The Desert Spear
Page 81

Marick seemed not to notice her change in demeanor. He chuckled and shook his head. “Can’t get over how you run the Hollow now. What happened to the soft girl who turned the head of every man that saw her? Overnight you’ve become Hag Bruna. I’ll wager even the corelings are scared of you now.”
Hag Bruna? Was that how folk saw her? The lonesome crone who bullied and intimidated everyone in town? Was that what she’d become when her virtue was stripped from her?
Her mother sensed the change, too. Time it was done somehow, Elona had said, and I expect you’re the better for it.
Leesha shook her head to clear it, sensing the moment they had been about to share slipping away. “What are your plans now?” she asked. “Will you help us hunt for more survivors on the road, or do you mean to take your group of refugees directly on to Angiers?”
Marick looked at her in surprise. “Neither.”
“What do you mean?” Leesha asked.
“Now that the Rizonans are safe, it’s time I moved on,” Marick said. “The duke needs word of the Krasian attack, and I’ve let them slow me long enough.”
“Slow you?” Leesha asked. “Their lives depended on you!”
Marick nodded. “I couldn’t leave people out on the road without succor, but they have succor now. I’m not Rizonan. I have no further responsibility to them.”
“But Deliverer’s Hollow can’t possibly absorb so many!” Leesha cried.
Marick shrugged. “I’ll tell the duke. Let it be his problem.”
“They’re not a problem, Marick, they’re people!” Leesha said.
“What do you expect me to do?” Marick asked. “Devote the rest of my life to looking out for them? That’s not a Messenger’s way.”
“Well, I’m glad we never ended up raising children together, then,” Leesha snapped. “Enjoy your bed, Messenger.” She took the tray and left, slamming the door behind her.
“What are we going to do?” Smitt asked. Leesha had called a late meeting of the town council to discuss Marick’s revelation that he was leaving the refugees in Deliverer’s Hollow and pressing on alone in the morning.
“Take them in, of course,” Leesha said. “Open our homes while helping them build their own. We can’t just leave these folk without food or shelter.”
“The greatward can’t accommodate so many new houses,” Smitt said.
“So we’ll build another,” Leesha said. “We have near two thousand hands to do the work, and miles of forest for material.”
“Not to scuff the wards,” Darsy said, “but just how’re we supposed to feed so many in the dead of winter? If more keep coming, we’ll all be eating snow before long.”
Leesha had been considering the same problem. “Every young woman in the Hollow can shoot a bow now. We’ll put them to hunting, and the boys to trapping.”
“That will only go so far,” Vika said.
Leesha nodded. “Corkweed may be tough and bitter, but it’s nutritious enough, grows on just about everything, and survives year-round. Put the younger children to work gathering it, and I’ll think of a way to cook and season it in bulk. If that’s not enough, there are edible barks and even insects that can fill a starving belly.”
“Weeds and insects?” Elona asked. “You’re going to ask folk to eat bugs?”
“I’m seeing to it they don’t starve, Mother,” Leesha said. “If I have to sit and eat bugs in front of them to set an example, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Well enough for you,” Elona said, “but don’t expect me to do the same.”
“You’ll have your own part to play,” Leesha said.
Elona looked at her. “I’m not making my house into an inn for every vagabond that comes down the road.”
Leesha sighed. “It’s getting dark, Mother. You’d best head home. We’ll talk in the morning.”
The others took this as the meeting’s end and filed out of the room after Elona, leaving Leesha alone with Stefny.
“Don’t fret,” Stefny said. “I’m sure your mother will be more than willing to do her part, opening her home to the Rizonan men with the biggest dangles.”
Leesha glared at her. “My mum isn’t the only woman in this village who broke her wedding vows,” she reminded her. Stefny’s youngest son Keet, now nearly twenty, was fathered not by Smitt but by the village’s previous Tender, Michel. It was still unknown to Smitt and the rest of town, but Bruna, who had midwifed the child, knew from the outset.
“Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking Bruna’s secrets died with her,” Leesha warned. “Keep your hypocrisy to yourself.”
Stefny blanched white and nodded meekly. Leesha gave an amused snort at how she scurried out of the room, and then started suddenly, realizing she sounded just like Bruna.
It was well over a week after Marick rode off—to the cheers and adulation of those he was deserting—before the Painted Man and Rojer returned. Erny and the Cutters had drifted back into the city over the first few days, each bringing groups of refugees with them, but the Painted Man and Rojer kept ranging ever farther, and all who came to the Hollow told stories of encountering them.
Leesha was proud of Arlen and Rojer for the lives they were saving, but by the time they returned, so many folk had come that she despaired of feeding them all, weeds and bugs or no.
“We went as close to Rizon as we dared,” Rojer said over hot tea at her cottage the day they returned. “I think we found everyone who took the road, though there are likely some who tried to cut overland. The Krasians have dug in firmly, and send out regular patrols on the road.”
“They’ve only dug in temporarily,” the Painted Man said. “It won’t be long before they’re on the move again.”
“Back to the ripping desert, I hope,” Rojer said.
The Painted Man shook his head. “No. They’ll conquer Lakton, and then they’ll turn north and head right for the Hollow.”
Leesha felt her face grow cold, and Rojer looked like he might be sick.
“How can you know that?” she asked.
“The Krasians believe that Kaji, the first Deliverer, unified the tribes of Krasia and then rode out of the desert, spending two decades conquering the lands to the north,” the Painted Man said. “He called it Sharak Sun, the Daylight War, and levied the men into Sharak Ka, the great holy war against demonkind. If Ahmann Jardir thinks he is the Deliverer come again, he will attempt to follow the same path.”
“What are we to do?” Leesha asked.
“Build defenses,” the Painted Man said. “Fight them, every inch of the way.”
Leesha shook her head. “No. I won’t support that. These aren’t demons you’re talking about killing, Arlen. They’re human beings.”
“You think I don’t know that?” the Painted Man said. “I have Krasian friends, Leesha! Can you say the same?” Leesha looked at him in shock, but she recovered and shook her head.
“Make no mistake,” the Painted Man said, his voice quieter, but no less vehement, “the Krasians believe every single person in the North is inferior to the least of them. They may make a show of being merciful to leaders they can use to further their goals, but there will be no such concessions to regular folk. They will kill or enslave everyone who does not swear utter submission to Jardir and the Evejah. We have to fight.”