by Col Buchanan
Marlee held up his missing boot in one hand, which she had discovered a moment earlier. Their eyes glittered as they rested the bones of their foreheads together. He kissed her face while in his hand he still clutched the crumpled despatch.
'What do you make of it, sir?' Bahn asked, as he licked his dry lips. 'It sounds like an invasion to me.'
The old warrior was standing close enough to the window pane to mist the cold glass with his breath. He wiped it clear with a single noisy smear of his sleeve.
'Yes, it does, doesn't it?'
'To Khos?'
A moment of consideration. 'Perhaps – it would not surprise me.'
At those few words, Bahn felt the blood drain from his face. 'Sweet mercy. I pray to Fate it is not so.'
Creed said nothing for a moment, his eyes squinting as he took in the Shield stretched out below.
'As do I,' he murmured. 'We must inform the Council.'
Bahn stared hard at Creed's profile, silhouetted vaguely in the daylight. For a moment, just a second or two and no more, a tremor ran through the general's jaw. And then it was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Farlander This is all our doing,' said Serese, looking out of the carriage's window at the passing destruction, the bloodstains on the streets, the blackened buildings still leaking smoke.
Baracha peered at her, perplexed. He did not understand his daughter these days. By his side, Ash appeared lost in his own world. He had spoken little since his seeming recovery.
The carriage turned east towards the First Harbour, following the wide, meandering thoroughfare known as the Serpentine. Ash stroked the small jar of ashes that hung about his neck, unconsciously it seemed, as he pondered something.
They had deemed it too risky to book tickets for a passenger ship straight to Cheem; the Regulators would be watching the ports closely, hoping the Rshun would emerge from hiding now that the ports had reopened. Instead, they had met with an Alhazii smuggler known to Baracha, and had offered the man a large sum of money for berths on his fast sloop. He was intent on shipping a cargo of dross down to Palo-Fortuna; whence they could easily find transportation back to Cheem. It was a safer option. They would be avoiding customs altogether, by rowing out to the ship in a small boat from the wharf fronting a private warehouse.
The driver pulled the zels to a stop. To their right, the wharf led to the open bay where the fleet lay at anchor. The carriage rocked on its suspension as the four cloaked and hooded figures stepped out from both sides. Baracha paid the man and followed the other three to the edge of the wharf, where a large rowing boat bobbed in the water. Six bearded sailors sat at the oars, restlessly eyeing the vicinity. They held their oars vertical in the air.
Momentarily, the Rshun stopped to take in the sight of the great fleet.
'I wonder where they will make for,' mused Baracha.
'Wherever it is, I feel pity for them,' responded Aleas.
The sailors were waiting impatiently. They had no wish to linger here with their ship already loaded and ready to sail.
'Remember,' said Baracha in a hushed voice to his daughter and Aleas, 'we are escaped slaves, and Ash is a monk escorting us to his mission in Minos. Speak only when spoken to, and keep well out of sight.'
Aleas and Serese were first to clamber down into the boat. No greeting came from the sailors, save for sharp orders to sit quickly and stay out of the way. Ash held back, still fingering the jar suspended at his neck.
Baracha moved to step down behind them, then stopped, a foot still resting on the wharf side. He muttered what sounded like a curse, and turned back to Ash.
'You're not coming with us, are you?'
'No. I do not think that I am.'
The Alhazii strode off a short distance from the boat. Ash slowly followed him.
They halted together under the pale morning sun.
'You can't do this,' declared Baracha.
'Yet I must.'
'Speak plainly, you old fool. You wish revenge for your boy. You want to race off and slay the Matriarch herself.'
Ash did not deny it.
Baracha spoke low, though the words were spat with force. 'And what example do you set by such actions? Our oldest Rshun running off to seek his revenge?'
'It is justice that I seek. It is the very least the boy deserves from me now.'
Baracha snorted. 'You bandy with words. If you commit this act, you break the code that we live by. It is a personal vendetta you are speaking of, and it goes against all that the Rshun stand for. Even I can appreciate that much.'
'Then I am no longer Rshun,' replied Ash coldly, 'and I break only my own code, not that of the order.'
Baracha grasped his arm. The old farlander looked down at the hand that gripped him, then up to the angry eyes. 'Rshun or not, you set an example to us all. You have reached the end of your wits from grief, that's all. You're not yourself.'
'No, I am not. I have lain for two weeks in the sweat of my own nightmares. Yesterday morning I awoke, only to discover that those nightmares are real.' He reached for Baracha's restraining hand. He plucked it free without effort.
'Alhazii… I know nothing, anymore, except that I cannot live with myself, not a second longer, if I do not see this through.'
For a moment, Baracha trembled on the edge of a great rage. His fists clenched, blood inflamed his face: it was what always happened when he failed to get his own way.
Quite unexpectedly, the words of the Blessed Prophet came to his mind.
Do not judge a man for the path that he follows. Unless you have walked each and every step in the same direction, you cannot tell another where he is headed, nor what he leaves behind.
Baracha looked to the sky, then down to the ground, then back to the wizened farlander broken with grief before him.
He blew the frustration from his lungs.
'Then blessing of Zabrihm be upon you, you old fool,' he said. He held out his hand, and Ash squinted at it for a moment, then clasped it.
Baracha strode back to the boat, shaking his head.
'Baracha,' barked Ash.
The big man turned. Ash tugged the urn of ashes free from his pack. He approached and handed it to Baracha.
'Keep this until I return,' he said. 'If I do not make it back, see that it gets to his mother. Aleas will know of her.'
Baracha nodded. With the urn in his hand he jumped into the boat. The sailors pushed off from the wharf side, began to pull at the water with their oars.
As the boat cut through the swell towards the waiting ship, and the salt water slapped and hissed against its sides, Baracha twisted around on the plank he sat upon. He thought, perhaps, to give a final salute to Ash, for he knew then that he would likely never see him again.
But already, the old man had turned to face the city.
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