The Rani Amrita had refused. “All this has come about because of Moirin and her young man,” she had said firmly in her musical voice. “I fear if we do not give her the chance to save him, we defy the will of the gods.”
Now, I shivered, praying that the gods did indeed intend for me to free my stubborn peasant-boy from this mess. I pushed away the memory of the boy-monk in Rasa bidding me to rescue the tulku Laysa. I could only bear so many burdens at once.
We took a position in the open meadow some hundred paces beyond the copse where our archers were hidden. Hasan Dar bowed to the Rani from his saddle, his palms pressed together, his eyes watchful and grave. “We are here, highness. All is in readiness. It awaits only to see if the Falconer takes our bait.”
Amrita gave me an inquiring glance.
“Oh, aye,” I whispered. “They are coming; or at least Bao is coming, and I doubt he is coming alone.”
“How long?” she asked me.
In my mind, I measured the dwindling distance between Bao’s diadh-anam and mine against the distance that had separated us before this journey. “Not long,” I said. “Less than two hours, I think.”
The sun crept across the sky; and we waited. The shadow cast by Sleeping Calf Rock shifted, obscuring the path toward the further mountains and Kurugiri.
It didn’t matter.
Bao was coming. I could feel it, step by step. The nearer he got, the easier it was to gauge. My diadh-anam sang inside me, while his did not sing at all. Still, I felt it. When I knew he was almost upon us, I flung out my arm and pointed. “Now!”
One man on horseback rounded the curve beneath the outcropping, emerging from the shadows. He paused, surveying the plateau, then turned back and beckoned. Others followed, riding into sunlight.
Even at a distance, I spotted Bao among them. I knew him by the way he sat his mount, by the lean, tight-knit grace of his figure, by the faint shimmer of darkness that hung around him ever since his rebirth. It was stronger in the twilight, but even in daylight, I could see it. I wished I could see his face. The men spread out, forming a line, and advanced at a measured pace.
“One, two, three…” Hasan Dar squinted, counting. “Huh. Twelve, I make it. One more than allowed by our terms.” He gestured to his second in command. “Pradeep, go!”
The guardsman Pradeep clapped heels to his mount, sprinting across the meadow. On the far side, the Falconer’s party halted to confer. In short order, one of their men rode forward to fulfill the exchange.
It wasn’t Bao. I wished it had been; I wished we could have grabbed him and fled, summoning the archers to ward our retreat. But no, it was some southern Bhodistani fellow with thick brows, a hard mouth, and a sword-belt with two empty scabbards. He scanned our company with a shrewd gaze, then gave a sharp nod, wheeled, and retreated, passing our returning guardsman Pradeep on the way.
“So?” Hasan Dar raised his brows.
“They have honored the terms, commander,” Pradeep said breathlessly, leaning on his pommel. “No visible weapons. And their twelfth person… it is not an extra guard. It is Jagrati the Spider Queen herself.”
A chill crawled over my skin. That had not been part of our plan; but Pradeep was right, it was not a violation of the terms, either. It had simply not occurred to any of us that the Spider Queen would leave the safehold of Kurugiri.
Hasan Dar gave the Rani an inquiring look. She frowned, then nodded in assent. Her commander raised one arm, beckoning the Falconer’s company forward.
Once again, they began to advance.
Slowly, slowly, the distance between us narrowed; and I felt my awareness narrowing, too. I tried to fight it, and couldn’t. I was at the mercy of my diadh-anam, and nothing else in the world existed for it save its missing half. My vision dwindled to a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel was Bao.
Closer and closer he rode, until I could make out his face. His gaze was fixed on me as surely as mine was on him… and there was nothing, nothing at all glad or joyful in it. Instead, his expression was fixed with a mix of fury and anguish, his dark eyes glittering with something that looked very much like hatred.
It struck me like a blow, hard enough that I wrenched my gaze away, breathing slowly and shivering. My vision expanded again; now it was my heart that contracted painfully, thudding in my chest.
The company reached us and drew rein a few paces away. There were ten men including Bao, each looking more deadly than the next. Mountain-folk, southern Bhodistani… others I didn’t know, Akkadian, mayhap. There was even a fellow with reddish hair and grey eyes.
Tarik Khaga, the Falconer of Kurugiri, had deep-set eyes and a strong prow of a nose, black hair streaked with iron-grey. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, a muscular fellow with the beginning of a slight paunch that didn’t make him look any less dangerous.
Jagrati.
I stole a glance at the Spider Queen. Her face was gaunt and striking, dark-skinned, high cheekbones with hollows beneath them, but not so terrible a beauty as I had expected. The rest of her was draped in a black cloak fastened high around her throat.
The Rani Amrita broke the silence. “Greetings, my lord Khaga,” she said, pressing her hands together, her voice clear and sincere. “I thank you for consenting to this meeting. Shall we unhorse ourselves and speak as civilized folk?”
His gaze flicked briefly to Jagrati, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. “As you wish, little Rani,” he said in a dismissive tone.
Both parties dismounted. It would give our mounted archers waiting in ambush a few more seconds of time to close the distance between us; still, I felt uneasy. I kept glancing at Bao, and away from the seething hatred in his gaze. He didn’t even look like himself. With the ban on weapons, his ever-present bamboo staff was missing. The unruly shock of his black hair had grown longer, caught and tamed by a clasp at the nape of his neck, and there were gold hoops in his earlobes.
“So, my lord-” the Rani began.
The Falconer cut her off with a gesture. “You shall have what you came for.” He beckoned. “Bao!”
Like his master, Bao looked to Jagrati for assurance; and she nodded at him, too, her expression softening briefly. For a second, he looked grateful; and then the mask of hatred returned to his face as he moved toward me.
“Bao, please…” My voice shook as I took a step forward. My diadh-anam roiled and blazed in anguish.
“No!” His voice cracked like a whip. “Whoever you are, whatever you are, I want no part of you or whatever sick game you play! Do you understand? Go, and leave me to the service of my lord and lady Khaga!”
“Bao, it’s me! Moirin!” I touched my chest, my heart aching. “How can you not know me?”
He leaned forward, nostrils flaring. I could feel the heat of his fury rolling off him, the hot-metal forge smell of his skin. His pupils were too wide, his eyes fever-bright and wild. “Because Moirin mac Fainche died almost a year ago!” he shouted at me, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Do you think I did not feel it? Whatever foul spirit has stolen her face, stolen the very spark of her soul, I want nothing to do with it!”
Tears blurred my eyes. “Bao, it’s me! I wasn’t killed, I was bound by magic! That’s why you couldn’t sense me!”
“No.” Bao shook his head. “No, that is the lie the Great Khan told me, and I will not believe it twice. In Kurugiri, I learned the truth.”
“No, you didn’t!” I cried in frustration. “The lord and lady of Kurugiri never had anything to do with it! It was Vralian priests who took me prisoner, using Yeshuite magic! Chains, like the one the Circle of Shalomon tried to use to bind the demon-spirit they summoned, the one you and Master Lo helped me banish. Remember?”