Chapter 7:
The Voice of the Forest God
I
Leaves threw shadows onto the old, tree-lined road. The afternoon sun was a comfortable hand on Hanuvar’s back. Only a week ago he had planned to travel southwest, to the sea. Now, he still bore west, but he had angled north. He no longer caught the occasional hint of salt in the air. Instead there were only the deep, rich scents of the countryside, a heady mix of wildflowers and grasses, pine needles and warm earth. Birds sang to each other from the nearby branches, the fluting calls of dark thrushes dominant.
Antires rode quietly at his side, his eyelids heavy. Uncharacter-istically, the Herrene’s flow of questions had stopped. The afternoon felt a lazy one, inviting a halt against a hillside to consider cloud shapes and drowse for a few hours before sitting down with family at the evening meal.
In a different world, Hanuvar might have experienced that opportunity. In this one, he pressed on. Within the next hour, he expected to reach the village of Erapna, and there, he’d been promised, lived a priestess who could tell him his daughter’s fate.
Hanuvar placed little faith in soothsayers and priests, but a powerful spirit had repaid his own kindness with the admonition to avoid the sea, telling him further that an Erapnan priestess would help him if he aided her in return. And so he rode, his thoughts upon the determined, black-haired girl he had met only at war’s end. Long years of campaigning had kept them apart. He and his own brothers had been raised in armed encampments, and much as he loved his father, he had sworn that his own progeny would have childhoods further from war, never thinking that but one of them would survive infancy, or that he would see her so rarely.
But even growing up apart from him she had proven a warrior after his own heart: clever, swift, skilled with sword, wise with words, a natural leader, and officer of the famed Eltyr, the warrior guard of the Volanus sea gate. After the end of the second war, when he had been elected shofet, he had come to know her well, not just as a daughter, but as a friend.
He had assumed her lost with so many others. The thought that she might have survived the city’s destruction was almost too overwhelming to contemplate.
His reveries were interrupted when a woman’s frightened scream rang through the nearby hills. The thrushes fell silent. Antires let out a cry of surprise and straightened, asking what was happening even as hoofbeats drummed the earth beyond the next turn.
A fear-maddened white horse tore into sight, galloping across the fields toward their road, a dark-haired woman bent forward in her saddle, clinging for life to the reins. A quarter mile behind, a small band of armored men pursued, but he was almost certain they were her guard, for they were shouting at her to hold tight.
The woman’s efforts to stop her horse were ineffectual, and the guards lagged too far back to assist.
Hanuvar kicked his bay roan, and the gelding responded instantly, galloping forward in a spray of dirt. He called for Antires to ride up on the right as he rode up on the left, but the Herrene, no great horseman, was already trailing.
The mare turned onto the road as Hanuvar caught up. He had little sense of the woman other than a feminine figure in a light blue stola with a mass of brunette hair. Her dark eyes were almost as wide with panic as those of her frightened horse.
He scanned the road ahead, alert for ruts, spotted none, then leaned out from his saddle.
The woman’s horse veered from his reach. Hanuvar’s gelding matched speed, either sensing his intent or merely inspired to race, and Hanuvar snared one of the dangling reins. He immediately straightened and called for his horse to slow.
The mare fought him, with all the considerable weight of her body. But Hanuvar looped the rein about his arm, tugging hard as he slowed his roan, bracing his hand to his saddle lest he be torn from his seat.
He urged his gelding into a turn, and this ate into the frightened mare’s speed. The rider still clutched at her saddle, the remaining rein held taut but ineffectual against the intense escape instinct driving the horse. A large dart stood out from the animal’s rump, waggling with its every move. A stream of scarlet blood trickled from the injury down the mare’s white shank.
He led the horse through enough small circles that it stopped at last, though it still stamped vexedly. He leaned toward the woman. “Come to me,” he said.
Her guards had closed the distance and one shouted in alarm as he lifted her bodily from the saddle. She leaned into him. She smelled of flowers and sunny hair, and under her pleasant roundness she had firm muscles. He turned his own horse from the wounded mare and lowered the woman gently to the ground.
The horsemen trotted up, but he still paid them no heed. Hanuvar had leapt down and snagged both the mare’s reins, holding them tight as he pulled out the dart. The mare didn’t like that, either, and struggled to flee. He held her firm, and finally calmed her.
One of the guards leaned down at him, frowning. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You dare lay hands on a prefect’s daughter?”
The woman turned, head raised, hand brushing back hair that trailed wildly into her face. “This man saved my life. Leave off the accusations.”
She was not so young as Hanuvar had first thought, though that hardly diminished her appeal. There were lines of gray in her hair, and lines on her face, which was not the pale shade so typical of aristocratic Dervan women. She left off fussing with her hair and bestowed a fetching smile upon Hanuvar. “Forgive them, kind sir, and forgive me my appearance.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Hanuvar said. “It’s not every day a man meets a forest goddess.”
She laughed. “You’re too kind. But I thank you. And I thank you for your quick thinking.”
The lead soldier, a craggy man with a scarred nose, dropped off his horse. “Pardon, milady, but he might well be one of the rebels.”
She sighed as she looked at him. “I do wish you would think more before you spoke, Silus. The rebels were trying to kill me, or at least cause me bodily harm, and he risked life and limb to do the contrary. Did you manage to find them?”
“Four of the men are looking for them now. I’m sure they’ll find the culprit. I did tell you that we were riding too far.”
“I dearly wish that you had been wrong.” The woman shifted her gaze to Hanuvar. “What is your name, kind sir?”
Hanuvar passed off the mare’s reins to a scowling Silus and answered the woman.
“I am Entius. And that is my friend Stirses, on whom your men are holding spears.”
She turned on the instant. “Leave him be as well! Gods.” She scowled at her guards. “You didn’t hurt him, did you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, speaking directly to Antires as the disgruntled soldiers turned their weapons away. “Stirses, are you well?”
He bowed his handsome head to her. “I am, milady.”
“They are overprotective,” the woman said as she turned back to Hanuvar.
“They seem dutifully cautious,” he replied. “What happened?”
“I was paying respect at a little woodland shrine to Diara. It’s the strangest thing, but I’ve been riding this way for weeks, and never noticed the path before.”
“The rebels probably made it more obvious to lure you, milady,” Silus said gruffly.
“It felt more like I had been called there, until that dart hit my horse.”
“Who threw it?” Hanuvar asked.
