‘Hanu,’ she whispered, ‘why are you here?’
He turned, peering down. With one gauntleted hand he made a shape and Saeng recognized it as one of their old hand-language signs, part of a system they had invented for silent communication.
‘Promise.’
‘Promise? Whatever do you mean, promise? Your promise to protect me? That?’
‘Coming,’ he signed.
‘Coming? So — they are coming.’ She stood, brushed the damp rotting humus from herself. ‘Well … what’s that to me?’
‘Danger.’
‘Danger? Why? Who am I-’ And she understood. The Thaumaturgs’ long hatred of their neighbour extended to denouncing and drowning any considered under her influence. No doubt she would be killed out of hand as a suspected witch and servant of the Demon-Queen. ‘So you-’ She cut herself off again, staring anew. ‘All the lost gods … you’ve run off … You deserted to warn me!’
‘Quiet.’
‘You great fool!’ she yelled. ‘How does this help? Now it’s your head they’ll want!’
He winced, signing again, ‘Quiet.’
‘Well this is just wonderful. Now we’re both fugitives.’
‘Yes.’
‘Perfect.’ She set her fists on her hips, eyeing him. She watched while he began refitting his helm. ‘Fine … we’ll need food. I’ll go find what I can.’
‘Hurry.’
‘Yes, yes.’ She padded back to the hut. Here she set to filling a sack with rice and collected all the preserved fish and vegetables she could find. Through it all her mother lay breathing wetly in her cot. For a moment Saeng considered waking her to say goodbye, but only for a moment. She’d make too much of a fuss.
Well … I yearned for this moment for so long and now that it’s here I don’t want it. I’m finally getting out of here but this is surely not the way I dreamed of it.
She threw together a bag of the sturdiest clothes she could find, plus sandals and bedding. From outside the hiss of a light rain brushed against the grass walls. Wonderful. And in the rainy season, too.
She collected an umbrella of thin wood and set off into the mist.
Hanu joined her in the dark. He pointed then signed a question, indicating obviously enough, ‘Which way?’
Under the umbrella, Saeng clutched her bag to herself and bit her lip. Yes, which way? Steeling herself, she extended her awareness outwards farther than she ever had dared before. It expanded to encompass the village, its surrounding garden plots, and the outlying fields and further fallow wildlands that constituted their outlying holdings. It swept onward over neighbouring villages’ wilds and fields, then the modest hamlets themselves. Like thinning ripples its furthest leading edge now brushed up against something far to the west — a sizzling unfamiliar power that repelled her mild questing like a thick wall of dressed stone.
The army of the Thaumaturgs. And not just passing by in their litters or carts on their mysterious errands. Marching with defences raised and powers unfurled.
‘North, I think. We can let them pass by, then return.’
Hanu simply peered down at her, signing nothing. She felt his mute scepticism. Irritated, she scanned the dense fronds and hanging vines while the light rain pattered down around them as the faintest hint of the downpours to come. She waved him to follow. ‘This way.’
* * *
Murken Warrow, known in Untan black-market circles as ‘Murk’, narrowed his already unusually thin eyes on the coast of desert dunes and the forest of strange pillar-like stone markers, then shifted that dubious gaze to his partner Hint, known as ‘Sour’. Together, the duo had achieved a level of notoriety unhealthy in their line of work. They had even come to be pointed out in the streets of Unta as … well, as Murk and Sour. By then it was long past a prudent time to leave the city — as their arrest proved.
‘I don’t like it,’ Sour said.
Hands stuffed into the pockets of his vest, Murk rolled his eyes to the overcast sky and let out a great sigh of long-suffering and annoyance. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
‘Got a bad feeling ’bout this contract.’
‘No kidding.’
‘Gonna end in tears.’
‘As always,’ Murk answered beneath his breath as he squinted to the stern deck where the sponsor of their current contract was speaking with the ship’s captain.
‘Miss Nibs is gonna be the death of us,’ Sour continued, aware of his partner’s shift in attention.
‘Only if you keep makin’ passes at her.’
‘It’s those legs o’ hers. They just go on forever.’
Murk grunted his agreement at that. The woman wore the most amazing outfits: tall leather boots as high as her knees, tight trousers, a shape-hugging leather hauberk over a lacy white silk shirt. She looked like someone’s fever dream out of a bordello. But the sword strapped to her belt was well worn, and early in the voyage a single punch from her had floored one of the mercenaries for some suggestive remark, real or imagined.
Most oddly, she insisted on the name Spite.
Murk smiled now in remembrance of Sour’s remark when she’d given that name. Sour had screwed up his frog eyes and asked, “Would that be Miss or Mrs Spite?” Sometimes the squirrelly guy really did crack him up.
Orders sounded and the crew began readying the launch and unstowing cargo. ‘Something tells me we’re gonna earn our pay on this one,’ Sour said. Murk let a breath hiss between clenched lips. ‘Gonna be hairy.’
‘Enough! Would you just — keep it to yourself for a change?’
Sour pulled at the tiny tuft of a beard he kept on his chin, frowned while he eyed the coast. ‘Might not make it out.’
Murk clenched the railing and hung his head in defeat.
The mercenaries went first to secure the landing. They were a scruffy lot Spite said she picked up on the southern coast of Genabackis. Pirate territory, that. None of them admitted to taking imperial coin. But he could tell they had served their time — though he had yet to call any of them on it, as the same could be said for him and Sour. Their leader, Yusen he gave as his name, smelled especially of officer material. Had that demeanour: that old familiar you’re an idiot look he gave them whenever they had anything to say.
Reminded him of their days as imperial mage cadre.
Not much later the scouts returned to the shore to sign the all-clear and the unloading of equipment began.
They watched the ship’s crew and the mercenaries busy unstowing the crates and sacks, lowering them to the launch, and arranging them in the bobbing craft.
Some time into the process Murk became aware of the tall slim figure of their employer, Spite, at his side, her arms crossed and her eyes, an amazing rich golden hazel, on them. He nudged Sour and they touched their brows. ‘Ma’am.’
‘Things would go much quicker if everyone lent a hand.’
‘Just keepin’ an eye out for trouble,’ Sour volunteered.
One shapely eyebrow arched. ‘Really? When I hired you — or should I say rescued you? — from certain arrest and imprisonment in Unta, I was under the impression that you were not a mage of Ruse. Are you a mage of Ruse?’
Sour lowered his confused gaze and kicked at the decking. ‘No, ma’am.’
‘Then tell me — how could you be any help here at sea should there be any … trouble?’
The squat mage raised his head, his mouth open to speak, paused, frowned as he reconsidered, and scratched his scalp instead.
Spite continued: ‘I want you two to go ashore and reconnoitre.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And do not enter the circle of the dolmens, yes?’