Liar's Oath

Chapter Thirty

The guard on the eastern post saw the smoke dark against the first glow of dawn, and sent for Seri, who sent for the Rosemage. By then the light had strengthed; they had to squint against the glow of the rising sun. The Rosemage eyed the smoke columns and said nothing. Seri said, “That’s all the way to the head of the canyon, lady. Duriya and Forli are up that far. . . .”

“And the others?”

“The caravan route, the upper valley. Probably the other part of it, where we’ve been pasturing the horse herd.”

“And your assessment?”

Seri scowled. “If we had enemies, if someone wanted to cut us off from the east, that would do it.”

“And if they wanted to move on us, they’d be coming down, from higher ground. Like a spring flood.”

“But we don’t know yet it is an enemy. Or who?”

“You smell trouble as clearly as I do, Seri.” The Rosemage, in morning sunlight, looked like an image made of silver and ivory, her hair concealed in a shining helm. “And I, since our lord Luap is not qualified in this, at least, will take a troop up the canyon to see what it is.”

“Not alone,” Seri said.

“No—but if it is magery of some sort, I will know it. I will send word.”

“If you can,” Seri muttered. “They haven’t, unless that smoke is their warning.” She meant those who had chosen to live at the head of the canyon, carving their home where the seasonal waterfall could make a glittering curtain for its porch. And those who lived in that first valley along the caravan way.

“Perhaps that danger surprised them,” the Rosemage said. “It won’t surprise me.” She strode away, to the entrance of the stair down to the great hall. Aris, ignored in this exchange, sucked his cheeks.

“She is a warrior,” he said to Seri. It was half-plea, half excuse.

“She is,” Seri said, “but she’s a long stretch of her life from a war. As are we all.”

“She’s the best we have,” Aris said. Then, with a look at the expression on her face, he added, “Barring you, of course.”

Seri turned on him. “Me! Don’t be ridiculous. Aside from grange maneuvers, I have never been in battle, or commanded; I have the training, yes, but that’s all. What I know—what I feel—” She stopped, brooding away eastward toward the distant columns of smoke. “I could have, Ari—and I can’t tell you how I know, but I’m right in this. It was my parrion, but no one wanted it, and I had to find my own way to it . . . and now, when I’m older than Gird was when he commanded, now our lives may depend on it. Because you’re right, even though it is ridiculous: I am the best we have. Better than the Rosemage, because like Gird I know what I don’t know.”

Aris touched her arm. “Seri—it’s all right. It will be all right. It could be a fire, some child careless in learning magery—”

“No. Three fires, the same day, almost the same time? Have you forgotten our talk yesterday? No, it’s an attack, from whom or what we can’t know. But we had best find out.”

Far below, the clatter of horses’ hooves echoed off rock walls, coming to them as a confused stutter. A thin shout and the sweet resonance of a horn call reached them: the Rosemage must have flown through the halls, he thought, and put a flame on someone, to be out and moving so quickly.

“Find me a replacement,” Seri said. “She’s our commander, but if she doesn’t come back—” Aris made a warding sign without thinking; she scowled at him. “This is not a child’s game, Aris. Hurry.”

Whatever the Rosemage had said, as she passed through, had affected the mageborn as a stick would an anthill. Aris heard the noise before he was well down the stairs, and met half a dozen on the way up. One only had the armband of a trained lookout; that one he grabbed and held until the boy actually met his eyes. “Go up, and do whatever Seri tells you,” he said. “You’re on duty now.” Then he himself went on down. He knew what she would want; he could start seeing to it. And he could prepare himself for the healing that would be necessary.

In the great hall, no one ran: it never occurred to anyone that running was possible. But Aris hurried, stretching his long legs, and then jogged steadily along the corridors, dodging those who tried to grab his sleeve and ask questions. He caught a glimpse of Luap, who was surrounded by a sea of bobbing heads and waving arms. He saw a sturdy yeoman, half-mage, whom Seri respected, and waved him over. “Seri’ll be coming down,” he said. “She’ll explain; wait for her, but tell anyone she would want.”

