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."You are my son’s regent now.There is no one else.The armor is yours until Athaansi is trained.""I’m old enough," Athaansi had snarled with a fifteen-year-old’s reflexive ferocity."This is insult.I will fight you, Uncle!"Ta’ana whirled and cuffed the boy violently, stunning the three of them—mother, son and uncle.Athaansi broke the silence with a shuddering gasp and began to sob."Control yourself," Ta’ana ordered, finding her own voice."If you give way, the others will too.Go sit with your sister." Then she’d further scandalized the adepts, who were watching from a barely polite distance, by gathering up her veil and raising it with both hands so she could stare unimpeded at her surviving brother."Focus!" she snapped."Would I have left my walls if there was anyone alive to defend my honor? You are regent, Shetri," she said in a tone that he was obliged to consider persuasive."The armor is in the wagon."So he had pulled off and laid aside his plain gray robe and called upon skills indifferently learned during his days of training as a young reshtar of barely respectable rank.Whether it was the drug or genuine forgetfulness, he couldn’t picture how to put on the armor.Athaansi, red-eyed and humiliated, found solace in contempt, turning the shin plates right side up for his hapless uncle, to the silent amusement of the Runa valet who fastened the buckles."We must walk.Wear boots," Ta’ana had told him as he struggled with the breastplate.The navigable rivers south of Mo’arl were now wholly controlled by Runa rebels."And bring ointments for burns."He was too befuddled to argue that his feet were used to the ground— he walked every day, collecting psychotropic herbs and the minerals that could be ground for pigment; he did not think to ask who was burned.With brilliant color still pulsating around every solid object, Shetri Laaks had begun the trek north, nominally in command of his sister’s household while following the directions of a Runa maid, who was actually leading the way.Farce, he’d thought with every step of his first day’s travel.This is farce.But by the end of the second full day on the road, Shetri had seen enough to recognize his elder sister’s laconic courage, for he had learned why the ointments were needed.Ta’ana had remained in her burning compound until the last moment, gathering her dependents and organizing an orderly retreat by firelight with an audacity born of desperation.The entire town had been fired—even the quarters of Runa domestics, whose goodwill and affection Ta’ana had nurtured and won, anticipating a day when war would find her.She and her children were alive only because their household Runa had smuggled them out of the burning Laaks compound in a false-bottomed wagon—prepared long ago in expectation of such a night—apparently loaded with loot, but actually packed with food and the family’s valuables, including Nra’il’s dented, blackened armor.The half-marked path the housemaid knew passed within sight of several other smoldering towns.No male Jana’ata over the age of sixteen breathed; here and there, a wailing child or a bewildered woman was found wandering.Some were too badly burned to save; to these Shetri gave quietus, using the embers of their own compounds to light pitiably ineffective pyres.The rest he treated for burns as he had his sister, and Ta’ana made every one of them part of her migrant household, without regard to lineage or birthrank."We can’t feed any more," Shetri would declare as each new refugee joined their band."We won’t starve," Ta’ana insisted."Hunger is not the worst thing."But their progress was slowed, and they had gathered more people than could be fed with the provisions packed in the wagon.Nights were always broken by someone’s dream of flames; in the mornings, exhaustion fought fear to determine their pace.By the fifth day, Shetri was thinking clearly enough to realize that he could slaughter one of the draft Runa.By the ninth, they had left the wagon behind.Everyone, master and domestic, carried a child or food or a bundle of essentials.Now, after days of flight and still far from safety, the numbers of Jana’ata and Runa in their little party were dangerously unbalanced.The more refugees Ta’ana took on, the slower they traveled and the sooner they had to butcher; two more Runa domestics had snuck off the previous night.At this rate, we’ll never get to Inbrokar City, Shetri thought, looking up at the cliff edge where the newest girl was hiding [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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."You are my son’s regent now.There is no one else.The armor is yours until Athaansi is trained.""I’m old enough," Athaansi had snarled with a fifteen-year-old’s reflexive ferocity."This is insult.I will fight you, Uncle!"Ta’ana whirled and cuffed the boy violently, stunning the three of them—mother, son and uncle.Athaansi broke the silence with a shuddering gasp and began to sob."Control yourself," Ta’ana ordered, finding her own voice."If you give way, the others will too.Go sit with your sister." Then she’d further scandalized the adepts, who were watching from a barely polite distance, by gathering up her veil and raising it with both hands so she could stare unimpeded at her surviving brother."Focus!" she snapped."Would I have left my walls if there was anyone alive to defend my honor? You are regent, Shetri," she said in a tone that he was obliged to consider persuasive."The armor is in the wagon."So he had pulled off and laid aside his plain gray robe and called upon skills indifferently learned during his days of training as a young reshtar of barely respectable rank.Whether it was the drug or genuine forgetfulness, he couldn’t picture how to put on the armor.Athaansi, red-eyed and humiliated, found solace in contempt, turning the shin plates right side up for his hapless uncle, to the silent amusement of the Runa valet who fastened the buckles."We must walk.Wear boots," Ta’ana had told him as he struggled with the breastplate.The navigable rivers south of Mo’arl were now wholly controlled by Runa rebels."And bring ointments for burns."He was too befuddled to argue that his feet were used to the ground— he walked every day, collecting psychotropic herbs and the minerals that could be ground for pigment; he did not think to ask who was burned.With brilliant color still pulsating around every solid object, Shetri Laaks had begun the trek north, nominally in command of his sister’s household while following the directions of a Runa maid, who was actually leading the way.Farce, he’d thought with every step of his first day’s travel.This is farce.But by the end of the second full day on the road, Shetri had seen enough to recognize his elder sister’s laconic courage, for he had learned why the ointments were needed.Ta’ana had remained in her burning compound until the last moment, gathering her dependents and organizing an orderly retreat by firelight with an audacity born of desperation.The entire town had been fired—even the quarters of Runa domestics, whose goodwill and affection Ta’ana had nurtured and won, anticipating a day when war would find her.She and her children were alive only because their household Runa had smuggled them out of the burning Laaks compound in a false-bottomed wagon—prepared long ago in expectation of such a night—apparently loaded with loot, but actually packed with food and the family’s valuables, including Nra’il’s dented, blackened armor.The half-marked path the housemaid knew passed within sight of several other smoldering towns.No male Jana’ata over the age of sixteen breathed; here and there, a wailing child or a bewildered woman was found wandering.Some were too badly burned to save; to these Shetri gave quietus, using the embers of their own compounds to light pitiably ineffective pyres.The rest he treated for burns as he had his sister, and Ta’ana made every one of them part of her migrant household, without regard to lineage or birthrank."We can’t feed any more," Shetri would declare as each new refugee joined their band."We won’t starve," Ta’ana insisted."Hunger is not the worst thing."But their progress was slowed, and they had gathered more people than could be fed with the provisions packed in the wagon.Nights were always broken by someone’s dream of flames; in the mornings, exhaustion fought fear to determine their pace.By the fifth day, Shetri was thinking clearly enough to realize that he could slaughter one of the draft Runa.By the ninth, they had left the wagon behind.Everyone, master and domestic, carried a child or food or a bundle of essentials.Now, after days of flight and still far from safety, the numbers of Jana’ata and Runa in their little party were dangerously unbalanced.The more refugees Ta’ana took on, the slower they traveled and the sooner they had to butcher; two more Runa domestics had snuck off the previous night.At this rate, we’ll never get to Inbrokar City, Shetri thought, looking up at the cliff edge where the newest girl was hiding [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]