The night had passed uneventfully or at least, it had been uneventful for me. I could not speak for Yethyr. Going by his panicked breathing, I could guess his sleeping mind was in Hell again. Jaetheiri, on the other hand, dreamed of being naked in front of all the King’s hunters at once. This seemed to distress her for some reason, but even then, I found drifting with Jaetheiri much preferable.
I decided to avoid entering Yethyr’s dreams for now. If I wanted to confront Spryne again, I would need a plan and a goal.
First, there was Flazea and this whole business of “buying a boat.”
Yethyr was dreading it, but I was excited. The world was changing around us and I was seeing new things all the time.
I had only glimpsed trees in memories that I had eaten, so when we crested over a hill, I was unprepared for the sudden legion of trunks and needles for as far as the eye could see.
A pine forest. That was what Yethyr called it in his mind and it was magnificent. As we grew closer I could begin to smell the pines themselves—fresh and earthy and nothing like the city.
Just before midday, we crested over another hill. I saw the river and all thoughts of trees left my mind. It was like a wide and winding avenue, but blue, so blue!
“The river is so loud,” I heard Kvelir murmur and I agreed. It roared of song I had never heard before.
Watersong. It must be. It was like wind, but not. It was like lava, but not. It was strange and new, and yet, I understood every note as if the sound was as dear to me as the steelsong of my birth.
I almost didn’t notice Flazea, nestled in such wondrous music. It was right up against the river and had been surrounded by a wooden palisade.
The emphasis was on had been. Two sackings had left the once straight pine logs in shambles. It was easy to see the town within: a wasteland of scorched earth, burnt log cabins, and half-built replacements.
The town looked ruined even from here.
“It looks more like a village,” Yethyr frowned. “There are not many boats on their pier.”
I assumed boats were the wooden things floating on the water. I counted maybe a dozen or so.
“Many were taken as spoils by the King’s men during the last two sackings,” Arsari said, coming up behind him.
“Mmmm. That means their value has gone up, right?”
“Yes, Master. This will be tricky, but I have a plan.”
Much to the annoyance of the hunters, Yethyr commanded them to set up camp far from the town proper as he made his approach with only Jaetheiri, Arsari, two of his personal guards, and Wes.
The rest of the party was insulted. They saw it as a lack of trust, unaware that the real distrust in this case was toward himself. If something went wrong and he had to unleash deathsong upon the town, he was confident he could exempt five people from his song.
He was less certain about more than that and he could not afford to accidentally kill what few men he had.
There was also Arsari’s point. “We don’t want the town to think it’s being attacked. It would be a fair assumption.”
“It’s what we should do,” Kvelir grumbled, but the hunters begrudgingly complied.
So six figures approached the ruined gates of Flazea and an old man stood there waiting for them. He was short and brown eyed, just like the people of Datrea. It did not surprise me when he opened his mouth and spoke Datrean.
“Greetings master smiths.” He bowed low to Yethyr and then to Wes.“We are honored to receive you, even in these troubled times.”
Yethyr blinked in surprise, before remembering he was wearing my father’s robes and me. Even wrapped in bandages as I was, my shape was clearly a Datrean sword and not a warfang. He was dressed as a steelsinger like Wes and more than that, he was a short, gaunt, red-haired man. He did not look like the other Brinn.
It made sense why the man had set Yethyr apart, and yet both he and Arsari were momentarily stunned.
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“Um…”
“Say ‘your honor will be carved in brimstone,’” Wes hissed. “If you are going to defile our station then at least have the courtesy of saying the proper words!”
“Your honor will be remembered in brimstone?” Yethyr tried and mostly failed to make it not sound like a question
The man flicked his eyes to the obviously Brinn hunters accompanying them. “Has Datrea fallen?”
“It has. These Brinn hunters would like to acquire a boat. We all have urgent business further north.”
“I see. So many of our shipwrights have been killed or carried off by the Brinn. There is only the old, the very young, and the sick left here. What building strength we can muster we have put into rebuilding homes. There are not many boats left, I am afraid, and those who own them will not easily part with them.”
“We have brought treasures to trade,” Arsari said. “I am certain we can find a deal that satisfies all.”
