This scene was near the start of the book, between when Neeru returns from the temple (the first time) and when the cadre moves to a new campsite (the first time). It started a subplot about a traitor or enemy agent in the cadre that never got resolved. Some of the cadre would suspect Neeru of being this traitor. I never decided who the traitor really was, or whether they'd be caught, or whether Neeru would be able to clear her name. Answering all those questions would've made an already-long book much longer, so I decided to cut the subplot.
On her return to the kite, Neeru started splicing together the two halves of the communication cord. Strictly speaking, this was part of her duty, so she shouldn't be doing it today. But there was nothing else to do while she waited for the repair to the wing to dry. Besides, it wasn't strenuous work.
Something struck the back of her neck. She turned to see a couple of infantry, a man and a woman, a few feet from her. They looked familiar, but she doubted she could pick them out of a crowd. They didn't look pleased to see her. She stood. Brushed the hilt of her knife.
"This is the dragon pen," she said, hands on her hips. "Infantry aren't allowed in here."
"Why didn't you stay lost in the desert?" said the woman. "Came back to gloat, did you?"
So they blamed her for not giving warning of the attack. Only now did she notice the long, smooth clubs that each of them held. They raised them and took a pace towards her. She risked a glance to either side. No one else was around. How convenient. "Two adults against one girl? That's not fair."
"I didn't think your lot cared about fair," the woman said. "The battle was a lot more than two-to-one." To the man, she said, "Tell you what. I'll deal with her. You make sure the kite can't fly."
Neeru could take a few lumps from the clubs, but if the kite was damaged, she'd surely be flogged. She put herself between the man and the kite. He raised his club. She bent over and charged at him, headbutting his thigh. He staggered backwards. The club struck her back, but with little force, and it fell from his grasp. He crashed into the winch and sprawled over it.
The woman charged at Neeru, who scooped up the man's club and parried with it. Her whole body shivered with the impact. The woman easily swept under Neeru's guard, striking her flank. Neeru tried to hit the woman's shins, but she was too far away. The woman landed another blow on Neeru's shoulder, numbing her arm. She tried to lift the club for another attack, but now it seemed more like a tree. She should stop embarrassing herself and take the beating. But the woman's eyes - she mightn't stop at a beating. And the kite...
"You there! Stop that!"
Neeru had never been more relieved to hear Captain Brakh's voice.
The woman dropped her club and retreated several paces from Neeru. As Brakh approached, he asked, "What's going on here?"
Neeru's voice had fled along with her strength. The woman filled in the gap. "Sir, we came here to see if she needed any help with stowing the kite for transport, and she attacked us without warning."
"Liar! You attacked me!"
Despite being only a few inches taller than Neeru, Brakh managed to look down his nose at her. "Rider Neeru, I don't recall having asked for your recollections on the matter. I also don't recall anyone saluting me."
The woman saluted, as did the man, who by now had got up off the winch. With a supreme effort, Neeru raised her arm for what had to be the sloppiest salute she'd ever given.
"I'm sure you're aware," Brakh said to the man and woman, "infantry aren't allowed in the dragon pen without permission from an officer. I certainly didn't give you permission, and if any of the others had given it, I'm sure they would have mentioned it to me. As well as that, unless the infantry's supply problems are much worse than I realised, you were both carrying an unauthorised weapon. I should write you up for those offences, but we're due to break camp any minute, and I don't want to be the one delaying us for the sake of some trivial paperwork. If I see you near one of my riders again, I won't be so forgiving. Now, get out of my sight and go back to whatever you're supposed to be doing."
Once the man and woman had left, Brakh gave Neeru a hard stare and asked, "So, what was that really about?"
She swallowed and said, "Sir, I think they blamed me for not spotting the enemy, and wanted to punish me for it."
He harrumphed. "Perhaps I'll have to write them up after all. How badly are you hurt?"
"No cuts, Sir. I expect I'll have some bruises."
"Well, you'd better ride in one of the wagons anyway. It'll keep those mud crawlers away from you for the rest of the day."
"Thank you, Sir."
This scene belongs somewhere in the middle of the book, when Neeru and Solastim are staying at the palace in Yaenglar. I cut it firstly because it was too long for what happens in it (nearly 2,700 words) and secondly because I wanted it to be less obvious that someone was trying to sabotage their mission.
