He found a higher point, another roof ledge behind him, and climbed up in order to get a broader view of the city. From what he could tell, there wasn’t anyone left inside the walls. No one living, anyway.
Nolan swept up into the sky, angling around and gliding past low enough to catch Becca in his talons. Then he flew directly to Trev’nor and carefully dropped Becca to the rooftop before flying up and around in a tight arc, easing back into his human shape as he landed.
“Feel better?” Trev’nor asked the pair of them although he didn’t need to—the flushed exhilaration was bright on their faces.
“Much.” Nolan stretched his arms out high above his head. “Feels good to have the kinks out. Now what do we do next? Let everyone out of the slave pens?”
“I can do that,” Trev’nor offered. “But what do we do then? I mean, the citizens here are used to thinking that magicians are slaves. We can’t just turn them loose and leave, not without knowing how they’ll be treated later.”
“I think we scared everyone off, though.” Becca frowned and peered toward the south, where most people had fled. “Should we wait for them to come back and try to talk to them?”
“Or we go out to meet them halfway and try to talk.” Nolan didn’t sound sold on this possibility. “I’m not sure if they’d let us come anywhere close, though. Not after seeing all of this.”
“Better to deal with the slave pens and wait,” Trev’nor agreed. “Bec, Nol, you deal with the people. Once they’re all out, I’m going to bury the place.”
The aftermath of the battle was not a pretty one.
Becca let the former slaves out of their pens but most refused to move, not believing that they could after a lifetime of being kept in chains. She didn’t argue with them, figuring that hunger would drive them out eventually. Nolan went in and healed those that needed it, speaking to the whole group as he worked, explaining who they were and what had happened.
Because Trev’nor couldn’t really help with that, building detail fell to him. In Nolan’s rage, he had smashed quite a few buildings that they actually needed. Trev’nor wandered up one street and down the next, repairing buildings. While doing that, he came across multiple bodies that obviously didn’t have a breath of life left in them. Shad had said once that no one could mistake a dead body. Trev’nor now understood exactly what he’d meant. It wasn’t just the stillness, it was the lack of all animation in them, the absence of a soul itself. They were like macabre wooden puppets, badly damaged and strewn about by a giant’s hand. Or, in this case, a dragon’s claws.
Ignoring it only lasted about two streets before he fetched up hard against the side of a building, dry heaves wracking his stomach. Trev’nor put his head against the cool, pitted surface and breathed deeply. He could not imagine a feeling more terrible than this—to walk through a battlefield and know that it was partially his hand that had robbed these men of their lives. It tore at his own soul and robbed him of breath.
Trev’nor spent a small eternity hunched over, shaking and sick. Eventually he forced himself upright, using the back of his hand to swipe at wet cheeks. If he was like this now, then odds were it was going to hit the other two soon. It would be worse for them. Nolan’s magic and gentle nature would tear at him for this. Becca had lived through a situation similar enough that it would shake her up again, dark memories bombarding her as much as the reality. He couldn’t let either one of them be alone until they got a handle on this.
He went to Nolan first, as he knew where the young prince was, and Becca was currently on a rooftop somewhere keeping an eye on the city as a whole. The slave pens were empty save about two dozen people who stubbornly refused to leave. Most of the slaves milled about the city, pointing things out to each other and exclaiming over the damage done, but there was no fair head of hair to be spotted. Eventually Trev’nor had to use his magical sense to help find him.
In a very narrow alleyway, Nolan was hunched over in a dark corner, retching. Trev’nor winced even as he lengthened his stride, heading for him. He hadn’t made it in time. “Nolan.”
Nolan staggered back a few steps, wiping at his mouth with a dirty shirt sleeve, eyes a little wild. His magic arced around him in short bursts, his control finicky. Trev’nor grabbed him up in a strong hug and just held on.
His friend gasped and shuddered, clawing at Trev’nor’s back with a weak grip. There might have been more than a few tears soaking into his shoulder, too. Trev’nor didn’t think him any the weaker for it. To Nolan, it wasn’t just a dead body. It was the very absence of life where there should be an abundance. It would be completely repulsive to his magical sense.
It took close to an hour before his breathing changed, becoming less ragged and more even. Nolan gently pushed back, regaining his center, and looked at Trev’nor with red-rimmed eyes. “Becca?”
“I’m worried about her too,” Trev’nor admitted. “Are you alright?”
“No.” Nolan tried for a crooked smile and failed. “But I will be. Just…give me some more time to come to grips with this.”
“I can bury the bodies real quick if you need me to?” Trev’nor mentally kicked himself for not thinking of that earlier.
“I think that will help, yes, but go find Becca first. Of the two of us, you’re handling this better.”
It took strength for Nolan to admit that, and Trev’nor gave his friend a supportive nod. “You’re doing fine. Your magic must be going ballistic about this.”
“It’s certainly not helping.”
Nolan really did look as if he were pulling himself back together. Trev’nor trusted that he would be fine, at least for a little while, and took himself out of the alley. Well now. Where would Becca be?
