Paladin of Souls (12 page)

"I think not so, lady. What apprentice would not seek advice from a master, if he could? If he found himself with a commission far beyond his skills?"

Her eyes narrowed. Five gods—and never had the oath seemed more apropos—what dreams had come to him? Did a lean man lie in a sleep like death, on a bed in a dark chamber . . . she would not even hint of that secret vision. "What dreams have you been having?"

"I dreamed of you."

"Well, so. People do dream of those they know."

"Yes, but this was before. Once, before I ever saw you that first day out riding on the road near Valenda."

"Perhaps . . . were you ever in Cardegoss as a child, or elsewhere, when Ias and I made a progress? Your father, or someone, might have put you on his shoulder to see the roya's procession."

He shook his head. "Was Ser dy Ferrej with you then? Did you wear lilac and black, ride a horse led by a groom down a country road? Were you forty, sad and pale? I think not, Royina." He looked away briefly. "The ferret's demon knew you, too. What did it see that I did not?"

"I have no idea. Did you ask it before you dispatched it?"

He grimaced and shook his head. "I did not know enough to ask. Then. The next dreams came later, more strongly."

"What dreams, Learned?" It was almost a whisper.

"I dreamed of that dinner in the castle in Valenda. Of us, out on the road, with almost this company. Sometimes Liss and Ferda and Foix were there, sometimes others." He looked down, looked up, confessed: "The temple in Valenda never sent me to be your conductor. They only sent me up to convey Learned Tovia's apologies, and to say that she would call on you as soon as she returned. I stole your pilgrimage, Royina. I thought the god was telling me to."

She opened her mouth, to do no more than breathe out. She made her voice very neutral, letting her hands grasp the sapling she leaned against, behind her back, to still their trembling. "Say on."

"I prayed. I drew us to Casilchas so that I might consult my superiors. You . . . spoke to me. The dreams ceased. My superiors suggested I bestir myself to really be your spiritual conductor, since I had gone so far already, and lady, I have tried."

She opened a hand to assuage his concern, though she was not sure he could see it in the failing light. So, his peculiar convictions about her spiritual gifts, back in Casilchas, had come from a more direct source than old gossip. Through the sparse trees, the firelight was starting up from two pits dug in the sandy stream bank, in cheery defiance of the gathering night. The fires looked . . . small, at the feet of these great hills. The Bastard's Teeth, the range was called, for in the high passes they bit travelers.

"But then the dreams started up again, a few nights past. New ones. Or a new one, three times. A road, much like this. Country much like this." His white sleeve waved in the shadows. "I am overtaken by a column of men, Roknari soldiers, Quadrene heretics. They pull me from my mule. They—" He stopped abruptly.

"Not all prophetic dreams come true. Or come true as first seen," said Ista cautiously. His distress was very real, it seemed to her, and very deep.

"No, they could not be." He grew almost eager. "For they slew me in a different cruel way each night." His voice slowed in doubt. "They always started with the thumbs, though."

And she and Liss had laughed at his wine-sickness . . . drowning dreams, was he? That didn't work. She'd tried it herself, long ago in Ias's court. "You should have told me this! Much earlier!"

"There cannot be Roknari here, now. They would have to cross two provinces to reach this place. The whole country would be aroused." His voice seemed to be trying to push back the darkness with reason. "That dream must belong to some other, later future."

You cannot push back the darkness with reason. You have to use fire.
Where had that thought come from? "Or no future. Some dreams are but warnings. Heed them, and their menace empties out."

His voice went very small, in the darkness. "I fear I have failed the gods, and this is to be my punishment."

"No," said Ista coldly. "The gods are more ruthless than that. If they use you up in their works, they have no more interest in you than a painter in a crusted and broken brush, to be cast aside and replaced." She hesitated. "If they still lash and drive you, you may be sure it means they still want something from you. Something they haven't got yet."

"Oh," he said, no louder.

She gripped the tree. She wanted to pace. Could they get off this road? It was farther back to Vinyasca, now, than it was to go forward. Could they strike down this streambed to the plains? She imagined waterfalls, thorn tangles, sudden rock faces over which it was impossible either to ride or lead their mounts. They would think her mad to insist upon such a wild course. She shivered.

