, that worried a twig to death, white-knuckled. He imagined the thundercloud look on her face, imagined the biting of the lip.

d.a.m.n right, girl. d.a.m.n right we're in a mess. And this-scholar-attacks the guard at the ford, to help us on our way- "Keep your guard, m'lord. I'd rather a change of horses."

"M'lord?"

"Jiro's a conspicuous color. He stops here. I can use about ten men, bay horses, mismatched armor, nothing conspicuously good."

"Nine," Taizu said under her breath.

A sensible man would have his wifecarried down to Choedri. But small luck for Choedri, he thought, holding onto her.

"Nine men," he said, and looked at Reidi and at Kegi. "I'll want my horse back. I value him. The mare too. Bring them to Lungan."

"Nine men-" Reidi possibly understood what was toward. Perhaps even Kegi did.

"And I want a bird, m'lord Kegi. One of the Emperor's birds ..."

The dovecote, the aviary, the gawky young Emperor tending his birds every morning . . . personally.

"M'lord?"

"Haveyou one of the Emperor's birds, lord Kegi?"

"Yes, my lord," Kegi said.

"And a writing-kit?"

That, of course Kegi had. The Necessity of Records. Bogi'in had devoted an entire section of his book to that matter.

Shoka rubbed Jiro's bowed nose and got a b.u.t.t in the ribs for his sentiment; but it was hard to walk away, imagining-he told himself he was a fool-that the horse knew desertion when he saw it, that the old lad could smell it in the air, hear it in his voice.

He moved fast when he took up a remount's reins and stepped up into the saddle-last of all their small company. He bade a quick good luck to the men he was leaving and put himself out in front of his company, in the dark of the woods and the night.

Fool, he told himself a second time, because he felt himself that much further from things he knew, too far away now to get back again-too lost to think of home, too much changed, except that rider that came up beside him- Fool for taking her along in a business like this, fool not to send her back, lie to her, give her some charge that would keep her busy long enough-but of the ten he had, she was the one he wanted by him, she was the one who would never cross his moves, never misstep, never leave anything to chance- So they were mercenaries, that was all, dirty and haggard and riding away from the disaster to the south. And it was not the Choedri ford of the Paigji they headed for, it was the one east of there, off the road-no road for wagons or traders, but the sandy Paigji had such places up and down its course, it always had had, and the whole border between Taiyi and Tengu was a sieve as pa.s.sable for Ghita's men to launch an attack south as for them to slip north.

If Ghita did attack-there was no holding Choedri. But what Ghita would come seeking would not be there.

Reidi understood. He had made Reidi understand. Seven days, he had said.

He hoped Reidi understood.

"Ghita?" was all Taizu had asked, before he had explained a thing, by which he knew she guessed what he was doing.

"No basket," he had said. "Mercenaries. We need the horses."

Taizu had nodded soberly and said: "No ribbons either."

And, "No ribbons," he had agreed, amused despite himself.

Listening to which conversation, any third person had to know they were both crazed.

Sword, bow, and the plain, desperate look of-hired soldiers, Taizu's hair flying loose around her ears, a barbaric topknot tied atop, amulets about her neck, her face smudged with dirt and a mercenary's grimy sheepskin coat over her armor-part of the spoil of the lot at the ferry: no casual glance would find a woman under that mop, or expect more than a wiry, smallish youth in the company of men as disreputable.

The nine were a handful of lord Reidi's men, reliable and steady; and one Jian from Choedri, that Kegi had sent-He knows the roads, Kegi had said.

And thank the G.o.ds Jian, who had a girl the other side of the Paigji, knew the back trails and found them the shallows he had promised them, a solid bottom, an easy belly-deep wade for the horses at the worst, hock-deep in most of it, and a peaceful climb up a game-trail into Tengu province.

Not riding straight north, toward Lungan, in the line of march they had established, but to the ferry in Anogi, two days' ride down the Hisei.

