Heir of Iron

Chapter 6

"Three Red Men, and a man with tied hands between them. Yep, I saw 'em." The bridge guard for the city of Jaitha stood at the entrance to the Emperor's Bridge and spat a red lozenge of saliva, briefly showing them the betel nut in his mouth. "Left at first light this morning."

Red Men, Mandhi thought with a scowl. Last night they had been dressed in ordinary clothes, but if the bridge guard called them Red Men, then they were wearing the uniform of the imperial guard. But what was the imperial guard doing here in Jaitha? The vassal kings of the empire had their own militias, like the bridge guard standing before them who served the king of Jaitha. Ordinary military action was delegated to them. The Red Men stayed near Majasravi most of the time, unless there was some duty of the emperor for which they were needed---revolts or riots or threats of independence on the part of the emperor's vassals.

But the Red Men were here in Jaitha, and they took Navran. She turned back to the guard. "Did you ask where they were going?" Mandhi said.

"I don't question imperial guards carrying prisoners," the man said with a shrug. "But if you want to know where they were going, I could tell you." He grinned and tapped his palm.

Mandhi flicked a coin at him. The man caught it and spat again. "They crossed the bridge and took the north-east road."

"Very good." Mandhi tossed another coin at the man and nodded to Taleg. "If anybody asks, you never saw us."

"Pleasure to help you, dear lady." The soldier bowed, and the two of them proceeded through the gate onto the bridge.

The Emperor's Bridge was a wide expanse of cut stone, as wide as three Jaitha streets, with a stone railing as tall as a man on either side. It leapt on arches from the south bank of the Amsadhu river to the stone sliver in the center of the river, where an imperial temple to Am rose, then crossed at a slightly different angle to the north shore. It was the surest sign of imperial power here in the south, the symbolic union between the halves of the empire, built by the first emperors to fuse their conquests together. The edges of the causeway were tiled with ramshackle kiosks and tables of wares, an informal market presented to everyone who crossed the great river of Amur, and the bridge was choked with traffic in every daylight hour. Mandhi and Taleg could only proceed forward in the narrow channel through the middle of the bridge. But once they emerged on the other side, the crowd thinned, as travelers spread out onto the six roads which converged at the bridge. Taleg nodded towards the north-east road, and Mandhi followed.

Only a hundred yards from the bridge, the crowd of the city receded to a distant murmur. The road became a wide, flat path winding between gum acacia trees and coconut palms. Ahead of them a shepherd whacked at the laggards of his flock of goats with a thorny branch.

"So what's the plan?" Taleg said quietly.

"We follow them. Ask in every village who saw them to make sure we don't take a wrong path. They have a half a day's lead, so we walk morning and night until we catch up."

"And when we catch up with them?"

"We take Navran back."

Taleg stroked his beard. "I appreciate your confidence in me, but we are talking about three Red Men. I don't know if I can take that many at once."

"Did I say we should fight them?"

"What other option do we have?"

"I have plenty of coins." Mandhi gestured at the pouch that she hid between her breasts.

Taleg raised an eyebrow. "That could be expensive."

"More expensive than the alternative?"

He laughed. "The problem with the alternative isn't the expense."