They moved at that, scrambling towards the trunk they’d been using for weapon storage.
“Fernie,” Ko-Jin said. “I need you to guard the king. Keep your backs to the wall. If I fall, you two run. Do you understand?”
The lad looked pale, his blue eyes as wide and unblinking as a bird. But, at length, he showed he understood.
“Princess,” Ko-Jin continued. He pulled the window open a crack. “I need you up front, bow and arrow. I’ll go out to meet them, you guard my back.” He met her gaze and was reassured to find her expression serious and focused. “Aim to kill.”
“You cannot think to go out there. You do not know how many there are, what sort of weapons they have. It’s madness,” she said.
He belted his scabbard around his waist. “No time for discussion.”
He marched back out into the yard, unsheathing his sword. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the forms of his opponents for an instant—six of them.
“You might as well show yourselves,” he shouted into the gloom. “I know you’re there.”
To his surprise, they came forward. They appeared cautious, but were not, by their postures, braced for a fight—merely hunched under cloaks in an effort to remain dry. Ko-Jin wiped wetness from his eyes, not sure what to make of this development.
“Ko-Jin,” a male voice called over the drumming of the rain. The figure threw back his hood. “It’s me.”
Ko-Jin squinted. Another flicker of lightning revealed, for a quick second, a familiar face—boyish still, beneath curly light-brown hair. “Roldon?”
His friend nodded. Other hoods were pulled back, revealing Chisanta of varying ages. Two of the women had unfashionably short hair. Chiona, clearly. Ko-Jin paused at a second familiar Cosanta, the old, mustached face of Dedrre Alvez. Yarrow would be pleased to see him, no doubt.
Ko-Jin remained tense. “Are you with Quade, then?”
A shake of the head. “Haven’t you seen the papers? He’s named us defectors. There are prices on our heads. The six of us just sort of found each other, but everyone else is dispersed. I’ve been looking for you, you and Yarrow.”
“Where is Yarrow?” Dedrre asked, shouting over the rain.
“Away,” Ko-Jin said. “How did you find us?” He hated the distrust he heard in his own voice. Thunder rumbled off in the distance. The rain lessened, reducing from deluge to moderate downpour, as they all stood frozen.
Roldon stepped forward and an arrow hit the ground just by his boot. He stepped back and held up his hands. “Her,” he answered, pointing to the woman at his left. “She finds people.” The woman in question—an Adourran in her thirties to look at her, a Chiona by her hair—inclined her head slightly.
Ko-Jin sucked in his lips. “Why did you look for me?”
Roldon tipped his head to the side, puzzled. “Why? Because if the Chisanta are at war, it’s you we need, brother.” He looked hurt. “Of course I looked for you.”
Ko-Jin let his suspicion go along with a held breath. He closed the distance between them and pulled his friend into an embrace, thumping him on the back. “It’s good to see you, brother.”
He turned back to the window, where Chae-Na was silhouetted against the firelight. “Stand down. They’re friends.”
14
Yarrow stood within the expansive remains of a city—far larger than he could have ever envisioned. Crumbling clay edifices, half engulfed in sand, extended in the distance as far as he could see. The wind whistled through the debris, the only sound aside from his own footfalls.
It was eerie, this place bathed in sunlight, a massive city, yet utterly empty. He could not help but imagine how it had once been—an oasis, teeming with life. It was a fancy, but he could almost feel the ghost of the city. The marketplaces crammed with people, merchants calling out their wares, a barefooted child laughing as he weaved in and out of crowds, dancing between the long legs of camels. Yarrow imagined that he himself could have been one of those boys, and in his mind’s eye he was. He was running, the sun blazing down on a city whole and buzzing with life, a loaf of bread tucked under his arm. “Stop, thief!”
Yarrow shook himself and rubbed his eyes against the brightness of the day. He scanned his surroundings, but found himself entirely alone, the city about him a ruin once again. That was odd.
Yarrow surveyed the rubble and his eyes settled upon the towering pyramid at the center of what had once been the great city of Nerra, a structure that dwarfed all that surrounded it, like a man-made mountain. The size of it was boggling. He could not fathom how man could make such a thing now, let alone thousands of years ago.
