Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four

by Shepherd, Joel

  The serrin woman arrived at her path to a cabin, and said what was obviously an apology for leaving him. She walked to a cabin half-hidden amongst trees. She was wearing pants and a shirt, not so unlike what the men wore. Somehow Jaryd found that most astonishing of anything he'd seen in Saalshen so far. He'd assumed that talmaad women were merely abandoning their traditional, feminine garb for something more practical. Now he was finding that serrin women wore pants in Saalshen too.

  At the top of the path he found the trail he had been directed to, and followed it through the trees. Suddenly it opened onto a small lake on the hillside. On either side of the lake were grand wooden buildings with pointed roofs. They reminded Jaryd of some Lenayin training halls, where men would practise swordwork. These looked more peaceful, and those serrin he could see wore robes. Priests? he wondered, as he limped on around the lake. Within the templelike buildings, the walls were lined with carved symbols he had never seen before, and decorations like wind chimes dangled and swung about the doorways.

  Jaryd followed a path between wooden temples and thought that he had never seen a place quite so lovely. He had never been one to be interested in spiritual contemplation, but here he could feel the calm, could almost breathe it, like a scent on the air.

  In a small pool before a smaller building, he came upon two women. They sat on a shallow step in the water and talked, their light robes wet, their hair tousled. Jaryd fought back a smile—if Saalshen had one thing to recommend it, it was this. Serrin women were not shy.

  One woman looked up at his approach, and nudged her companion. That woman looked, and…Jaryd nearly stopped in astonishment. It was Sofy. Her hair was much shorter, still long, but now barely past her shoulders. The Idys Mark on her forehead was gone. There was no jewellery on her neck or fingers. One hand bore a bandage, cut with the knife she'd wielded to save his life, back at the Ipshaal crossing. She looked…new.

  “Hello,” she said simply, and the serrin woman climbed from the water with a knowing smile. “Sit,” she invited him.

  Jaryd wore only light clothes himself, good for both the warmth and his various recovering injuries. He removed his sword belt, placed it and the sword beside the pool, kicked off his sandals, and climbed in beside her. The water chilled pleasantly, and he leaned back against the poolside.

  “What is this place?” Jaryd asked.

  “You know, I'm not entirely sure. Kels is talmaad, she speaks Lenay well, yet somehow with serrin it's never entirely clear.”

  “It looks like some kind of temple complex.”

  Sofy nodded. “Oh, it is, for certain. But these people here, they're not priests or monks. Kels said they are all normal serrin, come from all over Saalshen. I think perhaps some of them have had tragedy in their lives, and they come here for solace.”

  “I didn't think serrin had religion,” said Jaryd, gazing up at the forest canopy high above.

  “Sasha once told me that serrin do not separate things into the spiritual and the nonspiritual. She said it made more sense to say that because the serrin do not organise religion, they find the spiritual in everything, not merely in temples. I think I understand now what she meant.”

  Jaryd nodded. “Everything is a small ritual to them.”

  They sat in silence, with only the sound of birds, wind in the branches, and the nearby tinkling of water into the pool.

  “I never thanked you for saving my life,” said Jaryd after a moment.

  Sofy smiled. “After you'd just saved mine five times over.”

  Jaryd shrugged. “I'm a warrior, it's my duty. You're no warrior, yet you've saved mine twice now.” The first time was in Algery, when Sofy had ridden in to save him from the cavalry that had surrounded him. “Even if you did forget to leave me a stirrup.”

  Sofy splashed at him lightly. “I was still learning to ride then. Though I did fall again just now.”

  “That was brave, taking that child. Stupidly brave. The kind of bravery that Sasha has. That I have.”

  “You have the ‘stupid’ right. It nearly killed me and the child both. If his mother had hidden, he may have been safer left behind.”

  Jaryd shook his head. “Never doubt courage. I was wrong to criticise it in you before. Courageous leaders make mistakes. Cowardly leaders make worse ones.”

  “You were correct to criticise me. Good leaders must listen to those who know better than they. You know fighting far better than I do. Far better than most men. I cannot make good decisions entirely on my own. I do not think that any leader can. Nor any person, in any part of life.”

