“What did they say?”
“They said I would sleep in the men’s barracks tonight. It was a place of honor for a lord’s daughter.”
The implication was clear enough. Aile sighed.
“You will sleep in my tent.” Ilkea looked up, shocked. “No stories.” The satyr nodded, a smile spread wide across her face.
“It is… it is not easy to be the daughter of—”
“No stories.”
The tent was no more or less comfortable than the packed tent that the horse had carried. It was not worth complaining about, still better than most. The night passed by easily, though Aile chose to sleep in her leathers. A reputation was something that brought her pride but with pride often came trouble and challenges.
She awoke to shouting outside of her tent. Satyr shouting. There did not seem to be a second voice and so Aile rose in the tent and watched the flaps intently. Ilkea woke as well and dressed quickly, moving to the entrance as she did.
“What is she saying?”
Ilkea did not look back. “It is nothing. I will see to it.”
That was unlikely, Aile felt, and so she followed the young satyr out into the yard. A crowd had gathered, all in a half-circle watching a single female satyr scream at Aile’s tent. Ilkea was doing what seemed to be pleading with the woman.
No sooner than Aile had felt the sun on her skin in the cold morning did the irate satyr turn to her and begin her tirade anew. She said a fair few words, the meaning of which Aile did not need explained to her. The woman held a staff with a blade at the end, double edged and pointed. A wide knife on a stick. A lack of reaction from Aile only seemed to escalate the situation. The satyr was looking at Ilkea now, pointing to Aile, and shouting, such as it was.
Ilkea lowered her head and walked away from the woman.
“She says you are undeserving of your reputation and that she would have you prove yourself before you ever be allowed near Shahuor.”
“Shahuor?”
“In the prison.”
Aile could not even manage a sigh. This worthless posturing about honor and proving oneself. It was worse than the elves. “I have no intention of fighting your simple friend. If she moves at me, I will kill her.”
Ilkea grew nervous. “Such a statement would be seen as a challenge… I cannot…”
Aile began to walk away, toward the edge of the crowd. The woman barked some words at Ilkea and she responded. Ilkea had not finished her sentence when a sharp howl pierced the air. Aile managed a sigh this time.
The blade came down quick at her head. Aile made only a quarter turn and deflected the stick-knife with a dirk pulled from her side. With her free hand, she plucked a slim blade from a pocket just under her breast and flung up. There was a click followed by a decisive thunk as the blade tapped the satyr’s eye socket and lodged in her brain. A half-heartbeat after, another blade went soundlessly through the woman’s upturned chin, disappearing as the slit it had put in her skin snapped closed.
A small cloud of dust rose into the air as the satyr fell to her knees. There was no other sound but the soft scrub of the dirt under her. Not from the woman, not from the gathered crowd. Aile backed up a step to let her opponent fall. The crunching and shifting of the earth under the fallen satyr seemed to echo through the camp. Aile looked down and then to Ilkea.
“Tell Salaar I expect to be reimbursed for the blades.”
Part Three
N
Z
Socair
The dark came on quickly once the sun had started its way out of the sky. The red stone of the Bastion had not been easy to notice in the fading light outside, but as they passed through into the main hall, it was an intimidating sight. Socair wondered if that wasn’t by design. The Bastion in Abhainnbaile was no less imposing, after all. More familiar to her, perhaps, but still an impressive sight. The hall was brightly lit with torches at the sides and a trio of chandeliers running down the ceiling above a pale green carpet.
They had not moved very far into the main hall before turning left into one of the side halls and again just in front of an overwalk. Socair looked out across the small footbridge. There was not much light on the far side. Perhaps a place used for storage, she thought. It was not where they were bound so she didn’t give it another thought.
The girl in front of her, Nath, had been walking silently but at a brisk pace. She could not see the girl’s face, but there was a stiffness in the way she walked that Socair desperately wanted to comment on. The windows running alongside them gave over to more red rock and then to hallways of doors upon doors. More than the doors, Socair couldn’t help but notice the massive paintings. Each at least a dozen feet high, a banner in between in pale and forest green, the colors of the province. The figures on them were in regal dress, men and women both.
“These paintings,” Socair said cautiously, “they are of the Treorai and Binse?”
Nath looked back over her shoulder and then up at the paintings. “Ah, no. They are of the family and historical lines of our great Treorai.”
Socair had read only a bit of the history of Fásachbaile, but she had been fortunate enough to start at the beginning. For two thousand years, the role of Treorai had changed hands as it still did in Abhainnbaile, by appointment of the previous Treorai. That stopped when a family rose to prominence, claiming to have been descended of the blood of Fásach herself. They ruled capably enough as far as Socair had read, but this display was something altogether foreign