It took him more than a few minutes to find her. Becca had always had this knack for hiding in the most obscure places. She’d always won in ‘hide and seek’ as a child because of that. Trev’nor now realized that it was likely a carryover from when she had been hunted by the Star Order Priests. Her mind subconsciously found the best places to go just in case she needed to hide.
She was tucked up against the side of a chimney, facing the setting suns against the far horizon, her knees up against her chest. From the back, he was terribly afraid she was crying. Slowly, he came in from an angle, not wanting to startle her (bad things normally followed that), and trying to get her attention without being pushy about it. But when he came around far enough to see her face, he found that she was completely dry-eyed. Her expression wasn’t just blank, it was actively not-there in a way that suggested she was trying to escape from reality as much as possible. At least for a few minutes.
Should he leave her be, come back later? Or sit down next to her? Trev’nor couldn’t read people like Nolan could, so he wasn’t sure which was the best way to go.
“Trev.” It was barely audible although distinctly said.
That sounded like an invitation to him. He came around to sit at her side, close but not touching, and pointed his face toward the sunset. “Hey. Next time, try to hide somewhere that an emotionally upset woman would hide? It was really hard to find you.”
Not so much as a twitch. Busted buckets. Had it all finally caught up to her?
“Trev,” she repeated, tone hollow. “We killed people today, didn’t we.”
That was clearly not a question. He puffed out his cheeks and blew out a breath before admitting, “We did.”
“Aletha was right. It’s a really terrible feeling. It feels like someone has a stranglehold on my gut but I can’t seem to throw up.”
Nolan had, earlier. Trev’nor almost had. He was surprised Becca hadn’t, but then she had always been more world-tough in some ways than they were. Trev’nor tried to find some words of comfort but what came out instead was, “Do you regret it?”
Finally, she looked at him, still with those hollow eyes, as if he were speaking in words she couldn’t understand. “Regret it? I do. But I don’t.”
As contradictory as that so
unded, Trev’nor understood exactly what she meant. “Garth talked to me about this once. I didn’t understand what he meant then but I do now. He said that before you go into a fight, you have all of these reasons—some of them important, some of them not. You go in thinking about your country, and justice, and all sorts of justification for fighting. But while you’re fighting, you realize that none of that really matters. What’s most important is keeping yourself alive, and the people that are important to you, and that’s it.”
“Keeping myself alive,” she whispered and finally some animation returned to her face. “If we hadn’t killed them, they would have killed us.”
“To them, we were loose cannons,” Trev’nor confirmed bleakly. “They wouldn’t put up with anything else other than complete obedience. And we wouldn’t have been able to keep our heads down like that forever—eventually we’d snap and do something that would get us killed. We had to fight today, Becca. We had to wipe them out of existence. Remember, though, they were the ones that brought the fight to us. We didn’t ask for it.”
Her mouth curved up in a wan smile, a barely-there expression. “I know. I wish Shad had talked to me more about this. He never really did. I think he always believed that I wouldn’t have to fight because Chahir had finally found peace within itself.”
While that was true, it didn’t sound like Shad to believe in peace so strongly that he wouldn’t arm his foster sister just in case that peace ever broke. “He really never said anything?”
“He told me war stories from time to time. I learned something from them. But really, the only advice I got from him was about three years ago. I asked him if he believed in killing or if was just something he had to do as a soldier.”
Now that was an interesting question. Trev’nor scooted around a little so he could face her easier. “What did he say?”
“He said he did believe that sometimes it was just necessary. It wasn’t like some people should never have been born, or they didn’t have the right to live, it was just that because of what they had done they lost the privilege of continuing to live.” Her rigid posture relaxed and she leaned her chin against her knees, still staring out at the sunset. “Because of what they had done, they lost the right to live on this world anymore. He said the problem comes when it takes someone with power to make that judgment call and it takes someone else to give them that power. I guess, what I’m really struggling with here, is whether I have the right to take on that power.”
They rather had played judge, jury, and executioner in this city without a second thought. “They were trying to enslave us. I think that gives us more of a right than anyone else, don’t you?”
“Really, I can’t argue.” Becca tilted sideways so that she fetched up against him, head on his shoulder. “And it fits Xiaolang’s definition of evil to a tee: the purposeful destruction of innocence.”
“I don’t think we were wrong, Bec. I think it’s just hard. This whole situation is just hard. We’re going to lose sleep over it, we’re going to have nightmares about it, and we’re always going to wonder if there wasn’t a better way to deal with it. But we were fighting for our very freedom and survival. I don’t think anyone will judge us harshly for what we did here.”
“What we did here, no. But Trev, even Nolan said we can’t let this slavery continue. Even he said we should continue going on through Khobunter and end this situation. Do we have the right to do that?”
“Look at this way. If we had gone into some other city instead of Rurick, do you think the slavers there would do anything differently?”
Her mouth opened, paused, then closed. “No.”
“There’s your answer. There’s nothing to like about fighting. It’s just necessary sometimes because the only thing an evil man responds to is brute force.” Right now, facing this situation again felt repugnant in the extreme but he couldn’t deny the dire need for it. Maybe, a week or two from now, he would be able to face the future more head on. Tonight, though, he didn’t think it was something that any of them needed to focus on. “Come on, come down. This hit Nolan hard and I think he’d feel better seeing you.”
