Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) (19 page)

“Yes!” The girl nodded emphatically. Her pale hair, a bit shorter than most Suud women’s, bounced. “Adult. My name is Elid.”

“Elid,” Soraya repeated. She had no desire to rehash the conversation she’d had with Maok with every member of the tribe. “My name is Soraya. What makes this bao’ok different from any other hunt?” And why did passing it make boys so touchy?

“Most hunt, hunt animals,” said Elid. “Bao’ok, hunt adult.”

Soraya’s skin chilled. “You mean you have to kill someone?” Perhaps she should leave.

“No, no,” said Elid hastily. “Not
kill.
Hunt-track.”

It took a while, but Elid managed to make it clear that in bao’ok, a teenager would attempt to track several of the tribal elders, who did their best to elude him. When he, or she for that matter, succeeded, he was considered an adult. But this ritual was evidently more important for boys, since after bao’ok they would leave the tribe into which they’d been born and move into another tribal group, where they would ultimately take a wife.

“So the rude…” Maok had said his name. Abab? “So Abab is from another tribe?”

“All men start other tribe. But come here, make our tribe.”

“I see,” said Soraya, though she didn’t, entirely.

As they talked Elid showed Soraya around the camp, where the meal was being prepared apace. Watching the ugly woman who tended the spit, Soraya feared the end product wouldn’t match even Golnar’s efforts, much less that of her mother’s cooks. On the other hand, she really wanted to eat some jackal.

The pack, Elid told her, had already been thinned to the point that even a child could roam at will.

There were children everywhere. Some were helping—or, in a few cases, hindering—their elders, but most of them dashed about in childish games. Soraya saw some playing what looked like a hiding game and wondered if it was an early form of bao’ok, but she wasn’t interested enough to ask.

Elid showed her the inside of some of the round hutches. Small and very primitive compared to a deghan’s pavilion, but they seemed snug enough, with their blankets rolled up against the walls. Moonlight, glowing through the oiled-silk roofs, even shed some light inside them.

Preparations for the feast were crude, by Farsalan standards, but they were fast. Only a few marks after she’d reached their camp, the food was ready.

The Suud ate with their fingers, though they had daggers to cut their meat, like a civilized person would. And Maok presented Soraya with hot water to wash her hands and face before she ate.

The style of service was also strange. Each fire had a pot or a roast or a dish of flatbread beside it, and each tribesmember had a bowl. But instead of any order of courses, they just wandered from campfire to campfire, ladling what they wanted into their bowls.

Soraya, going from pot to pot under Elid’s gregarious tutelage, met most of the tribe, though she stopped remembering the names she repeated after the first few. She looked for the Suud couple who had guided her through the desert, but they weren’t there—at least, she thought they weren’t. She had only a vague memory of their faces. Had she even heard their names?

It was wearing, trying to communicate with people who didn’t speak her language. Soraya didn’t much like the food either—too little salt and flavored with unfamiliar herbs—but she was hungry enough to eat it. The jackal, smoked and seasoned with something spicy and sweet, wasn’t as bad as she’d feared.

In time all the diners settled at one fire or another. Hands and faces had been washed again and the bowls carried off, presumably to a similar fate. Judging by the position of the moon, it was well after midnight, and Soraya’s afternoon nap seemed far in the past. No one was speaking Faran now, but the alien babble was lulling. Soraya leaned against a soft-woven basket, stuffed with something even softer, and let her eyelids drift down.

SHE AWAKENED TO THE SOUND of drums. They weren’t loud, but she hadn’t seen them when Elid showed her around. Packed in the baskets? Soraya opened her eyes. She had rolled onto her side, and for a moment the bizarre image before her seemed to be tipped at an angle.
That’s all right, in a dream,
thought Soraya hazily. Because she had to be dreaming.

Maok was dancing in the fire. The Suud had removed the spit from over the central campfire and had raked the coals into a long bed. The rest of the tribe stood around, some of them clapping in rhythm with the drums, but they all watched Maok as she stamped and twirled, her face creased in a smile. The embers simply glowed in most places, but flames spurted up around the old woman’s feet, curling around her ankles, leaping to her hands as she stroked them.