In the kitchens, the cooks were heading toward the lower entrance; Aris called them back. “We’re going to need food,” he said firmly. “We’ll have people coming in; we’ll have marching rations to prepare—”

“The Rosemage took all we had—” grumbled one.

“Then start making more. In case of wounded, I’ll want broth and soup, and I’ll need space at one hearth for a row of small kettles of herbs.”

“Stinking stuff,” said another cook. “We won’t have that in here—”

“You will,” said Aris firmly. “I can’t heal everyone; we’ll need poultices and draughts. I’ll send in one of my prentices with the kettles.” He smiled at them until they withdrew, grumbling, to their hearths and ovens. A moment later, a messenger bearing Luap’s armband came in with the same orders, but found the cooks at work. “C-commendations, then,” he said, looking around with obvious surprise. “The prince thought you might have been upset.”

The head cook glanced at Aris and away. “What, then—does he think we’ve no common sense, to know what’s needed?”

Aris walked swiftly to his own quarters. Jirith, his steadier apprentice, was laying out an assortment of healing herbs. “Good lass,” Aris said. “I might have known you’d be at work.”

“I wasn’t sure where to do the steeping,” she said. He could tell by the tension in her jaw that she was alarmed, but her voice stayed steady. “The lower kitchen is closer to the main entrance, but the upper one to the infirmary.”

“The lower,” Aris said. “We’ll clear a storeroom for use down there, if we have many wounded. Gods grant we don’t.” His mind tossed up the things he remembered from Gird’s war, when he had not yet known he could heal. As if it were yesterday, he saw those wounds, heard the groans and screams, smelled the rotting bodies before they could be decently buried. This time, he thought, I know what to do. This time it won’t be the same.

The Rosemage swung into the saddle of her gray horse, hardly aware of the turmoil her passage through the stronghold had generated. She felt at once vindicated and elated; she had warned Luap that all was not well; she had felt something, and he had insisted it meant nothing, and now—now she would prove she was right. Behind her, other hooves clattered on the stone, other riders mounted . . . she did not look back; she gave them the trust that they would be ready when she gave the command.

Outside, sunlight had just reached the bottom of the cleft into which the lower entrance opened. She could smell the resinous pines, the damp earth, the living air that always seemed fresher than the air inside. She sniffed, but caught no hint of any smoke but that of the lower kitchen ovens, fragrant with baking bread.

Two hands of men . . . that was all she had. It would have taken much longer to muster a larger number, so had the settlement spread from its early years. Had they counted on that, whoever they were? Were the smoke columns warnings, lit by their own people, or triumphal, defiant acts of a victorious enemy? Two hands of men—enough for casual brigands, but—she nudged her horse, and rode forward, out into the sunlight—not for anything serious. And her instincts told her this was very serious indeed.

Outside, turning downstream to the main canyon, she did glance back. Two hands, mostly full mageborn, with the lances they used against mountain cats and brigands, with swords and bows as well. She unhooked her signal horn from her saddle, and put it to her lips. The sound rang off the stone, echoed crazily from the main canyon wall across from the mouth of their smaller one.

She wondered if that had been wise, though they had used horn signals for years. Whoever caused the smoke would know someone had noticed, that someone was coming. But they might have known anyway—it might hearten defenders, help drive off attackers. She didn’t believe that, but she hoped it.

At the main canyon, she held up her hand and the others gathered around her. “We cannot surprise them,” she said. “Speed is our chance to do some good. But if things go badly, someone must get back to warn the others.” She looked around, gauging their reactions. None of these were old enough to have fought in Gird’s war. Some had helped drive the brigands out of their holes above the Khartazh caravan route; others had traveled with the caravans east, and fought horse nomads. She hoped that would be enough. She settled on the youngest. “You, Tamin: you stay well behind, and if I fall, ride back as fast as you can to the stronghold.”

His young face looked even younger with the effort to be solemn, to live up to this. The others too looked serious enough.

