"What did he tell you to do?" Grinsa demanded.
He didn't expect that the man would meet his gaze, but Q'Daer surprised him, looking him right in the eye. "Nothing. He sent me with you to help you find the woman and the baskets, and to keep watch on the Eandi."
"And to keep watch on me?"
The man grinned, though the look in his pale eyes remained hard. "There's no need to watch you. Your woman and your child are back in the Sept. You're not going anywhere."
Grinsa couldn't really argue the point. "No, I don't suppose I am. But the fact remains we both want and need the same things, at least for the most part."
"I'm Fal'Borna, Forelander," Q'Daer said, his voice tight. "You're not. The a'laq offered you the chance to be one of us, to join our sept, commit yourself to our ways. You refused. What I want and what you want can't possibly be the same."
He knew the man was wrong, but he also knew that nothing good would come of discussing the matter further right now. He held his tongue, and they rode side by side in uneasy silence.
The wind hissed in the grasses and an occasional drop of rain darkened Grinsa's riding cloak. He could see squalls to the west, faint blurs of rain hanging from that unrelentingly grey sky, and he wondered how long it would be before he and his companions were soaked again.
They stopped at midday to eat some dried meat, drink a bit of water, and rest their mounts. As always, the Eandi took their food from Q'Daer, but otherwise kept to themselves. Though they said little to one another, it almost seemed that each took comfort in knowing that the other was nearby. Grinsa and the young Weaver ate without speaking a word. The Fal'Borna refused even to look at him. Soon they were mounted and riding once more.
A light drizzle began to fall on them, coating their clothes and saddlebags with a silvery sheen, and chilling them further. Grinsa threw a hood over his head and huddled within his cloak, staring at the ground in front of him and merely trying to stay warm. He thought of Cresenne and Bryntelle and of the many friends he had left in the Forelands; he thought of his sister, Keziah, who served in a noble court in the kingdom of Eibithar. Not for the first time, he wondered if he and Cresenne had been wrong to leave their home for this strange, hard land. He felt a sudden longing for the simplicity of his old life in Bohdan's Revel, the traveling festival in which he had once done gleanings, using magic to determine the fates of the young boys and girls of each village the Revel visited. That was where he had met Cresenne.
"Look at that!" he heard Q'Daer say.
Grinsa's eyes snapped up. The Fal'Borna was a short distance ahead of him, pointing toward the northern horizon. Looking in the direction Q'Daer indicated, squinting in the soft rain, he could barely make out some odd, dark shapes.
"What is it?" he asked.
The young Weaver shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the distant forms. "I don't know." He glanced back at Grinsa and the Eandi. "Come on." He kicked his mount into a gallop.
Grinsa did the same, looking back to make certain that the merchants were following.
Even as they advanced on the dark shapes, Grinsa couldn't make them out distinctly. Ahead of him, Q'Daer drew a thin blade from his belt. "What is it?" Grinsa called.
"I still don't know."
Grinsa nodded, though the man wasn't even looking at him. A moment later, he, too, drew his dagger.
"What's going on?" Torgan called to him from behind.
"We're not certain," Grinsa told him. "You see those shapes up there?"
"Barely," came the reply. Grinsa wondered how much the man could see out of his one good eye.
"I can see them," Jasha said. "What are they?"
Before the gleaner could answer, Q'Daer reined his horse to a halt. "Damn," he whispered. His blade hand dropped to his side.
"What, Q'Daer? What is it you see?"
"You can't make it out?" the younger man said, his voice thick. He pointed to a large clump near the front of the shapes. A blackened pole jutted from it, as if it were some great, dark beast that had been felled by a huge spear. "That's a z'kal, or what's left of one."
A z'kal. It took him a moment. The word had been new to him when they reached Fal'Borna land, and he hadn't heard it used in days. Z'kals were the temporary shelters the Fal'Borna constructed from rilda skins and wooden poles. He wouldn't have recognized this blackened mass as one, but as soon as Q'Daer pointed it out to him, he knew that the young Weaver was right. He saw as well that this wasn't the only one that had been destroyed. Far from it. Knowing what to look for, he realized that the flat in front of them was filled with the remains of shelters, as well as what once had been a horse paddock.
"I don't understand," Torgan said, his brow furrowed as he stared at the scene, clearly still trying to make out what Q'Daer had seen. "What's happened here?"
Q'Daer didn't answer.
"It looks like a sept has been destroyed," Grinsa said, quietly.
"Destroyed how?"
"We don't know yet."
Q'Daer clicked his tongue and his mount started forward again, slowly this time. The rest of them followed.
As they drew nearer to the ruins of the sept, Grinsa began to see more than just shelters and the shattered wood of the paddock. There were human remains everywhere. Many of the bodies had been charred, probably by the same fires that destroyed the z'kals, and these remained largely intact. But of others, all that was left were bones and scraps of clothing. Perhaps they had died some other way; perhaps their remains had been more appealing to the crows and vultures and kites that would have descended upon such a feast. Several wild dogs still stood amid the ruins, eyeing the riders warily, their ears laid back. A few, particularly close, bared their teeth and growled.
The Fal'Borna halted and dismounted, heedless of the animals. "Q'Daer," Grinsa said, drawing the man's gaze. "Don't touch anything. It might not be safe."
The man's eyes widened slightly and he quickly glanced down at his feet, as if expecting to find that he was standing in a cluster of Mettai baskets. He looked at Grinsa again and nodded.
Grinsa dismounted and indicated to the Eandi that they should do so as well.
"What are we doing here?" Torgan asked as he stretched his back and surveyed the carnage around them.
"We're going to search the settlement," Grinsa said.
The merchant wrinkled his nose, as if disgusted. "For what?"
"For anything that might tell us what happened to these people."
"Isn't it clear?" the man said, opening his hands to indicate the ruins. "That same pestilence has been here. And this time you can't blame me for it."
"Torgan," Jasha said softly.
"What?" the older man shot back at him. "You know they'll try to. They'll say that we destroyed this sept, too, and they'll use it as an excuse to kill us right here, without waiting to go back to E'Menua."
"Nobody's looking for an excuse to kill you, Torgan," Grinsa said, though in that moment he wondered if the man was worth saving. "Even if the baskets caused this, we know you weren't responsible. But we have to know who was. You know what these baskets look like?" he asked, shifting his gaze to Jasha.
The young merchant nodded. "I'd recognize them."
"Good. See what you can find. I'll be watching you both," he warned.
"And as you already know, I can control your animals, even from a distance. So don't try to run."
Jasha nodded again. Torgan merely scowled at both his fellow merchant and Grinsa.
Grinsa left them there and followed the young Fal'Borna. Normally, he preferred to keep his distance, but he feared that Q'Daer might become so enraged by the destruction of this sept that he would seek vengeance against the merchants, simply because they were the only Eandi there.
Q'Daer gave Grinsa a puzzled look as he approached, but he said nothing.