The Eighth Warden Bk. 04 Ch. 03-04

"I only meant the Senshall expedition," she said. "It's against our customs to use Zidari magic for the benefit of a northern trading house. I've already agreed to work for them until we return to Tyrsall, but after that, I need to be more careful. That's all I meant. I still owe you for the binding spell." She ignored Razai's snort. "I have to return home when we get back, but if you need me for something, I'll try to help."

"Actually, I think you should come with us, at least for a while," Corec said.

Leena blinked in surprise. Was he calling in the favor so soon? "Why?" she asked. "I've been away for a long time, and I might be able to help my people track down the cultists."

He shook his head. "Tracking them down will take a while, and how will you protect yourself in the meantime? They're specifically looking for you now, not the other Travelers, and we still don't know why. It won't be safe for you to go back until they've all been dealt with."

Leena hadn't considered that. Would she be luring more attackers to her family's camp?

While she was thinking, Corec spoke again. "You and I have the same problem," he said. "We don't know exactly what we're facing, so we can't attack them directly. We need to draw them to us without getting innocent people killed. We'll be far away from Sanvar, so we can let the cultists waste their time traveling all the way up to the free lands, and while your people are hunting down the ones they can find, we can figure out how to fight the rest. Ellerie said it best—we're stronger when we work together."

"She's going with you?" Leena wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"She and Boktar haven't decided yet. She wants to come back here as soon as she can, or they might go on to Matagor."

"You should do it," Razai said to Leena. They both looked at her in surprise. It was unusual for the demonborn woman to voluntarily agree with Corec—sometimes she seemed to disagree with him just on general principle. "What?" she asked. "It's a good idea, and I'd be happier if you were with someone who knew how to fight." She smirked. "Besides, imagine how annoyed the cultists will be while they try to hunt you down. Even if they have another Seeker, they'll find you thousands of miles away from Sanvar, and then they'll have to try to get to you while you can jump around anywhere you want. And if they don't have a Seeker, they won't even know where to begin. It'll give your people plenty of time to pick them off one by one."

Corec nodded.

"But what if they know what camp I'm from?" Leena asked. "What if they go after my family anyway?"

Corec and Razai shared a glance. "Could you really help them if you were there?" he asked.

Leena stiffened. She couldn't, not yet, but if her family was attacked, she wanted to be there for them anyway. Then again, even if she agreed to the plan, she could still visit home and warn Rohav about Corec's concerns. Her uncle would know how to protect the camp, and perhaps Udit could join her in the free lands until things were safe again. Corec and his friends had proven themselves capable of fighting the cult. Udit would be safer with them than back home.

She made her decision. "I'll come with you."

###

Chapter Four

Sarette soared through the storm, the ground below barely visible through the hazy mist of the lowest clouds. This was the fifth lightning storm she'd encountered since they'd first come to the barrens, and it was the strongest one yet. She took a deep breath, welcoming the smell of the rain on the dusty surface of the barrens. The water dripping down her face didn't bother her—rain was common in Snow Crown, to the point that she barely noticed it.

She stopped to hover in place, feeling almost as if she herself was part of the storm. Surrounded by sparks, she fed on the lightning, allowing the power to suffuse her body before directing it back into the air around her. It was that power, not magic, that allowed her to fly or to leap over her opponents. Magic was merely the tool that let her channel the strength of the storm. Flying was most efficient here within the clouds themselves, where she could balance herself between the chaos of the opposed charges in the air.

She didn't need to fly the storm to keep the group safe from the lightning—they were camped indoors—but she'd taken every opportunity she could to practice.

In the dusky evening light, she made out a small encampment below, surrounded by six wagons. It had to be the larger supply caravan, on its way back to the ruins. She dropped to greet them, her strength draining more quickly once she left the cloud cover.

Landing was always the hardest part of flying. The first time she'd tried it, she'd broken a toe and bruised her knee, but, luckily, Treya had been nearby. Sarette had gotten better since then. She thought she could handle it without a healer now.

Coming straight down was the hardest, she'd found, though that was how the other stormrunners always did it. For her, the safest option was to come in at a shallow angle, and end with a running finish.