"You are right about the Roknari, though," she said. "Single spies, or small groups in disguise, might penetrate this far south unseen. But nothing strong enough to overcome our well-armed company, in any case. Even Foix is not out of the muster."

"True," he allowed.

Ista bit her lip, looking around to be quite sure the young man had gone out of earshot back to the camp. "What about Foix, Learned? For a moment, I saw—it was as if I saw the bear's spirit. It was more riddled and decayed than its body, writhing in an agony of putrefaction. Will Foix . . . ?"

"His danger is real, but not imminent." Dy Cabon's voice firmed on this surer ground, and his white-clad bulk straightened. "What he has gained by accident, some sinful or shortsighted or desperate men actually seek by design. To capture a demon, and feed it slowly on themselves in exchange for its aid—so men turn sorcerers. For a time. Quite a long time, some of them, if they are clever or careful."

"Who ends up in charge, then?"

He cleared his throat. "Almost always the demon. Eventually. But with this young elemental, Foix would be master at first, if he made the attempt. I do not mean to discuss this with him, or plant the suggestion, and I beg you will be careful, too, Royina. The more . . . intertwined they become, the harder they will be to separate."

He added lowly, "But where are they
coming
from? What rip in hell is leaking them back into the world in such sudden numbers? My order is called to be guardians upon that march, as surely as troops of the Son's or the Daughter's Orders ride out in the sun armed with swords and shields against more material evil. The fifth god's servants walk singly in the darkness, armed with our wits." He heaved a disconsolate sigh. "I could wish for a better weapon, just now."

"Sleep will sharpen all our wits, we must hope," said Ista. "Perhaps the morning will bring some better counsel."

"I pray it may be so, Royina."

He walked her back through the brush to her bower. Ista forbore to wish him pleasant dreams. Or any dreams at all.

*     *     *

THE ANXIOUS FERDA ROUSED EVERYONE AT DAWN EXCEPT HIS brother. Only when breakfast was ready to be served did he squat beside that bedroll and carefully touch the heavy sleeping form upon the shoulder. Liss, passing by Ista lugging a saddle, paused and watched this worried tenderness, and her lips pinched with distress.

They wasted little time eating, breaking camp, and taking again to the stony, winding track. The irregular hills discouraged speed, but Ferda led at a steady pace that ate the miles nonetheless. The morning and the road slowly fell behind them.

The company was largely silent, pushing along lost in who-knew-what sober reflections. Ista could not decide which development she liked least, Foix's acquisition or dy Cabon's dreams. Foix's bear-demon might be mischance, if chance it was. Dy Cabon's dreams were plain warnings, perhaps deceptive to heed, but perilous to ignore.

The concatenation of the uncanny beginning to swirl about Ista set her neck hairs standing and her teeth on edge. She felt a disturbing sense of having stepped into a pattern not yet perceived.
Yes. We turn for home at Maradi.

Her silent decision brought no relief; the tension remained, like a cable strained to snapping. Like the breathless pressure that had shot her out the postern gate and down the road in court mourning and silk slippers, that morning in Valenda.
I must move. I cannot be still.

Where? Why!

The hill country here was even drier than farther south, though the streams still ran full from the spring melt, above. The gnarled pines grew smaller and more scattered, and long bony washes almost devoid of vegetation became more frequent. When they topped a rise, dy Cabon glanced back over their track. He pulled his mule up abruptly. "What's that?"

Ista twisted in her saddle. Just coming over the distant crest of the descending ridge behind them was a rider—no, riders.

Foix called, "Ferda? You have the better eyes."

Ferda wheeled his horse and squinted in the bright light; the sun was growing hotter, climbing toward noon. "Men on horses." His expression grew grim. "Armed—I see chain mail—spears. Their armor is in the Roknari style ... Bastard's dem—five gods! Those are the tabards of the princedom of Jokona. I can see the white birds on the green even from here."

They still looked like green blurs to Ista, though she squinted, too. She said uneasily, "What are they doing here, in this peaceful land? Are they merchant's guards, leading a caravan? Emissaries?"

Ferda stood in his stirrups, craned his neck. "Soldiers. All soldiers." He glanced around at his little company and touched his sword hilt. "Well, so are we."

