Despite this, Raz stilled as he made out the snow falling outside once again.
A darkness started to creep back into him as the blurred, shifting white descended against a grey sky. For a few minutes, as Eva had been recounting her stories, Raz had forgotten it all, lost in a sort of reminiscent comfort. Now, though, as the woman’s warmth left the room, leaving him only with the chill of the winter he could see through the window, the weight of everything came crashing down once again.
His fever might have broken, but even in lucidity Raz thought he could see the outline of children against the glass, laughing and playing in the snow.
Hearing movement in the hall, Raz turned his head back to the door in time to see it pushed open. Two men entered, the first leaning on the arm of the other with his left hand, his heavy steel staff in his right. As he watched a smiling Talo Brahnt and stern-faced Carro al’Dor make their way slowly into his room—followed again by Eva, as well as a woman he didn’t recognize—Raz couldn’t help but grin a little.
“I’m told I have you to thank for saving my neck,” he said, speaking to Brahnt as the High Priest accepted al’Dor’s help in easing himself down into a wooden chair on the left side of the bed. As always he favored the bad leg that had plagued him for what Raz was sure was much longer than they’d known each other.
“Quite,” Brahnt chuckled, leaning forward in his chair to get closer to the bed. “Though don’t be fooled into thinking it was a selfless act. Syrah would have me murdered in my sleep if she found out I’d allowed some ratty sellsword to kill you off.”
He reached out his free hand, then—the one not still wrapped around his staff for support—and rested it on Raz’s exposed shoulder.
“It’s good to see you again, boy,” he said with deep sincerity, blue eyes shining as he spoke. “I admit my hopes weren’t high that our paths would cross again after Carro and I left Azbar.”
Raz nodded, but said nothing, feeling the darkness claim a little bit more of his mood as the memories of his flight from Quin Tern’s city reluctantly re-emerged.
“How are you feeling?” al’Dor asked sympathetically after a moment. There was, perhaps, not as much of the almost-fatherly affection in his words that Brahnt managed, but the concern was genuine.
“Ask me in a day or two,” Raz groaned, straightening himself up slowly until he half-sat, half-leaned with his bare back against the plain wood of the wall at the head of the bed, his wings falling to either side. “I feel like I’ve been speared and tossed around by a bull elephant.”
“A what?” the strange woman asked curiously. She was bedecked in the same robes as Brahnt, white with a single black line down the apex of the hood and back, and stood with the sort of nervous authority exuded by those not yet used to their station.
“Big Southern animal,” Eva told her, bringing her hands up to her mouth and extending her index fingers. “Tusks the size of your arm.”
“Oh,” the woman—whom Raz deduced likely to be the leader of Ystréd’s Laorin flock, as Kal Yu’ri had been of Azbar’s—responded with wide eyes, and she said no more.
“Arro,” Brahnt said, seeing Raz’s eyes on her, “this is Tana Atler, High Priestess of the Laorin temple of Ystréd.”
“Where I assume I’m currently claiming someone’s room and bed,” Raz said with a nod at the woman. “You have my thanks, High Priestess. I’ll do my best to be out of your home as soon as possible.”
Atler seemed unable to responded, her eyes still wide as they met his. After an awkward moment of silence, Eva made an effort to nudge the woman, but Raz smiled and waved her away.
“I understand your shock,” he said with as much of a laugh as his mending wound would allow. “I don’t imagine you see much of my kind this far into the North.”
At that, the High Priestess seemed to find her voice.
“That-That’s one way to put it,” she squeaked, before continuing in a rush. “Of course, any friend of Talo’s is a friend of ours. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need. Are you hungry? There’s pork left from the evening meal, though it was a bit dry. I’ll have Doren bring you up extra furs, too. Talo says you’re not much for the cold, and the weather is only going to get…”
She mumbled to a halt as al’Dor coughed pointedly, but Raz just kept smiling.
