by C. J. Aaron
The emotion was not just limited to the tributes. The guards who remained closest to the work camp showed unquestionable signs of disgust at the sight. These were not the looks of repulsion that Ryl had grown accustomed to seeing written across the faces of his jailors during his tenure. The difference was as clear as night and day. The guards who’d abandoned their post, rebelling with the captain, viewed the shells of the tributes with loathing that was internalized. They were sickened in themselves for their part they played in perpetuating this occurrence. Disgusted in the dredges of humanity that allowed this to continue unchecked.
“So, this is the life we have to look forward to after our Harvest?” a voice rose from the depths of the crowd. Ryl turned his head but could see not the speaker.
He slowly viewed the mass of tributes that now gathered around the shells of their companions. He turned around in a circle, making a point to make eye contact with as many as he could.
He saw anger.
He saw questioning.
He saw fear.
He closed his eyes for a moment, sending a wave of hope out in a circle, touching all those who gathered around their fallen companions. His eyes lit with a fire that matched the heat surging through his veins. The air around his body shifted slightly in a circular motion; his hair and cloak ruffled in the steady breeze. Those standing closest to him took a step back.
“This is no longer the life you’re destined to lead,” he growled. His voice was hushed yet carried over the assembled group. “I spoke true this morning. As of today there will be no more tributes, no more Harvest. Though you still linger inside its walls, The Stocks will hold you no longer.”
There was a mumbling clamor of ascension and contention from the tributes. Ryl pivoted slowly, seeking the most vocal skeptics of the group.
“You lead us north, when freedom lies to the south, through the gate,” came a cry from behind.
Ryl nodded his head as he turned.
“Aye, we could have led you south. It is true that we could have blown open the doors, we could have released a flood of tributes into the streets of Cadsae Proper,” Ryl acknowledged. “Over ten thousand trained soldiers, armed with steel, not batons, wait in the garrison on the outskirts of that city. I’ve walked those same streets. They now teem with a massing of citizens who made the trip to see one thing. All walks of life and joined together in the spectacle of tributes being dragged from inside these walls to their awaiting fates.”
“We’ve seen what you can do,” came another voice from the mass. “Could you not have hewed a pathway through them? They trembled with fear at the display of your powers.”
Ryl looked at the phrenics who’d remained standing alongside the black wagon. He needed not see their faces to understand the pained emotion that each of them emitted.
“Aye, that we could. We could have cut down each and every man, women or child who raised their arms against us,” his admission sent a shudder through the crowd. “What then? You’d be free. You’d have nowhere to go.”
Silence fell over the crowd as he continued.
“We are not butchers. Though we are more than capable, we do not seek death,” Ryl stated. “To end this cycle of oppression, to drive the final nail through the Ascertaining Decree, there will surely be blood. There will come a time, when the phrenics will stand against those in battle. When that day comes, we will not stand alone. There is much you will learn of the power that flows through your veins. The phrenics of old sought peace. Sought to bring balance to the world. In another time you would have been revered for your intellect, sought after for your counsel and cherished for the wonders you could create. The phrenics of ages past offered a voice of wisdom behind the men and women who ruled the Kingdom. Their station was never to lead. They were educators.”
“Who will stand with us to make that change?” another voice rang from the crowd. Ryl caught sight of the speaker as he continued his questioning. Ryl smiled as he recognized its origin. It was Cray. Andr’s son. “We are but a few hundred. Untrained in the skills of war. There are only a handful of soldiers with us. What hope do we have against the countless millions who’d see us enslaved?”
Ryl understood the question. He understood the doubt. His eyes had once been blind to the possibility that the world wasn’t as dark, wasn’t as disparate as it seemed. It was a single act that opened his eyes.
“Aye, there is a vast disparity in the numbers. Not long ago I was like you, believing that we were alone. That nowhere in the Kingdom were any to rely on; any that desired more than to keep us in chains,” Ryl locked eyes with Cray as he continued. The young man held his burning gaze as he continued. “It was within these walls that I was awakened to the fallacy of those thoughts. A single act of unexpected kindness from a solitary guard rekindled the flickering light of hope that had nearly expired.”
