Chapter Thirty-Six

The Orange Grove, Part I

So Ga woke to a red dawn.

Just like every other morning since he had fled his little palace, he spent the first several seconds after waking remembering where he was and why. A difficult daily ritual made even more so by the layers of fatigue that seemed to pile upon him without relief. Every day he strained himself to the point of breaking and every night sleep came faster, pressed upon him harder, and then thrust him without mercy into another morning more tired than the night before. Rolling onto his side and feeling the burning muscles in his chest, he considered again that this had been the daily life of Min La for almost ten years. How could anyone persevere in such an existence without even one day of respite? Not for the first time he found himself wondering how he would endure until they reached Osa Gate.

He sat up on the bed — hand pressed against his chest to ease the pain — and observed the surreal, dreamlike way in which the red dawn light had colored the room. The air was pink, with orange and purple condensing darkly in the cold shadows. He thought, perhaps, some kind of smoke had crept in from the inn’s hall, but the air was clear. The light seemed unnatural, like that produced by colored glass. But it was also dense and weighted with silence, like all the world had been shrouded, or reduced. The air, the room, the very sky above were smaller, and pressed closer to him as if attempting to enshroud him in a tight wrapping of color.

He took a long, deep breath. The pain was lesser than last night, but he still felt like he was breathing through wet cotton. Remembering the repeated instructions of Hin Lan, he began to rub his chest. Slowly the muscles loosened and his breathing came more easily.

After he found his shoes, he searched the rest of their small room, but found that he was alone. Min La and Nŏl were nowhere to be seen and the bed on the other side of the battered screen was empty. Stranger than that, however, was that it looked like it had never been slept in. Touching the small stove, he found that it was cold.

The small, high window behind the stove was too cloudy for him to see anything but the overwhelming wash of red, as if paint had been spilled across the sky. It was impossible to determine the hour. What he had assumed was dawn might have just as easily been midday. But it couldn’t possibly be midday.

More important than the hour, however: where was Min La?

It wasn’t until he was standing in the corridor outside the room that he realized how strongly he could smell oranges.

Making his way carefully down the stairs, he found himself again in the inn’s small hall which, like the rest of the inn, was empty. The stove was cold where it squatted in its bed of black pebbles. The chairs and tables were arranged in neat rows and the only smells were those of dry wood and orange trees.

Part of him wanted to call out for Min La. But another part, a more instinctual part that sensed the strangeness all around him, warned him to proceed with greater caution.

As he walked through the tables to the window on the opposite wall, his hand brushed across the surface and he was stunned to see that his fingers had made deep paths through thick dust. Surveying the rest of the room, he realized that this thick layer of dust covered all surfaces in the hall, including the floor; his shoes had made tracks as if he had been walking through gray snow.

When he tried to rub the dust off his hands, the motion stirred up a cloud. In the thick pinkish light, the dust cloud sparkled with flecks of violet and amber. He held out his hand, watching the glittering air weave through his fingers and collect like pollen in his palm.

In the old stories Hin Lan had read to him when he was a child, the attendants of Énan would, every eleven years, mine crystals from the hunched spine of black mountains along the western coast of his House. It was said these crystals were a gift from Énan’s brother Éokov whose abode was, according to some, adjacent to his. The attendants would grind the crystals into a fine dust and scatter the sparkling powder throughout the orange groves that covered his House. The stories said this procedure saved the trees from the poisonous salt of the Young Sea whose unfathomed gray depths gulped the coarse black coast somewhere to the east.

The cloud of dust slipped suddenly into So Ga’s throat. Doubling over, he struggled to suppress his coughs while he reached for one of the carafes on the counter near the back wall, but it was empty. He soon found that all the carafes and pitchers and cups in the hall were dry.

Hurrying back to the room, he searched for his bag — where he had a small wooden flask of water that he was sure was still partially full — but it, too, was gone.

It was then that a distant sound reached his ears, voices, he thought, two or three at least. He again went to the window, but could see nothing through the clouded glass.

The thick front door of the inn was closed tightly. It took considerable force to pull it open and when the rusted hinges finally gave, the release was so sudden that he nearly fell backward. So Ga didn’t remember the door being so heavy and solid last night, but he was starting to think that he had not woken up in entirely the same inn where he had fallen asleep.

