The two of them were staring at her with the pained expression of a wronged child.
‘What? You thought I’d fall over myself to bring you back to the bosom of the Al-Arynaar? Let’s get something straight so we don’t misunderstand each other out there on the burning streets. You two are deserters. The fact you saved my life means you have enough sense and decency to know you’ve made a big mistake. But I can’t trust you like brothers, can I? I can’t simply forget what you did. Nor what other deserters have done. So it’s up to you. Stand with me and try to win this fight and we’ll see where we are when it’s done. Or run into the rainforest now and throw yourselves on the mercy of Tual’s denizens, the Silent and the TaiGethen.’
Tulan nodded. ‘I don’t think we’ll be running.’
Pelyn smiled. ‘Good. I thought not. Now let’s go. Tell me where the Apposans have made their stand. I’m guessing south side. Probably at the Grans or maybe Old Millers.’
‘Creatures of habit,’ said Tulan. ‘Why them?’
‘Methian was podded and given to them.’
Tulan hissed in a breath. ‘Pelyn…’
‘I know. But I have to try.’
‘We’ll go out the back. Avoid the Tuali mob.’
‘We do need them,’ said Pelyn. ‘Whoever survives. It doesn’t matter what they would have done to me. Not for now.’
Tulan nodded. ‘But first things first, right?’
‘Right. And put on your cloaks, though Yniss knows you don’t deserve to wear them. I don’t want us looking like a Tuali snatch squad or whatever the hell you’ve been playing at.’
They trotted down the stairs and out of a rear door, across a small private garden and through a back gate into a narrow alley. Tulan led. Ephran followed. Pelyn kept them both where she could see them. The sun was rising and hot but the sky was burnished with the foul colours of human magical fire mixed with the yellow of burning wood. The stench of ash was heavy in the air.
Away from the immediate fighting, the city was strangely silent. The streets were deserted. Thread mobs were keeping their heads down. The majority, the shocked civilians wanting no part of it, would be in their homes – those that still had them. Or hiding wherever their thread was strongest, forced to seek refuge among those they despised for their actions.
Pelyn sighed as she ran. It was so hard to see how there could be any resolution to this that would hold. You could glue a smashed pot back together but the cracks would always be visible, the pieces always prone to fall apart.
The Grans was a densely populated area, favourite of forest workers and home to a warren of houses and winding streets as well as logging yards and a few construction businesses. The Apposans, followers of the oldest earth god, had always been the largest-represented thread there and had a long history of excellence in farming the forest and working the wood.
But they were an aggressive thread, historically. Intolerant. They were also the shortest-lived, barring the Gyalans, with whom they had fought across the millennia over triviality after triviality. Coming out of a side street onto Yanner’s Approach, which led into the Grans, Tulan slowed.
‘They were in Orsan’s Yard last night, most of them,’ he said, pointing away over pitched roofs to where a thick column of smoke rose. ‘They may not be there now of course.’
‘Why not?’ asked Pelyn.
‘We raided there last night, early on,’ said Ephran. ‘Retaliation for an attack earlier in the day near the Gardaryn.’
‘Terrific,’ said Pelyn. ‘So they’ll be particularly welcoming this morning.’
Tulan moved quickly away into the Grans. Elves were in evidence here. Scuttling about, collecting water. Some children even played. Others made play of a normal life, but those that didn’t stop and stare at the cloaks were more concerned with the pall of smoke hanging over the docks. Surely some in the thread knew what was coming.
Towards Orsan’s Yard, Tulan headed off the main avenue and wove deep into the warren. The yard fence stood tall beyond the end of the last row of houses and across a small patch of open ground where children were playing or watching the fires. There was a burst of laughter from within. It was genuine and heartfelt, accompanied by a smattering of applause and shouts of ‘Another.’ Pelyn drew up, surprised.
‘You’d think storytelling would be the least of their desires right now,’ she said.
They crossed the open ground and hugged the fence around to the right towards the gate. There was a good deal of traffic in and out and the gate was guarded by blade carriers. They were spotted quickly.
‘Al-Arynaar. You are not welcome here,’ said a guard, a short Apposan with thickly muscled forearms and powerful fists gripping axe and sword.
Pelyn walked in front of the brothers now. She hitched her cloak back to reveal her sword but did not make a move to touch it.
‘You have one of my people. I’ve come to get him back. I want no fight with you. The Apposans are my friends.’
The guard beckoned to two others, both powerful, stocky ulas, and sauntered towards her. He spat to the side.
‘Tuali? And you don’t want a fight? Should have told that to your brothers and sisters last night. We’ve eight dead and twenty injured. Still. Only three of you this time.’
He hefted his blades and moved up. Tulan and Ephran moved to her flanks. She made a calming gesture and walked a pace ahead of them.
‘Your fight is not with the Al-Arynaar,’ she said.
‘Wrong,’ said the Apposan.
He ran the last couple of paces and swept both his blades out to in, chopping towards her neck. Pelyn stepped inside the strikes, blocked both his arms with hers, and straight-kicked with her left leg into his gut. The Apposan doubled over. Pelyn smacked the heel of her palm into his forehead as he came up, knocking him onto his back. She dropped to his side, her sword from her scabbard and at his throat.
‘I have had a very bad night,’ she said. ‘I am tired and my temper is short. Give me Methian. Alive.’
The Apposan’s hands were off his weapons and in front of his face, palms out to her, pleading. Tulan and Ephran were in front of the other two guards. All other action had stopped. Children stared, their games forgotten. Pelyn bounced to her feet and held a hand out to him.
‘I am not your enemy.’
After a pause, the guard took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled upright.
‘Methian?’ he said, almost bleeding gratitude. ‘He’s inside. He’s very much alive, I promise you.’
‘Good. Then lead on.’
Pelyn tried and failed to hide her relief. The guard, with Pelyn uncomfortably close to him, led them inside the yard. It was busy. A big central fire was burning and various pots and trays hung on tripods or on Y-staves over the embers at its edge. Ula and iad were busy making spears and crude arrows.
With Tulan and Ephran walking with the other two gate guards, the small party approached a ring of around forty Apposans, standing and seated, listening to a single voice. Their arrival brought an abrupt end to the story. Faces turned, weapons were drawn and the ring opened.
There sat Methian on a log with his cloak for a cushion and a steaming mug in his hand. He wore leather trousers, a thick wool shirt and a short leather coat. Tree farmer’s clothing. He was barefoot, but a pair of battered boots stood next to the log on which he sat.
Pelyn smiled and shook her head.
‘They were supposed to murder you,’ she said.
‘Ah, but Llyron doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does. Three of my daughters partnered Apposans. One of my grand-children made me this infusion. Guarana and clove. Lovely, it is.’