Tricksters Queen (47 page)

"The one at the palace didn't give so much trouble," Aly murmured, watching.

"We make sure of that. We've had to use the palace entry as a hiding spot. There used to be other exits," said Chenaol, panting. "But this one is so isolated, it's hard to get at. And there's no way to keep people from coming on you here without warning."

The door was up. Someone struck a flint to light the torches they had brought. Aly looked at the steps that led into the ground. "It's going to be nasty down there," she whispered.

Nawat looked at her and gave his bird shrug, as if to say, Nasty is as nasty does.

"Trick, what news?" Aly wanted to know. Warriors went into the tunnel with torches and swords, clearing away cobwebs and roots. Aly, Chenaol, and Nawat followed them, ignoring the muttered comments from their people about the accommodations.

"Nomru at Rittevon Square," the darking said as the rebels passed along the tunnel, "catching soldiers between him and Ulasim. Fesgao's fight done. They are near the edge of Flowergarden. Fesgao says Fonfalas wait for signal to attack the Grain Gate." Aly nodded. The Grain Gate and the Gate of Carts were the side entrances to the palace, where supply wagons brought in ordinary goods for those who lived there. Ulasim and Nomru meant to attack the Gate of Victory once they combined forces.

It seemed like hours until they reached the tunnels end at the stair that opened next to the Pavilion of Delightful Pleasures. The rebels hesitated there. If Vereyu hadn't got the message Ulasim had sent to her during the night, they might come up among Crown soldiers, who would be able to hack at them at will. Nawat beckoned one of his people forward, a small, perky young luarin with a headful of red curls, bright blue eyes, and a whip-weal that divided her face in half. As she climbed the stairs toward the closed door, the silvery fire of her magical Gift streamed upward to wriggle through cracks in the wood.

She was nodding to Nawat—friends waited outside— when Trick whispered into Aly's ear,
"Dove flies"

Aly grinned. She wished she could see it: Dove astride the big chestnut kudarung as its great wings caught the air, carrying her over the battles in the streets. It was a risk. A well-placed arrow might ruin everything. But Aly's heart lifted at the thought of Dove in the sky, running risks so that her people might see her. If Aly were out there, fighting for the freedom of her native land, that sight would inspire her like nothing else.

Trick added mournfully, "Secret flies too. Not me."

Aly moved aside so that some of the fighters could get under the tunnel door to push. "I'll make it up to you," she whispered as the warriors thrust at the wooden barrier. Hearing the noise, those outside helped to raise it. Climbing the stairs, Aly looked up into Vereyu’s face. "Lovely day, don't you agree?" she asked, stepping into the open air. "Perhaps we'll have lunch on the water pavilions later."

Vereyu's face was grim and set. "Only you would make jokes at a time like this," she told Aly.

"If not now, when?" Aly wanted to know as she brushed off her sarong, trying not to look at its bright colors. It only reminded her that she couldn't wait for the fight to be over, so that she could wear luarin quiet colors again. Eyun of Aly's pack, Vitorcine, and several of the full or nearly full-luarin recruits wore similar clothes, the kind meant to attract attention. Two of the women who waited with Vereyu were dressed the same way. All of them had been chosen for their looks and their pale skin.

Vereyu and her companions had set a number of shallow open baskets on the ground. Most were loaded with fruit, bread, and rolls filled with slices of meat. Two baskets were full of water flasks, and had handles on either side so that they could be carried by two people.

"We did our best with breakfast in the mess halls," Vereyu told Aly. "Plenty of the men on duty have already run to the privy. I took your advice—I didn't drug everything, so they may not suspect you. Get off the wall if they realize their problem lies in the food." She looked down into the tunnel, where Nawat and his warriors waited. "How will we know when to turn these folk loose?"

Aly smiled at Nawat, who stroked the band around his neck that was the darking Quartz. He'd discovered the darklings' relaxing purr. "They'll know," she said. "I hear Her Majesty has company." The Gray Palace darkings had been announcing the arrival of loyal, panicked nobles since early the night before.

"All the rotten eggs together," Vereyu said, and spat on the ground.

I suppose it would take an extraordinary degree of hate to serve here, day in and day out, in the hope that sometime you would be able to tell your masters what you really think of them, Aly thought. Her respect for Vereyu, already high, doubled. She would tell Dove's spymaster to make good use of Vereyu. Bringing peace to the outlying Isles would be a long, hard job once the capital was won. Vereyu would be good for the distance.

