He found himself in a large meadow, possibly one of the old campsites of the nomadic rebel villages. But there was something familiar here. That tree, how it crooks to the side. That boulder, with the haitberry shrub growing through a crack near the top. The way the bordering trees to the south thinned out to reveal a vast open plain beyond.
Yes, he recognized the field. It was about twenty five miles southeast of camp. It was a place Reit had said that they would likely move in the next day or two.
And it was directly in line with Bastion.
***
“Look, I know what I felt,” barked Keth. His voice boomed furiously across the communal tent, pitched just between Jaren’s and Reit’s own wagons.
Reit stifled a yawn as he listened to the young granite’s tirade. Keth had awakened him from a dead sleep, demanding without preamble that a rescue team be dispatched to Bastion at once. But even half awake, the rebel leader refused to be persuaded.
“I’m not saying that you didn’t sense him, Keth. But now is not the time to go off on some half-ripe plan.” The granite opened his mouth to respond, but Reit cut him off. “The Earthen Rank haven’t given up the search for us, no matter what you might think. I’m constantly getting reports of our sister villages being forced to relocate—sometimes three times a week—to avoid the Rank scouts. And we will be headed for Bastion soon, anyway. If we sent a team toward Bastion now, in advance of the rest of us also headed toward Bastion, we run the risk of losing men that we cannot spare on an endeavor that would just as easily be served five weeks hence.”
“Five weeks could see Sal dead by our inaction,” Keth accused.
“And what of the lives of my men?!?” Reit snapped, his outrage bringing him fully awake. “What of the knowledge that they would carry about our plans for Harvest, to the very city we plan to attack? You have the audacity to come into my home in the dead of night and demand we send out a rescue team into a city that absolutely teems with Earthen Rank! Have you not thought of their lives? Or those of their families? Or those of the people of this land, should our plans for Harvest be compromised? And for what? The life of a friend—dear, yes, but not dear enough to cost the world this rare chance at freedom. The Highest has held the mainland in his grip for far too long. We need the information that is in the Archives. Too much depends on it. I cannot allow any man—not even Sal—stand in the way of that.”
Keth crossed his arms and set his jaw stubbornly. For long minutes, he couldn’t look Reit in the eye. When he finally did, he found Reit staring back, absolutely unwavering, his demeanor as strong as any steel Keth had ever seen. Try as he might, he couldn’t fight the logic. Being a creature of practicality, it proved to be his weakness. And Reit knew it. “Then send me,” Keth said quietly. “I’ll do it by myself.”
“Out of the question.”
“Why?” Keth demanded incredulously. “I’m the perfect man for the job! I don’t know the half of what you plan for Harvest. I can avoid the patrols better than any rescue team could. I’m more powerful than any five mages you’ve got. I know how to find Sal. I—”
“—would be spotted the first time you surface, if a granite squad doesn’t feel you coming first,” Reit countered. “What, the renegade granite? You can bet that every guard from Aitaxen to Aeden’s Runoff has your description, and standing orders to kill you on sight. Admit it. You’re as infamous as I am.”
The granite winced, caught again in the trap of Reit’s logic.
Reit softened, conscious of the pain Keth was in. “Keth, I won’t invoke the oath you’ve sworn to me. That would likely do more damage than good, anyway. But you must trust me. I’ve poured over our options, more times than I’m willing to count. I’ve seen them from a hundred different angles. And at the moment, it’s just too great a risk.
“Look, I didn’t earn the respect of my people by leaving them out to dry. Nobody—nobody—recognizes the asset we have in Sal as I do. But we cannot afford to be foolhardy at a time like this. And Sal wouldn’t want us to, either. Not with so many lives at stake. So we stick to the plan. After we have the information from the Archives, and it’s in a safe place, I fully intend to return for Sal. But until then, he’ll have to manage on his own. Trust me, he’s resourceful,” he added with a wry grin. “If he’s held out this long, he can hold out a little longer.”
