The False Martyr (57 page)

An archer let loose. An
arrow hummed past Dasen’s head. He threw himself to the deck and
watched the shaft quiver in the wood behind him. “Last warning,”
the official called. He held his arm out before the two other
archers ready to let them loose.

Dasen found Teth. Her eyes
were wide, breath held, body stiff.
She
does still care
. And as if that were the
very problem, the fear turned to defeat. Her body lost its
rigidity. She blew out the air she had been holding and seemed to
deflate with it. As her shoulder slumped and back sagged, her hand
yanked the rudder toward her. The boat responded, catching the
current and turning quickly down what was now the Alta.

Dasen fell to the deck,
panting in relief, and watched the men on the docks drift away. The
official let out a long breath as his men lowered their bows.
Dasen’s eyes turned to the arrow quivering a few feet away. It had
not been meant to kill him, but the next one probably would have.
There had been no choice. As much as he wanted to be on the
Liandrin side of the river, it would do them little good as
corpses.

Hoping Teth understood
that, he looked back at her. She held the rudder, but her face was
turned from the river before her. She was crying. Dasen wanted to
slap her. He knew it was wrong, knew that he was supposed to be
supportive and sympathetic, but it had been ten days now, and he
was tired of it. He wanted to yell at her to get over it and help
him. Instead, he watched the wall of granite slide by on his left,
clutching his hands and grinding his teeth until he could control
his frustration. A hundred feet of sheer rock face, it shown even
brighter with the afternoon sun now hitting it directly. It was as
magnificent as it was impassible. They could only glide past to the
southern docks where another cadre of archers were waiting every
bit as vigilant as their fellows to the north.

“
Keep moving!” a big man
called from far in front of them. “The docks are closed. You cannot
pass to Gorin.”

Dasen sighed. He had fully
expected that to be the case, but that did not mean he was not
disappointed. A glance showed that Teth had heard. Without even
looking, she pulled the rudder to take them to the middle of the
river.

Now what?
he asked himself. Past the valley that held Gorin
East’s southern docks was another longer, lower cliff. If they made
it past that, they could ground the boat and walk back to Gorin
East. Or they could continue down the river to Pilgrimage or
Onaway. Pilgrimage was not much of a city, existing primarily as a
starting point for holy pilgrimages into the Patterned Desert where
Valatarian was said to have first reached enlightenment. Onaway
would be a better option. From there they would be able to book
passage on a ship all the way to Pindar if necessary, but it might
take two weeks to reach the end of the slower moving Alta, and
there might not be anything left of them by then. They could stop
to get supplies in Gorin West, he supposed, but . . . .

“
Dasen, look?” Teth said
from behind. Her voice was barely audible, but any sound from her
held urgency now. Dasen looked up then bounced to his knees. Before
them were a series of crude barricades, little platforms anchored
in place just close enough that their boat would not fit between.
Planks floated between the platforms to allow the complacent
soldiers that stood on them to move from one to another. The
structures spanned from Gorin West out across the river almost all
the way to the long, low bluff that defined the eastern bank. To
the side of the platforms, a handful of small boats were anchored
with a half-dozen soldiers each, waiting for any ship that tried to
break the blockade.

A man on the platform
directly before them was yelling something that Dasen could not
hear, waving his arms, and motioning them to the west. Dasen
followed his signals toward the docks. The message was clear. They
were being forced to dock in Gorin West.

For an instant, Dasen
thought about running the blockade. Their boat could easily break
through. He and Teth could hide from the archers in the hold. But
the boats behind would have no trouble catching them, and the
soldiers they carried would certainly not treat them gently if they
had just drown their fellows.

“
All ships . . . to Gorin
. . . turn . . . will board.” A few of the words made it over the
sound of the river. The man who was yelling continued to wave them
to the west. The guards to either side of him stirred from their
malaise and notched arrows. To the side, one of the boats came
alive. Men took up oars. Soldiers put on helmets and prepared their
weapons.