"Any parting words of cheer?" Aly inquired.

Vereyu grinned. "Get stuffed. And send anyone who needs care to the Pavilion of Delightful Pleasures."

Aly nodded and looked at those who were playing royal servants, come to help the soldiers on the Luarin Wall as they stood guard in the hot sun. The soldiers would welcome their burdens of food and water, not realizing the annoying or, in enough quantities, deadly secret in many of the fruits, rolls, and flasks. "Ladies, shall we?" she invited.

They strolled down the Golden Road, past the servants' mess hall, and out through the Gate of Carts. That gate was nearly closed, those who kept watch on it fidgeting nervously. The Grain Gate, one hundred yards from the Gate of Carts, was shut and barred. Wagons had been rolled in front of it as an extra barrier.

Aly and her girls reached the stair to the watch posts on the Luarin Wall and began to climb. They braced their baskets on one hip, a position that ensured the bearers gait would have a little extra sway. Once they reached the top of the wall, Aly fluttered her lashes at the tough-looking sergeant who waited for them beside the steps. "Something to wet your throat, Captain?" she asked, thrusting her basket of fruit at him with one hip. Men always liked it when a girl promoted them. The sergeant grinned and took his time selecting a star fruit. Aly’s companions passed food and water to the men who watched the green belt through the crenels at the top of the wall.

"Tell me, Captain, should we be afraid for our lives?" Aly inquired, her eyes lingering on the mans face. "I've heard these wild raka are no better than animals." He swelled with pride and self-importance, never asking why a girl like this appeared so interested in a blue-chinned fellow whose arms and legs were covered with tattoos.

"Just rabble, girlie," he told her. "Rioting, burning up their own homes. Half crazy with snake fever, if you ask me. And make no mistake. His Majesty will come down hard on them. They'll never get the city fixed up in time for the coronation." He tried to snag Aly around the waist.

Nimbly she stepped just out of reach, glancing at him sidelong from under her lashes. "I’ve work to do, sir!" she said, and put her nose in the air. Apparently relenting, she smiled and added, "Perhaps when I come round again."

He guffawed as she ambled down the walkway. You keep laughing, she thought amiably. Things will be different when you see me next.

Slowly they worked their way around the broad stretch of wall, distributing their offerings, until they reached the Gate of Victory. Here they found a surprise. Aly did a fast count. One hundred and fifty Lancers waited on the ground by the gate, men and horses alike in battle armor. If they rode out, that would leave only fifty Lancers to help defend the palace. Behind them stood three companies, or three hundred men, of the Rittevon Guard, drooping with heat and boredom. They too were dressed for battle and stood in combat formation. The captain of the Guard and the commanding general of the Lancers conferred with each other and with messengers in the shadow of the gate. Obviously they were waiting for orders.

Aly asked Trick to pass the information to Ochobu, Ulasim, and Nomru, who were supposed to meet where Rit-tevons Lance entered the open green lands around the palace. They would have to deal with these fighters. Once Trick finished, Aly crossed over the gate on a walkway, her girls behind her. There were whistles and called remarks of appreciation from the bored men below, until their officers silenced them. The young women giggled or laughed, and offered their drugged goods to the rest of the men on the wall.

Vereyu's people met them with fresh supplies by the Gate of the Sun, the closest gate to the Gray Palace. This Gate had been closed and blocked with stone, hastily laid but solid. No one could enter and leave the palace there. Aly and her women continued around the wall, joking with bored sentries whose posts overlooked little but cliffs or jungle behind the palace as they passed them food and water. The women had almost reached the Grain Gate when Trick said, "They come. Fesgao, Nomru, Ulasim, they come all together. They are on the grass."

Aly looked at the Crown's men around the Gate of Carts. Faces were already missing, the guard smaller by a third. "Tell Nawat to come," she whispered to Trick. To the women who followed her she hand-signaled,
Retreat Get off the wall.

On she walked with her empty basket, coming up beside the sergeant who had been so complimentary earlier. He had gotten none of the drugged food, she guessed, since he still looked hearty enough, though he sweated in the day's remorseless heat. Aly handed him a flask of water. He took it absently, scanning the merchants' road with a spyglass. "I feel like there's more to all this than a riot, even if it's just a riot close to us," he murmured. "It's more than a herd of ragged beggars crazy with the summer sun."

