Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  Brisson sniffed audibly. “Light like that will draw attention in the mountains. It will be like a beacon to our enemies. I will send men.”

  Gavin ground his teeth together and counted his breaths. A fortnight of dealing with Nikanor’s steward had done little to increase Gavin’s patience.

  “Cobb will see to it. As I said, it is part of the ceremony. Please do not desecrate the memory of our dead by sending men.”

  The conversation had carried them to the bottom of the ravine and they now walked in the valley below. Dozens of houses stood on either side of the path they followed, appearing as shadowy mounds in the darkness. There was a restriction on light after dark.

  “Your ceremony is not worth being discovered.” Brisson’s words were almost a hiss, though far too much bite remained for it to be a true hiss.

  Gavin recognized the tone and felt his back stiffen in response. “I learned something as an outcast among my people, Brisson, visiting the different clans,” Gavin said, focusing on making his tone light and conversational despite the stiff set of his jaw. “You could always tell which clans you wanted to return to and visit again based on how they treated their dead. Those who observed the ceremony and posturing were those worthy of the blessings and guidance they request from those who have gone.”

  “Do not preach to me, Rahuli.”

  Gavin opened his mouth and then snapped it closed again. Farah’s grip in his hand was hard as stone, almost painful. Gavin rolled his shoulders, resisting the urge to scratch at the place where the cloak he wore rubbed against his neck and irritated his wounded arm.

  “Peace, Brisson. Forgive me. We are guests here. I will return myself and make sure the fire is put out promptly. Will that suffice?”

  “See that it is fully out before you return,” Brisson said, then turned sharply and strode off into the darkness.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Farah swore. “That arrogant little sandspider,” she hissed. “I’d like to face him in the dark on my own one night and give him a solid thrashing.”

  Gavin didn’t know if he should chuckle or retain his silence. He actually agreed with her, but, in the end, decided to try talking her down from the anger boiling within her.

  “I’d join you, but you’re not really one to share when there’s a fight to be had. Besides, where’s the contest?”

  Farah smirked and Gavin felt a small rush of triumph surge through him as he watched her anger fade away.

  “You’re probably right.”

  Gavin winked at her and raised a hand—his uninjured one—to run through his hair. “To be fair though, they have given us food, shelter, and cared for our wounded. That’s more than we expected to begin with.”

  “And they treat us like an odd curiosity,” Farah said. “A chance flower in the middle of the shifting sands. They don’t care about our ways or our troubles, just their safe little hiding place.”

  “It’s only been three days since we got here. Give it time.”

  “Time? We’ve been down this path before. We thought we’d have time after Kaiden tried to kill us all in the Oasis. We thought we’d have time once Samsin and Nikanor showed up in the desert. We don’t have time.”

  Farah’s words resounded in Gavin’s mind, mingling with his own similar thoughts and feelings.

  “Peace, Farah. Peace. I need to go handle the fire. I’ll meet you back at the hut when I’m done.”

  She took his hand and gave it a brief squeeze, harder than it probably should have been. As much as the motion eased some small amount of his tension, Gavin wasn’t fool enough to think he’d fully calmed the storm within her, but he’d at least succeeded in clearing a part of the skies. If it had been fully light outside, he would have been able to see the scowl he was sure adorned her face just now.

  Gavin turned on his heel as Farah’s form faded into the darkness. He walked back along the path they had just taken, his pace almost twice as fast as it had been on the trip down the ravine. The sentries there let him pass without a word, though he knew their eyes followed him.

  The Orinai here—though that wasn’t what they called themselves—looked at the Rahuli people with a mixture of awe and incredulity. Suspicion danced within their eyes as well, hidden beneath the awe. It lay just beneath the surface, a silent testament to different cultures, different lives, and the new battle Gavin would have to fight. He knew it now, deep within himself. There were two battles to be fought. One with the people within the camp and one with the Orinai without.