“And he’s right, but I’ll make out fine with the fire and what you’ve been able to provide me with already.” He waved a hand at the bed and the blanket that still covered the lower half his body. “Again, though, you have my thanks.”
Atler nodded but said nothing more this time, her face red with awe and embarrassment.
“Arro,” Brahnt spoke from beside him. “Can you tell us what happened? How you ended up in the hands of those men? And that wound… Did they do that?”
“Getting captured wasn’t my intention, if that’s what you mean,” Raz told him, reaching up to rub the back of his head unconsciously as he remembered the blow that had taken him by surprise. “And no. The blade that did that belonged to a man dead a good three or four days before I was stupid enough to get myself caught.”
Beside Brahnt, al’Dor winced, but Raz ignored him, continuing.
“I was making my way here, I think. At least, that’s what I set out to do from Azbar. A day or so in, though, and it’s not so clear. The wound got infected—”
“You think?” Eva asked sarcastically from the back of the room.
“—and things went downhill fast,” Raz kept on, disregarding her, too. “By the time I found their camp, I was in bad shape. Really bad shape. I think I remember asking them to take me to Ystréd. Tried to tell them to take me to you, actually, if memory serves. Instead, one of them snuck up from behind and got the drop on me. From there… well, from what Eva says, you actually probably know better than I.”
“And Azbar?” al’Dor asked him, arms crossed as he hovered behind Brahnt’s shoulder. “What of the Arena? And the Koyts?”
The name chilled Raz to the bone, hearing it from another’s mouth. It was as though the realization that the children had not been his alone to remember, to suffer the memories, was turning his blood to ice. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe. There was no anger directed at the Priest, but Raz stared up at him from his place on the bed, mouth hanging open, unable to answer.
There was only emptiness.
“Raz…” Brahnt started gently, half reaching out, as though wanting to touch Raz’s arm again. “Raz… Where are Arrun and Lueski?”
Slowly, Raz’s amber eyes moved from al’Dor’s dark blue ones to the ice-chip irises of Brahnt’s.
Then they moved again, to the back of the room, where Eva and Atler still stood.
Talo got the message.
“Ladies, if you could give us a moment,” he said, looking around at the two women.
Atler nodded at once, but Eva seemed hesitant, eyes on Raz as though seeking acknowledgment that this was what he wanted. When he did nothing but meet her gaze, she took it as silent confirmation and followed the High Priestess out the door.
When it had closed behind them, Raz turned to look out the window again.
For a long time he said nothing, watching the flakes fall against the rapidly coming night outside. Someone had lit a lantern below the lip of the glass, so that it almost looked as though the snow were falling into distorted flames, swallowed by the light and heat.
As the lives of the small and innocent are swallowed by those of the cruel and ambitious, he thought to himself.
Neither of the Priests spoke up behind him, giving him his moment. By the time he was able to form the words, Raz had no doubt Brahnt and al’Dor had developed their own suspicions based on nothing more than his silence.
“The Koyts are dead,” he managed finally to get out. He still refused to look away from the window, as though not seeing the men’s faces would make their reactions less raw for him. “Tern killed Arrun, or had him killed, rather. When she saw what had been done to her
brother, Lueski took her own life.”
Though he couldn’t see the Priests, their responses to this announcement turned out to be nothing he could escape. Brahnt let out a noise somewhere between a pained grunt and a moan, and al’Dor gasped before letting a dark “No…” slip his lips. Their genuine shock caused a well of emotion to build up inside Raz, and not for the first time in his life he was grateful that the Sun hadn’t born him into the world with the ability to shed tears.
He gave the men a minute of their own privacy, letting them come to terms with the news. It wasn’t until his keen ears made out the steadying of Brahnt’s angry breathing that he finally looked around.
al’Dor—the only man in the room with much of a soul left to him, Raz believed—was red-eyed and white-faced despite never actually having met the children. Talo, on the other hand, was obviously fighting to control the rising tide of fury and sadness that Raz was all too familiar with. He had spent the few days before his descent into delirium fighting it off himself.
