by K. F. Breene
“Take out the Inkna,” Rohnan yelled over the din.
“Give me a minute, would you? I’m leading the attack here!” She caught a sword strike, stepped back, and looped her sword around. The Graygual blade went flying. She stabbed him as she searched for the Inkna again. They weren’t hard to find. They were clustered together at the back of the city, scattering their efforts. They were outnumbered, perhaps for the first time in their lives.
Her power surged, then felt the growl of Cayan’s might and spiraled higher. Electricity crackled. Her Gift grew and expanded, swirling out. A low-level boom shook the foundations of the city. A huge explosion of power ripped out of Cayan, bringing the crowd of Graygual to their knees. Shanti’s power frizzed into white-hot points of light, raining down on the Inkna like a lightning storm. There was nowhere to hide and no hope of blocking. It pierced their consciousness and shattered their minds. The Inkna minds winked out almost as one as the Graygual before them writhed, clutching their chests and screaming in agony.
Shanti felt minds bent on violence in the sky. She glanced up at the rooftops before sending out mental warning. She pointed upward and yelled, “Archers!”
Arrows rained down before Shanti and the army could move. A slice of agony seared her arm, the arrow ripping flesh but not sticking.
Bursts of power flared, but not before answering arrows flew from the army.
“Mine!”
“I got left!”
“I’m shooting anyone I can!”
An arrow stuck into a Graygual chest, followed by two more. He fell to the ground as more arrows struck those around him, this time coming from the sides.
“The townspeople!” someone shouted behind her.
Shanti blasted the town with a surge of pride before searching out more Graygual.
“Back of the city,” Cayan yelled, doing the same thing.
He led the charge with her right behind. The Shadow and Shumas spread out, trying to fill the area with power in case anyone else popped out.
“Are the Graygual running?” Sanders yelled up.
“No. Not cowering, either. Waiting.” A surge of adrenaline rose up in Cayan. She suspected it was a trap.
Shanti thought of the Hunter.
Townspeople emerged from houses along the lane. These were mostly men but included a few women; they had angry or determined expressions, with tattered clothes and rusty swords. One carried a shovel. They were prepared to do whatever they had to.
“This way!” Shanti yelled, directing them to follow.
“What are you doing?” Sanders asked.
“They need to win back their town, and we are going to help them do it.” They ran through a building and met a middle-aged man. He held his sword like a lover, standing on slightly bent knees and looking at a large house at the end of the lane.
“Well met,” Shanti said in the traders’ language.
The man met her eyes in confusion. He shook his head and said something Shanti couldn’t understand.
Sanders rattled off an answer, or an insult—there was no telling, really—and nodded. “He says the Graygual officer is in that house surrounded by Inkna.”
“The Inkna are dead and the officer is waiting for death,” Cayan said in a flat voice. He glanced at Shanti, letting her take the reins again. This new leaf he’d turned over regarding her rash decision-making was a pleasant change. It was also terrifying. Didn’t he realize that sometimes she needed to be reined in?
“Let us clear the way, and you will have your vengeance,” Shanti said to the man.
Sanders translated in a voice that sounded like a threat.
“We’re on the same team,” Shanti told Sanders.
“That’s why he isn’t dead. Hurry up.” Sanders motioned her on.
“Give the man a little power…” Shanti jogged toward the building with her Gift spread wide. For Sanders’ benefit, she said, “There are a few more Graygual throughout the town, and a couple more trying to run, but the Shadow and Shumas are taking care of that.”
“I wish you’d left a few Inkna alive…” Sanders growled.
She doubted that her smile reached her eyes. “Next time.” At the door of the house, she felt a thick arm come across her chest and force her back.
“No.” Cayan stepped in front of her, and gestured Sanders to his side.
She should’ve known that making decisions only went so far.
Shanti clutched the Graygual mind, ready for what was going to come.
