Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (19 page)

From Landon’s words on the hillside, he expected the
buildings on this side to be as cramped, if not more so.  Instead, his initial
impression was of greater space.  Every inch of the inner city was paved with
the flat, irregular sized stones.  The buildings, though serving the same
functions, also appeared to have been built with increased care.  Stonework
graced the construction with greater frequency, from a simple set of steps to
solid walls.

When he asked Hilliard about the crowding that had
forced the newcomers outside, the young noble pointed to the ground when the
crowd parted long enough to see.  Set into the ground along with the pavers,
iron plaques marked exact boundary lines on every property.

“There is no unused land,” he explained.  “The
difference is that when these buildings were constructed, the architectural
preferences of the time did not construct to the very edges of the property,
unlike today.  You will see most of these buildings occupy the center of their
lots, leaving space surrounding on the sides.  See there?”

He pointed out one building that had constructed a low
stone wall two feet high between its property plaques.  Foot tall, decorative
wrought-iron fencing similar to Duke Tilus’ topped the stone, different in that
it lacked the lethal spikes.

His eyes open, he saw that many owners had chosen
different approaches to their extra space.  Very few extended their structures
to the edges.

Halsey turned between two of these buildings to take a
road that almost could be called an alleyway.  “Hey, wait a moment!” Marik
cried, holding out an arm to stop Hilliard.

Their guide stopped.  “Yes, master?  Is there a
problem?”

Marik glanced sharply around in a search for would-be
cutthroats.  “Where are you taking us?”

“Straight to the Swan’s Down, as I promised!  This is
one of me shortcuts.”  He read Marik’s expression.  “Take a look around,
master.  There’s plenty of people walking about.  I won’t lead ye’ down any
dark alleys.  Not Halsey!”

There
were
several pedestrians traveling the
smaller roadway, Marik admitted.  Still, he kept his hand on his sword as he
acquiesced, following their guide.

Every few steps, Halsey would stop and turn with a
grin, demonstrating how safe the road was.  The passage emptied onto a new
road, one less wide and less crowded than Capitol Highway.  Marik lightened his
grip.  Halsey continued on the way to Swan’s Down.

Dietrik came abreast, asking, “Still jumpy, mate?”

“I want to reach the inn.  If Locke follows his
pattern, they’ll be expecting us and we’ll have no worries.”

“Then the innkeeper won’t believe our kind guide when
he explains he diverted several guests to his hearth.”

“Who cares?  That’s his problem.”

Halsey entered a second alleyway.  Marik paused,
although for only half as long.  Once satisfied by the presence of other honest
travelers, he followed their guide.

Dietrik brought up a separate issue.  “I was
thinking.  Did you bring your spare coin with you?”

“I left a portion in the lock drawer, but yeah, I have
most of it.”

“As long as we’re in Thoenar, why should Kerwin be the
only one to profit from the trip?”

“What do you have in mind.”

“Nothing, as of yet.  But we can look around the glass
shops.  Perhaps we’ll find a decent mirror.”

“Tollaf can buy his own replacement,” Marik replied
sourly.

“I meant for
you
.  It might be handy to have
one of your own around.”

“Maybe.  But if I’m going to break another one, I’d as
soon it was the old man’s.”

Dietrik continued talking.  Halsey led them down
numerous alleys while the daylight faded.  Marik, discussing the many ways in
which coin could be spent in pursuit of comfort, did not notice until, after
answering a question from Dietrik, he glanced up and saw no one around them. 
Including Halsey.

“Where’s—”

“Look out!” Kerwin screamed as men swarmed from the
shadows.

Tranquility reigned where Colbey emerged from a small
wood.  He searched for enemies anyway.  A doe stepped lightly through foot-tall
grasses at the mountain’s base.  Several birds sang the songs of late
afternoon.  They would have remained silent if predators or people were
present.  The scout waited for three minutes until satisfied no one lurked
nearby.

He had expected it would be so.  Despite the attempted
border control along the Tullainian line, the Galemaran soldiers had not seen
fit to post sentries this far south.  The narrow path had once been an ancient
road.  Now it was nearly nonexistent in places.  It could be followed across
the southern Stoneseams mountains with a bit of athletic daring.  Also, to the
outlanders, it was undiscovered, though it had been ancient when their
grandsires were swaddling babes.

It lay several candlemarks outside the Rovasii.  The
Guardians knew of it from previous generations.  Both kingdoms, populated by
idiots, had yet to notice the potential security breach over the centuries.

The outlanders’ foolishness served him well.  He
returned to the fallen tree within the woods where his escapees sheltered. 
Colbey deliberately snapped a twig beneath his boot when he drew close.

Around jerked the father’s head, his face sallow and
flesh taut from the long run, asking the question with his eyes.  He tightened
his arms around his daughter, still uneasy around Colbey despite their journey
together.

“Is all clear,” Colbey told him.  “You will cross.”

