If I had my numbers right approximately two hundred Fifteens were out searching the mountains for only forty Sixteens. That meant five Fifteens hunted for each Justice, and that held true as long as no Justices had already been captured. Surviving was going to be difficult.
Marana and I got a warm breakfast. We cleaned up the cave and decided to chance hiding our gear in the main cavern where the shepherds had stacked their wood. We covered the equipment with logs. We also took the tarp down and hid it.
Dressed in our snowsuits, snowshoes in hand, we looked out over the unblemished snowfield below us. The Lancers had passed and their track was plain at the base of the slope. I turned to Marana.
"Do we attack or run?"
She smiled, a fair imitation of Jevin's wolf-grin. "Can you see any reason, lover, that our luck won't hold out?"
I thought for a moment and banished all thoughts of failure. "No." I swept a hand out over the pristine white expanse below us. "To the wars, my lady?"
"A favor first, kind sir." She slipped her mittened hands around my neck and pulled my mouth down to hers. We kissed long and deeply. "Just to keep you warm."
I smiled. "Let me know when you get cold."
"That I will, lover, that I will."
* * *
We took an hour to get down the hill and reach the Lancers' tracks. They traveled east on a march that would take them toward Jevin's territory. That worried me, but even if I knew where Jevin laired, I could not get there before the Lancers. I hoped Jevin could elude them, even if he had to abandon Vedia to do it.
Marana crouched beside me. "It looks as though they came here straight from their base camp. Their tracks are crisp so I'd guess it's not far away because none of them are tired yet."
I nodded. "I'd really like to know where they are. We might see if we can find a place they've searched and move our camp there."
Marana smiled and unlaced her snowshoes. It took me a second to understand; then I joined her. We tied the snow-shoes on backward. In doing so we could walk along the Lancer's back trail and the tracks would be too confused for anyone to follow clearly. It would look like we walked to this point and vanished, by the time anyone figured out what we'd done, our scouting mission would be over and we'd be long gone.
* * *
While backtracking the Lancers was easy; approaching the Fifteens' base camp unseen was not. The Fifteens had not posted any guards—no one would dare attack the camp—but the bustle of activity therein meant there were eyes looking everywhere at one time.
I first noticed none of the Fifteens wore snowsuits. When hunting in packs that made sense because they wanted to drive their quarry before them and trap them, not sneak up on them. It also meant their hunting packs would not end up pursuing one of their own people. Marana and I quickly took advantage of this strategy, doffed our snowsuits, and buried them. To casual observers we would appear to be Fifteens.
They'd set their horseshoe-shaped camp in a clear meadow. A large tent sat in the middle of the smaller tents that made up the horseshoe. The large tent served as headquarters and mess hall in one. The smaller tents, half dug into the snow, were the tents the Fifteens used for housing. Each tent could comfortably fit four people and there were sixty of them. The extras, over the fifty needed to house the Fifteens, were meant for captured Sixteens.
The number of people still in the camp suggested that only two-thirds of the Fifteens were out hunting. The other third remained in the camp working. That realization made me very uneasy, because it meant they'd adopted our strategy from last year. The best hunters went out and took the chances while the poorer people stayed behind to earn Imperials so they could ransom the good hunters.
Lastly, and worst of all in my mind, the camp was orderly and well organized. This meant to me that the Fifteens had a Lancer or Warrior leading them. As much as I might not like Lancers, I did respect their tactical abilities and I was reluctant to have a strategy that Jevin, Erlan, and I cobbled together last year used against me this year, especially after a tactician plugged all the holes in it.
Marana and I found a place to watch the camp from the woods surrounding it. We hid beneath the branches of a big pine tree. The snow had drifted up to meet the lower branches, but around the trunk a saucer-shaped depression afforded us cover from the wind and let us watch unobserved.
