as soon as he appeared.'
She felt bruised and exhausted, but as Healing magic flowed from Akkarin she felt strength return. 'I told you. I won't leave you. If we die, we die together.'
He drew back a little and looked down at her, amused. 'That's very flattering, but what about Dorrien?'
He muttered a curse and turned to regard Dorrien, lying several paces away. They hurried to the Healer's side. Dorrien's eyes were open and glazed with pain.
Akkarin placed a hand on the Healer's head.
'You're badly wounded,' he said. 'Stay still.'
Dorrien's eyes shifted to Akkarin. 'Save your strength,' he whispered.
'Don't be ridiculous,' Akkarin replied.
'But—'
'Close your eyes and help me,' Akkarin said sternly. 'You know this discipline better than I.'
'But—'
'You are more useful to me alive than dead, Dorrien,' Akkarin said dryly, with a hint of command. 'You can replace the strength I use to heal you later, if you wish to.'
Dorrien's eyes widened with understanding.
'Oh.' He paused, then looked at Sonea. 'What happened to the Sachakan?'
Sonea felt her face warm. Using Healing power to kill seemed like the worst abuse of the discipline.
'He's dead. I'll tell you later.'
Dorrien closed his eyes. Watching closely, Sonea saw color slowly come back to his face.
'Let me guess,' Akkarin said quietly. 'You stopped his heart.'
She looked up to find him watching her. He nodded at Dorrien. 'He is doing all the Healing now. I'm just supplying the strength.' He looked toward the Sachakan. 'Am I right?'
Sonea glanced at Dorrien, then nodded.
'You said Parika would not enter Kyralia.'
Akkarin frowned. 'Perhaps he wanted revenge for the deaths of his slaves. Strong slaves are rare, and Ichani do get angry if one is killed or taken from them. It's like losing a prize horse. I don't know why he'd bother, though. It's been hours since we arrived, and he must have known it would be difficult to find us once we left the road.'
Dorrien stirred and opened his eyes. 'That will do,' he said. 'I feel like I've been smashed into small pieces, then put together again, but I'll live.'
He gingerly pushed himself up onto his elbows. His gaze slid to the dead Ichani. A shudder ran through him, then he looked at Akkarin.
'I believe you. What do you want me to do now?'
'Get away from the Pass.' Akkarin helped Dorrien to his feet. 'And send a warning to the Guild. Do you have any—'
Sonea stared at Akkarin. He gazed back at her. An image of a road flashed through Sonea's mind, seen from above. She recognized it as the road on the Sachakan side of the Fort. Several men and women, dressed in similar clothes to Parika's, stood in a line. The air blazed with their strikes.
'Too late for warnings,' Dorrien muttered. 'They're here already.'
As Cery looked around at the crowds, he felt a small pang of jealousy. The two Thieves whose territory included the Market, Sevli and Limek, were very rich men, and today it was not hard to see why. Bright sunlight glinted off an endless stream of coins passed from customers to stallholders, and a small part of that income taken in exchange for services would quickly add up to a fortune.
A server approached the table and set down two mugs. Savara sipped at hers, closed her eyes and sighed.
'You do have good raka here,' she said. 'Almost as good as ours.'
Cery smiled. 'I ought to get some in from Sachaka, then.'
An eyebrow lifted in warning. 'That would be expensive. Not many merchants risk travelling across the wastes.'
'No? Why is that?'
She gestured around them. 'We have nothing like this. No markets. Each Ashaki owns many hundred slaves—'
'Ashaki?'
'Powerful free men. Slaves provide almost everything they need. They tend the fields, make cloth, cook, clean, entertain, almost anything the Ashaki needs. If a slave has a special talent, like making beautiful pottery, or the Ashaki owns a mine or produces more of a crop than he can use, he will trade with other Ashaki.'
'So why do merchants bother going there?'
'If they do manage to attract a buyer, they can make a considerable profit. Selling luxuries, mostly.'
Cery considered the cloth in the next stall. It had appeared in markets the year before, after one of the crafters had invented a way to make the surface glossy. 'Sounds like there'd be no profit in Sachakans coming up with a better way to make something.'
'No, but a slave might, if he has ambition or if he wants to be rewarded. He might try to attract attention by creating something beautiful and unusual.'
'So only pretty things get better.'
She shook her head. 'Ways of processing or making ordinary products do improve, if the change is simple. A slave might work out a quicker way of harvesting raka if his master wanted it done faster and would beat him if he failed.'
Cery frowned. 'I like our way better. Why beat someone, when greed or having to feed a family will get a man to work smarter and faster?'
Savara laughed quietly. 'That's an interesting view, coming from a man in your position.' Then she sobered. 'I like your way better, too. Aren't you going to drink your raka?'
Cery shook his head.
'Are you afraid someone will recognize you and slip in some poison?'
He shrugged.
'It's gone cold now, anyway.' She stood up. 'Let's move on.'
They walked down to the end of the row of stalls, where she stopped at a table covered in jars and bottles.
'What is this for?'
The vessel she had picked up held two preserved sevli, floating in a green liquid.
'A key to the doors of delight,' the stall owner replied. 'One sip and you will have the strength of a fighter.' His voice lowered. 'Two, and you will experience pleasure that lasts a day and a night. Three, and the dreams you will have shall—'
'Turn into nightmares, which don't stop for days,' Cery finished. He took the jar from her hands and put it back on the counter. 'You couldn't pay me to... Savara?'
She was staring into the distance, her face pale.
'It's started,' she said, so quietly he barely heard her. 'The Ichani are attacking the Fort.'
He felt a chill run down his spine. Taking her arm, he pulled her away from the stall and anyone who might
