Siege (The Warrior Chronicles, 5) (15 page)

“This way!” Shanti yelled, directing them to follow.

“What are you doing?” Sanders asked.

“They need to win back their town, and we are going to help them do it.” They ran through a building and met a middle-aged man. He held his sword like a lover, standing on slightly bent knees and looking at a large house at the end of the lane.

“
Well met
,” Shanti said in the traders’ language.

The man met her eyes in confusion. He shook his head and said something Shanti couldn’t understand.

Sanders rattled off an answer, or an insult—there was no telling, really—and nodded. “He says the Graygual officer is in that house surrounded by Inkna.”

“The Inkna are dead and the officer is waiting for death,” Cayan said in a flat voice. He glanced at Shanti, letting her take the reins again. This new leaf he’d turned over regarding her rash decision-making was a pleasant change. It was also terrifying. Didn’t he realize that sometimes she needed to be reined in?

“Let us clear the way, and you will have your vengeance,” Shanti said to the man.

Sanders translated in a voice that sounded like a threat.

“We’re on the same team,” Shanti told Sanders.

“That’s why he isn’t dead. Hurry up.” Sanders motioned her on.

“Give the man a little power…” Shanti jogged toward the building with her
Gift
spread wide. For Sanders’ benefit, she said, “There are a few more Graygual throughout the town, and a couple more trying to run, but the Shadow and Shumas are taking care of that.”

“I wish you’d left a few Inkna alive…” Sanders growled.

She doubted that her smile reached her eyes. “Next time.” At the door of the house, she felt a thick arm come across her chest and force her back.

“No.” Cayan stepped in front of her, and gestured Sanders to his side.

She should’ve known that making decisions only went so far.

Shanti
clutched
the Graygual mind, ready for what was going to come.

Cayan braced to kick the door down, but the man from the town quickly stepped forward and put his hand on Cayan’s arm. He said something and waited. Sanders translated, “He says he should’ve protected his town in the first place. He should do this.”

Cayan clenched his jaw. His power bubbled within him, barely kept under control. He stepped away.

Shanti felt more minds gather, watching. Women and men both crowded around as the man from the town stepped up to the door and grabbed the handle. He turned and threw the door wide.

“Should’ve checked to see if it was locked,” Shanti muttered to Cayan.

The Graygual sat at the table in a large, well-appointed dining room. Judging by the familiarity with which the man moved through this house, checking hiding places, and his sorrow, it was probably his.

“Tell him the Graygual is the only one alive here,” Cayan told Sanders.

A moment later the man turned to Sanders, and then narrowed his eyes at Cayan. It wasn’t until he met Shanti’s eyes that his face drained of color and his eyes started to shine with moisture. He uttered something as his knuckles drained of white on his sword handle. Shanti could feel his gratitude mixing with his profound hope.

Sanders didn’t translate.

“I bet you would’ve told me what he said if he was cursing me,” Shanti muttered as the man kissed the back of her hand.

“Yup.” Sanders jerked his chin toward the silent and patiently waiting Graygual. “He wants you to do the honors in killing the scum.”

“No,
Chulan
,”
Rohnan said with urgency. “He needs to do this, and the townspeople need to see him do it. They
need
this,
Chulan
.”

Shanti gave the man a deep bow, and gestured him on instead. “Tell him I have done my job so that he can do his.”

“No,” Cayan said softly before Sanders could utter the words. “Tell him to claim his freedom.”

After Sanders relayed the message, the man paused. He turned his attention to Cayan. For a moment the two men stared at each other in a silent exchange, before the man’s grip tightened on his sword again and determination coated his features. He turned toward the Graygual.

“
You will make a wonderful pet
,” the Graygual said to Shanti in his home tongue. “
The Being Supreme has great plans for you.
”

The man from town wasted no time. He slashed down at the Graygual’s neck, cleaving it almost clean off. For a moment, he just stared down with rage masking his expression. That dripped away, though, and in its place was intense, gut-wrenching sorrow.

“I must go,
Chulan
,”
Rohnan said, backing out of the door. “I suspect the Graygual took his family from him.”

Shanti nodded and backed out as well, leaving the man to his grief.