Keth looked down at his boots, kicking at a clod of dirt. Grudgingly he nodded, ceding the victory to Reit, then turned and strode from the tent, undoubtedly half intent on defying Reit’s orders anyway.
Reit could hardly blame him. In fact, he’d been of the exact same mind as Keth for days now, ever since the granite had first sensed Sal. His heart went out to the young man as he trudged back to his own tent, frustrated. But as much as Reit identified with the mage, he had a responsibility to his people—to all people held under the thumb of the Highest—and he would not make any move that didn’t logically play out. And a rescue attempt didn’t play out. Not yet.
Sighing, he turned from the tent and mounted the stairs of his wagon. Through the open door he saw Delana, starring sleepily at him from beneath the covers, but he wasn’t fooled. She’d heard every word they’d spoken.
“Do you think I was wrong?” he asked, still standing in the doorway.
“You’re el’Yatza,” she answered simply. “You don’t have the luxury of listening to your heart, or that of one of your friends. You must think of the whole world, every soul who has been touched by the tyranny of the Highest.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” he said with a grin. He knew that she supported him in everything he did, and would rarely disapprove of even the most drastic measure. But it would still be nice to be able to hear what was in her heart, what she thought apart from el’Yatza.
“ el’Yatza! el’Yatza!” came a cry from behind him, and he groaned inwardly. Now what?
“Gaelen? What’s the matter?”
“It’s Nestor, sir,” the amethyst said breathlessly, though the lump in the young man’s throat told him that Nestor wasn’t his only concern. Or even his first.
***
Nestor struggled through the thicket, lugging his bound and gagged prisoner behind him. He was careful to keep bare skin on bare skin, sharing the hated spell of the shackle with his precious Jaeda. “You might as well stop fighting me, my dear. We’re going to be together a long time.
Muffled curses made their way around her gag, bringing a smile to his face.
He made his way north, along the rocky banks of a tributary that led southward from the heart of the Garden. If he remembered his cartography, the tributary led all the way to the Rhu’sai, to a point just south of Scholar’s Ford. But to go south would lead him directly into the hands of his captors again. And to go east or west would be pointless, as he would likely get lost in the vast forest without any landmarks. No, it had to be north, north along the only river around for miles in any direction.
“You know,” he said breathlessly in his best conversational tone. “Aeden’s Garden is where the first pegasus was found. Many thousands of years ago, just after the Day of the Crafter’s Tears, the Highest himself came across it in his quest to unite the broken pieces of civilization. So taken was he by it that he had it tamed, and brought back to his camp in the heart of this very forest. Stop—struggling—you can’t get—away...”
Jaeda continued to kick, thrash, and spit curses into her gag throughout the night until finally the strength bleed out of her. She collapsed against Nestor’s back, heaving her exhaustion, but no longer struggling. For now, anyway. Good, good, thought the shackled granite. The less to bother with, the better.
Nestor trudged on, ever northward along the tributary, hoping to find some trail of a wild pegasus, or maybe even a hint of the Highest’s first camp. He’d heard stories, wonderful, amazing stories, more than anyone else could ever dream...
***
“We can’t find them,” Retzu reported, eliciting a groan of despair fro
m the young amethyst. Reit hung his head, empathetic of Gaelen’s pain, but unable to assuage it.
“The trail leads southeast, to a river some hundred feet across. It cuts south as it approaches the river, but then gets lost on the rocky banks. There’s no way to know if they went south or north.”
“Far side of the river?”
“No trail.”
“Keth?” Reit asked of Delana, standing ever present at her husband’s side, to advise, to comfort.
“He’s not back yet,” she said, casting a quick look at Gaelen, the pushing on, “but I doubt he’ll find anything. With that shackle on, Nestor will have no aura to speak of, and neither will Jaeda, if he’s keeping constant skin-on-skin contact.”
