'Captain!' Zubaidit hailed him. 'Must I walk out here with the rest? Didn't I prpve my loyalty by walking in among the enemy last night to take your message?'
He kept striding along with his attendants streaming behind. He thought he heard a few among the hostages hiss at her words, but that sound might also have been the flutter and flurry of wings as waterfowl rose in numbers off their tranquil feeding ground, disturbed by the tread of feet. Boats bobbed out of his reach. The rising sun glinted on stretches of water. Reeds swayed in the morning breeze.
They reached the front of the cohort. The causeway speared straight over the mire; he could not yet see the solid earth of the mainland, only the blur of gray-blue water and green reeds.
'Captain?' Sergeant Giyara gestured up.
Eagles soared overhead; those gods-rotted reeves would never let up. Then gold winked, like a spark of sunlight detached from the spreading rays. He squinted, shaded his eyes, tilted his head and tried to find that trick of the light again, but it was lost in the gleam.
'The hells!' swore Giyara.
The cloak trotted to earth on the causeway before them, and the soldiers dropped to their knees, bowing their heads.
Lord Radas himself had come. His cloak — almost as bright in its golden splendor as the sun itself — rippled as in an unfelt breeze. Arras felt fear as a knife in his ribs, but he walked forward anyway, because he must. He was captain; he was
responsible. He knelt on one knee and raised both hands to shield his gaze obediently.
'Lord Radas. What is your will?'
'What is your name?'
'Captain Arras, of the Sixth Cohort. I have with me remnants of the First Cohort.'
'You are retreating rather than holding the forward position. When Lord Yordenas spoke to you last night, you were encamped farther out, on an island.'
When thrown off balance, it was best to right yourself by throwing a punch. 'Lord Yordenas ordered the retreat, my lord. I suggested we hold the forward position and asked Lord Yordenas to undertake a reconnaissance to estimate the true strength of the Nessumaran militia.'
'We were betrayed.' Lord Radas had a mild voice, nothing odd in it, only its tone had a timbre that made a man shudder even to hear simple words spoken in a seemingly reasonable manner. A madman might speak so as he was cutting your throat. 'Look at me, Captain.'
Aui! A man in his line of work could never know, never plan for, and must never dwell on when death might arrive to carry him to the Spirit Gate.
No sense waiting.
He looked up.
The man had youthful features but did not seem young; rather, he appeared rather unsettlingly well-preserved. He had deep-set eyes and broad cheekbones set off by a mustache and beard; no dashingly handsome man, as in the tales, but an ordinary fellow if not for the eyes, which were a weapon cutting you open so your guts spilled out.
Here it is, all of it:
Lord Twilight told me to arrange for an outlander to be conveyed out of camp without the other lord commanders knowing of it and by chance I was able in addition to use the outlander's trail to track down a nest of bandits and kill them. Kill me for it if you must; I obeyed the cloak, as I am required to do. I didn't know who the outlander was, but then Night tracked me down to say she had captured him. She said he was Lord Twilight's brother.
I don't enjoy killing or savor its power. I don't mind it, either, and if it has to be done I'll do it, as I have done since the day I left
my village forever. Nothing against my clan or anyone else there; it just wasn't a life or a bride I was willing to accept. I like battle, because it tests the mind and the body and it tests your resolve, your reactions, your reserves.
As for Captain Dessheyi of the First Cohort — even in an ambush he ought not to have allowed his soldiers to break ranks and lose cohesion like that; he ought to have had a decent chain of command in place. But some of these men are cursed better at oiling up their superiors to grab for rank than they are at actually doing the work of fighting.
Lord Radas laughed, the sound so startling Arras flinched. 'So Harishil and Night are playing a game of hooks-and-ropes. He'll not survive her displeasure. Perhaps she means to replace one out-lander with the other.'
Shaking, Arras brought his hands up to cover his eyes. He was on both knees, sweat streaming, hands moist.
'Keep the remnants of First Cohort as your own,' said Lord Radas as easily as if he were handing him a cup of cooked rice for his supper. 'You have a full cohort now. It's up to you to mold them into a cohesive unit. There will be a full war council in Saltow on Wakened Horse. I will be sure to consult your opinion at that time. I expect you to have a plan of action to present, that can be considered along with other strategies. We have underestimated the Nessumarans. Now we must defeat them.' He began to rein his horse around.
'Lord Radas! If I may be permitted to speak.'
The horse sidestepped as the cloak twisted in the saddle and Arras ducked his head to avoid that gaze. 'It's the reeves, Lord Radas. They see everything we do. As long as they have that advantage, we'll struggle.'
'Be sure we are not finished with the reeves,' said the cloak over his shoulder before he urged his mount onward.
The wings unfurled, their span almost as wide as the causeway and so bright and powerful Arras forgot to fear and simply gazed in awe. In a transition he could not measure or mark, the horse ran off the causeway and up into the sky as if the roadway split and it had merely taken a path he could not see. The man and his billowing cloak seemed almost an afterthought to the magnificence of the beast's wings and graceful form.
'Heya!'
Arras leaped up, whipping round to see a soldier racing up on
the heels of Zubaidit. She staggered to a halt as she stared after the rippling sheen of the gold cloak falling away like rays off the rising sun. Her expression was unfathomable, mouth slightly parted, eyes narrowed. Is that what she would look like in the arms of the Devourer? Whew! He'd completely forgotten about her in the face of Lord Radas's gaze.
'Cursed hostage took off running, Captain,' said the panting soldier. 'Everyone was staring at the cloak.' He aimed the haft of his spear at her, taking a halfhearted swipe, and she turned on Arras.
'You cursed ingrate! I only went on that cursed negotiating expedition for you because you said you'd kill the other hostages if I did not. Now they're all spitting on me and calling me a traitor.'
He dusted off the dirt on his trousers and, straightening, shook off the muzz afflicting his thoughts. 'That would seem to make them the ingrates, not me.'
Her gaze flicked eastward toward the mainland, taking in the mire and the gods-rotted honking waterfowl dotting the sheets of water. Already the cloak had vanished from view.
'I'm tired of being strung along as on a rope,' she said. 'First my clan marries me off north to a man I've never met. Not that I've any complaint of him, mind you. It's just I had no choice. I've never had a choice.' Her tone hardened as old grievances bubbled to the surface. He saw that look in a lot of the young men who came to him. 'Seems to me you lot have more choice in what happens in your life. I want to join your cohort as a soldier.'
'What's in it for me?'
She snorted. 'Do you ask that of every recruit?'
'I might have asked it of that cursed traitor Laukas. What's to say you won't betray us, as he did?'
'What's to say anyone won't? I'm one person, Captain. Not that difficult to keep an eye on.'
'Indeed not. I might have to keep you close by me, just to be sure.'
Her lips twitched, reminding him abruptly of a hook used to catch a fish. 'Do you want me to play that game, Captain? I shouldn't think your men will respect you for it.' She looked around, because of course everyone within earshot was listening openly, and no doubt those cursed boats bobbing off shore, out of arrow-shot, were also wondering what in the hells was going on.