“A good idea,” commended Cherri. “I wouldn’t want her to catch a cold in this night air. It may be fair to us, but she chills easily. I think we are ready to go, Minister. Lead the way.”
Kapla shook his head and turned to the rest of the party. “Okay,” he instructed, “I have papers identifying you, Cherri, as an important envoy to Khadora. If anyone asks what your mission is, just be vague and say that it is none of their business. If they need to know they can ask me, and only me, directly. That is pretty much what the papers say, so don’t stray from that line.” After a short moment he shook his head again. “I am afraid your travelling companions do not look much like an official escort, but the papers ought to hold. Try to avoid everyone you can. The less questions asked, the less risk for all of us. Only two people here in Okata know that this is happening and they are the men I had posted at the closest gate, so let’s move quickly.”
The Minister of Defense led the small procession through the dark city streets with Cherri at his side holding his hand. As they approached the gate, he signaled to the two guards and they swung the gates open for him. He gave Cherri a kiss good bye and then went to distract the guards so they would not see who was in the party, more out of embarrassment than a need for security as these two men were extremely loyal to him.
Cherri led the group along until they were outside the city gates and she waited while the gates were closed. Upon her signal, everyone mounted and Goral held the reins to the horse with the litter. Without a word, the small group moved down the road and out of sight.
***
“Why do you suppose he picked this spot on the coast to come ashore?” asked MistyTrail as she sat near the rim of the tall cliff looking out over the vast expanse of the sea. “I wouldn’t want to have to climb this cliff if I didn’t have to.”
“He didn’t pick it,” HawkShadow explained as he threw a small rock over the edge of the cliff. “StarWind chose it so that whoever met him would be safe. Nobody is going to make it up here to the top if we don’t want them to.”
“Sounds like StarWind didn’t trust this lord either,” snipped StormSong.
“StarWind trusts Sakovans,” responded HawkShadow. “It is not that she mistrusts this Marak, but she is right in taking every precaution where the Star’s life is concerned.”
“I don’t think he will even show,” added StormSong. “We haven’t seen a decent ship anywhere near land all day. They all travel well offshore in this area.”
“That is another reason that I think StarWind chose this spot,” stated HawkShadow. “The less people who know about this meeting the better.”
“What about that boat?” chirped MistyTrail. “It has been hugging the coast and it is getting closer to us.”
“That is an old fishing scow,” answered StormSong as she shook her head. “No lord would ride for hundreds of leagues in something like that. The stink of dead fish would permeate his clothing for days.”
The three Sakovans lapsed into silence for a time. HawkShadow sat throwing small pebbles over the cliff and watching them fall far below. StormSong sat leaning against a tree while she sharpened her blade and MistyTrail sat cross-legged, fiddling with the tall strands of grass. Through each of their minds paraded the thoughts of the strange events that were happening, or soon to happen, to disrupt the normalcy of Sakovan life.
“I am not so sure,” HawkShadow suddenly said. “The people on that fishing boat appear to be looking at the coast and they aren’t doing any fishing that I can see. I’ll bet they have been hugging the coast because they are not familiar with this area.”
“That’s what I think too,” grinned MistyTrail. “An old fishing boat is perfect cover. We didn’t even think it would be him so nobody else will either.”
StormSong sheathed her sword and crawled to the edge to watch the boat. “Maybe,” she conceded, “but if it is, I am sleeping on the other side of the camp from him.”
MistyTrail watched the boat carefully. It was an old vessel with a small cabin and a single mast, its sail fluttering slightly in the light breeze. One man handled the tiller while two others sat watching the coastline as they mended nets. One of the men mending the net suddenly stood and pointed. The man at the tiller nodded his head and turned the vessel towards the cove, the sails luffing slightly as he did so.
“They are turning in,” MistyTrail said excitedly. “It must be them.”
“Perhaps,” cautioned HawkShadow as he watched the progress of the ship.
The fishing boat continued and ran up on the beach. The two forward men jumped off and set an anchor in the sand as three new men appeared from the cabin. The men were dressed entirely in black, but HawkShadow’s eyes went to the tall blond man with the black cape.
“Pretty young to be a lord,” he said softly.
“They are probably just the guards,” surmised StormSong.
“No,” contradicted MistyTrail shaking her head vigorously. “See how the others defer to him. The one with the cape is obviously the leader.”
“There are supposed to be only three of them,” added HawkShadow. “I think MistyTrail is right this time.”
The tall young man with the cape leaped to the sand and shouted something to the man on the boat as his two black-clad companions jumped down beside him. The fishermen picked up the anchor and boarded the boat as they pushed it off the sand. Within a few moments, the ship was setting a course back to sea, leaving the three black-clad men stranded on the shore.
“Pretty lax with their security,” frowned StormSong. “His guards did not even take a defensive stand around him when he got off the boat and he dismissed the vessel before finding out if anyone was here to meet him.”
“I suppose that they are who we are waiting for,” HawkShadow stated as he retrieved a long rope from his choka. “At least we will find out when they climb the rope.”
StormSong rose and took an end of the rope and secured it to a tree as HawkShadow coiled it so it would not snag when he threw it over the edge.
“They disappeared,” called MistyTrail from her perch at the rim of the cliff. “I can’t see them anymore.”
StormSong and HawkShadow exchanged puzzled glances before they both dropped the rope and scrambled to the edge of the cliff.
“They are probably so close to the cliff wall that we cannot see them,” guessed HawkShadow.
“Careful,” cautioned StormSong, “the assassins were dark-clad as well and there are still twenty of them unaccounted for.”
“They can’t attack us any more than we can attack them now,” frowned HawkShadow. “It appears that they are not as lax on security as we thought.”
The song of a bowstring being released startled HawkShadow and he immediately flattened his body to the ground and pushed MistyTrail’s head back from the edge. He caught the sight of an arrow flying past him on its way skyward and scrambled back away from the edge. The arrow fell back out of the sky and thudded harmlessly to the ground some distance away. He glanced at it curiously and saw that it had no point on it, so he crawled over to it. Wrapped around the arrow, secured with a piece of thread, was a small slip of paper. He broke the thread and pulled the paper free of the arrow.
“It is Marak down there,” he declared as he read the note. “He wants to know the name of the person who met with his man in Okata.”
“How did he know someone would be up here?” asked MistyTrail.
“He was told that someone would meet him,” StormSong said. “We weren’t down on the beach, so he figured we must be up here. “I’ll tie the answer to the rope and we can throw it over the side.”
HawkShadow nodded as he rose, handed the paper to StormSong, and picked up the rope. StormSong scribbled StarWind’s name on the back of the slip of paper and tied it to the free end of the rope. When she had the note secured, HawkShadow threw the coil of rope over the edge and they waited with swords drawn. They watched as a lean, muscular man reached the lip of the cliff and pulled himself up. He was dressed completely in black except for silver wristbands, headband and waistband, each of which had the symbol of a sinuous sword stitched on them.