"We need another guard," he said. "Someone to watch my back."
Gar Tsi snorted. "I'm not even needing you. You can't think you're needing someone to watch—"
"You will."
"Bah!"
Irreor shook his head. The merchant wouldn't understand, and he couldn't explain it.
Their wheel struck another rut, jolting them to the side. Teel cursed and rose from a mound of brown, wrinkled blankets that served as a bed. She leaned against the front of the wagon and rested her chin on her husband's shoulder.
"You think I'll be able to find someone there?" She shivered as a cool breeze touched her skin. "It looks dingy. Nothing like the last time we were here."
"Void's tit, woman, you been having a problem finding someone before?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Then be shutting your mouth and let us have a moment of—"
She buried her teeth in his shoulder, then pulled back to wipe a spot of blood from her lips. The merchant squealed like a stuck pig. The man couldn't handle pain, that much Irreor knew. His wife, on the other hand, thrived on it.
Bloody strange relationship.
Teel smirked. "You're bleeding."
Gar Tsi huffed, snatched the reins from Irreor, and lashed the donkey. The beast matched his huff and yanked the wagon a touch faster.
Irreor grinned. This wasn't an uncommon day.
Skiran Outskirts grew larger. As its name implied, it stood on the edge of the larger town of Skira, both of which were surrounded by grassy plains. More of a trading outpost than a village, located two days ride from the southern kingdom's border, the Outskirts served as a first stop for many merchants headed to Rippon. It sold and bought a variety of goods, such as cured pelts, jars of spiced butter, and slabs of salted steaks.
But Teel had been right in her doubt.
Its buildings were smudged with dust and ash. The smoke curling from the village's center should've billowed wider, but today it was a wisp against the clouds. A rickety wall surrounded the village, little more than a fence, but no men guarded the gate.
Irreor grabbed his blades. Like always, they felt cool, reassuring. Even the Synien was a comforting weight. "Something's wrong. Take the wagon slowly. Watch for everything."
"You're being paranoid, boy."
"Then I'll be paranoid."
Gar Tsi grumbled, but did as Irreor told him.
Something—the sweat on his palms, the taste of danger on his tongue—forced Irreor to be paranoid. Gar Tsi might not have understood it, but it was there, hovering like an axe ready to fall.
-But my people won't see it fall. They'll see it rise up and up, so high the sparkle becomes lost in the sun. Then I'll know I've succeeded. What a wonderous thought.-
The gates wiggled back and forth, and the donkey pulled their wagon through. Nailed to the gates' planks, sheets of parchment rippled in the breeze. Not just one, but hundreds, covering the gate as if to hide it, leaving only a sliver of wood visible.
And they fluttered.
Irreor jumped from the wagon, followed by the merchant. They strode to the gate and tore a page from its nail. In a strange, jerking script, the sheet said, "Come one and all and one and all to the heart of my pretty little city. I'll tick and tack and tick every day for a month. This month, that month, which month? We'll whack and whack swords in the Tournament of the Melon, and the victor will receive twenty thousand sparkly coins."
"Void's tit," Gar Tsi nearly whistled. "Abennak has lost it. I honestly hadn't been thinking the rumors could be true."
Neither of them had. A year ago, when they'd visited Rippon, they'd found it at the end of a plague. Gar Tsi had ordered the wagon back, and they'd fled the city before any tendrils of sickness could find them. They'd also heard whispers of insanity, as folk now called Abennak the Mad King.
Who could believe the king was insane? Some said it had happened in days. Others said months. The inconsistencies were absurd: one man claimed the king had murdered his family, while another woman told stories of how he'd laid them to rest.
"A man could be buying himself the whole void-forsaken kingdom with twenty thousand coins," Gar Tsi said. "Bloody tit, he could be buying himself half the Inner Empire! And a tournament in honor of a melon? What's Abennak got into his bloody head?" The merchant stuffed the paper into his pocket. "I suppose it's not mattering none. We've got to sell ourselves some beans no matter what the king be doing."
