His eyes were dark with anger now. “Yes,” he growled.
She walked to the chair and sat down with what she hoped was resolve and dignity.
“Then I must, respectfully, refuse. I will return to Elyne.”
He regarded her with narrowed eyes, then a wry smile pulled at his mouth.
“On your own, with no guards and protectors?”
“If I have to.”
“The mountains are full of ichani. They’re outcasts – they don’t care what family they offend or harm. You would never make it back.”
“I’m willing to try.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “You are right. I shouldn’t have left you in Elyne for fifteen years and expected you to return without some foolish ideas in your head – though I’m not sure why you think your future would be so very different in Elyne. Your mother has been telling me for years that it is long past time for you to marry, and that most women your age have already produced more than one child.” He straightened. “You should rest and think about your future, and I clearly need to reconsider my plans for you. Do bear in mind that I still expect you to behave like a proper Sachakan woman for our visitors.”
She nodded. While a part of her wanted to rebel, to leave for Elyne before this meeting – or at least to convince the man her father had picked as her fiancé that she was a crazed shrew he’d never want to live with – she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of hope. Perhaps there was a way to convince her father her value was in trading, perhaps in ways acceptable to Sachakan society other than as a womb with legs. She had to try.
He made a small gesture. The gong rang again. A woman with streaks of grey in her hair stepped into the room and prostrated herself, her movements stiff with age.
“This is Vora. You may remember her from your childhood. She is sure to remember you. She will take you to your rooms.”
Stara managed a smile and turned away to look at the woman. There was something familiar about the name, but the wrinkled face did not raise any memories. Vora’s eyebrows rose, but she shrugged and said nothing as she led Stara out of the room.
Twenty horses and their riders made their way up the steep track as quietly as twenty horses and their riders could hope to travel. The chink and flap of harness, the equine snorts and the occasional smothered human cough or sneeze were so familiar to Tessia now that she barely heard them. Instead she heard – or didn’t hear – the lack of sound in the trees surrounding them. No birds chirruped or whistled, no wind rustled the leaves, no animals barked or bellowed or howled.
Perhaps the others had noticed the unusual quiet, or perhaps they felt a strangeness without recognising the source, but they were all searching the trees or staring ahead or behind. Frowns marred foreheads. Nervous glances were exchanged. A magician crooked a finger and his apprentice rode closer so they could have a murmured conversation. Signals like this were becoming a kind of language throughout the group, developing through necessity.
Tessia checked that the magical shield she was holding around herself and her horse was strong and complete. They all rode with barriers in place each day, ready in case of an unexpected attack. At night they took it in turns to shield their camp, if they were forced to sleep outside, or patrol whatever village or hamlet they had reached.
A figure appeared on the track ahead, jogging bravely in full view. Tessia recognised one of the scouts who were sent ahead each day. She knew Lord Dakon was not happy about them using non-magicians to do this work, as they were defenceless if the Sachakans found them, but if any of the magicians ventured out alone and encountered more than one of the enemy, or a Sachakan of greater power, he was just as likely to perish. Magicians were in much shorter supply than non-magicians.
The man’s expression was grim. He met the first of the magicians and spoke quietly, pointing back from where he’d come. Slowly the news was passed on, in a murmur, from one person to the next.
“There’s a house ahead,” Dakon told Tessia and Jayan. “All but one of the occupants has been murdered recently. The survivor is not likely to live much longer.”
“Shall we go ahead and see?” Tessia asked. “Perhaps I can help this person.”
He looked thoughtful, then nudged his horse forward. Lord Narvelan and Lord Werrin had become unofficial leaders of the group, though this mainly involved putting questions to the others and offering advice rather than actually making decisions, Tessia had noticed. The others would accept any overriding decision Werrin made, as he was the king’s representative, but they tended to become uncooperative if he didn’t let them debate it among themselves first.
Some of them are so worried that someone will usurp their authority, it comes close to taking precedence over finding and getting rid of the Sachakans. I shouldn’t be surprised if the Sachakans managed to overcome all of Kyralia during one of these “discussions’.
After several minutes, Dakon returned.
“Just us and Narvelan,” he said.
To Tessia’s surprise, two other magicians and their apprentices broke away from the others to follow them up the road: Lord Bolvin and Lord Ardalen. Dakon nodded his thanks.
