Skies

by Kevin L. Nielsen

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Dragons & Mythical Creatures

Synopsis

For the Rahuli people, the world has just gotten a lot bigger.

Gavin, now the leader of the displaced Rahuli, grows increasingly frustrated with the members of the so-called slave “rebellion.” The former slaves are frightened by the Rahuli’s war-filled history, but their warrior ways might be the only thing to stop the Orinai from slaughtering them all.

Meanwhile, Lhaurel is held prisoner by the Seven Sisters, the mysterious and ruthless mages who rule the Orinai. Cut off from her magic, she is forced to travel to the Orinai capital under a threat against the Rahuli. But, despite their promises, the Sisters have no intention of letting the Rahuli live.

Their armies march toward the Rahuli once again. To defend his people, Gavin must earn the trust of the former slaves, or nobody stands a chance against the approaching horde.

Can Gavin defeat the Orinai, or have the Rahuli entered a fight they cannot win?


"Kevin Nielsen is an author of impressive and unique fantasy with a Robert Jordan flare. Wonderfully written with plenty of twists, Skies is well worth the read!" —Alyson Peterson, author of the Ian Quicksilver series

"Kevin Nielsen's Skies is a masterful blend of adventure, mystery, and magic which keeps the reader mesmerized from the first riveting scene to the last. Always unexpected, always engaging." —Josi Russell, author of the best-selling Caretaker Chronicles

Release date: August 15, 2016

Publisher: Future House Publishing

Print pages: 396

Sample

“The Progressions are but seven branches of the same Path walking parallel to one another, all leading to the same eternal goal. They are guides toward salvation. Witnesses to the End.”

—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 17, Year 1171

 

Lhaurel stared out the back of the wagon, her gaze lingering on the blackened smudge wafting across the horizon which marked where the Sharani Desert used to sit. The smell of char hung heavy in the air, even this far from the smoky remains. The smoke and debris drifted to the west, out over the mountains, but still the stink of it reached her nose, reminding her of the volcano’s destructive power.

She hadn’t seen the eruption—she’d been unconscious at the time—but the aftermath alone made her shudder at the horror her own imagination conjured for her. She hoped the Rahuli had managed to make it out. If not, her sacrifice, her current situation, and her terror was all for naught.

No.

Lhaurel shook her head and turned away from the open upper door at the back of the wagon. She couldn’t think like that. The Rahuli had made it out. Gavin, Khari, Shallee, and the others all made it to safety. Lhaurel’s sacrifice had not been in vain. She had saved them again. She was their savior.

Lhaurel felt a wetness on her cheek and brushed away the tears before they could drop off her chin. She sat and tried to ignore the relief that washed over her as aching muscles in her legs relaxed. She wasn’t sure she could remember a time when she wasn’t sore and tired anymore. And she couldn’t even call on her powers for help. Part of her welcomed their absence. Another part longed for the strength they provided.

More than a week had passed since she’d woken up from the Sisters’ induced sleep: ten days of travelling in the back of a wagon over rolling hills covered in snow and grass since she’d realized the absence of her powers and abilities. That moment of realization sat like a depressing blanket of terror over her emotions, dampening them and making her efforts at hanging on to some measure of hope seem futile and tenuous at best.

Lhaurel shuddered and pulled the thick cloth garment she’d been given closer about her shoulders. The woman who had given it to her, one of the Sisters, had called it a cloak. It was thick and lined with a strange-smelling fur, but it was warm, far warmer than the Roterralar robes it so closely resembled in cut and style. It kept out the chill that seemed to gnaw at her bones, mirroring the ice that weighed down her heart.

The wagon ground to a halt.       

Lhaurel looked up as the door near the front of the wagon opened and one of the three Sisters who accompanied her walked in. The sunlight glittered off the bejeweled end of a walking stick, or staff, she carried with her, wrapped in the clutches of one pale hand. Lhaurel instinctively pulled away as the woman entered and the wagon door shut behind her. The woman was tall enough that she had to stoop, even in the massive wagon, though she was thin to the point of gauntness. The red nails on her hand stood out in sharp contrast to the whiteness of her skin. Lhaurel recognized her as Sellia, the leader of the Seven Sisters.

“Peace,” Sellia said, taking a seat on the space Lhaurel had been using as a bed. “You should not cringe when you look upon your Sister.”