“What of Tern?” Brahnt eventually managed in a tone of forced calm. “The Arena?”
“The Arena stands,” Raz said darkly. “Though very likely under new management, by now.”
He let the meaning of the words sink in, watching as al’Dor turned even paler and Brahnt achieved a sort of violent calmness, barely able to hold back a cold half-smile. Raz chose very deliberately not to spell out the details of Tern’s end. The Laorin were an odd breed, capable of violence and—according to the Grandmother—even cruelty, but they stood firm by the cardinal rule of their order: that no death ever be dealt by the hands of the faithful, even in self-defense. The Laorin believed life to be the greatest gift their god, Laor, had granted man, and so to take it away was just as much the greatest form of blasphemy, a direct spitting into the face of the creator Himself.
While Brahnt, Yu’ri, and—as far as he knew—al’Dor had tolerated Raz’s methods of doling out his own forms of justice, he didn’t feel the need to weigh down their consciences with unnecessary details.
“We can only hope Rhen will be given the reign of the place, then,” Brahnt said thoughtfully, all too obviously trying to steer his thoughts anywhere from the Koyts. “If the council is allowed to take over, things won’t be much improved.”
“Short of burning the whole damn place to the ground, the Doctore would be the best option,” Raz agreed with a sigh, happy to take the opportunity the High Priest was offering them all. “I realize, looking back, that she deserved more credit than I ever gave her.”
“Good people can be found in the strangest of places,” al’Dor said, nodding solemnly. Brahnt and Raz returned the gesture simultaneously.
“Have you heard more of the mountain man?” Raz asked after a pause. “Baoill, was it?”
The question seemed to take the Priests by surprise, because they blinked. Raz shrugged.
“You made him seem like trouble enough to keep tabs on,” he explained simply.
“More than enough,” Brahnt muttered. “But no. Nothing of import, at least. Rumors that he’s only a few miles north of us circulate about as much as rumors that he’s not pushing southward at all. It’s typical, for the time of year. The storms too often cut the valley towns off from each other, as well as any eyes they might have out in the world. The temple here is even smaller than Azbar’s, too, so there’s no guarantee if Ystréd’s governing council did happen to know something that we’d hear about it.”
He stopped, eyeing Raz with a cocked eye, as though suddenly suspecting something.
“Why do you ask?”
Because there are bad men in the world, Raz wanted to reply, thinking of something Alyssa Rhen had told him while keeping him from getting himself killed that day on the frozen pit floor of the Arena.
Instead, he said only, “Because I’ve never had much taste for men who build their power on the pain and suffering of others.”
al’Dor chuckled at that. “Too true and then some. And it’s about time that someone—” he looked pointedly down at Brahnt, “—did something about it.”
“Carro has been sour company since I insisted we wait until you woke before setting off,” Brahnt said, speaking to Raz but shooting his partner a falsely sweet smile over his shoulder. “He thinks every day we spend here is another day we let the Kayle dig his fingers into the Arocklen.”
“He might not be far off the truth,” Raz said, watching Brahnt carefully. “But what do you think?”
“I think some things are worth sticking around for. Some opportunities require delay and compromise.”
Raz nodded, but said nothing more, waiting for the question he knew was coming.
When Brahnt met his gaze, it was with a burning intensity that Raz couldn’t help himself from emulating, feeling it rouse up a vengeful anger within, the flickers of the justified rage that had made ash of the Mahsadën, the champions of the Arena, and Quin Tern himself.
“Raz,” Brahnt began, leaning forward again so that their eyes were perfectly level. “Gûlraht Baoill is a plague. He’s a tyrant and a murderer and a slaver. He places no value on human life, and has no respect for my god, your gods, or any gods that do not insist on blood and sacrifice as proof of devotion. He has burned the old and infirm alive, and impaled children—still breathing—along the walls of his conquered cities as a warning to his enemies.”
