“Exactly. But what if something has gone completely wrong? How long are we supposed to wait? They could need our help!” she insisted.
“Or if things have gone truly badly,” he refuted, “we might need to stay hidden so that we are not found by enemies. My job is to keep you safe.”
“Your job is to keep the civilians safe. I’m not a civilian. I’m on the military council,” she countered flatly.
Harbane groaned. “Don’t do this to me, Sirra. Commander Bruche will kill me personally if something happens to you.”
“I’m going, Harbane. I’ll take the crawler. Clary can come with me, and that way one of us can come back and let you know what is going on no matter what.” Harbane swore but finally relented. Within a few short minutes, Andie was driving the crawler down the rocky trail, Clary seated by her side.
The crawler was an all-terrain vehicle that they used for hauling crops and equipment, but it was very slow. The big lumbering wagon crept toward the settlement at a pace that was maddening, and Andie tapped her fingernails impatiently on the open dash. If only she had her skiff. She could zip right from the fort to the bay in a matter of minutes. Not to mention that she could have easily provided any protection that the colony needed from the air.
She might as well wish for the younger moon in her lap.
By her side Clary was murmuring prayers to Veshti under her breath. Clary was one of the newer members of the Faroi colony. She and her young husband had arrived only a few months ago, still a newly married couple. No doubt she was just as anxious about the fate of her fieldworker-turned-soldier husband as Andie was about Laeren.
When they had nearly reached the settlement, Andie stopped the crawler and beckoned to Clary. The two women left the road and crept toward the compound while hidden in the trees. When they reached the outlying houses they stopped to listen. In the distance Andie could hear men calling to each other. There was no sound of anything that sounded like fighting. But then why had they not sent a messenger?
“I don’t know, Clary,” whispered Andie. “I don’t hear anything dangerous, but are those our men we hear? Do we dare walk into the open?”
“I’ll go and find out, Sirra,” volunteered Clary.
“No, you can’t do that!” Andie protested in a low voice. “It’s too dangerous.”
“But less dangerous for me. If it is the people from the ship, I may look like a harmless local girl to them. You’re a Citizen—you can’t be seen by strangers at all.”
The two girls were still debating who should go in heated whispers when Lyal ran into view and headed for one of the houses. That was enough for Andie. She sprang out of the bushes and headed straight after him. Clary stumbled after her.
She had just reached the house when Lyal burst back out the front door, his arms full of cloth.
“Sirra!” he exclaimed in shock, nearly dropping his cloth.
“Lyal, what’s going on?” she demanded.
“No time right now,” he said sharply. “Come with me.” Andie exchanged one startled glance with Clary and charged after Lyal, who was practically running for the main building. Inside, she followed him straight to the small suite of rooms that served as their infirmary.
At the threshold she stopped short, her eyes wide with horror. On a low cot in the middle of the room, surrounded by grimy men, lay a figure wrapped in scarlet stained bandages. Lyal was tearing the cloth into strips as soon as he entered the room and handing them to their doctor, who stood anxiously near the door. The surrounding men moved aside as the doctor came to the side of the injured man and started to wrap the new improvised bandages around the patient.
At the glimpse of the man’s chalky face Andie ran across the room and shoved her way through the others.
“Laeren,” she gasped, dropping to her knees next to him. His eyes were closed and his breath was coming in shallow gasps. Glancing down she could see that the blood was still seeping through the bandages.
“What happened to him?” she cried.
“He was stabbed in the chest with a poisoned knife,” explained Lyal, as he pressed more clean cloth against the wound.
“His blood is not clotting,” the doctor muttered. “In Roma I could have fixed this, but here, I just don’t have the right medicine.”
“Laeren?” she called softly. “Can you hear me?”
His eyes flickered briefly but she got no response.
“This happened yesterday? Why didn’t you come get me sooner?” she hurled at Lyal angrily.