He teleported to the base of the pyramid and found himself in its vast shadow. He craned his neck to glimpse the peak. From such a height, surely he could see for leagues and leagues in every direction. If there was a monument to the south, he would see it, unless it were buried.
It would make the most sense for him to use his gift, to reach the top of the pyramid in an instant, but something compelled him otherwise. He wanted to climb, to reach the apex through his own sweat and perseverance. It seemed a feat worth his time, though he could not say why.
He rolled up the sleeves of his linen shirt and took a swig of water, then began to climb. The clay bricks formed a stair where they had not crumbled, so he took a circuitous route, finding the places where the pyramid was most undamaged. Sweat ran down his back, slick strands of hair adhered to his neck, but the higher he climbed the more resolved he grew to continue.
He glanced over his shoulder, at the steadily shrinking ruin beneath him. In his mind, for a moment, the city flashed before his eyes, intact and full of people. The texture of the clay bricks beneath his hands, the smell of the dust that clung to his clothes, had a distinct impression of familiarity, as if he had done this very thing many times before.
The higher he ascended, the greater grew his sense of expectation. At the top, he was certain something wonderful awaited.
It took many hours, but at long last Yarrow reached the summit. His heart hammered in his chest as he extended to his full height and gazed out at the wide world. The wind pulled at his hair and the sun broiled his scalp. Below, the relic of the city spread in a perfect circle, surrounded by a fragmented wall. Beyond, the desert stretched in rippling waves of gleaming sand. It was a magnificent sight, the sort of moment a spirit would never forget, yet Yarrow felt suddenly terribly disappointed. Solitary.
He focused on Bray’s emotions in his mind. She should be here.
Despite this sense of loss, his eyes locked with ease upon a fleck in the distance. He was too far to see more than a shadow in the sand, but he knew with inexplicable certainty that what he sought lay there. After one last, melancholic scan of the place that had once been Nerra, he closed his eyes and mentally focused upon that point in the distance. His innards clenched with nervous anticipation.
He opened his eyes. Before him towered a ring of rough rocks twice as tall as himself, each coming to an asymmetrical point. He moved closer and saw that they were covered in symbols. Studying the markings, he discovered them familiar. They were like those on the archway at the Chisanta Temple, an ancient text for which there was no key. Perhaps Peer could read it…
He stepped past the stone, entering the center of the ring. His skin seemed to sing with each step, his hairs stood on end.
At the center, there sat an ancient stone stairway which, unaccountably, led nowhere. It went up and then stopped. Yarrow wondered if there had once been a tower here and only the stair remained, but rejected the notion as soon as it occurred to him. Though he could not say where the knowledge came from, he knew that the stair itself was what mattered.
With great expectation, he set his boot upon the first step. His breath came in short bursts, his pulse ticking in his ears. He stepped again. And then again. He mounted each individual stair as if it were momentous. When he finally climbed to the second to last step he paused, feeling that perhaps he should not go on.
Perhaps it was better not to know.
The air weighed heavily upon him, the act of remaining on his feet a tremendous effort. This place was strange, special. It held answers to a thousand questions. He knew it as he knew that goodness was to be strived for, that life had purpose, that he loved Bray—a truth too fundamental, too obvious to be questioned.
He arrived at the top step, the final step. Below him was nothing but empty space, then sand. Logic told him that if he proceeded he would fall, but some deeper knowledge whispered that this was not the case.
His heart pounded a crescendo against his ribcage. He raised his foot to step backwards, to flee, then placed his boot back upon the final stair. Chin up, feet flat.
He strode forward, into the nothingness, and reality rippled around him. The desert wavered before his vision, then changed, transformed. He sank to his knees.
The sun shone overhead, but it was not the same sun. The grass beneath his hands felt dry. Around him, sheer shelves of rock rose in massive rings. A single tree interrupted a symmetric circle of grass, but it was not the right tree, not the one he expected. It was burnt, charred, dead. The sight of it made his chest ache and his throat burn.