She waved a hand as if her brush with danger were a mere trifle. “I didn’t happen to see them. But I’m not very popular in Erapna. I am Clodia Septima,” she added. “I seem to have forgotten to introduce myself.”
“Why would anyone wish to harm you?”
“My brother’s trying to help the locals past some strange habits they’ve taken up in their worship. Are you new here yourself?”
Hanuvar’s answer had long since been readied. “I’m on my way to the temple to pray for my daughter. She disappeared while I was in the service, and no one is sure where she’s gone.”
“That’s terrible. I will pray for you.”
“You are kind.”
“It is the least I can do. My brother helps manage the temple now. I’m sure he will aid you any way that he can.”
Hanuvar bowed his head. “I’d be grateful. I was told to seek a priestess.”
“A priestess? I don’t think that there are any left. But I’m sure he can help you. If it’s not too forward of me to ask, what rank did you hold during your service?”
Hanuvar sensed the attention of the watching guardsmen, but had eyes only for Clodia. “I rose no higher than optio. I might have made centurion, but I was a little too fond of wine.”
She eyed him keenly. “You don’t strike me as a drunk.”
“I’ve sworn off drink until I find my daughter.”
“How very wise of you.”
This woman charmed him. This was no pleasure trip, and he had no intention to stand out. But then he had already drawn attention and doubted a little more time in her company would jeopardize himself further. It could illuminate her troubling statement about the lack of priestesses and educate him about the local troubles. The Dervans had not long controlled large sections of the provinces, and resentment against the empire still simmered, though it manifested differently in different places. “Your own mount won’t be sound to ride until she’s properly tended. You may borrow mine until we reach the village.”
Behind him the soldiers talked among themselves, and there was a warning note in their voices.
“He’s a bit tall for me,” Clodia said. “You’ll have to help me up.”
He cupped her sandaled foot, noting the slender ankle and well-defined calf, then passed the reins to her.
He spent the next half hour walking at her side. Two of the sullen guards ranged ahead. The others followed, along with Antires, leading their pack horse. A few minutes into their journey four more soldiers galloped up to join them, and Hanuvar overheard them reporting to Silus that they had scoured the brush and found tracks, but hadn’t discovered the assailant.
It was a pleasure to talk with an articulate, pretty woman. He turned all questions about himself to questions about her, and she was happy enough to discuss her life. She claimed to be a country girl at heart. She’d married a senator’s son but he’d been stodgy and demanding, and after ten years she had divorced him. She enjoyed long rides in the countryside, the playing of harps—which she said she did only inexpertly, despite years of practice—and the study of history.
Hanuvar ignored the obvious snare of mutual points of interest, for he, too, was a student of history. Even telling her that he had always enjoyed music but never had the time to practice was probably too much detail.
Their idyll was shattered as they approached the lands just southeast of the village, and beheld a line of ten poles against which desiccated figures hung. Clodia turned her head in distaste.
Hanuvar judged that the victims had been crucified at least two weeks prior. “Rebels?” he asked.
“The governor’s troops thought this the best way to cow them,” she said. “It’s made my brother’s job a lot harder.”
“And the villagers angry enough to attack you?”
She smiled bravely. “I’ve managed fine so far.”
“You spoke earlier about not being sure there was a priestess anymore. Did they attack her?”
“No. I believe the last priestess was sent away. But my brother and the other priests have the right training to solve most people’s problems.”
Hanuvar doubted that their guidance would be much use to him, unless they could direct him to the correct priestess.
They arrived at the village outskirts, at which Clodia halted, insisting on returning Hanuvar’s horse. Her villa was on the far side of the settlement, and she refused to allow him to trouble himself further. He did not object, though he was honestly sorry to leave her.
“Do you know how long you will be staying in town, Entius?” She brushed hair from her dark eyes once more.
“It depends upon what I learn at the temple.”
“It truly was a pleasure to meet you. I can’t ever properly thank you.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” he assured her. He thought he might have to demur an invitation to hear her play the harp, or turn down an offer of dinner, and was amused by his own disappointment that she offered neither.
While one of her guards dismounted so that Clodia might ride his horse, Hanuvar and Antires rode their animals further into town.
The Herrene eyed him with a knowing smile. “She’s an attractive woman,” he said once they were out of hearing range.
“She may be the only person in the whole village kindly disposed toward us. Her guards hate that I did their job for them. And did you notice the glares everyone else is giving us?”
Antires apparently only then saw the suspicious look bestowed upon them by a man walking along the side of the street. He had missed the first few from merchants and customers peering out from the tailor and barber shops.
“What’s that about?”
“That’s about moral rectitude not always being welcomed with open arms.”
Antires visibly tried to parse meaning from Hanuvar’s answer. “Sometimes you confuse me.”
“We’re dressed like Dervans, and came in with a local patrician’s sister. The Dervans are telling these people they’re worshiping their gods wrong.”
“Oh. That will make them popular.”
“Yes. “
“In retrospect it probably wasn’t a smart idea to ride in with a Dervan woman.”
“Thanks for the pointer,” Hanuvar said dryly.
II
The temple to Diara was a small building on a hill near the village center, tall and narrow, with a single pair of columns. Fairly certain he would not find what he sought within, Hanuvar nonetheless entered, paid a tithe and lit a candle. After a short while he was ushered into a small chamber rich with clove-scented incense and small candles.
A moment later he was joined by a smooth-skinned patrician in a costly white robe. Almost surely this was Clodia’s brother Paulus, whom he had assumed would be overseeing the temple, not taking full charge of its duties. In the eyebrows and the shape of the nose, Hanuvar saw a heavier, masculine version of the features that had pleased him earlier.
The man saw his searching look. “You seem troubled. How may I help you?”
“I was told to speak to a priestess,” Hanuvar said.
The priest’s brow furrowed. “Told by whom?”
“People on the road. They said she could advise me about my problems. Is she not here?”
“There is no longer a priestess of the temple.”
“Where can she be found?”
“She was dismissed. But I can assist you with your problems. What are they?”
This entire encounter was going to be a waste of his time, but Hanuvar didn’t wish to withdraw too quickly and arouse suspicion, nor did he think it wise to inquire too pointedly about the whereabouts of the priestess. And so he manufactured a reply, his voice low and his eyes downcast, as though he had grown embarrassed. “I’m low on money, and I’m far from home. I work hard, but I can never hold onto my earnings.”
“I will happily advise you. Sit, my son.” Paulus waved a hand to a cushioned bench. “I will breathe of the sacred vapors and tell you what I learn.”
