Treason's Shore (53 page)

That was how he gauged their success, the fact that people would down tools or walk out of the houses and line the road to watch them ride by. That meant word was spreading. So he’d stop the men at a crossroads, and either he or Cama would call out some ridiculous order—“You men! You were talking in column! Time for a thrashing!” and they’d stage a weapons drill, one of the flashier ones. Or they’d make a lot of noise taking sticks to the men’s backs, pretending to use full strength, while the men grimaced and grunted. No one ever laughed in column, but at night, around the campfire, they gloated exactly like academy scrubs after a successful sting.

Inda’s favorite sting, he decided, was the one the day they reached the foothills of Ghael, somewhere near the place he knew his brother had fought his first battle.
Next batch of law-breakers you get around here, I want a wall built on that ridge. Hundred paces high! So I can see the ocean from it.
Cama didn’t even smile.
But what if the ocean isn’t in view?
Inda roared,
Then they take it all down, go to that mountaintop up there, and rebuild it.

The glum faces were sometimes broken by expressions of disgust, but never disbelief. And it worked. Runners came back with reports that no one lined the road to see the wagon train with the plainly marked second best coffee and wine (the Marlovans keeping the best for their own use, the civ-dressed wagoneers were to let drop at inns) heading toward the two harbors to be sent out for the Marlovans’ new efforts in sea trade.

Word ricocheted back once the supposed wine turned out to be gold. This was the week before Inda decided it was time to ride for the royal city. Cama had said, “You know that’s going to bring out the last of the Resistance, the ones turned brigand. I’m going to send ridings of dragoons as escort for a while. Maybe they can even flush the last of ’em out.”

Yes, it was all good, and Inda looked forward to reaching the royal city in time for the first day of the academy. He looked forward to making Evred and Tdor laugh when he described all the details of that preposterous ride.

The only memory that sobered him was his lack of success when asking here and there if anyone had seen a small, sandy-haired mage. No one had.

His mood stayed good until they reached the top of the pass, where there was no sign of the sea of blood that had soaked the ground that terrible day. No sign of ghosts, of pain and anguish, except in memory. Inda did not have to glance at earlobes for the telltale bloodred glitter to see which of the men had been present that day. They were obvious by the way they looked around, tight-shouldered as if braced for attack. He wouldn’t stop there to camp, even though it meant making their way down around two or three bends in fast-falling dark.

Light snow began to fall when they camped at last. They set up their tents around a massive fire ring made by putting together all their Fire Sticks. It was against tradition, but the dragoons liked the circle. Inda liked being able to talk to people instead of sitting alone in his tent.

Keth’s high voice floated above the lower buzzes of the men. Inda grinned, then checked around for the other child. As usual, she sat a little apart from Keth, a skinny scrap of a girl who never spoke anywhere in Inda’s hearing. When she looked Inda’s way she reminded him just a little of Testhy of the pale brows, one of his early ship mates. One who hadn’t stayed with them. Testhy had had the same shifty manner, as if he had a secret.

“Food’s up.” The welcome shout from the cook tent brought everyone to their feet, the two children first. Inda stayed where he was. One good thing about being a commander, you didn’t have to stand in line. Your Runner did, and he was sure to be served first, so he didn’t stand long. The food got to you hot.

Inda had been very careful in Idayago, but habit is hard to break. Here among his own men, instinct caused him to hunch over his bowl and begin spooning the rice balls into his mouth. Two, three bites—there was that sense of being watched—he remembered his promise to Tdor and jerked upright, his face flooding with heat. Sure enough, there was that girl staring. He gave her a sheepish grin.

Han went cold and hot all at once. The Harskialdna slurping! Then hauling himself upright as if Liet-Jarlan had stepped from beyond death and smacked him across the back of his head for ignoring manners. And then he turning red, like . . . like . . .
anyone else
.

He was
human
.

Inda said, “Food too hot?”

Han jumped. Then she looked uncomprehendingly at her untouched bowl, her skinny shoulders hunched up to her ears.

“Are you all right?” Inda asked.

Her face crumpled, and she sucked in her breath, holding hard on the last thin layer of self-control.

“Ho.” Inda set his own food aside, and reached over to ruffle her hair, much as he had comforted the homesick ten-year-old scrubs at the academy.

And that cracked the ice.

“I-I-I . . .”

“Something wrong, cub? Can you tell me?” His voice was kind, which caused the dammed flood to break free at last. She began to sob without sound, deep, wracking sobs that shook her skinny frame. She had just enough willpower to turn her back on the camp, and from that Inda understood that she did not want an audience. Inda set aside their food and guided her out of the light, nearly tripped over a flat rock, turned and sat on it instead, pulling the girl down next to him.

When she could breathe again, it all came out. Everything. Inda had heard the story of the Castle Andahi children from Cama, who had been giving and receiving reports for enough years to remember details. But this time Inda heard about it from the child’s view: the terror of hearing her family killed by the Venn. Not knowing if she and the other children were hunted. Having part of her command run away—straight into death.

And finally, the most severe test of all: a desperately unhappy three-year-old who nearly got herself thrown off a cliff. By the way Captain Han halted and hastily corrected herself, Inda suspected that she was not alone in the impulse, but she forbore mentioning anyone else. She had been in command, it was her burden to bear.

