Honor's Paradox-ARC (17 page)

“The sargents say we’ll know it when we see it,” she said.

“ ’Ware, camp,” called a sentry.

Someone crunched up the northern slope from Tentir through the detritus of last year’s leaves. Color flared between white birch trunks, crimson shading into purple with swirls of turquoise. Who wore a court robe in the wilds? A thin, sallow face appeared, shiny with sweat under a thatch of lank, black hair.

“Graykin, what are you doing here, much less dressed like that?”

Her Southron servant drew himself up, trying for dignity’s sake to catch his breath, and slid his hands lovingly over his fine, silken raiment.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? I’m traveling with a caravan of merchants. One has to dress the part.”

“At m’lady’s expense, eh?” said Rue, coming up.

She had complained about how much of her allowance Jame had settled on her servant, not knowing how guilty Jame had felt about shortchanging him earlier. After all, before the Brandan settlement neither Jame nor Tori had had a bean to spare. Now either Tori had forgotten (again) or it was up to her to outfit all the Knorth cadets. So far, though, she hadn’t had a chance.

“Aren’t you supposed to be researching the Southern Wastes at the Scrollsmen’s College?” she demanded of Graykin.

He glared down his nose at her and sniffed. “I’ve learned all that I’m likely to at Mount Alban, thank you very much. It’s time to head out into the field, or rather south to Kothifir to prepare the way for you, Lordan.”

Why should that title irk Jame so much, coming from him? Probably because, as her self-appointed sneak, he equated his value with hers, and had what she considered to be delusions of grandeur.

Brier Iron-thorn loomed over them, the late-morning sun turning her cropped, dark red hair into a fire-tipped halo. She was frowning. “This caravan of yours, it came from the south but started peddling its wares at the Riverland’s northern end? Is this a sanctioned expedition?”

“Sanctioned by whom?” demanded Rue. As a brat from a northern border keep, she had limited firsthand knowledge of the South, which clearly irked her.

Brier, a born Southron herself, took pity on her and, incidentally, on Jame.

“By King Krothen of Kothifir. All spoils of the Wastes pass through his fat hands so that he can claim taxes and whatever catches his fancy, hence the source of his vast, personal wealth and, by extension, the existence of the Southern Host. Merchants are always trying to get around him, but whatever he doesn’t touch, wherever it goes, eventually crumbles to dust.”

Graykin clutched at his treasured finery. “What, even this?”

“Probably. Perhaps that’s why your new friends are trying to outrun their customers, but they’ll have little luck: most Kencyr know Southron ways.”

“Well, I don’t,” said Jame. “What’s in the Southern Wastes except sand, dead cities, and an occasional, inconvenient salt sea?”

“That’s the mystery,” Dar said, shamelessly eavesdropping with Mint at his elbow. “Seekers go into the desert, leading caravans, and come back with treasures. Sometimes Kencyr are hired as guards against clashes with Nekriens, Wasters, and Karnids, but they’re sworn to secrecy. Lord Caldane would give half his wealth to know what’s going on, which is why no one employs Caineron guards.”

“Kothifir itself is a strange place, from what I hear,” Erim added in his slow, deliberate way. One always expected him to say something stupid, but he never did. “The local temples keep losing their gods and trying to find them again. Months pass when nothing seems to work properly.”

Cadets stirred uneasily. Before Tai-tastigon, such a statement would also have thrown Jame. What, other gods besides he (or she, or it) of the Three Faces? The Kencyrath was perforce monotheistic, having been bound together by that enigmatic deity, yet other forces undoubtedly existed on Rathillien. For the first time, she felt an eager quiver at the thought of exploring this strange new city—if only she passed the final cull and was assigned there.

Rue had been shifting from foot to foot. “Maybe the merchants have something that won’t crumble when you look at it. Lady, please! You need finer clothes than your forage jacket.”

Poor Rue. Obviously she hadn’t forgotten the disgrace, as she saw it, of Jame’s appearance before the High Council.

Graykin handed Jame a sack of coins. “You have no idea what these are worth,” he said. “I’ve taken enough for my needs. Squander the rest if you want.”

My brother gave me this,
Jame thought, balancing the bag’s not inconsiderable weight on her palm.
He didn’t have to. Maybe, on some level, he also misses the days when we shared everything, before Father came between us.