He turned his body slowly, locating Andr, who was leaning against the side of the black wagon.
“It was with the assistance of this same man that that the vile sub-master of Tabenville met his deserving demise,” Ryl announced as he met the eyes of Andr. He stretched out his hand, extending his pointer finger toward the mercenary. “It was again with his assistance that I survived after my Harvest. He has become my steadfast companion, my closest friend. He followed me on a seemingly hopeless mission through the wastes of the Outlands, carrying me when I could go no further.”
The beginnings of a smile cracked across Andr’s face as he gave a subtle, approving and thankful nod.
“Though they have been silenced for fear of death, there are those out there who hold more ill will toward the Ascertaining system than to the tributes,” Ryl continued. “Left alone, we offer no threat to them. They’ve been denied the knowledge, been denied the truth of their history for generations. They’ve been fed tales of a wonderless existence, a life lived in perpetual servitude. The teachings have been so pervasive that they infected the very fiber of their beings. Ignorance is now a trait tragically passed down to our children. The wonders of the world have been relegated to nothing more than myth.”
“How do we expect to live, how do we survive when we have no treatment?” the question was met with a chorus of voices all talking over one another, echoing a similar sentiment. “We’ll be dead within a moon.”
Ryl raised his hands begging for quiet. At the same time, he sent out a wave of calm. The emotion had a clear effect on some, while others looked more confused as they realized the distraction of the unwarranted emotion.
“I stand here before you now, do I not?” Ryl asked rhetorically. “The treatment that’s been forced down your throats since the day you stepped foot inside these walls is a lie. It is a poison that acts as a barrier that prevents your body from accessing its rightful powers.”
Ryl turned slowly in a circle regarding the tributes that surrounded him.
“I warn you, the sickness that will come is very real, though it is not the death sentence that it has been made to seem,” Ryl admitted. “It is an excruciatingly painful result of the alexen in your body fighting back at the vile poison that has choked your veins. We carry with us a remedy which should lessen the effects, though the sickness may linger for weeks.”
The voices from the surrounding tributes again spoke in a chorus of distinctly differing opinions. Ryl could make no sense of the noise as they shouted over each other. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryl saw Captain Le’Dral working his way forward to the front of the group.
“There’s nowhere in The Stocks that we can hide for weeks,” a voice shouted over the others. “We’ll be hunted down in days if they haven’t begun already.”
“Aye, they will come,” Captain Le’Dral announced as he stepped into the inside of the circle that had formed around Ryl. “Inside these walls, we are visible virtually anywhere we go. Rest now, we will use the cover of darkness to move ahead unseen.”
Ryl observed the faces of the tributes as the captain spoke. He was curious to see their re
actions. Only a few hours earlier, he had been a high ranking representative of the Kingdom that kept them enslaved. A Kingdom they now knew had designed to milk them of every last drop of the blood, of the power that lived within their veins. He was surprised to see that most watched him intently, listening with rapt attention as he spoke.
The actions of the tributes spoke more to the character of the captain than the words that issued from his mouth. He had again kept his promise.
He’d treated them with the respect they deserved.
“They are disorganized, though I expect a scouting party to be moving in our wake as we speak,” the captain continued. “I want them to find only the smoldering remains of our fire when they arrive. The army will undoubtedly march into the night. By the time the scouts report back we should be miles closer to our destination.”
“Where will we go?” it was Sarial who spoke up as the captain’s words faded.
“We march for Tabenville,” Ryl responded confidently. “It is the only defensible position left within The Stocks.”
“When the sickness falls there will be a force of less than fifty to hold off an army of nearly ten thousand,” Cray interjected “Not for hours, but for weeks. How will we survive the attacks?”
