Three Coins for Confession (27 page)

Dargana spotted the horse track through the trees, signaling a
stop as she fell back. She motioned to the north, Chriani seeing a low rise set
with moss-crusted rock that would have seemed only a smudge of darker shadow
against the falling night to the others. He nodded, Dargana leading again as
they dropped low to the ground to advance.

The crest of the rise provided a good vantage point, the last
light of the sun sinking now beyond the looming forest behind them, setting a
muddy haze against the cloud-streaked sky. Dargana scanned the shadows for a
long while, Chriani trying to not make it obvious that he was doing the same.

“There,” the exile hissed.

Chriani had spotted them even as she spoke. A faint blur of
bright movement, barely visible even to his eyes. Horses at tether, figures
moving around them. Two hundred paces away, he judged, and screened by scrub
trees where the unknown pursuers had pushed back from the track but kept
themselves within sight of it.

“Riders,” Dargana whispered. The wind was rising, Venry and Kathlan
pushing close to hear her. Jeradien stayed where she was. “A camp. Eleven
horses that I can see.”

“Ilvani?” Chriani was focused, trying to bring the glimmering
shadows of the distant camp into detail.

“Ilvani don’t make camp in the open while within sight of their
own wood.”

“We need to get closer,” Venry whispered. “Or get some light on
them. Startle them.”

“And accomplish what?” Chriani asked.

“Let them know their secrecy’s undone. If they’re bandits,
they’ll break. If they’re not…”

Chriani heard an unspoken thought left hanging in Venry’s words
as the lieutenant’s gaze found his. “You think you know who this is,” Chriani
said flatly. No more than a guess, but Venry’s expression told him he was
right.

“The Prince High Vishod prides himself on his intelligence. He
likes to keep his hand in all things. Especially where political advantage
might be gained.”

Chriani stared at the lieutenant a moment, incredulous. Then he
looked out to the dark camp again, felt the pieces of his understanding shift.
“Vishod sending to Teillai for this mission lets him keep his distance from it
if it fails,” he said darkly. “But he won’t let the Duke Andreg take all the
credit if it succeeds. You knew this, and when told that we were pursued, said
nothing?”

“I suspected,” Venry said sharply. “I already know which of my
squad Vishod has paid to be his eyes and ears here, and how my orders will be
mysteriously rewritten depending on the outcome of this futile exercise. But
for him to take a more active stance is as much a surprise to me…”

“I don’t doubt that the sun rising comes as a surprise to you…”

“Pardon me again, lords.” Kathlan’s whispered hiss from behind
silenced them both. Even without the sharpness of his eyes, Chriani would have
been able to read her annoyance. “It’s getting dark. Whatever we’re doing, it
needs to be done quickly.”

Chriani nodded. A decision made. “Return to camp, break at dawn.
We set out south again, away from the forest. Find a good spot for a squad to
hold back and out of sight. Wait for them to catch up, then surround and deal
with them.” He waited for Venry’s nod, which was terse when it came. “Fall
back,” he whispered.

Jeradien and Kathlan began to slip down the ridge and into
shadow, Venry after them. Chriani motioned Dargana to follow him.

The exile didn’t move.

She was still flat to the ridge, still staring to the darkness
ahead. No sign that she had heard or cared about the whispered conversation
around her. A look of absolute fury was in her dark eyes. A look of
recognition.

“You’ll need light,” she called, loud enough that Chriani knew
she was talking to all of them above the hiss of the wind. “Don’t let them
ride.” Then she launched herself over the top of the ridge and was running for
the dark camp ahead.

“Treason-bastard!” Jeradien’s cry sounded out like steel on
steel. Chriani tried to grab the warrior as she hurtled past him, but he wasn’t
fast enough. Venry was shouting behind her, calling her to stop, but the
Aerachi guard was gone after Dargana.

With a look back to Kathlan, Chriani was up and running, down the
slope and into darkness.

