'It's hard for me to believe,' he said bluntly, 'nor did I know her or love her as you did. I'm sorry for it, and I must admit I'm shocked, but I rode a long way with the captain's mother and honestly I'm not surprised.'
'Captain Anji will repudiate his mother when he finds out!'
'Will he?'
'How could he not!'
Kesh thought about what Tuvi had said. 'I don't presume to know how the captain will react. Meanwhile, I must assume Mai is dead. But if you want me to wait with you, I will.'
Her gaze was fire, but he held against that searing blaze. At last, she reached; she grasped his hand in her warm fingers. The delirious dizzying joy made his heart pound and his eyes water.
'You're the only one who is listening to me,' she breathed.
He thought his heart might actually stop for the brilliance of her eyes and the moist parting of her lips as she bent closer. She swayed, grief weighing her down like exhaustion. He embraced her. Aui! It went to his head like floodwaters, and he was grinning like an idiot even if fortunately she could not see his smile.
'As soon as he's well enough,' she whispered, 'Chief Tuvi means to have a reeve fly him to Captain Anji. He won't let anyone else tell the captain the news. He'll go-'
'And I'll stay.'
She sighed against his shoulder. 'They'll take Atani. Priya will
go. She scarcely allows anyone else to hold him. They don't really need me. Among my people it's traditional to say mourning prayers for a year for a family member. A sister. Because — I don't know — I just think someone should stand guard here, just in case.'
'They'll go, because they must. But if you stay, I'll stay.' The lamp burned. The night slumbered. The waterfall spilled, its voice speaking of high mountain escarpments from which white rain poured from the highest slopes into the lands below. She held him, saying nothing. For the first time in over twelve years, since the day he and Zubaidit had been orphaned and sold away by their disloyal kinfolk into debt slavery, Keshad was content.
Joss reached Law Rock on the wings of dusk. Toughid was drilling the eager young firefighters and reeves on the parade ground, but Joss did not watch; he walked to the promontory, leaned against the fence surrounding the stele, and murmured the well-known words carved on the rock although he couldn't actually read them.
On law shall the land be built.
Peddonon strolled up to lean beside him. A lamp burned at the southwest corner; the other three remained unlit.
After a while, Peddo said, 'You're troubled, Joss. You haven't said a word.'
'Do you trust me? You and Kesta?'
'That's the kind of question a lad comes out with just before he coaxes you into doing something idiotic'
'I've lost control of the halls. In truth, I never had it. Captain Anji and his chief, Sengel, command Copper Hall now. And you see how Chief Toughid has taken over our garrison up here.'
The drilling men and a few women huffed and scrambled, hidden by darkness but easily heard as were Toughid's good-natured but relentless commands: 'Drop! Ten spans left. Forward! Hu! Avoid the other. Feel the heat of their body. The kiss of their breath. Rise. Drop!'
Peddonon nodded. 'I will say these Qin know how to fight wars.'
'Here's my question: Do they know how to stop fighting rhem?'
Peddonon grunted. 'Ask me that question a cursed bit later, will you? When folk aren't starving in Toskala, living in the woods because their farms have been burned, and fighting for
their lives in Nessumara. We're fortunate the Qin are here, and on our side.'
The marks chiseled into Law Rock had an uncanny sheen, as though gilded with a radiance that came not from human labor but from other powers. The faint blue tincture of the rock, touched by lamplight, reminded him of firelings, rarely glimpsed but never forgotten. Especially a cave thick with their presence and a naked woman giving birth within the shelter of rock, fire, water, and life-sustaining air.
'Why do you suppose we never see firelings in the dry season?' Joss asked.
'Eh? You're leaping too fast for me to keep up. Firelings live in storms. Everyone knows that. Merlings in the sea. Delvings in the deep earth. Lendings in the grass. Wildings in the wild wood. Whew! My grandmother drilled the counting songs into me, I'll tell you that.'
'Where do humans live, then?'
'Humans in the villages and towns, and demons within us.'
'Why do we have so little to do with the other children of the Hundred?'
'Don't they want it that way? I don't know. Truth to tell, Joss, I've never seen any, not even delvings. If it weren't for others who have, I'd tell you they're just tales.' He extended a hand toward the stele, with its neat columns.
The law shall be set in stone, as the land rests on stone. Here is the truth: The only companion who follows even after death, is justice.
The Guardians serve justice.
'A year ago,' Peddo went on, 'I would have told you the Guardians were just a tale, a story told at festival time. Maybe they are a grandmother's tale. Because I'm cursed sure that the cloaks who command that army are not truly Guardians. That's not justice. If we don't defeat them — Aui! We have to defeat them.'
'So we do,' murmured Joss.
Peddonon rested an arm companionably over his shoulders. 'You sound tired, my friend.'
'I need a drink and a pallet,' admitted Joss. 'Tomorrow I'll take two of your three flights down to Horn to help lift a strike force up here.'
'We have fresh cordial, brought up from Horn Hall. Not bad, if a little astringent, late in the season berries, you know how they are.'
'Neh. Tea, if there's any left.' The offer reminded him of how Anji had so carelessly offered him cordial or rice wine last night. A more suspicious man might think the captain was attacking Joss where he was weakest — his notorious drinking habit — but surely that was just hurt injured pride. He'd never asked to be anything more in life than a reeve. That he'd been thrown into the marshal's seat had surprised him; his elevation to commander of the halls was not even accepted by the other halls, nor was there any reason it should be without a reeve council to vote. And there was unlikely to be a reeve council again until — unless — they defeated the enemy.
He could not stop thinking of the little jeweler's chest bound with chains.
'Peddo, it's possible to kill the cloaks.'
Looking startled, Peddonon removed his arm. 'You were talking about this before. But Guardians can't be killed.'
'What if I told you otherwise? That there is a way, a dangerous way, to separate a cloak from the person wearing it. Would you be willing to risk your life and your spirit to do it? Even if such an act goes against the gods?'
The night wind breathed over them as Toughid's commands rose: 'Drop! Rise!'
Peddonon listened for a moment before shaking his head. 'Such knowledge would be a heavy burden. You'll have to tell Kesta. Yet if it's true, Joss, then what choice have those cloaks given us but to destroy them in order to save ourselves?'
38
In the late afternoon Sixth Cohort weathered a barrage of rocks dropped by successive flights of reeves. Huddling under tortoised shields as stones cracked wood or thudded into moist ground, Arras contemplated reeves. A smart commander could do a lot with reeves, if he had them on his side. If he wasn't obsessed with destroying them, as the cloaks were.
The attack ceased when the reeves emptied their baskets. He
cautiously, stuck his head out from under the shields. 'We'll stay under cover until dusk. Eat, drink, and sleep. At dusk we push the last distance, across the worst ground. By dawn at the latest we'll attack.'