The lines about "one of them knew my father" versus "one of them was my father" are from a subplot about Adjunct Vikarsh (possibly) being Neeru's father. The Dragonriders are rather inbred, so to minimise the effects of this, they have every man mate with every woman of childbearing age. This means that, usually, nobody is sure who anyone's father is. I thought Vikarsh might've taken an interest in Neeru because he'd "somehow" figured out she was his daughter. He was worried that his enemies might threaten her to force him to obey their orders, or threaten him to force her to obey. This idea foundered when my critique group pointed out that, if nobody knows who anyone's father is, the emotional bond between father and child would never form. So even if Vikarsh's enemies discovered his relationship to Neeru, they'd have no reason to threaten her rather than any other young Dragonrider to make him obey, and no reason to expect that threatening him would make her more likely to obey than anyone else. So on the cutting room floor it went.
As Tanusk had predicted, Lord Brahan authorised a visit to the Army's archives. The building was only about half a mile from the palace, but Brahan insisted that Neeru and Solastim go in a carriage, partly so that they wouldn't get lost, and partly so that they could close the shutters to stop onlookers from identifying them.
Solastim complained of being too hot in the carriage. Neeru thought the temperature was fine, but felt oddly queasy whenever they were moving. The noises from the street seemed more threatening than they probably were.
Eventually, the driver opened the door and helped them down the steps. They'd arrived in a small courtyard with high walls. The building, in dark brick with many tall, narrow windows, had seen better days. The driver said he would wait while they completed their task.
Inside was a large hall that would probably have been very impressive with proper lighting. Their footsteps echoed on the tiled floor. A wide staircase swept up to a balcony that ran all the way around the hall. Many doors led out of the hall, both on the balcony and at floor level. All were closed except one to the right of the stairs.
An old man in a soldier's uniform stood at attention by the stairs. Next to him was a plain wooden chair with a couple of small objects on it.
"Good afternoon, Sir, Lady," the man said, nodding to them. "Do you have an appointment?"
Neeru wondered why he hadn't saluted her, then remembered she wasn't in uniform herself. "We don't," she answered. "We're here to consult the records of the Queen's Light Infantry, from about the year 2467."
The man frowned, as though he'd never heard of that regiment. "There is a fee to access the archives, one svar per hour or part thereof." The sentence sounded like something he'd been made to memorise.
"We'll pay that," said Neeru. "Now, can we consult the records, please?"
"I must summon the right archivist." The man leaned over the objects on the chair, studying them as though he'd never seen them before. Now that he'd brought his arms in front of him, she saw that his right hand was missing. She tried not to stare - the war had done similar things to many, and far worse to some. He picked up one of the objects and shook it, producing a cheerful tinkling. Of course - it was a bell. In the dim light, she hadn't recognised it.
The man picked up the other bell - carefully, so it wouldn't sound - and said, "Would you like to sit while you wait, Lady?"
"That's kind of you, but no, thank you. I've been doing too much sitting lately."
He nodded and replaced the bells, then returned to standing at attention, looking straight past Neeru and Solastim as if they weren't there. Was he like that all day, or only when someone else was in the hall?
Slow, uncertain footsteps approached from farther inside the building. They seemed not to become any louder, and Neeru had almost convinced herself that the owner was walking in circles when a figure appeared in the open doorway.
An old woman carrying a small magical light came out of the doorway and raised a hand in greeting. She wore a short robe over trousers and tunic, all of them various shades of grey with many patches. The light cast deep shadows over her face, giving her a vaguely threatening appearance.
"Welcome, welcome. Which regiment are you interested in?" She sounded much younger than she looked.
"Queen's Light Infantry," said Neeru, "from the year -"
The woman - the archivist - held up her free hand. "Don't tell me anything more just yet. I have to start the clock when you state your query, and it's back there. Follow me, please." She went back the way she'd come without checking whether they were behind her. She moved surprisingly quickly, and Neeru feared she'd struggle to keep up with her, but they soon arrived at a large office lit by more magical lights. Two doors, both closed, led left and right. The door on the left had a little sign that said Archives. The one on the right was unlabelled. The woman placed her light in a holder at the corner of a desk that was piled high with books and loose papers.
"One of my own projects," she sighed, gesturing towards the desk. "I'm beginning to wonder if I'll live long enough to complete it." She didn't elaborate, and Neeru thought it might be rude to ask. "Would you like something to drink? Water or beer only, I'm afraid - no wine."
"Beer," said Solastim.
"Beer and some water, please," said Neeru.
The archivist opened a small cupboard on the wall and took two jugs and two cups from it. She filled one cup and handed it to Solastim, then half-filled the other cup and passed it to Neeru with the other jug. Neeru tasted the beer. It was weak enough not to need water, but since she'd asked, she added some.
