“Yes, maybe he loved her!” Stroan snapped. Both women eyed him quietly.
“What’s wrong with this man?” said Yari with a crooked, curious grin. The woman began to walk a slow circle around Stroan, eyeing him up and down with every ounce of suspicion she could possibly squeeze into her visage. “I don’t trust him. Look at him, Anza. Why is he upset?”
“You speak nonsense as usual,” said Stroan, as Yari came around to his front and stared into his black eyes.
The woman’s arms moved in a flash as Stroan blinked, and his eyelids opened to see the gleam of the fine- tipped steel arrowhead a few inches from his eyes; her arms held firm the drawn bow.
Anza rose from her furs and waved her hand, and Yari relaxed her bowstring and returned her arrow to its quiver.
“It must have been a powerful sight,” said Anza.
“Very much so,” Stroan answered, “and curious.” But they would never know how powerful. Not unless they had loved another the way he loved Yuna—and were reminded by a single momentous act of how much that love meant, but how little they had done to fulfill it. He was foolish for letting it show so openly, for Anza was incredibly astute, and Yari Thorn suspected everything. Stroan rebuked himself silently.
The lady walked closer to Stroan until she stood so close he could feel her breath, and Yari snapped again that she didn’t trust him.
“I trust him with my life.” Anza gazed long into his eyes. “There is a thing that needs to be done,” said Anza, walking to her wicker chair and sitting down, “and we will have our war.”
“Name it, my lady,” said Yari Thorn quickly. “It will be done,” Stroan added.
“A false attack,” said Anza. “The killing of a few Cyanan guards at one of their encampments at the border—in the name of Snowstone, of course.”
“My lady is clever,” Yari praised. “Dandil won’t be able to keep the peace after that, especially after the raids.”
“Aye,” Stroan agreed. “And considering he will never receive his letter of peace from Tiomot, the Great Mother herself couldn’t keep them from war. But how do we make them believe it’s Snowstone that’s attacking? And who will do it?”
Anza sat back in her chair with both forearms resting against the seat’s armrests, a queen sitting on a humble, straw-woven throne. “The same group that handles all of our dung.”
“The Apostates,” said Yari with face far more sour than usual. “Which one?”
“The Hunter is a master of the bow and a man of the woods. We will hire him to shoot down a handful of Cyanan guards at the border. He must leave one or two alive, of course, and he will shout praise to Snowstone before he leaves.”
“I see,” said Stroan, grinning. “For the glory of Snowstone!”
Anza smiled in agreement, and then turned to address Yari. “He will know the intent of this task when you tell him, and may demand an expensive fee. Give him whatever he asks for, within reason.” Anza pointed to a bag of gold that rested on the ground beside her fur rug. “He is found in the heart of Blackwood Forest.”
Yari wasted no time and headed out of the aerie immediately.
“I’ve never known a cleverer tactician,” said Stroan after standing quietly a few moments before Anza. “The moment is finally here. I’ve been waiting so long that now— now it feels as a dream.”
“It was a dream—a dream we brought to life.” Anza rose from her chair and crawled down to her bed of stacked furs. “Join me.”
Stroan walked over slowly, making sure to keep adequate distance between him and the lady lest he fall to her inducements, and knelt on the furs beside her. “Should I tell Yuna she is soon to be home?” Stroan offered the question as nonchalant and apathetic as he possibly could— as a soldier simply awaiting an order. But as the silence remained he began to regret even bringing it up, thinking his actions would lead Anza to discover that he loved Yuna, and that he counted the days until she would be free of her duties to the clan. The silence dragged on for what seemed too long before the lady spoke.
“She is yet needed.”
Stroan’s heart dropped, and he felt the familiar sting of his hopes stifled by reality.
“We must know every move Tiomot makes when the war begins, every strategy. She must stay where she is and continue as she has. Her information is essential.”
“Aye, Anza.”
“Go and tell her,” said the lady with a smile, rubbing her hand across the fur between her and Stroan, “since you’re not going to make yourself comfortable.”
