I sat on the edge of my pallet, ready to stand for the first time. It was a milestone.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Kerry scolded. “Stop grimacing. You want to get up and pee on your own, or not?”
I did. I forced the grimace from my face. “That better?”
He grunted. Kerry had become my nursemaid, sitting with me, washing me, feeding me—and regularly berating me. He showed me no mercy. Sometimes I wondered if it was his revenge for the post holes I had made him dig. Four days ago, he started giving me weights to lift so I would regain my strength. The sacks of potatoes he handed me couldn’t have weighed more than five pounds each, but the strain of lifting them burned all the way down to my thigh, where one of the arrows had struck. My arms shook as I lifted them. You’re turning to flab, he had chided as he squeezed my upper arm. If Caemus was within earshot, he would counter, Leave him be. He’s doing just fine, much more sympathetic than my warden. But I was frustrated with my progress, and in some ways, I appreciated my relentless taskmaster. I had to get out of here and find Kazi. If they were holding her
—
It was something I couldn’t allow myself to think about for too long, but there was still no word. Caemus had finally taken a chance and gone into town—maybe just to keep me from crawling there myself. With soldiers on every corner, he had to keep the hood of his cloak up, his head down, and his words few, but there was still no word or sign of her. Or of my family. I asked him what he did see, and he said nothing but grim-faced soldiers, and as far as news went, it seemed that everyone was tight-lipped and afraid to talk. The town had gone unusually quiet. He was afraid to pry for fear of drawing attention, but he did overhear a shopkeeper grumbling that Paxton and Truko were running the arena now.
It was like being hit with another arrow. I shouldn’t have been surprised. We knew someone was challenging us, and I had always suspected one of the leagues was behind the fires and raids. But now they had names. I never seriously thought they could pull something like this off—or even that they would try. Yes, they grumbled. We grumbled. But we all made money and we had fallen into a comfortable—if rocky—routine in our dealings, until they began working with Beaufort. The Ballengers themselves had financed this takeover. Zane must have been their go-between. How long had they been planning this? I would kill both Paxton and Truko if they had harmed Kazi. And I wouldn’t make it quick. I didn’t need a powerful weapon to—
Caemus’s description stopped me. I remembered him saying one shot brought down the nave of the temple. Was he mistaken? One? The launcher I tested was powerful. It could take down a man with accuracy at two hundred yards, probably three men if they were standing close together, but one shot couldn’t take down a temple. I remembered the destruction in Sentinel Valley and Beaufort’s boasting about dominion over the kingdoms. Was Hell’s Mouth the starting point for his campaign? The Ballenger histories described in detail the rubble the town had been made from. Centuries of rebuilding transformed the wreckage into the wonder it was today, but now someone like Beaufort and his conspirators could hold it hostage and return it to the rubble it had once been? And there was an army to carry out his plans. That part still didn’t add up.
“Ready?” Kerry asked, handing me a crutch he had fashioned for me.
It had taken me over a week just to get to the point of sitting up. I had no shirt on, but had bandages wrapped around half of my upper body. Paxton and his crew had been determined to kill me.
“Hold your breath, and I’ll help you to your feet.” I used the crutch as leverage, and Kerry tucked his fingers beneath a bandage and pulled. The pressure felt like a bull sitting on my chest. I clenched my teeth.
“Kerry! What do you think you’re doing?” Jurga yelled. She was frozen halfway down the cellar steps. We were both in trouble.
“He’s got to get up sooner or later.”
“He’s right,” I said, coming to his defense. “I have to get my strength back.” Words poured out of me then, desperate words I didn’t even know
were there. “Kazi is alone, maybe hurt, they’re holding her against her will, my family’s in hiding, the town’s overrun, and when they all need me the most, I’m here helpless. I have to get stronger, I have to go.”
Jurga listened to me, wide-eyed. I felt like a child begging for the impossible, even though I knew it was not something that either Jurga or Kerry could give me.
I blinked, trying to clear my vision. “I have to find her.”
Jurga stared at me, her mouth pursed like she had sucked on a lemon, then she looked long and hard at Kerry. “Come on, help me get him up these steps. A little sunshine will do him good.”
The first several days, I never strayed far from the storage shed, always ready to retreat back inside if a warning signal of riders came, but none ever did. It was like they had stopped looking for me, which meant they probably thought I was dead.
It wasn’t only Kerry who put me through my paces. The other settlers took turns as well, walking me in circles around the shed and helping me to ease back down on a bench when I needed to rest. Eventually they took me a little farther to view their finished homes that I had never gotten to see. They showed me the raised foundations, the wooden floors that they never had before, the supplies that filled their shelves. They invited me in, they fed me, they added bones to my tether that I now wore the same as them. Meunter ijotande, they would say. Never forgotten. Day by day, I learned more of their language. I was ashamed that I had ever protested the rebuilding of the settlement, and was glad for the extra work we had put into it. Glad for my blood vow and alms. There was so much I didn’t know back then, that I knew now. Things I never would have known if not for Kazi.
“Another set,” Kerry ordered. His eyes gleamed. He loved watching me suffer. But I was getting stronger. He had me lifting buckets of water now— only half full—but the pain in my abdomen had at least become tolerable, or maybe I was just getting used to it. How much longer before I’d be ready to leave? But I knew there would be no second chances. I had to get this
right the first time. I had to be strong enough to do what I needed to do. I turned my frustration into work—more sets, more food, more walking.
When we finished my daily regimen, I usually sat on a bench in the sun and read to Kerry. The teacher we sent had brought books, some filled with legends of other worlds far from Tor’s Watch, but the ones he liked best were the ones I told about the Ballenger history and Greyson, who was little more than a child himself when given the task of keeping everyone safe. Kerry’s eyes glowed with admiration and intense curiosity, maybe the way mine had when my father first told them to me. I didn’t embellish. I didn’t need to. The truth was astonishing enough.
“How do you know all these stories?” he asked.
“I’ve written them down—every one. It was part of my schooling. I have a whole library of Ballenger history at my home. Someday I’ll show you.”
Home. If it was still there. If anything was there.
Who will write our story, Jase?
We will, Kazi, and it will take a thousand volumes. We have a lifetime ahead of us.
Last night more of the fog had rolled back. A glimpse. A fist going into Kazi’s stomach—but there was a glint of light too. What was it? I couldn’t stop worrying about what I hadn’t seen and didn’t know.
“I’m going with you when you go to find her,” Kerry said as if he knew where my mind had wandered. His chin jutted out, cocky and determined. Unafraid. His fingers absently rubbed his scarred arm. I guessed that whatever monsters were out there, they might not be any worse than the ones he had already faced. No wonder he liked hearing stories about Greyson. Like the first Patrei, Kerry didn’t let his young age hold him back from what needed to be done.
“We’ll see,” I answered.
I had an army of two, and one was a seven-year-old child.
