breath out between dry lips, and chose careful words, because he could not keep what Marit had told him to himself. 'Captain Anji, I must speak to you in complete privacy, you and I alone, where none can possibly overhear us.'
No flicker of surprise creased Anji's expression as Tohon tugged on an ear and, casually, as if he had seen something that interested him, moved about ten paces away along the wall. 'This matter you and I must discuss in complete isolation. At a time no one suspects we are doing anything other than scouting.'
'You already know?' cried Joss, the words so loud that half the people on the ledge turned to stare.
Anji laughed as if Joss had made a joke. 'Who could fail to know that half the women in Olossi have come to the door of my compound asking if you will ever return to Argent Hall? At least I
may now tell them that you bide a little closer here at Horn Hall than when you made your nest in distant Toskala.'
A flush burned all the way to Joss's ears. On the ledge, folk laughed.
'That must be Mount Aua,' Anji went on as cool as you please, signaling to Tohon. 'It's magnificent.'
'Yes,' stammered Joss. Had Anji come to know the terrible secret Marit had told him? She'd mentioned that she had allies. Or was it something else he meant to speak of? Yet it was easy to fall into the astonishing view of a gorgeous land and find his feet. 'This time of year no clouds veil its peak. The Aua Gap is the wide saddle of land that lies between the mountain and us. West' — he nodded to the left — 'lies Olossi, south the golden Lend, and east' — to the right — 'lies the road down onto the river plain, toward Toskala and Nessumara.'
'There's the town of Horn.' Tohon, returning in time to catch Joss's comments, indicated white-washed walls as tiny as a child's toy landscape and almost cut from their sight by the last spur of the Ossu Range.
Anji tracked the vista with his gaze. 'Three roads meet here, under our eye: West Track from Olo'osson; East Track from distant Mar; and the Flats, out of Istria and Haldia, in the direction of Toskala. If I were a man wanting to stage my forces to move against Lord Radas, I'd start in Horn.'
'My thinking as well,' said Joss, following his lead, 'which is why I asked you to come. However, the town of Horn has rejected my — ah — best attempts at persuading them that it's in their best interest to ally with us.'
Anji considered the onion walls of the ancient town. 'Send in my wife.'
Joss laughed. 'Truly, what man could resist her?'
Anji looked sharply at him, then walked along the length of the wall toward the steep stairway cut into the outer face of the escarpment that led from the ridgetop down to the ledge. Four figures were descending: Anji's two personal guardsmen, who attended him everywhere, and the two reeves who had ferried them here. Joss recognized one as young Siras, long limbs taut with excitement as he stared around.
'I was laughing because it's a clever plan,' said Joss to Tohon, stung by Anji's seeming rebuke. 'A man can't help admiring what is beautiful!'
'The captain frets over his wife but doesn't like folk to know he does.' Tohon was leaning at his ease, elbows on the wall, as he surveyed the view. 'He's not a man who likes his weaknesses known to others.'
'Is she his weakness?'
'Maybe so, but he calls her his knife.'
'His knife? That's a strange thing to call her.'
'Not among the Qin. A man can be waylaid by demons wearing many guises. Lust for flesh or for gold, lack of discipline, disloyalty, reckless ambition, unchecked anger. A good woman is a man's knife. She protects him against demons. Don't you have the same saying here?'
Joss scratched behind an ear. 'Well, truly, we don't. Maybe Mai can cut a path into the trust and hearts of the council of Horn.'
'If anyone can, it would be her. A grand vista, if I must say so.' He marked the eagles soaring on watch high above. 'How's the lad doing, Commander? Is he a good reeve?'
Joss thought first of Badinen, floundering apart from his stormy northern seas and complaining of the heat. Then he realized that Tohon could not have met the young fisherman. 'Do you mean Pil?'
Tohon nodded, shading his eyes to search the heavens for more eagles.
