Saiai Webnovels

The Exarch’s tent was quiet. The noises from the camp outside didn’t reach beyond its wall.

Agatha had always felt uneasy in that place, even before being told to wear those unfamiliar clothes and to sit on a cushion she wasn’t used to.

To her left, the young man called Ergon sat cross-legged, busy writing on some kind of ledger. Occasionally he would open a different book, as if comparing the two, and an unsatisfied wrinkle would form on his forehead. Agatha still hadn’t really understood what that man’s profession was: in the last few weeks she had seen him act as doctor, interpreter, teacher and even cook, at least once. She tended to consider him some sort of very competent attendant, so she imagined he was compiling an inventory of something, like she had been taught to at school.

Throughout the years, many had told her she had a great memory and talent for math and organization. They always said it to her as a compliment, but every single time there had been a part of her that took it as criticism.

Because Kal had an atrocious memory, and certainly his talents did not lie either in math or organization.

She and Kal were twins, born on the same day, and yet they couldn’t be more different.

Thinking suddenly about Kal and his birthday, Agatha opened her bag and took out her brother’s uniform and the spool of green thread she had bought. She had finally managed to take the uniform from him and now, just in time, she was going to properly mend it.

She shaped her wristband into a needle and immediately got to work.

Kal had been her very first friend. They had been inseparable when they were little. She had been told that before they had even learned their first word, if either started crying the other one instinctively comforted them with a hug. She had also been told that she had gotten very sick as a baby, with something that had completely spared Kal. She did not remember it consciously, but she was convinced that all her life had been marked by that first, original difference. Her parents got extremely worried then, and ever since her very first memories they had been far more protective with her than with her brother: he was allowed to play outside more often and longer than her; if he got hurt they never reacted with the same panic than when she was the one who got hurt; when he asked to learn how to fight, her father had been enthusiastic, because that meant he could better protect his sister.

But she had never asked to be protected. She loved Kal, she admired him and wished for nothing more than to be like him: strong, dependable, someone who protects others. And she knew she could be like that, all she needed was for someone to give her the chance. The fact that not even Kal ever did was a cause of great frustration for her.

She was distracted from her thoughts and from her work by an alarmed voice coming from just outside the tent.

«What’s happening?» she asked absentmindedly, speaking to no one in particular.

Ergon got up and went to the tent’s door. Someone tried to get in, but captain Astor, who guarded the entrance, pushed them back: «I don’t understand what he’s saying!»

«Let me try.» Ergon said, before speaking to the person on the other side of the entrance, out of Agatha’s sight: «What is happening?»

Now that she could hear them better, even Agatha understood the other person’s panicked answer: «They’re attacking us! The bandits are attacking us! The city guards won’t lift a finger for us, not until Inner Istak is in danger! Please, help us if you can!»

Ergon turned for a single moment toward her, and Agatha knew what he was thinking.

The Exarch should be the one to tell them what to do. But she isn’t here.

She had no idea what she had to do. She didn’t even know if she had to do something. She felt fear taking hold of her.

Why did it have to happen now!?

Then the moment passed. Ergon turned back toward the captain and translated to him what the other person had said.

There was a tense momentary silence, then he replied: «We have thirty watchers. I’ll send ten to help them, I take responsibility for this. I think that’s what Exarch Helena would want. Close the door and calm down the girl.»

Ergon complied and went back to his previous task, giving her a serene smile: «I know you’re scared, but there is nothing to worry about, you’ll see. We’re safe here.»

A little time later the door was opened and then rapidly closed back.

«I strengthened the surveillance around this tent.» said captain Astor, looking tired. «I’ll stay here inside, there are other three watchers outside now. Don’t worry, kid. You just sit there and wait for the Exarch to come back.»

He ended the phrase with a sigh, before sitting down opposite Ergon, on the other side of the tent, and lowering his head.

Agatha tried to go back to sewing the uniform, but despite the reassurances she had been given, her hands had begun shaking, and she was unable to make them stop.

---

Fyra imagined her opponent in front of her. His weapon was a staff, or a spear, something long held with both hands.

Against that kind of weapon, as long as she kept her distance the enemy had the advantage.

She imagined him attempting a thrust.

