Act of Will (8 page)

“It does not involve the Empire at all and will take us far out of Empire territory to the east of Stavis. More than that I cannot say.”

East of Stavis? What was east of Stavis? I sipped my beer and then tried one more question. “This party leader of yours—”

“Forget it,” said Garnet with a malevolent scowl. I looked to Mithos but he merely smiled softly, so I shrugged it off and finished my drink.

“Can you ride?” asked Orgos.

“Ride? Ride what?” I said.

“A horse?” suggested Garnet with lazy condescension.

“No,” I replied.

“Great,” he breathed heavily. “Mithos, Hawthorne can’t ride.”

“Then he can ride on the wagon with me,” said Orgos with a smile at me and a fixed look at Garnet. We all rose to leave.

“Good,” said Mithos. “Be careful how you swing that crossbow about, Will. We restrung it with gut last week. It’s more powerful than you might think.”

“Really?” I said, cocking it and studying the thing with apparent carelessness, allowing it to point squarely at Garnet’s chest.

I didn’t hear Mithos draw but I felt the edge of his broadsword against my throat.

“Humor has its place, Master Hawthorne,” he whispered into my ear, “but I think you should tread a little lighter until you know the ground is firm.”

I got the message and lowered the bow. Mithos sheathed his sword in a single deft motion and stood silently. I smiled as if nothing had happened, which, I suppose, it hadn’t. But if I thought I would get out of it with what little dignity I had still intact, I was wrong. I didn’t know how to uncock the bloody thing and as I wrestled with it I must have caught the trigger. . . .

The bolt slammed into the wall above the bar. The barman dropped a glass as he jumped back, ducked under the counter, and leapt up again, a crossbow of his own raised and aimed at my head.

“Sorry!” I called cheerfully as sweat broke out all over my body. “I’m really sorry about that. It just sort of . . .
went off
. I’m not very good with things like this and it just seemed to, well . . . you know, go off. And, er . . . sorry.”

There was a moment of stillness; then Mithos, hands above his head, approached the bar as the innkeeper stared murderously. I apologized again and made soothing noises as Mithos wrenched the bolt from the wall and the rattled barman slowly lowered his weapon, looking at each of us in turn. Mithos drew some coins from his purse and put them on the bar with some quiet, friendly words. When he rejoined us he presented me with the bolt and hissed, “Learn how to use that thing before you cock it again. Orgos!” he said with a hard look at the black man. “Teach him. And, Master Hawthorne: One step out of line, just one, and you fend for yourself or worse. We are making a long and difficult trip in which we cannot afford to carry imbeciles with more pride than common sense. Not one step, Master Hawthorne. Remember.”

As the boy showed us to our wagon and horses, Garnet pushed past me, shouldering me into the inn wall. He watched me regain my balance with absolute scorn, his right hand resting on the ax in his belt. I gave him a pointedly courteous bow and climbed up next to Orgos. We set off, heading east, without saying a word.

SCENE IX

The Road East

I
shouldn’t have had that last beer,” I said, holding my stomach as the wagon rocked me from side to side.

“Renthrette will feel vindicated,” Orgos laughed.

“No doubt.”

He laughed again and I groaned softly to myself. She was riding twenty yards ahead of us next to Mithos, who was astride a black mare and wearing ring mail with a light helm. Renthrette looked the part too, in heavy scale and a blue-grey helm of riveted plates, which hid her hair and face completely. Garnet was riding his dappled mare behind the wagon, ax at the ready. I suppose I should have felt secure, seeing as how they were all armed to the teeth, their eyes constantly flicking around them, but this show of strength merely served to remind me that we were outlaws in dangerous country. In Cresdon the Diamond Empire’s embrace was strangling, but at least it kept predators at bay. Out here we were deer in tiger country.

For the next week or so there would be few patrols, and the wolves and bandits of the Hrof country would know how to avoid them. Orgos told me that wolves never attacked people and that it was all some kind of myth. So that just left the bandits. I asked him if they were bedtime-story material as well. He didn’t answer.

I started to fiddle with the small crossbow nervously. Orgos noticed and, taking the reins in one hand, showed me how to load, aim, shoot, and uncock it. I drew the slide back a dozen times until it felt like I knew what I was doing.

“Good,” he said, never lifting his eyes from the road, “and that shouldn’t be the only lesson you learn today. Garnet is not always an easy man to deal with, and Mithos takes self-restraint very seriously.”

“I didn’t notice Garnet being all that restrained,” I said defensively.

