Gods of Nabban (52 page)

“I don't know.” Ghu urged the white horse on, leaving the company—half a hundred riders—to turn through itself and follow. The young lady with the largest of the silken banners spurred after them, taking station to their right, a pace back. Ahjvar had put himself ahead again, vanguard of one which, if he was going to carry a loaded crossbow like that, Ivah rather preferred. No point to running; they could not get ahead of the others. She wanted a horse and probably her bow, and to be out free of the mass to circle. . . .

“And you've acquired another pretty shaman?” the devil asked.

“A friend from Marakand,” Ghu said.

“Ivah,” she said, best court Nabbani. She bowed.

The devil tilted her head. “You—saw me. When I fought in the circle. I saw that you saw me, and knew me, and I meant to find you, afterwards, to learn what you were.” Waggled fingers. “But it's been so hectic, lately. Wizard are you? More a shaman, to see so deeply. As I said.”

The enemy company—if they were that—was flowing up onto the road ahead now and spreading to either side. One horse plunged into an unseen ditch, floundered out riderless, a woman following moments later, struggling. The gaps in their ranks marked the ditches, Ivah guessed. Folly to charge through those. Ghu had neither sword nor spear and she was going to hamper him regardless, perched on a coat behind his saddle, but there were no spare horses.

“Let me down,” she said.

“Safer up.”

She might be, unless she could put a ditch between herself and whatever melee ensued, but he was hardly safe with a stirrupless rider clinging behind to unbalance him. He gave her no chance to dismount, and Yeh-Lin and Daro Yuro were too close; she would be under their hooves.

The devil's—Ghu's—riders wore no badge as the imperial soldiers had done in Dernang, but the banners and the ribbons of their helmets were sky-blue and the devil was all in black with blue ribbons and lacing. The company ahead wore no token of any allegiance at all, but they obviously misliked what they read, or were heartened by counting the numbers, because what had looked at first as though it might be a wary but peaceable confrontation shifted rapidly as the three conferring riders in the centre separated and one, lowering the mask of her ornate helmet, drew her sword and gestured a half of each wing up on to the road after her, to come on at a gallop.

Cut out the leader and those about him under the blue banner, riding so rashly ahead, then talk afterwards with the leaders captive. . . . One of the charging enemy swung a shouldered spear upright, unfurling a banner not of the imperial peony and gold but deep yellow above and brown below, and the characters in the roundel, white on black, reading
Dwei Dan
and
The gods of Nabban
. Her uncle renounced the imperial clan. Interesting.

“Let them come,” Ghu told the devil, voice calm, and reined in, bringing the whole company to a halt. He called ahead to Ahjvar in Praitannec and the assassin set the bay into a smooth canter. He did release the bolt, but it tore through the fluttering roundel. Not an accident, that. Ivah shook yarn down her wrist and began weaving a cat's-cradle, caught a loose hair from Ghu's shoulder into it, coarse and slightly curling. Felt the devil's eyes on her.

Caught a loop in her teeth, twisted and inverted, felt the pattern take, the heat build and she shook burning yarn from her fingers, gone to ash in a moment, and the torn banner of Prince Dan followed it.

“Not,” said the devil, “very original. Or—oh, nicely done.”

It was not the fire, but the small knot of chaos it spread, which it need not have done.

The rider with the spear had flung it from himself with a cry as the torn and now-burning cloth fell around him, and the others in the centre had scattered away. Ahjvar, whatever he had meant to do, saw that opening and yelled something incomprehensible, weaving through them; his smoky bay turned like a good Grasslander, low on its haunches as he struck down the standard-bearer and tumbled him from his horse—open space about him and the fallen man would not be trampled, had he considered even that? Clashing swords, the bay rearing, striking out, the other horse answering, but he had disarmed the lady, disarmed and thrown down a third man, and wheeled away, flying back with the standard-bearer's dun trailing him.

And none, she thought, dead. Challenge and declaration, and would they read it?

“A horse for the Grasslander,” he called, wheeling before them again to keep himself between Ghu and the enemy, and the dun came to Ghu's outstretched hand. Ivah was over on it in a matter of a heartbeat, and weaving a new pattern. The wind rose and the blue banners snapped and shimmered, the water running in patterns of dark and silver. Fingers of sunlight through the clouds, burning on the water, on sword's edge, on the white horse and the assassin's hair. Not her doing, that heart-stopping moment when the world hung in light and shadow. She made protections around them. The devil, ridden up alongside her, looked entirely innocent.

