Warautumn (21 page)

Should she?

She glanced back the way she had come, saw a flicker of firelight and a trickle of smoke that suddenly spoke all too eloquently of friends, comfort, and home.

Too much to risk.

Still …

It wasn’t raining yet; so she would compromise: She would continue onward for another finger—another fifth of a hand—or until it started to rain in earnest, whichever occurred first. That was probably as much as she could expect, and at that, she would have to endure Strynn’s fury—and probably Div’s—all over again.

Half a finger farther on she found something that confirmed her course of action at last.

The land had been rising steadily since she had entered the woods, with more and more stone showing among the pines: stone of a kind she identified with fire mountains. Indeed, a whole ridge of it had appeared, crossing her trail at right angles, which also put it at right angles to the slope, as though a section of land two spans high had simply been yanked upward there. The resulting low cliff face was cracked and fissured—and one fissure was more properly a true cave.

The geen’s tracks ran directly into it.

And even Merryn was not fool enough to track geens in the dark.

On the other hand, the cave would limit the creature’s options as well. They had it now—she thought. If they were patient.

But
not
in the dark.

Before she knew it, she had turned and was striding back
toward the meadow. The rain caught her there in earnest, but Fate smiled on her enough to present her with the biggest dry log she could still carry, and with that as peace offering, she returned to camp, where she endured reproachful glances but did not reveal what she had seen. Not yet. Not while she was still pondering what to do about a certain geen in a certain cave.

Tyrill knelt in a tiny, open-sided shrine a dozen shots down North Bank from Tir-Eron’s official southern limit and pretended, with perhaps too much fervor, to be praying. It was a shrine to Life, as it happened: Life, who had risen in favor of late, both because of the sudden pervasiveness of Death in a variety of troublesome guises, and because it was getting on toward First-Harvest, and food—which was rarely a problem when the Kingdom was not engaged in civil war—was suddenly in short supply.

It therefore made sense for poor clanless women—whose kind would bear the brunt of any shortages that might transpire—to haunt the fanes of that aspect of The Eight whose province was fertility. And of course it was
their
sons—and daughters, as well—who had borne the brunt of the recent war. And though fatalities had been few and injuries light, still, they were not to be discounted.

Which was why Tyrill was “praying,” but not what she was doing
while
she “prayed.”

No indeed! What she was doing, overtly, was studying the aftereffects of her latest … indiscretion.

The fane was small and out of the way; set, as it was, halfway up a high, steep hill, to which an equally steep set of steps spiraled up from the road—all of which tended to discourage passersby from casual visitations. Which also made it a perfect vantage point from which to observe—if she positioned herself so as to peer through the surrounding pierced-stone half screen—a set of granaries that stood at the foot of the path, across the road from a large wheatfield. Two days ago, there had been four of them. Now there were three—and the occasionally still-smoking stub of the other one.

That one—a largely empty one, by deliberate design—had been torched the previous evening by person or persons unknown, shortly after the last harvesters had departed. And only the intercession of Fate—or Life, since one of Life’s fanes was conveniently nearby—had prevented all four from being consumed.

The result, of course, was that the remaining granaries were now under guard by members of Priest-Clan or their lackeys. More to Tyrill’s point, however, that guard should be changing any moment. She watched closely, there in the light of the setting sun: watched the last laborers—all of them Common Clan or clanless, where before there would have been a handful of High Clan involved—empty their baskets into the middle granary and amble away. The guards—two of them—watched them go, then spared a moment for a drink and to greet their replacements when they came riding up. At Tyrill’s range—a quarter shot up the hill—she couldn’t hear more than an occasional laugh or comradely shout. But Tyrill was not about hearing. She was about waiting … just a little longer.

The day guard was leaving now: had mounted their horses and were pounding away, leaving fresh replacements to sit watch through the night.

Tyrill waited until the old guards showed only as spots of
dirty white rising above clouds of dust only slightly darker, and then she moved.

Carefully.

Just enough to be seen by one of the guards below.

A shout ensued, but she chose to ignore it, intent on her false piety.

Another, then a pause that probably masked a muttered comment or an exasperated sigh, followed by the pounding of footsteps on the spiral path. Two pairs, she was pleased to note.

Getting closer.

Closer.

“Who’s there?” a young female voice called sharply, the tones tense with alarm.

“What?” Tyrill coughed, as though startled. She twisted around in place, timing her movement to coincide precisely with the arrival at the entrance arch of a breathless, flush-faced young woman. “I’m sorry,” she continued, blinking in exaggerated confusion. “I fell asleep at prayer, and it made me groggy, and I … I can’t quite seem to stand.”

“It’s late,” the guard said stiffly, though she was obviously trying to be polite. Beyond her, Tyrill could see the guard’s male companion pacing about, looking impatient.

“I’m sorry,” Tyrill repeated, reaching for her cane, then raising her hand to cough once more.

But she didn’t cough. Remaining on her knees gave Tyrill an excellent angle on the guard’s unprotected throat. And that close—no more than a span away—even in the rapidly gathering twilight, there was no way she could miss. Not as practiced as she had now become.

The girl looked startled, then grabbed her throat—and started to fall. Tyrill caught her as she rose—and almost fell herself, before she got the two of them stabilized.

“Help!” she called, in what was not entirely feigned panic.