Fyra dodged to the left, a single step, no wasted movements, then she advanced, ideally making the blade on her right arm slide along the shaft of the enemy’s weapon.

The range of her opponent, as she visualized it, had the form of a thick ring. She was now beyond the inner edge of that ring, she was too close for her enemy to attack her.

Now she had the advantage.

Quickly, mechanically. Without giving the other the time to react. Fyra thrusted her left arm forward and hit precisely the point where her adversary’s heart would be.

«What on Earth are you doing?» an annoyed voice behind her.

«I am training.» she answered Yugis, who had approached her. She’d have liked to have a training dummy, like the one she had at home, but even training without one was better than nothing.

«And what use is that?» he asked, in an irritated tone. «Stop it. If you move around like that you risk hurting somebody.»

Fyra didn’t bother telling him that she was always very careful when she trained. She knew that man well enough to know he wouldn’t even listen. She’d have gladly punched him, but she settled for a sigh as she turned her blades back into bracelets and removed her control band.

«There, that’s it.» Yugis sounded satisfied.

«Just out of curiosity, Yugis.» said Pol, appearing from behind him. «Were you born a killjoy or is it a vocation you chose growing up?»

«Oh, you shut your mouth!» Yugis appeared to have already completely forgotten about her. He was nervous, as almost always, and all he wanted was somebody to vent with. Fyra gladly let that role to Pol, who seemed to fill it just as gladly.

She’d rather focus her attention on what was happening nearby.

A decarch, guiding a column of men and women in uniform, had called all five watchers assigned to their tent and was giving them orders.

Fyra moved closer, trying to hear.

«You, to the Exarch’s tent. You come with me. All the others, back to your posts.» said the woman, then she departed with her column, heading away from the camp.

«What’s happening? Do you know?» Takhys asked her, and Fyra realized she wasn’t the only one watching. She saw old Epideks close by, and from the other side Pol and Yugis too were approaching them, apparently having suspended hostilities.

Fyra shook her head.

«Look, that way!» said Epideks. «That’s smoke.»

Yes, far away to the south, in the direction that decarch had gone, a light brown cloud of smoke was rising high in the sky.

«There must be a fight going on.» Pol said, in a rare serious tone.

«Oh no! It must be bandits!» Takhys exclaimed, covering her mouth with one hand.

«Bandits?» Yugis asked, worried.

«I was told by an acquaintance from another tent.» she answered. «His sister was a watchwoman and she had been sent here to tell the lord of our arrival… but on the way back the bandits killed her. It’s them, it has to be them! Ohhh…» She darted away, hiding inside the tent.

«I have to take my wife and the kids. We’re not safe here!» Yugis too was about to run.

«Calm down, will you!» Pol stopped him. «Look how far that smoke is. They’d have to make their way fighting through the entire city before they got here!»

Fyra though had a strange feeling. She pointed a finger at the cloud of smoke. «What is there? Does anybody know?»

Epideks scratched his head. «Sometimes I took a walk in that direction… I don’t remember there being anything, child. It’s only houses.»

«Where are the farms?»

«Uh, the farms and orchards are that way.» the old man pointed to the north-west.

«Not even a gate, another entrance through the walls?»

«Oh, there has to be another gate for sure, but trust me, it’s not there. What are you getting at?»

«Why attack there, if there’s nothing there?»

«Why are you looking for a sense to what they do? They’re bandits.» Pol answered her.

«Because…» Fyra took a deep breath, trying to drive away her anxiety. «My father is in the military, he studied strategy.»

She still remembered the answer he had given her when as a child she had asked him what that word meant: “Strategy is the thing that makes you win battles even when the enemy is stronger than you.”

«When your enemies outnumber you, you need to make them split, you need to distract them, you need to make it so they don’t understand what your real objective is until it’s too late.»

She could still hear her father’s voice summarizing that concept in one sentence: “Make noise in the east… strike in the west!”

Right at that moment, an enormous shadow smashed the tent behind them, bringing down its roof in a deafening crash.

---

One last loop with the thread, and the tear had been perfecly mended.

Agatha let a satisfied smile appear on her lips.

«A wonderful precision work.»

