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Chapter 11:

Hillside Figures

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Hanuvar leaned into the staff as he walked, the ache in his ankle a steady throb. He had hoped himself used enough to the pain that he did not need assistance, but ten steps had proven him wrong. For now, the shorn tree branch was a necessity.

His forehead was warm and each of his joints sore. He needed to hole up somewhere for a few days and heal. But there was no time for that luxury. And so he pushed himself forward along the old one-lane road through the rolling countryside, the mountains and hills of Turia on either hand. The sky was blue and dotted with fluffy clouds, the late summer sun’s heat abetted by gentle breezes. Wildflowers bloomed in profusion near the roadside. He noted the beauty only as markers to be passed as he plodded on.

He did not advance alone, for the young brindle-brown dog trotted nearby. Hanuvar moved too slowly for the creature’s patience, and so it ranged near and far, with him as an advancing center point of its circumambulatory investigations into weeds and rocks and occasional chases after birds or chipmunks. It had yet to latch hold of one.

He seemed an ordinary mastiff, and Hanuvar wondered whether the powers other members of the hound master’s pack had possessed would manifest on their own, or if some terrible ritual had not yet been enacted upon it. If the powers did appear, would he need one of the rings he bore to control the creature? He had yet to replace one on his finger.

He lacked enough information to reach a conclusion. For now the dog seemed to have adopted him, and conducted itself in a trustworthy manner. Injured, fevered, bereft of money, and weaponless apart from one throwing knife and a belt knife, and incidentally long days from where he needed to be, Hanuvar meant to seize every advantage placed before him, even a juvenile dog.

The animal alerted to the approach of the mule cart long before he did but he didn’t pay it appropriate heed. He knew his perceptions were sluggish, but knew also that he’d begun to discount the dog’s curiosity, for everything seemed of equal interest to the creature. Hanuvar was lucky, though, for as the wagon gained on him he discerned no threat. A lone driver hunched upon the bench, hands on the reins leading to a tired gray mule. A collection of wooden crates filled the wagon bed. If the road wasn’t so hilly and he had been more himself, he would surely have noted the cloud of dust rolling after its wheels before now.

The dog came to stand beside him along the road side as the vehicle neared. Hanuvar was at pains to look as nonthreatening as possible. A cart ride would be much better for his ankle and his progress. But lacking both a hand mirror and a whetstone, he had been unable to shave for two days running. He was well on his way toward a beard, and more and more resembled the man he had been when he had ridden nearby lands as an occupier. While the cart driver was unlikely to recognize him for Hanuvar, she would probably see him as unkempt and disreputable owing to his untrimmed facial hair, stained garment, and lack of belongings.

A sun-spotted wide-brimmed straw hat shaded the woman’s blocky face. She wore a simple peasant woman’s dress and short boots. Her bared arms were heavy.

In a strident, no-nonsense voice she ordered the mule to stop and pulled up a wagon’s length before reaching Hanuvar, her hand on her riding whip. Her frowning face studied his own. Hanuvar saw a burly woman of sour disposition in late middle years, older even than his true age.

“Where are you heading?” Her delivery was thick with suspicion, as though she were long used to disappointments.

“Far north,” Hanuvar said. “Likely farther than you’re going.”

She considered him with displeasure. “If you have money, I can help you get there.”

“My coin purse was washed away with the rest of my belongings, including my hand mirror. But my dog and I can help you keep watch.”

“Watch for what? Thieves? Beggars on the road?” She looked as though she were only a few words away from setting her cart in motion.

“I had a bad turn two days ago and slipped into a stream. I was lucky to get out with just a bad ankle, but my belongings were washed away. I can make it on my own,” he said, inserting what he thought to be just the right note of stubborn pride, “but a little time off my foot would be nice.”

Her frown deepened. “I suppose you’re out of food, too.”

He was nearly, but always kept a little jerky in one of his belt pouches. “I’ll get by,” he said.

Her jaw moved back and forth, as though she were chewing cud while she weighed her response. “Well,” she said at last, “it may be I could give you a ride for a little ways. But if you cause trouble, I know how to use this whip.”

“You look like a woman who can handle herself,” he said. “I’d certainly be obliged for the transport.”

“You don’t seem a drunk. And you’re rough around the edges, but otherwise well kept. You a legion man?”

“I’ve worked in their company.”

“That’s a strange way to put it. Don’t you want to bray about your glorious comrades or your campaigns?”

“Not these days.”

