“Shara was abandoned like you.” I said it only as a test of his empathy.
“M’gods. I never would’ve stolen from her if I’d known.”
“Are you lying?”
“No! I never would’ve! Where is she now? Is she all right?”
He passed my test. “She’s in Glaine, and she’s fine.”
“When you see her again, tell her I’m sorry. She seemed…she was nice to me. Which lord did she work for?”
“The lord of her land didn’t want her.”
“She’s lucky.”
“She’d certainly argue against that.”
I realized what Rao was telling me. “So you’re going back for Brijit.”
“I’ve wanted to go back for her ever since I left, but I was scared we wouldn’t make it out and would be killed. I thought if I had enough money I could pay for my reward and her release.”
“Your reward?”
“You don’t know? That’s why I didn’t want to—never mind.”
“Oh, there’s a reward for bringing back children who run away,” I realized. “I don’t care. I’m just going there to save as many people as I can, not to make money.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“No. How close are you to having enough to pay off your reward and her release?”
“It’s twenty silver for my reward, twenty for her release, and then another twenty for my release.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
He had no response.
After some time, I heard him crying.
“I’ve stolen from so many people,” he said. “I hate stealing, and then I just spend most of it on myself. I hate it.”
I’d noticed he wasn’t wearing the silk shirt anymore, not that it would do well in the rain anyway. “What happened to the shirt you had on last time?”
“I sold it. Bagger bought it for me with your dalion. He spent the entire thing in a day, the fool.”
So he didn’t have it hidden when I’d robbed him back.
I felt relief.
“Where is Bagger now?”
“I don’t know. I never saw him again after you…did what you did.” He sniffed and took his hand off my cloak to wipe his eyes. “I’d never seen pyforial energy before. It scared me.”
“Do I still scare you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re brave to come with me.”
“I’m not brave.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell anyone about what I can do? You were scared?”
“No. It was because you didn’t seem like you deserved to spend your life in prison.”
A thief with some decency.
“I suppose I owe you a small thanks for that. It would’ve been even more difficult getting everything I needed in Antilith with guards ready to detain me.”
“Are you still angry with me for stealing from Shara?”
“I don’t have the strength to be angry at you right now,” I admitted. “But you should know that if Shara was any less capable of surviving, she could’ve died after you left her with nothing.”
“I wouldn’t have taken everything if she was different. I knew she would make it. She’s smart.”
“What did you do with her books?”
He didn’t answer me.
“You sold them,” I answered for him.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded guilty enough that I didn’t feel it necessary to admonish him. “I wish I had more money,” he said. “Then I could pay her back what I took. I could pay everyone. I wouldn’t ever have to steal again.”
“Is living on the streets and stealing really better than living on Lord Crall’s manor?”
“Yes! Truly!” He pulled on my cloak. “Look at my back.”
I craned my neck to look behind me. He lifted his frayed coat and shirt as he leaned down. Numerous scars crossed his skin. I tried to imagine being a slave and being whipped as a child. I would’ve run as well.
“Are there other children there?”
“Just Brijit and me, but he might’ve gotten a new child since I left.”
“And when was that?”
“Two years ago, I think.”
“Are you really nine like you told me when we met?”
“Yes.”
Nine, just one year older than I was when Swenn had tricked me.
Rao’s so young and delicate.
My curiosity dissolved as worries took over. This child cared only about saving Brijit. He would be adamant about me helping her, but I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do even if Maywair was the first village I came to.
I thought of demanding that Lord Crall release her. He’d probably laugh at me. Even if he did let her go, what would I do with her? She wouldn’t be safe with me until we were far from the battle, and not even then if Marteph’s men chased us and the other villagers.
Would the terrislaks do the same?
I hated not having a plan yet, but I couldn’t make one until I knew three things: how many of our soldiers were still there, the layout of the villages, and how far away the terrislaks were when I arrived.
