Tahlis met us at the bottom of the stairs. “I see there are people out in the valley.” He gestured at the smoke from the army’s cooking fires. “So many men and women coming out for a picnic.”
“I think they might want us to join them,” I said. “And then, it won’t be so nice.”
“We’ll need all hands ready. How did the initiates do in the field?”
“Go on,” I said to them. “Spend some time in meditation and think about what cost you’ll have to pay should you choose to fight.”
They all bowed to me and Tahlis before they went into the temple.
I filled Tahlis in on what we’d done and how the students had performed, both individually and as a group.
“They all have serious potential,” I said. “The problem is that they’re young. Untested in real combat. They’re definitely not ready to fight a war against seasoned fighters and experienced Augmenters.”
“Maybe,” Tahllis said. “Or maybe you underestimate the difference you’ve made. They seem somber.”
“That was a recent change. I showed them something before we came back to the temple. Something that made them seriously consider what they might need to do.”
“You didn’t kill a cat, did you?” He grinned at me and winked.
“We should prepare for when the soldiers storm the temple,” I said, ignoring his poor attempt at humor.
“Agreed.”
As we headed up the steps, another figure was walking down toward us. Ganyir had donned the armor that previously lay in a corner of the temple. It added to his already intimidating bulk, creating a figure of towering strength. His expression was still grim, but at least the slump was gone from his shoulders.
We met him halfway up the steps. To one side, the mountain fell away in a vertiginous and jagged drop. To the other, it soared up toward the heavens, a mass of stone nearly as solid and stern as the fallen lord of the Gonki.
“I want to take a closer look at the army,” Ganyir said. “To see what sort of threat we face.”
“I’ll come with you, my lord,” I said. After being called “Master” for a day, using the honorific felt a little strange. “I didn’t have a chance for a closer look with the initiates in tow.”
“Count me out,” Tahlis said. “I can smell everything I need to about them from up here. Let me tell you, the mighty forces of Gonki need to bathe more often.”
“If you’re heading up, then tell the others that we have a raid incoming,” Ganyir said. “I spotted a detachment of 30 or so heading this way. They’ll be set on storming the Sunstone Temple.”
“Very well, my lord.” Tahlis bowed, both his words and the movement clear of his usual mocking tone. Then, he headed up the steps.
I expected to go back down the stairs, but instead, Ganyir directed me to a narrow gap between two rocks. He had to turn sideways to fit between them. On the other side, a trail I hadn’t noticed headed steeply up the side of the mountain, back east above the valley road.
The lord didn’t speak after I followed him through the gap, and I kept pace with him as we traversed a steep and winding trail. The narrow path clung to the natural curves of the mountain. It looked ancient, not a deliberately designed route but one laid down by centuries of living things traveling along it. In places, it was so narrow that I had to put one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker, while leaning in toward the rock to avoid overbalancing and tumbling down the mountainside. Ganyir, despite his bulk and the weight of his armor, moved along it as nimbly as a mountain goat, practically leaping along a path so tenuous that I might never have noticed that it existed.
The trail forked repeatedly as it wound across the mountainside. Sometimes, we took the high route and sometimes, the low one, but Ganyir always followed it with absolute confidence.
“You know this place well,” I said.
“My brother Targin and I came out here when we were kids,” Ganyir said. “The place has changed since then, and not for the better, but I still know my way around like I know the rooms of the palace.”
The darkness of his tone put me off asking further questions, and we continued our journey in silence. I emerged onto a rock ledge at the top of a cliff where Ganyir laid prone. I figured he wanted to make himself inconspicuous to the army, so I mirrored him as he crawled to the edge of the cliff.
Below, sand dunes fell in waves down the valley toward the river bed. On the way, they ran across the sand-sunken village.
The army gathered amid the half-buried houses. Most soldiers seemed to be ordinary infantry, men and women in cheaply assembled uniforms like those of the guards I’d met at the city gates. They carried heavy two-handed weapons, including clubs, hammers, maces, and long scimitars. There were scouts as well, with short swords at their sides and bows on their backs. The officers, dressed better than the rest, were clustered around one of the cooking fires, with their horses and camels tethered nearby.
Most important were the Augmenters. They stood out in their guild robes, and like the officers, they weren’t mixing with the rest of the troops. They had cleared the sand off a set of benches in what had once been the village square while the troopers brought them their meals. This was the way of the Straight Path—use your strength to have others do your bidding, even in the smallest of things.
“This doesn’t look good,” Ganyir said.
“I’ve defeated a guild before, with those same Augmenters who are now inside the temple.”
Admittedly, I’d also had Faryn, a collection of Wild tribes, and a Water Clan alongside me. But I wasn’t going for complete honesty with Ganyir. I wanted to inspire him where I could, let him know the
