Three Coins for Confession (5 page)

He had no idea, he realized, what the penalty even was for
stealing a horse. The thought struck him with a sense of absurdity that almost
made him smile. At some point previously, he should have looked into that.

Through the screen of trees ahead, a shimmer of movement blurred
at the edge of his vision. He leaned forward as he nocked his bow, saw a
half-dozen Ilvani on foot breaking to both sides. As he hoped, they’d seen the
light and honed in on it, not seeing him and Makaysa as they pushed up the
middle.

He let his fingers slip the bowstring as he shouted, the shaft
arcing high through a screen of trees. “Throw torches, thirty paces dead ahead!
Shoot!” No time or place for coded signals anymore.

The figure Chriani had targeted was caught off guard. The arrow
took the Ilvani high in the shoulder, sending it off its mount with arms
flailing as two pools of firelight arced through the trees. That light landed
across the paths of the other Ilvani where they were slinking into ambush
position. Then it burst to a brilliant sheen, each of the torches flaring to
daylight brightness in a space twenty paces across. It was more of the
Bastion’s alchemy, the torches designed to flare when thrown and almost
impossible to quench when they did. It wasn’t magic — or not the
real magic of dweomercraft, at any rate — but Chriani had to fight
the urge to make the moonsign anyway.

Catching the Ilvani off guard had been their only real hope of
facing them successfully. But even Chriani was surprised by the speed of the
fight. He and the other rangers were in darkness but targeting freely, the
Ilvani fully lit up against the shadowed forest beyond. For their part, the
Ilvani were all but blinded by the light, the keenness of their own vision not
helping them where Chriani and the others spurred their horses and circled
around through the trees. The long grey shafts of the Ilvani horse bows arced
past them harmlessly as their own return fire struck true.

Chriani took two more Ilvani cleanly himself, striking one horse
when he misjudged the arc of a long shot through a screen of hanging vines. He
shot twice more to take the wounded horse out, heard it scream as it fell. The
Valnirata fought and died in their deathly silence.

The rangers pushed into the light, swords drawn and steel
striking. The Ilvani bowshot faded, and the forest was quiet once more.

The three-beat signal to regroup sounded out, but Chriani circled
far outside the light before he fell in. His eyes pulled the stillness of the
forest from the shadows as he went, making sure they were alone.

When he did return, more torchlight had been spread around the
point where the rangers took shelter within a twisting stand of five broad
trees. The brightness of the light set up a surreal tone within the wood, the
great trunks of the limni shimmering like verdigris and bronze, green moss
scrawled like veins across bark-brown skin. The brightness made the darkness
beyond seem even more absolute, the rangers and their prisoners held within a
bubble of green walled in black shadow.

Makaysa and the others were circling around four Ilvani on their
knees, hands to their heads and blades at their backs. Three bodies had been
dragged to where the horse had fallen, but the other Ilvani steeds were gone.
The Valnirata trained them that way, sent them to flee if their masters fell.

As Chriani slipped off his horse, Makaysa nodded in what almost
looked like thanks. “Nicely done.”

“You plan well, lord,” he said.

The squad leader smiled. “When you and Umeni had your…
debriefing, you talked of this being a coordinated attack. The Ilvani using
first squad to draw second squad into ambush?”

“As I saw it, yes. When you called green, moving east, they were
already closing in around us. Waiting for us to follow you.”

“But why target second squad with first squad already in view?”

Makaysa’s tone carried a thoughtfulness that Chriani heard far
too rarely in would-be leaders. Not in Thelaur, for all her skill in the field.
Certainly not in Umeni. But the question was one he had no answer for. Not yet.

Chriani irnash! Lóech arnala irch niir!

The Ilvani had called his name.

The sound of cracking ribs pushed Chriani’s thoughts from his
mind. He looked up to see an Ilvani prisoner slump forward, mouth set in a grim
line where one of Makaysa’s rangers had sent a boot into his side. Grus was a
hulking veteran guard whose name Chriani had learned only because it showed up
so often in the troop’s disciplinary reports. All muscle and no wit, like too
many members of the guard who seemed content to stay at first rank all their
lives. A picture of himself in years to come, Chriani thought.

