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Brina took the first two of the sentries, moving like smoke through the trees and killing the men with almost casual ease. Delan followed behind her, his bow held ready, feeling the calm quiet he remembered so clearly from his days as a soldier. The calm before the battle, Arthemia had called it, the first time he'd described it to her. The signs of a true warrior, one worthy of her time and attention. Privately, Delan doubted her assessment—he was male, after all—but he'd paid careful attention to Arthemia during the times when she instructed him, and he remembered. Now, hopefully, all those long hours would pay.
Brina rose from the body of the second sentry and glanced at Delan. He waved her on and followed, trying to move as silently as she and failing miserably, until they reached the edge of the wood. This close to the ruin, they could hear laughter from within—a woman's laughter, and loud, ragged sobbing. Delan growled softly at the sound, fury overwhelming his calm.
"Easy, Delan." Brina breathed into his ear. "We can't help him if we're dead."
Delan nodded, closing his eyes and taking a long breath, letting the cold air damp the fires within until he could think clearly. He nodded once more, touching Brina's arm. She patted his shoulder and slipped away into the darkness, moving around one side of the clearing. Delan went the other way, listening intently.
He found the next sentry easily enough. The man had built a tiny fire in a tiny hollow underneath a tree, and was crouched over it, holding his hands over the little blaze for warmth. He obviously heard Delan approaching. His head jerked up at the sound of branches and leaves crackling. But he didn't move from his fire, instead pulling a pipe out of his pouch and lighting it with an ember. Delan smelled the acrid sweetness of dreamweed, and managed to bite down on a sigh of disgust. Morons. The sentries were all morons. How did they expect to hold the ruin if they didn't have competent people to defend it?
Delan frowned at the thought, then shook his head. He nocked his arrow, drew, and fired. The sentry fell with a bolt in his throat, and his body smothered the little fire.
Delan moved on.
Halfway around the clearing, the sounds from the ruins went still. Delan froze, then heard the warbling of a night bird. A moment later, Brina appeared out of the shadows.
"It got quiet," Delan whispered.
"They'll keep him alive until dawn," Brina answered, her voice sounding strained. "They're leaving him alone or he's passed out."
"Pray to the Warrior you're right. How many sentries?" Delan asked her.
"Four."
"There were three on this side," Delan said. "That makes nine with the two you killed on our way in."
"One of mine was taking a piss. Maybe he was from inside?" Brina suggested.
Delan nodded, scowling as he silently counted corpses. "There are only five left," he said. "One of them is the Priestess. One of them is Jyase. Is he a good fighter? He didn't attack when they took me down. He let his men do it."
"I don't know. He didn't take weapons training with me," Brina said. "Do you think you can take him?"
Delan thought back to the Thraya and seeing Jyase. How he moved, how he held his weapon and how he carried himself. An evil suspicion bloomed. "Brina? How did he come to you?"
"Same as you did. Showed up around the first snow, looking for a place. Why?"
Delan swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Who taught him? He knows how to fight. He knows enough at least to know how to move. He's been trained. I didn't get any weapons training until I met Arthemia. I've never heard of a male getting real weapons training, even if the warlady meant for them to be expendable. But just here we had eleven of them, even if most of them were idiots. And there were others at the Temple. So who trained them? Who trained Jyase?"
Brina went very still, then started swearing softly under her breath. "You're saying he was planted? That he knew what he was looking for?"
"I think so, yes," Delan answered. "Was he the first caretaker?"
"No. Before him there was Anaki, and before Anaki was Trivir," Brina answered. She frowned. "Anaki was with us for most of a year and left us to marry when his village sweetheart came looking for him. He lives with his wife and children about five miles east of here. They come to the Temple now and then to visit, and they named their oldest boy Lyan. Trivir... he was the first boy we brought in. He was a nice boy, but a little simple. He went home to take care of his mother after a half a year when she became ill. Their village was razed a few months later. Lyander doesn't know."
"Was he killed?" Delan asked.
"We never found him or his mother," Brina said. "You think he told?"
"Given what Jyase knew, I think it's likely. And if you all thought Trivir was simple, I'll bet you weren't as circumspect as you should have been. We had a scout like that, she could make people think she was cloud struck, and they talked around her as if she weren't there. We learned more from her in a week than we did in months of surveillance." Delan shook his head. "Right, so we can be pretty certain that Jyase was sent by the Light to confirm whatever they'd learned from Trivir. He knew about Lyander. And he probably seduced the girl so that he'd have a reason to get thrown out of the Temple. I just don't understand why!"
"Why what?"