The man startled at a Brinn speaking his language, but there was hope in his eyes. “And that warband on the top of the hill, are they just here to ‘trade?’”
“They are here to get on the boat once we acquire it and leave north.”
The man looked ever so slightly less tense. “That is…relieving to hear.” He stepped aside. “Follow the main promenade to the docks. Speak with Piermaster Tunda. Shadow of the Mountain embrace you, master smiths.”
“Walk in that shadow and be rewarded,” Wes replied, even though only the Prince could hear him.
“Walk in that shadow and be rewarded,” Yethyr echoed and they stepped into Flazea.
Despite the ruin, despite the destruction, the sight of that cracked promenade beneath Yethyr’s feet filled me with a deep profound nostalgia. I was abruptly certain I had been in this town before. I searched my disparate collection of memories and stumbled onto one of my makers’ lives.
Tuzad. He had secretly engraved his wife’s favorite flower beneath my ruby. When I had cut him down, I devoured memories of him tussling with his brothers in this very river.
He had grown up in Flazea, I realized suddenly. His family had lived here and as we passed weathered faces peeking through their ruined or half-built houses, I was consumed by his terror.
What had happened to his brothers? Had they been killed in the Brinn raids? Had they been taken? Was his mother spared? Was his wife? I felt a sudden love for a woman I had never known and my hate for the Brinn came back like a torrent.
I wasn’t alone in that hatred.
Halfway to the docks, a half-built cabin burst open and dozens of elderly men and women suddenly surged into the promenade. They wielded whatever they could find: planks, sticks, and laborer hammers.
“Join our children in Hell!” they chanted as they swarmed Yethyr’s party of six.
There was panic; there was confusion. It was the perfect opportunity to try to get Yethyr to frantically kill with me.
I couldn’t bring myself to even try. As I looked at their desperate old faces, trying to overwhelm them with sheer numbers, I thought of Tuzad’s mother and the idea of accidentally killing her filled me with revulsion.
Yes. I would not defend Yethyr. In fact, I hoped they succeeded in killing him. I wanted my vengeance, against the council and Yethyr himself, but I could not bear to stand in the way of this mob of grieving parents and their score to settle with the Brinn.
Unfortunately for them, the Prince of their enemy was dressed like a Datrean steelsinger. They swarmed the Brinn behind him, giving him just enough time to open his mouth.
“Die.”
The mob instantly became a river of corpses and I felt grief. The echo of Tuzad within me prayed that his mother had not been among them.
Yethyr panted, turning about wildly.
One of his guards was dead. His head was smashed in with a log.
“Damn them!” Grokar, his other guard, spat out blood. “We should just sack them.”
“No! Don’t!” An old woman frantically hobbled down the street. She spoke very, very broken Brinn. “Just them! Not us. Town wants peace. Town loyal. Town leave alone.”
“And why should we?” Yethyr said in Datrean. “We came peacefully. You attacked us.”
“We didn’t attack you.” She was much more eloquent in Datrean. “They did and they are dead. You have already avenged yourself. Please. We beg you to be satisfied with that. This town cannot take any more death.”
Yethyr scowled. He had half a mind to show this woman that Flazea could take much much more, as much as Datrea in fact.
I imagined a Death Circle around Flazea and panicked.
“It isn’t worth it,” I whispered in Yethyr’s voice. “The art of Flazean shipwrights should continue.”
I knew Wes could hear me. I could see him tilt his hood in Yethyr’s direction, but for once he did not warn the Prince of my influence. Wes wanted to destroy me, yes, but in protecting Flazea from destruction, we were aligned and he would not sabotage my attempts to save it.
“This town needs to regrow before it is sacked again,” I said in Yethyr’s voice. “It is a waste of infrastructure to do it now.”
To my relief, I felt the Prince’s mind sway. “Get out of my sight.” The old woman scurried away and Yethyr sighed.
“My prince?”
He turned to Jaetheiri. She sported a bruise on her chin, but beyond that was no worse for wear. Grokar was bloodied, but better than his dead colleague at his feet, and Arsari…
Without armor to defend her, Arsari was beaten to a bloody pulp. Her corpse barely resembled a human.
Yethyr and Jaetheiri looked at one another in alarm.
They had lost their negotiator.
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