The Way Into Chaos (20 page)

“Not an auspicious start, is it?” By the firelight, Tejohn could see that Lar had a crooked grin on his face.
He’s smiling so he doesn’t go mad.
It was good they were away from other tyrs and generals. They would never understand. Tejohn himself didn’t even understand, not really.
 

“I’ve had worse, my king,” Tejohn said truthfully. “We’ll be able to take better stock of our situation in the daylight, but if the cart is not salvageable, we’ll have to make for the next fort. Perhaps we can get another flying cart, but that’s a lot to hope for. We need provisions, at least.”
 

“Can we go through the mountains?”

“No, my king,” Arla spoke up from the fire. “There are paths, of course, but they change every year due to ice and landslide. Besides, there are deadly enemies up here, the least of which are Durdric raiders.”

“Durdric?” Lar said. “Not this far east, surely.”

Tejohn agreed with the king, but Arla shook her head. “Not in great numbers, no, but the Durdric are a mountain people. They range all through the Southern Barrier. It would be best for us to descend to the Sweeps, as we’d originally planned. It’s a less direct route, but it would still be quicker.” She cleared her throat. “People disappear in these mountains.”
 

“I wonder why,” Farrabell said, cradling his arm.

Lar turned to Tejohn. “Shall we venture back into the valley to look for Doctor Eelhook?”
 

“I don’t think there’s much use, my king. I doubt we’ll find a body.”

“We should still try,” the king said. “What if she’s cowering in the dark out there?”

Tejohn had heard a great many death cries in his life, and he was sure the scholar had uttered hers. “If you wish, my king.”

“Now you’re humoring me.” The king turned away and looked up at the mountain above them, where they’d heard the terrible smacking noise.

One of the raptors had flown straight into the cliff face. One of its wings was bent over its back, and it wasn’t moving at all.
 

“That kill counts as yours, my king. I don’t know of anyone who could claim bigger game.”
 

Lar didn’t seem pleased by that. “Game? They dropped a tree on us, Tyr Treygar, a very large tree that would certainly require teamwork to carry. Does that seem like the action of a dumb animal?”
 

“I’ve seen gulls do something similar, my king,” Wimnel said. “Last summer, when I flew trips to Rivershelf and the Bay of Stones, I saw seagulls drop clams onto shore rocks to get at the meat inside.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Lar said. “Thank you. But assuming these beasts were trying to crack the shell of a flying oyster, I can’t figure why they’d bother. The meat had already climbed out and was lounging beside the fire.”

“True,” Tejohn said. All this talk was making him uncomfortable. He turned his back to the fire so he could watch for movement out in the darkness. The king’s words had given weight to his own suspicions. The raptors had attacked as a unit and they had adapted their strategy for their second run. What if they flew to the mountainside above and dislodged a pile of rocks? Would the group be able to flee an actual avalanche? “Perhaps,” Tejohn added, “our flying vehicle offended their delicate sensibilities.”
 

“Fire and Fury,” Arla said.
 

Reglis finally spoke up. “You talk about them as though they have intelligence.”

“Yes,” the king said. “We do.”

Wimnel cleared his throat. “The king should name them. He killed the first one, and... Well, he’s the king. My king, you should choose their name.”

The king laughed. “How about ‘Larsbane’?”

“No!” Tejohn said, startled by his own vehemence. He stalked up the hill toward the raptor, sheathing his sword and casting his shield aside as he went. The bird had struck the mountain well above the place where it had settled, but the ground beneath his feet was still steep. Tejohn caught hold of the wing stretched across its broken back and pulled, hoping to roll the body downhill.
 

It didn’t move. He strained harder and only succeeded in plucking out a handful of huge feathers. It was too big. No matter. He changed his grip and climbed up onto the beast, crawling on his hands and knees across its back.
 

The body shifted under him in a vaguely sickening way. Great Way, but it had broken so many bones. Worse, it was hot--so hot, it felt feverish to his touch.
 

Again, no matter. As Tejohn settled on the far side of the raptor, he placed his back against the mountain and kicked at the beast with his boots. It rocked back slightly--Fire and Fury, but it was heavy--and the momentum was impaired by the wet-bag-of-sticks feel of the corpse, but the slope was steep and the beast yielded to him, flopping onto its back.
 

Tejohn fell on it with his dagger, slashing deep into its breast. The meat was thick and he had to tear at it to pull it open. He needed a second slash to reach bone.

“My Tyr!” Lar called. “What are you doing up there?”

“Giving this beast a worthy name,” he called back. “Arla, what’s your native tongue?”

“What? Peradaini, my tyr!”

“Nonsense. You speak Peradaini very well, but you trill your R’s slightly. I suspect, like many servant classes, your family raised you in your own language. What is it? Don’t be afraid; it will not be a strike against you, not out here and not when we return.”

Arla’s voice was slightly quieter when she spoke next. “I grew up speaking Chin-Chinro with my family. But they also taught me Peradaini.”
 

“They would have to, if they were working with a scholar. Is Chin-Chinro the language of these valleys?”

“It is, my tyr, here and to the east.”

Tejohn had pulled the flesh away from the breastbone. He was tempted to saw it off and throw it toward the campfire, but that would be better done by daylight. Luckily, the rib bones were broken as well, saving him some trouble. He began to rip them out one by one. “Tell me, then: how do you say ‘Meal for a King’ in Chin-Chinro?”

The scout had to think for a moment; obviously, it had been a long time. Tejohn pulled out two more broken rib bones and plunged his hands into the cavity. The flesh was nearly hot enough to scald, but he found the beast’s heart easily enough, and he cut it free just as easily. Fire and Fury, it was almost as big as his head.

