“You still can’t win. This is a futile fight, Mandah, doomed to failure.”
“Then why don’t you leave us?”
“I keep asking myself the same question.”
“I’ll tell you the answer, Captain. It’s because you know, deep down, that what you are doing is right,” she said with total confidence. “It might be foolish and futile, but it’s right. Today will prove that.”
They resumed walking, and Tarja wondered if it was that simple. He had a bad feeling his motives were just as ignoble as R’shiel’s. By fighting Joyhinia, he was making a stand. He was more than a deserter and an oath breaker; he was a champion of injustice. It would be a bitter irony if his efforts to ease his own conscience ended up costing even more lives.
By the time they reached the small stone wall that enclosed the packed-earth yard, the sky had lost its bloody tinge, and gray light bathed the old farmhouse. Tarja insisted they leave the outside as untouched as possible. Training was held amid the vines, where it was out of sight of the casual observer. The farmhouse itself looked as if nobody had been inside it for years. As much as was practicable, all business was conducted underground, in the vastly extended cellars. That was another advantage of using the old vineyard as headquarters. The cellars here were extensive, despite the relative meanness of the house.
As they drew nearer, a figure appeared in the doorway. It was the sailor from the Fardohnyan boat who had joined them, seemingly on the spur of the moment, nearly a year ago. He gave no reason for his decision. He simply offered his help. Mandah, being Mandah, accepted it gratefully. She had a bad habit of thinking everything was a sign from the gods, and Brak’s offer of help was no exception. Tarja didn’t trust him, although he could think of no reason why. He had never done anything to make Tarja doubt his loyalty. The man was vague about his past, but that was common among the rebels. Brak caught sight of Tarja and Mandah and crossed the yard toward them.
“I thought perhaps you’d left without me,” he said to Tarja as he approached. Brak was even taller than Tarja but of a much more slender build. He moved with an economy of gesture that made Tarja wonder if he had trained as a fighter. He had thick brown hair and weary, faded eyes and the manner of one who had seen just about everything there was to be seen in the world and found it wanting. “Good morning, Mandah.”
“Good morning, Brak,” she replied. “I’ve just made an offering to Patanan to aid you on your journey.”
“That was very thoughtful of you.” Tarja saw the expression that flickered over the older man’s face and wondered about him again. He professed to believe in the Primal Gods, but unlike the other heathens, Brak seemed almost skeptical about the value of the prayers and sacrifices of his brethren. “I hope it won’t be wasted.”
“You’re as bad as Tarja,” she scolded. “Have a little faith.”
“Faith I have in abundance, Mandah,” he said. “It’s hope I run short of, on occasion.” He turned his attention to Tarja and added, “Like hoping we’re not walking into a trap this morning.”
Tarja found himself once again forced to reassess his opinion of Brak. Nobody else had supported him when he warned that the meeting today in Testra was more likely to be a trap than a true chance at a resolution of the conflict – no one except R’shiel, who cared more about the rebellion continuing than finding a chance to end it. Even the Defenders who had deserted the Corps to join him seemed to think it was a genuine chance to end the conflict. Perhaps they were just beginning to regret their decision. Living with a price on your head was not easy, as Tarja could readily attest to.
“I wish others shared your opinion,” Tarja said, with a meaningful glance at Mandah. The young woman looked at them both and frowned.
“We have gone over this again and again,” she reminded them. “It might be a trap, but it might be a genuine offer of peace. We cannot ignore it. The Sisterhood recognizes the threat we pose and wants to talk. If we can negotiate an end to the Purge and religious freedom for our people, then the fighting can stop. I thought that’s what you wanted, Tarja?”
“Of course it’s what I want,” he said, exasperated by the argument that had been going on for over a week.
“The gods will be with you both,” she assured them with quiet confidence. “It will not be long now, before this is over.”
Tarja glanced at Brak, who seemed to share his skepticism. He stood back and let Mandah pass, then turned to Tarja.
“You know this is a trap, don’t you?”
Tarja nodded. “I’m almost certain of it.”