She was exhausted when she finished, her voice so low it was difficult to hear. “And so, I think, if the king finds out, he’ll know I’m not good enough to be a King’s Runner.”

“How did you come to that conclusion?” Inda asked. “The King’s Voice was Vedrid—surely he didn’t say anything of the sort to you.”

“I never told anyone. About almost throwing Rosebud off the bridge. Ndand-Jarlan . . . Cama-Jarl . . . everything was so terrible . . .” Captain Han gulped, her breath shuddering. She said to her pilled mittens, “I can’t ever be as good as you. When
you
were twelve. Eleven! You commanded pirates.”

Heads in the camp turned. Inda waved, and they turned away again. Inda said, “When I turned twelve, I was crying in my hammock missing my home and trying to remember the difference between a jib and a gaff.”

“But . . . all those s-stories. I remember. What they said. R-right in front of you. At the dinner, New Year’s.”

“I don’t remember.”

“With the Idayagan merchants and mayors. The big dinner. When that fat man talked about you commanding ships when you were no older than Keth, and he pointed right at Keth, and you and Cama were smiling.”

Inda snorted. “If any of us Marlovans ask me about what happened to me, I answer with the truth.”

She shivered at the sound of that “us Marlovans.”

“But the Idayagans, well, here’s why I didn’t. The king ordered me to ride up here and act tough. He and Cama thought that if I didn’t deny those wild stories, then people would settle down, they’d think we’re too tough to fight against anymore. We want them to settle down. No more fighting, people getting killed.”

“Oh.”

“So I was riding around on the strut, see. So if those Olarans or Idayagans say I commanded the Brotherhood of Blood when I was six years old, well, I’m not going to say no. But when I was twelve, I was just like you, sent to a new life. Learning. Only you got picked for this new life in the royal city because you followed orders the best you knew how. Right?”

“Right.” Captain Han gave another sigh, but this time of immeasurable relief.

Inda had been ignoring the earrings until then, and he certainly hadn’t meant to do any such thing until the words came out. “When we get light, I want you to get one of the Runners to poke a hole in your ear. You wear a ruby there—I have a couple extras in my gear, left to me by Barend. When people see your earring, they’ll know you survived that pass. You followed orders. That’s the Marlovan way.”

A week after spring’s first thaw, the perimeter riders up on the ridge behind Piwum Harbor reported seeing Whipstick Noth riding at the head of the green-and-silver banners of Algara-Vayir.

At noon Horsepiss Noth, King’s Dragoon Commander, came out of the harbor garrison to welcome his son, whom he was surprised to discover in command of the border riders, instead of the new Adaluin of Choraed-Elgaer, Branid-Dal Algara-Vayir.

Since the bell had just rung for the noon meal, Noth took Whipstick into his modest house adjacent the newly built barracks.

A gaunt woman burst in, grinning as she enfolded her son in a hard hug. “Senrid!”

Whipstick grimaced. “Aw, Ma. What have I done?”

“That’s the name I gave ye. It’s how I think of ye in my heart.” Marlovan his mother was, from the knives in her sleeves to the calluses on her fingers from years of archery, though she still spoke with the coastal Iascan accent she’d been born to. “I’m glad to see ye, but I didn’t expect to. Where’s young Branid? He looked mighty fine trotting through here last spring, mighty fine.”

Whipstick thought back a year. Branid had indeed looked like a ballad hero Adaluin at the head of the Riders, young and blond and strong, laughing in a way that reminded many of his cousin Tanrid. Branid had been happy then. He had the rank he’d been raised to think belonged to him and was newly married as well, to a handsome woman of rank, one he liked.

Whipstick jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Branid sent me instead.”

“So ye can come see us, then. Good! Now, when will ye marry? Give me grandchildren?”

Whipstick’s smile faded. Noren had gone to the royal city. And he just didn’t want to marry anyone else. “I’m in no hurry.”

“Your boys would have a place at the academy,” Horsepiss said. “Your service is owed that.”

“As if Inda wouldn’t see to it personal,” Ma Noth said, flipping her hand at her husband. “How’s life with the new Adaluin and Iofre? Why isn’t he riding? Though glad I am to see ye.”

Whipstick rocked back on his heels, thinking. Branid had left Whipstick in charge of Tenthen while he relied on Captain Vrad of the Riders to show him the route through Choraed Elgaer. What to say? He thought of Vrad’s bitter accounts of stupid orders, like running the horses until they were nearly wind-broken just because the countryside was boring. The extra drills ordered if Branid heard laughter in the column because he was convinced they were laughing at him behind his back. Most of all, how he’d angered the men on what should have been a good ride, because he wouldn’t listen to how Jarend-Adaluin had always relaxed discipline while the men were alone on the road. Branid didn’t even try to learn any of the names of the scattered people who housed them along the way. He didn’t listen to their yearly reports, just grandly said to write it all down to be handed to the king when he rode to Convocation.

That had been Vrad’s report. Branid’s had been as different as night from day: how boring it was, just riding around for six months while every day got hotter when it wasn’t thundering, how stupid the people, all whining about hardship and begging for things he was sure they could make themselves, how slow the horses and how badly disciplined the men.

“He wasn’t raised to the ride,” Whipstick said finally. “As for Tenthen, while he was gone, the carts arrived with all Dannor’s furniture from Yvana-Vayir. Grand stuff it was, but Badger and Beaver Yvana-Vayir didn’t want it.”