This would make things difficult when it came time to get Alronna out. Lakhoni pushed the thought away. First he had to find her.
He closed the door, finding himself in a small entryway with doorways to his right and left. On the other side of each doorway was a long, dark room with prostrate forms on the ground. The sound of restless sleep filled the air.
She had to be in here. Lakhoni’s heart hammered, his mouth dry. Everything he’d learned told him Alronna was in here. But where? And how could he find her? Despite the dark, he could see that the slaves slept on what looked like thin blankets, with even thinner blankets covering them. How cold it must have been in this room during the depths of winter! Fury at what his sister must have been going through for these months infused him.
No, he had to stay calm if he was going to find her.
He began to pick his way among the sleeping figures. He didn’t see chains or anything securing the slaves in place. The temple’s security must have been enough.
There. The curve of a face and an ear caught his attention. He approached, suddenly realizing that all the slaves were female. From what he could see, they were all young women. He easily understood why the slaves would all be young women, and, for the most part, attractive. A red flame of fury built in his chest. If Zyron had hurt Alronna . . .
This one had fuzz covering her scalp. He looked closer. No, not his sister.
This might take all night.
He finished checking the room, disappointed. If she wasn’t in the room to the left of the door, he would be back at the beginning. He would have to get into the temple and see if she was there.
Lakhoni stopped, ears detecting movement.
It was nothing. Simply someone shifting in her sleep.
He made his way to the room on the left and decided to start at the far end of the room. He crept across the floor, staying against the wall where nobody slept. Less light entered this room. What light there was filtered through large holes and gaps in the ceiling. The ceiling on the other side must have been in better repair.
He scanned what he could see of the women’s faces. His throat tightened, mouth dry and heart suddenly ceasing to beat.
Alronna.
She was five feet away, her mouth slightly open as she slept. She had kept her hair; it was longer now. Her face reminded him so completely of his mother’s that Lakhoni had to grip the stone of the walls to not collapse under the weight of grief.
He slipped closer to her and lowered to a crouch. He held his breath, one hand going to Alronna’s mouth and one to her shoulder.
She started awake with a gasp and sudden jerk of her body. Her eyes darted wildly, fear obvious even in the dark.
“Ronna,” Lakhoni said, heart in his throat.
She went completely still. In the filtered light of the stars, her eyes met his. He took his hand from her mouth.
“Ronna, it’s me.” Lakhoni wanted to grab her and flee the city now, leaving justice to First Fathers. They could get away. He had to take her away from this place.
Her whisper was harsh. “Khoni?” She wriggled carefully, turning over and facing Lakhoni from her knees. “Lakhoni?”
“It’s me. I’m here to—”
She caught him in a tight embrace, squeezing him, gasping strained, quiet sobs.
He held her tightly, tears threatening. Finally. The last months flashed behind his closed eyelids. He had to fight to keep tears from spilling down his cheeks.
After a long minute, he helped her to her feet and guided her toward the door so they could talk without waking anyone.
“Khoni, how did you . . . How are you here? I thought you were dead!” Alronna still held his arm, squeezing until it hurt.
Alronna’s face held new, deep shadows under her eyes. He began to shake, his muscles tight, his mind feeling like warm mud. Maybe he should forget the king, keep Alronna close. Maybe he really should take her away and escape now. There had to be a way out of the compound. Once they got out, nobody would know Alronna had been a slave.
Alronna threw her arms around him again, her cheek pressed up against his. The familiarity of her touch made him feel like his chest was cracking open. Her cheekbone was sharp, her bones too easily felt under his embrace. The crack in his chest widened and he was suddenly gasping, trying to keep himself under control and quiet.
He buried his face in the coarse cloth of her filthy tunic and held his sister close, the memories of carrying his mother and father to the funeral pyre burning bright behind his clenched eyes. Tears, hot with fury, soaked into Alronna’s shoulder.
