~Percy~

"You look like you're in a bother." The carriage driver smirked as he passed them; the rim of his carriage's roof had kept him dry even as the heavens emptied themselves. Percy, soaked through from head to toe, scowled at him.

They'd made good speed out of Carhavel, while the sun lasted. Perhaps it was the fear of being caught up in the aftershock that drove them on, but for as long as the fires of the burning city were still glowing on the horizon, they did not stop for any longer than necessary. Even now, they rose when morning's twilight was still heavy in the air, setting off before daylight punctured the gloom, and they didn't stop until night had started to fall. Alis Mardaise dared to complain on the second evening—that she was tired, that her horses were tired, that Percy was insane for riding them so hard. He reminded her that she had chosen to ride with them. Alis hadn't complained since.

By now, though, Percy was ready to complain himself. When the pace began to drop, he'd joined the road, reasoning that the smoother surface of the stone there should allow for faster riding than the unpredictable and often treacherous terrain of Tuiar's wild countryside. That had worked for a time. They stopped for a night at a village called White Farm, hoping that the war would not overtake them while they slept. With the four of them fully rested, and their horses too, Percy had hoped to make it to Pardasath without difficulty.

He hadn't counted on the rain.

It had poured down for four days straight, now. The limited provisions they'd carried from Carhavel were useless in the weather—Alis, by far the most prepared for the four, had brought a small canvas to shelter under, but it was only wide enough to cover one person, and though they all took it in turns, Percy had forgotten what it was like to be truly dry. Gurdagam wasn't helping his mood. The man had taken to moping—sullen and silent throughout the day, but muttering by night about his wife. Melleia had been in Tarhanen, before that city fell; there'd been no sign of her amongst the fleeing refugees. It didn't mean she was dead, necessarily. It definitely didn't warrant Gurdagam's incessant bleakness.

They'd only stopped now because Gurdagam wanted to relieve himself. He was off in the trees somewhere, and Percy was giving serious thought to riding off without him. It was still the height of the gloaming. They could be well on their way by daybreak. Percy desperately wanted to, really, and not just because he was fed up of being soaking wet. Part of him was still afraid that the outlanders that had taken Carhavel might appear on their tail at any moment. He'd nearly put a sword through the carriage driver's face when he first drew his coach to a halt, so nervous was he that it was the invaders.

"We're fine," said Eada, not giving the carriage driver the courtesy of a look.

"You don't look fine." The driver actually chuckled. Could he not see Percy's armour? Had he such little respect for the soldiers of his own homeland? "You look as though you're wet and miserable."

Percy gritted his teeth. "Where is the nearest town?"

The driver thought for a second. "Reckon that'll be Anternien," he said, finally. "Not more than five miles from here, I shouldn't think."

Anternien. That was good. They were heading in the right direction, at least, and not too far from Pardasath. Anternien was an outlying village, built around a beacon-tower that gave light to the capital. It was a day's ride from Anternien to Pardasath, give or take an hour, and all smooth terrain. The valley between the two settlements was known as the King's Valley, and its soil was the most fertile in Tuiar. It was there that most of Pardasath's food was grown. That meant that King Descard's guard always had a presence in the valley. If they could get there, Percy could find one, and send word of Carhavel's fall to the King.

"You'll be wanting a ride, I bet," said the driver. "Plenty of room in my carriage for all of you. Nice and dry, too. You wouldn't want these two fine maidens to catch a chill, now." It was hard to tell from their stony faces alone which of Alis and Eada took greatest exception to being described as a 'maiden'.

Percy sighed. It would be a shame to lose the horses, but the carriage would be faster and drier. And besides, if they needed horses it would be easy enough to acquire more either in Anternien or in Pardasath. The man would want paying, but Percy had coins for spending. They wouldn't do him much good if he didn't warn King Descard in time and Tuiar fell. "How much is your fee?"

The driver pondered that. "For those two delightful maids? On a day like this? I'll be kind. Call it five silver."

