Traitors' Gate (63 page)

Whether Masar would curse him or thank him for bringing in a novice whose speech was difficult to understand and whose eagle was also young and untrained he did not know. But he'd not yet made contact with Gold Hall in Teriayne where they likely housed other reeves with a northern way of talking. Masar he could impose on. The old marshal owed him that much.

The lad was staring at the astonishing vista: not, mind you, at the cultivated plain, but at the vast forest spreading southward. He asked a question which Joss puzzled out as “What is that?”

“That's the Wild.”

“The Wild? As in the wildings?”

“Indeed, wildings live there. It is forbidden for any human to enter its boundaries. Have you wildings up in the north?”

Yes, he did. He told an incomprehensible story about a tribe of wildings and a cliff and a valley and someone's child falling into a fell stream—or maybe a fallow field strewn with seed, hard to say—but his nonchalance in recounting the tale made
Joss wonder what in the hells it was like growing up in the uttermost north where you might see a trading ship twice a year and now and again an outlander's fishing boat blown to shore in the storm season. He could barely imagine a place where all you knew of the Hundred were the tales handed down by your grandmother and the same everyday local faces. Which evidently included wildings.

“We won't fly over it today,” Joss added, “but in your training you'll get a taste of how big it is. Come on.”

They hooked in. Scar launched, and Sisit beat after, keeping her distance. She was very young, unsure of how to respond to another eagle except that she always kept her feathers up. Of course all eagles were hatched and raised in their early months in the distant mountainous wilderness of Heaven's Reach, but usually the fledglings returned to the halls with a parent in tow and learned to recognize their family group within the eagles. Within these groups the eagles could be remarkably cooperative. Outside them, training taught most to subdue their territoriality when in company with their reeves.

They sailed over the wide coastal plain. Farmers turned no earth; dug no ditches; trimmed no mulberries. No one was hauling water. No young shepherds guarded grazing flocks. When the first burned villages came into view, Joss knew he should have expected it, yet even so the sight shocked him. Lord Radas's army was spreading its blight.

Lord Radas, whom he might kill if Marit had told him the truth.

Yet thinking of Marit caused him to recall the way she had responded to his kiss.

The hells! He had to focus. With Nessumara under siege, the old Silver had ceased providing bags of nai and rice, and it had therefore become urgent to clear Law Rock of anyone not contributing to the defense. But because the town of Horn had refused to take in a single refugee, they had to haul the hapless refugees all the way to Candra Crossing from which staging area the refugees could slog the rest of the way to Olossi on roads made safe by Captain Anji's militia. It took a cursed long time to transport hundreds of people hundreds of mey,
one at a time, but just seven days ago Nallo and Pil had lifted off with the last two. Now, at last, he might send messengers to the other halls to get their news and call for a council to coordinate plans. Meanwhile, Clan Hall's stores were running low, and it took too gods-rotted long to haul sacks from Candra Crossing. You couldn't feed a reeve hall, even a small one, one sack at a time.

Smoke billowed skyward in the distance. He tugged on the jesses to shift Scar's trajectory, and Badinen and Sisit followed. The lad handled the eagle cursed well for someone without a single day's training.

Seen from the sky, events unfold like tales: burning cottages and shouting farmers, bawling sheep and barking dogs heard intermittently as the wind changes. Folk fled a village; soldiers set torches to thatched roofs while others heaped wagons with sacks of rice and nai, cages of chickens, baskets of radish and rope. The villagers saw him; he knew by the way tiny figures hesitated, waved arms, then stumbled onward.

With the lad in tow, and him alone, he could not stop. What could he do for them beyond telling them to run and hide? He had the luxury to rage, on high, yet as always it seemed he could do nothing to stop injustice. For that was not the only village under attack along the coastal plain near his own birthplace. Smoke rose in bloated, expanding pools, dissipating as plumes reached the upper air. The watch beacons along the shore were on fire up and down the coast.

Had the army reached the town of Haya? Beyond it, to his childhood village?

