Law of the Broken Earth(71)

Mienthe caught her breath, shook free of the guardsman’s grip on her arm, and ran for the stables.

There were no horses there. “They took them all—the town guard needed them,” said the senior guardsman, looking sick with dismay. “We didn’t know—we didn’t know you’d need them, my lady.”

Mienthe stared at him. She said at last, “How could you have known? Where’s Geroen?”

The guardsmen did not know.

“East,” said Mienthe. “East. I’ll go on foot.” She took a step that way and found the three guardsmen falling in around her. She started to protest, but then did not know why she should object. And then she did: If the Linularinan mages found her again, she knew she would not be able to protect these men. But she could not send them away. She needed their help, and besides, they would not go.

There was fighting immediately to the south and west of the great house, and more than a few disturbing sounds to the north, but the east seemed relatively clear. The cobbled streets were narrow and dark, well suited to barricades, and there were plenty of barricades. The Delta had always been pressed between Linularinum and Feierabiand; a large proportion of all the male townsfolk belonged to the militia, or had, and most of the rest were willing to fight. Even some of the women would fight: Plenty of upper windows held a woman with a bow, overlooking her husband or son in the streets below.

And the people recognized Mienthe, which surprised her—they would look at her guardsmen and then at her, and then they would haul back an overturned cart or some other part of a barricade to let her through. At first she thought they would be dismayed to see her fleeing the great house, but instead they nodded to her and smiled grimly and promised her that those Linularinan bastards, begging her pardon, would have a hard time getting through these streets.

Mienthe hoped they were right, but she couldn’t believe how quickly the Linularinan soldiers, however careless their fathers might have been, had pressed through the town to come to the great house. She thought she could almost feel them, or someone, behind her: a dark, looming, seeking presence that pressed hard at her back, humming with power. She thought they knew where she was—she found herself terrified, certain that if she looked over her shoulder she would find someone there. When one of her guardsmen put a hand on her arm, she whirled, only the tightness of her throat keeping her from a scream.

“There’s some Linularinan company up ahead there,” whispered the man, not so much to Mienthe as to the other two men. “Hear that? That’s not townsfolk up there.”

Mienthe realized he was right. Up ahead, where the town gave way to farms on the drier bits of land and marshes between the farms, there was a low sound of men moving. A lot of men, moving through the darkness, coming into the town from the east. Muttered curses as they moved without a light over rough ground and muddy roads… The east should have been clear, but some clever Linularinan officer had thought to send a force around this way, either to block Tan’s escape or to flank Tiefenauer’s defenders. Mienthe found she had no doubt that the Linularinan officers knew about Tan, or at least that someone in Tiefenauer might break for the east and that they should stop him. It occurred to her that they might even have caught him—no. She took a breath and let it out again, slowly. Tan was, she knew, well away, far to the east. If this Linularinan company had been sent around to the east to stop him, it had gotten to its position too late.

But not too late to block her.

The senior of the guardsmen touched her arm again and jerked his head to the right, This way. Mienthe followed him down a narrow lane until he stopped in a doorway. The door was locked and no one answered the guardsman’s cautious rap, but the doorway was in deep shadow and offered at least a little shelter. “Likely they’ll go on past,” whispered the guardsman. “Likely they won’t search too close—only enough to be sure there’s not a great lot of militia or guardsmen ready to come after them and stick them in the back. But then, we’re obviously guard, and that means you’re obviously a lady, and I don’t know what they’d do if they found us.”

The guardsman was probably thinking the Linularinan soldiers might take Mienthe as a hostage, but what Mienthe thought was someone in that company might recognize her as the one who had rescued Tan from their hands. She had a vivid, awful picture of coming face-to-face with Tan’s particular enemy, Istierinan. He would… if he caught her, he would… She had no idea what he might do, and she didn’t want to find out.