Rejji heard footsteps coming down the hall and he eased himself along the wall and away from the door. He heard another door open and then some clatter through the wall where he had moved. Someone had entered the next room and was moving furniture around. More footsteps sounded in the hallway and they entered the next room as well. Rejji could here muffled voices through the wall and pressed his ear to it. The voices were faint, but Rejji could hear them talking.
“What was it?” inquired Wyant.
“Just a fire,” reported Brakas. “There was a large pile of leaves that went up, but there was no sign of anyone around. I think one of the returning patrols probably got careless with his bocco and it just took a while to ignite the leaves. It was right off the trail coming in.”
“How is your head?” Wyant asked.
“I’ll be fine,” Brakas grumbled. “The lad got lucky.”
“No, the lad fought as best he could with what he had,” laughed Wyant. “He was resourceful. Don’t feel too bad about it. His moves surprised me too. We are so trained to expect a certain type of fight that sometimes the unskilled can surprise us. Perhaps it was a lesson for both of us.”
“Easy for you to say,” retorted Brakas. “It was my face what got hammered. You at least got to hit him good.”
“I do believe he was going to kill you, or I would have let it continue,” declared Wyant. “It did prove one thing to me though. He is not a spy. I am sure if the Jiadin sent in a spy he would be prepared for the little game we play with new recruits. The lad really thought you were going to kill him and that means he had no idea we were testing him.”
“True,” conceded Brakas. “I did have men go back out there and check things out. There was nothing hidden. No water bag. No food sack. I really don’t see how he could have possibly crossed the badlands without provisions. It isn’t possible.”
“And yet the sentries never saw him,” Wyant stated. “There was nobody with him and no signs of him setting a horse free. I understand your concerns.”
“He doesn’t know about horses,” offered Brakas. “I could tell that by the way he rode with me on the way in.”
“It is clear he doesn’t know anything about weapons either,” added Wyant. “He is quick and strong though. And intelligent I think. It might take a lot of training, but he could become a good warrior, perhaps a leader over time.”
“Maybe,” Brakas said, “but there is something about him that doesn’t sit quite right, if you know what I mean. I think we should keep him locked up at night.”
“I agree,” Wyant said. “I think we should team him up with Klavin. The lad would not only learn, but will also provide us with some entertainment.”
“Why Klavin?”
“Because Klavin was sleeping the day they handed out brains,” Wyant chuckled, “and the boy is smart. It might be fun to see if brains or brawn is superior.”
“Klavin is a good warrior,” argued Brakas. “One of the best warriors we have.”
“Which is the only reason he is still with us,” responded Wyant.
“What about making the lad into a real spy?” asked Brakas. “You said he isn’t a spy because he doesn’t know how the tribes operate, but that very quality would make him the right person to send into the Jiadin camp.”
“I don’t know,” hesitated Wyant. “That could be sending the lad to his death. You said he wanted revenge on them. It is hard to believe that he could fake wanting to join them. That advisor Grulak has, Veltar, he scares me. There is something inhuman about him. I think he could read the lad’s soul the moment he entered their fortress.”
“What is more important to us?” reasoned Brakas. “They have raided a village in our sector. That is against the agreement we have with them. I think we need to know what they are up to.”
“That village was good for maybe two clova a year,” Wyant stated. “It certainly is no great loss for us, but you do have a point about the agreement. The Jiadin are up to something and we need to know what it is. Still, I think the lad would not succeed. I will dwell upon it. We have time yet to make that decision. For now, match him up with Klavin. At night we will keep him locked up until we are satisfied that he is what he says he is.”
Rejji heard the moving of a chair and the closing of a door. He waited until he heard the footsteps receding down the hallway before he moved away from the wall. He walked towards the center of the room and spread out on the floor in a patch of moonlight and closed his eyes.
***
Using the small flask she had cut open, Mistake carried the last two coals to the spot she had selected. When she reached the spot she had chosen, she let the coals slid out of the mutilated flask onto the heap of the other coals she had transported. She looked at the last rays of the sun and decided to wait a little while longer. She dropped her improvised scoop and the moss she had used to insulate her hand from the heat. It had been tedious transporting all of the coals over such a distance, but if her fire had been any closer to the fortress, she would have been noticed. As it was, it had taken her all day to prepare for this. She hoped it worked.
When she felt it was dark enough that the smoke would not be noticed, she piled armfuls of damp grass over the coals. When she had piled all of the damp grass over the coals, she started heaping the dry leaves on top of the pile. As soon as all of the leaves were in place, Mistake started running. She was still a fair distance from the fort and she had to approach it unseen. And quickly.
She rethought her plan as she ran. Following the patrol that had captured Rejji had been easy. They moved slow enough and seldom looked around while they rode. Figuring out where they had put Rejji would be a little harder. All she knew at this point was that they had turned right after entering the gate. When the gate closed, so did her opportunity to follow Rejji. The opportunity she did have, however, was to observe the guards that stood on the platform behind the wall. She had already chosen the section of the wall she would attempt to scale. Now she had to hope that her diversion worked like she planned it to.
The idea was a delayed fire. The hot coals would dry out the damp grass, sending off clouds of smoke, but it would be too dark for anyone to see the smoke. When the grass dried out, it would ignite and the dry leaves would create an instant fire, clearly visible from the fort. On a clear night, like it was, there would be no lightning to blame the fire on. The Zaldoni would have to figure out it was manmade and investigate it. Being nighttime, she assumed they would not send a small force to check on it. They would know that no large army could get this close without be spotted by a sentry and would want to overwhelm whoever it was quickly. At least that was the plan, she thought.
She managed to get right up to the wall without the guards seeing her. The spot she had chosen had large trees on the other side of the wall. There was no way for her to reach them from outside, but she was hoping that she could reach them from the platform on the other side of the wall. She took her dagger out its sheath on her belt and another dagger from her boot. She held one in each hand and shoved the left one into the crevice in the wall as high as she could reach. The right other she put between her teeth as she flexed the muscles in her hands. She knew this trick was going to require all of her strength and she would only get one shot at it.
It wasn’t long before she heard the first shouts. She resisted the temptation to turn around and admire her handiwork and instead concentrated on listening to the movements of the two closest guards. Initially, both guards tended to move along the platform towards the gate to get a better view, but the second guard had not moved far enough for her to make her entry unseen. She tensed as she felt the failure of her plan, fearful that the patrols coming back from the fire might see her. She had planned to be inside by then.