In Legend Born (25 page)

"Wonderful." Josarian hadn't been present when Tansen had fouled his name with vile insults in the tavern in Emeldar. Josarian hadn't seen the look in men's eyes there that day. Tansen was dubious that he was about to be welcomed as warmly as his brother suggested.

Sure enough, there was an awkward silence as he entered the midst of more than a dozen
shallaheen
. Josarian proudly introduced him to the men. The atmosphere didn't warm up appreciably. Tansen stood his ground. A
shatai
never asked for acceptance. These were Josarian's people, not his.

One of the men stepped forward. Tansen vaguely recognized him; no doubt he'd been at the tavern that day. He was a big man, even bigger than Josarian. His face was bearded, an unusual trait among smooth-faced Silerians, one that usually indicated Moorlander blood somewhere in a man's ancestry.

"I'm Lann," he said in a booming voice. "My mother's brother married Zimran's mother, which makes me Josarian's cousin by marriage."

Tansen nodded, acknowledging the claim.

"I remember you,
roshah
," Lann continued. "I remember your foreign looks and your cruel words. I remember what you said about my cousin."

"And if I had said I was a friend? If I had asked you to help me find him?" Tan challenged.

Lann nodded, his expression uncompromising. "He's right. I wouldn't have helped you find him. In fact, I'd have gone to prison to stop you." Suddenly, he grinned. "So either way, I guess you'd have had to break me out of there."

He laughed and slapped Tansen hard on the back—
right
where Josarian had. Tansen hoped the wound was too well-healed by now to reopen.

"It was my pleasure, Lann." He looked around and saw other grinning faces. Apparently everyone appreciated the joke. "It's not that I mind freeing prisoners from a Valdani fortress, but it
is
a lot of work. So I suggest we all agree to stay out of prisons from now on."

The laughter surprised him, as did the wineskin another friendly soul thrust at him. Someone had had the wits to get supplies from a Sanctuary on their way here. After taking a long swallow of some fairly good strawberry wine, he received a dozen more slaps on the back, making his previously forgotten wound throb in angry protest. Every man offered his name then, but there were too many for Tansen to keep straight in his exhausted condition. He noticed that no one wore a
jashar,
and he was told that the Outlookers had taken them away.

"Lest we use them to strangle our guards," Emelen, Josarian's brother-in-law, said.

"Or hang ourselves!" Lann added in disgust. "The ideas these Valdani come up with!"

Suicide was anathema among all the peoples of Sileria. Even the
zanareen
disapproved of intentionally self-inflicted death. A
zanar
who threw himself into the volcano was seeking ecstatic union with the goddess, not death; death was merely the unfortunate result of a man's failed attempt to prove he was the Firebringer, the chosen one of Dar.

At Josarian's insistence, Tansen sat down and ate the food they had set aside for him, and he listened as his brother recounted the prisoners' escape from the fortress. Two men had died. Tansen had thought it likely that more than that would be killed, but he hadn't told Josarian so. Josarian's pretty-faced cousin, though injured by a previous beating, had survived the escape, but then collapsed on the journey to Dalishar.

"A Guardian encampment," Josarian said, explaining where he'd left Zimran. "Southeast of Britar. They've come all the way from Liron."

"Why so far?" Tansen asked.

"They fled Liron last year because a waterlord called Verlon particularly sought one of them: Cheylan, born to a family of
toreni
."

"Oh, my heart bleeds for the
toren
," Emelen joked.

"Your heart should bleed for anyone sought by a waterlord," Lann said gruffly. 

"This
toren
is a Guardian," Josarian pointed out, "and he took in Zimran."

"Then he's a better man than most
toreni
," Emelen said.

"Now tell us," Josarian said when Tansen had finished eating. "What happened last night?"

He told them the story up until the moment when he realized he'd lost his way. "I couldn't have forgotten a three-way fork in the path. I knew I must have gone the wrong way earlier." He sighed. "So I abandoned the horse and doubled back on foot."