Stroan left the Great Aerie, once again denying his lady’s wishes. He knew she wouldn’t make him stay, but she was his matriarch, and though she spoke honorably of not commanding him to her bed, he feared that after a time these dismissals would not be taken lightly, and it would be him and Yuna that paid for it. For his sake, for Yuna’s, he must not avoid her, or she would find out his secret.
Somewhat boldly Stroan climbed back into the aerie, looked purposefully into his lady’s eyes and apologized for his lack of servitude as he crawled down onto the furs beside her. Anza looked astonished and beamed, and Stroan slid his hands up her stomach and over her breasts as the wantonness dissolved her smile. He brought his hands up to her neck and squeezed around it firmly. The lady leaned in and kissed him—his lips, his neck—and Stroan reciprocated.
His hands slid down her body, his fingers crawling over her stomach and tugging at her pants. Anza helped him remove them and pulled off her cotton shirt before working Stroan out of his garments as well. A fleeting thought that he was enjoying this more than he imagined ran through Stroan’s mind, and for a moment he couldn’t decide if he was there because he truly wanted to protect a possible future with him and Yuna, or for other more obvious reasons. He was thinking too much, and there was far too much going on to be thinking so much.
What lust…what lust and guilt and shame and pleasure, what fire stood him up as Anza laid her body o ver his, her warm breasts pressing firm against his skin and the lady and caressed her, running his hands down her spine to the small of her back and over the smooth, swollen mound that followed. The lady lifted up, grabbed hold of him and directed him as she lowered back down, pressing her toned thighs atop his, making Stroan gasp at the feeling. It was bodies like hers that finished men quickly.
But Stroan had his ways. He separated from the event in his mind. It was only an act, he told himself, a series of motions. To allow himself to be caught up in the pleasure—the lady’s ample curves, her busy tongue, her moans—would certainly mean the end of it quickly. Only by disconnecting in thought could he last long enough to sit up from off his back, turn Anza around and pull her body close, his hands holding her lower back and pulling her repeatedly towards him as she followed the same rhythm with her hips. So it was afterwards—a reasonable time afterwards—that both bodies lay entangled and warm, resting in quiet upon the furs as the hours of the morning passed.
13
IT WAS A PECULIAR SILENCE. After the storehouse Shahla had clung to Zar for the entire night without letting go. She had said nothing more than, “I knew you would come, I knew you were coming,” as she clutched on to him in their room at the inn. Her breaths were long, her sentences short, and her movements weak and shaky. She refused to sleep alone. Zar didn’t know what had happened in the storehouse or what she had endured, but every time her hands grasped his arms or pulled at his shirt, he could feel the agony through every desperate touch of her fingers. Something had shaken her, and Zar was left wondering what exactly it was.
given her several pieces of dried meat which she took unexcitedly. He never noticed her nibble on even one piece, and sure enough several pieces turned up in the morning about the bed of the inn, on the floor, and one still clutched in the girl’s left hand.
They left the inn that morning double-mounted on Dancer. She wouldn’t ride alone, either. She sat facing him in the saddle with her arms locked around him. She hugged him so tightly he could feel the beating o
f her heart, her warm breath upon his neck and strands of her frizzled black hair tickling his cheek. It was comforting to have her so close, and it reminded him of old times in Fairview Meadow when she would run to him for every little thing that scared her—a snake, a wolf, the farm boys up the plain. She would run and leap into his arms, or jump onto his back, and she would just cling on and squeeze and stay there, as if she knew as long as she was with him no harm could come to her. Zar had pretended it annoyed him when she did that, but the truth was it was the best feeling he’d ever felt. She was safe. That’s how it was, and that’s how it should have remained.
What a wretched world, he thought.
They had ridden for over half the day, and all the while Zar’s mind ran wild with thoughts of Shahla’s ordeal. What had she eaten? Was she hurt? How long was she locked in the storehouse? These and other questions swarmed through his mind one after the other, until finally he coul d no longer contain himself and spoke.