SHADOW WAS DROPPING around them, uneven ground
threatening to send Chriani stumbling as he ran. He heard Venry and Kathlan
behind him, felt the urge to give them an order, but he had no idea what to
say. No idea who they were facing, no sense of what was going on. Knowing only
the raw hatred he’d seen in Dargana’s eyes, but the list of people the Ilvani
exile hated was likely a long one.

He was running flat out, but across the distance of two hundred
paces that Chriani had measured in his mind, he could only watch as Dargana and
Jeradien pulled steadily away from him. Movement shimmered in the shadows
ahead, the figures in the camp in motion, horses snorting as they heard racing
footsteps approach through the darkness.

He was close enough now. He saw what Dargana had seen. Ilvani in
dark cloaks, slipping like ghosts through the trees.

“Valnirata!” he shouted. “Keep them from the road!”

He slung his bow off his back and nocked an arrow as he dropped
to one knee and slid to a stop, needing to anchor himself. Kathlan broke to the
right beside him, Venry going left. Chriani fired two shots into the darkness,
picking the closest target, a tall Ilvani still slinging his quiver on. He fell
with both Chriani’s arrows in his chest.

Then he was up again, running left for a dozen strides, then
cutting hard right. The hiss of bowshot rose around him, arrows flashing past.
He dropped again, shot twice more, taking another archer in the arm. As the
Ilvani stumbled backward, he made no sound.

A pulse of light came from far right. Kathlan had a torch lit, hurled
it into the camp where it flared to daylight brightness. She hit the ground and
rolled hard as three arrows streaked her way. From the left, Chriani heard
Venry shooting, saw the Ilvani he’d tagged stumble back. As the figure twisted
away, Chriani saw the war-mark gleaming dark at his shoulder.

One down quickly, and two more hopefully out of combat. Unless
the Ilvani were riding doubled or Dargana had miscounted the horses, he and
Venry had taken the fight to slightly better odds. If the Ilvani spread out
beyond the light, though, the battle would turn in short order.

As the clash of steel rang out ahead of him, Chriani rose to
sprint forward again. He shot on the run, no accuracy to his aim but intent
only on hemming the Ilvani in, giving himself a chance to get close before it
was too late.

It did him no good. By the time he got there, it was done. He was
able to watch it, though.

Jeradien had been pursuing Dargana when she took off down the
slope like a shot. Most likely thinking the Ilvani was fleeing from them,
meeting up with compatriots in the woods. Chriani had no idea what might have
happened if the Aerachi warrior had reached Dargana before Dargana reached the
camp, but the exile got there first. She drove straight into the closest sentry
as Kathlan’s torched landed, axe and bloodblade in hand. Their steel gleam
flashed to blood-red as she spun in and hit hard.

The Ilvani sentry fell. Jeradien saw it from three paces behind.
She shifted left, her focus off Dargana as her longsword arced up and over. It
carried all the momentum of her run as it hacked through mail and bone,
dropping the Ilvani who had been pushing forward to strike at Dargana’s back.

Three more Ilvani were pressing. Chriani watched Jeradien and
Dargana cut into them as if they were standing still.

Movement at the edge of the light, three figures scrambling back
from the brightness and the flurry of steel at the center of it. Bowshot rang
out, arrows arcing through the light. Dargana spun to knock one shot aside with
her axe, dropped to let a second pass. Jeradien wasn’t fast enough, struck in
the leg. Chriani tracked the shooter as he pushed forward, slowing long enough
to shoot. He heard Venry shooting from his left again, saw the figure fall.

Two Ilvani still uninjured if the count was right. One of them
appeared behind Jeradien as if melting out of the shadows of the trees. Even
wounded, the Aerachi warrior slashed a backsword attack away from her left
side, carried through and swung up to get a piece of the Ilvani’s leg. A fast
counterstrike, Jeradien’s blade coming up just in time as her wounded leg gave
way. Then the Ilvani warrior fell as Dargana rose up behind him, sunk the
bloodblade deep into his shoulder as he tried to twist away.