The outside air was even more alarming than the light that tinted the interior of the inn. A chill wash of red had covered the sky, woven through with golden clouds like tufts of wool on a dome of red silk. So Ga stood upon the inn’s porch and stared at it, his mind aswirl with enough confusion to hollow him of thought. For a time, he did not know how long, he merely stood in wonder. It occurred to him that he could not see the sun and wondered if perhaps this was like the heavy shrouding of clouds that precedes a terrible storm.

At last the sound of voices returned him to the situation at hand. Looking around the courtyard, he found the stable empty of horses and the yard empty of animals or any life at all. It was beginning to seem like he was the only living thing left in the inn. Besides, of course, the source of the voices he kept hearing.

The sound had risen to a cacophony of yelling. Cautiously, So Ga followed the voices around the corner of the inn — the corner where it nearly touched the edge of the stable — and peered around it.

The very men who had been in the inn’s hall last night stood now against the wall of the stable arguing violently.

“We cannot leave without horses,” one exclaimed, gesturing to the empty stable.

Another, who seemed older and who had a patch covering his left eye, shook his head and replied, “Horses will not help us escape this place.”

“It was that old man, wasn’t it? I knew there was something wrong with him.”

“Speculating is pointless. For now, we must find our escape, and quickly. She will not forgive a delay.”

“We shouldn’t have come to Sona Gen. I told you this would happen if we neared the capital.”

“Be silent! You know for whom she speaks. Are you brave enough to disobey?”

“None of that will matter if we do not escape this place. And we cannot do that without them.” He pointed vaguely with his sword. So Ga saw that they were all armed with simple swords.

It was then that he recognized the young man with the shaved head — Íojin, with his bandaged neck — and realized that it was his father who stood beside him with the bandage over his left eye.

“We did not come here by accident,” one of them remarked, his voice rising. “We were brought here and I fear we will not like the reason.”

Íojin’s father attempted to silence the speaker with a fierce look, but it seemed that these men recognized no distinct authority within their ranks and were commanded by mere dominance, which was, in their present circumstances, somewhat compromised.

Without warning, So Ga’s chest erupted with a burst of small coughs. Though he tried to smother the sound with his sleeve, they had heard and turned in his direction. Íojin raised his wide, unblinking eyes and immediately saw him. And like an animal on the prowl, he bared his teeth.

Backing away quickly, So Ga caught his heel on a raised board. Just as he was about topple off the porch, someone caught him under the arms and dragged him back to the door of the inn. Once inside, he was pushed into a corner — the impact of his body on the floor kicked up a cloud of dust that caused him to convulse with another coughing fit — and then the harsh red daylight was cut suddenly by the closing door.

Looking up, So Ga felt a wave of relief when he saw Min La leaning against the closed door, breathing heavily.

“Of course it’s you,” he said hoarsely with a smile, rubbing his chest.

“Where have you been?” Min La asked sharply, crouching next to him. “I’ve been looking for you for over an hour.”

“I just woke up minutes ago.”

Min La blinked in surprise, but said nothing.

“What about Nŏl and Hino Son?” So Ga asked.

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Is this a dream? Am I dreaming this?”

“If you are,” Min La said, sitting on the floor next to him, “then so am I.”

He took his bag off his back and retrieved his wooden flask, handing it to him. So Ga took it eagerly. The water was like a cool balm on his throat. After he drank, he took several deep breaths and continued to rub his chest.

“Are you alright?” Min La asked.

He nodded and returned the flask. “You have your bag,” he said, pointing to it. “I couldn’t find mine.”

“I don’t have my knife, though.”

“Do you think something happened to Nŏl and Hino Son?”

“If anything, I think they might have gone to take care of the bandits.”

“You mean the men from the hall, from last night?”

Min La nodded.

“But they wouldn’t have left us here.”

“Nŏl has an obligation to his House. If they did leave us, it was because they had to in order to catch the murderers.”

So Ga nodded thoughtfully. But he wasn’t sure. If what he suspected was true, if they had, perhaps, slipped sideways into an inn that was not quite the same inn as last night, it was possible that Nŏl and Hino Son had simply remained behind. This thought strained his already burdened mind, and he tried to find something else to focus on.

Their brief rest was sharply interrupted by an impact against the inn door. It sounded like the weight of a body being thrown against the thick wood. As they stared in frozen silence, the door was struck again. Dust erupted from it in a thin, sparkling cloud.

Min La scrambled to his feet, hauling up So Ga by the arm. He put his finger to his lips just as So Ga opened his mouth to ask what they should do. After looking around the inn’s still, dimly pink hall, he motioned to the counter on the opposite side. Without any better options, So Ga nodded and began to make his way across the dusty floor, aware that he was making tracks that could be easily followed.

