by Tia Reed
Is there any foundation to your worry? Arun asked.
Just a feeling. Like you had when…before.
You are in pain.
My fault, Vinsant sent, and it sounded like he had said it through gritted teeth.
Our young apprentice has not yet learned to obey, Levi said.
He will.
I’m learning a lot, Vinsant said.
I will advise you of our progress, Majoria, Arun said, in a detached tone.
Levi broke the link.
For the rest of the day Vinsant propelled them upriver. Evening saw him struggle under the burden of his regimented training on a bad leg.
“Levitos,” Vinsant murmured as the Majoria levitated in preparation for sleep. This time, he found he could stretch out on a cushion of air. It was a welcome change from the ground. His droopy lids were about to close when the Minoria’s voice sounded in his mind.
You have about ten seconds before the Majoria is alerted to this conversation.
Vinsant lost two of them before he thought to send Arun the images of Kordahla with the knife to her throat and Levi’s secretive reaction in the boat.
You are growing strong, Vinsant. Trust Levi to train you well, even when his motives are not apparent. The Minoria severed the link.
Beside Vinsant, the Majoria stirred. Vinsant took a deep breath. Just in case, he kept his mind off Kordahla. It was a long while before he drifted back to sleep.
Chapter Forty
Captain deq Lungo was true to his word. Leaving three of his men to reach San Sidris on foot, he led them to Mykter Fort. The renegades were interred in a dungeon, and Kordahla and Sian were treated to a hot bath followed by a hearty meal and a real bed. Despite the open curiosity of the men, they were addressed with respect, even if the barred doors and armed guards were a constant reminder of their status. By Kordahla’s calculations, the mahktashaan could only be an eight-day behind. She was eager to proceed, and the day they lost at the Fort while deq Lungo organised the command saw her pace the ramparts and gaze down the pass for any sign of riders. If the men were uncertain as to her identity, her actions added fuel to their rumours.
Sian and Timak were little more than husks, jumpy if the men approached, unwilling to be drawn into conversation or play. They sat side by side, staring out of the narrow windows or following well-meaning soldiers to the bare yard then sitting in the furthest corner they could find and staring at nothing. At the genie, Kordahla presumed. The men grew uneasy around them: Timak talked to the air and Erok brooded close by, refusing to let Sian out of his sight. When Kordahla opened their door in the morning, she found him sleeping across the threshold.
When they mounted fresh horses and set out for the capital, Kordahla breathed a first sigh of relief. The second came when it became clear deq Lungo was willing to forgo a sedate pace. Five days after they left Mykter Fort they rounded the edge of a brooding forest.
“Faradil Forest,” deq Lungo said, an edge to his voice. “Tell your friends to keep well clear. The best trained soldier won’t set foot inside if he is ordered.”
Kordahla glanced at him. His terse, dour conversations had moderated her loneliness but the effort of drawing him out was too great for her travel-weary mind. “I never imagined brigands and robbers to plague Myklaan.”
“There’s no such thing in Faradil, for there’s none with anything worth stealing who would enter it. That forest is possessed.” He rode to the head of the group before she could question him further.
There was no village with an inn that night, nor any farmhouse with a stable for deq Lungo to requisition. They camped on the hard earth and withered grass, the dark shadow of Faradil looming. The men grumbled about skirting so close to the edge but Captain deq Lungo remained adamant they make good time. As the soldiers organised tents, Erok and the children wandered to collect deadfall. For want of companionship, Kordahla accompanied them. Several times she paused at the task, a mysterious force tugging her eyes to the dense trunks and twining canopy.
“Drop that!” deq Lungo yelled, when he chanced to look in their direction.
Startled by his uncharacteristic harshness, Kordahla and the children let their bundles of twigs fall. Erok frowned. The captain strode their way, his fury unchecked. Grabbing Timak, he brushed specks of bark from his midriff. Timak stood and stared at the forest, enduring the rough attention. Her heart weeping for the little boy, Kordahla kept her words soothing as she advised deq Lungo she would finish the task. She plucked the remaining particles off his clothing, but the boy remained as unresponsive as she had ever seen him. When deq Lungo tried to check Sian, Erok stepped in front.
