Diplomats and Fugitives (The Emperor's Edge Book 9) (30 page)

The three hunters were alternating between watching the conversation and looking up and down the river. They appeared less chagrined than Hykur about the badger attack—or the fact that a Kendorian was being tied up.

You’re here to spy?
Basilard asked.
And keep the Kendorians from calling more grimbals down this way? Who sent you?

“My father, Chief Relikor. He didn’t send us to spy, just to try and turn the animals back to nature’s path.” Hykur waved toward the north, the usual grounds of the big predators. “But there is no point in trying to find each individual predator, when it’s clear their minds have been tampered with by a human. It makes more sense to stop the human.” This time, he pointed downriver, toward the camp. Was the shaman Sicarius had sensed nearby the same one responsible for the wayward animals? “But I don’t know how to do that without… displeasing God.”

Even if God had nothing to say about it, Basilard doubted young Hykur would be a match for the shaman who had hurled him against a tree and flattened Ashara.

“We want to fight,” the youngest man said. He was more boy than man, perhaps thirteen or fourteen. “To drive these people out of our homeland. Do you see what they’re doing to the mountains? Every morning, there are explosions. They’re scaring away animals and defacing hunting and fishing lands, lands that are ours, not theirs.”

“They belong to God, not us,” Hykur said with a sigh. “That is what my father would say. That is what all of the elders are saying. If God wanted them to leave, he would send a flood to wash them away. It is not our place to attack them.”

Basilard thought of Sicarius and the flood Amaranthe wanted. Not exactly an act of God…

But you are here.
Basilard arched his eyebrows. Aware of Amaranthe and Maldynado walking over, he knew he should send the young men away or leave them where he had found them and continue with his mission, but this was his first opportunity to speak with some of his people, and he hated to rush it.

“We’re here,” Hykur agreed, his hooded eyes acknowledging that they probably should not be.

Where is everybody else? We’ve encountered abandoned villages.

“Probably still at the solstice meeting grounds. Everyone was gathering there. I think from there, my father and the other chiefs will recommend taking the clans north until the Kendorians are done and have stopped their tricks with the animals.”

“
Tricks
,” the talkative youth growled. “They’re using grimbals to kill our people. My brother—” His freckled face scrunched into a pained expression, and he looked away.

“I know.”

We’re going to try to get them to leave
, Basilard signed.

Hykur tilted his head. “How?” He glanced at the knife in Basilard’s hand, and his lips thinned.

The young priest did not want to lie down and accept whatever the Kendorians did, but he was not ready to pursue violent methods, either, at least not more violent than badger attacks.

Allies
, Basilard signed as Maldynado walked past, the tied and gagged Kendorian slung over his shoulder.

Whistling, Maldynado deposited his burden behind a bush, brushed off his hands, eyed a stack of rocks, then grinned. He started laying flat rocks on top of the Kendorian.

“What are you doing?” Amaranthe asked, coming up behind him.

“Entertaining myself.”

“Burying him alive?”

“Just a little. Giving him a few additional obstacles to overcome when he wakes up. We don’t want him charging into camp right behind us, after all.”

“Make sure he can breathe.”

“Naturally.”

The Mangdorians watched on, wearing bemused expressions.

“They’re Turgonian?” Hykur asked.

Basilard nodded.
I intend to tell the Kendorian leader that the Turgonians are preparing an army to send to deal with them.

“Are they?” Hykur’s eyebrows rose hopefully.

No. But the Kendorians are not the only ones who can use tricks to get what they want.

“The coyote shows us that trickery is a valid way of dealing with aggressors,” Hykur said.

That she does.

“Do you want us to do anything?” the freckled boy asked, his expression hopeful.

Basilard prayed he would not disappoint these young men. Or get them killed. It would be useful to have a telepath on his side, but he did not want to get them involved in case nothing came of this plan. Or in case the Kendorians simply decided to shoot his team.

I suggest you stay out of the way for now
, Basilard signed.
We’re going in to talk to the leader
. He paused
. Do you know anything about the leader? Anything that could help us?

