“Very well. Tell us.”
“We arrived at the Gray Fortress a month ago. We were able to infiltrate the fortress itself and open the gates, allowing my sisters and myself to enter the bailey. Through some ill luck, we were discovered before making it to the keep and we engaged in battle before the gates.
“Three of our sisters were lost in the conflict, but considering that we were battling a force many times our size, those losses seemed reasonable.
“When we tried to cross to the keep itself, we found that the Gray Man had set traps using rohw. Many sisters were lost from those. With no other alternative, we charged through the trapped area to the keep, losing even more to the traps and to the arrows that were being fired at us from the keep walls.
“Once inside, we lost more sisters to projectile fire from arrow slits scattered around the hallways. We finally made it to the Great Hall, wherein the Gray Man sat, but perhaps half our number had been killed or wounded such that they could not continue.
“In the Great Hall, there was another surprise. The Gray Man’s elite troops were held there in reserve, outnumbering the remaining sisters two or three to one. Even exhausted from battle and running, however, the Sapsyra are worth more than two or three of his fresh elite troops.
“We battled, losing more sisters because of their fatigue and because of the sheer numbers of the enemy, but it appeared that we would be victorious. There were few of the troops left, and I believe that the Gray Man had none in reserve. I thought then that we would succeed, though we had paid a heavy price.
“Then the Gray Man entered the fight.” Nalia clenched her teeth and spat the words. “He waded through the remaining sisters as a child running through a wheat field with a stick, cutting down the plants with each swing. Each time he touched one, or even got close to one, I could see a pulse of rohw from his hand, and the sister would drop dead at his feet, heart burst.”
“Such a thing is possible?” Regi asked, caught up in the tale. She immediately felt her face grow warm.
Before Nalia could answer, Rindu spoke, “Yes. A controlled pulse of rohw can cause such damage.” He hung his head sadly, as if feeling sorrow that the energy would be used thus.
“He continued to do these things as I and my mother battled with the remaining soldiers. We did not see his actions until it was too late. When only the three of us were still standing, my mother and I charged the fiend at the same time, both intent on ending his life.”
Nalia paused to take another drink of water, cleared her throat, and continued. “He waved his hand and somehow locked us both into stillness, as if we were stone. We could not speak, could not move. I was able to shift my gaze, but not move my head.
“He spoke about choosing and some sort of mission. It made no sense. When he released our tongues so we could speak, he asked us who would live and who would die. My mother bravely demanded that she die and I live. But he did not listen. He inspected each of us carefully, decided I stood a better chance of making it back to Marybador because the extent of her injuries were greater than mine, and…”
She cleared her throat and Regi saw her liquid eyes move to her father. Searching, imploring. “And then he waved his hand toward her, as if he was pushing away an insect or a foul smell. He waved his hand, and I saw the glow of his rohw projected out into my mother’s belly. The glow pulsed, it shimmered, and then—”
Nalia gasped and let out another little sob. She looked down at her hands, gripping the blanket tightly, took a deep breath, and looked to her father again, tears freely flowing from her eyes. “Then, she simply disappeared. It was as if she had never existed. No part of her, clothing, weapon, or any other, remained. She was just gone, as if she had shaken apart.”
Rindu pulled her into him and hugged her, letting her regain her composure. She silently cried into his chest for a few minutes. The room remained silent and as Regi looked around, she saw that the Rusha had tears in her eyes also. Regi was surprised to notice that her face was wet too, that the entire room had a liquid, dream-like look through the filter of her tears. She didn’t remember starting to cry.
When Nalia regained control, she pushed herself away from her father. “The Gray Man,” she said his name like a curse, “told me that my job as the only surviving Sapsyr was to deliver a message to the compound, to the Rusha.” She looked toward Dreya Kloos.
“His words are that we are to disperse the remaining Sapsyra, to leave Marybador. We are not to defy him in any way. If we follow his directives, he will not hunt us down and destroy us completely. If we defy him, he will do to Marybador what he did to Kokitura, and he will make sure no Sapsyr is left living.”
“You must understand,” Nalia said to her father, “that he made it clear that I was honor-bound to deliver the message. He said that if I refused, he would consider it defiance and he would not only destroy me immediately, but he would then carry out his threats against the Sapsyra. I would gladly have accepted my own death, but could not dishonor myself or the order by causing the death of all others. Please, father, you must understand.”
Rindu pulled her head gently towards him and kissed her forehead. “You did the correct thing, Iba, the honorable thing. Though he is a vile creature, he was correct about you being honor-bound. You did correctly and well. There is no blame upon you.”
Nalia sighed in relief and slumped in the bed as if a great weight had been removed from her.
The four in the room were silent for a moment.
“I have now fulfilled my obligation, satisfied my honor. As soon as I am healed, I will return and complete our mission. I will kill the Gray Man for the atrocities he has committed.” Her voice was more firm than it had been in the entire telling of her tale.
“No, Iba,” Rindu said softly. “It is not the way.”
Nalia’s eyes flashed. “The way? It is not the way? Is the way for my mother to disappear before me, for my sisters to die in my sight? Is the way for me to be a coward, leaving the fortress alive when none of my sisters did so? Is that the way, father?”