"Why go through all the trouble. Why spend years, at the very least, in training men to be warriors, then send them into the Temple to find someone who may not really have existed."
"To destroy Lyas completely." Brina answered. "If he can be reborn once, he can be reborn again. But what happens if he dies while he's mortal? If Lyander dies without ever assuming his full potential?"
"You... you tell me. What happens?"
Brina shook her head. "I don't know. But I imagine they think that if Lyander dies, Lyas dies. Forever."
Delan swallowed. "They've been planning a long time for this."
"Probably since the Lyan priests fell. They must have guessed Lyas would rise again. So they've been waiting for a Temple son, just in case. They'd have taken Lyander even if he wasn't Lyas reborn. Come on. They'll notice that other one is gone before too long."
They stopped under cover at the edge of the clearing, close enough to the tent that they could hear movement from within. Delan pulled his scarf up over his mouth to hide his breath, and nudged Brina until she did the same. From inside the tent, they could hear a woman, her voice high-pitched and angry-sounding.
"Wake him up!" she shrilled.
The answering voice was low, male, and Delan thought it might have been Jyase. "I've been trying!"
"He needs to suffer more. He needs to break before dawn!"
"I know!" It was definitely Jyase, and he sounded annoyed.
Delan winced as the clear sound of a slap rang through the clearing.
"Do not dare take that tone with me ever!" the woman snapped. "Who do you think you are? Do you think just because we put a sword in your hand, that you're important? That you're equal to even the least of the Sisters?"
"I brought you the pretender god!" Jyase protested. "Does that mean nothing?"
"It means you're an exceptionally useful male, but you are still just a male," the woman said, her voice thick with contempt. "You are chattel, like a stallion or a bull, good only for the strength of your back and the potency of your seed. And perhaps not even for that. I think perhaps this has given you an elevated sense of your own worth. Perhaps when this is all over with and the Light reigns supreme, it will be time to temper you."
Delan shuddered, hearing Jyase moan and start to beg. "No, Serenity! Please, I... I’ll remember my place. Please... it was the moment, and frustration that... that I could not fulfill your wishes. Please, forgive me. I will make amends."
"You will. On your knees, dog, and show me how contrite you are. You will not rise from that position save at my command."
"Yes, Serenity."
The sounds that followed were clear, the sound of a woman taking her pleasure. As the Priestess' moaned and cried her climax to the night, Delan turned away and saw Brina arch an eyebrow at him. He leaned toward her, pressing his head against hers.
"What did she mean?" Brina whispered. "Temper?"
"She means to geld him," Delan answered.
Brina nodded, then gestured away from the tent. Delan followed her back into the undergrowth, until they were far enough away from the clearing that he felt safe taking his scarf from his face.
"That's a high ranking Priestess, or I'll eat my armor," Brina said as she sat down facing him. "Possibly the High Priestess herself, the bitch. I can't see her entrusting this to any of her subordinates. One of them might get airs and try to overthrow her."
Delan looked back the way they'd come. "No one's noticed the missing sentry. Isn't that odd?"
"The males have all been idiots. I'm not surprised—" Brina started to say, but stopped, cocked her head to the side, her expression thoughtful. "The men have all been idiots," she repeated.
"I thought so, too," Delan agreed. "One of the ones I took down was smoking dreamweed and had built a fire."
"It's as if they didn't know what was expected of them," Brina continued slowly.
"Perhaps they didn't?" Delan suggested. "Conscripts from surrounding farms, forced into arms."
"I'd say maybe, but there are strong penalties for smoking dreamweed in the villages around here. This trash came from further afield."
The answer hit all at once. "Delinquents," Delan said. "There are delinquency camps for incorrigible males, or so my grandmother claimed. She used to threaten to send me to one at least once every moon. From what I've heard, they do whatever they have to do so that they can break a male and remake him into something properly submissive."
"I've heard of them," Brina said softly. "And dream heads would be sent there, wouldn't they? So they're using delinquents? Addicts, bandits, thieves, those sort of men."
"It makes sense," Delan agreed. "Why some of them seem to know what they're doing, and why none of them seem to care what happens to the others. Why no one has come looking for the missing. I wonder how many have run off already?"
"Enough that she doesn't seem to think it worth looking for the one who left the camp and never came back. Or perhaps that's just because he's simply a male. Warrior, I'll never understand how they can think so little of you."
Delan didn’t answer. It didn’t seem to warrant an answer when he had never understood it either. "It will make it easier to run the rest of them off, though. If they feel no loyalty to the Light, then they won't stay around when we attack."
"Do you have a plan?" Brina asked.
