Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) (8 page)

“I was wondering if you’d pay me a call. If you give me a moment, young sir, I’ll be at your service.”

“You don’t have to ‘sir’ me,” said Jiaan, sinking onto one of the plain wooden stools that faced the desk. “Take all the time you need.”

One gray-threaded brow rose. The commander put down the scroll he’d been studying, pinning it flat with his inkwell, and what looked like a common river stone. The eyes that studied Jiaan were peasant brown and peasant shrewd. They lingered on his blood-stained armor.

“A bit of lemon-oil soap will help with that,” he said. “But I think I’ll be calling you ‘sir,’ nonetheless.”

Jiaan blushed. “It’s my horse’s blood. I had to pull a splinter out of his shoulder after the battle.”

“And the way you’re holding your arm, you got that from pulling out a splinter?” Jiaan let go of his elbow and sat up. He had abandoned the sling a week ago, but his shoulder still ached by the end of the day. “You should keep it in a sling, if it pains you,” the commander went on. “No point in pain that I ever saw. But how can I be helping you, Commander Jiaan?”

“I thought there might be some way I could help you,” Jiaan told him. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised that this man had learned his name. “There’s not much left of the army, though men are beginning to come to us now. Is there anything we can do to help Mazad hold out for ten months?”

He had no doubt that this man knew all about the Hrum’s strange laws.

“Hmm.” Siddas tipped back in his chair. “I’ve got one problem you might be helping me with, though I’m not sure how.”

“Food?” Jiaan guessed. “We’ve stockpiled a bit, but we can get more. It’d take at least two weeks to get it here, though, and I don’t think we could arrive before the Hrum.”

“Oh, the Hrum will be here tomorrow morning,” said Siddas. “That’s not—”

“Tomorrow!” Jiaan jerked upright. “Then I’ve got to leave. I can’t afford to be trapped here.”

“Don’t be worrying about that,” said Siddas. “I can get you out of the city. I’ll have to blindfold you, mind, for that route is a secret I won’t be revealing to anyone. You’ll have to do a bit of bending and climb a ladder, but if you can do that blindfolded, we can get you away.”

“That’s not a—wait—what about my horse? Rakesh can’t—”

Commander Siddas grinned. “I’ve made arrangements to have all your horses taken outside the city later tonight—as soon as the civilians clear the road. They’re too fine to eat in a siege.”

“Thank you,” said Jiaan. “But that brings us to food. Do you have enough for ten months?”

“No,” said Siddas calmly. “Not with all the civilians we’ve brought inside the walls. But we’ve enough for four or five months, and right now I’m less worried about food than about Governor Nehar.”

“I know.” Jiaan rubbed the place between his brows that was beginning to ache. “He’s terrified.”

“Considering how the Hrum executed the gahn, he’s maybe got reason. But Mazad’s guard is
under his command. Oh,” he raised a hand to stop Jiaan’s protest, “there’s nearly two-thirds would follow me no matter what Nehar said, but the other third are his men. And division in the ranks is the last thing we’ll be needing.”

Well, that accounted for the guards Jiaan had met at the gate. He was glad they weren’t all like that.

“So you see,” Siddas continued, “the governor has to stand fast. And I think . . . you really can’t blame the man for panicking. All he knew, all he relied on, has been destroyed by the Hrum. I think if he had other deghans about, it would give him something to hold on to.”

“I was planning to leave the others here,” Jiaan assured him. “And they’re true deghans, not like—” He stopped abruptly, and the commander smiled.

“You think I don’t know that High Commander Merahb’s heir is a toddler? Though he’s not going to be inheriting much now. The Wheel’s turning with a vengeance these days. Nehar’s not the only one to fear where it might stop.”

“It will stop here,” said Jiaan. “Because we’re going to stop it.”

“Ah, but the Wheel never stops,” said the old commander. “It may turn fast, it may turn slow, but it’s always in motion.”

Jiaan knew his peasant mother, had she survived the fever that had taken her when he was a child, would have said the same. Deghans blamed the workings of the djinn for all that went wrong, and struggled to defeat them, but peasants saw both good and ill as part of a natural cycle, to which man must adapt as best he could.

“All right, maybe we can’t stop Time,” said Jiaan. “But at least I can leave you some deghans to prop up the governor.”

“If he stands firm for just a few months, I’ll have the townsfolk behind me,” said Siddas. “Once I have that, we’ll be able to hold out even if a third of the guard folds.”

