‘What’s done is done,’ said Katyett, looking out at the piazza. Fifty bodies lay there. Perhaps more. ‘But those who committed this atrocity know they cannot act with impunity.’
Pelyn sighed. ‘No, Katyett. For you, it’s always so simple, isn’t it? And so naive sometimes. Too much time in the rainforest. What it’s taught them is that Yniss’s elite warriors have no control. That they mete out their version of justice on helpless elves.’
‘They have murdered my brothers and sisters by the hundred. They have burned my temple. They have put themselves in front of the TaiGethen blades. I am bound to respond and I am not merely going to shepherd them from the site of their crime.’
Pelyn gestured at the remains of the fleeing crowd. ‘And what would you have done if they’d all stood before you, killed them all?’
Katyett said nothing. Just stared into Pelyn’s eyes. Pelyn gaped.
‘Why so surprised, Pelyn? We exist to remove threats to the harmony. What would you call them?’
‘More Ynissul will die because of what has happened here tonight.’
‘Not here they won’t,’ said Katyett. ‘We will take them with us. No Ynissul, no elf of any thread, should suffer such a fate as those innocents in my temple.’
Katyett turned away towards her TaiGethen. They were gathering on the temple apron, staring at the ruined timbers, the clouds of embers and coils of smoke rising into the night sky. They began to chant a dirge of grief.
‘Take them where?’
Katyett turned. Pelyn looked lost, standing alone in the midst of the carnage. Alone and confused. Scared. Katyett wanted nothing more than to go back and comfort her. But this was not a time for friends. It was a time to do what had to be done to secure the Ynissul and what remained of the harmony. If anything did.
‘We will stage them at the Ultan and then move them into the forest.’
‘You’re leaving the city?’
‘The Ynissul are being targeted. If we are to hold back the tide of war we must remove the catalyst. I will need the help of the Al-Arynaar. Will I get it?’
But Pelyn appeared not to be listening. ‘This place will tear itself apart.’
‘I will not shed a tear for those who die trying to destroy the work of a millennium.’
‘And the innocents caught in the middle of it all?’
Katyett shrugged. ‘The Al-Arynaar are the keepers of the peace. It is why you are drawn from every thread. Looks to me like you’ll be very busy.’
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ said Pelyn.
‘I’m doing what I was born to do. So must you. You said you no longer know who to trust, well you must trust yourself. You’re strong, Pelyn. You stood before that crowd and did not back away. You tried to save my people. Our people. Yniss bless you for your courage.
‘Somewhere, the minds behind this are working towards their end. The TaiGethen must find them and stop them. And if you truly believe in the harmony and in Takaar’s legacy, you will try and keep this city standing so that when the conflict is done, we still have a place, a society and a race of elves of which Yniss can be proud.
‘Think on that.’
Katyett walked to join her people in the dirge for their lost.
Chapter 13
Show your enemy his entrails. It is the only negotiation he will understand. Auum travelled quickly, heading east when he left Serrin. He felt the absence of his mentor and friend more strongly than he had imagined he would. He followed a tributary to the River Shorth and turned north, tracking the great force from just inside the canopy.
He had with him the clothes in which he stood, his twin swords in their back scabbards, three short knives on his belt and his camouflage paints in a pouch next to that which carried six jaqrui throwing crescents. His boots were soft and comfortable, allowing him to feel everything beneath his feet. He would have run barefoot like so often on Hausolis, but so much danger lurked on the forest floor and he could not afford an accident.
Beyond the falls at Shorth’s Teeth he had found a small boat with oars, mast and a tattered but serviceable sail. He’d have promised payment to the owner but the village was deserted, bearing the signs of a hasty evacuation. Sildaan’s message was already out here.
There was no wind to fill his sail but Gyal was ever present. Rain thundered on the boat, forcing him to stop rowing every time a deluge struck to bail out water. It was a frustrating journey, only tempered by the flow of the river taking him in the direction he wanted to go.
Auum travelled the Shorth for three days. Out here in the middle of the rainforest, he could feel the harm being done to the land and its people. Yniss seemed powerless, or unwilling, to act. Auum rowed or sailed gently past river settlements whose inhabitants stared out at him with suspicion and even betrayal in their faces. He cursed Sildaan for the evil she perpetrated.
Between the deluges and the snatched hours of sleep, Auum thought. Perhaps too much. Out there ahead of him was Takaar. He wondered if there would be anything left of the ula he had known only briefly. The hero of the elven race. He who once walked with gods.
Auum wondered what he would say to Takaar. He imagined their conversations, dreamed about them sometimes, and always found his heart beating fast when he awoke. Takaar might not want to be found. He might ignore all Auum’s entreaties. He might, of course, be dead.
That was not a thought on which Auum dwelt. Darker moments were banished by a prayer to Yniss or just by lying back and gazing at the glory that was Calaius. The Shorth wound its course through staggering changes of land. Beyond the waterfalls of Shorth’s Teeth the banks of the river closed in with swamps making landing all but impossible.
Beyond the swamps hills swept away, covered by trees and scaling high towards cloud and Gyal. A further day’s sail north and the land changed abruptly. The river ran between mud walls over a hundred feet high and home to flocks of water birds and a myriad reptile species. The walls were topped by the canopy, and only when the sun was directly overhead was the light anything other than gloomy. And finally, with the Verendii Tual close, rose the great cliffs of the delta. Hundreds of feet up, pocked with caves and crawling with life.
The cliffs ended dramatically, sweeping down to the outflow of the delta’s mouth and into the Sea of Gyaam. Auum stowed his boat before he met the brackish waters and difficult tidal flow out there, hoping, praying that Takaar had done the sensible thing and chosen to live high above.
Down here, at the river’s edge, Auum felt the full majesty of the cliffs of the Verendii. He had travelled here many times before and never ceased to wonder at the power and strength echoing from every face of stone. Here he could drink in the glory of Yniss’s creation like nowhere else and so he sat with his feet in the waters of the western bank and stared up.
Rain was falling, splashing down into the river and painting the rock face dark. At his back the climb was not so steep as opposite. Soon he would head into the forest and leave his mark and direction at the way stones and Yniss shrine. Serrin knew Auum’s likely landfall at the Verendii Tual. He would come to the shrine before beginning his search.
Auum looked at his climb. Takaar would be up there on the eastern cliffs, he was sure of it. They boasted unparalleled views of the forest to the west towards Deneth Barine and Ysundeneth; giving early warning of anything coming into the delta or dropping anchor in the inlet beyond. And, of course, they offered the barrier of the River Shorth between him and most of elven civilisation.
A place where an elf born to the forest could see pretty much everything coming at him and choose whether to be found, to leave or to hide. A place where surprise was the weapon of choice.
Auum could see no sign of habitation up there and did not expect to. So he trotted back into the forest, left his mark at the shrine and rowed across to the opposite bank. There was an easier path up the cliffs a quarter of a mile to the south but he fancied a sheer climb. He found his first handholds, jammed his feet into small cracks up at waist height and began his ascent. Ysundeneth, dawn, and a shocked quiet hung over the city amidst the palls of smoke and the sounds of grief that echoed from every quarter. Whether it was the crime committed by ordinary elves who by day might open a shop and sell you a loaf of bread, or whether it was news of the extraordinary violence of the TaiGethen response was impossible to tell.