by R. T. Kaelin
Shifting his gaze to the former duke, Tandyr asked, “Duke Rholeb no longer defends his lands alone, does he?” It was more statement than question.
Vanson frowned.
“No, he does not.”
Raela shut her eyes and sighed.
“Tandyr, you swore that would not happen.”
“I was wrong,” answered the ijul plainly. “Shall we quit because of that?”
Opening her eyes, Raela shook her head and muttered, “No.” Looking over to Vanson, she asked, “How did that happen?”
“How it happened does not matter now,” said Tandyr. “I am more interested in who is aiding him.” Staring at Vanson with his ice blue eyes, he demanded, “What has Lord Tilas reported?”
“The Southlands and Long Coast have pledged their support—and armies—for the Marshlands.”
“Why?” asked Raela. “On what are they basing their decision?”
With a frown, Vanson’s said, “Apparently a handful of Borderlanders made a rather convincing case before the First Council. Duchess Aleece claims that I am deceiving everyone, that I am hiding the invasion.”
Tandyr shrugged.
“Then they are not fools. What do the others say?”
“Two other duchies are leaning toward offering assistance as well,” replied Vanson. “The remaining three have remained neutral so far.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Raela said, “So the Marshlands will be defended by the armies of three duchies—perhaps more?”
Vanson shook his head, replying quickly, “Yes, but it will take time for them to move their forces into place, especially the Long Coast. Besides, we have mages. They don’t. They would need to have an absolutely overwhelming number of soldiers to stand against us. And they simply don’t have that.”
Tandyr said, “Now it is you who is making assumptions.”
The duke looked back up the stairs.
“What do you mean?”
The ijul stared at him, frowning.
“You are forgetting a very important force in all of this.”
Raela, guessing to whom Tandyr was referring, said, “The Progeny?”
Tandyr nodded, his frown deepening.
“You still believe they exist?” huffed Vanson.
“Fool,” muttered Raela. “When has Indrida ever been wrong?”
Vanson glared at her and snapped, “If we subscribe to the infallibility of her words, why are we even bothering with this undertaking?”
Raela shook her head, unable to answer him. She asked herself that same question at least once a day.
Tandyr raised his voice, saying clearly, “Indrida’s prophecies are not without flaw. I promise you that.”
Raela turned to stare at the saeljul curiously. He spoke with confidence.
“You know something, don’t you?”
The ijul lowered his voice to just above a whisper and said, “There is no need to debate the Progeny’s existence any longer. There are two of them. A boy and girl, not yet in their twentieth year.”
A quiet moment filled the hall.
Raela asked, “How can you be sure?”
Tandyr lifted his gaze from the floor to meet her stare.
“Cadrin has made some recent progress with the prisoner.”
Vanson took an angry step forward, demanding, “Why are we only finding out about this now? You should have told us this earlier!”
“Do you understand the meaning of the word ‘recent?’” asked Tandyr coldly. “I only received notice a few days ago. The Progeny exist. What we do not know—cannot know—is whether they are aware of this new alliance in the Marshlands and have any interest in aiding them.”
“And here I was thinking you were omnipotent,” murmured Vanson.
“And I thought you were competent,” replied the saeljul.
Not interested in any sort of squabble, Raela asked, “So what do we do now?”
Tandyr looked to her, his expression one of utmost determination.
“We retrieve Vanson’s lost Suštinata and continue as planned.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Raela asked, “And how do we find the lost Suštinata?” She glanced over at Vanson. “And, to be clear, I mean the one you lost. Not the others.”
The former duke of the Borderlands glared at her in perfect silence.
Tandyr asked, “Did you kill the baron who was robbed?”
Vanson shook his head, replying, “No. He’s alive.” A wicked smile spread over his face. “I’ve been enjoying his agony as he awaits his fate.”
Raela shook her head, disgusted.
With a faint smile and nod, Tandyr rose from the Sovereign’s Chair.
“Good. I have an idea, then.”
