Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  “Brisson is busy right now.” The man gave the paper a small shake, causing it to flutter in the air between them.

  “That’s perfectly alright. I understand the many tasks associated with leading a people. I’ll just wait for him over there.” Gavin gestured at a low bench he’d noticed sitting along one wall. “Could you let him know I’m here, please?”

  The man spluttered and licked his lips, clearly out of sorts at Gavin’s reaction. Gavin, for his part, fought to keep his flaring temper in check. He wanted nothing more than to simply ignore the man and start opening doors on his own until he found Brisson. Instead Gavin forced himself to walk calmly to the bench and take a seat, pointedly adjusting the greatsword at his belt so it didn’t scrape the wood. He leaned forward and, after putting his elbows on his knees, cupped his chin on top of his balled fists. The man stared at Gavin for a long moment, mouth working, before realizing that he still held the paper in the air before him and slapped it down onto the desk with more force than was necessary.

  “Now see here—” the man began, but Gavin cut him off.

  “Thank you for your hospitality. Please let me know what Brisson says once you tell him I’m here. Please pass on my regards and my desire to meet at his earliest availability.”

  The man stared at Gavin indignantly for a long moment. Gavin almost felt sorry for him, but immediately dismissed the thought. The man reminded Gavin of every Warlord who had ever dismissed his grandmother and the other outcasts simply for being who they were. Gavin recognized what was going on here. This was vain posturing, a power struggle at its most basic level. Thankfully, Gavin had experience—both his own and vicariously through his grandmother’s example—in dealing with situations such as these.

  “You never did tell me your name,” Gavin said to the man, as if coming into a sudden realization. “When I speak with Brisson, I want to let him know just how kind you were to me.”

  The man’s head spun back around to stare at Gavin, face a sour mess of anger and resentment, as if he had been forced to swallow a bitter plant or unripe fruit.

  “Shaw,” the man snapped. “My name is Shaw.” Without another word, the man spun around and opened the nearest door, disappearing into the room beyond. For a brief moment, voices could be heard, though the door snapped shut within moments and Gavin wasn’t able to hear more than a few broken, disjointed words which held little real meaning on their own. Despite that, he found himself grinning.

  A minute passed before Gavin began drumming his fingers on the hilt of his sword. He recognized the stalling tactics and fought to keep down his own irritation, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of the ploy actually working as intended. Instead, he turned his focus back over his plan. There were obstacles he needed to overcome, but he was confident he could get it done in a way that would benefit his people. His grandmother had taught him how to focus on specific tasks and the last few weeks had let him hone the skills his grandmother had only been able to show him by example. Painful experience was a much more effective teacher, Gavin had found.

  A shadow darkened the room and drew Gavin’s attention toward the door. A small boy stood in the doorway, his silhouette outlined by the sunlight behind him. The boy squinted through a bush of dirty brown hair that fell down over his forehead and into his eyes. His clothes were dirty, but thick and well fitting, made from a gray material that Gavin didn’t recognize. The boy’s feet were bare. He clutched a paper in one grubby fist at his side, clearly one of the messenger boys.

  The boy stared around the room, mouth forming into a frown when he didn’t see anyone at the table. He took a step further into the room, then noticed Gavin sitting on the bench.

  The boy’s eyes went wide. “You’re one of the Rahuli,” he said in a high, sharp voice. The hand holding the paper trembled slightly, making the paper flutter as if it were a leaf caught in a breeze.

  Gavin smiled and nodded. “I am. Who are you?”

  “My name’s Benji. The other boys won’t never believe me when I tell ‘em about this.”

  “About what?” Gavin asked, realizing that what he’d initially taken as nervousness could actually be excitement.

  “About meeting you, of course! I mean, they say you people are—” The boy made an inarticulate sound and gestured expansively, the paper in his hand flapping against his wrist. “I mean you showed up out of nowhere, like we never seen before. They say you lived with monsters for over a thousand years.” The boy’s voice dropped and he looked around nervously before continuing in a whisper. “They say your ancestors killed one of the Sisters and that you never tasted real food before.”