“We call for quarter!” The voice of the wounded Ilvani rang out
in Ilvalantar as he fell to his knees. Dargana was above him, ready with a
killing stroke. But as the warrior dropped his backsword, both she and Chriani
saw the clear blue of his eyes at the same time. No sign of gold there. Dargana
snarled as she stepped back, but her blades stayed where they were.

Chriani was ten paces away. He saw those Ilvani who were still
moving respond to their companion’s call as if it was an order. Weapons down
and arms spread, no hesitation. The golden light of the cult was nowhere to be
seen in any of their eyes.

One of the Ilvani was still moving, though, not hearing or not
caring that the others had submitted. Going for the horses. Chriani sighted his
shot carefully, arced it through the trees and into the target’s leg. He heard
a muffled cry as the figure fell.

“Watch them,” he called to the others. Though it was reported
from time to time along the frontier, Ilvani offering free surrender without
being beaten completely down in combat first was outside the scope of Chriani’s
own experience. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he wasn’t going to run
the risk of one of them escaping while he sorted it out.

He dropped his bow, drawing his longsword as he sprinted for the
horses. The figure he’d tagged was cloaked but barefoot, head shrouded as she
tried to stand. All the Ilvani warhorses but one had stood stock-still through
the noise of combat, but the injured figure was fighting for some reason to
clamber bareback onto that single nervous steed. Chriani was there to haul her
off, drop her to the ground.

He saw the blade flash in her hand, almost too late. As he
rolled, it caught him in the shoulder instead of the stomach, punching in clean
on the left side. He smashed her arm free of the grip, grabbed and twisted to
force her down in front of him. He rose to his knees over her, the tip of his
sword at the back of her neck.

The cloaked figure didn’t move. She was face down with hands at
her side, breathing slowly.

Setting his teeth, Chriani pulled the knife from his shoulder. It
was a jagged blade, meant for striking and tearing at the soft flesh of the
belly, for punching up under the ribs. He was lucky to have rolled with it,
watching the Ilvani darkly as he tossed the knife away.

It was quiet around him. He saw Venry with the surrendered
Ilvani, tying their hands behind them while Dargana and Kathlan circled slowly
around them, blades at the ready. There were five of them, clustered tight
together now. All wounded but none in danger of dying, Chriani judged. Jeradien
was watching the prisoners as well, sword drawn but not moving. She had cloth
stuffed into the broad gash in her leather where the arrow had tagged her.

All of the Ilvani’s eyes were bright in the torchlight. Blue or
green, brown or violet. Still no trace of gold to be seen.

“Let us know if you need assistance with that one, sergeant,”
Venry called, his tone cool.

Chriani shrugged off the pain at his shoulder as he ignored the
lieutenant. “Kathlan, Dargana,” he called. “Check the fallen. Watch yourselves.”

Kathlan nodded as she slipped back into the shadows. Dargana hit
Chriani with a dark look, but she did the same.

“What happened to the Valnirata not making camp outside their
woods?” Venry called coldly. He tied the last Ilvani prisoner, stood and wiped
his hands on his leather like he might be rubbing some stain from his fingers.

“These aren’t their woods,” Chriani said as he carefully stood.
“These are the Calala.” He hadn’t known it before, but he could see it now.
Reading the war-marks on the surrendered Ilvani.

“And you’re telling me you recognized them from where we sighted
them?”

“I’m telling you Dargana did.” Chriani put pressure to his
shoulder but kept his sword at the neck of the wounded Ilvani at his feet.
“These are the same as attacked inside Rheran two weeks back. Enemies of the
Laneldenari we’re meant to meet. They’ll have been avoiding the eastern Ilvani,
same as they’ve been avoiding…”

Chriani’s voice cut off as he kicked the wounded figure to roll
over at his feet. He stared at the face looking up at him from the ground. Not
an Ilvani. Ilmari, young. An unhealthy pallor to her, hair of dirty gold, cut
rough. Eyes of palest blue. It was no face he’d ever seen before, but he knew
her all the same by the grey tunic and leggings she wore, the straight-line
ritual scars that marked her cheeks.