Min La seemed to have thought of this as well. While So Ga waited behind the counter, Min La made a wide path around the hall, sweeping his feet back and forth across the dusty floor. A great cloud rose up all around him, as high as his knees. The air shone like pink sugar or crushed diamonds.

The door shook again, this time with a splintering report that set So Ga’s teeth on edge. Min La hurried back to the counter where he pushed So Ga into a crouch on the other side. While they were there, he began looking through the bowls and cups on the shelves.

“What are you looking for?” So Ga whispered.

“A weapon.”

The door at last succumbed. They heard it burst from its hinges, shattering into wooden shards that clattered across the floor of the hall. So Ga could not imagine the strength a man had to possess to be able to destroy a door of thick, solid wood with nothing but brute force.

At least two entered the hall. They could hear them speaking to each other, and one of the voices was unmistakable.

“I saw both of them come in here,” Íojin said.

“Now, you mind me,” spoke the other — an older man, judging by the voice — in a stern tone. “You may not have them. If anyone is to have them, it is your father. He thinks we might be able to use them.”

“I may have them if I say so. You are not him. You do not command me.”

As they continued to argue, So Ga saw that the pink light in the room had begun to darken. Min La seemed to have noticed as well. Sitting with his knees against his chest, he looked up where a dark shadow was creeping across the hall’s low ceiling. Within the creeping shadow, darker shapes took form which resembled men. They moved in time with the two who had entered the hall. Their shadows were as coal, smearing across the darkness and leaving residue in their wake.

Min La looked at So Ga, but neither said anything. The argument between the two intruders had gradually become more heated until there came the sound of flesh striking flesh. Íojin cried out.

“How dare you!” he shrieked in his high, terrible voice.

“Your father was right. You’re more trouble than you’re —”

He stopped short and So Ga held his breath in the sudden silence. The sound of the footsteps also stopped, as did the creeping spread of their shadows across the ceiling.

“I can smell them,” Íojin whispered. “Can you not?”

So Ga looked with wide eyes at Min La, who put up a hand and nodded reassuringly.

The stillness was suddenly broken by the sound and vibration of boots running across the hall floor. Before they could react, Íojin’s pale face and wide, bloodshot eyes had appeared over the edge of the counter.

“Found them!” he cried, his mouth a wide, gaping grin. Then he looked back over his shoulder. “You must let me have the fair one. After all, I—”

Min La put his foot against the counter — which was not, So Ga suddenly realized, attached to the hall floor — and pushed with all his might. His face twisted with the effort, but the counter was heavier than he had expected. So Ga quickly put his foot next to Min La’s. Between the two of them, they were able to tilt it just enough and it toppled with a terrible clatter of wood and dishes. The carafes clanged across the floor, echoing like bells.

Taking So Ga by the arm, Min La leapt to his feet. Íojin was half pinned under the counter, his ankle appeared to have been cut by one of the broken bowls and was bleeding profusely. He screamed and wailed. When he saw Min La, he bared his teeth and hissed like trapped animal.

Min La positioned himself in front of So Ga and edged around the reach of Íojin’s grasping arms. His companion, working his way through the wreckage, hurried to cut them off. But seeing that Min La was aiming for the inn’s gaping front doorway, he instead turned and ran there. Stepping onto the porch, he put his fingers to his lips and let out a whistle. So Ga’s heart hammered in his chest. He was summoning his comrades; soon there would be more.

The man turned back and faced them with a wide smile on his face. So Ga recognized him immediately. He was the one from last night whose eyes moved seemingly at random. Staring at them from the doorway, his left eye drooped and gazed at the floor while the right fixed on them. His hand was still wrapped in it’s hideous cocoon, the white bandages stained dark yellow and red. As he smiled at them — his left eye suddenly darting back and forth — he opened his arms as if to block their path through the doorway. So Ga was overcome with the sense that he seemed almost like a child playing a game.

The darkness inside the hall swirled and condensed. The pink light that had previously sparkled through the clouds of dust was now violet and black. The sparkling dust seemed like the sparking embers of a low fire.

Min La began to survey the hall. So Ga saw that Íojin had dropped a short sword when the counter fell on him. Tapping Min La’s arm, he pointed to it.