“You’re certain?” the man asked in Traders Tongue,
speaking slowly this time from nervous hope rather than for Colbey’s benefit. 
“There are no guards?”

Colbey shook his head.  “Is all clear,” he repeated in
pidgin Traders.  Had he not said that in the first place?  No, he felt certain
his words had been correct.

The woman, who had proven stronger than her husband,
rose.  She held her baby son to her chest as if she would never let go.  “Come,
Dammed.  Let us leave this accursed land behind.”

She strode in the direction Colbey indicated.  The man
rose.  Tears leaked from his eyes at her words.  Colbey escorted the four to
the clearing and the birdsong halted instantly when the family broke into the
open.  He pointed.

“For you, two days east.  Then north.  Then you find
road.  Road goes to Nolier.”

The man nodded, started to speak, struggled for
words.  His wife continued walking.  At last he nodded and bowed before
hurrying after her.  In his arms his daughter began her soft crying again,
hungry with no food to satisfy her.  They would need to ration what little food
remained to them until they could pawn the few valuables they retained.

Their helplessness disgusted Colbey.  Food surrounded
them but they refused what he had collected for reasons of utter foolishness. 
A bizarre notion that their bodies were different was one, or perhaps that his
was more rugged, and thus they could not handle the perfectly edible sustenance
the land offered.  Their religion demanded other asinine practices, which
proclaimed specific foods ‘unclean’.  To starve to death within mere feet of
nourishment!  Only outlanders could be so astoundingly absurd.

Colbey paused long enough to strip a handful of acorns
from a white oak’s branches.  He shucked the nuts while he walked, eating three
straight away.  The rest he dropped into a belt pouch he kept ready for such. 
Since he could spare no time to properly cook them, and thus leech out their
mild toxins, he would only eat a few at a time to prevent food poisoning. 
Delays must be avoided at all costs.

Though it had taken him four days to cross the
Southern Stoneseams with the fugitive family, he could return in
one-and-a-half.  He might be able to do it in one, though that meant taking
risks.  A broken ankle would do more than slow him.  It would damn him.

He set into his run.  His thoughts returned, as they
did every day, to his dream, and what it might mean.  Relentlessly the same
questions echoed through his head.  Had it simply been a nighttime brush with
his subconscious…or something else?  Again he questioned himself.  Again he
found no definite answers.  If his people’s souls were indeed restless in their
unavenged state, then his mission was crucial, with far higher stakes than his
desire to kill those genocidal murderers.

If not…

Then nothing changes.  For whatever the reason, I will
see this to the end.

Colbey nodded firmly at the thought before trying the
sentiment a second time, attempting it in Traders.  Perhaps he succeeded in the
translation, but he could no longer ask the father to correct him.  Except he
would never have asked the man in any case.  Not with this phrase.

Hopefully they would make it to a town and rebuild
their lives.  The couple he cared little about.  It was their children who
deserved the chance.  Though the odds were against them, the children were
still fresh slates and might escape becoming as foolish as most outlanders.

Small hope there.  Yet the daughter might overcome the
trials.  Her eyes were open to the harsh world while still young enough to
learn from it, and old enough to remember.  This would form the foundation upon
which the rest of her
ritsu’do
would be built.

As for her parents’ journey though life, well… 
Colbey supposed they were far from the worst in the lot, possessing guts and
willpower where the rest of their town wept in darkened corners, but his
charity toward them remained slight.  They had cost him nearly two eightdays
with their cowardice.

After two days in Jabberzian, studying how the
Tullainians walked, ran, ate, slept, talked, sat and worked, he had judged
himself ready to imitate them.  He had also listened closely to everyone around
him, eliminating any accent in the Tullainian he’d learned during scout
training.  Despite being across the mountains, the scouts occasionally ran into
Tullainians roaming the Rovasii.  They drove off all outlanders equally, yet
inevitably the rare direct confrontation occurred wherein the language came in
handy.

During the contract in Tullainia his first year with
the Crimson Kings he had never bothered to exert effort on such matters as
accents.  His hunt had consumed him.  He’d focused his energy on finding the
first footprints that would lead to his quarry.  Now he wished he had exercised
proper diligence.  Time worked against him, as he’d always feared it would.

One more loss due to insufficient information!

Upon his departure from Faylin-dow’s city, Jabberzian,
he’d struck out to the west, angling south.  He had wanted to break through the
line,  learn what he could, then approach Kallied from the south.

The stream of running peasants thinned the closer he
drew, until it halted altogether.  Information on the enemy was scarce since
the creatures held every town they had attacked.  If the residents failed to
escape during the initial assault, they never would.  Every person who came
close to the overtaken areas either ran at the distant sight of the monsters or
disappeared.  Exactly what became of the Tullainians in the occupied towns was
the subject of many fearful debates over tankards in dark taverns.

Colbey had called on the skill garnered from both his
scout training and the advanced Guardian lessons when he entered the areas of
no return.  It took every shred of his ability to escape the patrols he soon
encountered.