“It would have to be ‘Chieftain’s Portion,’ my tyr,” Arla said. “
Ruh-grit.
”

Tejohn clambered down the hill toward Lar. “What say you, my king? I think it sounds fine, if we stress the second syllable. ‘Ruhgrit.’ To you, Lar Italga, I present the heart of the monster you slew.”

Lar was staring at Tejohn with wild eyes. Then, suddenly, he burst into a bright, throaty laugh. His voice rang out, echoing through the valley as though he had no fear of being heard. The king snatched the heart from Tejohn’s bloody grip, and he bit down hard at the edge and tore off a chunk of wet meat.
 

The laughter continued as he chewed, muffled by his full mouth. He swallowed and took another bite.
 

Assuming they lived through this journey, the story would spread throughout the empire. King slays monstrous bird... No, call it an eagle. King slays monstrous eagle with his magic and devours its heart, laughing. That would give weight to the journey they were undertaking and would rally support once the boy had learned this deadly new spell.
Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.
At least for a while longer. At least until they could turn the tide against the grunts.
 

Lar turned away from Tejohn and held up the heart for the others to see it. For a moment, the king stood between Tejohn and the campfire, and Tejohn swore he saw something sticking out from beneath the flannel underpadding of the king’s cuirass. It was only a glimpse, but Tejohn could have sworn that he could see, right on Lar’s shoulder where he had been bitten by the grunt, a tuft of blue fur.

Chapter 12

This time, Cazia had planned ahead. Instead of letting the guards drag her back into the fort for their midday meal, she had packed food. It galled her that she had to bring a
picnic
to the search for her brother’s body, but it seemed to be necessary. She hadn’t told her two minders until mealtime, and neither looked particularly happy. Soldiers loved hot food, and the ones sent to “help” her seemed to have little enthusiasm for anything else.

The woman was named Peraday; apparently, it was a custom in the hinterlands for citizens anxious to prove their loyalty to the empire to name their children after the Morning City. The man was named Zollik, and he had little to say about himself or any other subject. Cazia had a powerful suspicion that he imagined himself silent and irresistible, but Cazia thought he seemed like a fool.
 

Both were fleet squad scouts. Cazia had not expected to find a squad—even a small one—inside a fort, but Peraday explained that the fort was more than just the walls and towers. There were outposts as well, and they regularly sent patrols through the mountains.
 

That meant they had steel caps but not cuirasses or greaves. Their quilted jackets looked warm, but Cazia preferred her wool cloak. It kept the wind off and she could open it whenever clambering over rocks made her break out in a sweat.
 

Which was often. She knew her brother had been attacked on the eastern end of the north wall--that was where the servants were scrubbing his blood--but how close to the cliff face was it? She’d returned to the top of the wall to mark the spot somehow, but all bloodstains had been cleaned away, even on the outside.
 

So, now she was outside the wall, going by instinct and guesswork to try to judge where the attack had taken place. The guards could have helped, but they didn’t. She could have asked them to, but she didn’t. They obviously resented her for making them stand in the rain, and she resented their unwillingness to exert themselves at all. They only times they talked were when Peraday scolded her for climbing too far.
 

The climbing was the most frustrating thing of all. Of course, she’d seen the tumble of boulders from the wall, but she hadn’t appreciated just how hard it would be to cross them. The black, jagged rocks lay piled against the other, some sticking straight up, some steeply angled. Within two hours, the nearly flat rocks that she could stand on comfortably had become like good friends, and the ones she had to scramble across on her hands and knees--or worse, actually climb like a fence--were bitter Enemies.

But she had no choice. Colchua’s body could have fallen into any number of niches or gaps. His body hadn’t been visible from up high, so she had to check each rock, searching all around it before moving on to the next.
 

It was tiring work, and she might have finished yesterday if the guards had been willing to scrape their hands and knees climbing the stones with her. Instead, they hopped from one friend to another, keeping close to the road, singing stupid old campaigning songs and calling for her not to stray too far.
 

She’d assumed that Col had fallen from the wall, but what if he’d been thrown? She’d seen grunts climbing and leaping, not to mention swinging a soldier like a cudgel. Yes, she’d spent all of yesterday searching near the wall, with no luck at all, but she wasn’t going to give up. Today, she’d search farther out. And farther tomorrow, if she had to.

So, at midday when the guards called to her, she disappointed them by opening her pack and bringing out preserved apricots and rice loaves filled with scant bits of lamb. They were travel rations and quite salty, but everyone ate without complaining aloud, and Cazia made sure to refill the waterskin twice to wash it down.
 

Just as they were cleaning up, Peraday cleared her throat. Zollik hopped from their good friend to one closer to the road, then squatted low, watching the horizons. Cazia looked into Peraday’s face and she knew she wouldn’t like what the woman was about to say. Why else would Zollik pretend to give them privacy? Cazia felt her anger stirring.

“Miss Freewell,” the soldier said. Her voice was much gentler than Cazia expected. “You know already that your brother isn’t out here, don’t you?”

Fire and Fury, she was actually pretending to be nice. “No, I
don’t
know that! And maybe if you two were willing to
help me
rather than stand around leaning on your spears—”

“So, you don’t know, then,” Peraday interrupted. Her voice was still kind, but she would not allow Cazia to forestall what she had to say. “Zollik was right. I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t want to do this.”

Peraday shrugged off her pack and peeled it open. She took out a bit of gray meat wrapped in a tattered rag. It must have smelled awful, but the winds carried the scent away. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Peraday gave her a kind but implacable look, then threw the meat, rag and all, out into the rocks.
 

“Five years ago, the Indregai tried to storm this fort. They claim the Sweeps to the north and both the Samsit and Piskatook passes.”