“Get back to camp, and don’t bring that,” the captain ordered, pointing at the bundle still in Erok’s arms.
Kordahla blinked. They were barely fifty paces from camp and had roamed further on previous nights. With a resentful admonishment for his sharp words, she herded the children between the tents. Behind her, she heard Erok mutter and slam the sticks to the ground.
Talk during their frugal meal of cold travel rations was subdued.
“It’s the forest,” one of the soldiers, Dario deq Pitran, said. The locks of his brown hair sat at slightly different lengths, as though his girl had taken a knife to it with more good intention than skill. “You can feel it pull, luring anyone who’s out here.”
“What is it?” she asked. “This feeling is queer. I feel a longing, but no nefarious intent.”
The cheery soldier sobered, his round face growing long. “Don’t be fooled. It’s evil, all right. Those who go in almost never come back, and that includes the ones as go looking for them.”
“And the ones that do return?” she asked, noticing Timak and Sian were listening. She should worry about that.
“Depends. Some are maimed so bad they’ll never work again. Some don’t have a mind, end up worse than a babe. Some head to the wilds and live by themselves.” Dario shrugged. “None of them that return can remember what happened, but most just disappear.”
“Is that why we don’t have a fire?”
“The wise will not risk Faradil’s ire,” deq Lungo said. He sat as straight-backed as always, his lean jaw tight. “It’s her wood we’d be using. Even in the dead of winter, the sane will not light a fire this close to her border, not even if they carted their own wood with them.”
In the eerie presence of the forest, with that tale on her mind, she was a long time in falling asleep. Though the air hung hot and stagnant, the leaves rustled their disquiet. A restlessness brewed across the entire camp. She tossed and turned in the tent she shared with Sian, and heard those around her do the same. The owls had stopped hooting by the time fatigue won out.
She groaned when she woke in oppressive dark, prickling cold at a stalking threat. She reached towards Sian’s bedroll. It was empty. Dragging herself up, she padded outside. Habit dictated Erok should have been sleeping outside their tent. It took a moment to locate him, a hastening shadow under Dindarin’s waning form. Beyond, two small figures walked towards Faradil, following the bob of an apricot ball of light. No one else stirred. Soldiers lay in disarray around the camp. The watch were asleep at their posts.
“Help, please,” she said, giving one a nudge with her bare foot. She did not wait, but ran towards Timak. The dry grass prickled her ankles, and stones bruised her soles, but the boy was almost at the forest’s edge.
“Timak!”
He paused as he entered its silent, brooding shadow, paused at his name.
“I can’t,” he pleaded.
For a wild, hopeful moment, she thought he would return.
“Timak.”
“Let me go.” He lifted his pitiful face, not to her, but up to the moon. “It hurts too much.”
The words cut her. She lunged and pulled him back with more force than he deserved, but whatever malign entity lurked between the tangling branches could not claim him. His eyes went wide; he gasped and stiffened. She knelt, put her hand to his cheek
, tinged with Dindarin’s sheen.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “You brave, generous boy. Listen to your genie.” She hugged him to her, held him altogether too hard. “Listen to your genie. She’s never told you wrong before.”
He sobbed, once, twice, then wrapped his arms around her, rested his head on her shoulder, and cried. The air around them slackened. A cricket chirped. The moon glossed the waxy leaves.
“It will be alright,” she said, not knowing if it were true, not even knowing how Ahkdul had procured him, what manner of life he had lived before.
Further along the tree line, Erok grabbed Sian. The silent girl was struggling against him, reaching for an oak rattling with all her frustration.
Timak pulled away and wiped his eyes. “It’s different for her,” he said.
“How? How is it different?” She searched his face, wanting to understand, knowing, as close as she had come to being violated, she could not.
His eyes were so large, so serious. “The forest warns me away, but it calls to her.”