Lhaurel scooted further away from her, retaining her silence. She hadn’t seen Sellia since she’d first woken up in the wagon. She’d seen the two others from a distance, though Lhaurel hadn’t spent any real time with either. There were marked differences in their appearances, but each had the same air of condescending, oily superiority, and the same features she herself shared in the pale skin, blood red hair, and matching nails.

“I will give you but one warning,” Sellia said, her accented voice not changing tone in the slightest. “You will listen and you will obey. You have a long journey ahead of you before you return to Estrelar. Several months even. Still, that is very little time for you to become what you must be, child. It will go easier on you if you obey.”

“And what must I be?” Lhaurel’s voice was strong, but the small quaver at the end betrayed the emotions running through her.

“One of us, child. A full Sister.”

Lhaurel couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran down her back and caused her fists to clench and then unclench. Sellia muttered something under her breath in another language. The words seemed to tug at Lhaurel, as if she should know them, but she pushed the feeling aside.

“How am I supposed to be one of you without my abilities, without my powers?” Lhaurel asked.

Sellia flashed her a pointed smile and Lhaurel shuddered again. Lhaurel decided at that moment that no matter what else she was required to do, she would never file her teeth down like that.

“Close the window, and then come sit here with me. We have much to discuss.”

Lhaurel remained where she was, more out of curiosity about what the Sister would do to her than out of actual defiance. She’d comply eventually, but first she wanted to see if Sellia would make good on her threat. Though her agreement with the Sisters assured her complicity, even that had its limits. Lhaurel just needed to figure out what they were.

The Sister’s expression didn’t change, but in the space of half a heartbeat Lhaurel went from calm and curious to feeling as if an invisible hand were clenched around her heart. No sudden ring of red mist formed around her, and Sellia kept her expression in the same emotionless mask, but Lhaurel knew she was using her powers against her. Lhaurel screamed, a sound of the purest agony that tore from her throat with the force of a sand storm. Then the pressure was gone, leaving only a slight burr of pain behind.

“Close the window, child,” Sellia repeated.

Lhaurel got to her feet on shaking legs and stumbled over to the back wall. With more effort than it should have taken, she pulled the thick wooden door closed and fastened the metal clasp to keep it locked. The room inside dimmed, the only illumination a pair of lanterns affixed to the wagon wall behind Sellia. Lhaurel walked back over to the Sister, using the wagon’s wall to give her support, though she kept her back straight and her expression pain free.

Sellia regarded her with intent eyes. “Strength is good,” she said as Lhaurel sat, “but do not test me. That Progression is not yours.”

Lhaurel kept her expression neutral, though curiosity floated through her. Part of her knew she had already assured her complicity, but her stubborn streak came through when pushed, despite Sellia’s rather painful object lesson.

Lhaurel didn’t reply.

“You will respond when spoken to,” Sellia snapped.

“Alright.”

“The correct response is, ‘Yes, Sister.’”

“Yes, Sister.”

Sellia nodded and Lhaurel took a moment to study the woman to distract herself from Sellia’s penetrating gaze. The Sister’s clothes were strange. Thick, yet well cut and formed to the woman’s shape, Lhaurel would have thought them underclothes if she hadn’t seen the other Sisters wearing similar garb. Various metal bracelets and necklaces ornamented Sellia’s thin wrists. Her hands wrapped around the short staff across her lap, the stone at its top the same dark shade as was her nails. Lhaurel found herself drawn to the stone for some reason, as if it were calling to her.

“You will need to learn many things before you can become one of us.” Sellia tapped her staff against the wagon’s floor, which drew Lhaurel’s gaze away from the orb and back to Sellia herself. “Most importantly, child, you’ll need to forget this barbarous tongue you speak. The slave language isn’t fit for one such as us.”

“How do you know it then?” Lhaurel asked.

Sellia tilted her head to one side, as if curious, though her lips formed a thin line. “Watch your tone. My Sister and I will be leaving you soon. The route you and Talha will take is a circuitous one of necessity. Aiam and I will travel more swiftly. We are needed in Estrelar more so than you. It will be a long time before you see me again. It would be well of you to learn during this journey and learn well. The lives of the Rahuli and the return of your powers both hang in the balance.”

Sellia got to her feet and tapped on the wooden wall. The wagon slowed immediately and soon came to a smooth halt. The door opened, letting in daylight. Lhaurel caught a glimpse of one of the soldiers before Sellia’s tall form blocked her view. Lhaurel didn’t know if she should rise or not, but before she could decide Sellia stepped out into the light and shut the door behind her, plunging the room back into semidarkness.