Delan leaned back against a tree thinking furiously. The man he'd killed came to mind, crouched over his tiny fire, smoking the deadly weed.
"Yes. I have an idea."
***
THE DROUGHT AND THE drying frost made the entire wood a potential tinderbox, and the challenge became not starting the fire, but burning too much and having the flames rage out of control.
"We want this to burn itself out, not take the whole area," Delan said as he and Brina worked to stack the deadfall just so.
"You've done this before," Brina accused.
"Once. To flush out a group of raiders. Just..." He frowned, looking at the bonfire-to-be. "We had a mage with us. She made it look like a lightning strike, to hide our position. It was useful, being able to start the fire from someplace else."
Brina heard the question he wasn't asking, and answered it, "I don't have that kind of power. That's why I'm a warrior. My magic is very basic."
"Do I have that kind of power?" Delan asked. "You said Holy Mother saw the signs on me, and I'm a Lyan priest now. If I'm the High Priest to the god of male magic, that means I should have some kind of magic myself. Doesn't it? So is that something I can use?"
Brina looked stunned. "I... don't know!" she stammered. "This... this is virgin ground for me, Delan. I've never worked with a male mage before."
"Well, forget I have a cock and imagine me with tits then," Delan suggested. "How do I start?"
The last thing he expected was Brina to start giggling, then whooping with laughter, muffling the sound with her hands and her scarf until she managed to get herself under control. Once she had, she wiped her eyes and shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "But you'd make a damned homely woman, Delan."
"Can we get on with this?" Delan snapped.
Brina snorted, taking a long breath and stepped forward.
"Right. May I touch you?" she asked.
Delan nodded, and Brina lay cold hands on either side of his face, closing her eyes. It was something that the Holy Mother had done the day Delan had come to the Temple, something he hadn't questioned at the time. Now, though...
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Hush. Let me see. Oh. Oh, yes. You do have potential. Can you feel me? Feel what I'm doing?"
"No... wait. Yes, I think so." Delan closed his eyes and frowned, feeling something. Heat? Pressure? He wasn't sure, but there was definitely something inside his head. Just to see, he pushed back, and heard Brina snort once more.
"Good. Very good," she murmured. "Most of the time beginners can't even do that much. All right. Watch what I do."
Delan wasn't certain what she meant, until the presence in his mind moved. He followed it, amazed, until he found himself standing at the edge of something.
"What is this?" he asked
"Where you end and everything else begins," Brina answered. "This is where you set your ground. Think of it as your foundation. Once this is set and ready, we'll go further."
Delan nodded, following Brina's directions. He growled in frustration as she easily knocked aside his first attempts. "Do we have time for this?" he demanded.
"It's been less time than you think," Brina answered, sounding amused. "Listen."
Delan did as he was bid, and heard a long, deep thump, as if someone had sounded a sustained note on a drum. There was a long pause, then he heard it again. "What is that?" he asked.
"Your heartbeat. Working like this only seems to take a long time. Now rebuild that ground!"
Finally, Delan had built something Brina could not knock over, and she pronounced passable. "Now, you're ready to tap into the lifestream."
"The lifestream?" Delan repeated. "Ah... is that where the magic comes from?"
"Yes. And I'm not sure if this is going to work. Or how to show you how to do this. The lifestream is a very female thing." Brina hesitated, then asked, "Tell me what you see?"
Delan looked around, confused. "I don't see anything."
"There's no river? I see a river, just over the edges of my awareness. That's the lifestream."
Delan moved back to the edge, looking down into what Brina had said was the beginning of everything. "I don't see anything. Why a river?"
"Because women's magic and women's cycles are tidal," Brina answered. "Oh... I see. Or rather, I don't. There's nothing here for you to tap in to."
Delan opened his eyes and found himself back in the winter woods. "Because Lyas hasn't returned. No men's magic. So we're stuck. I have magic, but I can't use it. Not until we know what I'm supposed to be doing."
"And we won't know that until we save Lyander," Brina finished, shaking her head slightly as she reached into her belt-pouch and brought out her tinderbox. "Well, then. We start the fire the usual way."
"Give it to me," Delan said, holding his hand out.
"I can start a fire, Delan."
"I've no doubt, considering you remembered to bring a tinderbox and I didn't. How are you at setting a fire so that it burns slowly?"
Brina looked at him, then handed him the tinderbox. Delan went awkwardly to one knee and set the tiny fire, hiding it behind part of the deadfall. He examined his work for a moment, picked up a larger piece of wood and sniffed it, then set it into place. He got slowly to his feet. "We should have enough time to get back to that cover we had before."
"Good. What then?"
"We'll see."