Sacrati

Chapter Thirty

They encountered no more Elkati. When they reached the Windthorn border, Finnvid paused before following Theos across.

He was leaving his home, and he didn’t see how he could ever return.

Not only because they wouldn’t want him, he reminded himself, but because he didn’t want them.

Not on their terms. So he rubbed his bracelet for luck, kept his gaze on Theos, who had turned around and was waiting patiently, and moved forward.

“It feels like forever,” he said quietly.

Theos took his hand. “Nothing’s forever. Especially right now.”

Finnvid tugged his hand free. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Better? I don’t know. It’s just . . . true. It’s supposed to make you feel truer.”

They had a fire when they camped that night, for the first time since their trip had started, and Finnvid found himself almost mesmerized by the dancing flames and the warmth.

He leaned back into Theos and let himself be enveloped by it all.

Another moment he wanted to claim and keep and never leave. But as Theos said, nothing was forever.

They walked on and on, until one night when they made camp Theos said they shouldn’t have a fire. “We’re close to the valley, now. I don’t want to call attention to us until I know what’s going on.”

“And how will you discover what’s going on?”

“Tomorrow morning I’ll walk down to the sentries’ post and see if they try to kill me. If they do, it’s a bad sign. If they don’t, it’s just . . . undecided.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Will it make them more likely to attack? If I’m there? Would it be bad for you?”

“I don’t think so,” Theos said.

“Then I’ll be there.”

Theos looked like he was thinking about arguing, but then shrugged. “Hopefully it will all be fine.”

They denned up and slept, and as they got packed the next morning, Finnvid kept an eye on Theos, making sure he didn’t slip off on his own to be a hero.

Theos noticed, of course. “You’d be too sad without me,” he said with an understanding grin.

“Wouldn’t be able to go on living. It would be cruel of me to leave you alone. I know.”

His joke was too close to the truth, and Finnvid was quiet as they walked the rest of the way down to the valley.

As they approached the sentry post, Theos turned to him, and now there was no humor in his tone. “If this goes bad, step back. I’ll be moving fast.”

Finnvid nodded mutely. He knew he wouldn’t be much good, not if this became a fight.

But before they made it to the final bend in the path, Theos stopped walking, so abruptly that Finnvid almost slammed into his back.

“Andros,” Theos said, and there was a note of affection and admiration in his tone that made Finnvid squirm with jealousy even as he struggled to understand what was going on.

“He left us a message,” Theos said, and he reached up into the boughs of a nearby pine tree and grabbed a small brown bundle. It was the size of a pine cone, if that, but Theos was holding it as if it were something sacred. His smile was radiant as he said, “He made it back.”

Finnvid tried to feel good about that. He liked Andros, he reminded himself.

He liked him very much. Of course he was glad Andros had made it safely back to Windthorn.

It was just hard to see the relief on Theos’s face and realize how worried the Sacrati must have been for the whole trip.

Hard to know that Theos hadn’t bothered to share any of that with Finnvid.

“There’s a note?” he asked. He could worry about his pettiness later, or, even better, forget about it entirely. “What does it say?”

Theos unrolled the small bundle and pulled out a slip of paper. He squinted down at it and groaned. “Stupid code. I hate codes.”

“Code? Really? You write in code?”

“Sometimes. When we have to.” He looked toward the valley, then back up the trail. “I need to sit down and figure this out. We need to use numbers, and I’m even worse at numbers than I am at letters.”

“Can I help?”

Theos squinted at him, then nodded. “Probably. It won’t take long to explain it. Just hard to actually do the work.”

So Theos explained, and Finnvid was more than a little amazed by the complex blend of calculations they had to go through, but eventually they had the message deciphered.

Midnight watch. Temple. Second gate.

“A lot of work for not much of a message,” Finnvid said. “Does that all mean something to you?”

“It means we’re camping out a bit longer. I suppose the men on the midnight watch are on our side in whatever’s going on. And I guess he wants to meet us at the temple. The second gate is a way into the city; it’s usually barred, so I assume he’s done something about that.”

“So there is something going on.”

Theos nodded. He looked discouraged, but then he brightened. “Still, Andros is here! That’s good news.”

