Again, Lhaurel was amazed to realize she understood it. Talha cleared her throat to reply. Lhaurel focused her attention on the woman.
Talha spoke, but Lhaurel didn’t understand a word of it.
Confused, Lhaurel frowned and opened her mouth without thinking, then snapped it shut as soon as she realized what she was doing. The man before them licked his lips and shifted his head in Lhaurel’s direction, though he didn’t meet her gaze. He said something Lhaurel didn’t understand.
What was going on?
Talha made a curt gesture and said something short to the man. He bowed again, flourishing his hat, and then walked back to the small vessel where several of the other men were now waiting alongside the craft.
“Keep your face still,” Talha hissed, pitching her voice so low and quiet that only Lhaurel could hear. “Don’t draw attention to yourself.”
Lhaurel swallowed and tried to blank her expression, but it was difficult amid the myriad thoughts and questions jostling together in her mind. She could feel the edges of a headache threatening at the base of her skull, but she ignored it, drawing on her own stubbornness to blank her face and stand upright.
Talha moved toward the small vessel and Lhaurel followed. The soldiers moved forward on either side of them, the lead guards running forward to offer their arms and, in Lhaurel’s case, a knee on which to stand to get into the vessel. Talha gave her a subtle nod toward one of the benches that crossed the bottom of the craft and Lhaurel took a seat, gritting her teeth as the vessel rocked a little in response to her movement.
“Let’s be off, Captain,” Talha said.
Lhaurel looked over at Talha, forcing her expression to remain calm, and leaned against her upraised staff. Talha didn’t seem to notice. The hat wearer—the captain, Lhaurel assumed—said something in return, but Lhaurel didn’t catch it.
Her teeth ground together.
What was going on?
Several more men piled into the craft and grabbed the long pieces of wood with widened ends, dipping them into the water while those still on the sand pushed it back into the waves.
The boat started rocking. Lhaurel fought down a sudden panic. The thought of falling into the water below without the protection of her powers to aid her left Lhaurel’s mouth dry with fear.
Talha’s face remained calm and impassive.
After a moment of intense concentration, Lhaurel oriented herself to the pattern of the movement and her stomach and nerves calmed. She focused on the retreating shoreline, watching the outline of mountains in the far distance from which the plume of smoke could still be faintly seen slowly shrink away. Before long, Lhaurel heard the sound of wood hitting wood and shouts from above. They’d reached the ship.
The next few minutes passed in a blur of activity. The smaller vessel was hauled up onto the ship. Lhaurel had to force herself to remain calm through the process, though it left her knuckles white against her staff and she was sure her expression betrayed her more than once. When they reached the top of the ship, a half dozen men scurried about clearing a path for Lhaurel and Talha. The captain exchanged words with Talha and the other men on board the ship, then he personally led Talha and Lhaurel through a door and down within the ship, which turned out to be hollow inside, like one of the wagons, but much, much larger.
Lhaurel strode along in silence, trying and failing to keep track of it all or at least understand parts of the conversations going on around her. The captain led them to a hallway of doors, gesturing to two of them. Talha said something and the captain left with a bow.
“You’re in that one,” Talha whispered in the Rahuli language. She gestured to the door closest to Lhaurel. “I recommend you try to sleep.”
Lhaurel nodded and entered the small room, finding it well lit inside. A small bed lay against one wall. Lhaurel walked over to it and sat down. She laid her staff down on the floor and then reached up to massage at her temples. Her head throbbed with a dull ache, her mind still rocking and tumbling about like the small vessel had on the ocean waters. The world was so much bigger than Lhaurel had ever known. Locked in the Sharani Desert, she’d thought the Forbiddence was the border to life as it was known. She’d only occasionally wondered if there may have been something on the other side. It had been more a childhood fancy than any actual real or serious contemplation. By adulthood, every Rahuli simply accepted their life as fact. The genesauri were the present danger, not something completely unknown and unknowable on the other side of the Forbiddence. Now, her mind struggled to grasp what she saw around her. Kaiden had known. Somehow. Lhaurel pushed the thought away with effort. She couldn’t afford to add more confusion to her already overtaxed mind right now.