He quickly learned why no one had succeeded in coming
back when they came to see what lurked here.  Between each red cross on his
map, each mark representing known assaults, patrols were run by the enemy.  And
not merely one every few candlemarks.  From well-concealed placement downwind,
he counted six go past in one mark.

A fire sparked in his spine when he studied the first
patrol.  The villagers, with the exception of Thomas and the other two
Guardians, had been terrified to even describe the beasts after the raid.  He
had envisioned the demons every day since while searching under every stone. 
Three years it had taken, but he’d finally rooted them out.

The first patrol contained nine of the beasts last
seen in the Rovasii.  Thomas had overlooked no detail in spite of the chaos,
and his only chance to study them had been in the midst of unexpected combat. 
Their bodies were mostly humanoid if one disregarded the head.  Two arms,
ending in clawed hands, two massive feet, with equally clawed toes, and a broad
torso, three feet wide in most cases.

Every aspect of the creatures was larger than a normal
man.  They stood eight feet, their long, powerfully muscled arms ending in
hands that could easily enclose his head.  Short hair, mostly of brown or
black, covered every inch of skin, making the beasts look furry.  Clad only in
loincloths, dirty or ragged for the most part, nothing obstructed his study. 
Their entire body appeared deliberately designed for raw power.  Which might
very well be the case, Colbey knew.

Their heads were monstrous.  They were an unnatural
blending of horse and bull.  While the heads were mostly bull-like, the muzzle
had elongated, bearing closer resemblance to a horse’s.  When one opened its
jaws to snap at a second wandering closer than it liked, Colbey could see
dozens of long fangs lining its mouth, meant for ripping and consuming flesh in
the manner of a wolf.

Thomas had insisted these beasts did not come from
within the Rovasii’s inner reaches, despite such a creature being more at home
there than here in the outlands.  They snarled and contended for dominance
while they walked.  Clearly they were pack or herd beasts.  Colbey wanted to
slash them all to ribbons until they were reduced to bloody chunks in the dirt.

No!,
a voice
within his mind screamed. 
This is not the time, nor is it the place!  You
have important duties!  You must study the enemy, you must learn all there is
to know.  Only then can you strike most effectively!
  It spoke with Thomas’
voice, and Farr’s, and his other instructors.

Yet with his targets in sight after so long, remaining
motionless had not been easy.  He continued his study through gritted teeth.

Accompanying the bull-creatures were men, obviously
army, though their uniforms were a mystery.  Neither Galemaran, Tullainian nor
Nolier, their style bore no resemblance to what he knew of Perrisan.  A
northern kingdom then?  Or a militia out of Vyajion’s city states?  He required
further information.

Wherever they hailed from, they would be no problem. 
Observing a few steps revealed all he needed to know.  Whatever military they
belonged to took no greater care in training their soldiers than the other
southern kingdoms.  In the face of such powerful carnivores, Colbey wondered
how mankind, as a species, had survived so long.

Two women and one man were in white robes.  Hoods
attached to the robes fell unused across their backs.  That attracted Colbey’s
attention though he could not pinpoint why.  Trained about such matters, he
stored the fact away to let his subconscious play with it.

They walked in the center of the soldiers and yet the
white-robed three were clearly apart from them.  Colbey detected the subtle
clues.  Soldiers were soldiers; friends, shieldmates and comfortable with one
another.  Though none spoke, their marching postures revealed the ties of
friendship between certain individuals.  At the same time, none drew quite so
close to the three robes in their center as with their own.

Meaning the robes are the heart of the patrol force. 
And the soldiers serve the function of protecting them.  And the creatures?

Colbey reviewed Thomas’ account from that long ago
survivor’s meeting.  There had been magic users present, contributing to the
overall destruction, but fewer spells exploding as should have been accounted
for, given the number of supposed mages.

When the patrol passed he noticed the three
white-robes ignored their surroundings, unlike the soldiers casting their
fierce gazes everywhere.  Instead they focused on the nine bull-creatures
before them. 
Ah.  They control those beasts after a fashion.  That might
prove useful.

He held to his position until he felt he understood
their routine five patrols later.  Each passed at regular intervals.

Always the same,
he thought, stepping from his cover after the sixth patrol. 
Military
minds think alike the world over.  It must never have occurred to them to vary
their patrols in order to prevent intruders from stepping through their line. 
It is time to move deeper.  Fortune favors the bold, after all.

Comfortable in his superiority, Colbey passed between
two patrols and moved into enemy territory.  Ten minutes later, while silently
moving along a rocky ravine, he suddenly found cause to wonder who might be the
smarter after all.

From the patrol line, what must be the combined roar
of several bull-creatures shattered the silence.  Colbey froze in mid-step.  He
focused his senses to quickly determine his situation.  One patrol, stomping,
clumping and continuing its roars, approached from the east.

Those long muzzles!  Those wide nostrils!  They must
be able to track by scent!  Fool!