Lakhoni swam through the blinding relief at having found Alronna. He pushed through the need to make the king—and this Shelu the other boys had mentioned—pay.
“Ronna,” he said, something inside him feeling raw and good—and newly full—a chasm filled. “We have to make a plan to get out.”
“How did you find me?” Alronna asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Lakhoni cleared his throat and pushed her gently away so he could see her face in the gloom. His hand brushed over something on the back of her shoulder. It felt like raised flesh. He wanted to ask what they had done to her. No time. “We have to get out. But I have to get the king first.”
“Get the king?” Alronna squeezed his shoulder tightly. “What are you talking about?”
“And Shelu. He did all of this.”
Her arms tightened under his grip. When she had been taken months ago, she was thirteen. Now, with the fear in her voice and her bones so close to her skin, she was more like an old, scared woman.
“Shelu? No,” Alronna said, voice barely loud enough to hear.
“He did this,” Lakhoni said. “I found out.”
“No, we just go. We have to go.” Her quiet voice broke.
“What?” Lakhoni struggled to figure out why Alronna was behaving this way. “What—what did he do to you?”
“He won’t stop. He always asks and hurts me.” Now she was crying, her body still tight with fear.
“Asks what?” Lakhoni thought about what Balon had said about Shelu and the raiding parties looking for something.
Alronna still shook, her face now buried in Lakhoni’s chest. “He keeps talking about the sword and Father.”
“The sword?” Lakhoni racked his brain. Father never had a sword.
“And Father. He says he knows Father had it,” Alronna said. She straightened. With his eyes fully adjusted to the darkness of the slave barracks, Lakhoni saw the gauntness of her features. She looked so much like his mother, despite her haggard appearance.
“But that’s stupid,” Lakhoni said. A feeling of great injustice consumed him. Had Alronna been taken, their village destroyed, his parents murdered all because Shelu had made a mistake?
Alronna squeezed Lakhoni’s hands. Her gaze burned into his. “I don’t think Father ever had the sword.”
Confusion filled him again. “What sword? Why do you keep saying ‘the sword?”
Now Alronna stepped back slightly. A shadow of thought crossed her face. “You don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” Why did everyone else know more than he did? Frustration boiled over. “What is going on?”
“Mother talked with me about—” She glanced around. The slaves still slept and no noise from the outside filtered in. “She told me about the Guide.”
It took Lakhoni a moment. When understanding hit, it struck like a load of roofing tiles. Exhaustion warred with a fierce desire to scream at the universe and ask why and how his family had been drawn into this.
Shelu and the king were looking for something. Mother had told Alronna about the Guide. The cavity under her bed.
Now Shelu was interrogating Alronna about “the sword.”
The Guide and the Sword of Nubal. It had to be. The two artifacts of the First Fathers. The two items that would endow a king with the power to unite the people of the First Fathers and rule them with the might of the Great Spirit. And somehow, his mo
ther had been hiding the Guide under her bed.
And now Shelu thought Alronna knew about the Sword of Nubal too.
How had his mother ended up with the Guide?
And why did Shelu think that Lakhoni’s family had the—
In the back of his mind, he saw Alronna searching his face, but he suddenly remembered his father’s talk of being stuck in a mountain cave for most of a day while grandfather tried to free him. His father had said several times that he had lost something of great value in that cave on that day.
The Sword of Nubal. There was no other explanation.
Somehow, his family had become the guardians of the two items that would give any man power to rule the people of Zyron as well as the Usurpers.
“Ronna,” Lakhoni whispered, gripping her shoulders tightly. “We have to get out of here.”
“Khoni?” Understanding dawned on her face. “You know? The sword?”
“Yes.”
“Why did Mother and Father—”
“No.” Lakhoni squeezed her shoulders. “No time. I have to go now, but I’ll be back with a plan. We’ll leave then.”
“No,” Alronna whispered, desperation making her voice harsh. Her fingers dug into his wrist. “Now. Let’s go now.”