She grunted. “If I take you, this isn’t charity. Your dog alone could intimidate, and you’re a fair-sized man. I expect you to look mean if anyone gets in our way.”

“Are you expecting someone to get in our way?” Hanuvar limped closer.

“You never can tell what you’ll find along these roads.”

“Life’s full of unanticipated turns,” Hanuvar agreed.

She grunted. That seemed to be the official invitation, so he leveraged himself up with his arms, hopped off his good leg, and maneuvered himself into the seat, aware of the woman’s circumspect assessment as he did so. He straightened his injured leg and rested the staff between her and himself. He then clapped the seat beside him to see if the dog wanted to hop in, but he just looked back.

“He’s young,” Hanuvar said. “He likes to range.”

The woman didn’t acknowledge the information. She called to the mule and vigorously shook the reins.

The mule announced his displeasure with the work ahead by giving something between a wheeze and a sigh, and then got the conveyance in motion.

The dog trotted alongside and, after inspecting the mule’s legs and the turning wheels, used the wagon as the new center point of his perambulations.

The cart held a rich odor of animal sweat and dung and the cabbage-like scent of turnips, stowed in crates in its bed. Craning backward Hanuvar spotted additional produce as well, including cabbages and radishes, but three quarters of the woman’s produce was turnips, fresh enough that their green ends were still springy. Some even appeared to have been pulled early, likely to accommodate different cooking uses.

The woman didn’t seem the talkative sort, which suited Hanuvar, so he concentrated on ignoring the throb of his ankle, and appreciated the pleasure of moving without greater pain. She gave him another once over as they reached a straightaway.

“You’ve got a nice haircut,” she said, almost as though it were a mark against him. “I thought maybe you were a soldier, but I don’t see any real scars on you. Maybe a centurion in some cushy posting?”

If she’d seen him last year she would have had an entirely different impression. “I’ve healed well.”

“What are you doing in the middle of nowhere?”

“You don’t look like the kind who wants a sob story.”

“I don’t.”

“Passing through. I was attacked and left for dead.”

“Bandits?”

“Someone I thought was an ally.” He’d never believed Calenius a friend.

“There are bandits on this road sometimes.”

Apparently the subject of bandits was more interesting to her than the attack upon Hanuvar. That suited him, too. He’d never liked talking about himself, and under an assumed identity he actively worked to avoid it. “Then why are you travelling it alone?”

“Because my people couldn’t wait for an old woman to get her axle fixed and left earlier. And because I can’t spare my boys from the farm.”

“Who are your people?”

She answered with further complaints. “Market days, we usually travel together. But they couldn’t wait.” Her frown deepened.

“How many boys do you have?” It seemed polite to ask.

“I meant my second husband and his boy. He’s simple,” she added, and he inferred she meant the son, though he wasn’t completely certain. “But he works hard,” she added with the faintest hint of pride. Her eyes swept forward and they narrowed. She spoke with low venom. “That bastard Hanuvar killed my sons. And my brothers. And my first husband,” she added, although that sting didn’t sound as heartfelt. The depth of her anger presented the other bereavements as though they were recent wounds, no matter that they must have been dealt at least twenty years prior.

She had to mean that they had died in the war he had brought to this land, not that Hanuvar had personally set out to murder her family. That wasn’t the way he had waged war, although that certainly hadn’t made any difference to this woman or countless others. He had invaded these lands to smash Dervan power, and Dervan soldiers had died by the tens of thousands. Many had ample reason to hate him.

“Did you serve against him?” the woman asked, probably meaning Hanuvar. “You look the age.”

“I faced a lot of Volani.” He thought that would be the end of the discussion, because she fell silent.

Then she spoke at length. She was one of those who had a story that had to be shared to completion with anyone who spent time with her, regardless of their interest. Hers was a long litany of the evils visited upon her countryside and family but primarily upon herself by the blackhearted Hanuvar.

It didn’t seem especially important to her that he comment, for her monologue left no room for it. He nodded lightly from time to time when she looked to him for shared sentiment While she spoke he reflected again upon the so-called Second Volani War, and how it had been a chain of events that he had helped set in motion. To his mind the Dervans had precipitated everything; they were already coming for the Volani colonies and he’d thought to break their power by taking the war to their own land.

