Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (25 page)

Kolan would be proud of me,
she thought with a distant sense of grief, and wished he was still alive. He would have enjoyed meeting her son.
Did I kill him?
She couldn’t remember, and that troubled her for a moment. Then she went back to stroking the fennel plant, inhaling the licorice aroma contentedly.

The front door of the cottage opened.

Ellemoa wrapped shadow tighter round, anxious to avoid discovery; she wasn’t quite ready to deal directly with humans yet.

A plump woman in a long, shapeless dress walked slowly around the corner of the cottage. She stopped a few paces from where Ellemoa stood, cocked her head to one side, and sniffed the air thoughtfully.

“Hello,” she said, very calmly. “Would you like to come inside and have a cup of tea?”

“You still haven’t said,” Tank said, keeping his voice low, “how you came to be in Bright Bay, signed with Venepe.”

Midafternoon heat glared down from a sparsely clouded sky. The
thuck
ing of hooves and creaking of the wagon blended into the oppressively humid air.

A few horse-lengths ahead, Rat glared up at the sky and said, “Ta-neka of a storm building.” His deep voice carried effortlessly.

“Freak heat’s telling me that,” Frenn answered. “From all pissy and cold yesterday? This ain’t right.” Tank didn’t think either one of them knew how to talk quietly; they were accustomed to shouting over the sounds of a crowded caravan yard or other similarly noisy obstacles.

“You didn’t ask,” Dasin said, from much closer to hand. Tank tore his attention from the mercenaries ahead and looked to his right. Dasin’s face was pale and strained, dark smudges marking the fair skin under his eyes. He didn’t look at Tank, his gaze fixed somewhere vague.

“So I’m asking,” Tank said.

“Storm ought to bring the temperature crashing back down,” Frenn said. “Gonna be ugly.”

“Hope it waits until we’re in Sandsplit,” Rat said.

Just visible ahead of the wagon, Breek rode point, his back straight and his attention sweeping the area. By contrast, Rat and Frenn almost slouched in their saddles, reins held casually across their laps, and seemed more inclined to talk than watch their surroundings.

Frenn said something Tank couldn’t quite make out, and Rat laughed. They both glanced over their shoulders at Tank and Dasin, grinning, then looked at one another and laughed again.

Tank bit his tongue and told himself to mind his temper.
You fight when you have to.
Allonin and Captain Ash had both warned him to expect a certain amount of hazing when he joined any mercenary group. They’d stop soon enough.

“I learned as much as I could without going on the road myself,” Dasin said. Tank blinked and looked at him, bewildered for a moment. He’d almost forgotten having asked a question. Dasin, still staring ahead with an abstracted expression, went on without pause. “I asked to start out of Bright Bay. I look too northern to be any use in the southlands, and I’d heard you’d decided to base out of Bright Bay as a mercenary; I hoped we’d cross paths again.” He shot a sideways, frowning glance at Tank. “You might have sent word, you know. That you weren’t coming back. Might have been nice, not hearing that from gossip.”

Tank tucked his chin against his chest and frowned at his horse’s ears for a few moments. “Didn’t think it would matter to you that much,” he said at last.

Dasin snorted. “You didn’t think at all,” he said, sounding remarkably like Allonin.

Tank checked to be sure Rat and Frenn weren’t listening. They were discussing something to do with their horses. He dropped his voice even lower and said, “Didn’t Allonin tell you?”

“He barely stopped before he was off again,” Dasin said. His tone took on a petulant edge, and he made no effort to speak quietly. “He didn’t look to talk to
me.
Once he decided he was done training me, he had no more interest.”

Dasin hadn’t exactly wanted to train with Allonin, and certainly hadn’t made the process easy on the man; but Tank didn’t bother pointing that out. No point raking up old sores, especially in current company. So far, Rat and Frenn hadn’t paused their own discussion to listen, but if Dasin started to get mad, they’d focus back in a heartbeat.

Dasin flicked a glance at the mercenaries, as though tracking along the same line of thought, then shrugged and lowered his voice a little. “Gossip says he went up along the coast. You know anything about
that?”

Tank kept his expression mild with an effort. “Not likely,” he said. “Allonin isn’t much for confiding his plans.” His stomach fizzed with sudden excitement. The coast. The katha villages. Was Allonin really going to hold to his parting promise?