“Did they touch you?”
“No.” The muffled voice snuck from under Zar’s chin where Shahla’s face was buried.
He believed her. She had not one bruise and only a few scratches on her body that he could see, and what few marks she did have could very well have been from the capture. He did notice a rather large tear in her dress, but that, too—Zar told himself—was from the capture.
“I was just so scared,” said Shahla, “I have never been so scared. They weren’t supposed to touch any of them … not any of them … because they were for the king. But the guards were … because there were so many … they said the king would not notice.”
Zar cherished the sweet resonance as her lips moved against his throat. She was talking quietly—almost whispering—but she was huddled so close he could hear every word, feel every sound.
“I heard them,” she said.
Zar’s throat tightened. “Think no more of it,” he said quickly. “Who took you?”
“A man,” Shahla responded.
“Just one man?”
“One giant man,” Shahla murmured. “I tried to fight him. I wasn’t good enough. He was strong. You could’ve killed him.” The girl sounded exhausted, speaking in short, broken sentences that seemed to take an enormous amount of effort to construct. “Those stalls were so dirty,” she continued, “and hearing the others—I couldn’t sleep.”
“You must be exhausted,” said Zar, “we’ll make camp soon.”
“Camp…” Shahla echoed as her body fell loose and her bosom pressed tight against him. The girl had fainted in his arms.
Zar peered down at her exhausted face. She still looked so beautifully innocent—smooth golden cheeks with rose petal lips. The wind stirred her hair and the silky black locks danced playfully in the breeze. With her jaw relaxed and open, but her mouth closed, her lips were stretched in what almost looked like a smile. There was no way he would wake her. When the time came and she had rested enough she would wake on her own, and by that time he hoped to have a fire built to warm her and freshly roasted game for a meal.
There was only one way to hunt game without leaving the girl sleeping alone, and that was to have the game come to them instead of searching for it, and there was no better way to do this than by finding a body of water. Zar wished he had Asha with him, for she could smell water from miles away and eventually got around to sniffing it out and leading him towards it whenever he let her wander freely without being mounted. But after searching a while with Dancer, one arm supporting Shahla who was sleeping leaned into his chest, the other steering the reigns, Zar found what he was looking for. He came to a wide bodied creek with a slow current.
Now he had to pick a tree.
About seventy paces downwind from the stream’s bank, Zar chose a tall tree he could climb and use for his perch. At the bottom of the trunk he laid a blanket over the ground and propped Shahla against the tree with another blanket on top. He tied Dancer to another tree and climbed into the perch with his bow and a few arrows.
Zar eyed the water as he waited. It was only be a matter of time before a deer, hare, or boar visit ed the creek for an evening drink. The longer he had to wait, the more time it would give Shahla to rest, and after a hot meal perhaps her strength would return before they made it back to the meadow. He wished for Barek to see her as she was when she left—strong and smiling—not scared, timid, and weak. After more rest, a nice roast, and some lively conversation, she would surely be back to her former self in no time. He convinced himself that she was all right, and if Barek saw her in good spirits perhaps he would do the same. But Shahla would be different. Regardless of what had happened, just the experience of having been there imprisoned and hearing what she heard or seeing whatever she may have seen—she would be different. Zar hated to admit it even in his thoughts, not daring to utter it aloud and knowing him and Barek would never speak of it, but in his mind he knew that this had changed her. He tried to rationalize it in the utmost depths of his conscious and explain and justify why this was a good thing—why it was good that this had happened and why it would work out better in the end—but he could find no such justification. The only conclusion he could come to was that this was the way of the world. Nothing good lasted forever, nothing pure.
All pure things must in time be tainted. Though they may still remain beautiful, their purity is stolen by the cruelty of the world. That was the way of things—almost inevitably—like the doe he aimed at now, a creature most beautiful and gentle, but one that must die for the sustenance of two other creatures. That was the way of things—the way of the world.