“Lady Ti-So'aro,” Lord Yuro said suddenly, “the holy one has no herald.”

The woman who carried the standard gave a nod and passed her banner to another rider, who came to take her place at the white stallion's heel. She pushed up her helmet's mask as she rode forward till she was a horse's length ahead of Ahjvar, who had loaded his crossbow again. He turned aside to the edge of the road to be clear of her.

“Who comes armed against the holy one, the heir of the gods of Nabban?” Ti-So'aro cried with high formality.

They came on more warily, at a walk, now. No archers among them, no crossbows, not in the party that had charged ahead. A man from behind rode up, lean, grey, his visor raised—recognizing the restraint of Ghu's company for what it was, Ivah thought—and they reformed around him.

“This is Lord Dwei Ontari,” called the woman who had led the charge. “Commander of the army of Alwu, cousin and servant of Prince Dan, the upholder of the gods and defender of the folk. By what right do you dare claim title of holy one for your—lord?” A sneer in her voice. Ghu was too obviously the centre they formed on, and too obviously no lord.

“Is Prince Dan with you?” Ghu asked, riding forward before the new-named herald could respond. Ahjvar didn't shift his position but lowered the bow he had held angled at the sky to cover the lord of the opposing company.

“The prince is with his army,” the supercilious woman said. “We acknowledge no—” The commander, Dwei Ontari, cut her off with a sharp gesture of his hand.

“Enough, Baya. My niece is precipitate. Word came over the three rivers that Lord Daro Korat had retaken Dernang. We've come to meet with him, to discuss matters of importance to us both. But you ride armed on Dernang under an unknown banner.”

Ghu eyed the sheet of blue silk as if he, too, found it mildly puzzling.

“It was your people who rode against us, Lord Ontari,” the herald said, “and that none are dead, you have the mercy of the—the servant of the holy one to thank.”

“Ride with me to Dernang,” Ghu said, abruptly. “How long has it been since you lost your prince, Dwei Ontari?” He simply started forward into them, leaving Dan's folk to stop him or seize him or get out of his way. The lord of the army of Alwu was the first to rein his horse aside and, after only a moment's hesitation, turn to fall in with Ghu—Ahjvar, unsummoned, flanking him. Though he did unload his crossbow. With the herald hastening to weave herself through them and to the fore again, and the niece of Lord Ontari matching pace with her, defiantly, they were rapidly and in some disorder intermingled. Ivah found herself riding behind Ghu, between the devil and Lord Yuro, cut off from the rest of Ghu's folk by five of the enemy abreast behind her. The man whose horse she bestrode was taken up by one of his fellows. No one made any attempt to dispute her claim to it.

“The prince is over the river,” Lord Ontari said stiffly. “Over all three roots of the Wild Sister, deep in Alwu.”

“No,” Ghu said. “And you don't know where he is. What happened?”

“By what right do you claim to speak for the gods?” the Dwei lord said, almost plaintively. “The prophets say . . .” He shrugged, looked around.

Ivah patted her horse's neck and affected not to be craning forward to listen. Yeh-Lin winked at her.

Lord Ontari lowered his voice. “The prophets say the gods are dying.”

“The Father is dying. The Mother is dead. All that she was, I am.” Ghu spoke so matter-of-factly. “They've left you to me.” One might almost hear that as apology. “Prince Dan? I wanted to send to him. How long has he been lost?”

Lord Ontari sighed. “Since the late winter. He rode to rescue his ally, Lord Daro Sia, when General Zhung Musan forced him back on Dernang. We couldn't save Choa and its loss cut the provinces that had declared for Dan in half, severing Shihpan from Alwu. Lord Sia was no strategist, but as a leader in the field they would follow him, love him. Lords, peasants, slaves . . . I was still in the south, about my prince's business there, or I would have dissuaded him from taking such a risk on himself. He might have listened to me. Perhaps. But Lord Sia was his friend, and I think Prince Dan was a little under the spell of his charm himself.”

Ahjvar said something Praitannec, a low grumble with Daro Sia's name in it. Yeh-Lin snorted. Ghu ignored them both.