Just when it seemed like he was about to try for the sword, the man standing guard at the doorway let out a low, hissing wail. They were stunned to see the point of a thin blade protruding through his stomach. The sword withdrew and the man gasped. The whisper of metal through air was followed by the sickening sound of slicing flesh. It happened so quickly that So Ga let out a surprised gasp when the man’s head toppled from his shoulders. The body fell forward, landing with a cloud of dust that concealed the way blood still pumped from the cleanly-sliced neck.

Standing where the felled man had been was a tall, young warrior with short, dark hair and large, shining eyes. A finely wrought silver breastplate covered a traditional golt of green and purple, stained now with blood. In one hand he carried a long, slender sword, the hilt sparkling green under his thumb. On his back he carried a bow and quiver. There was something about him that seemed familiar, and So Ga wondered if he was one of the two who had been sitting in the shadows last night. With one foot, the tall warrior moved the dead man’s head aside.

Íojin screamed from the floor. Whether it was fear or anger was impossible to tell. It was also impossible to know if the newcomer would see Min La and So Ga as enemies, as he did these others.

Before they could find out, however, another figure appeared suddenly in the doorway. It swept into view like a running beast and tackled the tall, young warrior. With a yell, he fell and the two together toppled off the edge of the porch. Íojin screamed again. He had begun to work the counter off his leg. Soon, So Ga realized, he would be free.

Still holding So Ga’s arm, Min La ran to the open doorway. The two figures were in the courtyard locked in a vicious battle made even more terrifying by the grim wash of red over everything. The man’s sword had fallen with him into the courtyard, but his bow and quiver were upon the porch. Min La hesitated for only a moment, then he leapt through the doorway and picked up the bow and the quiver — in which there were only four arrows — and ran back to So Ga.

As he did so, a splintering crash echoed from the hall. Íojin had freed himself by pushing the counter upright, but had done so with such force that it had collided with the wall and broken apart. He stood, his entire body shaking with every rasping, angry breath, darkly stained dust rose from his shoulders like steam. Then he turned and fixed his gaze on them.

Min La pushed So Ga down the hall of the inn. They ran at full speed until they reached the end. On either side of the hall were doors. Min La tried one and it opened easily.

Íojin appeared at the other end of the hall. He was limping, his wounded ankle leaving a trail of blood through the dust. So Ga saw that his stained bandage had fallen off. Underneath, the flesh was open and rotted. The black skin, slick with something yellow and red, spread from the back of his neck to his chest. So Ga could smell it from where he stood, the putrid stench of fresh decay, together with the thickly bitter odor of medicinal herbs. Which, he realized in that moment, were meant not to treat the wounds but to mask the smell.

Pausing where he stood at the end of the hallway, Íojin said to Min La, his voice half-gasp, half-wail, “If you give me the fair one, I will let you live.”

Min La pushed So Ga into the open room hard enough to send him sliding on his knees through the dust. “Lock the door!” he yelled, and then pulled it closed leaving So Ga alone, while he remained trapped in the hall with Íojin.

The sudden quiet was a shock. He sat in the stillness, struggling to catch his breath, listening to the sound of his own labored breathing. He considered opening the door to help Min La. But he had promised him that he would do as he said. And anyway, what good would he be in a fight? All he could do was wait.

Standing, he locked the door.

The sounds from the hall painted a picture So Ga could not quite see clearly. He heard the repeated animal screams of Íojin, but Min La seemed to make no sounds at all. He heard bodies colliding with walls; the floor under him vibrated with the impacts. He heard, also, the scraping sound of shoes against wood. At last Íojin released a hissing, rasping wail that carried on for several long seconds. Then he was silent. After So Ga heard this, he heard nothing more for some time.

Cautiously, he unlocked the door and opened it.

The floor of the hall was a mess of blood smeared through dust. But in the midst of it all a glinting shape caught So Ga’s eye, a silver medallion in the shape of shield on a thick silver chain. He picked it up, surprised at how heavy it was, and saw that it was a martial seal bearing the anchor and shield of the Nŭnon House. The etching was worn almost smooth, but So Ga could still make out the words “Să Han Om-Nŭnon”.

Turning, he saw Íojin and Min La piled in a tangled knot of limbs on the floor near the far wall, both very still. He recognized the one closest to him by the bleeding cut on his ankle and the fetid stench that emanated from him. So Ga could see that Íojin’s neck was bent at a strange angle, his head twisted around to face the mouth of the hall, large bulging eyes staring blankly. As he stared, heart hammering in his chest, some of the limbs stirred. So Ga clutched the seal tightly and took a step back.

