The Way Into Chaos (31 page)

“My tyr, may I ask a question?”
 

Her brow was furrowed and the crinkle lines around her eyes were deep. She had to work up some courage for the question she wanted to ask, and Tejohn couldn’t deny her. “If it’s quick.”

“Just how short is your vision?”

She wanted to know if he was a liability. No surprise. “So short that I have only held a bow once, and it was taken from me before I could loose a single arrow. So short that I was turned away by Splashtown First when I was a boy. So short that people mistake my inability to see the strength of my enemies for bravery.”

It was the only jest Tejohn told, and he used to tell it to make friends with other spears. It worked here, too; Arla laughed.
 

“Yes, my tyr. How do you want to proceed?”
 

“Under cover of darkness,” he answered. “Keep watch. If you see the gates open, alert me. I’ll have provisions brought to you. We will need your input on the strategy we come up with.”

“Yes, my tyr,” she said as Tejohn slipped back toward the rest of the group.
 

It took very little time to explain the situation to the others, who had settled themselves down to their mid day meal. Lar devoured his meatbread like a starving man, but spit out the bits of apricot and onion. He seemed to be paying little attention to Tejohn’s description of the camp.
 

Reglis and Wimnel listened with great intent. “I can command men,” Reglis said, frowning. “But I have never been trained in strategy.”

“Neither have the imperial generals,” Tejohn said. “They just copy each other. Put that aside for now. We must wait for nightfall, then try to take possession of their sleepstone for the king.”

Wimnel absent-mindedly touched his broken arm. “How can I help?”

“Even if you were healthy, I’d tell you to stay well back with the king. You haven’t been trained for this.”

“Soon,” the king said. He sat hunched over and tense, as though expecting a whipping. He began moving his hands in front of his knees, and a trickle of clear water appeared just beyond his fingers. “Soon.”

“I’m sorry, my king. We will do our best.”
 

“What if nightfall takes too long to come?” Reglis said. “I am willing to risk a charge during daylight, if the king requires it.”
 

“With so few?” Wimnel said weakly.

“Yes,” Reglis said. His scowl had deepened and his big, scarred knuckles whitened on the shaft of his spear as though he intended to throttle it. “As a diversion, if need be.”
 

Tejohn spoke in a low, calm voice, willing the young soldier to settle down. “I’ll keep that in mind if it’s necessary.”
 

Reglis took a deep breath but it wasn’t enough to ease his mind. “What if we can not take the camp? Or there is no sleepstone within?”

“Kill. Me.” Lar’s voice was low and harsh. “Bless the bl-- Blessings—” The king ground his teeth, unable to speak further without saying nonsense.
 

Wimnel laid his good hand on Lar’s shoulder. “It won’t come to that.” He offered the rest of his ration to the king, who tore into it.

Tejohn did his best to keep his face impassive. “No man will ever call me
kingkiller
. We will do what we must to serve the throne, and we will succeed. Reglis, how are your eyes?”
 

“Strong, my tyr.”

“Take off your cap and join Arla. I want your best estimate of the enemy’s strength.”
 

The big man nodded and crept forward along the path. Tejohn sat near the king. Lar had curled himself up into a ball, his knees under his chin, his hands clasped in front of his shins. Once in a while, he would begin the arcane movements that would cause water to trickle from his hands into the dirt at his feet, or sometimes cause a nearby rock to crumble. The spells delayed the change, he’d told them, but it what would happen when it could no longer be held back?
 

Tejohn held his spear in his lap, point aimed at Lar. Once the king transformed, would Tejohn still owe loyalty and service to him, or would he be nothing more than another grunt? Tejohn hoped he would never have to make that choice.
 

The king bared his teeth as though he was suffering from terrible stomach pain. Suddenly, he looked very like a young soldier Tejohn had known twenty-four years before, when he was a young soldier himself. The two of them had been cut off from their square somewhere south of Deep Stone Lake. Tejohn had been uninjured, but the other spear—barely older than a boy--had taken an arrow in the guts. They’d stayed up all night talking in low whispers. They’d been strangers, but by the time the fellow died at dawn, they knew each other quite well.
 

