With a prayer to the Earthmother on his lips and a blast of cold wind at his back, he rode on.
Soon after noon, he had crossed the Oungal Downs and was heading towards the shores of Lake Audagal. This was a country of moist pastures and water meadows and while he came within sight of several villages and steadings, he was careful to skirt every one. Before leaving Krusivel he had exchanged his polished hauberk for a scarred leather harness and the battered trappings of a down-at-heel soldier-of-fortune. It was a disguise he hoped would never be put to the test.
By mid-afternoon, he took shelter in a glade full of nesting clatterbeaks with the wind tossing the heads of the trees overhead and a heavy rain soaking the long grass all around. Once rested, he remounted the grey, turned its head south and was on the move again. Unfortunately, Mazaret's progress along the lake shore became fitful, forced into diversions and hastily sought hiding places while patrols of Mogaun cavalry, the mounts as barbarically adorned as their riders, passed by. Their banners and shields bore the snarling dog device of Begrajic, the Mogaun chieftain who held sway over this part of Kejana and whose warriors had repeatedly attempted to reach Krusivel only to come to grief in the deep valleys of the Bachruz mountains.
Eventually he left the road altogether, choosing instead the rutted cart-tracks and grassy footpaths that linked the farms and tiny hamlets which were scattered among the wildwood-cloaked slopes east of the lake. Such that it was nearly sundown by the time he emerged from a mire of clawbush and lugweed and found himself not far from a wide stone bridge spanning a rain-swollen river called the Nolvik. Across the river, blurred by poor light and a persistent drizzle, were the grey outlines of Oumetra and beyond it the dark expanse of the sea.
The coast road and an offshoot of the Redway met here, bringing a few travellers, mostly afoot, who were hurrying to be within the city walls before nightfall. Mazaret urged his mount up from the muddy hollow and over to the bridge, slowed to a walk to cross it, then spurred it into a swift canter again and rode for the city gates.
As he neared, his eyes took in the details of the outer wall, seeing where some parts of the battlements had been strengthened and others heightened since he was last here almost six years ago. Then he noticed a knot of people outside the arched gates and off to one side, one or two hand-held torches brightening the dim surroundings. As he came closer someone lurched away from the others to be sick against the city wall. Another in a long cloak and a hat went after him while the guards at the gate guffawed and mimicked the unfortunate. Mazaret grimaced in contempt then brought his mount to a halt to look over the heads of the onlookers.
Hammered into the ground near the wall was a crude stake and tied to it was the body of a Mogaun male. From the five red rings piercing the skin along one side of the jawbone, Mazaret knew that this had been one of Begrajic's warchiefs, perhaps even one of his sons. The armour suggested as much, being a sleeveless leather harness stained a dark-brown and strengthened with close rows of rough bronze discs rivetted in place. To Mogaun eyes it would previously have appeared magnificent, a token of power and authority: now it was slashed and grimy, stained with blood and mud, and with many discs missing or half-ripped out. Whoever had done this had gone out of their way to deliberately wreck the armour along with its owner, in order to make some kind of point.
The worst of it, though, was the manner of execution. The Mogaun had suffered death by amputation, joint by joint till all that remained of him was the torso and most of one arm. It was a particularly cruel and agonising way to die, and Mazaret had a notion about who was responsible, if not why.
With mouth closed against the stench of death, he dismounted and led his horse towards the gate. There were five guards in heavy leather corslets, their idle gazes scarcely noticing the travellers who passed through the gate. One of them did stare at Mazaret with a kind of ill-natured, grinning interest but made no move to stop him. Mazaret knew from reports that the warlord Begrajic had hired mercenaries to occupy Oumetra and maintain order. He wondered who their commander was. Many so-called free companies roamed the lands of the former Empire, all of them full of brutal toughs and thugs and all of them in the pay of either the Mogaun or the Acolytes.