"Food?" asked Solastim, after a gulp of his beer.
The archivists gave a pitying smile. "It's not allowed in here, I'm afraid. It attracts mice, who like to turn our documents into nests."
"Don't you have a cat?" said Neeru.
"There's one on the payroll, but I haven't seen her for some time. I think she's dissatisfied with the slim pickings here. But unless you're from the City Council, you're not interested in that." She sat in a chair behind the desk, and, from a drawer, took an elaborate brass object, small enough to conceal in her hands. She cleared a space among the papers and set the object down. She gripped something on the back of it and made a repeated twisting motion, which produced a series of loud clicks. "Perakhandran," she said with a grunt, as if that accounted for everything.
She stopped twisting and moved the object a couple of inches towards Neeru. "Now, did the doorman explain the fee structure?"
"One svar per hour, or part thereof," said Neeru.
"Yes. We try to keep it simple. We can answer most queries in well under an hour, and you can ask as many as you like within that time. If I know we don't have documents to answer a query, I'll tell you, so as not to waste your time."
"That seems fair."
"The clock rings once when there's a quarter of the hour remaining, and twice on the hour."
"Clock?" said Neeru, looking around at the walls.
The archivist tapped the brass object. "Perakhandran," she repeated. "I'll start it when you state your first query, so just tell me when you're ready."
Neeru shook her head in wonder. Every clock she'd ever seen had been built into the side of a building. "Ready," she said.
The archivist touched the top of the clock, and a soft ticking came from it.
Neeru licked her lips. "As I said, we're looking for information about the Queen's Light Infantry, from the year 2467."
"That's a very broad query. Can you be more specific?"
"I'd like to know the names of the officers who were serving in the regiment then, in its..." She scratched her ear, trying to remember which parts of the regiment had been with Vikarsh's cadre. "Fourth and sixth battalions. And where they are now."
The archivist tutted. "Names of officers is easy, but where they are now...? We can tell you if they transferred to another unit, or were discharged, and where that happened, but after that..." She gave a big shrug.
"Just tell me whatever you can, then, please."
"Gladly. May I know why you want this information? It sometimes helps me to focus the search."
Neeru hesitated. She should've thought of... what was it Tanusk had called them? A cover story, that was it. Close enough to the truth to be believable. The archivist started to say, "If you'd rather not -" as Neeru uttered the first thing that came into her head.
"I think one of them knew my father."
The archivist nodded, and a smile flickered across her lips, as though she thought the truth was, One of them was my father. Close enough... She stood, her chair scraping across the flagstones. She took the light she'd held earlier, and with a key from a pocket, unlocked the door labelled Archives.
She turned on the threshold. "Wait here. Please help yourselves to more beer and water." She locked the door behind her.
When her footsteps had faded, Solastim stood up and padded about the room, looking behind chairs and under the desk. He tried the handle of the other door, finding it locked.
"What are you doing?" Neeru asked.
He shrugged, then drained his beer in one gulp, grimacing as he lowered the mug. Sour, he signed.
Neeru sniffed hers, not catching anything wrong, though of course the water would mask symptoms of age. She sipped it.
"Tastes fine to me."
He made some signs that she chose to interpret as meaning that she wouldn't know the difference between beer and the water that last week's dishrags had been boiled in. He sat down, yawned and stretched out his legs.
What now? She drank some more beer and gazed at the clock, wondering how it worked. She doubted she'd understand it. A ring around the top, with some thick lines and many fine ones, seemed to be moving slowly. Maybe that measured the passage of the hour.
Solastim started humming, quietly at first, then louder. It took her a couple of verses to recognise the tune - a bawdy drinking song that had been popular in the last year of the war.
"That one's about a woman from Perakhandra, not a clock."
"Near enough," he grunted. He started singing, and after a few lines, she joined in with what she could remember. He had a fine, confident singing voice, a complete contrast to his speech. She had no idea why that was so. They had to stop a couple of times for laughing over the ruder parts. Once they'd got to the end, they sang other songs, taking turns to pick.
A high-pitched bell chimed, disrupting a chorus of the song. Neeru needed a moment to realise the sound had come from the clock. "Three quarters of an hour already." She sighed. "I suppose there's a lot of paper to look at."
"Index," Solastim said dismissively.
"What's that?"
