"We have been told you travel south today," Trevanion said, "to collect produce and merchandise from Yutlind Sud."
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"If we get paid enough, we collect goods from the traders on the river's edge, but we don't take passengers. Could hardly convince my men to come along today. Foreigners don't survive the Yack."
"We need to travel to the rock villages close to the north-south border."
The captain sent them a look of disbelief. "You come all the way south to travel north? You'd be better off going over the mountains and through Belegonia."
"Ye gods, really?" Finnikin said sarcastically. "Why didn't anyone tell us?"
Trevanion silenced him with a frown. "Take our silver and let us board," he said to the captain.
The merchant looked beyond Trevanion to where the others of their party were sitting on the pier, waiting. "Want advice?"
"No!" Finnikin said, only to receive another glare from his father.
"Give it to you anyway," the man said, spitting out another pip. "Leave the young and the old behind. Especially the girl."
Neither Finnikin nor his father responded.
"Won't be responsible for what my men or the Yuts want from the girl. Money up front. We leave the moment my men are on board."
The captain walked away. Finnikin saw the hint of a smile on Trevanion's face as he looked toward the horizon. He had read stories from the books in royal courts about the port town of Sif, where brave men set off for the undiscovered world beyond their land. Some believed the mythical stories of fire-breathing dragons and oceans tipping into an abyss, which kept the fainthearted away.
"Have you ever wondered what lies beyond?" Finnikin asked his father.
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"A kinder world than this, I would hope," Trevanion murmured.
"I say the merchant is right," Finnikin said, looking toward the pier. "It'll be safer if we leave them here. Yutlind's a bloodbath and if anything happens to her ... to them ..."
Trevanion nodded as they walked toward the others. Evanjalin was instantly on her feet, picking up her bedroll and pointing to the provisions. "Make yourself useful, Froi," they heard her order.
"You can do the honors of telling her she's staying behind, Finn," Trevanion said under his breath.
Mercy. Finnikin cleared his throat, trying to avoid her eyes. "We will be back in ten days," he announced.
"Back?" Evanjalin asked, confused. She gave Froi another shove. "By the time we find the Guard, it will be safer and closer to cross over the Belegonian border. Why return here?"
"For you. For all of you."
The crew of the Myrinhall jostled past. By the looks of them, they had been out all night. They appeared disheveled and somewhat sinister, especially when they caught sight of Evanjalin. Sir Topher glanced at them uneasily.
"It is safer for all," Finnikin said firmly.
"You are leaving us behind?" Evanjalin asked in disbelief. "To return here would be a waste," she hissed. "If we travel to the rock villages, then we are halfway to Belegonia heading north."
"Why would I not know that, Evanjalin?" Finnikin asked, trying to curb his growing frustration at her inability to take orders. "It's too dangerous. They say the spirit warriors guard the Yack River and could be a threat to foreigners."
Froi sat himself back down, but Evanjalin pulled him to his feet. "We are not staying," she said. "Sir Topher, tell him we are not staying."
"We don't know enough about these people, Evanjalin," Sir
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Topher said. "The southerners may be Yuts, but they have different ways from the north and do not speak the same language. The south belongs to tribes of natives, and their king is in hiding. They are not going to take too kindly to foreigners in their land."
"This is the only way," Finnikin said. "It will be easier to hide if there are only two of us. It will be quicker. If we find Trevanion's men, they can travel farther north to Belegonia and we will return for you. On my oath, we will, Evanjalin."
Fury crossed Evanjalin's face. "You will be dead the moment one of the clans has you in its possession," she said, pointing at Finnikin. "You look like a foreigner. Like one from the north." She looked at Trevanion pleadingly. "No matter how superior you are as fighters, Captain, they will outnumber you and you will have nothing to bargain with."
"And with you, we will?" Finnikin said angrily. "Or do you suggest we sell Froi again? Personally I wouldn't mind in the slightest, except I know you'll drag me off to some godsforsaken place in order to steal him back."
