“Ready?” Eli was suddenly beside them. “Follow me.”
Garek rose smoothly, moving behind him in single file, and sensed when Aidan did the same.
Garek let himself slip into guard mode, looking around him as he walked, taking in the neat, innovative homes that had been constructed from whatever people could lay their hands on. There were no guards in mechanical suits to be seen. Just the one overseeing the unloading.
As he thought that, he heard the roar of the transporter take off behind them, and felt the brief sting of grit against the back of his neck as it blasted away.
“You came at a good time,” Eli said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Eli rubbed the back of his own neck, seemingly reluctant to clarify, and all of Garek's instincts went on alert.
“What, Eli?”
“Because yesterday, we thought we'd lost her. She was missing until last night. Gone over a day and a half. Kas was beside himself. I thought he was going to get himself killed. If you'd landed in the middle of that, things would have gone completely out of control.”
Garek didn't contradict him. “But she's not missing anymore?”
“No, she and her friend found their way back safe and sound. Against the odds, by the sound of it.”
“What happened?” He realized his hands were shaking, even though the danger had passed and he didn't even know the details. What would he have done if he'd gotten here and found he'd just missed her. That she was gone?
He shut down the direction of his thoughts.
“He happened.” Eli stopped at a gap in the tents, and jerked his head in the direction of a man tied with rope to a tree.
There was deep anger in Eli's voice, and Garek stopped. Turned to stare. He could feel a Change building but it was off-center, wrong.
“No, no, no. None of that. No calling the Change. Come on now.” Eli was standing in front of him, gripping his arm. “Hear the whole story, and hear it from Kas and Taya, before you throw your weight around here and disturb the hard-fought balance. All right?”
“There's a balance?” His voice was almost guttural, but he let go of the Change. Eli was right, he couldn't thrown himself into a situation he didn't understand.
“Now there is. Since Kas spoke to the Kardanx elder last night. Sounds like they've got a couple of factions at play there, and I'm not sure the elder is even the one we should be dealing with, but it's a start. We've got enough on our hands without in-fighting.”
“He's Kardanx?” Aidan spoke for the first time. His gaze was on the bound man, too.
“Yes. Half of the prisoners are Kardanx, half Illian. Only those from Pan Nuk are from West Lathor, though. The rest are from a village in Harven, except for five from Dartalia, caught on a journey through the mountains.” Eli looked away from Garek at last and studied Aidan. “Who are you? One of Garek's friends in the Guard?”
“We walked the walls together,” Aidan agreed with a nod. “I'm Aidan.”
“Eli of Pan Nuk. Former levik farmer, turned slave to the sky raiders.” Eli's face didn't show anything but guileless humor, but Garek saw his fists were clenched. He turned and started walking again, and with one last look at the Kardanx, Garek followed him again.
They worked their way along a narrow path cut between the dwellings, heading toward what sounded like a river.
Garek could hear it flowing, but then another sound caught his attention. Coming from the same direction as the rushing water was the ring of metal on metal. He stumbled on a tent peg and just managed not to grab Eli's shoulder to steady himself.
Eli moved to a wooden hut and crouched behind it, turned back and motioned them to do the same.
“Thought I'd bring you here so you know you can't approach him 'til the day shift returns.” He pointed, and Garek saw a three-sided building tucked up against the curve of the river. It was surrounded by washing, snapping in the breeze, so the two men within the building appeared and disappeared from view as the sheets and clothing whipped about.
But there was no mistaking who they were.
His father sat in a strange chair with wheels attached, hefting his hammer as if he were back in the grange at Pan Nuk. Pilar stood beside him, the thin, lanky frame Garek recalled of the younger man gone. Now he had muscles, like Eli's they were hard and sharp, and his shoulders had broadened.
Garek started to rise, and Eli put a hand on his shoulder. “Look.”
Garek followed his finger, saw the guard standing so still, he'd almost disappeared into the background, blending in with the flapping white sheets.
“They always watch him. In case he makes a weapon.”
Garek frowned. “Why's he sitting down while he works?”
“They broke his legs, the first day we went down the shafts. Quardi refused to work, and they made an example of him.”
Beside him, Aidan sucked in a breath.
It was the first sign of violence they'd seen, and Garek had to admit even he'd felt more relaxed since they'd come to this open place. He'd expected a jail of some kind. Cages or locked doors. The small village, Eli's free run of the place, had made him forget this was a prison. It was just a very big one.
“Will he be all right?” Aidan was the one who asked the question, Garek was too busy studying the old man, looking for clues as to how he was holding up.
“He'll be all right. They fixed him up as soon as they realized how valuable he was to them. But it will be a few weeks yet before he's out of the chair.”
“So what should we do?” Garek asked. His father lifted his head, looking around as if he could feel eyes on him, and then Pilar distracted him and he turned back to his work.
“I need to sleep. I'm on the night shift. I'll take you to Taya and Kas's shack, and you can wait for them there,” Eli said.