With a sigh, she stretched out on the bed, finding it incredibly soft. She lay there for a long moment, wondering why sleep eluded her. After a time of listening to the sound of creaking wood and the thump of activity above her, Lhaurel pulled the blanket from the bed and slid down onto the floor. She was asleep in moments.
“The Progression of the Arts is subject to both internal and external interpretation and, as such, has no real definition. This is the cause of much consternation among the other six Sisters.”
—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 17, Year 1171
Gavin and the other Rahuli followed the crowd that surged through the streets. Farah had gotten after him that morning for not taking her with him when he’d left during the night, and then again for not coming back until so much later, but, thankfully, Shallee had arrived shortly and had spared him a further lecture. Now, walking through the streets, the former outcast woman carried her son wrapped in a thick blanket and beneath the folds of her cloak. He protested, wriggling and trying to get the blanket off, but Shallee was faster than he and managed to keep him adequately covered against the cold. Farah walked near him as well, though closer to Shallee at the moment, cloak pulled tightly around her shoulders, chatting off and on with Shallee. The two had formed a budding friendship, for which Gavin felt immense relief. He didn’t know what he would have done if the two hadn’t gotten on well.
Gavin smiled, welcoming the pleasant sight after the long night of troubled wandering and conversations. Of the two hundred and forty-seven surviving Rahuli, he and Shallee were the only two outcasts left. It left him with a foreboding sense of loneliness, but that, at least, bore a certain familiarity.
The crowd pressed through the streets, Rahuli mingling with Orinai far more than Gavin was comfortable with, though he didn’t let it show. He’d come to a decision during his long, silent contemplation the night before. He would not let the Orinai consume his people. There was a heritage there, a legacy of over a thousand years. Gavin would not give them reason to suspect him or his people, even if it meant standing by while Brisson’s people carried out their revenge. Not that Samsin was innocent, or that Gavin himself wasn’t guilty of deaths that may not have been necessary, but stoning Samsin was wrong. Deep down it just didn’t feel right.
But more than that, more important than anything else, he needed his people to survive. Not just that, though. He needed them to flourish.
“How are the aevians handling things?” Gavin asked, glancing sidelong at Farah.
Farah shrugged and brushed some of her blond hair out of her eyes. “They’re taking it better than we are, actually, especially the grye. It’s almost as if they prefer the cold.”
“Good. Are they getting enough food and attention?”
Farah rolled her eyes. She’d taken over Khari’s responsibilities with the aevians after the Matron’s death. “No, I’m starving them.”
Gavin opened his mouth to defend himself but Farah cut him off with a raised hand and pursed lips. Her other hand rested on her hip. “There’s plenty of hunting in the mountains and, if there wasn’t, Brisson’s people have massive herds of cattle and other animals that would make good eating for the aevians.”
“Keep away from their cattle,” Gavin said a little more forcefully than he’d intended.
“What do you think I am? A child?” Farah put both hands onto her hips and frowned up at him. “There’s plenty of hunting. They’ll be fine without Brisson’s supplies, I was just stating possibilities.”
Gavin winced. “I know. I—I mean, we don’t need to seem any more reliant on them than we really are.”
Farah gave him a look that quite clearly told him she was still upset with him, but nodded anyway. “Agreed.”
Gavin gave her a tight-lipped smile and Farah turned back to her conversation with Shallee. He was glad Farah had the foresight to already be doing what he needed. Gavin had started to form a plan in the wee hours of the morning, as the first tendrils of dawn pierced the darkness and tinged it with purple. Part of that plan would involve the aevians. For much of the rest of it, Gavin would need to find Evrouin and Cobb. That, and hope he could convince Farah to go along with it, but now wasn’t the time for that.