It had been easy enough to keep out of sight in the dark until he returned to a landmark he clearly remembered, got his bearings, and determined which way to go. By then, the Outlookers had caught up with his abandoned horse and were milling around in confusion. They began searching for him, and he had to slowly draw them back to the landmark from which he was sure he could lead a headlong race through the dark and straight into the old Kintish quarry. A series of sudden appearances kept them lumbering in the right direction, but it was time-consuming, and he had worried that dawn might come before he could lead them into the trap. When he was finally satisfied with their position, he attacked one of them in the dark and stole his horse. The ensuing fight with several more Outlookers called enough attention to his presence to force the rest of the men to follow him. Then he set a breakneck pace all the way to the abandoned quarry.

"Everything went fine after that," he concluded. "But I couldn't keep the horse. The climb was too hard. So left it in some almond grove."

Josarian grinned. "May it grow fat and wild there."

"Ah, the mountains are a terrible place on a dark-moon night," Emelen said. "My father lived his whole life on Mount Garabar. He knew every rock, tree, cave, and path on that mountain. Yet he died up there on a dark-moon night, lost and wandering in confusion until he broke his neck in a fall."

"The Outlookers?" Josarian asked Tansen. "All dead, then?"

"All dead," Tansen confirmed.

"That's... a lot of men," Lann murmured. "A lot to die all at once. A lot to kill."

"Yes," Tan said without expression. "A lot."

"They'd have killed you," Emelen told Lann. "They intended to kill us all."

"They
still
intend it," Tansen warned. "You're not just unlucky friends and relatives of some outlaw, now. Not anymore."

He looked at the solemn faces around the ancient fire and watched realization dawn on some of them for the first time. "Now you're escaped prisoners. Now you've killed Outlookers." He paused. "Now they will want you for yourselves, not just for Josarian."

They were hard words, the hard truth. He saw anger in some of the shadowed faces gazing back at him, fear and confusion in others. Now that the euphoria of escape, combat, and flight had worn off, they wanted their lives to go back to normal; but their lives could never be normal again. Lazy afternoons in the shadowed doorways of Emeldar were forever a thing of the past for these men. There was no turning back, no undoing what had been done, and no escape from the path upon which destiny had set them. He remembered his youth, and for a moment he felt sorry for them.

"
You
did this," one of them said suddenly, rising to his feet and staring at Josarian with open fury.

"Falian..." Emelen said uneasily.

"This is
your
doing," Falian shouted. "You weren't content merely to escape arrest. You wouldn't disappear and let the rest of us live in peace!"

Josarian said nothing, just silently held Falian's gaze. Tansen scanned the area around Falian with his eyes, wondering if the man had a weapon near him. There it was: another Valdani sword, lying on the ground near Falian's feet. None of these men had sheathes or knew how to care for a sword, he noted absently.

"No,
you
had to go out and slaughter more Outlookers, infuriating the Valdani!" Falian raged. "You had to kill and urge others to kill. We've had Outlookers swarming all over Emeldar because of you! I've been imprisoned and threatened with execution because of you! And now
I'm
an outlaw. Now they will hunt me down until they finally catch and kill me—and it's all because of you!"

Falian scooped up his sword and lunged at Josarian, who never moved. Several of the men jumped to stop Falian, but Tansen, who'd been farthest away, got there first. He swiftly disarmed Falian, then cut him twice, once across the wrist and once above the eyes.

As blood blinded the man, Tansen held one blade to his throat and used the other to ward off anyone who might be thinking of interfering. A quick glance around the cave, however, revealed that no one would dare consider it; they were looking at him as if he'd suddenly materialized from the Otherworld.

"Whoever threatens my bloodbrother threatens me," he said, "and so pays the price of threatening a
shatai
."

Falian dragged an arm across his blinded eyes, streaking his face with blood, and glared at Tansen. "Do it,
roshah
," he snarled, leaning toward the blade. "Do it before the Valdani do it to both of us!"

"No!" someone shouted. "Don't!"

"He tried to kill Josarian," Emelen snapped. "Why should he be spared? So he can betray
all
of us?"

"Is this why you freed us?" another man demanded. "Is this what we escaped for?"

"Tan," Josarian said quietly, coming forward. "Let him go."

