The Seer: Chapter Sixteen

    Tayre was impressed with the residents of the hidden enclave and the lengths they went through to hide their existence here in the deadlands. But was the Botaros girl still there?

    Judging by the many places he had been that she was not, he was fairly certain she had come this way, down the Great Road, into the deadland flats, and had not emerged. He had circled the area a good number of times, all sixty and some miles of it, watching riders and wagons come and go, noting tracks, keeping count. Almost all the wagons, riders, and those on foot who had entered the deadlands also exited the other side.

    Almost.

    One wagon had clearly originated in the deadland expanse itself without having come from elsewhere, and had headed east to the markets in the small towns, returning days later, and failing to emerge elsewhere.

    He was becoming fairly certain he had stumbled onto the fabled hidden city of Kusan, an excellent place to hide. If half the rumors about it were true, also uncommonly well-defended. He could not simply ride in and start asking questions.

    So he scouted the area, looking for clues as to the people who lived in this, it turned out, not-mythical underground city. He made a methodical survey of the area, avoiding the deadlands themselves, staying well out of sight.

    The Kusani, it turned out, were clever enough not to keep a schedule. Wagons left sometime during the waxing or full moon, when the skies were clear enough at night to light their way, so he expected another wagon to emerge from the deadlands soon, at which point he would have someone to question.

    Such a community would be keenly aware of newcomers. If she were there, they would know. If he got his hands on any of them, he would also know.

    Which he would shortly.

    The wagons came eastward from the deadlands via a windswept rocky shelf of land, clearly intending to avoid the kind of tracking he was now doing. As careful as they were at hiding their location and travel, every human alive needed food and water. They could only do so much to hide from someone observant and patient.

    So he waited.

    When it came, the small covered wagon rolled slowly toward him, one cart horse, two people sitting at the front, he would guess another two inside. They would pass directly under where he now stood, on a hillside in brush and trees.

    Then he would ride down from his vantage point and have a conversation. With a bit of care, he could not only find out that the girl was there in the warrens below, but also induce them to bring her out to him, willingly.

    He could think of a number of compelling stories that might make the underground residents grateful to him for taking her off their hands, and he had enough coin to back any such story. This would be the tidiest of solutions: fast, direct, with least risk. He might even be able to take her alive.

    But if he could not command Kusani cooperation, he would take them off the road into the woods where he could ask questions at length and see what other solutions presented themselves. Then, at least, he would know the girl was there.

    As he watched the wagon roll closer he performed his usual checks: saddle, pack bindings secure, knives in place, close-in bow ready, arrows likewise.

    Once he knew the girl was here, if his ideal solution of Kusani cooperation was not obtainable, he would go back to the capital and convince the Lord Commander to give him a small army. With enough soldiers he could surround and overwhelm the underground warrens, blocking every exit she might take, then thoroughly search every inch of tunnel. With sufficient eyes and hands and weapons, he felt sure her foresight could be overwhelmed.

    Rumor said that Kusan was impregnable. That was not reason enough to take it, but it did make it intriguing.

    And no one lived underground without reason. They were hiding something, or hiding from someone. Whatever that was would likely be valuable and further inducement to the Lord Commander to give Tayre the forces necessary. Another thing he would find out from the Kusani.

    He swung himself up on his horse, eyes still on the approaching wagon, checking and double-checking that everything on himself and his horse was where he expected it to be.

    He heard sounds from the hill west, another vantage point he had considered and dismissed as both too open and likely noisy, which it was now, as two horses came crashing down through the brush, half-sliding down the steep hillside on a fast approach to the wagon, which they now circled, the two riders shouting orders to those inside, to stop, to get out.

    Tayre was already riding down the hill as fast as his horse would take him, watching as the two Kusani sitting up front dropped the reins to put their hands up in surrender, facing the first attacker as he let fly an arrow that sank into the chest of the first wagoner. The wagoner clutched at his chest, gasping and slipping off the wagon to the ground. Another shot and the second wagoner, a woman, screamed, and crumpled.

    Tayre urged his horse to speed.

    At the back of the wagon the second attacker was yelling at those inside to come out, to get onto their knees, which they did rather more quickly than Tayre had hoped. The attacker then pulled a short sword and clumsily but effectively ran it through the first of those. The figure went prone.

    The other figure, a girl, lurched to her feet and began to run. The attacker’s arrow caught her in the calf. She stumbled to the ground.

    A girl about the age the seer would be now, wearing a cloak with blue trim.

    Tayre’s horse was on the road proper, forward at a full gallop, but in the seconds it took him to arrive, the other attacker had put a bolt into the girl’s back. She went flat.

    If it were indeed the seer, they had saved him a good deal of trouble. Somehow he doubted it would be that easy.

    As he rode up the two attackers turned to face him, the points of their notched arrows aimed at him. One seemed ready to speak, the one he had judged as the more competent of the two, when Tayre shot him through the stomach with his crossbow. He crumpled. The other man’s attempt to shoot Tayre went far wide as he sacrificed accuracy for speed, which was what Tayre had expected him to do, providing plenty of time to put a bolt through his wrist to a loud grunt of pain and a dropped bow.