“Rao, of any dangerous situation you’ve been in, this will be the worst by far. I can’t keep you protected. There will be hundreds of terrislaks and thousands of soldiers from the South. It’s not too late for you to go back.”
“I’m not going back.”
“I might not be able to ride to Maywair,” I warned him.
“Then I’ll go there myself from wherever you stop.”
You can’t let him go by himself,
my conscience argued.
I ignored it. I was fairly certain I could.
Night came before we’d ridden ten miles, the rain refusing to stop. We settled beneath a tree at the peak of a low hill, Shara’s voice in my mind reminding me that thieves were less likely to venture uphill when looking for a target.
One thief is already here.
I watched Rao untie his shoes. He stopped suddenly and looked up at me.
“Can we share your blanket?” he asked.
“You’re lucky you’re small.”
Showing me a thankful grin, he finished with his laces and pulled off his shoes. “I can’t sleep with them on,” he said, crawling on his knees toward me.
“You should have another pair,” I said, still hearing Shara’s voice in my mind. “We both should.”
“I’d rather eat or free Brijit than have two pairs of shoes.”
I expected it to feel strange sharing a blanket with Rao, but just thinking of him as Rao instead of Tyree was more difficult than sleeping beside him. I kept seeing the same untrustworthy thief each time I looked at him.
Thankfully, he moved even less than Shara beneath the blanket, seemingly falling asleep moments after he let his head down.
If Shara saw us now, what would she think?
I almost laughed as I thought of the face she’d make.
“You’re letting him share your blanket? That’s horse piss!”
I didn’t care that she’d stolen that line from me. She said it better than I did, and it was Jon’s before it was mine anyway.
Strange, I hadn’t thought of my father since I’d gotten to the forest west of Antilith. Usually he’d find a way into my mind a few times a day. The ache of his death had gotten duller, no longer a stab to my heart as it was in the beginning.
I wish I had more fond memories of him.
Or would that just make it harder to let go
? That’s why it was so difficult for me to see how Eizle had changed. I held on to the boy he’d been, refusing to acknowledge the man he’d become.
I’m sorry, Eizle
. He hadn’t been anything like his brother, certainly not deserving of death. He had been troubled, though. If I’d seen this earlier, maybe I could’ve done something to help him.
Swenn was in the forest with the rest of Marteph’s men. I kept myself awake contemplating what he could be doing. He wasn’t the kind of man to go with them into battle. He’d stay behind, but to do what? To go where?
I had to stop thinking about him or I’d never get to sleep. I thought of Shara instead, safe in Glaine.
I knew the location of the villages in the center of Rhalon in the same way I knew the location of my old house in Lanhine. I had a strong inkling where the villages were in relation to the land around them, though I wouldn’t be able to locate them on a map.
When we were about a day’s ride southwest from Antilith, I jumped off so my horse could rest. Rao followed me off and I handed him the reins.
“Stay with him,” I instructed.
“Where are you going?”
“Up.”
Rao looked in each direction as I gathered py, eventually spinning in a complete circle. He pointed at a tree behind us. “You’re going to climb it?”
“No.” I took myself into the air as the boy gasped. Rain pelted my scalp as I ascended, my wet and heavy clothes trying to pull me down while the wind tugged at my cloak.
I could feel myself going higher than I’d ever been before as I watched the hills shrink. Nervousness had just begun to roil my stomach when the villages came into view. They appeared like lumps of brown and gray surrounded by a long oval of trees, fifty or seventy miles from us.
Feeling the strain of holding myself up by then, I searched frantically for the battalion of five thousand Northerners. If I couldn’t find them, it meant they were still in and around the villages, ready to protect them. But I did find them…going northeast around the hills. They were leaving the villages behind and coming in our direction.