  She seemed almost serene. Jaryd had not expected that.

  “Why the hair?” he asked her.

  “Do you like it?” she asked with girlish pleasure.

  “I do.”

  “Kels cut it for me—she said that women in the talmaad have evolved many styles for shorter hair, since long hair is so inconvenient for them.”

  “Sister Mardola would not like that,” he ventured.

  Sofy laughed, very loudly. It was a lovely sound. “No,” she admitted, with dancing eyes. “I daresay she would not.”

  “And the Mark of Idys? The Royal Ring?”

  Sofy sighed, and swished her feet in the water. “Oh dear. It's so silly. All of it's so silly, isn't it? It's like you told me, I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. And now I arrive here, in this place, and suddenly everything makes sense.”

  “Explain it to me, because I could use a little more sense in my life.”

  “Some things are good,” Sofy said simply. “Other things are bad.”

  Jaryd blinked at her. “That's it?”

  “Well, no. But what the Elissians did to us, what they did to all of those people, was bad. Evil.”

  “No argument here.”

  “And what we were trying to do for them, in helping them to safety in Saalshen, was good. I risked my life to save that child, and to help the rest of them. That was good. What Asym did to allow us to escape, that was even better.”

  “Eslen,” Jaryd gave the formal agreement, and made the spirit sign at his forehead. To his surprise, Sofy did the same.

  “He killed a lot of Elissians, yet I cannot deny the goodness of his actions,” Sofy continued. She paused a moment. Then added, “I killed one Elissian, and I did not feel sad for it. That stunned me more than the killing itself. I mean, this is me, Jaryd.” She laughed again. “The girl who used to scold the palace cat for killing a mouse. And so when I was dumped on the far Ipshaal bank I set about searching through my own soul for the horror that I expected to find at this awful thing that I had done with my own hands.” She looked at her bandaged hand, floating in the cool water. “But I found nothing.” She gazed at him with large dark eyes. “I was not sorry, Jaryd. I think I was even glad.”

  “Perhaps you are a warrior like Sasha after all,” Jaryd said with amusement.

  Sofy shook her head, adamantly. “No. I'll never be a warrior, I have not the discipline to learn skills that disinterest and frighten me. Nor the aptitude, no doubt. But I have realised for the first time what is wrong, and what is right. My old values mean nothing now. This new understanding has swept them away.”

  “There's nothing like seeing a slaughter first hand to rearrange your priorities,” Jaryd said sombrely.

  Sofy nodded. “I've seen killing before. I was with you and Sasha on the ride north…”

  “I remember well.”

  “But here…” She gazed up at the trees, and at the surrounding temples. “It's so beautiful. My husband seeks to destroy all this. I had thought to excuse him, thinking that he has the right to an opinion, being the representative of so many. But I come here, and I remember the killing in Tracato and now upon the Ipshaal, and I realise that he and all his opinions and his priests and his lords can jump in the sea for all I care. No one is entitled to that opinion. Let alone to act upon it with an army of a hundred thousand.”

  “One fifty,” Jaryd said quietly. “At l
east, if the Meraini come, and now the Elissians.”

  Sofy glanced down, with sudden fear. “And to think that I might have helped to make such a thing possible…”

  Jaryd caught her hand. “You have the kindest heart of any person I have known. You always think of others first. It is not in your nature to condemn and wish death upon people. But you walk the path, and you learn.”

  “I still don't wish death upon them,” Sofy murmured. “But I do want them stopped.”

  “And there is no other way but war,” Jaryd completed.

  Sofy looked back to him, and her eyes were clear. “I know,” she said simply. And she smiled, and looked around in exasperation. “It's foolish. I am committing to a fight we probably can't win. Most likely we'll all die a horrible death, me especially for betraying my lawful husband. But I don't care anymore.” She beamed at him. “I feel free.”

  Unadorned and water-wet in her robe, she looked free. Jaryd had never seen a woman more beautiful.

  “And what of your marriage?” he asked her.

  Sofy made a face. “The serrin say that life is a road strewn with obstacles. This obstacle I shall manoeuvre around somehow. Perhaps talk to the priests, consider the possibilities.”

