a little darker.
SIXTEEN
Aestival Week passed, but for Mishani there had been no celebration this year. For seven days now she had been riding through the Saramyr countryside, and for one not used to long journeys on horseback it was a gruelling test. Yet despite saddle-sores and fatigue, and the endless watchfulness, she never made a complaint, never let her mask slip even a little. Though she was surrounded by men whom she mistrusted, though she headed south in secret to an uncertain end, though her own father was trying to have her killed, she was calm and serene. It was her way.
They had left Hanzean soon after the attempt on Mishani’s life, timing their departure to coincide with the beginning of the harvest celebrations so as to take advantage of the confusion and slip away unnoticed. Chien had insisted on personally accompanying her as escort, to make reparations for the shame of allowing assassins to menace his guest. Mishani had expected no less. Whatever Chien’s plans for her, she was sure that he would want to be present to see them carried out.
Nevertheless, their journey was far from safe, despite the retinue of eight guards who went with them; the merchant put himself at considerable risk by travelling with her. Transport by sea was not an option, since all boats would be watched by Barak Avun’s men and their arrival logged in their destination port. That left land travel, which was more fraught with minor perils but which would make evading her father a much simpler task. Anyone seeking them from Hanzean would have no idea which way they went, since nobody knew their destination but Mishani.
Still, the need for secrecy carried its own disadvantages. Mishani was accustomed to travelling by carriage; but they were forced to stay off the roads, and that meant horses, and camping under the stars. Though Chien expended every effort to make her comfortable, providing her with sheets and an elegant tent which the grumbling guards had to put up for her each night, it was still somewhat irksome for the child of a Barak. Mishani liked her little luxuries, and she did not share Kaiku’s readiness to forsake them. But at least she still had her luggage with her from her trip to Okhamba, so she had her clothes and scents, and plenty of diversions.
They had struck out south from Hanzean for several days before turning south-east to meet the Great Spice Road below Barask, which ran almost exactly a thousand miles from Axekami to Suwana in the Southern Prefectures. They did not dare use the Han-Barask Highway, one of only two major routes out of the port, and even when they found the Great Spice Road they stayed well off it, keeping to the west of the thoroughfare until the northern reaches of the Forest of Xu began to loom to their left, and they were forced to join the road to take the Pirika Bridge across the Zan. There they were warned about the revolt in Zila and told to go back if they could and find another route to their destination.
Few heeded the warning: there was no other way. The vast and fearful forest crowded them to the east, spirit-haunted and ancient, while to the west was the coast. There were no ports of a size capable of supporting passenger craft unless they went back to Hanzean, and to go around the forest would require a detour of some nine hundred miles, which was insanity. Instead, most travellers were heading off the road, skirting the Forest as closely as they dared and passing to the east of Zila. With no option left to them, Mishani and her retinue took that route also.
By nightfall of their seventh day of travel, they were camped twenty-five miles to the south-east of the troubled city, near a shallow semicircle of black rocks that knuckled out of the flat plains. It was the last day of summer, and in Axekami the final ritual of Aestival Week would be at its height, welcoming in the autumn. There was no question of hiding out here, unless they cared to go within the borders of the forest which glowered a mile to their east. But their camp was anonymous among many scattered across the plains: other travellers heading south like them and forced to brave the bottleneck that Zila commanded.
Mishani sat cross-legged on a mat near the fire, her back to the rocks that ran along one edge of