Joel Shepherd - Haven

The horseman thought about it. A nervous shifting passed along the wagon column. Then the horseman backed up, and crossbowmen leaped from the back of the wagon.

“There was a bounty,” the horseman explained nervously. “A gold piece each. We just wanted to bring something back to our families.”

Sasha dismounted, strode to the back of the wagon, and threw open the rear flap.

The wagon was filled with small bodies. Little shapes, arms and legs askew, entangled in dreadful heaps. She saw little faces, and widened eyes. Saw a flash of inhuman colour, the gleam of serrin sight. Crossbred children. Part human, part serrin, like her good friend Aisha. Like she and Errollyn would have had, given the chance, and the assurance that their offspring would not end up like this, piled in some forager's cart like…

The wagon floor was awash with blood. The smell was dreadful.

Sasha did not know how she hit the ground, but suddenly her knees were gone, and she was curled against the wagon wheel, her body torn with sobs. From the Isfayen behind her, there was consternation. Markan dismounted and peered into the wagon. And cursed in shock.

Then Yasmyn, who said nothing when she looked, but her grip on Sasha's arm when she crouched at her side was painfully tight. Other Isfayen lords came to look, now guessing the wagon's contents, but horrified all the same.

“Sasha,” said Yasmyn, perhaps as distressed to see the great Synnich-ahn curled and sobbing like a child as she was at the wagon itself. She put a hand to Sasha's face, eyes pleading her to stop. Sasha barely noticed. She had tried to make herself like stone, but stone was not her nature. She was water, free and wild, and she could not bear this weight.

She could not be a party to this. Her land and her people were all she had that remained, and she marched with them into the very gates of Loth…but she could not be a party to this. She would rather die. She had to die. She had no other choices left.

A time passed, and Sasha was barely aware that the men of the column had been rounded up, and the other wagons searched. Men about her muttered of an orphanage, a special place for abandoned children of mixed blood. They must have been late to leave, they said, and taken refuge in the temple, praying that their gods would save them. Sasha sat against the rear wheel, face in her hands, and wished the world would end.

“Sasha,” came Markan's voice at her side, more gentle than she'd ever heard him. “Synnich-ahn. We have found one alive.”

Sasha raised her tear-streaked face and looked at him. Then another lord came, carrying a bundle that he placed on the road beside her. It was a little boy, perhaps six years old. His face was pale, yet his eyes were sharp, emerald green. Like Errollyn's.

Sasha gazed at him. The boy seemed sightless, and Sasha wondered if he were blind. But she passed a hand before his face, and he blinked, and moved back a little.

“Hello there,” she murmured, in Torovan. “What's your name?” There was no reply. Torovan was a tongue learned at later ages, if at all. Most likely the boy spoke Rhodaani…and perhaps one other. “What is your name?” Sasha tried again, this time in Saalsi, the language of the serrin.

The boy blinked at her, as though noticing her for the first time. Sasha nodded.

“I do speak that tongue,” she told him quietly. “I see you know a little.”

The boy's green eyes shimmered with tears. Sasha hugged him before the sight of his face could make her lose control again. She held him tight, as Isfayen about them wondered at the location of a grave and what to do for a ceremony.

“What do we do with the prisoners?” one man asked Markan. Markan made a gesture of thumb across throat, as careless as a man might decide to cast away food gone bad. The other nodded, and left to do that.

“Ask them who demands the bounty,” Yasmyn called after that man. “If he will not answer, make it slow.”

Sasha picked up the boy, and carried him away from the wagons. He was not going to watch this, nor the burial of his friends.

“Will you tell me your name?” she tried again as she walked.

“Tomli,” came a faint murmur against her ear.

“Well, Tomli,” she said, still in Saalsi, “I have an idea. Likely it will get all of us killed, and destroy the Army of Lenayin. But it's the best idea I have, because it is the only thing I'm still certain is right.”

The more she thought about it, the more certain she became. She climbed the slope off the road, to gain a view of the cliffs, and wait for her party to ride once more.

Burying even little bodies took time, when one took proper care. By the time the Isfayen returned to the column, dusk was falling, and the Army of Lenayin had halted to prepare its nighttime defences, and distribute the day's foraged food.

Sasha carried Tomli before her on the saddle, and cared not how many men stared at the pair of them in passing. She left her horse at the stable of the farmhouse commandeered for the night's lordly retreat, and took Tomli inside to the washroom. There she booted out several lords, and set about seeing Tomli washed, well aware of the building commotion outside the washroom door. She emerged only once to ask if anyone had clean children's clothes, and a search of the farmhouse did bring a clean pair of breeches and a shirt down to the washroom door. They were a little too big, but Sasha rolled up the pants, made cuffs of the sleeves, and wondered if some skill in much-despised needlework might not be useful after all.

Then she emerged, ushering Tomli before her, into a main room full of Lenay captains, lords, two princes, and one king. Lamps lit the wooden floors and smooth stone walls, and food lay arrayed upon a long table. The men were all in sombre conversation, knowing what lay within the washroom, and awaiting its emergence.

Koenyg now rose from an armchair, and conversation trailed away to silence.

“Markan told me,” said Koenyg. Markan stood nearby. “How is the boy?”

“Traumatised,” said Sasha. “His name is Tomli. He is five, and he speaks Rhodaani and some Saalsi. He was born to a single mother who gave him to an orphanage. Saalshen keeps them well funded, Tomli seemed happy enough there.”

The horror of it nearly stole her sanity once more. She swallowed hard.

“A Verenthane orphanage?” asked the Great Lord of Rayen, curiously.

“I think,” said Sasha, nodding. “He said he was cared for by priests. He called them all Papa.”

“Those men you found did a grave crime,” Koenyg said grimly, “and their punishment was just. But from now on, all Lenays shall stay within the column. We cannot be enforcing our laws onto every criminal act. Enmities between the Free and the Saalshen Bacosh are two centuries old, and there will be many crimes. It cannot be our place to intervene, and strain the allegiance further.”

“The Black Order of Larosa placed a bounty upon the heads of all serrin and half-breed children,” Sasha said quietly. “Word passes across the land. What we saw was not a crime. It was policy.”

Koenyg's stare darkened. “Sister, I will not have you sow dissension against our Verenthane allies….”

“I state only fact,” said Sasha. “Ask Markan to deny it.” No one looked at Markan. To question the Great Lord of Isfayen's honesty was not wise. “And brother, I cannot be party to any army that supports such acts. These are our allies, and they murder children by the wagonload. Little girls and little boys like Tomli.” Her hand was firm on Tomli's shoulder. Even in the face of this fearsome gathering of strangers, Tomli did not flinch or shake. He had seen far worse than this. “I do not appeal to your sympathy. I appeal to your honour. There is honour in victory against warriors in battle. To murder small children for gold…”