"Ah . . . Ferda?" said Foix after a moment. "They're still coming."

Ista could see his lips move as he kept count. Rank on rank, riding two or three abreast, the interlopers poured over the lip of the hill. Ista's own count had passed thirty when dy Cabon, whose face had gone the color of lard, signed himself and looked across at her. He had to cough before he could form words. They seemed to catch on his dry lips. "Royina? I do not think we want to meet these men."

"I am certain of it, Learned." Her heart was starting to pound.

The column's leaders had seen them, too. Men pointed and yelled.

Ferda dropped his arm and shouted back over his company, "Ride on!"

He led the way down the track at a brisk canter. The baggage mules resisted being towed at this speed, and slowed the men who had them in charge. Dy Cabon's more willing mule did better at first, but it grunted with each stride at the jouncing weight it bore. So did dy Cabon. When they reached the top of the next rise, half a mile on, they could see that the Jokonan column had dispatched a squad of a double dozen riders out ahead, galloping with the clear intent of overtaking Ista's party.

Now it was a race, and they were not fitted for it. The baggage mules might be abandoned, but what of the divine's beast? Its nostrils were round and red, its white hair was already starting to lather at its neck and shoulder and between its hind legs, and despite dy Cabon's kicks and shouts it kept breaking from a canter into a bone-jarring fast trot. It shook dy Cabon like a pudding; his face went from scarlet to pale green and back again. He looked close to vomiting from the exertion and terror.

If this was the raiding column it appeared—and how in five gods' names had it appeared from the
south
of them, so unheralded?—Ista might cry ransom for herself and the Daughter's men. But a divine of the fifth god would be treated as heretic and defiled—they would indeed start by cutting off dy Cabon's thumbs. And then his tongue, and then his genitals. After that, depending on their time and ingenuity, whatever ghastly death the Quadrene soldiers could devise, or urge each other on to—hanging, impalement, something even worse. Three nights he'd dreamed of this, dy Cabon had said, each different. Ista wondered what death could possibly be more grotesque than impalement.

The country offered poor cover. The trees were small, and even if any overhung the road, she wasn't sure they could boost the wheezing divine up one. His white robes, dirty as they were, would shine like a beacon through the leaves. They'd show up for half a mile through the scrub, as would his mule. But then they topped another rise, temporarily out of sight of their pursuers, and at the bottom of this wash . . .

She lashed her horse forward beside Ferda's, and shouted, "The divine—he must not be taken!"

He looked back over his company and signed agreement. "Exchange horses?" he cried doubtfully.

"Not good enough," she shouted back. She pointed ahead. "Hide him in the culvert!"

She slowed her horse, letting the others pass her, till dy Cabon's mule labored up. Foix and Liss reined back with her.

"Dy Cabon!" she cried. "Did you ever dream about being pulled out of a culvert?"

"No, lady!" he quavered back between jounces.

"Hide you in that one, then, till they all pass over you." Foix—Foix was in hideous danger if taken, too, if the Quadrenes should learn of his demon affliction. They might well take him for a sorcerer and burn him alive. "Did you dream of Foix with you?"

"No!"

"Foix! Can you stay with him—help him? Keep both your heads down and don't come out, no matter what!"

Foix glanced down the track at the cover she pointed to and seemed to understand the plan at once. "Aye, Royina!"

They scraped to a halt over the culvert. The streamlet here did not fill it full, though it would be a cramped, wet, uncomfortable crouch, especially for dy Cabon's quivering bulk. Foix swung down, threw his reins to Pejar, and caught the gasping divine as he half fell from his animal. "Wrap this around you, hide those white robes." Foix tossed his gray cloak around dy Cabon, hustling him off the road. Another guard began grimly towing dy Cabon's mule; relieved of its great burden, it broke again into a canter. A canter wasn't going to be enough, Ista thought.

"Look after each other!" she cried in desperation. The pair was already scrambling into the low mouth of the culvert, and she could not tell if they heard her or not.

They started forward once again. There was another here who must not be taken by the rough soldiery, she thought. "Liss!" she called. The girl rode nearer. Ista's horse was dark with sweat, blowing; Liss's tall bay still cantered easily.