"Like map for books." He drew a rectangle in the air. "Queen's." The name of the regiment they were looking for. Another rectangle next to it. "East Mountain." Had there ever been a West Mountain Regiment? He drew a third rectangle underneath them. "Utorynam." He drew a smaller rectangle within the one for Queen's. "First battalion." More small rectangles within the larger one. "Second. Third. Fourth." He pointed to spots within one of the small rectangles. "One year. Next year. Next year." He pointed to Neeru. "You ask, officer, fourth battalion, Queen's, 2467. No index. Search everything." He moved his finger through the space he'd just described, slowly, left to right, down a bit, right to left, down a bit, like a farmer ploughing a field. After a few lines, he mimed going to sleep, then resumed for a few more lines. "Index." He drew a small rectangle off to the right. He indicated a point within it. "Queen's." He outlined the rectangle he'd previously given that name. Another point within the index. "Fourth battalion." He outlined a smaller rectangle within Queen's. He repeated this with 2467 and officer, showing smaller rectangles each time, then mimed taking a book off a shelf and reading it.
"That's the most words I've ever heard you say in one go."
He stuck his tongue out and poured himself some more beer, which he gulped down.
"How do you know all this?"
Say little. Hear much.
She nodded. People tended to assume Solastim was too stupid to understand most things, and weren't always careful what they said around him. But she wouldn't have thought anyone would say anything like that in front of him.
"So maybe she's found the officers, and now she's looking for where they went after they served with Vikarsh."
They sang a few more songs, and the bell chimed twice.
One svar, Solastim signed.
"I'm sure Br - uh, my lord - can afford it," said Neeru.
Solastim stretched, yawned, stood up, paced around and flopped back into the chair.
"What now?" she asked.
Tell me a story.
"Which one?"
You choose.
They knew and loved all the tales of the dragonriders, even the ones the Captains didn't like to be told, such as the ones of the end of the Asdanundish war, where many riders had behaved dishonourably. But they'd heard all of them many times before.
[I didn't decide which story she told before I cut this scene. It might have been one that would tie this book to one of the others.]
The clock's bell chimed again.
"Already?" said Neeru. "Where's she got to, I wonder?" She stood up and tried the door that the woman had gone through, in case it wasn't really locked. It was.
Story, Solastim signed impatiently. End.
Neeru finished the story and yawned. She could do with a nap. Or was that just the heat of the room? She jolted. "We should make sure the carriage is still there. When I told him to wait, I had no idea we'd be this long."
She stood, ready to make her way back to the lobby, and then she heard footsteps approaching. She waited. A key turned in the lock, and the door opened.
The archivist stood in the doorway, looking much less self-assured than when Neeru had last seen her. Her hair was untidy, and her robe was half-off one shoulder. She held the magical light as though trying to crack it. "I'm sorry -" she began, and then sucked in a breath.
"What's wrong?" asked Neeru.
The archivist bowed her head, put a hand over her face, then looked straight at Neeru. Her voice trembled. "The documents pertaining to your query are not where the index says they should be. Therefore, I cannot answer your query within a reasonable amount of time. Under the circumstances, there is no charge for this session. I'm sorry you've had a wasted journey. Good day."
Neeru stared at the archivist. When the woman moved to close the door, Solastim darted forward and blocked it with his foot.
"What do you mean," asked Neeru, hobbling towards the door, "not where the index says they should be? Someone's moved them?"
The archivist didn't quite meet Neeru's gaze. "The alternative is too terrible to contemplate."
"What are you going to do about it? Surely you have to find them and put them back?"
"That will take time."
"How much time?"
"So much time... you have no idea how much priceless material we have here. Some of it goes back to the Asdanundish war." She pushed against the door, but Solastim held firm. "Please leave."
"When can we come back?" Neeru asked.
"I don't know. Maybe never."
"How often do documents go missing?"
The archivist didn't answer, but pushed the door again.
"How often?" Neeru demanded.
"Just go. Please don't make me summon the guards."
They could probably overpower the archivist. But what would they do after that? And it would be unwise to take on the guards when they had no weapons. Neeru gave Solastim a questioning look. He just shrugged.
"All right, we'll go. But you haven't heard the end of this." As soon as the words left her mouth, they felt like an empty threat.
Neeru and Solastim went back to the lobby, where the doorman ignored them, and then outside, where they found the carriage waiting exactly where they'd left it.
"Where to, Lady?" the driver asked as they approached.
She was tempted to ask him to take them to the nearest tavern, but summoned enough self-discipline to say, "Back to the palace, please."
Last update: 28/12/2025 22:20