Now Tejohn couldn’t remember the young man’s name. That night had changed Tejohn’s view of the world--of soldiers, war, and heroism--but although he could recall the man’s round, moonlit face as he gritted his teeth against the pain, refusing to cry out and give away their position, Tejohn could not recall his name.
 

Song forgive me. He deserved better.

The day faded slowly. Tejohn could not see the mountains clearly, but he could see their colors as the sunset light filled the valley. Everything became beautiful, like a multicolored fog, and he wondered how it seemed to those whose vision was sharp. The king spent most of that time casting spells, slowly exhausting himself without ever standing off the ground.
 

The western end of the valley still had a faint glow of pink when Reglis returned.
 

“Arla and I agree that there are at least twelve fighters.”

“Fire and Fury.” Tejohn was good with a spear and especially with his sword, but three against “at least” twelve would never work, even if their enemies were not behind a wall. “Have any good news?”

The young man shrugged. “They’re drinking.”

Tejohn clapped Reglis’s shoulder and returned to Arla’s position. Of course, he still couldn’t see the camp, especially since the slow-fading day had suddenly become twilight, but he could see a fire going in the courtyard.

“My tyr,” Arla said. “There are six men around the fire, and each has their own jug. Sometimes, another man will join them, and he carries two jugs, which he shares. The Durdric like their drink.”

“Guards?”

“Two have been summoned to watch, my tyr. One on the wall near us, one on the far side. The near one keeps a jug that he sneaks drinks from. The other is too far to be certain.”
 

Tejohn sighed with relief. “A well-stocked wine cellar will even the odds a bit, in time.”

They crouched together at the base of the hill, Arla giving a running description of the fighters’ actions: when they wavered on their feet, when they staggered away to empty their bladders, when they fell into fistfights. It was the last one that interested Tejohn the most. He demanded to know how many men came to watch, how clumsily they fought, and who celebrated by tipping back a jug. Even from their place at the dip of the hill, they could hear the drinking songs.
 

Eventually, the Durdric lay upon the ground or staggered away from the fire, and the songs died away. Had midnight come? Tejohn was not good at judging the hour of the night. He and Arla began to discuss how she could best approach the camp and take out the guards with her bow.

Finally, Lar surprised them all by creeping up to their forward position. “Bless—” he said, then, after much struggle, forced himself to say “Now.”

“My king,” Tejohn said, “if we give them another hour, I think—”

But Lar had already taken a dart from his quiver. He stepped to the top of the hill, exposing himself to the guards below. His hands were already in motion.
 

Tejohn waved a hand at Reglis, stopping him from grabbing hold of the king and dragging him out of sight. They were too far to take this shot, of course they were, but Lar was still the king, Fire take them, and his will was law.
 

The spell went off, and the dart sped away from them at tremendous speed. It sounded faster than anything Tejohn had ever heard in his life.
 

“Hit,” Arla said. She lay across the top of the hill beside the king, staring below.

“Which way did he fall?” Tejohn whispered.

“Forward,” she answered. “Out of the camp. That was the near guard.”

Lar was already casting again. When he finished, this second dart sped away from them with that same hissing, rushing sound.
 

“Hit again,” Arla said. “Great Way, I’ve never seen such a shot in my life. A second hit. The far guard has fallen onto the walkway at the top of the wall. I don’t see anyone moving in the camp in response.”

Tejohn put on his steel cap. “Let’s start killing.”

Tejohn saw Arla and Reglis fall in behind him, each holding their bow and spear. Wimnel took Lar’s sleeve and urged him to stay. Good.

No one called the alarm as they ran down the trail. No one shot arrows at them or waved signal fires. They reached the gate without incident and found it shut.

Reglis lowered his big shoulder as though he was about to throw his massive body against the gate, but Tejohn held up a hand to stop him. The doors did not meet exactly in the center, and Tejohn pressed his eye against the gap. He couldn’t see well, but the fire burning in the yard was bright against the darkness. He bent low, peering through the gap, until he saw the bar holding the gates together.
 

