Traitors' Gate (107 page)

And Joss thought:
Could I have ordered the forest set ablaze? Could I have set men on fire with oil of naya, knowing in what agony they would burn? Could I stand aside and order that all captured prisoners must be executed immediately, lest they slow down the progress of the army? Could I kill a Guardian? Or let another man do so, knowing the act would kill him?

He could not shake the feeling that he—that everyone—stood at the edge of a precipice. Aui! Did he envy Anji? For his skill at command? For his evident intelligence and powerful ability to focus? For his beautiful, devoted wife? For the handsome child Joss would never have?

And yet why not? He wasn't too old to father a child. It wasn't too late to build a different life. He didn't have to be commander of the reeve halls; it wasn't as if the reeves seemed eager to accept him in that position. A simple reeve might hope to have
a cottage to come home to with a spouse and children. Wasn't that what he had hoped for?

For it always came back to Marit, didn't it? To the ordinary life the likes he had dreamed of twenty years ago, when he had asked Marit if she would consider making a child together with him. Was that what he mourned more than anything? The life so many other humble people took for granted that had been ripped from him by a band of criminals up on the Liya Pass? And how was he therefore any different from uncounted Hundred folk whose lives had been destroyed and lands laid waste by Lord Radas's cruel army?

Out of the east, just beyond the eastern channels, horns cried and banners waved. The reserves from Saltow had reached Skerru. Lord Radas had reinforcements. Zubaidit, marching with the enemy, didn't know they were about to smash into Anji's army.

One way or the other, she'd be killed. He sure as the hells was not going to fly away to report to the hall while leaving another woman behind to die as he'd left Marit.

He jessed Scar hard, and they sailed over the eastern crossings, over the heads of the first Saltow contingent. The six staves cohort had gained ground and was now perhaps half a mey behind, closing the gap. He swooped recklessly low as, above, reeves flagged him desperately in warning. Below, the horse-tailed captain marked his approach, nudging Zubaidit.

Was the gods-rotted woman
insane
? A traitor? She said something to the captain, and cursed if a reeve flag didn't go up, signaling him to land:
Help needed!
Every reeve was obliged to answer the call. It was their duty.

Down.

They thumped hard, and Joss unhooked, dropped, and blew Scar's retreat. Scar launched without hesitation, leaving Joss to stand in front of an oncoming enemy cohort with his baton in hand, like a reeve facing down a riot single-handedly. There were worse ways to die. And Scar would be free to take a new reeve.

Yet the cohort halted in a display of discipline almost as impressive as Anji's Qin horsemen. Three people jogged out
from the vanguard to meet him: the captain, accompanied by two women in sergeant's badges. The woman standing to the captain's right was past the first bloom of youth, tall for a woman and thick with a laborer's strength. Her eyes widened as she took in Joss; she shook her head with the twisted half frown of a woman who wants to laugh but isn't sure she ought to. She carried a stubby spear in her left hand and a short sword sheathed at her side. A long leather pouch was slung over her back.

The captain stopped a stone's toss away, rubbing his chin with the back of a hand as he examined Joss with a crooked half smile, as a man might not quite smile when he realizes he's lost a bet.

Bai sauntered forward, grinning that cursed grin that made Joss flush. “Reeve Joss. Come to my rescue.”

“I'll expect a reward,” said Joss, with a smile that stopped her in her tracks.

The other sergeant snorted.

The captain said, on a sharp sigh, “I see you two know each other.”

“Not in that way, if not for lack of trying,” said Zubaidit. “Don't be jealous.”

“How can I be jealous for what I've never possessed? Reeve Joss, I'm called Arras, captain of Sixth Cohort. This is Sergeant Giyara. So tell me, reeve, why would you come down from your safe haven in the sky to parley with the captain of an army whose men you know are eager to kill reeves?”

These were cursed interesting currents, truly.

Joss turned his smile on Sergeant Giyara, who smirked in the way of a woman who was immune to his charm but enjoyed watching the effort. “The first time Zubaidit and I met, she tried to kill me. So I suppose I feel I still have the advantage. Tell me, Captain, are you marching into battle?”