"That's enough," Trevanion said.
Froi grunted. "Staying."
"It would be wrong to separate," she said, pushing past Finnikin with her bedroll. "Froi! I said to make yourself useful."
"You are not coming!" Finnikin grabbed her arm. "You stay here. Safe."
"That's enough, both of you," Trevanion said.
"Safe for who?" she shouted. "What happens when they capture you, Finnikin? Do we stay here waiting for eternity?"
"What makes you think we'll be caught?" he asked. "The only time that's ever happened to me, Evanjalin, is when you gave me up to the Sorelians."
There was silence, except for the sound of Evanjalin's breathing.
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"We are wasting time," Trevanion said, grabbing the provisions from a relieved Froi.
Evanjalin shook free of Finnikin. "What is it?" she asked him coldly. "Really? What bothers you? That I found a way of getting your father out of the mines while you left him there to rot for years?"
The sound of blood rushing in his ears was almost deafening, yet Finnikin heard the sharp intake of Trevanion's breath and saw Froi's look of spiteful glee.
"Enough!" Sir Topher shouted. His cheeks were flushed with anger. "Vow of silence," he ordered, pointing his finger at Evanjalin. "You do not speak until you are given permission. Can you see that being a problem, Evanjalin? Because if it is, I will be the first to leave you behind at the mouth of the Yack. We stay together," he added more calmly, looking at Finnikin. "There are risks both ways, but we need to stay together."
Evanjalin pushed past Froi and walked up the plank before anyone could say another word. Finnikin caught the looks on the faces of the crew on board. Predators, like the prisoners of Sorel. But he didn't care what they did to her. His ears still rang from the brutality of her words. Is that what Trevanion thought and was not able to say? That his son was a coward who left him languishing in the bowels of hell?
The captain of the Myrinhall watched them as they filed on board, shaking his head. "You sign your death sentence, my friends. Indeed you do."
Finnikin sat by himself for the first half of the journey. His only consolation was that Evanjalin spent most of her time with her head over the side, emptying the contents of her stomach into the sea. After so many hours, he wondered that there was anything left inside her. He watched as she staggered to her bedroll on the
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deck, but each time she attempted to sit down, she would begin to retch again and rush to the side. Froi joined her for much of the time, a sight that brought Finnikin even more satisfaction.
In all his travels, he had never been on the open seas and he found it both frightening and exhilarating. If it wasn't the swelling waves that suddenly dropped in height and jolted them forward, it was the storms that churned the seawater into a mass of boiling foam. L'essoupi, the sailors called this stretch of ocean. The swallower.
Later, Trevanion joined him, and they sat side by side with their backs against the hull. As usual with his father, there was silence, but this time it suited him. After the scene on the pier, there was nothing to say.
They spent that night lying under a sky crowded with light, as though every star were fighting to be seen. The sea was still, and Evanjalin had at last stopped throwing up. Although he had no desire to be in her presence, Finnikin found himself keeping watch over her, fearing that a crew member would venture too close.
"Get
some sleep," Trevanion murmured in the dark. "I'm watching them."
Sir Topher wiped Evanjalin's brow. She was weak from her sickness and almost sobbing from exhaustion, but he knew there was something else. He could sense her anxiety each time she raised her head to search for Finnikin.
"Your words were harsh," he said softly.
"He cannot complete this journey without me by his side."
"But still your words were harsh. No one gives anything for nothing. Not in this land. But that's what Finnikin decided we were called to do. To travel from exile camp to exile camp, kingdom to kingdom, and make sure our godsforsaken people were
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fed and taken care of. But Finnikin's thought every day was to secure the release of his father. I think it was a sorry day for him indeed when he realized that he was not just someone's son. That he had a responsibility to our people."