She glanced at Captain deq Lungo and the soldier she had roused. The cricket fell quiet as they approached, swords drawn. She regretted waking them.
“What does the genie say?” she asked.
Timak sniffed. “The forest won’t hurt her. Erok should let her go.”
“Lady, I warned you,” deq Lungo said, stopping short of the trees.
Kordahla stood and took Timak’s hand. “You have noted these children have talents. Sian is making use of hers now.” Dear Vae’oenka, she wished someone were here to make sense of all this. Why was she thinking of Arun? The Minoria would never have permitted her to leave Terlaan. She approached the hunter. “Erok. Erok. Let her go.” She shook her head.
The hunter ignored her, circled Sian around the waist, hoisted her over his shoulder and stomped back to camp, ignoring the blood that trickled from his reopened wound and Sian’s incoherent protests. She followed with Timak, deq Lungo at the rear.
Around the camp, soldiers were stirring. Erok barged into their tent and dropped Sian on her bedroll. She was quiet again, dazed almost, as she looked around and said something in a small voice.
Captain deq Lungo stood at the entrance. “That child is prone to wandering into trouble. You will tie her up if need be, but she will not be the death of my men.”
Erok seemed to understand the sentiment and for once he seemed to agree. He held the door flap open as Sian curled up and showed no intention of moving for the rest of the night.
Kordahla tucked Timak in her blankets and slid past Erok to face the captain. “These children are hurting, in no small part because of what your men did to them. Now your watchmen fall asleep,” Kordahla said. “Why do you not discipline them?”
“Lady, you forget your position,” deq Lungo said, and strode off.
“It’s always this way,” Dario said, handing her a cup of water, “this close to Faradil. No watch can stay awake.” He looked to the trees. “If we camp this close to her edge again, it’ll be a wonder if we don’t lose a man.” He shook his head and left her to bed down.
She remained standing, her arms tight around her, watching the forest, sensing it watch them.
“You’d best get some rest,” Dario said from inside his bedroll. “If I know the captain, he’ll push us hard tomorrow, so we don’t have to sleep in her shadow again.”
* * *
The captain indeed spurred them on. They camped the next night on the lush grasses around Lake Tejolin. Faradil Forest was no further distant, but the serene water, perfect in it reflection of the moons, tempered its pull.
“Are there legends around this lake?” Kordahla asked Dario.
“Aye, a fair few. Vae’omar has taken his fair share of sailors, and there’s those who swear water sprites frolic in its depths. But it’s nothing to rival Faradil.” The soldier’s affable nature made her wish she had struck up a conversation with him earlier in their journey. She might have discovered more about the realm she hoped to call home.
They approached the city just before sunset on the next day. Kordahla’s childhood memories had faded too thin to prepare her for the sight of the towering walls. Intricate carvings adorned the entire structure, an area several thousand times the walls of Tarana palace.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Dario said.
“Indeed.” Impressive enough to overwhelm Erok and Sian into silence. Timak was at least looking around him with a scrap of child-like wonder. As for her own fatigue, it evaporated in the ambience of a city which flaunted a culture refined enough to rival the Vae’s. Dazzling white houses lined wide, ordered streets, their intersections surrounding tended squares in which statues of legendary beasts stood proud. She caught herself smiling as she spied a man lead a woman to a tiered fountain of fawns. How romantic a courtship would blossom under its spray! But Vae’oenka spare her; the couple were kissing in public. She turned her hot cheeks away, only to see men and women walk hand in hand, fingers entwined, the bustle of the day melding into the languid pleasures of night. The brightly woven silks and chiffons of their garments turned twilight into a festival fit to rival sunset. The men wore kurtas of the style Mariano preferred. And the women! So many bared midriffs. And not a veil in sight! Was it any wonder men took unspeakable liberties in the face of this wantonness?
She might have choked on her thoughts had Captain deq Lungo not led them into a walled garden of tall palms and fragrant shrubs. The neighbourhood had to be safe, for the property lacked a gate. The Captain bid them dismount, and led them down a pebbled walk to a wide, two-storey house. The door was locked. He knocked. And pounded. And pounded again.