He lurched to his feet and stumbled towards it. As he drew closer, he saw that from within the blackened corpse of the trunk sprouted a new tree—a small, young thing. The pale color of its bark, the bright green of its precious few leaves stood in stark contrast to the scorched husk that encased it.
Though he could not say why, the sight of that bit of life sprouting from within the casing of death made wetness prick at the corner of his eyes.
“Not gone, after all,” he said, though the words did not pass through his mind, and he did not understand them.
The Aeght a Seve was not quite the same, but that it was the Place of Five could not be denied. And he was there in body, not spirit alone.
It felt different, yet the same. As if he’d only ever experienced a shadow of the place, and now it had form and gravity.
He heard motion and he jumped. In the Aeght a Seve, he was always alone. There were not even gnats to pester him, nothing living beyond the vegetation. But this time he had company.
The shape of a man appeared from the other side of the tree—or had it emerged from the tree itself?
“Yarrow Lamhart,” it said, with the flash of a white smile against a dark face, with familiar golden eyes twinkling as if with a private joke. “It is good to see you, my friend.”
Yarrow’s eyes bulged. “Adearre?”
Arlow lingered in that warm, magical place between sleep and consciousness. He listened to Mae speaking softly to Poppy, her accent thicker when she believed he couldn’t hear. The texture of her voice, the clopping of mule hooves, soothed enough to lull him back towards oblivion.
The sound of an approaching horse at last roused him, however. His eyes flew open and he sat up straighter in the gig. They were still on the South Road, and if the thinning on the forest was any indication, they were not far from their destination.
“Oh good,” Mae said, thrusting the reins into his hands. “You’re up.”
Arlow rolled his shoulders and experienced a pang of guilt when he noticed how high in the sky the sun had risen. She should have woken him so she could sleep herself.
Mae knelt on the bench and turned around to the horseman who approached from behind. She waved. “Oy, Rodgeman!”
The man rode up beside them, then slowed to match Poppy’s pace. “Mae, my dear. How lovely to see you.”
He was a handsome man, perhaps in his early forties. He had a tightly trimmed red beard and dark, friendly eyes. His deep baritone voice tugged at Arlow’s memory.
“You are looking well,” he said.
Mae snorted. “No I ain’t,” she said, running a hand through her short hair. “But thanks.”
Arlow squinted at the man for a moment, then realization struck. He had met this man once before—when he’d been robbed as a boy. This was the very thief, the man who had glared at him with such loathing and called him ‘nobleson.’ The invective had rung in his mind for ages afterwards. That first trip from home had been most illuminating. It was the first time he had interacted with those outside his own social sphere, the first time he’d been made aware that he and his kind were so despised.
For a moment Arlow scrambled mentally, unsure what to say, until he realized there was little chance the man would recognize him. He had been a mere boy at their last encounter, after all.
He inclined his head. “Arlow Bowlerham, at your service.”
The man tipped his hat. “Foy Rodgeman.” Then he gave Mae a tight-lipped smile. “It has been quite a while, I think, since we last spoke. An age.”
It seemed an innocuous enough thing to say, but the statement was uttered as if it meant a great deal. Mae’s cheeks turned pink and a peculiar tension seemed to crackle between them. Arlow frowned, remembering suddenly something Mae had said in Dalyson: that she’d had an offer of marriage and had not yet answered it. He flashed a black look up at Foy Rodgeman, instantly disliking the man.
“Where’re the rest of the boys at?” Mae asked, craning her neck to scan the empty road behind them.
“A few hours behind, I’m afraid. I rode ahead to meet you. I feared you might be disinclined to wait, and I did not want you going ahead on your own.”
“I ain’t on my own,” Mae said, turning her frowning face away from the man.
Arlow gave one definitive nod—she was not alone. She was with him, blight it.
“So I see,” Foy said, and ice crept into his voice. “Tell me, Mr. Bowlerham, how did you come to know the location of our missing street runners?”
Arlow opened his mouth to reply, but Mae spoke first. “He’s been spying for Linton, getting information from Quade Asher.”
