“Thank you so much,” said Shadiy, the woman I had first freed. “You’ve saved my family.”
“It’s what the Swordslinger does,” I said.
“You’re the Swordslinger?” Shadiy looked at me wide-eyed. “I never thought I would live to see a hero on that path.”
“And I never thought I’d get to be one,” I admitted. “Funny how life turns out, huh?”
Looking around the room full of feasting prisoners, I realized how much bigger my mission was than I had anticipated. It wasn’t enough just to kill the bad guys. My job was to make things better in the provinces, to restore lives that had been torn apart and land that had been ruined. I was here to bring good, not just drive out evil.
I took a seat next to Shadiy. “Tell me more about what happened to you.”
“The cult called us the Pathless. Anyone who didn’t follow their way was assumed to have no path of their own, no purpose worth speaking of. They killed some of us as an example to try to make others convert, but most of us who spoke out against Saruqin and his cronies were locked up. I think they were keeping many of the Pathless as a potential tool. If we eventually broke and converted, then we could be used to influence others, as a sign that all resistance fails in the end. But we stayed strong.”
“If so many stayed strong, how was Saruqin able to turn the guild and the clan against Ganyir?” I asked.
“Through poisonous words carefully chosen. He found the right ears to whisper in and spread rumors that Ganyir was an unintelligent buffoon, too proud of himself and only good for war. It was easy for some people to believe because Ganyir was known to be a great warrior, and they liked to think of themselves as smarter than him. That gave him enough followers to start taking control.”
“What of Mahrai? What was her role?” I was still wondering whether we might be able to use her against the cultists, or whether it was just a baseless idea running around in my head.
“Her power, and especially the earth golem, won over those who wanted to be that powerful themselves, as well as striking fear into some who might have stood against Saruqin.”
“She served willingly?”
“I don’t know. She was never present at the public executions. There were whispers that she could be sympathetic to our cause. But they soon ceased. Maybe she was once, but Saruqin would have ironed out any thought she had of conspiring against him. He might have threatened a family member, or told her she would be given to his cultists to alleviate their yearnings.
“Fear is at the heart of everything Sarquin does,” Shadiy continued with a shake of her head. “His corrupted priests roam the city, rooting out anything they consider heretical, from following other paths to criticizing Saruqin’s policies. We were all rounded up as heretics and left in the cells with barely enough food to survive. Some days I was so hungry, I thought they were trying to see if we’d eat our fellow prisoners to survive. But now…”
She held up a slice of bread with trembling hands, then looked at me with a wide smile.
“You saved us, Swordslinger.”
I considered what she had told me. Some of this was going to be painful for Ganyir to hear, but he needed to understand what was going on in his city. Importantly, he knew the city better than I did. He could ask questions that would give us a deeper understanding of exactly what the Unswerving Shadows were doing—where they kept their soldiers and Augmenters, which people of importance were on their side, who might join us against them.
“Will you come with me to talk with Lord Ganyir?” I asked. “I think your intelligence could be invaluable in freeing the city.”
“Of course!”
Shadiy looked at a man sitting across the table from us. Shadiy’s daughter sat in his lap and her son nestled in close. All three were eating like they feared they might never have the chance again. I hadn’t seen the man in the cell with her, but from his expression and the way the children acted with him, I assumed he was their father and Shadiy’s husband.
“Are you all right with them for a while?” she asked.
Her husband nodded. “Of course. You go save the province.”
They smiled at each other. Shadiy stroked each of her children on the cheek, took a deep breath, and rose to follow me.
We found Ganyir and the others still in a large, echoing chamber with a high ceiling and a round table in the center. High-backed chairs were drawn up around the table, places where officers and commanders could gather while they made their plans. The walls were lined with benches for their deputies and messengers.
Maps were spread across the table, weighed down with markers representing where my companions thought Saruqin’s forces might be. The tone of the conversation was upbeat, buoyed by our success in dealing with the priests and their golems.
I introduced Shadiy and asked her to repeat her story.
As my companions listened, their expressions became grim. Kegohr clenched his clawed fists. Ganyir glared at the table. Kumi, in particular, seemed to retreat into herself, curling up in her seat with her arms wrapped around her. Stories of starving children were too much for her to take. Vesma frowned the whole time, her rage simmering beneath the surface.
Ganyir asked questions, as I’d expected. The conversation moved on to details I wouldn’t have considered, and Shadiy helped the lord place his pieces more accurately on the maps.
I went to Kumi, knelt by her chair, and laid a hand on her arm.
“Are you all right?” I asked quietly.
She nodded and stared at her hands. “I’ll be fine. I just wish there was something I could do to help those poor people.”
“Perhaps there is,” I said. “We haven’t found a lot of food here, and