They hopped back into the wagon, and Gar Tsi snapped the reins at the donkey. They lurched forward and neared the outpost's center, rolling through wind-blasted streets and past abandoned, grimy buildings.
"Whole bloody thing be empty," Gar Tsi said.
Weak, browning grass swayed in clumps at the village center, a place that should've offered at least a dusty face or ten. The well, with a winch at its top and two buckets beside it, faintly smelled of mold and disuse. House windows hung open, stained curtains rippling.
The merchant tugged the reins, and their donkey plodded to a halt.
"I don't like this," Teel muttered from the back of the wagon. She slid a long dagger from beneath her skirt and crouched to place her back against the thick planks. "Like someone is watching me, but without the eyes to see."
Irreor's father had said, 'It's stupid to enter a place unaware, especially one that's changed. I've seen too many men step into traps they should've seen.'
He scanned the windows for bowmen, craned his head to search for men hidden in the shadows. Nothing. Empty. Yet his back itched, as if someone were painting red and white circles.
"Turn the wagon around," he ordered.
Gar Tsi snorted. "You're both being babies. It's empty, not being dangerous, bloody fool boy. You're father was a man mightier than this, so don't be telling me you're afraid of a whisper of wind. I know better. It's just wind!"
"Am I also foolish?" Teel asked. "Turn this demon-bloody-damned wagon around, or I'll carve you a new necklace. I'm not just going to sit here—"
"Hey, the wagon!" a call came from the far side of the square.
Irreor swiveled, his blades fast and tight in his fists. A man limped from behind the well, one leg dragging in the dirt and dust. He clutched a cane in one hand and greasy, brown robes in the other. Gray hair, almost white, reached his shoulders, and his face was marred by countless creases.
"Ain't seen nary a face in two weeks," the man rasped. "Call me Frennim. Ain't suppose I could be so lucky as to hear some news from beyond these walls?"
Gar Tsi winked. "Been telling you, boy. Listen to the instincts of your elders. Isn't often I'll be steering you wrong. And if I ever am doing it, well, it'll just be too late then, won't it?"
Teel kicked the back of his bench.
"Ain't heard nothing for too long," the man said. "Please, just a scrap—"
"Where is everyone?" Gar Tsi asked. "I haven't been coming here for close to a year, and it were a thriving little place before today."
Frennim laughed. "They left. Left for a better place, they told me. Young and foolish, the whole bloody lot of them. The men said they'd find a way to win the coins promised by the king, and they took their families with them."
"You're being alone?"
"This leg ain't letting me get to Rippon, not that I'd have a chance to win Abennak's coin." He massaged his thigh with gnarled fingers. "Damn bloody tree, near twenty years ago now. It done smacked me good."
"So you're here?"
"So I'm here." He looked to the southern gate. "What's happened there?"
Irreor slid his sword and dagger back into their sheaths. This man wasn't a threat, but something—that whisper against his shoulders, the heaviness in his chest—it hadn't left. It touched him like a promise.
-I must find something to change him, but what?-
I don't need to be changed.
-Ah, for if I can't find anything to change him, then nothing will change. It's so simple and yet so complex. Failure. Dark, anticipating failure. Worse th
an waiting for the knife to fall. No, I can't let that happen. I must change him.-
Irreor clenched his teeth, struggled to thrust the voice to the back of his head.
"He's building an army," Frennim said. "Least, that's what I done heard a'fore everyone up and left. Some say he means to strike the Inner Empire. Damned fools claim he's angry at the lacking trade. Bah! There weren't much trade to begin with."
"You're not agreeing with them?" Gar Tsi asked.
"Not as far as you can toss a gnat. Abennak ain't got his eyes on the Inner Empire. We ain't got the boats to float there, nor men enough to burn it. That place is too big for our puddle of an island to attack." Frennim released a throaty chuckle. "War against them would drain us drier than my wife's thighs."
