Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [97]
“One more thing,” the rakzan said abruptly. “Last night I looked out of my tent and saw you walking back and forth at the end of the ridge, carrying a lantern.”
“So I was.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t sleep, and the camp’s too crowded to walk in the dark.”
Hir-li said nothing, leaving Tren to wonder if he believed what was, after all, the simple truth. Sleep, and particularly the act of falling asleep, had become a nightly torture, when he would lie alone in the dark of his tent with only his remorse for a companion. How had he been such a fool, to follow his brother Matyc into treachery? If only he had known just whom he was allying himself with, if only he’d seen more of the Horsekin than those few prophets, religious men all, talking of wise things, telling wonderful tales of a goddess who deigned to come into the world to meet her worshippers face to face. If only, if only—the words ate into his honor like burrowing worms.
Slaves had smoothed a rough road and cut a few dirt stairs down the side of the ridge to give the captains an easy walk down into the main camp. At the foot of the ridge, on the east side of Cengarn in the level plain, lay a parade ground. In this vast circle of open land, the subordinate officers of the Horsekin’s minutely organized army came each morning to receive orders and to make their reports to the rakzanir or captains. As Tren and Hir-li made their way downhill, Tren could see those officers, the Keepers of Discipline, standing waiting, while all round the edge of the circle a crowd was gathering. In the long boredom of a siege, any show came welcome.
Stripped naked and tied hand and foot like an animal ready for slaughter, there lay at the officers’ feet a human being, a blond fellow, young—Tren’s stomach wrenched when they came close enough for him to recognize Cadry, a man who’d ridden in his warband from the time he was little more than a lad. He was aware of Hir-li, watching him slantwise in appraisal.
“That’s the man?” A life filled with secret hatreds and resentments kept Tren’s voice rock steady.
“So I’ve been told. We’ll see what the Keepers say.”
They stopped on the other side of the bound man from the Keepers, each of whom wore a long red surcoat over his tunic and boots. One of their number, with a purple feather pinned to one shoulder, stepped forward and began delivering his report to the rakzan. Even after weeks in the Horsekin’s company, Tren could only decipher the odd word or two of their speech. Finally, Hir-li cut the man short with a wave of one massive hand.
“He says that just before dawn, they found this fellow trying to creep out of the encampment, over on the north side where the terrain’s rough enough to give a man a chance to hide,” Hir-li said. “They have witnesses.”
“Indeed?” Tren looked at Cadry. “Do you deny this?”
Cadry wrenched himself round like a caught fish and managed to get his elbows under his back. He propped himself up enough to tilt his head back and look Tren full in the face.
“I do not, my lord. If you had any honor left you’d do it yourself. Ah, by the true gods! If you had any honor, you’d lead us all out, away from these stinking creatures and back to our own kind.”
Tren’s life and the life of every man in his warband depended on his reaction. He kicked Cadry in the mouth so hard that he heard tooth and bone crunch under the blow.
“Hold your tongue, you blaspheming dog! Have you forgotten about her?”
His eyes filled with tears, Cadry flopped back on the ground and bled. Tren set his hands on his hips and merely looked at him, saying nothing, showing nothing. Hir-li said a few sentences to the Keepers, but Tren, of course, had no way of knowing what. For all he knew, Hir-li was inventing