Traitors Gate

'I was laughing because it's a clever plan,' said Joss to Tohon, stung by Anji's seeming rebuke. 'A man can't help admiring what is beautiful!'

'The captain frets over his wife but doesn't like folk to know he does.' Tohon was leaning at his ease, elbows on the wall, as he surveyed the view. 'He's not a man who likes his weaknesses known to others.'

'Is she his weakness?'

'Maybe so, but he calls her his knife.'

'His knife? That's a strange thing to call her.'

'Not among the Qin. A man can be waylaid by demons wearing many guises. Lust for flesh or for gold, lack of discipline, disloyalty, reckless ambition, unchecked anger. A good woman is a man's knife. She protects him against demons. Don't you have the same saying here?'

Joss scratched behind an ear. 'Well, truly, we don't. Maybe Mai can cut a path into the trust and hearts of the council of Horn.'

'If anyone can, it would be her. A grand vista, if I must say so.' He marked the eagles soaring on watch high above. 'How's the lad doing, Commander? Is he a good reeve?'

Joss thought first of Badinen, floundering apart from his stormy northern seas and complaining of the heat. Then he realized that Tohon could not have met the young fisherman. 'Do you mean Pil?'

Tohon nodded, shading his eyes to search the heavens for more eagles.

'He's a cursed solid young man. He's a good reeve, still inexperienced but he's really taken to his eagle and of course as you know he's a excellent soldier in ways we reeves haven't ever trained to be.'

'Do the others — ah — accept him?'

'Because he's an outlander? So they do, but that's in large part because that foul-tempered Nallo has taken him under her wing.'

'A woman?' Tohon rarely looked startled. His eyebrows raised, and his lips parted. 'Are they lovers?'

Til and Nallo? I shouldn't think so. From what I've observed and heard in passing, neither are fashioned that way. It wouldn't matter anyway. It doesn't among the reeves.'

'It's as well the eagle took him, if you understand me, Commander.'

'I don't.' Anji had met Sengel and Toughid at the base of the stairs and the three Qin stood where the wall met the towering cliff, gesturing at the spectacular vista as they conferred.

Tohon cleared his throat and tugged at an ear. 'It's just that this fashioning you speak of, it doesn't happen among the Qin.'

'Surely it's simply part of the nature of some folk.'

'Not among the Qin. Maybe that's why the eagle took him.'

'Ah,' murmured Joss, tumbling at last: Doesn't happen meant Better to say it doesn't happen than to admit it does. 'You out-landers have curious ways. For myself, I'm cursed glad to have a steady young reeve like Pil. We need him.'

'He's a good lad,' said Tohon. 'Doesn't talk too much, which wears easily on his companions. Just like Shai.' The shift of subject was so swift it reminded Joss of Scar altering his glide high in the heavens. Tohon's brows furrowed. 'It would ease a man's mind to hear something, if there was word.'

The glimmer of vulnerability took Joss by surprise. 'Zubaidit I saw in Toskala, as you know. The Guardian I spoke to told me she'd freed an outlander prisoner in Wedrewe, but where he is now or if he got out of Herelia I couldn't say. It might have been Shai.'

Tohon's smile was brief. 'My thanks.' He turned as Anji and his two guardsmen walked up with several curious reeves and fawkners trailing at a polite distance.

'With your permission, Commander Joss,' said Anji, scrupulously formal and his voice pitched to be heard without him seeming to shout. 'After we've looked around here, I have in mind — if you'll do the honors — to scout Lord Radas's army. I'd like to see for myself what we're up against. Talk to those folk who have a stake in the matter. Fly into Nessumara, if it's safe to do so. Scout Toskala and High Haldia. How much support can we get from the occupied population? If they truly chafe, they may be ready to bite back. What's needed is a coordinated plan with enough flexibility to adapt to changing local circumstances, a powerful lot of persuasion, and a cursed good chain of communication.'

'My reeves can easily communicate over distance. Also, as you and I discussed before, we're trying out some new formations — strike forces, if you will.'

Anji nodded. 'They can plant soldiers and scouts behind enemy lines. Move diversionary troops, aid flank movements, and disrupt lines of supply. As archers, they could penetrate almost any fortification.'

Joss grimaced. 'You've thought this through beyond what I have. It goes against tradition for reeves to be used as soldiers.'

'We can sit and wait, or we can act.'

'Are you truly ready to lead an army against Lord Radas?'

'I have a son. I intend to see him grow to manhood.' Anji indicated the grasslands to the south. 'That's the kind of country the Qin inhabit. Yet when I went to the boundary of the Lend to bargain for horses, I was told humans were not allowed to walk in the grass.'

'We can't break the boundaries. The Lend is forbidden to us. So is the great forest we call the Wild, in whose heart no human may walk. And the inner mountain fastnesses held by the delvings and protected by traps and magic. All the tales say humans once lived in those places. Now they no longer do.'

'Things can be taken from us while we're not paying attention.' Anji's smile bit like a sword cut. He gestured toward the high carved entrance into the caverns of Horn Hall. 'Shall we go in?'

The eagles had cleared out, flying to perches where they could sun and preen. As Joss walked with Anji and his men across the ledge, Siras signaled with a flip of the hand.

'Go on in, Captain,' Joss said. 'I'll follow in a moment.'

Anji looked at Joss, followed an unseen thread to Siras, smiled slightly, and nodded. With his men, he strolled into the first cavern, the soldiers staring around' like curious children.

Joss hung back in the sun-swept plaza as Siras hurried over. 'Greetings of the dusk, Siras. How is your eagle? Your training?'

The young man grinned. He didn't even need to say anything. But when his gaze shifted to the cave mouth and the huge vault within, his mouth turned down. 'It's like this, Commander. Verena is marshal of Argent Hall — of course you know that.'

The sun's glare was, at long last, triggering an ache in Joss's temples. Or maybe it was only the secret Marit had told him eating away at his heart. He nodded.

Siras went on. 'She sent word to Arda at Naya Hall that the Qin have asked for reeves to be assigned as messengers and transport for the captain's use.'

'Verena and I discussed it,' agreed Joss, rubbing his brows.

'It seems because I served as your assistant for that time in Argent Hall, that the captain decided I was trustworthy. So he came to me five days ago-'

'Anji came to you?'

'He came to Naya Hall and asked me to fly him to Merciful Valley-'

'Merciful Valley?'

'That's what they're calling that valley up in the mountains where the captain's child was born. Mistress Mai placed an altar at the birthing place to her god, and no one could say her nay.'

'No, I don't suppose they could. The Spires are the borderlands of the Hundred. I don't see why our gods would be jealous of an altar in such an isolated place. Go on.'

'Afterward the captain said he'd like to keep the place off limits to reeves for the time being, until some holy thanksgiving boundary has passed. He's been going up once a month on Wakened Ox with his wife to make a thanksgiving offering. They take up a small chest, the kind you'd store expensive spices in or rich folk their jeweled combs and gold necklaces. Three months running. But this time the captain asked me to transport him up there alone.'

'Alone?'

'That was the first puzzling thing, because you know he never travels anywhere, without those two guards. He took up that same chest, only this'time it was bound with an iron chain. He said he needed to make a father's private offering at the cave where his son was born.'