“It’s a woman, an army officer. She looks ruthless. I’ve seen her order her people flogged as punishment. The Kendorians are in a hurry, it seems like. They want their mines established and a fort built, so she’s not patient. I don’t know why the hurry.” Hykur’s expression turned bitter. “It’s not like our people are going to do anything.”

“
I’m
going to do something,” the youth muttered.

Hykur gripped his shoulder. “Do not allow your need to avenge your brother drive you to your own end.”

The youth glared sullenly at the ground and did not respond.

Let us try our trickery first,
Basilard signed, the message as much for the young man as the rest of them. That one might act rashly and make trouble. Even if Basilard did not have much hope for his crazy plan playing out as he hoped, he did not need anyone riling up the Kendorians ahead of time.
Do you have any intelligence about the shaman?

“Just that he’s powerful. I think he knows we’re out here somewhere. I don’t think he’s worried about us.” Hykur’s mouth twisted in distaste. “Also, the army leader doesn’t try to order
him
around.”

Basilard wondered whether this Major Diratha was truly in charge or if the shaman was the ultimate decision maker. He should have asked Ashara if she knew anything about him, but he hadn’t wanted to test her allegiance too much. Mostly, he hadn’t wanted to learn for certain that she would choose the Kendorians over him. Somehow
suspecting
that she would was not as bad as knowing it. Her actions and opinions shouldn’t matter to him, but he wanted her as a friend rather than an enemy, whether it made sense in this situation or not.

“We might want to get going,” Amaranthe murmured. “It would be better to arrive and make our claims before this fellow wakes up and comes charging into camp after us.”

Maldynado stepped back, admiring the rock cairn he had stacked atop and around the man. “We’ll just tell the truth if he charges in while we’re chatting. That a badger attacked him.”

“Are we also going say that the badger was the one who stacked rocks on top of him?”

“Sure. Aren’t badgers nature’s engineers?”

“You’re thinking of beavers,” Amaranthe said.

“Really? What do badgers do?”

“I think they’re just tough and surly.”

“Like Sicarius?”

Hykur couldn’t have understood much of the conversation, but perhaps he was monitoring their thoughts, because he seemed to grasp what they were talking about. “We can confuse him when he wakes up,” he said, eyeing the cairn, “without showing him that we’re here. It’s our fault he was attacked, so perhaps we can make him believe that God—or his gods—was trying to tell him something.” He waved at the rocks.

Basilard nodded.
Good, but please do it from an elevated position.
He pointed toward narrow ledges that ran along the canyon walls in places.
The weather up north looks iffy. You never know when floods will come.

At first, Hykur shook his head, appearing confused as he gazed toward the clear northern sky, but then he squinted thoughtfully. “I see.”

Be careful
, Basilard signed, then waved in parting. He wondered if he should have told the young men to go home, to do as their parents would have wished. With so few allies here, he was reluctant to send any away.

“Did you learn anything about the leader?” Amaranthe asked as they headed downriver again. “This army major?”

Yes. She sounds challenging.

“Challenging?” Maldynado asked. “As in, she might want to arm wrestle with me before believing in my Turgonian supremacy? Or as in, she won’t believe anything Amaranthe says no matter how charming she is?”

You
may have to be the charming one.
Basilard had seen Amaranthe talk a few women over to her side, but her smile definitely worked better on men.

“I’m not sure if that negates the need to arm wrestle or not,” Maldynado said.

Nor am I.

• • • • •

The Mangdorians were talking a lot and rapidly. Arguing.

Wind scoured the top of the mountains, tugging at Ashara’s hair, and she was very aware of the cliff dropping away to her right. She stayed toward the left side of the trail, walking around boulders and loose rock with Mahliki picking a similarly careful route behind her. Two Mangdorians walked ahead of them, glancing over the edge often. The rest of the group was responsible for most of the arguing.

“I understand a little of what they’re saying,” Ashara said over her shoulder, raising her voice to be heard above the wind. “More than I thought I would. More words are similar than I thought.”

“I don’t suppose they’re talking about how nice it will be to lead us to their chiefs for a chat?” Mahliki said.

“They don’t want us to see their sacred meeting place. I’m not even sure we’re going the right way. They’re hoping we trip and fall. One of them is saying that they could help make that happen. You might want to show them that note.”