“I think he suspected you were deliberately annoying him. And your sparring with his sister didn’t help.”

“His sister?!”

“Yes, didn’t you guess? They are virtually identical.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“In appearance, I mean, though they share a certain . . .
earnestness
.”

“There’s a euphemism if ever I heard one,” I said.

“They have had hard lives,” said Orgos, “and they take our profession very seriously.”

“Yeah? Well, my life has been no bed of roses either. What made theirs so difficult that the rest of us have to pay them back?”

He glanced at me quickly, irritated, then looked back to the road and said, “Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”

Great. There wasn’t a lot you could say to that.

Around us the ground looked paler, less fertile. Trees were becoming scattered and small, as if drained by the sun. It was getting hotter and the air was thick and heavy. Sweat broke out all over me but didn’t evaporate, leaving me sticky and uncomfortable. We swatted at sprightly little mosquitoes that whined around our ears, drank from our forearms, and then hopped into nothingness. Little swine. Soon I could see the pinpricked pimples they left in their wake, and my temper declined. I began to mutter curses under my breath, and twice Orgos turned to me as if he thought I was talking to him. In the end, to occupy my mind, I did.

“So how did you get into this game?” I asked him.

“Another grim story,” he replied, “to be saved for another day.”

He stared ahead in silence and I let it go.

Since Orgos was about as entertaining as a juggler with no arms, I watched the vegetation grow still sparser and the ground more arid as the miles passed. It was pretty gripping stuff. It was also hotter than a swamp rat’s armpit, which didn’t help. I remember disinterestedly watching a finch tugging seeds from a thistle as we rattled past. After that, nothing.

It shouldn’t be boring, being an adventurer. I knew because I was, you might say, a bit of an expert on heroic stories. My portrayal of the princess in
A King’s Vengeance
had played a couple of times a month for a year and a half. There was nothing in the story about sitting around on a wagon for hours at a time.

Orgos woke me three hours later. Thanks to the quality of the road, for which I suppose we must thank the bloody Diamond Empire, we had put over thirty miles between us and Cresdon. We had passed only a couple of caravans thus far, but Orgos had woken me for a reason. Behind us was a mounted Empire patrol, closing fast.

“Get in the back,” he said. “There’s bolt of silk you can hide under—”

“I’m not hiding,” I said.

Orgos gave me a look.

“If they stop us, they’ll search the wagon, find me, and then we’re done.”

“You have a better idea?”

“Other than them leaving us alone? Not yet,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

I looked back: a full platoon of Empire troops, numbering about twenty-five with an officer riding hard. They pulled ahead of us and waved us to a halt. Then they formed a single line, circled the wagon and our outriders, and stopped, spears leveled at us.

Hiding in the back suddenly seemed like a good idea.

“We are looking for one William Hawthorne,” barked the officer, “a notorious rebel. Dismount and stand clear of the wagon.”

We did so, and eight soldiers climbed cautiously down from their mounts and held us at the tips of their spears while four others searched us and removed our weapons. Orgos gave me a reproachful look. No one spoke and I felt a wave of nausea washing over me. The officer, a large, tanned man with the hardened features of a soldier whose authority comes from experience in the thick of things, spoke to a younger man in the uniform of the town guard. There was a long silence and they just looked at us while someone opened the tailgate. A moment later one of the soldiers emerged from the back of the wagon and said, “Captain.” He held a heavy scale tunic in one hand and a battle-ax in the other. “The vehicle is laden with weaponry, sir.”

The officer turned back to me, and a thick smile spread slowly across his scarred leathery face. The Cherrati-merchant story wasn’t going to cut it this time.

“Which one of you is Hawthorne?” said the officer, pleased with himself. “Or would you rather identify yourself on the rack in Cresdon?”

SCENE X

Improvisation

I
t’s a curious thing, the way language works. You tend to presume that you form an idea and then put it into words, but this is often not the case. Words seem to have a life of their own. They start, and your brain follows like a schoolboy, trying to keep up. This was what happened here. The plan was unformed, the ideas completely undeveloped, but when I opened my mouth, words came out.

“I suggest, Captain, that you get back on your horse and return to the garrison before you make the kind of mistake that could end your career.”

The officer looked momentarily knocked off balance, but then he smirked.

“Identification papers, if you please, sir,” he said.

“I think that if anyone should be producing paperwork,” I said, “it’s you.”

The smirk was still there, but his patience was thinning fast. “And why would that be, sir?” he said, leaning in so that he loomed more effectively.

