The Complete Empire Trilogy (84 page)

Ignoring his abused state, the man attempted to rise. ‘Must go,’ he muttered, though it was clear he could not continue.

Lujan ordered two warriors to lift the man up and carry him through the wagons to a fire. Settled on a blanket, and exposed at last to the light, the extent of what he had suffered was revealed. No portion of his body had been spared from torment. The tale was told in ugly lesions,
ragged at the edges where caustic solutions had been applied; the hand wrapped in the shirt tatters was a mass of blackened burns and without fingernails; and the skin over sensitive nerve centres was congested and purple with bruising. Whoever had tortured this man had been an artist of pain, for while the man yet survived, several times during the process he must have begged for passage to the halls of Turakamu.

Lujan spoke softly in sympathy. ‘Who are you?’

The man’s eyes struggled to focus. ‘I must warn her,’ he insisted in a voice made feverish by pain.

‘Warn?’ asked Lujan.

‘I must warn my Lady …’

Lujan knelt and bent closer to the man, whose voice grew faint. ‘Who is your Lady?’

The man thrashed feebly against the soldier’s grasp, then seemed to weaken. ‘Lady Mara.’

Lujan glanced at the soldiers who stood upon either side. ‘Do you know this man?’ he questioned quickly.

A warrior from the old Acoma garrison indicated he had never seen the wounded man, and he knew every servant by sight.

Lujan motioned the others to stand away and leaned down. Near the man’s ear he whispered, ‘Akasis bloom …’

The man struggled upright and fixed a bright, fevered gaze on Lujan’s face. ‘… in my lady’s dooryard,’ he muttered back. ‘The sharpest thorns …’

Lujan finished, ‘… protect sweet blossoms.’

‘Gods, gods, you’re Acoma,’ said the man in relief. For an instant it looked as if he might shame himself, and cry.

Lujan rested his knuckles on his knees. His eyes never strayed from the tortured man’s face as he called for the healer to dress and bind the wounds. ‘You are one of my Lady’s agents,’ he concluded softly.

The man managed a nearly imperceptible nod. ‘Until a
few days ago. I …’ He paused, winced, and seemed to maintain lucidity with an effort. ‘I am Kanil. I served in the Minwanabi household. I carried food to Desio’s table and stood by to meet his demands. Much of …’ His voice faded.

Gently as possible Lujan said, ‘Slowly. Tell us slowly. We have all night to listen.’

The injured servant jerked his chin violently in the negative, then sank back into a faint.

‘Give him air, and tell the healer to bring a restorative to rouse him,’ Lujan snapped. A warrior hurried off to comply, while the men who had been steadying the man gently eased a blanket under his head. Moments later the healer arrived, unlimbering his bundled box of medicines and bandages. He quickly prepared and pressed a strong-smelling medicine to the unconscious man’s nose. He roused with a groan and thrashed his arms.

Lujan caught his tortured gaze. ‘Tell me. You were discovered.’

‘Somehow.’ The man blinked, as if trapped by unpleasant memories. ‘The First Adviser, Incomo, found out I was an Acoma agent.’

Lujan said nothing. Besides the Spy Master, only four people in the Acoma household, Mara, Nacoya, Keyoke, and himself, knew the passwords, changed at irregular intervals, that would identify an Acoma agent. The possibility could not be dismissed that this man might be a Minwanabi impostor. Only Arakasi would know for certain. If torture could force the password from the real agent, any number of enemy warriors might agree to this abuse to ruin the Acoma.

Kanil clawed weakly at Lujan’s wrist. ‘I don’t know how they found me out. They called for me and then took me to this room.’ He swallowed hard. ‘They tortured me … I lost consciousness and when I awoke I was alone. The door was unguarded. I don’t know why. Perhaps they thought I was
dead. Many Minwanabi soldiers were rushing to board boats and cross the lake. I crept out of the room in which I was a prisoner and stowed away on a supply boat. I passed out, and when I was again conscious, the flotilla was docked at Sulan-Qu. There were only two guards at the far end of the docks, so I slipped off into the city.’

‘Strike Leader Lujan,’ the healer interjected, ‘if you question this man too long, his survival may be threatened.’

At the mention of Lujan’s name, Kanil stirred in sudden and shattering agitation. ‘Oh, gods!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘This is the false caravan.’