"I'd ask," Shoka said to Taizu finally, when the morning was breaking, and they were well across the Paigji, "knowing you wouldn't go back to Choedri-there's a straight ride on west-"

"No," she said. He sighed. "Unless you do," she said after a while.

"No," he said, from the gut, and thought about it. Again. But there was no way out except a coward's way, for both of them-unacceptable. And he knew that. "h.e.l.l of a mess, wife."

"No worse than Hoisan," she said. His student. The girl with the basket, who had known traps before he taught her, a woman born to times when pig-girls learned ambushes and the bow. Hesaw what had become of Chiyaden: he imagined what growing up for a peasant girl might have been, in these years. "You were fighting in Hua," he said, "-how long ago?"

"At least six years," she said after a moment. "Seven, I guess. Everyone hid out, every time the soldiers came over our border. There's a lot of hills in Hua. -Till the soldiers got to burning us out. Then lord Kaijeng-my brothers were with him, mostly-said fight any way we could. And my brothers when they were home, they taught us. When the castle fell, when lord Kaijeng died, my brothers came home then.

But there wasn't much anyone could do then. n.o.body was in charge. The soldiers ran right over us."

"They had to," Shoka said, thinking of how Hua sat, a hilly place apt for rebels, touching Angen's borders. "If they couldn't put you under, they couldn't hold Yijang or Sengu, Mendang or even Taiyi, and without Taiyi, no hope for Hois.h.i.+-everything's connected, all the way up to Yiungei, one great loop they couldn't hold, if little Hua embarra.s.sed them. You were d.a.m.ned important."

This, for the girl who had never studied maps.

She might be thinking it through. Or she might be thinking about her home. Finally she said: "Gitu'snot that important. What they were afraid of then, the reason they had to run us over-they've got to be afraid now, don't they, unless they can catch us? If they go attack the lords and their people back south-we're not there. But they'll know where we were. And not where we'll be. They'll try to killyou .

They haven't won if they don't. So we lead them all over."

"d.a.m.ned smart. d.a.m.ned b.l.o.o.d.y. That's the trouble with young thinkers."

She looked at him. He could tell that much, with the sheen of starlight on her head, on her shoulders. She had not asked a question, had not challenged him once-in front of witnesses. By now she was likely choking on questions.

"How do we do it, then?"

"We embarra.s.s Ghita," he said. "We make him retreat, we make him a fool. It's a d.a.m.n dangerous game. Does it scare you?"

"Peopleknow you," she hissed. "They're talking, master Shoka, don't think they're not. Everywhere people have gotten to, everywhere those birds get to. Ghita's not sleeping tonight. Neither is Gitu-or the Emperor. We'll keep them awake at night, the way you said. And eventually they'll do something stupid.

And people will stop being afraid of them."

"I'll tell you," he said, "there are too many of us to strike deep and too few of us to strike wide, that's what we're doing out here. They're too d.a.m.n slow to organize and G.o.ds know-"G.o.ds know what any of these men are worth in the field. But he did not say that, considering their companions on this trail.

"Ghita's been ready for this for years. Maybe too ready. Maybe he'll jump too soon. Maybe he'll follow us, who knows? Or maybe he'll be smarter than that and do something we haven't figured. That's always the trouble with planning things."

Taizu was looking at him again, shadow-shape thinking thoughts he could not read.

She was not the crazy one. Perhaps she had only seemed to be, all along, and her craziness was simply a sane girl's dealing with a man who had gone a little mad in his solitude, or who had always been a little mad, serving one Emperor and the other. It had felt that way to him-that their whole course had felt increasingly wrong, and that Taizu had the same opinion, that she had been biting her tongue and watching,waiting for him to produce a miracle or come to his senses, and she had not really knownwhich.