“Then why are you going?” Brak asked.
Tarja glanced at the retreating figure of the young woman and shrugged. “Because there is a remote chance that it’s not,” he said. “Joyhinia might genuinely want this to end without costing any more lives.”
Brak shook his head doubtfully. “I’ve been away from Medalon for quite a while, son, but I remember the last Purge. This is no rout of a few heathens. This is systematic extermination.”
“All the more reason to end it,” Tarja pointed out wearily.
“Well, you know Joyhinia better than anyone, I suppose,” he said. “But I suspect you may live to regret this.”
“Living through it at all will be a good start.”
Brak shook his head at Tarja’s flippant reply and turned away, walking back toward the farmhouse with long, graceful strides. He stopped after a few paces and looked back over his shoulder.
“By the way, have you seen R’shiel anywhere?”
“No.” He had not seen her for days, not since the night outside the farmhouse when their argument turned into something much too uncomfortable and confusing to dwell on. He assumed she was avoiding him, not a difficult thing to accomplish in the large network of cellars under the house. He wondered what Brak wanted with her. The sailor saw through R’shiel easily and normally paid her little attention. “Why?”
“I was just curious. I’ll ask Ghari. He might know where she is.”
“Ghari left last night for Testra,” Tarja reminded him. “You don’t think she went with them, do you?”
“The gods help us if she has,” Brak muttered. “Still, it’s not that important. No doubt she’ll turn up.”
“No doubt,” he agreed, a little concerned at Brak’s sudden interest in R’shiel, and more than a little concerned that R’shiel might be missing. As he followed him to the house, another uncomfortable thought occurred to Tarja.
Brak claimed to remember the last Purge.
The last Purge the Sisterhood had launched against the heathens was during the reign of First Sister Brettan almost one hundred and twenty years ago.
chapter 22
Tarja and Brak rode in silence toward Testra, timing their arrival for around two hours before noon. Tarja wanted to scout the area before meeting with Draco. He might be walking into a trap, but he wasn’t planning to walk in blindly. Brak rode beside him along the sunlight-dappled road with the ease of one raised in the saddle, a fact that merely added to Tarja’s concern about him. By all accounts the man was a sailor. Sailors didn’t ride so well. Most sailors didn’t ride at all, treating horses with a sort of awed animosity. It was another piece of the puzzle that was Brak.
“You ride well for a sailor,” he remarked. The wind had picked up, and a chill breeze tugged at Tarja’s cloak. The bright sunlight was deceptive, with little warmth in it.
Brak glanced at him and shrugged. “I’ve not always been a sailor.”
Tarja hardly expected anything more enlightening, but the man’s answer annoyed him, nonetheless.
“You came from Hythria recently, didn’t you?” he asked, deciding he was going to find out something about this man before they got to Testra. His life might depend on him before the day was out. He wanted to know what sort of man was watching his back.
“Yes,” was Brak’s unhelpful reply.
“What were you doing there?” He hoped he sounded as if he was just making conversation,
but he suspected Brak knew what he was after, when the older man suddenly smiled.
“I was advising the Sorcerer’s Collective on matters of policy,” he said.
Tarja felt a little foolish for being so transparent. “I deserved, that, I suppose. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Yes, you did. You’re burning up with curiosity about me. I’ll tell you if you like. Which version do you want, the one that sounds plausible or the truth?”
Tarja glanced at the older man, wondering at his question. “Is there a difference?”
“A vast one,” Brak told him. “I doubt if you’d believe the truth, though. The plausible explanation is far easier to live with. Particularly for a man with your prejudices.”
Thoroughly bewildered now and rather sorry he had ever broached the subject, Tarja frowned. “If you’ve nothing to hide, what need for anything other than the truth?”
“What need, indeed?” Brak agreed.
Tarja could feel his patience wearing thin. “If you’ve no wish to tell me about yourself, then don’t,” he snapped. “I’m only concerned that you are who you claim you are.”
“Then I give you my word that I am,” Brak replied.