Gaelen swayed a bit at the pronouncement, but kept his feet with a little help from Senosh, who held him up with a single comforting arm. With his eyes, Reit thanked his ruby friend yet again for the role he’d taken as Gaelen’s counselor in this troubling time. He knew it was uncharacteristic of the elder Mandiblean to show such familiarity, especially in public, but Senosh was not a stranger to pain. The Earthen Ranks had murdered his wife while quelling a rebellion in the deserts outside of Deitrich years before. Senosh could identify with the pain of his kinsman, and vowed not to leave his side until Gaelen wished it so.
“Don’t think the worst just yet, Gaelen,” Jaren chimed in with his usual cheeriness, subdued enough to not be abrasive to the pain-stricken amethyst. “You still have an advantage.”
“How’s that?” Gaelen spat. “My sister is missing, in the hands of the man she betrayed. Where’s the advantage?”
“Two things. First, and pardon me for even mentioning this, but Jaeda is not dead. Keth would have immediately found residual traces of her aura as soon as skin-to-skin contact was broken and Nestor left her behind. Simply the fact that Keth hasn’t made it back yet is proof that he’s found nothing. And besides, Nestor needs her too much to kill her, both as a hostage and as a witness to the placing of the shackle. If anyone could tell him how to remove it without needing Marissa present, it would be her.”
Gaelen straightened some, standing a bit taller on more stable knees, but he still struggled to hold his despair in check. “And the second?”
Jaren looked to Reit, who nodded back at him. It was no secret that the emerald was his most trusted confidante outside of Delana and Retzu. But still, secrets were secrets, and Reit had to be circumspect about whom he reveals them to. He remembered well his promise to Jaeda, and he was reluctant to mention it in a crowd where any last one of the scouts or persons in attendance might say something to Keth. Still, Gaelen needed comfort. And more than that, he needed something to do.
“You still have your drum code. You can still communicate with her, should she get the chance to contact you.”
“We’ll keep looking,” Reit assured. “But our search can only last so long, and each day we spend searching is a day that they move further away from us, and that the Rank move closer. Eventually, we must head south to the Rhu’sai, and then to Bastion. But distance is no bar to your drum code. If anyone is to find her, it will likely be you.”
Chapter 24
“Excellent!” bellowed the barrel chested emerald as he walked among the rows, studying his pupils as they practiced their forms. “Become one with the sword. Make it an extension of your arm, your hand, your—Densin!” he cried, singling out a pimply faced young recruit.
The student was so startled that he almost dropped his wooden sword. He managed to regain control of the weapon long enough to salute, touching the hilt to his left breast, then sweeping the sword down in front to stand at his right hip. The sword slipped easily from his fingers as soon as the tip touched his ankle.
Had it been a real weapon, rather than a thin bundle of greenwood dowels—a crude, barely effective knock-off of the shol’tuk bokuto, Sal always thought—it likely would have severed his right foot at the shin.
Master Aten’rih scowled as he stalked toward the young mage—all the more when the dimwitted boy broke attention to retrieve the fallen sword. I know that scowl, Sal thought sympathetically as the instructor brushed past. I guess every drill sergeant looks the same, no matter what world you’re on.
Aten’rih was tall and built like a wedge, his thick shoulders almost as broad as his legs were long. His ire made him seem that much larger, already towering head and shoulders over the recruit, muscles rippling beneath his leather vest as he barked at the young man. “Densin, you worthless bucket of kharn swill, what do you think you’re doing? Slaughtering a pig for Endweek dinner? I’ve seen teenaged girls handle a sword better than that!”
The dressing down continued for at least five minutes, the teacher shouting directly into the student’s face the entire time. He covered all major points of Densin’s life, calling into question his sexual preference, his mother’s chastity, and his fathering. All Densin could do was stand there and take it. Though he pitied the young man, Sal bit back a laugh. No “stress cards” in this man’s army, he chuckled silently. When Master Aten’rih was finished, Densin—his face wet with sweat and spittle—bowed his head in proper humility, and took off around the courtyard, wooden sword held high above his head as he ran his laps.