His call was at last answered by a young gentleman with a button nose that emphasised his boyish appearance. The oversize cut of his silk coat, the fraying threads of the embroidery hemming it, betrayed a lack of true wealth.
“I have important visitors to entrust to your care,” deq Lungo said. “Until you hear otherwise, they are to be given the quality of attention you might lavish on the Shah himself.”
“What is this place?” Kordahla asked, as deq Lungo gestured her into a bare hall.
“It is a hospice. The children at least are in need of care, and both you and Erok would benefit from the physic’s ministrations.”
“I thank you for your consideration but I assure you, I am fine. I wish you to escort me to the palace. It is Shah Ordosteen to whom I must present myself. All else can wait.”
“Lady, the Shah will decide to see you or not. I strongly urge you to accept the generosity of the physics. You will find this house far more hospitable than the dungeon.”
She flushed, ashamed of her naiveté, but managed to look the captain in the eye. “Your thoughtfulness is appreciated,” she said in a more grateful tone.
The young physic huffed. “Hurry up. It’s late and we’re about to lock the doors.”
Ushered by soldiers, they entered the hall.
“As I understand it, Lady Jordayne requested these doors remain open at all hours,” deq Lungo said, remaining outside.
“If you supply me with soldiers, it is done. Otherwise, I will not place either myself or my patients at risk from addicts or brigands,” the physic replied with a scowl. His nose wrinkled in distaste as he looked over Erok and Timak in their Hill Tribe garb, and then Sian, whose heritage was unmistakable.
“Tonight you have soldiers, and the doors shall remain locked besides,” deq Lungo said with a lingering look at her. “And I repeat, you will lavish your best care on these guests.” He nodded at her, and disappeared into the night, his boots crunching pebbles on the path.
Dario stationed himself by the door while the other soldiers fanned through the building.
The physic sighed. “In there.”
The treatment room, neat, ordered and brightly lit by lanterns hanging all around the walls, smelled of the same herbs as Nocrates’s muddled chamber. A ginger-haired boy in ill-fitting, worn clothing was sweeping the
floor between two tables. He glanced up at them, then resumed his task. The physic selected a salve from a table laid with frightful instruments at one end and small pots at the other, and passed it to her. “It will help with the insect bites. Are there any injuries that need immediate attention?”
His brusque manner left her wary. “The girl has bad burns to her arm,” she said.
The boy dropped the broom, ignored the physic’s glare as it clapped the edge of a table and clattered to the floor, and scooted from the room. His hasty footsteps pattered upstairs.
“Come here,” the physic said to Sian, pointing to a chair at one of the three treatment tables in the centre of the crowded room. Sian stared at the seat. The physic frowned as he stomped towards her. It was no surprise she scuttled back, or that Erok planted himself in front of her. “I cannot examine her if she will not cooperate. You will tell her to sit here.”
“She has been through a great deal, and is not about to let a man she does not trust examine her,” Kordahla said, moving to stand beside Erok. This brusque man had no business with their intimate secrets. Their eyes locked in silent battle as the stairs creaked.
A harried, greying man, stooped from fatigue, entered the room, the boy trailing behind. “We have patients, I see,” the elder physic said.
“They are prisoners, I think, and not truly in need of emergency aid. I was about to send Ilyam to find them a pallet.”
Dario deq Pitran followed the physic in, frowning as he saw them standing. “Captain deq Lungo made it plain these guests are to get all the care they need.”
“The girl will not allow me near her.
The older physic swept his eyes over each of them, Sian last. “With good reason, I think,” he said, his voice soft and kind. “Why don’t you finish the rounds upstairs, Chas. I believe I can finish in here.”
Chas swept from the room without further encouragement.
“Excuse me,” the older physic said, and followed him out. Dario turned and went too. Their voices in the hall, though low, were clear.
“I expect more of you, despite the hour,” the older physic said.