Hanuvar sat while the priest lowered himself onto a cushioned stool and moved his hand in a circle, the better to draw the incense to his nostrils. He closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Hanuvar watched him, trying not to fidget during the ill-spent time. Incense and candle smoke wafted toward the ceiling.
Finally, Paulus opened his eyes with a sad smile. “The gods have spoken to me.”
“Have they?”
“Rest assured, they have. They say that the reason you are low on money is because you spend too much of it on low women and wine.”
“They are right,” Hanuvar admitted grudgingly.
“Ah, you know the truth already. Have you a wife?”
“No. She died.”
“Find one. A woman will keep you busy, and happy, if you find the right one. And have more children. You are not so old yet to have some who can care for you as you age.”
“Wisely said. Thank you.”
“You need no other guidance?” Paulus sounded honestly surprised.
“I had seen the right path already. Sometimes you just need to hear someone else confirm the truth.”
“Spoken like a man with some years behind him. Good luck, my son.”
Hanuvar found Antires sitting on the bottom step outside the temple, one hand on the pack horse’s lead line. He stood as Hanuvar started down. “That was fast. Good news?”
Hanuvar answered softly. “The priestess remains elusive. I received a morality lecture from a priest. And he channels the gods about as well as I do. We’ll have to make inquiries. Let’s head to that tavern.”
“I thought you hated taverns.”
Hanuvar preferred to buy food from farmers’ stalls on the road so he was seen by fewer ex-soldiers. While retired soldiers were often discharged with plots of land, this deep into the provinces their numbers were few still, and he’d encountered more of them in taverns than in the fields. “We need information. And you don’t have to worry. The chances I’ll be recognized are relatively low in most places.”
“How low?”
“My parleys were held with line officers. Any of their guards, or Dervan soldiers I spoke with over the years, saw me in uniform. I was younger, and bearded, and most of those encounters took place on Dervan lands proper, not in the provinces.”
“But some scout or soldier might have retired here.”
“They might have. But then I have no Volani accent. My hair’s cut to the nape like an ordinary Dervan citizen, I wear a citizen’s ring, and I’m clean-shaven.”
“Just remember to move like an ordinary citizen. You still walk like a military man.”
“Thank you, Mother. I’ve already told people here that I’m a soldier, remember?”
“Someday you’re going to have to disguise yourself under some other identity. Always having the same kind of story is going to make you too easy to track.”
He suspected Antires’ criticism held more than a kernel of truth, but there were thousands of former soldiers in the empire of his approximate age. “Perhaps. For now, let’s worry about finding something to eat.”
The thatch-roofed tavern smelled of old wine and oak and overflowed with shadows. Seven locals were clustered in two groups about the long tables, and every one of them fell silent and stared as they approached the low counter. Antires’ hand lifted in greeting was not reciprocated.
Hanuvar and Antires took their bowls and drinking jacks to an empty table and sat on benches across from each other. The jacks were clean, the wine gently watered, and the meat held a pleasant, smoky flavor. Hanuvar had started on his third bite when two of Clodia’s guards pushed into the tavern, led by Silus, their scarred-nosed leader.
They were received more poorly than Hanuvar and Antires, for the villagers looked up from their meals to glare at their backs, and the bartender frowned as he took their money.
Without his helm, their leader looked younger. His brown hair was thick and curly. He scanned the tables for challenge and Hanuvar readied himself.
The village men found sudden interest in their food. Hanuvar met the guard captain’s eyes.
Silus sneered. “If it isn’t the hero.” He pushed away from the bar and swaggered forward. His companions trailed after. He spoke as the old floorboards creaked beneath his tread. “You in league with this lot? Did you goad them to attack Lady Clodia’s horse so you could get in good with her?” Silus stopped at their table.
“This isn’t my fight,” Hanuvar said.
“It isn’t his fight,” Silus repeated mockingly to the guard on his right. “Is that what you told your centurion? Is that why you cashed out as just a lowly optio after, what, twenty-five years of service? You a coward?”
Hanuvar knew the basics of the script they followed. Silus would either be expecting him to protest and endure more insults or rise to the bait so Silus could show his mastery. He met Silus’ eyes. “They didn’t promote me because I beat a cavalry officer nearly to death.”
Antires’ eyes widened in dumbfounded amazement. Hanuvar had instructed him that they were always to seek a low profile, and here he was deliberately encouraging trouble. If the Herrene didn’t understand, he’d have to learn later.
Hanuvar’s reply wasn’t the answer Silus appeared to have expected, but he took it as the continuation to a challenge. He laughed scoffingly. “I don’t believe it. They would have crucified you for that.”
“Well, he was a loud-mouthed braggart and needed a good ass-kicking, so everyone claimed they didn’t see it. I’m not in the service now.” Hanuvar rose. “I can kick a cavalryman’s ass no matter who’s watching.”
The bartender’s bark of laughter was the only sound in the room. Everyone else was silent and still. Behind Silus, his broad-shouldered companions traded troubled glances and looked to their leader.
Silus was a little taller than Hanuvar, but he wasn’t so stupid that he could meet Hanuvar’s eyes without sensing danger.
Belatedly, Silus found something to say. “Are you threatening me, old man?”
“I’m here for a meal. What are you here for?”
Silus didn’t seem to know what to do.
One of his companions touched him on the elbow. “Come on. He isn’t worth it. Let’s get a cup.”
Silus scowled at his companion, then turned it on Hanuvar. “Ah,” he said after a moment, “I’ll be watching you. You stay clear of Lady Clodia.”
Hanuvar didn’t dignify the warning with a response, and watched, stone-faced, as Silus strode back to the counter with his friends.
After a moment, Hanuvar took his seat and resumed his meal.
Antires was predictably irritated. “I thought you were the one who said we shouldn’t ever draw attention.” His voice was a whisper, but there was no missing his agitation. “What was that about?”
“I’m playing a hunch.”
“It looked to me you were trying to start a fight.”
“I would have, if needed.”
“Why would it be needed?”
“We’ll see.”
Antires flung open his hands in annoyance. “Do you always have to be so secretive?”
“I’ll explain, later.”
Antires sighed and resumed his meal.
The guardsmen lingered at the bar for only a little while. Silus scanned the room again before departure, and Hanuvar made sure to be tipping up his drink while he was doing so. He’d achieved his goal and further confrontation wasn’t needed.
After the door shut behind the last of them, he headed to the front of the bar with his empty drinking jack. He passed it to the barkeep. “I’d like another.”