Josip and the drivers were busy pitching tents so they could get out of the rain, and didn't see her until she was almost upon them. She swooped low and aimed for the circle of wagons, hitting the ground thirty feet out. Her momentum was enough that she had to sprint to keep from falling over.

She managed to come to a stop just before slamming into the nearest man, who yelled and backed away, his eyes wide with fright. He was unfamiliar—Sarette had never seen him before.

Josip shouted something in Nysan, calming the drivers who'd seen her arrival. "What's wrong?" he asked, coming over to her. "Is there a problem?"

"No problem," she said. "I just saw you here, so I thought I'd stop. Are the lightning rods working?" Now that she was closer, she could see the three copper poles scattered around the camp at a distance. Each had a wooden platform to keep it steady despite the high winds. If Josip had followed her instructions, the bottom ends of the poles would be buried into the ground. It seemed he'd assembled them before working on the tents.

"Nothing's come close enough today, but there was a storm right out of Livadi," he said. "The rods helped some, but one of the wagons still got hit. It scorched the side and some of the hay, but it didn't start a fire, so we decided to continue on. We were lucky it didn't hit the mules—they keep trying to huddle together when it rains."

"I can stay here just in case," she offered. Judging by her elder senses, the worst of the storm would pass north of the camp, but it was better to remain than to risk anyone getting hurt. She could walk to the ruins with the caravan in the morning. If anyone grew worried about her absence, Corec would be able to determine what direction she'd gone, and she was close enough to be within Leena's Seeking distance.

Josip nodded. Five men had gathered behind him, staring at Sarette curiously. She only recognized the two youngest, who grinned back at her—they'd seen her fly before. The other men were older.

"New drivers?" she asked.

"Most of their parents wouldn't let them come back after I told them about the battle," Josip said. "Even after I promised extra pay. One boy's father took his place, but Lufton had to find two other men to help out."

"Everyone will be relieved to see you. Ellerie's been exploring, but there hasn't been much for the rest of us to do. She says we're going to leave once you get back."

"Yes, Leena came and let me know," Josip said, "but between the storms and finding new drivers, we're a day behind schedule."

"I don't think the extra day will hurt anything. We've got plenty of food from the group that attacked us, and Shavala's been growing grass for the mules."

"Growing grass?" he asked, confused.

Sarette laughed. "Just wait and see."

#

Humming a new melody she was working on, Katrin carefully folded her clothes and repacked them back into her saddlebags. Over the weeks they'd been camped in the same building, her things and Corec's had all migrated out of their bags, ending up spread out across the room they shared. Her nicer dresses were hanging on nails she'd pounded into the wall. She saved those for last, so they wouldn't be packed in as tightly.

Just as she was finishing, Corec came in. "All done?" he asked.

"I'm as ready as I'm going to get, I suppose. I can't get my cloak to fit back in the bag."

He chuckled. "There's spare room on the wagons. You can put it there."

"Are we leaving now?" It was getting late in the morning on the day after Josip had returned with the wagons. Everyone had needed more time to get ready than they'd expected—Katrin wasn't the only one who'd made herself at home.

"Leena's going to hand out some food so we don't have to stop later, then we'll get the mules hitched and the horses saddled. Probably an hour, I'd say. Is Shavala ready? I didn't see her."

The elven woman had the small room next to theirs, though she spent half her nights with the two of them.

"She was all packed last night. She said she'd be back in a bit—there was something she wanted to do. She had that thing with her again." Katrin didn't think much of the staff after what it had done to Shavala during the battle, but her friend had made it clear she was going to keep it.

Corec nodded, then glanced around the now nearly empty room and spotted his shaving kit. Katrin had found it and placed it near his saddlebags while she was packing her own things. He slipped it into one of his bags, then said, "I guess that's everything."

"Do you realize we've been living together in this room longer than we've ever stayed anywhere else?" Katrin asked.

He furrowed his brow. "I guess we have," he said. "It's been, what, more than three weeks since we moved the camp here?"