“It didn’t happen until just an hour ago, Sirra,” Lyal explained, his eyes on the doctor hurrying out to the next room. Andie vaguely registered the anguished groans that came from the open doorway. Obviously more than one person was injured.
“What, the ship came yesterday and then didn’t bother to attack you until this morning?” she said incredulously.
“No,” Lyal replied coolly, as he continued to apply pressure to Laeren’s chest.
One of the men surrounding the table finally spoke up.
“They seemed to be friendly. Commander Bruche knew one of them. They said they had come to join us.”
“And he believed them without question,” finished Andie dully. Of course Laeren would believe it if his own friend said so. He would jump at the chance to increase the numbers of the Resistance.
“He still had a few reservations, Sirra,” said Lyal softly. “That’s why we didn’t send anyone to the fort. He wanted to make sure we could trust them completely before he put any of the families at risk.”
Two tears slipped silently from Andie’s eyes and dropped onto Laeren’s neck. Whatever Laeren’s faults, he had still wanted to protect them.
“What went wrong then?” she asked hoarsely.
“Well, we put up the crew in some of the houses for the night. Then we posted a guard. In the morning, one of the men—his name was Strant—asked to speak to Laeren privately, saying he had some information about Captain Frond that he couldn’t share openly.”
“We should never have fallen for that,” growled one of the other men. Lyal paused for a moment and Andie instinctively knew that he had probably tried to prevent Laeren from meeting with this Strant. But Laeren had not listened to him.
“Well, during that conversation, Strant and another man managed to take Laeren hostage. They demanded to be put aboard the ship with him, some others of their crew, and enough supplies to make it back to the mainland. If we didn’t comply, they threatened to kill him.” Lyal’s voice trailed off and he took a deep breath. “But we couldn’t let them leave, no matter what,” he continued, his voice shaky. “It would have put the whole colony at risk.” Andie choked back a sob. So Laeren had been sacrificed for the good of the colony.
“When we attacked them, the filthy cur stabbed Laeren right away. We didn’t even have a chance,” snarled one of the group. “Then some six other men jumped in on his side—we killed four of them and our Irv was hurt badly,” he added with a nod in the direction of the other room. Andie barely heard him. Her eyes were focused on Laeren’s, willing them to open. The doctor rushed back into the room and ordered everyone away from Laeren’s side so he could attempt to cleanse Laeren’s wound. Andie stood back unsteadily, her head spinning.
“Laeren ordered me to attack them before they gagged him, Sirra,” added Lyal softly at her side. Andie nodded her head mutely. Of course Laeren would have risked himself. But why, oh why, did that cruel man have to single out Laeren in the first place? She watched numbly as the doctor worked frantically over Laeren’s body for an endless period. Time ceased to have any meaning. People came and left, even Lyal moved to the next room, and still Andie stood helplessly, watching Laeren’s life bleed out of his body. When the doctor turned his hopeless eyes to hers, she already knew the truth.
Laeren was going to die. They wouldn’t be able to save him.
She sat with him until the end. Once he opened his eyes and seemed to recognize her. His lips formed words that she couldn’t hear, but the effort seemed to exhaust him. His eyelids fluttered shut again, leaving only his choked and ragged breathing for her to mark time with. When the room began to darken with the approaching dusk, his breathing slowed and then stopped altogether. Andie kissed her husband one last time and wept into his cheek.
Laeren had gone. Once again, she was on her own on this strange and frightening planet.
