2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows (2 page)

“You implied it.” Laurie pointed at John’s bare chest.

“Look, I can only say I’m sorry so many times.” John picked up a scrap of cloth and realized that it was a remnant of one of his two sweaters. He pulled it on. The arms were missing but it covered his chest.

“Saying you’re sorry once more isn’t going to kill you.” Laurie held out one of her own filthy but dry socks. John reached for it only to have Laurie pull it back from his grasp.

John sighed.

“Fine,” he said. Laurie had always been like this as far back as the second grade.

“I’m very sorry.” He held out his hand for the sock.

“Very, very sorry?”

“Yes.” John frowned. He really wasn’t in the mood for this.

“Maybe very, very, very sorry?” Laurie waved the sock at him.

“I am sorrow incarnate,” John growled. “I have no other name.”

“Ooh. That’s a good one.” Laurie relinquished the sock.

“I think the other one is here somewhere.” Bill shifted around in his blanket, then produced a second sock. “You can apologize to me later about something else.”

“That’s very kind of you.” John forced his feet into the small socks. Despite the holes in the toes and heel, his feet felt immediately warmer. He pawed through the clothing for something to use as a coat.

“Why are you getting dressed now?” Bill asked.

“I’m going to go down the road and find the Bousim convoy those men were talking about.”

“Don’t you mean that the dog was talking about?” Laurie asked.

John shrugged. That fact seemed too absurd to reiterate, particularly now that Laurie looked so smug.

Bill said, “I don’t know if getting involved is the best idea.”

“It may not be,” John admitted, “but I have to at least warn them.”

“Wait,” Laurie’s pleased expression disappeared, “you’re not going out now? With a bunch of gun-toting killers out there?”

“I’m not going out to meet up with the killers,” John said. “I’m going in the opposite direction, south, to the convoy they’re planning on ambushing.”

“Why?” Laurie demanded. “Nearly drowning and freezing to death wasn’t enough for one day?”

“I just got wet and cold,” John said. “Someone in that convoy is being admitted into Rathal’pesha as an ushiri.”

“Ushiri?” Bill asked. “Isn’t Ravi an ushiri or something?”

John nodded. “A priest training to become Kahlil.”

“That still doesn’t mean you have to go running to warn them in the dead of night,” Laurie said.

“It’ll be too late by morning.” John tried to pull on the coat Ravishan had brought for Bill. It was too small to get his shoulders into. He stripped it off again. “This convoy is owned by the Bousim—the noble family that rules most of the north. If I can help them, then they could definitely get us into Amura’taye. We can get out of this shelter.”

“What if these guys don’t care if you were nice and warned them?” Laurie asked. “Weren’t you just yelling at me for forgetting that this is a place where they burn people alive! Wasn’t it those Payshmura priests and their Bousim friends that did that?”

“Ravishan said that the men they burned were Fai’daum—” John began but Laurie cut him off.

“And that means what?” Laurie held up her hands questioningly.

“They’re an organization of bandits and robbers. They have some kind of grudge against the Payshmura priests and the nobles who support them. They’ve been known to slaughter pilgrims and burn down churches.”

“Maybe because the priests keep burning them alive,” Bill muttered.

“Maybe,” John agreed. “I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter.”

“Yeah? Well, how do you know that these guys aren’t going to think that you’re one of those Fai’daum when you come running up to them?” Laurie demanded.

“Because I think the men I overheard were Fai’daum. If we could prevent them from being successful, then I think that it would prove that we have no affiliation with them. We have a lot better chance of being allowed into Amura’taye if we can do that.”

 
“It doesn’t matter what I say, does it?” Laurie asked. “You’re going to go no matter what, aren’t you?”

John picked up his hunting knife and tucked it into his belt.

“I think it would be the best thing I could do for all our sakes. We need a better shelter and better food and we need to find a doctor for Bill. Plus, Amura’taye is at the foot of Rathal’pesha. Ravishan wouldn’t have to travel so far to meet with us.”

“It won’t do us much good if you just get killed,” Laurie said.

“He won’t get killed,” Bill said quietly.

Laurie scowled at Bill, who simply shrugged in response.

“You’re not going to get yourself killed, right?” he asked John.

“No,” John said flatly.

“That’s supposed to prove something?” Laurie demanded.

“Sweetie,” Bill reached out and caught her hand, “he’s a big boy.”

Laurie frowned but let Bill pull her back into his arms. Bill kissed her and Laurie sighed.

“You’re both stupid male idiots,” Laurie murmured. Bill kissed her again.

John picked up his boots and tugged them back on. They were still wet, but they were better than nothing. He frowned at his ragged coat. If he wrung the water out of it, it shouldn’t be too bad. The heat of his body would probably warm it up soon enough.

“Should we come with you?” Laurie asked.

“I don’t think so.” It was a polite offer, one that Laurie had to know he would decline. They all knew it. John moved faster on his own. He also spoke Basawar the best of all of them.

“I should be back soon but if not...” John couldn’t think of anything that either of them should do if something happened to him. “Tell Ravishan what happened. He’ll probably have heard something at Rathal’pesha.”

“Be careful, okay?” Laurie said.

“Yeah, if it gets sketchy just come back,” Bill advised.

“I will,” John assured her. “I’ll see you both soon.”

He picked up his coat and ducked out of the shelter. Outside, a cool night wind rolled over him. Anticipation and fear surged through his body, making his heart pound and his blood rush in hot pulses. So much could go wrong, but so much could be gained. As he made his way down to the road, the black shadows of the woods seemed full of possibility and for the first time in months he felt real hope.
        