The wind was rising again, cold. Twisting through Chriani with an
ache sharper than the pain at his shoulder. Venry was beside him suddenly,
staring down as he paced around the Ilmari. Chriani tried to speak, tried to
explain who it was at their feet, but his voice was gone.

Venry said it for him, though.

“Uissa.” The lieutenant spat to the ground. “Working with the
Ilvani. What the fated fuck is this?”

From the ground, the prisoner smiled.

Venry had recognized her by the scars, just as Chriani had. The
same markings he’d seen on the assassin who had followed him in pursuit of
Lauresa. The assassin he’d killed in the Ghostwood, that past closed off behind
him. Or so he thought.

“I will tell you of that one.” From where the Ilvani knelt, one
of them called out in the Ilmari tongue. “And of our purpose here.” His accent
was sharp but his voice was clear. The warrior who had called the surrender.
His silver hair fell to frame his face, shrouding eyes that were the deep blue
of a summer sky.

“Speak then,” Venry said as he paced back toward the prisoners,
angry. Chriani stayed close to the Ilmari, ignored that it should have been him
giving the order.

“We are of Calalerean,” the Ilvani said. His tone showed strength
but not defiance. “Ordered across Crithnalerean to meet with that Ilmari agent.
Ordered to pursue rangers of Brandishear that she had followed across your
Clearwater Way.”

Chriani looked toward the horse the Ilmari had been trying to
reach, realized as he should have before that it wasn’t an Ilvani steed. A
stark difference in its lines and bearing.

“And what were you meant to do when you found them?” Venry asked.

“To observe only,” the Ilvani said. “On my word. To watch
interactions between the Ilmari and the Ilvani of Laneldenar. We are trackers,
not carontir.”

The statement made a certain amount of sense to Chriani, given
how easily the Ilvani had been overcome. Seeing them now in the light, only the
leader was in full leather.

“Why did you surrender yourselves?” Venry said. His voice carried
a note of disappointment. “Why tell us all this? What do you hope to gain?”

“Because I have no cause to act in secrecy against my kin of
Laneldenar. I spoke against these orders from my captains and failed, but I
will not die for them. I would return with my riders to our folk, with your
mercy.”

Chriani could see the strength in the Ilvani’s blue eyes even
from where he stood. A stark honesty there. He and Venry exchanged a glance,
Chriani happy to see that the lieutenant seemed to have no more idea how to
proceed then he did.

When he looked down again, the Ilmari was watching him. Staring
with cold blue eyes.

“One more wounded,” Kathlan called out as she and Dargana
approached from the shadows. She had an Ilvani warrior in front of her, hands
tied and blood at his shoulder where he’d torn an arrow free. “Found him
blacked out. The other four are dead.”

She pushed the silent Ilvani to his knees alongside the others.
He dropped with no resistance, made no sound. Dargana took up a position around
the prisoners again, Jeradien glaring as she stepped away. The exile ignored
the Aerachi warrior. Chriani saw blood still wet on the dagger and the axe in
her hands.

“That’s no Ilvani,” Kathlan said as she stepped up to the Ilmari
prisoner. “Is she from Vishod?”

“The order of Uissa, squire,” Venry said. “She’s a mercenary, and
most definitely not from Vishod. Not that they haven’t tried to worm their way
into his court. Political intrigue and assassination is their specialty. My
Duke Andreg has routed out their hidden holds for years, along the Hunthad
close to Teillai. Whatever we do with the Ilvani, that one won’t tell us
anything. You’d be best to kill her now.”

He said the last to Chriani, who felt his sword shiver in his
hands. The Ilmari smiled again.

“Kathlan, rope.” Chriani sheathed his blade as he grabbed the
Ilmari’s hands, rolled her onto her stomach again. She stifled a cry as he tied
her tight, the arrow still in her leg and shifting each time she moved. It was
a straight-through wound, painful but not life threatening. Chriani broke the
shaft clean at both ends, pulled it through carefully. The prisoner shook with
the pain, but the bleeding wasn’t bad.