What we saw was not good. By midday six Justices had been brought in. Four had their heads down because they had been captured by the Lancers and some Warriors. The last two had been taken by Justices so they were not so downcast. The Fifteens guided the prisoners to a tent at the edge of the horseshoe and posted a Lancer to stand guard in front of it.
Four more pairs were brought in through the afternoon. The people who'd worked earlier in the day were sent out two hours before sunset and by dusk they came back bringing another three pairs. Finally, as the sun infused the snow with a bloody red hue, the last two groups came back, and they also had prisoners.
It took an even dozen to drag Jevin and Vedia in. Four of their captors walked in front of them and the other eight, because they'd been killed in the struggle, walked behind. Their ransoms would be applied against the Sixteens' ransom, but I doubted it would be enough to free even one of them.
Jevin looked very tired. Even with dusk darkening the landscape, I could see he was pale. His shoulders slumped forward and, for the first time ever, he looked defeated. Vedia did not appear as bad off, but she kept looking up at Jevin and saying something to him. I couldn't catch the words, but from her hand motions, and Jevin's wearily nodded replies, I guessed she was apologizing for getting them captured.
A full score of Lancers made up the last group, but only two of them preceded their captive. Lothar walked proudly and held his head high. His snowsuit was shredded and several of the Lancers limped, so I safely assumed his pursuit and capture had been difficult on both sides. I grinned and looked forward to the telling of that tale.
It never occurred to me, at that point, that Lothar and I would never be friends again. Lothar was so self-sufficient and capable, how could he need someone else the way I did? I was sure Lothar would see how happy we were and would give us his blessing. We were his friends, after all, he should be happy for us.
At that moment, though, even those thoughts did not pass through my mind. I fought a grin rising to my lips and looked out over the camp again. I ignored the growl in my belly. It was possible to do something about our captured compatriots, and if we succeeded, by the gods, it would be beautiful!
I turned to Marana and pulled her close. I kissed her gently, then smiled. "How would you like to free them all?"
She readily agreed and we started planning a premature end to the Winter Game.
* * *
The physical task of freeing the Justices was simple, on the surface of it. All either one of us had to do was to walk across an enemy camp, kill two or three guards, open the tents, and tell our compatriots to run. The chances that any one of us would get very far were decidedly slim, and the penalty of doubling a ransom for a failed escape was very severe.
The other option was to ransom our friends. Each captured Sixteen had his snowmask nailed to a post in front of the large tent. Attached to it was a strip of cloth with the amount of his ransom on it. A Sixteen who wanted to ransom his partner had to capture a novice and send him in with the instructions to transfer his Imperials over to his friend. The captured Sixteen then could buy his freedom.
Marana and I probably each had two hundred Imperials from ransoms, which was a healthy sum, so we might be able to add enough to Lothar's treasure to purchase his freedom, but that left the rest of them stuck. We'd have to capture everyone in the camp three or four times over to earn enough ransom because of the Imperials surrendered to the Sixteens earlier by the less experienced Thirteens and Fourteens.
There was a third way, technically, and upon it hinged our whole plan. Just as I'd plundered the tea from that Thirteen, a Sixteen could take any Im
perials a captive had in his possession at the time of his capture. Under normal circumstances no one carried the coins with him. All the accounting was done by someone in the camp, but various individuals did take their coins to use playing cards, so from time to time a captive actually had Imperials with him.
As Fifteens, the only way we could get everyone to agree to hunt in packs was to promise an even split of all Sixteen plunder. We appointed one Archer as our treasurer and he kept the money in his possession. In the middle of camp it was quite safe, and at the end of the action we divided the spoils up evenly. The system worked quite well, but until we actually split the loot, it belonged to the Archer as far as the Winter Game was concerned.
Last year we'd garnered over six thousand Imperials, and the two hundred Fifteens had lost none of their seventy-two hundred Imperials earned during that week, so we ended up with almost two-thirds of the Imperials in the Winter Game. That was the highest total ever brought in by Fifteens, and placed fourth behind three very high Sixteen totals from Games over a century old in the race for highest total ever.
