The Two of Swords, Volume 3 by K. J. Parker

Author:K. J. Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Fiction / Fantasy / Historical, Fiction / War & Military
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2017-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

Everything they did was plainly visible from the house, so there were no more horsemen buzzing them; they had the world to themselves, as far as the eye could see. Axio chivvied the Lodge infantry out of the wagons and drew them up in a long, painfully thin line about five hundred yards from the outer wall, while the horse-archers clustered on the right wing. They didn’t seem bothered by what was going on; mostly they talked to each other in low, cheerful voices, and occasionally one of them laughed, as if at a joke or some familiar story. She’d read somewhere that one of the horse-tribes believed that the dead don’t go anywhere after they die. They hang around more or less where they’ve always been, following the wagons and the flocks, raising and folding their tents, drinking milk, eating cheese. The only difference is that we can’t see them, or their horses, sheep, goats, wagons, tents. We share the same space; if we happen to coincide with one of them, we walk right through them, or they walk through us, depending on your point of view. Whether they can see us is unknown and mildly disputed among the wise and learned; the consensus view is, they can see us but they really aren’t interested. She had no idea if the people who believed this were the no Vei or one of the other nations. The truth was, they all looked pretty much alike to her, though she wouldn’t dream of saying so.

Axio was busy seeing to things—she was deeply impressed by his tireless grasp of and attention to detail, though watching him made her feel desperately tired—and so wasn’t available for questions and idle chat. She tried to keep from getting under everyone’s feet; and there was an interesting point, because hadn’t the Triumvirs (one of whom was here with her, doing all the work) given her the ghastly job of assassinating Forza Belot? But, as far as she could tell, she was the only one present who didn’t have a useful and necessary part to play in the grand scheme; for all the use she’d been so far, she could’ve stayed on in Rasch for a couple of days, ridden out to join them at a leisurely pace, and still have been here in time to do all this aimless sitting around. She could only assume that her bit came later, and that it was uniquely dangerous and horrible, so much so that nobody else was prepared to do it, direct order or no direct order. That sort of made sense, but it didn’t cheer her up an awful lot.

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