The Silence of Medair (2 page)

They were too uniformly equipped to be mercenaries.  Mercenaries usually supplied their own armour – hotchpotches of plate, leather and chain scavenged, inherited or purchased.  These men all wore leather, well-fitted, over dark grey clothing.  A uniform, despite the lack of any insignia of rank or mark of allegiance, and they displayed practiced team-work as two stalked the door direct, the other pair circling to prevent escape from any windows or rear exits.  One of the men was ginger-haired and freckled, with a tilt to his eyes which suggested Mersian blood.  The rest were tanned and had the dark brown hair and hawk-nosed profiles of Decians.

The tiny hand movements they used for communication told her they were no ordinary soldiers.  Scouts?  Some sort of elite squad?  She closed her beringed hand into a fist.  None of them looked like a user of magic, but it was not as if they were Ibisians with their earrings to declare status.  If they were anything like the Black Hawks, the Special Assignments Division of the Emperor's armies, there would be magi among them.

It was very difficult not to move then, as the Decians crept towards her.  A magic like the ring's would not trumpet itself, but if a mage came close enough to touch her, he would feel an echo of its power.  Even Medair's negligible abilities would alert her to an invisible person standing a foot away.  Farak, they could probably
smell
her if they paid attention: she'd sweated more than enough coming down the mountain, and hadn't bathed daily for centuries.

The contents of her satchel were her advantage: they would surely not have anticipated an invisible target, any more than she had expected soldiers.  She couldn't guess how anyone knew to look for her.

What
they
were expecting was the important question.  They could not possibly know.  Her hand brushed the leather of her satchel, and at the thought of all it contained she shuddered.  How could these men be looking for her, Medair an Rynstar, and the prizes of her wildly successful, fruitless quest?

Decia, largest of the southern duchies, had always been stalwartly loyal to the Palladian Emperor, and the kingdom it had become was still at odds with the Ibisian conquerors.  But Medair knew she couldn't become part of that struggle, even though she hated what the Ibisians had done.  If these people really were looking for her, knew who she was, what she carried – she had to get away.

Medair noticed another man standing at the forest's edge just as the lead two rushed the cottage, swords drawn.  Another Decian, he was dressed like the rest, a light sword at his side.  His eyes were on the door as the man whose commanding gestures marked him as leader emerged, frowning, and shook his head once.  The five gathered together, only the trapper standing apart, watching with wary interest.  Two feet away from the nearest man, Medair practically stopped breathing.

"Looks like she's run," the leader said, with just an edge of anger.  "Place has been emptied.  How long before you can locate her?"

"Half a decem or less, with a hair or some personal item – presuming she's still within range.  If she's more than a few miles away, a different, less precise trace will be needed."  The latecomer raised an equivocal shoulder.

"Likely she's hopped just before us.  Go to it, then."

The latecomer detached himself from the group, then hesitated at the threshold.  "She's a mage," he said over his shoulder, closing his eyes and holding his head to one side, listening to something only mages could hear.  "There's traces of power lingering.  Possibly something to confuse her trail.  It's very, very recent."

"Seb, Norruce – a quick circle, if you will.  Try and isolate her most recent movements, the direction she went."

Touching hands to foreheads, two men with a distinct, brotherly resemblance began an intent study of the ground, moving in outward spirals.  Medair tried not to think what their tracking would reveal.

"Glyn, send our guide on his way," the leader ordered.

The Mersian nodded, but lingered.  "Could she have been warned?"

The leader shrugged.  "It seems unlikely.  We were exposed more than once on the trip up – if she's as valuable as it sounds the sight of any stranger might well send her skittering.  She won't get far."

"She better not.  We've only the vaguest idea what she looks like, Sir!  We don't have the resources to track her if she reaches a more populated area and even if the Kyledrans were of a mind to cooperate, how would we know if they found the right person when no-one's come close enough to know her face?  We don't even have a
name!
"

"You underestimate us, Glyn," the leader replied.  "Go."

