Chained Adept Page 2

  “Whatever the Rasesni had in mind seems to have been called off. I’m going to stand down the camp.” Chang waved over one of the guards at the entrance.

  “Take our… guest over to Jip-chi and have her assigned quarters for what’s left of the night.” He glanced at her. “Under guard, if you please.”

  Zandaril stroked his beardless cheek as he settled back in the folding camp chair and watched Chang’s face. The quiet discussions elsewhere in the tent gave them a bit of privacy. “What did you think of her story?”

  “She has to be a Rasesni plant,” Chang said. “Nothing else makes any sense. Accent or not, she’s certainly no Northener, not with that dark hair. Not skinny enough, either. Or tall.”

  “She is what, then? Who are her people? Not the bandy-legged Rasesni.” Zandaril let that hang there for a moment.

  Chang nodded, reluctantly. “No. Not a pure-blood anyway. Probably some sort of border family, mixed-blood. Or something else.”

  “I know what I saw.” Zandaril shook his head. “I don’t know any border families with pricked animal ears, Commander-chi. Do you? Not even in the old granny tales.”

  Chang glared at him. “You have a point?”

  “You should believe her story for now, as long as it doesn’t disturb your mission.”

  “And what’s to keep her from vanishing the same way she materialized?”

  Zandaril had been facing that corner of the tent when he was locked in place by the Rasesni attack. He’d seen her arrival, tumbling on her rear with her arms flailing. That was the clumsiest entrance I’ve ever seen. Hard to associate that with a secret enemy.

  He poured himself a mug of the still-hot bunnas, lifted it to his nose, and inhaled before taking a sip. “If she needs a large device to travel, as she claims, we can prevent it. If she lied about it, and needs nothing, how could we stop her?”

  “Chains,” Chang said, with a frown.

  Ah, yes, I want a closer look at that necklace she keeps fingering. I didn’t recognize the style.

  He put the mug down on the ground beside his chair.

  “I’ll take charge of her,” he said.

  “What, in Hing Ganau’s wagon? And won’t that start rumors.”

  “Oh, come now, a young girl she is not, Commander-chi.”

  “As if that mattered.” Chang narrowed his eyes. “She’s young enough, and I didn’t hear mention of a husband. Still, the idea has some merit—who better than you to defend us if she’s not what she says?”

  He thought for a moment. “All right. If she can ride, we’ll mount her, else she can bounce along in your traveling warehouse with the rest of the odds and ends. Think you can catch her if she makes a run for it?”

  Zandaril raised one robed arm and let the sleeve flutter gracefully while his hand waggled in the air. “Outride me she will not.”

  “Then she’ll be in your charge tomorrow. You’ve just made yourself responsible for her.”

  Well, I asked for it, did I not?

  CHAPTER 3

  “Stow your gear in the puichok. Hing Ganau will show you where.” Zandaril turned from the horse who was hitched to the side of the wagon and waved vaguely in the direction of a soldier in the process of loading up.

  He returned to his task of checking the tack of his black mare. She was fit and energetic, though somewhat round and sturdy. Penrys did not recognize the pattern of the simple saddle. Except for the short stirrups there seemed to be nothing to it but shaped leather pads, decorated with punchings like his boots, and colorful wool fabric beneath, over a sheepskin.

  Dropping her shoulder, Penrys shrugged off the worn pack Jip had issued her last night and set it down with a metallic thump. ‘A soldier’s gear,’ he’d called it. It seemed half empty, and the clanking of the eating kit had been an annoyance the whole way as she’d followed her guard to Zandaril’s place in the breaking camp. There hadn’t been time to go through it yet, though she’d been grateful for the blanket fastened to it, in the middle of the night. She was even more grateful for breakfast, salted dough on a stick with smoky bacon wrapped around it, shared by her escort at the cook-fire of a group of troopers.