She gave the sack to Rue. “Spend what you like, within reason. We won’t lose for lack of one cadet—I hope,” she added to the Coman ten-commander, who was looking restive.

“Can’t you discuss all of this after the lesson?”

he demanded.

“I may not be here when you’re done,” said Graykin, himself beginning to fidget. “The caravan is moving off as soon as its business here is finished . . .”

“Definitely unsanctioned,” murmured Brier.

“. . . and I don’t want to be left behind.”

Yet he stayed, fretting from foot to foot. There was clearly more on his mind.

“Gray, what aren’t you telling me?”

He spoke in a low rush, leaning toward her. “You gave that knot letter to Kindrie and he’s had it translated.”

“What?” Jame felt a jolt of shock. She had entirely forgotten about Kinzi’s scrap of linen.

“Did he steal it, then?”

“No. It must have been in the knapsack with . . . never mind. What did it say?”

“That damned haunt singer forbade me to tell you—me, your personal sneak! You’ll have to ask your cousin.”

Jame chewed her lip, trying to work out when she could take time off to visit Mount Alban.

“Camp!” came the sentry’s urgent cry, closely followed by a volley of missiles.

Brier shoved Jame behind Graykin, who grunted and sat down, hard, almost on top of her. Cadets sped off in pursuit of the intruders, snatching slings from their belts and white ovoids from their pouches.

“Look what you’ve done to me!” Graykin gasped, clutching his chest. “I’m dead!”

Jame knelt beside him. “Oh, don’t be silly. It was only an egg.”

“This?” He threw wide his arms to expose red ruin.

“Well, an egg with the yolk blown out, refilled with whatever blood the butcher had on hand, and resealed with wax. Messy, I grant you, but hardly fatal.”

“But my robe!” wailed poor Graykin.

“Rub it in salt and soak it in cold water before you wash it. That’s what the losers of this skirmish have to do with all the soiled clothing. It and they get thrown off Breakneck Rock into the Burley which, at this time of year, is no treat.”

The Coman was nearly dancing with impatience. “We have to shift camp. Now.”

“All right, all right. If I don’t make it back to Tentir in time, Gray, I’ll see you in Kothifir.”

As Graykin wobbled off, Jame turned to the Coman. “I suggest that we move west toward the cloud-of-thorns. There are passageways beneath them if we have to scuttle. Niall, stay here and tell the scouts as they come in where we’ve gone.”

They moved out.

No one spent much time in this area, and now Jame saw why. Close as it was to Tentir, and relatively small, it seemed to embody all the strangeness of the uncharted Riverland. Beyond sight of the college, they moved through areas ankle deep in snow where winter still ruled and others bright with spring flowers. The land rippled in moraines that ran mostly north to south, down to the snow-swollen Burley; but that tributary of the Silver seemed ridiculously far away—a rushing sound rather than a presence—and the now-veiled sun seemed to shift from one side of the sky to the other. Unseen birds called. Leaves rustled under the unwary foot.

Throughout, they kept watch not only for the other team but for the elusive “something” that was the prize of the entire exercise.

Eventually they arrived at the clumped cloud-of-thorn bushes with the river loud beyond them and Breakneck Rock beyond that.

“There are fifteen of us, eighteen when the last scouts and Niall arrive,” Jame said. “We should be able to comb this dollop of wilderness from one side to the other.”

“Separate? D’you think that’s wise?”

She could almost see the Coman assessing the risks and trying to decide how to make her responsible for them. Fash must have been most persuasive. Even so, Clary looked uneasy. What had that wretched Caineron said to him anyway?

“We could, of course, huddle here until nightfall, leaving the wood to our scouts and the other side. Does that sound better to you?”

Clearly, it didn’t.

“Form a line and spread out,” she told the cadets of the two ten-commands. “Keep in sight of each other to either side. Somehow, I think it would be very easy to get lost in here today.”

The cadets obeyed her, Clary continuing to grumble. To the right was Brier; to the left, Damson. The Coman, she noted, gravitated to the side closest to Tentir, pushing the Knorth toward the river. She gripped her sling and counted the intact shells nestled in moss in the sack hanging from her belt. Two dozen. Over the past fortnight they had all grown heartily sick of scrambled eggs. This had better be worth it. The signal rippled down the line, from the banks of the Burley to the shadow of Tentir.

