The Brightest Shadow, page 54
Melal stepped up to him, taller but thinner. "I don't like being treated like this! I should b-"
"Easy there, don't you want to get those collars off? They can't be comfortable." Hanfel turned away, not rising to the provocation at all. As she started to follow, Tani had to admire the fact that he'd simply deflected Melal's anger.
She couldn't admire the way she'd initially met him. After nudging Celivia to follow, Tani moved to walk alongside Hanfel as they moved through the corridor. "We've met before."
"Aye, you really ruined our plans." Hanfel grinned at her, apparently not holding any hard feelings. She remembered the strength of his grip on her jaw, but also that he'd chosen not to hurt her when he could have. "I'm glad to see you're fine, girl. Looks like you've been training."
"Do you know how many people would have died if you had set off all those explosives?"
Hanfel didn't answer right away, scratching at his beard. When he did answer, his voice was quieter. "No. We underestimated how large the explosions would be and how many they'd send." His eyes turned to her, unflinching. "But knowing that, I still would have set them off. Better to have them kill Deathspawn and a few civilians than for all of them to be used on my people."
"I... can understand that." Once Tani would have said she didn't agree, but it was harder to say that so firmly now. War obviously did not obey the honorable rules of combat that spared civilians.
"Fortunately, we seem to have stopped Aryabaus from using them altogether. So the total deaths are fewer than if we'd gone through with our plan. Provided that we can take him down before he can use any more, I'll count it a victory."
"Do you think you actually have a chance to defeat him?"
"Right now, no." Hanfel scratched at his beard again, then smiled down at her. "But our total combat strength is increasing, so that will start to change. You all should help with that."
Tani nodded quietly and didn't continue the conversation. She wasn't sure how she felt about the resistance, but if they gave her a safe place to stay and time to train, that was worth something. Once she had more time to meditate on the skills Jaer had taught her, she was sure her head would seem clearer.
They left the dark, smoky tunnel for a larger room, lit not with torches but strange spheres set in the walls. Soft yellow light emanated from them, almost as pleasant as actual sunlight. There wasn't much to see in the illuminated room, just some simple chairs and equipment that looked like it was for a metalworker, but it was a relief not to be seeing by unstable torchlight.
Since Hanfel sat down to wait, Tani moved to one of the spheres. It was about as large as her hand and seemed to glow of its own accord. She touched it to see if it was hot and felt a tingle of sein moving through her body. As if the sphere drew it, though her sein remained within her fingers.
"How strange..." Tani looked up to find Celivia having followed her. "Have you seen anything like this before?"
"In a few places, but not since I came to the Chorhan Expanse. They aren't so expensive to make, but they require sein to create light." Celivia reached out and traced a finger over the edge of the sphere, which glowed brighter in response. "If you have enough warriors to donate sein from time to time, they're a much more pleasant method of lighting."
"I already like them much better." Tani experimentally touched it again, trying to let the sein flow out of her into the sphere, but couldn't figure out the trick to it. That did answer her question about whether such spheres could be used as weapons, however. Fortunately, it seemed not, at least not simply.
Before she could experiment for long, they were interrupted by a new warrior entering the room. Not Coran for once, an Estronese man in an elaborate green robe. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and blue eyes that swept over the room.
"Come over here one at a time and I'll remove your collars."
Though Tani was eager to have hers removed, she waited for someone else to step forward first. After a pause, Slaten did so. The Estronese man raised his hands around either side of Slaten's neck and focused, sein shifting in a way that Tani didn't understand. After some time passed, the collar popped open and fell, Slaten catching it before it hit the ground.
"We'll melt those down later. Just leave them by the forge."
As Slaten did so, Tani stepped up to have her collar removed next. The man didn't touch her and seemed to ignore her entirely, focused on the collar. That felt slightly strange, so after a pause she spoke up.
"Thank you for this. I'm Tani of the Nelee, who are you?"
The man only grunted in response. But after an awkward moment, another voice answered. "That's Graenin. He seems like an arrogant fucker, but once you get to know him, he's a really arrogant fucker."
Her collar opened a moment later and Tani was glad to let it fall to the floor, her shoulders finally released from the weight. She turned with a smile on her face to find Veron entering the room. After a broad wave to all of them, Veron drew her sword.
"Anybody else wants their collar removed, I'll get it done."
Slaten looked at her in surprise. "You could cut the iron without harming the person's neck?"
Veron shrugged. "I didn't say anything about not harming them. But if you're impatient, I'll give it a shot."
Meanwhile, Graenin just moved on to free Celivia. He might not be friendly, but Tani didn't mind his focus on what mattered.
That left Melal, who waited impatiently with his arms folded over his chest. Graenin gestured for him to come closer and Melal shook his head. Instead he reached up and grabbed the metal around his neck. After heaving for a moment, it tore apart with a wrenching sound. Melal grinned and dropped the two mangled halves to the ground.
"There, no need for anyone's help! Now, I want to talk to whoever is in charge of this place."
"Afraid that's hard." Veron put her sword away and walked up to him. Seeing her seemed to throw off Melal's swaggering a bit, if only because he wasn't subtle about staring at her body. "She doesn't like to talk to people. But if you hurry to the main room, you might get a chance to talk to her before she runs off again."
