"You that scared of him?"
"You should be. You are."
"He doesn't even have an eagle. He just says he does, but I think he's been lying all along, pretending his eagle is at nesting all this while. I think his eagle is dead. I don't think he's a proper reeve at all."
"No reeve can survive the death of their eagle," she said in an anxious whisper. As though Yordenas could hear them from this distance! "What do you mean to do? Challenge him? You saw what happened with Garrard. You saw it all, Horas." Her stance, seen as a deeper shadow within the gathering night, was tense, defiant, and fearful. "He can't be killed."
It was true. They'd all seen it.
No person could survive such a wound. But Yordenas had.
"Will you challenge him?" she repeated, but the sneering anger did not hide her terror.
He wanted to cut her yapping mouth off with his knife, but he dared not. She was a bitch, but he had to remember she was one of his few allies. One of the few people who had shown him a measure of casual kindness. She and the rest of the gang of four had approached him, allowed him into their councils, given him a part to play when Marshal Alyon's whimpering, weakling sycophants had made their final attempt to grab power.
"I didn't mean it," he said. "I didn't mean it, Weda. I'm mad, and Tumna's hurt."
"No. No. Of course you didn't mean it. We're the marshal's loyal reeves."
"As always. We'll go back to Argent Hall in the morning. That's the best thing we can do, like I said. Let him worry at it. Have you any ointment? I lost mine in the battle. Tumna took some scratches."
She handed over a small leather bottle of salve. Then she walked away to pass the word that they would overnight here in the grass and return to Argent Hall at daybreak. Night swallowed them all. The sky was staggering in its brilliance because there was no evening moon. All around he heard reeves speaking softly to their eagles, calming them after the battle. Reeves had fought reeves.
There were three things you learned your first day in hall, the first day after an eagle had chosen you.
First. If your eagle dies, you die, so tend your eagle well and care for the eagle before you care for yourself, because your life depends on it. If you die, your eagle can claim another reeve, so tend your eagle well and care for the eagle before you care for yourself, because the strength of the halls depends on it.
Second. Serve justice. That is the whole of your duty.
Third. A reeve always comes to the aid of another reeve. To do otherwise is to cut away the heart of the halls.
Tumna refused to let him come near with hood and salve.
He wept.
49
It was the second worst day of Joss's life. Worse than the day he'd learned his mother had died. Worse than the day his baby brother had succumbed to a fever. Or perhaps the emotion of those days, suffered as a child, had worn thin until he didn't truly remember the intensity of his tears.
Today he'd done what needed doing, as awful as it was. Reeves relied on authority and mobility, and on the intimidating presence of the huge eagles who could kill any human and were not themselves easily killed. Reeves did not train as soldiers. Their charter forbade their use as enforcers for any council or captain who might wish to hire their services.
Yet today's skirmish was done, and could not be undone. Clan Hall's flights pursued Argent Hall's fleeing eagles into the grasslands, at a distance, then circled back to set down in the grass for the night. As afternoon faded to dusk, Joss left Volias in command with strict orders to keep watch but not engage, and the Snake, troubled and pallid, accepted the order without even a sarcastic reply.
Kesta was grounded, her eagle badly hurt. The young reeve from Argent Hall, Pari, was dead together with his wonderful eagle. There were at least two more dead eagles as well as other wounded ones, and a pair of dead men from Argent Hall whom Joss could not name, sprawled on the ground while their eagles walked around them.
All this Joss surveyed as Scar ascended on the currents and they turned toward Olossi. The river's lazy curves were visible to the north. There lay the line that was the road. Far to the west gleamed the salt sea, while in the forested lands to the east the river plain rose slowly into the high country of Sohayil, a gradual change in elevation difficult to discern from the ground with the night coming on. They left the southern plateau behind and worked the currents over the escarpment, rising first, and then hitting a high glide perfectly judged by the exhausted Scar to bring them with minimal effort across the mey to Olossi.
The voice of a bass bell rolled out from the walls, crying its alarm across the shimmering waters and the darkening land. All day villagers within sound of the bell had streamed into the city with what belongings they could carry. Stragglers still struggled along the main road, converging on the gates in panicked crowds. Dust floated in clouds; this time of year, there was no moisture or vegetation to hold it down.
He flew low over the outer walls. From below rose the clamor of many folk talking all at once, a roaring similar to the battering of waves on a storm-swept beach. Folk swarmed the paths and streets and alleys like ants poked from their nest. Children cried. Women and men shouted demands and questions. A beggar's chime tinkled faintly, then was overwhelmed. At the gate between outer town and upper town, the throng slowed, crawled, stopped.
"Hurry! Hurry! Move on!" A man's voice spiked above the cacophony. "We must get inside!"
So many were desperate to push within the security of the inner walls that they had packed together in that open space before the gate until no one could move.
The inner city rose before him as he passed the walls. Children shrieked, pointing at the eagle flying so close overhead. In the courtyard of Assizes Tower, torches had been lit along every wall and even set at intervals to light his way to the perch. As planned, Anji and his troop had reached the city before him.
"Time for one last trick, my friend," he said, and despite the twilight, and the crowds seething along the avenues, and the tolling of that damned bell, Scar negotiated the approach with ease and pulled up neatly to land on the perch in the courtyard of Assizes Tower.
Here-thank Ilu!-the Qin company waited in tidy ranks while clots of Olossi guardsmen kept their distance. The Qin had their horses with them. It seemed they had just ridden in. The square was slightly sloped, and backed by steeper roads leading down to the gates, with the tower built to overlook that open space and beyond it over the walls to the roofs and fields of the lower city. It was not as good a vantage place as Fortune Square, from which you could see in all directions, but Assizes Tower faced the busy gates through which flowed and ebbed the lifeblood of the town. Although he could see little in this gloom, he felt the presence of many hundreds of people pressed into the streets and avenues branching off Assizes Square. They were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder, held out of the square by the presence of militia, yet all desperate for news.
Joss hooded Scar swiftly and sprang up the steps to the porch that wrapped Assizes Hall. Behind, the old stone tower blocked part of the night sky.
The doors were already open, revealing the timber hall whose far end abutted the old tower. An argument raged in the crowd of council members, guild members, and other notables.
"You got us into this! What promises did you make them?"
"We did nothing except for the good of the city!"
"Liars! Fools!"
"You Lesser Houses stymied us at every turn! You forced us into a desperate bargain!"
"It was your greed that led you on! Now you would abandon the outer city! And I'm sure that is because your goods have all been moved into your compounds up here. What of those of us who have no place within the inner walls to save our goods and livestock?"
"Yes, what of us?"