Chapter Nine
Alutan Na-es
SEVEN DAYS AGO
Silence stole through the town—a bitter and wary silence. Women pulled back from greasy windows, men bolted doors, children asked hushed questions at their mother’s heels. Yet all watched. Eyes hard. Weapons cleaned and checked.
It was a bad evening to be a stranger.
Alutan halted in front of the wayhouse. The door had been blasted in. Splintered holes decorated its surface, and it hung crookedly, creaking and thudding in the wind.
Alutan pushed open the door and entered.
It didn’t take long to confirm the smell of blood and fresh decay. A corpse sprawled across an over-turned table, hands frozen in death, eyes wide. A low, rancid sweetness wafted through the room, layered by the more obvious aromas of stale wine and spilled beer. Behind the bar he heard the drip-drip-drip of cracked bottles.
Alutan shut his eyes. He wanted nothing to do with this. Walk away.
But he thought again of the fierce black-eyed girl and the broad-shouldered youth. Hyranna and Jerad. He had pressed the coins into their hands. He had brought them to this door. He had left, when he should have stayed. Now their fate was his to bear.
He stepped across the room. He didn’t need to check the first man’s pulse—his condition was clear—but a trail of blood oozed down the stairs, thick and dark as wine. He hurried up. In the half-darkness, he spotted a man at the top: unconscious, but alive, face down and nearly drowning in his own blood.
Alutan bent over the injured man. His hands moved across the body, assessing quickly. There. A puncture wound in the side. A bullet, stuck deep beneath the ribs. Ruptured spleen. Nicked colon. Internal bleeding.
His hands moved again. Another bullet. This one had ripped through the man’s intestines and out his back. The spine was fractured, and given the awkward splaying of the lower body, it was paralytic.
Alutan felt cold, yet also . . . relief. If the injuries were not so lethal, he could have tried to save him. But now . . .
The injured man groaned. His lips moved, cracking into a rictus grin. “Northmen.” He spat the word like a curse.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Alutan asked, voice soft.
“I’m dead . . . aren’t I?”
A pause, heavy with meaning. “Yes.”
“Then eat my shit you rot souther.”
“My name is Alutan.”
“Piss off.”
“You’re in a tremendous amount of pain, aren’t you? The world is closing in on you. You’re thirsty. So thirsty you’ve thought of drinking your own blood, just to make the need vanish. You’ve tried crying out for help, but no one came. Did they take someone you loved?”
The tremble on the man’s face was answer enough. But before he could spew out another curse, Alutan lifted water to his cracked lips. The injured man drank. He coughed and wheezed and groaned, and drank again.
“I had friends here,” Alutan said gently when he had finished. “Two friends. Young Imo’ani, from the eastern villages. I worry for them. Please. Can you help me?”
The injured man coughed and shook his head. “Taken. Your friends. Everyone . . .”
“Do you know where?”
“No.” He bit off the word. “Northmen were killed on the road. They came . . . for vengeance.” He coughed wetly. “But nothing. We did nothing. Those cursed . . . Cay-et. That’s who.”
“What’s your name?”
“Daryn.”
Alutan spoke the name aloud, remembering it, letting it settle into him. “Daryn.” It was all he could do.
But was it?
He withered. He was tired. So tired of trying—and failing.
But he had promised them: never act on fear again.
“Daryn,” he said, “Your insides are broken and septic. You’ve lost much blood. Your spine is fractured at the base of your lumbar, crippling you, and there is little chance you will live. However, if you wish it, I will try to save you.”
“And if I don’t . . . wish it?”
“Then I can make it end swiftly.”
“Maker above and all his toes,” the man sobbed. “Please.”
Alutan nodded. He drew the sword from over his back, a simple broadsword from the south kingdoms. Strong and clean.
“Wait,” the man gasped. “Do something for me . . . traveller.”
“What?”
Fingers dug into Alutan’s sleeve. “Kill them. Once you’ve saved your friends. Kill . . . every . . . rotten . . . sack of them.”