Wordless, the bartender filled it from a pitcher behind the counter. He was a heavy-set, dour man with a thick jaw. Hanuvar took a long sip and looked over the room once more. The five villagers still seated there watched with less hostility.
“How long have you known Silus?” the barkeep asked.
“Two hours, and too long,” Hanuvar answered, which inspired a short laugh. “Is he always this friendly?”
The man nodded. “He and all of Clodia’s bully boys like to throw their weight around. Every chance they get.”
“Clodia’s brother is the new priest, right?”
“That’s right.”
“What happened to the priestess? I came a long way to have her tell my fortune.”
Hanuvar had thought he sounded casual enough, but the bartender’s gaze hardened. “She’s gone.”
“You mean the priests took her?”
“They might have, if she’d stayed.”
Hanuvar swore; only in his expression was he acting, for his frustration was real. “I need to see a priestess, not a priest. Who else do you people talk to around here?”
“You want to see her just for your fortune?” the barkeep asked skeptically.
Once more the door opened. Hanuvar turned, halfway expecting Silus again. This time, though, a well-dressed brown-haired youth pushed in, stopping just inside the door and blinking as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He spoke with the casual confidence of a rich man’s slave: “I’m looking for the man who saved the Lady Clodia this afternoon.”
Hanuvar groaned inwardly but let no expression show.
No one in the tavern answered. The boy’s expression shifted to Antires, who was the only obvious foreigner, but the Herrene looked back without answering. As the boy’s eyes roved to Hanuvar, he reluctantly lifted his hand. Perhaps if he downplayed what he’d done this interaction wouldn’t spoil the fragile rapport he’d been building with the villagers. “I helped her with her horse,” Hanuvar said.
The youth walked toward him, taking in his simple tunic with an amused smile. “Milady wishes to invite you to dine with her this evening.” He placed a slim leather pouch upon the counter with a faint jangle of coins and pushed it a foot toward Hanuvar before removing his fingers. “Here is a token of her appreciation.”
He knew then that he’d lost any headway he’d made with the barkeep, though he strove to explain things in a reasonable way. “I can’t accept this. I didn’t know who she was,” he added, with a glance to the grim-faced man behind the counter. “She was just having some trouble with her horse.”
“She feels otherwise,” the boy said blandly. “It’s yours, regardless if you attend. You might want to put this toward a soak and a shave, eh?” He smirked.
“Out,” Hanuvar said.
The boy departed. He had the good sense to hold off any further sniggering until the door shut behind him.
When Hanuvar turned, he found the barkeep and any who met his eyes watching again with suspicion.
Antires walked up to join him.
Wordless, Hanuvar picked up the coin purse, feeling an ample weight. He paid for the second drink from his own purse, then pushed through the door, searched to either side, and stepped through. Antires came after.
The skies had grown overcast.
“I see now,” Antires said. “You were trying to win over the villagers.”
Hanuvar didn’t bother with an answer. “This is taking too long. We could be on the road and make at least six more miles before sunset.”
Antires put a hand to his arm. This in itself was out of the ordinary, but then so was the younger man’s gentle, searching gaze. “If you were seeking someone other than your daughter, wouldn’t you put in the time?”
He questioned his friend with a look.
Antires went on: “You feel like you’re being self-indulgent because you’re searching for someone you personally know. So look at it this way. If you didn’t know her, but had a lead on someone you could help, you would, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re right,” he conceded. “I’ll give it tonight.” Taking a few coins for himself, he passed the purse to Antires. “Find us a good room, then take your ease. If you can make any surreptitious inquiries, do so.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get a good shave and a proper bath. The fates keep pointing me toward Lady Clodia. Maybe she knows something more about the woman her brother replaced.”
“And maybe,” Antires said, “you’ll have a relaxing evening.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to relax,” Antires offered. “You can do that, can’t you?”
“I think I relaxed, once or twice, in another life.” Hanuvar turned away. “I’ll see if I still have the knack.”
III
On reaching the grounds of Clodia’s estate, Hanuvar had expected to be challenged by Silus or one of his men, but he didn’t recognize the guards on duty that evening, and they simply directed him to the lady’s residence, a smaller building in back of the sprawling villa.
The boy messenger was on hand to take Hanuvar’s horse as he dismounted. Hanuvar watched for a smirk at his fresh garments and newly trimmed hair, though he wasn’t sure what he’d have done if he’d seen one.
Another slave opened the door for him, but Clodia greeted him as he was taking in the small but richly appointed atrium, and guided him from there into the home, explaining that it had once been a guest house on the grounds and that she had appropriated it for herself.
Clodia’s slaves had curled her hair, framing her fine features in lustrous ringlets. Her gold-tinted stola, like her flesh, seemed warm under the candlelight.
They reclined on the couches in the triclinium as they ate, Dervan style, chatting about the weather and their favorite horses, and other light topics. After an initial course of hard-boiled eggs, the servants arrived with venison and bowls to wash their fingers in.
“I hope you don’t mind me keeping the courses simple,” Clodia said.
Hanuvar was glad that in this province the dinner guests were expected to wash their hands themselves. It was hard enough to act like it was normal to be waited on by slaves, let alone when they performed unnecessary personal tasks upon him. “I’m a simple man,” he replied. “And it’s the company that brought me, not the food, fine as it is.”
She opened her mouth as if she had something to say, then fell silent as a pale slave girl refilled their wine. “That’s all, dear.”
The young woman bowed her head and departed.
Clodia waited to speak again until the sound of her footsteps had faded. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I almost didn’t.” Hanuvar indicated the walls, painted with vines and forests and deer. “I don’t belong in this fine place, with such elevated company.”
“You may come from humble origins, but it’s obvious you’re a man of good upbringing.”
He laughed at that. He knew that he should have done a far better job of playing the part of a gruff soldier, but he had too much desire for the woman’s good opinion to be coarse or awkward.
“Why do you laugh?”
“Because I’m a silly old man, trying too hard to impress someone he shouldn’t.”
She smiled. “You may be older, but you do not seem old, Entius. And your compliments are flattering and well turned. You do not have the manner either of a recovering drunkard or a soldier.”
“Then wine and candlelight obscure your vision, milady, for I think most would know my true nature if they met my eyes.”
“What an interesting expression. What is your true nature, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I am a well-trained killer.”
She chewed on a small cube of venison. “Is it something you are, or something you do?”
“Isn’t there a philosopher who asks that?”
“Phenaxes. And something tells me you know his work.”