Seems not everyone is willing to huddle in the protection of the group while some poor ordinary Kyralian dies. Though I suppose Ardalen will want to know more. We are getting close to his ley now.
“Did the scout say what the injury was?” she murmured.
Dakon shook his head.
Several nervous minutes later they came upon a tiny stone building at the side of the track. Insects buzzed around the prone forms of two men, one with grey at his temples, the other much younger. Dakon, Tessia and Jayan dismounted, but the others remained on their horses, forming a protective ring around the front of the house.
Removing her father’s bag, Tessia followed as Dakon cautiously stepped through the open doorway. A light flared into existence, revealing a table that filled most of the room. They stopped and glanced around, looking for the survivor.
As Tessia moved towards the back of the room she felt something snag her foot. Looking down, she saw a leg, then squatted and found a young man lying under the table.
He stared at her with frightened eyes.
“You’re safe now,” she told him. “The house is surrounded by magicians – Kyralian magicians, that is. Where are you hurt?”
Dakon brought the light lower and Tessia felt her heart sink as she saw how pale the man was. His lips were blue. He was shivering. She could see no sign of blood, however. Was it an internal injury? The man hadn’t moved. He just stared at her, his eyes wide.
“Show me where you are hurt,” she said. “I can help you. My father was a healer and taught me much of what he knew.”
When he didn’t move, she began checking his rhythms. The spaces between his heartbeats were impossibly long. His breathing was painfully shallow. Dakon reached out and turned over one of the man’s wrists. A thin cut already sealed by congealed blood stood out against his deathly pale skin.
“That’s not enough to kill him,” Tessia said.
The staring eyes were now fixed on the underside of the table. As she watched, they lost their intense focus. A last slow breath escaped the man. Dakon cursed. He reached out and placed a hand on the pale brow. After a moment he removed it. “Most of the energy within him was taken. He didn’t have enough strength left to keep breathing.”
“Could... could you have given him back some strength?” Tessia asked.
Dakon frowned. “I don’t know. I have never tried – never needed to. Never heard of anyone doing it, either.” He looked regretfully at the man. “I’d try now, but I suspect it is too late.”
Tessia nodded. “My father always said it was foolish and wrong to try to reverse death. He’d read of a man whose rhythms were restarted after they’d stopped, but whose mind was never the same.”
“If we encounter another like this,” Dakon said, “we will try.”
Tessia smiled and felt a wave of gratitude and affection for him. This willingness to help even the lowliest of people was one of the traits she most liked in him. In the past weeks she had come to the realisation that this sense of compassion was rare among magicians.
“Is that wise? You will need all the strength you possess if you have to fight the Sachakans,” Jayan asked. As Tessia looked at him reproachfully he grimaced. “Saving one man might cost us our lives, which might cost many more.”
He had a point, she grudgingly admitted. The harsh practicality of his remark only highlighted how different he was from Lord Dakon. Cold, truthful common sense was harder to like than warm, hopeful generosity. Yet it had replaced Jayan’s former disdain and arrogance, giving him a maturity that hadn’t been apparent before, and she had to admit she disliked him a little less now. Only a little, though.
Dakon straightened and sighed. “I suspect it would not take much energy to bring a man dying this way back to a state from which he could recover. A tiny portion of what I take from either of you each night – and so easily replaced. I wouldn’t consider it dangerous unless we were in a desperate situation.”
Jayan nodded, satisfied. As they stood up and left the house Tessia felt a weary sadness. Messages had been sent out to all the people living in villages, farms, forest and mountain cottages in the leys bordering Sachaka, advising an evacuation to the south until the Sachakans were driven out. But many people had stayed, their lives depending on the sowing of spring crops, hunting or other sources of income. They were easy targets for the invaders.
As she, Dakon and Jayan mounted and started back to rejoin the others, Tessia listened to the magicians quietly discussing how long ago they thought the house had been attacked. They had found several campsites of the enemy as well as their victims, but no sign of the Sachakans. She suspected that the magicians had expected the Sachakans to attack them weeks ago and were puzzled why they had not. Some speculated that there were too few of them. They wanted to split into smaller groups themselves, remaining close enough to help each other if attacked, in order to lure the Sachakans out.
But, as Jayan had pointed out, the Sachakans weren’t going to attack unless they felt they could win. They wouldn’t attack a smaller group if another was close enough to reinforce it.