The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

afraid there’s only the wet season and the dry.”
    “Pity we couldn’t have come in the dry season.”
    “We did.”
    “Ah.” Marcus pushed himself back up to standing. “I’m enjoying all this less than I’d hoped to.”
    Kit’s laughter rolled.
    “I’m not joking,” Marcus said.
    “I know you aren’t. The village should be just ahead.”
    For most of his life, Marcus had thought of Lyoneia as another kingdom, large and divided against itself, but in essence familiar. The great moat of the Inner Sea had kept the threat of war from being a greater concern than the battles and intrigues nearer at hand. There were mercenary companies that wintered in Lyoneian ports or took guard contracts when merchants went overland to the Southling cities for silver and spice. The vastness of the land and its impassibility surprised him, as well as its profound differences from the places he’d known.
    The land itself fought against travel: sharp, stony peaks with bogs at their bases; thick, snake-rich forests; wetlands crossed by stone roads long since fallen to rubble. Farmable land was rare and guarded, illness was common and hard to cure, and the villages, towns, and cities distrustful of two Firstblood men traveling alone. When Kit had said that the mules would cause more delay than they were worth, Marcus had disagreed. They’d sold the last of them at a trading post five days before, and Marcus hadn’t missed them yet. Marcus found himself longing for the plains and mountains of Birancour and the Free Cities, the Pût and Elassae. Even Northcoast and Imperial Antea, for all their faults, had the dragon’s roads, jade green and more permanent than mountains. For the most part, they had set borders too, and the corruption of their politics was a familiar kind.
    The Southling guards appeared among the trees. Their massive black eyes and pale skins made them seem young, but they were men full grown. Warriors with bows drawn and swords at the ready. It was easy to underestimate a Southling, but any of the thirteen races could kill. Even the Drowned. Marcus held his arms wide, hands open to show that his blade was sheathed.
    “We mean no harm,” Kit said. “We are no threat to your people.”
    Despite all their travels together, despite having seen the spiders that lived in Kit’s blood and testing the powers that they gave to the old actor, Marcus couldn’t hear anything different when he spoke. The warm tone of voice, the careful diction, the humor and sorrow were all just the same. Only instead of saying, I believe you will find us harmless , or I hope you will forgive our intrusion —instead of pointing all the meaning back to him and his own fallibility—he made an assertion. The corruption in his blood refused to be doubted.
    The Southlings blinked. They didn’t lower their weapons, but they held them a fraction less tightly.
    “You are what?” one of the bowmen demanded.
    “Travelers,” Kit said. “Seekers. I am called Kitap rol Keshmet, and this is Marcus Wester. We have come from far to the north to speak with your mother, if she will allow it.”
    “No blades come to the mother, no.”
    “You may take our swords,” Kit said.
    The Southlings turned to one another, speaking in a tongue Marcus had never heard before. His nose itched but he didn’t reach in to scratch it. He didn’t want the soldiers to think he was reaching for a weapon. Kit’s coarse hair and wiry beard framed his calm, smiling face, as if he were an uncle returned from a long journey with salt taffy in his pockets and tall tales to amuse the children.
    “If we ever come to a place they can’t understand your words,” Marcus said, “what happens then?”
    “I expect that will be more difficult,” Kit said.
    The Southlings’ gabble reached a climax, and the bowman blinked at them.
    “Throw down your blades, you,” he said. “We take you motherwards.”
    Slowly, Marcus unbuckled his belt, pulled it off, and tossed sword and scabbard to the mossy ground. Kit did the same, and added the dagger from his sleeve as well. One of the younger Southlings collected them. The bowman turned and seemed to vanish into the tangle of trees. Marcus and Kit had to struggle to find him again, and then to keep up.
    The trail was visible once Marcus saw the Southlings using it, but it would have been easy to overlook. The trees and brush hadn’t been hacked back, but shaped. There were no axe-cut branches or roped-back twigs to