There was a deep wooden creak as the gates swung shut behind him, followed by a heavy thud as the bar came down. Mazaret led the grey away, glancing about him as he tried to gain his bearings. The city of Oumetra was built largely of a dark, almost blueish stone mined half a millenium ago in Dalbar. The city's founders had wrought their walls and halls and towers on a heroic scale, the streets and squares likewise. The intervening centuries, and the demands of a growing population, had seen those spacious public areas narrowed or entirely filled by cheaper buildings of wood or brick, or (occasionally) stone salvaged from the ruined towns of the Easterly Hills.
The streets were dim, narrow canyons, their gloom broken by the lamplight of windows or the porch lantern of a barrelhouse or those stables still open. The stench of sewage was everywhere and Mazaret kept away from the gutters as he walked along a main street leading into the city. He was looking for an inn called the Moon and Anvil where he was to meet one of the Earthmother Order's agents. After following directions given by a couple of surly townsmen, he found himself standing before a low doorway over which hung a weathered sign carved with a quarter moon and an armourer's anvil.
Down a short alley beside the inn was a stable where he left his horse to be watered and fed. With his saddlebags over one shoulder he entered by the back door and made his way along a low passage to the taproom. The noise and the beery warmth enfolded him as he squeezed through to the counter. After a shouted exchange with the barkeep, during which he paid for the stabling, a room for the night, and a jack of dark ale, he went to stand in a corner of the room near a shuttered window, slowly drinking.
As he waited, he surveyed the crowd and realised that the loudest laughter was coming from a group of soldiers and their doxies camped over by the door. Whenever one of the mercenaries bellowed some coarse remark or provoked a burst of giggles from their female companions, the background conversations of the other customers always died down for a moment or two. A few heads shook and murderous looks flitted across faces turned away from the source of the racket, then the general hubbub of voices returned. There was an air of smouldering anger in the room, Mazaret thought, restless and unpleasant. If the soldiers stayed, there would be a fight here before the night was done.
As he lifted the jack for another swallow of ale, a man passing by on his way to the jakes paused to swayingly stare at something on the floor. He bent down to pick up something and held it out to Mazaret on a distinctly grimy palm.
"Heh...this yours, good sir?"
It was a coin, an old Roharkan penny with the ox-head side face up. Mazaret kept any reaction from showing in his face - ox was the password or signal he told Bardow to include in his message to Oumetra.
"Why yes, thank you."
"No bother," the man said, then whispered as he turned away, " - The back door. Finish your drink first." Then he was gone.
The ale, flavoured with some kind of spice to mask the sourness, seemed to take an age to finish. When he was down to the dregs he left the jack on the floor, shouldered his saddlebags and went out the way he had come in. He paused on the threshold of the back door until a figure detached itself from the shadows across the alley and came into the weak light of the stable lamp. It was the same man, only without the drunken disguise.
"This way," he said, heading for the end of the alley.
Mazaret glanced around. The stable boy was nowhere to be seen so he hurried after the stranger who had pushed open a decrepit-looking door in the wall of the adjacent building. Mazaret followed him into a dim, dank room smelling of mildew and lit by a candle on a shelf. His guide produced an oil lamp from somewhere, lit it from the candle then led him from the room and further into the apparently deserted building, along a narrow corridor, through a succession of small rooms, and up a spiral stairway, finally pushing through damp, moth-eaten curtains to arrive in a large shadowy chamber. Mazaret could just make out benches arranged in a semicircle around a raised platform against one wall. The wall had once been hung with tapestries and carvings but now there were only scorch marks and charred fragments of wood.
A group of men stood to one side of the platform, a few holding lanterns which cast forth yellow auras of light. Two of them came forward to meet him, one a slightly built man in what looked like labourer's clothing, the other tall and distinguished in expensive attire and carrying a large, thin book under one arm.
For a moment they stood regarding one another in silence. Then the aristocratic one opened his book at a marked page and gazed intently at its contents.
"Is it him?" said his slender companion, taking a dagger from within his shirt.
As the intent gaze went from book to Mazaret's face and back, Mazaret became aware of more than one pair of feet moving softly in the darkness behind him, and he strove to remain relaxed. At length the well-dressed man nodded and closed the book.
"The hair is longer and greyer," he said. "And the face is thinner. But it is him, certainly."
"I think he means that I'm older," Mazaret said.
