He almost replied, “You’re the Reader-you tell me,” but remembered that they were in a land where Aventine Readers were feared and killed. Looking around warily, he asked, “Did I pass out? The last thing I recall was… stopping someone from attacking you.”
“You expended all your energy saving the villagers, putting out the fires, and then saving me-again,” she told him. “You hadn’t had time to recover completely from the white lotus, either. But you didn’t pass out; you went into a kind of trance. After I straightened things out with Trel, we got you into this hut, where you fell asleep.”
“Trel?”
“He’s sort of the village elder. He and Kimma- the woman with the sword-were returning home when they saw the smoke, just as we did. When they arrived and saw the destruction, Kimma assumed the strangers she saw here were responsible. That’s why she attacked. But when Trel saw you put her to sleep
rather than kill her, he wasn’t so quick to assume we were his enemies.”
“But how could you communicate?” asked Zanos. “You don’t speak their language-”
“No, she doesn’t,” said a voice from the doorway, “but I still speak Aventine.”
Zanos looked past Astra to the gray-bearded man entering the hut with a tray of food. This had to be Trel, a tall, thin man of more than sixty years, but with the stride and bearing of a younger man. His most striking feature was clear blue eyes. They seemed to take in everything, revealing little. The eyes of a hunter.
“In fact,” Trel continued, “everyone in the village speaks at least a little.” He gestured Zanos to remain seated, handed him the tray, and sank to a sitting position. Smiling, he held out his hand. “I welcome you to my home, friend Zanos, and thank you for what you did yesterday. “
Zanos and Trel grasped one another’s forearms as a sign of newfound friendship. It was a long time since Zanos had done this with sincerity… not since he had befriended Ard. He pushed away that memory as their host bade them eat.
“One of the people you saved is Deela, my wife,” Trel added. “Astra told me when she Read Deela this morning-”
Zanos stared at Astra in astonishment.
She said calmly, “No, I didn’t tell them I’m a Reader. I didn’t have to.”
Trel chuckled. “You missed the sight of your wife holding me at bay with her sword. The moment she spoke, I knew she was Aventine, and well educated. But she doesn’t have the arrogance of the highborn.
She was more than a little surprised when I assumed she was a Dark Moon Reader.”
“And when did you escape from the empire?” Zanos asked.
Trel’s smile faded. “I didn’t. Thirty-five years ago, this area was part of the Aventine Empire. My family had a small farm in the lowlands. Then Drakonius pushed the border back a few miles-right over our land. We and some of our neighbors fled into the hills, and survived by staying out of Drakonius’ way.
Our village had a Reader, which made it much easier for us.
“Eventually we settled here, fighting off the roving bandits until our rights were respected. Then we found we could trade with them.”
“You never tried to get back into the empire?” Astra asked.
The old man snorted. “From what I’ve heard, the present Emperor is no better than the one who ruled when our lands were lost. If there was justice in the empire, would you two have run away? Here, we enjoy a good measure of freedom… or we did until recently.” He continued sadly, “Many of the clans call these the Red Hills, for all the blood that’s been shed in them. Robberies, raids-not to mention feuds between clans. Our village was always the calm within the storm-until yesterday. We’ve paid a severe price for becoming lax and overconfident. Yesterday morning we were nearly fifty. Now we are fewer than twenty.”
“But who attacked you?” asked Zanos. “And why?**
“The clan of the White Crow,” Trel said tightly. “Of all the bandit clans, they’re the most vicious and cowardly. They usually camp southwest of here, robbing people on the trade routes between the lands of the Black Wolf and the Red Dragon. But when the Aventines invaded the lands of the Black Wolf two days ago, the Crows took flight-raiding any settlement in their path. It was bad enough that they took the food we worked so hard to store, but to kill and destroy, just for sport-”
“Perhaps because of envy,” Astra said. “Success draws many jealous enemies. That’s a harsh lesson my husband and I recently learned.”
Zanos said, “We’ll find out what their motives were when we question the prisoner. Is he still unconscious?”
“No, but he’s not going anywhere,” the old man replied. “I bound him hand and foot before he woke up.
He’s been doing a lot of cursing. Why did you save his life? Do you know him?”
“Not exactly,” Zanos replied. “I recognized the sunburst tattoo on his arm. The last time I saw it was over twenty years ago-on the arm of every crew-member of the Sunrider, the slaver ship that took me to the Aventine Empire!”
Zanos cut the ropes that bound the prisoner, then backed away toward the tree stump where Astra was sitting. Except for these three, the village center was deserted. The raider stared at them warily as he rubbed circulation back into his limbs. But he couldn’t get up.
“We stopped the bleeding and closed your wound,” Zanos said as he sheathed his knife, “but I didn’t heal the nerve damage in your legs-so you can forget about running away. We’ll finish healing you after you’ve answered our questions. I am Zanos, and this is Astra, my wife. What’s your name?”
The man said nothing, staring defiantly.
Zanos let out an exasperated breath. “Astra?”
“His name is Sarno,” she said flatly, and terror leaped into the hill bandit’s eyes.
“Yes, she’s a Reader, ” Zanos said. “She could pull every thought, every secret out of your mind, but we’d rather you tell us freely. I don’t want to hurt you, even though I have plenty of reason. You are a former slaver, and I… am a former slave.”
Sarno’s reaction was a laugh full of bitterness and anger. “Aye,” he replied, “I was a slaver. For less than a year.”
“Aboard the Sunrider?” Zanos prompted.
“Aye.” Sarno slapped at the tattoo on his arm. “I signed on an’ took ‘er mark, then found I was in a dyin’ business-a slaver on a route where slaves were becomin’ hard to get and even harder to sell. They need lots o’ slaves in an empire that’s growin’, not one that’s havin’ its borders pushed back ever’ few years. And there ain’t many kingdoms buys slaves anymore, not in this part o’ the world, anyhow.”
“And the Sunrider got its slaves from the northern islands, right?” the Maduran pressed.
“Wrong,” Sarno threw back. “Hadn’t fer years afore I signed on. Somethin’ happened in them islands…
tales the old crewmen whispered about when they got drunk. Bunch o’ nonsense, sounded like’t’ me.”
“What kind of tales?” Zanos demanded. “Tell me!”
“Only one that made any sense, ” the slaver said. “Another slaver ship, the Hawkwing, was the last one’t’
take slaves out o’ Madura. And the crew didn’t take em on in chains-they run aboard, glad’t’ get away, no matter how!”
“Refugees?” Astra questioned. “What were they fleeing?”
“Don’t know. Whatever it was, it killed every crewman who had any kind of Adept powers, cep the captain-an’ he went mad, they say. The survivors landed on the western shore somewheres, and fell in with the hill people. That was about four years ago. Some o’ me shipmates an’ me left the Sunrider last year, after business dried up an’ smugglin’ had too much competition-”
“Zanos-duck!”
Even as Astra tried to knock him aside, Zanos instinctively dropped and sheltered her with his body.
Two arrows whistled over them-one of them thunking sickeningly into human flesh. Sarno screamed once and slumped, the arrow through his heart. Scrambling behind the inadequate shelter of the treestump, Zanos looked toward where the arrows had originated.