Calon swept his gaze over the assembly. Indeed, he seemed overcome by emotion, ready to break down and weep. "What choice have we? What choice?" He turned back to Mai, held out his hands, palms up, signifying that no coin had yet changed hands. "Let Sapanasu give Her blessing to those who fulfill the bargains they make, and Her curse to any who turn their backs on what they have sworn in Her name. Let it be marked and sealed."
"Let it be marked and sealed." She might have just sold a cupful of almonds in exchange for two vey.
Anji raised his quirt. Many held their breath. A few stepped back, as if to get out of range.
"Let all the people of Olossi do their part," he said curtly. "Let the council act wisely. And swiftly." He took a step back to survey the map being drawn by Jonit under the light of a pair of oil lamps. "As for myself, I had thought to stay here and order the city's defense, but that task will have to fall to Captain Waras, Master Calon, and the council. It's a shame," he added, with a frown, "that the priestess, Zubaidit, has departed, for I am supposing she would accomplish what I am not entirely sure this council can. Well." With a cutting motion, he sliced that notion away. "No use trying to eat food that doesn't exist. I have a different plan now, a better one. Eagles are blind at night, but we are not. I'll need a hundred competent guardsmen who can be ready to ride immediately with my troop."
The captain looked at the two Silvers, as if to mark a promise they had made to him, then at his wife. She had the most astonishing face, open and fathomless, so lovely to look upon yet hiding her true feelings. He offered to her no fulsome farewells, no touching good-byes, as in the old tales. He had no time for such sentiments. After a moment, she looked down at her hands.
"We ride." With a gesture, Anji called his men, and the Qin soldiers left the hall. Joss followed them.
50
They crossed the River Olo on a bridge made of floating barges strung on chains across the current. Later, when Shai looked over his shoulder, the hill that marked Olossi was barely visible as a dark irregularity on the southern horizon. All else lay so flat beyond the raised roadway that the landscape seemed artificial, as if the earth had been planed smooth. Members of the Olossi militia strode alongside, holding lanterns to light their way. These were young men, eager to prove themselves. In the shifting bands of light he saw them grinning, in contrast to the grim Qin soldiers, who had been up for two days and had already fought a battle. But as the company strode along, it was the militiamen who rubbed their aching thighs, who paused to gulp down an extra breath of air or take a slug of bracing spirits.
Shai stumbled as he walked, even though the road was well made and level. Half the time he leaned against his horse for support. How the Qin soldiers and horses endured this relentless pace he could not imagine. About half of the herd had been left behind to recover at Olossi under the stewardship of Mai and the clan that had taken her in. That act alone made Shai understand that Captain Anji had committed to the enterprise in the way a man standing at the top of a cliff takes an irrecoverable step forward into the gulf. No Qin soldier left behind his string of mounts except with clansmen.
The ground on all sides lay dry and dusty. Parched irrigation ditches ran at right angles, black threads trailing off into the darkness. Yet there was water in the soil, more than there ever was in Kartu country, which was fed by no mighty river. Plants grew alongside the ditches, and ranks of trees rose at the shores of shallow ponds. Even the taste of the air had changed. The locals whispered of the rains coming, bringing with them the new year and its festival.
They passed through a village whose houses were slung along either side of the road; the silence that accompanied their march was that of a town abandoned, not sleeping. A single dog yipped at them, then scuttled around a corner. Soon they passed beyond houses and storage sheds built up on logs, past shelters and empty byres, back into the flatlands with rectangular fields scored into a patchwork by irrigation ditches.
They took a turning off the main road, a two-cart road, as the locals called such, and struck out onto a narrower path. This one-cart road was also raised on a berm, so it almost felt as if they were walking on the air like spirits or demons.
On and on they marched, into the night. A breeze rose up off the distant salt sea, whose broad expanse was not yet visible ahead of them. Once a shadow passed overhead, but probably it was Reeve Joss. According to Anji, he alone of the eagle riders was carried by an eagle who trusted his rider so thoroughly that the creature was willing to fly blind. Still, how could any of them be sure, if he did not land?
The stars shimmered in a hard, clear sky. Shai marked the progress of the shadow as it moved west, briefly blotting out individual stars and clusters which reappeared as the blot flew on. At length, he could no longer see it.
Was that really the reeve? Or a man wearing the face and voice of Hari?
The world, like those river barges, seemed to tilt and sway beneath him. He could not keep his feet when the road would keep shifting, rising and falling with each fresh step. Everything had pitched him off his balance, and he could not find steady footing.
What creature had spoken to him? Hari was dead dead dead. He knew that, because he always knew what was dead and what was living. Hari's wolf ring had spoken with the voice of truth; objects could not lie, not to him, not to anyone. They had not the capacity. Yet it seemed he was wrong, because that had been Hari on the road. He had been solid, angry, passionate; he had scolded Shai, just as he always used to do. Get up, Shai! Speak up, Shai! Run faster, Shai! You can, Shai! You must, Shai! Hari was the best of the brothers, the one who cared, the one who struggled. That was why he had run from the stultifying walls and customs imposed upon the sons of the Mei clan. Yet after being marched away by the Qin, had Hari been sold into slavery, or his services as a mercenary sold to the highest bidder? It was impossible to know, unless Shai could find Hari again. But how could he find Hari again when Hari was dead?
Yet the man he had seen was living, or was living at least at that time when he had first seen him, on the road, riding a winged horse. How anyone could survive such a barrage of arrows, all striking true, and that well-aimed javelin cast, Shai did not know. No person could. So that meant that Hari was dead after all. But if he was a ghost, then the other men shouldn't have been able to see him.
Jagi strode up beside him and bent close.
"Don't let us down," he said in a low voice. "The landsmen think you're one of us, but you're staggering like one of them."
Better to have kicked him and have done with it! Shai stiffened, his only reply a puff of breath between gritted teeth. Jagi faded back to the ranks of the tailmen. So after all Tohon had been right: the tailmen tolerated him, but did not respect him. He belonged to no one, not to the Mei clan, who had been eager to be rid of such an unlucky son, or to the Qin, who tolerated him solely because of his kinship to their captain's wife. He hadn't seen Tohon for three days, and was himself not skilled enough to ride as a scout.
That was the truth of what he was. Tohon felt sorry for him, Mai ignored him, and no one else wanted him. Even Hari had told him to go away. But he wasn't afraid of the shadows. Hari was all he had. So he would find Hari, no matter what.
Thus he found the strength not to falter. He did not want to be compared to the local men. He walked, and the stars rode the wheel high into the heavens and rode the wheel down into the west, as they always did, every night in every land. They were the same stars. It was only people who gave them different names. People might name him anything they wished, but he was what he was, and he would with the aid of the Merciful One accomplish what he had come here for: Find Hari, or Hari's bones, and return them to Kartu.