Rindu’s sad eyes looked downward. Before he could speak, Regi did.
“Nalia,” she said gently, “if you go and attack the Gray Man, it’ll be a waste of your life.”
Nalia glared at her.
“It’s true. You are the best of us. You always have been. But, the Gray Man’s power is too much. How can you fight someone who can kill you by waving his hands? If you go, you’ll sacrifice yourself for nothing but pride and anger. It’ll do no good and you’ll deprive us of a sister that could aid us in rebuilding the Sapsyra. Besides, he will see it as defiance and carry out his threats.”
“Regi?” Nalia sounded forlorn. “You, Regi? I thought you would agree with me. Now that we have warning, the rest can hide. He must be destroyed.”
“I’m sorry Nalia, but even I know when I am powerless against superior force. Please, think about this. Don’t make me lose you, too. I couldn’t bear it.”
Nalia’s anger deflated and she looked more tired than Regi had ever seen.
“I will think on it,” she said.
Regi and the Rusha left the room. Rindu stayed for a few minutes while Nalia ate the food they had brought her. When Rindu came out of her room, his tired eyes found Regi’s.
“She is sleeping. Her wounds will heal and so too, I am hoping, will her mind and heart. Eventually.”
Chapter 22
Most of Nalia’s smaller wounds from the battle in the Gray Fortress had almost fully healed on her way back to Marybador. The deep slash on her leg was only half-healed, though, because she had re-opened the wound several times on her way back home. She knew enough about herb-lore and the care of injuries to have prevented any of the wounds from becoming more serious or getting infected.
In a few days, with a great deal of sleep and four meals a day, she was moving about, albeit with a slight limp. She would still occasionally stop and tilt her head as if she was staring at something not there, but then sh
e resumed whatever it was that she had been doing. With her mask firmly back in place on her head, Regi couldn’t see her eyes so she could only guess how her friend was doing, what she was feeling.
She had admitted, upon waking the first time, that she realized her ramblings about going back to attack the Gray Man were inappropriate. She knew any attempt to defy him would mean the death of all the sisters. She thanked Regi for standing up to her.
Nalia, Regi, and Rindu were sitting at their small dining table and eating a meal when Regi spoke up.
“Nalia,” she said, “was it difficult to come all the way back to Marybador alone? There are some dangerous lands in between the Gray Fortress and here.”
Nalia nodded in the middle of bringing a spoon of stew to her mask. She had developed the trick, no doubt with Rindu’s training, of using her rohw to vibrate the front of her mask so she could put the food through it. That made it possible for her to eat with others without taking off her mask or cutting a hole in it for her mouth. Regi had thought it the most amazing thing when she first saw it as a child. She tried to learn how to do it, even wearing a mask herself for a while, but could never manage it.
“I did encounter some trouble, yes.”
“Will you tell us about it?” Regi asked.
“I will,” Nalia answered, putting her spoon back into her bowl. “It will help me to ease my mind over the entire ordeal, I think.”
She sat straight in her chair, swinging her head to shift her gaze between Rindu and Regi, and told them.
She had been only one day from leaving the Gray Fortress when trouble started. There were a few of the Gray Man’s forces that were still alive as she passed through the keep and out through the bailey and the gates and down the path’s switchbacks. None of them bothered her. There was a small army of servants that had begun the grisly task of moving the bodies and building pyres to burn them before the vermin appeared in force.
As she passed through, she found no Sapsyr still alive. The soldiers who were not involved in the battle and so survived had apparently gone through and ended the lives of those who were incapacitated but not dead. It was a kindness, Nalia thought, that they would not linger in pain until they died.
Her hatred burned in her like a great fire, threatening to consume her. She almost turned back several times before she reached the bottom of the switchbacks that led to the rise on which the fortress was situated, almost abandoned her mission as a messenger and turned back to attack the Gray Man anew. She did not, however. She continued on.
She was hardly away from the end of the corridor through the forest when the riati found her.
She had seen them from a distance as she and her sisters were traveling to the Gray Fortress, but they did not bother the large force. She had heard of these creatures, human-shaped, but smaller than the average person, and completely hairless. Their skin was a dull gray, much like the whole of the Dead Zone. They were supposedly left over from the Great War, but whether because they were part of it or they were a result of it, Nalia did not know.
From the accounts she had heard, the riati were cowardly and would not attack if they could not completely overpower their enemy. They ate anything, alive or dead, but would keep their distance and wait their prey out rather than risk being killed themselves.
Apparently, they saw the way Nalia was limping, leaning her weight on a section of branch she had shaped with her shrapezi to be a makeshift crutch. The group of ten seemed to believe that she would not present too great a challenge.
They attacked her in force, all of them running at great speed on all fours like some type of animal. They were upon her before she knew it.
The first of the riati launched itself at her. She bent her good leg to duck and swung her crutch up to solidly strike the side of the creature’s head. It rebounded and crashed to the ground, spinning into a tangle of arms and legs until it finally stopped sliding. Then it shook its ugly head, looked at her, and started charging again.
