Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (11 page)

Kavi’s brows rose in surprised respect. “That’s clever—simple enough it almost can’t fail.”

A flash of lightning illuminated the farmer’s grim face. “Somebody told me Garren himself came up with the notion. And no one’s ever called him stupid.”

“No,” Kavi sighed. The first thing Garren had done, in retaliation for the siege towers’ destruction, was to impose higher taxes on
every village in the area. He wasn’t sure if the Hrum governor had intended it, but gathering food for Mazad had become far harder. Yet it wasn’t enough pressure to push the peasants into outright rebellion. Not quite.

“We should try now,” said the girl. She sounded more urgent than Kavi thought the situation warranted, though he was certainly wet and cold, and the Suud in their day robes were naught but lumps of sodden fabric.

“I’ll draw off the guard,” said Lakka, speaking Suud now that clarity was important. He knew Kavi understood the language better than he spoke it. Although that wasn’t saying much.

“Are you sure?” the girl asked in the same tongue. “This isn’t the
shapulu
you’re used to.”

“Terrain”?
Kavi wondered.
“Environment”?
But Lakka’s hooded face had turned toward him for permission.

Kavi looked toward the Hrum sentry. He still held his shield at his side, with one hand on his sword hilt—the approved Hrum sentry pose—but his shoulders were hunched against the rain, and the pelting drops had to be making it noisy inside that helmet.

“Go,” said Kavi. “But take care.”

Even in the shadow of the hood, Kavi could see Lakka’s confident grin. The man crawled off through the underbrush without making any sound that could be heard over the patter of rain, and the farmer’s eyes widened.

The girl grinned. “Watch this. The Suud are the best—”

The lightning wasn’t close this time, but it silenced her, and even after the thunder finished grumbling she said nothing.

In that silence, Kavi heard the swift drumming of a grouse’s mating dance.
In the rain?
He looked over and met the girl’s eyes. She was smiling a fierce, deghass sort of smile.

The sentry’s head had turned toward the sound. Kavi could almost hear him thinking,
In the rain?

The drumming stopped.

The sentry shrugged and settled back.

The drumming began again, this time a bit farther from the road. It stopped, then started again. And again.

The sentry was cold, wet, and bored. He went to investigate.

The next time the drumming sounded, it was even farther off. The Hrum sentry followed it around the side of the hill and out of sight.

“The hatch is in a shallow ravine,” Kavi told the girl swiftly. “Just behind that big clump of bushes back there. You and Lupsh and Orop first.”

The girl blinked. “You’re not coming?”

“I’ll come last,” said Kavi. “Now go!”

Lupsh and Orop started up, but the girl reached out and caught their arms. “Wait,” she commanded.

Kavi scowled. She seemed to be listening, but he couldn’t hear—

Lightning filled the road with lurid light, and thunder pealed.

“Now!” She spoke in Suud, and the three of them darted onto the road and across. Soon they were making their way into the bushes on the other side. They made no sound Kavi could hear, but he did hear the drumming of a grouse in the distance.

The farmer’s jaw had dropped. “How did she know …?”

Kavi had sworn to keep the Suud’s magic a secret, and in truth he had no idea how she’d known when the lightning would strike—storms were no part of his sweet gift. “The Suud are more attuned to nature than we are. They can detect signs that we don’t know about.”

Of course, the lady Soraya wasn’t a Suud …

“Humph,” said the farmer. “Well, that lad who’s playing the bird is certainly good. But he won’t be able to pull that sentry off too far—he’s supposed to be watching this stretch of road. And if he hears anything back here …”

“That’s why I’m going last,” Kavi told him. “Compared to the rest of them, I sound like an ox in rut. Adalk, Rosu, Marib—go!”

Despite the wet fabric clinging to their legs, the Suud moved over the road like ghosts, fading into the bushes on the other side.

Only Kavi, Daralk, and Lakka were left to cross. Kavi thought Lakka could manage on his own—in fact he could probably manage better on his own.

Kavi grinned at Daralk. “Come on, then.”

He let Daralk precede him down the leaf-strewn, slippery hillside
and onto the muddy track. Kavi was just weighing the merits of a quick dash against the need for silence when Daralk, who was already halfway across, spun and hurried back, grabbing Kavi’s arm and hauling him up the hill.

