Bastion Read online

  Well, this way, if I go down, I go down on my own terms, and ain’t no Ancestor-thing going to be walking around in my body, after.

  • • •

  They’d all settled in and around Lita’s sleeping nook. The fires were being allowed to die out. Jakyr was sitting up with help from cushions, looking alert but clearly in pain.

  “So this is our plan, friend-of-my-cousin,” Bey said cheerfully. “We have made inventory of our options, and they are better than I had thought. The Sleepgivers above are in a worse position than we. Their food is only what they can catch on the hills above; they are reduced to shooting those thin little black birds that flock to sleep in the trees at night. They will not be able to break a path to a village to threaten anyone for some time, and they have a dilemma. They can break the path and chance us escaping, or they can lay siege to us and hope that we break. Also, they do not know I am with you. They are hungry and cold. They like this snow no better than I, which is to say, not at all. So, they think they have killed one of you. I think they think that you are not well provisioned either. If I were a fool like they, I would say lay siege, they will come out and we shall kill them one by one except for Meric. So. We give them something they do not expect.”

  “What’s that?” Jakyr asked.

  Bey smiled, but it was Mags that answered. “Silence. Now, that means we’re gonna be a mite uncomfortable here ourselves. We let the fires burn out, so there’s no more smoke above, where they can see it, and no light comin’ outa the cave mouth at night. All of you pull back into that dead end where the steam bath is, even the horses an’ the Companions. You’ll all have blankets and the food’ll be cold, but we gotta make ’em think that we run outa provisions, we all died, or maybe we got sick, or somehow we escaped. And they won’t know which, till they come down to look the situation over. We make ’em come to us.”

  Bey took it up from there. “They will not all come. And they are not all of one mind, which will do us good. Some are loyal to the Shadao entirely, others favor a nephew that might be made heir were I not to be. They will send three of mixed faction, which will mean they do not fight with one mind, but singly, each hoping to be the one to say I am the one that took Meric. We will kill them, Mags and I, silently, and with no sign, for Mags has shared my memories and, thus, my skills. We will take the bodies off and conceal them and all signs that they were slain. And then we will wait. When the first three do not return, another three will come. We will do the same. Now their numbers will be halved; they will send no more, and we will have to consider another strategy.” Bey waited, with an air that he expected them all to agree that this was a brilliant plan. Into the silence came a distant drip of water.

  “You make it sound so easy,” Jakyr said dryly, after a very long pause. One eyebrow rose, slightly, and he pressed his hand to one of his wounds.

  “For a true Sleepgiver, it will be,” Bey said with easy arrogance. “Ehu, we will see, which are the true Sleepgivers and which the inferior. But! Some may slip by us. They might find a way down from the upper caves and come in behind Mags and me. You must be quiet, and you must also be alert to defend yourselves—which is why we will put you in a place with no second entrance. Most of a Sleepgiver’s advantages are gone if he must confront a prepared target, yet they will still be formidable. Inferior Sleepgivers though they be, they are still of the House.” His eyes glittered in the light. “And those of the House, as you have found, are not to be dismissed.” The vanners pawed their straw, then went back to dozing.

  “I don’t like it,” Jakyr said flatly, then sighed. “But I don’t see a choice.”

  Bey clapped his hands, startling the vanners, who snorted. “Well said! Now, I shall go and gather what we need, the Healer and his mate will commence to move the beasts while we have light and will settle them in a place in that dead end where they can see before we leave them in darkness so that they are content once the darkness closes in, and will sleep. Elder Singer, do you keep companionship with this one, while Mags and his mate make for you all a place that is warm as may be and gather there food enough for two or three days.”

  Bey sprang to his feet and trotted off. Bear and Lena headed for the vanners. Before Amily and Mags could move, Lita looked sternly at Jakyr. “Why?” she asked him harshly.

  Mags and Amily froze. The Herald and the Bard were intent on each other and oblivious to their presence.

  Jakyr did not ask her what she meant. “Lit’, I nearly died back at Carnavon Grove. I saw what happened to Tully’s wife, and Kal’s girl after. I didn’t think you would be able to handle burying me. And I didn’t think you should sacrifice a shot at becoming one of the instructors at Bardic just to follow me around and then end up burying me. So I . . . said what I said to drive you away. I just picked the cruelest things I could, even if I knew there wasn’t a grain of truth in them. And you saw what happened here, was I wrong?”

  “Damn right, you were wrong,” she snapped. “And what’s more, it wasn’t your damn decision to make! Now you listen here, you damn fool—”

  She bent over him and muted her voice to an angry whisper. Mags and Amily decided that was a good time to make themselves absent, because it sounded like Lita’s idea of “companionship” was going to involve a lot of things they probably shouldn’t be overhearing.

  • • •

  The horses were asleep, the Companions with them, back behind the others. The whole tunnel had been covered with a thick layer of straw to muffle noise and keep things warm. Then firewood had been piled up to chest height across the tunnel to serve as a bulwark—not that anyone back there could see anything in the cave dark. But the ones who would be hiding behind that bulwark all knew exactly where the food and water were, and with all the bedding piled in a heap on the floor they could huddle together for warmth as the cave chilled to its normal temperature. There was a lantern they could kindle if they heard anything, and the disadvantage of being silhouetted against the light was, in Bey’s estimation, outweighed by the fact they would have the light at their back and nothing glaring into their eyes.