The crowd hit the edge of the huts and spread out in a wide arc. Gavin edged to the left when the crowd parted, gently but firmly pushing through the throng in an effort to make it to the forefront. Farah and the others hung back. Gavin wasn’t a large man among his own people, and most of Brisson’s people were of a size with him, but they noted his darker complexion and thick, muscular frame when they turned to see who was pushing past them and let him through. The greatsword at his waist may have had something to do with it as well. By the time Gavin had made it through half the crowd, those in front had noticed him moving forward and parted for him.
Samsin stood on the edge of a sheer precipice, unbound and wearing simple, but clean white robes. The hidden valley in which they hid continued down below the cliff, but it was at least a ten span drop where they stood now. Further down the valley, the shelf they were on now and on which the huts were built sloped down and met up with the rest of the valley below, but here it formed a perfect place for a stoning. On the inside, Gavin shuddered. On the outside, Gavin kept his face calm, collected, and otherwise impassive. He needed to be there. He needed to see this. But, more than anything, he needed to be seen witnessing it.
Brisson and a dozen other men stood between Samsin and the crowd of onlookers, backs to the crowd. Unlike at the trial, a low murmur of conversation already ran through the assembled watchers. Gavin could almost feel the pulses of smoldering anger surging through the crowd.
The people spread out in a wide semicircle around Samsin and the men before him, like a small section of the moon when it was shrinking. Gavin noticed Evrouin standing near the front of the group on the side opposite him, standing a head or so above most of the others. Brisson turned to face the crowd, and Gavin noticed the thick, fist-sized stone in his left hand. Conversations died.
“Justice will be served!” Brisson shouted, and then turned back around to face Samsin. “Ready!”
Thirteen arms raised, stones poised to throw. Gavin’s eyes flickered to Samsin’s face. The massive Orinai looked at his assailants with calm, unafraid eyes. Samsin even smiled.
“Throw!”
Gavin shifted his gaze to the red-orange horizon before the rocks struck. He heard the meaty smack of stone on flesh and the clatter of rocks as they struck one another in midair. Gavin felt a collective movement from the crowd, half a wince, half an involuntary motion of satisfaction and justice. Chins lifted, but shoulders remained slumped. A few backs straightened, though others looked away entirely. Gavin kept his own reaction in check, fixing his gaze on a distant mountain peak jutting into the skies. But slowly, as if drawn by a great weight, his eyes drifted downward toward Samsin, knowing what he would see wouldn’t be any worse than the deaths he’d already seen in the Sharani Desert.
His eyes found Brisson instead, standing where Samsin had been, looking down over the edge of the cliff. Half a dozen rocks lay on the ground, several wet with blood. Brisson turned, and it seemed as if the motion were the movement of the stars across the sky. Gavin half expected him to raise his hands into the air and scream victory to the wind, but instead he simply nodded, expression grim and face set in hard lines. For a moment, Brisson looked far older than Gavin had initially thought him to be. Then the crowd started cheering.
***
Gavin strolled through the streets with long, purposeful strides, one hand resting on the hilt of his greatsword. Gavin had come to the firm conclusion that he wasn’t overly fond of the weapon, even with its supposed history and power. He heard his grandmother’s voice admonishing him inside his mind, but didn’t give it much heed.
Gavin was searching for Evrouin and Cobb. He had a meeting scheduled with Brisson to go over the work details to which the Rahuli would be assigned. He needed both men in agreement with his plan before then.
The sounds of men and women at work were a pleasant backdrop as Gavin walked. Small children in bright clothing scampered across the streets, bounding from building to building or else taking part in a sprawling, massive game of touch-me-not. Their youthful voices mingled with the sharp clang of metal against metal and the rasp of wood against wood as smiths and carpenters worked their wares. The craftsmans’ shops sat intermingled with the smaller houses, sometimes even attached to them, and filled the air with warm, foreign smells. Gavin couldn’t even begin to name them all, but he found them all pleasant. A communal eating building, called a dining hall, rested near the center of the valley, large enough for Gavin to be almost awed by its size, from which a mixture of the various scents and smells wafted and made a heady amalgam of sorts that left Gavin’s mouth watering, but his head spinning.
