Free Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) by Hilari Bell Page B

that now.”
    Listening to the retreating footsteps, the back of Jiaan’s neck prickled. Siddas had let Hrum spies go unharmed; surely he wouldn’t have ordered Jiaan’s execution, even if he had seen too much. No, not his execution, but Jiaan would probably have been dragged back to the city, and held until the siege ended.
    Jiaan abandoned the notion of cheating on the count, and even went to thirty-five before he yanked off the blindfold.
    The sun was too bright; it made his eyes water. The tree before him was larger than most, but other than that it was perfectly ordinary. The leaves were a bit dusty. It looked wonderful.
    Blinking, Jiaan gazed around and discovered that he was standing on a road, though the surfacewas so rutted and rocky it was hardly smoother than the rough ground. To the left of the tree was a pile of rocks that looked like a crouching dog, from the right angle. From any other angle it looked like a pile of rocks, but Jiaan took the time to memorize them, and the tree, and the shape of the hills that cupped the road. He would need to be able to find this place again.
    The hollow, when he finally stepped onto a gnarled root to climb up and look for it, was just a cavity formed where a branch had fallen away and the wood behind it rotted. Nothing to distinguish it.
    Jiaan walked down the road to the south, making note of its twists and turns. After only a few hundred yards he found the horses, tied neatly to a tree that looked very like the message tree. Hadn’t Siddas said someone would be holding the horses?
    Wait, there was someone—but he wasn’t holding the horses, he was lying on top of the low rise, looking south. He wore a subtly colored shirt that blended with the grass, but his straight, black hair contrasted sharply with the pale sky. Even before he turned, revealing his face, Jiaan’s heart had started to sink toward his boots. It was Fasal.
    Jiaan set his teeth and began scrambling up theslope. “What in the name of all djinn are you doing here? I told you to stay in the city!”
    Fasal’s dark brows rose. “Markhan and Kaluud will be enough to keep an eye on the governor.” And I don’t acknowledge your right to give me orders. He didn’t say it aloud; he didn’t have to.
    “I went to check on the horses last night,” Fasal went on. “When I found out that the Hrum would arrive today, I realized that if I stayed I’d be caught in the siege, so I left with the horses. One of the guardsmen told me I could meet you here. I’ve been watching the Hrum all morning.”
    Jiaan reached the top of the slope and sank down beside him, acrimony forgotten. “What are they doing?”
    But he could see that for himself. They were burning the suburbs.
    “I don’t think they intended to do it, when they first arrived,” said Fasal.
    Looking down, Jiaan realized he was in the hills north of the city, just where he’d expected to be. The view, looking over Mazad’s rooftops and the walls, to the flaming buildings in the south, was magnificent and terrible. The Hrum had clearly started the fire on the outskirts of the mainroad, where Jiaan had ridden in . . . only yesterday? But the wind was blowing it west toward the river. The first few blocks of the southern suburbs were already a charred wasteland, with thin wisps of smoke rising from them. Looking down on the city from the other side, Jiaan could see the bright-clad townsfolk crowding the parapet, watching their homes and businesses burn.
    “The first thing the Hrum did was to begin setting up camp,” Fasal went on. “In those fields by the river. But soon they sent a few score of men marching on up the road. When they came into arrow range, they stopped, all but one unarmed officer who went on, almost up to the gate—probably demanding surrender.”
    “Evidently the governor didn’t oblige,” said Jiaan.
    “He won’t surrender,” said Fasal. “Especially once the first few attacks have been beaten off, and he sees that