“We will ride first to the head of the canyon; that’s the shorter way, but we’ll leave Tamin at the caravan trailhead. That way he can’t be cut off. We have no idea who this might be, or what, so stay alert.” They nodded; she turned her horse, crossed the stream on the terrace dam, and made her way up the shadowed south side of the canyon. Coming down they might have to trample crops; going up she was careful to use the trailway.

If it had not been for the smoke columns—the one at the canyon head visible even from here—she would have enjoyed that ride. The trail, two horses wide and well-packed after years of use, required no great skill; her big gray muscled its way up the steeper sections with ease. A light wind sang in the pines, and swayed the grain as they rode past it. They passed the narrow openings of the other two side canyons running north, all three separated by ribs or fins of rock that seemed slender in comparison with the great block which lay over the stronghold. Yet each was broader than the length of Esea’s Hall in Fin Panir. She peered up at the canyon entrances, a little higher than the trail in the main canyon. All looked normal there. Should she stop to look? No, they must find out what the smoke meant, first.

The trail lifted over a hump of rock, and the caravan trail snaked back, up the first switchback. Ahead, the trail to the head of the canyon wound around house-sized blocks of stone at the outfall of the upper valley before angling left to clear the base of the mountain that formed the valley’s eastern wall. She could not see from here what caused the smoke; it had changed color as they rode, and now the thick column thinned to a faint stream of ash-gray. And from here, close under the steep slope, she could not see the smoke that must have come from the upper valley itself.

“Tam, you’ll stay here. No—wait—go across the stream, where you can see anyone coming down the caravan trail. Give us a warning, if you do, then go back to the stronghold and warn the others.”

He nodded, and reined his horse away from the others. The Rosemage watched as the horse picked its way carefully across the stream, here fast-running over a rocky bed. She remembered when all the canyon had been that way, only small deep pools interrupting the stream’s noisy rush. Tam turned, on the other side, turned, looked far above them, where she could not see, and waved. She was proud of him; he remembered to make that wave a signal, to indicate that he’d looked and found nothing amiss. She waved back, and legged her horse on.

She felt the skin of her back prickle; more than sunlight made her neck itch, her skin feel tight all over. When she had first come into this empty land, so vast and strange, she had felt this way often. They were so few; the land could swallow them and not even notice. But years had dulled that feeling; she had become used to the solitude, the wide sky, the great canyons empty of everyone but themselves. Now she felt again as she had that first year, when every rock seemed to shelter an unknown menace.

As they moved from the shadow of the cliffs to the broken rock beyond, sweat began to trickle down her sides, under the mail. She could never see very far ahead, and worried more and more that they might be ambushed. But nothing stirred, and no strange sounds alarmed her. The trail was narrower; although it had been built wide enough for two horses abreast, it had not been maintained as well. The horses plodded on, steadily and quietly.

Beyond the broken rock, the foot of the valley wall narrowed the canyon again. The stream here gurgled pleasantly, narrow enough to step across in most places, edged with mint and a plant with starry golden flowers. The trail wound back and forth across the stream, hardly more than a footpath. The Rosemage stopped and turned in the saddle.

“We must leave the horses,” she said. “We can’t fight horseback up this way, and we dare not be trapped where we can’t even turn—”

“They cleared a forecourt, like, below the fall,” one of her troop said. “There’s room to turn there.”

“Yes, but not in between.” She didn’t like this, any of it. Leave the horses and they might be stolen, or spooked. Take them, and they could be attacked easily from above, with bows or even rolled stones. And why hadn’t she thought to leave the horses with Tamin, back at the trail division? Now she would either have to leave someone else to guard them, which meant having only eight with her, or tie them and hope nothing happened. She had lost her wits, she thought angrily. It was hard to think, hard to make any decisions; she half wanted to turn around and ride back to the stronghold. She dismounted, ending both the internal and external discussion, and the others dismounted as well. “We’ll tie the horses,” she said. If something spooked them, sent them back down the canyon, it would at least warn Tamin.