Right,
she thought, waving them forward.
We’re off.

Brier stayed perhaps closer than she should have, as if determined to keep Jame under her eye.

Dammit,
Jame thought,
am I that easily broken, nothing but a shell full of blood, sealed with wax? What’s the worst that could happen to me here?

What about an encounter with the Dark Judge? Little had been heard from that great cat since the onset of spring, but he was out there somewhere, and Jame still felt shy about straying too far from the college after dark. Sometimes she sensed his restless presence in her dreams, but something kept him at bay. Long might it last.

To her right, Damson disappeared behind a stand of budding lilacs. The bushes seemed to move with her, now cutting off Brier as well. New shoots erupted out of the ground ahead of the main stands, rasping against each other. It was, after all, the season for arboreal drift. Everything in the valley that could move probably was, toward sunnier slopes, toward water, away from predators with axes.

Was someone calling?

“Wha . . . wha . . . wha . . .”

Jame stopped, the breath catching in her throat. She had considered the Dark Judge, but not the Burning Ones. Did they ever come this far south, especially without their master who had lain in the earth since the winter solstice? Lilac and raspberry canes rustled and rose, hedging her in. Sounds from beyond reached her muffled and distorted. Her own voice, when she called out, was swallowed by the burgeoning leaves.

A shadow fell across her. She squinted up against the low-slung sun at something black suspended over her head. It had an almost human shape—wide-flung arms, at least, and between them what seemed to be a hunched head. But no feet. It stirred, by no wind felt below. The sun flamed around its edges.

“Sssoooo. Forgotten about me, had you?”

She peered upward. “Vant? What in Perimal’s name are you doing up there?”

“Ooohh, just hanging around, waiting for you. My new friends are here too, at least in spirit.”

Was that really a voice or just the sloughing of the wind in the leaves? The day had turned dreamlike around her, cut off as she was in this pocket of strangeness. Why, after all, should her former five-commander haunt her, when she had had nothing to do with his death? But he had appeared to her, not to Damson, who must be at most a dozen yards away and wouldn’t be shy about taking credit.

As if she had heard her name called, Damson appeared, fighting her way through the thicket. “There you are, Ten! Who are you talking to?”

Above, cloth ripped. The black shape plummeted toward Jame, blotting out the sun. She tried to fend it off, but it threw its dismembered arms around her neck and bore her down. She fought free with Damson’s help to find that she had been wrestling with one of the Commandant’s old, leather coats.

“This must be what we were sent to find,” said Damson.

From outside the hollow came the muffled sound of shouting. The two teams must have clashed just beyond the grove’s precincts. Damson plunged off to join the fray. Jame paused to whack the coat several times against a rock, just to make sure, then followed the cadet. Beyond the lilacs, white missiles laced the air, accompanied with yelps and jeers. There was Clary, setting an egg to his sling. He saw her, hesitated, switched eggs, and swung. Jame glanced behind her for his target, and her temple seemed to explode.

I owe Graykin an apology,
she thought, on the slide down into darkness;
Being egged is more painful than I realized
. Then the coat was jerked out of her grasp and she fell.

A long time seemed to pass. The lilac break crept past and the shouts receded. She leaned back against a tree, silently cursing her throbbing head and the blood trickling down her face.

“Damn!” said someone almost in her ear, in her brother’s voice. “That hurts.”

He shifted against the other side of the tree, his coat rasping against its bark.

“Tori?”

“Jame?”

“What are you doing here?” both asked simultaneously, then, “Where is ‘here’?”

“An hour north of Gothregor.”

“Fifteen minutes south of Tentir. What happened to you?”

“Storm threw me. We were tracking a rogue golden willow and it charged us.”

“You didn’t fell it, did you?”

“That would require it to stand still first. Trinity, I hate arboreal drift. And you?”

“I’m not sure. Something hit me.”

“Careless, careless . . .”

“No more so than you, run over by a tree.”

“At least you’re past the main threat.”

“What?” she asked, confused. She heard him draw himself up.

“The Commandant told me that someone was sure to challenge you to combat before the end of the school year. That happened at the High Council meeting. Why else d’you think I allowed that bastard Fash to take you on? Even so, under all of our eyes, he went further than I expected.”