AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Alanna took two days to recover, sleeping to restore her strength. By the time she was on her feet, Liam had gotten over his anger with her enough to give a dawn lesson. That same day the small company took to the road once again, the teenagers each riding a horse, with a smaller child behind. Coram had the third ten-year-old, and Thayet rode with the baby in his sling on her chest. Buri rode the shaggy pony Coram had taken from the bandits.
Using the less-traveled paths, they moved quickly through the desolate highlands. They passed burned-out farms and cabins—all abandoned, their owners dead or run away. Almost every building had its own ugly reminder of the war in the shape of unburied bodies or skeletons. They saw and heard no evidence of human life, although the warriors all sensed watching eyes. Whoever spied on them stayed within the shelter of the trees, too frightened or too wary to approach.
These sights gave Alanna nightmares, dreams in which the bodies were Tortallan and the burned-out homes belonged to her friends. Liam soon found a way to deal with dreams: he gave an extra lesson in hand-to-hand combat after they stopped for the night. Between the new lessons, the regular ones at daybreak, and her turn on watch, Alanna soon was far too tired to dream.
Rachia was a bustling trade city, her streets packed with things to see. Even the many soldiers present couldn’t put a damper on people’s spirits. The children wriggled in their saddles, trying to look at everything. Buri stuck to Thayet, scowling at anyone who came too near. Alanna found it difficult to breathe and was dismayed to think she was more used to desert and woodlands than to crowded cities. How would she feel when she returned to Corus?
They had crossed the marketplace when some instinct warned her—she looked up to see an archer on a nearby rooftop. Alanna yelled, “Thayet!”
Liam was afoot, leading his Drifter. Hearing Alanna, he dragged Thayet and the baby from their saddle as an arrow sliced past their heads. A second arrow followed; Liam grabbed it from the air.
Buri dismounted, dark with rage, and ran into the building where the archer stood. Dismounting, Alanna saw that the building supported a sturdy flower trellis reaching from ground to roof. She tested it and started to climb, trying not to think about rotten wood or loose anchorings. “Coram! Get them to the convent!” she yelled as twigs showered onto her face. She didn’t look, but she heard Liam and Coram bellow orders.
She vaulted over the roof’s edge, keeping low. The assassin—swathed in headcloth and scarf—shot at her, then leaped to the next building. Alanna dodged, unsheathed her sword, and pursued. Behind her she heard a rooftop door crash open, and another pair of running feet. Wary, she glanced back to find Buri catching up. The K’mir was a faster runner than Alanna. She drew even within seconds, with her dagger in her hand. “Don’t kill him!” Alanna panted. “We need to know who pays him!” Buri nodded.
They raced from roof to roof, Buri and Alanna closing the gap. The assassin’s breath came harder his steps faltered. The next roof was a story lower than the ones they ran on—the assassin jumpe and landed awkwardly. Rising, he stumbled on.
Buri jumped and fell, her left leg twisting under her, but she ran on, sweat pouring down her face Alanna jumped and rolled, as Liam and her wrestling teachers had instructed her; she got to her feet without any hurt. Buri shook her head wher Alanna hesitated. “Don’t wait for me,” she hissed. “Get him!”
Alanna raced on. Finally their quarry was forced to halt—he’d run out of roofs.
Alanna stopped, afraid to scare him. “Talk tc me!” she called. “I just want to know why—”
He jumped. When Alanna came to the roof’s edge, he lay in an alley below, sprawled and broken. Cursing, she returned for Buri. Ignoring the stares of the building’s inhabitants, she and the hobbling K’mir went down to the street and into the alley. No one else had noticed the assassin’s fall, Alanna was relieved to note. She didn’t want a street urchin or his older counterpart stealing the dead man’s belongings before she and Buri got the chance to examine them.