  Gavin blinked, slightly taken aback. “We’re just people. Same as you.”

  Benji snorted. “My mother says you can call down lighting and death, like the Great Ones. She says you’re the hope we’ve been waiting for, a chance to do more than simply hide like sheep in the mountains.”

  “All that?”

  The boy nodded vigorously.

  “Just that? Nothing about the aevians, or the genesauri monsters that would fly up out of the sand and try and kill us while we walked the sands of the Sharani Desert?” Gavin asked, keeping his voice light, yet hushed as if he were telling a secret.

  “You mean them snake things some of the Rahuli children draw in the dirt?” Benji’s brow furrowed above thin eyebrows. Now that the boy was closer, Gavin noticed a half dozen small, thin scars running up and down the length of his arms and a few on his forehead. Where had a child gotten such scars?

  Gavin nodded slowly. “Those monsters are the things of which nightmares are made.”

  “Did you ever kill one?” Benji’s voice was so earnest, Gavin couldn’t help but smile, though the subject wasn’t really one that warranted any levity.

  “That is not a polite question to ask,” Gavin said sternly, though it was struggle to contain his smile at the boy’s look of chagrin.

  “Sorry.”

  Gavin waved a hand dismissively, which drew Benji’s eyes to the greatsword at his waist. Benji’s eyes—if anything—got wider.

  “You’re him,” Benji whispered. The paper slipped out of Benji’s suddenly slack fingers and drifted to the floor.

  “Him who?”

  “The leader of the Rahuli,” Benji said after licking his lips. “My mom overheard some of the other womenfolk saying you’d killed an entire Honor Squad by yourself. They say you’re a Great One in disguise, like the one who was stoned today, but on our side, like Master Nikanor.”

  Gavin felt himself flush and shook his head. “I’m just a person. Nothing special really.”

  Benji rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something else when the back door opened and Shaw walked back into the room. The older man glanced from Gavin to Benji and then darted to the piece of paper lying on the floor. His eyes narrowed.

  “What is your name, boy?” Shaw said in a voice as cold as the air outside.

  The excitement that colored Benji’s cheek a pale pink blanched to ashen grey in mere moments. He bent over and snatched the paper from the ground with scrabbling, shaky fingers.

  “I, um . . .” Benji said, trailing off lamely as he shuffled forward and held out the folded piece of paper to Shaw.

  “It was me,” Gavin interrupted, drawing both Shaw and Benji’s attention. “I startled the boy and he dropped the paper on his way in.”

  Shaw frowned and looked from the door to where the paper had been lying on the ground a few feet in front of Gavin. There couldn’t have been a more indirect route to the desk if the boy had been trying. Gavin put on his best, confident smile and met Shaw’s eye. Benji squirmed and shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably, hand still upraised with the paper extended toward Shaw. At length, Shaw snatched the paper from Benji’s hand, making the boy jump, and then waved a hand dismissively at him.

  “You are excused from duties for the rest of the day.”

  Benji’s face twisted in a mixture of competing emo
tions, shifting from surprise, to joy, to sudden, sharp regret, before finally settling back on surprise.

  “Sir?”

  “Be off with you!” Shaw’s voice cracked like a hissing whip.

  Benji took one last look at Gavin, eyes filled with regret, then turned and scurried out the door. Shaw watched the boy leave with open disapproval, then turned and leveled his disapproving eyes on Gavin.

  “Brisson is unavailable to speak with you today,” Shaw said in a voice that made his prior coldness seem warm. “Come back for tomorrow’s duty assignments and perhaps he’ll have time to discuss matters with you then.”

  “I don’t mind waiting,” Gavin said, keeping his smile pasted across his face, even though irritation swelled within him. “I’ll talk to him when he leaves for the day.”

  “He’s no longer here,” Shaw snapped. “He left through the rear entrance to attend to other duties for the day. He will not be returning until tomorrow.”

  Gavin got to his feet in a rush, his irritation finally getting the better of him.

