If there was anyone in the trees, they were keeping very still.
There s no one in the fucking trees, Gil, and you know it. This is local militia and the border patrol we re dealing with here, not a skirmish ranger advance party. They re all back at Snarl s encampment, butchering your men and probably the slaves as well for good measure. Just face it you got away from this one without a scratch.
Nonetheless, he took the reins and led his horse into the water on foot, moving slowly, ready to scoot back and use its bulk for cover if the far bank suddenly sprouted militiamen with crossbows. He tested each boot-hold on the river bottom, and he never took his eyes from the greenery.
Behind him, Eril dismounted and followed suit.
They crossed without a word, wading through the soft swirl of water at their waists and a curious sun- touched silence that seemed to exist separated from the muted roar of the rapids upstream. A pair of birds bickered brightly and chased each other in dipping flight a scant couple of feet above the surface of the river. Pine needles and bright yellow specks of forest detritus slid by on the flow. It was
The corpse was on him before he knew it. Bumping at his side in the water, carried on the current. One trailing arm wrapped around his hip like the final effort of an exhausted swimmer.
Fuck!
The curse jolted loose, as if punched out of him. Nerves still raw from the morning s slaughter, cranked newly taut again from watching the bank ahead; he flinched like some upriver maiden touching her first erect cock. Floundered back, hands up and warding, almost off his feet with the shock.
Just about had the presence of mind to let go the reins and not drown his fucking horse.
Hoiran s sake, Gil. Get a grip.
He found his footing, reached back to the horse, and clucked at it. The dead man caught at his waist, seemed inclined to cling there. A little embarrassed at being so girlish, Ringil cleared his throat and looked the body over. He saw drenched clothing bubbled full of air at the back, facedown under a floating mop of lank, dark hair. Crossbow fletches standing stiffly clear of the water where the quarrel protruded from the man s back.
Some dark and weary war-stained impulse made him reach down and touch the corpse at the shoulder. He rolled the man in the water, pulled the clinging arm gently loose, and turned the body faceup. It told him nothing. Nondescript Naom face, about forty, worn with hard-scrabble living, and a couple of small scars that didn t look like the result of combat. The sharp end of the quarrel jutted a handbreadth out from the chest. The floating hand that had until a moment ago been wrapped around Ringil s waist was blunt-fingered and scarred from a lifetime of labor, but it had raw manacle sores around the wrist, leached pale and whitish pink by the water.
The corpse opened dead black eyes and stared up at him.
Better run, it hissed.
This time the shock held him rigid, came shuddering in along his veins like icy water and put cold clamps at his temples. His grip on the corpse clenched as if to drown it, he heard his throat make a locked-up sound.
A hand fell on his shoulder.
You all right, mate?
Eril s voice, concerned. He d led his horse up level with Ringil s, was peering at his companion curiously. Ringil blinked back at him, and something shifted in the sun-bladed air. He stared down at the heavy, black-barked tree branch in the water and the death grip he had it in. The crooked twist and reach of one arm off the main body, the way it tried to roll in the swirl of the river s flow.
It was just a chunk of tree.
Must have washed down from near the bluffs, Eril said. Seen a lot of fallen trunks choked up in rapids and falls back there. Something that size, the whole tree s probably gone in, got jammed, and now it s rotting off a piece at a time.
Ringil cleared his throat. Yeah.
He let go of the branch and stepped back to let the current take it. Watched it drift downstream to the next bend in the river, the lifted arm still wagging slightly from the motion, as if waving good-bye.
He watched it out of sight. Cleared his throat again.
There s nothing in those trees, he said brusquely, and led his horse forward again, wading hard for the bank.
You reckon we can risk the caravan road?
This high up, they could see it from where they sat a thin, pale line snaking through the wooded uplands east of Hinerion, lost repeatedly to forest and valley shadow on its way north. Ringil narrowed his eyes against the sun, as if at that distance he d somehow be able to pick out the glint of plate armor and lance-points on the carriageway. He shook his head.
By now they ve got the City Guard out in force. Checkpoints strung every five miles or less, looking slant at anybody with a sword and no good reason for travel. I don t want to have to fight my way through that.
Eril nodded glumly. For him, it was the road home. But south is going to be the same, right?
South is going to be worse. When the Yhelteth authorities hear what happened to their legate, we ll be lucky if this doesn t turn into a full-scale diplomatic incident. The border patrol are probably down there right now trying to look like a crowd just in case the garrison commander at Tlanmar loses his temper and decides it s time for a punitive frontier raid or six. Ringil pressed thumb and forefinger to his eyes, which had started to ache in their sockets. Sank his chin on his hugged-up knees and sighed. Truth is, it s a fucking mess. And we re stuck right in the middle of it.
Right. Eril shrugged and shuddered like a dog shaking off water. Lay back on the flat, angled rock where they were seated. He was a phlegmatic man, not much given to worrying about things he couldn t change. He put his arms behind his head and looked up at the brilliant blue sky. Yawned and closed his eyes.
So I guess we wait it out.
Ringil shot him an envious look. Patience had never been one of his strong points he d learned some in the war, because it was either that or die in a hurry, but beyond that basic cornerstone of self-preservation the habit never really took, and age hadn t helped the way it was supposed to. Thirty-one years old and he d still walk into pretty much anything as long as he thought he could walk out again.
Sometimes when he wasn t even very sure of that much.
He stared down the pale granite slab to where their boots stood upright, knee flaps folded down inside out, drying in the sun. Socks draped out to the same purpose. Under the soles of his naked feet, the rock where he sat was warm to the touch and smooth. It was a soothing feeling, like the soft breeze out of the west that kept the full heat of the sun at bay, and the knowledge that their vantage point was well chosen clear views back down the valley to the river they d crossed and over pine-covered slopes on all sides. You d see trouble coming before it got within a hard hour s upward slog of the top.
Their bellies were filled, black bread and cured meat from the saddlebags, cool water from wineskin canteens refilled at the river.
There was birdsong among the trees, and the soft sounds of the horses as they grazed in the clearing a little farther down.
A hawk, hanging motionless a hundred yards out in the crystal air.
Snarl was dead, as planned.
So what the fuck s eating you, Gil?
He looked again at Eril, felt the same stab of envy, and saw abruptly what lay at its root. The Brotherhood occupied an odd niche in Trelayne, trading on their much-vaunted historical lineage to avoid being classed as the bunch of organized criminals they basically were. That meant giving ground from time to time if some overly brutal piece of extortion or murder upset the Chancellery and the Glades classes enough to stir up a law enforcement response. As a Brotherhood soldier, Eril would be well used to sitting out the heat from his work, out on the marsh with trusted retainers or in some backwater harbor town down the coast until his lodge master could smooth things over back in the city. Strictly a matter of patience in the end, you always went home.
All well and good, for those who have homes to go to.
Trelayne.
He glanced instinctively northward at the thought, though from here it was probably more like northwest. Trel-a-lahayn, Blessed Refuge on the Trell, fabled merchant metropolis, rising in walled and towered splendor from the mists and mazed safety of the great river s estuary marshes. Trelayne League Queen of the northern