  It was simply too much to ask for a respite from the struggle, though Gavin had secretly hoped when they’d found Brisson that maybe they would be welcomed as friends, heroes, and companions. Nikanor had planned all of this, after all. Gavin thought back over the large Orinai man’s sacrifice on their behalf, and their ensuing flight from the erupting volcano. Death greeted him in those memories.

  Brisson was no Nikanor. The Rahuli were far from safe now. The only thing they had going for them were the mystics. Brisson’s people had none. At least, none that they knew about. Apparently the Seven Sisters tested and took any able to touch those abilities. Selective breeding left the population devoid of those who could pass on the ability to future generations. Gavin shuddered at the memory of the factual, dry way Brisson had told him about that aspect of their life when the man had discovered Gavin’s relampago abilities. Though Brisson didn’t see it, Gavin wondered if the two of them didn’t have more in common than he thought.

  A dot of red broke the darkness on the horizon. There was no mistaking the deep umber of smoldering coals. A wisp of a breeze picked up and carried the scent of a doused fire along with it. Gavin slowed, his boots crunching in the snow and loose rock beneath that white blanket. He shivered and pulled the hood of his cloak lower over his face as the breeze picked up and intensified the biting chill.

  A noise pulled Gavin’s attention back toward the reddish glow in the distance. Two vague forms strode toward him, their outlines a dark mark against the red-grey background of the dying embers. Even from this distance, Gavin could see one walked with a limp and, besides that, Gavin could hear the odd click of Cobb’s cane as it hit the ground. Gavin grinned. Old fool.

  The walking pair stopped briefly for a moment once they got near, then Gavin heard the rasp of steel against leather and heard Cobb’s voice pierce the darkness.

  “Who goes there?”

  “It’s just me, old man,” Gavin said with a soft chuckle. He heard a small curse and the sound of leather against metal again as Cobb sheathed his sword. Gavin’s own sword was a heavy weight at his side.

  Cobb cursed under his breath, but Gavin pretended not to notice.

  The two figures approached and came within a close enough distance that Gavin was able to vaguely distinguish their features. The second figure was the woman who had taken to following Cobb around lately. Gavin had meant to ask Cobb about it, but the opportunity had never presented itself. He thought she was Cobb’s wife, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Details like that were dwarfed by the scope of the other worries filling Gavin’s mind. She seemed familiar, though, as if he should remember her.

  “Hasn’t there been enough death for you to be giving me such a fright, boy?” Cobb’s voice was the rough burr of the aged, though it held steel that Gavin had come to rely on. “What was the point of hiding out here, lurking in the dark?”

  The woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly. Gavin almost chuckled, but was able to contain himself.

  “Brisson sent me to see that the fire was taken care of,” Gavin explained, falling into step alongside the pair. “When I saw you’d already attended to it, I figured there wasn’t much point to finishing up the walk.”

  “Brisson sent you.”

  “That’s right.”

  Cobb’s silence said more than what words would have in its stead.

  “So who is your friend, here?” Gavin looked over at the woman next Cobb.

  Cobb grunted, as if acknowledging tha
t Gavin was very tactlessly attempting to change the subject.

  “Alright, then. Dear woman, might I ask your name?” Gavin kept his voice light and conversational.

  “Maryn,” the woman said, her voice a match for Cobb’s. “I’m his wife.”

  Gavin started in mock surprise, but because he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, stumbled on a patch of ice, and nearly fell. He caught himself and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. Cobb chuckled.

  “I didn’t know you were married,” Gavin said, coughing into his hand. He said it more to try and draw more information than out of actual surprise. She seemed so familiar . . .

  Their group passed the sentries at the mouth of the ravine and started down the steep trail. The first time Gavin had gone down it, he’d been afraid of the inevitable ice and snow that made the path slick and dangerous. However, several of Brisson’s people kept it clear of both on a daily basis. Now the only thing Gavin had to worry about was his cloak catching on a protruding rock.

  Cobb grunted again and Gavin decided not to press the issue.