Tansen obeyed instantly. He knew that killing Falian was not the answer, for there were undoubtedly others who agreed with the man; but he didn't know what the answer
was.
He stepped back and let Josarian come close to the other man, though it took considerable self-control to stay still when Josarian bent down to retrieve the Valdani sword and then handed it to Falian.

"If you want to use this," Josarian said, "now is the time. I do not want to have to guard my back against my friends, against my own kind."

Falian's grip tightened on the sword, but he glanced resentfully at Tansen. "The minute you're dead, this
roshah
will slaughter me."

"Tansen," Josarian said without looking away from Falian, "promise me you won't hurt him if he kills me now."

Tansen said nothing, appalled.

"Promise me," Josarian insisted.

"I... promise," he muttered at last.

"He's a man of his word," Josarian told Falian. "Now this is just between you and me."

Falian stared into Josarian's eyes, his face contorted with anger and fear, his arm shaking as he raised the sword. "We played together as boys. We've worked alongside each other as men. I was bloodcousin to your wife, Josarian." Falian shook his head, still holding the sword ready. "Why? Why did you bring us all to this?
Why?
"

"Yes," Josarian said, nodding, "you have questions, good questions." With stunning disregard for his own life, he turned away from Falian and looked at the tense faces around him. "Certainly others here have the same questions." He paused. "Perhaps each of you thinks as Falian does. Even," he added, hearing Lann start to protest, "
even
if your loyalty to me prevents you from listening to the protests in your heart."

One of the smaller men came forward. "I... I stand with Falian," he said haltingly. "My life is ruined because of you, Josarian. What am I to do now? Tell me that, if you can."

"Ruined because of me, Amitan?" Josarian said. "Your father was killed by Outlookers while smuggling grain to Liron where he hoped Kintish traders would offer a better price for it than the Valdani pay us—when they don't simply
take
it from us, that is."

"I have a wife now," Amitan protested. "We want ch—"

"After that," Josarian continued, "your elder brother was taken to the mines of Alizar, and you don't even know if he's still alive. When your mother went to plead for his release, she was attacked and raped by bandits on the road to Alizar. Your youngest sister is spindly and weak-boned from lack of food, because your family has been so desperately poor ever since losing your father and brother and their strong backs." To Tansen's dismay, Josarian handed Amitan a sword, too. "And you can say that
I've
ruined your life?"

"I am no assassin, to kill an unarmed man who has always been welcome under my mother's roof." Amitan tossed away the sword. "Only tell me, Josarian, how will my mother, wife, and sisters survive without me now? How am I to keep them fed, if I must live like a hunted animal with you from now on?"

"Yes, how?" Falian spat.

"Yes!" Josarian said. "Yes, that
is
the question!"

He laughed exultantly, picked up the sword Amitan had tossed aside, and waved it in the air. The men, even those most loyal to him, all looked at him as if he'd gone mad. Tansen wondered what he was up to.

"Your mother and Calidar are dead," Amitan pointed out. "And your sister has—
had
—a husband in the house. It was different for you, but—"

"The question is," Josarian boomed, grinning, "how will we feed them, how will we protect them? How, indeed, will we live now?" He looked around. "Aren't those the answers we seek?"

The men looked at each other in blank confusion. Josarian wasn't troubled by their lack of response.

"When have we ever lived as men should?" He ignored the expressions of insulted indignation this comment provoked and continued, "We haven't
fed
our women and children and parents; we've only done what we could to keep them from starving. And we've never been very successful at it."

"That's not our fault," Lann growled. "The Valdani—"

"Exactly," Josarian interrupted. "The Valdani! Why have we borne their yoke for so long? Why have we allowed them to empty this land of all its wealth? Why have we let them take whatever they want when they sweep through our cities, villages, valleys, and farms?" He looked around, his dark eyes glowing in the firelight. "Why have
we
never taken from
them
?"

"I am no thief," Amitan said sharply.

"It isn't theft to take back what belongs to you and your kind," Josarian countered. "For two centuries, they have taken everything they could find, more than we could spare, more than they deserve. It's time to say
no
. It's time to tell them they've taken enough! It's time to start taking back what's been taken away from us!"