Three Coins for Confession (7 page)

“What happened?” Chriani asked, though his guess at the answer
was already rooting in the shadow that filled his mind. He spurred his horse
past Makaysa toward the bodies, but the animal balked at the command. Three
paces but no closer, as if it could sense the magic pulsing as points of golden
light in the shadows.

“Something killed them,” Makaysa said evenly. “They screamed as
one, then shook. Some force pushing through them, twisting them like rag dolls.
Then the ones already dead moved the same way, leaving them all as you see
them.”

The prisoners had been searched as a matter of course. No way for
the coins to have been hidden on them, let alone be left within reach of their
hands, bound tight with cord and twisted behind their backs. No way for the
Ilvani to have placed the third coins in their slack and open mouths. In the
light of Chriani’s torch, their dead eyes gleamed violet and blue, brown and
green.

“Ride,” he said, but the other rangers were already moving. He
let Makaysa spur away ahead of him, pulling up the rear as they raced away. The
light of their torches pulsed bright in the darkness of the forest as they
galloped west, leaving the bodies and the darkness behind.

THEY RODE HARD TO ESCAPE the trees, Chriani sensing the
others as shimmering light swerving through the darkness around him. No
formation to their movement, no sense paid to whether they might be followed.
Just a focus on the trail ahead, swerving to avoid branches and vines as they
slipped within the light, flashed past, were gone again.

A surge of speed took Chriani’s horse as it sensed the open air a
moment before his eyes caught the change in the light. Then all of them broke
out across the threshold of the grasslands with torches held high, Chriani
seeing Grus standing in the saddle, gasping the open air as if he might have
been drowning in the closeness of the trees.

Night was falling in the world outside the forest. The real night
of stars and wind, not the darkness of the shrouding canopy of leaves. The
warmth of the waning summer had been lingering through two weeks of clear
weather, though it was beginning to grow cold by dark. The sky was clear this
night, the shimmer of starlight and the last glow of the sunset bright enough
to ride by, but the seven of them kept their torches burning as they turned for
the camp.

Makaysa led a two-rank formation, picking an easy pace to cool
the horses. Chriani checked that pace even further to let himself slip back
from the two rangers he rode alongside. Not wanting to see the looks on their
shadowed faces, their fear too bright to his eyes. He looked back at intervals,
feeling the ache at his injured arm grow more acute as the trail disappeared
into darkness behind them. There was no sign of any pursuit.

As they rode, no one spoke.

When the first lights of the camp perimeter were seen, Makaysa
ordered the horn call that was standard procedure for riders returning from
patrol or calling to regroup. Two short blasts repeated at intervals until an
answer was heard. It wasn’t a code of the same type as the forest call signs,
but simply a heads-up for the close camp patrols and the perimeter guards. Less
chance of being shot on sight that way.

Along the empty trail they followed, they heard griffon riders
above them once but never saw them. The elite
gavaleria
aerial patrols
of the Valnirata flew across the camp each night on some schedule only they
knew. The shriek of their griffon mounts sent a ripple of unease through the
horses, but their fast movement was all but impossible to track across the
shimmer of starlight. The Clearmoon was at its last crescent but not yet risen.
The Darkmoon had been waning thin for a week or more, barely visible at dusk as
it pursued the sun on its descent.

The gavaleria hadn’t engaged with the Ilmari on either side of
the Greatwood in long years now, but their presence by night was an unnerving
reminder of the mysteries the forest held. No one knew how far into the deep
wood the griffons and their riders were based, or how far they ranged out from
the trees. No one knew whether their missions were solely designed for
disruption or whether they were looking for something. Watching and waiting as
they shadowed the Ilmari camp lines and the patrols that prowled the frontier.

The camp ran no outriders after dark, but Chriani saw the
perimeter guards marked out by starlight as Makaysa led them onto the main
trail bisecting the rise of low hills on which the camp was spread. Bows were
drawn and arrows nocked against them, archers watching darkly as they
approached. Only when visual contact was made did they drop their aim.