“That was the right thing,” Sanders said when he met Shanti outside. “Letting him do it. That was the right thing to do.”

“It seems so.” Shanti looked into the breeze, letting the air dry her eyes.

“The Captain said to do whatever you wanted as long as you were with Rohnan.” Sanders stepped back toward the door.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to translate for him. He’s got to get this city organized before we can move on.”

“We need to speak to some of these people,
Chulan
,” Rohnan said softly.
“
They have the same pain we do. They have lost a lot of people.”

“How are we going to talk with them? Do any of us know this language?”

“One of us must. Your grandfather was thorough.”

Shanti chose a path to Sayas. He was the biggest busybody of them all, so he’d probably know who knew what. As she made her way, she thought of their upcoming battle. This town was small, with nothing more than the spillover of the larger city up the road. But even so, those archers surprised them, and the Inkna had posed a bigger problem than they should’ve done. It didn’t bode well. Even using
all
their resources in the next city, unless they did something different, they wouldn’t live to take Xandre down.

“
S
anders
, where do we stand?” Cayan wiped his hands on a rag as he came to a stop next to his commander.

Sanders straightened up slowly and then stretched with a grunt before putting his hand to his lower back. “The people are rallying, sir.”

Cayan glanced up at the sun, finding it closer to the horizon than he might’ve liked, and then blew out a breath as he surveyed the small town. Starved and bedraggled, the people here had been through much hardship. The Graygual officer in charge of this city wasn’t as firm in his control as the Hunter, and it showed. Lower-ranked men had taken advantage where they could, fighting, killing, stealing, and whatever else. Those who protested were run through with the sword or left the town, saying they would return with help. In many cases, their bodies were found hanging in a tree, or their heads showed up outside the walls on a spike. The town had been cowed through fear for themselves or their families, and they’d given in. Of course they had—they didn’t have anyone strong enough to stick up for them. Not against the Graygual with the Inkna at their backs.

Cayan felt Shanti before he saw her. She came around the bend with blood dripping down one arm and dirt smearing her face. That graze must’ve hurt, but she hadn’t let Marc stop her long enough to bandage it. With Tanna, the Shumas that had been taught this region’s dialect, at her side and Rohnan at her back, she wandered through the town, hearing stories and woes. With most people she nodded and touched them somehow, often with a supportive hand on their shoulder. Sometimes she gave a slap, and once she punched a man. He fell back like a sack of potatoes. When he got up, fire lit his eyes and courage straightened his back.

Cayan had no idea how she knew what each person needed, but she seemed to heal them with nothing more than a listening ear and a reaction.

As she drew closer, she glanced his way. Sorrow pulled down her features and a gut-wrenching devastation churned her thoughts. She was thinking about the destruction of her own people, Cayan knew. She was reliving the horrible destruction that had befallen her way of life, and it was eating away at her.

“Sometimes I wish I’d never met her,” Sanders said as he followed Cayan’s gaze. “An ignorant part of me pretends that if we’d let her die in the burnt lands we wouldn’t have suffered any of this. We wouldn’t have had to voyage to the Shadow Lands and we wouldn’t have lost people to the Hunter’s men. The women would be safe behind our walls, not out fighting beside us. Tobias would still be by my side, taking care of the things I missed… I pretend she is the cause of it all, sometimes. And I hate her for it. It’s easier than dealing with the destruction she heralds.”

Cayan felt a flash of rage, but he said nothing. Just waited.

“But then I remember the Inkna-inspired Mugdock attack,” Sanders said. “We would’ve beaten them without her, but we would’ve lost people.
More
people, I should say. Many more. I still would’ve been taken, but there was no way you could’ve got me back. Then the Inkna would’ve moved in to our lands, and it would’ve turned into this. The loss, the horror—we didn’t succumb to this because of her. Pulling her out of the burnt lands was our salvation, just in time. And I would fight forever by her side to prevent this from happening again, or to save those who didn’t have a Shanti to turn the tide. I suspect everyone she meets, and everyone she saves, will feel the same. I don’t know about this Wanderer tale, but if it was a person, like Burson says, it is her. For all I want to punch her in the face, she has a
way
about her. She is the backbone of our survival.”