“I have to find a way to get you out of here. Once we’re out of the compound, nobody will know who we are. We can get away.”
Alronna’s head sagged, the tension in her body suddenly gone. “They will know.” She pulled her ragged tunic up off her right shoulder. In the dim light, Lakhoni saw that he had been right: there was something on her skin. He bent closer. No. Not on her skin. It was her skin. Something hot must have made the mark. Rough, badly healed skin in the shape of a triangle inset in a circle stood out on her shoulder.
“They marked me. Called it branding.”
Lakhoni’s heart sank.
“It means I am the king’s slave.” Tears glimmered softly in the dimness of filtered starlight. “Forever.”
Chapter 43
Servant
During his chores the next morning, Lakhoni’s mind still reeled from the revelations of the evening. His parents had been guardians of the two most valuable and powerful objects in the world! And the Guide had been under his mother’s bed! Until Shelu had found it.
A memory of something, an image of Gimno crouching in dust, flashed through his mind. What? Something about the Guide? He tried to shake the memory away, but it felt important. Gimno crouching in dust, pointing at something. The village!
The memory returned. Lakhoni had found the cavity under his mother’s bed, which he now knew had been hiding the Guide. Gimno had called him outside and they had realized that the strange tracks had meant Usurpers had come to the village.
Usurpers in his village. The village where the Guide had been hidden. It couldn’t be a coincidence. How had they known where to look?
The answer came to him as he followed Cho back toward the main building. There were always stories of Usurper raiding parties attacking villages. And Shelu’s party was doing the same.
They had both found his village near the same time. And his family and friends had been destroyed. Lakhoni clenched his jaw. He had to get Alronna out of whatever was happening and find a safe place for them to live in peace.
At the main building, Cho and Lakhoni each grabbed two buckets. Lakhoni remembered to try to find newer and tighter buckets; yesterday he had been dripped on the entire time he walked back from the canal.
The compound’s water source ran through the north end of the compound for around a hundred feet. Lakhoni guessed that it came from a river running through the mountains that made up the west wall of the city. There were multiple access points to the canal in the compound until it disappeared under the temple walls. He figured that the canal must have been planned so that it would provide a convenient source of water for those in the temple too.
Cho was in no mood for conversation as they retrieved buckets of water. Lakhoni took a moment after filling his buckets to splash some water on his face and steal a few gulps.
“Come on, kid.” Cho didn’t wait for him.
As he bent to grab his buckets, Lakhoni noticed that he could see his reflection in the one he had not gotten water from. The water was still and flat. He knew he was looking at himself, but the image of a thin face with dark hair growing under his mouth and cheeks in tufts, and several inches of hair on his head, was totally unfamiliar. Am I even the same person? He hefted the buckets.
So much had changed. He had come so far.
He pushed the thoughts away, turning his attention to avoiding the bustling servants and considering an escape plan. With the brand on her shoulder, Alronna was easily identified as a slave. Which meant that they would have to get out of the city as soon as they got out of the compound. He was on his own. Even Regg had to be long gone, and if he were still around, he would have no reason to put himself in danger by hiding a slave.
No. He had to do this alone. He had to find a way out of the compound.
He stopped and turned, taking a closer look at the canal. He followed the direction of the canal until it flowed under the temple walls, then superimposed an image of where he guessed the canal flowed. He knew it didn’t reappear inside the compound walls—but there was that canal that ran from the west to the east of Victor Plaza.
He reminded himself to walk, turning back to his task.
He needed to find out if the canal flowed directly from the compound, under the temple, and out to the plaza. If it did, there had to be places that a person in the water could surface for air.
What if the architect of the city’s water system had thought of this and had taken action to prevent a person from leaving the compound through the canal?
Lakhoni quickened his pace to catch up with Cho.
