Sana the elephant minder shook her head. “Them places are cursed!”
I turned to the woman. “Mare, if by cursed you mean ‘a place where Ninavis and her people hid from Captain Dedreugh for months,’ then perhaps so, but we have no time to find anything better. So please, follow Ninavis inside.” I tried to make it clear from my tone I wasn’t making a request.
Sana wanted to argue, but Ninavis’s people were already moving. A lightning crack and thunder clap far too close at its heels decided the issue. She started leading the remaining elephants.
Brother Qown asked, “What does estava mean?”
Dorna answered first. “Storm shelter.” A nasty grin cracked her face. “You ain’t seen a Joratese tornado yet, have you, foal?”
His eyes widened.
I fought not to laugh while Dorna grabbed him by the robe. “Come on, then,” she said. “It’s going to be a bad time to be outside tonight.”
While not all Joratese houses are underground cellar homes—indeed, many aren’t—we have never forgotten we’re host to the most vicious storms to be found in the empire. Joratese architecture derives from the estava, not so different from cellar houses today except in scale. They were not fortresses; they acted as shelters for times when, for whatever reasons, the Horse Lords hadn’t wanted to move their herds away from approaching storms.
Ninavis’s people had lit a few lamps as we entered the shelter. Too few for the place’s size. Presumably, lamp oil was a rare treat for bandits on the run.
The tunnel opened into a gigantic stone hall supported by massive granite columns, so large the lamps didn’t illuminate the far walls. The estava showed signs of great age—cracks in the floor, places where rubble had fallen from the ceiling. Running water echoed beyond the torchlight, but I didn’t know if I heard runoff from the storm or if the shelter had permanent access to fresh water.
Ninavis and her crew would know.
The hall’s current owners had left their mark. Crates rested against a stone wall, opened to reveal foodstuffs and cloth bundles, supplies and rations stolen from across the banner. I even recognized the merchant groups. There, tea from Eight Coins Trade Consortium, and over there, dried mango donated courtesy of none other than the Sifen family. A grand pile of pillows and rugs marked the main bedding location, and someone had taken time to craft an earthen oven.
The refugees needed no instructions; they spread out, set down their possessions, and began making camp.
Brother Qown waited for me to help Ninavis take a seat on a piece of fallen masonry before he bent down next to the woman. “Let me look at your leg.”
I saw her about to protest. “Ninavis, I bear the responsibility for your injury. Let Brother Qown heal your leg. Vishai priests are without equal in the healing arts.” I sat down on a wooden box, stretching as I began removing the black enameled armor I’d borrowed from Sir Baramon. Sir Baramon had been right about the poor fit. My muscles were not happy.
“The Physickers Guild wouldn’t appreciate you telling folks that,” Ninavis said.
“The Physickers Guild is more concerned with lining their coffers than helping people,”3 I replied. “And they hardly bother doing even that much in Jorat.”
“Maybe if you stopped burning them as witches,” Ninavis suggested, “they’d be keener to take your metal.”
I was about to protest, but I realized she was baiting me. I didn’t have the patience for it. I was about to respond, anyway, when Sir Baramon joined us. His red face suggested both the rigors of a hard march and the tears he’d shed along the way. I reminded myself he’d lost someone very close just a few hours prior.
I didn’t even know his lover’s name.
Sir Baramon sat down next to me. “That was…” He pressed his lips together and tried again. “I’m not imagining things, am I? A dragon attacked us? I thought they were myths…”
“Oh no,” Brother Qown said as he unpacked his satchel, looking for whatever supplies he needed to treat Ninavis. “That was Aeyan’arric.”
Everyone stopped.
Ninavis blinked. “You know its name?”
“Her name,” Brother Qown corrected. “And yes, I know her name. There are eight dragons.4 Based on the descriptions I’ve read, that’s Aeyan’arric, the Ice Bringer, Lady of Storms.” He hesitated as he saw the expression on our faces. “Father Zajhera taught me their names.”
“Eight of them,” I repeated. “Like the gods?”
Brother Qown gave me a shocked look, the one he wore whenever I asked a question he’d rather I hadn’t. “No! I mean, there are more than eight gods, anyway…”
“Only eight gods who matter.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. Dragons are the living antithesis of the natural order the gods personify, so you can’t compare them.” He held out his hands. “Sometimes a number is just a number.”5
I stared at him and felt in my bones my priest had just lied to my face.
“So eight in all the world,” I said, “and yet one shows its face—her face—here. Now.” I finished pulling the plates from my arms. “Even if we call ourselves fortunate that the dragon was only interested in our elephants, I find myself discomfited. She flew toward Mereina…”
“It may be coincidence,” Qown said.
“Oh aye. And when vultures circle in the sky after a battle, that’s just coincidence too.” Dorna began picking up discarded armor and placing the pieces in neat, organized rows next to Sir Baramon. “I’d see about helping the group fix supper, but I’d say they’ve had enough catastrophes for one day. I can help with the ritual of parting, though.”
Embarrassment washed over me. Of course, the townsfolk would still have a funeral. Even if they didn’t have bodies to burn, ashes to scatter over fields, they would still honor those they’d lost. We wouldn’t have enough rations for the funeral feast, but …
But. They had to do something.
I couldn’t blame them.
“Do you think they’d mind if I said a few words?” Brother Qown asked.
“Well, you ain’t a priest of the Eight, colt—” Dorna began to protest.
Qown frowned with disappointment. “Dorna, I am. My lord Selanol is one of the Eight. I’m as much a priest of the Eight as anyone who follows Khored or Galava.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Sorry. Guess I didn’t think of it that way.”
I touched Brother Qown’s hand. “I’m sure they would be grateful for someone to speak for the dead. Please.”
Dorna gave me an odd look. “What? You ain’t doing that?”
“I cannot. I’m going to sleep now.”
Dorna’s hands froze on the armor.
“Early for that, isn’t it?” Sir Baramon asked.
“Quite the opposite. I’d hoped we might make camp earlier. Now I fear I’m too late.” I stood and gathered up the cloak I’d picked up from the Red Spear’s body. I saw where everyone put their blankets together for sleep and headed to the other side, where I would be alone.
I would have liked it better if Arasgon had been with me, but I would have liked it better if none of this had happened too. I bundled my cloak into an impromptu pillow and lay down, curling myself into a ball.