She leaned into him a second more before pushing her way up to her feet. “What about you?”
“I have bodies to bury.”
It took nearly three days for the inhabitants of Rurick to return.
At first it was the young men, the bolder ones that dared to risk an enemy occupied city. But when they were met with tentative hellos and welcomes, they went back and reported that it was safe, and more poured in after them.
Becca didn’t quite know what to do with them at first. Her grasp on the language was shaky at best and they sometimes used slang on words that didn’t make any sense to her. They didn’t know how to respond to her either. Or to Nolan and Trev’nor. Magicians were slaves. That was the tradition they had been raised with and they had never questioned it until their city was torn apart. They oscillated between thinking along traditional lines and being overly cautious of the three powerful mages walking around in their midst.
Two days after the populace had returned, they finally sat down and spoke with someone who was the de facto leader of Rurick. Rikkana Sumi was her name, an older woman that looked to be a grandmother. She came to them as they struggled to teach some of the magicians the basics of magic and tapped her cane on the ground once, as if calling for their attention. “I want to speak with you.”
Becca frowned in concentration, trying to understand her. Sumi’s Solish had a very thick accent. “Rikkana Sumi, we can speak,” she carefully replied. “Now?”
The Rikkana found a bench in the shade and plopped down on it, her black robes flaring out, expression impassive.
Now, apparently. Trev’nor and Nolan picked up on this as well and found seats that faced the old woman. Becca shifted as well, although she was content to let the boys do most of the talking.
“What is your goal here?” the Rikkana asked the three of them.
It was Trev’nor that responded, “Our goal is to right the order of things in Khobunter. You have been taught that any magician should be enslaved. This is not right. Every other country honors their magicians. They respect them. They are not slaves.”
Whatever the Rikkana had expected, this was not it. Her dark eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You conquered this city. It is now yours.”
Trev’nor shook his head. “We did not fight to claim this place. We fought to free ourselves. This city is yours as it has always been.”
“You freed your kind.” The Rikkana inclined her head to indicate the magicians avidly listening in this conversation. “You will take them with you?”
“They can go wherever they want,” Nolan corrected. “They are free. We will contact home and inform them there are magicians here who need training. Where they go is up to them.”
Becca wasn’t sure about leaving the magicians here. She had seen for herself how long it had taken Chahir to accept magic once again. The tradition in Khobunter seemed just as engrained. The fact that they were sitting here and having this conversation was proof enough that hearts and minds did not change overnight.
Frustrated, the Rikkana pointed a finger at Nolan. “You want something.”
“I do,” Nolan agreed with a brilliant smile. “I want magicians to be free in Khobunter. I want slavery to end.”
He might as well have announced that he wanted the suns to be green and the sky to be pink. The Rikkana did not understand this wish at all.
Trev’nor cleared his throat and offered, “Rikkana Sumi, as magicians we make…ah, how to explain this? We make oaths to protect people. To prevent wrongs.” Trev’nor jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the silent onlookers. “Our oath is to protect them.”
This, at least, rang a bell with the old woman. She nodded somberly. “To honor an oath is a good thing. In Chahir, all magicians honor this oath?”
“All of them,” Nolan confirmed.
“I see.” The Rikkana
sat back and considered things for a moment, her eyes blankly focused on the dirt under their feet. “Our governor here was bad. Rotten. We are glad for what you did.”
Becca had heard enough grumblings from the citizens about the government to believe her. “Then we did you a favor?”
“You did,” the Rikkana agreed with a bleak smile. “Even though you fought to honor your oath, you did not harm the people and only struck at the government. We are thankful.”
So the Rikkana wasn’t upset by what they had done, most of the city wasn’t either, they just weren’t sure what the new conquerors wanted? Becca could work with that. “Rikkana Sumi, we will not stay. You can do what you want.”
“Right,” Nolan backed her up with a nod of agreement. “Do what you want. Right now, we intend to move on, get some answers, then call home and tell them about the magicians here. Can I ask some questions?”
The old woman seemed relieved that all they wanted was some answers and waved her hand, gesturing for Nolan to ask.
“Magicians come from…” Nolan stopped, frowned, and rephrased. “Magic comes from families. From our records, no one in Khobunter should have magic. We would like to know where they came from.”
“They have been here since living memory,” the Rikkana answered, spreading her hands slightly in a shrug. “We cannot tell you.”
Since living memory? Was that was she said? Becca rubbed at her chin. “Do you know of any old documents, or records, that might tell us?”
The Rikkana just shrugged, indicating she had no idea. “Old stories do not mention magic.”
“Oh.”
From behind, Roskin came around and gave a formal bow to the Rikkana, recognizing her, before he said to Trev’nor, “I heard you say your Chahirese name. What was it?”
“Rhebentrev’noren,” Trev’nor responded. “Why?”
“Chahirese names, they have upana first?”
“Upana first,” Nolan affirmed. “In this case, Rheben is the upana.”
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