Realms of War

The man nudged Gethred with his boot and said, 'Who are you?'

'Just a starving, half-frozen traveler,' said Gethred.

The man crouched, and the sound he made sounded half sigh and half growl. 'You're a liar. You're no Rashemi, and Westerners don't wander these foothills with no supplies. But you're no Thayan by your coloring. You're a mystery. A mystery I don't care to solve. You robbed my trap. Why?'

'The wolf was suffering.'

'So were you.'

'I only wanted to show another creature a little kindness before I lay down to die.'

'Hmph. You had your first wish. I'll grant your second.' A moment's silence, then, 'You don't know them, then?'

'Them?'

The man just crouched there, watching. Gethred squinted and tried to make out the man's features. He could not. But the stench he emitted said enough.

'If you lie,' said the man, 'I'll hurt you before you die. Hurt you a long time.'

'Lie?' said Gethred. 'About what? I... don't understand.'

The man took a deep breath through his nose. 'You hold your tongue, but I can sense you're hiding something. I smell it. But you don't hold the stink of the shen gusen. And you're a man. Magic, then?'

'Magic?'

'The shen gusen are cunning. Powerful. You could be a spy.'

Gethred swallowed. His throat hurt. 'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what a shen gusen is. I swear.'

'You swear to your gods ?'

'Yes.'

'Good,' said the man. 'Let's send you to them.'

The man stood, reached behind his back, and when his hand reappeared Gethred saw the light glinting off the edge of a huge dagger. The blade was almost as wide as Gethred's palm. It looked more like a cleaver with a point, and when the man turned it, brandishing the blade, Gethred saw runes carved into the metal—sharp etchings that he could not read but which nevertheless made the back of his eyelids itch.

'Please—'

'Please what?' said the man.

'I'm no spy,' said Gethred. 'I swear. Please.'

'But you are a robber. And it pleases me to give you justice.'

Gethred tried to scramble away, but ropes bound his ankles, knees, and thighs, and he could do little more than wiggle like a stiff caterpillar. He only succeeded in sliding farther along the back wall of the cave.

'Nowhere to go.' The man laughed and snatched the ropes around Gethred's ankles. He pulled his legs up and planted the point of his dagger in Gethred's crotch. 'Think your gods will mind if you come to them less than a man?'

'Please!'

Gethred closed his eyes and stiffened his entire body. The agony in his head was forgotten as he lay there, panting and waiting for the steel to pierce.

Nothing. Gethred opened his eyes. The man stood over him, still as stone, head cocked as if listening. He didn't even seem to be breathing.

In the sudden silence Gethred heard it too. Horses approaching. Not at a gallop, but there was no mistaking the slow, careful approach of several horses.

Growling, the man dropped Gethred's legs and turned away. Blinding light filled the cave as he opened the thick matt of sticks and twigs that served as a door. He looked over his shoulder once—his eyes were still deep in the shadow of his great tangle of hair—then left the cave, slamming the rickety door behind him.

* * * * *

In the gloom of the cave Gethred lay listening, straining to hear beyond the sound of his own panicked breathing.

The first words he heard were in one of the Tuigan dialects, calling from a near distance.

Then the voice of the massive man—'Speak a tongue a man's ears can bear to hear, not your slathering steppe speech.'

The other speaker replied in hesitant Rashemi, 'We ride from the horde of the Yamun Khahan. We ride from victory at the Citadel Rashemar. For five days we ride, hunting spies of the west who escaped the vengeance of the Yamun Khahan. Two days before now, we caught them. We fought. Three of our warriors died killing the spies. But one escaped. We followed his trail to a valley a few miles from here. Then we followed larger tracks. Yours, I believe, now that I see you.'

'And what is this to me?' said the man. 'I have no hospitality for beggars off the steppe. Go back to your Khahan.'

'We do not ask for your hospitality. We seek the spy.'

'Why?'

'We will take him back to the Yamun Khahan. Our lords wish to question him.'

There was a long silence. Gethred thought he might have heard a horse whicker, then stomp the snow. The man spoke again. 'I know of no spy. I have only one thief. And he is mine.'

'This thief,' said the Tuigan, still speaking a hesitant Rashemi, 'our spy he might be.'

'Your spy? You have nothing but those nags upon which you sit and the stink that follows you.'

A longer silence followed. Gethred wondered how many Tuigan were out there. It couldn't be too many for one man to speak so boldly to them.

'We ask that you let us see this thief,' said the Tuigan.

'No.'

'The Yamun Khahan asks you to let us see this thief.'

'Then let him come and ask me himself.'

'We ask in his name.'

'After my meal tonight I will piss your Khahan's name in the snow.'

Shouts—two that seemed genuinely surprised at the man's effrontery, then many raised in anger—followed by the sounds of hoofbeats. No careful approach this time.

This was a charge. Gethred could feel the ground shaking beneath him.

He thought he heard a brief shout of surprise, fear even, then a roar so loud that dust fell from the cave ceiling. After that, the din was so deafening and so many sounds mixed together that Gethred could not separate them—the cries of men, the all-too-humanlike sound of a dying horse, bodies running, and over it all the roaring of some great animal.

The clamor slackened, then died off into a deafening silence, the only sound that of dirt and grit raining down upon Gethred. Then something else. He actually felt the approach of footsteps before he heard them.

The door was wrenched back so hard that one of the hinges tore free. Two Tuigan, both holding swords, one bloodied, slunk into the cave. Their eyes were wide with fear and their skin flushed with exertion. The one with the unbloodied sword pointed it at Gethred and said something in his native tongue. Gethred could not understand their speech, save for one word: 'Cormyrean.'

* * * * *

The Tuigan dragged Gethred from the cave. The bright light of midafternoon blazed off the snow pocketing the valley. He winced but forced his eyes to stay open to survey the scene.

The cave pierced the base of one of the hills that ringed the feet of the Sunrise Mountains. Many boulders had