Alutan tightened his jaw. “I will save our friends. But I make no promises to death.”
“You will.”
Alutan said nothing. He simply lowered his head, and gripping the man firmly, with surgical precision, he drove the sword into the place between two ribs. The man gasped, eyes wide. His jaw worked for a moment. His eyes moved frantically, struggling to breathe. Then he went limp and quiet, and it was done.
Alutan’s feet felt heavy as he left the wayhouse. His hands were dark with blood. His mind reeled. Was this who he was now?
Alutan. Healer.
The voice mocked him.
He shook his head. Northmen raiders had been here. They had taken Hyranna Elduna. No matter the warped Unseen around her, the dark foreboding, familiar and terrifying—no matter, she was Balduin’s friend.
He already had too much forgiveness to beg. How could he abandon her too? How could he redeem himself as Balduin’s father and protector if he couldn’t save Hyranna now?
Balduin.
The named ached in him. The boy he had left behind, so painfully young, with his serious gaze and wrinkled brow. Waiting for him.
I’ll be back, my son. Wait for me, and I’ll return.
That’s when Alutan noticed the gathering figures.
There were only four of them, but all were Imo’ani, armed with Manturian guns and dark looks. They crept out of shadowed doors and alleys, injured and limping.
Alutan kept his voice quiet, head bowed. “You left him.”
“Him?”
“Daryn. Lying in his own blood and stench for a day, in unendurable pain. Do you know what that feels like? Could you even begin to know? It was . . . horrible.”
The eldest of them frowned. “Who are you? What’s this about, now? Daryn’s alive?”
“Was alive.” Alutan let that hang in the silence. “How do you account for such neglect?”
“We need no accounting to you, you blood-hungry souther!” The youngest trembled as he spoke. Alutan eyed the gun, not liking the direction it pointed.
“Peace, Callan,” said the elder, then gazed hard at Alutan. “But the boy’s not wrong. You be the stranger here. It’d be on you to explain yourself.”
“Is this not the Great Manturian Road?” Alutan asked. “Is a stranger not welcome to cross it?”
“Not today, I’m afraid.”
“Not even if he offers aid?”
The man paused. “What sort of aid?”
“There was an attack last night from Manturian raiders. Your men are injured. Others too.”
“How could you know the way of that?”
“You are Imo’ani. You would have burned the dead, if you could spare the effort. You did not. Which means the survivors are too few, the injured too many, and the uninjured too frightened to leave the safety of their homes. The rest . . . were taken.”
Looks passed amongst the four men. Meaningful looks.
“So what aid?” the elder replied.
Alutan thought of his sword. Of driving it into Daryn’s heart. Once, he would have done more.
I can heal you, he nearly told the Imo’ani. I can tend your injuries. I can see things others cannot. I am Alutan.
But that was another lifetime.
His hands began to shake. He clenched them, hiding his fists behind the folds of his cloak, even as the screams lashed his mind. The screams and the dark. The unyielding dark. “I can hunt down these Northmen,” he
said, “and free those they stole from you.”
The men looked at him, then burst into laughter.
“You?” cried one. “You’re a lone souther, too superstitious to know aught of guns. Do you have the faintest idea what you’re up against?”
Alutan could hear the frustration bubbling out of him, smothering his guilt. One arm was wrapped in a bloody bandage and there was a vicious cut over his eye. Already sweltering with infection. He needed a proper salve . . .
Alutan shook the thought away.
“You weren’t able to protect your people,” he said quietly. “It hurts. I understand. They invaded your peace. They murdered your friends. Every breath they take is an insult to you. So what will you do? Will you fight? Can you even hope to win? Your guns are empty. You used every bullet against the Northmen, or you would have gone after them yourself. So accept my aid. Tell me what you know, and I swear I’ll do everything possible to return them alive.”
“You bloody souther bastard!” cried the injured man. His knife ripped the air, long and sharp in his hand. “Are you mocking me? Are you one of them, come to . . . to gloat? I’ll have your throat, you mercenary pagan!”
