Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) (20 page)

“Rudib, of Dilam,” said Kavi. “But I’m here as a messenger, for someone else.”

“Messenger.” Shir’s brows climbed. He was dark for a peasant, but he didn’t have a deghan look to him. Fathered by a foreign sailor perhaps. There were many such men in Dugaz. “Folk don’t often send us messengers.”

He sounded as if a “messenger” was an unusually tasty tidbit, and Kavi sighed. “I’ve a warning
you’ll want to hear, but it comes with a favor being asked as well. Which won’t surprise you. Do you want me to say my piece here, or shall we go up to the fire where we can see each other’s faces?”

Shir threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, we’ll offer you our hospitality, be sure. But first come to the stream and wash a bit—you stink of the swamp.”

He turned and led the way, and Kavi followed. To his nose everything stank of the swamp, but he wouldn’t mind a chance to be rid of the sticky mud.

The stream was only about a foot across, splashing down one side of the rise, but the water was clear instead of brackish. Kavi ignored Shir’s critical gaze as he shed his dirty clothes and rinsed them as clean as he could. He knew that at least part of the reason Shir had offered him a chance to wash was to see if he carried any weapons. But as he unpacked a dry shirt, the swamp king reached out and grasped Kavi’s left arm, turning it to the moonlight.

“What would this be?” His voice, as he gazed at Kavi’s tattoo, was only casually curious—so why was the back of Kavi’s neck prickling?

“Just a bit of decoration.” Kavi made his own voice casual and commanded his muscles not to tense in Shir’s grip. “It’s common in the lands east of Kadesh, or so I’m told. A merchant talked me into trying it. Swindled me into it I should say, for he got a good knife out of the deal and all I got was this.”

“I see.” Shir’s gaze rose higher, finding the scar where an arrow had grazed Kavi’s shoulder when a bunch of Farsalan deghans had interrupted a secret meeting with Patrius. But that didn’t matter, for the deghans were dead, and all men had scars. Shir probably had dozens of them.

After he put on clean clothes, he contemplated his muddy boots and shrugged. He could clean them, but they’d just get muddy again when he left. The night was warm enough he scarce needed them, and Shir himself was barefoot, so there couldn’t be too many thorns about.

Shir saw Kavi look at his feet, and grinned again. “You’re right, you don’t need boots here. Tie your mule to the post and come. I’m curious to hear this message of yours, and we seldom have a chance to offer our hospitality to strangers.”

Sensible strangers.
He sounded friendly, but Kavi
thought he’d probably never been in the presence of a deadlier man. He tied Duckie’s tether to the hitching post reluctantly; it was hard to go into enemy territory without any allies at all.

The firelight camp to which Shir led him didn’t look like enemy territory. In fact it didn’t look like anything Kavi had ever seen. The shelters were scattered about with no order to them. No streets. They appeared to be a cross between a house and a tent; they were built on wooden platforms, which meant wooden floors, and had proper, wood-shingled roofs. But the walls were made of bright-patterned silk, and a few of the dwellings had their “walls” tied to the rafters, revealing beds, tables, chests, and chairs inside. It felt odd to see the inner workings of a building so exposed, but Kavi had little time to study them, for most of his attention was on the people.

The first thing he noticed was how scruffy the men looked. Almost all Farsalan men, peasant and deghan alike, were clean shaven except for the occasional mustache. Even Shir appeared to have shaved fairly recently, but his followers sported the most ragged collection of beards Kavi had ever seen.

However, he doubted anyone mentioned it to them, for despite the silks, and jewelry a deghass would envy, they were also the toughest-looking men he’d ever seen. There were a few women among them, he noticed, but they looked as tough as the men—hard muscled, hard faced, and even better armed.

No one was surprised by his arrival. There had indeed been sentries.

“We’ve company, my friends.” Shir clapped his hands. “Cushions, refreshments! Let’s show some hospitality!”

They didn’t exactly leap to obey him, Kavi noted, but eventually a couple of men dragged over a wooden pallet and set it on the damp ground by one of the fires. Another brought out a big cushion, and a woman fetched a carved and padded chair for Shir.

Kavi sank down on the pillow—silk, of course—as another man approached, eyeing him. “Been fishing, Shir? You should’ve thrown it back, so it could grow fatter.”

A few men laughed, but most didn’t, and the stranger glowered at them. Did Shir have a challenger for his title? It didn’t look like the man had
much popular support. He was shorter than Shir, and wore a woman’s earring half buried in the thick curls of his hair and beard—gold, with a red glass bead that gleamed like an ember when the firelight found it.

