Page 20 of Fate of the Argosi

I ran – stumbled mostly, but Arissa kept me from falling on my face – back to where Kievan was holding Remeny up with her hands under his arms. The boy wasn’t unconscious, but he was definitely woozy. He cried out as the lines on his forehead twisted and turned, pulling themselves apart before reshaping themselves into something new. No longer the intricate, labyrinthine design, but now an elegant calligraphy: letters scripted in a language most of us in the barracks could speak but few had ever seen. Nobody bothers to write anything in Mahdek any more.

‘What does it say?’ Arissa asked, but by then the words had disappeared, the lines returning to their earlier convoluted design.

‘Tickles,’ Remeny said, eyes still unfocused. He giggled. ‘It really tickles.’

The other kids had probably never learned to read Mahdek. Mostly the young are taught Daroman, the most widely used language on the continent. After that, a little Gitabrian, Zhuban, Berabesq and whatever else a refugee needs to know to beg for charity. Chedran had seen the markings though, and he’d gotten the message, same as me. He didn’t look angry any more, or even sad. He looked grim.

‘They’re changing again!’ Kievan shouted, craning her neck from behind Remeny to see what the others were pointing at.

We all watched as the silver unwound itself, stretching as if pulled by invisible fingers. The lines gave up their intricate curves, some straightening like roads and trails, others flowing like rivers or inclining up one side then down the other like hills. On the far right of Remeny’s forehead, two vertical lines were crowned with a jagged parapet: a tower of some kind. On the far left, a tiny silver rectangle appeared, its proportions identical to the barracks in which we stood.

Kievan beckoned for two of the older kids to hold Remeny up so she could step out from behind him and try to make sense of this strange change to his markings. ‘Is it some kind of map?’

‘Not quite,’ I replied. I wiped the last stray drops of blood from the corners of my eyes before looking around for my pack. Outside it was already dark, but a wide gap left by broken boards in the wall above the door frame revealed a full moon that would light our way. I decided that Kievan deserved a fuller answer. Precision is important in these matters, after all. ‘A map is a tool for navigating wherever you want to go. What that mage just inscribed on Remeny’s forehead? Those are directions.’

I’d only gotten a glance at the words that had so briefly appeared in those silver letters, written in the tongue of my people to let us know that whoever was in control of the dead mage’s spell warrant knew who these kids were and could find them whenever they wanted. Now I understood precisely what they meant.

‘They’re threatening to slaughter the children,’ Chedran said, stomping up beside me to make it clear that if I were stupid enough to follow the trail laid out for us, I wouldn’t be going alone. Arissa was right behind him of course; someone needed to keep him from killing me. ‘They want to goad us into facing them in battle on their terms and their terrain.’

‘Could be,’ I conceded. ‘But me, I prefer to think of it as a hastily worded invitation.’

Chedran’s scorn could have curdled milk. ‘And if you’re wrong? If this asinine Argosi optimism in which you place so much faith leads us into a trap?’

I traded him his sneer for one of Durral Brown’s most irritating smiles. ‘One thing folks always seem to forget about us Argosi? We’re awful good at ensnaring ill-mannered hosts in their own traps.’

Better that you come to us, the message had read.

Damn straight I’m coming to you, pal.

I stepped outside into the darkness, looking up at that bright silver moon overhead. Daroman gamblers claim she’s the goddess of good fortune. I offered her my cheek so she could kiss me for luck. Had a feeling I was going to need some.

12

The Ruined Tower

Four days of riding at a slow but steady pace brought us to within sight of the tower. We could’ve gotten there sooner, but that would’ve meant Arissa, Chedran and me were exhausted, not to mention irritating the two bronzes, and especially Quadlopo, who had, with some reluctance, accepted his status as lead horse. Truth be told, I was in no rush to walk into a nest of Jan’Tep mages. Moon-kissed I might be, but Lady Luck has never been so magnanimous as to grant me just one enemy to fight at a time.

‘What are the odds they’ll fall for it?’ Arissa asked, lowering the brass spyglass I always carried with me for occasions like this but which she seemed determined to keep for herself. ‘There’s still no sign of anyone leaving the tower.’

‘Why should they?’ Chedran asked, that dismissive sneer of his on full display as it had been this whole journey. ‘We’re handing ourselves over to them like lambs to the slaughter.’

I know what you’re thinking:Tell him to shove his incessant smugness up his own arse or at least have the decency to come up with a less gruesome metaphor.Well, I could remind you that part of arta loquit is knowing when someone’s offering you the first verse of the song just so they can hit you hard with the chorus. The honest answer, though, is that Arissa already had that covered.

‘Hey, Ferius? You remember last week when I cut some guy’s tongue out of his head, then made him swallow it, then waited until he had to go to the privy so I could make him fish it out of his droppings and eat it again? Whatever happened to that guy?’

In case you’re wondering, that particular incident hadn’t taken place.

Yet.

‘Oh, right,’ Arissa said, smacking her palm on her forehead. ‘That wasn’t last week. All my time in prison, I get my yesterdays and tomorrows mixed up. No, that was five minutes from now unless the arsehole in question shuts the hells up.’

Fallen in love yet? I swear, I was getting close.

‘The others won’t have gotten more than fifteen or twenty miles from the barracks yet,’ I pointed out, then gestured to the ruined tower some sixty yards through the trees ahead of us. ‘The coven might not bother getting on the move until they know for sure the kids are making a break for it.’

I’d instructed Kievan to wait about six hours after we left the barracks and then take her crew north towards the Mahdek enclave in Darome, making it look like they were running home. The whole point of a spell warrant being to make it easy to track a fugitive, the mages hunting them would want to catch them before they got too deep into Daroman territory where Jan’Tep hunting covens aren’t exactly welcome – especially when they’re in the business of murdering teenagers. By the time the kids had set out, Arissa, Chedran and me would’ve reached the only decent road between them and the tower. With a little judicious scouting, we’d know when the Jan’Tep were coming, allowing us to take cover and set up an ambush.

Good plan, right? Only problem was, the mages hadn’t shown up on the road, and the smoke coming out the top of the tower and the signs of movement inside that Arissa had spotted earlier through my spyglass made it plain they’d never left.

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