The children were watching too. Some of the older ones crouched at the edge of the fire pit, stretching out their hands and then snatching them back. Giggling. The girl Soraya had carried into camp was one of them.

Soraya realized she was sitting up, with no memory of having risen. Sand clung to her arm where she had lain on it. Her mouth tasted odd, as it did after sleep. Her heart was pounding. She wasn’t dreaming.

Maok was still dancing on the coals. The flames, flames that rose nowhere else, leaped around her like romping puppies.

Someone walked between Soraya and the dancer, and Soraya lurched forward and crawled around pale legs till she knelt beside the children at the edge of the river of fire. She could feel the heat on her face a yard away.

She looked at Maok’s feet. They were bare, landing squarely on the coals, sometimes sinking in so that the embers drifted over her toes. She must be entranced—ensorcelled! Her feet would be burned to the bone!

They didn’t look burned in the clear, red light. And though her expression was serene, Maok didn’t seem to be entranced. She was humming along with the drums, but she looked up when someone called to her and made a laughing reply. Then she spun her way off the coal bed.

She scuffed her feet in the sand, as if to cool them, before moving out of the crowd a bit to examine the hem of her tunic. Looking for scorch marks?

Soraya swallowed, trying to control her breathing. She was awake. But she couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen. Djinn magic? Soraya had spent most of the night watching the Suud eat dinner and play with their children. She couldn’t believe they were djinn. She rose and made her way through the crowd to where Maok stood.

“May I look at your feet?” Her voice was strange in her own ears. Humble. She wasn’t sure which she dreaded more: horrible burns or their absence.

Maok’s brows rose. “I thought you were asleep.” She frowned, then shrugged and turned, grasping Soraya’s shoulder for balance as the girl knelt. She lifted one foot so Soraya could examine the sole.

It was small and square, the skin on top subtly wrinkled and marked with the veins of old age. There were no burns anywhere, not even on the tender skin between the small, squarish toes. Some calluses, as if Maok went barefoot often, but nothing that might have saved her from the kind of burns she should have borne. Her skin was warm to the touch, not icy, like a djinn’s was supposed to be. Not a djinn. A sorceress.

Soraya let Maok’s foot fall back to the sand and looked up at the withered face. Somehow it felt right, that Soraya was on her knees. “You work magic.”

Maok shrugged. “Your people would call it that, I think. Magic is like honor—we do not have a word for it. I talked to the fire, to its shilshadu, and told it not to burn me.”

“Like you talked to the rock,” Soraya whispered. “And told it…” Not to let them fall? Absurd. Insane.
Magic.
“You must be a mighty sorceress.”

Maok laughed. “Not so mighty. I’m a good All Speaker, but anyone can do it. Look.”

Soraya’s eyes turned back toward the fire and widened in astonishment. The ugly cook was walking across the coals. She didn’t dance, as Maok had, and no flames leaped to dance with her. She was frowning in concentration, but she clearly wasn’t being burned either. And as she stepped off the embers the rude boy, Abab, stepped onto them, walking slowly and steadily.

Soraya rose to her feet, her mouth opening, though she didn’t know what she intended to say. Before she could make a sound, Maok’s knuckles cracked on the back of her head.

“Don’t talk to him,” said the old woman sharply. “He doesn’t talk fire easy as some. You don’t interrupt.”

“You didn’t have to hit me,” Soraya muttered, rubbing the back of her head. “Could you…Could you teach me your magic?”

If it hadn’t been for the rude boy, who was stepping off the coals, looking proud and a bit relieved, she wouldn’t have dared to ask. But if
he
could do it…

“I could,” said Maok, studying Soraya with old, unreadable eyes. “You always get what you ask, don’t you?”

“Mostly,” Soraya admitted. “But if you say no, I’ll accept that.” Not even she was foolish enough to argue with a powerful sorceress.

A shadow passed over Maok’s face. “I will teach you, if you learn. If you want. But it takes time to find the shilshadu of things. Time to find your own shilshadu, first. You must come back and back.”

