Snare

‘Don’t be an idiot!’ Kareem snapped. ‘The letter must have got lost somewhere along the way. Men who endure what you two went through together don’t forget each other that easily.’

‘I’d like to think so. When Soutan first turned up, I had thoughts of trying to find Benumar, to let him know the good news if nothing else. Zahir, Jezro – the three of us. We were a good team as officers. Worked well together.’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Kareem paused for a smile. ‘Well, if you bring Jezro back, Zahir’s bound to hear of it quickly enough. I did hear he was transferred again, out of Bariza, I mean. I can’t remember where. Must be the arak. Can’t be middle age.’

They shared another laugh, but Warkannan set his glass down. ‘I’ve got to get up before dawn,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll call it a night.’

‘Yes, tomorrow it starts.’ Kareem turned solemn. ‘And may the Lord guide you every mile of your journey.’

Just at dawn, they assembled in front of the villa, Warkannan, Soutan, the two young men, all holding the reins of their riding horses, who stamped and snorted as if they too knew that the journey ahead promised great things. After a last handshake all round, they mounted, took the lead ropes of the pack horses from the servants, and headed for the gates. When Warkannan glanced back at the house, he saw figures at the windows of the women’s quarters. Curtains fell, and the figures disappeared. Tareev turned in his saddle once to wave farewell to his father, but Warkannan never saw him look back again.

The road brought them free of the oak forest by noon, and by mid-afternoon they rode up to the crest of the last high hill. In front of them the downs of the north border fell away. Beyond, the view faded to a lavender haze, spreading endlessly, it seemed, under a harsh sun.

‘There they are,’ Soutan remarked. ‘The plains.’

‘Yes indeed,’ Warkannan said. ‘I started hating them after I’d been on the border for maybe a week.’ He turned in the saddle to glance at Arkazo and Tareev. ‘Very well, gentlemen. Let’s ride.’

The road dropped down through waist-high vegetation, purple and orange, red and russet, a tangled mass of thorns and fleshy leaves fighting over sun and air. Here and there hill trees – thick fleshy trunks topped by huge flabby pink leaves – rose above the chaparral and sparkled with beads of resinous sap. Over them insects swarmed like pillars of smoke. As the men rode through, they now and then heard the rustle or squeal of small animals fleeing the noise of their passing. Occasionally a chirper, a lizard about the size of two clasped hands, broke from cover and flew on a whir of turquoise wings.

The road would settle into shallow valleys, then rise again to another hill crest, but each stood lower than the last. Just at sunset they climbed the last rise and saw below them Haz Evol, a straggle of town along the reed-choked banks of a stream. The fort, a tidy square of thorn walls, stood just beyond.

‘Is it safe to ride in?’ Arkazo asked. ‘What if someone recognizes you?’

‘It’s a chance I’ll have to take. We need information.’ Warkannan ran his hand over his burgeoning black beard. ‘The last time I was on the border, I was clean-shaven and in uniform. It’s funny, but when you’re in uniform, no one much looks at your face. I’ll bet I can slip through.’

Haz Evol, a small rambling town, existed to serve the military and little more. Warkannan hired quarters for his party at a shabby little inn, made of stacked trunks of spear trees bound together with vines. He went immediately to their cottage while the others tended the horses and brought in the gear. They ate in, rather than risk letting someone get a good look at them in the public common room.

‘Now tomorrow, if anyone asks you why I don’t come out, tell them I’ve got some kind of a fever,’ Warkannan said. ‘That’ll keep people away.’

‘Just so,’ Soutan said. ‘We need to buy gift goods – charcoal, wheatian, matches, things like that. The Tribes are hospitable, but it’s very rude to not have gifts to give them in return. Besides, spending money will get the townsfolk feeling friendly towards us.’ He glanced at Arkazo and Tareev. ‘Let me do the talking. Neither of you has impressed me with his subtlety.’

When Tareev opened his mouth to snarl, Warkannan waved him silent. ‘Soutan’s right.’ He turned back to the sorcerer. ‘Go on.’

Soutan did so. ‘We need to find out if anyone remembers anything about this merchant we’re tracking. I consulted the oracle last night, and it said that we’re in grave danger of being deceived.’

Tareev and Arkazo snickered.

‘I wish the oracle had told us this earlier,’ Warkannan said.

‘So do I,’ Soutan said. ‘It has its little ways.’

‘Well, let’s hope we’re not on the wrong trail. If one of the Chosen’s already heading east, time’s short.’