    “Wait, wait –” the man said, stumbling back, his other arm raised to block the next shot.

    “Turn her over,” Tayre ordered, motioning to the girl on the ground, face down.

    Clutching his wrist, giving an agonized look at his bow lying feet away in the dirt, the man lurched to the girl and pushed onto her back with his foot.

    She was not Amarta al Botaros. Disappointing, but not surprising. He doubted any of the other Kusani were still alive to tell him anything. Maybe the attackers knew something.

    “Why kill them?” he asked. “Any of these could have led you to the girl.”

    Swallowing hard with pain, he said, “We only need the head.”

    “You do know it has to be the right head, don’t you?”

    “It is the right head.”

    “What makes you think so?”

    “She’s wearing the cloak. The one we were told she wears.”

    Hunting the cloak. Not the girl.

    Idiots. These two clearly knew nothing of the hidden city or the whereabouts of the seer.

    “Who hired you?” he asked.

    “No one. I –”

    The next bolt went through his shoulder. The man screamed.

    Tayre dismounted. “Who hired you?” he asked again.

    “The Lord Commander. No, no, please don’t, I –”

    It was, alas, the answer he had expected, so he sent the third bolt through the man’s throat to keep him quiet for a bit but alive in case Tayre wanted more answers. The man’s mouth moved silently as he slipped to his knees, hands clawing at his throat.

    Tayre bent down to touch the girl’s neck. Dead. The cloak was definitely the seer’s — he remembered the unusual strip of blue on the hem, now bloodied.

    What did all this mean? That someone had taken the cloak from her was the simplest and thus most likely explanation. But she could see into the future, making this far from a typical situation. He had to assume what he was looking at now was no accident.

    Did she know he would be standing here right now, watching this girl’s blood seep out of her into the cloak, this garment that used to be hers? Had she predicted his intent here today and acted to thwart him? Or was this all instinct to her, as a horse knew to snap at a fly, or a cat to kill a mouse?

    He confirmed that each of the Kusani was dead. As clumsy as the attackers were, they were competent enough in surprise against the Kusani; not a pulse remained to question.

    Too bad all around, he thought, standing, gaze sweeping the land from the road leading west to the deadlands to the eastward hills that went to the market towns that were the wagon’s original destination.

    While the road was rarely traveled, it would be in time. The Kusani might even come to investigate when their people failed to return. Best to clean up and move on.

    He put his knife blade up and through the heart of the attacker still gurgling and clutching his throat on the ground, and inspected the second attacker, a man so young he could barely grow a beard. He lay keening, curled around his stomach, the bolt having sliced through his kidney as Tayre had intended, accounting for the obvious discomfort. A few more questions of the young man gained Tayre no new insights, so he twisted the man’s head sharply and let him die.

    As he stripped the cloak off the dead girl for closer inspection he came to the conclusion that the seer was no longer here. Not in the deadlands, not in Kusan. Her cloak on this girl, so close in age, could be no accident.

    An intriguing mystery, Kusan, but for now one best left hidden. By the time he returned with force sufficient to take the underground city, he was confident she would be long gone, the trail again cold. He could not, with that level of expenditure and visibility, afford to be wrong again; it would exhaust what little credibility he still had with the Lord Commander.

    So it seemed this event had changed his mind after all.

    Had she foreseen all this? Was she clever enough to have engineered it? If he had decided to apprehend her alive, before he had the Lord Commander’s permission to kill her, would she have acted otherwise?

    How many moves ahead could she see?

    He stopped himself from this line of supposition. Guessing at what she might foresee based on his intent would get him nowhere. Short of examining her up close and with sufficient time, this was no more than circles of speculation and excessive conjecture, a trap as surely as his previous underestimation of her had been.

    He must reason from immediate evidence. He turned slowly, looking for any other clues in the scene of slaughter before him.

    Another thought occurred to him, born of another set of rumors entirely. He knelt down and made a second, closer examination of the fallen Kusani, looking at their eyes, scalps, brows and arms. They were all blond.

    Even more interesting: Kusan, it seemed, was at least in part a slave refuge. It did not change his plans; while a city of Emendi was a prize of significant worth and something the Lord Commander might even be interested in, making slaves had nothing to do with this contract nor his determination to find the girl.

    The seer had turned into a potent adversary. Acquiring her, breathing or not, was all that concerned him now.

    He had to admit that it might not be possible. His uncle, the man who had raised him and taught him his craft, had also shown him how to find the edge of the possible and go beyond it. That meant finding the place where what you knew wasn’t enough, where your very conception of the world kept you from understanding the next step.

    Find the unknown. Make it known to you.

    He would find her, study her, and complete his contract. However long it took.

    With that thought he rode the dead bodies up into the high hills, putting them deep in the ground. The wagon and carthorse he would take to one of the small towns where those he knew would make it vanish for him.

    Then he would search the deadland roads again for the girl, her sister, and the now-walking boy-child. Most likely she would continue southward, heading toward one of the coastal port towns or cities. Possibly even Munasee.

    The trail was there. He would find it.