"In fact, Clan Hall supervises the six eagle clans," Joss said. "In the manner of a commander supervising her marshals, if you take my meaning."
The swordsman had a thin smile. His hair was shaved down tight against the skull, almost in the manner of one of the Lantern's hierophants but with a thicker nap, yet still not enough to grab hold of in a fight. He wore lime-whitened horsetail ornaments dangling from his shoulders, like a badge of rank that made up for his shorn head. The rest dressed their hair in various lengths: horsetails streaked with yellow or red; short beaded braids; rich men's loops woven with bright ribbon. None possessed leather caps or boiled-leather helmets, as militia would have. None wore even the leather coats that protected city firemen from flames and sparks. Some wore silks, and the rest wore cotton tunics or long local-silk jackets over kilts, or loose trousers, or bare legs; every one wore sandals or boots, though, which was unusual. They all seemed to be wearing a similar medallion at their necks, but he wasn't close enough to see if it was marked with the starburst. Most had a crude copy of the red and black banner pattern sewn onto their clothing.
"Think of us as a cadre of sworn brothers, then," the swordsman said. "Bound to our clan father. I didn't think you were out of Horn Hall."
Joss gestured toward the dead men. "What's this?"
"Just what we were asking ourselves. We have a foot patrol we run out here along the Flats, because of the trouble there has been. This is what we found." He gestured. "This hamlet, deserted. These two men, dead."
There was no single word, or cough, or movement from those assembled, as though they were all holding their breath to see how he reacted. Peddo circled overhead again; he had his bow ready, its length tucked against his side, hard to see unless you knew to look for it. The Snake was nowhere to be seen.
They were lying.
The reeves were well trained and well armed, but they could not fight a pitched battle.
A powerful cry split the air. All of the men leaped and startled as Trouble swooped in low. The Snake had his orange flag in his hand: Danger. It was time to retreat.
Aui! How it burned to have to do so. The dead men were farmers, likely grandfather and adult son. This was their place, for all he knew. But Volias, while a snake and bastard of the first water, would not give the signal to retreat lightly.
"We're on our way to Horn Hall now, as it happens," said Joss, stalling as he gave the gesture with his baton that would call Scar up behind him. He knew better than to fall back; that might provoke a burst of frenzied bravado from the men, who were strung tight enough already, quivering with it. "What's your name, ver, so I might mention it to the marshal at Horn Hall when I bring her a report of this crime?"
" Him, as it happens," said the swordsman. "It seems you're a bit behind the weather, reeve. What's your name?"
The assembled men shied back a few steps as Scar walked right up behind Joss. The harness brushed his back, and he hooked in one-handed. The swordsman lifted the tip of his sword. A pair of men in the crowd fumbled with bows.
Jabi stooped, pulling up so late that most of the men hit the dirt. The Snake pulled a wicked fast turn to get back around to give cover, passing over low, as Joss blew one blast on his whistle and Scar thrust. The draft from Scar's wings actually beat down some of the other men. Then they were up and climbing over the trees. He heard a shout, but no arrows raced after him.
The Snake was pointing with his baton. There, to the southwest and not too far away, a cadre of armed men pushed along on a trail through open woodland. They were in a hurry, sure enough, and as they trotted down the path their banner unfurled. Its colors were red and yellow. The Snake had tucked his flag away already, and with hand gestures Joss indicated that they should move on back to the road, continue their journey toward Horn Hall. They had no possible way to make a good outcome in the middle of that: either this new group were allies to the others, or they were enemies, and no matter which it was, three reeves were too few.
Too few, as always. It was a nightmare.
Behind, smoke billowed upward; a larger fire had been set. How he hated this, every effort twisted until it came out the opposite of what the gods intended as justice. Maybe those men had just set fire to the Witherer's altar. Any terrible deed was possible, in these days. He had seen it all, and more, and worse.
WHEN HE SPOTTED a rocky hilltop suitable for landing, with a pair of streams coursing along lower ground below, he flagged a halt. The high ground was set above a steep defile, difficult to climb but wide enough in the trough that the eagles could come and go easily. He released Scar, and the Snake released Trouble, but Peddo hooded Jabi as the other two eagles circled down to a spot where the stream widened, for a cooling bath. Trouble was not only an exceptionally beautiful bird but the best-natured eagle Joss had ever encountered, never ill-tempered, never a bully, never needlessly aggressive. Entirely unlike her reeve.
"Why are we stopping?" asked the Snake irritably. "There's still time to make Horn Hall today, if we push. I don't see a soft bed on this rock."
Joss arranged sticks in a crevice, wondering if it was worth risking a fire. "I don't want the eagles blown when we come in."
"You think there will be trouble?" Peddo was standing on the edge of the cliff with his back to them, a hand raised to shade his eyes from the sun. He was gazing north-northwest, but if he was looking for the column of smoke, they had long since lost it in the hollows and rises of the land.
"Just a feeling that it would be prudent to be able to leave quickly if the need arises."
The Snake, remarkably, remained silent. He set down his pack in the shade of a gaggle of pine and settled cross-legged atop his folded cloak.
"I can hear that Volias agrees with you," said Peddo with a laugh, turning back to survey the way the other two reeves had placed a goodly distance between themselves. "How do you mean to proceed tomorrow, when we come to Horn Hall?"
"Cautiously," said Joss.
The Snake took a swig from his wine sack.
"Who do you think killed those two men?" said Peddo, wiping grit off his hands. "The folk who lived in that hamlet? The men who were there when we got there? Or some other group altogether?"
Joss broke a few sticks over his knee. It felt good to snap something, but he had already decided against lighting a fire. They didn't need fire except to boil water for tea.
"Most likely, we'll never know."
THE DREAM ALWAYS unveils itself in a gray unwinding of mist he has come to dread. He is walking but cannot see any of the countryside around him, only shapes like skeletal trees with leafless limbs and branches-cold-killed, as they call them in the Arro Highlands, where, beyond the kill line, the trees wither in the dry season and are reborn when the rains come. In the dream he is dead, awaiting rebirth. He is a ghost, hoping to wake up from the nightmare twenty years ago, but the dream has swallowed him.
The mist boils as though churned by a vast intelligence. It is here that the dream twists into nightmare. The mist will part, and he will see her in the unattainable distance, walking along a slope of grass or climbing a rocky escarpment, a place he can and must never reach because he has a duty to those on earth whom he has sworn to serve.
It begins. Wind rips the mist into streamers that blow and billow like cloth, like the white linen and silk banners strung up around Sorrowing Towers where the dead are laid to rest under the open sky. He begins to sweat, waiting for the apparition. For Marit.
A foot scuffs on pebbles.
He jerked awake, rolled, grabbed his baton, and came up to find the Snake crouched beside him with his knife out.
"So it's true," said the Snake in a murmur. "You do have nightmares. You do murmur a woman's name in your sleep, only not the one you're sleeping with."