  She’d still been licking her fingers when she’d spotted Zandaril, supervising the loading of his wagon at the rear of the camp. Four mules had already been harnessed up to its shaft, the nearest one an elderly gray that was almost white, and the rest ordinary bays. The wagon looked like all the others she’d seen so far—tall iron-tired twelve-spoked wheels in back, with smaller ones in front, and a body about five feet wide and ten feet long. The wooden walls rose about four feet, surmounted by a high arching framework covered in canvas that was partially folded aside—only the long pole affixed to the side of the wagon-seat that flew a colorful pennant distinguished it from the rest of the nearby vehicles. She thought the device on it might be some sort of many-spoked wheel, when she tried to make it out as it flapped in the gusty wind.

  The smell of tar wrinkled her nose—it looked as though the seams of the wagon’s boards had been tarred and caulked.

  Her guard had handed her possessions over to the wizard and released her, and she tipped her head to him in farewell. Well-mannered he was, and he provided breakfast. Could have been worse.

  She glanced at the older, uniformed man who was busy with the last of the gear, spry despite the splint and wrappings around his right leg. She surveyed the narrow wagon seat and asked Zandaril, “Will we all three be sharing that?”

  “That depends. Can you ride?”

  She smiled broadly. “Indeed. That would be much better.” She paused and looked down at her feet, shod for indoor activities. “Although boots would make it more comfortable.” At least I’m wearing my work clothing, not something more unwieldy.

  “Maybe I can fix that,” Zandaril replied. “You’ll need some sort of coat or cloak, too. Any clothes in there?” He pointed at the pack on the ground.

  “Not that I could see.”

  He nodded, and called out to the man who was tying down the bundles in the wagon bed. “Hing-chi, errands I’ll have for you to the Quartermaster at our next stop. Meanwhile, please have someone fetch something suitable for our guest to ride before the Horsemaster gets too busy.”

  Hing Ganau started a bow but converted it into a clumsy wave and limped off to corral an errand boy.

  Penrys raised an eyebrow at the performance and Zandaril coughed politely. “I have here no official rank, but it seems to be hard for him to break the habit.” He paused. “Only three weeks ago I was assigned to him, when I joined the expedition at the Meeting of Waters. Posted he was to drive a wagon until he could ride again. Doesn’t like it much, and who can blame him? A kwajigomju is used to getting things done with his men, and frustrated at being alone.”

  He looked down at the little bundle the guard had handed him—the pouch and knife that had hung at her belt. “Here, bikrajti. You’ll want these.”

  That’s gracious of him. Also says something about how much he fears me, which is not at all. Is that a good thing?

  “Thanks,” she said, and left it at that.

  She attached both items to her belt and felt complete again, if somewhat under-dressed for the weather. As she recalled from the maps, Kigali was about as far south of the equator as Tavnastok was north, and autumn was starting in the south. She smelled a faint crisp chill in the air, under the blue cloudless sky, but there was nothing she could see along the horizon in any direction over the low, rolling grasslands, to account for it. If this was truly a valley, it was wider than she could see, and the actual Junkawa, the Mother of Rivers as they’d called it, could be anywhere out of her view.

  We’ll be delayed waiting for the horse. Let’s see what I’ve got.

  She knelt on the ground, on the damp grasses which had been trampled by the camp traffic and were still giving up their pungent juices. “Spoon, fork, metal cup and plate, well-scoured and well-used.” She ticked off the inventory and glanced up at Zandaril. “Migh
t as well have been a set of bells for all the noise it makes.”

  “I think the practice is to wrap each of those in articles of clothing. Muffles the noise, keeps it from shifting,” Zandaril contributed, gravely.

  “Sounds right. Well, a nice big packet of salt, a bag of…” She opened it and sniffed. “Ugh. Bunnas,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Glad I would be to remove that burden for you,” Zandaril remarked.

  ‘That’s right—bunnas comes from your folk, doesn’t it? What’ll you trade for it?”

  “Not very good quality that is, that they buy for the troopers.”

  “No point bad-mouthing it to me,” she said. “I can just ask your Hing Ganau.”

  A faint smile crossed his lips. “You can trust me for an honest price. When you find something you want, we’ll talk again about it.”

  She dug through the rest of the pack. “Looks like wrappings for bandages, soap, and that’s about it. No clothes, like I thought. Not even a comb. Nothing to read.” She began to put everything back in.