The silence was strained after that. Tarja kicked his horse forward a few paces, angry at himself for losing patience so easily as much as Brak’s reticence. He didn’t trust the man, and their conversation had done little to ease his mind. Brak had joined them so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that it was hard to credit he had any abiding belief in their cause. He professed to be a pagan, yet his attitude to the gods that the pagans held in such high esteem was almost contempt.
And now he was riding into an almost certain trap with Brak at his side. It was no wonder he was feeling uneasy, he told himself.
After letting Tarja brood for a few moments, Brak caught up with him. “I left Medalon a long time ago, Tarja,” he said, as if there had been no break in their conversation. “I did something that meant I couldn’t return to my family. Don’t ask what it was, because I won’t tell you. I’ve roamed the world ever since. I’ve spent time in Fardohnya working in the diamond mines, even in Karien as a wagon driver, although no one in his right mind spends long in that country without being seen to convert to the Overlord. For the past few years I’ve been working a fishing boat in the Dregian Ocean south of Hythria.”
“What made you come back?” Tarja asked.
“My family asked me to do something for them. I have to find someone very important to them who is lost,” Brak told him carefully.
“Yet you joined us,” Tarja pointed out. “Shouldn’t you be looking for this lost soul? Or do you expect to find him in our ranks?”
Brak was silent for so long, Tarja thought he was not going to answer the question.
“I... believe this person is someone close to you,” Brak said finally, as if it had been a major decision to admit such a thing.
Tarja was astonished. “How do you figure that?”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Call it the will of the gods. You are the demon child, after all.”
Tarja glared at Brak in annoyance. “Surely you don’t believe that nonsense?”
“That you are the demon child? Of course not. Although it was a clever tactic,” he added. “It must be driving the Sisterhood crazy.”
“Don’t credit me with any cleverness,” Tarja objected. “I’ve no idea who started that rumor, but I’d like to throttle whoever did.”
“Well, anyone who understands the nature of demons won’t believe it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Demons have a reputation that far outweighs the damage they can actually do,” Brak told him. “As a rule, demons only cause trouble when their insatiable curiosity traps them in something they can’t figure a way out of.”
“You sound quite the expert.”
“Hardly that,” Brak disagreed. “But I can tell you this much: young demons have limited intelligence and absolutely no sense of direction. If the demon child were truly part-demon, he or she would be a half-witted troublemaker with just enough power to snuff out a candle.”
“You believe there is a demon child, then?”
“I know there is,” Brak assured him. “And when the demon child is finally revealed, you’ll be there at the forefront of the action, I suspect.”
“I’m a little surprised to hear you speak so knowledgeably about demons,” Tarja remarked suspiciously. “I wonder sometimes that you even believe in the pagan gods.”
“Oh, never fear on that score,” Brak assured him. “Nobody knows better than I that the gods exist. Whether I believe them worthy of adoration is an entirely different matter.” He was silent for a time, then added, “I met someone who knows you in Hythria.”
The news startled Tarja. He had no friends in Hythria that he was aware of. “Who?”
“Damin Wolfblade,” Brak said. “He misses you, actually. Says life’s been pretty dull since you left the border.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a few Centuries of his Raiders now,” Tarja muttered. It suddenly occurred to him that with Hythrun allies he could truly threaten the Sisterhood. A few hundred Krakandar Raiders would tip the scales in their favor. He was nattered that the Warlord remembered him and that he held him in such high regard. It was a sign of how far he had fallen, he decided, that he could wish for aid from a nation that was so recently his enemy. Then another thought occurred to him, and he looked at Brak with narrowed eyes. “How is it that you were speaking with a Hythrun Warlord?”
“I was traveling north and so was his party,” he explained. “Nobody in his right mind travels Hythrun roads alone. It’s a long trip. We got talking. There’s no need to look at me like that. If I was a Hythrun spy, I’d hardly be boasting of having met a Warlord, would I?”
Tarja looked at his companion warily. “I don’t know, would you?”
“You know, if you treated this meeting with Lord Draco with half as much suspicion as you treat me, I would not be nearly so concerned about it. Save your doubts for those who deserve them, Tarja.”