“You feel better, getting that off your chest?” Cayan resisted the urge to slouch in fatigue. He needed to stand straight and tall at all times, to give these people a pillar of strength to look toward. Shanti would heal their hearts, and he would direct their swords.

“Excuse me, sir. I had to vent. And I
would
punch her in the face, but she always feels me sneaking up on her.” Sanders looked back at a fallen beam, part of the destruction and decay from the Graygual occupation.

“Noted.” Cayan looked around, seeing the townspeople start the work to fix their homes or rebuild their shops. “They lead with a form of hierarchy, and only one man is standing from that. They have a Women’s Circle, but only three women are still alive. They are trying to reestablish.”

“What about their army? Any survivors?”

Cayan tilted his head for a brief moment and turned to look out at the opposite way. “The Hunter kept our people alive because he wanted to trade them for Shanti. This Graygual officer had no reason to spare troublemakers. Their army is in tatters.”

“They will fight.” Kallon walked toward them with a face made of stone and eyes as stormy as the sky before it crashed down on the land. His shoulders were back, straight and proud, but his emotions were in a turbulent state. “This is not the worst I have seen. In those towns I passed, or helped, I did not spend half the time on their broken villages that you are. Yet still they banded together.”

“You saying we should just fuck off and leave them to their misery?” Sanders asked, bristling.

Kallon cocked his head. He gave a frustrated shake of his head and muttered a curse word before whatever confused him dropped away. His eyes turned piercing before he directed his gaze back at Cayan. “You have plans, somewhere to be. You didn’t want to come this way, and you didn’t want to help because of the overall goal. Even though you bent your will for the
Chulan,
you still stay and fix the lives of these people instead of rushing on.” His chin raised a fraction. He shifted his weight, a barely perceptible move. “I always rushed on. I never stayed.” His hands clenched. “You are the better man for it. The better leader.” Kallon clenched and unclenched his jaw. “To keep my honor, I must admit that you deserve the
Chulan.
Her grandfather never thought a mortal man would. She is touched by the Elders, and speaks on their behalf. It seems she has found a refuge in you that our people find in her. For that, I will welcome you into our people when she decides to mate you.”

He stared straight into Cayan’s eyes, causing a shot of adrenaline to race up Cayan’s spine. War raged in that look. Pain. “This does not negate my challenge,” Kallon said, finally.

With that, he turned and glided away, much too graceful to match the sullen mood that swarmed around him.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Sanders said softly.

Cayan’s fingers tingled as he watched the other man. His
Gift
bubbled and boiled, desperate to be used. He glanced in Shanti’s direction. She was looking at him with a half-smile on her face.

“Her people are crazy,” Sanders said. “I like them.”

“Our Women’s Circle want to overturn the unspoken rule that nakedness isn’t allowed outdoors.” Cayan blew out a breath in a laugh, trying to work out the rush of Kallon’s renewed interest in a challenge.

“What the bloody hell?” Sanders stared at him, shocked. “If they think I am going to turn the other way when a man comes dangling along on the walkway, they have another thing coming. I don’t care that they can make my life hell; I will not bend on that point. I don’t need to see a bunch of dicks swinging around! And do you know what Junice would do to me if I glanced—
glanced!—
at a naked woman? I might as well look for a new house, because she wouldn’t let me stay with her, that’s for certain. What has gotten into their heads? It’s bad enough women are throwing on pants and marching into the army, but now they want to watch naked men wander around the place? No way, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. That cannot happen. Think of the children!”

Cayan laughed, blindsided by Sanders’ sudden shift in mood. Townspeople looked at him, shocked and confused. He couldn’t help it, though. The chuckles built, the misery from seeing these townspeople turning into hysteria. Guffaws erupted, consuming his body and making him double over.

“You need to get a handle on yourself, sir,” Sanders said in a low voice. “If these people see you cracking up, it’ll undo everything you’ve done.”

Cayan laughed just a bit harder at the absurdity of all this, at the madness of thinking he could bring down a tyrant like Xandre with their tiny force. They’d lost five people today, and this was only a small town. They’d lost two taking the Mugdock city, and that should’ve been nothing. There was no way they could win. No way this could work out to their benefit. What were they doing?