The Bousim convoy wasn’t hard to locate. Dozens of lanterns beamed between the black tree trunks like beacons. The two coaches and three wagons were festooned with bright lanterns. Light glowed across the black lacquered surfaces of the coaches and glinted over traces of gold filigree. Reflections also gleamed along the lengths of the gun-muzzles and sharp bayonets of the uniformed men riding alongside the carriages and wagons. John counted thirty riders, but he knew he probably missed a few.

The animals harnessed to the carts and carriages and being ridden weren’t horses. John didn’t know why he had thought they would be. They looked more like deer or antelope. Sharp horns spiraled up from their heads. When the light caught their hides, John saw that they were a greenish tone of gray. A few of them were marked with pale dapples on their faces and hindquarters. He remembered Ravishan telling him that men in Basawar rode tahldi. He had to assume that these were tahldi.

The drivers of the carts and carriages were dressed in thick coats and wore wide brimmed hats. They hunched in their seats. One man looked like he had slipped into a doze. In contrast, the uniformed riders surrounding the carts and carriages held themselves with a militaristic tension that was hard to read. John couldn’t know if their alert stances and straight backs were evidence of discipline or apprehension. Their silence, too, might have been a code of conduct. Their expressions were set, almost blank, but their eyes moved constantly, searching for motion in the surrounding night.

Rashan’im, John thought. Cavalrymen like these were called rashan’im. They served in noblemen’s private armies.

John crouched in the underbrush at the roadside, half blinded by the brilliance. The convoy proceeded forward at a slow pace. After watching for a few minutes, he decided that the least threatening approach would be the best. He certainly didn’t want to leap out from the woods and get himself shot before he could say a word. It would be wiser to let these nervy men come across him in the open. John crept back farther into the woods. He turned north and sprinted ahead of the convoy. Then he walked out onto the open road to wait.

Months of staying under the cover of the trees and keeping away from the Holy Road made this sudden exposure feel unnatural. He caught himself moving slightly to the side of the road, where the shadows of overhanging branches offered him greater camouflage. He made himself stop and move back out to the center of the road.

Everything was dark. The slight shadows cast by a faint moon and distant stars hardly impacted the surrounding blackness. But to John the subtle differences between the black trees and the dark sky seemed glaring. He could pick out the shapes of leaves on the tree branches and individual stones in the cobbled road. It was probably the result of living so long without light, he reasoned.

John watched the steady approach of the luminous convoy. He could make out the exact shapes of the coaches. Their lanterns burned brightly into his eyes. John rested his gaze on the sharp silhouettes of the rashan’im.

The two men at the lead looked older than John, somewhere in their late thirties or early forties. One was clean-shaven; the other had a thick black beard. Both wore their dark hair clipped very short. The bearded man looked like his nose might have been broken at one time. The other had softer features and a more angular build.

 
John noticed the small steely insignias that decorated the chests of their coats and the backs of their gloves. Two crossed arrows. The same insignia decorated the carriage doors.

John found it odd that he could clearly see these men while they, still intently staring around them, had not yet noticed him. He wondered if it was just that he knew where to look and what he was looking for. These mounted soldiers didn’t know what they should expect to see. John was pretty certain that none of them were expecting him.

Suddenly the clean-shaven rider at the front pulled his mount up short and gave out a call. The entire convoy ground to a halt behind the front riders. John heard muffled whispering voices from farther back. A shadowy head popped out from the window of one of the coaches and then was jerked back in.

“Tumah.” John held his hands out in the gesture of peace that Ravishan had taught him.

The clean-shaven rashan lifted his short rifle and took aim at John’s chest. All the words John had rehearsed as he had raced through the woods now crashed in a jumble of fear. The formal greetings and proper titles that he had previously decided on seemed dangerously long-winded now.

“I mean you no harm,” the Basawar words came to John in a rush.

“Move aside, dog! The Bousim house has neither the time nor patience for your filthy begging.” The bearded man addressed John in the derogatory form normally reserved for animals.

Anger flashed through John and for a moment he considered obliging the highhanded demand and letting them just march on to their deaths. It was a terrible and petty urge and John ignored it.

“I am not here to beg, sir.” John straightened and lifted his head so that he looked straight into the other man’s face. “I live in these woods and I have come to warn you that there’s a trap ahead of you on the road.”

The clean-shaven man lowered his rifle, just slightly.

The bearded man, obviously the one in charge, continued, “Very well, dog. You may speak. Tell us about this trap.”

Again the man’s tone grated at John, but he ignored it. He was in no position to demand to be addressed with human respect. He wasn’t the one holding a gun.

“I overheard men planning to attack the Bousim family convoy. They said something about taking the ushiri candidate captive.”

“What else?”

“They’re mining the road. About three leagues north of here, I think. They didn’t say where exactly but it has to be this side of the river bridge. After that the woods get too thin to offer any cover. They’re expecting you to reach them by early morning.”

“How many of them?” the bearded man asked.

“Twenty, I think.”

“Their weapons?”

“Rifles and knives. Maybe some bows,” John provided.

“What are you called, animal?” the bearded man demanded.

“Jahn,” John said his name the way Ravishan did. Only after he had spoken did he realize his mistake. Both the riders ahead of him smirked. The word ‘jahn’ referred to blonde hides, like the coat of the dog he had seen. It would be the kind of name a pet would have, but not a man. It was like saying he was named Spot or Blackie.

“Well then, Jahn,” the bearded man leaned forward in his saddle and smiled, revealing crooked teeth, “you’re a good boy to have run all this way to warn your masters, aren’t you?”