Riding the Red Horse (44 page)

The general’s single badge of office was the sash that Erel wore across his left shoulder. It was bright blue, with the crest of the Longstar Conclave sewn prominently into the fabric: golden-yellow thread tracing out the shape of a dodecahedron, with symbols in the faces representing each of the original city-states to have formed the Combine.

Joonta followed the general with her eyes as he proceeded quietly up and down the formation. All she’d been told was that the general had come to select a few Coam archers for service in his personal guard. An honor, considering the fact that many of the other city-states mocked Coam’s traditions.

While the men of Coam labored in the fields, and in the mines, and in the bakeries and smithy shops, Coam’s halest, heartiest women were trained from childhood in the combined art of horse and bow. For three generations, formations of Coam’s pony cavalry had earned a stout reputation among even Coam’s rivals. It therefore spoke well of Erel that he was the first supreme commander to acknowledge Coam’s contribution to the new war effort, by selecting a few Coam women for his private security detail.

Joonta almost quit breathing when Erel stopped before her.

“And this one?” Erel said to the older women at his side, his finger pointing at Joonta. The three matrons in Erel’s entourage were the captains of Coam’s forces. A triumvirate forged in battle. Like Erel, they had lines around their eyes and mouths, and silver touched their hair.

“Joonta,” said the First Captain. “One of our strongest young women. She has fought several times, and distinguished herself in each instance. We were going to make her a lieutenant, but if you would like her instead, we will gladly reassign her to your service.”

Erel eyed Joonta, without blinking; his head tilted to listen.

Inside, Joonta thrilled. Lieutenant? This was news indeed. A win-win, if her understanding was right. Whether Erel chose Joonta or not, she was going to be moving up in the world.

“Is she your best?” Erel asked the three captains.

“She is among our best,” said the Third Captain. “She’s got a quick mind, to match her quick reflexes. What’s more, she’s got patience under pressure. Not easy to find among women her age.”

“Indeed,” Erel said, his eyes never leaving Joonta. “Very well then, walk with me, Joonta.”

Joonta felt her heart skip a beat. She swallowed quickly and then stepped forward, falling in deferentially behind the captains as they trailed behind the general.

Up and down the ranks they proceeded, with Erel asking occasional questions here and there. To Joonta’s surprise, he chose no more women from among her experienced peers. She watched their eyes narrow in confusion or angry puzzlement as Erel passed them up. Joonta could only give her comrades the slightest shrug—to indicate that she didn’t know what was going on, any more than they did.

At last, the general came to the end of the formation. The final archer was both short and plump. Ordinarily, the smaller archers were in the front ranks, but this one had been intentionally hidden in the very back, where she couldn’t be easily seen.

“This one doesn’t seem big enough to string her bow,” Erel said, “much less achieve sufficient pull to do damage with her hits.”

The Second Captain sighed.

“She is Nateel, and her clan dispatched her despite our protests. It is customary in Coam for each clan to contribute archers of their own choosing. But you are correct, Nateel is . . . problematic.”

Joonta could see the hot protest in Nateel’s eyes. The runty woman had endured ridicule ever since her arrival three weeks prior. Even among her own clan she was regarded as something of a waste. How or why she’d been chosen to serve, was a mystery no one seemed capable of solving.

“Nateel, walk with me,” Erel said, motioning with his hand.

A quiet rustle of surprise ran up and down the ranks.

Nateel stood in place, her mouth open and her eyes blinking.

“Sir,” said the First Captain, clearing her throat, “I can assure you that there are other archers among us far better suited to your—“

“You heard the order,” Erel said calmly, his eyes on Nateel the same way they’d been on Joonta a few minutes before. “Walk with me.”

Nateel stepped forward and fell in behind Joonta as Erel made a wide U-shaped path around the formation, coming back to its front.

“General, sir,” the Third Captain protested, “if it’s our finest that you seek, then we have a dozen such women, all of them Joonta’s equal. Surely you will want one of them?”

“I came to Coam, as I have come to each of the city-states: to find two willing troops who will serve the Combine as my guard. Now, if Joonta and Nateel do not wish for the position—”

“I wish it!” Joonta and Nateel both exclaimed in unison.