In the end that had only slowed them, no matter how many farm boys and senators’ sons had died on the battlefield. He’d had justified reasons for bringing war here, but he’d long since recognized the essential truth behind the woman’s asseverations as she described the armies marching back and forth across the land and men dying and the crops not being tended and both armies taking food, and women. He could have objected that soldiers in his army had been severely disciplined for thievery and rape, not just because he and his people found both practices abhorrent but because he had hoped to win the countryside to him. That didn’t change that thievery and rape had transpired when he delivered an armed horde into Tyvol. War was a scourge, and his had been the hand upon it.

He had reconciled himself to the wielding of war and death because they were the tools he had to defend his people, and he had once held a measure of pride in his craft, for he knew himself among the finest masters of war who had ever lived. Pride, though, could not shield his city, nor even himself when the clouds opened with rain. It was of less use than a threadbare cloak, and he had since cast it aside.

His father had declared war a hungry beast, saying that sometimes it was a thrill to hunt at its side, but that it would devour your soul if you let it. Himli Cabera had said much more on the subject of rage and nuances about the differences between individuals and groups and governments that Hanuvar had innately understood. As a child, he had listened and absorbed these and other lessons taught by both him and Himli’s clever young advisor Andalaval, husband to Hanuvar’s sister.

Now, though, when he thought of his father, he more often recalled the summer they’d been in the same fortress long enough to see the herbs Himli planted grow. His father had smiled to gather the leaves for seasoning their meals himself.

The clop of the hooves and the steady rumble of the cart and the recitation of the woman’s misfortunes, stretching past the war and on into the scheming of neighbors who plotted for access to her well, lulled him into sleep.

When he woke it was because water was dripping onto his face. He came instantly awake, and as he automatically readied for action he jarred his leg and pain lanced through his ankle. The sky had grayed and rumbled at them but only released a few drops at a time. The woman still drove the cart, on toward rocky hills. The dog followed along by the right rear wheel.

“I’m sorry I fell asleep,” he said.

She passed him a wineskin.

“Felt your forehead a while back,” she said. “Your ankle’s got you sicker than you let on. You need rest.”

It was simple water, not wine, that greeted his lips when he drank. He found himself terribly thirsty but had only two sips. His stomach growled then, and at this she actually chuckled and told him he could help himself to some of her bread, which she had in a lidded wicker basket at her feet.

He thanked her and ate sparingly of a hearty dark loaf, enjoying the taste of it and the feel of dense, seedy texture mashing between his teeth. Probably the dog was hungry; he supposed it knew how to hunt, but he hadn’t seen it eat anything but the bits of jerky he’d shared yesterday.

“I'll wager you saw a lot of men die, if you were fighting the Volani,” she said to him.

“Too many,” he agreed.

“They were sneaky bastards. I’m glad we finally got them. Doesn’t bring my boys back, though.”

They passed a gentle sloped hillside covered with flat white stones arranged in a huge picture, a somber figure in a robe, with long hair, likely a Turian queen, for the Turian influence had waxed and waned through the region before the coming of Derva.

After Hanuvar chewed on the bread for a while he forced himself to stop, feeling more feverish than before. They passed other large images, more ancient and yet more lively and fluid, full of simple energy, all fashioned of white stone upon the hillsides. He thought the best was a howling wolf24 until he spotted a running horse in the distance, its legs and hooves spread out in what should have looked absurd but somehow perfectly caught an animal in motion, its head lowered for a flat-out gallop, its mane suggested by long white lines stretched behind its head. His thoughts turned toward his bay roan, left in the possession of Calenius. Would the wizard have cared for the mount, or would he simply let it wander free, or sell it? Hanuvar had grown fond of the animal and again wondered whether he should have named it. He’d had so many killed from beneath him he’d gotten out of the habit.

As they rounded a bend they neared another hillside, on which there was the outline of a gargantuan man bearing what must be a club. A pair of people walked along the man’s edges, removing debris and washing grayer stones into whiter ones.

“I’ve never seen anyone caring for any of these pictures,” the woman said, as though scandalized by the idea. Their presence must have been old news to her, because she hadn’t commented upon any of the ones they’d passed.

The sky rumbled.

At the hill’s base a small band sat at a cookfire beneath a rocky overhang, and they waved to the cart as it rolled toward them.

A skinny man with a kindly face raised a hand and stepped toward the road. “Come,” he said. “Take shelter. We’ll share our food.”

The woman slowed the carriage and eyed him doubtfully. Hanuvar saw a mixed group of men and women tending the cookpot. The two upon the hill were starting down. All were dressed in the simple white tunic of the man speaking with them.

“What are you doing with the pictures?” the old woman asked.