  “Samsin’s trial begins tomorrow,” Gavin said.

  Cobb grunted again and, for a moment, Gavin thought he would leave it at that, but then the older man spoke.

  “It won’t be a trial. It will be their justification for satisfying their own vengeance. No matter what he says, these people will never free him.”

  Gavin opened his mouth, but then closed it. He knew Cobb was right and a part of him almost agreed with the slave people’s assessment. Part of him squirmed at the admission.

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Why?” It was the woman, Maryn, who asked the question. Gavin glanced over at her, even though she was only a vague outline once again. “He probably deserves death for what he’s done. If they only end up leaving him to rot in a prison cell, they’ll be doing him a favor.”

  Gavin wrapped one hand around the hilt of his sword, then let go, before repeating the process a few more times. His mouth worked, but he couldn’t think of how to respond.

  Maryn snorted. “See, I told you he didn’t have the steel in him to keep leading. I don’t know why you chose them over me.”

  It took Gavin a moment to realize she was aiming her remarks at Cobb. Not that he was slow; rather, his mind was still working over her earlier remark.

  “Leave it be, Maryn,” Cobb muttered, halting. There was a tired tone to his voice that Gavin had never heard before.

  Maryn grumbled something under her breath and turned away from them, the sound of her booted feet crunching in the snow marking her retreat long after her form rejoined the darkness. Gavin waited alongside Cobb, sensing by the undertones of the conversation that there was more going on here than Samsin’s trial. After a long silence, Gavin finally decided to speak.

  “I didn’t know you were married.”

  Cobb grunted. “She’s a hard woman, but you owe her your life. She sent me into the Oasis walls that night when I saved you and the girl.”

  Recognition flooded through him. He’d seen her before, there in the Oasis and then afterward in the Roterralar Warren. Cobb glanced after the spot where she’d disappeared, expression thoughtful.

  “She left with the Sidena when the clans split apart. I stayed.” Cobb’s voice trailed off as he spoke, drifting on the wind until it, too, was gone.

  “Why?”

  “Reasons, boy. Reasons. She’s right though. You’re too malleable with these people. The Rahuli are going to be taken in by these Orinai here and lost. We’ll cease to exist, if you’re not careful.”

  Gavin scratched at his beard in irritation. Hadn’t he just led them through the two worst things that had ever happened in their known history?

  “And what would you have me do?”

  Cobb grunted again. That was getting old.

  “I don’t know, boy. But think on it. Long and hard. We can’t afford to simply fade away into this people. Everything we just went through, our entire lives and history as a people, will mean nothing if we don’t stand firm.”

  Gavin still stood there long after Cobb disappeared into the gloom.

  Chapter 4: The Sound of Justice

  “Conquest is an odd Progression. To vanquish an opponent, to win, is at the heart of everything constituents of this Path do. They seek mastery, subjugations, enchantment, and—at times—seduction. It is the act of conquest itself that is the key. The destination rather than the journey.”

  —From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 17, Year 1171

  Gavin had never seen so many people in one place before, not even at the ceremony they’d held for Nikanor. The valley lay choked with people as far as the eye could see, awash with an array of colors that boggled the mind. A low hum of soft conversation cluttered the air with an omnipresent buzz of noise. So many different shades of blues and greens danced through his sight that Gavin found himself watching the crowd itself more than the procession leading up toward the square.

  Gavin sucked in a breath and pushed the distractions aside. Brisson stood atop a raised wooden platform alongside several other men in the center of where two roads met. Four guards and their massive prisoner were only one more grain of sand lost in the shifting dunes of the crowd, though it opened up before the group as the prisoner, Samsin, neared Brisson’s position.

  “So much color,” Farah breathed, her voice tugging at Gavin’s attention. He nodded numbly without looking at her. “Where does it all come from?”

  “All what?” Gavin asked, finally tearing his eyes away from the crowd of strangers pressing in around them. He felt slightly unnerved at the closeness of it all, though the former Orinai slaves left a small space between themselves and the Rahuli.