Lujan’s only betrayal of shock was a tightening of his hand on his sword hilt. Taut, dangerous, and wary, he ignored the healer’s plea and leaned close to the man. Too softly he said, ‘For what reason would the Spy Master inform you of this deception?’

The man lay uncaring of his peril. Whispering, he said, ‘Arakasi didn’t. The Minwanabi know! They laughed and boasted of what they knew of Lady Mara’s plan while they tortured me.’

Chilled by this answer, Lujan pressed, ‘Do they know about the real silk shipment?’

Kanil returned a painful nod. ‘They do. They sent three hundred men to plunder it.’

Lujan stood. Curbing an impulse to fling his plumed helm to the ground, he cried, ‘Damn the fickleness of the gods!’

Then, aware of curious eyes that turned in his direction, he waved healer and soldiers away, leaving him alone with the tortured man. Night wind stirred the fire. Kneeling, Lujan seized Kanil by the back of the neck and hauled his battered face near to his own so they might speak without being overheard. ‘Upon your soul and life, do you know where?’

Tremors coursed through Kanil’s body. But his eyes were steady as he said, ‘The attack will happen on the road
through the Kyamaka Mountains, beyond the Tuscalora border, in a place where wagons must climb up out of a depression toward a western ridge. That is all I know.’

Lujan stared unseeing into features ravaged by enemies. He thought with a clarity that came on him in moments of crisis, and reviewed every dell and hideout and cranny he remembered in the mountains where he had once led his band of grey warriors. There were many an army might use for an ambush. Yet only one place that was suitable for concealment of three full companies matched the description. As if dreaming, Lujan said, ‘How long ago did the Minwanabi dogs pass Sulan-Qu?’

Kanil’s head sagged sideways. ‘A day, perhaps two. I cannot say. I fainted in a hovel in the city, and the gods only know how long I lay unconscious – an hour or perhaps a full day.’ He closed his eyes, too spent to add more; and the strength of purpose that had sustained him drained away with the deliverance of his message. Lujan lowered his hands and settled the limp head on blood-marked blankets. He made no protest as the healer hurried forward and began to tend the man.

Lujan completed his inner calculations. Knotted inside with concealed rage, he shouted loudly enough to wake the most sluggish of the sleeping servants. ‘Break camp!’

To the worried presence of his subcommander he added, ‘Assign a patrol and wagon to take this man to Lady Mara in the morning, and then detail half a company to see the rest of the wagons safely to our warehouses in Sulan-Qu at dawn.’

The officer saluted. ‘Yes, Strike Leader.’

‘The rest of us march now,’ Lujan finished. He wasted no breath with elaboration; every second counted. For if the Minwanabi attacked Keyoke in the pass, there was only one place to make a stand. The bandits’ canyon would be known to the scouts; but in the heat of ambush and battle, had any
of them found the chance to mention its presence? Curse of Turakamu, Lujan thought. The silk could be lost already, and Keyoke might at this moment be a corpse staring sightless at stars. Only a fool would hold to hope, and only an even greater fool would risk another two companies … yet Lujan could not conceive of any alternative but action.

For Lujan loved Mara with a devotion deeper than life: she had returned him to honour from the meaningless existence of a grey warrior. And the Force Commander Lujan had come to admire with the affection a son reserves for a father had become ensnared in a Minwanabi trap. Keyoke had embraced the tattered soldiers from Lujan’s band as if they had been born to Acoma green, and he had supported Lujan’s promotion to First Strike Leader with a fair judgment few men maintained in old age. Keyoke was more than a commanding officer; he was a teacher with a rare talent for sharing, and for listening.

Looking southward with eyes flat as pebbles, Lujan raised his voice to his company. ‘We march! And if we must steal every boat and barge in Sulan-Qu to make passage southward, we shall! By dawn I want to be on the river, and before another day passes, I want to be hunting dogs in the foothills of the Kyamakas!’

The forest was silent. Night birds did not cry, and the high, steep rim of the canyon cut off even the whisper of wind. Except for a brief hour when the moon had crossed the narrow slice of sky overhead, the darkness was unrelenting.

Keyoke refused all pleas to unbank the fires, though the air was chill at this altitude and the lightly clothed servants shivered. Soldiers sought to snatch sleep in full armour on damp ground, while others stood at their posts, carefully listening.

Only unwelcome sounds reached their ears: the scrape of disturbed stones and the muffled grunts of effort as climbers
tested canyon walls in the dark. The enemy had arrived, but the wait, most cruelly, did not end.