“Hm.” Mahliki stopped, resting her pack against a boulder. She lifted her hands and said, “Wait,” when one of the men moved forward, his spear ready to prod her again. “Let me tell you who sent us.” She signed in the hand code at the same time as she spoke. “Do you know Basilard? Your ambassador to Turgonia? Oh, what’s his real name?” she asked in a mutter. “Lalchek? Leyelchek?” She looked at the Mangdorians, her eyebrows rising in hope.

They frowned at her.

“Look, I’ll show you what we’re doing. We’re here to help.” She kept signing, but it did not seem to mean anything to the men.

“Try using terms that are related to hunting,” Ashara suggested. “They would more likely be original signs for them, ones they would all know.”

“It’s hard to talk about ambassadors and politics in hunting terms.” Mahliki slung her pack off her shoulders and untied the flap slowly, keeping an eye on the spear tips.

Ashara thought she would pull out the note. Instead, she withdrew some of her samples, the dishes full of fuzzy gray growth. Ashara groaned, doubting that would mean anything to the men. But Mahliki laid them out on the rocky trail, the wind gusting and whipping her braid around. Then she launched into an explanation about the trees, the blight, and that the Turgonians had sent them to help. She signed at the same time as she spoke, but the men did not appear enlightened.

Until one man’s eyes widened. He gripped his comrade’s arm, pointed at her, and spoke rapidly.

For a moment, Ashara allowed herself to hope that he had gotten the gist and that there would be no more talk of helping women over cliffs, but the knot of men grew more agitated. They were almost yelling as they pointed at her with their spears and then pointed over the edge.

“Uh,” Ashara said, “I think they believe you might be the
source
of the blight.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would I be telling them all about it, if I was?”

“I’m not sure we were rescued by the brightest flowers on the elderberry bush. The sourest berries, maybe.” Ashara rubbed her fingers together, tempted to grab an arrow, but that would be the final snowflake that broke the branch. Remembering the two men who had been leading, she looked at them, wondering if either might be more reasonable.

“Either of you know Basilard?” she asked. “Leyelchek?”

One of the men met her gaze. The other was watching Mahliki, his gray eyes narrowed. In speculation? Anger? Concentration? It was hard to tell. Angered locusts, maybe he thought she was pretty.

“She’s not married,” Ashara said, more out of desperation than anything else. “Maybe I can get her to come to dinner at your yurt.”

Gray Eyes snorted and looked at her.

With a start, Ashara realized he had understood. She had been speaking in Kendorian, less out of any thought that they might understand it and more because it was natural for her to default to that. Should she have tried that from the start?

“What are you doing here?” the man asked, speaking in her tongue. His words were heavily accented, but she understood them, and that was all that mattered.

“We’re working with the Mangdorian ambassador to Turgonia. Do you know him?”

“Mayarjek was killed almost two years ago,” Gray Eyes said coolly. “By the Turgonian army commander, Hollowcrest. Apparently, he dared suggest the Turgonians should offer fewer trade taxes, since our people patrol the highway that they use and keep it free of predators.” Some of his coolness faded, changing to a grimace as he added, “Usually.” He looked Ashara up and down. “I understand the Kendorian ambassador stood nearby and watched as Mayarjek was stabbed in the chest with a knife.”

Ashara swallowed. She had no knowledge of any of this and was surprised some random hunter would know the story. “That was a while ago. There’s a new ambassador now. And a new ruler over there. A new government. Haven’t you heard?”

“Mayarjek was my father.”

Oh. No wonder this man knew the history. “Does that preclude you knowing what’s going on over there now?” This probably wasn’t the time for sarcasm, but she wanted to get off this windy cliff and ensure Mahliki reached Basilard’s people unharmed. She’d said she would do that, and she would, but she was tired of dealing with obstacles. This wasn’t even her quest. “Basilard is the ambassador, and the new president sent us to help.”

“
Basilard
—Leyelchek—is not welcome here.”

Any triumph Ashara might have experienced at having his name recognized was squashed by the man’s words. Even though she had not known Basilard long, she felt stung on his behalf. “What do you mean? An ambassador is supposed to communicate with the nation he’s representing.”