Cayan braced to kick the door down, but the man from the town quickly stepped forward and put his hand on Cayan’s arm. He said something and waited. Sanders translated, “He says he should’ve protected his town in the first place. He should do this.”
Cayan clenched his jaw. His power bubbled within him, barely kept under control. He stepped away.
Shanti felt more minds gather, watching. Women and men both crowded around as the man from the town stepped up to the door and grabbed the handle. He turned and threw the door wide.
“Should’ve checked to see if it was locked,” Shanti muttered to Cayan.
The Graygual sat at the table in a large, well-appointed dining room. Judging by the familiarity with which the man moved through this house, checking hiding places, and his sorrow, it was probably his.
“Tell him the Graygual is the only one alive here,” Cayan told Sanders.
A moment later the man turned to Sanders, and then narrowed his eyes at Cayan. It wasn’t until he met Shanti’s eyes that his face drained of color and his eyes started to shine with moisture. He uttered something as his knuckles drained of white on his sword handle. Shanti could feel his gratitude mixing with his profound hope.
Sanders didn’t translate.
“I bet you would’ve told me what he said if he was cursing me,” Shanti muttered as the man kissed the back of her hand.
“Yup.” Sanders jerked his chin toward the silent and patiently waiting Graygual. “He wants you to do the honors in killing the scum.”
“No, Chulan,” Rohnan said with urgency. “He needs to do this, and the townspeople need to see him do it. They need this, Chulan.”
Shanti gave the man a deep bow, and gestured him on instead. “Tell him I have done my job so that he can do his.”
“No,” Cayan said softly before Sanders could utter the words. “Tell him to claim his freedom.”
After Sanders relayed the message, the man paused. He turned his attention to Cayan. For a moment the two men stared at each other in a silent exchange, before the man’s grip tightened on his sword again and determination coated his features. He turned toward the Graygual.
“You will make a wonderful pet,” the Graygual said to Shanti in his home tongue. “The Being Supreme has great plans for you.”
The man from town wasted no time. He slashed down at the Graygual’s neck, cleaving it almost clean off. For a moment, he just stared down with rage masking his expression. That dripped away, though, and in its place was intense, gut-wrenching sorrow.
“I must go, Chulan,” Rohnan said, backing out of the door. “I suspect the Graygual took his family from him.”
Shanti nodded and backed out as well, leaving the man to his grief.
“That was the right thing,” Sanders said when he met Shanti outside. “Letting him do it. That was the right thing to do.”
“It seems so.” Shanti looked into the breeze, letting the air dry her eyes.
“The Captain said to do whatever you wanted as long as you were with Rohnan.” Sanders stepped back toward the door.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to translate for him. He’s got to get this city organized before we can move on.”
“We need to speak to some of these people, Chulan,” Rohnan said softly. “They have the same pain we do. They have lost a lot of people.”
“How are we going to talk with them? Do any of us know this language?”
“One of us must. Your grandfather was th
orough.”
Shanti chose a path to Sayas. He was the biggest busybody of them all, so he’d probably know who knew what. As she made her way, she thought of their upcoming battle. This town was small, with nothing more than the spillover of the larger city up the road. But even so, those archers surprised them, and the Inkna had posed a bigger problem than they should’ve done. It didn’t bode well. Even using all their resources in the next city, unless they did something different, they wouldn’t live to take Xandre down.
16
“Sanders, where do we stand?” Cayan wiped his hands on a rag as he came to a stop next to his commander.
Sanders straightened up slowly and then stretched with a grunt before putting his hand to his lower back. “The people are rallying, sir.”
Cayan glanced up at the sun, finding it closer to the horizon than he might’ve liked, and then blew out a breath as he surveyed the small town. Starved and bedraggled, the people here had been through much hardship. The Graygual officer in charge of this city wasn’t as firm in his control as the Hunter, and it showed. Lower-ranked men had taken advantage where they could, fighting, killing, stealing, and whatever else. Those who protested were run through with the sword or left the town, saying they would return with help. In many cases, their bodies were found hanging in a tree, or their heads showed up outside the walls on a spike. The town had been cowed through fear for themselves or their families, and they’d given in. Of course they had—they didn’t have anyone strong enough to stick up for them. Not against the Graygual with the Inkna at their backs.
