49

ARAK’JUR

Approaching the Ranasi Village

Ranasi Land

Their journey had been swift, on new horses borrowed from Nanerat tribesmen at the base of the snowy pass. Each day began before sunrise, and ended long after the sun had set. Short days in the cold season, made longer by hard travel, with an uncertain end.

The spirits who had spoken to him at Nanek’Hai’Tyat had confirmed his worst fear. War. Whether the Sinari men had taken up weapons and battle names, or merely fallen victim to aggression Ka’Vos had not been able to see, he could not say. The question gnawed at him like a wolf at a haunch of a fallen elk. Would he return home to find his people at arms defending their land, or slain by the hand of an enemy? Every day he drew closer to an answer, and his dread built with every step.

Corenna shared his fears as they traveled, but there was warmth there, too. In the late hours, when they waited for sleep to come, they risked whispers of possible futures, daring to imagine a world where their peoples stood together. Perhaps war was inevitable, but if the blood-oaths had been honored, the pacts sealed between Ka’Vos and Ka’Hinari, they could be returning to find their tribes united in victory over the aggression of their enemies.

As they drew near the northern boundary of Ranasi lands, Corenna’s mood lightened. The flowing waters of the Anakhrai River marked the edge of her home, and together they dared to hope for a reception there, of Ranasi and envoys from the Sinari standing together to welcome their return.

Instead they found the riverbank empty. By itself no great cause for concern; even the best shamans could not foresee every coming and going. They crossed the waters in nervous silence, anticipation building with every step as they tracked their way through forested hills toward the Ranasi village. Whatever their hopes, each of them knew well enough the darker side of what was possible. Until they had confirmation of what had transpired in their absence, hope would flicker like a flame under a rough wind.

Wisps of smoke above the trees in the distance—signs of a greatfire in the Ranasi village—confirmed their arrival, at last.

Unable to hold herself to even the quick pace they had kept for days, Corenna nudged her mount forward through the tree line as he followed behind. Together they emerged into a village frozen in place, the paths deserted, tent flaps hanging loose in the wind. Panic stirred in his belly as they tethered their mounts, and Corenna rushed from tent to tent, seeking signs of life. He left her to it, heading straight for the village meeting ground. A fire burned there, no mistaking the smoke trailing into the sky above it.

Thank the spirits he arrived first. Enough time to turn back, to meet Corenna on the path and stop her before she could reach its source.

“Don’t,” he said, holding her as she struggled against him.

“What is it, Arak’Jur?” Her voice quavered, threatening to break.

“Don’t,” he repeated, keeping himself interposed between her and the pathway to the meeting grounds. “You do not want to see.”

“Let me go.”

“Corenna—”

He meant to reason with her, to spare her the pain. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel the shock of it, concerned only with sheltering her from the horror ahead.

Instead a blast of earth beneath his feet sent him soaring away from her, crashing to the ground beside one of the empty tents in a cascade of dirt and stone. He snapped to his feet, but not before a howl sounded from the grounds ahead. A desperate plea, and then a scream. No, she cried out in denial. Let it be false. Let it be anything other than what it was.

When he emerged behind her, Corenna was on her knees, weeping into the dirt.

He approached with caution, staying silent. Enough to let her feel his presence, to let her know that whatever else had happened here in her village, at this moment she was not alone.

“I left them,” she whispered, curled beside the fire.

He had carried her from the ruins of her village, away from the terrible pyre as she clung to him in tears. Now they camped to the south, at the base of a hill dusted with snowfall, fleeing from the memory of what they had witnessed.

“Corenna, you strove for peace—”

“I left them! My father, the brothers and sisters of my tribe, my people. Our guardian was slain and I left them without a protector. Their blood is on my hands.”

He fell silent. His assurances were hollow. In her place he would blame himself; spirits forbid it came to that when they reached Sinari lands. A possibility they had not yet escaped, and he knew it well. If he could not assuage her pain, he could remind her he felt some measure of the same.

“Ka’Vos honored the blood-oath,” he said quietly. “I saw Sinari men among the dead.”

Her anger cracked, her expression softening once more into tears. “Oh, Arak’Jur, what have we done?”

The fire hissed and popped, casting shadows into the night. Stillness surrounded them, settling over the snow-covered hills of the Ranasi as if the spirits themselves mourned what had befallen their children. Perhaps some few had survived; he didn’t have the stomach to sort through the wreckage of that terrible pyre to make an accounting of the dead. But the truth was clear: The Ranasi tribe was no more. And some among the Sinari had stood with their blood brothers and sisters. What fate might that betoken for his people? The question festered inside him.