‘Oh, there’s plenty of time. I don’t care how dedicated or highly trained this spy is. He can’t get across the Rift alone. He’ll have to talk a comnee into escorting him. Have you forgotten about the ChaMeech?’

‘I never forget the ChaMeech. Let’s hope they eat him.’

‘They will, if he tries to ride alone. There’s only one thing the ChaMeech fear, and that’s magic. A spirit rider can scare them off, and I’ve no doubt this Chosen One knows it as well as I do.’

‘And what about us?’ Arkazo said. ‘Do we have to attach ourselves to the stinking barbarians, too?’

‘Of course not,’ Soutan snapped. ‘You have me.’

All the next day Warkannan paced back and forth or sat near the window to keep watch. Now and then he would try to read – he carried a copy of The Mirror of the Qur’an everywhere with him – but doubts distracted him, even from the beloved teachings of the First Prophet. Fortunately, Arkazo and Tareev returned early in the afternoon with their armloads of supplies.

‘No one seemed to be following us, sir,’ Arkazo reported. ‘No one told us much, either. Soutan sent us back. He had the gall to say that we talked too much and got in the way.’

‘Ah.’ Warkannan thought that for once, the sorcerer was probably right. ‘Well, why don’t you two go out and get our horses some water? I’ll pack these supplies.’

Soutan came back late, bringing with him a skin of keese and a girl, a mousy little thing whose clothes reeked of grease and strong soap. Warkannan wondered about Soutan’s taste in women until the sorcerer announced that Vorika knew things of interest. At that, Warkannan sat her down in the best chair and poured her a cup of keese. Vorika, it turned out, worked as a kitchen girl in a local caravanserai that served the merchant trade. She was also flattered enough by all this unaccustomed attention to giggle, hiding her stained teeth behind one hand.

‘Well, I saw this merchant, but I didn’t know him. Everyone talked about him for days. He was crazy. I mean, just absolutely everyone said he was crazy, because he went out onto the grass with only a couple of men along.’

‘A merchant, huh?’ Warkannan said. ‘What kind of goods?’

‘Oh, axes and swords, stuff like that. Just absolutely everyone told him he was carrying ChaMeech bait – that’s what they called it, ChaMeech bait – but he wouldn’t listen.’

Warkannan and Arkazo exchanged a significant smile.

‘Come now, girl,’ Soutan said. ‘Tell them what happened to this merchant.’

‘Oh yes, sir. Well, you see, about a week after he left – I think it was a week, anyway – no, I tell a lie – it was ten days after he left, but anyway, he came back. His men said they were going to leave him out there alone if he didn’t. So he rode south somewhere for the next horse fair. A couple of the men who stay regular-like in our inn saw him there, you see, and they say they teased him ever so much about it.’

Warkannan swore so vilely that the girl flinched. He apologized, soothed her feelings with a couple of silver deenahs, and ushered her out. He returned to an uncomfortable silence. Tareev and Arkazo sat on the floor, looking at the carpet. Soutan had flopped into an armchair, and his smile carried barbs.

‘The oracle may be ambiguous at times,’ Soutan remarked to the empty air, ‘but it never outright lies.’

‘It doesn’t, huh?’ Warkannan sat down on the divan. ‘Well, I wonder if the Chosen sent this merchant as a deliberate false trail.’

‘Maybe they didn’t have to.’ Soutan glanced at Arkazo and Tareev. ‘Fools abound, after all.’

Arkazo started to speak.

‘Shut up,’ Warkannan said. ‘Now let me think. It’s possible that our spy’s slipped over the border without anyone knowing, of course, but that possibility gets us nowhere.’

‘There’s that cavalry officer,’ Arkazo said. ‘The one who was cashiered.’

‘Yes.’ Soutan drawled the word. ‘How providential, wasn’t it, that a comnee took him in? Are we going to ride along the border and ask about him?’

‘No,’ Warkannan said. ‘We’re heading out tomorrow. Sooner or later, we’ll find a comnee. If one of the comnees has taken in a Kazrak, the news will spread. They’re like that, passing things along. We’ll track him down.’

‘And what then? Ask him ever so politely if he’s one of the Chosen?’

‘No. We’re going to kill him. If he’s not the right man, well, I’m sorry for the poor bastard, but I don’t dare take any chances, not with Jezro Khan’s life.’

‘The Chosen aren’t so easy to kill, from what I hear.’

‘No, they’re not. We’re going to have to try, though. If God wills it, it’ll get done.’