The False Martyr (112 page)

People lined the
courtyard, at least three score in all ages and sizes, happy for
the entertainment. Teth did not disappoint. Garth had not allowed
her to shoot in days.
You don’t practice
things you’ve already perfected,
he would
say. But today, he had suggested it of his own accord, and Teth had
not hesitated to agree. The breath slowly eased from her lungs and
with it another arrow found the target.

To her side, there was a
rustling then the onlookers began to murmur. Teth did not bother to
look away. She was in her element and would permit no distractions.
She brought another arrow slowly from the quiver at her side,
enjoying the anticipation.

“
Stop,” a voice said from
her side. “I have a message from the governor. Put down the bow and
come with me.”

Teth recognized the voice
if not the formal tone that accompanied it. She eased the string
back, dropped the arrow into its quiver, lowered the bow, and
turned to look at Kian standing a step away in the livery of a city
guard. “What is this about?” she asked.

“
I am to deliver the
message to you in private,” Kian announced formally, though Teth
saw the slight turn of his mouth that showed his amusement. “The
innkeeper has offered the use of a room. Please, follow
me.”

With a sigh, Teth leaned
the bow against the wall and stepped back onto the path. “I would
like my man to accompany us.”

“
Of course, Master Esther.
Please, this way.” Kian extended his hand toward the door of the
courtyard, and, with a great breath, Teth proceeded him through it.
As soon as she had stepped from the courtyard, the entire area
erupted with rumor and conjecture.

“
What is this about?” Teth
asked when they were in the hall.

“
I have been instructed to
deliver the message privately.” Kian maintained his guise of
formality as he led them through the inn to the private dining
room. As soon as the door closed behind them, he turned on Teth. He
smiled like a wolf welcoming a cub, like he had found his kindred
spirit rather than a girl he had threatened to rape two weeks
before.

Teth studied him warily.
She had barely seen him in the weeks since Garth had threatened him
and he had joined the guards. “You got a promotion, I see,” she
said gesturing toward the stripes above the emblem of the city on
his uniform. “Is that sergeant?”

“
Still a demotion,” Kian
chuckled, “but it’s amazing what experience can do. And it doesn’t
hurt to have a purse that keeps spilling ration papers at opportune
times.” Garth grunted at that. Teth just shook her head, obviously
he hadn’t changed. “The governor doesn’t really pay his soldiers,
so they’re surely happy to have a little extra. As long as I keep
my requests to a minimum and don’t raise suspicion, I can take on
just about any duty I desire.” He smiled, the wolf appearing again
in his eyes.

“
So what’s your duty
today?” Teth asked, lacking the patience to play his games and
confident in her position as long as Garth was at her
side.

“
Things are going to start
happening soon. Tomorrow, the troops from Dorington will arrive.
They’re just passing through and taking the men from here with
them. That will leaves us with a small window to take the city
while it is relatively unguarded but filled with all the supplies
following the army. It will go fast, and I have to know that I have
both of you with me.”

Teth opened her mouth to
speak, unsure what she would say. Kian saved her the need. “I know.
I was an ass. You have every reason to distrust me, and I am
sorry.” He looked at Teth without any of his usual bravado. “I just
. . . when you ran off, I thought the whole thing was going to come
crashing down. I thought the governor’d come bustin’ in on us at
any minute and we’d all be on a gallows before morning. Still, I
shouldn’t have treated you that way, especially after you saved my
life outside Thoren.” He looked at her beseeching, such that she
did not know what to think. “Can we move past that? Can we work
together to save this city?”

Teth considered. She
certainly didn’t trust Kian. Even if she could overlook what he’d
said in the hall or the Tapper’s residence, she remembered what
he’d said outside the temple, remembered his real plan for her and
Dasen. At the same time, her own plan required that he see them as
complicit. If he became suspicious, it was all over. “It is
forgotten,” she said, trying to be as earnest as Kian. “I shouldn’t
have run off. It was selfish and disrespectful. You have kept Dasen
and me safe when the whole world was against us. We owe you our
lives for that and will do whatever is required to repay
you.”