Soraya would have to spend many nights here, she realized. Perhaps live here for a time. Worse than the croft. No one was walking on the coals now, but the children were still holding out their hands and snatching them back, giggling.

“Maybe,” Soraya murmured. “If I can.”

J
IAAN LOVED RIDING
Rakesh; he was as smooth and strong as the wind, and his manners were so good that they almost made up for the bad manners of the human members of the company. Almost.

Half a score of noble aides had chosen to accompany the grooms who were exercising the horses today, riding their fathers’ chargers, or even their own, for most of them would fight in the charge themselves. When the Hrum came.

Jiaan scowled at the thought. Though he’d rather have died than admit it, he was grateful that his father hadn’t dared to promote him to fight like a deghan. This would be his first battle—the first time he would raise his bow to shoot a man. To kill. Jiaan wasn’t sure if he was more frightened of disgracing himself by being unable to shoot them or of them shooting him, but either way he was afraid. And he was only an archer, who would fight from a distance instead of riding straight into the Hrum’s too-strong, deadly swords. Swords that had conquered half the known world. No, he didn’t envy the young deghans who rode beside him. But that didn’t mean he liked them.

The others hadn’t been quite as vicious since Markhan and Kaluud had been sent to Dugaz, but the underground war was still going on.

It doesn’t matter,
Jiaan told himself.
It’s the battle that matters. They’ll charge, and I’ll save their hides with my archery. Or not, if they annoy me enough.

But of course he’d do his best for them. All Farsala would fall if they failed. And almost worse, he would have proved that his father was wrong about him.

They were nearing the ground they’d chosen for that first, crucial battle—or, at least, one of the battlegrounds to which they hoped to lure the Hrum. Plans to do that were still a bit vague, since they all depended on the enemy’s cooperation. If the Hrum didn’t cooperate, the Farsalan army would be at a huge disadvantage. Jiaan knew the deghans were far better organized and disciplined than they’d been when winter began. The long months of muddy, freezing drills had been good for something. But even now, any tactical plan more complex than a well-supported charge tended to come apart when they tried it. And for a charge to work at its best, they needed an open, level field to charge across.

At least the weather was helping. All the last week had been like today, overcast, with a cold wind blowing, but no rain. Jiaan shivered. Spring was almost upon them. The saturated earth was drying out, and all the intelligence they’d managed to gather indicated that the Hrum would attack as soon as the ground was dry enough.

It seemed to Jiaan that everything was happening too fast. Even the peddler who’d been commanded to deliver goods to the lady Soraya’s hiding place had rushed through his rounds at nearly twice his normal pace. Jiaan would have bet that they’d never see the man again, but he’d stopped at the camp just last week, trading this and that with the troops, slowly working his way up to the commander.

He reported that the lady was well when he saw her, just a month ago—though he claimed she’d struck up a friendship with the Suud, of all things. The commander had raised his brows at that, but he’d been pleased, too; he said that if the Suud were keeping her safe, no one would ever be able to find her.

A burst of hoofbeats pulled Jiaan’s eyes to one side. One of the grooms, who led a string of horses behind him, had goaded them into a canter. Jiaan frowned. The commander said that strings of horses shouldn’t be run together, for the chances of an accident were greatly increased by their enforced proximity. But perhaps the deghan who commanded this groom had other ideas or simply cared less about—

Jiaan felt the tug on his saddle, but it was Fasal’s whoop that sent him spinning to the other side. Fasal’s pretty, gray mare wheeled away, with all the agility of a good flags-and-lances horse.

Fasal held Jiaan’s bow high, like a lance. He didn’t even look over his shoulder as he galloped off toward the rolling hills.
Arrogant ass.

For a moment Jiaan considered letting him go, thus sticking Fasal with the problem of how to return the bow without losing pride. But the wind was cold and fresh on his face, Rakesh could catch any horse alive…and the others were watching.

Jiaan clapped his heels to Rakesh’s dappled sides, gripping hard with his knees as the gelding broke into a gallop, letting his own body sink into the rhythm of the stretched-out stride. He wasn’t the rider his father was—he wasn’t as good as Fasal, for that matter, who seemed to be glued to his saddle—but anyone could handle Rakesh’s smooth, ground-eating gallop.