Fire and Fury, he had been hoping the Durdric had broken the bar without repairing it. No matter. He took Regis by the shoulders and steered him to the place the wall met the gate. “Hands braced on the wall,” he whispered, and the young captain did so.
 

He turned to Arla. “Over the top, quietly, without raising the alarm. Open the gate for us.” He spoke to both of them. “I don’t want to hear a single sound until every enemy is dead. This is not a test of honor, arms, and skill,
 
understand? Tonight, we are assassins.”
 

Reglis sighed as though he’d lifted a heavy burden, but Arla only nodded and let Tejohn boost her onto the captain’s back. She peeked over the top of the gate, then slid over. Tejohn wished she’d taken longer to look over the scene, but she freed the bolt and slid it back.
 

Reglis followed Tejohn inside. Their boots scraped against the loose rock scattered over the yard, but in the Sweeps, the noise of the wind overwhelmed all.
 

Finstel corpses lay carelessly piled beside the eastern wall: guards, servants, civilians all mingled together. He could see no children—a tiny, unexpected kindness—and the corpses appeared to have been butchered. Most of them had been killed by the same downward stroke, probably while kneeling. Probably executed after they’d tried to surrender.

Stretched out by the fire were seven more bodies, all with two or three jugs beside them, and all snoring loudly. They wore goatskin robes and had seashells woven into their beards. Arla watched Tejohn carefully. Reglis was just a few steps behind.
 

Tejohn knew what they needed. He passed his spear to his shield hand, drew his three-hands-long sword and chopped hard across the throat of the nearest man.
 

He died without even a gurgle. As if given permission, Reglis cut the throat of the man beside him and Arla slid quietly into the barracks, drawing her knife.

It might not have worked if not for the continuous roar of the wind and the emptied jugs of wine. The men by the fire died quickly, and Arla killed twice as many while they slept in the darkness of the barrack rooms.
 

The far end of the yard by the water tables was already littered with bodies, most of them wearing the rags of servant laborers, but some in the unadorned gear of civilian guards. Reglis found a separate room at the south end of the barracks with a dead man on the threshold. The man wore scholar’s robes.
 

Tejohn stepped over the dead man and scanned the interior of the room, which was lit by a glowing stone. The sleepstone was there, along with piles of trunks and baskets and a gurgling water pipe that ran from the ceiling through the floor.
 

But there were no fighters, so Tejohn moved across the yard. The animal pens--covered recently with a makeshift roof--contained only animals, but the doors to the warehouse had been broken down, and while there were no lights inside, Tejohn could hear the snores of two men. He took his time, let his eyes adjust to this new level of darkness, then slit both of their throats.

Arla and Regis met him at the doorway to the warehouse. Regis was breathing heavily through his mouth, but Arla seemed almost to glide through the darkness. In the moonlight, her bloody hands looked black.
 

Tejohn understood what she felt; he, too, was full of the thrill of
taking
. It was not a happy feeling. He would never share it with Laoni or their kids, but it made him feel huge and powerful.
 

“The tower is last,” Tejohn whispered. “The tower door is open and looks to be unguarded. We can see firelight inside, but no silhouettes. Not yet. Am I right, guide?” She nodded. “We’ll finish this in there.”

Arla nodded her head, her wide eyes shining in the moonlight. Reglis shrugged his shoulders. “My tyr,” he whispered, hefting his spear. “I will enter first.”

Tejohn took his spear from him and laid it on the stony ground beside his own. “You’ll follow me, and be sharp about it. Guide, nock an arrow and keep close.”
 

Tejohn leaned away from the warehouse and peered at the tower windows. The upper floor was dark, but light flickered behind the open door. Tejohn hurried forward, the thrill of killing already fading. He lifted his shield high and held his sword close to his chest, point forward.
 

The entryway was deep, of course, as deep as the thickness of the stone walls. Tejohn came to the edge of the inner chamber, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.