Garek nodded, and Eli carefully backed away from the forge and led the way deeper into the left side of the camp.
Every step he took was one step closer to Taya.
Garek breathed in the strange air, and forced himself not to whoop with joy.
Chapter 26
Taya walked past the collapsed tunnel over and over through the day, and every time she did, she found herself trying to call a Change. Especially if she was on her way out, carrying a large rock rich in ore.
The feeling shuddered through her and she fought to keep it contained.
Someone had moved the rubble to one side, clearing the way to make it easier to navigate the passage to and from the ore face, but smears of blood were still visible on some of the rocks.
She knew they hadn't allowed Kas back in to look for her, so they didn't come from his hands. Ketl and his friends, perhaps?
She hadn't had a good look at Ketl when she'd left this morning, didn't know if he'd been injured while bringing the tunnel down. She'd looked across at where he was tied up, but he'd been too far away for her to notice details.
“We aren't all like Ketl, you know.”
She turned her head.
A young man walked up the tunnel from the direction of the seam where the men were working. He was in the awkward stage between his teen years and adulthood, face streaked with dirt. He spoke with a thick Kardanx accent, but she could still understand him.
“No group is all the same,” she conceded. “But it's hard to see that when you don't speak against him.”
He looked back down the passage, where the sound of picks on rock echoed, and blew out a frustrated breath. “They're fools. They're so scared of the Illy, they acted without thinking, aligning themselves with someone who pushes the very edges of the Mother religion.”
He said the words with contempt.
“Why are they scared of the Illy?” She hadn't known the Kardanx feared them. Couldn't think why they would.
“Because if it wasn't for the buffer of West Lathor, some of the other Illian states would already be testing our borders. As it is, we hear the other Illian lieges are looking to take West Lathor fro
m your liege, given his weakened state, and then they will sweep into Kardai.”
“The Illian Council has to agree to any change of borders within Illy. I haven't heard of any moves in that direction.”
The youngster shrugged. “Perhaps because you are from West Lathor. Wouldn't you be the last to know if your state was going to be carved up?”
“Perhaps.” She hoped he was wrong, but she knew the liege was failing in his duties to West Lathor. He had barely left Juli since his wife died. It was hoped his eldest, his daughter, Kalia, would take the throne, and step up as liege in her father's place. But instead, she'd chosen to leave for the south east with her handsome new husband, with his high cheek bones, tall, lanky frame, and skin so black, it shone with a blue sheen.
The sight of them coming down the palace steps on their wedding day had struck the crowd mute, so striking and beautiful were they, even though Kalia's mother's death still hung like a pall over the whole city.
When Taya had presented her wedding gift to the princess, she'd thought Kalia was barely living in the present. She wanted to be gone so badly, Taya guessed she would hardly remember any of the details of her own wedding.
“I can perhaps understand the people of Kardai's fear if they think an invasion is likely, but why would the Kardanx here on Shadow be afraid of us? We're in the same position as you are.”
“Because of your witches.” The boy looked at her in a way that told her he had seen what she'd done to Ketl the first time she'd called her Change. “There are recriminations back in Kardai these days over whose idea it was to kill off those who call the Change. No matter that the decision was made two hundred years ago, and those who made it are long dead. Questions are being asked about why we still stamp them out when we find them.”
The rumble of rocks falling filtered up the tunnel and Taya turned, saw the boy did the same. They both held still until the shouts and calls of the men told Taya that everything was all right.
She blew out a breath, and forced her shoulders to relax.
“I've always wondered why the Kardai hate the Changed.” She couldn't see how the Changed would be at odds with the Mother religion.
“You're not alone.” His lips twisted in a wry smile. “It hasn't gone unnoticed that there are really only people from two villages on the Illian side of this camp, because the Illian Changed protected you from the sky raiders. The Kardanx here . . .” His shoulders hunched. “We are from everywhere. Major cities, small villages. The sky raiders took us with impunity. Some of the men spoke to your side before Ketl caused all this trouble, and they reported back that you were all from very remote villages. That your Changed patrolled the cities and the countryside, and forced the sky raiders away to easier pastures.” He gave a bitter laugh. “We could do nothing but duck our heads and hope they didn't take us.”
“Taya?” Min walked toward them from the outside. Taya knew she'd been here too long, if Min had already deposited her load and returned for more.
“Dom.” Min inclined her head in greeting to the young man, and Taya remembered the story Min had told her of the son who'd saved his mother from murder by his father's hands. She didn't think Min would show any other Kardanx man the same respect.
She looked at him again, with different eyes. “Are things beginning to get difficult on your side?” she asked him.
“Since Ketl tried to kill you . . .” There was the sound of footsteps from the end of the tunnel, and he turned away, the reaction nervous and afraid. He started walking toward the entrance but only took three steps before he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “Things are getting difficult.”
Then he was gone, striding away to get water or whatever it was he'd originally left to do.
Taya realized she was still holding a rock thick with veins of shadow ore, and she hefted it up onto her hip. “There's a change in the air. Can you feel it?”
