The storm lifted at last before nightfall. I took the horses out of our shelter and tethered them to a twisted tree nearby, under a sky painted in brilliant colors from the dust still in the air. The mountains were black beneath the fiery sunset, and the red plain to the east was stained a bloody hue. From the city to the peak, all was quiet.
I slept then and did not dream. Aysulu woke me before sunrise. We struck our camp and gathered our things in the dark, and as one final gesture of spite to the Ascended, I set fire to the chariot. It was against Aysulu’s advice, but I saw no reavers upon the plain, and I took measures to ensure the flames would not spread. We could not take the chariot with us, in any case.
The chest of treasure grew heavy as we made our way up the mountain, following the switchbacks and goat-paths through the short, hardy trees and the scrub growth. Here and there were scattered late-blooming white flowers, their small, wilting petals forming five-pointed stars. I would not have noticed them had Aysulu not pointed them out to me. They had been gathered from the mountainside and left by Reva’s people to mark which of the many almost invisible paths we should take to the stronghold. Though it was still summer, the air grew colder as we climbed, and by late morning the only flowers we saw were those that had been left to show us the way.
It was midday when we arrived at last. The mountain opened before us into a yawning cave, out of which flowed a clear, bright stream. The cool dampness in the air suggested the presence of more water deeper within. Before the mouth of the cave was a wide clearing, and a wooden palisade had been erected around it, forming a fortified camp. I could see the tops of tents and the smoke of cooking fires over the sharpened points.
I shouted a greeting, and after a moment a gate in the center of the palisade was lifted, and Reva walked out to greet us. Her dark hair was pulled back, and her face was streaked with sweat and dirt.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “I was afraid you’d be lost in the storm. Did you bring the sword?”
Aysulu produced the weapon. She had wrapped it in a cloth, with only the hilt and the elegant flourish of its guard visible.
Reva recognized it instantly, and with a reverent hesitance, she accepted the offered sword in open hands. “I see that our faith in you was well-placed. I will keep this safe for the time being.”
We followed her into the encampment. It was large, but empty: perhaps two hundred people were living and working in a space meant to house three times as many.
“The Ascended will waste no time in trying to retrieve the sword,” Reva said. “Fortunately for us, they lack the soldiers to root us out just yet. The loyal houses will have to muster their men from the countryside, and that could take weeks.”
“They have the Lion and Wolf,” Aysulu pointed out.
Reva’s face was grim. “Yes. We will need to be prepared to repel the reavers when they find us. They will, sooner or later, and we have many still in the city who need to make their way here.”
Of the hundred men that House Darela and House Kaburh had sent to raid the armory and granary, perhaps eighty had made it here, some of them wounded. Another eighty or so miners had escaped the city; the rest of the workers would be resuming their labor now that the festival had concluded, and I would soon learn that the conditions in the mines would only grow worse. Our friends and allies from the competition had all found their way here over the past day, except for Heishiro, my friend and rival from the Dragon Temple. His companions had lost sight of him in the chaos, and he had yet to reappear.
Still, the raids had been a success, and we had plenty of food and weapons; I was given an axe to replace the one I had lost in the fight with the salamander. The mountains provided us with fresh meat and with wood for our defenses, and the stream with clean water.
For the next several days, we waited for our allies to come, and we set about fortifying the encampment. I cut timber and dug post-holes, while Aysulu tended to the horses and rode about creating false trails to obscure our location from the reavers. On occasion, she found a miner or two who had fled the city wandering in the hills and brought them back. Khalim spent his days healing, and Garvesh lent his learning to Reva and the lords of House Kaburh and House Darela, arguing strategy. Lord Ihsad began insisting that his son Jahan be given the Sword of Heaven to wield, but it remained in Reva’s keeping. It was of no consequence to me—I had my axe, and I was satisfied.
Those days were fearful. Every disturbance in the distant city could have been the nobles’ men finally arriving, and every movement in the trees could have been the Tribe of the Lion and Wolf, come to besiege us. The work was hard, and injuries were not infrequent, keeping Khalim busy even after the wounds the soldiers received in the raid were healed.
Though I was aware of it, fear is not what I remember from that time. I shared my tent beside the makeshift stables with Khalim, and though my days were spent in hard labor, my nights were filled with easy bliss. I remember most the hours after dark when all the fires were out, but there were moments stolen between tasks while the sun was still over the mountain. On the canvas walls of our tent, a chronicle of the adventures that had led us to meet took form; crude figures drawn in charcoal from the cooking fire stood in lines above us. Mine were of ships, and the mountains I had once called home, and bands of riders on the open steppe. Khalim drew rice fields and humpbacked cattle, and the mountain he had seen in his dreams that led him to Phyreios.
I asked him, once, if he had ever dreamt of me. Had I appeared in his visions of the future? Had he been led to me, as he had been to the city and its people?
He laughed, and his soft dark eyes danced. “No, never,” he said. “I chose you myself.”
But there were also nights when he woke long before sunrise, his eyes aglow and his face twisted with fear. I knew that his visions were real, and not the product of madness, but I worried that they might one day drive him mad.
In the end, I thought, it would not matter. I had been mad once. I would love him just the same.
Two weeks went by, and the trickle of citizens that had escaped from the city stopped. There was no sign of Heishiro. It was clear that a rescue mission was necessary, and soon, before the city’s forces arrived and the Ascended had the numbers to repel us, and before a worse fate than backbreaking labor in the mines could be devised for our allies who remained in the city. Though our fortifications were not yet complete, the time to act had arrived.
And in the distance, dark banners had begun to gather once more.
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