the Hunter, and it showed. Lower-ranked men had taken advantage where they could, fighting, killing, stealing, and whatever else. Those who protested were run through with the sword or left the town, saying they would return with help. In many cases, their bodies were found hanging in a tree, or their heads showed up outside the walls on a spike. The town had been cowed through fear for themselves or their families, and they’d given in. Of course they had—they didn’t have anyone strong enough to stick up for them. Not against the Graygual with the Inkna at their backs.
Cayan felt Shanti before he saw her. She came around the bend with blood dripping down one arm and dirt smearing her face. That graze must’ve hurt, but she hadn’t let Marc stop her long enough to bandage it. With Tanna, the Shumas that had been taught this region’s dialect, at her side and Rohnan at her back, she wandered through the town, hearing stories and woes. With most people she nodded and touched them somehow, often with a supportive hand on their shoulder. Sometimes she gave a slap, and once she punched a man. He fell back like a sack of potatoes. When he got up, fire lit his eyes and courage straightened his back.
Cayan had no idea how she knew what each person needed, but she seemed to heal them with nothing more than a listening ear and a reaction.
As she drew closer, she glanced his way. Sorrow pulled down her features and a gut-wrenching devastation churned her thoughts. She was thinking about the destruction of her own people, Cayan knew. She was reliving the horrible destruction that had befallen her way of life, and it was eating away at her.
“Sometimes I wish I’d never met her,” Sanders said as he followed Cayan’s gaze. “An ignorant part of me pretends that if we’d let her die in the burnt lands we wouldn’t have suffered any of this. We wouldn’t have had to voyage to the Shadow Lands and we wouldn’t have lost people to the Hunter’s men. The women would be safe behind our walls, not out fighting beside us. Tobias would still be by my side, taking care of the things I missed… I pretend she is the cause of it all, sometimes. And I hate her for it. It’s easier than dealing with the destruction she heralds.”
Cayan felt a flash of rage, but he said nothing. Just waited.
“But then I remember the Inkna-inspired Mugdock attack,” Sanders said. “We would’ve beaten them without her, but we would’ve lost people. More people, I should say. Many more. I still would’ve been taken, but there was no way you could’ve got me back. Then the Inkna would’ve moved in to our lands, and it would’ve turned into this. The loss, the horror—we didn’t succumb to this because of her. Pulling her out of the burnt lands was our salvation, just in time. And I would fight forever by her side to prevent this from happening again, or to save those who didn’t have a Shanti to turn the tide. I suspect everyone she meets, and everyone she saves, will feel the same. I don’t know about this Wanderer tale, but if it was a person, like Burson says, it is her. For all I want to punch her in the face, she has a way about her. She is the backbone of our survival.”
“You feel better, getting that off your chest?” Cayan resisted the urge to slouch in fatigue. He needed to stand straight and tall at all times, to give these people a pillar of strength to look toward. Shanti would heal their hearts, and he would direct their swords.
“Excuse me, sir. I had to vent. And I would punch her in the face, but she always feels me sneaking up on her.” Sanders looked back at a fallen beam, part of the destruction and decay from the Graygual occupation.
“Noted.” Cayan looked around, seeing the townspeople start the work to fix their homes or rebuild their shops. “They lead with a form of hierarchy, and only one man is standing from that. They have a Women’s Circle, but only three women are still alive. They are trying to reestablish.”
“What about their army? Any survivors?”
Cayan tilted his head for a brief moment and turned to look out at the opposite way. “The Hunter kept our people alive because he wanted to trade them for Shanti. This Graygual officer had no