The camps of the rangers never held to a single location long
enough to become anything like a permanent presence along the frontier. Among
the nearby settlements, this site was simply
the ranger camp.
Among the
rangers, though, the frontier stations were named for warriors dead or retired,
gone to legend or the anecdotes and grumbling of those who had followed them.

Konaugo Post
was the designation for this camp.
Established six months past, east of Alaniver and across the Locanwater River.
The name carried a darkness for Chriani that not even Kathlan understood. The
late Captain Konaugo had been a legend in the Bastion, and on the frontier
where he had ridden in his youth. He had come back to that frontier with his
prince a year and a half before, and had been ordered by that prince to escort
the Princess Lauresa safely to Aerach along the Clearwater Way.

Chriani had hated Konaugo, as he knew the captain hated him. He’d
been convinced that Konaugo was complicit in Barien’s death, had doubted and
distrusted him right to the end. But that end had seen Konaugo fall while
executing the same duty Chriani had taken up, the same pledge he had made. To
protect the princess even if it cost him his own life.

The name was for the rangers alone, seen nowhere among the
banners that flew from six points around the perimeter, then again above the
central clustered tents of the captains and the war-mages. The falcon that was
the symbol of Brandishear stood highest among the standards, with the
interlocking spears beneath it that stood for the strength and bond of all four
of the Ilmar principalities. Brandishear and Elalantar to the west of the
Greatwood, Aerach and Holc to the east. The horse-and-axe insignia of the
Prince High Chanist’s house hung below those, twisting in the breeze that
picked up as the sun disappeared.

It was that same standard under which Chriani and Kathlan
fought — the regiment of Rheran and the Bastion. But four more
standards flew alongside it, marked with shield and blade, axe and wolf and
mountain lion. The signs of the five regiments of Brandishear’s eastern frontier,
which made up the bulk of the camp’s four-thousand-strong force.

As they passed through the first checkpoint, Makaysa gave the
signal to stop as she summoned two sentries close. Chriani didn’t hear the
words that passed between them, but he was fairly certain he saw one sentry
glance his way before turning and taking off at a run. Makaysa spurred ahead,
the squad following.

Chriani brought up the rear, as before. He slowed to hail the
sentry Makaysa had talked to, saw the squire’s insignia in bronze at his
shoulder. “Umeni’s squad, and the rest of Sergeant Thelaur’s,” he said quietly,
one eye on Makaysa and the others moving ahead of him. “When did they make it
back?”

“Who’s asking?”

Chriani knew the sentry to see him but had never bothered
learning his name. The attitude of bored indifference was such a common feature
among the camp guard that he’d yet to see the point in differentiating between
them.

“Chriani, temporarily reassigned to Sergeant Thelaur’s first
squad under Guard Second Rank Makaysa,” he said with a maximum amount of ire.
“Acting head of second squad after Sergeant Thelaur’s death.” Though none of
that was exactly true, all the time since he’d taken commission, both in the
Bastion and on the frontier, had taught Chriani that there was a mutable line
between actually having authority and simply sounding as if you did.

The sentry shot to something resembling attention. “They arrived
just at dusk, three missing and Sergeant Thelaur dead.”

“One of the injured was Kathlan of third squad. You’d have seen
the arrow she was holding in her shoulder.”

“She was with them, and headed for the healers, I heard.”

Chriani spurred forward with a nod. Ahead of him, he saw Grus
turned back and watching darkly.

Makaysa led them to the southwest stables, one of four set deep
within the camp as protection from direct attack. They made their way along mud
paths packed down with straw, passing between tents set onto wide platforms.
Those platforms were arranged in tight arcing rows, spreading in semicircles
cut through with radial paths for ease of movement within and across the camp.

The stations of the Brandishear rangers were mobile defensive,
scouting, and attack platforms, setting up for a season or a year, then
shifting to keep pace with weather and threats. They had long been a staple of
the southern frontier, keeping watch on the old mountain passes and the Orcish
war-bands that still made use of them, or hunting the fell wolves that appeared
on the southern plains with dread predictability in the last days of winter.