The others edged closer, knives dancing into their hands—creating a sudden angry circle of blades. Only the elder kept his gun aimed at Alutan. “Back,” he said, “all of you!”
They didn’t listen.
Alutan saw their anger, their shame. It was keen. It stirred in him, waking him up from a long and bitter emptiness.
“My friends,” he held up a hand, but the youngest slashed at him. It caught him across the forearm.
They froze, staring at the line of crimson against Alutan’s pale skin, watching the blood pool towards his elbow and make large, red drops to the ground.
“I said back!” The elder cried. “You be giving up on Letti and Zia? On Mirren? The councillor wouldn’t give up—not in a year of moons, and neither will I. Now I’ll hear what he has to say. Back! Or I’ll use my last bullet on one of you scoundrels, by the Maker I will!”
The three men hesitated, then one by one, they backed off, and the tension eased.
“Is it true?” the elder demanded. “You can save ‘em?”
“I can.”
“How?”
“I can move swiftly. I have a sword. I have some skill in tracking, and I can travel without rest and food.” Alutan looked at them. “But whether you aid me or not, you cannot stop me.”
The elder opened his mouth to object, but no words came out. They were staring again, this time in disbelief. They were staring at his arm.
Alutan felt it, like sunlight in the darkest cavern. It ran through him. It danced in his blood. It burned.
It was small this time, barely worth his notice. Yet the men gazed, unblinking, faces growing from horror to realization to awe. And then to fear. Always fear.
“Great Maker and the Tree,” breathed the bandaged man. “I don’t believe my very eyes.”
The elder shook his head. “A . . . a marvel.”
Alutan said nothing, only drew a rag from his belt and mopped the last traces of blood from his arm. A single, slow swipe, and it was gone without a scar.
“Lel-na,” the youngest breathed, though no one else seemed to notice.
Alutan chose to ignore him. It was not a name he cared to take up again. He was not their warrior or their seer anymore. He was a broken man. A father who had failed. Nothing more.
“We’re losing time,” he said, voice sharpening. “Will you help me or not? The Northmen may have taken two of my friends, and the sooner I find them, the sooner I can free them—along with the others. But I need to know where they went, how long ago, and what their numbers are.”
The men exchanged looks, and a silent decision passed between them.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” said the elder.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the Northmen ransacked the outbuildings this morning ‘afore they left. Made off with our canoes, they did.”
“So they’re taking the river west?”
“Aye, so it seems. It’s a fast flower.” He shook his head. “You’ll never catch ‘em on foot.”
“I’ll take my own canoe.”
“Every fool’s boat we owned was in that shed. What they didn’t take, they shot full of holes and burned. Nearly set the whole town aflame. There’s naught to go on now, not so much as a fishing raft.”
“Then I’ll have to run.”
“Are your feet swift as the current? Do they sprout wings?” The elder glanced at him sideways, half joking, half hopeful.
“Sadly, no,” Alutan replied. “But I am fast. You said yourself, you would never give up. I swear on my family, this is your best chance.”
“Aye.” The man nodded grimly. “I do nearly believe you.” He glanced around, and for the first time, Alutan was aware of others. Eyes peered out of cracked doors. Figures haunted the shadowed alleys. There was a murmuring, like trees in a soft night wind.
The elder looked back at him and spread his arms. “So,” he said. “Stranger who walks with Greenwater in his veins, tell me: what do you need?”
Chapter Ten
Jerad Amanti
FOUR DAYS AGO
When Brit Garden stomped back into camp, he was rain-soaked, furious, and alone. Every eye was drawn to him, then looked quickly away.
Only Jerad Amanti did not. He was the biggest of the slaves, with dark hair like a curtain over his still-swollen face. Blood crusted a half-healed cut on his cheek.
He crouched, tense and watching as the rain continued to splatter around them. A tremble ran through him. Hyranna was not with Garden—and neither was that Northman scum, Whiset. Three had left, and now, half a day later, only one returned. Which meant she’d done it. She’d used the Aktyr to escape.