Despite everything, that walk up the steep trail to the clearing below the falls reminded her again why she loved this country. All along the creek, more of the starry yellow flowers, more tiny ferns, more beds of fragrant mint. Tiny golden frogs splashed into the water, arrowing across pools not much larger than a kettle to flip themselves onto a sunny stone. The canyon walls closed around them, making each stretch of trail a private room, almost a secret.

She could well understand why someone might want to live here, even though in flood or in winter snow it would be impossible to get out, to join the others in the stronghold. If she had had no responsibilities, she might have wanted to live here herself.

They came around a last twist to the clearing, a grassy circle edged along one rock wall by the merest trickle of water. The Rosemage stared. The last time she had seen it, fruit trees and vines had been trained all around the margin in rock-walled terraces above the seasonal floods. Those trees had been hacked to the ground; their green wood, slow-burning, had fueled the smoke that rose as if in a chimney, straight up the cliffs past the dwelling. They had not smelled it before, but now acrid smoke stung her nostrils. Behind her, a mutter rose; a wave of her hand silenced it. She let her eyes rove up the cliff, ledge by ledge, looking for any movement, ignoring for the time a trickle of darker smoke from the dwelling entrance. Nothing . . . no movement, no sound, until her gaze flowed into the sky and found dark wings already circling.

She moved cautiously around the clearing, keeping close to the wall. The trees had been cut with axes, the marks clear on their short stumps. A few branches had escaped the fire, their blossoms and tender leaves already wilted from the day’s heat. Some of the carefully laid terraces had been broken apart, the stones flung several arm’s-lengths. It could not have been done by stealth; it would have made considerable racket, to echo off the cliffs on every hand. The mageborn must have heard it—why had they done nothing? Because they had been killed first? She did not look forward to what they might find in the dwelling itself.

The lower, obvious entrance led to a small stable, carved of the rock. Here the families had kept goats and a couple of sturdy ponies to pack their fruit down-canyon and other supplies back up. Normally it was closed by a heavy door of thick planks; these were shattered almost to splinters. The Rosemage knew before she entered that the animals were dead; she did not expect the savagery with which they’d been flayed and butchered. Most of the meat had been taken, and the innards strewn to smear every bit of wall and floor with stinking slime. Here, for the first time, she found a footprint in the bloody mess: it could have been human, by its size and shape, a foot cased in soft leather, not boots with heels.

From the stable, an inner stair led up into blackness. The Rosemage considered, decided to use the outside approach to the family’s own chambers. This, outside, meant climbing a series of ledges, zig-zagging up the curving cliff. When she had visited before, a notched log had served to cross one gap which now required a careful leap.

The main entrance had served as a front porch, a low stone wall protecting small children from the drop to the clearing below. No water trickled past it now, but she remembered how beautiful it had been when the falls ran. She glanced out, down-canyon, surprised as always at the way the land hid its real shape. From here, the side-canyons were invisible; she could not tell where the stronghold lay.

But she could not stand gazing at lost safety, not now. She waited until half her band had made it that far, then called her light. It flickered for a moment as shock blurred her mind. There they were, the two families, the bones unmistakable through charred flesh, square in the entrance to the rest of the dwelling. A few ends of wood indicated that the household furniture had fed that fire. Stinking smoke trailed along the cave floor and made her cough. She moved forward.

“We have to know,” she said. “Maybe someone escaped, maybe a child found a hiding place—” In her light, she could see walls smeared with blood and filth and smoke. As she edged past the smoldering pyre, she realized that the passage had been systematically dirtied with the corpses before they were burned—she hoped they had been corpses then, not still living. Nausea cramped her belly, her throat, and she fought it down. She had to remember how the cave dwelling had been laid out. She heard someone retching behind her, but the stench of death and burning was so bad nothing could make it worse.