♦
With the death of Laeren, the whole colony went into a state of shock. Lyal took charge of the camp and kept a sharp watch out for any more invading ships. Captain Frond was appalled by the consequences of his attempt to join Faroi; the man truly was still loyal to the Resistance, and he had carefully screened his crew for dedicated recruits before finally setting sail for where he suspected Laeren was living. The two enemy seamen who had survived the fight were interrogated, and they learned that Strant had been bent on finding Laeren from the beginning, in hopes of winning the large reward the King had offered for his death or capture. During the voyage, he had quietly enlisted a few of the others to his cause by promising lavish amounts of money. Once it was clear from them that Strant had been acting on his own, the men were executed. As for the other members of Captain Frond’s crew, all of them took an oath of loyalty to the Resistance. After that, they were welcomed into the colony with open arms. The additional hands immediately set to work building new homes and extra planters. Lyal refitted the ship and sent it with a crew back to Morek-Li with the news of Laeren’s death and the current state of affairs in Faroi. Since no word had ever gotten to the King of the island base, it appeared the secret of Faroi was still safe. Most of the colonists returned to their normal lives without worrying over another attack.
However, Andie grew very bitter and solitary. She rarely left their small house, and the only respite she had from her grief was when she took care of Tiran. Even still, Tiran sensed the change in her mother because she grew fussy and difficult to console. Lyal repeatedly pleaded with “dear Sirra” to join the committee meetings, but Andie always made an excuse. She didn’t want anything to do with the stupid movement that had cost the life of her husband.
Sometimes she felt guilty knowing that Laeren had given his life for a cause that he had believed in deeply. He would want her to carry on and continue in the Resistance. But the bitterness would surge back as she searched for someone to blame.
Every time Andie thought she had herself together, she would see some sign of Laeren in their home and find herself staring at it for long periods of time. Once she lay on her bed and stared at his tool vest for hours, slung over a chair as if he had just arrived home. Tiran’s hungry cries finally startled her out of her reverie.
Two months later, Andie was still only going through the motions of living. One afternoon she put Tiran in her cot and stretched out on her bed. Her eyes happened upon the heavy Bruche family ring on the end table. Laeren had been wearing it the day he died, and Lyal had returned it to her before Laeren’s funeral. She had left it there and forgotten all about it, but now as she looked at it, she got furious at Laeren. How dare he go and die on her! How dare he leave her alone on this hostile planet with a young child to care for! The tears started to slide down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them. All the emotions she had been holding back for the last two months were surfacing.
Suddenly, a knock sounded at her door. Andie frantically dashed the tears from her eyes before stumbling to answer it. Who could it possibly be? Nobody came to see her in the middle of the afternoon except Maya on occasion, but she knew that Maya was gone fishing for the day. What a time to have a visitor! Though she struggled to pull herself together, it just wasn’t happening. Her grief was winning the battle this time.
Eventually, Andie gave up and wrenched the door open, notwithstanding her torrent of tears. Astonished, she gaped at Randa standing before her.
“I’ve come to help,” Randa said simply.
16. Roma Assignment
The sky slowly started to lighten over eastern ocean as dawn approached. Andie watched it with trepidation. She knew that with the sunlight came the added danger from the ships that were conducting the overhead surveys of the islands. Their settlement was as yet uncharted, and more than anything, Andie hoped that with all the small islands nearby they would be missed. With the technology that became cheaply available when trade opened with the Union, the King had decided that now it was time to plan out the colonization of the other continents of the planet. Of course, he also hoped to find the Resistance military bases in the process.
Only one other boat had ever landed on the coast of Faroi in the last several years, this one blown off course during a storm. The colonists had stayed hidden on high alert while the crew made the repairs to their ship, and they had cast off again without ever realizing anyone lived on the island. Laeren had chosen the site for the base well.
During the last three years, the Resistance had grown very strong, and just recently the interstellar trade had opened up. Economically, life on Corizen had begun to change overnight. By having to compete with the Union companies who flooded the planet, even the local industries had adapted after the first shock, producing more items and for better prices. For awhile, Andie had thought the economic boom would ease the tensions between the general population and the King, but it wasn’t happening. The Royal and Noble castes (as well as some of Randa’s fellow Gallant castes) had tightened down on laws that promoted their superiority with an iron fist. The King tried levying new taxes which the middle castes had flatly refused to pay. People openly read Morek-Li’s latest treatise on government change, discussing it spiritedly in pubs and cafes all over the world. Last year, Morek-Li had called for the King to agree to limits on his power, abolish the caste system, and equalize the tax requirements, or, he warned, the people would forcibly remove him from office. The King had arrogantly refused, showing his disdain by a massacre that decimated a whole district of Roma. People then flocked to the Resistance in droves, demanding that the King be deposed. Just recently, the Resistance had opened a military campaign against the Crown, already with some success. It had been three years of tremendous change.