“We're marching to meet up with Lord Radas, as ordered. What battle?”

Joss indicated the hazy sky. “That's dust, churned up by fire and battle. Captain Anji has broken Lord Radas's army.”

“So you might claim. If I join up with the other Saltow contingent, we can flank the enemy and drive him back.”

“You might, although I doubt it. Toskala is fallen to an uprising. Reeves from Gold Hall ought to be falling on the garrison in High Haldia today. Your side has lost, even if the limbs still function. You can retreat with your men and lose the war another day, or you can surrender.”

“I can kill you at this moment,” said the captain, not in an angry way, just pointing it out as a comment between friends.

“You haven't killed me. And I think you won't. I've given you fair warning, because Zubaidit marches beside you. Let me take her and go.”

“She's our hostage,” said the captain.

“Cursed spy,” said Giyara without much heat, eyeing Zubaidit sidelong. Without looking at the other sergeant, Bai smiled provocatively, and Joss's ears flamed. Had she had sex with the other woman? Was that her game? The hells!

“For a man of your experience,” said Bai in a voice whose purr made him think she'd seen into his mind as easily as might a cloak, “you're as innocent as the sky is blue in the dry season, Reeve Joss. I need to tell you that my brave comrade Shai killed the woman who wore the cloak of Night. He rests in one of those invalid wagons, badly hurt. I have to stay with him. Tohon would never forgive me if I let him die.”

Joss's heart went cold; his limbs seemed paralyzed; his mouth went dry.

“Did you release her cloak to the gods, as is fitting?” he croaked.

“I gave it to Captain Arras.”

The captain didn't even glance at Sergeant Giyara, who stood loyally beside him with a pouch slung across her back. An innocent burden, to the naked eye.

“I beg you,” Joss said to Bai, “release it.”

Captain Arras shook his head. “You comprehend my dilemma, Reeve Joss. I'm torn between my old commander and the prospect of a new one. A traitor has earned a short life, don't you think? I need a cursed valuable treasure to bargain
with, and while the life of that young outlander we're hauling along in the wagons seems useful, I don't think it's enough.”

Joss glanced at Bai and lifted his chin. A quickly drawn sword, and a pair of lunges, would take care of the captain and sergeant; they could release the cloak. Then he realized she wasn't armed.

Arras laughed. “I like you, reeve. You think the way I do. She agreed to walk unarmed. I've a Guardian's cloak and a veiled outlander to bargain with.” Horns blatted in the distance, a call to arms. “Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got a battle to fight. Best you move aside, and let us march.”

They were almost seven hundred men. He was one reeve, not quite ready to die pointlessly. He stood aside, and let them march.

A
RRAS CLIMBED UP
into a wagon's bed to address his soldiers, who were straining eagerly for news. They had heard the horns' cries from ahead. They'd watched the captain's conference with the reeve.

“I've brought you this far,” Arras called. “You may have wondered why we retreated from the attack on Nessumara. You may have wondered why we did not march out in company with the Saltow survivors. Why we left our camp slaves behind in Saltow rather than bring them with us.” He surveyed the assembled cohort but saw no man or woman there who looked angry or suspicious. They trusted him.

“As your captain, I have always put your welfare first. Maybe you think I'm a generous man, a merchant who gives out rice cakes to children just to see them smile.” That caught and released a few chuckles. “Maybe you think it's occurred to me that I can't be a captain without a cohort to command, and so it should. What is a captain, except a man with soldiers to lead? What is a commander, even a lord commander, except one who holds the reins of an army? So I ask you, if a
commander proves again and again through his actions that he is no wise commander, ought a captain to follow him even into disaster? If a captain places the welfare of his loyal men above all things, shouldn't he pause rather than leap blindly? If a captain who wants his men to stay alive, to fight again, to earn a decent reward, sees that those who give orders don't know what they're doing and are leading their army into a mire, isn't he required to change his path?”

He had their full attention.

“Who will feed us if we burn down all the villages, trample every field, and drive away the farmers? Most of you hail from such villages. Have you ever wondered what in the hells we're doing? What end it serves? Does it serve your families and clans? Does it serve us? For what reward are we fighting?”