“Because if I don’t see something with Harveth Liefson’s seal on it within the next couple of minutes, you are going to find yourself in very hot water.”

Liefson’s name hit him between the eyes like a half-brick.

“Commander Liefson?” he spluttered. “Why would I need Commander Liefson’s signature to take you in?”

He was trying to be defiant, but there was a slightly hunted look on his face.

“That’s something you’re going to have to ask him, aren’t you?” I said. “Or, I suppose,” I added thoughtfully, “you could take it up with Section Four.”

Another half-brick. The captain shrank a little and his voice went a little up in pitch and down in volume.

“Garrison intelligence?” he said. “They only handle internal operations.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation in private.”

There was a pause, and then a light seemed to go on inside the captain’s head and his mouth fell open. “But how do I know if you are really . . . ?”

I climbed down from the wagon and started walking away, and a moment later, he followed. When we reached the circle of soldiers, he gave a hurried nod and they parted for us. I kept walking away from the road till we were safely out of earshot.

“Now, just a moment,” said the captain, recovering a little of his former poise. “Where do you think you’re going? . . . ”

“You call him Commander Liefson,” I said, turning quickly and speaking urgently. “And he has a seat on the council, but you might also know that he’s really Central Intelligence’s witch-finder general: something the most well-informed rebels have never guessed.”

That wasn’t so much a half-brick as a ton of them. The captain took another step back and his mouth began to move as if he was searching for words that wouldn’t come.

The captain paused, knowing that this was true and that this was far from common knowledge.

“I am William Hawthorne,” I confessed. “I am also Major Johan Twiness, Section Four, Special Agent Eighty-three. You’re thinking I’m young to be a special agent, I’m sure. Recruited from Homewood Prep at age twelve. You know it?”

“Yes,” he said. “I didn’t attend, unfortunately, but yes, I know it.”

“Well,” I said, moving on, “I think my cover for this mission is now well and truly shot. And Liefson is going to hit the roof when he finds out that the regular infantry have sabotaged an internal espionage mission because they didn’t bother to consult with high command before turning the dogs loose.”

He blinked, and I took the moment to motion him closer with a nod of my head.

“You are Seventh Infantry, yes, Captain?” I said, my voice lowered conspiratorially.

“Yes, sir. Captain J. F. Danek. Served throughout the Bowescroft campaign. Decorated for bravery in the siege of Althwaite, now placed with the Cresdon B Garrison, sir.”

“Good man, Danek, outstanding,” I said. “So here’s the thing. I’ve been undercover for months. This morning some idiot corporal tried to take me in. Caused all kinds of trouble. I will have to lie low for a while so the rebels don’t get suspicious. Now, it seems to me that this situation can be saved if we move along swiftly, and you keep what you have learnt to yourself. Make your way slowly back to Cresdon and—this is most important—report none of this to your superiors, whom Section Four seem to consider unreliable.”

“Are you suggesting, sir, that my commanding officer may be a security leak?” said the soldier, unable to conceal the faintest hint of glee.

“Infantry man too, is he?” I asked.

“No, sir,” said the soldier. “Straight from Thornbridge Staff Officer Academy, sir. Barely twenty-four. No active service.”

“I see. You have my sympathy, Captain Danek. If I were you, I would lie low, say nothing, and watch your young commander like a hawk.”

“I will do that, sir. Your suggestion to return, sir, is that an order?”

“Would it make life easier for you if it were?”

“I have to submit the reports on my company’s actions,” he said, slightly embarrassed by his predicament.

“Very well, Captain Danek. You may consider my suggestion an order.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He thought for a moment and then stood to attention, adding in his best military bark, “I shall lead my company back to Cresdon and complete my orders, sir!”

“Good man,” I said. I received his salute with a superior nod and a smile of satisfaction and then marched back to the wagon, where the others were watching me silently, apprehensively.

I climbed back up onto the wagon, and the others, as if in a daze, just stared.

“What the devil did you say?” muttered Orgos.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, actually.”

“I used a little information that few people know,” I said, my eyes on the soldiers as they remounted their horses.

As the soldiers walked out of earshot Garnet glared at me and said, “And how did you find out so much about Empire operations?”

“Research,” I said. “I’m a writer.”

“Not good enough,” said Garnet. “I’ve never heard of this Commander Liefson. How would you know that he headed up Section Four unless—?”

“Because Harveth Liefson is a secret theatre fan and he goes to the Eagle in disguise every Saturday afternoon rain or shine,” I said. “He and I have shared many a pint together and he has, once or twice, confided rather more than he probably should.”