Min nodded. “But don't get your hopes up. Dom has his supporters, and he lives with his mother and the other women--he's seen as their protector. But he's too young to be a leader and too many of the men look at him and see their own shame and failure. They can't bear to even speak to him.”
“If his fellow Kardanx won't listen to him, that's fine with me.” Taya knew she sounded cold; she felt cold. “When we have a workable plan of escape, I'll go to him rather than deal with anyone else from that side.”
Min gave a slow nod. “He'd at least be interested in cooperating with us.”
Taya hefted her rock again and then headed for the entrance, all too aware she'd been down here too long.
She passed Dom coming back the other way as she stepped outside, but neither caught the other's eye.
There would be a time and place for that, and it wasn't under the watchful eye of the guard.
For now, she just needed to get through her shift. Tonight, they would plot and plan.
“Taya.” Eli walked down the ramp ahead of the rest of the night shift, his lips quirked in a grin.
“You look as happy as a tirn in a clear summer sky,” she told him, smiling back, even though every muscle in her body seemed to ache.
“No, that will be you, in about fifteen minutes.” He leaned in, hugging her close with one arm, his lips stopping just near her ear. “You will never believe--”
“You're holding up the change-over.” The guard loomed over them both.
Eli's grip on her arm tightened for just a moment, although his face gave nothing of his fury away.
“Tell me later,” Taya said, stepping out the way. She didn't want to cause trouble and have the guards watch her more carefully than usual.
“I will.” He shook off the anger and as he walked toward the mine entrance, she saw laughter and a happiness in his eyes she hadn't seen since before they were taken. “Enjoy your evening, Taya.”
She looked over at Kas, saw he was frowning at Eli's back.
“What was that about?” Kas waited until the last of the night shift had disembarked and they were walking up the ramp together.
“I don't know, but he's excited about something. There's something back at camp he thinks I'll be happy about.” She could only guess a transporter had come in with supplies, and Eli had found something he knew she'd like.
They were silent as usual on the way home, but when she stepped out of the transporter into the camp ten minutes later, she found herself strangely reluctant to move.
Eli had seemed like his old self, bursting with mischief, and it made her long for the long summer days before Garek had left for Garamundo, when everything was full of possibility, and she was the happiest she had ever been.
She turned her head, looked over to where Ketl had been tied up, and found he was gone.
A chill ran through her, fear and anger woven together in a hard knot.
“You knew they'd let him go sooner or later.” Kas stood beside the Stolen Store, face visibly hard even in the gloom as he also looked over at the empty tree. “I didn't see him come off the transporter at night shift, but he must have been given night shift duties, so he kept himself hidden in the crowd. Which suits us.” He turned away and lifted the Store's flap. “It's full. The transporter did come today.”
Taya forced herself to move, forced herself to shake off the strange sense of foreboding she had.
She followed Kas to their little hut. It was her habit to set out her towel, soap, and clothes on the crate outside the door before she left in the morning so she didn't track dust from the mine into their small space, and she scooped them up and headed off to the women's partition on the river bank.
Min was already there, and Noor, and they washed quickly in the chill wind.
“What did Eli have to say?” Noor asked, pulling a sunny yellow robe over her head. It had deep pleats, which showed a burnt umber when they parted, and she looked regal and beautiful. She could be a lady at the Juli court, rather than a farmer who made levik cheese for her living.
“He said t
here was something at camp that would make me very happy, and I think he must have had to unload the transporter when it came in after we left this morning because Kas said the Stolen Store is full. We can go look after dinner, see what he was talking about.”
“We can go shopping.” Min smiled as she wriggled into her green gown and then she and Noor waited for Taya to finish drying off and pull on her own clothes.
They walked to the line strung up near the forge, hanging the clothes they'd washed in the river, and then made their way to the fire, talking softly.
Taya tipped her head to one side, caught her hair and twisted it in her hands to squeeze more water out of it.
Usually, there was a low murmur of voices around the fire when everyone gathered for their meal. It was Quardi and Pilar's turn today, and because they worked in the camp, it was usually a more elaborate supper than anything the miners could rustle up.
With new provisions having come in, Taya would have expected even more noise as everyone tucked into whatever fresh produce had been delivered but it was quiet.
She frowned, slowing her steps.
Noor and Min picked it up too, their feet slowing along with Taya's as they approached.
Twelve faces turned their way as they stepped into the fire's glow, and then it was as if the world fell away.
There was a face looking over at her; older, two years older, but still the same. Sharp cheekbones, dark eyes, dark hair cut short so when he called the air Change none of it would blow in his eyes. Stubble shadowed his jaw, stark against the bronze of his skin.
He stood, even broader in the shoulders than she remembered, his muscles heavier, the power of his frame evident.
And then she called out his name and ran, found herself swept up in air and flying, her feet off the ground as he opened his arms, and at last she was home.
She closed her arms around his neck, felt the scratch of his beard against her cheek as he buried his nose in the place where her neck met her shoulder and inhaled her scent.
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