“The prince isn't dead, I think,” he said, but he did not sound certain. “Ivah?” A glance over his shoulder.

“I can divine for him. Holy one.” That felt strange. She would rather just use his name, but no one else did, save the assassin.

“
I
could—” the devil said, and shrugged. Smiled at Ivah. “I suppose you make the more respectable wizard. I am merely his captain, he tells me.”

“Our wizards have divined for him,” Lord Ontari said, with a doubtful look at Ivah. “They say the prince is neither dead nor taken. But find him, no, even Lord Mulgo Miar, who was appointed Pine Lord by Buri-Nai but fled to us, cannot find him . . . We think him still in Choa.”

“You're another from the west?” the castellan demanded of Ivah, interrupting her eavesdropping. “You knew Ghu there?”

Someone who did call him by his name. “We met last summer in Marakand,” she said, and the man nodded, lowering his voice. “You know that one, the lady wizard?” Not, she thought, a lord's manner of speaking.

“Not . . . no.”

“The answer,” Yeh-Lin said, leaning over, “to what you really want to ask, Castellan Yuro, is
yes
. As I feel our Grasslander friend has already understood, though I would like to know how. Now be good and don't mention it to all the others who are so much happier with an old lady making feeble jokes about her ill-omened name.” A dismissive wave of her elegant hand at Ivah. “You saw the duel. Ask Daro Yuro here to tell you about how I drove that fool young man to take my challenge, although perhaps he ought not to tell the—tell the god's champion, who may feel I have perverted the rite of his people and the role of the
rihswera
, which is his, in what use I made of the Praitannec judgement circle. Call me Lady Nang Lin. Or Captain Lin. Such a usefully vague title, at present—the holy one's captain-general, before whom even baffled high lords and their commanders give way. Everyone will be happier with Nang Lin, except the honourable castellan there, who is rather sharper than those who would like to think themselves his betters. But we all here find we serve Nabban, according to our abilities. We all here find he gathers our hearts in.” She continued to watch Ivah with more interest than she ought to have deserved. “Strange, is it not, for the godless to find they have a god?”

Ivah gave her a vague smile and turned her attention to watching Ghu's back, but she could not catch their voices now, he and the prince's lord riding closer, talking more earnestly, quietly.

She did not feel forgotten, though. Gathered in, rather. Yeh-Lin's word was apt. Swept into her place. She rolled her shoulders, stretched her neck, stiff after long sitting in the damp under the bridge. Divine for the missing prince, whom the Pine Lord of wizards had failed to find? Rash offer? But Ghu had asked her, not Yeh-Lin, in seeming confidence that she could.

Ivah combed fingers through her own hair, came away with two fine threads of black. Began not a cat's-cradle but a simple four-strand braid, amber yarn and brown, black and, did she have blue? She did. Darker than the colour of Ghu's banners, but near enough. She bound the two hairs of her head into it as she worked. The braid formed only the first part of what came to her mind, a weaving and the coins, a pattern to be worked in full later. Blood might be needed, in the Northron way, but she would see what the hair gave her first. Find a prince, no. Find her uncle—a thread that the rebels' Pine Lord did not possess to follow—perhaps.

By the time they neared the camp, ditched and palisaded, that occupied the grounds of the annual horsefair to the north of Dernang's wall, Ghu had Dwei Ontari addressing him as “holy one” and planning conference with Captain Lin, someone called Lord Raku, and the Kho'anzi on the organization of the imperial army, whose command Yeh-Lin had usurped, and the reassertion of Daro rule over the province, all in the name of the heir of the gods.

“And the folk?” Ghu asked.

“The folk?” Lord Ontari was puzzled.

The castellan spoke a quiet word to Ti-So'aro and they took a dozen riders on ahead, towards the rough wooden tower that overlooked the gate to the camp. Blue banners hung there, too. Ghu watched them go, his face unreadable. Met Ahjvar's eyes a moment, very far away. Turned back to Ontari.

“Lord Sia's folk. The runaways. The slaves, the serfs, the conscripts. The folk Prince Dan promised their freedom. The folk of all the land. The land is the folk as well as the rock and the waters, and they are starving in the wilds, driven from their homes. Preying on one another. How do they live, when they are free?”