Lhaurel stared at the closed door for a long, poignant moment, then closed her eyes and sucked in a deep lungful of air. She held the breath inside her for the count of several heartbeats, hands clenching into fists, then let it out in a long stream that became almost a hiss. The wagon remained still, so Lhaurel sucked in another breath and held it, allowing her mind to wander and her frustrations to ebb away. Eventually, her thoughts drifted to the last thing Sellia had said, her threat against Lhaurel’s people.

Lhaurel had feared, those first few days, that dwelling on her people—on Khari, Gavin, Farah, and the others—would bring her nothing but pain and regret. Pain was there, true, along with a good bit of longing, but Lhaurel had been surprised to discover another emotion hidden beneath the pain each time her mind returned to them. Resolve. And beneath that, determination.

What she’d done, she’d done to protect them. They were alive and well because of her sacrifice, not just once, but twice now. She would not think otherwise. She was their savior in many ways, but now, through memory and pain, they became hers. She welcomed the pain because it gave her a chance at peace. She welcomed that pain because it gave her strength. That resolve strengthened her and allowed her fists to unclench at her sides and her breathing to return to normal.

Noises at the door pulled Lhaurel from her thoughts and forced her eyes open. Light flooded back in through the opening door, carrying a damp flurry of a breeze with it, before a silhouette blocked the entrance and another of the Sisters entered. Lhaurel allowed only the briefest grimace to cross her features before she forced a wan smile.

The Sister ignored her.

Lhaurel chewed her bottom lip in confusion as the Sister turned around and bent over, reaching back out the door behind her. With a grunt, the Sister hauled something into the wagon and carefully placed it on the floor beside her.

“The annoying part about carrying books around on a journey such as this is how heavy they all are,” the Sister said, turning back to Lhaurel and reaching behind her again to shut the wagon’s door. “Can you help me out and open that back window, child?”

Lhaurel blinked. “Open it? The other Sister . . .” Lhaurel trailed off and then shrugged.

She walked to the back of the wagon, limping only slightly, and opened the window again. When she turned back around, the Sister was sitting on the bed where Sellia had been earlier. A number of squarish objects lay strewn over the remainder of the bed. The Sister looked up and smiled, flashing pointed teeth. Something about them made Lhaurel pause and peer a little more closely. Unlike Sellia’s, which had been filed down, the points appeared to be made from a blackening around the corners.

“Are your teeth painted?”

“Yes, child. So much better than garishly filing them down, wouldn’t you say?” The Sister smiled at her again, then began rummaging through the satchel at her feet. “Thank you for opening the window.” Her voice was slightly muffled as she bent down even further, reaching down deep into the bag. “Now come here, I have a thousand different questions to which I really must have answers. If I could only figure out what I did with that pen . . .”

Lhaurel didn’t know how to respond. The other two Sisters had both been tall, thin, and pristine, at least as far as Lhaurel had observed. This new one, while also tall, was more thickly built, and her clothing far less immaculate. Her hands also had a strange bluish cast to the underside of the palm and along the tips of her fingers. Her deep, blood-red hair was pulled up into a tight circle through which a pair of wooden rods had been thrust. Most interesting of all was the lack of noticeable accent in her voice. That contrast was a stark one, considering Sellia’s earlier comments.

“Ah, here it is,” the Sister said, pulling out a feather quill and a bottle of ink. She looked up. “Come now, child, I really don’t like having to ask more than once.”

The Sister’s tone changed at this, taking on the air of command and utter authority that Sellia had used. Lhaurel started forward.

“Why are you limping?”

Lhaurel opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to speak ill of the other Sisters, but the woman just clicked her tongue and shook her head.

“Right, Sellia was just in here,” she said.

Lhaurel narrowed her eyes as the woman made an odd gesture with one hand. Lhaurel’s eyes widened. Power ran through her, an icy chill that burned away the pain and left a cool balm behind. As before, no red mist surrounded the Sister, nor did Lhaurel feel any answering swell within herself. She only recognized it because it was a power she herself had once held.

In moments all her pains and aches had been washed away. Even her internal, emotional pains seemed somehow lessened, though Lhaurel wasn’t sure if it was any real healing on the Sister’s part or if it was more her own perceptions of the stark contrast stemming from sudden relief. The experience left her longing for the return of her powers for a long moment before she pushed it down to the dormant reaches of her mind.

