“Hush. Listening for the sound of footfalls on the wall above us. Do you hear any?”
He paused, craning his neck. He shook his head. Together they started down the slope, staying low to the ground to keep from losing their footing. Hettie caught herself on exposed roots and used them as handholds to maneuver down the steep slope. When they were near the end, there was the sound of barking, and suddenly a black hound leaped from the woods and rushed at them, followed by several soldiers.
“The horn!” Hettie warned. “Don’t let them use it!”
Paedrin sprang from the edge of the slope and soared into the air. She flattened herself as he sailed over her gracefully, as if he were nothing more than a leaf suspended by the breeze. The Vaettir awed her with their innate ability to float and hover depending on how they controlled their breath. He went past the rushing hound and then suddenly came straight down, landing in a kneeling crouch. He looked up at the advancing soldiers and shot out at them like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Hettie brought up her weapon and sent an arrow into the dog’s flanks, piercing its rear leg. It yelped and howled with pain, spinning in the dirt as it struggled to free itself from the arrow.
As Hettie slid the rest of the way down the hillside, Paedrin was in the midst of the soldiers, his hands and feet moving everywhere at once. They all had weapons, but none of them came close to touching him. One man raised a horn to his mouth and Hettie pulled free another arrow to silence him.
Paedrin blocked her shot as he vaulted upward and landed with a foot to the man’s forehead. The horn tumbled to the ground, and Paedrin brought his heel down on it, crushing the end. Dropping down, he landed his fist into the man’s temple, and he was out cold.
Six men were dispatched in moments.
Hettie approached, looking sidelong at the whimpering hound.
Paedrin cocked his head at her. “You didn’t kill the dog.”
She gave him a lazy smile. “Are you criticizing my aim?”
“Well, it would have been preferred if you had wrestled it into submission,” he answered. “Or bit its ear. But you probably aren’t an expert in wrestling beasts. Only skinning them.”
She gave him an arched look. “Bit its ear? Paedrin…” She shook her head.
He stood straight and tall, his Bhikhu tunic rumpled and stained from their long journey. His eyes were glittering with intensity. It made her pause a moment.
“I am only just getting back my sense of humor,” he said. “I have never felt so alive and free as I do at this moment. When you feel as if the rest of your life is going to be plunged into shadows, it makes you willing to risk it all over one thing. Let’s find your uncle. I want to go with him into the Scourgelands. I even think I know a way that I can help.”
With such a look of pure intensity and honesty on his face, Hettie nearly told him the truth. That moment of pure certainty was something she wanted for herself. He looked so convinced, so self-assured that she desperately wanted to believe in him. That he wanted to seek out her uncle as well, played right into Kiranrao’s hands.
She almost told him.
Instead, she reached out her hand and bid him take it. It was cruel. It would deceive his feelings. But she needed him, if only to remind herself that her freedom was worth anything.
“I abhor the Druidecht taboo of documenting their beliefs and practices. They are said to learn by heart a great number of verses; the course of training takes up to twenty years. They regard it as unlawful to commit these to writing. That practice they seem to me to have adopted for two reasons. First, because they do not desire their doctrines to be divulged among the mass of the people. Second, they suppose that a dependence on writing would relax their diligence in learning. I contradict them. It is quite possible that errors have been introduced into their learning and have been further expanded each generation. Let us tenderly and kindly cherish all means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
– Possidius Adeodat, Archivist of Kenatos
The woods of Silvandom were legendary, and Annon approached them with trepidation. Most forests began to increase in thickness at a distance, tree after tree clustering together until they formed a massive net of limbs and roots. As Annon and Erasmus approached Silvandom, they passed the fertile plains without seeing another tree until suddenly a wall of them emerged after the crest of a hill. They stared down at the massive expanse of forest, stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction. The guardian trees were enormous, with long, bare trunks that reached skyward and were crowned in huge green swaths of leaves and branches.
“Well,” Erasmus huffed, staring down at the vast woodlands. “By degrees the castles are built. I have never seen such a place in my life. All that straight wood is worth a fortune.”