Or she had been killed by the Northmen.
Jerad would not consider the second possibility. She got away. She must have. It was the only explanation for the man’s obvious fury.
Jerad watched as Garden marched straight up to the slaves. The other Northmen gathered, some glancing into the woods as if waiting for Whiset and Hyranna to return. Most had hard faces, hands tight to their guns.
“Who spoke to her?” Garden demanded in Imo’ani.
His voice was not an angry shout, as Jerad anticipated. It was quiet and cold, barely audible in the rain.
The slaves murmured, glancing between each other. Rees, the only other man, just watched with hard eyes, saying nothing, doing nothing but what he was told—as he had since his first cruel beating.
“I asked you a question,” Garden said.
Silence.
“I’ll know who had words with my Todaby, and I’ll know it now.”
One of the Northmen spoke up, saying something in Manturian while pointing to the youngest of the girls.
Jerad’s stomach clenched. Maker above, not Letti!
Garden blinked at her. “Jah,” he said. The Northmen pulled her to her feet, untying her from the line of slaves. They shoved her to face Garden. Letti stood barely to the man’s chest, a small, scrawny child with big dark eyes.
“This here fellow says you took bread from my Todaby this morning. Is that the way of it?”
The girl just looked at him.
“She speak to you?”
The girl said nothing.
“She say anything at all?”
Letti was watching his hands. They were stained red with blood, Jerad noticed. She was just watching and watching, unable to speak. Eyes round.
Garden made a sound in his throat. There was a dangerous energy under that quiet. Like before he had hurt Anna. Someone had to stop him. Someone had to do something.
“Leave her alone,” Jerad heard himself say. He’d risen to his feet, wrists pulled taut against the ropes. “Don’t you touch her. She’s just a child, you hear?”
Garden paused. A tremor ran through him. Then he pulled out his gun and shot the
girl between the eyes.
The slaves cried out, some in screams, others with strangled noises or protests that faded into muffled sobs.
Jerad stared. Letti fell onto her side, eyes open and sightless. Two lines of blood trickled down her face like tears.
Then the Northmen were grabbing Jerad. They wrestled him out of line. He stumbled in a daze. He was next. Garden was going to shoot him. This was it.
The certainty filled him with a strange calm as he faced the Northman.
“You want to tell me what I can and cannot do, slave?” Garden’s eyes were bright, flush with his vengeance. “Her death is yours.”
“One day justice will find you, Brit Garden.” Jerad looked the man in the eye. “One day soon.”
Garden struck him across the face. Jerad grunted, half-expecting a bullet instead.
Then Garden clamped bruising fingers around Jerad’s neck, leaning close. “You want justice, slave? Here it is.” He hammered a fist across Jerad’s face, and something snapped in his nose.
Jerad grunted, but tightened his jaw, refusing to show the pain.
“You are my property, my thing,” Garden sneered. And he hit him again.
“Justice is mine.” Again.
“And I will take it . . .” again, “as I see fit.” Again.
Jerad choked on a mouthful of blood. He tried to suck in a breath, but Garden hammered him in the side, right below his ribs, knocking the wind out of him, then continuing to hit him over and over until Jerad thought he would throw up.
Held by the Northmen, he was helpless. Blood dripped off his face. His body jerked under the blows. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. He clung to his knees in the mud, rain pounding him. Garden continued to kick him and hit him across the face, teeth barred, possessed by some incoherent rage. He didn’t stop until his own knuckles bled. Then he dropped his hands, breathing hard, and marched away without a word.
Jerad thought he’d never wake again. When he did, it was to rough Northman hands.
The rain had stopped, thankfully washing away some of the blood and vomit he’d expelled the night before. If he thought he’d been sore on the journey here, he realized that was nothing. The slavers’ beatings had been merciful compared to this—gentle reminders of his station. Today, Jerad knew what a real beating was like.
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