“What?” the second guard cried, arriving at the door. And halting—
Just long enough for another dart to find the back of his neck, from where Tyrill’s more mobile and sharper-sighted accomplice had waited behind a piled stone wall farther up the hill.

The man collapsed as neatly as Tyrill had ever seen a man fall: simply folded himself down at each of his joints, like a puppet whose strings had been severed. Still struggling with her own burden, she had to watch him fall and pray no one else saw what had transpired.

By the time she had freed herself of the unfortunate guardswoman, a new figure stood in the entrance arch: a man as disheveled and shabbily dressed as she, though younger. He stepped carefully around the fallen guard and helped Tyrill find her feet, moving with a grace she would have envied half a lifetime ago.

“Good work—for a pair of flute players,” Ilfon laughed, brandishing the blowgun he had made when Tyrill had shown him hers—which he had painted (as he had painted hers) to resemble the flutes street musicians used, down to false finger holes. It wouldn’t stand close scrutiny, but no one who’d got close enough to discover their deception was alive. With a flourish, Ilfon removed the glass darts from both necks and ground them against the dusty marble beneath his feet, into which they disappeared as though they had never existed. And swatted at something that buzzed his face.

“Good luck, this,” he chuckled. “Mosquitoes, I mean. Mosquito bites look a lot like the marks of blowgun darts. And this time of year, this close to the river …”

Tyrill nodded sourly. “Whoever finds them will see what they expect to see.”

Ilfon’s brow quirked up. “Two guards dead in one of Life’s shrines? That may be pushing it, even so. But we won’t need to come this way again. Not until they’ve relaxed their vigilance.”

Another nod, as Tyrill slumped down on the rail of the
shrine itself. “It was a good plan, though: lure them south, then ambush them. But we have to be careful not to fall into a pattern. And not to deflect blame where blame doesn’t belong. We don’t need innocents accused of crimes they didn’t commit.”

Ilfon scowled a warning. “It
is
going to happen—eventually. You know that.”

“But hopefully not yet,” a husky female voice inserted, in what was obviously an Ixtian accent.

Tyrill whirled around in place, even as Ilfon went instantly on guard.

“No need for that,” that same lower voice advised. “I’m coming to the entrance now—that’s how much I trust you.”

And with that, a dark, cloaked shape did indeed melt into view just beyond the archway. Tyrill couldn’t see the face for the angle of the waning sun and the overhang of the woman’s hood.

“Lady Tyrill, Lord Ilfon,” that unknown woman continued, dipping her head in formal acknowledgment, “I see that you have become well acquainted with the … flute. Therefore, allow me to introduce myself: the … flute-maker.” And with that she swept back her hood.

“Elvix,” Tyrill gasped. “I should’ve known.”

“Elvix mahn Aroni mahr Sheer at your service—Chiefs,” Elvix grinned through another bow. “Ambassador at large from Ixti, and now at the service of you, who represent, if I may say, Eron’s only legal government.”

Ilfon looked anxiously toward the door, as if expecting other intrusions. “I’m alone,” Elvix assured him. “No one knows I’m in this part of the country except Tozri—and maybe King Kraxxi, if word has reached Ixti by now. In any case, I’d suggest we retire to a less … controversial location. I feel confident that we have all got a great deal to tell each other.”

Ilfon nodded sagely and extended his arm to Tyrill. “We’ve a caravan—if you can call it that—over the next rise.”

“That will do nicely,” Elvix assured them, with another grin. “I have wine.”

And until the last moon set at midnight, the three of them drank and plotted and planned.

They hadn’t reckoned on rain …

Three days of the wretched stuff—without letup, and sometimes so heavy they could see nothing but an endless curtain of liquid silver shimmering down from the cave opening’s upper rim to where it disappeared a quarter span beyond the ledge that terminated what passed for a floor.

At least there was no dearth of drinking water—but that was the
only
surplus of water that was good, since the rain meant that progress on the raft, which had been running well ahead of schedule, was now running badly behind.

Never mind the effect the incessant downpour was having on their hunting, which was to render it impossible; fishing, which was only barely viable; or gathering firewood, which was the real problem in the long run. Hindsight told them they should have laid in a supply of dry wood against such an eventuality as they now confronted. Instead, they had blithely harvested the closest kindling first, with the result that not only was all the remaining nearby wood too green to burn easily, but they had to go ever-farther afield to find the shrinking portion of the remainder that wasn’t. And return soaked
themselves, to sit around what little flame they could coax into being, nibble fish and mushrooms, and drink increasingly watered-down cauf—
after
“drying off” on blankets that got damper and damper while they waited for sodden clothes to dry.

At least it was summer, so cold was not a problem. But even so, an unpleasant clamminess pervaded their sanctuary, in very unwelcome contrast to the crisp warmth that had greeted their arrival. The scent of mildew was beginning to tickle the air, too, and with the soap supply all but exhausted, blankets and rug alike were starting to stink of sheep. They staved off some of the problem by going barefoot and shirtless most of the time, and leaving as many garments as they could as close to the fire as they dared. But while common bathing was something they had all indulged in without thought, the cave was
not
a bath-chamber in a hold, and long-ingrained rules of decorum haunted extended casual “indoor” undress, adding to the pervasive edginess.