“They didn’t quite capture me in battle,” he said. “They took me in my sleep.” She darkened.
“And so I have taken you back,” she said. “This time. But you are not my grandson, you hear me? Hm? I cannot come to save you every morning. If you cannot protect yourself, I cannot protect you either. Next time, remember that.” She gestured, and his red Thousand-Mile Cloud floated up from behind her. He hadn't noticed it, and he wasn't prepared for the sensation of relief that flooded him at the sight.
“Follow me,” she said, and he did.
His neck was tight from the effort of not looking back to see the others he’d left behind.
Gesha spent most of their journey back cursing the Sandvipers for their cowardice, but Lindon remained lost in thought. When he asked her how she’d found him, she simply said “I looked,” in the tone of voice that suggested he was an idiot.
When they returned to Fisher territory, his plans had clarified enough for him to ask better questions. “Pardon, Fisher Gesha, but I’d be better able to defend myself with a Path.”
Her drudge’s spider-legs did not falter in their smooth, rolling gait, and she didn’t so much as glance at him. “You think you’ve earned it? Hm? You think you’ve given so much to the sect that we must give you something back?”
“I have nothing but gratitude to you and to the Fisher sect,” he assured her, though his only contact with the Fishers thus far had been limited to glimpses of customers in the Soulsmith foundry. “I will never repay my debt for your kindness in this lifetime. I’m only impatient to contribute more.”
Judging by her pleased smile, flattery had been the right choice. “Why so impatient? If you have not walked a Path so far, waiting until Iron is not so late. Focus on Forging two scales a day. When you can do that, you will keep one.”
He wasn’t sure if she’d found his successful scale or not, but he was still a long way away from two scales a day, every day. “If I could, then how long might it take me to reach Iron?”
She was silent for a moment, contemplating the question. “If you work hard, one year is not too short. Not so bad, is it? A year is nothing when you’re my age, I can tell you.”
“Of course not,” Lindon lied, thoughts cast back to the wagon full of boxes. “Not too short at all.”
Chapter 12
Five days after his release from the Sandvipers, Lindon went to see Yerin. She'd spent most of her time with the Fishers helping them hunt down Remnants and sacred beasts, which seemed to be one of the primary businesses of their sect. There were many Soulsmiths in the Five Factions Alliance, and most of them got their primary supply of bindings and Remnants parts from the Fishers. Refiners paid for rare medicinal ingredients or sacred beasts as components for elixirs, and Fishers prided themselves on diving into the wilderness and emerging with whatever their customers requested.
Yerin provided something that the sect had previously found in short supply: overwhelming offensive power. Though Lindon had sunk entirely into Gesha's Soulsmith business since that first night, he and Yerin had seen each other every few days.
According to her, the Fishers were experts at tracking, navigating the wilderness, and extracting natural treasures for later sale. But they were forced to give up on some prizes simply because their madra wasn't as suited for combat.
As such, they treated Yerin like some kind of long-lost younger sister who had returned to usher in a golden age of economic prosperity. Now, when Lindon showed up at the Fisher housing to see Yerin, she had a room of her own. Previously, she'd had to share one long log cabin with twelve other women. Now, she had her own, smaller log cabin, complete with baked clay tiles for the roof and a hearth and chimney.
She opened the door blearily as Lindon knocked, swiping at her eyes with one hand. The silver sword extended out from her back, touching the invisible traps she'd Forged around the doorframe and dissolved them.
He was glad to see that all the traps were on the inside of the door this time. He'd hesitated enough just knocking, wondering what lethal tricks were lurking in the air.
“I'm sorry for waking you,” he said. “Should I come back later?” He kept moving inside as he asked; the question was a formality anyway.
She shifted that red rope she wore as a belt and stretched, yawning. “Cycling. The snoring doesn't start until about the third hour.”
He'd come at sunset, so she may well have been preparing to sleep, but she still looked better-rested than she had when they'd arrived. The Fishers had replaced her old, tattered sacred artist's robe with a new one, and the fine black fabric looked unmarred despite her days in the wilderness. Her injuries had already healed into new scars—one of the many benefits of the Iron body that everyone but Lindon enjoyed—though her hair had grown out, longer and less even than before.
In short, she looked like she'd had two weeks worth of rest and regular food to get her back into fighting shape. While Lindon himself...
She looked him up and down, growing visibly concerned. “You need to take a seat? You look like a dead dog on a bad road.”
He took that to mean he looked tired, which was true. His fingers were twitching and he couldn't seem to focus his eyes on more than one thing for more than a handful of seconds, but excitement kept him fueled.
Lindon slung his pack off, throwing off his balance and staggering for a step, then he pulled out a sheet of paper and slapped it down on her one table.
She leaned over for a closer look. “They've been making you take a lot of notes, have they?”
“These are the shift changes of every Sandviper guard working regular duty with the mining teams. I've been following them for most of the last week. I made up some of the names, but this isn't all; I know their habits, their replacements, what they like to drink, which teams they're responsible for, when they deposit their scales, everything I could think of.” She lifted the paper as though wondering how he got so much information on there, and he hurried to add, “That's not the only sheet.”
“Why?” she asked simply.
“I know where they keep the scales,” he said, passion burning away exhaustion. “It pulls in twice a day, they load up the haul for the day, and then they take it away to a secure location back in their main camp stronghold. Their guards are tired, their miners are angry, and everyone's rushing so that they can squeeze the Ruins dry before the Arelius family gets here.” His words were tripping all over one another, and he knew it, but he plowed on anyway. “They're too strong when all the Sandvipers are together, but that's almost never true.”
He waited until he had her full attention before hitting her with the selling point. “We can free the miners. All I have to do is activate one of Fisher Gesha's spider constructs, take it to camp, have it disrupt the script—”
“That sounds like a tall cliff to climb,” she interrupted. “You think you can keep it powered that long? And you know how to disable the script?”
Lindon had to clasp his hands together to keep them from shaking. Maybe he had been awake for too long. “It's easy, if you know how and where, which I do because they gave me a personal look. It's like breaking a lock.”
“Breaking a lock isn't usually easy,” she said.
“It is if you have specialized equipment, which we do. We'll have a construct. Anyway, we release enough prisoners, and we can take the wagon. So long as we strike at dawn or dusk, of course, when it's there. If I fill my pack, I expect I can walk away with a thousand scales, and I'm sure you can too.”
“And then we fade away like mist in the sun, do we?” She was still eyeing the paper, so at least she hadn't dismissed him completely, but he'd been hoping for a more enthusiastic reaction.