Cayan felt Shanti before he saw her. She came around the bend with blood dripping down one arm and dirt smearing her face. That graze must’ve hurt, but she hadn’t let Marc stop her long enough to bandage it. With Tanna, the Shumas that had been taught this region’s dialect, at her side and Rohnan at her back, she wandered through the town, hearing stories and woes. With most people she nodded and touched them somehow, often with a supportive hand on their shoulder. Sometimes she gave a slap, and once she punched a man. He fell back like a sack of potatoes. When he got up, fire lit his eyes and courage straightened his back.
Cayan had no idea how she knew what each person needed, but she seemed to heal them with nothing more than a listening ear and a reaction.
As she drew closer, she glanced his way. Sorrow pulled down her features and a gut-wrenching devastation churned her thoughts. She was thinking about the destruction of her own people, Cayan knew. She was reliving the horrible destruction that had befallen her way of life, and it was eating away at her.
“Sometimes I wish I’d never met her,” Sanders said as he followed Cayan’s gaze. “An ignorant part of me pretends that if we’d let her die in the burnt lands we wouldn’t have suffered any of this. We wouldn’t have had to voyage to the Shadow Lands and we wouldn’t have lost people to the Hunter’s men. The women would be safe behind our walls, not out fighting beside us. Tobias would still be by my side, taking care of the things I missed… I pretend she is the cause of it all, sometimes. And I hate her for it. It’s easier than dealing with the destruction she heralds.”
Cayan felt a flash of rage, but he said nothing. Just waited.
“But then I remember the Inkna-inspired Mugdock attack,” Sanders said. “We would’ve beaten them without her, but we would’ve lost people. More people, I should say. Many more. I still would’ve been taken, but there was no way you could’ve got me back. Then the Inkna would’ve moved in to our lands, and it would’ve turned into this. The loss, the horror—we didn’t succumb to this because of her. Pulling her out of the burnt lands was our salvation, just in time. And I would fight forever by her side to prevent this from happening again, or to save those who didn’t have a Shanti to turn the tide. I suspect everyone she meets, and everyone she saves, will feel the same. I don’t know about this Wanderer tale, but if it was a person, like Burson says, it is her. For all I want to punch her in the face, she has a way about her. She is the backbone of our survival.”
“You feel better, getting that off your chest?” Cayan resisted the urge to slouch in fatigue. He needed to stand straight and tall at all times, to give these people a pillar of strength to look toward. Shanti would heal their hearts, and he would direct their swords.
“Excuse me, sir. I had to vent. And I would punch her in the face, but she always feels me sneaking up on her.” Sanders looked back at a fallen beam, part of the destruction and decay from the Graygual occupation.
“Noted.” Cayan looked around, seeing the townspeople start the work to fix their homes or rebuild their shops. “They lead with a form of hierarchy, and only one man is standing from that. They have a Women’s Circle, but only three women are still alive. They are trying to reestablish.”
“What about their army? Any survivors?”
Cayan tilted his head for a brief moment and turned to look out at the opposite way. “The Hunter kept our people alive because he wanted to trade them for Shanti. This Graygual officer had no reason to spare troublemakers. Their army is in tatters.”
“They will fight.” Kallon walked toward them with a face made of stone and eyes as stormy as the sky before it crashed down on the land. His shoulders were back, straight and proud, but his emotions were in a turbulent state. “This is not the worst I have seen. In those towns I passed, or helped, I did not spend half the time on their broken villages that you are. Yet still they banded together.”
“You saying we should just fuck off and leave them to their misery?” Sanders asked, bristling.