Fasal looked back at the sound of hoofbeats, his hair whipping over his face so Jiaan couldn’t see his expression. But he turned the mare, away from the level ground and around the slope of a high hill, out of sight.

Jiaan smiled grimly. The deghans had practiced their charges in the wide valleys. But because the commander wanted Jiaan’s advice about the placement of archers, Jiaan had covered the terrain with the scouts, searching through the hills around the flat, open fields. He turned Rakesh to go around the other side of the hill. The gelding shook his head in protest, for he wanted to continue the chase, but he obeyed.

“Soon, my friend,” Jiaan murmured, though even Rakesh’s sensitive ears couldn’t have picked up his words over the rushing wind. “Soon.”

The hill was big, but Rakesh was fast. Jiaan had to pull him in, stamping and snorting, as they drew near the mouth of the small valley on the hill’s other side—the valley that Jiaan had explored and Fasal hadn’t.

They wouldn’t have to wait for long. With Rakesh slowed, Jiaan could hear Fasal’s mare pounding toward him…closer, closer now!

Jiaan loosened the reins and urged Rakesh to run once more. He grinned when Fasal came into sight, for the fool was peering behind him, over his shoulder. He held Jiaan’s bow down by his thigh, but he hadn’t dropped or hidden it. Good. Jiaan waited for just the right moment and then whistled.

Fasal’s head shot up, his face a mask of astonishment as he saw Jiaan galloping toward him. He didn’t have time to stop his mare and turn her before Jiaan would be upon him, so he did just what Jiaan had known he would: He leaned to the left and sent the little mare flying into the mouth of the small valley, so conveniently available, that looked like such an excellent escape route but that turned into such an excellent, dead-end trap.

Jiaan slowed Rakesh as he followed, despite the gelding’s protesting pull on the bit. Unlike Fasal, he knew how swiftly the low ledge appeared after you went around that blind turn.

The staccato stamp of hooves told Jiaan when Fasal encountered it, and he laughed. It would serve the young fool well to disgrace his horsemanship with a tumble over his mount’s ears—though if he broke his neck, it would be Jiaan’s turn to face the commander’s wrath. So Jiaan wasn’t too sorry when he heard the mare’s hoofbeats a moment later, pounding irregularly up the trail at the far side of the sudden shelf that gave access to the rocky, narrow upper gully.

Rakesh, running at an easy lope, made nothing of obstacles, weaving in and out of the boulders like a shuttle through the warp. But soon the ground grew too rocky for Jiaan to risk the gelding’s legs, and they finished the last quarter league of the chase at an anticlimactic walk.

By the time Jiaan came up to Fasal, the young deghan had realized he’d been trapped. Straight black hair blew over his face, but his smile held anger and arrogance instead of defeat.

Here the gully’s sides were too steep for any horse to climb. The only way out was past Jiaan.

Jiaan pulled Rakesh to a stop, turning him to block the exit. “Thank you. That was very enjoyable. May I have my bow back?”

Fasal’s smile widened. “Come and get it.”

Jiaan frowned. Fasal was two years younger than he was, and smaller, too, but he was a deghan; for all the commander had taught Jiaan, there was no doubt Fasal would be the better fighter. He wouldn’t dare damage the bow—it was too expensive. But Jiaan’s whole spirit rebelled at the thought of standing aside and letting Fasal ride back into camp with his bow as a trophy.

On the other hand, if he tackled the idiot, the bow might be damaged, and they’d both get in trouble for fighting each other instead of—

A horse whickered to the north, soft and questioning, as if it scented Rakesh and the mare. It sounded like it was just on the other side of the hill. A herdsman?

“Ah, you don’t want it back, perhaps? But without this”—Fasal gestured with the bow—“you’d have nothing to do in the battle, would you?”

Jiaan had been hearing comments like that all winter. They still stung, but…Most of the gullies between these hills were like the one he stood in: rocky and barren. Bad grazing. And they’d left the army’s horses almost a league behind.