“You’d be surprised what philosophers soldiers can be, when they’re not drinking or whoring.”
She shook her head, bemused. “And now you seek to shock me. You are pulled by contrary impulses, as if on one hand you wish to impress and on the other to push me back.” Her gaze was direct, her words consoling. “You need not fear the difference in our stations. Aren’t we both, at heart, simply citizens of the empire, burdened by years that have also enlightened us?”
He bowed his head to her. “You’re a wise woman, and were circumstances different, I would lose myself with you in talk, and speak with you of poems and songs and pleasant things.”
She seemed to weigh his words.
He continued, gently: “But there are vast distances between us that I don’t wish to speak about.”
“You’re haunted by the battlefield. Those days are over.”
“I wish they were. Give up your secret seeking and I will cease playing a role so we may better enjoy our evening.”
She laughed. “I will take that then. I feel as if I’ve won a great concession, and I don’t fully understand it. Why don’t you tell me more about your daughter.”
“She’s bold and clear-eyed and well-read, like you.”
“What is her husband’s profession?”
“Her husband was a soldier. But he died in the Volani war.”
“That was a long time ago. She has not remarried?”
For Clodia, the war had finished sixteen years before. “Not the Second Volani War. The third one.”
She put a hand to her throat in sympathy. “Oh. It’s very recent for her, then, isn’t it? I’m so sorry. We didn’t hear much about the last war. That must still be very fresh for her, then.”
“Yes,” Hanuvar agreed.
“Do you know why she fled?”
She had been dragged away by the Dervan Empire, but he couldn’t say that. “She probably felt she had no choice.”
“And she left no word of where she was going?” Clodia’s mouth turned down. “I hate to say this, but it may be that she doesn’t want to be found. That she needs to be alone with her grief.”
“I worry for her. I was told the priestess here in your village could tell me where she had gone.”
“Oh my. You mean the priestess might actually have known where she was? I wish you’d made that clear earlier.”
“I don’t like to overburden people I’ve just met.”
“I can’t imagine Paulus was very useful to you then.”
“Do you have any idea where the priestess has gone? The villagers wouldn’t talk about it.”
“These provincials are backward. They’re set in their ways, and they resent ours.”
“In their defense, they probably don’t like someone telling them they’ve been practicing their religion wrong.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but our customs are much more civilized.” She laughed at his doubtful expression. “Oh, come, surely you don’t think it’s a good idea for a woman to constantly trouble herself over public matters. She should be managing her family, and leave that nonsense to the men.”
That an intelligent woman would hold such a viewpoint disappointed him. “The empire doesn’t seem to want women to do much of anything. In republican days there were women healers and midwives, and scholars, and priestesses.”
“You know as well as I that there are still priestesses.”
“I know some are still tolerated,” Hanuvar conceded. “But I also know healers and midwives are being encouraged to find new professions. And the revenants aren’t particularly patient with transgressors.”
“Let’s not talk about them. Let me ask my maids about the priestess. Many of the villagers hate my brother, and me, as a result, but some of them are kind. I’ve heard the priestess went into hiding. That’s what many of them do, the poor things. But without the right papers, they can get arrested for witchcraft.”
“It seems like the people in this community want this woman to be their priestess. And she wants to be one.”
“So the locals should decide? I should have known you for a republican.”
He shook his head no. He must have had more wine than he’d realized, for the movement left him a little dizzy. He put his cup aside.
“You’re a scion of the emperor? That surprises me even more.”
“I’ve no love for him.” Hanuvar answered with his passion well checked. “It’s him and his cronies who’re working so hard to keep women like my daughter hidden away.”
“You wouldn’t keep your daughter protected from the world’s troubles?”
“I would have her help me build a better world.”
“What would you do with me, were I your woman?” She blinked heavily.
For a brief moment he thought she, too, must have had too much to drink, but realized something else had happened when he rose in alarm and his legs would not support him. The room spun, and someone laughed, and then the world rolled like a storm-tossed deck and he passed into darkness.
IV
He woke in the night to shrill male laughter and a dull headache.
As he sat up, he knew dizziness, and while there was a light in his face, and laughter, he couldn’t fasten upon anything but a muscular figure with an antlered head.
Someone tossed a bucket of water at his face and the shock of the cold steadied him.
The roar of the laughter shifted, he wiped water from his eyes, and the scene achieved greater focus.
He was ringed by men, and a fire burned close. The cool night air kissed his limbs and with effort he shrugged off the stupor that clouded his thoughts, gaining impressions of the people around him.
He had been drugged. Clodia could not have been the instigator, for she lay groaning at his feet. On his right lay another motionless figure, garbed only in a loincloth, and it took Hanuvar a moment to recognize the portly older man for Clodia’s brother, Paulus. Without clothing, he looked fragile and faintly ridiculous.
On the priest’s other side two more figures lay, bloodied and bruised but conscious and clothed; curly-headed Silus and one of his guards. Hatred shone in the guard captain’s eyes. His companion, a young man whose thick black hair was matted with blood, took everything in with wide eyes. His mouth was an oval of fear.
Hanuvar smelled pine, and the deep scents of the wood. A thick darkness loomed beyond and he saw the bulk of tree branches in the gloom.
His gaze settled on the circle of watchers. Perhaps a dozen men and women ringed them, sandaled commoners reeking of wine. Three he recognized from the tavern, including the barkeep. What he’d earlier taken for a monster was a thin man with a yellow-toothed smile wearing a furred hood topped with an eyeless, antlered deer head. Antler head pointed and laughed at him, and as Hanuvar’s head cleared, he grew conscious of taunting from the others, mocking the look of fright in the soldier and the paleness of Paulus.
Either the wine or the food had been drugged, probably by the smirking servant boy he saw on the right, whose eyes were upon the breasts of his mistress, whose stola gaped as she groggily sat up.
Hanuvar feigned greater trouble than he felt as he helped Clodia to stand. She mumbled in consternation. This, too, evoked laughter. Hanuvar wanted to ask what was happening, but meant to be ready for action first.
Paulus had wakened too. His question was meant to be commanding, but proved warbling instead. “What is the meaning of this?”
The crowd laughed at him.
Paulus turned to his guard captain. “Silus, arrest these men!”
The watchers jeered, even as Silus answered. “I already tried, Your Eminence.”
“How did they beat you and your men?”
“We cozied up to them, like,” a woman’s voice said.