Ryl took a deep breath, letting the crisp, refreshing air satiate his boiling blood.
“The force standing between you and whatever army marches forth will be miniscule,” Ryl acknowledged. “Yet, our enemies will find that they have more to fear than a handful of soldiers and a few cloaked warriors.”
The tributes around him went silent as they pondered the meaning of his cryptic response. Ryl was hesitant to divulge more information than necessary. He paused for a moment before continuing. The wind circling around his body began to intensify.
“You are all phrenic,” Ryl stated plainly. “You are unawakened, yet the power of your alexen unites us all. We are the last of a race pushed to the brink of extinction. You’ve carried on for so long with only the faintest glimmer of hope. Close your eyes and tell me what you see with your mind; the light you see is that hope realized.”
He noted the eyes of a few squeeze shut at his command. He quickly surveyed the crowd for any sign of recognition. Of all, it was Palon who regarded him with an uncharacteristic grin.
“There are yet secrets to be discovered within these walls that have hidden in plain sight since your first day here,” Ryl said quietly. “And there are wonders beyond these walls that have remained hidden from the Kingdom since their inception. All will come to light soon enough. Rest is what’s needed now. We still have many miles to travel before we reach our destination.”
With little else of substance that needed to be said, the impromptu meeting came to a close. There was still much for the tributes to learn. The secrets of the Erlyn loomed in the distance. The secrets that lay dormant in their blood begged for discovery. The wait would be excruciating, possibly even more so than the sickness that was inevitably to come.
The tributes dispersed with a distant look in their eyes. Though the future was undoubtedly uncertain, their hopes of freedom bolstered their flagging spirits. They walked with a spring to their step that Ryl hadn’t seen the likes of in his cycles in The Stocks. That was not to say that their fears of capture and the sickness did not still weigh on them. Ryl could see traces of it in their shoulders. He could see its force pushing on them as they moved about the work camp.
For the first time, however, the doubt and the fear were fighting a losing battle against hope.
Many of the tributes made ready for rest, bedding down anywhere there was room. The guards had done their best to distribute the spare bedrolls taken from the storeroom at Cadsae, however, there were still far more tributes than supplies. In most cases, the lack of the added comfort was trivial; they were more than accustomed to spending the night sleeping on the ground.
Others found themselves locked in conversations with their peers. They glanced at the guards with uncertain eyes, hesitant to put trust in those who’d ensured their captivity for so long. They viewed the phrenics with a sense of confusion, wonderment and even fear.
The eyes that followed Ryl were filled with awe.
The feeling of their conspicuous looks was disconcerting. It reminded him of the attention he’d received in Vim once the true nature of his power, of the phrenics’ power, was revealed after the devastation of the Prophet’s Tree.
Ryl wandered through the tributes before stopping briefly among them. He found his closest friends huddled together near the outer wall of the small common house. Through the door, he could see the modest domain was overflowing with bodies, jostling for sleeping position under the shelter of the roof.
He had a momentary flashback to the last time he’d journeyed on the dusty, narrow road through The Stocks. The master’s assassins had plagued them by night and two common houses were razed to the ground.
Ryl smiled as he approached the group of his friends. Faya was sitting on the ground, her legs crossed in front of her as she listened intently to Aelin’s animated story. Her smile shone brighter than the brilliant blue of her sightless eyes. Rolan stood several paces away chatting idly with Luan and her seemingly steadfast defenders, Tash and Palon. His eyes glistened from the swelling emotion as he watched his daughter play with the young tribute.
Sarial had returned to where they had unloaded the impaired tributes with Elora at her side. Several others had followed suit, assisting with their care. Ryl watched as a pair assisted one of the more mobile of their charges, gently supporting her under each arm as she sluggishly shuffled her feet.
One small, hesitant step followed the other as they made their way across the now trampled patch of wild grass alongside the road. Her eyes were unfocused and appeared to be clouded over. Ryl felt a tinge of frustration and annoyance that he'd failed to recognize her before now. Her face was one which he should have recognized, having left with the Harvest in cycle 1347, only four cycles prior.