Trembling, the Ilvani slowly straightened. He made no sound.

“Tell us what we want to know and it will go easier on you.”
Makaysa spoke the words in awkward and badly accented Ilvalantar, the language
of the Ilmar Ilvani. An offshoot of the older tongues of the Valnirata
war-clans, but close enough in nature that the prisoners would understand her.
“Your actions were unprovoked attack, in violation of treaty. You targeted a
sergeant of Brandishear who now lies dead. Answer for your aggression.”

The stoic silence in which the Ilvani fought had seemingly
carried with them. None of them looked up. None of them spoke. Grus waited for
a nod from Makaysa before a second kick sent the first prisoner to the ground.
When he made no sign of rising this time, the veteran lined up a third kick,
his heavy boot swinging back and a thin smile on his lips.

Chriani grabbed the boot as he stepped up behind Grus in two
quick strides. As he pulled and twisted, he drove his own foot into the
ranger’s back, sending him hopelessly off balance and crashing face-first to
the ground.

A flash of blades. The other rangers were close, swords still on
the Ilvani but dirks in their hands now, all leveled at Chriani. The tip of his
own longsword was set to the back of Grus’s bare neck.

“No,” Chriani said simply.

At his feet, the veteran made no effort to hide the rage in his
trembling breath, but his hands stayed at his side. No one moved.

“Pardon me, soldier?”

He saw Makaysa from the corner of his eye. She stepped closer,
but her rapier was still in its sheath. “Forgive my lack of protocol,” he said.
“No, lord.”

“Step back, Chriani.” It was an order, and in a tone that said
there would be no follow-up.

“On your word that the prisoners are to be left unharmed.
Interrogation only. Take them back to the camp if they won’t talk. The
war-mages’ truth magic can deal with their confession.” He repeated his words
in the Ilvalantar, a mix of threat and diplomacy. Not sure which was
appropriate, what his role was. The Ilvani made no response either way.

“The war-mages can steal the thoughts of one as easily as four,”
Makaysa said.

“No.”

“Fuck you with your own sword…” At Chriani’s feet, Grus snarled
like a cornered dog. The veteran’s hands were locked to fists, waiting for any
chance to strike. “Horse-bastard Ilvani kill your sergeant and this is the
stones you show.”

Chriani felt the tip of his sword twitch. The veteran’s voice cut
to seething silence.

It hadn’t been intentional. A tremor had threaded his hand as
Grus’s blind rage washed through him. The hatred that had driven a raw wedge
between Ilmari and Ilvani for generations.

Chriani understood anger. He had lived with it, had felt it
shadow him his whole life. In that moment in the forest, seeing Kathlan lurch
in the saddle as the Ilvani arrow took her through the shoulder, he understood
only too well how easily he would have killed the one who shot her if he’d had
the chance. And that understanding warned him now of all the wrong reasons he
might find to do what he did. All the reasons he might have stood back once and
done nothing while the Ilvani were beaten senseless for their silence.

He had pledged to turn the anger aside, to not let it rule him.
He had made that promise to Kathlan. He had made other promises in his life, to
be sure. But the promise to Kathlan was the one he would keep.

Riding with the rangers, his anger had been given a new outlet in
combat. But as he felt Grus’s seething tension, saw from the corner of his eye
as the wounded Ilvani pushed himself back up to a sitting position, Chriani
didn’t know what he had gained from that. Ilmari and Ilvani, always too ready
to kill each other. And him caught in the middle of it.

After what seemed a long while, Makaysa nodded to the others, whose
daggers slid away. They took a step back but kept their blades high, close
enough that the Ilvani would have no room to run. Carefully, Chriani stepped
away from Grus, who shot to his feet in a fury.

“No.” It was Makaysa this time. An order given and heard. Eyes
blazing, the veteran turned his back on Chriani, strode quickly away toward the
horses.

Chriani paced around the Ilvani. He felt the eyes of all the
rangers on him, even as he felt the inherent futility of the task at hand.

“Where do you ride from?” He spoke in Ilvalantar again, but
slowly. Trying his best to mask his skill with the tongue, which was far from
perfect but better than Makaysa’s by far. It was a thing he had learned from
his mother, but which he had relatively few chances to practice. Another thing
he didn’t want known. Not here and now at any rate.

