Jenoe nodded, then asked, "How long has it been since you won your freedom, Torgan?"
"A long time. I… I lost my way. I've been traveling by night and sleeping by day, hoping that the Fal'Borna wouldn't be able to track me. But with the moons rising later and later, and then not at all a few nights ago… As I say, I got lost."
"Well, you should be on your way now," the marshal told him. "This is no place for an Eandi merchant."
"No!" Torgan said. "I can help you! I can be of more use to you than you could possibly know. And all I ask in return is a hit of food and your protection."
"Do you have a cart nearby, sir?" Enly asked. "Or have you stored your wares someplace close?"
Torgan frowned. "No. The Fal'Borna took all of my goods and destroyed my cart."
"So you're an Eandi merchant in Fal'Borna lands, and you have no goods to sell, no cart to carry supplies." Enly glanced briefly at Gries, who was grinning. "Forgive me for saying so, but you don't appear to be a swordsman, and I doubt very much that you'd be an effective lookout. What use do you think you can be to us?"
Jenoe cast a disapproving look Enly's way, but one of the Waterstone captains snickered.
The man's frown deepened. "I'll be glad to tell you, Captain. But not in front of all these men." Facing Jenoe once more he straightened, as if trying to reclaim a scrap of his dignity. "I request a word with you in private, Marshal. If after we're done you still wish to send me away, I'll go, though I would be grateful for one small meal before I do. It's been days since I ate well."
For a moment Enly thought that Jenoe would refuse. The marshal seemed to begrudge even this small delay, and though he might have thought Enly discourteous for speaking to the man as he had, he clearly was as skeptical of Torgan's claims as Enly had been. After some hesitation, however, he relented.
"The men need a rest," he said, as if explaining himself to his captains and Marshal Crish. "I'll give you a few moments, sir, and then we have to be moving again. This enemy doesn't rest."
Torgan nodded.
At a barked command from Stri Balkett, the soldiers broke formation. Some sat on the grass; others remained standing but pulled out food or waterskins. Jenoe, Hendrid, and several of the captains, including Enly, Gries, and Tirnya, clustered around the merchant.
"Now, what is it you believe you can do for us, Torgan?" Jenoe asked. "Quickly."
"As I told you," the man said, his voice low, "this plague was spread by cursed Mettai baskets. At one point the white-hairs who held me prisoner found a sept that had been destroyed by the plague. Apparently when the Qirsi are sickened they lose control over their magic and it destroys everything in sight. It's something to behold, I'll tell you. Fire magic, shaping: those white-hairs-"
"Is there a point to this?" the marshal demanded.
Torgan licked his lips. "Yes, of course. Forgive me, Marshal. The point is this: While we were in that ruined village, I found a piece of one of those baskets. I still have it with me."
At first, no one said a word. They just stared at the merchant, who stared right back at them, waiting for some sort of response, an expectant smile on his scarred face. As the moments passed, and no response came, the smile faded.
"Let me see if I understand this," Jenoe said at last. "There are cursed baskets out there that have spread this white-hair plague across the plain. And you have one of them? With you?"
"Not a basket," Torgan said. "Just a scrap. A piece of one of the baskets that brought the plague to this village we found."
"A scrap," Jenoe repeated, clearly skeptical. "And what do you propose we do with it?"
Torgan opened his mouth, closed it again. He eyed them with unconcealed consternation. "Isn't it clear?" he said. "Do you really need me to explain this to you?"
"You want us to use the plague as a weapon," Tirnya said. "You think that this scrap of basket can spread the illness to more settlements."
"I know it can," Torgan said. "That's how I got away from the Fal'Borna in the first place. I sickened the white-hairs who held me prisoner and then I left them. Whatever curse the Mettai first put on this basket is still there. It still works."
Tirnya looked at her father, clearly troubled. Enly was relieved to see this. Over the past few turns, as she pushed for this invasion and then for the alliance with Fayonne and her people, Tirnya had seemed to transform herself into someone he hardly even recognized. He had feared that even if she and her father managed to regain their family's ancestral home, she would have to sacrifice too much in the effort. He had feared for her humanity.
But seeing the look of fear and disgust on her face, seeing the way she regarded Torgan, Enly was reassured. He fully expected that her father would send this one-eyed merchant away. It was bad enough that they had to rely on Mettai magic in this war. But to use the white-hair plague as a weapon was unthinkable. Enly wasn't even sure he thought it possible. Fayonne seemed certain that the merchant was lying, and while Enly didn't regard her as the most reliable source of information, in this case he was inclined to agree with her. He'd never heard of any magic-Qirsi or Mettai-being able to create an illness of this sort. He couldn't begin to imagine the evil that would conceive of such a thing. But whether or not this curse was real, Enly wanted no part of the merchant or his basket.
He couldn't have been more surprised when the marshal said, after several moments' reflection, "We'll need to discuss this further. For now, Torgan, you'll ride with the army."
"Father?" Tirnya said, as if scarcely believing what she'd heard.
Jenoe glowered at her. "We'll discuss this later, Captain." He wheeled his horse away from the rest. "I want these men moving again," he called over his shoulder.
Tirnya glanced at Enly, her expression grim. But she didn't say anything more, and after a moment she steered her mount after Jenoe's.
"You heard him," Hendrid said. "Let's get these men moving."
"Make war on a demon," Gries muttered, "and you'll become a demon yourself."
It was an old expression, dating to the earliest years of the Blood Wars. "That may be the only way to win," the captain added.
Enly looked at him. "I'm not sure victory is worth it."
Gries raised an eyebrow. "Careful, Enly. Talk like that can get a man hanged."
"You disagree?"
Fairlea's lord heir gave a faint smile, though the look in his eyes remained deadly serious. "I never said that."
They fed him, which for the moment was all Torgan really cared about. They would use his scrap of Mettai basket, or they wouldn't. They'd offer him protection until this damn war ended, or they'd send him on his way, leaving him to fend for himself and avoid the Fal'Borna as best he could. For now he'd done what he could to convince these soldiers to accept his aid. The rest was up to the marshal and his captains, and Torgan couldn't bring himself to care what they decided to do.
He was exhausted and cold and hungrier than he could ever remember being. It had taken him the better part of a day to find Trey again after his encounter with Jasha's ghost. And then it had taken another half day to convince the horse to let him approach, much less ride. Not that Torgan could blame the beast. Those wraiths had left him shaken, too. He couldn't sleep for several days after.
With the moons waxing again, he tried to travel by night, but he was starting to grow weak with hunger, and suddenly his blanket and overshirt seemed no match for the cold. Progress came slowly; every unexpected sound made him jump, made his heart race. He couldn't say with any certainty which he feared more: the Fal'Borna or Jasha and his fellow shades.
Now, though, the Fal'Borna couldn't reach him, at least not without first overpowering several thousand of Stelpana's finest warriors. And despite the dread that gripped him whenever the sun set, he knew that the wraiths couldn't haunt him again, either. Not until the last night of next year's Memory Moon. If he lived that long.