Atreus swung his feet into the corridor, then looked back to see Yago's hand hanging through a hole in the ceiling. The ogre was smashing a hapless guard about the hallway as though the man's body were a war-hammer.
"Yago!" Atreus called. "Come on."
The ogre dropped his victim, then pulled his hand back through the ceiling and disappeared behind the roof line. An instant later he came hurtling across the alley, flailing his arms and legs as though he were trying to fly. Atreus took an instant to judge where Yago would land, then grabbed Rishi's ankle and jerked him back toward the window.
"Good sir!" Rishi screeched. "Good sir, I am not some sack of rice to be dragged-"
The ceiling exploded into a spray of splinters and plaster. then Yago crashed down where Rishi had been sitting a moment before. The floor bucked and shook from the impact of the ogre's ten-foot body, and Rishi's indignation turned to shock.
"In the name of the Forgotten Ones!" he gasped, peering over his shoulder.
Yago groaned, then rolled onto his back and began to look around the dusty corridor. "Hey," he said, "I made it "
Something struck the tenement wall behind Atreus. He looked back to see a guard standing in the window opposite, accepting a fresh dagger from one of his fellows.
"We're not out of the city yet," Atreus said, grabbing the basket from Rishi's hands and spinning around, holding it up before him. "Yago, will you get going?"
As the ogre rolled to his knees, Rishi slipped past and led the way down the hall. Atreus backed after them, holding the basket up like a shield. This did not prevent the angry guard from hurling several more daggers through the window. The knives were hardly balanced for throwing, but one managed to lodge itself in the basket and another tumbled past perilously close to Yago's back.. At last, Rishi turned a corner and ducked down a stairwell, and Atreus finally had time to take note of the foreign sounds and smells of the building. From behind every door came melodic Maran jabber. The upper floors, used primarily for residences, smelled-perhaps even stank-of exotic cooking spices. Every now and then the trio had to squeeze past a small group of Mar coming up the stairs. The men clapped at Yago and stared at Atreus's face with open hostility. The women retreated to the landing below and let them pass, blushing and averting their eyes. The children gasped in open awe of Yago's size, then hissed and clapped their hands to ward off Atreus and his "wickedness." By the time the trio reached the ground floor, Atreus felt happy to have grown up among the Shield-breakers. At least Yago's sons and nephews had considered his unfortunate looks nothing worse than an excuse to start a good fight.
When they reached the ground floor, Rishi led the way through an open poultry market into a narrow lane. Atreus was so turned around that until a pair of Mar wandered past carrying a long plank, he did not recognize it as the same alley over which he had been hanging a few minutes earlier.
"Over here, my banana-loving friend!"
The call came from a short distance down the alley, where a round-faced Mar with a waxed mustache sat in the driver's seat of a large covered wagon. He was a plump man, about the same size and shape as the shadowy figure who had thrown the banana into the Howdah. Hitched to the man's wagon were two of the strangest oxen Atreus had ever seen. They had narrow, cow like faces with curved horns as long as a man's arm, and their bodies were hidden head-to-hoof beneath shaggy skirts of golden-black hair.
Rishi draped his hand around Atreus's elbow in the overly familiar way of the Mar and led him toward the cart.
"Bharat, my good friend! This is the unfortunate gentleman I was telling you about, and this is his large servant." Rishi gestured at Yago. "Is everything ready?"
"Yes, yes, just as you asked. Hide yourselves beneath my carpets, and we are on our way to Langdarma." Bharat smiled too eagerly, displaying teeth as white as snow, then nodded to Yago. "I brought my largest wagon, but even so, I fear you will have to fold your legs."
Rishi started toward the back of the cart, but Atreus made no move to follow.
"We're going to Langdarma in an oxcart?" he asked.
Rishi feigned a look of shock. "But of course! Surely, you did not think we could take your elephant?"
CHAPTER 4
Bharat's carpet wagon had nearly crested the front range of the Yehimal Mountains when the Queen's Guard finally caught up to it. The riders, mounted on shaggy mountain ponies about the size of a good war dog, traveled lightly, with little more than sabers, haversacks, and long woolen hauberks that served as both coat and armor. Behind them, three days back and a thousand switchbacks down the wooded mountainside, lay the misty forests of Edenvale. The capital itself was still visible, a tiny dun-colored circle on the far horizon.
The guards, all rugged-faced Mar accustomed to the rigors of mountain travel, urged their ponies into a trot, surrounding the wagon on all sides. Bharat feigned surprise and reached for the axe beneath his seat, as though mistaking the riders for a company of road bandits.
"We are the Queen's Men, driver," said the leader. He spoke in Thorass to indicate he was on official business. "You have nothing to fear from us, unless you are the one hiding Ysdar's devil and his murderous servants-and if you are, you will not escape us anyway. Let us have a look in your cart."
Bharat glanced around at the riders, then sighed and reluctantly reined his strange oxen-the beasts were called "yaks"-to a halt. "I have no devils with me," he said plainly. "I will show you."
Bharat wrapped the reins around a seat brace and turned to crawl into the cargo area, but the leader swung his lance down to block the way.
"We will look ourselves. This devil is very clever and dangerous. Perhaps he and his servants slipped into your cart when you were not looking. I would not want you injured."
Bharat turned his palms to the sky, shrugging, and sat back down. A dozen riders dismounted, passing their lances and reins to their fellows, then stepped to the rear of the wagon. Half of them drew their sabers and stood ready to attack. The others began to drag Bharat's carpets out of the cargo bed, unrolling each one and tossing it into the middle of the muddy road.
"What are you doing?" Bharat exclaimed. "That is my whole fortune!"
"A little dirt will do no harm to a good carpet," the leader replied.
"But why is it necessary to unroll them all?" Bharat demanded, growing genuinely angry. "If your devil and his servants had rolled themselves up inside my carpets, surely men as astute as yours would notice the bulges!"
"This is a very clever devil. We do not know what he can do," the leader said, and gave Bharat a cockeyed sneer, showing a single gold tooth. "Perhaps you are even this devil in disguise."
The implication was clear enough. Too much protesting could be taken the wrong way. Bharat watched in silence as the searchers spread his carpets across the road, then started on his provisions and personal belongings. They looked inside everything, even water-skins, and felt inside the pockets of his extra clothes. They opened his food bags and ran their filthy hands through his rice and barley, and they drained his oil jar into a cooking pot.
Bharat could only shake his head. "This devil's magic must be very powerful," he said, "if you think he can breathe cooking oil."
"Very powerful indeed," the leader assured him. "He can fight four men at once and command ogres to do his will, and several Ffolk have seen him walk on air. Queen Rosalind herself told me he knows things no man should know."
Truly?" Bharat asked.
The leader nodded, and the corners of his mouth turned down in a self-impressed scowl. "She said we must catch him, or there will be Ysdar to pay."
When the searchers had finally emptied the wagon, they began to crawl around the cargo bed on their hands and knees, rapping the floor and walls with the hilts of their daggers. Bharat watched nervously.