"How do you expect to get her out of Vizman's grip, if that's what she's in? You couldn't cut your way single-handed through half the Qiribo army to rescue your lady—assuming she wants to be rescued."
"I don't think Vizman would bring half his army. I imagine he'll sneak quietly out of Jazmurian, ride up the Zigros with his personal guard, camp near the border, and wait for Alicia. If it turns out I'm wrong in any of these assumptions, I'll come back here to figure out my next move."
"Who's going with you?" asked Fallon, looking worried.
"Just my trusty Timásh. 'He travels the fastest who travels alone.' "
In midafternoon, six days after leaving Mishé, Reith and Timásh approached Qantesr. Each rode a sweat-damp aya, while the spare animal, saddled and bearing two small bags of personal gear, followed on a lead.
Reith took a dim view of Qantesr, because it was here, long ago, that Alicia had pushed him into the 'avval-infested river during a quarrel. Since the town was not really responsible, as Reith told himself, he compensated for his prejudice by being particularly pleasant to the townsfolk as he sought information.
Yes, they told him, everyone knew that the King of Balhib was camped a couple of hoda to the west, across the border. Yes, a carriage with window curtains drawn had, a few hours before, traveled eastward through the town with a pair of armed outriders. As soon as the vehicle cleared the village, its driver was seen whipping his ayas into a furious gallop. Reith smiled grimly to himself; his guess about Vizman must have been right!
Reith took a room for himself and Timásh, then wandered with elaborate nonchalance down the road towards the border. The border post had the usual cluster of shelters and storehouses. Before one of these a couple of bored soldiers lounged, dispiritedly playing games of chance while waiting for travelers to appear.
On each side of the border, a horizontal pole formed a barrier across the narrow road, while the forest on either side made detours impractical for mounted Krishnans or vehicles. Each pole was striped in the national colors; but whereas the green-and-purple pole on the Qiribo side was intact, the blue-and-orange pole on the Mikardando side had been broken off short. Looking at the splintered stump, Reith surmised the reason for the damage.
Two border guards on the Mikardando side were playing piza for small stakes. After watching for a while, Reith diffidently suggested that he join in. He allowed the guards to win a handful of arzuma, then engaged them in friendly chitchat.
"I hear rumors about a closed carriage, which lately came through the village headed for the border. Do you goodmen know anything about it?"
The soldiers exchanged glances. One said: "I know not that we should talk—"
"Oh, he seems a good fellow, for an alien," said the other. "Better he should hear the true tale from us than some fantastical rumor from another.
"Well, sir, we were standing here today, nigh unto noon, when these two bully-rooks rode up. One handed me a scroll, crying that it was authorization for his party to cross in haste, that the peace of our two nations depended upon it, and that we should raise the gate forthwith.
" 'A moment, good my sir,' said I, breaking the seal and unrolling the screed. Now, I can read a little; but this message was full of strange, long words, such as lawyers use. So I called Charvadir here to help decipher it. Whilst our heads were bent over this writing, the carriage came on at a dead run. The mounted man shouted: 'Ware, clumsy oafs!' We leaped out of the way and, ere we could blink, carriage, outriders, and all whirled through as if the fiends of Hishkak were in the saddle. Their animals struck the gate pole and broke it. Yon scrowles" (he indicated the two border guards on the other side) "had already raised their pole, so these runagates passed through without hindrance. When we protested, they did but laugh at us.
"Charvadir hunted up the Knight of the district, who berated us for failing to stop the carriage—what fancied he, that we should seize the galloping ayas' horns? —and promised to write to Mishé about the incident. The master carpenter in Qantesr is making us a new pole."
With assumed indifference, Reith left the border post, strolled up the road until out of sight of the guards, then cut back through the woods to examine the border barrier. This proved to be a simple wooden picket fence, rotted and sagging.
Back in Qantesr, Reith hunted up the town's master carpenter and rented one of his saws. As Roqir set, he and Timásh rode towards the border, leading their spare animal. Before they reached the boundary, they dismounted and led their ayas through the woods to the section of fence that Reith had already inspected. As Reith set to work with his saw, Timásh said: "Sir Fergus, these beasts could easily jump this little barrier. Why do ye saw it up?"
"Because we may be returning in a hurry, and I shouldn't care to make the jump in the dark ... Come on!"
They led their beasts through the new gap in the fence and on towards Vizman's camp. A prowl through the trees brought them within sight of the clearing, where a dozen small, bulbous tents clustered around a very large one, like piglets around their dam.
"Stop here and tie up the animals," said Reith softly. From a small sack he dug out a handful of soot, which he applied to his face, ears, and neck until he seemed in the gloaming like a headless man. He treated his hands and wrists likewise and ordered Timásh to do the same. When this had been done, he said: "Now untie the ayas and hold their bridles. If I return, we shan't have time to fiddle with tethers. Keep your sword handy and remember: in a fight, one good thrust is worth half a dozen cuts. Where's that black cape of mine?"
For the next half-hour, as full darkness settled down beneath a blanket of cloud, Reith scouted the edges of the clearing, moving warily behind a screen of bushes and tree trunks. Lamps burned brightly in the main tent—-doubtless the Dour's pavilion—and less assertively in the lesser tents. The animals were staked out in another, adjacent clearing; Reith could hear their restless stamping and smell their pungent odor.
Discernible by the fight of a dying cook fire, Reith glimpsed two sentries pacing the periphery of the camp, walking in opposite directions. He stationed himself near the point where the two met, exchanged passwords, saluted, and continued on. As soon as both had their backs to him, he cocked and charged Alicia's crossbow-pistol and, crouching, stole into the camp. He slipped into one of the gaps between the small tents and lay prone, virtually invisible in his hooded cloak and soot. After the sentries had passed again, he wormed his way towards the pavilion, separated from the ring of smaller tents by several meters of grassy terrain.
For another quarter-hour, Reith lay still among the crumpled herbs. As he had expected, another sentry patrolled this area, circling round and round the big tent. By wriggling his way toward the entrance to the pavilion, he established that two more guards stood there. He retreated until the curve of the tent hid them from view.
Having no idea of the internal architecture of the pavilion, Reith could not guess in which compartment Alicia might be found. So he continued to he prone and motionless, seeking a clue.
A faint pearly opalescence in the overcast sky told of the rising of one of the moons, which found Reith still immobile, watching and listening. Since he was learning nothing by his vigil outside the tent, he decided that, whatever the risk, he must get in. He tested the edge of his knife with his thumb. Satisfied, he picked up the pistol, rose, and took a step towards the pavilion.
A muffled exclamation, from around the curve of the big tent, caused Reith to turn. Tiptoeing towards the sound, he came in sight of the sentry, bending over something. By the faint light he perceived what looked like a giant larva hatching as it crawled from beneath the edge of the tent.