“What’s the matter?” Fasal frowned at his lack of response. “Nothing to say to the truth? I—”

“Be quiet,” said Jiaan softly. “There shouldn’t be horses over there.”

Even as he dismounted and started climbing the hillside, he felt like a fool. It would be a local herdsman. Or a stray horse. Or a trick of sound and no horses on the other side of the hill at all. But he climbed quietly.

After a moment, to his astonishment, he heard Fasal following him. Quietly.

He still felt a fool, especially when he neared the top and lowered himself to crawl the last few yards till he could peer over the edge….

All thought of how he looked evaporated. They were Hrum—perhaps two dozen of them. They wore cloaks of peasant brown, instead of scarlet, but the matching, brimmed helmets and breastplates were impossible to mistake. Even their boots matched.

Fasal crawled up beside him. The young deghan’s breath hissed as he saw what Jiaan had seen.

But why were they here? Not scouting, or they’d have been fewer in number and better disguised. They even had their shields with them—curved, wooden rectangles almost a yard tall—though now most of them lay facedown on the ground or leaned against the rocks, for the troop was clearly at ease. They gathered in small groups, conversing, though softly enough that Jiaan couldn’t hear them. A few were eating.

There were too few of them to attack anything but the smallest village…unless there were more troops hidden in these deserted hills. The back of Jiaan’s neck prickled. No, surely a whole army couldn’t have gotten past the guards the commander had posted. Were they waiting for something? Someone?

Fasal tugged Jiaan’s tunic and slithered back, very quietly. Obedient to the silent signal, Jiaan followed.

“I think they’re waiting for something,” Fasal whispered, his mouth close to Jiaan’s ear. “That gives us some time. Maybe. You keep watch here. I’ll go alert the commander.”

Whatever the Hrum were doing, the commander had to find out about it as soon as possible.

“Take Rakesh,” Jiaan whispered back. “He’s faster.”

Fasal nodded and started off before Jiaan could add any more advice. He left Jiaan’s bow where he’d been sitting, though without the arrows, which lay in the quiver on Rakesh’s saddle, it wouldn’t do him much good. Jiaan snorted softly and watched Fasal trying to move swiftly and silently down the slope. He did a good job, Jiaan had to admit, with only a few stones shifting under his feet, and those too softly for someone on the other side of the ridge to hear. He also had the good sense to take his mare with him and to walk Rakesh out of the gully instead of setting off at a noisy gallop.

He’d doubtless look very heroic, thundering into the camp on a panting horse, bearing the news.
Curse him.
But looking heroic was a deghan’s job.

Before returning to his post, Jiaan took a moment to scan the ridge, this time selecting a small pile of rocks that he could peer around, exposing as little of his head as possible. Pity there was no brush on the ridge top—only tumbled stone and the flattened brown grass of winter, with green coming on underneath it.

There were twenty-one Hrum, Jiaan noted, now that he’d had time to count them—twenty soldiers and a man he thought was an officer. They weren’t as relaxed as they’d first appeared. The men’s eyes would sweep around every now and then, scanning the ridge top and the valley in each direction. The man Jiaan thought was in charge paced, whenever he forgot his duty to stand still and look calm and commanding. He was less inclined to join the others in conversation, and his gaze was even more restless.
Expecting company?
Jiaan slowly concluded that Fasal had been right, for once. They were waiting for someone.

Their alertness made Jiaan grateful for the rocks—and for his peasant-brown hair, only a shade darker than the dry grass. And he was grateful when the groom, who’d crawled up the hill behind him in total silence, touched his ankle for attention instead of crawling right up beside him. The soft grip on his ankle was startling enough.

Jiaan crept down to meet him, out of sight.

“The young deghan, he sent us to be helping you, sir,” the groom whispered. He was an older man—some deghan blood, perhaps, but his accent proclaimed that he’d been peasant-raised. “There’s six more of us, back that way.” He gestured toward the valley where Jiaan had chased Fasal. He’d had the sense to hold the others back, to approach Jiaan alone. Good. “The deghans, they all went with the lord Fasal.”

So the whole troop of them can gallop heroically into camp.
Jiaan sighed. He was probably better off without them, but…No matter.