Dasin glared, clearly not believing the demurral, and shrugged angrily. “You and Allonin,” he muttered. “Two of a kind.”

Tank swallowed twice to set his voice to calm, then asked, “Gossip say anything else?”

“What am I, the village crier? You weren’t there to hear it yourself, so the hells with you,” Dasin said, then retreated into sullen silence.

“You finally land that slick?” Rat said.

“Nah. Her sister.”

Their voices rose a bit, enough for Tank to be sure they intended him to overhear. He sighed a little and readied himself for another gibe.

“Ugly ones are always friendlier,” Rat observed. “I wouldn’t mind being stuck in Obein during a storm, myself. Got a few interesting ones I been working on there.” He shot a meaningful glare over his shoulder at Tank and added, “I’ll point ‘em out to you, when we get there—so’s you can avoid ‘em. I won’t have some wet ta-neka cutting in on me.”

Frenn glanced back, grinning widely, to check Tank’s reaction. Tank kept his eyes on the space ahead of Taggy’s ears and ignored the feminine implication of the insult.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not interested in cutting in on your amusements.”

“What, you take the other road?” Frenn snorted. “Damn well not sharing a room with
me
tonight, then.”

Tank felt hot color flood his face. “No, damnit,” he said before he could catch himself, then set his teeth in his tongue and shook his head mutely. Beside him, Dasin straightened in the saddle a little, his own expression going dangerously blank.

“Aw, we ought to aim that skinny weaver his way, when we reach Obein,” Rat said.

“What, the one with that great black mark upside her face?”

“Yeah. She seems his type.”

“What, too damn dumb to know what goes where?”

“Too damn dumb to charge, anyway,” Rat said. He and Frenn laughed, loud and coarse.

Tank chewed his tongue and prayed Dasin wouldn’t react. He didn’t dare even cast a glance to his right to check or to give a warning; he kept his chin tucked to his chest and his stare on his horse’s ears.

He could feel all three of them staring at him.

“Ta-neka,” Rat said, as though testing, and laughed once more.

“Ehh,” Frenn said, the sound dismissive. The mercenaries drifted into silence interspersed with lazy conversation about the weather, apparently content with the results of their gibes for the moment. Tank hastily signaled Dasin to drop back a little. When the mercenaries were far enough ahead that low-voiced conversation wouldn’t be overheard, he let out a long sigh.

“I ought to be riding beside the wagon,” Dasin said, staring straight ahead. “With Venepe.”

“Only words,” Tank said. “Forget it.”

Dasin shot him a pale-eyed glare. “I don’t need them to accept me as an equal,” he said. “After Venepe, I’m in
charge.
They need to see me as—”

“Oh, the hells you’re in charge,” Tank said before thought could stop him.

Dasin’s face tightened with scalding rage. “I’m in charge of
you,”
he snapped.

“Try it,” Tank invited, grinning. “You just try that.” He pointed at the mercenaries ahead. “While you’re at it, you try telling them you’re the one giving orders, when Venepe’s not around. See how far that goes.”

“I say a
word
and Venepe lets you go,” Dasin said. “You’re only on this job because I spoke for you.”

“So say the word,” Tank said, unimpressed. “I sure as shit didn’t
ask
for you to get me hired on, Dasin. You came to me, remember? You cornered me into this situation. I’ll hop off and walk back in a heartbeat, so you go right ahead and say the word.”

Dasin’s glare could have curdled goat milk. Without another word, he kneed his horse into a trot, veering sharply around Rat and Frenn; seemed about to keep going to the horizon, but yanked his gelding into line beside the wagon at the last moment.

Rat and Frenn glanced back at Tank, their faces creasing in newly malicious smiles. He sighed, knowing another round of hazing was about to begin. He could see it forming behind their eyes:
Had a spat with the boyfriend, did you?
would be the start of it.

“Damnit, Dasin,” he muttered, urging his mare forward to catch up with the other mercenaries; and suspected that in the coming weeks on the road, he’d be saying that quite a lot.

Idisio walked through an unknown city. His days as a street thief had been spent on the east side of Bright Bay, between the Coastal Plains Road gate and the docks. He’d always avoided the southwestern side: the thieves here were a tightly knit group, and territorial beyond all reason.