Two families, both fairly young; they had shared this passage, a dining hall, a large kitchen with two hearths, and the wide space behind the waterfall. On either side of the passage had been each family’s sleeping rooms and private space. She could not remember all of it; she wasn’t sure she’d been shown all of it. She went into the first opening she found, on the left, and found the remains of a loom, smashed, and the cloth ripped away, hacked and smeared with blood. In the next, only the splinters of whatever furniture had been there, probably taken to fuel the fire. Someone had walked through the pool of blood on the floor before it dried, leaving footprints like those in the stable. Chamber after chamber, on one side the central passage or another, had only destruction, blood, the smell of horror.

Her mind could not take in the whole thing. It seemed to fragment, to split into five or six minds, each attending to only one part of what she saw and heard and felt. Had they been surprised? Had anyone fought? Where had the attackers come from, and who were they? Could she find more clues?

In the kitchen with its double hearth, its concession to the kitchen rights of two women of equal rank, she found the first sign of resistance. A pothook, marked as if by a sword-slash. A broken knife, stained with blood. The Rosemage sniffed it, trying out what her magery might tell her. A strange odor seared her nose, woke terrible fears. Not human, not this blood. But what? She called the most experienced of the huntsmen, who sniffed and then shook his head.

“Nasty, lady, you’re right about that. But it’s nothing I’ve smelled before, not here or anywhere. It has a . . . a tingle in it, a ringing, almost a sound.”

“It’s wicked,” the Rosemage said. She felt something in the atmosphere as a smothering wave of evil. “And it knows we’re here.”

But nothing more happened, as they searched each chamber carefully. They found no survivors, only the bloodstains where each had been killed and gutted. They found no clues but the odd-smelling blood on that one blade, and the evidence of the pothook, that the attackers had used swords. And the sense that some great evil, some cold and incalculable menace, lurked about them.

The Rosemage was almost surprised to find that it was still daylight outside when she came back to the ledge behind the dry waterfall. Her head ached; her mouth tasted of smoke and death. The others were all white-faced and grim.

“We must find out if those in the narrow canyons are safe, and warn everyone,” she said. “Belthis, you go—tell Tam what we’ve found, and rouse the stronghold. Then check the first of the side canyons. Those two oldest lads of Seriath’s were planning to live there this summer; they’d started a rock shelter last year. Get them out of there, if they’re alive, then make sure the next side-canyon’s safe.”

“Should those people leave?” asked Belthis.

“No. Remember—the west wall of that’s the east wall of the canyon outside the stronghold, and there’s the tunnel.” The next side-canyon east had seemed a good place to expand the settlement’s living quarters, but it had proven inconvenient to have to go around the spine of rock between them. The Rosemage wondered just how far along that tunnel had come . . . she had not kept up with such things lately. But if they lost the upper canyon, if an enemy attacked, that tunnel could be dangerous.

They must not lose the upper canyon—they could not, if they only knew what they faced. And she must find that out, before worse came upon them. “Go on,” she said to Belthis. “Have Tam talk to Seri, as well as Luap, about defenses. Messengers must go today to the lower canyon, to the western valleys.”

He gulped. “And what shall I say about you, lady?”

“That I am trying to find out what manner of enemy we face.” She followed him out from under the ledge, into the cleaner air that still smelled of smoke, and wished she need not stay.

Aris had chosen his room, and had his healers at work making it orderly and handy, when Seri came to find him. She was wearing the mail she had ordered from the Khartazh, and it jingled slightly as she moved. The expression on her face combined decent concern with pure glee.

“I had the word out before he said anything.” Her eyes sparkled; though she was trying to stay solemn, she looked very much the mischievous child she had been.

“How many?”

“Not as many as I’d like.” She scowled a moment, thinking, then went on. “We’ve lots more who could fight—who may have to fight—but of the ones trained solidly, either Girdish or magery, we’ve fewer than twenty hands—a bare cohort.” She didn’t say why; she didn’t have to. Luap had decided, when the Khartazh proved true to its treaties, that they did not need a large armed force. Training took time from more important things. “Of course I don’t suppose there’s ever been a commander who didn’t want more soldiers,” she added. Then, looking at him closely, “And how are you?”