She stepped out from the darkness, a trim woman in knee length skirt and short, tight shirt. Her face was long and clear, and she would have been lovely if there wasn’t staring madness in her doe-like eyes. Her waist was girded with a belt of black fur, and a circlet ornamented with the skulls of small animals crowned her auburn locks. Blue paint spiraled upon her cheeks.
“And then,” she continued, “they were as putty. A chance to put their hands on a woman, and your guards lost all sense. We slit their throats to work the magic of the hunt.”
“You.” Paulus pointed with a shaking hand. “You’re that girl priestess.”
“A girl?” the antlered man asked. “Don’t you know a woman when you see one? Venia is one with the moon, and the forest. She walks in silence like the wolf, and when she bares her teeth, it is time to run!” He threw back his head and howled.
The boy and the barkeep joined him, baying at the silvery disk half hidden by tree branches.
“That’s her,” Clodia whispered to Hanuvar’s ear, her voice still fogged with the drug. “Your priestess.”
The priestess turned her head and regarded them with blank eyes. The spirit had informed him he was supposed to help her, but it was she they needed assistance from. How, then, to find out about his daughter from her? He saw no way to inquire. He likewise wondered where Antires was, but dared not ask, for fear of drawing the mob’s attention to his friend. It might be these people hadn’t bothered with someone in the town, striking only those within the estate.
Paulus stood, rumpled and barefoot and baggy eyed, yet somehow managing dignity. He looked puzzled to find Hanuvar standing beside his sister, but addressed her. “Have they hurt you, Clodia?”
She shook her head no.
“Not yet,” Venia answered.
Paulus faced her. “What is it you want?”
“Blood,” the youth replied.
The crowd heard him and laughed as one animal, as though he had invented comedy. Once more the man in the antlered hood lifted his head and howled in the darkness, untroubled by the incongruence of wearing a deer’s head while imitating a wolf.
Hanuvar thought that he and the warriors might be able to handle the crowd, with a little luck. But then, from somewhere nearby, an inhuman cry answered antler man’s call. It wasn’t a wolf, or a hound, but something large. Perhaps if a bear and a bird had mated it might have sounded similar.
The laughter of their captors died. Their smiles were fixed as they looked into the woods. Hanuvar sensed that they expected the noise but were still less than comfortable with it.
Only Venia and antler man seemed unfazed. The latter pointed at them. “We’re going to teach you Dervans what happens when you try to change the old ways!”
Venia trotted on silent feet into the night, toward the noise.
“You think to fight the Dervan Empire?” Paulus scoffed. “The legions will crush you.”
“This time we’ll unleash the power of the forest,” the antlered man said. “We will throw them back to the sea!”
“You’re a fool,” Hanuvar said coolly. His voice cut through the babble of the onlookers, and the rising retort of Paulus. The crowd’s attention shifted fully to him. “You cannot hope to outmatch the empire. What do you have? Fifteen? They have tens of thousands of legionaries. Cease your game playing.”
“My games are just starting, old man!” The antlered leader laughed at his own joke, and the young servant took it up.
Venia returned, beautiful and feral and mad, a thing the size of a large wolf padding at her side. Brown fur coated its body, and it had two shining eyes. But it reeked of musk, and it had not a hound’s face, but a predatory bird’s, feathered in white. Its powerful legs were those of a great cat. Its throat trembled and from its partly open beak came a chittering sound, like a ferret at play.
Answering calls echoed from beyond the firelight. Hanuvar estimated their number and swung back to look at the one beside of the priestess.
“We spilled the blood and prayed, and the beasts have come,” she said. “Descended from the god lands. They are ready for the hunt.”
“By the gods,” Silus’ fellow soldier said, voice shaking. “I’m just a guardsman. I don’t even care about politics. Don’t you know me? You see me at the tavern. I’m just a regular guy. I—“
“Shut up,” Silus ordered.
The priestess stroked the head of the beast beside her, somewhere on the neck where feathers gave way to fur. She looked at them, her smile enigmatic. “Kill that one.” She pointed vaguely in their direction.
The beast bounded forward. Hanuvar pushed Clodia behind him, but the creature threw itself upon Paulus. It struck his shoulders with its front claws and brought him down.
Paulus screamed in pain and Clodia in horror, and the thing tore him apart with its beak and claws, glistening with the dying man’s blood. Hanuvar saw no way to intervene and live.
Clodia clung shaking to Hanuvar. The two soldiers stood. The younger of the two quaked.
The beast took pleasure in ripping further pieces from Paulus, scattering a hand into fragments, then lifted its blood-tipped beak and let out a shriek of satisfaction.
It turned and ambled toward its mistress. Clodia, sobbing, threw herself on the ground next to the horror that had been her brother.
Hanuvar watched the animal. By the time it reached Venia it appeared to be molting, for clumps of fur and feathers dropped off and fell apart; before long nothing of the animal remained.
“Five Dervans, five beasts,” the priestess purred. “One for each of you. They cannot smell, but they can sense your Dervan blood. And they cannot return to their land until they each find one Dervan and take that blood.”
The younger soldier was muttering under his breath: “Praise Sira, praise Sira” over and over again. Silus again told him to shut up.
“Let the woman go,” Hanuvar said. “She shaped none of the policies you hate.”
Venia’s gaze shifted to Hanuvar and she smiled brightly. “She’s a tool of the empire. Just like those soldiers, and you, the retired legionary. Traveling our lands, drinking our wine, occupying our temples. No. She will die, and the land will drink her blood. Something good will come from her, in the end. And from you.”
“But we’re going to have some fun!” said antler man with a grin. “We’ll give you a head start. Run. They’ll still find you!”
He threw back his head with a whooping bark. And others about the circle joined him in howls. So too did two of those shrieking birdlike voices.
Hanuvar bent and pulled the sobbing Clodia away from her brother. He rose with her, one hand closed tight so none would see what he had grasped. “Courage,” he said, his lips pressed to the hair hanging down about her ear. “I can see us through this.”
“How?” Her voice broke in fear and sorrow.
“You Dervans ready to run?” the antler man asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Here’s one, here’s two, here’s get ready, here’s three . . . and go!”
Hanuvar clasped Clodia’s hand and pulled her left. The people in the circle parted before them, laughing. He saw the smile of the young servant boy, his eyes lit with a different kind of lust, and then they had torn past him and into the dark forest. Moonlight painted occasional leaves.
Clodia was no frail creature of the cities, and lifted her stola with one hand to keep up with him in long strides. The laughter behind them died away. Somewhere off to the right Silus shouted to scatter—he and his companion had chosen different directions. Hanuvar approved. He wanted their mad hunters following in smaller groups.
