Kiel shrugged. “If that is what it takes to motivate them onto our side, it is but a small price to pay. We speak of the survival of Saalshen, Rhillian. Many will die to achieve it, should it be achieved. When all is done, these few lives will seem like a small drop in a very large bucket.”
Sasha had warned her that Kiel would come to this one day. Errollyn had, too. The talmaad about him seemed to share in his conviction, sombre yet determined. It was the vel'ennar once more, and Kiel's own ra'shi. He had status with them, in that way that serrin would choose leaders from their midst, by the demonstration of logic and argument. Kiel had found them, and now swayed them to his side. When serrin followed, they followed like the tide. In crisis, it could be a powerful strength. Yet now, it led them to this.
“Now is not the time for weakness,” Kiel insisted. “The serrinim must be strong, and strong together. You have accumulated great ra'shi amongst the people, Rhillian. We would all follow you. Will you lead us?”
SEVENTEEN
Rhillian stood by the roadside and watched as the rescued serrin gathered once more on the captured wagons and were driven into the forest of the high valley. Several amongst them who could fight had stayed, talmaad or former talmaad. The men amongst them now donned light armour and green vests, captured Stamentaast uniform, and tested the weight of unfamiliar Ilduuri swords. Steel helms with brow ridges and nose guards covered their hair. Likely in the dark and confusion that would follow, none of those attacked would recognise them for serrin. Or rather, none who did recognise them would live.
The moon now sank toward the western mountains, bathing snowy flanks in silver light. Beneath the glare, upslope of the farmhouse, a small figure emerged from the forest tree line, walking fast, shoulders hunched. Rhillian walked to meet her halfway. On the farmhouse verandah, serrin dressed as Stamentaast watched her go in silent contemplation.
Aisha was upset. She hugged her arms to herself as she walked, hiding the rope burns on her wrists. Her face was swollen on one side from the rough treatment of Stamentaast who had now paid with their lives. But that was not the cause of Aisha's emotion.
“It's not right,” she muttered, blue eyes shimmering with tears.
“No,” said Rhillian.
“They deserve a proper grave.”
“Yes.”
They walked back to the farmhouse. Aisha and Rhillian had helped to dig the graves of the farmhouse family, a hundred strides into the woods. Aisha had wanted a grave behind the house, but Kiel and others insisted that if this deception was to work, events here should be hidden, for some time at least.
“They need not have died at all,” Aisha insisted, her voice quavering.
“No,” Rhillian agreed, eyeing the commotion about the farmhouse ahead. The fake Stamentaast would ride and march into town shortly, to the steelwrights' district, and would commit more such crimes in the name of saving Saalshen.
“You can stop it,” said Aisha. “You have the most ra'shi of all of us in these matters.”
“No,” said Rhillian, shaking her head. “Can you not feel it?” Aisha said nothing, walking head down. “The tide flows to Kiel. It is his tide that rules here, that drew these talmaad across the border from Saalshen. I make my displeasure clear, yet they do not care.”
The moon made stark shadows on the grass before them as they walked. “Errollyn has always said the tide of vel'ennar will one day make us like the very worst of humanity,” Aisha said quietly. “It unites only its own kind, and excludes the rest. Soon any who are not within the vel'ennar shall be the enemy. I feel the vel'ennar myself, but I no longer recognise my own people.”
Rhillian nodded. She could feel it too, a pull so powerful it bathed the night like the moon. She saw serrin, and she yearned to be with them, to join them, to serve their needs. Most here tonight would follow Kiel, and by the yearnings of vel'ennar, so should she. And yet there was revulsion. Kiel would lead them to a monstrous place, a place that serrin had not been since millennia past. Tonight, did she serve the instinct that defined the serrinim, and made them separate from humanity? Or must she ignore it, to serve the serrin themselves? And did she have the right to inflict her own will upon her people, who wished to move another way? Serrin moved collectively, not alone, and no appointed serrin leader would defy the majority will of her own people…the vel'ennar itself ensured that she could not. Here, she could feel it pulling her toward Andal, while she herself struggled to hold her feet, and fight another direction, one lone serrin against the raging flood.
Serrin in Stamentaast uniform now gathered before the farmhouse. They assembled about Kiel, listening to his final instruction. Up the road that the wagons had followed, horsemen came galloping. They were the same who had set off in pursuit of the escaping Stamentaast Rhillian had fought. And now, they seemed to have caught another.
Between them was a human rider, yet he was not dressed as Stamentaast. Rhillian frowned, seeing that familiar position in the saddle.
“Daish!” she exclaimed.
Aisha ran to the road, Rhillian close behind. But the riders did not stop before Aisha, and continued off the road and upslope to Kiel and the gathered serrin. There they dismounted, Aisha scrambling to catch up.
“Hey!” she shouted at them, as two talmaad escorted Daish roughly from his horse. Daish looked to Aisha, relieved to see her yet now alarmed as his serrin guard dragged him toward Kiel, his weapons removed, one talmaad holding each arm.
“He's with me,” Rhillian declared, stepping forward, sensing something bad. The ground itself seemed to tilt, and it was not the sloping hillside that made it feel so.
“And with me,” Kiel agreed mildly. “Hello, Daish. You got better, I see.”
“I did,” Daish said breathlessly. “I said I'd follow. Why are you all dressed as Stamentaast?”
“A secret,” said Kiel. “We're about to do something no human can know of.”
“Hey!” Aisha yelled, arriving amongst them at a run. In her anger and confusion, her human half seemed dominant for the first time since Rhillian had known her. “This is my friend damn you, you don't ride past me!”
She embraced the young man, and Daish would have replied in kind, but a talmaad held each arm still. Aisha scowled at the guards and grabbed to remove one's grip. The other shoved her away, hard.
“He said he was looking for Aisha,” that serrin said. “To rescue her, and the others.”
“That's right,” Daish agreed, indignantly. “Sasha came back to the temple, she said what had happened, and I thought I had to come and…”
“And where is Sasha now?” asked Kiel.
“Gone,” said Daish, warily. Hiding something, it was obvious. Not knowing if Kiel was the right person to share anything with right now.
“Ah,” said Kiel, hooking his thumbs into his belt as he strolled a little closer. “So much does Sasha care for her friends, and for the serrin.”
“So little reason some of us give her,” Rhillian said coldly.
“She's doing important things!” Daish retorted to Kiel. “She wanted to come but this couldn't wait.”
“And neither can we. No human can know.” Kiel turned, as though to consult the half-circle of serrin faces behind him. The men in helms, the women unhelmed, unable to participate lest their build give them away.
“Fight!” Rhillian wished at them, furiously. But their expressions showed little of that. Their eyes were only for Kiel, calm and trusting. The tide led to him, and so he would lead them. Ra'shi and vel'ennar combined, flowing together to make a mighty torrent. Rhillian felt as though her balance would give way. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing hard, trying to fight it.