"Yessir," muttered the Mersian, rebuked.  The leader entered the cottage and Medair took the opportunity to move after the Mersian.  She'd almost caught up with him as he politely thanked the trapper and hinted at the possibility of a bonus.

"Now, that's good of you, sir," the trapper began, then sighed, eyes widening.  For one astonished instant Medair thought that the man had seen her despite the ring.  Then he fell.  The Mersian bent to wipe a blade on the fur-lined vest, replaced it within a sheath hidden at his wrist, and strolled on into the trees, humming softly.

Shuddering, Medair followed as close on his heels as she dared.  They didn't know who she was, didn't know what she looked like.  Were about to use magic to locate her.  She didn't have any protection against a trace.

The Mersian whirled, knife in hand.  Freezing, Medair swallowed her breath and watched him searching the trees.  He was thorough, standing as still as she, eyes roving even up into the branches.  Of course he saw nothing, but he was not convinced and began walking at a much slower rate, placing his feet with care.  Invisibility was no protection against a knife, so Medair circled, guessing the most logical place for horses to have been left and coming up even with him some ten feet to his right.  She tried to match the careful placement of his feet, putting hers to earth at the same time he did so that he would not be wholly certain any slight noise she made was not his own.

When he reached the cluster of mounts tethered in a small clearing, he appeared to shrug off his concern and bent to examine one bay's hoof.  Not accepting this clear invitation, Medair picked up a fallen branch, concealing the eerily floating object behind the nearest tree while she waited for the ring to include it in her invisibility.  The wood was mouldering, unpleasant to touch, but testing revealed that it hadn't rotted to the point of being unsound.  It would do, presuming she could bring herself to hit someone.

Medair watched as the Mersian became more businesslike.  He was still alert, still watching, not ignoring the signals his instincts were sending him merely because no attacker had rushed to take him so before moving she squatted to her heels again and palmed a clutch of walnut-sized stones.

When she had approached as close as she dared, just as the nearest of the horses was flicking an ear in response to the scent of sweaty human female, she tossed the smallest of the stones far across the clearing.  The Mersian pivoted at the muted impact and Medair took those vital two steps closer.  The horses reacted, snorting and shifting, so she didn't hesitate in sending the rest of the stones up in a high arc, then immediately gripping her weapon with two firm hands.

Her timing was good.  Moments before she estimated the stones should land she tensed, began the last step forward, swinging the hunk of wood back as the knife reappeared in the Mersian's hand.  He was starting to turn towards her, then there was a thumping patter of stones landing and he hesitated long enough for her to solidly dint his skull, knocking him to the ground.

Face-down, the man was still groggily conscious, but Medair dropped her weapon anyway, revolted by the idea of hitting him again.  As the horses crowded away from them, she pulled off her black and gold ring and groped in her satchel.  The animal control ring was a small braid of silver, and she jammed it on her pinkie finger, wishing that it were possible to wear two rings at once, wishing this wasn't happening.

The horses immediately stopped jumping about.  Medair hastily unlooped all but the two donkeys, then hoisted herself up onto a grey.  Questing about with her toe for the other stirrup, she cast one anxious glance back toward her cottage, then led an equine stream away from the dangerous men who had been sent, for whatever reason, to capture her.

Away from solitude.

ChapterTwo

Medair rode at a speed both reckless and unkind to her mounts, all the way down Bariback Mountain and far along the neglected road toward the forest.  The thought of those five men, of the noise her lump of wood had made colliding with the head of the one called Glyn, was a hound nipping at her heels and she would not stop to do more than water the horses until she was certain they could not catch her that day.  It was only when she had forded the Sorbry River and was faced with the forest that she thought beyond simply 'away'.

With the sky darkening, and her heart finally easing out of her mouth, Medair looked about for a grassy verge, then stripped the gear from five of the horses and sent them scattering toward the river, impelled by the ring.  Guilty over not having rubbed down their sweating flanks, she lavished attention on the last horse, a sturdy bay, cosseting him and securing a tether while the ring kept him complaisant.  Then she slipped the circle of silver from her finger and replaced it in her satchel.