-I'll need thousands of people. No, I'll need far more than that—tens of thousands. They'll start small, one village on an empty island. Oh, how it will grow. I'll forge an empire.-
"Then why's he gathering an army?" Irreor asked, a cold fear growing in the pit of his stomach. If the Mad King wasn't interested in the Inner Empire, then only one possibility remained.
"For Alkar, I'd think. One side of this island ain't enough for him."
***
Irreor and the merchant rested below the branches of a tiny wooded area. The Skiran Plains surrounded this forest, hugging it close and safe as if to never release it. Crickets chirped in the distance, their voices tiny and insignificant. A fire crackled at his feet, and a rabbit, caught by Teel's deft hands, sizzled on a spit, filling their camp with the scent of roasting meat.
The merchant's wife lounged in the wagon, unwilling to leave her blankets.
'You stink,' she'd told the merchant. 'I'll eat here. If you manage to take a bath then you're welcome to join me. Not before.'
Gar Tsi had frowned at the lakeless, streamless forest. 'But there isn't being no place to—'
'Exactly.'
So Irreor sat with the older man, his thoughts heavy.
War.
The word hung like an arrow ready to plunge beneath flesh—sharp and jagged, crafted for a singular purpose. A swift blade might protect a man from one shaft, but what about a hundred, or a thousand? Nothing could stop that. Not a sword or a shield or a wish.
But it won't target some random city. It will fall on my friends. On Kipra. And Bran and Krayr and Graelina, and all the other people I've ever known. Void take me, I can't let that happen.
"You're wound tighter than a ship's rope," Gar Tsi said.
Irreor nodded, not trusting himself to reply. He'd told the merchant little of his past, less of his father or his friends, nothing of Kipra. Telling those things wouldn't have made his job easier. They wouldn't have helped keep a better watch or swing a faster sword.
But how much could he say? Would the other man understand?
Gar Tsi cared for little more than his wagon and his wife. His worries fell beneath an easy chuckle, only concerned with which goods to buy and sell, which trail to take. Nothing like this.
"You should take Teel up on her offer," the merchant said.
"No."
"Foolish boy, you must've been learning by now that I'm not caring, and I'm being certain she's willing. Sometimes a man just needs a woman's touch. Steals the tension from your shoulders, the whirl from your head."
"No."
"But—"
"I don't want it, Gar Tsi. Let it go."
They fell silent for a moment as the fire crackled and popped. Blue flames chased orange, which melted to white at the bottom. It provided some warmth against the evening, but coldness weighed against Irreor's chest like a chunk of iron in a snowbank. Like an old scar in the winter, it ached.
"There's a girl," Irreor said. "And—"
"Ah ha! I knew you weren't chasing snakes."
"Right." He picked up a stick and thrust its end into the coals. "I don't know how to describe this. It seems silly, in a way, like I'm not supposed to talk about it."
-She'll never love him. No, she mustn't do that, or all is lost. And lost things will never be found. They'll hide and hide and hide, until we can't see or taste or feel them. Ah, how I wish I could feel.-
Not now. Please, void take me, not now.
Gar Tsi grunted. "How's a man supposed to be understanding a woman? It isn't common, and any fellow who claims to is either a fool or insane."
At that, Irreor chose to remain silent.
-And in the stillness of night, he'll find it—that spark, that light, that courage. But what will he do with it? Ah, he'll run.-
I didn't run!
-He'll run until his feet crack and blister, until his face streams and his heart aches. Then he'll run some more.-
No, I didn't—
"The harpy inside my wagon," Gar Tsi said, and he chuckled a secret chuckle. "She's been twisting me in more ways than I thought I could manage. But I always be finding myself a way to unravel."
Irreor pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Strange, for the son of a blademaster to be uncertain. Strange that he should fear. Rumors of the Mad King, the tournament announcement, and the unsettling, empty village—they meant something nearly impossible to imagine.
War.
"This isn't just about a woman, is it?" Gar Tsi said. "No, I'm seeing on your face that it isn't. Boy, hear this well. Thoughts are being like a caged badger. Left too long, they just get meaner."
