The Infernal city

“Are you afraid?”

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t feel bad.” She cocked her head. “You, though—something wrong with you, countryman.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re far from fine,” she said. “You take care of yourself. Maybe next time you see a willow, think of me.”

“I will.”

She smiled again.

He pulled back into himself and the sun returned. They were all just broken dolls again. He thought his head was ringing, but then he understood that it was just birds singing.

He was starving. Unsteadily, he went to find something to eat, and to hear the reports.

SIX

“Draeg’s late,” Tsani told Radhasa, her golden tail twitching in agitation. “Really late.”

Attrebus, nearly asleep in the saddle, tried to appear actually asleep, in hopes they might let something useful drop if they thought he couldn’t hear them.

It had taken him two days to figure out there were eight of them, because no more than four were riding guard on him at any given time. The others, he guessed, were scouts—one in front, one in back, one on each flank, and probably pretty far out. Radhasa was a constant, but he was just too out of it at first to realize the other faces were rotating. Now, after a week, he knew all of their names. Tsani, one of four Khajiit in the group, the others being Ma-fwath, J’yas, and Sharwa. Besides Radhasa, there was a flaxen-haired Breton woman named Amelia, a one- handed orc named—not too surprisingly—Urmuk One Hand. He’d had an iron ball fixed to his stump. The missing Draeg was the Bosmer he’d seen earlier, on awakening.

Radhasa didn’t say anything, just tugged at her mount’s reins to guide him down the steep path through increasingly more arid country. In the last few days the land had risen, and the thick forest and lush meadows of the West Weald had devolved into scrubby oaks and tall grass. Now, on the southern side of the hills, trees were more like big bushes, except when they came to a stream or pool, and tall grass prevailed in clearings.

His spirits had been sinking with the altitude, because he was certain they were already in Elsweyr. It would be more difficult for his friends to find him here; few of them had ever been south of the border, and the cats were less than friendly with the Empire they had once been a part of. Any force that tried to retrieve him might be seen as an invasion.

But then he saw a glimmer of hope in the situation.

By the time they were camping for the night, it was clear to everyone Draeg was probably more than delayed. The glimmer brightened.

“Trolls, probably,” Radhasa opined. “The hills stink with them.”

“I can’t imagine Draeg having trouble with a troll—or much else for that matter,” Sharwa said. “More likely he just decided this deal was too dangerous.”

“We were supposed to kill him,” Tsani said. “That’s what we were paid to do. Now we potentially have two powerful enemies—the Emperor and our employer.”

“He will be thought dead,” Radhasa replied. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not—at least not enough to scratch at the money. But Draeg—he’s a worrier.”

“Well, more for us, then,” Radhasa said. “Tsani, you go back and take his position.”

“Fine. Are we going into Riverhold?”

“Are you crazy? It’s swarming with Imperial agents. We’d have to keep his highness gagged, and that might attract attention. No, there’s a little market town a few miles west of there, Sheeraln. Ma-fwath and J’yas will go in and trade our horses for slarjei and water.”

They came to the crest of the last of the hills before sundown, and the plains of Anequina stretched out to the horizon. He’d always imagined Elsweyr as an unrelieved desert, but here it was green. The tall grass of the upland prairies had been replaced by a short stubble, but that still seemed a far cry from the naked sand he’d been expecting. Streams were visible by the swaying palms, light-skinned cottonwood, and delicate tamarisk that lined them. A herd of red cattle grazed in the near distance.

Riverhold was visible a bit east, sprung up at the convergence of three dusty-looking roads. The walls were saffron, irregular, and not particularly high. Behind them, domes and towers of faded azure and cream, vermilion and chocolate, gold and jet, crowded together like a gaggle of overdressed courtiers waiting in the foyer of the throne room. It was a city that seemed at once tired and exuberant.

He wished they were going there.

But instead they did as Radhasa planned—they followed a goat trail into a copse of trees along a meandering stream, where he was forced to dismount. Then Ma-fwath and J’yas took the horses.

“Bathe,” Radhasa told him. “You’re starting to smell.”

“Hard to do with these bands on.”

“You promise to be good?”

His heart sped a bit. “Yes,” he said.

“Swear it on your honor that you won’t try to run.”

“On my honor,” he replied.

She shrugged, came up behind him, and untied the ropes.

“There,” she said. “Go, then, bathe.”

He stripped off his stinking clothes, feeling watched and somehow ashamed. Radhasa had seen him undressed before—had helped undress him, in fact. He hadn’t felt in the least uncomfortable then. Now he hurried into the water and submerged himself as quickly as possible.

The water was cool, and felt unbelievably good. He let it wash over him, closing his eyes and trying to concentrate only on the sensation.

It might have been a half an hour before he opened them. When he did, he saw that Radhasa was the only one besides himself in the camp. She was sitting with her back to a tree, not quite facing him. She seemed deep in thought.

Between him and her lay a pile of gear, and protruding from it was the hilt of his sword, Flashing.

He didn’t hesitate, but launched himself out of the water toward the weapon. Radhasa saw him, but even then didn’t seem to understand the situation until he actually had the weapon in his hand. Then she came slowly to her feet.

“You promised,” she accused. “On your honor.”

“I promised not to run,” he corrected.

She drew her sword. “Ah,” she said. “I see.”

He circled her, waiting. She wasn’t in armor, so there was no advantage there. And he’d fought her before, knew her signals.

He feinted, but she didn’t twitch. He cut deeper, and she evaded with a quick sidestep. Then she did what he knew she would; her whole body sagged, the tell that she was about to make a hard attack.

She started forward; he threw up his parry and stepped to meet her …

Except that her attack was suddenly short, and he was blocking nothing but air. Then she was in motion again, cutting at his exposed legs. He tried to jump back, but he had too much momentum, and so dropped his blade to parry.

But that was also a feint, and in an instant she was inside, right on him, and her off-weapon hand wrenched at his grip in a strange, painful manner, and then he was facedown on the ground. Flashing thumped to earth a few feet away.

Radhasa stepped back.

“Want to try again?”

Growling, he once more took up the blade and came at her with his famous six-edge attack, but halfway through it her point was at his throat.

“Again?” she asked.

Enraged, he flew at her with everything, but almost without seeming to work at it she had him disarmed and on the ground once more.