Cautiously, Shai sat on his heels, aware of a bristling circle of spears, staves, and sharpened sticks surrounding him. His neck
hurt, his head ached, but he was breathing fresh air in a clearing surrounded by trees.
'I need to get to the nearest reeve hall,' he croaked. 'Can you help me?'
They laughed.
'That's right,' said the stocky young man called Laukas. 'You say you want to reach Copper Hall, but you'll drop out of sight the moment our backs are turned and go running back to give your master a full accounting of our numbers and disposition.'
'I need to get to a reeve hall. I am not-' In truth he was a spy, and if he got back to Olossi he would certainly give Captain Anji an accounting of the numbers and disposition of even such a ragtag group. 'I am not from the army. I am fleeing the army. They want to kill me because I am an outlander.'
A shout of joy cut through his stumbling words and Laukas's skeptical expression. A man pushed through the circle of spears to embrace the older of the women. When they parted, she introduced the other refugee, a young woman wearing the blue cloak of an envoy of Ilu.
'The Ilu priests asked us to get Navita out of the city. She's gods-touched, and all the gods-touched and outlanders are being hauled in for interrogation.' She indicated Shai. 'Although I've never seen that one before. Maybe a kind master wanted to spare his life, eh? He's not bad-looking.'
'Eiya! You've not changed,' retorted her exasperated brother. 'Now he's seen us, we can't leave him. Place a guard on him at all times, Laukas. Let's move.'
They rolled up the carpets and slung them into the back of carts, which were hitched to mules. Laukas and another man helped him up, not kindly but not roughly.
'Who are you?' Shai asked.
'Who do you think we are?' asked Laukas with a barked laugh. 'We're the cursed resistance, aren't we? We're all that stands between Haldia and that cursed army.'
'It's enough to make a strong man weep,' remarked his companion.
'That explains why you're not crying.'
'Sheh! Who was it won our last arm-wrestling contest?'
'Only because you had Geda shoving down on your hand, eh? Two against one, and her with her tits in my face, distracting me.'
'Piss-head, you'll face me again, or I'll have the whole camp calling you an ass-licking coward.'
'Depends on whose ass. Geda's been giving me the look-' With a laugh, Laukas dodged a swipe of the other man's spear.
'And when I tell Geda what you've been saying, she'll chop off your eggs with that axe of hers and cook them for her supper.'
'Now, that I would believe.'
They followed the carts along a rutted track into tangled forest where shadows lay heavy even with the sun shining overhead. Four men trailed their party, sweeping away such tracks as they could, scattering leaves across the path to make it look as if no one had passed this way recently. After some time, the track by now barely wide enough to accommodate the wagons and increasingly uneven, they halted and with practiced ease unhitched the mules, loaded them with the goods, and concealed the carts beneath undergrowth. On they walked. Laukas and his friend Ketti kept so casual a guard on Shai that he began to wonder if they were hoping he would bolt just so they could have a bit of excitement chasing him down. The leader dropped back to walk beside them.
'Greetings of the day. I'm Tomen.'
'I'm called Shai.'
'Shayi?'
'Shai.'
Laukas shrugged. 'These outlanders have cursed strange names.'
Ketti murmured the name a couple of times, trying to get the vowels right.
'Who was willing to take the risk of smuggling you out?' Tomen asked. 'You'll understand we have to be suspicious of anyone we don't know.'
Shai considered his options.
With a tight smile, Tomen went on. 'While you're thinking up a likely story, try making it an entertaining one.'
They trudged in silence but for the weight of feet and hooves on the trail. It was cool under the leaves; with only a vest and trousers, Shai found himself suppressing a shiver. Mud coated his bare feet. His toes were cold.
'I am a scout,' he said finally. 'But not for the army. I am spying on them. I was pretending to be a slave. Then the call came
that all outlanders must be interrogated by the cloaks. So I had to get away.'
'Not a very colorful account,' observed Tomen.
'No fights, no devouring, no wine,' agreed Laukas.
'I've heard my little sister make up better tales,' added Ketti.
'Who are you spying for?' Tomen continued. 'How did you contact the smugglers? Why did they agree to help you? You can see these are questions we'll need answers for.'
'If you're captured, anything I tell you can be taken from you.' He coughed the last bit of dust out of his throat. 'By the Guardians who command the army.'
'I've heard it said the commanders of the army wear cloaks and call themselves Guardians. But Laukas here could wear a cloak and call himself a Guardian.'
'Still wouldn't help him get women to sleep with him,' added Ketti. 'Him with that… problem… he has.'
'You wish you had my problem,' said Laukas with a laugh, slapping Ketti on the ass. 'They're all afraid of me because I have such a masterful tool.'
'Call them demons, then,' said Shai, over the banter. 'They look into your heart and eat'your memories.'
That made them frown. Tomen strode ahead to talk to his sister and the young envoy. They walked along casually enough, but Ketti looked over his shoulder whenever the men walking as rearguard fell out of sight behind a bend. Some of the group carried regular weapons, spears with iron points, short swords, but the rest made do with hunting bows, scythes, axes, or stout walking staffs with one end sharpened to a point. He might outrun them, Shai thought, but then he'd be lost, weaponless, and without food or shelter. They hadn't killed him yet. He still had a chance to enlist their help.
Through the afternoon they stopped twice to water the mules and drink from leather bottles filled with a sour-sharp juice that made Shai's mouth pucker as Laukas and Ketti laughed.
Late in the day Tomen dropped back with his sister, who had a roving eye that took in Shai's form from toe to head, lingering on his hips and chest in a way that made him blush.
'It could be true,' she said. 'He could be a scout come to spy on the army. I never saw any outlanders marching with the cursed occupiers. Still, there's a tale in the street that a second army was sent to Olo'osson but got whipped and its remnants
sent crawling home. That might be a story people tell to themselves to gather hope where there is none, or it might be true. What do you say, Shayi?'
'Let us say I tell you who I am and where I come from. Let us say you are captured. Then if they take you in front of one of the cloaks, all the things I tell you, the cloaks will come to know. Better I keep silence.'
'Can these cloaks eat our hearts?' Tomen asked his sister.
'Folk are terrified of them, that's certain. I never faced one. Let's see what the honored ones say.'
They camped that night on the edge of open ground, sleeping among the bushes with guards set over Shai. At dawn, two strangers were led blindfolded into the encampment. Coin changed hands, and the two men led away the mules, the carpets, and certain of the heavier encumbrances, while the remaining baggage was distributed among the group.
'I can take more,' Shai said, after they'd burdened him with bolts of cloth lashed together, an awkward bundle whose weight drove down his back.
'Wsst! Look at him, showing off,' said Laukas.
Ketti snorted.
