Alexandria (25 page)

“No. All my friends are here.”

“Well…”

Haylen gasps and tugs on Jeneth’s dress.
“What if we helped ‘em escape?”

“Haylen, keep your voice down,” she hisses. “How? How could we have helped them?”

“That necklace. Maybe it meant something secret. Maybe the spies gave it to them.”

“Creston gave it to him, he’s not a spy.”

They turn and look at Creston.

“I made it in the shop,” he says thinly. “He gave it to
Lia?”

The Temple girls are watching them again, talking under their breath to each other. Jeneth strides over to Eriem and pulls his arm.

“The baby’s cold. We have to go.”

“All right.” He bristles at her touch and says his farewells all around. “Let’s go, then.”

Jeneth coddles Mariset against the cold and they start their long, silent walk back to their pretty little cottage on the hillside.

A cannon burst of thunder rumbles over the coast and fat, heavy raindrops plunk down all around. The tribe falls back to their lean-to and starts collecting their scant belongings, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the ridgeline for any sign of Cirune and Halis. They fled north, but Jack and the others are grimly aware that they are not gone, that it is not safe to stay here.

Jack climbs back through the jumble of iron beams that encase the fallen tribesman. He hefts the dead body over his shoulder and steadily works his way back out and carries him back to the shelter. There is no time to bury him. They perform a brief, woeful ceremony and cremate him on the remains of the dying bonfire.

Lia and the rest of the women set about doctoring the injured men. She wraps Jack’s wolf-bitten forearm with hastily cut strips of hide, then redresses the wound on his chest, and he, in turn, fixes the failing bandage on her shoulder.

“Tah tevra ota desna diwaa tondessa,
eyah?”
Sajiress says to them. He touches Jack and Lia on the shoulder then gestures around to the rest of the tribe. “Diwaa mah ton,” he says, and points to the far side of the valley.

“He wants us to go with them?” asks Lia.

“I think so,” says Jack, turning to Sajiress. “Yeah, we’ll go. For a little while.” They don’t have many other options, he figures, and the horizon is sizzling with lightning from the coming storm.

When their weapons, food, and rudimentary tools are stowed away for travel, they set off in the opposite direction of the fleeing Nezra horsemen. They help Jack and Lia along as fellow travelers, and without any scorn or ill will that the two led such an enemy their way. The men especially seem livened by their encounter.

They seem a young tribe. Sajiress looks the eldest, and his face has only just begun creasing with age.

They emerge from the valley drenched through. Their fur and hide clothing sticks to their skin and makes progress sluggish. The constant threat of ambush slows them further and they are at least thankful that the rainfall provides some concealment of their movements. When they reach the top of the far ridge they fall in line and start to hike inland. The children scamper through the rain like overgrown chipmunks. Here is just another day for them, situated in the midst of a seemingly endless arrangement of tribulations.

Lia presses against Jack and clutches their pack tightly to her chest as they go, keeping a keen eye on the underbrush for any sudden motion. They don’t make much distance before one of the tribesman calls to Jack and points off with his spear toward a line of trees to the south, with a brown-speckled and sad-looking horse sheltered underneath. He looks fit, save for the arrow sticking out of his hindquarters.

Jack signals to Sajiress and sets off, walking casually through the downpour.

“Can we get him?” Lia asks with tempered optimism.

“Maybe. Try going down there, and if he comes that way just take a step or two toward him. I’ll try to get around closer.”

She walks to the other side of the tree line, where a stretch of open land would give a quick retreat if the horse decides to bolt. Jack closes in slowly from his left side, taking only a few steps at a time so as not to startle him. The horse looks at him, then looks away. Jack advances a few steps and slaps his hands against his thighs, but the sound is lost in the rain. He circles around and advances a touch more. The horse shuffles a bit and eyes him warily. Jack recognizes the spots on his coat. He’s ridden this one before.

“Balazir,”
he calls out, “come here, boy.” Balazir neighs and works himself deeper under the tree cover. “Come here, Balazir, I won’t hurt you.” Jack steps forward and the horse holds his ground, looking back at him with one big liquid eye. Slowly, Balazir turns his head and faces Jack fully, then starts to amble toward him. Jack beckons him forward and grasps onto his reins and Balazir dips his head and snorts. “You’re gonna be okay, boy” he soothes, and runs a hand down Balazir’s soaking mane. He studies the arrow and figures it will be a chore to remove, and leaves it be until they’ve made their escape.

The tribe has been transfixed watching him charm the elegant creature. They’ve seen negligible few of them in their days, making their tentative migrations back to the blossoming central pasturelands, and have never known their true worth. Balazir shies from them and they from him. Jack leads him on, with Lia and Sajiress at his side, and they press through the tall grass on their way to the shelter of the forest canopy.

“You can’t hide from them forever,” says Keslin.

Arana leans against a ledge on the far wall of his parlor and peers out the thin vertical window. The grounds look sullen and gray.

“What are they saying?”

“They need you to comfort them. We’ve told them everything is fine. They want to hear it from you.”

