Chapter 9
1598 Words
CHAPTER 9
“Sixteen dead—two of them afterward—and another eight wounded badly enough to be incapacitated,” Penrys said.
“I’d rather be up than lying here like a lump.” Zandaril glowered at her from his cot at the far end of the healers’ tent, set up in a cross of five squares, like the command tent. He transparently envied her relative mobility. Without his turban, his black hair hung in loose curls to the line of his jaw.
Penrys ran her hand over the smooth green tunic and brown leather over-jerkin provided by Hing Ganau. The choice in civilian clothing was limited. The clothes fit her well enough, but she wasn’t used to them, particularly the boots, and she hoped they’d be more comfortable after a bit of wearing. Everything ached at the moment.
She leaned forward on her camp chair, careful not to knock her arm in its sling.
“Listen—you’ve already faded out a couple of times since I’ve been here. Nothing wrong with you that time won’t cure, but no use pretending you’re fine.”
He glared at her.
“Or would you rather hop on a horse right now and go scouting for that Rasesni, eh?”
She was amused to see him turn pale at the thought of a swaying horse.
“Thought not,” she said.
He subsided for a moment, then changed the subject.
“Have you seen the place in daylight?”
“I took a walk around it earlier this morning. After Hing let me get up.”
He grinned at her. “Don’t let him bully you. He will, if you let him.”
“He was with you most of the night, you know. I told him to go get some sleep himself.” She chuckled. “He might even be doing that.”
“What does the damage look like?”
She sobered. “That wagon is just… gone. Everything inside came flying out and embedded itself in the nearest target. Luckily almost all the people were already settled for the evening, but some tents were too close…” She nodded her head at some of the other occupied beds.
“We were fortunate, we were just far enough away to miss the worst of it. Two more of the armory wagons were badly damaged, and they’re repairing what they can.”
“It was the mirror, wasn’t it? When you… touched it.”
She swallowed. “It was prepared to dump its power if someone mind-probed. Think if we’d been inside the wagon with it.”
He closed his eyes. “Two more dead, then.”
She nodded.
“That Rasesni, he didn’t have time to set the trap when we surprised him,” Zandaril said.
“No, it must’ve already been arranged.”
“Maybe it would have gone all the way back to Yenit Ping before a wizard touched it. Or ended up in Chang’s samke, his family’s compound, and killed even more there.”
“A nasty bit of work,” she agreed. “Indiscriminate. Aimed for you, I would think.”
“And it almost got me.”
“Oh, that reminds me. I have good news.” She reached behind her. “I found your boot.”
He smiled incautiously. “Still don’t understand how that could’ve come off.”
She presented him with a tattered bundle of leather. “Better for you that it did, considering what happened to it.”
He held it up and looked at the holes pierced through it. His face fell, and he leaned back again.
“I’ll just see if Hing wants this for a souvenir,” she said, plucking it out of his hands. She stood up to go, but a commotion at the tent’s entrance flap stopped her.
“Look who’s here,” she murmured to Zandaril.
Commander Chang and several other men were making their way through the tent, stopping at each cot to speak briefly with its occupant before moving on.
“Headed our way,” Zandaril said.
Penrys agreed. She put the boot down. Some of the faces seemed familiar from the night before.
She waited beside Zandaril until all had come to a stop. Staff followed them in to deposit camp seats for each of them, then left again. All remained standing until Chang spoke, directing himself to Zandaril.
“Since the doctor wouldn’t let you come to us,” he c****d his head at the woman trailing behind him, the one who’d treated Penrys the night before, “we decided we would come to you. We want a wizard’s opinion in our counsel.”
“It’s good we have you both.” This time his glance included Penrys.
He sat down, and his staff followed his lead. Penrys took her own seat, next to Zandaril’s cot.
“Tell us again what you saw last night,” Chang told her.
She recounted the events one more time, and added her interpretation. A hard-faced man with a square jaw scoffed at her account.
“I’m sorry, Commander-chi, but she shows up one day ago, the next night a so-called spy is found, and then the evidence disappears and we lose sixteen people. What sort of idiots do the Rasesni take us for?”
Zandaril raised himself on his elbows to protest. “I was there for all of it, Sau-chi. I’m the one who scared off the spy. I suggested she look for the mirror from a distance, and watched her do it.”
The staff officer did not look convinced, but a lifted hand from Chang quelled the discussion.
“I want to address any other immediate threat,” he said. “Is the Rasesni still gone, or has he returned in the confusion.”