But even as he felt it threaten to take hold, he knew despair was not the way. They had chosen the right path, and he could not doubt it now when faced with the price.

He met Corenna’s eyes, and saw strength within her. Quivering for the cold, and for the uncertainty of convictions tested by horror. A fire burned there—dimmed by wind and snow, but no less for it.

“We have done only what was right,” he said. “Against this madness, our people could not stand alone.”

“And what do we do now?” she asked, voice shaken. “We travel to Sinari lands; what then?”

“We make war.”

The answer stoked the fire behind her eyes, but she tempered it with reserve, a steadying breath that misted into the night air.

“Is it wisdom,” she said slowly, “to trade peace for vengeance?”

He considered her words. Even in the grasp of anguish, she was right to urge caution. Anger boiled beneath his skin. He would have given much to have the ones responsible for the Ranasi village before him now, to cut them down like weeds and break them with the power of his gifts. The spirits would understand and forgive the vulgar use of their blessings; una’re or ipek’a protected their young with savage ferocity. And men were not as simple as the predators of the wild. Even the greatest predators limited their killing to food, territory, or the perception of a threat. Only men could be corrupted by madness.

“There cannot be peace in the face of such evil,” he said. “No tribe can be safe, so long as those who would commit such acts walk upon our lands.”

She nodded, a solemn gesture, full of poise. And then she broke, turning away.

He moved to lie beside her, offering his warmth against the biting winds. No more words passed between them, only quiet tears of pain and grief.

Sleep found them both, and they awoke long past first light.

A haze settled around them as they made preparations for travel; he saw it in the distant look behind Corenna’s eyes. For himself, he felt once more the creeping dread of the unknown, made worse by the atrocity they left behind. He expected no comforts from Corenna, though he offered what little he could as they crossed the land of her people. Corenna kept a hard pace, but said little. He understood.

When they reached the waters of the Nuwehrai, they turned inland in search of narrows where they could fell a tree for a crossing. Too late in the season to make the swim; floes of ice slid along the slow current as a warning, if the snowfall and chill in the air were not caution enough. Little concern for him—the gift of the guardian was strong—but he would not ask it of Corenna, and she did not offer.

Rounding a long bend in the arm of the river, he saw a pair of tall oaks had already been put to the task, bridging the water where the banks drew close. Freshly done, at least since he’d been away. They’d nearly reached them when a man rose from where he sat at the base of the wide trunks, on the Ranasi side of the river.

“Arak’Jur?” the man called, his voice caked by disbelief.

He raised a hand in reply. Drawing nearer, a tenuous relief spread through him.

Ilek’Inari.

“My apprentice,” he called back as they closed the gap. He expected some manner of warmth from Ilek’Inari—it was his apprentice’s nature, even in the worst of times. Yet instead he saw a pale cast to the younger man’s face, a trembling, unsteady look in his eyes. And when his apprentice looked past him to settle on Corenna, Ilek’Inari’s expression twisted into a grimace, as if he recoiled from the source of a fresh wound.

His stomach sank.

“What news?” he asked, fearing his apprentice’s next words as he had feared little else in his life.

“You’ve seen it,” Ilek’Inari said. “The Ranasi village.”

“What do you know of my people?” Corenna said.

Once more Ilek’Inari turned to look at her, then winced and looked away.

“Ilek’Inari,” Arak’Jur said, “tell us what has passed here.”

“Madness,” his apprentice said, eyes downcast. “She corrupted them. The new magic. I should have seen it. I should have—”

“Slow down,” he said. “What has happened? What news of our people?”

“The Sinari have gone mad, Arak’Jur. Llanara’s power has twisted our people into vile shells of what they were. The atrocity of the Ranasi village, it was done by our hand. The Sinari fell on the Ranasi with the fair-skins’ muskets, beguiled and goaded by her magic.”

Ilek’Inari’s words faded into a dull hum, the void following a thunderclap.

Corenna’s eyes widened to pale moons, her jaw working as if she meant to speak.

“No,” he said. “It cannot be so.”

“It is,” Ilek’Inari said. “Spirits curse us all, it is the truth.”

“What was your part in this, apprentice guardian of the Sinari?” The ice in Corenna’s words took him aback, and he saw a pale film cover her eyes in mist.

“Corenna,” he said. “No. Ilek’Inari cannot have known—”

“I will have the words from his mouth, Arak’Jur!”

Ilek’Inari met her eyes with pain in his own. “I fled, honored sister. I knew their intent, and I fled. Spirits curse me for a coward; I could not stand against her.”