The bay immediately sidled away from her, but, as she had hoped, he did not consider her quite so much a stranger any more.  He was more interested in cropping grass than escaping.  Turning her attention to the sky, Medair frowned at the clouds crawling south.  The long-brewing storm wasn't far away: tomorrow, if not that night.  She would get wet before she reached the nearest city, Thrence, nearly three days' ride away.

More information was what she needed before she began making choices, so she turned to the stolen saddlebags.  Only a small amount of food: most of that must have been on the pack animals.  She had six bedrolls, which guaranteed a relatively comfortable mattress for the night, even without drawing on the resources of her satchel.  Five canteens, various items of male clothing, oddments like little pots of oil and saddle soap.  A scattering of coin minted with the crests of a half-dozen kingdoms.  No insignia at all, no documents, no neatly packaged explanation of who and why and how.

Having sorted out the gear and stowed what she considered would be of use, Medair cooked herself some dinner and sat back against a tree, thinking.

They had not known what to expect, that elite, unscrupulous little group.  They had approached with caution, but had not known she was mage until the second Decian had misunderstood the traces of power given out by the ring.  They knew neither her name nor her features and, really, considering what she carried, five men, only one a mage, seemed a little...inadequate.  If they had taken her by surprise, then yes, they could have had her.  But with the contents of her satchel, if she were desperate, she could fight off a great many more than five, no matter what their skill.  With what her satchel held, she could bring down an army.  That was irony.

Did the one who had sent them know?  "If she's as valuable as it sounds," the leader had said.  If whoever had sent these people knew who she was, what her satchel contained, why not adequately prepare those set on her trail?  Why not a greater effort at secrecy in their approach?  She couldn't think of any reason for them to come after her if they
didn't
know.

"I am Medair an Rynstar, Herald of the Empire," she said to the dying embers of the fire.

She had been one of the two heralds Grevain Corminevar had sent to greet the Ibisian refugees when they'd appeared in Kormettersland.  Wild magic, forbidden in Farakkan, had destroyed the Ibisians' island home.  Not with the massive Conflagration the mages of Farakkan warned would be the consequence of wild magic slipping from control, but by a creeping blackness which melted the land from beneath their feet.  As Sar-Ibis dissolved into nothing, the Ibisians had fled to Farakkan through arcane gates; an incredible feat of magic.

Riding through their camp that first time, she'd actually been glad to see how organised they were.  Their tents were in orderly clusters: small suburbs in a city of cloth separated by securely penned animals, crates, carts and carriages.  Even saplings, their roots bound in sacks.  With their own supplies, the hundreds of thousands of refugees would not be such a strain on the north-east as had first been thought.

She'd felt desperately sorry for them, before they'd declared their intentions.  She'd wanted to reach out and help, to show them the bounty of the Empire, wondering what she could do to make it easier for them.  Their alien appearance, so tall and bleached of colour, only made her feel sorrier for their displacement, for the desolation they had to feel.

Trained for her memory, Medair could not wipe out any part of that first day.  She would always remember riding through that endless camp of white-skinned people, and how glad she'd been to carry a message of aid.  Try as she might, she could not forget the first time she'd seen the Ibisian ruler, that cold statue of a man framed by the graceful black heads of carved ibises.  She could even recite every word of the message the Emperor had sent to his homeless counterpart, the message her teacher, First Herald Kedy, had delivered:

"Words are small things," Kedy had said, his voice an echo of the Emperor's deep, measured tone.  "They cannot possibly carry the weight of events, or convey anything but an outline of thoughts and feelings.  My sorrow and dismay I must give you in words, knowing that nothing I say can begin to alleviate your loss.  Instead, I offer you my welcome, people of the Land of the Ibis.  Farakkan is a wide and varied realm and the Bountiful Lady will gladly receive another people into her fold.  The Palladian Empire will give you a home."