“And what should I tell them? That I’ve failed?”

“You’ve not failed.”

“Two men violate our home… our
Temple
, Keslin, that I’ve been sworn to protect. And then two of our own escape and there is nothing that I can do.”

“They are
not
our own.”

“Not anymore.”

“Not ever. They’re forest trash who were given a chance at happiness and spit it back in our faces.”

Arana scratches his fingers through his hair and rubs his knuckles into the dark circles under his eyes. His face is paling and gaunt.

“I think we’ve been much too kind in our approach,” Keslin presses. “What is it you were trying to do the other day? With the prisoners? Were you trying to put them in a
trance
, or something?”

Arana says nothing. He walks across the parlor, absently flipping a smoothworn coin he’s plucked from a display on the ledge, troubled by the first real turbulence he’s experienced during a life of tranquility.

Keslin watches him eagerly. “I think it’s time to try something new.”

“We’ve beaten them nearly to death, what more can we do?”

“Follow me,” Keslin says. “I think we might get them to talk yet.”

He guides Arana through the halls of the immense Temple like a father leading a son to his first day of lessons. Arana tightens whenever they pass a line of workers moving to their stations or sentries making their rounds. He forces as much strength as he can manage as he passes them, and they meet his eyes tensely and nod back, following vacantly the motions of old allegiance.

In the confined chamber outside the underground keep, a terrified young boy sits on the floor and traces figures on the ground with his fingers. His lower lip is wet with saliva and he has no earthly notion of how much danger he is in. Two warriors stand to either side of him, their arms crossed, and they straighten when Keslin and their King approach the landing.

“What is this?”

“Just wait.”

“Are you going to hurt him?”

“Of course not,” Keslin says, a touch offended. “We just want them to think we might, since they don’t seem to care about themselves.” He walks over and lowers himself to the ground in front of the boy, his arthritic bones cracking as he settles. “Hello.”

The boy looks up vacuously and studies the gnarled old man before him.

“Do you like play at make believe?” Keslin asks.

“…
yes.”

“We’re going to play a game, okay?”

The boy studies him further, with the speed and demeanor of a tortoise.

“It might be… a scary game. But you’re going to be fine, okay?”

The boy goes back to his figures.

Keslin grunts as he rises, then reaches a hand down to the boy and they enter the keep. The boy startles when he sees the sagging forms shackled to the wall, covered with raw wounds, and he turns and tries to pull away and run back to the antechamber. Keslin tightens his knotty hand around the boy’s and drags him forward. Arana hovers at the door and looks on.

Renning averts his eye and feigns unconsciousness as he hears them draw near, and Ethan hangs perfectly limp beside him.

“Time to wake up,” Keslin says.

Ethan does not stir. Keslin swings his arm crookedly through the air and cuffs him across the jaw. His head jerks stiffly to the side and the rigor mortis fastens it in that oblique position. Keslin lays a palm across his cheek.

“Cold,” he says. “Well, that leaves you, friend.”

He wheels on Renning, who slumps against the wall looking starved and feverish. His scarred body has been lanced so thoroughly that little untouched flesh remains to be abused.

In the far reaches of the keep a crew of workers mixes a fresh batch of mortar in an iron kettle. The first few rows of stone are already laid and two elder craftsmen shuffle and bend down to trowel off the excess, leaving neat, even lines between the blocks. The craftsmen and crew take sly glances at this new and aberrant undertaking, murmuring to each other in the hushed tones of conversing mourners.

“I think you’re going to tell us where you’re from.”

Renning doesn’t budge. He hangs limp and waits for a burning iron to be thrust at him, but it does not come. He hears rustling fabric and a quiet scraping, then a sound pierces the musty cellar that makes him cast off his pretense of slumber—the child screams. He throws his eyes wide open and there before him Keslin holds a curved silver blade up against the little boy’s gullet.

“You son of a bitch, you wouldn’t dare.”

Keslin’s face is vacant as he digs the sharp tip into the tender skin of the child’s neck, drawing a small rivulet of blood and another scream of panic. Arana fidgets anxiously and the warriors around him watch the event straight-faced.

“Let him go,” Renning pleads, “he’s a child.”

“Tell me what I want to know.” He presses the knife a touch deeper and the boy jolts rigid in his arms.

“Please. Please, don’t do this—”

“Where are you from?”

Renning chokes and looks on helplessly.

Keslin twists the boy’s head, gripping him by a fistful of hair, and whispers into his ear.
“Ask this man where he’s from.”
The boy sucks air frantically and looks from one cold face to another. “If you want to live, ask this man where he is from.”

“Wh
…
where…”
he wheezes, and then spasms with fear and his throat closes up.

Keslin tightens his arm and coils the boy closer to him, serpentine, and feints with his knife hand. Renning twists and contorts and says nothing.

“I’ll leave you to think on it. I’m sure you don’t want this boy’s blood on your hands.” He turns back to the small audience that has watched his performance and beckons them forward. “Get this corpse out of here. And lock the boy in his place.”