Corenna quivered on the edge of fury, checked by the barest shred of restraint.

“Corenna—” he said.

“Arak’Jur!” she shouted at him, stepping back. “How am I not to believe this part of your plan from the start? Arak’Doren fell on your lands, and then you came to us speaking of peace, you drew me away, you left us open to be murdered like defenseless children.”

The shock of her words struck him like a blow, and he watched the rage boil behind her eyes, searching him as she spoke.

He fell to his knees.

“Kill me, if you believe it,” he said. “If the spirits of your people whisper to you of my part in this, then exact your revenge. The Sinari guardian as first payment for our betrayal.”

She held steady, her gaze fixed to his. Then he saw the film of her magic fade from her eyes, replaced by tears and pain. He rose and moved to her side, cradling her in a firm embrace as he looked back to his apprentice.

“Tell us all, Ilek’Inari. Tell us what evil has taken our people.”

His apprentice nodded, still watching Corenna with a lingering concern as he began to speak. He told of Ka’Vos’s death, how Llanara had proclaimed it the will of the spirits. How he had opposed her in the steam tent, stunned to find himself dismissed before a rising tide of passion and a growing thirst for blood. Llanara’s new magic had hold over them, he claimed, and before Ilek’Inari could understand the depth of her power, she had assumed a position of leadership and guidance over the tribe.

As he listened, a knot of anger took root in his stomach. He had been a fool to ignore her strange new gift. That Llanara had her share of ambition he knew well—no secret to him she had sought his companionship in some part due to his status as a guardian of the tribe. But he had never imagined such madness in her. The more he listened, the darker his spirit grew.

Corenna had recovered herself as best she could, sitting cross-legged in the snow beside him.

“Her gift,” Corenna said. “It came to her through the hands of a fair-skin, did it not?”

“Yes,” Arak’Jur said. “From a man called Reyne d’Agarre. He visited the village a number of times, instructing Llanara.”

“I do not understand; the fair-skins have not stirred from behind their barrier in ten generations. If the fair-skins wished us destroyed, could they not have made war? Why plant such a pernicious seed among our people?”

“Llanara claimed her gift was related to the spirits’ visions,” Ilek’Inari said. “That she spoke on their behalf. The elders swore she could make a spirit appear to them, to confirm her words.”

Arak’Jur nodded. “I saw such a thing, the day Reyne d’Agarre first came to our village. Llanara may well have spoken true—yet if her gifts are of the spirits, they are tainted by the evil against which we have struggled for so long.”

“And her power corrupts the mind,” Corenna said. “Inspiring madness. Yet it does not appear to have taken hold in you, Ilek’Inari?”

“No, honored sister,” his apprentice said. “I watched my people succumb to heated emotion as Llanara spoke, and felt none of the passion that stirred within them. They marched to war, to the unspeakable. And I was powerless to dissuade them.”

If what Ilek’Inari had said was true, his people may already be lost. None among the Sinari would countenance such atrocities—his people loved peace, had shown wisdom enough to walk its path even as others gave in to the urgings of the spirits. Perhaps if he could reach Llanara, confront her …

“Where is she now?” he asked. “What does she intend?”

“I fled from the tribe, hiding in the wilds when I came to understand their purpose. I had a vision of your return, and came here. I have not heard tell of her plans since.”

He and Corenna shared a look.

“We must seek her out,” he said. “And put an end to this corruption.”

Corenna nodded. “Then we travel to the Sinari village.” She rose to her feet, dusting snow from her furs.

“Wait,” he said. “Can you forgive my people, Corenna?”

Her back stiffened.

“I must know you can lay blame for this at its source,” he said. “The madness of the spirits, of Llanara’s vile gift, and not the men and women corrupted by its power.”

She took a long moment, looking between him and Ilek’Inari.

Finally she spoke. “I can judge what I see. No more, no less. If all is as Ilek’Inari has said, then I will content myself with finding Llanara. Finding her, and seeing her dead.”

He held her gaze, searching the pained look in her eyes.

She spoke again, voice wavering. “Do not ask me for less than this.”

He saw anger in her, the grief of loss. Fury, but also hope. She could find forgiveness, when the moment had passed, but now she wore the pain of the horrors she had borne like an open wound.

He rose to his feet, taking her hand in a steady grasp.

“If what has been done to my people can be undone, it must be so. After, it is the place of a guardian to mete out justice.”

Her eyes closed as she nodded, fresh tears streaking down her face.

“I swear to you, Corenna of the Ranasi, by the spirits of our lands—I will see justice done, for the blood of your people.”