She gasped. She hadn’t noticed that Ergon had stopped writing in his ledger and begun watching her work.

«I mean both your needlework and the needle itself. Shaping sklerygron in such a small object requires talent, not everyone is able to do it.»

«T-Thanks.» she replied, not without pride but also a little sheepishly. «I don’t know if mine is “talent”, I put a lot of effort into learning how to do it and finally I did, that’s all.»

«Ah, but there are many who would never learn, not even putting into it all the effort in the world.»

At those words, captain Astor made a snort which meaning was hard to interpret.

«What do you mean?»

«You see, psychic manipulation of sklerygron is an ability we still do not fully understand. Not everyone possesses it, and even among those who do it has many gradations. There are those who can shape it with precision to the point of giving it an edge like to a blade, and there are those who cannot. There are those who can make it change shape without touching, and those who cannot. There are even those who possess such mastery that they can not only shape it but move it with their mind. Also, the ability varies with age. In the case of most men and women, as they grow older it… loses flexibility: the mind gets used to alternating between a limited range of shapes, to which it can no longer add more.»

«Oh.» Agatha lowered her gaze. She had been so happy to have learned to make a needle with her sklerygron, but now she was afraid she’d be able to do only that for the rest of her life.

«No, no, I didn’t say that to make you depressed, forgive me.» Ergon said, in an apologetic tone.

Agatha had noticed it before as well, but looking at his face again she was stricken by his large clear eyes. They were blue, a rare color, but that wasn’t the only thing that struck her. There was something… sad in his gaze, as if he were prey to an incurable melancholy even now that he was smiling to her.

She realized she had already seen that look.

It’s just like Ark’s.

«I didn’t mean to imply it was inevitable.» he continued. «Take for example our captain Astor here. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him use his sklerygron, but these days he usually shapes it into a single sword, long and thin. Well, you’ll be surprised to know that he didn’t always use that weapon. When he was younger, many years ago, he favored the use of two daggers, short and thick. So you, see, there’s no need to lose hea-»

Ergon was violently interrupted by the captain, who grabbed his shoulder and forced him to turn. «What did you say?»

Agatha saw on Ergon’s face the same puzzled expression she had in that moment. Bu contrast, the captain has his eyes open wide and was baring his teeth, as if something had scared him. She didn’t understand what had just happened, but suddenly the air had grown tense.

«What did you say?» captain Astor repeated. «How do you know of the daggers? Who told you!?»

Ergon seemed to be about to try an answer, but whatever words he spoke, if any, they were drowned in the loudest sound Agatha had ever heard: a monstrous crash, the sound she imagined rocks made during a landslide. She even heard the reverberations through the ground, like a wave that made her uneasy on her feet.

And after the sound came the screams. Desperate. Terrified. Blood-curling.

The captain immediately let Ergon go and dashed to the door. Agatha tried to follow him, but he stopped her: «No! You stay inside, kid. Hide. Whatever happens, do not leave this tent!»

As he disappeared beyond the door, she looked around. Hide? Where? And I don’t want to hide, anyway! I can fight. I’ll show him!

She realized she still had the needle in her hand. She focused her mind.

She had turned it so many times into a knife, during training.

«Come on… Come on!»

Why wasn’t it working?

Someone gently grabbed her shoulders.

«Now is not the time.» Ergon told her. «Do as the captain told you. Come.»

Without hurting her, but firmly, the young man pushed her under the cot behind them.

«Stay here. And make no sound.»

One moment later, the door was violently opened and the captain fell inside. He groaned once, then laid motionless.

Two men entered, hooded and clad from head to toe in dark clothes.

Ergon had a single moment of hesitation, then he lunged at the bigger one of the two. Or at least, so it seemed to Agatha.

She saw a long blade emerge from Ergon’s back, he shook for a moment and then he fell without a word.

Agatha gripped her needle tighter and desperately tried to concentrate.

Why can’t I make it change shape? WHY?

She had made a mistake when she had turned it into a needle, it would stay a needle forever now, Kal would have never made such a mistake, she had been stupid, stupid, stupid.

She tried to chase those thoughts away, but panic had taken hold of her.

The two hooded men looked around, then they focused their gaze on the bed she was hiding under.