Struggling to shove the weight of Íojin off him, Min La at last sat up, leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. He touched a cut on his jaw that was bleeding in a thin trickle.

“This bastard is stronger than he looks,” he said, wincing. Then, looking up at So Ga, he saw what he held in his hand and his face changed. With his eyes wide with panic, he reached for his neck and felt that nothing was there. Then he let his hands drop into his lap, closed his eyes, and rested his head against the wall. He was resigned, thought So Ga, to whatever might come next. He wondered how many times Min La’s secret had been discovered, and how many times this discovery had brought him still more cruel blows. And yet he still carried the seal.

So Ga approached, stepping carefully around the body of Íojin, and knelt next to Min La.

“Here,” he said and Min La opened his eyes. So Ga held the seal in his outstretched hand. He smiled and said, “Did you think I didn’t know?”

Min La looked for a long time at So Ga’s face. He said nothing, but seemed to be studying him. So Ga wished he could read his thoughts. He wished there was time to explain to him that he didn’t think less of him because he was Nŭnon and that, in truth, he believed his House had been wronged. But for now, in this moment, all he could hope for was his trust.

At last, Min La reached out his hand and took the seal from him. As he ran his fingers tenderly over its smooth surface, he said, “You know?”

So Ga pointed to the seal. “Să Han. Is that your brother?”

Min La again looked at him. So Ga saw that his hands were shaking, probably from the fight with Íojin. The blood trickling from his jaw dripped onto the medallion. He wiped the blood away with his sleeve then he fastened the chain around his neck and tucked the seal under his clothes.

“Yes,” he said, after So Ga had begun to think that he had no intention of answering. “Older than me by eleven years.”

Then he heaved a shaking sigh and lifted himself onto his knees. Facing So Ga directly, he placed his hand on his chest and bowed his head. “I am Min San Om-Nŭnon.”

So Ga answered his bow with his own, more pleased than he thought he’d be to finally confirm this detail about Min La, pleased beyond measure to hear the words from his own mouth.

Min La lifted his head, and then his eyes flashed. With one hand, he pushed So Ga aside and with the other he reached for the bow which he had dropped during the fight. Faster than So Ga’s eyes could see, he nocked an arrow, drew the bow, and released.

The arrow sailed with a hum down the darkened hallway, driving home between the eyes of another of Íojin’s companions with the impact of hurled boulder. The man was thrown off his feet and sent flying. He collided with the far wall and slid onto the dusty floor, a sparkling cloud rising up to obscure his body.

Min La lowered the bow and looked at it with wide eyes.

“This is an unusual bow,” he breathed.

“And now we only have three arrows,” So Ga observed.

Min La pointed to the dead man. “Unless you want to go retrieve that one.”

He grimaced and shook his head.

“That’s alright,” Min La muttered with a groan as he tried to lift himself onto his feet. “I’m sure arrows around here grow on trees.”

So Ga helped him stand. He still seemed wearied from the fight and had to rest for a moment, doubled over, hands on his knees, while he caught his breath.

“‘Around here,’” So Ga repeated thoughtfully.

Min La glanced at him. “Have you noticed that as well?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ve noticed.”

“Come,” Min La said, standing upright. “We cannot stay in here. This place seems to attract them.”

“I think we might be the attraction,” So Ga muttered, and Min La replied with a thin laugh. So Ga took the bag and looped it over his shoulder.

“Guard that well,” Min La said, picking up the quiver. “Our gold is in there.”

They made their way cautiously outside, pausing upon the porch to look for the warrior they had seen previously. But he and his sword were gone from the courtyard. The body of his opponent, however, lay bleeding in the red daylight, his throat cut in such a way that his head was nearly severed.

“Why is the sky this way?” So Ga asked.

Min La shook his head. “A coming storm, perhaps.”

The crowd of men who had been arguing against the wall of the inn had dispersed. Hiding or hunting, So Ga guessed.

Min La insisted on checking again, but there were still no horses in the stable. And they agreed that it would be better not to go inside the inn’s second structure.

“It’s better to leave this place as quickly as we can,” Min La said.

“But what if…?” So Ga paused and glanced around the courtyard. “What if it isn’t that simple?”

“In all the stories I’ve heard, only the attendants may open the Houses of the Ădol. I suppose we just need to find ourselves an attendant.” And he started walking towards the inn’s fence.

So Ga was stunned at his attitude. As if it could be that simple. As if all of this was not, somehow, a strain upon his mind. He said after him, “Shouldn’t we stop and make some kind of plan? We don’t know where to go, we don’t know anything.”

