more like a particularly raucous troupe of travelling clowns. Not a moment passed without someone falling over, stumbling into the hard, ridged bole of a bamboo cane, or stepping on someone else’s foot. It should have been hilarious. Instead, Dal was on edge the whole time, thinking of what else those noises might be covering.
There would be those amongst his followers who could not bear not knowing, so they would find a moment to lift the blindfold, despite his strict instructions. They would regret it, too; Dal was sure of that. He had a sense that all around them loomed the Stick-kinden: towering, angular and silent, staring with mute antipathy at these clumsy intruders, their hands stayed only by their anonymity. There were occasional screams amidst that chaos of stumbling and complaining. They were brief, cut off even as they started, but they were unmistakable.
How long it took them to cross that forest of cane, he could not say. The enforced darkness seemed to blind him to the passage of time as much as it did to the stars and moon. Eventually, though, he became aware that he was no longer being tugged along, and all around him people were standing still.
‘Eyes open,’ he snapped, hoping he was right, and that this was not some cruel trick of their hosts. When he pulled the cloth from his eyes, though, he saw that the canes gave out only yards ahead, and open ground lay beyond.
He located Mordrec and tugged at his arm. ‘Make a count,’ he suggested, and the Wasp nodded. As he passed through the band, counting heads, Dal spotted Soul and Ygor, and felt a sudden rush of relief when he saw them still alive.
The Scorpion was already moving out into the open, crouching low and with his companion beast ranging ahead of him, its claws and tail raised threateningly. Dal moved towards him but, as he approached, Ygor raised a hand abruptly and dropped to one knee.
Dal crept up beside him, but he had spotted the problem before he could ask about it. There were campfires visible out there, quite a large band of people, perhaps the same size as the group they had left behind.
‘This is impossible. Nobody could be that far ahead of us.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘They must have a seer, a really good one, to be able to see in such detail.’
Ygor snorted, for he was Apt and didn’t believe in any of that. ‘They’ve got us to rights here, anyway,’ he replied. ‘I don’t reckon we’ll get back through the woods again, either.’
Mordrec and Soul Je joined them quietly. ‘We’re down thirty-seven,’ was the Wasp’s grim report.
Dal nodded. We would have lost more, had we turned and fought, though. He could not guarantee that, but it seemed overwhelmingly likely. Thirty-seven? Thirty-seven men and women who could not bear to stay blind in an unfamiliar place – and had that one last glimpse been worth it?
‘Soul, Ygor, scout them out,’ he ordered. ‘See how alert they are, their sentries, their preparations. We outnumber them and, even though they’re here, they might not be expecting an attack. We might get out of this yet.’
The Scorpion and the Grasshopper padded off into the darkness, with Ygor’s pet slinking along between them. Dal sat back on his haunches, staring out at the campfires.
‘We’ve been in worse,’ Mordrec reminded him philosophically. ‘Remember the steppes, hmm?’
‘Oh, certainly,’ Dal agreed, feeling suddenly very tired. I’m just slightly on the wrong side of youth to be indulging in these all-night capers. ‘That double-cross at Mie Salve wasn’t much fun either.’
‘Only because of your bloody taste in women,’ Mordrec reminded him. ‘Matter of fact, the steppe business was women too.’
‘Well there’s no woman here now, Mord.’
‘There was Siriell,’ Mordrec suggested, impoliticly. At Dal’s responding glare he shrugged, setting the nailbow swaying on his shoulder. ‘I’m just saying.’
Dal was formulating a scathing reply, when he saw movement, and identified it a moment later as Soul and Ygor on their rapid return. The fools, they’ve been spotted, was his instant thought.
Without being told, Mordrec was heading back into the canes to rouse the others.
‘Report,’ Dal snapped angrily, but Ygor was grinning broadly.
‘You’ll love it,’ the Scorpion promised. ‘You’ll kiss me for it.’
‘ What, Ygor?’
‘It’s the raiding party. Our raiding party.’
Dal stared at him dumbly, then looked to Soul for confirmation.
‘It’s true,’ the Grasshopper confirmed. ‘We spoke with that Spider, Avaris. They got lost. Been wandering around for a day or so trying to find us.’
‘Just shy of a hundred fighting men and women now, they’ve got,’ Ygor added with great satisfaction.
Dal weighed up the numbers in his head.
‘Come morning, we head south,’ he decided. ‘We move fast, and in one group. When we meet the Salmae, we fight. There’s nothing else for it. We’ll break through them, or break against them. We’ve reached the end of it.’
Thirty-Two
‘They’re now moving in force towards the border. This leader of theirs is a resourceful fellow, it seems,’ Lowre Cean remarked mildly.
Salme Elass was not in the mood for mildness. ‘I want him brought alive to Leose. I want him executed before his followers, for denying the order of the Commonweal.’
Lowre raised an eyebrow at her, for that. They were in full war council, with two dozen other nobles crammed into her grand campaigning tent this evening, so he said nothing, but she took him up on it nonetheless.
‘By taking these liberties, it is not me that these wretches defy,’ she snapped, ‘it is our entire society. In turning on their betters, they are traitors to the very Monarch.’
‘No doubt it is as you say,’ Lowre replied softly, but with a slight edge to his voice that made the others stir uncertainly.
Tynisa glanced at Alain, sitting beside her. He had his arms folded, head cocked to one side. Catching her gaze, he raised his eyebrows. We’d both rather be out getting things done, his look seemed to say, and when she grinned a little, he repaid her twice over. She felt something stir and leap within her. I’m winning.
‘They have greater numbers than us,’ Lowre continued after a pause. ‘Certainly more numbers than any force we could intercept them with before they reach Rhael. However, I suppose we must make the attempt, or they will doubtless return in even greater strength, and we will never be done. I want this business finished.’
‘As do we all,’ Elass confirmed.
Again, Lowre eyed her, but said nothing. Like an Imperial general, he had a map to hand, on which stones of various colours marked the last known positions of the brigands, and of their own forces. ‘Our chief aim is to place a force in their path that will suffice to delay them. We have limited numbers, however, who can move swiftly enough to cut them off. Also, if we put too strong a force in their way, they are likely to change their course once again. We must tempt them into a fight they believe they can win quickly. Once they are engaged, our remaining forces can catch them up and close the trap. This will necessitate everyone moving throughout the night. Our forces will thus not be best fit for a fight in the morning, but I see no alternative. For those who stand in the brigands’ path, things will go hard. If our main force is delayed for any reason, it might be the end of them.’
‘I will stand there,’ Tynisa declared flatly. She was no noblewoman, no member of the Commonweal hierarchy that Salme Elass was so devoted to, but nobody denied her a place here, and those nobles who had once looked askance at her when she danced or hunted now stayed out of her way. She had gained a reputation written in blood.
Lowre Cean winced but nodded, accepting the inevitable.
‘With your permission, my Princess?’
Tynisa looked around for the speaker, recognizing the voice of Isendter Whitehand, the Salmae’s champion. She caught Elass looking at the white-haired Mantis with concern, as though she wanted to refuse to let him go, but feared looking weak.
At last she nodded. ‘With my blessing,’ she said.