He paused, letting his words settle in.
“You left Azbar for a reason. You followed us for a reason. You know this man, or at least know his kind, and I don’t imagine it takes much for you to sum up what this new Kayle is capable of, what he will do if left unchecked.”
Another pause. Then he asked the question.
“Will you help us?”
The last time the Priest has asked this of him, Raz had turned him down, summoning every reason he could to convince himself that he was not suited for what Brahnt wanted from him. He’d insisted he was of more value in Azbar, where he could champion the people of the city and keep his charges safe.
Now, though, the Koyts were dead, and the people he had been trying so desperately to shield from the cruelty of the world had cheered along with Quin Tern when Arrun’s head had rolled across the frozen mud and snow of the pit floor.
This time, Raz just nodded.
VIII
IT WAS two days before Raz could get out of bed on his own again, and another two before he was well enough to travel. He’d insisted he was fine as soon as he’d been able to stand but—to his surprise—it was Carro al’Dor who had shouted him down.
“You’ll be fine when I say you’re fine, and not a damned second before,” the man had told him fiercely, shoving him back onto the edge of the bed unceremoniously. “In the meantime, sit down, shut up, and let us take care of that wound.”
As big as the Priest was, he was still an easy head shorter than Raz. Still, Raz had allowed him do as he insisted, letting the man clean the laceration, apply the ointments he and Eva prepared, and cast his healing spells before packing it with clean bandages.
Some fights, Jarden Arro had once said long ago, are best avoided.
By the time the fifth day rose a grey dawn, dark clouds lumbering threateningly over the world like angry giants of smoke and wind, Raz was sick enough of being cooped up that he would have set off on foot if someone had given him so much as the opportunity. Fortunately, there turned out to be no need. Tana Atler’s Priests and Priestesses had claimed the mercenaries’ horses from the city guard as reward for the Laorin’s intervention, stabling them around the back of the temple. Raz watched through his bedroom window as al’Dor went about prepping the animals for their departure, foggy breath billowing out from beneath the white hood he’d pulled over his mane of beaded blond hair. The Priest had been at it for the last half-hour, lashing everything from food to bedding to rope and spare clothes off either side of three saddles.
Water was the only thing he didn’t pack. There was never any shortage of snow to melt along the r
oad.
“You’re sure you won’t come with us?” Raz asked aloud.
From her place beside him, Eva nodded her head, also looking down at al’Dor’s warped form through the cheap glass.
“I’ve got a place here,” she said. “And Sven is going to need help going underground. Can’t assume the sellswords will rot for too long in the city lockups, and when they get out they’ll be after blood.”
Raz only grunted in reply, not convinced.
Eva smiled. “I’ll be fine.” She reached up to rest a hand on the bandages over his left shoulder. “And it’s not like you need me anymore to take care of you out there.”
Raz said nothing again. It was true, despite his reservations. Once the infection that had slowly been eating away at him had been eradicated, his body had responded with its usual fervor. The wound in his back was still tender, but raw pink flesh had replaced the hole the West Isler Sury Atheus had carved into him with his narrow blade.
Raz doubted he would ever be rid of the scar, but it beat the alternative.
Still, he was far from fighting fit just yet. The healing muscle was stiff and sore, and he still had trouble moving his left arm without significant pain throughout his back. He kept it in a black cotton sling, tied behind his neck like a necklace, and had had to suffer the indignity of relying on Eva for help getting his shirt and cloak on for the past two mornings.
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Raz finally said, still watching the Priest laboring away below. “Ystréd isn’t as safe as you think. If even half of what the Priests say is true, then falling across the path of this ‘Baoill’ character will be trouble.”
“And if he shows up at our doorstep, I’ll find a way to sneak away, just like the good little fugitive I am,” Eva said, looking around and flashing him an exaggerated smile.
Raz turned to glare down at her intently, wanting to make her realize how little amusement he found in the possibility of the Kayle’s arrival at the city gates.
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