Penrys stared at him. “I hadn’t considered that. I’ll look.”
She knew the spy’s individual mind now, and that helped her sort through the camp quickly. She then swung out to the edge of her reach, but couldn’t locate him.
“Nowhere I can find him.”
Sau muttered loudly, ‘So she says.”
“And how far is that?” Chang said, ignoring him.
“I’d need a known person at a known location to serve as a measure of distance, but I think it’s at least a couple of miles.” This relatively level terrain would make a good place for some tests, once Zandaril is recovered. If I’m still at liberty by then.
The officer’s blunt antagonism was the first overt enmity she’d encountered, but a quick glance at the emotions of the men around her confirmed that he was not alone. Chang’s mind was controlled over a roiling simmer of rage at the moment, but not actively hostile.
“No other Rasesni in the camp?” Chang asked.
“I don’t know.” Before Sau’s outrage could provoke him to speak, she continued. “I found this one by looking for someone whose native tongue was not Kigali-yat. I was showing Zandaril some things, as a colleague.”
Zandaril nodded to confirm.
“I didn’t find any other native Rasesni-speaker, but that’s not to say there aren’t others who mean you harm, whether or not they learned the language later.”
Zandaril spoke up. “She thinks that mirror was set to release its power catastrophically at the touch of a wizard, any wizard. It might have done so at any time.”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking—nothing else to do here. What if it’s not the only device planted in the camp? Why would there be only one? Seems like a waste of a good spy.”
Penrys could feel her ears move back on her scalp, and the council was thrown into consternation.
“Can’t you look for them, the way you did the spy?” Chang asked her.
“And what if that makes them explode the same way? In someone’s pack, or in a tent somewhere? I can’t know it’s there until I touch it with m’mind, and then the damage is done.”
She thought about the uses of traps. “I’ll bet he didn’t modify the mirror itself. He probably just attached something to it. Might’ve been small. Something that small could fit anywhere. People wouldn’t know it was around. What if there’re lots of them?”
Zandaril added, “The Horsemaster said he’d been with us since Jonggep. That’s weeks he had, to tuck his treats away, before she even joined us.”
“If there are any at all,” Sau said.
“Yes,” Penrys said. “If.”
“Maybe he expected to trigger them all himself, when he could do the most damage,” Zandaril suggested. “If he gets close enough, maybe he can still do that.”
“Good that we’re beyond his reach, then,” Chang said, but Penrys shook her head as he spoke.
“He’s out of my range, but we may not be out of his. Every wizard’s different.”
She could feel panic beginning to tinge the thoughts of two of the council.
Chang addressed them. “We’ll handle this now. Assemble the men on the south side of the camp, and everyone else—all the yekungno, the civilians—on the north side. Everyone to strip down to their clothing and empty their pockets, then walk away from their packs and other possessions…”
He paused and looked at Penrys.
“About a hundred yards,” she suggested, with a shrug.
“Yes. We’ll send you down behind them to look at the gear. Once that passes the test, everyone to pick up their gear and bring it that extra hundred yards out of camp. Then the supplies and other group equipment, with no one closer than a hundred yards.”
One of the officers spoke up. “Do the saddles and horse gear the same way, first. That way we can leave the troopers armed and mounted while we continue.”
Chang nodded. “Then the wagons should be separated first, before examination. Set them in two columns, drive the first two a hundred yards down and separate them, then unhitch the horses. Test those wagons, then hitch up the horses again, move them a safe distance, and go get the next pair.”
“It’ll take all afternoon,” someone objected.
“And much of the night, too, I don’t doubt, but we’re not moving until I’m sure nothing else has been left behind by the enemy, and I plan to move on in the morning, so the sooner we begin, the more sleep we’ll get. Have the cook wagons and gear go first so they can start preparing supper for the camp. There’ll be enough grumbling about re-erecting up their tents, no reason to make them wait for their food.”
The Commander eyed Zandaril, stretched out on his cot, then turned to Penrys. “Looks like you’ll have to look at everything the same way you did the mirror. Everything. Can you do it?”
She swallowed. “Don’t know if I can stay on m’feet that long, but I’ll try.”
Chang turned to one of his men. “Get her a horse or, better yet, a cart and driver. After she goes up the lines of people and loose gear, she can remain in place for the columns of wagons.”
She looked at Zandaril. “You could join me in the wagon, and watch over my shoulder.”
Chang chopped his hand through the air. “I don’t want the two of you in the same place until this is done.”
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