"They killed her?" she said, when he informed her of the witch's fate. "Yes."
"But E'Menua wanted you to kill her."
"I know," Grinsa said, holding her hand and brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. "There's nothing to be done about it now. We're going to try to keep the baskets she sold from reaching any more villages, and then we'll return to the sept."
"He won't be happy," she said. "The a'laq, I mean."
He shook his head. "I don't care anymore. He can try to keep us there, but it won't work. We're leaving Fal'Borna lands as soon as we can. You have my word."
She rested her head against his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "Good," she whispered.
"Are you and Bryntelle all right?" he asked, sounding concerned. "You look thin. Have you been eating?"
"We're fine," she said. She looked up into his eyes and kissed him. "Really. We had a bit of trouble, but it's all right now."
"What kind of trouble?"
"It doesn't matter. Nothing serious." She smiled. "I can handle it."
And she meant it. Before he left she'd told Grinsa to do what he had to do and return to her. She'd told him that she and Bryntelle would get along without him. Brave words. But at the time that was all they'd been. Now, though, finally, she actually believed them.
"You're certain?" he asked her, still looking worried.
"Yes. I'm not sure the Fal'Borna will ever accept me as one of their own, but I think I'm starting to figure out how to live among them."
He smiled, though he looked puzzled. "Someday you'll have to explain what you mean."
"I'll try." She grinned. "It might take a while."
Chapter 18
S'VRALNA, MEMORY MOON WAXING
On the seventh day of the new waxing, they came within sight of a great walled city. Its towers and battlements were made of pale stone that gleamed like hone in the late-morning sunlight, and great columns of black smoke rose from within its walls. Though Grinsa had been in the Southlands for only a few turns, and had been living among the Qirsi clans for only part of that time, he had already come to think of all Fal'Borna settlements as being like E'Menua's. Fortifications like the one in front of him belonged in the Eandi sovereignties. This city seemed to have much more in common with Yorl, along the Aelean coast, where he and Cresenne had first set foot in the Southlands, than it did with the z'kals and open paddocks of E'Menua's sept.
He had to remind himself that this city-S'Vralna, Q'Daer called it-and the lands around it had once belonged to the Eandi of Stelpana. The night before the young Weaver had been in an uncharacteristically expansive mood, and had spoken at length of the Blood Wars and the battles for control of the Central Plain.
"The Fal'Borna took it from the dark-eyes during the Blood Wars," he had said, sounding so proud that one might have thought he'd had a hand in winning the city during those battles a century and a half ago. "The Eandi once held all this land, everything west to the K'Sand. Now all of it is ours, and they hide on the far banks of the Silverwater."
The two Eandi merchants, as well as Besh and Sirj, had kept their thoughts to themselves, and before long Torgan and Jasha wandered off to sleep. Grinsa had tried to turn the conversation in a different direction, asking Besh about the history of the Mettai. But Q'Daer had interrupted, and soon after Besh and Sirj left them as well.
On this morning, though, the young Weaver kept silent, his expression grim as he eyed those clouds of smoke. Grinsa continued to gaze at the city, keeping his thoughts to himself. Even after the city came into view, the distance to the gates remained great, and it was some time before he began to notice that the walls were not as uniform as they first appeared. They had been broken in places; parts of them were blackened as if by fire; at least one of the corner towers had collapsed in on itself. It had to have been the pestilence, unless the Southlands were at war again.
"How many people live in S'Vralna," he asked, his voice low.
Q'Daer shook his head. "I don't know for certain. Three thousand perhaps. Maybe more. It's one of our bigger cities, though not as big as D'Raqor or Thamia." He raised himself up on his mount, squinting in the sun. "Damn," he muttered. He'd been chafing at their slow pace all morning, and now he glanced hack at the rest of their company. "Faster!" he shouted at them, before kicking his mount to a gallop.
Grinsa stayed with him, but he glanced back repeatedly to see that the others were following, particularly Torgan. The one-eyed merchant had been behaving strangely in recent days, even more so than usual. On the best of days Torgan was belligerent and selfish, but more recently he had retreated into a dark, brooding silence. He spoke to no one, not even Jasha, though at times he appeared to mumble to himself. Grinsa had tried to speak with the man a few times, hoping at least to find some sign of the argumentative arrogance he recalled from their earliest encounters. But the merchant said little to him, and when he did speak he was unfailingly polite, which in many ways alarmed Grinsa even more than did his silence.
At the moment, however, Grinsa was concerned more with the fate of S'Vralna and its denizens than with Torgan. The closer they drew to the city walls, the more severe the damage appeared to be. Many of the buildings within the city were made of the same white stone as the outer wall, so that closer inspection revealed breaches in many parts of the wall that had appeared whole from a distance. Vultures, crows, and kites circled over the city and occasionally great flocks of dark birds rose into the sky from within the walls, crying plaintively at whatever had driven them from their scavenging. Wild dogs prowled a short distance from the gates, eyeing the city warily.
The riders were still a good distance from the city walls when the stench reached them: the acrid smell of smoke and the sickening fetor of rotting corpses. Grinsa had feared that they would find no one alive in the city, but now he saw that there were soldiers at the gates, their weapons glittering in the sun.
"There are guards," he called to Q'Daer.
The young Weaver didn't even look at him. "I see them."
"They won't let us pass."
That drew a frown from Q'Daer, who then glanced back at the rest of their company.
"I think they will," he said after a moment. "I'm Fal'Borna; we're both Weavers. They'll be wary of the dark-eyes, but they'll let us through. And if they won't let the Eandi in, we can leave them at the gate, under their watch."
Grinsa didn't believe that it would be quite so easy, but he kept this to himself.
They slowed their mounts as they drew near the gate and then dismounted, leading their horses on foot the rest of the way. There were two men guarding the gate, both of them young. Their uniforms were stained with soot and dirt and blood, and one of them bore a dark, angry scar on his cheek that appeared to have been healed only in the last day or so.
"Who are you?" the scarred man demanded as Grinsa and Q'Daer walked toward them.
Both men had drawn their swords.
"My name is Q'Daer. I am a Weaver in the sept of E'Menua, son of E'Sedt. This is Grinsa of the Forelands. He, too, is a Weaver."
The guard looked past them to the Eandi, who had halted a short distance off. "And them?"
"Our companions," Q'Daer said. "We've been looking for merchants who are selling the cursed Mettai baskets."
The man shifted his gaze back to Q'Daer. "You're too late."
"How long ago did this happen?" Grinsa asked.