Shahla awoke at dusk. Zar had a large fire built and the venison was roasted. She finally seemed to have an appetite and wasted no time helping herself to the meat.
“I’m sorry I fainted.”
Zar barely made out her words through a mouth full of food. “Nonsense.” He waved his hand. “You were exhausted. Be sure to eat well and drink a lot of water.”
“I’m fine, really,” said Shahla with her cheeks stuffed.
Her muffled words sounded like the cry of some wild animal drowned out by the wind.
Zar smiled. “You know it’s quite rude to talk with a mouth full of food.”
Shahla laughed. “Fine,” she said as she finished chewing the food in her mouth. “I’ll have to ignore you next time.”
“Oh, please, no,” said Zar, “I cannot stand to be ignored—especially by you. It’s bad enough Asha does it to me all the time.”
Shahla giggled, and it sounded like the girl was back to herself.
“How did it happen?” Zar studied Shahla’s face as he asked, hoping it wouldn’t cause her any pain or grief to talk about.
“I was foolish and tried to fight,” she said casually. She seemed to be quite comfortable talking about it, which Zar saw as a good sign.
“I would call that brave,” said Zar.
“Maybe so,” she replied, “but if I hadn’t tried to fight I could have easily escaped.”
“I imagine so, with Dalya,” Zar agreed. “Were you not mounted?”
“I wasn’t,” Shahla answered. “I had stopped to let Dalya drink from the brook—the one outside Karthin beside the woods a league off from the road.”
“Aye.”
“I don’t know if he had followed me,” Shahla continued, “or if he had been waiting in the woods, but when I heard footsteps I looked up and he was there—coming towards me.”
“You didn’t mount up?”
“I didn’t,” said Shahla. “When I first saw him I was so afraid I couldn’t move, and when I did start moving I was moving so slow.”
Zar swore he could see some of that fear on the girl’s face even now. “Why were you so afraid?”
“He looked like a monster,” Shahla replied, “giant and evil-looking. He was smiling, but it wasn’t a good kind of smile—it was a scary one.”
“And you did not think to mount and run?” said Zar, raising his voice a bit.
“It was too
late,” Shahla insisted. “He was already charging towards me. Dalya was far off from the place I was standing, and she was already spooked and jumping around. But my bow and quiver were on my back, so I reached for those first.”
“Aye, good,” Zar responded.
“I was scared and he was moving so I wasn’t sure of my aim,” she continued. “So I aimed at his chest instead of his head—I knew that I couldn’t miss there.”
“Good, good,” said Zar.
“As I took my bow from my back he drew his weapon. It was a giant sword—like a cleaver for chopping meat.”
“A cleaver?”
“Aye, just like a butcher’s cleaver, but very big. He turned it sideways and blocked my arrow with the blade. Then I really grew afraid, for he was so close then.”
“Did you draw again?”
“I did, I did,” said Shahla, “but the second arrow was blocked the same as the first. By then I had no time to do anything else. He hit me in the head with the blade.”
“And then?”
“And then I fell,” Shahla answered. “When I awoke I was bound in the back of a wagon. There were a few other women with me, and in a few days we came to the storehouse.
Zar went to Shahla and examined her head. “Where did he hit you?”
“Here,” said Shahla, grabbing Zar’s hand that roamed in her hair and guiding it near the back of her head. “The lump has gone down, but it was like a rock before. For the first few days in there I did nothing but touch it.”
Zar was happy to watch as she helped herself to even more meat from the spit. Clawing at it with her fingers, she pulled off another large chunk of the venison and brought it to her mouth.
The two ate as much of the meat as they could. As it neared nightfall, Shahla grew tired and stretched over the blanket Zar had laid down for her. The girl was quiet and closed her eyes as she drifted to sleep. Zar got up to cover her with another blanket and fed the fire a few more thick branches before he sat back down, resting his back against a tree.
Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten (Order of Fire Book 1) Page 13