“
I am honored,” Kian said
with a beaming smile. “And may I say, I am so glad to see that you
are back to your old self. I was worried when we found you, but it
seems Garth has restored you to every bit the girl we saw outside
Thoren.” He spared a glance at Garth, who grunted again. “At least,
I hope so. We are going to need every bit of our goddess of war in
the days the come.”

Liar,
Teth thought. She forced a smile and nodded. “I am feeling
much better.” She cleared her throat as the truth behind the shared
lie rose in her chest like bile.

“
And you, Garth?” Kian
asked, seemingly satisfied that his lie had not been returned with
another. “I know we have had our differences, but we did pull you
from the river. Are you still with us?”

Garth looked at Teth, eyes
almost forlorn, and shrugged his shoulders. “I will do what is
required.”

“
Straightforward as
always, Garth. Mostly we need you to protect Dasen. He’s the key to
all this, so we need to make sure he’s safe when things get
crazy.”

“
I will take care of him,”
Garth rumbled, but he looked at Teth when he said it. She wanted to
hug him for it. They had said nothing more about it since their
conversation a week ago, but Garth had seemed different since then,
more distant, more terse (if that was possible), less attentive.
She had started to wonder if she had done something to upset him,
if he would keep his promise when the time came. And if he didn’t,
how could she find peace without the certainty that Dasen was
safe?

“
Alright, we’re all set
then.” Kian walked past them to the door. “We’ll talk again soon,
but be ready. When it happens, it’ll go fast. Now, are you ready
for the crowd?” He looked back at Teth then Garth. “Remember you
just received a warning from the governor, maybe even a veiled
threat to your dear sister.”

Teth thought about that,
considered what her reaction should be. Before she could decide,
Kian had thrown the door open. “Just be sure you do not leave the
inn, not even for the Teaching Day lessons tomorrow,” he announced
to the common room. “The governor has made it clear that there will
be no exceptions, even for you and your sister.”

“
Yes, sir,” Teth answered.
“Sounds like our time is almost done.”

Teth felt the moisture
leave her mouth. Her head swooned.
Only a
few more days
, she thought.
A few more days and it will all be
over.

Chapter 64

The 46 –
47
^th
Day of Summer

How could there possibly
be this many crows in the world?
Cary
thought as he looked down on the valley.
How were there any left to pick at the men on the side of the
lodge?
Every crow on this side of the
Clouded Range had to be in that field. There must have been a
million of them like a great black blanket had been spread across
the plain, perfect except for the few brown snags where the
vultures had carved out a place for themselves at the
feast.

The prince and his entire
company had been ambushed, Cary mentally traced through the
massacre. Nearly two hundred men had been murdered without the
slightest warning. They had seen the Morgs coming, had thought them
there to escort them to the lodge, had greeted them as friends, and
had been cut to pieces instead. And their bodies had simply been
left for the crows. Somewhere down there was Prince Winslow, the
king’s youngest son, the finance minister for the world’s
wealthiest nation. The Morgs had killed him simply for being of the
same nationality as the rapist monster, Cary Lanark. The fact that
he was second in line to the Liandrin throne had not saved him from
Cary’s crime, had not even afforded him a burial.

The very thought of it was
so absurd that Cary nearly laughed. The fact that he, a stable boy
and courier, a rotten underfoot little scamp with an incestuous
monster of a father, could bring about the death of a prince, the
murder of all his nobles and guards, the theft of the whole of the
Liandrin Royal Treasury was something for the legends. But it was
just the beginning. The Morgs would now invade, and there was no
reason to believe they would show the common people of Liandria any
more mercy than they had shown their prince. The whole of a country
– every man, woman, and child – would suffer because Cary had been
played, because he couldn’t help himself.
The stable boy who destroyed a nation
.