  “My people will not perform any duties, assigned or otherwise, until Brisson makes the time to speak to me. We are not his to command, nor will I be treated with such blatant disrespect.” Gavin felt his irritation building within himself, crawling like ants along his skin. “I will be back tomorrow and as many days as are necessary until this matter is resolved.”

  “You forget yourself,” Shaw said. “You live here on our charity. Do not forget that.”

  Gavin felt the sparks of energy welling up within him a moment before they appeared in his hands. Part of him knew that wasn’t the right move, that such a blatant show of power, strength, and brute intimidation was wrong, but that part of him was quelled by the temper that swelled up around it.

  “No,” Gavin said softly, “I think it is you who forget who I am.”

  Without waiting for a response, Gavin turned and walked out of the room.

  * * *

  Benji found him when Gavin was only a few streets away from the administration building. He came scurrying out of the alley just as Gavin managed to get his anger and irritation under control and start to regret his rash, hot-blooded reaction.

  “I knew you had magic,” Benji said with a mixture of triumph and accusation in his voice. He raised a hand and pointed a finger at Gavin. “I heard you fight with Master Shaw. I never heard no one speak to him like that since we got here from the Plantation.” Gavin raised a hand to still the torrent of words coming from the young boy’s lips, but Benji either didn’t see it or chose to ignore it. “He’s been here longer than most anyone else. He and Master Nikanor started this way back before I was even born, so they say. That was back before Brisson.”

  Benji paused to take a breath and Gavin seized the moment to speak.

  “Don’t you have somewhere else you should be?” Gavin said in his best gruff voice. “Like playing with your little friends or telling them about the big, bad Rahuli you met today?”

  Benji shrugged and Gavin pulled to a stop, ignoring the putrid smells that wafted by in the air and the din of distant metal clashing against itself.

  “Master Shaw gave me the day off. My friends all got to do their work for today, so I got nothing to do,” Benji said, then a grin split his young face and his eyes shone with a mischievous, dark gleam. “Maybe you can show me some more magic, yes?”

  Gavin ran a hand through his beard and scratched his chin, blowing out a long, low sigh of exasperation. First he’d made a mess of his initial impression with Brisson and now he had a new, talkative shadow that wouldn’t go away. He supposed he deserved it, after encouraging the boy earlier.

  “Fine,” Gavin said at a few brief moments of thought. “I’ll show you something you can tell your friends later, but you have to do something for me first.”

  The boy grimaced, but eventually shrugged, curiosity proving a far more persuasive emotion than irritation. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to go and find two other Rahuli, an older man named Cobb and a man about Shaw’s age named Evrouin. They should be in the Rahuli huts near the mouth of the valley. If not, look in the dining hall. Tell them Gavin will meet them in the new eyrie when the sun reaches its zenith in the sky.”

  Benji’s face showed his confusion in almost comical honesty. Gavin tried hard not to smile, his dark mood lightening despite himself.

  “What?” Gavin asked.

  “What’s an air-ee?” Benji asked, his nose wrinkling.

  “Eyrie,” Gavin corrected, gently. “It’s where the aevians live. I’ll show it to you when you bring Cobb and Evrouin to meet me there, alright?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Repeat the message back to me.”

  Benji did, managing to get most of it right. Gavin repeated the message to him a few more times until Benji had the whole thing memorized word for word. The boy looked irritated at the constant repetition, but his eyes twinkled. He’d certainly have interesting stories to tell his friends when they met next.

  “Off with you then,” Gavin said when he was satisfied Benji had it in its entirety.

  Benji nodded and took off at a quick jog in the direction of the Rahuli section of the valley. Gavin gave a small sigh of relief tinged with lingering exasperation. It would take the boy at least an hour to find them both and get them to the eyrie. Now, Gavin simply had to decide what he was going to tell them when they got there.

  Chapter 11: Dampness and Cold

  “Understanding of how the Progressions work has evolved over the centuries. In truth, a part of this belief was stolen from the peoples who inhabited this land prior to the arrival of the Empire.”