They exchanged a look, and a nod.

The leaner one got closed and kicked away the bed, then he grabbed her arm.

She flailed in a desperate attempt to free herself, and managed to pull off his hood.

It was then, and only then, that Agatha screamed.

---

After what Bek-cherek had said, Helena took a moment to process the news.

She would never see her grandfather again. Unlike her father he had been old and sick, but still…

«Wait. How did he die?» she asked Bek-cherek.

She saw in the spy’s eyes that he had understood the unsaid words in her question.

«His time on this earth had come to its end. Nothing suggests he was assassinated.»

Helena let out a long sigh. If nothing else, she would not have to add patricide to the list of Sofron’s crimes.

«So, now that man has made himself Prince.» she hissed.

«Yes, and if you stay here you will be handed over to him, and then be executed for treason before your own people.» Bek-cherek leaned forward. «But your story doesn’t have to end this way, Stefan’s daughter.»

«Speak your offer, Hinzanian.» Helena was rapidly losing her patience with that man’s inability to get to the point.

He threw a glance at Kalos Aregonid behind him and at Artor Deutarid behind her, then he nodded and straightened his back. «My lord, the great Quvu-atul, does not share Zamoshan’s plans for you. On the contrary, he is willing to come to your aid. He has ordered me to rescue you and take you to him. Once you will be safe in Tobor, my lord will give you everything you need to take back what is rightfully yours. Weapons, soldiers, supplies, money, you’ll only have to ask. But we must leave now, while there’s still time.»

Helena felt funny, as she had already lived through that moment once before.

«Leave now? …Alone?»

«You can choose a couple people to accompany you, but not more. We have to move quickly and discreetly.»

«And what of my fellow citizens? What of my guards?»

«You’ll find better protectors where we are going.»

Her feeling was confirmed. Helena couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.

«After telling me that Zamoshan is trying to drive me away from my guards and from my people, to isolate me so that I would be at his mercy… your lord offers me to let him do the same with my consent?»

Now she was the one who leaned forward on the table.

«Tell me, Bek-cherek: do you all think I am stupid?»

Maybe, maybe, the lord of Hinzan really meant to give her soldiers with which to fight. But how much trust could she put in people whose loyalties would always lie with someone else first?

«I refuse. Either you manage to rescue me together with everyone else, or as far as I am concerned I would rather stay here.»

You will not take me away from my forces. They may be poor and inadequate. But they are mine.

«Stefan’s daughter, please, see the reality of your situation.» the spy replied, suddenly alarmed. «You are a hundred people. Do you really believe it possible to hide the flight of so many? They will never let you all leave. You have to give up and save what you can.»

Helena had an answer ready: “If only I can be saved then nothing can!” Yes, it sounded good.

But suddenly Artor spoke: «Wait. Do you hear that?»

Helena turned toward him and saw he had sat up on the bed and had one hand up to his ear.

For a moment, she heard nothing.

Then, through the small opening on the wall, from far away came a shrill, annoying echo, like the howling of the wind but more grating.

«This is… a siren.» said Kalos.

«It must be a bandit attack.» Bek-cherek looked unbothered. «It’s not the first time it happens. Zamoshan styles himself a “lord”, and yet cant’ even secure the land around his own capital.»

«The camp!» Kalos exclaimed, giving Helena an almost imploring look. We have to go,I have to go,his eyes told her.

Artor stood up and wordlessly approached the door.

«Everyone stop!» Bek-cherek rose. «Don’t you understant? This is the perfect chance. In the chaos, nobody will take note of your absence before it’s too late! This is the moment, Stefan’s daughter. Come with me.»

He offered her a hand.

Helena looked at that hand. Her eyes went up to that man’s face, to his confident smile and his beady, clever eyes.

Then she looked at Kalos, and she saw a man who was trying his best to stay at his post and obey the orders he had been given, though he wanted only to run outside and help his fellow citizens.

Finally, she looked at Artor. As always his expression was hard to read, but she felt he was somehow daring her. He was going to go; what was she going to do?

She stood up.

«My fellow citizens are in danger, Bek-cherek. This meeting is over. Once you have a way to make us all flee, you know where to find me.»