March Upcountry

Poertena picked up the sapphire and the ruby and put them side-by-side. Then he looked at the rest of the items.

"I t'ink the pot's light," he said.

"Okay." Pratol tossed a few pieces of silver and a small citrine onto the table. "Now it's not."

"Call," Poertena said. "Four sevens."

"Crap!" The merchant slammed down his cards. "I still like this game."

"I'm out," Denat said. "I want to keep my weapons."

"Why, young tribesman?" a new voice asked. "I'd be happy to sell you more."

Kosutic and the merchant she'd stopped to talk with were both smiling as they watched everyone else jump. They'd approached the group so silently that no one had noticed them coming, and Koberda cleared his throat.

"Ah, Sergeant Major, we were just... uh..."

"Gathering energy for the coming march?" she asked. "Don't sweat it, Koberda. But you need to keep at least one person alert at all times. We're still not out of the woods here. Clear?"

"Clear, Sergeant Major," he said, and then an eyebrow crooked as he noticed the oddity sticking up over her shoulder. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yep." Kosutic drew the sword over her shoulder. The ripples of silver and black were muted in the overcast gray sunlight, but it was clearly a work of art. "I like it, but I actually got it for the prince. It was designed for the child of a king, so it's human-sized."

"Yeah." Koberda nodded. "I can understand that. But what about other weapons?"

"Alas," the hook-handed merchant replied, "this isn't a good area in which to look for large supplies of weapons or armor. The weapons available here have mostly been made elsewhere. They're from T'Kunzi, or even relics from Voitan, as is this one."

"Folks, meet T'Leen. He used to be a trooper until he lost the arm. Now he sells swords."

"Spears and knives also. Anything with a blade. Mostly to the guards of the gem merchants and the occasional group of mercenaries," T'Leen said, fingering one bronze-capped horn. "Or the House guards, occasionally. There are both independent gem merchants and those of the Houses in the town. Although," he added, "the House merchants sometimes make it... hard on the independents."

"Pah!" Pratol said, looking up from his examination of the poker deck. He really liked this game. It was better than knucklebones because it included elements of bargaining and skill as well as luck. Very interesting.

"The Houses are all peopled by bastards!" he went on. "They squeeze us until we're dry, then have their bully boys come around to wreck us so that we leave town!"

"That has, admittedly, happened more often than one would like," T'Leen agreed soberly. "This is a piss-hole of a town."

As if to punctuate his remark, there was a crash of metal across the square.

Two groups, one a cluster of toughs from the local House, and five fighters from a rival, had clashed near the edge of the square. The home team far outnumbered their rivals, but they didn't use their superior numbers to overwhelm the invaders. Indeed, the invaders seemed to be far more proficient as individuals, particularly two who were each using a long dagger or short sword in a lower false-hand. The additional weapon was used almost purely for blocking, and Kosutic wondered why they didn't use something like a small buckler shield. Since the local fighters persisted in taking on their more skilled opponents one-on-one as scummy military tradition appeared to require, they were also taking heavy casualties despite their numerical advantage.

The spears were used somewhat like bayoneted rifles, Kosutic noticed. Their technique emphasized blocking and thrusting, but also parries and ripostes which humans weren't normally taught with bayonets. There was very little contact, but what there was was bloody, for the broad spearheads caused wide and deep wounds.

The injuries being suffered were serious, but clearly not life-threatening. If one of the local fighters felt he was getting ready to lose, he simply withdrew, and someone else took his place.

The rival house's fighters had so far not faced anyone who was their equal, but just as it seemed that the locals were going to lose totally, the doors of the House opened, and a group of guards in heavier armor emerged.

"Ah, now you'll see something," T'Leen said. "The guards from Crita were chosen from among their elite. They came here to see what the new N'Jaa guards are like, and now they will. The newcomers are N'Jaa's elite—they're considered the best in the city."

"Are they?" Kosutic asked.

"Possibly," the weapons merchant snorted. "But that's not saying much. The local bully boys aren't up to any but local standards. They should go collect debts for the House Tan."

The two groups squared off, and the battle began. The local elite was both more heavily armored and unwinded, so it was short and furious. When the two groups parted, two of the Crita fighters were laid out, apparently dead, and so was a N'Jaa. The surviving Crita had beaten a hasty retreat, chased by jeers from their N'Jaa opponents.

"There!" T'Leen said. "Did you see that riposte in secundus K'Katal made?"

"I don't even understand what you just said," Kosutic replied, tapping her mastoid bone to get the toot to translate into Standard. "What's secundus?"

"Down here." T'Leen gestured with a false-hand. "Great move! I've only seen it once before, in Pa'alot. Very difficult to execute—you have to have your feet positioned just so. But if you perfect it, it's very difficult to defeat." He pantomimed the move and grimaced when the necessary contortion drew a twinge from some scar tissue. "Ouch."

"Where'd you learn all this?" Koberda asked. "I mean, what? Were you a guard?"

"Yes," T'Leen said, abruptly losing the animation he'd drawn from his explanation. "But not for a long time. My fighting days are over."

"He was from Voitan," Kosutic said quietly.

"I was an apprentice weapons maker," the old merchant explained. "I'd traveled with a caravan to T'an K'tass when word came back that the Kranolta had swept down and taken all of the outlying cities. Gone was S'Le

"Voitan held, though. We had word through the few who could trade with the Kranolta without losing their horns. The barbarians attacked her repeatedly, but the walls of Voitan were high, and they not only had great stores of food, but could still trade across the ranges to the cities on the far side.

"T'an K'tass knew the worth of Voitan. No one in all the lands knew the making of weapons as did the Steel Guild of Voitan. No one else knew the secrets of the Water Blade. And Voitan and the region around it were the source of most of the metals that T'an K'tass and the other southern city-states depended upon.

"The Council of T'an K'tass called upon the other cities to send a force against the Kranolta, to drive through to the aid of Voitan. But no such thing had ever been done, and the other cities didn't see the need. They saw only the wealth of Voitan, as the Kranolta had, and laughed at the fall of all that fair land."

His face turned very bitter, and he became quiet, looking back over the years at that memory.

"The King of Pa'alot and the Houses of this stinking Q'Nkok both repudiated us. That was before the House of Xyia arose to the kingship. I will admit that Xyia spoke for us, or so I have heard.

"I was on the delegation from T'an K'tass that went to Pa'alot to plead our case, but they said that each state must survive or fall on its own. They asked what they had gotten from Voitan that they should risk their money and goods, and to that question I could make no answer." He clapped his false-hands in sadness. "I could not answer for my lords of Voitan.