She sharpened her Sight. The Fonfala men-at-arms emerged from the jungle in the distance. With them were armored raka warriors, bearing a crest on their breastplates: a chest topped with a copper key. She had seen that emblem on things that Sarugani had left Sarai and Dove. It was the coat of arms of the Temaida family, the shadowy relatives who lived on other islands and waited for their last hope to become real.

The sergeant put down his spyglass and surveyed the men around him. "Where's Hessken? Mayce? Rufert?"

"Privy, sir," called another man. "Something off with breakfast, I think. I'm not so well myself."

"Breakfast, or . . ." The sergeant turned to look at Aly, the picture of innocence with her empty basket. The sweat on his face was heavier, the drops rolling off his cheeks.

"Let me help you, Sergeant," she said, hooking his feet from under him with one of hers. He collided with the wall and slid down until he sat, his eyes fluttering as the sleep drug took him. When he gave her a last glance, she said kindly, "I'll look after things up here."

"Help me!" she cried to the closest men. "His eyes just rolled up and he fell." She went down on her knees as if to help. Two soldiers turned to come to her, only to sprout black-feathered arrows. They toppled from the wall to the ground outside the wall.

Aly ran for another stair to the ground rather than get in the way of Nawat's people as they scrambled to the wall. A few more arrows whizzed past her. She wove from side to side to throw off the Crown's archers who could still aim. Once on the ground, she raced for the cover of the trees as a storm of crows descended on the wall's defenders. In the distance Aly heard men roar as the rebels swarmed onto the green belt. She saw them in her mind's eye, carrying gates they had removed from buldings on the way here to use as bridges over the streams and their deadly occupants.

"Gate of Victory opens," Trick informed her as she trotted down the path to Sevmire's headquarters. "Rubinyan comes with soldiers. He leads Guards and Lancers out to fight Ulasim, Fesgao, Nomru."

"I love it when warriors get noble," Aly said as she yanked open the door to the spymaster's building. "They get themselves killed with hardly any help from us. It's the best time-saver." Here was the corridor where the spymasters hanged the victims of recent tortures to frighten people like Aly Homewood. Sadly, each pair of shackles held a captive. In one bloodied, broken-armed wreck Aly recognized a cook whose dumplings were one of Dockmarket's main attractions.

Running to Sevmire's office for the keys, Aly halted when Vitorcine emerged from it. She held a bloody knife in one hand. Behind her something cast flickering orange light through the door. She had set the place on fire.

Aly brought out her lock picks. "I don't suppose you thought to get his keys when you lit him up?" she called, running back to the captives. Starting with the one closest to the hall where the fire burned, she got to work on the padlock on his chains. A moment later a grimy hand thrust a ring of keys under her nose.

"Why do you think I went in there?" asked Vitorcine.

Aly looked the keys over and singled out the one that opened the shackles. "Catch them as we take them down," she told Vitorcine as she began to undo locks. "You know, Sevmire wasn't worth killing."

Vitorcine gently helped the cook to stand. "He wasn't worth leaving alive, either, Duani."

Aly shrugged. "You have a point." She glanced at the end of the hall. The fire was brighter. "Let's get them outside," she suggested. "I'm sure they'd be happy for sunlight, and we don't want them getting all crispy in here."

Vitorcine nodded and began to escort people out of the building. Aly freed the last prisoners as flames began to crackle beyond Sevmire's office. Some of the captives could walk. They and Vitorcine helped the rest outside.

Aly followed them into the open air. "See if you can get them to the Pavilion of Delightful Pleasures," she told Vitorcine. "And nice work." Moving off toward the Golden Road she asked, "Trick?"

"Nawat's friends put wedges under barracks doors to trap soldiers who sleep," Trick replied obediently. "Ulasim attacks Rubinyan from the left, Fesgao and Nomru from the right. Ochobu, Ysul, and Chain mages come up Rittevon's Lance with their spells hiding in the air and in the ground. Luarin mages not looking at air or ground, only at Ochobu and Chain. Ground is eating luarin mages and their horses. Air is pushing other mages under soldiers' horses. The crows attack soldiers on the wall. Dove says more royal soldiers come to protect Gate of Carts from Fonfalas and Temaidas."