If these Fifteens were playing the same game we had, and everything told me they were playing it better than we had before, somewhere in that camp one person had a stack of Imperials. And if we wanted to free the other Sixteens, and set our own record for money brought back by Sixteens, those Imperials had to become ours.
* * *
The Elite walked into the woods toward the latrines. I stepped from behind a tree, clapped a hand over his mouth, and dragged him back. "If I let my hand slip down and touch your throat you'll be dead. You don't want that."
He shook his head rather violently.
I smiled to myself. I'd watched him working hard in the camp and refusing good-natured calls to join another card game. He had no Imperials to ransom himself, and I used that against him. "Good. Answer my questions and you'll survive. Are there any passwords or countersigns for entering the camp."
Shake. No.
"You've got a leader. Warrior or Lancer?"
Shake then nod.
"He's a Lancer?" I thought quickly of the Lancer Fifteens capable of handling and organizing the rabble below. "Serle ra Imperiana?"
Nod.
"Good." I forced the words out while my stomach roiled. Serle was Lord Eric ra Imperiana's nephew. I almost hesitated and backed away from the plan, because I didn't want the Lancer lord angry with me. While he protested what Jevin and I did to Gaynor, he'd berated Gaynor for his stupidity. The last thing I needed was for Lord Eric to hate me.
I pawed the Elite's throat and settled him back on the ground. He looked up at me with eyes full of betrayal. "I'll ransom you myself. Stay quiet and hidden here, otherwise I won't be so positively disposed toward you." After being slain he could do nothing but work for six hours anyway, so he had no reason to hurry back to the camp, and even if he had the money he was bound by the rules to say nothing of where or how he'd been slain.
Marana jumped a female Justice and made her the same deal I'd made with the Elite. I walked back into the camp first. The only guards I saw were stationed around the Justice captives' tents, but if anyone had been watching people head out of camp they would have seen the same number come back in.
* * *
The horsehair standard stuck in the snow in front of Serle's tent made it easy enough to locate. Halfway down the arm with the captives' tents, and across from the tree where Marana and I had spent the day, a lantern burned in the tent and I counted five silhouettes.
Marana and I crossed the camp independently. The Elite's friends called to me as they had to him, but I waved them off using the same hand motion he had. They laughed and ignored me, as everyone else did until Marana met me in the shadows. Shadowy outlines against the snow, we did not hide because, in our furs, we looked like everyone else in the camp.
The Fifteens did well when they chose Serle to lead them. Sure, he'd not posted guards around the camp, but that would have been a waste of time since the Sixteens would never attack the camp. Instead of keeping people up through the night without reason, he rested his troops for the next day's hunting. He'd planned for everything he could think of, but overlooked the two flaws in his plan.
The first he could do nothing about: his personal vision of life and the way it works. He was a Lancer, which meant he believed in his own invincibility and infallibility. In addition he was from Imperiana. That added lots of national pride and a confidence that nothing could possibly defeat him. He'd applied those properties to organizing the Fifteens, and had netted all but a handful of the Sixteens because of that application. Still his planning skipped over a mission like ours.
The second mistake was one he should have known about. He forgot that Sixteens do know more than Fifteens. He forgot that Justices know more than Lancers. He forgot we had been trained to use the Call.
Marana and I slipped behind his tent. Fifteen feet away from where he counted Imperials, we stood close enough to hear them click against each other. The Fifteens had done very well indeed, and one of Serle's companions commented that if this pace held true they would break last year's record.
I looked at the tent and Serle's profile. "I don't like it. I don't trust that Serle. He's a Lancer, and worse yet he's from Imperiana."
Marana smiled. "I won't believe he hasn't pocketed a few Imperials for himself unless he lets me count them myself."
Silhouettes moved in the tent. Serle stood and pulled on his furs and others took up the count.
