ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1057-6 ISBN-10: 0-7653-1057-0

Copyright © 2009 by Katrina Elliot

PART ONE: FOREIGNERS

1

LATE AT NIGHT a fight broke out beyond the compound’s high walls.

Keshad sat up in the darkness. At first he thought himself in the Hundred, in the city of Olossi, still bound as a debt slave to Master Feden. Then he smelled the faintly rancid aroma of the harsh local oil used for cooking. He heard cries and shouts jabbering words he could not understand.

And he remembered.

He wasn’t in the Hundred. He was in the Sirniakan Empire.

He groped for the short sword he had stashed under the cot, shoving aside pouches of his most valuable trade goods and getting his hand tangled in a length of leather cord before he finally gripped the hilt.

“Eh? Keshad?” A bleary voice murmured on the other side of the curtain separating his cot from that of his companion.

“Quiet. There’s trouble.”

The cloth rippled as, on the other side, Eliar got up and wrestled with clothing, or his turban, or whatever the hells the Silvers were so cursed prudish about. Bracelets jangled. There came a curse, a rattle, and a thump as the cot tipped over.

“Eiya! Where’s the light?” whispered Eliar so loudly that he would have woken any other sleeper could there have been one in such a narrow space.

“Hush.” Kesh wrapped his kilt around his waist, approached the door, and, leaning against it, pressed an ear to the crack. All quiet.

“Nothing to do with us,” he said in a low voice. “Yet.”

“How can you say so?” The cot scraped, being righted. “The Sirniakan officials have locked us in the compound, won’t let us trade, and hand over a scant portion of rice and millet once a day so we don’t starve. One of their priests told you that the emperor is dead, killed in battle by his cousin. They’ve locked down Sardia and are restricting all movement. These troubles have everything to do with us. We have to get out of here, return to Olossi, and report these developments to Captain Anji.”

“Hush!”

Kesh jiggered the latch and cracked the door. It was strange, even unseemly, to deal with doors on hinges instead of proper doors that slid, but in the empire things were done one way or not at all, and if you didn’t like it, the priests would condemn you to the fire.

A single lamp hung from a bracket set high on the wall. Its glow illuminated the courtyard and the storehouse gates to either side, but the far walls of the courtyard with their set-back doors into other storerooms and sleeping cells remained hidden in darkness. He wedged himself into the opening, one foot in and one foot out. The trumpets, the shouting, and the clash of weapons swelled in the distance, well away from the restricted market district where foreign merchants were required to reside and carry out all their trade. A whiff of burning stung his nose, and a light wavered into life behind him.