  “This,” Farah made a vague gesture with one hand, sweeping it outward to encompass the entire scene before them. “Where did all this color and food come from? Where did all these people come from? What about the Seven Sisters, where do they fit in all this? It’s . . . it’s . . .” Farah’s voice trailed off and she shrugged. Gavin couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her at a loss for words.

  In truth, Gavin didn’t blame her. His own mind struggled to comprehend the enormity of it all. The valley in which Brisson’s people lived was a massive, sprawling affair nestled between two mountain ranges. The whole of the Sharani Desert could have fit in just one tiny piece of it. Gavin estimated that over ten thousand people lived here, sheltered from much of the weather by the way the mountains were positioned around them. There were herds, cattle, stores, and supplies enough to keep that massive number of people living lives that—in Gavin’s opinion—were plush and simple when compared to the life he had lived before. These “former slaves,” as Brisson called them, were a pampered group, by the looks of things. And they outnumbered the Rahuli so completely it was almost laughable.

  “It’s terrifying and beautiful at the same time,” Gavin whispered.

  “It’s sickening,” Farah corrected, her voice pitched even softer than his.

  Gavin sighed softly in quiet agreement. He made sure his shoulders didn’t move and that no one around him would notice. The Rahuli needed him to be strong. He was their undisputed leader now, though Gavin wasn’t sure the cost had been worth it. He felt the weight of their needs on his shoulders, mingling with a latent, burning exhaustion that clung to him like a fine grit of sand. His hands itched to massage at his temples, but he restrained himself and finally managed to turn his gaze to Samsin as his guards led the large Storm Ward up onto the raised, wooden platform.

  Samsin looked far different than that first day Gavin had seen him hiding with Nikanor in the stoneway. Where he had once walked with a regal, proud bearing, each stride projecting him forward with the arrogant bounce of one used to being obeyed, even worshipped, he now shuffled along in bare feet, eyes downcast and back bent in the shape of a sickle. The thick ropes wrapped around his wrists and connected via a long lead to other bonds around his ankles didn’t help ei
ther. His white blonde hair hung in a ragged sheet over his face, though it wasn’t thick enough to hide the purplish bruise on one cheek.

  Gavin took a step forward, but stopped himself as Brisson raised his hands and the soft hum of conversation died. Gavin ground his teeth together, but stepped back to where he’d been, hoping no one else had noticed.

  “Samsin, thirteenth incarnation of Samsinorna, of the family Creager, First House of Estrelar,” Brisson cried, voice echoing back faintly from the valley walls. “You stand before us to answer for the crimes you and your kind have committed against our people.”

  Gavin looked out over the crowd. He expected some sort of reaction, a cheer, a protest, something, but only silence answered Brisson’s declaration. The faces of Brisson’s people were grim and set. Even the small children remained still and silent, eyes hard. Gavin shivered.

  “Samsin Creager,” Brisson said, turning around to face the Orinai behind him. “You have murdered our families, friends, and companions. You have beaten us and worked us until our bodies gave out and we broke under our own burdens. You have treated us worse than cattle, worse than swine which lay in the mud they create with their own filth.” Brisson’s voice rose in volume until, at the end, it was almost a scream.

  Farah stepped close to Gavin and took his hand. Gavin glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and noticed Cobb and Maryn behind her. Maryn’s face was as hard as that of Brisson’s people, though Cobb’s face bore a troubled look.

  “Do you have anything to say to us, murderer?” Brisson bellowed.

  One of the guards at Samsin’s side gave him a small shove and Samsin stumbled forward, the leads connecting his ankles getting in the way. The silence stretched out into oblivion as Samsin regained his balance and slowly raised his head to stare out into the crowd. Gavin saw a measure of his former pride in the man’s eyes, though his once-fine clothes lay in torn and filthy rags about his shoulders. Samsin squared his shoulders as best he could, adopting a look that bordered on arrogance as he stared down his accusers.