Kavi opened his mouth to ask why, but then shut it again since the answer was obvious—Daralk must have seen someone on the road, and Kavi had a fair guess as to whom. They barely made it back to the hollow where the farmer lay before the sentry appeared, picking his way over the muddy surface. It was a good thing his attention was on his feet.

Kavi sank down beside the farmer.

“Bad luck, lad,” the man murmured.

The sentry resumed his post, and a few moments later Lakka crawled up beside them.

“Hrum not follow bird again,” he said. “Other Hrum see him—say bad bad. Other noise make him …” He hissed in exasperation as his vocabulary failed.

“Suspicious,” Kavi supplied. “And you’re right about that. But tell me”—he turned to the farmer—“how many guards are posted behind these lads?”

“None. Not till you get near the Hrum’s siege camp,” said the farmer promptly.

“So if we could move down the road and get ourselves past another of the guards, we could make our way back to the hatch?”

The man took a moment to consider. “You could,” he finally answered. “Without too much trouble, either. But if some officer just told one of them off for leaving his post, it’ll take more than bird sounds to lure the others away.”

“That’s all right,” said Kavi. “I’ve an idea. At least … do the wild ducks still settle in that slow bit of water near the river bend?”

I
T SHOULD HAVE BEEN
a garland of flowers, but at this time of year a garland of juniper was the best he could do. It was prickly, too, but Kavi managed to twine some thin twigs into a rough circlet. He pulled Duckie’s long ears through it and settled the garland on the mule’s head. Duckie, who sometimes received the same treatment from giggling village girls, gave Kavi a disgusted look but made no other protest.

“It needs to be brighter,” said Kavi. “This won’t be getting their attention.”

“I thought you wanted me to board her,” said the farmer. “In fact, you’ve already paid me for it.”

“Don’t understand,” said Lakka. “Mule likes ducks?”

“I do want you boarding her,” Kavi told the farmer. “I can get the Hrum chasing after her, but if you claim her as your own, they won’t be trying to keep her. Especially if—ah, that’s the thing!”

“Mule likes ducks?” Daralk asked, laughter shaking his voice.

“That she does, lad,” the farmer replied. “And they like her, too.
Several men were selling her, once they found they couldn’t keep her out of the duck ponds, nor use her for any work without half a dozen of the beasts waddling after her, quacking—and pecking, too. She was on her fifth owner, who claimed he was developing a taste for mule meat, before Kavi took her on.”

“Got her cheap because of it,” said Kavi, digging busily through the pack where he kept ladies’ goods. “Not that it hasn’t given me trouble as well.” The ribbons’ cheap dye might run in the rain, but that wouldn’t matter much, and the wet wouldn’t harm the brass foals in the least, if he could only find … “Here they are!”

He held up the sack of foals some foolish woman had pierced to string for bangles. She’d been astonished when no one would accept them as money anymore. Kavi had taken them in trade, planning to melt them down for the metal, but he’d never gotten around to it. They were still bright, though, and there were lots of them.

“Here.” He handed some ribbons to the Suud. “Tie the coins a bit apart, like this. And you,” he added to the farmer, “can offer the Hrum the money if they’ll help you get her out of the water. It might even save you a bit of wet.” He took some of the shorter bits of ribbon and started tying coins into the garland on Duckie’s head. It certainly looked odd.

“I’m already wet,” said the farmer. But he went to work helping the Suud, and the four of them soon had Duckie’s harness
draped in a web of bright ribbons. Duckie snorted and shook herself, and the coins clattered.

“Now what?” the farmer asked, over the Suud’s quiet hilarity.

“Now for the final touch,” said Kavi. A sharp knife sliced a hole in the seam of one of the bags hanging from Duckie’s pack. He took out his purse, removed all the silver mares from the pile of smaller coins, and put them in his pocket. There weren’t many, he was sorry to see. The brass went into the bag, and Kavi shook it down to the bottom.

“Hmm.” He made the hole a bit bigger, and several coins fell out. “I suppose that’s as close as it’s going to get.”

“You really think that will pull Hrum sentries out of position?” the farmer asked skeptically. “They’d get in more trouble than any brass is worth, if they were caught.”

“Which is why they’ll never be admitting it happened,” Kavi replied, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded. “The Hrum are human, and there’s no man or woman born that won’t be picking up money if it falls at their feet. All we have to do is get Duckie onto the road. And the Wheel must be turning for us, for the wind is coming from the right direction.”