Erel raised an eyebrow, along with a slight smile.

“There, I think that more or less settles it, don’t you?”

The three captains demurred without further protest, though it was clear from the expressions on their faces that they disagreed strongly with Erel’s second choice.

“We leave immediately,” Erel said. “Have Joonta and Nateel fetch their kit and their animals, and join my caravan. There’s no time to lose.”

Before Joonta could run off to gather her few possessions from her tent, the Second Captain grabbed Joonta by the arm and pulled Joonta aside.

“Do not let the weakling embarrass us,” the Second Captain whispered fiercely. “You do not need to be reminded of what this means for our people. For all of us.”

Joonta nodded her head vigorously, and bowed at the waist: to show respect, as well as understanding of the order.

But inside, she could not grasp how she would carry it out. Because Nateel seemed hopeless.

#

They were half a day’s hard travel into the mountain paths before Nateel mustered the temerity to speak to Joonta as a peer. The smaller woman nudged her pony up beside Joonta’s: close enough for them to speak quietly, just the two of them.

“I know what the captains think of me,” Nateel said.

Joonta didn’t respond, at first. She kept her eyes on the canyon proper. Not everyone in the caravan was on horseback. Including Erel himself, who marched at the head of the column. Now that they were out on the road, the general’s limp didn’t seem nearly as bad. Perhaps the old wound merely needed to be loosened up? Erel was setting the pace; different again from most Combine general officers, who’d have stuck to the middle or the rear.

“You should keep your eyes alert for danger,” Joonta said. “If you were a better student, you would know this. The general is depending on us to spot a threat while we can combat it at distance.”

“I know our role,” Nateel said, “and I know the captains told you not to let me make fools out of both of us.”

“Are they wrong?” Joonta said.

“Yes,” Nateel said, her tone hard.

“I’ve not watched you fight yet,” Joonta said, “but from what I’ve seen of you during training, you’re a vulnerability, not an asset.”

Quite suddenly, an alarm cry went out from the center of the caravan.

Erel spun on a heel, his sword instantly drawn.

From out of the trees on the mountainside, a small horde of rough-looking men sprang down onto the wagons.

“To me, my guard!” Erel shouted, and then he was running towards the danger.

Joonta whirled her pony about and kept after him, her bow in her right hand. She’d been afraid this might happen. The mountain paths between Coam and the nearest city-state were seldom patrolled. Wild people—wearing the skins of animals—were known to occasionally savage unwary travelers.

The general crashed in amongst the club-wielding barbarians, his sword slashing deftly.

Joonta’s pony skidded to a halt and she nocked an arrow, looking for a clean shot.

There was none.

An arrow whistled past—shooting high over the scrum of screaming barbarians and intermixed caravan staff.

Joonta jerked her head around, glaring at Nateel.

“Fool!” Joonta spat. “You can’t see who you’re aiming at! Do you want to injure or kill one of our own?”

Nateel’s eyes were wide with panic, her hands trembling on a second nocked arrow.

“We’ll have to use our speed, to get on their flanks!” Joonta yelled. Then she was clenching her pony’s reins as she sent it pelting around the side of the scrum. Shouts and yells and curses filled the air of the canyon as metal clashed with wood. When Joonta had a clear look at one of the wild men, she loosed an arrow, sinking him to the ground with blood pouring from his neck.

As battles went, it was quick. When the men of the mountains finally understood that they faced militia instead of merchants, they dropped their crude clubs and fled back the way they’d come, howling and barking in their crude language. Little more than cave dwellers.

Joonta counted six dead, none of them belonging to the caravan. Though a few friendlies had been bruised and bloodied.

She followed Erel as he walked up and down the length of the caravan, urging those who could march to get back on their feet and keep moving. Three who could not walk were loaded into the wagons.

Erel’s sword was covered in dark blood. He paused at the body of one fallen marauder to wipe his blade on the dead man’s deerskin tunic.

“We must make haste,” he said. “There could be others waiting for us. This may have only been a delaying action.”

“Sir,” Joonta said, “I’m surprised we took this road to begin with. Surely my captains warned you of the danger?”

“That they did,” Erel said.

“Then why—?”