  “Whoever wins the war,” Jaryd added, “the other is unlikely to survive.” His heart was thumping, with the dull excitement of possibility.

  “That is certainly true,” Sofy said.

  “In which case,” he obliged, “it makes little sense to be religiously observing marriage vows now.”

  Sofy made a conceding dip of her head. “We are in Saalshen after all,” she agreed.

  “Where marriage itself is a rare and foreign concept,” Jaryd added. He glanced about. “And would you look, I cannot see a priest anywhere.”

  Sofy threw her head back and laughed. Then gave him a look that was pure devilry, and went straight to his groin. “I don't want to talk of husbands anymore,” she said, and climbed onto Jaryd's lap in the water. She brushed wet hair from her face, lips nearly touching his. “Such a pointless distraction, when there are better things to think about.”

  Their lips touched. Her body enfolded to his, cool and firm, her lips and breath and eyes so familiar, as though they had never been apart. As though things had always been this way. She smiled at him, and kissed him again, and again. Some serrin may have walked past. Neither they, not their human guests, thought to mind.

  It was late evening upon leaving the Shuen Vaal, the shadows of the surrounding mountains darkening the streets even as the sky above remained blue. Sasha heard it first, the sound of shouting, and then of glass breaking.

  “Trouble,” she murmured to Bergen. They rounded a corner and found several people standing before a house whose windows had been broken. Beyond, people were running, and shouts came louder. The house bore a red star on the front door—a serrin house.

  “Let's just get back to the temple without any trouble,” said Bergen. Sasha felt into the pocket of her dress as she walked, for the incision that made the knife strapped to her thigh accessible. Nearby, she could smell something burning. Bells clanged alarm, and city folk opened high windows to peer out and stare across the rooftops.

  Stamentaast came running, green-vested men wielding torches and swords. People on the streets stood aside for them, and Stamentaast paused before another star-marked house to throw stones at the windows. Two men broke down the door and rushed inside. Bergen grasped Sasha's arm and dragged her on. He sensed that her hand was itching toward her knife; surely his own did the same.

  Further along, the scene became worse. A house was fully ablaze, threatening to take its neighbours with it. City folk were crowding a wagon arrived from the lake with basins of water, throwing bucketfuls onto the flames. Sasha thought that if half the city burned, it would serve them right. A half-serrin family huddled by a street side with two children, defended by several city folk, as locals spat and threw kicks and stones at them. The children were terrified and crying, the parents desperate.

  “We have more important things to do than die needlessly here!” Bergen snarled at Sasha, tightening his grip. Sasha fumed as Bergen dragged her past. Further on, Stamentaast had gathered more serrin and part-serrin, rounding them up with kicks and threatened swords. There was some argument over what to do with them. A young man, with bright blue eyes like Aisha's, shoved at a Stamentaast who kicked his mother. The Stamentaast ran him through with a sword. The mother wailed and screamed as he collapsed.

  Again, Bergen dragged Sasha past. She was crying. Stamentaast saw, but the street was full of smoke, and some were holding their own handkerchiefs over their mouths. Further ahead were wagons, empty now, driven rattling over the cobbles by more Stamentaast. Soon they would be full, no doubt. Where would they take the serrin they caught? Where was Tershin?

  And then, “Rhillian and Aisha,” Sasha muttered. “Bergen, we have to see to them.”

  “Likely they're back at the temple already,” Bergen replied, finally letting go of her arm.

  Sasha took a right turn. Bergen followed, striding fast. She broke into a run on a stretch of empty street, then walked again as more Stamentaast appeared, running from doorway to doorway, checking on residences. There was a body on the cobblestones, lifeless in a pool of blood. An old serrin lady, Sasha saw as they passed, collapsed on her walking cane.

  A little further on, two Stamentaast were driving a pair of serrin women up the street with kicks and yells. Sasha found her course shifting into their path.

  “Sasha, no!”

  She ignored Bergen. The Stamentaast watched her approach with suspicion. One held up his sword as she came near, pointed out to her chest, and barked at her in Ilduuri. His stance was awful.