Three lonely years without Laeren.
Thank goodness Andie had had Randa’s company during that time. She had come to stay at Faroi for good at last; it had gotten too dangerous for her to infiltrate upper caste households. Randa had stayed by Andie’s side, working through her own grief by helping her daughter-in-law cope and caring for her granddaughter. Andie found healing in talking it all over with Randa, since it was her loss as well. Finally, Andie had been able feel alive again, and she began again to help with the Resistance and focus on being a dedicated mother to Tiran. Randa was a devoted grandmother, too, and that had been wonderful. As Tiran grew, all the little things she did delighted both of the women. Tiran was getting to be a big girl now and acting very independent. Andie sighed softly. Sometimes she missed her “baby”—it was both joyful and a little sad to watch her grow up.
The sun finally cleared the horizon and dazzling sunlight flooded the sky, reflecting brightly off the water. Andie stayed at her post for another two hours, constantly on the lookout for both ocean-going ships as well as the airborne survey ships. Shortly before she was due to be relieved by another spotter, she stood and scanned the sky from her lookout one last time. She could see no sign of any ships. She knew others would be doing the same from various hidden spots around the base. They had managed to get a hold of some very old tracking equipment, but they didn’t quite trust it and always continued to use spotters as well. Normally, she never acted as a spotter, but Andie had volunteered to take a shift this morning. It was one last chance to spend some time outside alone on this lovely island and recall some of her more beautiful moments here. When her replacement arrived, she reluctantly left her
place among the rocks to descend back to the base. It was time to pack up the travel party. She was going with a team on an assignment to Roma for the very first time. Although she was a senior committee member for Faroi, it wasn’t until recently that it became safe for her as a Citizen to venture out into public. Morek-Li had summoned her to Roma to be the Resistance’s contact with the Armada. Randa was coming with her, and they were bringing Tiran. It made Andie terribly homesick to leave Faroi, where she had spent the whole of her brief marriage, and she couldn’t be sure when she would be able to return—if ever.
When she made her way back down to the house, Randa was just pulling a shawl around her shoulders before leaving for her last briefing in the conference room.
“Tiran is still asleep,” Randa informed her as she slung her travel bag on her shoulder. “You should get her up and ready though. Takeoff is in two hours. I’ll see you at the launch pad.” Andie nodded and watched as her mother-in-law hurried out the door. Randa never seemed to be bothered by anything. She was leaving Faroi just as easily as she had moved from everything else she had ever left behind. Andie envied that a little.
It didn’t take long to have Tiran up and ready. Tiran was so excited for the trip that she ran around their small house in circles. Ever since the Resistance had acquired some long-range transports and the launch pad had been built in Faroi, Tiran had watched the periodic takeoffs with delight. It didn’t bother her at all that she was leaving her home; after all, she was going to fly in one of those transports at last!
The two of them made their way to the launch pad on foot, Andie carrying both the small bags of belongings that she would take with them. Most of the small collection of furnishings and personal items she had gathered over the last five years would stay here in Faroi, passing on to a new family. Randa assured Andie that she would be able to pick up anything she needed in Roma. Though most of Laeren’s and Randa’s property had been confiscated by the king all those years ago, Laeren had prudently transferred some of his money to the keeping of a trusted partner in Roma. Since Laeren had died, those funds were now by right Andie’s, and she would have something to live on. It would be strange to go back to living in a society where money was used. She had gotten so used to the communal system they had used in Faroi.
The Legend of Sirra Bruche (Roran Curse Book 1) Page 22