  Mags and Bey were both wearing their talismans, so that they would be invisible to the talismans worn by the other Sleepgivers.

  The fires had been allowed to die in the main cave, and Bey and Mags’ preparations were complete. Now it was a matter of waiting, and they already knew they would have to wait through the night until morning. First the Sleepgivers would have to notice that there was no light coming from the cave. They might venture down out of the heights to peer in at the entrance, but they would be cautious, and Bey was of the opinion that the conditions would not be in his and Mags’ favor to attack them in the relative open. No, they would have to wait until the first set of three actually set foot in the cave.

  The two of them settled themselves as comfortably as possible on the straw beside the caravan, and Bey rehearsed Mags in the use of a weapon that was new to him. It wasn’t a nice weapon. It was purely an assassin’s weapon. He didn’t think it likely that the Weaponsmaster would ever teach anyone the use of this thing. But it was one that was going to give them the maximum chance of silent kills.

  “Throw again,” Bey murmured, holding up his fist, with a hat on it, to make it the size of a man’s head. Mags could barely see it against the moonlit snow outside, but that was just about as much light as he was going to when he finally used this thing.

  Mags threw the braided wire loop over Bey’s fist without touching hat or skin, and yanked on the wooden handle. Gently, because if he yanked at full strength he could seriously damage Bey’s wrist.

  “And then the knife to the kidney, which I know you know how to do. Remember, if you need to take a second blow, only to strike below the ribs. Do not try anything clever, like cutting the spine, or striking for the heart. A strike that hits bone does you no favors. Good. Again.”

  Mags was discovering that Bey’s memories were actually working to improve his own muscle-memory to an extent that was a litt
le terrifying. That time, he hadn’t even had to think at all about the toss. He’d just done it. A few more times—

  “A few more times, and you will be almost my equal,” said Bey, echoing his thoughts. “Again.”

  • • •

  Sure enough, there were at least two Sleepgivers peering into the blackness of the cave. Mags didn’t think they realized how easy they were to see against the snow. He actually spotted them first, and touched Bey to alert him to their presence. Both of them froze completely still, as only a Sleepgiver could, so that not even a single straw rustled. They breathed slowly, meditatively, through their noses, as the Sleepgivers cautiously moved their heads into the cave entrance and attempted to make out anything, anything at all. The only sound was that intermittent dripping somewhere deep in the caves. The only smell was stale, dead smoke and cave-damp.

  Mags and Bey had already removed everything to the storage caves. Only the caravan remained, and that was because it was too hard to move anywhere else.

  It wasn’t where it would catch the light, anyway.

  The Sleepgivers peered and listened, peered and listened, and got nothing for their pains. Eventually, the heads vanished, and Mags thought he might be hearing the sound of someone climbing the cliff with a rope.

  “And so, they fulfill my first prophecy,” Bey breathed. “Let us hope that they continue to do so.”

  • • •

  At the first light, Mags elbowed Bey when he thought he heard a whisper of noise outside the cave. Then he crouched low, and with one hand on the floor to keep himself steady, scuttled to the other side of the cave and felt his way along the wall until he came to a place where the cave made a turn to his left. This was not a way he had run before. It was a strange sort of “running” that had him skimming or gliding his feet barely above the surface of the rock to avoid making a footfall—something he had not known how to do until he had shared Bey’s memories.

  That turning gave him an obtuse “corner” to hide behind that would still allow him to see the entrance. Bey wasn’t nearly as lucky, since on his side, the wall stayed more or less straight—except that Bey had the caravan to hide behind.

  He knew what Bey was doing: setting himself up on the opposite side behind the caravan. He couldn’t hear a thing, though. Bey was just that much better than he was, able to walk across straw without making a single stalk break or rustle.

  Now he definitely heard something out there, and once again, there were heads showing against the dim light and the white snow, two on Bey’s side of the cave, one on his. That was a piece of luck. He would only need to deal with one target.

  They waited out there a very long time. Long enough for the scrap of sky he could see to lighten to blue from gray. The Sleepgivers must have decided it was more risky to be out than in, because at that point, they all three slipped into the cave, bodies pressed against the rock.

  Another piece of luck. He kept his eyes narrowed against the growing light at the entrance and concentrated on the one on his side. Bey had said that he didn’t think the Sleepgivers were all that familiar with the layout, even of the outer part of the cave. “They have peered in, but not gone inside, I think. They will have to feel their way, or show a light, and they will not show a light. They will rely on the light coming from the entrance.”

  All Mags needed was to be able to see the bit of movement along the cave wall that would tell him where the Sleepgiver was. And if he had been relying on his own experience, he would have been certain that the man wasn’t moving at all—or had somehow gotten out of his line of sight. But he wasn’t relying on his own experience. He had Bey’s experience in his head. So he was able to track the torturously slow progress toward the ambush point.

