David Coe - The Horsemen's Gambit

The town, it turned out, was called Kirayde. The eldest this time was a blacksmith by the name of Pyav, who spoke to them in the middle of the marketplace and appeared wary of them from the start. Despite her certainty that their plan could work and her resolve to keep trying, Tirnya knew immediately that this man would refuse them as well.

Her father began by saying much the same thing to Pyav that he had to Kenitha. As soon as he mentioned the pestilence, however, Pyav's face turned ashen.

"You're certain that it's only Qirsi who are getting sick?" the man asked.

Jenoe nodded. "Yes."

"But all Qirsi. Not just the Y'Qatt?"

Tirnya's father narrowed his eyes slightly. "No, it's not just the Y'Qatt. We'd heard that it started in some of the Y'Qatt settlements, but it's spread westward into Fal'Borna land since then."

"May the gods save us all," Pyav muttered, looking ill himself.

"Well, as I say, it only strikes at Qirsi. I don't think you need to fear for your people. That's not why I came."

"What?" the man said, as if rousing himself from a dark dream.

"I said we didn't come here to warn you about the pestilence. I don't think it poses any threat to you."

Pyav rubbed a hand over his face. "Well, she's not here anymore," he said. "She lived here once, but she's gone now. I don't know where she's gone."

For several moments Jenoe said nothing, his expression so puzzled that it might have been comical had Tirnya not been certain that hers looked just the same.

"I'm sorry," Jenoe said. "I don't know who or what you're talking about."

Pyav stared back at him. "No," he said. "I don't suppose you do. I'm sorry. I… I was confused for a moment. Please, why is it you've come?"

As he had in Shaldir, the marshal spoke briefly of the history of the Central Plain and the Onjaef family. He still seemed puzzled by the eldest's behavior, and he rambled on a bit, but eventually came to the crux of the matter.

"So you mean to attack the Fal'Borna while they're weakened."

"Yes, we do," Jenoe told him. "And we'd like to enlist the Mettai as allies in this venture. We can offer you land, and we can promise that it will be yours for as long as we hold the plain."

Pyav shook his head slowly. "First a plague," he whispered, "and now a war."

"Your magic would be a great boon to us."

"No," Pyav said, shaking his head more vehemently this time. "Our magic has done enough damage already. We want no part of a new Blood War." He turned and started to walk away. "Take your men and go, Marshal. We can't help you."

"He's a strange man," Enly said, watching the eldest hurry away from them.

Jenoe furrowed his brow. "Possibly. Certainly there was something odd in the things he said to us. 'Our magic has done enough damage already'? I have no idea what he meant by that." He looked at Tirnya. "Regardless of his reasons, though, that's twice now we've been turned away. How many more villages do you think we ought to visit before we accept that this isn't going to work?"

She felt Enly watching her. "I don't know," she said, her voice flat. "A couple."

Her father nodded. "All right. Two more, then. After that, if we still haven't convinced any Mettai to join us, we'll turn back."

"No," she said. "That's too few."

"You're the one-"

"Yes, Father, I know. And now I'm telling you that it's too few. We've been in Mettai territory for two days. That's all. Rather than limiting ourselves to two more villages, we should give this a set amount of time. Five more days, let's say. After that we can go back."

Jenoe looked past her to Enly. "What do you think?"

Enly exhaled, chancing a quick glance at Tirnya. "I think you could take an entire turn, visit twenty more villages, and it wouldn't change a thing. The Mettai have been shunned by both the clans and the sovereignties for hundreds of years. And while they might not have wanted to be ignored, they have managed to survive and avoid the wars. None of them want anything to do with us or the white-hairs." He gave a small, dry chuckle. "I can't say that I blame them."

"Someone among them will want to join us," Tirnya said. "They're Eandi. I don't care what kind of magic they possess, nothing can change that. We're offering land, and a chance to rejoin Eandi society. There must be one leader among them who'll want that."

Enly shrugged. "Maybe. But you have to wonder…" He stopped, shaking his head.

"You have to wonder what?" Tirnya demanded.

"Nothing. You may be right. That person may be out there somewhere. But how long will it take us to find the right village?"

After leaving Kirayde, all of them still puzzled by the odd behavior of the village's eldest, Tirnya, Enly, and Jenoe led the Qalsyn army deeper into Mettai lands. They continued to follow the banks of Ravens Wash, believing that most Mettai settlements would be found within sight of the river. They found no more villages that day, however, and though they set out at first light the following morning, by midday they had yet to see any other settlements.

"They may be clustered nearer to the lakes," Jenoe said at one point. "In the years following the end of the Blood Wars the Mettai were pushed pretty far north."

Neither Tirnya nor Enly said anything, and they continued on.

By nightfall, they still had found nothing, and Tirnya's frustration mounted. She'd thought that by arguing for a set time period in which to search for potential allies, instead of agreeing to visit a certain number of villages, she was helping her cause, making it more likely that they would find Mettai who were willing to help them. Now it seemed that she might have miscalculated.

Clouds began to move in as the soldiers made camp and by the time Tirnya went to sleep it had begun to snow, further darkening her mood. If the weather turned against them, her father might insist that they start back toward Qalsyn, even if that meant visiting no more villages.

When they awoke the next morning, the first of the new waning, all the camp had been covered with a light dusting of snow. The skies, though, had already started to clear, and while Tirnya's father made jokes about how poorly Tirnya's mother would have fared under such circumstances, he said nothing about returning to the city.

Tirnya had also feared that the cold might dampen the spirits of the soldiers, but as the men broke camp that morning, they threw snowballs at one another, acting more like children on an outing than grown men marching to battle.

For the first few hours, the snow hindered their progress some. But by midday, the air had turned warm and much of the snow had melted, allowing the men who were on foot to walk faster. Still, they came upon no settlements. Tirnya kept her eyes fixed on the northern horizon, straining her eyes for any sign of the Mettai.

Finally, late in the day, she spotted a town ahead of them. At first, both Enly and her father thought she was imagining it, but eventually they saw it, too. This came as a great relief; for just a short time, she had started to fear that in her eagerness to find the Mettai she really had started to imagine things.

Once more Jenoe marched his army to the outskirts of the village before continuing on into the heart of the settlement with Tirnya and Enly. As they rode up the lane leading into the center of the settlement, Tiryna felt her hopes rising. This village was similar in size to Kirayde, but it didn't look nearly as prosperous as Pyav's village. Several of the houses were in disrepair, and the land around the village didn't appear as fertile. Many of the garden plots were filled with wispy grasses, and the few animals they passed looked underfed.