“Now, now, Nazahd. He’s a messenger, with an important message, just for us.” Shir turned his mocking gaze on Kavi. “What would you like, Messenger Rudib? Wine, beer, tea? Something stronger?”

All he really wanted was to leave, as quickly as possible. “Tea,” said Kavi. “Thank you.”

He had chosen tea because it was the least intoxicating option, but when they hauled out the bag to brew it, his eyes widened at the sigil painted on the side. Sek soochii tea came from the lands east of Kadesh, and in the very best taverns it sold for three copper stallions a
cup.

“So will you be enjoying our hospitality for long, messenger?” Shir asked.

“I’m afraid not.” It was hard to sound politely regretful, but Kavi managed. “I have other messages to deliver after this. I’m working for a man who is trying to organize resistance against the Hrum.”

“Against the Hrum?” Shir’s dark brows rose again. “Brave soul! What does he want with simple folk like us? The Hrum have already taken Dugaz, for all the good it will do them.”

“First, he wants to warn you,” said Kavi. “The Hrum are sending a governor for the city. He’ll be imposing new taxes, and drafting all men between eighteen and twenty-three into the Hrum army.”

Shir snorted. “We’re tax exempt here, my friend. And as for the army . . . What’s it like?”

Kavi blinked. Tied to their farms and businesses, that was a question no Farsalan peasant had bothered to ask. But Kavi described the Hrum soldiers’ tasks and duties as well as he knew them. The tea arrived as he spoke, and he almost choked when he saw the gold-footed, glass cup it was served in. He had never held anything so expensive in his life. The tea itself had a delicate, flowery taste. Nice, but not worth three copper stallions. Certainly not worth dying of fever for.

He finished his account of the life of a Hrum soldier, and Shir, who had also chosen tea, eyed him thoughtfully over his own expensive cup. “So what you’re saying is that it’s hard work, under rough conditions, and every now and then
killing some poor, desperate bastard before he can kill you. Sounds like a typical week. How much do these Hrum pay? Do you get to keep the loot?”

Even Nazahd laughed, and Kavi gritted his teeth. “You don’t keep the loot. It all goes to the empire. Just like a tax. And they pay one gold centirus—that’s a bit smaller than one of our eagles—per quarter.” It was more than most city journeymen made, and room and board was included. And that was just the Hrum’s starting salary, but Kavi saw no need to mention that.

“One eagle a
quarter.
Only
one
eagle a quarter? The cheap bastards,” said Shir. “Well, that settles it. We’ll miss out on the draft.”

“You won’t have a choice,” said Kavi, “once the governor is installed here. That’s what Sorahb wanted to—”

“Sorahb?” Shir’s voice rose. “The reborn champion himself, no less! You work for the high and mighty, my friend.”

“He just uses that name,” said Kavi impatiently. “But he wanted to let the fighters of Dugaz know that this Hrum governor will arrive soon, and he’ll only have a few hundred men with him. If you
organized the townsfolk, you could probably take the city.”

“We don’t want the city,” said Shir. His voice was almost gentle. “Neither will the Hrum governor when he gets to know the place, but that’s being his problem.”

Kavi had figured that for the answer as soon as he met Shir, but he had to give it one more try. “It’s only for a year,” he said. “Less than that, just eight and a half months now. Surely you could hold off the Hrum that long.”

“I’d heard that,” said Shir curiously. “That the Hrum would retreat if they couldn’t complete their conquest in a year, but I’ve never believed it. Why would they quit, instead of fighting on until they won?”

“It’s because of something that happened far back in their history,” said Kavi, remembering the tale Patrius had told him. “They set out to conquer some country—I’ve forgotten its name. They succeeded in the end, but by the time they finished fighting there was nothing left worth conquering. The empire was decades in recovering too. That old emperor decreed that the Hrum would never again fight a war where the cost of
winning outweighed the gain. They always count cost, the Hrum.”

Unlike the deghans, who had never counted cost, since they so seldom paid.

“If you make the cost of taking this swamp too high, for just eight months, they’ll never trouble you again.”

Shir smiled lazily. “They don’t trouble us now.”

