The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (7 page)

Her mouth was dry. Ashlyn looked at Vargo for a moment,
seeing him for the first time as something other than a Spartan. "I'm
glad," she said, and turned away before he could read the thoughts in her
eyes.

The airship had settled now - she assumed that they
would soon be leaving it to enter Cosmea, so she had a few minutes before
anyone noticed her absence.

The ninja was slumped in the corner of his cell, his
feet curled underneath him, his head against the wall. His head was bare and
his shoes were gone. Without the hood he looked young, younger than Ashlyn
even, and there was still a youthfulness lurking about his eyes and mouth that
made her think that maybe he wasn't old enough to be fighting this war in the
first place.

He looked so familiar to her. It had been a long time
since she‘d seen another full-blooded Toryn.

"I welcome you, young ninja," she said in
Toryn, gracefully seating herself on the floor outside his cell and setting the
shuriken beside her.

His head shot up- obviously he hadn't been expecting
his own language. His eyes narrowed as he recognized her from the fight
earlier, but he did not comment, instead returning the greeting in the
traditional manner, "I thank you for your welcome, elder."

Ashlyn smiled brightly and continued, "I trust
you bear no wounds from your ordeal?"

"I was treated for a concussion and cracked
ribs," he replied, hand drifting to the bandage around his head. His dark
eyes were intense upon her, trying to find some clue as to why another Toryn
would be in this place, and unshackled to boot. "And you, elder?"

"These wounds will heal," she said. She held
out her hands for examination.

"My respect," the younger ninja said, bowing
his head.

"And to you." Ashlyn shifted her weight
slightly, her smile fading. "Have you sworn oath to reveal nothing?"
she asked.

"I have."

"And what have you to say?"

"I may say that I am Kou Lunai of the clan Lunai.
I am Toryn ninja, servant to Lord Devlyn and no other." He tilted his head
to the side, a curious gleam in his eye. Ashlyn knew that he was expecting her
to introduce herself as well.

"I am Scorned," she said slowly, trying to
remember the proper etiquette for the situation, "and I am of no people. I
seek to gain knowledge of Lord Devlyn's reasoning."

"His Lordship's reason for waging war, you
mean," Kou said.

"Yes."

"Are you Toryn?"

She hesitated. "I...was."

"Then I will share his reasons with you in hopes
of gaining your alliance."

She sighed, glad that he was making this easier.
"Do not compromise your oath on my behalf."

"I will not. I may say that Lord Devlyn was
merely a boy when the power of stanes was discovered. The DEMON army drained
the magic from our world, and began to drain the sun soon afterwards. After the
war was over, Lord Li revived our city. When we did not resist, Toryn was
scarcely affected by this super-power known as the DEMON army, but had Lord
Li's daughter not assassinated Lord Angelo and saved the sun, our way of life
would have been destroyed forever."

"Lord Li's daughter?" Ashlyn repeated. He
made it sound as if she had defeated Lord Angelo and saved the world on her
own.

"Yes, peace be with her soul. I may say that she
lost her life shortly after, continuing to fight for the good of Toryn."

Strange, how distorted the story sounded so far.

"But now another super-power rises. They are
called the Free Lands Democracy," Kou said, serious despite the overall
ridiculousness of his material. "Lord Devlyn knows that if he ignores FLD
as Lord Li chose to ignore Lord Angelo, war may be brought to our city a second
time. He seeks to prevent the establishment of worldwide domination by
President Jackson."

"I see." Ashlyn stared down at her hands,
weighing the scales in her mind. As twisted as Kou's story sounded, he had a
point. If Skye and the rest of her friends had the means to keep the entire
Toryn army trapped on their island, then what was to stop them from also
obliterating every other army on the face of the planet?

Power could be a good thing in the right hands, but in
the wrong hands it was lethal. She had already seen that with Lord Angelo.