That Duckie would follow the scent of ducks was as certain as rain being wet. They had to maneuver behind the low hills to approach the road without being seen, but even before they reached it, Duckie stopped suddenly, sniffing and sniffing. She drew in a breath, and Kavi
reached for her nose, then changed his mind. The Hrum would be seeing a mule soon enough—no harm in their hearing one.

“Hee haw, hee haw!”

The farmer winced. “Loud, isn’t she?”

Kavi unfastened the lead rope from Duckie’s halter. He didn’t need to swat her rump, for the minute she was free Duckie trotted toward the road—the shortest route toward the scent of her favorite companions.

“Come.” Lakka gestured to the hill beside them. “Come look.” He added a sentence in Suud that Kavi didn’t catch, though he thought it equated to, “This I’ve got to see!”

With the Suud leading they climbed up the muddy hillside, reaching the top in time to see Duckie approach the new Hrum sentry. The man had drawn his sword, and Kavi suffered a moment of horrible doubt. He had meant Duckie to look strange, not threatening, but in the poor visibility of the storm …

Lightning flashed, so near that the thunder struck like a blow and the coins on Duckie’s barding lit up like candles.

“Holy Mikkrah!” the Hrum exclaimed.

Duckie had shied at the thunderclap, but once the nasty sound was gone, she continued on her way. She belonged to a peddler who sold knives—a bared blade in a man’s hand held no terrors for her. She trotted within feet of the sentry, ears pricked in singleminded determination.

The Hrum simply stared as she went past, turning to watch her go. Kavi held his breath—at this distance he couldn’t see the pouch. Had all the coins already fallen out? Was the hole still too small? Duckie was almost around the next bend before the sentry squinted, then stepped forward and picked something small out of the mud. He hesitated for a moment, looking up and down the road, then sheathed his sword and followed.

Kavi heard a distant voice exclaim in Hrum, “What in the …” and the sentry’s reply: “Grab her! She’s carrying money!”

Kavi laughed softly. “Only a fool tries to get between Duckie and ducks.”

The farmer grinned. “I guess I’d best be claiming my mule, and getting home from that wedding I went to. My wife will be wondering where I am and all.”

Kavi frowned. “Let them know you’ve a long trip home. Several days’ walk, maybe. I wish there were some way to keep them quiet about this. There’s a number of Hrum who know Duckie’s habits, and they know she’s mine.”

The farmer shrugged. “If anyone questions me, I’ll say I bought—no, borrowed her off a peddler, to give the folks at the wedding a laugh. Charged me high, you did. You’d better be going now, though.”

“Not if they’re trying to catch Duckie,” said Kavi. “We’ve got plenty of time.” He clasped the man’s wrist warmly, then followed the Suud down the hill and across the soggy road.

It took time to work their way back up to the ravine that concealed the hatch, though lightning flared occasionally to show them the path—sometimes near enough to be alarming. Reaching the narrow, brush-filled ravine, Kavi wasn’t surprised to find the Suud huddled below a shallow’ ledge—but he saw no sign of the girl anywhere.

“Where is she?” he asked, in his clumsy Suud.

“Under the
odlo,
” said Adalk in the same language, gesturing toward a thin trench that undercut the base of the wall. “She’s afraid of the lightning. I understand that, for it’s been
reksh
very near. But she told us to stay away from her, and I don’t understand that. Someone that afraid should want people near.”

Kavi didn’t understand either. “Wait a moment.” He went down the bank to the deepest part of the undercut. Now that he knew she was there, he could see most of her arm and a bit of one hip, but she’d pulled herself as far into the crevice as she could.

“Come out, girl. We’ll soon be in the aqueduct, and safer there than anywhere.”

The arm twitched, but didn’t move otherwise except for shivering. Kavi shrugged, grabbed her arm, and dragged her out. Her muscles tensed, and for a moment he thought she was going to fight him. Under the dirt, her face was as white as a Suud’s, and her eyes were wild.

He pulled her against his chest, feeling the cold of her body
through all the layers of both their clothing. For another long moment she resisted. Then she buried her face in his shirt and burst into gasping sobs.

“There now, there now.” He rocked her as if she were one of Nadi’s little ones. “Why didn’t you tell me you were afraid of storms?”