Again the fire popped. Blue chased orange chased white.
"If Abennak is gathering an army," Irreor said, "if he truly means to strike south to attack Alkar, then my friends and my city will be one of the first targets." He clenched his fists. "I won't let that happen."
"You're thinking your sword can cut through a hundred men? A thousand?"
"No. Maybe."
Irreor hung his head low. He hadn't protected his friends against Crest. Like the voice had said, he'd run. Ah, and where to? Here, sitting at the foot of a fire, listening to an old merchant give advice.
Damned foolish!
"My father was a Kilnsman," he murmured, holding to that last word. Somehow, that single word was more than a simple memory. It was strength and reassurance. "His history meant something to him, and I always thought I knew what. Skill. Determination?"
"Now what are you thinking it means?"
"I ran." The other man may not understand, but it didn't matter. He needed to say these things for himself, not the merchant.
"And you're thinking of running agai—"
"He always told me to finish what I started. Drilled it into me, again and again. I don't think he'd want me to run, because I'm already commited to working for you."
Gar Tsi nodded—serious, kind, understanding. "I'm needing you for a week more, boy, perhaps two. After that, you're free to do as you wish." He cast Irreor a quick smile. "I'm thinking you're crazy, believing you can save your city or your friends with your arm alone. There's being no man able to do that—"
"I—"
"Once we're through with Rippon, you be doing what you've got to."
-How I wish I could take him in my arms. How I wish I could murmur that his life will be filled with peace, or that it will end in happiness and love and wonder. But it won't.-
Irreor shook his head.
-I can't let him have that.-
Chapter Seventeen
Kipra sat on the low rise overlooking Farren, her sword resting cross her knees. The morning sun hung just above the horizon, the same as when she and Ark had once trained for hours without pause. Those times—the dancing blades, the quick breaths, the yellowish-red sunlight in their eyes, and Ark's concise, sometimes harsh lessons—they were the best of her life.
She brushed her fingers across the flat of her blade.
She'd never told him how much she enjoyed those lessons, never told him of the sorrow she'd felt—like Bran's hammer to her chest—when Ark told her he'd leave to travel with the merchant.
Despite her heartache, he was still just a man, one best left forgo
tten.
The city hadn't gotten better, especially after Ark left. Something about him—Crest's residual fear of his father, or the fluid, snakelike way he moved, or the rare, almost maddened gleam in his eye—had caused the whole city to step lightly around him. Too locked in his own inner ego, he'd never noticed. Nor had he thought about what would happen to the city without him.
The Parched Ones were ever more common, and she'd grown somewhat accustomed to them. It wasn't easy. In those first weeks after Ark left, they'd accounted for one of every ten people. Within months that had become two in ten, then five in ten.
Now it was even more.
Despite Bran's assurances that everyone would ignore her, she'd attempted to tell Haral and Paien about them. Haral had given her a strange look and said, "You're losing your mind, woman. There's nothing different about the people of this city."
So she'd let it drop, speaking of the Parched Ones only with Bran.
It reached far beyond the city. They came from Alkar, Rippon, and even the swamps to the far west, traveling to Farren to sell wares or visit family.
They covered the entire island. Yet what could she do? Nothing.
She'd let it drop after several months, studied them from afar, and continued her life.
She rolled to her feet, snapped her weapons into their sheaths, and stomped down to the city. It awakened with puffing chimneys and a quiet clamor. Two guards, one of them Parched, the other not, leered at her, but she ignored them. She knew they saw a woman in tight armor, an hourglass figure with swaying hips, lush hair and full lips. They saw a woman to use.
Let them try to use this one.
She headed down an alley, a shortcut to her Haral's shop, and frowned as she neared a hooded woman. The woman shuffled in the opposite direction, crackling like fire, fingers clenching and unclenching.
"Ma'am, have you got a bit of work to do?" the Parched Woman mumbled, and she held out a hand. "I've got a son. He hasn't eaten in two day—"
"No," Kipra said.
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