Chapter 23

T he long ride back to the First House starts out in a throng of people, all of them shouting at once, cheering on the warriors of the tournament. My pulse pounding in my ears, I stare straight ahead, desperately hoping that no stray flower petals remain on my livery or on Darkwing’s tack. My gaze flicks down as the road curves, raking across the horse’s mane. It’s clear, thank the Light.

As we move slowly through the crowd, I try to keep from openly flinching every time Darkwing jerks the reins. My shoulder throbs, and I’m convinced the wound will bleed through my clothes at any moment, though a quick glance down confirms my tunic is still pristine. I haven’t had a chance to speak with Nazar—I can’t even see him yet, in fact. I assume the retainers will join our procession out on the open plains once we break free of Trilion.

Darkwing tosses his head, and I gasp with sudden pain, blinking quickly at the unwanted tears that spark behind my eyes. I have to focus . I am Merritt, warrior knight…

I set my jaw against a fresh wave of pain, this one having nothing to do with my shoulder. Merritt…

We pass a wide space that separates the main road from one of the dozens of spectators’ encampments, a warren of carts and tents and makeshift wooden walls. Even at this distance, I can see it’s teeming with people. It seems to have grown a third larger since the scant day I last rode past it, its proximity to the tournament coliseum apparently making it a prized location.

But even as I gaze across the open space, I can tell something’s wrong. A commotion is unfurling deep in the heart of the encampment, walls swaying, the peaked tops of the tents shuddering back and forth, as if a stampede of horses is passing through the crowded maze. For the barest moment the disturbance is silent, then screams of outrage and fear swell up as if on the wind, strange shouts of “Hai! Hai!” ringing out. A whoosh of fire erupts on the heels of those shouts, a tent clearly having caught ablaze in a sudden and shocking inferno.

“Marauders!” someone yells close to me. Our procession abruptly falters, men and horses falling out of line—some to the left toward our own crowd and safety…some surging to the right, toward the conflagration.

“For the glory of the First House!” A rush of guards sweeps by me, but it’s not only guards that are charging across the open field. Kheris has wheeled his mighty warhorse and so have half a dozen other warriors—warriors! Charging their ornately decorated steeds into the deathtrap of narrow passages and too many people. I stare in amazement for another breath. What are they doing ? All this to rout out a handful of thieves?

But where they go, I have to follow, I know instantly, as the crowd around me bursts into excited cheers. I’m a warrior knight, a descendent of the ancient protectors of the Exalted Imperium. If I don’t race pell-mell into the same chaos the other warrior knights have entered, it will be noticed. Remarked upon.

I can’t afford that.

And more than that…what if Nazar and I have been wrong all along? Even now I am almost certain it was a warrior knight, but what if it was marauders who killed Merritt, with their despicable gray arrow? Though surely it can’t be an archer from this same group, the idea of hunting down any outlaws who would dare attack so boldly, and in broad daylight, fills me with renewed determination. The pain in my shoulder is staunched by fury and even hope, that someone— anyone will be made to pay for everything my brother suffered, everything he didn’t live to see.

The throng is now overrunning our procession to press close enough to the encampment to see the hated marauders get cut down. Swallowing my own panic, I turn Darkwing into a run across the open field behind the others, leaning close over the stallion’s mane. Silently I pray that no child or stray dog is foolish enough to cross my path—I won’t be able to stop. Light, with the smoke from the fire now spreading over the encampment, I can barely see as I plunge down the same wide track the other horses have taken.

The moment I breach the edge of the encampment though, I’m out of my depth. The temporary walls are flimsy enough, meant for privacy more than protection. But they’ve been thrown up without any rhyme or reason. Together, they create a labyrinth of passageways that all drive deeper into the heart of the encampment before suddenly opening into a roiling mass of humanity. Everyone scatters like rats under lamplight as we burst into the middle of them.

A knot of warriors head left, guards thundering behind them, but I’m pushed back by the sudden tide of humanity. I wheel Darkwing around, heading right into a particularly grisly knot of tents and walls that smell of cook stoves and roasted meat.