Drifting down the stairs of the dais, he passed Vanson and Raela.
“Retrieve him and meet me in the soldiers’ practice yard in one hour.”
Her brow drawn together, Raela asked, “Where are you going?”
Already a dozen steps down the red rug, Tandyr halted, turned to face them, and said, “To visit the mongrels.” With a slight smile, he spun around and resumed his walk toward the double doors.
Raela stared after him a moment before glancing at Vanson curiously.
The duke shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Don’t ask me…”
He walked off, leaving Raela staring at both Gods’ backs. Sighing, she shook her head and followed them to the doors.
Chapter 11: Prisoner
12th of the Turn of Luraana, 4999
A low, heavy thudding rumbled across the rolling prairie.
Rhohn immediately crouched low to the ground, dropping his head below the shafts of the tall, dry grass. He held perfectly still, peering through the thin stalks of grass swaying in the breeze, staring toward the dirt road, and listening to the distant reverberation. A worried grimace spread over his face as he realized the sound did not belong to horses.
“Blast it.”
A few days ago, he had spotted a patrol of oligurts on the prairie’s horizon, riding atop their ugly part-boar, part-wolf mounts. Luckily, he noticed them first, giving him plenty of time to hide in the grass. The rumbling he heard now could very well belong to those beasts.
Rhohn scowled, noting the way the prairie grass bent with the wind. The gentle breeze was surely carrying his weeks-without-a-wash scent toward the dirt road that rested almost a hundred paces away.
He cursed his error. He was growing lax.
Frowning, he studied his surroundings. Having left the steeper hills behind days ago, the slopes here were gradual and sweeping, a transitional area of land caught between foothills and plains. The hills might be smaller, but the terrain’s rise and fall still played tricks with sounds. Rhohn could not tell from where the rumbling was coming.
He turned his gaze back to the west, following the road’s winding path to where it wrapped behind a hill. Rhohn tried to recall the land’s layout on the other side of the rise, but could not. He had just marched over that knoll, yet all he could remember was the constant, never-ending, brown grass and a few, random bulboa trees.
Rhohn sighed. He could not think straight. He needed food and clean water.
As he scanned the land for any sort of movement, he noticed a small plume of smoke on the eastern horizon, a grayish-white line meandering upward to where it disappeared against a backdrop of gray clouds.
Rhohn’s eyes narrowed.
“Hold a moment.”
Tilting his head back, he stared at the overcast heavens just as another deep, drawn-out rumble rolled over the hills and plains.
He shut his eyes.
“You are a fool, Rhohn Lurus.”
Standing tall, he turned around and eyed the southwestern sky. Thunderclouds filled the horizon, bulky and clumped together to form a towering dark gray wall. A muted flash of distant lightning briefly lit up the clouds. Rhohn cocked his lone eyebrow, surprised.
Outside of the Winter turns, rain in the Borderlands was a rare eve
nt. He tried to recall what day it was, but after a few moments, he realized he had no idea even what turn it was. Perhaps it was Winter.
Shaking his head, he sighed, “I was hiding from a rain storm.”
At least his water problem would be solved for a time. Once the storm reached him, he could fill his scavenged waterskin with puddled rainwater before the rock-hard land softened and eventually absorbed every drop. Content that he would not die of thirst, Rhohn swiveled to stare back to the eastern horizon and the plume of smoke.
“Fools.”
If refugees had built the fire, they were not very bright. The smoke curl was visible for miles, the scent of charred wood perhaps even further downwind. If the fire belonged to a camp of Sudashians, Rhohn wanted nothing to do with it.
He turned to the southeast, intent on making his way around the fire, took several steps, and then stopped. The day was warm—every day was warm in the Borderlands—meaning the fire’s only purpose could be for cooking something. The thought of meat roasting over flame set off a grumbling in Rhohn’s stomach.
Food had been incredibly difficult to come by on his journey. The few abandoned, burned-out villages he had come across had been raided, picked clean by the invaders.