I've taught her-to be clever. I've chided her about foolishness and fools and taught her how to win a lop-sided fight. She was seeing it, dammit, while I let Reidi and Kegi plan my course, Kegi-of course the fool; but Reidi- Reidi so d.a.m.ned competent, so much more plausible, with things done and the course laid- But the flaws were in the very start of it, flaws in intelligence, flaws in a.s.suming too much help from frightened people- This isn't a time for Kegi's sort. Virtue's a d.a.m.n poor subst.i.tute for battalions- "Who knows?" he said. "The pigeon may get through."

Don't trust Ghita, he had written to the Emperor. Run for your life.

And signed it without flourish or t.i.tles: Saukendar.

Chapter Eighteen.

Shoka applied the point of the dagger to the back of his hand, then quickly, as blood spurted, applied the result to the bandages that crossed Taizu's cheek and jaw.

"Ugh," she said as the blood soaked through. The eyes made a grimace. The mouth was hidden. And the bandages took on a convincingly gruesome blood-soaking.

"You got an arrow through the face," he said, "knocked out a couple of teeth, messed up your mouth, you can't talk, just grunt. We'll soak that bandage once a day. It'll look fine after a couple more." He wrapped a cloth around his own left hand and let one of Reidi's men tie it. A stain spread through that too.

The men Reidi had lent were a lord's retainers, stiff-backed and proper-in a gentleman's presence. He explained things in terms of slovenly discipline and debauchery, he taught themyes andno in the border patois, and the men he had picked were southern in the first place, with the country Hois.h.i.+ dialect, which was as far toward the outside westward as Taizu's was east and, at its thickest, obscure to another Chiya, let alone a foreigner-Speak country, he had told them,thick as you can. The Fittha will think you're Oghin and the Oghin will blame you on the Fittha - -The last in a pa.s.sably outlandish northwestern brogue, that got a look from Taizu.Keep them confused.

There were valuable things they had come by-among the spoils of the mercenaries at Ygotai and northward. One was an ivory plaque, a courier chit. From Aghi's company, it said.

And there were names. Taizu knew-They raided us often enough, she had said. We got to know who was who with Gitu's lot. I can't say who's alive now and who isn't, but they're real names.

Taizu sat now on a rock with a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage covering half her face, drinking a little tea, which stainedthe bandage, so much the better.

"Here," she said, through the bandages, offering him the cup, and he took it, grateful for the warmth after the bleeding. His hand was shaking. He should, he thought, have used one of the horses. But they needed their strength:he was sitting, at least for the next day or so; and a human hand was easiest to get the blood where it was needed, soaking already-wrapped bandages in a credible pattern. A ghastly wound.

Well enough to account for silence from the wild-looking youth in the sheepskin-and to cover a very smooth chin.

Full daylight and no sign yet of anyone on the back-roads. A little stop for hot tea and last night's cold rice, and to horse again. The men looked sober by sunlight, haggard, unshaven, possibly now realizing that they had ridden off to a different kind of danger than that their fellows faced who had stayed with Reidi and Kegi in the south, the kind that required less immediate courage, but steadier nerves in a crisis.

Possibly, Shoka thought, the men were amazed that Taizu sat there to be made up in b.l.o.o.d.y bandages, instead of shape-s.h.i.+fting herself; but no one asked-which just meant, he reckoned, that they made up their own reasons, which he had rather not ask, or even imagine.

d.a.m.n, the capacity of people to believe when they had to-when otherwise they had to know it was just themselves and no one G.o.d-blessed or special who had to ride into Anogi and romance their way past the Regent's hire-ons.

He hadrather have had a demon or two, himself, given a choice.

But for a second choice, in a crisis where wit counted, he had as soon have Taizu.

It was a tired handful of mercenaries who rode down among the scatter of brown board buildings and fisher-shacks below Anogi southtown-that was what Shoka hoped the town saw, eleven men in motley armor plastered with yellow dust, and horses whose color had started bay and gone to ghost-yellow like their riders; one rider with a bandaged face, the cloth crusted with dirt and old blood and new, and that rider slumping wearily in the saddle among the rest, some of whom had lesser wounds. Not a prosperous group-and all the attention the town of Anogi paid to them as they rode was a surly glance and, continually down the street, the quiet latching of shutters and doors.

