The Paladin Part 30

Easy to figure why the ferry was lodged on the far side of the river, and what might have been the fate of the farmers who had tried to flee to Taiyi.

It was a low sh.o.r.e, a dirt road going up from the ferry-landing; bushes beyond, a little stand of saplings-yellow earth, pale gra.s.ses, the haze that was not autumn.

Beyond the Chisei, the heartland, of which Hois.h.i.+ and Hoisan and Mendang were only the outliers.

Pan'yei. The lap of Heaven. And the air stank of burning.

h.e.l.l of a homecoming, Shoka thought, and swung up to mount as the bow of the ferry b.u.mped the sh.o.r.e. The gelding had no notion of going. Shoka kicked him hard in the flanks and the horse s.h.i.+ed up and scrambled off in a sc.r.a.pe and thump of hooves on board and mud. Up the slope, no more than anenergetic man might do. He saw the mercenaries break cover of the thicket and bar his path with bent bows and arrows they hesitated to fire.

That was their mistake.

It took some little time to ferry a hundred men and as many horses across the river. Shoka shed his borrowed armor and sat in the shade of a more substantial tree well up on sh.o.r.e while Jiro and the mare rested with eyes shut, not even interested to graze. Neither was he interested in the food Taizu pressed on him; but he swallowed it down, muttered, "I'm done, girl," and stretched himself out to rest on the cool ground, that was all he wanted.

Mostly his head was throbbing, his leg ached, and he saw blood when he shut his eyes, he saw terrible things. But he could trust where he was. She was there, she told him she would not sleep, and as long as she was awake in the daylight, then he was safe and he knew his way back to the world.

Taizu, nodding away with her sword between her knees, Taizu, in her strange leather armor, with the ribbons in her hair. As long as he saw that he did not see the blood, and the dark would stay away.

"Get away," she had screamed at some man of Reidi's, who had come up asking questions. "He hasn't slept since yesterday, let him alone!"

Whoever it was and whatever it was, waited, and would wait, he reckoned, wandering that dark place.

There were shadows there. He fought with them.

The old Emperor was there.My son is a fool , the old man said.

Everyone told you so, he said, out of patience and disrespectful of the old man.

He stalked out of the imperial hall without courtesies. The guards for some reason did not stand in his way.

It was his father he was looking for, it seemed it had been a long search, and fraught with more and more anxiety.

I have someone to show you, he would say.

But when he thought he had found his father, sitting in the courtyard at home, his father vanished, and there was a shadowy army on the field in front of him, and the sun in his eyes.

And Taizu squatting in front of him and saying: "M'lord. M'lord, you've got to wake up now. Please.

Lord Reidi says."

He squinted at her and shaded his eyes with his arm, not sure for the moment whether he was awake or not, with a feeling of anxiety for the men-how many of them?-waiting for him-where? how long ago?

or when? His heart hammered while he tried to sort then from now and recollect if there was something he had promised, something he was urgently supposed to recall.

But it was only Taizu moving between him and the sun, and holding out a steaming cup of tea. He struggled up to put his back against the tree and took the cup in a shaking hand and drank. The shade had pa.s.sed from where he had slept. He blinked and tried to take account of where he was, saw lord Reidi walking up on them, the men gathered a little distance away, seated, the horses at tether.

"M'lord Saukendar," Reidi said, standing at the edge of the sun, shadow against the blaze of light.

"Forgive me, but we're in a precarious position here-a hundred men-here against the river-The mercenaries-"

His head ached. He squinted, trying to do Reidi the courtesy of looking at him. An anxious old man. An old man who risked everything being here, in the kind of situation Reidi had spent his whole life avoiding.

Shoka felt no fear at all. He remotely wished he felt something, except exhaustion, or that something was as important to him as the wish for another hour to lie down and the wish Reidi would move a handspan over and block the sun from his eyes. He motioned with his hand. Reidi moved, fl.u.s.tered at the mundane request, and Shoka let his arm fall and leaned his head against the tree.

"We're all right," he said. "Rest here a while, go up to Choedri, hope lord Kegi's stayed at home-"

"We don't know where the mercenaries are," Reidi said. "M'lord Shoka, we haven't crossed the river to sit here with our backs to the water. ..."

Textbook soldiery. "Men and horses can do only so much, m'lord." His voice was hoa.r.s.e, and it cracked, point proved, he thought, if the old man listened to anything but his own growing panic. "We have cover, they don't know we're here-we're just the guard they set here. Let them come. We'll move at dark."