“
Turn us!” Dasen yelled
back to Teth. He sighed and walked over to pick up the long pole
then lurched as the boat shifted beneath him. With down-hearted
dejection, he pushed them toward the waiting docks. Apparently, not
fast enough. They continued drifting toward the platforms until it
became obvious that Dasen’s efforts would not be enough to keep
them from a collision.

A small ships appeared at
their rear, and a half-dozen soldiers climbed the railing. “Here we
go, son,” the oldest of their number – a sergeant by the stripes on
his uniform – said to Dasen as he took the pole. “We’re seizing
this boat by order of the Chancellor. We’ll take ya to the docks.
Just sit down an’ don’t cause any trouble. Alright?”

Dasen eyed the soldiers
then nodded. A second soldier had brought another pole and was
helping the first to stop their progress down the river. Two others
guarded Dasen while the final two climbed the platform to take the
rudder. Teth eyed the men climbing toward her with a look of
terror. She looked like a starved, filthy animal, and Dasen feared
that, like that animal, she might do something entirely
unpredictable.

“
Let ‘em ‘ave it, Reth.
Come down ‘ere wit me.” Luckily, Teth listened. She dropped the
rudder and ran past the men, leaping down from the platform so that
they were never within arm’s length of her. She ran to Dasen’s side
and crouched beside him, looking small and fearful. Dasen nearly
held his nose for the smell.

“
My name’s Jason an’ this
is me brother, Reth,” Dasen said to the nearest guards. He had
spent a lot of time sitting at the rudder thinking about the
identities that he and Teth would take in a situation like this. He
had learned from his previous mistakes. He knew that they needed
original names that were close to their own so that they’d
recognize them easily. He also knew that Teth would want to be a
boy – not that anyone would believe she was a girl. “We’s from
Thoren. Our pa put us on the boat ‘fore the battle an’ told us ta
go ta our cousins in Wildern, but the invaders’ already there, an’
we . . . .”

“
That’s fine, son,” the
sergeant interrupted. “We already know the story. We’ve heard it a
hundred times. Are ya hungry?”

“
Sure are, sir. We ran
outta food yesterday an’ ‘ad been keepin’ it tight ‘fore
that.”

“
They’ll find ya something
at the docks, but things are tight in the city. They’ve been
shippin’ everything up the river for the invaders. At least the
flow of people has stopped. You’re the first boat we’ve taken all
day.” The man turned and looked at Dasen seriously. The bristle
along his chin and cheeks was as much gray as black and the skin
around his brown eyes was starting to slack, but they were
surprisingly kind. “I suggest ya go to the work crews right away.
Tell ‘em ya know how to work a pole, through from the look of it ya
don’t. Ya both look too scrawy to load cargo, so that’s yir best
bet. If ya can git on a crew, ya’ll eat. Otherwise, it’s gonna be
hard. Just stay away from the camp. Ya hear me? Don’t go to the
camp!” The soldier sighed, looking sad, then turned back to the job
of bringing them into a mooring.

Dasen nodded at the man’s
back, but he had barely heard a word the man said after his mention
of the invaders.
Shipping everything up
the river for the invaders
, the phrase
echoed in his mind.
Why would Gorin West
be shipping supplies to the invaders?
he
asked himself. Another part of his mind answered,
the Kingdoms have surrendered
. And then everything made sense. That was why they had been
forced away from Gorin East, that was why their boat was being
seized.

He turned his eyes to the
docks and the dozens of boats that lined them. Though most were
riverboats like theirs, every style was present. Along the farthest
dock, workers filed back and forth, carrying heavy sacks out to one
of the ships and down into the hold. A crew worked the top of the
boat, preparing it to sail. The scene was repeated on a dozen other
boats.
That is what we
saw
, Dasen realized.
Not soldiers going to fight the invaders, soldiers and
supplies being delivered to the invaders. And we’ve just added to
the effort.

“
Did the Kingdoms
surrender ta the invaders?” Dasen barely remembered to use his
accent as fear spiked into his throat. He looked at the soldier
again, realizing that he was an invader every bit as much as the
men who had destroyed Thoren.

