wrists; his back was arched and he was digging his heels in, so that they plowed ruts in the mud as he was dragged past; his head was as far back as it would go. All told, he was in a bad way, but he made tolerable cover. Perhaps, if he'd known what a service he was performing for the Ducas, it would've made it easier for him to bear. Perhaps not.
She was pulling at him again, like a lazy horse. He followed, ambling. It was, of course, ridiculous; they wouldn't get twenty yards. In between waves of terror, he occupied his mind with wondering why she'd taken him with her. She seemed so efficient, so self-possessed; not the sort who needed a man to look after her. The most he'd be able to achieve would be to get them both caught. The thought crossed his mind that she fancied him. He managed not to laugh out loud.
Well, they'd made twenty yards. Perhaps she was telling the truth, and she really couldn't tack up a horse on her own. Some women were afraid of horses, the way some big, strong men were scared of spiders. Perhaps she thought that as soon as they were across the border, the Ducas' loyal retainers would come scuttling out of their hidey-holes in among the rocks to fight over the privilege of sheltering them. Perhaps she'd seen how very, very frightened he was, and had taken pity on him. (Well, quite. Nothing like looting the dead for a living for honing the delicate sensibilities.) In any event, they were in the open. Behind them, the biscuit-barrel stockade was a vague, looming shape, lit by a fuzzy yellow glow from the hurricane lanterns. Ahead of them, pale shadows that had to be tents. She steered him away from them-for someone who needed him along because only he knew the way, she had a superb sense of direction-toward a dark open space on their right. Closer; he could make out the dark gray outline of rails. The horse-fold, surrounded by a ring of gate hurdles. Was she really thinking of stealing a horse? Not a good idea, in his professional opinion as the duty big, strong man. Highly unlikely that the Vadani kept their tack in a neat pile in the corner of the fold. Bareback and without a bridle, a horse would be a liability rather than an asset. Not his place to argue, though. She led; he followed.
Up to the hurdle fence; over it (the middle rail was brittle and snapped under his weight with a noise like a tournament), through the fold-horses raised their heads and stared sleepily at them as they passed-and over the other side. Now that was smart: a short cut, to avoid going through the middle of the camp. Suddenly it occurred to Miel that they might get away with it, after all. But it seemed so pathetic… why hold still and be killed, when you can just walk away with only a little luck and determination? Could you really opt out of death so easily, like skipping a tiresome social engagement by pretending you had a cold?
She was talking to him.
'… All we've got to do is get across this flat bit of ground and we're on the uphill slope. They won't even-'
She stopped dead. A shape was thickening out of the darkness; a man, blocking their way. Oh well, Miel thought; and then, The hell with giving in. We've got this far.
'Hold it,' the man was saying. 'No civilians past this point without authority, so unless you've got a pass…'
She was talking to him: 'Oh, I'm terribly sorry. We were just taking a walk, we hadn't realized we'd come so far. We'll head straight back.'
'That's all right,' the sentry was saying, when Miel hit him with a rock. He wasn't sure how it had got into his hand. He must have stooped and felt for it, but it had come to him like a properly trained dog; he could just get his fingers around it comfortably. The sentry's head was turned toward her-had he even noticed she wasn't alone? — and he wasn't wearing a helmet.
The trick was to throw the stone without actually letting go of it. Judge it just right and you can crack a man's head like a nutshell. Miel saw him drop; he let go of the stone and jumped on him, his knees landing on his chest and forcing the air out like a blast from a bellows. What the hell are you doing? she was saying somewhere above him, as he scrabbled about looking for the sentry's sidearm-he was half lying on it, which made it horribly awkward to get it out of the scabbard; lucky the poor fool was either already dead or thoroughly stunned. After two or three massive tugs he got it free; she was nagging, Come on, leave it, we don't need it, you'll ruin everything.
Women, he thought, as he carefully located the hanger-tip over the hollow between the sentry's collarbones, and leaned on the handle. Miel felt the sentry's legs kick out and his back squirm, but that was usual, like a chicken beating its wings after its neck's been broken. The humane dispatch of game is the first duty of the honorable predator.
'What the hell,' she was hissing at him, 'do you think you're doing?'
'Killing the prisoners,' he replied.
'Leave it.' (Like he was a dog with a dead bird he'd picked up; the spaniel, the brachet and the lymer are bred soft-mouthed, to release retrieved game without spoiling it.) 'Come on. Now.'
He ignored her, drew the hanger from the wound and placed its tip delicately in the dead man's ear. There would be a crunching sound as he put his weight on it.
She was pulling at him again; reluctantly, he allowed himself to be dragged to his feet. He left the hanger and stumbled after her, clumsy as a drunk.
She didn't say anything to him until sunrise, by which time they'd been trudging uphill for hours. He'd quickly lost track of time. In his mind, over and over again, he was running through the killing of the sentry (the rock, the hanger, the two penetrations; the sounds, the feel. They were moments that he was comfortable living in; they nourished him, like supplies sensibly rationed, and he savored them).
'Where are we?' she said.
Good point. He stopped and looked round to get his bearings.
Easy enough. There was Sharra, too far away for them to see smoke rising from the chimneys of the Unswerving Loyalty, but he knew it was there, just below the horizon on the other side. Falling away from it, the long combe in which Framain's house lay hidden like an embarrassing secret. He considered the merit of heading for it; they might just get there before collapsing from hunger and fatigue, or they might not. There'd be water and shelter there, but probably no food-had the Mezentines set fire to the place when they rounded them up? He couldn't remember that far back. 'I know where we are,' he said.
She nodded. He looked at her, properly, for the first time. She was dirty, ragged, painfully thin; there was caked blood on her forehead and in her fringe, probably from one of those scalp wounds that bleed like a fountain. 'All right,' she said, 'which way?'
That was just a little more than he could take. He sat down awkwardly on the rocks and burst out laughing. When she began swearing at him, he explained (quite patiently, he thought, in the circumstances) that there wasn't a way, because there was nowhere for them to go.
25
It was, ran the general consensus, one mystery too many. Why the Ducas, magnanimously reprieved by special order of the Duke himself (the messenger had been questioned and had vowed repeatedly that he'd delivered the reprieve to the Ducas personally), had seen fit to break out of the stockade, murdering a sentry in the process, nobody could say for sure. It stood to reason, however, that it must be something to do with the treason for which he had originally been condemned. It was remembered that, on the fall of Civitas Eremiae, he hadn't immediately joined his duke in exile, as was his duty, but had used the resistance as an excuse to stay away, safely out of the reach of justice. It could hardly be a coincidence that he had shown up immediately after the failed Mezentine attack, particularly since, by his own admission, he'd been with the Mezentine garrison at Sharra shortly before the raid took place. There was also the bizarre way in which he'd tried to have Daurenja, the savior of the rear echelon, arrested and condemned for some mysterious crime he was supposed to have committed years earlier. Duke Orsea's refusal to comment was simply aristocratic rank-closing. It did him credit, to a degree, that he was prepared to cover up for his friend, even though that friend had already betrayed him at least once (and wasn't there supposed to be something going on between the Ducas and Orsea's wife? Some business with a letter); in the circumstances, however, his attitude came across as a stubborn attempt to obstruct Valens' quite legitimate inquiries, and won Orsea no friends among the Vadani. The details were irrelevant, in any case. The Ducas had
