Her master had been dead for over a year, but he had continued to surround her. His house, his things, had always been a reminder. Now the house was gone, the last physical connection broken. Leaving her past behind, Roan had expected she’d feel something: relief, peace, hope. But she found none of those things. The world was the same as it had been, except now she didn’t have a workbench.
“Well?” she heard Gifford say.
Looking out from under the grain cart, Roan could see Gifford and Rain down on their knees, peering under the wagon at her.
“Still weakening, but it should survive another day.” She turned on her side and rolled back out into the sun. “I thought a few of those bumps today might have cracked the axle, but it’s fine.” Roan loved saying the world axle. She liked how the word formed in the back of her mouth like she was coughing up phlegm. “How much farther to Tirre?”
Gifford looked to Rain.
The little man shrugged, staring out across fields dotted in daffodils. “Hard to gauge distances here.” He talked with the same rolling accent as the other two dwarfs, a melodious trundling of thick tongues that stretched words into growls. But his voice was higher, his words clipped, halting, and precise, as if he didn’t have the same amount of time that the others did.
Roan understood his point. In the vast rolling uplands of few landmarks, it would be difficult to tell how far they’d come. Endless fields of tall grass swayed everywhere, interrupted only by an occasional clump of trees or small creek. She was about to nod her agreement when Rain added, “Directions aboveground are impossible to gauge with any accuracy.”
Roan looked at him for a moment, perplexed. She used a hand to shade her eyes and glanced upward. “The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And if the rising sun is to your right then you’re facing north, and south is behind you.”
Rain squinted his eyes at her. “North, south, east, west? What good are those?” He pointed up at an angle. “What direction is that?” He pointed in the exact opposite direction toward the ground. “Or that? It’s not east or north, is it? And it’s not exactly up or down, either. And how far is far? How near is near? What’s the length of a finger? And what is the distance to the sun? Underground it all makes sense. There are rules down there. Logic in the rocks. Up here…” He scowled at the sky. “Up here it’s all just a wishy-washy mess. All air and open space that can’t be measured or gauged.”
Roan thought about this and realized measurements were indeed a problem. When she’d asked the question, she hoped to hear they were close, but how far was that? Without specifics, she couldn’t hope to determine whether the carts would finish the journey. That the carts had managed the trip so far was—as Persephone put it—a miracle.
The miracle applied to people as well as the carts. Just two days after setting out, the crowd had grown to almost six hundred. The injured from Dahl Rhen had been left at the first outer Rhen village, and at each settlement, Persephone urged people to stay in their homes and wait for further instructions. Even so, the parade south gathered a few more citizens from each town before moving on. Parade described the procession well. Padera had saved the one remaining flag, which had flown from the top of the lodge, and Habet carried the tattered cloth, flying it on a long stick right out in front.
Each day the column stopped just twice, once for the midday meal, and then well past sundown to make camp for the night. As always, Padera and Grygor orchestrated the cooking.
That day, Raithe had borrowed Roan’s ax to cut a nearby tree. But Grygor became too impatient to wait for the God Killer, and snapped logs over his knee for firewood. Wide-shouldered Engleton and two other men were busy digging a pit to put it in. Habet, after planting the Rhen banner nearby, worked at igniting the kindling using a strip of rawhide held taut by a bowed stick. The strap was looped around another vertical piece of wood that spun quickly as he moved the bow back and forth. Where the vertical stick was pressed against a log, wool placed in a knothole started to smoke. Those who had nothing else to do gathered to watch Habet—the master of the clan’s fire. Or maybe they just knew that the sooner he got the wool to light, the sooner there would be food.
Satisfied that her carts would reach the next camp, Roan walked with Gifford and Rain toward the sound of laughter. On the far side of those watching Habet, another group formed a circle, clapping and cheering as if being entertained by a minstrel show. At the center were the Galantians, who themselves were ringed around Moya.
At first, Roan feared her friend was being punished, beaten the way Iver had done to her. No, she thought, Moya would never let anyone beat her. She should have known better. As she and Gifford got closer, Roan realized Moya was fine. She didn’t appear the least bit frightened and laughed along with the rest. In her hands, she held a thin sword.
“Maybe it would be best if you just stand back and throw something,” the Fhrey named Tekchin was telling her. He stood in front of Moya brandishing a stout stick and making everyone laugh as he pushed aside Moya’s swings.
“The Fhwey twaining the women too?” Gifford asked.
It stunned Roan how Moya could stand in front of so many people—in front of the gods—without fear.
They aren’t gods. Roan had to constantly remind herself of that fact, just as she had to convince herself that Iver was dead. She’d seen him laid in the ground and even dropped in a handful of dirt. During the burial, she’d thought his pale, bluish cheeks had twitched when the dirt hit. She’d nearly screamed; not because she thought he had come back to life, but because she was terrified of the punishment for throwing dirt in his face.
“Eres,” Tekchin said, “let her throw one of your javelins.”
The Fhrey with the little spears glared back in alarm.
Tekchin rolled his eyes and shook his head. “They’re weapons, not sacred artifacts, for Ferrol’s sake. Let her try one.”
Eres scowled for a moment then reluctantly waved Moya over. He held out one of the spears.
“You throw it from the shoulder and follow through,” Eres explained. “Try and hit that deadwood over there.”
“The stump or Tekchin?” Moya asked with a mischievous grin, and everyone laughed again, but louder this time.
Moya was a marvel. Roan watched astounded, as if the woman stood in the center of a roaring fire. Roan couldn’t imagine being stared at by so many, much less a ring of Galantians. They were all grinning, and Moya grinned right back. She was closer to being one of them than Roan was to being like Moya.
Moya took the javelin and threw, but the little spear made it only halfway to the deadfall.
Eres took what looked like a stick with a cup on its end. “This is an atlatl, a thrower. See?” He took another javelin and inserted the butt end in its cup. Then he flicked the javelin, making it move faster and travel farther. The weapon hit the stump with a loud thwack.
Moya looked at him as if he were insane.
“She’d do better with this,” Anwir said. He demonstrated his technique for whipping a stone with a sling. Swinging the long straps in a circle over his head, he let one fly. When Moya tried, she managed to shoot the pebble much farther than the javelin, but in completely the wrong direction. A distant crack was followed by someone cursing, and Moya cringed.