The hells! Copper Hall's high bluff was surrounded by a full cohort. Incredibly, the army had brought up a fleet of fishing boats and coast-hugging trading ships that were roping in the skiffs and shore-boats used by Copper Hall's population to fish and collect kelp. The cohort had massed on the landward side to cut off retreat by foot, forcing thereby every eagle remaining in Copper Hall to take off from the training ground—no difficult feat, naturally, but those fawkners and assistants and slaves who had not already gotten out were trapped, so every eagle leaving was weighed down by a passenger.

An intelligent mind commanded the enemy. Archers launched volleys as each eagle banked up, vulnerable before it caught an updraft. Two eagles were already down. One lay lifeless, both reeve and passenger sprawled dead in the harness. The other was wounded, a wing trailing uselessly as it struggled to right itself on an injured leg. In its fury it dragged the harness, its reeve limp and unresponsive but the passenger fighting to get out of the tangle. Joss winced as arrows punctured the helpless eagle's flesh; blades flashed in sunlight as armed men closed in for the kill.

Another raptor was hit, but it kept climbing. Struggling. Listing. Tumbling into the sea as its reeve and passenger unhooked just in time to fall free into the rolling waters.

Blessed Ilu! How could this be happening?

He had taught Badinen four flag commands, the least you needed to know. Now he flagged:
Stay aloft.

He sent Scar down the well-remembered landing path to the training ground just as a huge yammering shout rose from the gatehouse where soldiers had broken through. The raptor thumped down hard. Two eagles launched from the adjoining parade ground as Joss unhooked and dropped out of his harness.

Masar recognized Joss with a start of amazement, quickly controlled. “Can you take a passenger? What of that other eagle, the one with you?”

“He's freshly jessed and the eagle is still a fledgling. I can take two. Scar's strong enough.”

“Strong enough, but you can't risk two. Arrow shot—they're so close now—”

Beyond the gate, guardsmen fought a hopeless rearguard to buy time, but the clash ended with a shout cut off in the midst of a word. Hammering shuddered on the closed gates that walled off the training ground. There were three eagles left, in addition to Scar, and seventeen fawkners, hirelings, and adolescent debt slaves watching with not one begging for passage despite the army killing their comrades outside.

“Masar! I can take two.”

Masar's age already weighed on his shoulders; he seemed
to wilt, his spirit burdened until it might break as he scanned those who remained.

“You two,” Masar said, “and you three.” The five he indicated were experienced fawkners, not the youngest by any means. Not the prettiest. That unfortunate distinction went to a young woman whose strained expression trembled, then firmed, as she realized—or perhaps she had already known—that she was to be left behind.

“Jenna,” the marshal added, “take the rest to my cote and hide in the cellar. They'll burn everything, but you can wait it out as long as they don't find you. We'll send sweeps and pick up the survivors as we can.”

“Yes, Grandfather.” She turned to the others. “Move!”

“Masar!” Joss cried as the girl led her companions away. “You can't possibly be leaving—”

“We must save the experienced fawkners,” said Masar. “You take Gerda and Eiko, they're the smallest.”

Two small-boned women trotted up. They had the wiry toughness of fawkners who have survived many years caring for the raptors. Their expressions were fixed and bitter. Eiko carried a spare harness and leashes.

He weighed their builds, Eiko's height. “Eiko, you first and Gerda below,” he said, knowing full well that the outermost person took the greatest risk of being hit. They nodded. They'd faced death before. He had often thought fawkners were the most courageous people he knew.

In silence the last reeves hooked in themselves first and the five fawkners after. One by one they flew, Masar lifting with his eagle Shy only as the gates came down. Up and up, with arrows flying. Gerda grunted, rocking in the harness. Scar's trajectory staggered momentarily; the raptor dipped, then caught a draft and pushed sloppily upward.

Two eagles were hit, their wings a broad target, but they labored on. One passenger shrieked, caught in the leg, his blood raining down over the compound as the enemy swarmed in. Torches were thrown onto thatched roofs of the outbuildings, while the gates of the big storehouses were thrown open. Copper Hall's guardsmen and hirelings lay scattered throughout
the alleys and at walls and gates, having given their lives to allow others to escape.

Joss tugged on his jesses to get Scar turned north.

