by Cat Bruno
Ahead, Liu slowed. Liang reached for her waist, and Gregorr recalled that she had a dagger hidden there. His own fingers, covered with leather gloves, reached for his sack of runes as the thud of boots beat against the streets. Liang gripped his arm, pulling him closer.
“They will know you,” she mumbled against his ear. “Run at the first chance that you get.”
“We need not fight,” he told her as he crushed a juniper berry between thumb and forefinger.
Gregorr removed his stained fingers from the pouch and lifted them toward Liang’s face. She trembled but did not pull away as he hurriedly painted a marking at the base of her hairline. When he would have reached for Liu, the man jumped back. Even Liang’s whispered pleas could not convince the man to allow Gregorr to rune-shield him. Ducking under Gregorr’s arm, Liu raced off, a trail of ashen mist following him.
“Come,” Liang ordered, leading him toward where the acolyte was last seen.
“Hold this,” he said, handing her the small stone.
When the gold-vested soldiers turned the corner, they did not see Liang. Instead, they saw Gregorr, alone and cloaked.
“Find the others and make for Gaunghai,” he told her, slipping his arm from her grasp.
“No,” she mouthed, her eyes dark with knowledge.
“Make for Gaunghai,” he repeated. “And tell the others I will see them in the Tribelands. Show them the stone so that they know you speak no lies.”
“Gregorr!” she gasped.
“Now!” he cried, pushing her.
As Liang stumbled toward the small alley, blessedly unlighted, Gregorr turned toward the oncoming men. In his sack of runes, one had gone missing. With it, his true self would have been hidden, bound by the invisible shackles of rune-power. The men would not have seen the fennidi, green-skinned and silver-haired.
“I am an old man,” he spoke aloud, loosening the laces of his cloak.
As the hood slipped to his shoulders, Gregorr spotted the curved tip of a long-spear. Just below the blade’s edge, red satin fluttered, hanging in rippling ribbons. Even weapons of death are made with beauty here, Gregorr thought, watching as the men neared.
“Yaoguai!” one of the men screamed, running toward him.
The fennidi did not need to understand Tiannese to know the man named him demon.
Once before, from atop an epidiuus, Gregorr had watched as Caryss had offered her life so that her daughter might live. Now, he offered the same.
*****
Epilogue
They spoke little, not even when the blackened skies spewed sparkling slivers of rain. A faded cape blanketed the man, but he remained unmoved by the falling water and the hissing wind. Beside him sat a woman, her hair shorn low, as if newly shaved. Her bare arms dripped with water, but she, too, did not move. Behind them both sat a half-naked man, too thin by far and only wearing threadbare pants.
It was the woman who fractured the silence, although her words were muted by the knocking drumbeat of rain against the ship’s deck.
“I know not why he was allowed to come.”
Sniffling against the cold air, the man answered, “She bought his freedom.”
With a grunt that showed her scorn, Liang said, “With that same gold, we could have a hundred men, trained and hale, instead of this half-dead traitor.”
“Such is the cost of things,” Aldric told her dryly.
Liu knew not what she spewed, for he could speak no Common. The acolyte had refused offers for better clothing, instead choosing his current misery as punishment. He had arrived back at Lao-Mu’s place a quarter-hour before Liang had, which meant the others had to wait to hear what had occurred.
Only when she showed them the painted rune did Aldric, Sharron, and Otieno agree to depart. But it was with heavy hearts and silent lips that they had made their way to Guanghai. With stolen mounts, for Aldric cared little for just cause now, they had arrived at the port in less than two days time, having not stopped for food or sleep.
Hours before, the boat had sailed, heading west across the Cang-La Sea. They would change ships at Cossima, which only deepened their silence. The Tiannese mage waited in Gaunghai, promising to sail west in a moon’s time with any others who responded to Syrsha’s call. Aldric trusted the man naught and feared that they would never see the man, or the gold he had given to him, again.
“Your deaths will do us little good,” a woman’s voice called out, her words trembling against the storm.
Aldric did not turn as he answered, “Your cabin is warm and dry, Sharron. You need not be abovedeck.”
“As is yours, mage.”
At another time, he might have laughed at her biting words. “I will dry off once Tian is gone from view.”
With a heavy sigh, Sharron sat at his side and told him, “Otieno still has not eaten.”
“Am I to force him to do so?” Aldric asked. “I cannot yet hold a spoon easily myself.”
“Aldric,” she began, placing her hand against his rain-spattered one. “She will need you both.”
With that, he pulled his hand free, tucking it beneath his cape and cried, “I care little for what she needs!”
“Then why return at all? Stay in Cossima, and keep the diauxie with you,” the healer spit in a rare display of anger.
Aldric would not offer apology.
“You dishonor Gregorr with your hatred,” she added, rising.
He stood, too, jumping to face her as his bones creaked with pain.
“How many must die for her to sit a throne that was never hers?” he yelled.
Of the north, her eyes were colored brown and rimmed in gray-green. They watched him as she asked, “Were you not once a mercenary, Aldric? Surely you understand the price of war.”
“We should have never left Cossima,” the mage heatedly countered.
“Syrsha would have gone on her own then. Cossima was not her home, nor was Tian or Sythia. For nigh on twenty moon years, we have waited to return. Now that we do, you pout like a child who has pricked his finger.”
With a reddened face, Aldric screamed, “Only someone half-mad would call what has happened a finger-prick! Gregorr is dead!”
“And Syrsha is not,” the healer softly answered.
She reached for him, with one hand holding her cloak tight. He let her damp fingers clasp his as his anger lessened.
“Who will be next, Sharron?” he whispered, suddenly as resigned and quiet as she.
“I would give my life for hers, and for Eirrannia, if such is needed. I had thought you made the same vow.”
Before he could respond, Sharron hurried off, the Tiannese cloak shining gold against the gray-blue skies encircling her.
*****
“What would you have me do with it?”
“See that it is fed, and find a fennidi that might be able to cage it,” the High Lord instructed.
“Her great weapon shits and sleeps all day,” Conall added.
“As would you had you time-walked from across three seas,” Conri stated dryly.
His brother howled with laughter as he walked toward the decanter of firewater. As Conall filled two glasses, the storm mage entered.
“You bring news.”
Steps from them both, Jarek said, “Azzaro’s ships have been spotted just off Litusia. The winds have been kind.”
The Elemental was much different than when last he had visited the Tribelands, Conri knew. But, with each day, he liked him more.
“What will you do once the Rexterran throne is yours?” the High Lord asked, taking the chalice from Conall.
Before Jarek could answer, however, Blaidd rushed into the room yelping, “Syrsha is awake!”
Both Tribesmen emptied their glasses.
Behind Blaidd, in nothing but a woolen blanket, Syrsha entered the room on bared feet, her hair in dark tangles about her face. As she brushed the knotted strands from her face, the High Lord watched. Her cheeks bore nearly matching marks, one side stained blue and on
e side stitched with black. Her eyes shined green, dimming all else.
“Father,” she said, half-bowing.
*****
More from Cat Bruno
Pathway of the Chosen:
The Girl from the North, Book One
Daughter of the Wolf, Book Two
*Note from the Author: The first two books in the Pathway of the Chosen series serve as prequels to Queen of Stars and Shadows, although this book was designed and written to be read on its own as well. As with most epic fantasy, more books will follow as Syrsha and Jarek battle for Cordisia. Join my mailing list for updates and special offers: http://www.catbruno.com