"It was starting to feel like home," she replied. "But not a very pleasant home. We need to find a place with plumbing, or at least our own well with a hand pump. And we need some plants and trees—I can't take looking at bare dirt anymore. I went down to the river with Shavala yesterday just to watch her grow some more grass."

Corec laughed. "I'll see what I can do. There aren't too many places in the free lands with indoor plumbing, but digging a well shouldn't be a problem if we're away from town. I was talking to Treya, and she thinks one of the farmsteads outside Four Roads might work for us. Her family's place was several days outside the town, and the area wasn't heavily populated."

"Is anyone living there?"

"Ahh, I got the impression she was just using it as an example. I don't think she wants to go back there."

Katrin nodded. Treya didn't talk about her early years much, but everyone knew her parents had been killed by raiders when she was very young. "Will a farmhouse be big enough? Even if we only live there temporarily, we'll have Shavala, Treya, and Sarette, at least for a little while. And what if Ellerie and Boktar stay long enough to help with the red-eyes?"

"True. We may have to look for something more like a small manor house."

"In the free lands?"

"They're rare, but they exist. You just need the right circumstances. Say, if some idiot third son of a border baron thought he could make a living as a gentleman farmer, and then had to abandon the place when he failed."

Katrin snickered. "Aren't you the third son of a border baron?"

"Yes, so if I ever start pretending I know how to be a farmer, remind me not to be an idiot. But the manor house itself might be what we need. I just don't know how much it would cost."

"Is land near Four Roads really that expensive?"

"It's probably not as expensive as farmland in Larso, but I've never looked into it. The problem is that I'm not sure how much will be left over from our shares after we pay for everything else. Even if Prince Rusol sticks to only sending small squads, we'll still need some sort of defensive fortifications—a wooden wall, at least. And the sort of armed guards we'll be able to hire in the free lands will mostly be half-trained mercenaries, so I'd say at least a dozen men, plus an armsmaster to train them. A few extra archers. Figure on paying their wages for a year or more. It adds up. And, to be honest, I'm getting tired of campfire cooking. If we can afford it, I'd like to have a cook and a housekeeper."

"I hadn't thought about all that," Katrin admitted. "How much does a defensive wall cost?"

"It's not cheap. We're going to end up spending a lot of money for a place we're only planning to live in for a few years, if we move to Tyrsall once Yelena leaves."

Katrin considered that. She liked living in a city, and had hoped to settle down in Tyrsall or Circle Bay eventually. Of the two, Corec preferred Tyrsall, but Yelena had seemed nervous about having another warden nearby, so Corec had promised the woman he wouldn't stay there while she was still present. She wouldn't be there much longer, though. As a warden, neither she nor her bondmates were aging, so to avoid suspicion, they planned to leave the city soon and assume new identities elsewhere.

"I suppose we don't have to move to Tyrsall right away," Katrin said. "If we're close enough to Four Roads to visit, I wouldn't mind trying out the free lands for a while to see how it feels."

"Really? I know you wanted to live somewhere bigger."

"I just need an audience that hasn't heard all my songs a hundred times. After this place, even Four Roads will seem like a major city. We'll still have plenty of time to try Tyrsall."

Corec frowned. "Listen," he said, "Rusol's after me, not the rest of you. Maybe you should stay in Tyrsall. You're not a fighter—you'll be safer there. I can come back for you when everything's been dealt with."

Katrin was tempted, but only for a moment. She shook her head. "He's after you because you're a warden," she said. "We're all in this together. The five of us, at least." And she intended to have a private talk with Ellerie. The woman was one of them, even if she didn't want to admit it. Razai and Leena were different. Razai had ended the warden bond, and would be going her own way once they returned to Aravor. Leena had her own issues to deal with down in Sanvar—she was only coming with them because Corec was worried it wasn't safe for her to return yet. Bobo, on the other hand, had taken advantage of Corec's hospitality and protection for months when they'd first met. Katrin resolved to talk with him as well.

"Well, I would rather have you with me," Corec said, "but if another big group comes after us, I'd like you to go to Four Roads until it's over. I don't like how close we came this time."