Silence was the only response.

“You set an ambush. You’re carontir, but you acted as raiders on
the Brandishear side of the frontier to lure our patrols into the forest. Then
you waited for us. Why?”

“You done wasting time?” Grus asked in a low growl as the silence
continued.

Where they stared sullenly forward, all the Ilvani had eyes of
gold, bright and burning in the torchlight. It wasn’t an unusual color among
their kind, but in tone and brightness, it was strangely consistent. Chriani
would have taken them for siblings at first glance because of it. Members of a
family clan, perhaps, though their hair and coloring showed no other similarity
he could see.

“You killed the sergeant, then held back. What were you waiting
for?” He said it quickly, letting the Ilvani accent carry the words. Not sure
if he wanted Makaysa to be able to follow this particular thread too closely.

One of the Ilvani made a sound then. Not words, not speech, but a
sharp hiss as if her breathing had brought her sudden pain. Chriani saw a flash
of gold as her gaze found his, a bright hatred burning in the narrowed eyes.

A memory slipped into place in his mind. Hidden beneath his
thoughts before, then revealing itself to anchor those thoughts. Assemble them
into clear focus. As he so often did, Chriani welcomed the memory with a spike
of anger, cursing himself for not thinking it sooner, for all the endless
distractions of his mind.

Instinct and anger. His mother’s patience was something he had
tried to learn, a virtue he told himself was the last part of her in him. But
too often when the instinct came, it seemed to come too late.

“Lóech arnala irch niir…” Chriani said it clearly, quietly.

As one, all the Ilvani turned to face him.

The rage that twisted through their features sent a chill up his
spine. The rangers’ blades slipped closer, Chriani glad of it. All four of the
Valnirata began to whisper, their voices faint but hanging steel-sharp on the
bright silence of the torchlight.

“Lóech arnala irch niir…”

He had no idea what it meant, no idea what was passing between
them. Snatches of other words came and went, but the single phrase was a
refrain that each sibilant voice came back to.

“Where is he?” Chriani whispered back.

Three bodies by the dead horse. Four Ilvani kneeling before him.

He was sure there’d been eight survivors when he counted the
fallen in his mind. He’d held the number hopefully, at least until the first
distraction had driven it from him with no effort.

Hair of grey and gold, black armor cut away at the shoulder. The
one who had shot Kathlan, the one who had shouted the words. “Where is he?”
Chriani said again, but he was already moving, not waiting for a response.

“Who?” Makaysa called to him as he reached the horses, grabbing
his borrowed mount and swinging on.

“One escaped,” he called back. “Rode off with the horses.” He
spurred forward to the nearest torch, snatched it up as he passed it, held it
high above his head so its light would reveal the ground, not occlude it. The
tracks were easy enough to find, the Ilvani horses scattering, circling, then
regrouping.

“We don’t need him,” Makaysa said from two steps behind. “The
war-mages and their magic will get the truth of these ones.” Beyond her, the
Ilvani were face down and in the process of being bound by the rangers.

“Wait here.” Where the horses’ path twisted off into the woods,
Chriani could just see a last glimmer of twilight sky above the trees. He
handed Makaysa the torch.

“You’re riding out alone and without light, soldier?”

“I’ve got good eyes for the dark,” he said. “I’ll ride quieter
alone.”

“I could order you to stay.”

“Wait here,” Chriani said again. Then with a flick of the reins,
he passed beyond the light and was gone.

He was riding through water. That was the feel of it, the dark
gloom of the forest spreading and flowing around him. Like the currents of an
unlit sea, that dark surrounded him, playing tricks on his eyes in ways he
didn’t like. The horse’s pace stayed steady, though, its own eyes equally sharp
in the darkness as he rode slowly, bow drawn and arrow nocked, letting all his
senses slip out around him. All was shadow and silence, and the scent of leaf
rot and unmoving air.

The trail was easy to follow, but that only made Chriani warier.
The stillness of the deep wood seemed wholly unnatural to him. No wind to set
the lower branches of the limni moving, or to ripple the vines that twisted
into nets along the edges of the path. He heard distant bird sound, the buzz of
insects, but it all seemed to fall back and away from his approach.