  When he was certain the man wasn’t going to step any farther toward the middle of the cave, he backed up a pace or two, and out into the open, away from the wall, but still in the shadow where no light from the entrance would fall on him—moving just as slowly as his quarry was. Then he waited, because there would be a brief, very brief, moment of opportunity when his quarry encountered the turning. At that point, he would be away from the receding wall, he would be creeping his hand along the turn to find it, and he would be thinking about that and nothing else.

  So Bey said. “And if he keeps himself tight to the wall, you will just have to find an opportunity to strike without an advantage, my cousin.” Not much comfort, but there were several options in Bey’s memories, and he had Dallen, who was sifting through those memories and getting ready to give him the best one if that happened.

  Bey sure seems nice for a killer . . .

  :Actually, Chosen,: Dallen said, matter-of-factly, :most of those memories seem to be of training. I don’t think he’s killed more than a dozen people himself.:

  :Well, that’s comforting,: Mags said with heavy irony.

  :Oh, he’s still a hardened killer,: Dallen replied. :And all that training and practice was pretty harrowing. I’ll show you sometime. When we have time.:

  A hand appeared at the edge of the turning. Mags stilled his breathing. The hand inched its way around the turning, and the man stepped away from the wall, uncertain now. He had no memory of this, he could have no memory of this, and he couldn’t know what the footing was like around this turn. There might be outcroppings he could trip on. There might be gravel. There might be a drop-off. He had to walk where he could at least dimly see, until he was certain that the cave floor didn’t descend abruptly. His training was telling him to continue inching along the wall, but his instincts screamed at him not to go into the full dark. “I would heed my training. He will heed his instincts. That is why he will fail.”

  He heeded his instincts. After all, no one had shot at him and the other two Sleepgivers when they first appeared in the entrance. There was no sound except that irritating, distant dripping of water. There was no light coming from inside the cave. There was no sight, sound, smell or feeling to tell him that there was anyone or anything in this part of the cave. He would be trying to think like his quarry, and given that one of their number had been killed, his quarry would do what frightened things always did—try to find a place to hide.

  The man slid one foot after the other, warily, silently, inching deeper into the cave, heading for the one goal he knew—the back of this part of the entrance, where presumably he would meet the other two, and they would decide what to do from here.

  “Strike a light and make traps, that is what they will think. If there were less snow, they would go to the chimney and try to smoke you out. Instead, they will wait for you to think they have gone, and step into their traps.”

  The man was now almost within perfect striking reach. His arms were down at his sides, since he was no longer feeling his way along a wall. He had seen that past the turning, there was still no light. His plan remained the same.

  So had Mags’. His nerves might have screamed with impatience, but he had Bey’s memories now. And Bey remained perfectly calm in situations like this. Poised, like a snake, waiting for exactly the right moment—

  His muscles moved before his mind did. The loop of braided wire lofted over the man’s head. Two steps and Mags was behind him, just as the garrote touched his shoulders. Hard yank, with knee braced in the small of the man’s back, pulling him over backward and tightening the wire so quickly he was unable to get his fingers under it, so tightly his breath was choked off immediately and he couldn’t make a sound. Quick knife to the kidney to paralyze him, twist, remove, wipe and resheath. Then softly lowering him to the cave floor, garrote still choking off any possibility of breath. Holding the wire tight, one foot on the man’s shoulders, as the body quivered and stilled.

  “Tsk,” Bey said in his ear. “I heard his feet drumming on the stone. You must learn to do better than that.”

  “I’d just as soon not, thanks,” Mags whispered back, letting go of the end of the garrote, which had a wooden handle so he didn’t destroy his fingers while choking a man to
death. “Good job on those two, I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “I would have been devastated if you had.” Bey bent and got the wire off the cooling corpse’s neck. “Take this and go back to the caravan. I will dispose of this offal.”

  • • •

  Bey must have been incredibly strong; he had picked up the body and thrown it over his shoulder as if it were a sack of grain. Then again, Bey hadn’t been starved for most of his life, and he had been training physically for most of his life.

  Mags felt both unclean and conflicted. On the one hand, since he had Bey’s memories, it felt satisfying to have pulled off such a clean kill. A job well done, like a good Kirball goal—

  On the other hand, he had just murdered a man in cold blood, and he felt unclean.

  Bey was not being cautious on his return; there was no need. Mags saw him moving across the cave floor, and he settled in next to Mags on the straw with a sigh.

  “What happens to the talismans when the Sleepgivers die?” he whispered.

  “The talismans die with them, and the Ancestor Spirits are released.” Bey paused. “Mind, I cannot swear that the spirits imprisoned in the talismans are actually the Spirits of our Ancestors.” He paused again. “In fact . . . the more I think about it, the less likely that seems. Because if they were the Spirits of our Ancestors, one would think they would inform each other when a talisman-bearer falls. And yet, they do not.”

  “Sounds more like a Karsite demon to me,” Mags said, after a while.

  “All the more reason to cease this practice,” said Bey, firmly. “But, I think I will leave this until I am Shadao. There is no sense in making trouble for myself until I am in power.”

  “Well, now what happens?” Mags asked.