“It is,” Finnvid agreed, and by now he was sure he meant it.

***

The impatience that had been building in Theos as he walked home from Elkat was almost too much to stand, now that he was so close yet forced to sit and wait.

He thought about trying to find another way into the valley, but the only other possible approach was a four-day trek through the mountains in the summertime.

In the winter the route would likely be impassible.

He considered approaching the sentries even knowing they might be hostile.

He’d rather fight than wait, and if they were on the warlord’s side they were his enemies.

But maybe they weren’t really on any side yet and were just following orders.

And maybe it would be better if Theos and Finnvid arrived unnoticed.

After all, they didn’t really know what was happening.

So he waited. Finnvid tried to distract him in ways that would ordinarily have demanded all of his attention, and Theos tried to cooperate, but it wasn’t long before Finnvid sat up and said, “You don’t have to, you know. You’re not my bedwarmer.”

“I want to. In general. Just . . . not so much right now.”

“Because of Andros?”

“What? Andros?” Theos pushed away from Finnvid and then frowned at him, trying to make sense of the words. “What does he have to do with it?”

“Nothing,” Finnvid said quickly. Miserably.

“Andros is fine,” Theos reassured him. “He left us that message. I’m not worried about him anymore. Well, I’m much less worried than I was when I thought he was alone in the mountains, or maybe captured by Elkati.”

“I know.” Finnvid smiled, too bright to be real. “I don’t know what I was saying. Just babbling, I suppose. After guessing him, I probably would have said something about the phase of the moon, or there being too much snow. Or possibly not enough.”

The lie was obvious, but Theos didn’t know what to do about it. “I’m just restless,” he said. And then they stopped talking.

The temperature dropped as the sun set, so they denned up and snoozed, and when he could wait no more Theos shook Finnvid awake, and they crept down the hill and around the bend.

Two dark shapes would be easy to see against the white snow, so they kept to the forest and didn’t get too close.

They watched as the midnight shift took over the post and the others retreated to the simple cabin to sleep.

Theos made himself wait a little longer, giving the soldiers in the cabin time to settle.

Finally, he and Finnvid set out. Theos stopped walking before the sentries could call a challenge, hoping to keep them from making noise that would alert those in the cabin, and then walked forward slowly, hands raised to show they were empty. Beside him, Finnvid was doing the same thing.

“Theos?” The voice was hushed but familiar. “By the sword, Theos, it’s good to have you back.”

“Achus.” Theos stepped closer. “You remember Finnvid? He enjoyed it so much here that he’s returned.”

“Andros said you two were together.” Achus muttered a few words to the other men in the sentry tower, then slid down the ladder and moved toward them.

He clapped Theos on the shoulder and nodded at Finnvid.

Theos began to tug the bag of soil from around his neck, but Achus reached out and caught his arm.

“Better not. They might count the bags and realize you’re back. ”

“Who are ‘they’?”

Achus sighed. “Things have gone all wrong, Theos. You need to get into the city before sunup. I’ll walk with you and explain as we go.”

So they started down the path, and for the first time in his life Theos wasn’t relieved to be coming home. Instead, as Achus spoke, he felt himself growing more and more tense.

“The warlord’s taken over,” Achus said. “He had Tamon executed—claimed the captain had committed treason, been conspiring with the enemy. But he wouldn’t give details about any of it. Said the trial had to be private because there were important secrets that might be spilled otherwise.”

“Tamon’s dead?” Another Sacrati, another comrade, gone. If there’d been a battle, Theos would have been prepared for the loss, but this? His sorrow rose until he pushed it down and replaced it with anger. “We don’t have secret trials!”

“We do now,” Achus said with disgust.

“What are we doing about it?” The biggest part of Theos’s plan had been to get back to the city, talk to Tamon, and find out what to do. Now that was gone, and there was nothing left in its place. “What’s Andros up to?”

Achus sighed. “He came back and took shelter in the city, trying to understand what was going on. The warlord found out he was around and invited him down to the barracks to discuss the captain’s trial. He made it sound like he’d release the captain to Andros’s care.”

