Altan sat. He rode beside Chaghan; their heads were tilted together, speaking in low tones as usual. They had been like this since they had left Khurdalain. Chaghan and Qara may have been linked as anchor twins, but it was Altan whom Chaghan seemed bonded to.
“Why isn’t Chaghan commander?” she asked.
Baji looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t understand why Chaghan obeys Altan,” she said. Against the Woman, he had proclaimed himself the most powerful shaman in existence. She believed it. Chaghan navigated the spirit world like he belonged there, as if he were a god himself. The Cike didn’t hesitate to talk back to Altan, but she had never seen any of them dare to so much as contradict Chaghan. Altan commanded their loyalty, but Chaghan enjoyed their fear.
“He was slated to be commander after Tyr,” said Baji. “Got shunted to the side after Altan showed up, though.”
“And he was fine with that?” Rin couldn’t imagine someone like Chaghan relinquishing authority peacefully.
“Of course not. Nearly spit fire when Tyr started favoring the golden boy from Sinegard over him.”
“So then why—”
“Why’s he happy serving under Altan? He wasn’t, at first. He bitched about it for a straight week, until Altan finally got fed up. He asked Tyr for permission for a duel and got it. He took Chaghan out into the valleys for three days.”
“What happened?”
Baji snorted. “What happens when anyone fights Trengsin? When Chaghan got back, all that pretty white hair was singed black and he was obeying Altan like a whipped dog. Our friend from the Hinterlands might shatter minds, but he couldn’t touch Trengsin. No one can.”
Rin dropped her head back onto her knees and closed her eyes against the light from the rising sun. She hadn’t slept—hadn’t truly rested—since they’d left Khurdalain. But her body couldn’t sustain itself any longer. She was so tired . . .
Their boat jolted in the water. Rin snapped up to a sitting position. They had bumped straight into the boat in front of them.
“Something’s in the water,” Ramsa shouted from the fore.
Rin looked over the side and squinted at the river. The water was the same muddy brown, until she glanced upstream.
At first she thought it was a trick of the light, an illusion of the sun’s rays. And then her boat reached an odd patch of colored water, and she draped her fingers over the edge. Then she yanked it back in horror.
They were riding through a river of blood.
Altan and Chaghan both jumped up with startled exclamations. Behind them, Unegen uttered a long, inhuman shriek.
“Oh gods,” Baji said, over and over. “Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods.”
Then the bodies began to float toward them.
Rin was paralyzed, stricken with an irrational fear that the bodies might be the enemy, that they would rise out of the water and attack them.
Their boat stopped moving completely. They were surrounded by corpses. Soldiers. Civilians. Men. Women. Children. They were uniformly bloated and discolored. Some of their faces were disfigured, slashed apart. Others were simply blank, resigned, bobbing listlessly in the crimson water as if they had never been living, breathing bodies.
Chaghan reached out to examine a young girl’s blue lips. His own mouth was pursed dispassionately as if he were tracking a footprint, not touching a rubbery carcass. “These bodies have been in the river for days. Why haven’t they drifted out to sea yet?
“It’s the Golyn Niis Dam,” Unegen suggested. “It’s blocking them up.”
“But we’re still miles out from the city . . .” Rin trailed off.
They fell silent.
Altan stood up at the head of his boat. “Get out. Start running.”
The road to Golyn Niis was empty. Qara and Unegen scouted ahead but reported no sign of enemy combatants. Yet evidence of Federation presence was obvious everywhere they looked—trampled grass, abandoned campfires, rectangular patches in the dirt where tents had been erected. Rin felt sure that Federation soldiers were lying in wait for them, setting an ambush, but as they drew closer to the city, she realized that made no sense; the Federation wouldn’t have known they were coming, and they wouldn’t have set such an elaborate trap for such a small squadron.
She would have preferred an ambush. The silence was worse.
If Golyn Niis were still under siege, the Federation would be on guard. They would be prepared for skirmishes. They would have posted guards to make sure no reinforcements could reach the resistance inside.
There would be a resistance.
But the Federation seemed to have simply packed up and walked away. They