Gavin found it all a disconcertingly bright counterpoint to the darkness of the morning’s execution.
“Oi, Gavin!” a voice called.
Gavin turned to see Darryn hurrying toward him, carefully avoiding a group of small children kicking a bundle of tied rags across the ground. Several of the kids paused their game long enough to exchange a word or two with the man. Darryn smiled at each of them, but declined to participate in the game and pressed on toward Gavin.
Gavin silently cursed himself for not having spoken to the man before now. Darryn had been among those Lhaurel had broken—Gavin still shuddered at the thought of her powers being used that way—but, outside of Alyson, he hadn’t spoken to any of the mystics yet. He made a mental note to rectify that situation moving forward. The mystics were a vital part of his plan.
Behind Darryn, the children whooped as someone managed to get the bundle of rags into a wooden bin laid on its side.
“Darryn,” Gavin said with a small nod as the man approached. “What can I do for you?”
Gavin wasn’t tall, only average in height and girth among the Rahuli, but Darryn stood just over a head shorter than him. To his credit though, Darryn was stocky and well muscled, something that Gavin had a suspicion was a common trait among his kind.
“Farah won’t let me have one of the aevians,” Darryn said, bluntly, fixing Gavin with hard grey eyes.
Gavin blinked. “Why do you want an aevian?”
Darryn’s thick, square-jawed face hardened, making it appear as stone. “I have business to be about.”
“What sort of business requires the use of an aevian?”
“
My
business.”
Gavin narrowed his eyes. “Well, you won’t get me to intercede with Farah on your behalf if I don’t know what you’re going to do.”
“Intercede? What in the seven hells does that even mean?”
“Talk to Farah on your behalf. Convince her to let you use one of the aevians,” Gavin explained, fighting to keep down one corner of his mouth that was threatening to turn upward.
“Convince?” Darryn said, arching one eyebrow. “You’re in charge. Tell her.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Gavin noticed the set of Darryn’s jaw, the hard ridge of muscle standing out on the side of his neck, and the whiteness around his knuckles. Darryn had been an important part of their escape from the Sharani Desert, so where was the belligerence coming from now?
“Tell me what you want to do and I’ll consider it.”
A small splotch of color blossomed on Darryn’s brown face, highlighting the splashes of grey in his hair. He didn’t say anything for a long moment and silence stretched between him and Gavin for the space of several breaths. Behind Darryn, the children cheered as someone else got the rags into the bin.
“Fine then,” Darryn said. “I’ll figure it out on my own. Thanks for nothing.”
Gavin half raised a hand, but then let it fall as Darryn spun on a booted heel and strode off back the way he had come. Children dodged out of his way and then resumed their game as if he had never really been there to begin with.
Gavin made another mental note to talk to Farah about the experience later and have Cobb look into the matter. Someone had to know what Darryn was up to. He couldn’t afford to have someone off on their own agenda when he was in the middle of testing the limits of his own authority with Brisson and his people. Running a hand through his hair, and giving it a firm shake, Gavin resumed his search for Cobb.
Gavin found Cobb exactly where he thought he would, at a long wooden table in the dining hall. Cobb was just tucking into a large serving of meat, bread, and a number of small, round, white objects with yellowish centers when Gavin sat down next to him. The rest of the table was unoccupied, but there were perhaps two score other people present, sitting at various tables throughout the hall or else serving up the food at long counters along one wall. Cobb looked over at him and grunted, then pushed a large wooden tankard over to him.
“Have a drink, boy,” Cobb muttered through a mouthful of food. “I think you’ll need it with that expression on your face.”
“What expression?”
Cobb snorted and shoved one of the round, white objects whole into his mouth and chewed. Gavin picked up the tankard by the handle and peered down into its depths, studying the dark liquid inside.
“Where’s your wife?”
Cobb swallowed and grunted before taking a bite of some meat he’d placed between two halves of bread. He chewed slowly and then swallowed, making a satisfied sound as he glanced over at Gavin, both elbows propped up on the table and his bread and meat held loosely in one hand.