Orgos was the only one who seemed content. Mithos’s eyes were cold and hard with suspicion. I smiled encouragingly but he just stared at me.

The troops had turned their horses and, with a single gesture of his hand, their captain urged them back the way they had come at a slow trot. Mithos watched them go and then laid a strong hand on my wrist. His dark face and eyes only inches from mine, he whispered, “If you turn us in or lead us into a trap, Mr. Hawthorne, I swear I’ll run my sword through your heart before you can say my name.”

I just sat where I was beside Orgos thinking vengefully that I should have turned them all in when I had the chance. I wasn’t entirely sure why I hadn’t.

It was still light, but only just. We had seen nothing more of the Empire but couldn’t hope that my little ruse would hold them off for long. They might be back after us first thing in the morning, but I rather hoped old Harveth Liefson would cover for me for a few days. He had been quite a fan, and it really wasn’t in his interest to reveal how I had found out so much of his professional affairs. Liefson knew I was no rebel, and he was a decent sort of guy. No: there was no doubt that the Stavis garrisons would be on the lookout for us when we got there, but I doubted we’d have much trouble from the Empire on the road through the Hrof wastes.

We pulled off the road into a glade of cedars and pines, as close to lush as we’d seen in twenty miles. We jumped down from the wagon—or rather Orgos jumped and I sort of fell—and immediately they were busy. Mithos’s attitude to me had changed again. That scary, watchful suspicion had vanished, or slid under a log like a snake.

“Go and get some wood,” he said. “Nothing green and nothing too big. Just twigs and dead leaves for kindling. And don’t cut anything live. It kills the trees and it won’t burn.”

“I know that. I’m not completely stupid,” I told him. “I don’t know why you want a fire anyway. It’s roasting out here.”

“We need some hot water,” he answered tersely without looking up from the tent he was raising with Orgos. “Don’t you want to wash? Don’t you want a meal?” He paused to hammer a peg into the hard earth with a wooden mallet. “And don’t you want to keep the jackals and mountain lions at a safe distance?”

He added that last one just to wind me up, as Orgos’s grin confirmed. The other two reasons would have been just fine.

“Are there mountain lions around here?” I asked, trying to sound like I didn’t believe him and couldn’t care less either way.

“Some,” he said. “Though they tend to move closer to water. This heat can really make them irritable.”

“I’ve heard of massive mountain lions sighted round here,” Orgos added helpfully, “even in the summer. Real monsters. I heard of a guy who was camping out here and one came right into the tent and—”

“All right, I’ll get the wood,” I said, and left.

By the time I had got a good armful, dropped it off by the wagon, and gone back for another, the light was going fast. I was poking around for more sticks when I saw it, just out of the corner of my eye. It reared up and its head sort of hung there in the air, its hood flared. I’m no naturalist, but I know a cobra when I see one. They turn up from time to time in the city, but this was the first time I’d seen one up close outside a street show. It watched me, its tongue flicking slightly. I wanted to call out to the others but didn’t dare. Could snakes hear? I didn’t even know that. I turned my head to face it and felt like I was about to pass out.

“Don’t look at it.”

Garnet was behind me. I hadn’t heard him approach. “They spit venom into your eyes,” he said. “Look down and back off slowly.”

“They spit venom?” I muttered, fear making me stupid.

“Just back away,” hissed Garnet, rather like the snake.

I moved and the cobra reared another few inches and made a gasping, hostile sound like Mrs. Pugh on rent day. Garnet slipped between me and it with his ax in his hand. I edged back, then scrambled away and watched Garnet staring at it. It was a good ten feet away but looked big enough to strike most of that distance. Shielding his face, he too backed off, towards me. When he reached me and the snake lowered itself to earth I spluttered, “Why didn’t you kill it?”

“It wouldn’t have harmed you so long as you kept your distance.”

“And if it comes back?”

“We’ll be sleeping,” said Garnet. That was supposed to be reassuring. He added, “It can’t eat anything as big as us so it will only strike at us if we threaten it. How can we threaten it if we are asleep?”

Great. So we would be sharing our camp with all manner of reptiles, which was fine so long as we didn’t move and force them to kill us all.

“Snakes have worse social skills than you,” I remarked. “I can’t believe you didn’t swing for it while you had the chance. What do you carry that ax for if you never use the bloody thing?”

“Oh,” he replied menacingly, “I use it, all right.”