He stood there for a long moment, a slight frown on his face. If they were refugees, perhaps he could beg a bite or two from them. He knew he was mad for even considering approaching the fire, but, in the end, his hunger overruled caution and common sense.
Turning north, he hurried to the dirt road, crossed it, and scampered back into the cover of the dry grass, planning to circle the fire and approach from downwind. If they were Sudashians, he would surely smell their rankness on the air.
The wind picked up as he walked north, shifting from gentle, sweeping gusts into a steady, driving blow. By the time he reached the far side of where the plume had been he was no longer able to see the smoke. The strong wind wiped any trace of it from the sky. He could smell charred wood, though, along with the undeniable aroma of roasting meat.
Crouching low and securing his sword against his body to prevent it from rattling, he began to creep up a slight slope, his boots crunching on the dry ground with each careful step. Strong wind gusts pressed large swaths of the prairie down, sporadically exposing Rhohn’s bent form. The clouds were closer now, the flashes of lightning brighter, and the thunder louder. The day was as dim as if it were past dusk.
Believing himself near the fire, Rhohn dropped to the ground and wriggled along, bits of broken grass shafts slipping down his shirt and pants. He sent a short, silent plea to Lamoth, praying no poisonous ran-ras snakes were nearby. He had spotted two sunning themselves on a boulder yesterday, but hoped they were an aberration. The venom of a ran-ras was like fire in the veins, paralyzing a man within minutes and killing him within the hour.
A flash of lightning lit the prairie bright as the air boomed loud enough that Rhohn swore his bones rattled. Moments later, a quick, steady rain began to fall, quickly soaking him. Grateful for the additional cover the rain provided, he continued shimmying along the ground until he caught a voice drifting along with the wind.
“—tied up good. I don’t want nothing blowing—”
The wind shifted and the voice disappeared.
From tone alone, Rhohn judged the gruff and rough voice as belonging to an older man. A moment later, a second deep voice responded to the first. Unfortunately, the wind and thunder obscured the words. Remaining motionless and silent, Rhohn strained, listening while the rain turned the top layer of the dry and dusty Borderlands dirt into a filmy mud. After a time of hearing nothing but the clamor of the storm, he resumed his careful approach, sliding through grass and muck.
A shift in the wind parted the grass ahead of Rhohn for a moment, allowing him a quick glimpse into a camp. Four saddle-less horses were picketed to the ground, heads down, hindquarters into the wind. To the right of the horses, two dirty tents struggled to stand, flapping in the gale. A charred area in a stretch of flattened grass was all that was left of the fire. Rhohn frowned. He did not see any meat.
Looking back to the horse, his frown shifted into a wary grimace. Four mounts most likely meant four people, at least two of them men.
To the left of the horses, a small four-wheeled cart rested, its open, uncovered bed holding a few dirty cloth sacks in the back. Sticks rose from the four corners of the cart, topped with red and yellow pennants whipping in the wind. Rhohn’s eyes locked on the flags.
“Traders? Here?”
The wind’s direction changed again, and his view of the camp vanished as the grass stood tall. Rhohn lay in the mud, wondering why peddlers would still be here. Most of the Borderlands were abandoned. No one was left to buy anything.
He inched closer to the camp on his stomach, wanting to get a better look at whatever was in the exposed cart. Perhaps he could find something of value that he could sell if he ever found a village with people in it again. Peering through the driving rain, he studied the open wagon. Cloth sacks and bags of varying sizes littered the cart, their tops bunched together and tied off with a length of rope. As Rhohn reached up to wipe rainwater from his eyes, he stopped—hand frozen in midair—and stared.
One of the bags had moved.
Moving his hand over his brow to hold back the rain, Rhohn squinted, wondering if a wayward raindrop in his eye had fooled him into thinking that he had seen movement.
The tan cloth bag moved again. Rhohn’s eyes narrowed. He wondered exactly what these traders were peddling.
“What in the…?”