'He's a cursed solid young man. He's a good reeve, still inexperienced but he's really taken to his eagle and of course as you know he's a excellent soldier in ways we reeves haven't ever trained to be.'
'Do the others — ah — accept him?'
'Because he's an outlander? So they do, but that's in large part because that foul-tempered Nallo has taken him under her wing.'
'A woman?' Tohon rarely looked startled. His eyebrows raised, and his lips parted. 'Are they lovers?'
Til and Nallo? I shouldn't think so. From what I've observed and heard in passing, neither are fashioned that way. It wouldn't matter anyway. It doesn't among the reeves.'
'It's as well the eagle took him, if you understand me, Commander.'
'I don't.' Anji had met Sengel and Toughid at the base of the stairs and the three Qin stood where the wall met the towering cliff, gesturing at the spectacular vista as they conferred.
Tohon cleared his throat and tugged at an ear. 'It's just that this fashioning you speak of, it doesn't happen among the Qin.'
'Surely it's simply part of the nature of some folk.'
'Not among the Qin. Maybe that's why the eagle took him.'
'Ah,' murmured Joss, tumbling at last: Doesn't happen meant Better to say it doesn't happen than to admit it does. 'You out-landers have curious ways. For myself, I'm cursed glad to have a steady young reeve like Pil. We need him.'
'He's a good lad,' said Tohon. 'Doesn't talk too much, which wears easily on his companions. Just like Shai.' The shift of subject was so swift it reminded Joss of Scar altering his glide high in the heavens. Tohon's brows furrowed. 'It would ease a man's mind to hear something, if there was word.'
The glimmer of vulnerability took Joss by surprise. 'Zubaidit I saw in Toskala, as you know. The Guardian I spoke to told me she'd freed an outlander prisoner in Wedrewe, but where he is now or if he got out of Herelia I couldn't say. It might have been Shai.'
Tohon's smile was brief. 'My thanks.' He turned as Anji and his two guardsmen walked up with several curious reeves and fawkners trailing at a polite distance.
'With your permission, Commander Joss,' said Anji, scrupulously formal and his voice pitched to be heard without him seeming to shout. 'After we've looked around here, I have in mind — if you'll do the honors — to scout Lord Radas's army. I'd like to see for myself what we're up against. Talk to those folk who have a stake in the matter. Fly into Nessumara, if it's safe to do so. Scout Toskala and High Haldia. How much support can we get from the occupied population? If they truly chafe, they may be ready to bite back. What's needed is a coordinated plan with enough flexibility to adapt to changing local circumstances, a powerful lot of persuasion, and a cursed good chain of communication.'
'My reeves can easily communicate over distance. Also, as you and I discussed before, we're trying out some new formations — strike forces, if you will.'
Anji nodded. 'They can plant soldiers and scouts behind enemy lines. Move diversionary troops, aid flank movements, and disrupt lines of supply. As archers, they could penetrate almost any fortification.'
Joss grimaced. 'You've thought this through beyond what I have. It goes against tradition for reeves to be used as soldiers.'
'We can sit and wait, or we can act.'
'Are you truly ready to lead an army against Lord Radas?'
'I have a son. I intend to see him grow to manhood.' Anji indicated the grasslands to the south. 'That's the kind of country the Qin inhabit. Yet when I went to the boundary of the Lend to bargain for horses, I was told humans were not allowed to walk in the grass.'
'We can't break the boundaries. The Lend is forbidden to us. So is the great forest we call the Wild, in whose heart no human may walk. And the inner mountain fastnesses held by the delvings and protected by traps and magic. All the tales say humans once lived in those places. Now they no longer do.'
'Things can be taken from us while we're not paying attention.' Anji's smile bit like a sword cut. He gestured toward the high carved entrance into the caverns of Horn Hall. 'Shall we go in?'
The eagles had cleared out, flying to perches where they could sun and preen. As Joss walked with Anji and his men across the ledge, Siras signaled with a flip of the hand.