In the meantime, Nalia took advantage in the slight delay to draw her shrapezi. As another riati came at her, mouth wide and crooked, rotting teeth glinting in the daylight, she planted her good knee on the ground and pivoted on it, spinning to gain momentum. At the last second, she threw the shrapezi out and lopped the foul creature’s arm off at the shoulder, spraying her and the other riati nearby with its blood.
She regained her feet just as two more dove at her. She twisted her body, wincing from the pain it caused her leg, and managed to slip in between them. While she did so, she used the spiked ends of her weapons to open the creatures’ bellies as they flew past. Their keening moans, while satisfying, were as disgusting as the creatures themselves were and hurt her ears.
The other riati had slowed their charges and were circling her now, wary of the sharp weapons she held in her hands. One or another would lean in with a false charge, feinting, only to continue circling. She knew well enough not to respond to the movements.
Instead, the next time she saw one of the creatures move to feint, she spun the sword in her left hand and threw it out, spike end first, toward the ring of adversaries. While it was still in mid-air, she swung the sword in her right hand, catching the hook of the floating sword with the hook of the one she held. Turning her body in a circle, much to the disagreement of her injured leg, she spun the now double-length weapon, causing shallow slices in several of the surrounding riati. Their howls of frustration filled the empty landscape.
Looking at the two of their comrades dying on the ground with their entrails lying exposed, they decided that this meal was not worth the price they would pay. Instead, they all, as if of one mind, turned and attacked the dying creatures, tearing and eating, all while keeping a sharp eye on Nalia to make sure she would not attack them.
She wished she was not so bone weary that she could have destroyed the creatures where they stood. Instead, she picked up her crutch and continued on her way.
Needing food and herbs that could not be found in the Dead Zone, she stopped at Patchel’s Folly to resupply. She felt fortunate that she had retained her belt pouch, which had contained a few rations, some iron ingots that were the currency in most civilized areas of Gythe, and a smooth stone that was sort of a talisman for luck, one her mother had found and given her when she was a child. She was glad, too, that she had the presence of mind to take a water skin from one of the bodies as she left the Gray Fortress.
After getting her supplies in Patchel’s Folly, she continued on her way, heading through the area called the Grinder. It was so named because the many twisting canyons and cliff formations turned travelers around, got them lost, ground them down and, if they were fortunate, spit them out again. Those not so fortunate were never seen again.
Using a trick her father had taught her when she was young, she was able to divine the direction in which she needed to go by using the rohw and the ley lines—lines of power—that criss-crossed the land. She had almost made it through to the other side when the bandits found her.
There were only six of them, but they were uninjured and they carried weapons. The moved as if they knew how to use them.
“Oh, what have we here,” one of them said, an ugly brute of a man with greasy black hair and scars on his face from adolescent skin conditions. “A pretty young thing, all alone, just strolling in the Grinder.”
The other men eyed her hungrily, laughing their rough laughs.
She drew her shrapezi and prepared to defend herself. She knew in her condition, she may not survive the combat, but many of them would not do so, either.
“Now, now,” their leader said, drawing his own blade—an inferior bronze sword that was nicked and pitted—and standing in a ready stance. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
He looked to the others, who had also readied their weapons. “Tell ya what,” he said, “just give us a little peak under the mask. We haven’t seen a pretty young lady in so long, all we want is just a glimpse.”
She kn
ew that it was a ploy to allow them to attack her unprepared. She tried another approach. “I am Nalia Wroun, sister of the Sapsyra. Know that if you attack me, you will not survive. I have battled the Gray Man and lived. Think carefully before you act. I am in no mood for your foolishness.”
One of the other men, his scraggly blond hair obscuring his face so that Nalia could only see the crooked tip of his previously broken nose poking out in between, put his head close to the leader.
“Taun,” he whispered, but loudly enough that Nalia could hear, “I heard of the Faceless Sapsyr. She’s supposed to be so ugly she has to hide her face. She and one other of the warrior bitches took out twenty-three men one time. My cousin was there. He’s still got the scars, and he was one of the lucky ones what could escape.”
The leader’s eyes widened. Then, he looked at Nalia and they narrowed. “Show us your face,” he commanded.
“It will be the last thing you ever see,” she threatened, trying her hardest to sound sincere. She reached up and pulled the mask off her head in one fluid motion.
The men gasped and looked away. The leader kept his gaze on her, his left eye twitching with the effort to keep from averting his eyes.
He dropped his eyes and then looked around at his men. They had all lowered their weapons and their feet had shifted, pointing out toward the side, no longer fully facing her.
“Fine,” he said disgustedly. “Leave. You’re not our type of lady anyway.” He chuckled, but it was forced. “Remember this if we’re ever on the edge of your swords again.”
They continued on their way. When they were gone, she slumped tiredly, leaning on her crutch. She hurried to complete the journey through the Grinder and out toward Medit.
From there, she hugged the base of the Greenclaw Mountains, stopping at Medit to resupply and crossing through Wolf’s Run. Fortunately, she saw none of the rakkeben that lived in Wolf’s Run, though she could not have said if they saw her or not.
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