Before I let disappointment settle in, I looked for the last answer I needed—the terrislaks’ location. I searched for any signs of the monsters between the dunes around Talmor Desert and the villages. Hillocks covered by bushy trees ran in a line dead north, separating the desert from the villages a few hundred miles to the west. The terrislaks either were concealed somewhere among the hillocks or hadn’t reached them yet. Without knowing the creatures’ location or the speed at which they traveled, I had little idea how long it would be before they attacked.
I looked down as I descended, immediately aware I wasn’t falling straight. I couldn’t correct it, as all of my focus went into making sure I didn’t reach a speed I couldn’t overcome. I hit the ground about a hundred yards from Rao and my horse, tumbling forward onto my hands and chest hard enough to splash water out of the grass.
Rao ran to me as I regained my breath. “M’gods! I wish I could do that.”
“It’s not as fun as it looks.”
“What did you see?”
“I’ll tell you when I figure it out.”
I took to the air once again, looking the opposite way this time. The forest west of Antilith was massive enough to cover all the land in view. Just as I suspected, Marteph’s men had emerged from it like ants leaving their hole.
I would get to the villages a day ahead of them, but then what? Terrislaks would come from the east, Marteph’s men from the north, both most likely continuing through the villages to go on south and west, making running of little use.
“So?” Rao asked when we came together again.
“You really need to go back to Antilith.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When night came, I was thankful for the rain clouds blocking the moonlight. With Sumar being shrouded in darkness, no one would travel during the night.
I slept beside Rao; the stubborn child had refused to leave even after I explained what I’d seen.
I didn’t worry myself with him, instead thinking of what I should say to the five thousand men of Quince’s army I soon would encounter.
The next day brought yet more rain.
“I miss the sun,” Rao told me as we started southwest. “Do you think the gods are punishing us for not sacrificing?”
“I don’t believe the gods would create us and then punish us for not killing each other.”
“But think of all the killing that’s happening because we aren’t sacrificing. Maybe they’re angry about that.”
“That would mean the gods are killing us because of a war…that started over a disagreement about whether we should kill ourselves for the gods. Do you know what irony means, Rao?”
“I think I do now.”
We chatted about faith as we drew closer to Quince’s army. The sun found a hole in the gray clouds and Sumar became alive with light.
It wasn’t an hour later when the hole closed up. Lightning struck, exploding a tree just a mile west of us, the boom of thunder startling Rao.
After I got my horse steady again, Rao asked me, “Why does lightning strike?”
“Do you think the gods are doing it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should ask them.”
He grumbled with disapproval. “Then why do you think it strikes?”
“I believe the world has a degree of fury it can’t contain. Sometimes the skies can be tranquil while the land shakes and cracks. Sometimes the wind can be still while lava shoots out of volcanoes.”
“Why does the world have fury?”
“Because every living thing has fury.”
We finally came in sight of Quince’s army. We met on a wide path of lush grass between rows of pines.
“I’m a mage of King Quince’s army,” I called out. “I have news.”
The unit commander, a bearded man on horseback and clad in a steel breastplate, had fifteen men surround me. I could feel Rao become uneasy.
“Tell me what it is,” the commander said.
“The ten thousand enemies near Antilith are coming south, not north. You were misinformed and need to turn back to defend the villages.”
“We have a direct order from the king to protect Glaine, nothing about this.” He paused to let a thought pass. “We can’t disobey a direct order unless you have a signed note from the king himself.”
“I don’t have any note but one must have been sent after you left. Where did you come from?”
“The outpost east of the villages. That’s where the pigeon from Glaine is trained to fly.”
“If you go back, you’ll find a message from King Quince correcting the first one.”
The commander’s thick beard twitched as his eyes hardened. “Where did you ride from?”
He doesn’t believe me.
“I was one of the scouts spying on our enemies in the forest. They started north for three miles, then they turned around and continued south. They’re not attacking the capital. I believe they’re planning to attack your battalion while terrislaks destroy the villages, preventing you from defending them.”
He looked at me as if I were mad. “What could you be talking about with terrislaks?”