Her name was Terrali. She shared the same story as many within the walls. Like too many others, her family had made the unconscionable decision to choose gold over the life of their only daughter.
Though her staggered steps, taken with a considerable amount of support, were a monumental achievement in terms of any of their recoveries, he was still concerned about their seeming lack of connection with the world around them. Amongst all of them, moments of lucid awareness were still unseen.
The afternoon progressed rapidly as the sun plummeted toward the western palisade. The ailing tributes had been tended to and cared for by the compassionate hands of the tributes, guards and the mender. Jeffers was distressingly baffled by their condition. He paced wildly along the side of his wagon, arms folded across his chest, speaking to himself like a man possessed.
The captain had taken control of watching the perimeter as the tributes rested while they had the chance. His troops were unsurprisingly well trained. A perimeter was maintained, while several scouts traveled south as well as east and west of their location. Ryl refused to leave the guard duty solely to Le’Dral and his men. Andr, the Vigil and the phrenics maintained their own patrols and shifts, though theirs were centered closer to the tributes and their wagon.
With few exceptions, Ryl had nearly ignored the intensity of the oppressive watchfulness that resulted from living in The Stocks. From their current position, alongside the work camp at Thayers Rest, sight of the walls was blocked by the hill from which the camp got its name and by the small grove of trees that surrounded the newly rebuilt common house.
As his shift was second, he’d laid down to rest, finding an opening among newly reunited friends. Sleep was not to come to him that evening. The excitement, the anxiety and the anticipation weighed on him, driving his mind into overdrive. With difficulty he managed to close his eyes, concentrating on his breathing enough to quiet his racing thoughts.
The short respite, though it included no sleep, was enough to restore his energy.
In truth, he hadn’t noted signs of fatigue throughout the day even in the wake of the previous eventful week. The creeping darkness of early night had descended upon The Stocks as he silently slipped from the group of sleeping tributes. Ryl marveled at the ability of many to slumber given the circumstances. The flickering light of the small fire they’d built for warmth illuminated their bodies with the flickering orange glow of the flames. He noted the steady rise and fall of their chests and the consistent, rhythmic breathing that signaled that sleep had come. He smiled as he noted Rolan with Faya curled up beside him, her head on his chest. Along his other side, Aelin lay in a mirror pose of his daughter.
Ryl pulled his hood up over his head as he stole from the group into the gloom of the early night. His destination led him across the narrow hard-packed dirt road up the hill on its opposite side. He nodded his head at Andr as he passed. The mercenary leaned against the edge of the black wagon, his hand resting at the ready on his hip, his fingers only inches from the hilt of his sword.
A quick visual survey of the area told him that the tributes they’d pulled from the facility all still slumbered. Whether their sleep was restful or consumed by torturous nightmares, he was yet to know. He was at least partially reassured that they appeared comfortable. None cried out in agony or fear. The involuntary spasms and twitching had seemed to subside.
He scanned the area with his mindsight, marveling at the depth of information his vision provided. The combined light from the volume of tributes and phrenics was overwhelming, though he could make out the individual glow of each. The phrenics burned drastically brighter than the rest. He could tell the slight variations in the glow of their signatures as easily as he could recognize their faces.
Ryl slowly trudged up the gentle slope of the hill at Thayers Rest—where it met the horizon, the sky burned with a brilliant array of dark reds. The growing deep purple of the quickly approaching night worked to force the color of the day from view. The small copses of trees that dotted The Stocks appeared as blackened silhouettes against the lighter landscape and the jagged, charcoal peaks of the Haven’s stabbed into the sky to the north. Along the Palisades on both sides, signal fires were burning from every tower as word of the morning’s events had swiftly spread. He could see the tiny pinpoints of light from torches moving rapidly between the evenly spaced lookouts. As far as he could recall, there had never been a call for the signal fires to be lit before.