I reached out and squeezed Marana's shoulder. "Counting the coins would not tell you if he stole any. You'd have to frisk him. He'd probably enjoy that."
Marana winked at me. "I might like that too." She lowered her voice to make it all throaty and seductive. Serle moved a bit faster and left the tent: He marched out toward us with his hood down and his brown hair standing erect.
We both acted startled and turned to face away from him.
He kept his voice low. "It's no use, I heard you."
I stammered and stamped my feet. "Sorry, we were just talking. We've all been hunting and I can't afford to fail..."
Serle slapped me reassuringly on the back. "I understand. Come on in and at least take a look at our treasure. You can even count the Imperials if you like, though you'll find it a tedious task." He turned to Marana. "And you can even see if I've pocketed any..."
He guided us back to his tent. He went in first and wove his way back to the open cot at the rear of the tent. In the center stood a table where a fortune in Imperials climbed toward the pitched roof. It looked as though, as usual, the Thirteens and Fourteens returned to Talianna with practically nothing.
Serle's tentmates looked up when we walked in. I nodded and then killed the two closest to Serle. Marana got the other two. They all paused, then dropped back onto their beds and remained silent. They all watched Serle, waiting to see his expression when he turned and realized he had led two Justices into the heart of the camp.
I grabbed him and clapped a hand over his mouth. I felt him shudder when Marana dropped her hood back and he recognized her. "You have a choice. You can fail this exercise, or you can be disgraced and fail this exercise. It's your choice."
He tried to be stoic, but the fear in his eyes betrayed him. He looked at me and bowed his head. I dropped my hand because I knew he would not cry out.
"From what I saw on the post outside the ransom for the captured Justices is, all totaled, almost four thousand Imperials. On that table you have over eight. We'll deduct four to pay for our compatriots. Agreed?"
Serle nodded. His blue eyes were as pale as I'd ever seen eyes. I sympathized with him because I could imagine how I would have felt in his position a year before. I pawed his throat and he slumped back.
"The remaining four thousand is to go to Marana and me. Once my fellows are free, I will consider six transferred to you for your ransom." I also gave him the names of the two Fifteens we'd jumped to enter the camp and told him to credit them. "And, o
f course, you'll say nothing of this, and raise no alarms."
Serle sighed and nodded. His compatriots joined him.
* * *
I walked up to the guard watching the first captive tent and stood next to him. He looked up and I nodded quickly. "Serle sent me to watch for you while you get some soup from the mess tent. Something to warm you up."
The Fifteen smiled and wandered off. Marana walked over to the other guard watching the prisoner tents and told him the same thing. When alone we both opened the captives' tents and told the Justices to head south, back away from the mountain. "Wait in the clearing two hundred yards off."
They all slipped away from the camp unnoticed. I had to kill one Fifteen who tried to stop me from walking away from my "post" once the Sixteens had all fled, but that was the only difficulty in the whole operation. Marana and I retied the tent flaps and we followed our compatriots into the night.
Once we had all gathered in the clearing, I told them to strip off their snowsuits and bury them.
"What do you have in mind, Nolan?" Jevin's question was echoed in everyone else's eyes.
I waited for everyone to settle down before I spoke. "I'm tired of playing in the snow. Let's go back—while our tired little hunters sleep—and earn more Imperials than any group of Sixteens in the history of the Talions!"
* * *
For the second time in my life I stood before the Master. The amethyst set in the dragonthrone shimmered and sparked with a life all its own. Beneath it the Master sat in shadow, so much shadow, in fact, that I could not read the expression on his face.
Lord Hansur stood at his left hand and His Excellency sat down and to the Master's right. I'd never been that close to the immense Lord of the Services before, and I found him somewhat threatening. His black eyes followed every movement I made. I felt as if I was an animal being sized up before he made an offer to buy me.
His Excellency spoke. "You managed to eliminate one hundred ninety-seven Fifteens."