  Zandaril cleared his throat. “I may have a sushnib or two. Books.”

  “Yes, a wizard would, wouldn’t he?” She tied the straps at the top of the pack and stood up.

  “I’ll show you a bit tonight, when we camp up again,” he said. “In wirqiqa-Zannib they are written, so it may be they are of no use to you, bikrajti.”

  She said to him, in his own language, “If I can speak it, then easily enough I can read it, with a little instruction in the script.”

  He stared at her in silence.

  “Didn’t believe me, did you?” she said, with a quirk of her lips, as she returned to the western Kigali-yat dialect she’d been speaking since her arrival. “There were a few wirqiqa-Zannib scrolls at the Collegium, but no native speakers, so I appreciate this opportunity to truly learn the language.”

  Looking at her with interest, he said, “Do you retain the knowledge after your source departs, bikrajti?”

  “Only if I’ve taken the effort to master it m’self, and make it my own.”

  This was more than she’d intended to share, and the clop of hooves provided a welcome interruption as a young trooper led a saddled horse and hitched him to the cleats on the side of the wagon walls, next to Zandaril’s mare. The mules already in their traces turned their heads to watch.

  She laughed out loud when she saw him—a piebald gelding, quiet and deliberate. She couldn’t picture him bestirring himself to a canter.

  I bet that mare can run rings around him.

  “Not taking any chances, eh?” she commented to Zandaril.

  He bowed in her direction with a smile of his own, and she sketched him a comic salutation to honor his precautions.

  CHAPTER 4

  Penrys restrained herself from burying Zandaril with questions until he had worked the kinks out of his lively mare. The two of them trotted up one of the rolling slopes some distance northwest and then turned more directly west to parallel the men riding below them. Her horse maintained a steady pace, and eventually Zandaril’s mount settled in beside hers and they both slowed down to match the main body of the expedition.

  Scouts rode in pairs barely within her sight well in front, vanishing forward as she watched, and she could just make out other outriders on the far side of the line of march. The primary force rode in columns of two at a walk, with the supply wagons behind them, two dozen large ones with six-mule hitches, and not quite as many smaller ones pulled by two mules. More outriders brought up the rear behind the herds of horses and mules not in use and the cattle herd. At this distance, the constant noise faded into the background, and only the occasional shout made itself heard.

  Looks like about five hundred men, and maybe another five or six dozen in support. There must be close to fifty spare horses. And dinner on the hoof. Probably a good idea in this empty landscape.

  She’d seen cooks and a doctor on her way through the camp in the morning. A blacksmith, too. There were a few women doing laundry or managing supplies or horses, but it was clear that soldiering was a role for men in Kigali, on the whole.

  Time to find out what I’ve fallen into.

  She looked to Zandaril, riding to her right, on the outside. What, in case I make a break for it on Lead-foot here?

  “So, where are we, exactly? What’s this all about?” She gestured at the moving squadron below them.

  Zandaril turned his horse’s head uphill. “Follow me.”

  They rode a hundred yards at a slant to the top of the low, grass-covered ridge and reined in their horses. The chill wind from earlier in the morning freshened the air and she inhaled deeply. From where she was, on horseback, Penrys estimated she could see about thirty miles. The air was exhilarating, but the view was not—in all directions, grasslands on rolling ground stretched out, interrupted by occasional wooded streams, with no sign of habitations anywhere.

  Zandaril smiled at her expression. “Not what you expected, eh?”

  “I thought there was this big river, and mountains all the way around.”

  “That’s right. Let me explain.” He used his hands to illustrate. “We are in the center of the world here.” His deep voice made the pronouncement sound irrefutable.

  She laughed at the hyperbole.

  He glanced at her, deadpan. “I’m only repeating what the Kigaliwen say. We Zannib say the same thing about our own land—so does everyone.

  “Have you seen the steppe hounds, the ones with the long, thin bodies and elegant necks?”

  “I’ve seen drawing,” Penrys said.