“Sit with me, child,” the Sister said, pushing aside some of the things she’d placed on the bed.

Lhaurel sat, studying the woman only a few feet from her. The Sister’s eyes were a deep, dark grey. Such an odd color.

“You may call me Talha,” the Sister said. “I am the Sister of Knowledge.”

“Lhaurel.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Interesting,” Talha said, unstopping the ink and dipping her quill into the well. She began jotting down notes on some papers bound within one of the square objects Talha had picked up off the bed. “Still with the honorific lettering, I’d imagine, yes?”

“What?”

“Your name, you spell it with an ‘h’ after the initial ‘l,’ yes?”

“Yes.” Lhaurel chewed on her bottom lip, brows coming together over the bridge of her nose.

“Don’t chew your lip,” Talha said absently, studying Lhaurel’s features with darting, penetrating eyes. “I wonder what other tendencies remained and what fell to the vagaries of time?”

Lhaurel let her lip slip out of her teeth and rubbed her shoulder with the opposite hand.

“Tell me, child,” Talha said, continuing a steady barrage of questions, “what did you eat among your people? Were you all of a similar height and disposition as yourself? What were the common external characteristics of your people? How did you all manage to survive the genesauri monsters your past Incarnation created?”

The Sister waited, quill poised above the page, ink threatening to drip off the nib. Lhaurel licked her lips and then started chewing on the bottom one again. Which question was she supposed to answer?

“Um, we ate food, I guess. Sheep, some cattle, grains that we could find or grow. The Oasis offered a little variety to the diet, though some years were harder than others. I was taller than most others and the reddish hair I had before it became this dark was uncommon. Most had dark skin and hair, with brown or dark colored eyes. Sorry, what was the last question?”

Talha’s pen scratched across the page in a flurry, the end of the quill only a hair’s width away from the end of her nose. As she wrote, the Sister muttered to herself, whispering in the language Lhaurel had come to understand as the Orinai tongue.

“What was that?” Lhaurel asked.

“Hmm . . . oh right, I still need to teach you our language. Luckily, we have a nice long journey home before us without Sellia or Aiam to bother your learning. Our path will be much too slow for them, though I do find it quite fascinating the tones and inflections you’ve developed that differ from our own slave people. I suppose a thousand years’ separation creates variances in divergent, isolated populations, just as new species of animal develop when separated by geographic barriers that prevent further integration between the groups.”

“What?”

Talha chuckled. Lhaurel was surprised to hear some measure of actual warmth in the sound.

“Just the scholar in me at work. I was simply wondering how you managed to survive the genesauri monsters for all these years. The Circle of Sisters left the Sharani Arena to its fate long ago, convinced that your people would suffer horrendous deaths at the hands of Elyana’s creations. Mouths, really, I’d imagine. They didn’t really have hands now did they?”

“Thousands of us did die over the years,” Lhaurel said in a hard yet hushed voice. She stared down at her hands, remembering the battle at the Oasis, Saralhn, and the moment that had seemed to start all of this, when she had picked up that sword in Saralhn’s defense all those months ago.

“Really?” Talha asked, pausing in her writing to look up. “What was that like?”

Lhaurel sat up and leaned back slightly, lips pursing before she answered. She’d thought this woman different from the other two Sisters at first, a much kinder, gentler version of them, perhaps. But something sinister and callous hid just beneath the surface. The emotionless way in which she’d asked about the genesauri and her callous disinterest in the deaths left Lhaurel with no real desire to stay anywhere near this woman for any longer than she had to. “What was it like? People died. People I loved.”

“Yes, yes,” Talha said, resuming her writing. “Naturally. But how did the genesauri do it? Some of the books make mention of the fact that the genesauri could fly—are they those creatures we saw with your people? Did you tame some of them? Those looked far more like normal birds than the eel-like sand creatures most accounts agree on.”

“How did they do it?” Lhaurel’s hands began to shake, so she cupped them together, which only helped a little. “The sailfins burrowed up out of sand and skimmed over its surface in giant packs. You didn’t hear them coming unless they broke the surface and the terrible keening of their fins cut its way into your heart. By then, though, it was too late. They’d burst up out of the sand, crackling with energy, grab onto your brother, or your mother, or your sister and drag them back down under the roiling, red sands. The marsaisi and karundin were worse.”