Keyoke remained by the barricade, his face impassive as old wood. Committed to battle in a place he had never seen in daylight, the Acoma Force Commander prayed that Wiallo’s assessment had been accurate: that the cliffs above were too steep to descend. As it was, Keyoke could do little but detail sentries to follow the rattling falls of pebbles set off by men prowling the heights. Once his soldiers were gratified by a muffled cry and the thud of a fallen body. The corpse that lay sprawled in the canyon was raggedly dressed, but too well fed and kempt for a bandit; his weapons were first-quality and stamped with the maker’s mark of an armourer well known in Szetac Province. No further proof was needed. That craftsman’s trade supplied the Minwanabi, as his forebears had for several generations.

Keyoke squinted at stars and found them paling. Dawn was approaching, and soon the enemy would have light enough to try arrows. Keyoke knew that if the Minwanabi Force Commander, Irrilandi, opposed him, he would have archers in crannies in the rock against any counterattack – one of Irrilandi’s more predictable tendencies was always to be ready for a counteroffensive. Come daylight, his archers could fire blindly down into the ravine. Most bowshafts might fall harmlessly, but some might strike chance targets. A secondary but nonetheless pressing worry was the shortage of healers’ herbs and unguents. The wagons had carried little by way of supplies, and no healers travelled with the soldiers.

The assault came as the Kelewanese sky brightened to jade green in the east. The first wave of Minwanabi soldiers struck the rough barricade with a battle scream that shattered the stillness. They could charge only four abreast through the rock passage, and their attempt to climb the breastwork brought them swift death on Acoma swords and
spears. Yet the enemy came on, climbing over dead and dying comrades in bloodthirsty waves. At least a dozen Minwanabi soldiers lay fallen before the first Acoma warrior took a wound; almost before his sword faltered, a fresh man shouldered forward to take his place. Minwanabi archers fired ineffectively over their comrades’ heads.

For nearly an hour the enemy hammered at the barricade. By ones and threes they died, until the corpses lay close to a hundred deep. Acoma casualties numbered fewer than a dozen injured and only one dead. Keyoke detailed servants to give what care they could to the injured. Although movement within the canyon was hampered by the insistent fall of enemy arrows, no man who took wounds for Acoma honour was permitted to lie without care.

Keyoke raised his voice to Dakhati. ‘Bring up fresh soldiers to the barricade.’

Dakhati dashed to relay the order. Within minutes the relief company undertook the defence of the barricade, and the Acoma Strike Leader brought word back. ‘The enemy are making little progress, Force Commander. They’ve tried having men crawl on their bellies to pull away some of the dead, and to undermine our breastworks. If they try sappers, we’re in trouble.’

Keyoke shook his head. ‘Sappers are useless here. The soil is sandy, yes, but the water lies too close to the surface and there is not enough room for engineers to dig.’ The Force Commander pushed his helm back to fan cool air on his scalp. The chill of mountain night had fled, and the breezeless canyon warmed under even the earliest sunlight. ‘Our flimsy breastworks are the greater problem. If they charge the line, and send men behind the assault to pull at the breastwork … Put spearmen on their knees behind the first line, and see if they can discourage any such activity.’

Dakhati hastened to effect this deterrent.

Keyoke surveyed the rest of his defences, his plumed head
held high despite the arrows arcing overhead. Most shafts bounced off the sheer walls of the canyon, but a few sped downward. One struck a handspan from Keyoke, but he barely noticed. As if the quivering shaft by his foot had no existence, he motioned for servants to carry water to his fighting men. Then he surveyed his command yet again.

The Minwanabi seemed frantic to engage the Acoma. Why? Keyoke considered. If the canyon was defensible, it was also a trap. The Minwanabi would pay dearly to enter, but the Acoma would die attempting to leave. An attacker not pressed to haste would be better to sit and wait, holding the canyon until starvation forced the defenders to desperation, then let Acoma bodies be the ones piling up at the base of the barricade as hunger drove them to escape. Keyoke reviewed what he knew of his opponent: Irrilandi was in no way stupid – he’d been competent enough to remain the Minwanabi Force Commander for nearly two decades – and in this foray he was almost certain to be operating under battle orders from Tasaio. Why should two men so skilled in war spend men by the hundreds? To capture the silk would be no mortal blow to the Acoma and certainly not worth the lives that would be sacrificed before the sun reached mid-heaven. Time must be a factor, but why?