What do you think? she left lying on the surface of her thoughts.
:I think that I sense deception in her, but no harm. Whatever is going on here, she intends nothing unfortunate for us, nor does she foresee anything unfortunate.:
Hmm . . .
Nanca dug into her saddlebags and passed over journey bread to both of them. Tarma gnawed on it while she thought, looking and not-looking at the Gate. In the end, it was her full stomach that decided her. Nanca was certainly right about that part.
“Let’s go.”
Now it was Nanca who hesitated a moment, but before she could say anything, Tarma was already drawing her sword and parrying-dagger, and looping Ironheart’s reins through the pommel hold on the saddle. She felt Ironheart shift under her into full alertness, ready to answer to leg and weight-shift signals rather than rein. She heard the sound of Need clearing her sheath and knew that Kethry was doing the same.
She turned her attention to their employer. “Shin’a’in proverb,” she said. “It is better to prepare for an ambush and look foolish than not and look dead.”
Nanca smiled broadly, and gestured. “In that case, after you.”
Warrl went through first. Gates were probably Tarma’s least favorite way to travel, and thus far she had only had to endure two. This was the third and, as usual, it was horrible. There was a sense of dislocation with the world, the bottom dropping out of everything, a freezing cold that wasn’t really cold, blackness like the inside of the head, and a myriad of other sensations, all awful, that passed too quickly to be identified.
Then they were on the other side. There was an ambush.
Warrl had already gone after them; the ambushers must not have counted on anything that wasn’t human because he already had control of the group locked down. With a harsh Shin’a’in war-cry, Tarma waded in.
And it had to be the strangest bunch she had ever fought.
Somebody’s retainers, because they were identically dressed. Buff trews, red surcoats, chainmail. Three archers, already down, and a dozen swordsmen.
But what was strange was the way they fought.
Exactly alike.
Every one of them had the same four-move fighting pattern. Overhand slash, shield block, underhand thrust, parry. Absolutely the same and in the same order. Once she realized that, Tarma had them down in no time.
And realized the second thing. No blood.
“Automata,” said Kethry. “Constructs.” And she looked directly at Nanca.
Nanca nodded. “These are the simplest. There will be more. I was about to warn you there might be an ambush, but you were already preparing for one, so I kept my mouth shut.”
Now Tarma looked out at the land on the other side of the Gate, and found it no different than the part of the Pelagirs they had just passed through. Wooded hills. Plenty of places for more ambushes. The one difference was the nice, clear road that cut through the woods.
She looked at it and sighed. “I suppose we have to stick to the road?”
Nanca nodded. “It would be a very, very bad idea to get off the road,” she said. “The landscape itself is not predictable once you get off the road. And at the same time, it’s too predictable.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Tarma asked, frowning.
“That features can appear and vanish at random, sometimes,” Nanca told her. “But worse than that, landmarks . . . repeat. So that you can’t tell where you are.”
“Landmarks repeat.” Tarma got a bewildering vision of identical trees, identical rock formations, repeating over and over again like decorative tiles and suddenly—
“Bloody hell.” She blinked, and looked straight at Nanca as all of the pieces came together. “This is a game. And your colleague is really your opponent. And this—” she waved her hand at the landscape, “—is a giant playing board.”
“Ha!” Rather than being offended, Nanca seemed delighted. “By the gods, you are smart ones!”
“And you can’t tell us because that would violate the rules,” Kethry said slowly.
Nanca nodded.
“But us figuring it out for ourselves is fine.” Rather than feeling offended, Tarma was actually delighted. “Has anyone done this before?”
“I’ve never brought fellow players in here before,” Nanca said, her eyes now very bright with interest. “Only the two constructs I’m allowed as helpers. But there was nothing in the rules that said I could not bring fellow players in, and when my constructs met an untimely end before I could enter the game-space—I thought maybe I would try putting out a gentle magical probe for help.” She raised her eyebrow. “My friend and I invented this to keep each other sharp, but I must tell you that I would not have permitted either of you to come to serious harm. Practice is one thing, Being hurt—we both have ways to bring the game to an end. Still.” She pursed her lips. “This game is timed, and we are already late. And it does get a great deal tougher, the closer we get to our goal.”
Tarma felt a wide grin spreading over her face. “Let’s see if we can win this thing, shall we?”
Now that they knew what to expect, Tarma concentrated on understanding the logic laws by which the constructed opponents they met operated. She sent Warrl out ahead, knowing that whatever he found was all they would have to worry about for the moment. And one of the first laws she determined was that there was a set distance at which the constructs “noticed” them.
They sat their horses just outside that predetermined distance and watched the constructed ambush party stand there like so many mannequins, while Tarma assessed them, and worked up a strategy. “The usual, I think,” she said finally. “You sweep in from the left flank, Kethry. I’ll come in from the right. Warrl circles around and comes in from behind—”
“Ah!” Nanca nodded before Tarma could add the last. “And I keep their attention from the front, because I have better ability to strike from a distance. I’d never tried that before, but then, my constructs were never bright enough to operate with a lot of reliable independence.”
“Heh. That’s encouraging, then,” Tarma said, with a grin. “Let’s see if this works.”
“Be prepared to retreat if you have to,” Nanca urged. “There’s no shame in that.”
Kethry sighed and grimaced. “You just told a Shin’a’in Swordsworn that there is no shame in retreat. This is a trifle like telling the village drunk that there is no shame in putting the wine bottle down and walking away from the tavern.”
Nanca laughed as Tarma made a face of her own. “I’m not that bad,” she protested. Then added, “Am I?”
Kethry’s silence and significant stare were answer enough. Tarma flushed. “Let’s just do this, shall we?” was all she managed to say.
It would not be fair to say that they cut across the landscape like a team of experienced mowers across a hayfield. Nanca had been correct; the closer they got to their goal, the more difficult and numerous the foes became. And the closer to their goal, the more magician-constructs also appeared, designed specifically to neutralize or at least occupy Nanca herself.
This were the most clever and the closest to actual intelligence and Tarma was very glad that she and Kethry were not the ones directly facing the things. They were not coming out of this unscathed, that much was certain, too. At the end of each battle, they were at the very least completely exhausted. And the injuries they got were quite real. Yes, Nanca could and did heal them almost immediately, but they did hurt, and they did incapacitate.
But Tarma, at least, was finding something exhilarating about this. It was like having the perfect training scenario. You didn’t learn anything in fighting by not getting hurt, after all.