They had settled into a stillness like that of children listening to the most ancient of tales, bound as by the sorcery of the storyteller. So far, it was working. Even his subcaptains, for whom this was not entirely a surprise, were nodding.

“I'll tell you, I'm tired of this. This isn't fighting. A soldier ought not to be proud of bullying the helpless. Of stringing up men and women from poles just to watch them suffer. I don't fear a fight. You know that, who served with me in High Haldia. Nor do I fear death more than any other. A fighting man always takes a chance with death. But there are better commanders to serve. And I know where they are. Right up ahead, as that reeve has given me to know. Lord Radas's army is not invincible. They're losing now. Toskala has thrown off its garrison. High Haldia's garrison will go down likewise. An army from Olossi has marched all the way here, and it's them who fight out there, them who have a leader who knows how to deploy his forces and take charge.”

These revelations shocked them. They muttered restlessly, and he raised a hand to call for silence. They quieted at once.

“How can it have happened, you wonder? That we who have fifteen or more cohorts are struggling now? We're struggling because of poor command. Squandered units. Terrible planning. Because of arrogance and ignorance and blindness and pride. Yet aren't we trapped where we stand? Aren't we
caged by our past choices? Neh, it's never too late to take a chance on a new path. Everything we do is subject to a thousand chances. So I'm asking you, if you trust my judgment, take a chance with me now.”

They cheered. Not one hesitated or turned away.

He climbed down off the wagon.

To Giyara he said, “Give Zubaidit her weapons.”

To the subcaptains he said, “Form up your companies in attack order. We'll go broad, one, two, and three across the front, four and five flanking, and six at the center back as reserve, Piri, so you keep your eyes open. I'll stand with you in the command unit.”

He looked over the troop as they fell into marching order, each soldier knowing the comrades at whose shoulder he stood. He had trained them well; they knew their business.

“Shall we?” he said to Giyara, and to his subcaptains, who were gathered around him.

He was answered with an emphatic “yes.” They, too, felt the sting of a hundred small slights and niggling doubts; he wasn't the only one who was ambitious, who felt he'd not received the reward he'd earned or a full measure of credit for his labors.

He gestured, and the Sixth Cohort banner was raised and lowered. The horns called the advance, and the drums set the pace. They marched out double-time, and soon the clamor of battle filled their ears, drowning out the sound of the river. The rearguard of the other Saltow contingent, massing at the ferries and bridges to cross, saw them coming and raised a cheer.

Arras signaled, the banner rose twice to pass the command. The pace quickened.

Again he signaled, and again the banner rose. The beat hammered faster, and the cohort shifted into a trot. From across the river, horses pounded, men shouted, steel clashed.

He raised a hand and the banner raised and lowered a final time as they closed with the now-bewildered Saltow units. The drums, like his heart, raced. He'd made his choice. There was no going back.

His front line broke into their charge.

•  •  •

J
OSS HAD TO
admire the way in which Captain Arras and his cohort smashed their former comrades. They hit them from the rear and took them apart while the other soldiers were still trying to figure out what was going on and who had attacked them. It was brutal but effective, worthy of Anji's Qin, if you wanted to look at it that way. From on high, he watched as the Sixth Cohort took control of the ferries and bridges. They cut down soldiers fleeing in retreat across those crossings toward what looked like the safe harbor of one of their own. On the other side of the river, Anji's rear units had reached the battleground and were advancing step by step, clearing all opposition. The open ground between Skerru's livestock palisade and the causeway was littered with the dead and the dying, with Olo'osson and Nessumaran militiamen stalking the wounded to drag free their comrades and finish off their enemies. Meanwhile, the forward units pressed the remnants toward the river. Many dismounted to harry the enemy on foot, while riders swept around the flanks to cut off men trying to escape into the swamp. Arrows flew with deadly grace. Skerru's gates remained resolutely closed, although some desperate men tried to scale the palisade and were driven off with poles and pitchforks wielded by Skerru's frightened populace.