Walking these streets, even in noble company, even with his new status, pushed him back into old patterns with irresistable force. He found himself startling at small noises, and sharp chills kept working up his back. Deiq didn’t seem to notice. He was easing his temper by teasing Alyea over small matters: her family estate backing up against the infamously poor and derelict Red Gate district, her request that he
mind his manners,
and anything else that might get a reaction out of her.

The buildings close to the southern gate were squat and sturdy, with wood-shuttered windows painted in cheerful blues and greens. Wide-trunked, towering southern pines, limbs draped with various vining plants, nestled amid stands of sawtoothed palm and pepperwood shrubs. The air was thick with clouds of evening midges and mosquitoes. A faint breeze brought the smell of hot metal and soured milk to Idisio’s nose, along with the sound of clanging metal on metal and a baby crying.

As they walked farther north and west, the cheer disappeared. Many buildings had been dismantled down to the foundations, and those that survived looked grim and defensive, with shutters hanging askew and paint nearly obscured beneath coatings of ash and dirt.

Deiq stopped trying to provoke Alyea into arguing with him and fell silent, looking around with a brooding expression. Alyea, apparently intent on getting to the Seventeen Gates as quickly as possible, and probably more irritated with Deiq than she’d been letting on, stared straight ahead and kept a rapid pace.

An owl hooted behind them. Idisio turned around fast, searching the gathering dusk for the source of that not-avian sound. A nightsinger warbled ahead; he spun to face front again, his heart pounding, and realized Alyea and Deiq hadn’t stopped walking. He bounded to catch up, earning a dark stare from Deiq and a vaguely questioning flicker of a glance from Alyea.

“Birds,” Idisio muttered.

The owl call had been a question, and the nightbird was cautioning
wait.
He ached to respond with the traditional warning, but there was no way to screech like a gull without making Alyea, at least, think he’d lost his mind—or worse, suspect that the guards had been right about his true origins.

Deiq’s eyes narrowed. He cut a sharp glance around, then shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, the words scarcely audible. “They won’t bother us.”

Not reassured in the least, Idisio kept a wary eye to the shadows and rooftops. After they had walked another block, he heard a shrill cackling sound from behind them: a horribly bad imitation of a squirrel, as best he could tell.

Open targets,
that meant.
Go for it, take them for everything they have.

“Damnit,” he muttered. Deiq shot him an inquiring glance.

“I’ll catch up,” he said without explaining. “Slow her down a bit, if you could.”

Deiq gave him a steady, thoughtful stare for a few steps, then nodded and moved to walk on the other side of the mule. He put a hand on the beast’s headstall, apparently a casual gesture; but the mule and Alyea both slowed to half their former pace.

Idisio let out a long breath and stopped walking. He stood still in the gloom, his chin tucked to his chest, arms crossed and hands tucked up into his armpits. A breath later, a seagull grackled loudly, then another. Idisio remained still. Alyea and Deiq would be left alone now, but that was only half of the matter.

He could sense the circle forming around him. They made no sound as they ghosted out of the shadows, until the leader said, from a step beyond arm’s reach straight ahead, “So who are you to call protection on those two, then?”

Idisio lifted his head and straightened his spine, but kept his arms crossed, hoping the signals were the same here as on the east side of town; a misunderstanding here would get him killed.

No. It won’t. They can’t hurt me. Remember that: they can’t hurt me.

He said, “They’re dangerous targets. The one will rip your hand off for trying and the other will turn your brain inside out. Maybe the other way around, come to it; can’t say for sure. Thought you’d prefer a warning.”

“And who are
you
to know anything at all?” The leader was an angular line of gathering shadows within which pale hair and ragged clothes were barely visible.

“You don’t want to believe me, fine,” Idisio said. “Go ahead and take your chances.”

Silence gathered around him like a line of smoldering embers waiting for a breath to flare into catastrophic life.

“Give us a name,” the leader said, “or none of you make another ten steps.”

“I’m Scratha,” he said.

That provoked a hiss from in front of him, and a more thoughtful quality to the silence around him.

“You’re
claiming Scratha?” the leader said at last.