Percy swore under his breath. Peasants and the merchant class both might fall for the driver's charms, thinking five silvers a fair price for five miles in a carriage, but he was neither. He knew full well that five silvers, from an honest driver, would get you almost from Carhavel to Arethloden. Most would be embarrassed to take more than a single bronze coin for such a short journey. But the money was there to be spent. Sighing, he reached for the purse sewn onto his breeches. "You drive a hard bargain, sir," he said.

"Name's Merhn," said the driver. "I'm always willing to help out a traveller in need. Specially one in the company of two beautiful women. I don't suppose as you'll be needing both of them?"

"We're not Captain Oddell's possessions," said Eada, rising. "And we're not yours, either. So you just keep your hands to yourself, or you'll have no hands."

"I was only askin'," Merhn muttered.

Percy pulled Merhn's steep asking price from his purse and reached to hand it to the man. As he did, Merhn stiffened. A small spot of dark fanned out from his chest, soiling his shirt with blood. Wide-eyed, Merhn tumbled from his carriage and fell crumpled on the wet road.

Gurdagam was stood on the coach box, wiping clean a bloodied blade on his coat-sleeve. A scygie. Weapons once the preserve of elite assassins, they were nearly as common as steel daggers now. At first glance a scygie looked very much like a farmer's scythe—but there were differences. The curved blade was serrated, and there was a second—straight—blade protruding from the handle. It was this one that Gurdagam was cleaning. "Have you never been away from Carhavel before?" he asked.

"Is it common to murder coachmen on the road?"

"Coachmen? No." Gurdagam spat onto the ground. "This man wasn't a coachman, though. Chances are, he'd have taken you straight to his friends in the woods. That sort'll take every coin you have, and slit your throat for good measure."

Percy frowned. "He seemed legitimate enough. Not a pleasant man, but it's not a crime to be unpleasant."

Gurdagam shook his head. "A real coachman would never leave town without a passenger, not in rain like this. No shortage of paying customers in the town. Why would he be travelling the road with an empty coach? Just on the off-chance he happened upon pilgrims afoot? Or ahorse, as it were. And what if he got to Anternien without finding passengers? He's just wasted a trip."

Percy glanced at the women. Alis looked sheepish, Eada positively evil the way her jaw was clenched. Neither of them had thought of that, evidently, which did make Percy feel a bit better about missing it himself. "Well, we're lucky that we have you with us," he said.

"That you are, Captain." Gurdagam hopped down from the coach box, apparently unconcerned at landing on Merhn's body. "In any case, how would you have taken the horses to Anternien? Are they going to fly there?"

"I didn't think we'd need them," Percy admitted. "Not so close to Pardasath."

That drew a loud tut from Gurdagam. "You'd have had us walk the last stretch," he said. "And in this rain. It's a wonder you never had a mutiny, Captain."

Percy shook his head. "Come on. Five miles to Anternien, he said, and the sooner I have some sort of roof between me and this pissing rain the better."

Five miles wasn't as hard a ride as it could have been. Wet as it was, there came a point when they and all their belongings were fully saturated, soaked to the bone, and any rain that fell thereafter could do nothing to them. The fields at the roadside were all turned to mud or lakes, but so long as they stuck to the road they had firm cobbles beneath the feet of their horses. Percy did wish he'd taken Merhn's coach, though. The idea hadn't even occurred to him until they were more than halfway to Anternien. By then Eada's jaw was so tightly clenched that Percy thought she might bite clean through his arm if he dared suggest they turn back.

There was a chill with the rain, of course. Percy was shivering on his horse and trying not to think about the illnesses he might find himself with if they didn't get to a nice blazing hearth to dry off overnight. Plenty of strong soldiers had been rendered useless by a chill caught from the damp.

