killed your comrades and kinfolk?'
'I want to go home,' said Eska in a small voice.
'And you will, every one of you, I swear it by the knives of the Merciless One.' She met each pair of eyes, because all watched her. 'Any who wish can head home now.'
But of course it was impossible that these children could walk hundreds of mey across unknown countryside without food or guidance. Bai knew that and, knowing it, manipulated them. Shai hated her even as he felt the pull of her words and of her strength.
'We're the ones who will destroy that which lies beyond the
Shadow Gate. We are the ones who will walk into their camp and spy them out. Be bold. Strike the blow that will cripple them. We must go forward.'
' 'Forward, forward',' they whispered, the familiar echo from the tale.
She swept them up in the flood of her righteous anger, so you drowned never knowing you had succumbed.
Eridit glowed, staring at Bai as at a lover. The militiamen likewise nodded eagerly. Even Tohon — who surely knew better! — tugged on an ear as he considered her words, her stance, her reckless proposal.
'You're crazy,' said Shai.
'Maybe a bit of madness is what is needed. Not the Thunderer's strict ordinances or the Lantern's tidy accountings. Now enters the mistress of love, death, and desire, the Ail-Consuming Devourer. Swallowed up, we become the vessels that carry out her will, for it is not her will that we transgress against others. She will walk with us, as long as we walk in her.'
' 'Praise to the glorious one',' sang Eridit. ' 'She who is lightning. She who devours us.''
Passionate words engulf the unwary; strength lures the vulnerable. After all they had suffered, after all they had done and pretended to do, the young ones wanted, perhaps, to feel their degradation meant something. They weren't shamed; they were soldiers.
'Don't worry, Shai,' said Zubaidit as she surveyed her frail, ragged troops. 'I have no intention of seeing the innocent suffer. I have a plan.'
43
Do you hear that voice?' whispered Eliar.
'No.'
'It's mumbling on and on. 'Mist flees', and 'a night spanned with stars cloaks all'. I can't sleep.'
Keshad rolled over in his blankets. Even that effort made him pant in the thin air of the Kandaran Pass. 'The only cursed voice
mumbling on and on is yours. Any chance you're likely to leave me alone so I can sleep?'
In the crumbling sod shack they were, of necessity, pressed close together under what remained of the turf roof. The rest of the party had refused to sleep in a place rumored to be haunted and instead huddled beneath canvas in the freezing night outdoors among rocks and snow. Now Kesh wished he had joined them, even though he had observed that the whole cursed place looked likely to slide away. But night had caught them on the road, and the rocks and shack seemed stable enough.
Eliar coughed hoarsely, as they all did up on the heights. 'Did you know you are one of the most unpleasant men I have ever been forced to associate with?' j
'I wasn't aware anyone forced you to come on this expedition. Are you done?'
'People like me, you know. Everyone likes me.'
'Of course they do. You're young and rich and handsome, even if you are a hells-cursed Silver. Now can I sleep?'
'I wish you would stop using that word. I am Ri Amarah.'
'Aui!' The exclamation caught in his weary lungs, and he coughed, once started unable to suck in enough air to stop.
Eliar plucked at his sleeve. 'Hsst! Do you hear that?'
This time he did hear something. He covered his mouth and listened. It sounded like the jangling of harness. As with one thought, he and Eliar crawled to the remains of the door. Dawn would come soon, and as he peered into the gloom he was able to distinguish the road as a stripe below. Mercifully, the rest of their party were well hidden at the edge of the rocks.
The sound echoed off the high mountain escarpments, amplified by the predawn quiet and the eerie lack of wind. Men trotted into view, carrying lamps extended on poles. After them marched a force of soldiers, the men walking on the steep upgrade but each one lead-ing a string of four horses, one saddled, one packing, and the other two as remounts. They wore swords slung at their hips and javelins or bow quivers across their backs; spears and bundles of javelins and arrows laded the pack horses. At speed, they passed quickly, moving north and vanishing from sight before the first birds woke to sing awake the dawn.
'Is that a trading company?' Eliar whispered. 'Trying to get across before the snows close the pass?'
'Are you as stupid as you sound? Those are soldiers. Several hundred, I'd estimate.'
'Eiya! Whose soldiers?'
'Sirniakan, by the look of them.'
'But what if-?'
'I'm not listening. It's none of my business. I don't care. Let's roust the men and make an early start. I want to get down off the heights before more snow falls. Aui! I hate the cold!'
Eliar shut his mouth, but as they raised the grumbling company and set off in marching order while dawn lightened the cloudy sky, he loosed dark, brooding glances toward Keshad that were, Kesh supposed, meant to disturb Kesh into troubling himself over the matter.
None of the drovers had noticed anything, so their company of ten hirelings and ten doughty guards — in truth nothing more than reckless young men hankering for an adventure and, perhaps, a chance to slip chains binding them in Olossi — set off downroad, traveling south.
Keshad scanned the slopes, not that there was a cursed thing they could do about it if they were attacked by a numerically superior force of bandits. But as the morning unfolded and their knees ached from the jarring descent, they met no one walking north.
'I thought we'd see more people on the roads,' said Eliar, who had moved up alongside Keshad at the front.
'Not this time of year. The big snows could come any day and block the pass. We'll be trapped in the empire for months.'
'What will we see in the empire? I've read accounts, and talked to merchants, but-'
'We'll see no women, that's one thing. I suppose you'll like that.'
is there some hidden meaning in your rude words?'
'Do you think there is? You Silvers keep your women hidden away. You wouldn't like your sister out walking around, would you?'
'I've already told you I don't talk about my female relatives with people who aren't kin.'
'1 might like you better if you did.'
'It was a shameful thing that happened to my sister.'
'It wasn't her fault.'
'You know nothing of the matter. You know nothing.'
Kesh knew that Eliar could not forgive him because he had glimpsed his sister's face that night in Olossi. Bai would urge him to befriend the man as an act of kindness, or maybe simply because it was the smart thing to do, but that gate was already closed, and it wasn't Kesh who had closed it. He'd have loved nothing more than to hear the other man talk on and on and on all he wanted if only the subject was his glorious sister.
'Heya, ver,' called one of the guards. 'Here comes someone.'
Kesh whistled, and they tightened up their formation, guards slipping wicker shields off their backs. Kesh had a sword, but he left it sheathed. Surely bandits would ambush them, not march up in the open.
