Street of the Cobblers
Gardens District, New Sarresant
Elle est à proximité,” the strange woman said, the one who’d first called herself Erys—or something akin to it—and then Marie. “Le feu est trois rues au sud.”
The fair-skins’ tongue seemed to flow together, a flow of words and nasal sounds he’d never been able to master. But he understood enough. The woman was near, and the fire. An echo of the vision he’d been granted at Ka’Ana’Tyat, as sure as their strange fair-skinned guide had been. He walked through their city in the haze of a dream, as though he had passed through the fire and chaos already, and so he had. Every line, every path of stone and smoke cloud rising into the sky; he’d seen it before, by the grace of the spirits. And it led to Llanara.
Corenna kept pace at his side, a distant look in her eyes. She’d seen the vision, too. He knew without asking. How they would enter the fair-skins’ city, and be greeted by a woman with eyes of gold, who knew the way into madness. As it was when he followed the shamans’ visions, so it was here in the city: Every step was a confirmation they followed the will of the spirits, though the sights around them wrenched his gut, more akin to terrors than a dream.
Dead men and boys, and women, too. Cold bodies broken on paths of stone, tribesfolk mixed with fair-skins. Olessi, Vhurasi, Ganherat, Sinari. Thunder sounded in the distance, and the lesser booms of musket shot, but the way was quiet, peopled only by the dead.
“Par ici,” the woman, Marie, said. This way.
He and Corenna followed, turning a corner around a building of wood and stone. He’d heard stories of the fair-skins’ city, passed down by traders who had glimpsed the sights beyond their barrier, but he had scarce believed the truth could match the tales. Foolishness, as he saw it. So many people in one place, trusting to a single barrier to protect them from the wild. If a tribe multiplied as the fair-skins had done, they would attract doom from a dozen great beasts, come to feast on their flesh as much as their pride. And when their blood ran hot, and one tribe’s disagreement with another spilled over into fighting, the deaths would number into the thousands, to say nothing of the costs of outright war. He saw the truth of it littering the streets as they walked, bodies echoing the stain of Llanara’s madness.
A scream was his only warning before a young man charged their guide.
A Ganherat warrior, from the feathers braided into his hair, leaping out from one of the buildings, with three more behind him. They poured into the street in a rush, ululating war cries as if they attacked a pack of enemies, instead of an unarmed woman in the company of a guardian and a woman of the tribes.
Arak’Jur sprang forward, putting a forearm in the way of the first warrior’s attack, sweeping a kick to tangle his legs, putting him into the snow. Two of his fellows rushed to take the first one’s place, snarling as though they were beasts, and not men.
Unarmed strikes rained as they lunged for Marie, leaping toward her, ignoring Arak’Jur and Corenna both. He grabbed hold of one of the men by the torso, hurling him into his fellows and pressing all four when they lost their footing.
“Enough!” he shouted. “What madness is this?”
They ignored him, scrambling to their hands and knees.
“Arak’Jur!” Corenna shouted from behind. He glanced to see her restraining Marie, who in the span of a heartbeat had gone from determined resolve to panicked flight.
Then, as quick as it had come, their madness passed.
The warriors stared up at him, stunned, and Marie relaxed in Corenna’s grip.
“The Sinari guardian,” one of the tribesmen said. “How—?”
“She foretold it,” another warrior said, in hushed tones of awe. “His return, at the moment of our triumph.”
“What goes on here?” Arak’Jur demanded, standing over the men as they slowly rose to their feet.
“La folie,” Marie said, her voice hoarse. “Dans des vagues de peur et de panique.”
He met her eyes, and she gestured on the way they’d been going. “La femme, et Reyne d’Agarre.”
He hadn’t understood the first part of her words, but he grasped the second. The woman, and the name: Reyne d’Agarre. Her teacher. The first source of Llanara’s madness.
“You must go to her,” a Ganherat warrior said, a look of reverence on his face, as if he hadn’t been screaming for blood moments before.
He met Corenna’s eyes, and they shared a nod. The vision confirmed it, though neither had remembered the crazed warriors until the path became clear.
The four young men led the way, with Marie and Corenna at his side. Unease settled in his gut as they walked. Was this the form Llanara’s magic took? The terror that had driven his people to murder the Ranasi, and who could say how many more in the days since. The Ganherat warriors seemed at ease, keeping a steady pace as they tracked down the fair-skins’ paths of stone. More warriors stood idle on the streets, first offering greetings when their company approached, then falling into step behind when they laid eyes on him, with murmured whispers of his title, that the Sinari guardian had returned. If the madness came again, he might well have to strike them down. He felt the surety of Corenna at his side, and the spirits’ gifts, calling to him at the edge of his vision. Blood soaked the snow, and the hides and wraps of the tribesmen, but they pressed on, with no sign of whatever had stirred them to frenzy.
Smoke in the distance grew as they approached, more and more warriors falling into step, or parting to clear the way. A greatfire burned at the center of a square, where a web of paths converged, leading all directions into the city. Steps rose toward where the fire had been built, and a figure in white stood atop them, revealed as the crowd stepped aside, leaving the way clear to approach the rise.
Llanara.
Her face beamed, radiant even from afar, in a twisted imitation of the fond looks they had once shared. The crowd mirrored her warmth, buzzing appreciation for every step their procession took toward the center.
When they’d covered half the distance, Llanara raised a hand, invoking silence across the square.
“The spirits have heard us, honored brothers and sisters,” she said, her voice ringing clear. “Our warleader has returned.”
The warriors erupted with cheers. She met his eyes amid the roar of the crowd, giving him the subtle smile she used when an opponent hadn’t yet realized she’d won an argument.
“Warriors,” she cried over the din, “I tell you now—he is warleader, but he will not take the mantle of Vas’Khan.”
That grabbed hold of their attention, and their cheers died down as Llanara continued to speak.
“No, he will not be Vas’Khan’Jur. The spirits demand more for him, for our guardian and first among the men of our people.”
She took long, strutting steps around the center of the clearing, seeming to relish the anticipation as the crowd hung on her every word. He only stared, an empty hate chilling him to the core.
“If Vas’Khan is the warleader of a tribe, then it is fitting that Arak’Jur take a new name, one that has never before been spoken among our people. A name whispered to me by the spirits. He will be Arak’Khan’Jur. Chosen by the spirits, a warleader for all tribes.”
The name passed through the throng in whispers, met with nods of approval. They cried it out, tested it on their tongues. Arak’Khan’Jur.
“Come forward, Arak’Khan’Jur. Take your place at the head of your warriors.”
She smiled again as the crowd broke into a roar, giving him a sweet look full of warmth. As if she expected humility or thanks; as if she had never considered he might react with anything other than acceptance.
She beamed amid the thunder of the crowd, fixed on him as he approached. As he drew near he saw the familiar lines of her face, the passion in her eyes. He could see the memory of the woman she had been, the relief she had offered to salve the loss of his wife and son.
“Welcome home, my guardian,” she said.
He called upon the valak’ar and struck, surrounded by a deadly nimbus of the wraith-snake.
A flare of white surrounded her before he connected, repelling him with enough force to throw him to the ground.
Shock showed on Llanara’s face, and it rippled outward through the crowd, the cheers near the center replaced by gasps of disbelief.
“No,” Llanara said, looking down on him with pain in her eyes. “No, Arak’Jur. Why?”
He felt the shock of it hit him. The vision had ended here.
His mouth went dry, and he saw her tilt her head as if listening to an unspoken voice.
A dark look crept into her eyes.