His voice was soft, but Kavi knew a final answer when he heard it. “Very well, then.” He finished his tea and set the cup carefully on the wooden pallet. “I’ll carry your regards to my master and be going now. Thank you for the—”

“Thanks?” It was Nazahd who spoke, stepping forward to look down at Kavi. “You drink our tea, and share our fire, and ‘thanks’ is all we’re getting?”

Kavi rose to his feet too, but slowly. If he tried to run they’d bring him down like jackals. He looked at Shir, who smiled, shrugged, and leaned back in his chair, clearly ready to be entertained. What was one more murder to him? Kavi was on his own.

“I have nothing else to offer, except a purse
too thin to interest you,” he said. “Though you can surely have it. If I had a snug house and plenty of coin, I wouldn’t be out running errands for a lunatic, now would I?” His heart was hammering.

“You may not be having money,” said Nazahd. “But if this Sorahb is hoping to finance a rebellion, he must have a tidy bit put by. If he was getting a package with one of your ears, or a finger or two in it, how much would he pay to get the rest of you back?”

“Not much,” said Kavi. He had planned for this, but he was still sweating as if he struggled through the swamp, under the midday sun. “He has plenty of messengers. He can afford to lose one. But . . . He did give me something. I’m supposed to use it to buy supplies for Mazad. I shouldn’t . . .” He looked around, as if searching desperately for some other way out.

Shir was leaning forward now, interest in his lean face. “If you’ve the means to pay for our hospitality, messenger, let’s see it. Or we might be getting impatient.”

Nazahd drew his knife. Kavi took a step back, reached into his purse, and drew out a cloth-wrapped bundle.

“Here it is!” It was all too easy to sound panicked. He untied the cloth and held it out, so the firelight gleamed on the big, gold buckle. Designed to hold a deghan’s sword belt, it was as large as Kavi’s fist, and the workmanship was fine. He felt a genuine pang at parting with it—it was one of the finest forged pieces he had left. But he knew that, unlike the high commander, these men would never cut it open to find the lead-filled bronze inside. No, his work would be properly appreciated here.

He smiled ingratiatingly and held the glittering thing out to Nazahd, who snatched it from his hand. If Kavi had read the signs aright, Shir couldn’t afford to let Nazahd keep it, even if he wanted to. And if Kavi had read the signs wrong, he would probably die.

“Thank you, messenger. That’ll do nicely.” Nazahd was grinning, and so were the men who’d laughed at his jokes.

“It will indeed.” Shir sounded relaxed. Even his eyelids seemed to droop, sleepily. Kavi didn’t think anyone was fooled. “Bring it here, Nazahd.”

Nazahd tucked the glittering buckle under his belt. “You come get it, ki—”

Shir leaped like a panther, his dagger already
in his fist. But Nazahd wasn’t surprised, and he sprang back to give himself room. The crowd eddied around them.

Kavi watched with the others as Shir and Nazahd circled—feinting, striking, springing back. Though he faced the same direction as the rest of them, Kavi let the jostling movement as they followed the fight push him slowly from the front of the crowd to the back. When there was no one behind him, he turned and walked away.

If there was anything certain in this world, it was that both Nazahd and Shir were skilled knife fighters, so the battle should last for some time. Still, his fingers shook with haste as he pulled on his boots and untied Duckie’s tether.

He sent Duckie splashing into the swamp, in a different direction than the one from which he’d come. He hoped to confuse pursuit, assuming anyone bothered to pursue him, but they had to know he didn’t have any more pieces like that—his purse wasn’t big enough.

Several more ducks, or perhaps the same two with a friend along, rejoined Duckie, and with their assistance the mule steered Kavi safely around the sinkholes.

If there were sentries, they evidently had no orders to stop him. Or perhaps the knife Kavi had pulled from Duckie’s pack was enough to discourage them. After all, what was one less murder to them?

He’d been mad to try to recruit such men. Fighters they might be, but . . . Azura help the Hrum, if they ever tried to control Dugaz in anything but name!

Though if the Hrum did hold Dugaz, life for the townsfolk might improve. Unlike the swamp bandits, the Hrum took responsibility for their actions, for the people they governed. Or would the wealth, the feverish allure of fortune and death, rot even the Hrum’s iron discipline after a time?

The moon was low, but they’d have a few marks before it set, and Kavi trusted Duckie to get him back to the road. The silver light glowed on silver moth wings, coating the mull bushes like ghostly leaves as the insects recruited their strength to eat, spin their cocoons, and die. Trapping the men who dwelled in this fever-ridden pit as surely as men trapped the moths. No amount of money was worth this!