The rainclouds broke with the rising of the sun, as the garrison village of Anternien came at last into view. Dominated by two jettied stone towers, one on either side of the hilltop, Anternien was not much more than a smattering of houses with walls around the perimeter for the illusion of something greater. The beacon which the village had grown around was no more; the last time Percy had been through Anternien, it had been a ruin, never restored from the damage of a lightning strike. Now, the ruin had been pulled down. Sad, really. Without it, Anternien felt like it had been stolen of its soul.

They slowed their horses on the approach, following Percy's lead. A few of the soldiers manning the garrison walls had started to take interest in them—they'd recognise the Tuiar colours three of them wore, and be wondering what cause had sent three soldiers riding north. "Hang here a moment," he told the others. "Let me do the talking."

"My scygie's ready, if you offend them." Gurdagam laughed at his own joke, while the two women glared at him. Percy ignored them all, clambering from his horse and approaching on foot.

The man commanding the gate was an officious lieutenant with a greasy beard, Jac Rendas. Afflicted with a permanent sneer and the general taint of idiocy, Rendas had for a time been under Percy's command in the Carhavel garrison. He'd never met a more unlikeable man. Sending Rendas to Anternien had been an excuse to get the bloke out of his sight, with the expectation that Rendas would crumble under the overbearing demands of Anternien's commander, Wilfus Toyn. He didn't have the look of a man who had crumbled.

"Percy Oddell," said Rendas. "Come to beg for me to return to Carhavel? How is the city faring in my absence?"

"Carhavel has fallen," Percy said, sombrely.

"And yet you didn't die with it." Rendas frowned. "Does that not make you a coward, Oddell? A Captain should not abandon his city."

Percy ignored the bait. "Where's Captain Toyn?"

"Dead," Rendas shrugged.

"You sound as though you don't care."

"I don't. I never liked the man." Rendas smirked. "He died on the chamber-pot. Caught a sickness, and suffered greatly. The men drank well to that."

Well, it made sense why Jac Rendas had come into authority. If the men of Anternien were sick enough in the head to cheer for the death of Wilfus Toyn, they weren't going to be a pleasant bunch. Slippery men like Rendas would prosper in such conditions.

"I must speak with the king," said Percy. He had no intention of waiting around in Anternien.

"You'll be bringing your friends with you?" Rendas looked past Percy. "Ah, the goatwife is with you. I told you she'd run at the first sign of trouble." A few of his fellow guards laughed at the comment.

"Nobody here is a runaway," said Percy, firmly. "Eada left Carhavel on my order. Gurdagam too."

Rendas glanced at the guard nearest to him, an eyebrow raised. "We'll see if the king believes you. On you go, Captain Oddell. Have your audience with the king." Rendas ordered the gate to be opened with a gesture, and its chains groaned as a pair of bare-chested guards hauled at them.

They rode into Anternien—with its small courtyard, walled by small red bricks and filled with soldiers and peasantry and the overbearing stench of horse-shit—in single file, with Rendas at the lead and a pair of his guards bringing up the rear. Neither Eada nor Alis seemed much at ease. Eada, particularly, had a scowl etched onto her face. Gurdagam watched Rendas with an unreadable look on his face. You could never tell to look at him what was going through Gurdagam's mind, not unless he wanted you to. That would serve Percy well. He knew that Gurdagam, like just about everyone else in the Carhavel garrison, detested Rendas—but he also knew that Rendas had no idea. Riding close to Gurdagam, Rendas spoke to the man in a quiet voice too soft for Percy to hear.

On the far side of Anternien there wasn't even a wall. The houses fell away to the open hillside, and beyond it the wide valley that led to Pardasath. The big city was the first thing Percy saw—its buildings reaching high on their hilltop perch. King Descard's palace was unmistakeable. Aside from being the tallest building in Pardasath, it had been built on a cliff edge, where attack from outside the city was impossible. The lake beside it fell away in a great torrent down the cliff, into the valley. There it became the Preithan, Water of Pardasath, that great tributary of the Rhaddan, that began in the mountains where Tuiar bordered Lindoien and became a part of something greater on its way west to the sea.