Foy, looking somehow regal perched straight-backed atop his towering chestnut steed, snapped a gaze on Arlow, who unconsciously adjusted his own posture. “He must be an accomplished liar, then. Careful, Mae, snakes have a tendency to bite.”
“I only bite if a lady asks nicely,” Arlow said, smiling at the man, though the mirth did not touch his eyes.
Mae snorted an indelicate laugh but Foy’s expression only hardened further. “What a gentleman,” he said sarcastically.
“I am, perhaps, not as refined as certain criminals, but I extend what courtesies I can.”
Mae grabbed the reins back from Arlow and clicked her tongue, urging Poppy Seed Muffin to hasten. The mule flicked her tail indifferently and continued at the same plodding pace, undaunted. “If you two are gonna hiss at each other like stray cats, do it someplace else.”
Arlow crossed his arms before his chest. “I cannot imagine what you mean.”
“Yes, Mae, we were merely bantering. No need for such melodramatics,” Foy said, friendliness returning to his expression.
She laughed and darted looks between the two of them. “Spirits help me, you’re bound to be the best of mates, what with your fancy talking and that smug eyebrow thing.” She used her index finger to push one of her sandy brows up quizzically. Arlow felt his own brow reciprocate before he could help himself. A similar look crossed Foy’s face. Arlow did not know whether to feel pleased that Mae was so familiar with his expressions, or irked that she was equally acquainted with another’s.
She pointed at a sign indicating the distance to Andle, the nearest major city. “Turn-off should be just up here.”
Arlow trained his eyes on the tree line until the dirt road veering west appeared. Mae directed Poppy onto the unnamed path, the wheels of the gig only just clearing between the tree trunks. Foy followed behind.
They remained quiet, listening for the sounds of habitation. For a long while Arlow discerned only the rumbling of the carriage on the uneven pathway, Foy’s horse snorting with impatience at their pace, and the creaking of tree branches in the wind. Until, at last, the murmur of human voices became discernible—a tremendous number of voices.
/> Mae guided Poppy off of the path and into the forest to conceal the gig from view. Foy tied off his own mount and they made their way forward on foot. Arlow held his breath as they neared the end of the trees, unsure what he would find beyond.
His eyes flew wide. The archeological dig was positively massive. They appeared to be unearthing an entire city; the warm hue of clay stretched as far as Arlow could see to the east. He’d never seen an excavation before. He found it a peculiar sight, a strange mix of order and chaos. There were hundreds of people: adults with clipboards hurrying from one place to another, individuals hunched over the earth with brushes or chisels, people pushing wheel barrows and stretchers full of dirt. But it was the children and teens who snared his attention.
Mae gasped beside him, and Arlow felt his own chest tighten. The young people were filthy, clothed in matching outfits of rough burlap, but most alarmingly, they were chained—fettered by their right ankles in groups of ten or so, clearly to impede their ability to escape.
This is no work project. His jaw tightened. This is slavery.
Arlow watched with a mounting sense of outrage, his gaze lingering on a teenaged boy as he attempted to persuade the much younger girl chained to his right to continue digging. The girl had fallen to her knees. She wept, and the tears parted the filth on her face as she stared down at her palms. Arlow was too far away too see properly, but he suspected her hands were blistered. The teen shook her, shooting worried looks over his shoulder at the adults, but she only wailed louder.
A middle-aged woman, holding—great Spirits, is that a whip?—stepped forward. She crouched to have a brief conversation with the girl. Then the entire group climbed out of their trench. The woman pulled the burlap dress over the girls head, leaving the young one utterly naked save for the layers of grime. She was long-limbed but unthinkably thin. She trembled on her knees.
The woman raised the whip, and before Arlow had made a conscious decision to intervene, he found himself bursting from his hiding place and sprinting into the dig site. He had not acted fast enough to prevent the first lash; the sharp sound of it, and the shrill cry of pain that followed, snaked into his abdomen and sped his step.
Elevation of the Marked (The Marked Series Book 2) Page 19