And yet, despite the way
that he had changed the course of history, he felt infinitesimally
tiny. Certainly, he had allowed himself to be trapped, but the trap
had been so complex, so long in the making, so perfect that it had
never been a choice. He had been little more than a mouse who
brings the poisoned bread back to his family. There was no way to
see the machinations that had gone into creating that tragedy, no
way to know what would happen when they ate it. He was the trigger,
the one unlucky enough to spring the trap, but the real devil was
the one who had put it all into motion.

Nothing but a
mouse
, he thought again,
with all the world crashing down around me, yet
chosen by the Order to survive.
And given
how the Order had been used to bring him down, he could not believe
for a second that his survival was random, that Juhn had awoken him
when he did, told him what he had, allowed him to escape, for no
reason. No, nothing that sadistic bastard did was without reason.
Even in death Juhn – and the five, whoever they were – were not
finished with him.
Your part in the
Tapestry is not complete
, he had said.
Cary could only imagine what other tortures they had planned for
him.

No one gives a shit if you
fell off your horse
, his sergeant used to
say,
they only care if you delivered the
satchel. I don’t care if you broke every bone in your miserable
body, if you’re still breathing you get back on that horse and
complete your run.
It was about as much
motivation as Cary was likely to get at this point. He embraced
it.

A glance behind showed no
one as far as he could see, but he had no doubt that the Morgs were
chasing him. How much of a lead would he have by now? He tried to
calculate. It was late afternoon, and he had been riding the
mountain pony hard since he’d left the lodge. By some miracle, it
was the same one he’d abandoned in his final switch before reaching
the lodge, and it still wore his saddle. The animal wasn’t fast,
but it was sturdy and they’d ridden at a run for hours, slowing
only when the animal began to labor and only for long enough for it
to catch its breath. But how fast were the men behind him? Legend
said that Morgs could outrun horses over a long distance, and Cary
did not disbelieve it, but those horses were not being ridden by
him. Still, he would need more than a single horse to escape the
Morgs and to make it back to Liandria.

He looked down at the
field. He found shapes that must have been horses, but there were
not nearly enough of them. The prince and his entourage had been
riding. An entire company of knights had accompanied him along with
dozens of rangers and personal guards. The prince must have had two
hundred horses with him, surely the Morgs had not killed all the
animals, so where were they?

Cary allowed his eyes to
drift past the bodies on to the west and found the answer. Supply
wagons were lined up a half mile behind the main force. The wagons
had been ransacked, the animals pulling them cut loose, the oxen
taken, but the horses were still there. A small herd of them were
clustered chewing at the grass just past the wagons. He could not
be sure from that distance, but it looked like a varied group: huge
draft horses, tall thoroughbreds, powerful chargers, and sleek
mares. Cary could have his pick.

Eyes returning to the
wagons, he searched for movement, for some indication that the
Morgs were still there. Seeing nothing, he eased his horse down the
hill toward the caravan. Approaching slowly, he came upon the
wagons and maneuvered around them. His head was almost even with
that of his horse as he peered around the other side. Feet
twitching to drive his spurs into the horse’s haunches, his hands
gripped the reins until they hurt. His legs held the saddle like a
vice. What he saw nearly unseated him.

“
Noé?” he whispered as he
stared at the shape crumpled against the wheel of the first wagon.
It was definitely a woman. Her long, golden hair was undone,
hanging to the ground in waves that suggested it had been recently
unbraided. It obscured her face, but the dress, stretching over her
knees to the top of her slim ankles was clear. It was simple wool
but a good weave, sturdy and seemingly clean. The sleeves covered
only the top half of her arms before ending in a ring of thick,
white fur. Her arms were thin, white turning red where the sun had
burnt them, purple and black where the bruises lined them, thick
rings where strong hands had held them, circles where fist had hit
them. It was her.