'The reeves gave me a lift. I'm traveling with you to Astafero.'
'Is that where Captain Anji is?'
Chief Deze had a likable smile, and it slammed like a closed door on a question he had no intention of answering. 'We'll re-supply here and leave at dawn. I'll take charge now.'
Never in his life had Keshad been happier to give up control.
24
'Commander. Incoming with passengers.'
Joss stepped away from the stewards — one from Clan Hall and one from Copper Hall — who had almost come to blows over what should have been a cursed simple inventory of the harness rooms at Horn Hall.
'Kesta.' He beckoned her into the dimly lit chamber, which like the marshal's cote got its best light before noon. 'I'll let you help Tesya and Likard sort this out.'
'Sort what out?' she asked suspiciously, examining their disgruntled faces.
'I didn't-' objected Tesya.
'She said-!' barked Likard.
'You have my full trust,' said Joss as he hurried out. Kesta hissed a few choice words in the direction of his back. As he slipped out under the arched entrance hewn into the stone, he
waggled a hand in an insulting gesture, but she had already turned away to scold the hapless stewards.
'Here we are, in the abandoned shell of a reeve hall whose eagles and reeves were massacred, and all you two can do is argue over tack?-
'If they were massacred,' objected Tesya. 'The commander heard the news from some gods-rotted ghost-'
'Neh,' objected Likard, 'that lad Badinen saw it all!'
Tesya snorted. 'You can understand that fish boy? Anyway, my people need that tack. We lost everything-'
As Joss fled down the corridor, Kesta's voice rang. 'Sit down and shut up!'
He would soothe ruffled feathers later. As a tactic it worked well to allow his most trusted reeves and fawkners to crack down on the ones who complained and bickered, while he could glide in later to coax the difficult temperaments back into good humor, but he was pretty sure it wasn't good strategy over the long haul.
Hirelings swept the eating hall, which was lit through shafts. He crossed the vast entry hall, flooded with brightness from a big hole gaping above. Hirelings hauled sacks of rice over their shoulders toward the kitchens. Three off-duty Clan Hall reeves were laughing with two Copper Hall reeves over a jest. Young Badinen watched their interaction with the expression of a neglected puppy hoping for attention. He'd been a pet of the Horn Hall reeves, Joss had worked out, but to the Clan and Copper Hall reeves he was just a novice no one had time to train. Something would have to be done about that.
Joss emerged through a high cave mouth onto an oval ledge as long and wide as Clan Hall's parade ground. All along the cliff wall were dotted perches and shallow eyries. He crossed the ledge to the rock wall that rimmed it. Squinting into the setting sun, he watched four eagles descend. Two landed on the parade ground at the top of the ridge, out of sight, while the other two thumped down not so far from him. Their passengers and reeves unhooked, and Captain Anji and Tohon joined him at the wall..
'I've come, as you requested,' said Anji, gesturing toward the magnificent peak of holy Mount Aua some fifteen mey distant. 'That's an impressive view.'
Tohon peered over the wall, a significant drop of at least a hundred baton lengths to a slope slippery with scree that marked the base of the cliff. 'Hu! That's a long way down!'
'There's no way up here except on the wing,' said Joss. 'This ridge is the final outthrust of the Ossu Hills. It's all ravines and folds behind us. And we've got a permanent water source. And gardens atop the ridge.'
'Easy to defend,' remarked Anji, 'and yet, according to the report your people brought me, these reeves are all dead.'
'It seems they were specifically lured to an isolated peninsula in the far north called the Eagle's Claws. There, their eagles were poisoned, and the reeves died.'
'Your source of information?'
'The surviving reeve's account strikes me as having the color of truth. He seems too unsophisticated to come up with such an elaborate tale and stick to it, and you can be sure I've run him over that ground many times. But this news didn't come from his lips alone. I heard it first from a Guardian.'
'From a Guardian!' The captain crossed his arms over his chest.
'She brought news of region we call Herelia. There's a town called Wedrewe recently built to house an administrative center, where new cohorts are being trained. There, the masters of the army condemn prisoners and make an accounting of what they've won. It's walled, but not heavily fortified beyond the presence of so many troops.'
'It's a place that might be attacked. Go on.'
'Lord Radas may have as many as fifteen cohorts. And more recruits are being gathered, or forced into the ranks.' Joss swiped a hand over his hair, recently shorn, its bristles like a warning prickle against his palm. He blew breath out between dry lips, and chose careful words, because he could not keep what Marit had told him to himself. 'Captain Anji, I must speak to you in complete privacy, you and I alone, where none can possibly overhear us.'
No flicker of surprise creased Anji's expression as Tohon tugged on an ear and, casually, as if he had seen something that interested him, moved about ten paces away along the wall. 'This matter you and I must discuss in complete isolation. At a time no one suspects we are doing anything other than scouting.'
'You already know?' cried Joss, the words so loud that half the people on the ledge turned to stare.
Anji laughed as if Joss had made a joke. 'Who could fail to know that half the women in Olossi have come to the door of my compound asking if you will ever return to Argent Hall? At least I
may now tell them that you bide a little closer here at Horn Hall than when you made your nest in distant Toskala.'
A flush burned all the way to Joss's ears. On the ledge, folk laughed.
'That must be Mount Aua,' Anji went on as cool as you please, signaling to Tohon. 'It's magnificent.'
'Yes,' stammered Joss. Had Anji come to know the terrible secret Marit had told him? She'd mentioned that she had allies. Or was it something else he meant to speak of? Yet it was easy to fall into the astonishing view of a gorgeous land and find his feet. 'This time of year no clouds veil its peak. The Aua Gap is the wide saddle of land that lies between the mountain and us. West' — he nodded to the left — 'lies Olossi, south the golden Lend, and east' — to the right — 'lies the road down onto the river plain, toward Toskala and Nessumara.'
'There's the town of Horn.' Tohon, returning in time to catch Joss's comments, indicated white-washed walls as tiny as a child's toy landscape and almost cut from their sight by the last spur of the Ossu Range.
Anji tracked the vista with his gaze. 'Three roads meet here, under our eye: West Track from Olo'osson; East Track from distant Mar; and the Flats, out of Istria and Haldia, in the direction of Toskala. If I were a man wanting to stage my forces to move against Lord Radas, I'd start in Horn.'
'My thinking as well,' said Joss, following his lead, 'which is why I asked you to come. However, the town of Horn has rejected my — ah — best attempts at persuading them that it's in their best interest to ally with us.'
Anji considered the onion walls of the ancient town. 'Send in my wife.'
Joss laughed. 'Truly, what man could resist her?'
Anji looked sharply at him, then walked along the length of the wall toward the steep stairway cut into the outer face of the escarpment that led from the ridgetop down to the ledge. Four figures were descending: Anji's two personal guardsmen, who attended him everywhere, and the two reeves who had ferried them here. Joss recognized one as young Siras, long limbs taut with excitement as he stared around.