“Interesting. I am not familiar with the subspecies. We’ll have to discuss this further. Yes, indeed.” Talha smiled and closed the bound papers and set aside her quill. “I can see this is an emotional subject for you. I think we’ll have to stop here with my questions for today. I’d hoped for more, but alas, my time with you is short today, only a few hours, and we must begin your lessons.”

Lhaurel pulled back her anger, allowing it to fade from a raging storm to a much smaller swell. At the moment, it wouldn’t serve her in the least. This woman reminded her of Khari for some reason, though she didn’t seem to have Khari’s fire. However, they both shared a seemingly innate ability to utterly infuriate her.

“Lessons?” Lhaurel asked finally.

“Indeed, child. Lessons indeed.”

“. . . though the names of the Progressions help in their understanding, they are also limiting by design.”

—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 14, Year 854

 

A knock sounded on the wagon wall, emanating from near the door. Talha looked over with her face scrunched in confusion.

“Ah, yes,” she said, her expression clearing. “Food. I thought perhaps you’d be hungry, what with the poor rations Sellia saw fit to provide you.”

Talha got to her feet, beckoning for Lhaurel to follow. Lhaurel got up as well, following after the woman out of curiosity more than any real hunger. They’d given her some bread and water earlier in the day. The day before she’d even been given several large chunks of dried meat. Lhaurel wasn’t sure what sort of meat it was, but she’d eaten it anyway. It had tasted familiar, at least.

Talha opened the door to the wagon and stepped out. Lhaurel hesitated for a moment, eyes adjusting to the direct sunlight. Except for a few brief moments at night when they let her out to empty her bladder, Lhaurel hadn’t been out of the wagon since being taken prisoner. For a fleeting moment, she contemplated running, then Talha’s hand wrapped around her wrist and tugged her out into the open air.

A long table had been set up on the ground next to her wagon, upon which a pure white cloth had been placed. Lhaurel’s attention was immediately drawn to the mounds of food resting on top of the cloth.

Dozens of different foods rested in metal dishes the color of early morning sun. Large glass pitchers of various liquids rested between the platters of food, though Lhaurel only gave them a passing glance. She counted four different kinds of meat glistening and steaming in the chill air, a dozen different breads, and an array of fruits she didn’t recognize. Only two chairs were set up next to the table.

“This is all for us?” Lhaurel asked, her voice soft and her expression slack with incredulity.

“I ate earlier, child,” Talha said, pulling her to a chair and then sitting in the other herself. “I wasn’t sure which foods you’d prefer, so I had the servants prepare a little bit of everything. I know it’s rather sparse, but still better than what you’ve had until now.”

Lhaurel gaped. This was more food than what the Roterralar could have eaten during a banquet, and she’d thought some of their meals had been extravagant. Lhaurel just stared at it all, overwhelmed and hesitant to participate in such a meal when she knew her own people would be struggling for food now, fighting their way through the mountain passes. Eventually, however, her stomach betrayed her by rumbling at the savory smells that wafted toward her.

Lhaurel reached for a platter of meat, not bothering with the strange utensils that lay next to the platter on the table in front of her. She’d dumped about half the tray onto her platter before she noticed the woman dressed in white standing next to her. She jumped as the woman bowed slightly in her direction.

“Honored Sister,” the woman breathed in Lhaurel’s tongue, though with an inflection that made it seem like the language wasn’t hers either, “may I assist you with your meal?”

Lhaurel glanced over at Talha, but the Sister was busy writing in her book again, which someone had fetched from the wagon for her. Lhaurel looked back to the white-clothed woman, noticing that the woman wore a blue shufari about her waist. What was that doing here?

“I can do it myself,” Lhaurel said, returning to her meal and choosing to ignore the woman.

She sampled a little of everything, making note of those foods she liked and those she didn’t. Lhaurel had tried pouring herself a drink at some point during the meal, but the white-clad servant had immediately taken the pitcher from her and poured a cup of the clear liquid Lhaurel had been reaching for. Lhaurel had thought it water, but it burned her throat as she’d tried to take a swallow and so she’d left it untouched throughout the remainder of the meal. During it all, Talha never stopped scribbling in her book.

When Lhaurel finished, wiping her grease-covered fingers on her cloak out of habit, she leaned back in her chair, only then noticing the ring of wagons which encircled them and the numerous servants scurrying back and forth. The wagons, all three of them, rested in a shallow depression between hills. The ground was rocky, but devoid of ice and snow. In the distance, Lhaurel could still see the plume of smoke from the Sharani Desert and the two mountain ranges sitting on either side of the horizon.