She stood, picking up the hira shuriken. "I thank
you for your speakings, Kou of Lunai. I will see that you are treated with
honor," she finished, uncomfortable with saying anything else. She
couldn't exactly promise that he wouldn't be thrown in jail for the rest of his
life.

"I am pleased to have answered your questions,
Scorned
Elder." He nodded to her but did not rise - meaning that he didn't believe
her story of being one of the Scorned, a Toryn who had somehow disagreed with
the current Lord or Lady's doctrine and had decided to leave the island,
forfeiting identity and all blood ties.

Well, she wasn't going to break her back trying to
make him believe a lie. Ashlyn nodded curtly and walked away.

The scent of red-tinged earth greeted her as she
walked down the exit ramp from the airship. Her step faltered, the familiar
smell bringing back memories of their journeys before, so long ago. The first
time she had seen the sheer cliffs surrounding the tribal village, she had
stopped and gawked openly, thinking that maybe, just
maybe
Toryn had
been like this once.

Everything about Cosmea was instinctive,
unpretentious...primal. It was the salt of the planet, the flavored whisper of
the wind. There were no tourist traps, no fluffed-up warriors to relay tall
tales to the constant stream of visitors. It was simply living beings communing
with the earth, studying its history and struggling to keep it alive.

"I better get a room with a darn bed in it or I'm
crashing in the ship," Aaron said grumpily, pushing past Ashlyn, dragging
her away from her thoughts. "I ain't sleepin' on no friggin’ mat this
time."

Ashlyn couldn't help but grin. Same old Aaron. He
would never be happy unless he was on his beloved airship, despite its stained
linens and rickety bunks. Restlyn had sworn up and down that morning that she
could feel the outline of a skeleton through her sagging mattress, but nobody
had mustered the courage to go and look.

Ashlyn personally had suffered no trouble sleeping,
but then she was used to camping out on lumpy ground, surrounded by unfamiliar
sights and sounds. And although sleeping on top of a skeleton wasn't something
she'd tried yet, she didn't imagine it would be so very different than rolling
over and nearly impaling herself on a tent stake and/or a shuriken.

Shifting her saddlebags to the opposite shoulder,
Ashlyn skipped up the steps to her room at the inn. She was pretty sure that
she'd have to share with Restlyn, but that didn't bother her too much. Except
for the other girl's smelly old boots, there wasn't much Ashlyn didn't like
about her adoptive sister, and she'd much rather bunk with the dark-haired
martial artist than try to sleep in the same room as one of the guys.

Ashlyn didn't pay attention to her surroundings as she
pushed open the door to her room - first door in front of the staircase, just
like old times - and tossed the saddlebags on the first bed before flopping
down next to them. Idly she waved a sneaker in the air, reaching up with two
fingers and trying to untie the shoelace.

"Lady Li?" a tentative voice broke into her
thoughts. Recognizing the accent immediately, Ashlyn bolted upright. “What?”

A dark-haired, almond-eyed man who looked very close
to her own age stood in the doorway. As she stared at him, open-mouthed, his
face lit up like a paper lamp.

"It
is
you- I had hardly dared to
hope," he said fervently in Toryn, stepping into the room and dropping to
one knee. "I am honored to look upon your face again, Lady Li. Lord Devlyn
sends his regards."

Ashlyn squeaked out a reply, her vocal cords nearly frozen
in shock. "His regards?"

"Yes. My companions and I were dispatched to
locate you on the possibility that you were still alive," the young man
said. He stared at her blissfully, the benevolent gleam in his eyes making
Ashlyn extremely uncomfortable. "Lord Devlyn will be overjoyed to hear
that you are well."

"Overjoyed?" She sounded like a parrot but
she couldn't stop herself.

"I will immediately notify the other members of
my search party, and we will make arrangements to have you transported back to Toryn.
Your father has searched for you for years."

"My...my father?"

"He believed you to be dead, Lady Li. But that is
no matter; every Toryn on the island will welcome you back to our noble land
with open arms. I mustn't keep you- time is of the essence. Lord Devlyn gave
explicit orders for me and my companions to bring you to him. He wishes to
establish you as co-Leader so that the Li bloodline may remain intact."