“The townsfolk?” Jiaan remembered the grim, fearful faces in the crowd that morning. How they’d fought one another, just to get through the gates a bit sooner. “What have they to do with it?”

“In a siege, it’s the townsfolk who count for most, in the end.” The commander’s lined face was suddenly sad. “They’re the ones who’ll put out the
fires on the roofs and pull survivors out of smashed buildings when the Hrum bring up the catapults. They’ll cook for the soldiers and give them shelter that’s warm and dry. They’ll tighten their belts and take to the walls themselves, with clubs, if it comes down to that. They may not be warriors, but anyone can wrap a bandage, or push a ladder off the wall with a forked stick. Walls like Mazad’s can hold for years, if we can get supplies and the people have the heart for it. And I have plans for getting supplies.”

“Umm,” said Jiaan.

Siddas laughed. “Don’t look so dubious, Commander. Mazad’s walls are thick enough to last out the Flame for a few turns.”

“Well, when I’ve got an army assembled, I’ll find a way to support you,” Jiaan promised. “Though if I’m not to know the route in, how can we communicate?”

It was evidently the last question he’d needed to ask, for Commander Siddas smiled and rose, holding out his hand to grip Jiaan’s wrist. “I’ll have the man who takes you out show you a place where you can leave a written message. And don’t go lingering nearby once you’ve left it—it won’t be picked up till
after you leave. Just mention where you can be found in your note, and I’ll send someone.”

Jiaan frowned. “I’m not asking for details, but if you can come and go so freely, how can you be sure that the Hrum can’t come in the same way?”

“We’ll be guarding it, for one thing. But it’s a secret long forgotten, even by most of the townsfolk. If the Hrum spies had learned of it they’d have used it themselves, and there’s been no sign of that.”

Probably an escape tunnel, built by some long-past governor—or even by the gahn who’d ordered the walls’ construction. Jiaan had heard of such things, in ballads, at least.

“All right.” He’d turned to go when another question occurred to him. “What did you do with the Hrum spies, anyway?”

“Kicked them out the gate and told them not to come back.” Siddas smiled at Jiaan’s sagging jaw. “Why not? Now that we know how they’re marked, they’re easy to spot. Or are you thinking like Nehar, that I should have hanged them off the battlements? Or worse? They’re just men doing their jobs, when all’s said. Well, and one woman. Doing it bravely, too.”

“But they’ll go straight back to the army and report! They’ll tell them everything!”

“You think they haven’t told them everything about our defenses months ago? That cursed, clever bitch sent out reports in every shipment of goods.”

“But . . . but they’re
spies
!”

“So they are,” said Siddas. “And by most folks’ laws of war, I’d be entitled to kill them. But I’ve a hope that if I’m sparing them, then maybe the Hrum will show a bit of mercy to my spies if they catch them.” He laughed again at Jiaan’s expression. “Oh, come, lad. How do you think I found out how their spies are marked, except with spies of my own? Do you think your father never used spies?”

“I know he did,” said Jiaan. “Though he didn’t talk about them much. But he told me once that they were the bravest men he knew.”

“And so were the Hrum I turned loose,” Commander Siddas agreed. “At least, I hope you aren’t fool enough to think that our spies are brave heroes and theirs are all scum.”

“No,” said Jiaan, rapidly changing the comment he’d been about to make. “I don’t think that.” After all, a loyal Hrum spy wasn’t the same as a Farsalan traitor.

But the conversation lingered in Jiaan’s mind as he bid the commander farewell and returned to the governor’s house.

He found the young deghans drinking a final cup of wine in Fasal’s room, and the talk stopped so abruptly when Jiaan entered that he knew they’d been talking about him. It made his tone more curt than it might have been when he told them they were to remain in the city.

“You think we need
you
to tell us our duty?” Markhan asked.

Kaluud snorted and reached for the wine without even bothering to speak. Fasal was scowling.

Jiaan clung grimly to his temper. “I think it would be best if we all understand clearly what must be done. If the governor doesn’t stand fast—”

“We understand,” said Markhan with exaggerated patience. The tone was rude, but his expression was serious, and Fasal nodded.

It was probably the best Jiaan could expect, and all that he needed, so he nodded in turn and left them. But it was a long time before he slept.

H
E WAS AWAKENED BEFORE DAWN
by a hand shaking his shoulder. “Forgive me, sir, but
Commander Siddas thought you’d be wanting to see. The Hrum are coming.”