Now all he needed was distance, and a good tactical advantage.
Clodia shuddered as she ran, fighting to breathe despite her sobs. She clung tight to Hanuvar’s hand.
He counted the paces as they went, dodging about a fallen tree bole and pulling her after. The moonlight showed the way through the old forest. Deeper they wound, and he still sought, and scanned, and from somewhere behind he heard the antlered man yelling: “Go!”
Clodia was panting hard but still running with Hanuvar when he came upon another fallen tree near a large maple. He stopped and stared up at its thick branches. Though not as tall as he would have liked, the maple would do. He turned to the woman. “Climb. I’ll stay below.”
She shook her head. “It’s no hope, Entius. How can you stop those things? Did you see what they did to my brother?”
“I’ll handle the beasts and the hunters.” He lifted her by the waist and she reached for the branch.
“This isn’t really going to stop them,” she said as she pulled herself up. He saw her head turn, though her eyes were lost in the darkness. “Stay with me. We can die, together.”
“We will live,” Hanuvar said. “But you’ve got to get as high as you can.”
He turned from her, placing the two fingers he’d recovered from her dead brother at either side of the maple, then hurried through a slurry of dried leaves. Somewhere far off he heard a hooting bark.
He tested a dark limb along the fallen tree, decided it was too solid, tried another. Behind him he heard Clodia scale higher into the tree.
Finally he found a thick dried branch that felt promising, put his weight to it, and broke it free. After a few moments tearing off twigs and stubs, he had a passable club.
Far away a man screamed in agony. His cry rose higher and higher and then abruptly stopped. Maniacal laughter followed.
Nearer still came a hooting bark, and the sound of footfalls through the leaves.
Clodia’s voice was soft, but urgent. “Entius!”
He called up to her, voice pitched low. “Don’t come down until I tell you. Be silent now.”
He sympathized with her, sitting in the darkness, the image of her brother’s gruesome death surely etched upon her heart. She was frightened and alone. More than anything right now she needed comfort. But he could not give her that.
He waited to one side, crouching in the darkness of the fallen tree.
One of the bird lions bounded out of the darkness, its beak open. Hanuvar fought against the skin-crawling horror of its wrongness and tightened his grip upon the club.
It trotted in a circle about the base of the maple. Hanuvar crouched, waiting, wondering just how much hyperbole the priestess had used. Were the beasts really keyed only on Dervan blood, or had that been shorthand for them seeking quarry that wasn’t one of the cult members?
He would shortly know.
“The trees won’t help,” someone called in a singsong voice, winded but joyful. “The trees won’t help, the trees won’t help.”
Three hunters grew visible only a hundred feet out, jogging in the trail of the beast. One bore a dim lantern, glowing redly, shaking with each footfall.
The beast rooted around the bottom of the tree, bent, then nipped at something. It tipped its head back and swallowed.
Hanuvar smiled. In a moment, the creature had vanished in a flutter of feathers.
Its minders neared, then stopped a little shy of Hanuvar’s hiding place. He recognized the barkeep’s voice, speaking gruffly to his companion, still singing about the trees: “Shut up for a minute. Do you see where it went?”
“No.”
The lantern bearer cautiously played the lantern beam over the surrounding forest. Hanuvar waited until it had swung past him, then crept out, the sound of his advance masked by the shifting of the three cultists in the forest detritus.
Probably the barkeep heard the splat of the club against his companion’s head. The singer dropped, stunned or dead, and Hanuvar took his spear as the lantern-bearer spun, just in time to spotlight Hanuvar burying the spear in his chest. It was a deep, sure blow, tucked under the rib cage. The man was dead before he fell.
The lantern landed at a tilt, sputtering. Hanuvar drove the spear into the back of the bartender as he turned to flee. The man managed a single cry of alarm before he dropped. As Hanuvar finished him he heard a distant scream and wondered whether it was Silus or his companion.
“Entius—are you down there?” Clodia called. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Stay up there. Stay quiet.” Hanuvar righted the lantern, retrieved the second severed finger, and slipped into concealment.
He didn’t have long to wait. The cultists were calling the name “Stamos” and then shouting that they saw his lantern. He heard them laughing and jogging forward.
The antlered one was shouting: “Keep that one leashed! They kill ’em so fast we can’t see the fun!”
Hanuvar slipped behind the bole of a thick oak.
The servant boy wandered past, alongside a skinny woman with a lantern.
“Stamos! Stamos is dead!” the boy exclaimed. He no longer sounded half amused. Now the lantern light played chaotically around the woods. They searched the killing ground, then advanced further, wielding the lantern beam like proof against the night.
Antler-head came jogging up from the rear, and at least two more could be heard trailing behind him.
His opponents were spread out, and while the circumstance was far from ideal, it might not get better. Hanuvar dashed from the brush and slammed the antlered man’s head with his spear haft. This knocked his foe’s deer-hood askew and set him reeling drunkenly. Hanuvar closed and struck him across the throat with the heel of his hand.
Antler-head sank to his knees, gasping for breath.
Hanuvar grasped his cheeks, pushed the severed finger through his teeth, and clamped the man’s jaw shut. “Swallow,” he ordered into his ear, the spear blade against his neck.
The man’s throat moved, he pushed at Hanuvar’s arm with shaking fingers . . . then swallowed as the spear blade pricked him.
The lantern light hit them and the boy shouted in dismay. “One of them has a weapon!”
Hanuvar shoved antler-head and hurried away. The light followed him until he vanished behind trees.
“Release the creature!” the boy cried. “He’s right over there! We can see the kill!”
Hanuvar had worked his way to the right and now peered out from behind a tree bole.
Antler-head was half bald beneath his lost hood. One hand braced against his sore throat, he had struggled back to his feet and frantically signaled with his other hand, croaking something unintelligible.
The priestess ran into sight just behind the bird hound as it bounded right for antler man. He threw up both hands in an ineffectual warding gesture, and then the thing leapt and brought him down with a caw of savage delight. Venia shouted in dismay.
The beast tore him open and he screamed.
Five of the cultists watched in shocked horror, well back from the conflict, hands protectively placed on their knife hilts.
That was still too many to leave to chance. Hanuvar jogged up from behind as the bird thing disappeared in a flutter of feathers. The priestess, shouting “No,” hurried for the dead man. Two of the bar patrons stood together. They turned at Hanuvar’s approach, but the first was unprepared for the spear point driven through his side.