She closed her eyes. "Our people have never been godsforsaken," she corrected, "and he is the apprentice of the king's First Man. You. You insisted on furthering his education in the languages and politics of this land. Not just so he can feed the exiles, but because one day, as your apprentice, he may have to help lead them." She looked across to where Finnikin sat by his father's side. "He was born for greater things than belonging to the King's Guard, and his father knows it. Make sure, Sir Topher, that Finnikin accepts his role before we get to the main gate of Lumatere."
Trevanion watched Finnikin as he slept. Unlike the nights in the prison mine, he could see his sleeping son clearly under this illuminated sky and it was a luxury to stare so intently. Finnikin had his mother's face. Her coloring. "One kingdom, so many shades," Bartolina would say, holding her hand against Trevanion's. Then she was gone, and there were the numb days that followed Finnikin's birth. A motherless boy surviving in the world of men. Trevanion thought of his Guard and wondered how close they were. He had known most of them since he was Finnikin's age. When he handpicked them almost twenty years ago, he chose only those he could trust with the lives of every Lumateran. Especially his newborn son. At first his choices had been questioned, especially when it came to Perri the Savage. It was rumored that Perri had made his first kill by the time he was twelve. Poverty had bred malice. Bred the need to blame someone for the bleakness of their lives, and Perri the Savage suckled the sour milk of malice from his mother's breast. Younger than Trevanion by a year or
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two, he had seemed to resent the return of the river's favorite son and cared little for the cause of protecting their people. The river people had never lifted a hand to help Perri the Savage, and he owed them nothing in return.
"Join us," a twenty-year-old Trevanion had offered during a hostile encounter with Perri near the banks of his river swamp hut.
"Think I'm the one issuing orders here," Perri threatened, pressing the point of a sword to Trevanion's chest. There was a scar running from one ear to the other across his forehead. Eyes dark like Trevanion's, but skin milk-white.
"My wife is still warm in her grave," Trevanion said quietly. "Not even five days gone. If you try to stop me from getting home to my newborn son, I will kill you." And with that he walked away to where his men stood with August of the Flatlands.
"I will follow just to see where you live," Perri the Savage spat.
When they entered Trevanion's cottage farther up the river, a girl, the high-spirited daughter of a fishmonger, was caring for the baby.
"Have you taken leave of your senses, Trevanion?" she shouted, clutching the babe to her. "You bring Perri the Savage into your home when you have this precious boy to care for? His father is a drunkard! A rapist! A murderer!"
Trevanion took the child from her, holding the tiny form in his massive hands. He saw the bitterness in Perri's eyes, the defeat that came from not being able to escape his roots. Trevanion pointed to August of the Flatlands. "And his father is weak and deceitful and lazy, but I would trust him with my life."
She looked at August with disgust. "This? A fine army you will build, Trevanion."
"Go home, Abie. Before it is dark. It is not safe for you to be traveling alone," Trevanion said wearily.
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"Perhaps I could escort her," August suggested.
"You?" she scoffed. "You fit under my arm, little man." And with that, she kissed the baby and slammed out the door.
"Pity the one who ends up in her marriage bed," August muttered.
But Trevanion was staring at Perri. "You," he said. "If anything happens to me, protect my boy."
"Trevanion," August protested, "I will protect Finnikin. He will always have a place in my home."
"No," Trevanion said firmly. "You make sure my son gets whatever privilege allows the king's boy, Augie. The son of Bartolina of the Rock deserves nothing less. But you," he said, pointing to Perri, "you make sure he is protected."
"You have the wrong man," Perri snapped.
"No," Trevanion said, walking to the window to peer outside. "In you, I have the best marksman in this kingdom, and if you think that it was by chance I walked through your swamp today, think again. We rid this kingdom of those who try to invade through our waters and we rid Lumatere of a weak, corrupt Guard."
"What has the king promised you, Trevanion?" August asked.
"The highest honor for a warrior in this kingdom. And today I choose my Guard." He returned the baby to his basket. "Open the door."