With that, Brak kicked his horse into a canter and rode on ahead.
The River’s Rest Tavern appeared no different from any other dockside tavern along the Glass River. Its painted shutters were thrown wide open, to air out the previous evening’s aromas of stale beer. The faint sounds of furniture being dragged across the wooden floor indicated someone was probably laying out fresh rushes. The docks on the other side of the street were as raucous and chaotic as normal. Tarja and Brak watched the tavern for over an hour from the shelter of the wharves and saw nothing that would indicate a trap. There was no sign of Ghari or his companions either. That meant one of two things: either they had already been caught in the trap, or they had finally learned something from all the training and lectures Tarja had been forcing on them. Trying to curb youthful enthusiasm and replace it with discipline and common sense was not easy.
“There’s no sign of the lads,” Tarja remarked, a little concerned.
“That could just mean they picked the wrong tavern,” Brak replied without looking up. “Those boys aren’t the most reliable advance guard.”
Tarja nodded in agreement. Any number of things could have happened to them that had nothing to do with the present situation. He glanced at Brak who was whittling away at a piece of driftwood with a small knife, looking for all the world like the sailor he professed to be.
“It’s almost noon,” Tarja said, glancing up at the sun, which had warmed little as it journeyed across the sky.
“Do you want me to go in first?” Brak asked.
“Yes,” Tarja agreed, his eyes not leaving the tavern for a moment. “Take a seat near the door. Don’t try to be a hero. Just back me up if I need it. If worst comes to worst, just get clear and warn the others.”
“I’m not the heroic type,” Brak assured him as he stood up, brushing wood slivers from his trousers. “If anything happens to you, I’ll be on th
e next boat to Fardohnya.” Tarja glared at him. “I was joking, Tarja.”
“I’ll see you inside.” Tarja said, wondering when he had lost his sense of humor.
Brak crossed the street with a swaggering walk that marked him as a sailor as surely as his tan and his rough linen shirt. He wandered up to the tavern and disappeared inside. Tarja waited expectantly, but nothing happened. For a moment he wondered if he had gotten the day wrong, or if Draco’s ship was late and he had yet to arrive in Testra. Or perhaps Joyhinia had changed her mind. As the doubts began to pile up, he fought them back with an effort. He waited another few minutes, until the bell in the distant Town Square tolled midday. Swallowing down a lump of apprehension that had lodged in his throat, he crossed the street to the tavern.
chapter 23
Brak wandered casually across the street, carefully drawing on his power as he neared the tavern, his eyes darkening as the magic filled him. He did not draw much. He only wanted to be inconspicuous, not vanish completely midstride. He drew a simple defensive shield around himself that protected him against being noticed. It made people’s eyes slide past him, preventing them from finding purchase on his form.
By the time he reached the swinging tavern door, the only person in Testra who was aware of him was Tarja, who had watched him cross the street. His eyes blazed black as the power consumed him, its sweetness like an intoxicating tonic. Why had he denied himself, he wondered, even as the answer came to him. He pushed his past and the ever-present ache away to focus on the now.
Nobody looked up as he entered, nobody remarked on his presence or even noticed it. He took a seat near the door and sighed as he realized that the illusion would prevent the tavern keeper from seeing him. He was thirsty, too.
They were waiting for Tarja, as Brak had suspected they would be. Not obviously, of course. There were no red uniforms in sight, no conspicuous weapons. Two men sat at tables either side of the door, their stiff posture and nervous expressions giving away more than they imagined. Near the rear of the large, low-ceilinged taproom, two more men waited at a long scrubbed table. One was an older man with an unconscious air of authority. Brak wondered about him for a moment. He thought he might be Lord Draco, but there was something familiar about him that Brak could not quite put his finger on. No doubt the younger man with him was a captain. He wore his civilian clothes uncomfortably. How long had they been here, he wondered, waiting for Tarja to walk into their trap? The men kept looking at the door expectantly. Brak resisted the urge to follow their gaze. Tarja would get here in his own good time.
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