“We’re just tidying them up. They’re long overdue for it, don’t you think?”

The woman didn’t answer. The sky grumbled once more and then opened up, a steady patter of rain.

The man laughed and offered his hand. “Come in out of the rain!”

They did not look an obvious threat, and Hanuvar and the woman needed cover from the rain, and he was tired. But he was wary. As he joined their ranks Hanuvar couldn’t decide if their attentions were the solicitous preparations of the religious zealot readying visitors for the conversion pitch, or something more sinister. He had met many kind people in the world, and some had been inspired by their religious teachings. But then he had also met those who used beliefs as a means to exploit others.

Here, in the middle of nowhere with a fever running through him, with nothing to back him but some knives and a dog he hadn’t trained, he found himself more suspicious than grateful.

When they joined the strangers under the rock outcropping he was presented a bowl of the same porridge they themselves were sharing, along with a platter of figs and what proved to be watered wine. The woman shared some of her bread, which was received with great acclaim, for they had none of their own.

One of the pair who’d come down from the mountain unhitched the mule and helped set the beast up with a feed bucket the woman fussed with.

The dog sniffed around in curiosity, ears up, and gobbled down some hardboiled eggs one of the men said were a little old. He gamboled around an old goat chained to a peg outside, who ignored him and contentedly munched wet grass.

Then they sat and talked among themselves about the prayer they’d hold when the rain broke. A few tried having a go at the woman to talk, but when asked directly about where she was going or why, she proved nearly monosyllabic. He did learn the woman’s name at last, for she had been asked it by the leader, who’d given his own as Corvus. Her name was Leta. Hanuvar had always associated that name with girls, and so thought her unsuited for it, then chided himself, because of course girls who lived grew to be older women.

Tired though he was, Hanuvar pushed past the muddled slurry of his thoughts and pressed their hosts for information. “I’m new to the area. What are all these stone pictures you’re tending?”

“They are shrines,” Corvus said.

Hanuvar returned his scrutiny but not his idle smile. “Why are they being cared for now?” he asked. “They look as though they’ve been abandoned for some time.”

One of the women, a slight thing with narrow shoulders and a receding chin, answered as though imparting great truths. “Rosigus has been asleep for centuries, and he must be wakened before the mountains do.”

Most of the others nodded at this. Outside their overhang the downfall accelerated to a torrent. It was not a cold rain, but a summer shower, and he could smell it and the pleasant scent of the earth it made moist.

“The mountains are waking up?” Hanuvar asked.

This time Corvus answered him. “Indeed they are. Don’t you feel it? The gods are stirring. Some who have turned away are paying attention once more. Rosigus called to me, and I assembled a flock from the villages to tend him.”

This wasn’t the first time Hanuvar had been told inattentive gods might be looking over the affairs of mortals again. At his apparently skeptical expression the man continued. “It’s absolutely true. Calamitous times are near.” Corvus’ mouth thinned with conviction. “Maybe even the world’s end. And Rosigus will help stave it off. At least for the faithful.”

Hanuvar bowed his head. “Forgive me, but what is Rosigus the god of?”

“He is lord of the hilltops and the wild, lonely places,” Corvus answered. “If the mountains are blown apart and the earth shifts, he will be most displeased.”

Hanuvar expected the people near the mountains would be more displeased than the god, and thought perhaps Rosigus shouldn’t have gone to sleep if he didn’t want to be disappointed by change.

“But we’re to hold a prayer today, on the mountainside, just as soon as the storm ends. He’ll bless our work with his holy light. You should join us. The more voices Rosigus hears lifted in praise, the sooner he will wake.”

Hanuvar nodded noncommittally. Weariness had leached through him. All his joints ached.

The woman, Leta, had finally opened up about her favorite topic. With nearly the same phrasing she described the woes inflicted upon her family by the treacherous Hanuvar and the covetous Volani. These listeners interrupted with questions, though it barely halted the flow of her diatribe.

Between the patter of the rain and the steady monotony of her hatred he had a hard time keeping his eyes open, and flexed his ankle so a wave of pain rocked through him. He’d thought that kept him alert until he woke to find the dog whining beyond his sandaled feet.

One of the younger followers of Rosigus hissed at it and swiped at the mastiff with a stick. Hanuvar didn’t like that. He didn’t like the sticky stuff on his skin—someone had cut open his tunic and smeared what felt like sap over his wiry chest hair.

“Stop that,” he said, thinking to rise. But his voice was weak.

