Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(140)

“Fine,” he replied, “let’s say it’s a rendezvous. Where do you go?”

“I’m not from here. I go wherever I’m told.”

“All right, then, let’s get into the mind of this hypothetical monk. You want to meet up with Pyrre. Where do you tell her to go?”

“One of the abandoned buildings to the south. The lower meadow, although that’s a little far. Maybe into the dovecote.” Akiil winked. “Someplace with a little romantic character. You got to treat the lady right.”

“I’m sure she’d be flattered to bed you while surrounded by shitting pigeons. What about east?” he asked, gesturing to the rocks in front of them. “That’s the direction you said you saw her going. Would you tell her to meet you up there?”

Akiil hesitated, then shook his head. “Nothing but gullies and fissures. I don’t want to be picking pebbles out of my ass.”

“So she’s on her own,” Kaden concluded. “A monk would have sent her somewhere else.”

“Seems reasonable,” Akiil replied, “but not that helpful.” He gestured to the forbidding labyrinth of rock before them. “You’re her. Where do you go?”

Kaden considered his options by the meager moonlight. There were half a dozen goat tracks leading up into the broken mountain, any one of which the woman could have followed. Most of them were obvious—trails clear as highways to anyone who’d spent time in the mountains—but Pyrre wasn’t from the mountains, at least not these mountains. He tried to look at the land with an unfamiliar eye.

“The streambed,” he said finally. “She’d take the streambed.”

Akiil waved a dismissive hand toward the channel. “What would she want to roll her ankles in the streambed for when there are plenty of good tracks to follow? Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because,” Kaden replied, “the streambed doesn’t look like a streambed. It’s dry this late in the spring. It’s broad. It’s relatively flat. For someone who didn’t grow up here, it’s the most obvious way through the rocks. She won’t have realized that the rounded stones will make for impossible footing, and she probably didn’t even notice the trails left by the goats. They don’t look like much, if you’ve never tried to follow them.”

Akiil shot him an appraising look. “Have you been tracking women without me all these years? Keeping secrets?”

“Why would I tell you my secrets? You’re a thief.”

“You wound me, brother. You wound me. I’m a humble monk, devoted to my god.”

“Well, devote yourself to this for a few hours instead,” Kaden replied, gesturing toward the stream.

A few dozen paces into the mountains, they came across the first sign of the woman—an overturned rock. Then there was a bootprint in the soft mud. And then another rock kicked out of its divot. They followed the signs for less than a quarter of a mile until Akiil spotted a low pile of stones. They didn’t look like much, just a few cobbles in a world of rock, not something that would draw the untrained eye. But river stones didn’t mound up like that. The spring flood would have washed them right down the drainage.

“Well, look at this,” Akiil said, lifting one of the stones off the pile. “Let’s see what the good merchants have to hide.”

He was grinning, eyes bright in the moonlight. Kaden didn’t share his enthusiasm. The streambed wasn’t very wide, but he felt exposed beneath the lambent stare of the moon, and despite the cool night air, sweat poured down his back. He hefted the stave in his hand, reminded himself that Serkhan had been attacked when he was alone, tried to believe that two young men together, armed with sticks and knives, would be enough to scare it off. When reason failed, he worked through the Shin exercise to slow his pulse, and bent to the cairn of stones only when his breathing was slow and regular once more.

Pyrre had cached two oilcloth bundles under the pile, and Kaden lifted them out carefully, then handed one to Akiil. He fumbled briefly with the ties binding it shut, trying to calculate whether he could retie them if he heard the woman returning. His fingers were clumsy as though with long cold, and by the time he had opened his bag, Akiil had already spread out half the contents of his sack on a flat rock. Kaden paused to look over the things while his friend ticked them off in a whisper.

“Clean tunic. Clean socks. Disappointingly light purse,” he said, tossing the small cloth pouch in the air so that it jingled when he caught it.