"Courtesy forbids," said the other man dryly he put away the dagger. "I am Geraine, my lord, leader of these rebellious rogues. This - " He placed a hand on the shoulder of the man with the book, " - is Havall..."
Havall gave a gracious tilt of the head.
"...and your escort is Kammer." Who nodded sharply, his face unreadable. "My apologies for all this furtive skulking, but a party of Mogaun shamen arrived last night and the whole city has been on edge since. We dare not go out on the streets, even at night. We even sent one of our number, a lad with only a trace of the Lesser Power, away from Oumetra lest the Mogaun warlocks sniff him out."
He paused, regarding Mazaret for a moment. "My lord, the message from the Redoubt said something about our alliance with the Hunters Children being at an end."
Mazaret nodded. "Captain Volyn and his advisors decided to go their own way and were not to be persuaded otherwise."
"This will make things far more difficult."
"But not impossible," Mazaret said. He laid a hand on Geraine's shoulder and the two men began walking towards the rear wall. "Now, tell me more of these shamen. Were they responsible for the little spectacle outside the gates?"
"That was Achaj, one of Begrajic's brood, as brutal a savage as the rest, yet he began lusting after a woman from the town and had her taken to his camp north of the city. Her brother made a public outcry about it and Achaj was ready to have him drawn and quartered, until the woman begged for his pardon. Which Achaj gave." Geraine uttered a dry chuckle as they halted beside the platform. "Then the shamen appeared a few days later, questioned him about this unforgivable lapse into mercy and decided that such weakness had to be expunged. Hence the remains you saw outside." He glanced at the others. "Oh, how we wept."
Quiet laughter went round the others, a hard sound for all its muteness, hard with a need for vengeance.
Mazaret offered only a neutral smile. "So how much of a danger are the shamen, ser Geraine? I've an important task to carry out and I'd like to know of any little difficulties might we encounter."
"What is the nature of this task, my lord?"
"I want a certain person taken captive, unharmed, and out of the city and heading north with me directly afterwards."
"And where is this person to be found?" Geraine said.
"Somewhere in Oumetra there is a square with two fountains, yes?"
"The old Imperial Square," said Kammer. "That's over in the merchants' quarter, right near the Tasna canal."
Mazaret looked at the straight-faced man. "What of the phrase 'house of sheep'? Does that mean anything to you?"
Frowning, Kammer thought for a moment or two then looked at Geraine. "Bilar's, the drapers, it has to be."
"Interesting," said Geraine turning to Mazaret, "seeing as it's also a safe house for the Hunters Children."
"Does this present some difficulty for you?" Mazaret said evenly.
Geraine grinned. "Not at all. In fact, one of our refuges just happens to be right across the canal at the back of Bilar's."
"Astonishing."
"In truth, such fortunate coincidences are surely the Earthmother's apology for life's other little difficulties." Everyone laughed and Mazaret could not help but join them.
* * *
The way to the refuge led along lightless alleys, across dim back courts and through cellars and deserted passages strewn with rubbish. Mazaret smelled the canal before they came to it, and was able to look down at its inky blackness cutting between the close packed buildings as he followed Geraine and the others up a narrow staircase fixed somewhat loosely to the side of a warehouse. A door at the top opened into a loft reeking of bird droppings. Part of the roof had fallen in and the rustling of unseen vermin accompanied their footsteps as they hurried across to another door, beyond which was an enclosed catwalk. Mazaret tried not to think of the long fall waiting below as aged planks creaked underfoot.
At the other end, they entered the attic of a large townhouse. The wooden walls were unadorned and a battered table and six chairs sat on a surprisingly thick carpet. Two of Geraine's men used their small lamps to light a pair of hooded lanterns which sat on the floor, while Geraine went over to the single shuttered window and with a small object held to his eye peered through the slats. Mazaret went over to join him and saw the rear of a long ramshackle building some six stories tall in places. Many windows seemed boarded over, with only a few lit from within.
"That is the drapers," Geraine said, pointing directly across. He then offered the object he had been squinting through. "Care to see?"Have you seen one of these before, my lord?"