A young man was spreading the material on him, a wavy haired fellow with a simpering smile he flashed down at Hanuvar. “Shh. There’s nothing to trouble yourself about. Go back to sleep.”

Hanuvar sat up and snatched him by the tunic front. The man yelped, grabbed a heavy stick beside him, and lifted it above Hanuvar’s head.

He’d had little doubt about the man’s intentions a moment before, but the weapon raising settled the matter. He lacked the strength or stamina to subdue him. Though a little dizzy, there was no missing the man’s chin, under which Hanuvar drove his knife blade, straight up through the floor of his mouth and into his brain.

Someone nearby let out a yelp as they caught sight of the man spasming in his death throes, and then Hanuvar forced himself upright. They hadn’t bothered to move his crutch, so he snatched that in one hand. The hound growled at the man trying to keep him clear with frantic swipes of his cook knife.

The same slight woman who’d answered earlier at the fireside rushed Hanuvar with a long staff of her own.

Pain shot through his injured leg as he put weight on it. He punched the end of his crutch toward the woman’s throat. She stumbled as she fought to avoid it, then he reversed his hold on the crutch and slammed her legs. Down she went with a splat into the mud beyond the overhang. He had only just noticed that the rain had stopped.

The dog clamped hard onto the other man’s leg, and he cried out and flailed at the animal’s hindquarters with his knife.

Hanuvar managed a limping lunge and slammed the man’s temple with his own cudgel. The fellow crumpled.

The woman was up and crawling.

Hanuvar bent, grabbed her by the ankle, and dragged her back. Behind he heard the sound of a growl, tearing flesh, and a death rattle. Apparently the dog took threats to himself and his human very seriously. The woman’s eyes widened as she looked past Hanuvar at the mastiff’s deed.

“Where’s Leta?” he demanded.

Her voice was weak. “The hill. For Rosigus.”

“Is she still alive?”

“Maybe. Probably,” she added, likely in hope that would prolong her life.

He was too weak to leave any potential enemy at his back, though for her sake he slew her with a quick knife thrust rather than siccing the dog on her.

The hound came up to him, its maw stained with the blood of the man whose throat he’d torn out. Its eyes were keen, its ears up.

“Good dog,” Hanuvar growled. “You hurt?”

It wagged its tail.

“I didn’t think so. These people are pretty weak. Were you and I in our prime, this wouldn’t be a challenge at all.”

He knew then he was still feverish, or he wouldn’t have wasted effort talking to a dog. He left the overhang to save the woman who hated him.

The veiled sun shone in the gray sky, red as molten metal. The goat still munched at the end of its metal chain. Corvus and another woman were up near the top of the image of their god, arms lifted over a prostrate figure surrounded by raised stones, curved like fangs. A little pyramid of black stones had been piled directly behind her.

Hanuvar touched the dog’s head. “Go. Attack.”

Powerful muscles sent the dog springing up the hillside.

Hobbled by his ankle, the best speed Hanuvar could manage was a slow jog, aided by the staff. The wet grass was treacherous, so he struck the ground hard with the ball of his right foot with each stride to better plant himself and position the next movement.

He could only watch as the dog raced ahead. Corvus and his acolyte were too intent on their low chants to pay much heed until the dog was nearly on them. The woman was half turned when it leapt. Hanuvar heard her scream as she went down.

Corvus drew a sickle and seemed to hesitate over approaching the dog or gutting Leta. But his ally was screaming for help and beating the dog’s sides in an attempt to keep it from her face and throat. She screamed once more as the animal latched hard onto her wrist.

That decided the priest, who went after the dog.

Hanuvar had discovered new muscle cramps as he forced himself uphill with the staff. His knee ached in a way it hadn’t since his old wound, and one calf was seizing up. But he gritted his teeth and forced himself faster. He drew the only throwing knife left him.

The dog released the hand and sprang for the woman’s throat. Corvus loomed over, sickle raised.

Hanuvar halted. He was at near maximum range and his chest heaved, so he took a moment to aim, assessing the ground’s rise and the best trajectory. Then he threw.

His cast was too long for deadly accuracy, but his blade struck the priest in the shoulder and fell away. Corvus cried out in surprise and pulled back. The dog looked up from the woman writhing beneath him, blood dripping from his maw, showing his teeth in another snarl.

Were Corvus a warrior, he would have struck then. But a warrior would have shrugged off the knife blow and simply plunged his blade through the dog’s back. Corvus turned and bolted. The dog was swift on his heels and quick to leap.