  “So. Think of one, facing right, to the east, lying down on its belly, its head erect like the noble beast it is, with a leg stretched out in front, and an extra-long tail with a puff at the end.” He cupped his hands in the air to represent the puff.

  She smiled at the image, and he nodded in encouragement.

  “That is the world. Now,” he held up a finger, “Your Ellech is the hinge of the open mouth between the long snout and the heavy mountains and frozen ears of the upper face. Yes?”

  “I can see that.”

  “Good. We will not waste time on the over-lengthy neck, with its hot and uncivilized peoples, but come with me down to the body of the hound. Here there are bands along the side, like the coloring of the actual beast.” He swept his hands back and forth.

  “On the spine and the shoulder are two nations—Fastar to the west, and Ndant in the east.”

  His hands sketched out rough forms in the air. His low voice lent gravity to his description.

  “Below them is a line, the Kunlau Mountains. That is the northern border of Kigali. But Kigali is also the chest where it meets the sea, and the beginning of the foreleg, and part of the front belly. You see? Yenit Ping, the Endless City with its great harbor, is on this belly piece.”

  “The capital?” she said.

  He nodded. “From there, Kigali merchants sail all over the world. From Kwattu, too, on the chest. That’s how they send goods to your Collegium, without going all the tedious way around the front leg first.”

  He leaned closer, conspiratorially, though no one was within hundreds of yards of them to overhear, and dropped his voice even lower. “Kigali wants Shirtan-pur, too, the harbor on the spine at the base of the tail, but it doesn’t belong to them.”

  He pointed northwest of their current position.

  “It’s that way. You go up the Neshikame river to the end, then overland a bit through Lomat, then down the Kabanchir. If they had that, they’d have a harbor on all three sides of the hound’s body. Merchants, they want that. Very good for business. But it means war. No decisions yet.”

  “Is this something recent?” Penrys asked.

  “No, no—many generations. Sometime merchants push, sometimes not. But never final. Always problem. Sometimes Rasesdad, sometimes Fastar. Sometimes both.”

  He waved his hand as if to dismiss the unresolved territorial ambitions of Kigali.

  “Now we co
me to the middle band of the hound’s body, below the mountains. This is the valley of the Junkawa, the Mother of Rivers.”

  “The largest river in the world.”

  He smiled at the remark.

  “Yes, exactly. Two big rivers, running east. They join at Jonggep, the Meeting of Waters, and reach the sea at Yenit Ping. Many little rivers and not so little rivers go to them. Most of Kigaliwen are on a river somewhere.”

  He looked at her. “We are now between the north branch, the Neshikame, and the main south branch, Seguchi, four hundred miles west of Jonggep.”

  “The hound’s liver?” she suggested.

  That surprised a grin and a nod from Zandaril. “The nearest mountains in any direction are the Lang Nor, the Red Wall, about three hundred miles west of here. This whole valley, if you can call it that, is roughly six hundred miles wide, north to south. A giant valley for a giant river.”

  She pulled her reins to keep her horse from cropping grass with his bit in place. He raised his head and shook it, and the bit clattered. She patted him absently in apology, then leaned forward to scratch his poll.

  “What about the Zannib?” she asked.

  “Ah, we are more modest, as befits the rest of the belly and the back leg. Between us and Kigali are the Ardib Yakush, what they call the Minchang Mountains. We have not so many rivers, but much grass and fine horses, all the way to the cold sea at the bottom of the world.”

  “So I see.” Penrys cocked her head at his mount, the small, shaggy horse she associated with steppe nomads.

  “Yes, I brought my lubr mar-az, my string, with me when I came to join. Everything had to come on horseback over the passes, no wagon. Chang let me use a wagon. And Hing Ganau.”

  “This horse, too?” She gestured at her sturdy mount.

  “He is from the troop herd. But is he not fine, in his own way?” he intoned.

  “Very fine. He can probably keep a walk going all day long. I’ve named him Vekkenfet, Lead-Foot.”

  He grinned again. “Ah, but wait—I am not finished. I forgot the rump of our hound, and part of the tail. That belongs to Rasesdad, who borders both our lands, Kigali and sarq-Zannib.