It was not what Reidi wanted to hear. Reidi stood there and gnawed his lip and finally said: "We're a hundred men, m'lord Saukendar."

"You say we'll be more after Choedri."

"I don't know. If we'd gone back to Keido, if we'd occupied Ygotai-"

-my lands and my family would be safer, I'd be on familiar ground- "-the others would rally to us-"

"Making the Chisei a battleline." His voice cracked again. "I'd rather one closer to Cheng'di. Orwill the other lords join us? Will the officers of the army? Or will the levies fight for us-or for the Regent? If you have any doubts of that, m'lord Reidi, best we all go south and keep going."

"To the ruin of our lands."

Shoka closed his eyes. "We'll move, m'lord, but with our numbers, dark is better. If anyone wants the ferry, a few of your men can help them, and get among them. No need for a lot of noise. If someone's due to report, they may come to investigate. Put a man up that tree over there. Wrap him up in a cloak, let him look like a lump, and let him watch the road. I'm going to sleep a while. So's my wife. I'd advise you and your men do the same, by turns. Pick the scared ones for sentries. They won't sleep anyway."

Lord Reidi was one of the latter, Shoka reckoned by the look Reidi gave him.

"Dark," Shoka said, and Reidi gave him a curt bow and went away. "You'd better sleep," Shoka said to Taizu then; and Taizu came and sat down by him and snuggled down without a word.

Poor girl, he thought. He reached up to his shoulder and touched her cheek. It was the scarred side. He rested his cheek against the top of her head, felt her arm go over him. He saw the cabin then, when he shut his eyes. Saw her in the morning, in that d.a.m.ned over-sized s.h.i.+rt, with the water-bucket, trudging up the hill. . . .

"M'lord!" someone hissed, and Shoka came out of sleep toward twilight, Taizu waking, the man saying something about riders coming.

"How many?" he snapped back.

"Five, six-"

"Then take care of it, dammit!" He rubbed his eyes and got to one knee in the dusk. "Dammit, where's my armor!" Petulantly, because his throat had made it come out that way.

"It's over here, master Shoka." Taizu, on her hands and knees. As horses came nearer and men rode into their midst.

And bowstrings sang, one, two, a dozen.

Bodies. .h.i.tting the ground. Shoka groped after his sword. But it was over. Lord Reidi's men caught the horses. Shoka stumbled to his feet and walked over to the scattering of bodies, kicked at one. Through the neck. That man was not talking.

Nor were the others. Lord Reidi's men were elated, having proven themselves formidable, he reckoned.

At least none of them had gotten away.

Sometimes he was sick at his stomach at something like this. At the moment he was still muzzy with sleep and wis.h.i.+ng he had not gotten up so quickly and wis.h.i.+ng it were not indecent to ask for a cup of something hot at such a juncture. "It's all right, it's all right," he said to a nervous lord Reidi. "None of them raised a fuss."

Raised a fuss, my G.o.ds. I want to go home, that's all. I want the mountain, I want Taizu and me and Jiro, there, safe, tomorrow morning.

The sun and the moon and the stars while I'm at it.

d.a.m.n, I want my own porch and my spring and the view out the front door. . . .

He walked back and sat down to put on his s.h.i.+n-guards, his own armor this time, fitted tohim , not the mercenary's rig-while lord Reidi followed him up chattering about the necessity of getting underway, of his fears of discovery, about the risk they were running.

Yes, m'lord, no, m'lord, h.e.l.l if you don't know your choices by now, my lord. . . .

"Send some of your younger men out," Shoka said, "if there's any reasonable chance of them making it.h.e.l.l with the pigeons. Have them spread the word where it counts most, in person, where they can answer questions and give a.s.surances, and hope your allies are committed to this."

Lord Reidi went to do that.

He tied the cords about and put on the armor-sleeves. Taizu was there to help him with the body-armor.

Not a word from her, not a complaint, only a grim, jaw-clenched calm.

He took her by the arm, said, close to her ear: "Are you all right, girl?"

"I'm fine." Tight, between the teeth.

He put the arm about her, held onto her a moment, scared for her, scared for himself.

"Plan your retreat," she said into his ear. "Plan your retreat, isn't that right?"

"d.a.m.n good advice. I couldn't think of better. Wish to h.e.l.l we had the men to leave for a garrison."

Then speed . . . speed and silence, in lieu of numbers. . . .

They were on the road by dark, and with a good string of remounts, thanks to the mercenaries on this side and that of the river. No stopping, Shoka had decreed. The handful of lads Reidi had picked had gone out, with Shoka's instructions in their ears, a good half hour in front of them, but none of them to Choedri.