  Sasha grabbed his wrist on the weak side, disabling any fast swing, and drove her knife through his neck. His comrade swung at her as Sasha ducked back, but Bergen tackled him from the side, then set about with his own knife until the other stopped moving.

  “Run!” Sasha hissed at the two women. “Up the side streets, find a place to hide!” They did, and she grabbed the man she'd stabbed under the armpits, and struggled to haul him into an alley mouth. He wasn't dead yet, despite the blood that spurted, but he wasn't about to start shouting for help either. Bergen dumped the other body, and they continued as before.

  Sasha felt better now. Calmer. She saw further horrors, yet had no more tears. The emotion came from helplessness. If she could fight, she was calmer. She would need to be calm, to get through this. It seemed there was a lot more fighting to be done here than she'd suspected.

  She followed the street to where she'd left Rhillian and Aisha, a large building facing onto a city square. The square was swarming with Stamentaast, and there were wagons loaded with prisoners. Sasha stepped against the cover of a wall and leaned there with Bergen, watching. Serrin were being forced toward a new group of wagons, hands bound behind them. Astride a horse, Sasha saw a man directing Stamentaast, with a sword strapped diagonally to his back. Nasi-Keth.

  “Dear spirits,” she muttered.

  Bergen saw where she was looking. “They forget everything,” he said. “They forget who made the Nasi-Keth.” Sasha did not understand how that institution could turn on the people who had inspired its creation. And then on second thought, perhaps she did.

  “Loyal to blood, not to reason,” she murmured to herself in Lenay. It was something Kessligh had said to her once, about the difference between human and serrin. “They serve the primacy of Ilduur, and always have.”

  Then she saw Aisha. Clearly it was her, hands bound, climbing with difficulty into a wagon, amidst the other serrin.

  “Oh, no.” Sasha felt cold dread to see her. Where were the wagons bound for next? Bergen also saw, and muttered a curse. “Can you see Rhillian?”

  They stood and watched as the wagons were filled, but could not see any tall, white-haired woman amidst the prisoners. Sasha did not know whether to be relieved or terrified.

 
“We have to find out where they're taking these wagons,” she said. “With any luck they're deporting serrin to Saalshen. If not, they'll just dig a mass grave and kill them all.”

  “Why?” Bergen asked tersely. “Why do the Remischtuul do this now?”

  “Fear. Something's afoot—they fear agitation from the serrin, possibly to make the Steel move against the Remischtuul. They cannot strike against the Steel, so they strike against the serrin instead. They'll purge all Ilduur of serrin if they can.”

  Some Ilduuris had been waiting two centuries for the chance, she was quite sure.

  Rhillian hid. She lay atop the roof tiles and peered down on the courtyard. Wagons were rattling away, driven by green-vested Stamentaast, loaded with serrin. This was a predominantly serrin neighbourhood, made so not by the insular nature of Ilduuri serrin, but by the unwillingness of many Andal residents to sell property to serrin elsewhere.

  This house belonged to the Rontii family, prominent amongst Ilduuri serrin for their wealth and charity. Moneylenders, of course, with friendly ties to the priesthood, and no small influence in the Remischtuul itself. But not enough to prevent this. Across the rooftops of Andal, fires were burning, the crackle of flames rising with cries and screams into the darkening evening.

  Rhillian watched the wagons leave, noted their direction, and guessed from what she'd learned of Andal's roads the way they would take out of the city. And where then, she did not know. The possibilities chilled her. Aisha had been downstairs when the Stamentaast came, talking with the servants, who knew the city from their own unique perspective. There'd been children downstairs, too. Rhillian watched the wagon holding Aisha rattle away, and thought that the presence of children may have saved Aisha's life—she'd not have fought, armed only with a knife, if there were children to be caught in the fighting.

  Something hit the roof tiles alongside where she lay, and Rhillian spun. A coin, perhaps? Her eyes found the attic window of the adjoining house. It was open, and two residents within were beckoning to her, fearfully. Both were human—a man and woman, perhaps husband and wife. The rooftop was close, and she could jump it easily. They were offering her shelter, she realised, knowing she was serrin. Many Andal humans did live in this serrin quarter, some even by choice. These were neighbours, and friends.