One of these tents is the one that caught fire, and a desperate ring of men and women are heaping everything they can onto it —water, dirt and heavy mats, others using the mats to beat the worst of the blaze into submission.

I glance back at their efforts a second too long, totally missing the wooden crossbeam of a large cart-like structure that suddenly appears in my path. I’m ripped from the saddle and thrown from Darkwing, who plunges on, blind with the smoke and screams of too many people crowding close.

Despite my padded tournament gear, I land with an agonizing crunch, the wind knocked out of me by the crossbeam, and the wound in my shoulder wrenching with a sickening rip. The jolt shocks me to sudden clarity, and I scramble to my feet, yanking my short knife from my belt and sweeping the area with my gaze as I whirl around.

Where would I go if I was a marauder? We had enough of them at the Tenth House, Light knew, but we were surrounded by forest, not open ground. Still, if this had been an attack at the Tenth, the marauders would be heading for anywhere away from all these people, that much was for sure. With no clear sense of direction, I spy light—precious daylight!—through a break in the tents, and bolt toward it, well away from the main track through the encampment.

Pressing through the crowds, one turn, then another twists me further toward the far edge of the tents and walls, the smell steadily getting worse, and the number of people dwindling. Then I wheel around a final corner and dash into the middle of what looks like an abandoned watering yard, complete with a dry well that stands several paces distant from the last set of dilapidated walls.

The stench of rotting meat is strong here, and I realize this is where the carcasses of boar and chickens and goats have been thrown: the garbage heap of the encampment. I’ve gone the wrong way.

I turn back—and see him.

A man is crawling in the dirt directly through the worst of the mounds of refuse. I’d never have noticed him if I’d merely glanced into the opening of this foul space. The marauder’s entire body is wrapped in rags, and he’s bleeding heavily as he tries to drag himself toward—to where? The well?

I stare in horror as he scrapes his feet along the dust to cover his trail, but he’s doing a good job of it, I have to admit. In one hand, he’s grabbed some recently gutted animal and is dragging it along, leaning into its bloated belly every few paces, the blood spoor also covering his tracks. His tunic has been sliced open from collar to waist, and as he stretches to haul himself another few paces, I nearly drop my knife in shock.

The marauder is a woman .

I can only stare, and in that moment the marauder seems to realize I’ve spotted her. She lifts her head and glares at me, and her eyes flay me from all the way across the carrion ground.

“Are you just going to stand there, boy?” she barks. “Help me or kill me, but don’t waste my time.”

The order jerks me to attention, and several things hit me at once. This is a woman. This is a fighter, and this —for all that she’s a criminal, for all that she perhaps even set the encampment tent on fire…this is someone I cannot let fall into the hands of the First House’s guards. They’re all men, and to them—this woman would be an abomination and a creature to be used. Just like me.

For the moment, nothing else matters but that.

I rush forward, belatedly remembering my knife. She sees it as I raise it high, and her face flashes with a new emotion. Resolve, determination, and a sense of acceptance I’d only ever seen in old women whose time it was to die. But this woman isn’t old. Her face is weathered and darkly tanned, but her eyes are bright, the skin bared by her torn tunic far paler and soft.

“Where?” I demand as I reach her, pocketing my knife then yanking the dead and oozing carcass away from her. She’s lucky she hasn’t poisoned herself already with its gore. “Where are the others? Your people?”

She grunts in pain as I push her back to assess her wounds, and her head lolls forward for a moment before I shake her back to consciousness. I catch a glimpse of a wrapped packet tucked against her belly and wonder if whatever that packet contains is worth the woman’s life.

“You can’t close your eyes,” I tell her. “You sleep, you die. Understand?” I’ve seen too many wounded men who have lost far less blood than this fall into a slumber from which they never waken. I pull one of my sashes from my breeches. “Your leg wound is the worst. You’ve got to stop the bleeding there or it won’t do you any good to crawl away.”

As I talk, I wind the long sash around her thigh. She’s cut deep, but not as deep as I’d at first feared, and though her heart is racing, the blood that seeps from the wound doesn’t pulse with its pressure. She can survive this, if she can get away.

