We stayed three nights in Khanaarre’s family home. I was never certain whether they approved least of me, of her lying to the prince, or the prince’s lack of sympathy regarding either of those first two points. In the end, Khiilitir came back with a fresh-killed deer just in time to see us off with a fresh haunch and with venison sausage and jerky in equal volume, the last of their winter stores. There were endless hugs, no few tears, and a flurry apparently sincere well-wishes before we returned to the Blue Light.
Things were still tense between Khanaarre and Elana, but I suspected that tension would fade in the face of real danger or in the wake of real rest, whichever we encountered first. Whatever Rennin now felt, it was clear he had decided not to express it – a useful skill, but one which I hoped, for his sake, did not come to supplant too much of his personality.
The first day back on the water was short, but none of us could resist the temptation of a tour of Khanaarre’s tower. The compound was smaller and flatter than we had expected, and both more elaborate and more rustic. The main building – a long house divided into a half-dozen rooms – was in remarkably good condition for having been abandoned so long, but it would take weeks of labor to make it legitimately habitable again. I could look forward to similar, if not worse, if I ever went back to reclaim my smithy in So’renner.
The outbuildings, never meant for habitation, were in the same condition. The tower’s observatory, such as it was, had been built at the top of a great tree, and had been somewhat overgrown in the two years since last it had been used. The prince was disappointed, but not surprised, that we could see into the Wolfwood only a little past the River Venn. The tour ended with the cairn that marked the grave of Khanaarre’s old master.
“You guessed rightly that my master was Maris Pello,” Khanaarre said when she concluded our tour and poured out an offering in his name. “And I am still stunned that you guessed that just from watching me work.”
“He was known for the complexity and delicacy of his work,” I said. “As few Black Masks are. It seemed a logical guess.”
“Did you know him?”
“Only by reputation.”
Though the Black Mask had joined the Obsidian Cabal in Aemillian’s Rebellion, our orders had been rivals for centuries, and I had had few friends outside the Cabal. I had probably met Maris Pello in the short years between my achieving my mastery and his going into exile, but probably no more than a passing introduction at some party as my star rose and his fell.
We camped in the clearing at the center of the compound, then returned to our boat and our river journey.
Water traffic, mostly downstream but also up, was increasing steadily as the spring blossomed. So, too, did the movement of the river, itself. It was only another day to the Georgi border, where we permitted ourselves to be boarded and inspected, and then to be taxed for our empty hold – admittedly, a great deal less than we would have been taxed for any trade-goods we might have carried.
Because it would have been deeply suspicious not to, we stayed that night in the bordertown of Rightmoore. Likewise the next night in Hollydock, and two days later in Lynnbrook. None of these were towns where any of us had contacts, but they were trade-towns and guaranteed to be thick with rumor, and though we had desperately few coins with us – having expected to spend the whole adventure in the wilderness – we hoped that Georg would provide better intelligence than Nagaan.
As Khanaarre had reluctantly revealed her long-held letters of credit to finance the boat, so I revealed that I’d stowed my savings from So’renner. For the good of the quest, I reached into those savings and covered our slip fees and bar tabs. I also reached deep within myself and found the font of lies that had eased my way across the western Compact when I first came down from the Holy Empire, and ingratiated me with the Obsidian Cabal when I came to Vencar, and then with the folk of So’renner when I built my smithy there. To one stranger I was a sailor; to the next, a farrier; to still another, a failed merchant.
Elana and Rennin quickly proved that they, too, had the knack: sidling up to strangers at bars in the docking districts, and at night markets on their way to and from the boat where we still slept the sake of both security and thrift. It shouldn’t have surprised me: they were political creatures, after all, and how else had they survived in hiding during the years before they gathered the court-in-exile around themselves? Khanaarre watched us all work from shadowy corners, and from the stalls of elven merchants who had established themselves in Georg, with a palpable blend of awe and disgust. Her own deceits were more staid and academic; she had never learned to grift. Working the docks of each river town where we sheltered, we learned much that we both needed and feared to know.
War was coming. Every rumor mill agreed. Last winter, the world had feared war between Vencar and Naal, or possibly Vencar and Georg. Some still thought that likely, but as Vencari merchants began making their way north with the spring, a new option seemed more likely, still: civil war.
In the late summer or early autumn of last year, perhaps while we had been crossing the Holy Lands into the Lightning Plains, the existence of a Traianum heir and her loyalist court-in-exile had crossed the line from “open secret” to “common knowledge” and had changed the political landscape in Vencar. Aemillian had never been a popular Emperor. He had support, especially within the Great Houses, and enough in the minor Houses to rule effectively, but support and popularity are not the same, and in the decade since their demise, the pious Traianum emperors had been romanticized.