Hanuvar tore the weapon free and hammered the other man in the face with the haft. Both men dropped, the wounded man screaming louder than the dying one.
The skinny lantern bearer charged from the right with a sword, moving so fast all Hanuvar had time to do was brace; the woman managed to impale herself. She took the spear with her, but Hanuvar snatched her gladius from limp fingers.
He came up, ducking the wild swing of an axe from another cultist, then slashed out his opponent’s throat. As that man sank in death, Hanuvar pivoted to ensure he hadn’t miscounted his enemies. There was only the priestess, kneeling over antler man’s corpse, and the young servant boy, watching with rounded eyes. He clutched his lantern in a shaking hand.
With a savage chop Hanuvar finished the keening of the man he’d hit with the spear haft, then advanced toward the remaining two.
The boy knelt. “Mercy,” he cried.
Hanuvar considered him, then stepped to the side, so he could see the priestess, the boy, and the path toward them. Presumably the other beasts had disappeared upon killing Silus and his companion. Those who had followed them might rejoin their priestess.
Venia looked up. Grief and rage had warped her youthful beauty. Tears tracked down through the whorls in her face paint.
“I upheld the ancient ways,” she said, though he had the sense she wasn’t really talking to him, but to the skies. “Why did the gods betray me?”
As he loomed over her, he grew aware of a familiar ache in his left knee. He breathed heavily, though he did not pant. Once, a simple exercise like this wouldn’t have winded him at all. And maybe, when he was very young, it might have bothered him in other ways.
“The gods don’t care,” Hanuvar said bluntly, and changed topics. “A forest spirit told me to find you. That you would tell me my daughter’s fate.”
She looked at him long and hard, and then her eyes narrowed. “Her fate’s to die on the dung hill, like you, Dervan maggot, her legs raised and ready for a hundred soldiers—”
She might have said more, but Hanuvar drove his sword through her. She slumped dead beside her lover.
Hanuvar heard footsteps behind him and pivoted, ready to slay.
It was no enemy, but Clodia. She stopped before him, her expression locked on something far beyond this world. And when she spoke, her voice was disconnected and toneless.
“She was blind and led her flock to ruin. She dared to think she knew my mind.”
Clodia turned her gaze full upon him, and for the first moment that night Hanuvar felt true fear. This was not the woman he had known, but the voice of the goddess Diara speaking through her. “Your daughter lives, and has freed herself from the yoke of her enslavers. Whether you will reach her, I cannot say.” Her brow furrowed ever so slightly. “Curious. Your own thread is hard to trace. It is as though you have been taken from the weave without being sheared. It may be that your story shall trail away to nothing, or that you will once more wreak great changes upon the tapestry.”
He threw down his crimson sword and bowed his head, grateful to learn that his daughter had won free.
“You have earned a boon,” the goddess said to him through the woman. “Ask of me one question.”
He might have asked why the gods had not come to aid his own people in their hour of need, or how best to help his daughter, or even if he would ever return to New Volanus. But there was only one right question. The one that would benefit the most. “What must I do to succeed in freeing my people?”
The woman who wasn’t fully Clodia regarded him with unwinking eyes. “Your plans are sound. You must better guard your step, though, to reach old allies. Your enemies are on your trail and will find you unless you better mask your path. Two alone are too distinctive. Dark gods seek you, but friends await. It will be a close thing.”
He hoped for more, but Diara/Clodia turned from him. “Boy,” she said, “go out to those others and tell them how your goddess spoke through your new priestess. Prepare the way for her coming. Do not fail, or there shall be another reaping.”
The boy bowed low, stammered something Hanuvar didn’t hear, then bolted into the wood.
Clodia turned to him, her eyes fluttering, and when she stepped forward, she stumbled.
Hanuvar caught her.
“Entius?” she asked. “What happened?”
“The goddess spoke through you. Don’t you remember it?”
She opened her mouth as if to say no, and then closed it. “I have a vague sense of calm. Of patience lying upon a deep well of savagery. I wonder if that’s what the forest is.”
“It might be.”
She touched his face, then stared at the blood that had transferred to her fingertips when she pulled them back. “Are you wounded? What happened down here?”
“If you didn’t see it, best to judge only by our survival.”
She took in the grim carnage in the lantern light at last. She looked over the bodies nearby, twisted in death. “You managed all this? What about the beasts? I thought they couldn’t be killed until they’d taken Dervan blood.”
“I found a way.” At her blank look he simply said: “You really don’t want to know.”
“Are you a mage?”
He laughed once. “No.”
She looked back to the priestess lying prone with the others. “Oh no. The priestess—did she tell you how to find your daughter?”
“The goddess did. She spoke through you. Did you not hear?”
“Maybe, partly, I felt the truth of what she said? That your daughter lives and is very far away.” Her grip tightened on his arm as she peered at him. “You are different; a power that once dominated the loom of fate and may yet again. Who are you, really?”
“What does a name matter?” Hanuvar asked. “I am your friend.”
He stooped to lift one of the lanterns. As they walked from the bodies he thought to hear a gentle soul like herself object that the dead needed burial, but she said nothing, and he wondered if that was her own choice, or that of the goddess.
“It seems you’re a priestess now,” he told her. “I think the village will have you. But will you have them? And what will you tell the priests who worked under your brother?”
“I will lead these people because someone must. And I think the priests of Derva would do well to heed me.”
“I think you’re right.” He laughed. “A spirit tasked me with finding a priestess in Erapna. It didn’t occur to me she’d be the first woman I saw.”
Hanuvar had told me pursuit was inevitable, and while I believed him, even I did not guess how quickly word had actually spread about his continued existence. That he was feared, I understood, though it was not until later I fully credited the depth of that fear. Reports sped back and forth through the empire and action was promised to its ruler.
If the Dervans had better understood their quarry they might have caught him. They assumed he was after vengeance, so most of their energies were spent protectively. The harbor towns in the Tyvolian peninsula flooded with spies, for they assumed he would hunt the emperor. Because they thought Hanuvar leagued with sorcerers, or was sorcerous himself, they wasted fortunes on magical defenses, the majority of which would have proved entirely useless even if their enemy had been set upon their blood.
Only as an afterthought did they attempt to trace his movement through the countryside, more a perfunctory effort to ensure that all contingencies, no matter how remote, were explored.
Of course, not all efforts to trace him were ordered by the emperor. Some of his pursuers were motivated less by loyalty than reasons of their own.
—Sosilos, Book Three