The Greatwood had been of less concern since the end of the
Ilvani Incursions of a generation ago, and it had been almost that long since
the camps had been seen along Brandishear’s forest frontier. The patrols that
kept a watchful eye on the Ilvani had long been content to range out from the
fortified towns flanking that frontier, anchored between the eastern
cities — Cadaurwen and Alaniver, Welbirk and Addrimyr, and Caredry
to the far north, whose gates and walls marked the entrance to the Clearwater
Way.

A year and a half ago, the long sense of uneasy peace and
isolated skirmishes along the forest had changed.

East and south of Alaniver, Konaugo
Post was a day’s easy ride from that city, and less than a league from the wall
of the forest. The impermanence of the ranger camps was designed to balance
their close proximity to the Greatwood, allowing them to stay close to towns
and cities along the frontier for defense and resupply, but to not give the
Valnirata a reason to increase their own standing forces like a permanent
presence would.

Building permanent forts so close to the forest created an
invitation for Ilvani raids, though it had been long years since the Valnirata
had ventured out in numbers to assault settlements in Brandishear. Many said
that was changing, though. The Prince’s Guard of Brandishear had been actively
recruiting as it hadn’t for a generation. Another sign of the events of a year
and a half before.

As they dismounted and led their horses toward the grooms,
Makaysa brushed dust from her leathers, the other rangers pulling personal gear
from their saddlebags. Chriani grabbed a waterskin from off his own borrowed
horse before it went, stifling a wince where he felt his injured arm
stiffening. He caught the groom’s look of unfamiliar appraisal, clearly
recognizing the horse but not its rider. As he drank, then splashed water to
his face, Chriani thought on how that suited him fine this night. He didn’t
know how long he would have before Umeni found him, but the fewer people who saw
him until then, the better.

“First squad on duty,” Makaysa called. The others stood to
attention, Chriani managing to lift himself out of the slouch of too long a day
in the saddle. “But all of us are to the war-mages, now.” She met the eyes of
each of her rangers in turn as she spoke, but Chriani didn’t nod as the others
did. “Debrief on what was seen. No discussion among yourselves first. When the
mages are done, the five of you are off duty.” The sweep of her hand made a
specific point of excluding Chriani from the second half of her orders. To him,
she added, “When you’re done, report to Captain Rhuddry. She knows you’re
coming.”

Chriani understood what message the sentry had run on Makaysa’s
command. He nodded this time.

Guard Captain Rhuddry led the Crimson Shields, the guard regiment
of Alaniver. A veteran ranger, decorated in her home city and Rheran, though
from what Chriani knew of her record, she hadn’t spent more than six months
behind city walls in over two decades of military service. He knew her as less
dedicated to discipline for its own sake than to the fighting form that
discipline was meant to shape, which put her ahead of most captains in his
view. But for those whom discipline couldn’t shape — including
Chriani — Rhuddry had very little patience. He didn’t expect that
would change tonight.

He fell into step with the others, striding behind and to the
left of Makaysa. He tried at first to slip back to last rank, but Grus’s boot
at his heel told him the veteran was watching for that particular move. So
Chriani waited until they passed through the main-path intersection between the
mess tents, the smell of roast meat and wood smoke hanging heavy, a twisting
mass of foot traffic converging from three different directions.

He waited for his moment, sidestepping easily to avoid a supplies
cart slowing in front of them, bogged down on one side in a muddy rut. Then he
kept on sidestepping, away from Makaysa and the others and onto a track running
off behind the stores tents.

Chriani felt Grus moving before he saw him, knew that the veteran
had been watching for his escape. Even still, he was barely fast enough as he
twisted away. He slipped beneath the warrior’s first punch, then came up into
his jaw with the elbow of his good arm, stopping the shout he was about to
make.

As Grus stumbled back, Chriani dropped to a defensive crouch,
slipped back two paces. It was dark between the tents, the spill of firelight
from the mess fading to shadow around them. It would work to his advantage.
“The mages hate to be kept waiting,” he said in a cold whisper. “You’re sure
you want to do this now?”

Grus’s answer came as a flying tackle from a standing start,
coming at him so fast that Chriani managed only to get his injured arm behind
him before he was hit. He wrapped his left arm around Grus’s neck, holding on
as the heavier warrior pushed him back, and knowing that one solid shot to his
injured arm might drop him.