In the depths of the winter, the hardest in a generation, Emperor Aemillian Solirius had become a tyrant, persecuting anyone accused of sympathizing with or supporting the court-in-exile. His ability to identify Traianum loyalists in his court was uncanny, and the punishments were both swift and severe. Two minor Houses had been unmade, their assets seized, their scions dead or banished. The Jade Order had fled the capitol. Rumor had it that the Emperor was threatening to hold a full-scale inquisition, the likes of which had not been seen in centuries.
Finally, we came to Amesport, the largest of the communities that traded and fished around Lake Ames, and we heard rumors of our worst fears confirmed: the court-in-exile had been located, and the army was being raised to march against it. It became time to make the decisions we’d spent the last week arguing into the ground.
“I know that the Vencari border is technically thirty miles south of here,” Rennin said, far from the first time, “but your father kept spies in Amesport on the lookout for smugglers, and the Usurper is too smart not to do the same. We should go further south to beach the ship, or sell it and go inland to cross over from Georg like we planned to do when we recruited him in the first place.”
“There are certainly spies here, yes,” Elana agreed, also a repeated argument, “and smugglers. And if we’re mistaken for smugglers, as long as we aren’t caught on the banks of the lake, that just serves to misdirect anyone looking. The northern border forts are punishment details and it will be easy for us to slip past bored and disgruntled troops.”
My own take was largely in line with Elana’s, save that I proposed we buy a slip for the Blue Light – in case it was useful, later – and hire the smugglers to get us across the lake to the Wolfwood. That, obviously, did run the risk of being sold out to – or by – the Brotherhood of the Black Hand, but the Rats did try to avoid crossing wizards when they could help it. Crossing wizards was notoriously bad luck.
Khanaarre also largely sided with Elana, but she wanted to strike out across the Wolfwood, crossing back into Vencar by way of the unpatrolled river. If Elana were not still mad at Khanaarre, she might have been convinced. We did, after all, have friends among the Children of Enhyl.
As it was, though, she took her own council. And so, we beached the Blue Light on the eastern shore of the Ames, a day and a half’s hike north of the Vencari border and where the ship would almost certainly be claimed as salvage before we returned to Liddarn. We set out overland, south by southeast, across the wide plain of tall grasses and intermittent copses of trees that served as a no-man’s-land between Vencar and the Wolfwood proper. We knew we would need both luck and skill to avoid both the uurnigath and the border patrol, but we had – despite our losses – been very, very lucky over the last year.
That day, as we crossed the border, we were not that lucky.
By wild happenstance, we crossed the Vencari border within easy sight of one of the tall stone markers and without seeing a single sign of the Children of Enhyl. Of the possible encounters, we had feared that one more – we had, after all, sworn to the Prophet of Enhyl, as good as swearing to the goddess, herself – that we would not raise a hand against the wolf-folk even in self-defense. Unfortunately, just over the next hill from the boundry stone, we found a company of Vencari soldiers, just remounting their rare and expensive horses after finishing their lunch.
There were eight of them, fully armed and armored, they and their mounts fresh and rested, and only four of us, already tired from half a day’s hike overland. But we had two wizards and a magic sword, and they never had a chance. Half of them drew their bows, the other half readied spears, and they rode toward us through the tall grass with almost casual disdain.
“Spare the horses,” Rennin said as they approached, glancing pointedly at Khanaarre. “If you can.”
I sighed, drew my knife, and hardened my heart.
“I’ve got them,” I said, gathering my will and marking each of the horses in my mind’s eye. “Khanaarre, please get a shield ready.”
We let the horsemen close as much of the distance as they cared to, taking advantage of a few minutes to rest before they drew up short, each bowman choosing a target, the spearmen standing ready.
“Who are you,” demanded one of the spearmen, probably the leader. “Show us your hands.”
We didn’t deign to answer, or to obey. I waited just long enough for the speaker’s eye to twitch with impatience, then drew my blade along the meat of my hand and spoke a word that made all their horses settle to the ground and sleep.
The soldiers all shouted in anger and surprise. They loosed their arrows by instinct, firing wildly. Khanaarre did not risk a lucky strike. A word of her own sent all the arrows tumbling to the left.
Half the riders fell to the ground, only one under his horse. The other half dismounted more deliberately, if no more gracefully. By the time they had found their feet, Rennin and Elana had closed the distance. In mere seconds, two had already fallen to the Blade of Xadaer. Moments later, Elana killed another. I sighed, drew more blood and spoke another word, and three more died – their heads pierced by magma-hot beams of white light.
The last soldier tried to run. Rennin did not give her the chance. The Blade of Xadaer soared through the air, cutting the woman in two, then impossibly arcing around backwards to return to Rennin’s hand.
We did not have time to make a pyre for them, or Servants of the Inevitable to say the proper prayers that would ensure that their corpses would not rise to stalk the living. Still, we laid them out side by side with as much dignity as possible, and we said what prayers we could. Then we raided their packs for horse-treats before waking the beasts, and claimed them for the resistance, moving south and east as quickly as we could.
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