This was happening so fast.

Ashlyn couldn't think straight.

What
was he saying?

"I will meet you here in three days’ time. Dusk
will be easiest for you to slip away unnoticed," the man said, taking no
notice of her confusion. "Until then, Lady."

She could not respond, the shock rendering her brain
incapable of simple thought. As she watched dumbly, the man turned and walked
away, brushing past Drake Lockhart, who was standing at the head of the
staircase.

Staring at her.

Her first urge was to say,
You won't believe what
just happened.

But then she remembered that this was Drake, and that
she hated him, and she also remembered what Skye had said earlier. She had
virtually no idea which side she wanted to be fighting for. She certainly
didn’t want to go with this Toryn man- not after the attacks she’d suffered in
the past seven months. But she wasn’t sure if she should tell Skye about the
offer, either.

She didn't have to tell Drake anything...at least not
yet. The entire conversation had been in Toryn, so he probably hadn't
understood a word of it anyway.

"Drake," she acknowledged him quietly,
standing and pushing the door shut, cutting herself and her thoughts off from
the rest of the world.

Chapter 5

Found Out

“Ew," Ashlyn said, wrinkling her nose at the
dusty book Aik set in front of her. "That's disgusting. How can you put
that in your mouth?"

He fixed her with a yellow-eyed stare that would have
been enough to turn Lord Angelo himself into stone. Ashlyn knew better,
however, and she wasn't fooled for a moment. The wolf's gentle nature was
apparent even in his most aggressive battles.

His race was non-confrontational, despite the
persecution and violence they had suffered for centuries at the hands of
humans. Through their war with Lord Angelo and the quest to save the sun, Aik
had maintained his cool attitude, fighting only when necessary, killing only
when there was no other option. He was a warrior of peace.

So naturally Ashlyn felt totally safe sticking her
tongue out at him. Which she now did. With relish.

He ignored the childish gesture and padded silently
back into the stacks to resume his search for more disgustingly filthy old
books.

Eyeing the leather-bound tome disdainfully, Ashlyn
flipped it open with the tip of a fingernail, not wanting to touch any of the
nasty bacteria that might have accumulated on its yellowed pages.

A STUDY OF THE TORYN CULTURE

by Nanka Grulich

Hmmph. Not a Toryn name. How much could one foreign
guy figure out about the ancient traditions of Toryn? Probably not much. Ashlyn
glanced lower on the page, studying the table of contents and looking for something
that might be helpful in her quest for information.

Chapter 1: Initiation into the Tribe

Initiation? Tribe? Ashlyn snorted gracelessly. Unless
this guy had somehow squirmed into the affections of a specific clan lord,
initiation was pretty much impossible. This whole book was probably a total
crock. She flipped to that chapter and skimmed the first page, noting words
like
traditional acceptance ceremony
,
sacred speaking words
and
probationary
trial period
.

Eh. These were all things that the Lunai and other
separatist clans embraced, but not the Li bloodline. Both she and her father
were of the belief that if you weren't born a Toryn, then you would never
be
a Toryn.

She turned back to the table of contents.

Chapter 2: Learning the Status of Tribesmen

Oh, man. There was no way she was going to last
through this yawner. "This one's useless," she announced, slamming
the book shut with a loud thump. A cloud of dust rose unceremoniously in front
of her, and Ashlyn coughed. "I'm gonna go get a drink of water," she
said, hoping that Aik would be able to hear her above his muttering.

Okay, so she'd somehow been wrangled into researching
moldy old books with Aik. That wouldn't have been so bad in itself, but she'd
been stuck in that smelly room for what seemed like hours already, and she
wasn’t going to have any time to get ready for the Landslide Festival opening
ceremonies tonight. It was a three-month festival that only came around once
every ten years, and this time, it was being hosted in Cosmea.