“Reeve,” said Eiko, “Gerda's hit.”

Unbelievably, he hadn't even noticed. No doubt he'd been too busy searching for sign of Masar's pretty granddaughter.

He reached past Eiko's torso and patted Gerda. His hand came away slick with blood. Impossibly, she had been hit in the throat, her life's blood pouring down her chest and legs. She hadn't made a sound, hadn't even kicked or thrashed, just crossed the Spirit Gate that quickly.

“She's dead,” said Eiko. “I'll cut her loose.”

“Eiya! Are you sure?”

“She's my good friend and comrade. I'm not about to cut her loose to settle an old score or save myself. She'd tell you to do it, to spare the eagle.”

His breathing pinched, making it hard to force out words. “Do it.”

She fished a knife from her vest and sliced the leashes. The body plummeted. He looked for Badinen because he could not bear to watch the impact. The lad trailed behind obediently. The hells knew what he was thinking now. If Eiko wept, she did so silently.

Lightened, Scar found a thermal and rose. Wind blustered against their ears. After a while Scar tipped out of the thermal and started the long sail to Clan Hall.

“If you don't mind my asking,” said Eiko, “I don't know your name.”

“I'm Joss.”

“Joss?” The timbre of her voice changed.

“Yes,
that
Joss.”

She snorted, finding a moment of humor in a grim day. “Aren't you the new commander at Clan Hall?”

“I am.”

“Copper Hall in Nessumara is under siege and couldn't have taken us anyway. They've not had the room for a full complement for generations.”

Each reeve hall housed by custom six hundred reeves, although
at any given time many fewer were actually present in the halls: some eagles would be absent for their breeding season in Heaven's Reach; many would be out on patrol or, in more peaceful days, presiding over assizes. If what Marit said had been true, then in the days long ago reeves had spread themselves farther afield in outposts built to house family groups rather than the larger aggregations found in the halls.

“Copper Hall can't take you in,” he agreed, “yet neither can Clan Hall. We can't even feed ourselves.”

“What are we going to do?”

The land unrolled below, under siege or overwhelmed. Scar shifted, adjusting to the current, and Joss hitched his own position to accommodate the eagle's flight.

We will kill the Guardians.

Even to think it was like breaking the boundaries and violating the gods' law.

“We've lost, haven't we?” she said.

“We haven't lost.” He wiped his eyes, but he only smeared the sticky remains of Gerda's blood on his face. “We're developing a new plan of attack. We'll set up outposts. Change our patrol tactics. We'll leave a contingent on Clan Hall. As long as we hold Law Rock, we can say we guard the law, can't we?”

“But where are
we
going to go?” she demanded.

It was so cursed obvious, death falling everywhere to remind him of what had been lost.

Horn Hall.

•  •  •

C
APTAIN ARRAS WALKED
through the marshal's cote of Copper Hall pulling scrolls from cubbyholes and unrolling them to squint at the undecipherable writing before he tossed them on the low writing desk for a clerk to read. They would burn what was useless. In the marshal's sleeping chamber, an unlocked chest stored jackets, kilts, and sandals in different sizes. On top sat a basket of fruit, including a half-eaten plum hidden beneath two green globe-fruit, as if a child had taken a bite of the plum when he wasn't supposed to and decided he
didn't like the taste. The storage cupboard contained five rolled up sleeping mats, old harness, a pair of cloth dolls, a basket of combs and brushes, two sun umbrellas, and several rain cloaks folded and stacked. It had mice, too; he heard scrabbling and then, as a board creaked under his weight, silence. He'd always imagined reeves lived more grandly, dining on rich folk's china with lacquered spoons and silk hangings to decorate their halls. These folk seemed pretty cursed lacking.

Sergeant Giyara clattered into the audience chamber. “Captain Arras?”

“Here I am.” He stepped back into the main room.

The six subcaptains tramped in with boots on. Arras sat on the pillow behind the writing desk and pushed aside a bowl of half eaten nai porridge, now cold and congealed.

“Your reports?”

Over the past months he had trained them to give efficient and effective reports: all the information he needed but not more, delivered in a straightforward order.