Of course, there was a chance that he was wrong, that the canal stopped in the temple or that there was some kind of underwater gate at some point that would keep people from escaping the compound. There was only one way to find out. He would go at night, or no . . . in the final hours before dawn. That way he could be out of the compound, dry off, and come back in claiming some kind of errand. He glanced at the tattoo on his wrist—just like Alronna’s brand—and was glad the soreness was mostly gone already. He should have no trouble re-entering the compound in the morning. And once he had a plan for getting Alronna out, he would find a way to get at the king.
As he poured water into the huge basin for the dogs, he thought of the knife hidden at the bottom of his bag. When Gimno had presented him with the gift of the knife, Lakhoni had been surprised. A bitter laugh boiled out of him. Wouldn’t Gimno be pleased to know that the knife he had given Lakhoni would be used to take the life of King Zyron?
That afternoon, the sun blazed across the hilly meadows Lakhoni and the other dog-boys were in.
“My father said that dogs treat humans like they are part of their pack.” Lakhoni gestured for the excited dogs to settle down. “If they were in the wild still, there would be a leader.” He commanded the dogs to sit. Kree and Chel obeyed. “I don’t know how he knew this, but you have to make the dogs accept you as their pack leader. So tell yourself that you’re the boss over and over when you’re dealing with them.”
“You mean I have to train myself,” Balon said. “Train the wild humans!” He belted a laugh.
“Sure,” Lakhoni said. “Train you to stop smelling so bad.”
Balon shot a surprised glance at Lakhoni, then looked down at his feet. “Did I step in something?”
Lakhoni laughed at Balon’s expression.
Balon’s eyes widened and he turned to yell at his brother. “Falon! Run! The flames are freezing over! Serious-boy here just made a joke!”
From across the hilltop, Falon feigned an expression of utter shock. “Nooooo!” he spun and ran down the hill, screaming.
Balon and Lakhoni shared a laugh. “Wait. He’ll fall and snap a leg or two,” Balon said.
&
nbsp; Lakhoni laughed again. Briefly, he wondered at how he could have thoughts of killing the king at one moment, then be laughing with his companions the next. Was he losing his mind?
He left that question at the top of the hill as he followed the dogs and dog-boys across the countryside, gathering the dogs for the return trip. He knew he had to stay alert for any chance to learn more about the king, or get Alronna out.
The next day, Lakhoni crouched in the dirt of the dog pen, working with Chel.
“Boy.”
Lakhoni straightened, dropping Chel’s back right paw to the dirt of the dogs’ fenced-in area. The red-haired girl he’d seen around the king’s compound stood on the other side of the fence, staring at him angrily.
“Yes?”
“Do you know horses?” Was she looking at him through her nose?
“Horses?” Lakhoni glanced around. Who was this person?
“Horses.” She said it slowly, as if trying to teach him a new word. “I suppose you don’t.”
“I know what they are,” Lakhoni said. Chel, who had quickly become Lakhoni’s favorite of the dogs, plopped to the ground, tongue lolling. “Why?”
“Boy!” The girl’s face grew pink. “You don’t ask me why. I need you to do something for me in the stables.”
“But I don’t know horses.” Lakhoni took pleasure in seeing her face grow even redder. Who did she think she was?
“I will have my father flog you for your im—imper—” The girl trailed off. “Don’t be rude.”
Her father? Lakhoni wanted to hide, or at least take back the last thirty seconds. She was the king’s daughter. Had to be. Lakhoni fought down the panic that rose in him, tensing his muscles to keep them from shaking. She could have him sent away, or probably even killed. He stepped closer. “How can I help?”
“Much better.” The girl spun. “Follow me.”
Lakhoni climbed the fence and leapt to the ground, catching up to the small, red-headed girl quickly. As she led him into the stable, Lakhoni wondered how old she was. She looked younger than him, and she was bossy like a little kid, but the intelligence in her eyes made her seem older. He followed her, keeping his eyes trained on the back of her head.
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