The speaker was a kitchen boy, judging by his rough tunic—thin, grubby, and no older than twelve. His voice shook with the same combination of excitement and terror that flooded Jiaan’s veins.

Jiaan summoned a reassuring smile. “I certainly do want to see. And so should you, lad! Mazad’s defeat of the Hrum will become history—you’ll be telling your grandchildren about it.”

The boy’s expression brightened. Jiaan sent him off, and hurried into his clothes and his padded silk armor without stopping to wash.

The sun hadn’t risen when he emerged from the governor’s house into the street, but the sky was gray with its approach.

Word of the Hrum’s arrival was spreading. People poured out of their homes. Some wore only a nightshirt and cloak over their shoes, but all were hastening in the same direction. Jiaan followed.

He wouldn’t have seen the stair that spiraled up to the top of the great wall without them, tucked as it was beneath the walkway’s shadow. Up on the wall, the cold wind tugging at his loose
britches, he struggled through the press for almost a dozen yards before he could elbow through the gawking crowd to look out over the plains.

It was lighter now, light enough to see a distant cloud of dust rising from the road.

“Well, it’s not a cart train,” a man muttered. “Not traveling at this hour.”

“Not even a huge shipment would raise that much dust,” another man agreed. “It’s an army, all right. It’s them.” His voice held the same excited fear as the boy’s, but there was a note of proud determination in it as well. His father would have tried to work with that pride.

“Take a good look,” Jiaan told them clearly. “That’s what Mazad is going to beat!”

There were grins on the faces around him when he left to search for Commander Siddas.

Jiaan found the commander on the wall, not far from the gates. Several men in the tabards of the town guard, with the lean alert look of message runners, lingered nearby, but at the moment the commander stood alone, watching the rising sun strike sparks on the Hrum’s helmets.

“Where’s the governor?” Jiaan asked softly, coming up beside him.

“Probably still dressing. I sent for him just before I sent for you.”

“He’s
dressing
?”

“Well, it wouldn’t do for him to show up all rumpled and unkempt-like, now would it?” His expression was sober, but his eyes, taking in Jiaan’s appearance, were alive with amusement. Jiaan wished he’d taken the time to comb his hair.

“How many of them?” he asked, turning back to the approaching army. They were marching five abreast, and the dust obscured the end of their line. Dust . . . or distance? A chill brushed Jiaan’s heart.

“Only two tacti,” said Siddas. “Two thousand men, and assorted officers.”

“How do you . . . oh.”

“Yes, spies again.”

“
Only
two thousand? How many men do you have here, sir?”

“Almost eight hundred guardsmen,” said the commander. “Within walls like this that’s plenty, but you’ll be understanding why I don’t want to deal with a split command.”

“Yes,” said Jiaan. “But I know the three I’m leaving you. You can count on them to fight to the end.” You couldn’t count on them for brains, or
even simple common sense, but for courage and honor they could be relied on. It wasn’t such a bad thing. Especially since Jiaan no longer had to deal with them.

“At all events, it’s time you were going,” said Siddas, almost as if he was reading Jiaan’s mind. He gestured to one of the messengers.

T
HE STREETS THROUGH WHICH
the guardsman led Jiaan were so empty they echoed. He brought Jiaan to a wheelwright’s shop, in the north side of the city. The shop appeared to be empty, but the gate from the alley into the work yard opened when the guardsman pulled the latch string. The yard was full of workbenches, sawdust, and the clean scent of fresh-cut wood.

“I’ll leave you here,” he said, pulling a large cotton square from his belt purse and flipping it expertly into a roll. It looked like the kind of cloth peasant women tied over their hair, but old and ragged. “I hope you don’t mind waiting blindfolded?”

“Not at all,” said Jiaan, though he wasn’t sure it was true. “I see you’ve done this before.”

The guard looked flattered. “Only once,” he
admitted. “And I never take anyone past this point. I don’t know where the entrance is, but most of the guards don’t even know there’s a . . . way.”

Which was sensible if Siddas wasn’t certain of their steadfastness.

Jiaan turned his back and allowed the guard to tie the cloth over his eyes. He’d never been blindfolded before, except for childhood games. Now he realized that the indulgent adults who’d tied those blindfolds had deliberately left them loose enough for a child to see the ground at his feet. The tight-tied cloth pressed on his eyelids. When Jiaan opened them a crack—as wide as he could, without the cloth getting into his eyes—he saw nothing but darkness.