“No time for a discussion, Joonta. Take Nateel with you and scout ahead a thousand paces. If you see or hear anything further, report back.”

“Nateel won’t—” Joonta said, exasperation leaking around the edges of her disciplined tone.

“Do as I command, Coamian,” Erel said, cutting her off. His hand clapped both Joonta and Nateel on their knees as he walked between the ponies.

Soon, the women were trotting cautiously ahead of the caravan. Now, more than ever, the general needed Joonta’s eyes. She kept her back straight as she sat in the saddle, her head slowly swiveling. Nateel mimicked her senior as best as she could, but her back was too hunched for Joonta’s taste. No pride in that one, Joonta thought. And it showed.

As the afternoon wore on, and the shadows in the canyon got longer, they passed an ancient ruin. One of only three known to Coam’s cartographers. Joonta had expected it—as landmarks went, it was hard to miss—but seeing it in person for the first time was an experience. The ruin was huge. Like the bones of a terrifically gigantic beast, now collapsed onto its side. Rusted metal beams stuck out of the ruin at odd angles. When fully erect, it could have been taller than any modern building Joonta had ever seen. Now it was a heap.

“The Ironmasters haunt us,” Nateel said reverently as she gazed at the crumpled pile of bent spars and girders.

“How could anyone capable of metalwork on such a scale, disappear from the face of the Earth?” Joonta wondered out loud.

“You know the legend,” Nateel said. “The Ironmasters grew restless, and went into the sky. Eventually leaving the world entirely.”

“Superstition,” Joonta said, frowning. “Boats that fly? I know the legend, but it sounds like nonsense. Something killed them. Or nearly all of them. A plague. Or an enemy. One of the two.”

Joonta guided her pony up close to the ruin, examining the way the metal had twisted and sheared—in what had to have been a deafening fall, some untold number of years in the past. No people dwelled here now. The superstitions surrounding the Ironmasters were manifold. The wild men dared not tarry so close to a place clearly dominated by bad luck and evil spirits. The ruin was like a gravemarker in this way, but on a grand scale.

Joonta felt her mood turn sour.

“We’d better keep moving,” she said. “The general won’t like it if he catches up with us and finds us sight-seeing like this.”

Nateel’s eyes lingered on the ruin as both women rode away.

#

Night.

They made camp by the shores of a small mountain lake, where the animals could rest and all of them could replenish their water from the icy streams that fed the tarn. Erel’s surgeon tended to the injured and put them to bed early, before checking in with Erel himself. The general’s single wound was a large bruise on one thigh, which he occasionally massaged with his hands. Otherwise, he’d been unharmed.

Presently, Erel called the disparate members of his personal guard to the edge of his campfire. Joonta included.

They sat in a circle—young eyes all staring at the single pair of old eyes among them—their mouths quietly chewing on dried bread and salt-cured meat. Joonta could sense the rebuke coming. There was a hard knot where her stomach should have been.

“You were sloppy today,” Erel said to no one in particular, poking absently at the fire with a long stick.

“Sir,” Joonta said, “we haven’t trained together before. It’s difficult to fight alongside strangers.”

“Yes, no doubt,” Erel said. “But it was more than that. You, Joonta, practically left your Coamian comrade behind as soon as I gave the call to arms. Moreover, you suffered your comrade’s presence under protest—when I dispatched you both forward of the main caravan element, following the fight. I expected better of the archers of Coam.”

Joonta felt her cheeks grow hot. A dozen different protests burned on her lips. But she did not speak them. The general’s voice had a teaching tone. She had heard it in the remonstrations of her captains many times.

“But it wasn’t just you,” Erel said. “Your behavior was mirrored by the others: the confident sprinting ahead of the hesitant, and the skilled cursing their unskilled companions. Sloppy. And disappointing. We’ll stay here at the lakeshore for several days. Enough time for our walking wounded to recover. And for you all to drill. There are experienced men on the watch tonight. All of you will sleep, and begin exercises at sunrise tomorrow. Is that clear?”

A chorus of yessirs ran around the circle.

“Good,” the general said.

When there was nothing further—Erel merely prodding his fire with his stick—the group of young warriors stood up and hurriedly departed the general’s presence. Each of them quietly muttering under his or her breath.