CHAPTER 55
“It’ll take a while for them to return,” Blay said suddenly from behind them. He held out a finger. “We all need water.”
Butu watched the four figures approaching Urgaruna while the rest of the squad took turns drinking water from Blay’s outstretched finger. Finally, they came close enough to identify.
“It’s Zhek and Paka,” he said, with mixed excitement.
“Your shumi?” Phedam asked.
Butu grinned. “Yeah, and our favorite lieutenant.”
“Come drink, Butu,” Blay said. “It’s all for nothing if you die of thirst.”
Butu had forgotten how long it had been since he had had anything to drink until he got the first taste of the water. He drank greedily until Jani cleared her throat, to which the rest of the squad laughed.
“They’re halfway up the spire,” Phedam said, leaning over the great drop.
“Halfway up or halfway down, have to go all the way ‘round,” Lujo chanted. “Halfway down or halfway up, the vale below is just a cup.”
“What?” Retus said.
“Must be a mountain thing,” Butu added, grinning. “Race around the valley?”
“Yeah,” Lujo said. “There’s this perfectly circular valley. They say it used to be a volcano ...”
Jani’s brows had knit together a moment before, and now she said, “Get out of sight. It’s best if they don’t know we’re up here.”
“Why?” Retus asked.
“To keep the kingmaker a secret,” Jani explained. “Butu’s Tirud’s only weakness, remember?”
“But how?” Lujo asked. “My magic doesn’t...”
Jani pointed at the basalt palace. “You don’t need to be invisible if you have that.”
“Paka can probably still sense most of us,” Butu warned.
“I’ll stay out in the open to watch Aesh’s kingmaker,” Blay said. “I’m far too old to be mistaken for a child.”
Does he intend to protect us or betray us? Butu wondered. Of course, letting him stay here is even more dangerous. If I die, Blay can deliver Pisor to Aesh’s kingmaker. He and Zhek are better swordsmen than anyone in our squad.
“And the rest of us will watch over Tirud’s kingmaker,” Lujo said, clasping a hand on Butu’s shoulder as they walked to the basalt palace together.
Just inside, the space seemed larger than it was. They all stood, tense and ready. Butu leaned on his forehead against one wall, hand gripping Pisor’s hilt until it turned white.
I don’t want to die. He glanced at everyone. Jani and Phedam conversed in low tones and Lujo whispered to Retus — probably the rest of his story. Butu felt very alone.
What does it mean, that I’m thinking of my friends as betraying me? No one here would, even Lujo. Tirud is out there, and he won’t want me to die. Paka is out there. Has he changed too much to be my shumi? Blay could try, but Tirud knows to watch him. Zhek probably will try, the thought made his blood boil a little, but everyone will be watching him.
That only leaves Aesh al’Kadrak, and no one knows anything about him, so they’ll be watching him.
Butu walked over to his four squadmates, who stopped talking as he approached.
“Lujo, Phedam,” he said in hushed tones, “if I get killed up here, you should take the sword. But please choose your king carefully.”
They stared up at him. Lujo looked serious, now, but Jani was shocked.
“You’re not going to die,” she said. “We’ll all protect you. Tirud especially.”
“Tirud will have to get Philquek for this battle to end,” Butu reminded her, “and in that time, Aesh will be with us. I’m worried about Blay, and Zhek is coming.” He took a deep breath. “And I don’t know how much Paka has changed.”
Jani opened her mouth, probably to call him silly, but closed it and knit her eyebrows. She nodded slightly.
Lujo nodded. “If I get the chance to take the sword, I will bear it for you, Butu.”
Butu murmured his thanks and went back to the wall, where he closed his eyes until he sensed Tirud and his companions reach Blay.
“Blay, where are the others?” Tirud asked.
He doesn’t mean to keep us a secret. Why?
“They’re resting in the shade of the buildings.” Blay sounded off-balance, like a sordenu who had just been dressed down by a general for obeying the orders of his sergeant. “Should I bring them out here, your majesty?” The formal address sounded strange in Blay’s mouth — at once awkward and deferential.
Of course, no one has used it in hundreds of years.
“Yes,” Tirud said with barely a hesitation.
Butu sensed there was a lot about the situation Tirud wasn’t telling Blay — a lot he couldn’t say in front of Aesh and Zhek.
“Yes, your majesty!” Blay shouted.
A moment later, Blay appeared inside the basalt palace.
“All of us?” Jani whispered.
A look of panic crossed Blay’s face as he struggled with the possibility that Tirud’s orders were part of a show for the kluntra’s benefit and not ones he expected Blay to follow to the letter. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Lujo and Retus will go first,” Jani said, making the decision for the stricken corporal. “If Tirud asks after others, Phedam and I will go out. If he says something that makes it sound like it’s just the four of you who were resting here, Butu will stay hidden. Otherwise, he’ll come out last.”
They all nodded. Lujo and Retus followed Blay out.
“Ah, here are two of them.” Tirud sounded pleased. Someone spoke in a soft voice. “Where are the others?”
Either he hasn’t considered the risk, or he knows something about this situation we don’t.
“Where is your cousin, Zhek?” Aesh asked.
“She must be here somewhere,” Zhek said. “Jani. Jani, where are you?”
Jani made a tiny indignant sound and clenched her hands into fists. “Stay here unless he calls you,” she whispered to Butu before slipping out of the shadow.
“We’re coming,” Phedam announced.
Jani and Phedam slipped out of the shadow and into the open.
“I am not your cousin, Zhek al’Ahjea,” Jani growled at the kluntra’s son. “I am Jani ku Ahjea — third in command of the Tem-35 sordenu squad.”
“Where’s Butu?” Paka’s voice asked. “Where’s the kingmaker?”
Tirud’s told them about me, Butu thought with a sigh. Either he has a reason, or he’s a fool who won’t be king for long.
He stepped into the light. “Here I am, shumi.”
Paka’s face lit up in a great grin, and Butu forced himself to share it as he felt Zhek’s melting glare on him. The surprise was the excitement on Aesh’s face, excitement that softened into a tight grin as Paka raced to his shumi and they clasped hands. After a second, Paka wrapped his other arm around Butu.
We haven’t been apart that long, and he’s almost my height already.
Aesh was shorter than Butu expected — shorter, in fact, than everyone except Butu and Paka, and Butu was only a couple inches shorter. He looked much younger than Jusep, as well, and his arms and legs were as scrawny as the rest of him was gaunt. Though the Kadrak kluntra wore a military uniform of nearly the same color and make as Butu’s, it was covered in ribbons and medals. Gold and silver jewelry dripping with gems covered Aesh’s neck, ears and fingers. The most prominent of these was the thick golden crown on his head.
Aesh came to Urgaruna dressed like a king, and he expected to leave as one.
“Is it true you gave up your birthright and became a ku so you could join a dangerous mission to recover Pisor and bring it to me as a bridal gift?” Aesh asked Jani casually. Butu noted the Kadrak kluntra met her eyes solemnly. He was not eyeing her body as Nolen and Lujo had joked he would be.
She glared daggers at Zhek, and she visibly struggled to find the right way to express her fury.
Before she could speak, though, Aesh laughed lightly and l
ooked at Zhek. “It was a clever lie, al’Ahjea. Not that I believed it for a moment, of course, but I understand why you told me it. You thought I meant to take her hostage to use her as a lever against your father, but you were wrong. You were always meant to be the hostage.” Zhek jumped at the news, and Aesh’s voice became light steel. “A man will abandon his nephews and nieces, but he will not abandon his heir without good cause. No, she was merely an excuse to bring you to me.”