  —From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 19, Year 1175

  The cave the aevians had claimed as their new home lay inside a large cavern at the far end of the valley where the cavern nestled up against a string of monolithic mountain peaks. It took nearly an hour to walk there from the section of the valley where most of the buildings lay. In all actuality it wasn’t much of a cave. It was more of a crevasse of sorts that just happened to be enclosed. The sounds of soft chirping and the click of talons on rock wafted from the cavern’s mouth as Gavin approached.

  Formed from a slight overhang, the cave was actually just a shallow valley between two mountain peaks that had been covered over in a landslide sometime in the distant past. Over time, the rock and earth had worn away at the front, but remained above, forming a narrow, enclosed space that stretched back into the mountains for several hundred paces. Gavin picked his way carefully through the upward-sloping and rock-strewn path, setting each foot purposefully so as not to slip in the loose snow.

  “Gavin?” a soft voice asked.

  Gavin looked up to see Farah standing in the mouth of the cave a dozen or so paces above him. He smiled and her perfect, angular face brightened as she returned the smile. Despite the foreshortened perspective, Farah looked small and deceptively petite, even childlike depending on how her hair was done. Her white blonde hair was pulled back in a tail at the moment, tucked into the back of her cloak, and her cheeks were rosy and flushed from the cold.

  “How are you this morning?” he asked, climbing up the rest of the distance to join her.

  Aevians cried soft greetings to him from within the dark expanse of the cave.

  “Well enough despite the cold. I can’t stand being wet, but being wet and cold is three times as horrible.” Farah scrunched up her face indignantly and stamped her booted feet, which made a squishing noise that left little doubt as to her meaning.

  Gavin personally agreed with her. His own feet were sodden lumps of ice, but he grinned at the woman. “Better than being eaten by a genesauri, at least.”

  Farah snorted and rolled her eyes in his general direction, though her relaxed posture belied the expression. “I thought you were supposed to be meeting with Brisson.”

  It was Gavin’s turn to snort. He blew out a long breath, which puffed to mist before his
eyes. The first time he’d seen that happen, it had terrified him. Now, it was simply one more thing that had become commonplace.

  “That went about as well as spitting into a sandstorm,” Gavin said shortly. He briefly told her what had happened, ending with his sending off Benji to get Cobb and Evrouin.

  “What do they need here?” Farah asked.

  Gavin shook his head. “Sorry, I forgot to mention that part. I have a plan to start patrols with the aevians and on foot. Brisson’s people aren’t warriors. We are.”

  Farah frowned. “Were you going to ask me first, or is this supposed to be you asking?”

  “Ask you what?”

  “If you could use the aevians.”

  Gavin frowned. Why was she being so defensive? “I’m talking to you now. We only have three things in our favor—the aevians, the mystics, and our ability to fight. I’m going to need all three of them to maintain our independence.”

  “And you thought Evrouin was the best choice for the task,” Farah asked, voice hard, eyes flashing dangerously. “Of all the people you could have picked.”

  “I thought you’d want to oversee the eyrie itself. If you’d rather be part of the patrols, that won’t be a problem.”

  “Of course I’ll be the Matron of the eyrie,” Farah snapped, voice rising in volume.

  Gavin felt the energy building around Farah and pulled at it himself, dispelling it.

  Farah narrowed her eyes at him and continued. “But I will not let Evrouin ride one of my aevians. He can be part of the foot patrols.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Gavin said, eyeing the walls of the cavern, which still carried the lingering echo of Farah’s last words. “I didn’t realize you still had such deep feelings against him. We can all discuss it together, when they come. I’d just have Cobb do it, but I don’t think he’s very comfortable with the creatures.”

  Farah made a disgusted face. “He’s about as skilled on the back of an aevian as Evrouin is with tact.”

  “I’ll ask Cobb to do it, but if he’s not willing Evrouin is all I have left. He’s got the support within the people that I’ll need. There’s no way around it. The Orinai armies are still out there somewhere. When they find us, who would you rather have defending you? These here, or someone you know can actually fight? If you’ve got someone else in mind, though, I’ll welcome any suggestions with open arms.”