It wasn't like they had much choice. Their group headed in the direction Veron indicated - it seemed that she and Graenin weren't coming with them. Hanfel again led the way and Tani winced as they went back into tight corridors lit by the smoking torch.
Worse from a practical perspective, there were more side tunnels than she expected, some of them slanting up or down. Some had smoothed floors while the others were very rough, but it was clear that this cave complex was large and well-established. Surely they couldn't have done this much just during the time of the mansthein assault on East Corah. Though she didn't know Coran history well enough to be sure, Tani suspected that it must have had another use in times past.
Tani's eyes eagerly sought out the softer light ahead, looking into the next room. It was the largest chamber they had found so far, the ceiling perhaps twice her height. Instead of being made flat, one side of the room had several ridges of raised stone. When she got closer and saw how people were sitting on them, she realized that they were natural seats pointing toward the low end of the room.
Though several Corans sat in the room, most of them struck her as untrained, so Tani's gaze quickly focused on the two in the center. One was a young Coran man, the other a somewhat older Coran woman. Her gaze flickered between the two and the man drew her gaze first.
He had short blond hair and green eyes. At the moment he was taking off pieces of armor, of a style she thought was Eastern Coran. His tunic was a practical reddish brown, similar to the Coran tunics she knew and yet cut differently, with short tails on the sides. Perhaps he was from East Corah instead of the Expanse?
The fact that he looked somewhat similar to Melal with a stronger jaw made her hesitate, but she had to admit that he was handsome in the Coran way. Unlike Melal, his eyes were soft and thoughtful, and she could imagine herself falling into them. When he pulled off more of his armor, she admired how well-built his muscles were as well. To keep herself focused, Tani looked away from him.
Beside the Coran, the woman sat with the easy confidence of an experienced fighter. She wore her dark blond hair short and leather armor over most of her body. Tani spotted eight - no, nine - knives, including two partially hidden ones. The woman's expression was practically venomous as she argued with the young man, her body language suggesting that she did not like people arguing with her.
"These are the last two of our elites," Hanfel explained. "Narenel and Destrela."
The woman just scowled at them with eyes narrowed, while the man - Narenel - rose to his feet and gave an unusual one-handed bow. He had what seemed like an honest smile, which she was glad for. "I am pleased to meet with you. Veron spoke well of your skills and I am not truly worthy of being called an elite in this company, so I hope that we can work together."
"What's with that bow?" Melal stepped forward, frowning at him. "You think you're some kind of knight or something?"
"I was honored to be an apprentice to Lord Dantorel, before the violence. But I no longer hold any position, so the most I can do is regain what honor I have lost."
It was the first time that Tani had heard a Coran speaking about honor so seriously and she found herself liking Narenel more. Meanwhile, Melal seemed to consider this a personal affront and she didn't understand why. He was stepping forward, scowling, and though Narenel kept a smile on his face, his feet shifted to a combat stance.
"Stop it." Destrela stood up and walked in between them, breaking the tension. She moved with silent footsteps over to Hanfel. "Did you just bring them in here without searching them?"
Hanfel frowned. "We checked their things along the way. But they fled the prison, so it is not as though they were carrying a great many possessions."
"I don't care, bringing in this many people rubs me the wrong way. Strip search all of them."
Laeri gasped. "S-s-strip? Surely you can't mean..."
"Get out of that robe or I'll get someone to do it for you, girl." Destrela glared at Laeri and shifted one hand to the hilt of the dagger at her side, as if she planned to cut off Laeri's robe herself. Laeri gave another gasp and pulled back, clenching her staff tight to her body.
Tani's body reacted by going still and she tried to think if there was an alternative. That left her staring directly at Destrela, and she didn't realize until the older woman met her gaze. Not liking what she saw there, Destrela stepped up to her with a deepening scowl.
"You have a problem with that, girl?"
"Yes, I do." Tani refused to let herself back down, even though Destrela's shoulders tensed like she was about to strike at any moment.
"Well, you don't have a choice. It doesn't have to be a long process, I'll just do it myse-" Destrela reached down toward Tani's waist, and at that moment Celivia reached from the side and grabbed her wrist. There was a moment of frozen shock as Destrela stared at her.
Then three movements happened in quick succession, so fast that Tani could do no more than watch.
Destrela twisted her arm out of Celivia's grip while her left hand drew a dagger. She stabbed out with it, barely missing Celivia's arm as it pulled back. Without any hesitation, Destrela had already drawn a second dagger with her other hand and stabbed again. This one Celivia evaded only by taking a large step back.
That left the two of them facing each other from a short distance, Destrela glaring hatred and Celivia's face neutral. From watching their movements, Tani realized that Destrela was one of the fastest people she'd ever seen. Celivia had managed to avoid her blows, but hadn't had any time to counterattack. It was obvious who would win if they fought, and Celivia must have known that, yet she'd still stepped in.
"You think you're special?" Destrela's gaze turned back to Tani, but she refused to back down. "Warriors stronger than you die every day and no one even notices. If you ever cross me again, much less touch me, I will gut you. Do you understand?"