Kallon cocked his head. He gave a frustrated shake of his head and muttered a curse word before whatever confused him dropped away. His eyes turned piercing before he directed his gaze back at Cayan. “You have plans, somewhere to be. You didn’t want to come this way, and you didn’t want to help because of the overall goal. Even though you bent your will for the Chulan, you still stay and fix the lives of these people instead of rushing on.” His chin raised a fraction. He shifted his weight, a barely perceptible move. “I always rushed on. I never stayed.” His hands clenched. “You are the better man for it. The better leader.” Kallon clenched and unclenched his jaw. “To keep my honor, I must admit that you deserve the Chulan. Her grandfather never thought a mortal man would. She is touched by the Elders, and speaks on their behalf. It seems she has found a refuge in you that our people find in her. For that, I will welcome you into our people when she decides to mate you.”
He stared straight into Cayan’s eyes, causing a shot of adrenaline to race up Cayan’s spine. War raged in that look. Pain. “This does not negate my challenge,” Kallon said, finally.
With that, he turned and glided away, much too graceful to match the sullen mood that swarmed around him.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Sanders said softly.
Cayan’s fingers tingled as he watched the other man. His Gift bubbled and boiled, desperate to be used. He glanced in Shanti’s direction. She was looking at him with a half-smile on her face.
“Her people are crazy,” Sanders said. “I like them.”
“Our Women’s Circle want to overturn the unspoken rule that nakedness isn’t allowed outdoors.” Cayan blew out a breath in a laugh, trying to work out the rush of Kallon’s renewed interest in a challenge.
“What the bloody hell?” Sanders stared at him, shocked. “If they think I am going to turn the other way when a man comes dangling along on the walkway, they have another thing coming. I don’t care that they can make my life hell; I will not bend on that point. I don’t need to see a bunch of dicks swinging around! And do you know what Junice would do to me if I glanced— glanced!—at a naked woman? I might as well look for a new house, because she wouldn’t let me stay with her, that’s for certain. What has gotten into their heads? It’s bad enough women are throwing on pants and marching into the army, but now they want to watch naked men wander around the place? No way, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. That cannot happen. Think of the children!”
Cayan laughed, blindsided by Sanders’ sudden shift in mood. Townspeople looked at him, shocked and confused. He couldn’t help it, though. The chuckles built, the misery from seeing these townspeople turning into hysteria. Guffaws erupted, consuming his body and making him double over.
“You need to get a handle on yourself, sir,” Sanders said in a low voice. “If these people see you cracking up, it’ll undo everything you’ve done.”
Cayan laughed just a bit harder at the absurdity of all this, at the madness of thinking he could bring down a tyrant like Xandre with their tiny force. They’d lost five people today, and this was only a small town. They’d lost two taking the Mugdock city, and that should’ve been nothing. There was no way they could win. No way this could work out to their benefit. What were they doing?
“Hey.” Shanti’s warm hand touched his shoulder. Her feminine scent, mixed with that of battle and victory, wrapped around his head.
Without thinking, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her away, out of the town and into the nearby trees. There he laid her down in a rush of need before stripping off her pants and pushing down his own. Fighting the uncertainty of what was going to come, and the overwhelming odds, he lost himself in her body. He thrust into her, power and dominance. He took solace in her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her thighs squeezing him tight, and he pushed into her over and over, hard and brutal. Her Gift wrapped around his, coaxing it higher. The control he’d barely held on to with Kallon fell away. His power gushed out and blasted through the town. It didn’t carry an attack. This time it carried Shanti’s essence—pure and soft. Loving and supportive. The soul she tried to hide filtered among the people and soaked into them. His Gift pulsed with her heart, feeding courage and replacing their misery with hope.
“We can do this,” Shanti said in a low voice, her lips on his. “Don’t lose faith.”
He grabbed the back of her neck and pumped his hips, focusing on her body wrapped around his. Her faith in him. Another explosion of his power matched his climax. He emptied into her as his Gift blanketed the town in his renewed faith. In courage.