Aris shrugged. What bothered him most was Seri going out to fight; they both knew that, and there wasn’t any use saying it. “I’m following our plan.” The one he and Seri had worked out together, in case Luap’s assumptions about the safety of the region were wrong. The Rosemage might be Luap’s ranking military commander, on the strength of her background, but Seri had trained the young men and women, mapped each canyon, and planned the details of defense. She had also, in the early years, led more than one expedition against the brigands.

“Good. If nothing interferes with her, she should have a messenger back here by midafternoon, at least. Then we’ll know something—” She paced the small room, her hair springing free with every stride. “I’ve got the old guardposts all manned, messengers on the way west—”

“To the Khartazh?” Aris asked. That had been a decision point in their plan, one they had argued over, taking opposite sides in alternation. Seri shook her head.

“Not just yet. I want to hear the Rosemage’s report.” Then she flushed, aware what that sounded like. “I mean—”

“I know what you meant.” Aris grinned. “You are, you know. You might as well admit it.”

“Luap hasn’t said anything,” she muttered, still red.

He could think of several reasons for that, none of them good. He felt once more the emptiness, the coldness, he had felt when he realized that Luap was using magery to extend his own life. Images raced through his mind, all ugly: an empty skull, rolled along the stone by a high wind; a headless man staggering, falling, dying. If Luap had lost—whatever made him a leader, whatever made him care—then they were all lost. And what kind of leader would choose to live long, and watch his people age and die?

Not Seri. He had another clear vision of her, from one of the early raids against brigands, leading the way up a narrow ledge. She might have stayed back, knowing her value to them as a trainer, or even commander, but she always led—she never pushed. She would have been, he knew, a better leader than Luap; in her own land, in distant Fintha, she would have made a good Marshal, and probably come close to Marshal-General, for everyone liked and trusted her. But here, Luap’s refusals constrained her, like a plant grown in too small a pot.

Luap, when he came down, looked both calm and elegant. “The Rosemage can easily handle any little raiding party of brigands,” he said. Aris looked at him, thinking what one of the cooks said aloud.

“And if it’s not just a little raiding party?”

Luap smiled, “Then we can gather everyone in here, and defend it; once those doors are closed, no brigands can open them.”

“But the crops—” someone said.

“We can replant; we can trade to Khartazh if we need to. We have reserves of both food and money. And if it’s some invading force, horse nomads gone crazy or something, we can call on the Khartazh for aid.” That smile again, confident and calm. “As you know, we have close trading ties there; the king has promised to be our brother.”

Seri poked Aris in the back. When he didn’t move, she poked him harder, then hissed in his ear. “Ask him to—” But Luap was already talking again.

“I know there are some of you who would like to see me call out our guard. Seri, I know you’ve been training them for years—” Aris dropped his hand and grabbed Seri’s wrist even before she moved. He knew how that tone would affect her. “—But we don’t yet know what we face,” Luap said, reasonably. “Better to give an early warning and let families pack up their goods on the chance they might have to come here.”

As if a heavy iron trapdoor fell on stone with a great clang, Aris felt something shift in his head: something final. From the expression on Luap’s face, he had felt something too, and all the mageborn crowding around had the same startled, wide-eyed look.

“What was that—?” began someone. Aris felt an icy certainty, and again saw it mirrored in the other faces. He knew what it was; he knew . . . and by the time they had reached the great hall, others knew it too.

There, each beneath the appropriate arch, stood two figures that Aris knew at once were rulers of their folk. More than their rich clothing, or their crowns, their bearing proclaimed their sovereignty. The elven king carried a naked sword in his hands; the blade glowed blue as flame. The dwarf king bore an axe with the same light. Both looked grim and angry. Between them, but not in Gird’s arch, stood a gnome all in gray, holding what seemed to be a book bound in slate and leather.

Luap went forward to meet them, as an aisle opened through his own people. Aris followed close behind him.

“Selamis Garamis’s son, you have broken your word with us; you have loosed that which we bound long ago, in spite of our warnings.”