As he watched, the sack scooted to the back of the wagon’s edge, tumbled over, and fell, landing hard on the ground. Moments later, the flap of the tent closest to the cart opened. A short, slightly overweight man emerged and stepped into the rain. His skin was pale, unlike a Borderlander, as was the long, stringy dark hair hanging from under a wide-brimmed hat. His left hand pressed the hat tight on his head, holding it against the wind, while his right grasped a style of sword Rhohn had not seen since his days in Gobas. Its blade started skinny at the hilt, widening as it swept upwards in a curved line before ending in a hooked point. Without a doubt, these men were Marshlanders.
The man glared in the direction of the cart and began to stride toward where the large bag had fallen. Upon reaching the cart, he stopped and stared at the sack on the ground, his back to Rhohn. After a few moments, the man—still holding his hat on his head with his left hand—tossed his sword on the back of the cart, the muffled clang of metal striking wood loud enough to be heard over the blowing wind and rain.
With his now-free hand, the man bent over and struggled with the sack, finally hoisting it from the ground. When he released the muddy canvas, the large sack remained upright. Without a doubt, there was a person inside.
Rhohn’s hissed, “Blasted slavers.”
He had first heard the slaving rumors when he and Silas were in Midiah. Men were supposedly roaming the countryside, kidnapping refugees and stealing them away for sale. At the time, Rhohn had discounted the whisperings, believing the chaotic exodus east responsible for missing friends and family members. Apparently, he had been wrong.
He watched the man struggle with the person in the bag, trying to force them back onto the cart. The captive fought back, however, wiggling and thrashing, trying to pull away.
A white-hot flame of anger flared inside of Rhohn. He was on his feet, sword drawn, and ten quick paces away from his hiding spot before he realized what he was doing and stopped in his tracks. This was a bad idea.
He had no way of knowing for sure how many men were in the tents, nor how skilled they might be with a blade. Rhohn was sure that he could handle the single slaver, but three or four would quickly overwhelm him.
He stood in the driving rain, fifty paces from the man’s back. His gaze flicked to the two tents. For the moment, the flaps remained shut. Digging his boots into the new mud, Rhohn began to backpedal. Slavers or not, this was not his business. The m
essage he carried was infinitely more important than this one person’s fate.
He had nearly managed to make it back to the prairie’s cover when the slaver, frustrated with the captive’s struggling, reached back with his free hand and struck the sack hard. A woman’s sharp cry of pain pierced the storm’s roar.
Rhohn halted in place, glaring at the coward’s back. He clamped his jaw together, grinding his teeth and tried to swallow his anger. He could attempt to save this one woman, or—assuming Okollu was not mad—he could go and end a war.
The woman in the sack continued to struggle, undeterred by the blow.
The slaver bellowed, “Hold still!” reached back, and pummeled the woman a second time, doubling her over. Along with eliciting another shout of pain from the woman, the slaver’s blow destroyed Rhohn’s restraint.
The Dust Man strode toward the cart, squeezing the hilt of his sword with his left hand, ensuring he had a secure hold. Mud had made the leather handle slippery. Trying to clean the muck from the grip, he ran the two fingers of his right hand down the hilt and flung the collected mud to the ground.
As he neared, he heard the stocky slaver threaten the woman again.
“Blast it! Hold still or I’ll hit you again!”
Rhohn scowled. That would not happen.
The woman’s captor gave up trying to corral her with one hand, released the grip he had on his hat, and reached out to grab the sack with both arms. Moments after letting go of his hat, an ill-timed gust of wind ripped it free. The man reached up quickly, but the hat sailed away, straight toward Rhohn. The slaver whipped around to follow its flight, spotted Rhohn, and froze.
Twenty-five paces still separated them.
Rhohn began to sprint, bringing up his sword into a ready position. The slaver reached behind him, his right arm flailing wildly as he searched the cart bed for his sword. His eyes, as round as copper ducats, remained locked on Rhohn.