There were bodies, too. Six men in various stages of decay had been raised up on wooden poles, tied in place by rope. They were arranged overlooking the Preithan valley—a warning to any who might chance to look in the direction of Anternien.

Alis gasped at the sight of the dead men. "Harn! Harn's dead."

"Harn?" asked Percy.

"He was a good man." Alis pointed up at one of the more-recently-dead, a plump man with stubble on his face and a bruise on his eye. A red groove in his throat told how Harn had died. "I thought to stay here with him. It was he who told me I had to get away, to get to Carhavel."

Eada offered Alis a look of sympathy. "Was he your father?"

"No," said Alis. "But he was a friend."

The guards at the rear of the group laughed at that, and Rendas drew his mount to a halt so he could turn to Alis with a sneer. "You ought to pick better friends, or it'll be you upon that pole. These men were enemies to Tuiar. They defied the word of the King."

Percy couldn't help but be surprised at that. Harn had the look of an innkeep more than a rebel, and the others strung up beside him seemed even less like agitators. "These men sought to wage war?"

"War?" Rendas laughed. "I can respect a man who wages war. I'll kill him all the same, but it's a quick death. No. These undermined King Descard's authority with bills posted on the garrison walls."

"And for that they had to die?"

"It's a crime," said Rendas. "That was the King's pronouncement."

"So Harn was murdered," shouted Alis. "Murdered, by a tyrant." She gathered the reins of her horse, and swung out of the saddle, dropping down onto the muck-soaked cobbles with a heavy thud. Eada reached out to stop her as she ran by, but Alis was quick enough to avoid the Magus' reach. By the time she'd got to the stake upon which Harn was tied, she'd pulled out a bone-handle dagger. Amid a flurry of sobs she hacked at the ropes. Percy and the others could only watch from their horseback perches. Rendas gestured with a nod towards a few of the guards, who immediately descended on Alis. She'd barely scratched a fray in the rope before the guards reached her. One put her in a rough headlock while another grabbed her arms, peeling open the fingers until her dagger dropped to the ground.

Eada looked to Percy with frantic eyes. "Can't you see she's grieving? Captain, we have to do something."

Percy turned away. There was nothing to be done, truth be told. Even if you set aside the fact that Jac Rendas—a man with an established enmity towards Percy and Eada, who had the luxury of being in his own home garrison—had easily ten times the manpower at his fingertips, and that consequently any attempt to fight Rendas was only going to end with them all in gaol or worse... the simple fact was that they needed Rendas. Even if Percy wasn't the Captain of Carhavel, they'd have no trouble getting into Pardasath, but seeing the King would prove challenging. If Descard was anything like his predecessor, his audiences would be at the recommendation of a small retinue. Under Queen Thalia it had been a well-known fact that if you wanted to be invited to the Palace of Pardasath, you had to be in with one of her favourites.

Traditionally, the Captain of Anternien was foremost among the monarch's confidantes. With Rendas on side they could ride into Pardasath and be dining with King Descard within the hour, and time was of the essence. Even if it meant there were only three of them.

"Take her to a cell and have her wait there for my return," Rendas crooned, addressing his lackeys—who by now had subdued Alis totally. "If you plan to enter Pardasath under my banner, Oddell, then now is the time. I will not wait." And kicking into his horse, Rendas began the descent into the Preithan valley.

Percy lingered a while, just long enough to watch Alis Mardaise being bundled into a small tower on the edge of Anternien. She was still screaming and moaning as the iron door slammed shut behind her. Percy shook his head, then started after Rendas.

"There was nothing we could do," he told Eada, in a quiet voice, when they were well on their way to the city. "Alis dug her own grave. And anyway, she's a thief—maybe a cell is the best place for her."

Eada gave him a look that might curdle milk. "The least we could have done is tried," she said. Then she geed up her horse and sped away from Percy. She didn't talk to him again all day.