Another surge of shouts erupts from the encampment, louder now, closer. I grit my teeth, tying off the sash. “You’ve got to get out of here.”

The woman’s eyes are still open, and she seems lucid enough. Then she says something that makes no sense. “The well,” she gasps.

I glance across the litter-strewn space. The cover of the empty well has been shoved aside, but there’s no telling how far down the stone structure goes. Does she think she can hide there? Maybe she’s not so lucid after all.

“That won’t work. You won’t be able to crawl back out.”

“The well,” she insists, and her hands start to flutter, new sweat streaming down her brow. She’ll exhaust herself trying to move her own body, and that won’t do either of us any good.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get you to the well.” I shove my hands beneath the woman’s shoulders and stagger to my feet. She’s heavier than she looks, but I manage to pull her several paces toward the well when I stumble and go down hard, jolting her. She cries out, but the sound is a mere murmur. She’s far more disciplined than I would have ever expected, given her injuries.

I haul her back upright, twisting around again—and find myself staring at the edge of a ragged blade.

“Drop her.”

The voice is clear and cold—and also feminine. I freeze for only a moment, then do as I’m ordered, easing the wounded marauder to the ground. Suddenly, two other figures appear from the well, scurrying out and running low, looking more like rag-covered dogs than humans. They reach out and snatch up their comrade, and I note their hands in a kind of stupefied wonder—also small, with long and slender fingers—as they drag the wounded marauder toward the well.

My curiosity gets the better of me. “You’re all women?” I ask gruffly, turning to the marauder whose knife still hovers above me. Her face is completely wrapped in rags, and only her eyes are bared—eyes that stare at me with sharp cunning.

Too late, I realize my mistake. Another pair of marauders have emerged from the encampment and are edging between the piles of trash to my back. I’m trapped here, dressed in tournament finery but without my horse, without my guards, too low to the ground to pull a sword I have no hope of wielding.

“ Warrior ,” the marauder sneers, and she shifts her hold on the knife to slash down hard at me from above. At the well, the wounded woman says a word I can’t make out, making my attacker pause.

She glances back. “He’ll identify us,” she practically snarls. “I shouldn’t kill him?”

Only one word floats toward us in response. “Her.”

The marauder whips her gaze once more to me, but by now I’ve gotten my wits together. I spring to my feet, swiping fast enough with my knife that the marauder wheels back, giving me the space I need to yank my sword free. They don’t know I can’t fight with the thing. They only know what they see.

Even if they’ve already seen too much.

I take three steps to the side, turning so the others are no longer at my back, and face down my ragged opponents. Still, I wait for their attack—I have to be able to use their momentum against them, I know that much. “What, are you just going to stand there?” I demand, echoing the wounded woman’s taunt.

A cry of fury sounds from the encampment behind me, and a shrill whistle goes up from somewhere to the right and high—a lookout on a distant wall, has to be. The marauder lowers her knife, her gaze raking over me, my clothes, my sword.

“Her,” she grunts. She’s no less startled than I am.

There’s another shout, men roaring with bloodlust, and the two ragged women to my left shift urgently, their eyes on their leader, but their confidence clearly faltering. The marauder with the knife, however, continues to stare at me, defiantly. She won’t back down first.

I sheathe my sword, then point to the well, where the other women have disappeared. “Go,” I order with a strength I don’t truly feel. “I’ll keep your secret.”

She pauses the barest moment longer, then twists her mouth into a snarl. She flees.

I do as well, only I turn and run pell-mell back through the field of rotting carrion, toward the nearest commotion, hoping like the Light that I can blend in with the rioting crowd long enough to get back out in the open and find Darkwing. I’ll be bloody and covered in smoke and grit, but no one will know what I saw. No one will know what I know. I’ve kept my own secret so long, keeping another is no hardship.

I don’t understand it, can barely believe it—but I will keep the marauders’ secret…from everyone , I vow.

I suspect I won’t live long enough to worry about them keeping mine.