“Why are the women wearing shufari?” Lhaurel asked, half-turning to glance back over at Talha.

The Sister looked up, eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So shufari survived all that time but the essence of the culture did not? Interesting.”

Talha started laughing. Lhaurel pulled her attention away from the passing servants to look over at the woman. Talha quickly suppressed her mirth enough to take some more notes in her book, but not quickly enough to stop a few tears from leaking down one cheek.

“You know, you can be extremely frustrating sometimes,” Lhaurel said. “Can’t I get a straight answer from anyone?”

“Probably not, child,” Talha said, looking up, “but I will try. I believe your most recent question was about the shufari, yes?”

Lhaurel nodded, not sure she understood or liked the sudden change of mood.

“The priestesses, those dressed in white, wear the sashes to designate to which Sister and Progression they adhere. The ones wearing blue are yours, child.”

“Mine?”

“Yes, yours. Is that a straight enough answer for you?”

Again, Lhaurel nodded. What else could she do?

“Good,” Talha said with a small nod of her own. “Now I have a question of my own. How did you use the shufari?”

“Women wore them to show what rank their husbands had achieved within the clan,” Lhaurel answered slowly, looking around at the many women, including the one standing next to her still, wearing the blue shufari.

“Hmm,” Talha said, again taking notes. “That’s not so far a perversion from the original that it would no longer make sense. Interesting to note the change in gender roles, however. Among us, the woman’s rank supersedes the male in the relationship.”

Lhaurel cocked her head, both at the unfamiliar words and the implied meaning. “The women?” she asked.

“Indeed, child. The women are those who hold the most power, at least in regard to rank and religion. Men are the politicians, but they’re really a far cry from intelligent, I’d say.”

Lhaurel shook her head, which was spinning from all the new information and the differences in the culture into which she was being immersed from what she knew. Yet, at the same time it seemed almost familiar to her. The juxtaposition made her nauseous. It was either that or the food.

“I’m guessing by your reaction that such was not the case in your incestuous familial groups,” Talha said.

“Incestuous?” Lhaurel stumbled over the foreign word, mind starting to go numb around the edges. She felt oddly restless and suppressed a sudden urge to get up and start running. What she wouldn’t have given to have even a practice sword with which to work the forms.

“Inbreeding,” Talha said, taking notes in her book. “Parents mating with offspring, or siblings even. It’s fairly common in small, isolated populations. Generally, this manifests in lots of specific traits being brought to the surface, so to speak—things normally seen only once or twice in a dozen generations will crop up in three times the numbers they would normally appear.” Talha looked up and frowned at the expression on Lhaurel’s face. “Sorry, child, was that too complicated for you?”

Lhaurel’s temper flared up and almost got the better of her, but Lhaurel managed to bite off the cutting remark before she made it.

“We are not incestuous,” Lhaurel said instead. “But, regardless, yes, it was different in the Sharani Desert. The men were the Warlords and leaders. The women bore children and tended to their womanly duties.”

Talha made a face, then took some more notes in her notebook. Was she ever not writing something?

“So primitive,” the Sister said. “How could such knowledge and power have degraded so quickly? By the Path, I don’t know how any of you even survived at all. The odds were astronomically against you.”

Lhaurel felt a headache swell on the edges of her temples, but she resisted the urge to massage them. Instead, she attempted to focus on what was going on around her.

The priestesses—the women in white who wore shufari—flitted about, completing various tasks. There were male servants as well, along with dozens of warriors looking grim and stony faced in their stark red uniforms, but Lhaurel had expected far more of them than there were. Where were the armies? Where were the other Sisters? Only two other wagons sat in alongside the one in which Lhaurel had ridden, both the same squat, angular affairs as her own. And pulling them . . .

“What in the seven hells are those?” Lhaurel asked, getting to her feet in such a sudden, jerking motion that set her already upset stomach into a churning mass of nausea.

Talha looked up from her notes, brow furrowed in either concentration or concern, then noticed where Lhaurel was looking. The creases in her forehead smoothed to their normal size and she gave a half-grin.

“Those? They’re just gatheriu.” Talha’s voice was dismissive, though there was a hint of suppressed mirth mixed in as well.

As large as one of the vessels they pulled, a single, massiv