The soldier spit into the
river. “To that traitor, Ipid Ronigan.” He spit again. “May the
Maelstrom take him. But it don’t sound like we had much choice lest
we all want to be like Thoren. Sounds like ya know somethin’ ‘bout
that.” With that, the boat bumped sharply into the waiting dock. A
soldier leapt from the bow and deftly tied them in
place.

“
I’m sorry,” Dasen
stammered. He fought to remember who he was supposed to be, to keep
his emotions from showing in his voice, to keep from shaking the
soldier. “What’s Ipid Ronigan got ta do with it?”

The soldier shook his
head. “I shouldn’t have said anything to start,” he mumbled. “Ya
got anything to get before ya leave? I can’t let ya take anything
valuable, no food, or tools, or weapons, but if ya have any clothes
ya can get ‘em.” He looked at their filthy rags, gaze lingering on
Teth.

Dasen thought. He tried to
think of anything valuable that they could somehow sneak from the
boat. Before he could answer, Teth leapt from the deck and, with a
snuffle and wiping of her nose that left a muddy streak across her
face, climbed to the hold. The sergeant motioned to one of his men,
who followed.

Teth yelped a second
later. Dasen’s heart leapt. “His head ain’ right,” he explained
quickly. “Ever since Thoren, he . . . he can’ get it outta his
head, an’ . . . “

“
My men won’ hurt yir
brother,” the soldier assured.

Dasen stammered, but the
soldier’s face clearly said that he didn’t want to hear anything
more about it, and it was just then that Teth and the soldier
emerged from the hold. The soldier looked stern but unwilling to
touch the filthy, stinking urchin he was escorting. Teth looked
like she was about to collapse, and that is what she did when she
got to Dasen. She crumpled beside him into a miserable, weeping
ball.

The first soldier looked
down at her with a flash of pity then turned to his fellow. The
much younger man held out a wrapped package to his superior. “He’s
gettin’ this, sir.”

“
What is it, son?” the
leader asked Dasen as he took the rectangular package wrapped in
burlap. From the way he held it, it was heavy. Dasen had never seen
it before.

“
It’s mine,” Teth sobbed.
“The counselor gave it to me. He knew that I’d keep it safe, so he
gave it to me.”

The soldier unwrapped the
package and let the burlap fall. In his hand was a book. Even from
his place on the deck, Dasen could tell it was magnificent. The
cover was silver and gold. The pages were gilded. The embossing was
exquisite.

In awe, the sergeant
opened the book and thumbed the pages. He looked to Teth. “A
counselor gave this to you?”

Thinking quickly, Dasen
spared her from answering. “He’s always hangin’ ‘round the temple.
Wanted ta be a counselor, so he spent all his time there learnin’
letters an’ readin’ when he shoulda been learning the
river.”

“
Stop it!” the soldier
snapped, his face suddenly stern. “Neither of ya grew up on the
river. The way ya handled that boat, yir father would’ve beaten ya
to death by now. So let’s drop the story. Where’d ya get this
book?”

Dasen looked to Teth. She
was curled into a ball, face hidden in her knees. He licked his
lips and dropped the accent. “We were students at the university in
Thoren. Our father ran ships on the river, but he didn’t pole them
himself and neither did we. When the invaders came, we enlisted
like everyone else, but we were pretty awful, so . . . ah . . .
they assigned us to protect the temple. When the invaders started
destroying the city, one of the counselors gave us the book and
told us to get out of the city. We found this boat and took it.
That’s the truth.”

The soldier eyed them for
a moment then grunted. “We’ll take the book to the valati. You can
see him and ask for a reward if that’s what you want, but its
Church property, so we’ll let him decide.”

Teth let out a slightly
louder cry. “I told him I’d deliver it to Sal Danar,” she wailed.
“I promised. He was dying, and I promised.”

The soldier seemed shaken.
“It’s not for me to decide,” he said. “I’ll deliver it to the
valati myself. You can tell him yir story, an’ he can decide what
to do with it and you. You’re not getting to Sal Danar, in any
case. The Liandrins have closed the border. An’ even if they
hadn’t, that’s a long journey fir a skinny kid in the best of
times.” He looked at the book then his captives. “Now, have ya got
anything else hidden in there? Anything else ya want to
report?”