By the time Hanuvar arrived both the leader and his final follower were dead, and the dog came trotting up as happy and playful as if he’d just chased a squirrel. Hanuvar knelt and patted his head and praised him, and tossed down the rest of his dried jerky, which the dog consumed.

He then bent to check Leta’s pulse. It beat, slowly but steadily. He crouched, catching his breath and leaning heavily on his good leg. His ankle was in agony. His eyes strayed to the chest high pyramid of stone, a shoddy work that would have embarrassed any professional mason. The left leaned noticeably, for the stones used to craft it were slimmer on one side than the other.

Hanuvar forced Leta to her feet. Her tunic gaped; a smaller version of Rosigus’ hillside image had been drawn in sap beneath her sagging breasts.

As he got her moving she groaned and murmured something he didn’t understand about the dog. He would have preferred to recover for a much longer moment, or simply to lie down, but the circle of raised stones reminded him too much of those he had seen sorcerers draw, and so he led her from them and set her down just past its edge, more roughly than he’d planned, for she hit the ground with a groan. There was no help for that.

He returned to recover his knife and search the bodies of the dead and sat beside the woman as the sun set, watching her struggle to fully wake as he got his breath back.

Eventually, when the sun was beyond the hills but the light was not yet gone, she was conscious enough to walk down. Though it was hard going, he went with her, and even managed to hitch the mule. Leta by then was sitting wearily against the back of her bench. Hanuvar rested briefly against the wagon side, then finished his search of the remaining dead.

He didn’t trust their wine or their porridge, but some of the greens and dried meats and fruits seemed safe. They had hand mirrors and whetstones, several passable knives, and a single sword, pitted but better than nothing, all of which he took, along with the sword’s battered sheath. They had spare garments, so he grabbed a tunic for himself and another that looked like it might fit Leta. And they had money, more than he expected. He kept that to himself, then walked over to release the goat. His first inclination had been to take him along for food, but the animal would be old and tough, and besides, had probably been planned as the sacrificial victim until handy strangers wandered up. It seemed hardly fair to kill him when they were going free.

The goat was unfazed by anything that had transpired around him, including the granting of freedom, but did wander further off as Hanuvar whistled to the dog and patted the bench. This time the mastiff hopped up, thumping his tail as Hanuvar patted his head. The animal had been drinking out of a stream and had managed to wash the blood from his mouth.

Hanuvar climbed up beside the dog, took the reins, and got them underway.

He felt Leta’s eyes on him. Her voice was soft, little more than a mumble. “Those people were going to stab me, weren’t they. If not for the dog.”

“Yes.”

She fell silent. For a long while Hanuvar thought she slept. But then, over the buzz of the night insects, he heard her voice.

“He’s the right dog for that job.” She stroked his head. “What’s his name?”

“I haven’t given him one.”

“He’s a killer,” she said. “Call him Hanuvar.”

That struck him as very funny, and he would have laughed harder if he weren’t so tired. “I’ll think about it.”

The dog’s tongue protruded as she gently scratched his head. “Good Hanuvar,” she said.

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The followers of Rosigus were not the only ones sensitive to a change in the region’s natural energies. Reports of strange events multiplied throughout southeastern Tyvol. A flock of geese was seen to be flying backward, and rumors spread of a two-headed calf born to a farmer in the highlands. It was even said that a kind old wise woman went mad and slew every one of her chickens before throwing herself into the sea.

We were skeptical of these stories, although Ishana told me that the currents of fate were swirling fast, that energy was being gathered toward Esuvia, and that all kinds of weird effects were likely in the surrounding regions as it flowed. A series of small quakes rocked the countryside, and smoke regularly billowed from Esuvia. Not knowing what part the wizard may be playing in the growing dread we all were feeling, I reached out to Calenius’ camp, but his people claimed he had not returned and refused to provide me with any details of his whereabouts.

Many left Apicius, including most of the aristocracy. Naturally we remained, having no intention of departing the area without Hanuvar. Ironically, we put our faith in the legionaries manning the small port garrison. They were mostly there to police shipping and secure the harbor, but their commanding officer increased the frequency and size of patrols. We expected they’d alert us if the gladiators decided to march on Apicius, but didn’t learn until too late that the rebellion was already very close.

—Sosilos, Book Seventeen





24. Although the white stone pictures dot the Turian hillsides for many miles of the region’s remote hinterlands, most do not appear to be of Turian origin, and apparently predate even their arrival in the area.—Silenus



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