“Hey.” Shanti’s warm hand touched his shoulder. Her feminine scent, mixed with that of battle and victory, wrapped around his head.

Without thinking, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her away, out of the town and into the nearby trees. There he laid her down in a rush of need before stripping off her pants and pushing down his own. Fighting the uncertainty of what was going to come, and the overwhelming odds, he lost himself in her body. He thrust into her, power and dominance. He took solace in her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her thighs squeezing him tight, and he pushed into her over and over, hard and brutal. Her
Gift
wrapped around his, coaxing it higher. The control he’d barely held on to with Kallon fell away. His power gushed out and blasted through the town. It didn’t carry an attack. This time it carried Shanti’s essence—pure and soft. Loving and supportive. The soul she tried to hide filtered among the people and soaked into them. His
Gift
pulsed with her heart, feeding courage and replacing their misery with hope.

“We can do this,” Shanti said in a low voice, her lips on his. “Don’t lose faith.”

He grabbed the back of her neck and pumped his hips, focusing on her body wrapped around his. Her faith in him. Another explosion of his power matched his climax. He emptied into her as his
Gift
blanketed the town in his renewed faith. In courage.

* * *

S
anders paused
as he hefted the beam. A wash of tingles covered him before infusing his mood. His heart started to thump and his desire to rule the world made him drop the beam and straighten up. He looked around in confusion. A soft feeling warmed his middle and flipped his stomach before a rush of emotion surged.

“What the hell is this?” He put his hands on his hips and realized the townspeople were also looking around in wonder, dumb smiles plastered on their weary faces. Alena stopped sweeping up glass and hugged a random townsperson. Leilius was smiling like a fool at the man beside him. Marc had his arms crossed and was hunched against the wall, looking surly.

It was Marc’s mood that made reality dawn.

This was that mind power. It wasn’t real.

Sanders grimaced and looked back in the direction the Captain had taken Shanti. “This just isn’t natural.”

“But it put in good mood, yes?” Sayas grinned at him as he walked by.

“There’s work to be done,” Sanders yelled at him. “Don’t go starting an orgy!”

Shaking his head, Sanders gave up on the beam. He’d wanted to work out a little frustration with manual labor, but things were starting to crack. The Captain was using logic in an almost hopeless situation, Shanti was calling the shots, and he’d turned soft. Something had to be done or they’d all fall apart.

“Wrap it up,” Sanders called. He made a circle in the air with his finger. A few people looked at him, apparently trying to make sense of his words. As they were his people, who spoke his language, this was just another part of the problem.

He looked left and right, then felt a crushing blow when he remembered there was no Tobias to get things moving. A flash of agony welled up. He grasped for rage to replace it. Without thinking, he took a few rapid steps and grabbed Leilius by the collar. “Let’s go!” He shoved the boy forward before glaring at Marc. “We’re moving out.”

Marc hopped forward, not fazed by the Captain and Shanti’s mind voodoo. Sanders looked at Xavier, the first competent person he saw. “Get everyone moving. Let’s gather on the east side of the town and set up camp. We move out tomorrow, dawn.”

Xavier stared at him dumbly for a second. He glanced around him, clearly wondering if Sanders was talking to someone else despite the direct stare.

“Is that a problem, Senior Staff Officer?” Sanders barked.

Xavier’s eyes rounded. “N-no, sir. I’ll get it done, sir.”

Sanders walked on. He’d just given the kid a promotion. Xavier was a little young for it, but he’d been in more battles than some of the veterans, and had benefited by learning the battle strategies of three different peoples. He’d rise to the challenge if anyone would. Sanders needed someone he could trust.

Outside the city, Sanders made his way past the Shadow sentry sitting in plain sight. He paused then turned to the man. In the traders’ language, he asked,
“Did you see any action?”

“
Yes.”
The Shadow pointed off into the distance. “
Graygual were trying to get away. I killed them.
”

Sanders looked where he was pointing. He saw one body facedown with an arrow in his back. “
More than one Graygual
?”