“But the captain is dead.”

“He is now. He wasn’t then. Not until Andros showed up to get him.

Then the warlord arrested Andros and gave the execution order for the captain.

” Achus was silent for a moment before saying, “We didn’t know about the execution.

The Sacrati. We knew the captain had been arrested, but we still thought .

. . I don’t know. We thought it was a bluff.

Thought the reeve could negotiate his freedom.

If we’d known, we would have done something, of course.

But we didn’t know. Not until the warlord dumped his body on our barracks’ doorstep and told us we no longer had the right to our own commander.

” Achus shook his head as if he was overwhelmed by it all.

Theos fought back his anger at the Sacrati inaction.

They hadn’t had the whole story; the captain had chosen to keep secrets, and that was why he hadn’t had defenders when he needed them.

If Theos had been in Windthorn, without knowing about the warlord’s betrayal in Elkat, he probably would have waited, too.

“And now he has Andros? I understand why you wouldn’t have known to do something about the captain, but why haven’t you rescued Andros?”

“Some of us want to. I want to. He told us what happened with the Elkati, but then the warlord took him before we could figure out our next step. And he’s being guarded by regular soldiers.

Lots of them. If we want to free him, we’ll have to fight them.

It’ll be Torian against Torian. And if Sacrati attack regular soldiers, the warlord will be able to make it look like he was right all along.

People will think that the Sacrati are traitors, and we are trying to start a civil war.

The soldiers will fight back because they think they have to, and we’ll fight back to defend ourselves. And where does that end?”

Theos swore softly. He was a simple man and didn’t like these complications. They made him feel like he was drowning under all the words, all the possibilities. But then he realized he was walking beside someone who was a much better swimmer.

“Ideas?” he asked casually, as if he were just giving Finnvid a chance to be part of the conversation.

“The letter,” Finnvid said quickly. “Unless Andros lost it. If it’s still around, it’s clear evidence. A bit tricky to know what to do with it, though. Normally you’d give it to whoever’s in charge. In this case, that might not work so well.”

“It could still work,” Theos said.

“You want to show the warlord evidence of his own betrayal? What do you think he’ll do with that information?”

“Not the warlord. This isn’t Elkat; it’s Windthorn. The warlord might be giving orders, but he’s not really in charge.”

“He still isn’t? With the captain dead?”

“No. The people are. The women . . . hopefully we can keep the women out of this. But the men need to know what’s going on. One warlord is nothing compared to a couple thousand soldiers.”

Finnvid nodded slowly. “So we need to speak to the men. And we need to be safe long enough to make sure they listen. How can we arrange that?”

Theos frowned at Achus. “The Sacrati and the regular troops aren’t truly at war, at least not yet. You’re still on sentry duty, not stuck in jail. Could I just talk to people? Go to the dining halls, the training yards—”

“And get arrested yourself,” Achus said. “You’d have to sneak around, and I really don’t know which of the soldiers we can trust. Most of them just want this all to go away, I think, but I know the warlord has spies.”

“I can do it. If I’m careful—”

“How long would it take?” Achus asked skeptically. “The warlord has made his move, and he’s got Andros. How long will it be before he has his trial and earns his execution?”

Achus was right. There wasn’t enough time for Theos to talk to the men individually.

“We need them all together. Somewhere we won’t be attacked and arrested before we’re finished speaking.

” He could only think of one place that would work.

“The city. The main square. It’s neutral ground.

Well, hopefully it’s our ground. But at least neutral. ”

“Will the reeve agree to that?” Achus asked. “She doesn’t generally seek your counsel, as I recall. And her priority will be the safety of the women, not the politics of the men.”

“She understands the situation. She knows that it will be terrible for the women, long-term, if the warlord gets his way.” He grinned with a confidence he didn’t truly feel. “And I think I can persuade quite a few of the other women to help us out.”

“You don’t have time to seduce them all,” Finnvid scolded. “You’ll need to appeal to their brains, not their . . .”

“Hearts?”

“That wasn’t the body part I was thinking of, no.” Finnvid shook his head. “I think you’re right, though. The city would be perfect. We just need to find a way to make it happen.”