Turned to stone—just like the greedy merchant in that old story. Can even a mute creature offend the gods? Vansen didn’t know whether he understood all that Chaven and the others had told him, but he knew from his own experience that the gods’ power was everywhere and it was dangerous. He knew enough of the gods to fear them more than he had ever feared anything else, even failure and ridicule.
“Corundum says they’re ready,” Dolomite reported, his sudden, quiet approach making Vansen jump. It was harder than he had thought to sit in the empty black, to rely on the eyes of others, but he knew darkness was their greatest advantage over the autarch’s soldiers.
“Then we will fall back now while they are reeling.” He lifted the horn himself this time, and its call soared once more through the great stone chamber. The White Hounds flinched and crouched a little lower, waiting for whatever would follow this time. They did not seem to realize for long moments that their enemies were stealing quietly away from them toward the passage at the back end of the Counting Room. Vansen and Dolomite joined the retreating group.
The White Hounds finally let out a shout as they realized that the last horn call had signaled retreat. The autarch’s fiercest soldiers leaped forward, and with Malachite Copper’s crossbowmen gone, for the first time their comrades trapped in the entranceway could finally join them. Together, the invaders surged like a wave across the uneven cavern floor, ducking as an occasional bolt snapped invisibly past, their cries for revenge growing louder and more savage as they sensed that they at last had these surprising little men on the retreat.
“Let the first half dozen lantern-bearers through,” Vansen told the engineers as he and the others hurried out of the tunnel into Ocher Bar, the long cavern below the Counting Room.
So it was that when the first few dozen of the autarch’s men came out of the passage in a half-crouch, holding their shields up and their torches even higher to see what was before them, no horn had to be blown. The commander of the engineers waved his arm and his minions threw their weight against the great iron wedge the Funderlings had brought down from the quarry for just this purpose. Wedge-staves bent, the wood groaning and the men groaning louder, and for an instant it seemed they would fail. Then, even as the first of the White Hounds below them realized what was happening and began looking up into the darkness for something to aim an arrow at, the slab of stone shivered loose and slid down onto the men just below so suddenly that only the wounded survivors had a chance to scream. They did not scream long.
The passage between Ocher Bar and the Counting Room was now sealed, at least for a few hours. Copper’s crossbowmen loosed the rest of their bolts into the autarch’s soldiers, mostly White Hounds, who were trapped on the near side of the rockfall, then the rest of the Funderlings hurried forward to finish the job, dispatching even the helpless wounded before Vansen could stop them. He had not guessed there’d be such reserves of ferocity in the little folk.
Ferras Vansen came forward as the first lanterns were lit. He stood over the bodies of the autarch’s White Hounds, their armor so beautifully made and their beards so carefully braided. “Look at them,” he said. “They must have thought Death invited them to a wedding instead of a funeral.”
They came to a land they did not know, he thought, to kill people they did not know, simply because a madman told them to do it. He shoved them over with his foot, turning the nearest faces to the ground. Yes, they were soldiers too, like me. I feel for them—but I do not feel sorry.
The guards at the scotarch’s tent stepped aside, their eyes so firmly downcast that Paramount Minister Vash thought it a wonder they’d been able to see and identify him in the first place. The scotarch’s body servant, a eunuch almost as old as Pinimmon Vash, had the door open before Vash could even clear his throat.
“Come in, Paramount Minister,” the Favored said. “I will tell the Desert Kite that you are here. No doubt he will graciously offer you audience.”
Yes, thought Vash, he no doubt will, seeing as I can walk in when I want and Prusus can do nothing about it except to wag his head and make noises like a dying calf. “That is well,” was all he said aloud. What was the eunuch’s name? It was a curse to grow old. “And when you have announced me, and he has graciously agreed to the audience, perhaps you will be so good as to leave us alone for a space—the merest quarter of an hour.”
Vash would not have seen greater suspicion in the Favored’s face if he had announced he planned to put the scotarch in a sack and take him for a walk in the sun. “Great one, I do not understand,” was all the body servant came up with.
“No, you don’t. Come back after a short while, as I said. You shall find your master quite unharmed.”
The smooth-faced man looked very undecided, but at last bowed again and went into the larger part of the tent, which had been separated from the rest by screens showing silk pictures of sand larks guarding their nests at the base of some of desert shrub Vash could not identify. No one in his family had actually seen the deep desert for several generations. Of course he hadn’t ever wanted to be deep beneath the earth either, yet here he was.
The eunuch pulled back one of the inner screens and gestured him through with an appropriate amount of bowing, then ostentatiously let himself out of the tent, making enough noise that even if blindfolded Vash still could not have missed him leaving.
Vash walked to where Prusus sat, or rather leaned, in his traveling throne. It was a mark of how bizarre the autarch’s choice had been that Prusus had no attendants beyond the single eunuch, and only a handful of guards. Previous scotarchs had commanded retinues only outstripped by those of the autarch himself.
But previous scotarchs, even the worst of them, had been able to talk and had possessed at least a little wit. Their heads had not lolled on their shoulders like overcooked mushrooms. Still, if poor crippled Prusus was like a mushroom, then he must feel comfortable here, down in the depths where such things thrived.
“Good afternoon, Chosen One, if it is indeed still afternoon.” Vash bowed. “Please do not let me disturb you. I have come only to look for something.” He gazed at the empty, rolling eyes, wondering if he would see any recognition there. “King Olin said I should listen to you.” He could not help smiling and, in fact, almost laughed. “Which is, of course, a sort of code, since you don’t actually speak. But I believe I may have underestimated you—as have many others. I believe you are not as addled as we thought. So tell me with your eyes, if you understand me. Did he leave something for me? Did Olin leave something for me?”
For a moment, as if his task could be accomplished only with a supreme effort of will, Prusus stopped shaking. He stretched forward his head as though trying to fall out of his chair—as though terror had gripped him and he sought escape. Vash fought back anger of his own. Why should he be forced to sully himself treating with a mismade creature like this? Then he realized that Prusus was looking fixedly in one direction, toward his own lap, and that he might have been trying to use his head to point the way.
Vash leaned in. There, clutched in the scotarch’s bony fist, was a wisp of white—a piece of parchment.
“Ah,” said Vash. “ ‘Look to the scotarch for help,’ he said. Very clever.” He reached out and fastidiously wiggled loose the folded scrap of parchment without touching the skin of the scotarch’s hand. “And what treason against our beloved Golden One does the enemy king propose?” He said this for the benefit of any listeners, who always had to be assumed in the court of Sulepis, as in the courts of the autarch’s father and grandfathers.