The Will of the Empress

Sandry patted Gudruny’s arm, then went to see how successful Briar had been in explaining their plan to Zhegorz.

“I can’t,” Zhegorz protested when Sandry found them. “Tris said I must watch and listen for you.”

“And you have,” Sandry told him. “While we slept, you did. Now I need you to safeguard Gudruny and the children. Please, Zhegorz.”

He nodded, without meeting her eyes. Can I ask for anyone braver? she wondered. He’s terrified, and yet he has spied on the might of the empire that’s here for me. For us. Maybe it takes a coward more courage—not less—to do and not do things. Perhaps cowards understand the world so much better than brave folk.

Once Gudruny, Zhegorz, and the children had left with the cart, Sandry, Briar, and Daja settled into the common room to give them a couple of hours’ head start. As Briar drew strength from his shakkan and Daja mended a piece of tack, Sandry asked the sergeant who commanded their guards to come see her. When he arrived, he did not look at all comfortable.

“Forgive me, Clehame,” he said, “but word gets around. There’s imperial mages waiting at the border. I hear they mean to stop you. What does that mean for my lads and me?”

Sandry smiled at him. “You were only supposed to bring me to the border,” she told the man. “I would no more ask you to defy your empress than I would ask you to cook your own children. Please tell Cousin Ambros you guarded me well. And my thanks to you and your men.” She drew out the pouch of coins she had kept for this moment. “To buy some…comforts…on your way home.” She gave it to him with a wink.

The sergeant bowed and accepted the pouch. “You are always gracious, Clehame,” he said. “We thank you and ask Qunoc’s blessing on your journey home.”

“You’d be better off asking Sythuthan’s,” Briar muttered.

The sergeant grinned at the suggestion that they should appeal to the notorious trickster god. “Your gods bless and hold you evermore, Clehame Sandrilene,” he told Sandry. “We wish you and Viymese Daja and Viynain Briar a long life and much happiness.”

Watching through the common room door as the Landreg men-at-arms rode away, Sandry felt a weight fall from her shoulders. “It’s just us now,” she murmured. “We don’t have to be responsible for anyone else. What a relief.”

20

The 11th day of Mead, 1043 K. F.

The Olart border crossing, the Imperial Highway South, Namorn to Ratey’s Inn, Olart

Two hours before noon, the three young mages approached the border crossing. By then, all those who had bunched up to pass through at dawn had gone on their way. Gudruny and Zhegorz and the children had passed through hours before, disguised as a common family. Sandry, Daja, and Briar now rode with a few remaining packhorses since they had not wanted to let their mage kits go in the cart. Briar in particular did not trust Gudruny’s rowdy son to not sit on his shakkan.

As they approached the great stone arch that marked the crossing, Sandry said abruptly, “Ishabal sad? Zhegorz said she’s unhappy. Why on earth would she be unhappy? Could it be she doesn’t want a fight?”

Briar shrugged. “That’s a bit of a reach, don’t you think? Maybe she just wasn’t awake. Maybe she had mush for breakfast instead of bliny. That would depress me.”

“Because your best love is your belly,” Sandry told him, her voice dry. “Did they starve you in Gyongxe, too?”

His face turned somber. “They starved us all. Some they starved to death. I tell you, it was enough to put a fellow off emperors. Once they start thinking they’re bigger than kings, they don’t just ruin the lives of a couple dozen folk here and there. They ruin thousands of lives at a twitch.”

Daja had been studying a miniature portrait of Rizu she carried in her belt purse. Hurriedly, she put it away. “It doesn’t matter why Ishabal’s unhappy,” she said abruptly. “If she wants a fight with us or not. I heard plenty of stories about her in Kugisko, and from Rizu and her friends. They call Ishabal ‘the imperial will.’ What the empress wants, Ishabal gets done.”

“Not this time,” said Briar.

“People shouldn’t always get what they want,” Sandry replied grimly. “It’s very bad for their character.”

As the three approached the crossing, they could see the wooden platform built on the western side of the arch. There were the mages, just as Zhegorz had said. Their own suspicions were correct: The white-haired mage was Ishabal Ladyhammer. When they were about one hundred yards away, Ishabal sprinkled something on the platform. On the ground, a captain of the soldiers who manned the crossing stepped into the road. Twenty of his men trotted out to form a line at his back, leveling crossbows at the three.

“Halt!” cried the captain. “You will halt and submit yourselves for imperial inquiry!”

Briar lobbed a cloth-covered ball at the man. A mage who stood with Ishabal burned it from the air. He didn’t see the cloth ball that Daja rolled forward until it stopped at the captain’s feet. Once she had tossed it, she drew heat from the summer air, concentrating it in the crossbows. The metal fittings smoked, then got hot. The archers were disciplined; they fought to keep their grip on their weapons. Daja got cross, and dragged the heat from the stones around them into the metal of the bows and of the bowmen’s armor. They shouted in pain and dropped their weapons.

Vines sprouted from the cloth ball at the captain’s feet, slithering up and around his legs like snakes to hold him in place. He drew his sword and tried to hack at them, only to have the weapon suddenly grow hot in his hand. He dropped it. Daja summoned more heat to the men who faced her, running her fingers over the living metal on her hand as she tried to hold the line between too hot for comfort and hot enough to do permanent damage. The border guards yelped and shed belts, helms, swords, and daggers, any metal on their bodies as Daja called heat to it all.