Outside stood a group of young men. Not just from the River, but from the Rock and the Mountains and a few from the Flatlands. The room seemed full with their presence, and they spoke through the night, their voices hushed but strong with conviction.
"Where's Trevanion?" one of them asked later as the early light of morning began to seep under the door.
August of the Flatlands looked around. "Probably at the grave. He'd sleep there if not for the child."
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One of the lads walked toward the baby's basket and pulled aside the blanket, only to find himself pinned to the wall with a dagger to his neck. He stared into the obsidian eyes of Perri the Savage, who snarled close to his ear, "Touch him again and you lose a hand."
At daybreak, they reached the mouth of the Yack River. Yutlind was a land of four rivers, lush and fertile, with woodland in the north and jungle in the south. The land mass of the north and south was the size of Lumatere and Osteria together, but they had lost more people in internal wars than the rest of the land combined. The ancient stories told that the god of Yutlind had created his people by mixing his blood with the earth of the jungle and the woods. The war over which soil was superior had been fought for thousands of years until a warlord built his palace in the north, his reign recognized by the leaders of Skuldenore who had grown tired of centuries of unrest. It was a reign the south refused to acknowledge.
There was a stillness surrounding them, a deliberate calm. The crew was edgy, apprehensive. The captain of the Myrinhall put a finger to his lips, signaling silence. Finnikin peered over the hull, but the jungle lining the serpentine river seemed mysterious, as if there were secrets hidden behind the dense foliage. It seemed impossible that human life could exist in such a place, and Finnikin was anxious for them to arrive at the dock farther down the river. There, the Myrinhall would offload her passengers and load the merchandise. Trevanion's plan was to find a guide among the traders to take them through the grasslands and into the rock villages.
Finnikin watched the captain. He used sign language with his crew, which must have seen them through similar dangerous experiences. It comforted Finnikin to know that these men
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had sailed this river before. He watched as the captain chuckled quietly at what one of his men had signaled, and for the first time since they had entered the Yack, Finnikin relaxed.
The first arrow struck the captain between the eyes.
He was dead by the time he hit the ground at Finnikin's feet, the shock stamped on his face for eternity. Then an onslaught of arrows flew overhead
as Trevanion dived on top of Finnikin.
"Don't let them take the Myrinhall!" one of the crewmen shouted, and Finnikin felt the boat lurch as the oarsmen began their work. Trevanion was already on his feet as Finnikin grabbed his longbow. He heard the whistling of arrows flying past and ducked again and again before standing to take aim toward the west bank. He fired ten missiles into the thick of the jungle and then dropped to the deck. As the arrows continued to fly, he crawled to where Evanjalin was huddled on the other side of the boat, her face still sickly in the morning light. He dragged her behind the crates, securing her next to Froi in a cocoon of merchandise boxes and barrels of ale.
"Stay!" he managed to gasp. He crawled back to where Trevanion and Sir Topher were crouched against the hull, ready for the next onslaught. Trevanion stood, lobbing a round of arrows in the direction of the Yuts before diving back down again.
"The crew is turning the boat around," he said, trying to regain his breath. "You stay with them, Sir Topher. Try to make your way back to the port at Sif. Finnikin and I will swim to the bank and then travel north by foot to find my men."
Sir Topher nodded. From all corners of the Myrinhall they could hear moans from the injured, while the oarsmen grunted and arrows whistled overhead. The Yut natives hidden beyond the bank maintained a disciplined silence, and it was moments before Trevanion could mark them.
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"Up above! In the trees!" one of the crew holding on to the mast yelled out.
Trevanion loosed another volley of arrows, then pushed Sir Topher and Finnikin farther along the side of the cog, away from the next onslaught, which hit their previous hiding spot with deadly accuracy.
"We go overboard on the other side, Finnikin," Trevanion yelled above the noise. "When it turns, we stay hidden by the Myrinhall until it reaches the mouth of the river again and then we make our way to land. Do you hear me?"
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