Buri knelt beside the body, turning out his empty pockets. “He could be anybody.” She kept her voice low as she lifted the assassin’s headcloth. The face, sickeningly misshapen after the fall, was male and coarse, the cheeks filled with a drunkard’s broken veins. “Tavern scum,” she said flatly. “You can buy a killer like this for a gold piece. He probably drank his money already.” She covered the dead man once more. “Someone wants Thayet dead.”
Alanna nodded. “She has enemies.”
“Her father has enemies,” Buri snapped, standing shakily.
“Does it matter whose enemies they are? They want Thayet.”
You can discuss this at the convent, Faithful told them from the alley’s mouth. You’re needed there, too. Now.
When she and Buri entered the convent visitors’ court, Alanna smelled trouble. Their company should have been placed in a temple guest house immediately. That was the Daughters’ policy everywhere in the Eastern Lands. Yet their party was here, outside the convent proper, watched by a Daughter Doorwarden. No other priestesses—a temple this size housed at least two hundred—were to be seen. Thayet was puzzled; the children was nervous.
“What’s going on?” Alanna asked Liam quietly.
“I don’t know.” His eyes were blue-grey, revealing nothing. “Some Daughters came out, gabbled like geese, and vanished. The Doorwarden says we wait. I want Thayet out of sight.”
Buri scowled. “Is this the honor given a Princess? I should teach these lowland hens some manners.”
“Save your anger for Thayet’s enemies,” Liam advised. “You’ll serve her best if you’re careful.”
“Hens,” Buri muttered rebelliously.
Like Buri and the Dragon, Alanna wanted Thayet in a safe place, not this open courtyard. She went to the Doorwarden. “Please bear a message to the First Daughter of this House.”
The Daughter nodded. Coldly the knight said, “I am Sir Alanna of Trebond and Olau, Knight of the Realm of Tortall, a shaman and rider of the Bloody Hawk Tribe of the Bazhir. Why are we kept outside the curtain wall? Why have we no explanation for this lack of courtesy? The children are tired and hungry, we are tired and dirty, and Princess Thayet is being shot at. The Daughters of the Mother of Waters owe a duty to travelers as servants of She Who Rules Us All. Why have you not performed that duty? I will be forced to report such a lapse to the Goddess-on-Earth in the City of the Gods.” Her violet eyes dangerous, Alanna nodded. “Please deliver my message.”
The Daughter bowed and hurried away.
In minutes they were shown to a guest
house well inside the thick convent wall. Servants came to look after the young members of their group as the Doorwarden took the adults and Buri to a meeting with the leader of the Mother of Waters. Passing through a long courtyard, they entered a room where two Daughters sat at a long table. One was dressed in the black habit of the Hag, the Goddess as Queen-of-the-Underworld; the other wore the cloth-of-gold habit that marked her as First Daughter of a wealthy convent.
“I am First Daughter jian Cadao,” she said when everyone was made comfortable. She avoided looking at Thayet. “Princess—Lady Thayet, we were... unprepared for your arrival. We want to extend every courtesy...” She stopped, looking flustered.
“There are problems.” The woman in black was young, but she spoke with authority. “More than we could have foreseen.” Buri stirred, thinking the Daughter was being rude to Thayet. The Hag-Daughter nodded to her. “Forgive my bluntness—I never learned to soften my words. Princess, your father—the Warlord—is dead. May the Black God ease his passing.”
Thayet’s ivory skin went dead white. “How? And...when?” she rasped.
“Illness,” the Hag-Daughter replied. “Sudden and painful. We suspect poison, of course. But no one is anxious to prove it.” After hesitating, she added quietly, “Forgive me if I am too abrupt. I was told you and your royal father were not on speaking terms.”
“We weren’t, not after my—mother,” Thayet whispered. She tried to smile. “Still, he was all I had. Go on, please.”
“Try to understand our position. His end places a different meaning on your presence in our Houses.” Her eyes, unlike those of the First Daughter’s, had been fixed on Thayet. Now she examined Liam; the Dragon shifted in his seat. “The rebel leader, zhir Anduo, is frank about his need to talk to you.”