"I'm not going to go hide while everyone else is fighting for their lives!"

"Katrin ..."

"How about this?" she said. "If you convince me there's no way I can help, then I'll consider it." Maybe, she added silently.

Corec sighed, but nodded.

#

Shavala stared across the plaza, two scarves across her face in a failed attempt to block out the smell. Decomposition was a natural part of the life cycle, but that didn't mean the side effects were pleasant.

Ever since dragging the bodies here after the battle, everyone had avoided this spot. Corec seemed to feel some sort of guilt that he hadn't been able to lay their enemies to rest, but there was no realistic way to bury more than a hundred bodies in the hard-packed earth of the barrens—it had been difficult enough burying Ariadne's Mage Knight compatriots, and there had only been nine of those. Burning them wasn't possible either, not without firewood, and there hadn't been any way to obtain enough wood before they'd begun to decompose.

Now, of course, it was too late to even consider it. No one could approach the plaza without gagging.

Shavala had thought about trying to burn the bodies with magic, but that would have taken hours, and she couldn't maintain a spell for that length of time.

But she'd spent nearly two weeks now regrowing small patches of grass and weeds down near the river. It was too soon to tell whether her changes would last after she was gone, but it felt good to see some hints of green against the vast swathes of brown. And it had given her an idea. These deaths had been meaningless and stupid, but did they have to remain that way? Could they be given a purpose?

She wanted to try to grow greenery in a ring all around the plaza, surrounding the bodies. Then, as they decomposed, they would feed the soil, and the plants might eventually grow to cover the place the corpses had once been.

It would be difficult here. There was a layer of paving stones—the original city streets—two feet below the surface, and the river was too far away to draw water from. But there were old community wells on the east and west ends of the plaza, and she could sense water deep underground. She just needed a way to bring it up.

Pulling one of her gathering sacks from her pocket, she turned it inside out and shook out the extra seeds she'd been collecting from her work down by the river. With quick, controlled flurries of wind, she blew them all around the near edge of the plaza. There were barely enough seeds to provide even a light scattering across a thirty-foot-wide area. It was all she'd been able to spare from her other efforts, but the plaza seemed much larger when viewed close up.

It was better than nothing, though, so she began the process she'd been practicing over the past weeks, convincing the seeds to sprout and grow, and then accelerating the life cycles, using bursts of wind to pollinate between the grasses, and then repeating everything once the new seeds matured. She hadn't worked out a way to draw water up through the paving stones, but the rain from two days earlier hadn't completely dried out yet.

The staff started to help, but its own magic seemed sluggish, as if it wasn't sure what she was attempting to do. She rested the butt of the staff against the ground, then tried to imagine the entire plaza as a grassy field. According to Treya, Ariadne had claimed that the land near the city had once supported vast forests. A small meadow shouldn't be a problem.

Just as Shavala completed the thought, the staff suddenly jerked upright, nearly jumping out of her hand as it fastened itself tightly to the earth. The shaft trembled, and small cracks spread out in the ground surrounding it. Shavala cast her elder senses downward and found tree roots growing out from the bottom of the staff. The roots were familiar—tershaya.

Dorvasta druids often grew new tershaya trees by transplanting a cutting. The cutting would then grow its own roots, eventually joining with the combined root system underlying the Terril Forest. Had the staff simply been a cutting all along, intended for growing a new tree? It was tershaya wood, after all, and was still alive despite its age. If it wanted to become a tree, who was she to say no?

But though the root system continued to expand down and outward, the staff itself didn't grow into a sapling. It remained as it was, a bare branch cleared of bark, thick and knotted at the top, thin at the base.

The spell continued, and Shavala lost what little control she had over it. It was still pulling a trickle of power from her, but most was coming from somewhere else, far in excess of anything the staff had demonstrated so far. The roots directly below the staff broke through a gap in the buried paving stones, continuing to grow downward, while the bulk of the tendrils snaked toward the center of the plaza, where the bodies were stacked. The ground trembled, and then a small sapling suddenly burst up near the pile.

A second sapling sprouted just ten feet from Shavala, and then a third on the far side of the plaza.