“Your sword is not a tool,” Aten’rih addressed the class through clenched teeth. “It is razor sharp death, and it must be treated as such. In battle, it is the one thing you can trust. Your magic? Bah! If you’re blinded or unfocused, your magic will fail you. If you are shackled or held in a nullifying field, your magic will fail you. In battle, you’re sword is all that stands between you and eternity.
“Subsergeant Sal!” he called to Sal. “To the front.”
Sal broke formation and obeyed, turning to face the assembly. He swept his sword in a flawless salute as he came to attention. From Sal’s right came a muffled snicker. His uncovered eye flicked from face to face until he found one sneering back at him. Sal flushed as he recognized that look.
It was the contemptuous look that was reserved for someone recognized by the entire class as “teacher’s pet.”
Scanning the formation, he saw other smirks, other students who leered at him in that same, contemptuous way. First irritated, now Sal’s blood started to boil. How in the world could they think that he was teacher’s pet?!? He’d never sucked up to a superior in his life! Where the heck did these jerks get off? His jaw tightened as he fought the sudden urge to sneer back, perhaps offer a challenge. Of course, he knew better. When you’re in formation, you dang sure better not even fart without permission, or you’d find yourself doing pushups until you puke.
“Subsergeant, do you feel that you have mastered this form?” asked Aten’rih, almost casually.
“Yes, sir!” Sal replied in his best boot camp voice.
“Do you feel you are ready to use it in battle?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Very well. Hon’as! Jelleck! Tribean!”
The recruits broke ranks one by one as their names were called, joining Sal before the assembly. As they joined him, Sal realized that each happened to be one of the sneering faces. Apparently, Master Aten’rih had seen the looks as well, and was not only testing Sal’s skill, but giving him a chance to defend his honor. In that moment, Sal found a new respect for the man.
“Sal, defeat your opponents using the skills of this form. I want to see every parry, thrust, and block at least once,” Aten’rih barked. Turning to face all four men, the emerald continued. “A blow to the head, neck, or abdomen will be considered a kill. The use of magic is prohibited.”
The mage bowed low to the four men equally, then backed away to a safe distance. “Begin!” he shouted.
The attack came on like lightning, catching Sal in the middle as his opponents encircled him. Swords struck out from every side, brownish-green blurs intent on drawing Sal off his guard so that they could make contact. But Sal was faster, reading the strikes before they were delivered.
Ducking low, he parrie
d one opponent’s sword into another’s hand. The student dropped his sword and clutched his fingers, bruised and screaming but otherwise unharmed. Sal kicked the sword away from the wounded student, and whirled to face the other two.
Weighted and shaped similar to his old bokuto, the practice sword came alive in Sal’s grip, blocking and parrying the onslaught almost instinctively. Earthen Rank swordplay was not as refined or as versatile as shol’tuk, but it was no less effective. Sal quickly executed all the moves of the form, getting them out of the way so he could fight freely.
One such move caught a student on the forehead. The green wood bounced in Sal’s hand from the shock of the blow, and his opponent—dazed, and with a red weal dividing his face—laid out on his back.
“Kill,” Aten’rih announced. “Jelleck, return to the lines.”
Sal didn’t have the chance to enjoy it, however. The student that he’d disarmed, Hon’as, had rejoined the fight, and although he still favored his hand, he lashed out with angry fervor. The strikes he delivered were wild but powerful, more suited to felling a tree than a swordsman.
The other student, Tribean, whipped his sword in a wide arc toward Sal’s chin, pulling his strike at the last minute and stepped inside Sal’s block, driving an elbow into his unprotected cheek. Stars danced in Sal’s vision as he fought desperately to maintain his defense. He had to find a way to separate these jokers somehow. Deflecting a flurry of swipes and lunges from both opponents, he bought himself enough time to backflip away from them. As his feet came up, they caught Tribean under the chin. The student staggered back as the other, Hon’as, pressed in.
Regaining his feet, Sal swept his sword up to block a hard chop to the head. The force of the blow drove his sword down behind him, exposing his flank. The student saw the opening and spun around, his wooden sword fully extended, intent on cutting Sal in two.
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