"We'll deliver that message ourselves," Shoka said.

Chapter Sixteen.

The stars were dimming, the sky eastward appearing to darken over the low hills when they reached the ford at the Tei-"d.a.m.nable thing about roads and rivers," Shoka muttered to Taizu as they rode, "roads go to fords and fords are where your enemies can find you. I don't look for that kind of luck twice."

"It'll work again," Taizu said, "no reason it shouldn't."

He hoped so. Privately he placed much of his hope in the handful of young riders that had gone out from their company west to Jendei in Hainan, to Maijun in Feiyan, and east to the lords of Sengu and Mendang and Taiyi, at Mandi on the Chaighin, along the river road. There were three of them, going fast in that direction, one more speeding back to Keido to put Reidi's lady Aio current of the situation, for her to send messages with her birds, one more on to certain friends in Mura and Hua and one straight north to Kiang, to the farthest reaches of the Empire. Multiple of everything, an agreement to duplicate all messages, because there was no guarantee of any single message getting through, whether it came on horseback or by air.

But if they did nothing else-the lads with their fast riding and their dodging through the back roads might convince an enemy that two fugitives on horseback had gone any of a half dozen directions; while a large, noisy band of motley-clad riders going right down the roads might, the G.o.ds willing, be mistaken for one of the mercenaries' own companies. Keep moving, move fast, keep the enemy thinking while their situation changed by the hour.

Run the horses to the safe limit, change the remounts through the company, change the light and the heavy riders, walk and cool down, gather breath and go again. . . . He and Taizu traded oftenest, for Jiro's sake, the old fellow loping along with no more burden than his tack for most of this night, but he had come the farthest and he was the oldest.

d.a.m.n sure he was not riding the old lad when they hit the ford, a belly-deep wade and a muddy climb to the sh.o.r.e, up among the trees.

"What company?" a voice shouted out of the dark above them.

"Aghi," Taizu hissed to him; and:"Aghi!" he shouted out, with no idea in the G.o.ds' creation whether that was a valid name."New hire, up from Hoisan! What's your company?"

In case anyone wanted answers they might not know.

A long pause. Then: "One of you come up," the watcher shouted down."Afoot!"

"What's your company?"

"Don't!" Taizu hissed at him, "don't go up there."

As the answer came down:"Sachi's!"

"Is that valid?" he asked Taizu.

"Don't go up there!"

"Shut up. If you come up anywhere near the head of the column I'll loosen your teeth for you. -All right. I'm coming." He climbed down from the saddle, handed his reins to Reidi's captain and said, "When you hear me shout, come up that slope like thunder."

He left the captain with the horse's reins as if the captain were his servant: but it gave him the chance for a word.

"What's the delay down there?" the watcher shouted.

"I'm coming up."

Nowhe felt his heart beating faster. Not fear yet, just that things sharpened their outlines around him, memories of this road ten years ago, how it turned, if he had not confused it with others like it, if floods and time had not changed it: bend to the right and the left and the trees up there.

He walked it, finding the turns what he remembered, a winding climb among trees. Archers, he thought, and hoped Taizu believed him.

He saw the shadow of men ahead of him, subtle sheen of ambient light on metal.

"What captain, before Aghi?" "I'mcaptain of this company. Andd.a.m.ned if I stand here playing riddle-games in the dark. I'm on orders, I've got my pa.s.s, and you'dd.a.m.n well better have yours handy, son, and mind your mouth with me,I'm short of sleep and too d.a.m.n long in the saddle to put up with some a.s.s no-rank who wants to play games with me! "

He heard the company start up the slope. He saw the confusion in the figures in front of him, heard the guard-chief shouting, "Dammit!" and backing off a step- He was already moving, a rolling tumble on the leafy ground as arrows hissed; hands on his sword hilt and out with it into a smooth swing as he came up on his feet and launched himself for the only place the archers would not aim-face up against their officers, one, two, and three, a head flying, a man crippled, and the third giving him two, three pa.s.ses before he made a mistake backing up and stumbled on a tree root.

Shoka wanted a prisoner. No time for this one, with arrows flying and the company coming up under fire. He whipped the sword across an opening in the man's defense and took the man across the arm, across the neck: he was dead before the pieces. .h.i.t the ground.

Horses broke through, cras.h.i.+ng up the trail, through the brush, going every which way, bowstrings thumping, swords meeting steel and men screaming-men and one shrill yell he well knew.

He dived into the brush and laid low, figuring his main danger at the moment was his own side.