Celivia stepped in between them and for a while Tani didn't see how the situation could be resolved. At that moment Narenel pushed to the center of the confrontation, arms raised in a pacifying gesture. "What matters here is making sure that our headquarters remain secure. Destrela, I don't recall us doing anything like that before - do you have a particular reason to be skeptical of them?"
After glaring at all of them, her gaze lingering on Tani, Destrela turned away. "Just a bad feeling."
"Well, there is no need to assault our guests. They will surely want to clean themselves shortly after their long journey. While they are doing so, they can show us their equipment and other supplies. Will that be acceptable?"
The answer got nothing but a grumble from Destrela, but Hanfel nodded and Tani suspected that meant the conflict would pass. Though the idea he mentioned made her a little uncomfortable, it was far better than the confrontation had been a moment ago. Tani flashed him a smile and she thought he nodded back, but he seemed much more focused on the tense situation, which was reasonable.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Melal walked in, ignoring Destrela to frown in Narenel's face. Narenel sighed and turned to him.
"I'm sorry, have I done something to offend you?"
"All of this offends me. I'm the goddamn Hero and no one gives me any respect!" The declaration got everyone's attention, though Tani saw more skepticism than awe. Melal drew in a breath and seemed to swell, his posture more regal and his eyes shining a brighter white. Narenel's eyes widened.
"Are you truly the Hero of the Legend?"
"Of course I am! And I don't want to hear another word out of you! From now on, you take my orders, we're going t-"
Destrela moved in front of him, her dagger pointed at his chest with startling speed. Even Melal shut up when he saw that. "Be quiet or I'll kill you. It doesn't matter if you're a hero or the king himself, I'm not going to listen to an arrogant brat."
Melal turned all his attention on her and Tani had to focus to avoid letting her mind slide toward him. "You think you can just rule this whole resistance by force?"
"No. All the elites get a vote, and I'll listen to anybody who has a good point. You haven't made one." Destrela glared over all of them, then began to walk away, ignoring Melal's presence. "None of you are really members here until you prove yourselves. Until then, I'll treat anything suspicious as betrayal. And you can guess what the punishment for betrayal is."
That left them all standing uncomfortably as she stalked away. Narenel gave everyone an apologetic smile, while Hanfel just rolled his eyes as if this wasn't the first time. Soon they were moving again, though Tani's thoughts stayed in the room.
She was personally capable of ignoring the Hero's presence, but this was the first time she had seen so many other people do so too. No, she remembered how Veron had disregarded Efeinas at first. Perhaps it was because Melal wasn't as terrifyingly focused as the other Heroes? Tani needed to clear her mind, but there was too much going at the moment.
Better to focus on something simpler. Celivia still walked near her, lost in thought. Tani wanted to take her hand and give it a squeeze, but wasn't sure if that would come across right. She settled for getting the other woman's attention and mouthing the words "thank you", which got her a quick smile in response.
Their time with the resistance was not off to a good start. But as they walked forward, Tani heard something that caught her attention. She sped up to get nearer to Hanfel and interrupted his tour. "Did you say there are pools here?"
"That's right, some sort of natural spring. You should probably get cleaned up before you use them, but rest assured we don't lack for water here." It had been a long time since Tani had felt fully clean, so she looked forward to it despite a few misgivings. Meanwhile, Hanfel continued explaining. "These tunnels lead to the common area and the sleeping chambers. We've divided them into several groups - you'll start out here until you find your proper place, so feel free to take bed supplies but don't get too comfortable."
As they walked into the next chamber, it finally started to come home to Tani that this was really happening. Her collar was broken, she had been introduced to new allies, and now they were being given places to sleep. This cavern system would be her life for now.
Tani closed her eyes and hoped that she'd made the right choice.
Chapter 41
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"First and foremost, I beseech you not to listen to those who counsel negotiation or even surrender to the Deathspawn. The Legend says that some human kingdoms will fall and some will surrender, but others will stand firm. For those who stand, it promises great difficulty, but rebirth after the final battle. For those who surrender, the Legend promises nothing at all. Is a bit of present comfort worth the risk?"
- excerpt from a letter written by Lady Karerela of East Corah
-
Slaten stared at the ceiling, realizing how strange it was to wake up and not need to work or travel. Allegedly, his only task now was to prepare for combat. Despite the uncertainties related to the resistance, he didn't mind this.
He sat up in bed and collected himself before he began moving. The room of bunks hewn into the stone still struck him as odd. Based on the filled beds around him, it seemed that many were still sleeping, but others were just going to sleep or wide awake - without sunlight in the caverns, he wondered how much they stuck to a natural rhythm at all.
They'd been given basic instructions the day before, enough that Slaten knew where the facilities were. After he'd relieved and cleaned himself, he took his sword and headed out to find the others. Though the caverns were a maze, they'd been restricted to a smaller part of it, so it was simple to pass through the corridor to the first chamber.
There he only had to wait for a short time before Tani and Celivia appeared, talking to one another. They stopped when they saw him and Tani smiled. "Good morning, Slaten. Do the men's quarters have bunks in the walls too?"