Click. Thump.

Through the town and down among the mercenaries on guard by the river-a slovenly camp, gear scattered around an evening-fire of boards, outside the ferryman's hut- "It's h.e.l.l back there," Shoka said, squatting there with a bored mercenary squad leader while his men waited on the ferry to come, doing a little trading for rice and a little dried fish-"Listen, don't be robbing us. That's a lousy piece." He indicated the thin one, and the man threw a broken bit of fish onto the dirty sacking, looked up at him with a that's-the-limit kind of scowl. "I'll tell you," Shoka said conversationally, "I'm from Bagoi, myself, and I'd just as soon be back there. Nothing but d.a.m.n lies.They won't fight , the captain says. h.e.l.l. They cut us up. They fair cut us up down south."

"Where are they setting up?"

"No d.a.m.n place, no d.a.m.n place, that's what's going on down there! Whole place is coming loose around the edges. I don't like it. Me and mine, we'dlike to cut out down by Mandi, get the h.e.l.l out ofhere, but we ain't got paid, that's what, and it's going to be a h.e.l.l of a long winter-"

"This Saukendar-this warlord that's supposed to've come in. You seen anything of that?"

"I dunno. I dunno what went through us. We ain't seen nothing except where we was supposed to find ours, there was theirs, and all I know, the captain's dead, there ain't no pay and I said to mine, We're going north, that's what-north, over-river, go up, get clear and get somewheres we get paid, d.a.m.n right-Get enough money ahead we can get back home if this goes bad-"

"You think it's going that way?"

"h.e.l.l, I dunno, I dunno." He saw with relief the ferry pulling in toward sh.o.r.e. He folded up the sacking sc.r.a.p around the fish, stuffed it in his bag and got up. "I tell you this-it ain't a bad thing to know where the road out is right now. We ain't spending from now on. That's how I think it is."

The mercenary gave him a worried look.

"They're headed up straight north," Shoka said. "Lungan, that's what I think; that's where they're coming across, coming right for the capital, and then watch the whole d.a.m.n place come apart. I'd rather face regular soldiers than any d.a.m.n farmers picking at you from hedges, I'll tell you that. But it ain't like you'll see any action here . . . not much chance. ..."

As the ferry pulled in.

Eleven riders and horses: there might have been townsmen and farmers with notions of using the ferry this morning, but no one came up to share the s.p.a.ce. The horses went anxiously down the small board pier to the loading area, had to be tightly held when they felt the heave of the water (Jiro would have walked on in grand disdain, even after all these years) and one thanked the G.o.ds there were three stout-railed stalls on the deck, or one of the horses at least would have drowned itself, most likely the black-stockinged bay with the scarred chest. (Good riddance, Shoka thought of that horse, considering matters all along the trail. But it settled, with its head firmly lashed to the high rail.) The real town of Anogi inched closer as the ferrymen plied the big oars-a free-moving ferry, this, the Hisei being too big and too trafficked to be crossed with ropes-a kind of barge that described a crescent-shaped course from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, a compromise with the current, while larger and smaller craft bound downriver went straight courses past, fis.h.i.+ng boats and cargo boats and such. Business had not stopped at least: there was that much normalcy about the river, as if there were nothing at all going on to the south-but then, people who lived by trade, had to trade, and soldiers ate rice and used cloth and iron. And fishermen had to fish: the world might be askew and disaster threatening, but those boats had to go out so long as the weather permitted.

"You shouldn't talk to them," Taizu muttered, as they held close to the stall rails, keeping the horses calm while the ferry pitched in the wake of a pa.s.sing barge. "You took a chance. You always said, don't take-"

"I bargained us another half a fish," Shoka said. "I thought that was d.a.m.ned sharp of me."

"Don't joke! There's too many of them!"

"We're fine. Don't look worried." "Don't look worried! What else-"