Min La cast a wry smile over his shoulder. “If we don’t know where we’re going, any path will take us there.”

They walked past the collapsing fence that enclosed the inn’s courtyard. A patch of forest seemed to surround the inn, but only twenty paces or so from the inn’s fence, the trees ended and the world before them opened wide upon something else entirely.

The forest and the Prince Road were gone, of course. What stood in their place was an endless grove of orange trees. Their fragrance filled So Ga’s nose with a smell at once sweet and dangerously cloying. Something about it reminded him of the gindun he sometimes had to drink to ease the pain in his chest.

Each tree stood as tall as three men, or taller, their great, wide branches laden with clusters of fruit: shining red oranges as bright as lanterns and as large as cantaloupe. A shimmering shade was produced by the canopy of their outstretched branches. They could walk beneath them without having to bend their necks.

Glancing down, So Ga saw that the ground between the trees sparkled in the same way as the dust that had covered every surface in the inn.

The air within the grove was pleasantly still and warm, though a cool breeze rustled through the leaves and caused the oranges to sway. The strong, sweet scent was making So Ga’s mouth water. Min La reached for one of the oranges, as if considering picking one and eating it. So Ga grabbed his arm and pulled it away.

“I think,” he said slowly. “I think that would not be wise.”

Min La nodded. “To be honest, I was just trying to see if they were real.” Then he motioned to the bag. “There should be some sausage in there from yesterday. You should eat it.”

While So Ga dug through the contents of the bag, they continued to walk through the grove. A silence layered over them like warmed blankets. In all the stories he had heard, the characters had mentioned this quiet. Énan had wrapped his orange groves in silence in order to protect visitors from the rhythmic song of the Young Sea’s crashing waves, which was said to be too alluring to resist. The sensation of standing in this fabled place was almost more than So Ga could endure. The perception of the surreal pushed against his mind like a weighted stone. He began to understand why venturing into the Ădol’s Houses often drove men mad.

Min La stopped so suddenly that So Ga almost ran into him. Abandoning his search for food, he looked up to find that they stood now on the edge of a broad valley. Rolling hills unfurled across the landscape, all bristling with orange groves of their own.

Here and there across the hills, they could see bright splinters of white light. These lights moved slowly through the trees, pausing now and then, as if inspecting the branches. In time, So Ga realized that the lights were figures, and also that they stood as tall as the trees they tended. He was entranced by their movements and by their glow which shone against the reddish sky, a blur of lightsome emanation in a swirl of colors, a sheen like the skin of soap bubble. Starlike, he thought, and then remembered that in the stories the attendants had emerged from the Deep Light fully formed before pledging themselves to the Ădol. Is this, he wondered, what it was like to look upon the Deep Light?

To their left, the border of orange trees suddenly burst with a flurry of broken branches and violence. A crowd of darkly-clad men ran into the valley, wielding swords and crudely made spears. They were the same men from before, their coarse, dark clothes and stained bandages were unmistakable. At their head was the man with the bandaged eye; he swung his spear and attempted to bark orders at the others who ran through the uneven valley in panicked chaos.

Min La pulled So Ga behind one of the trees where they stood, watching cautiously to see the route the men would take. But before they could organize themselves, a sound rose up and filled the valley. In this strange place, So Ga found himself likening it to the low rumble in the throat of some colossal monster. As the rumbling grew louder, however, he finally recognized it for what it was: horses.

A company of riders thundered into the valley. Some fifteen horses or so, each bearing a tall figure armed and armored. The panic of the men in the valley grew into a fever pitch. They divided and began to attack the riders. Tall and impossibly strong, they had some success. Two horses were killed with spears and their riders attacked. A number of the horsemen moved to surround the group, but were thwarted by the tallest bandaged men wrestling with their horses. So Ga had never heard of such a battle. Even though the riders managed to fell some of them, the bandaged men were too strong to combat, even from horseback. It was like watching giants fight against a company of rooted trees.

The longer they watched, the closer the battle came to where they were hiding. Min La was growing restless, scanning the valley for a better place to hide. As he did so, they both noticed that the lighted figures in the distant groves had come to the edge of the valley, where they stood — a great, long line of them — watching as the battle unfolded.

“Will they not help?” So Ga asked.

“Perhaps only if they have to,” Min La answered.

“The ones on horseback, are they attendants, too?”

“I don’t know, but I recognize some of them.”

He pointed and So Ga saw the young warrior from the inn earlier. He rode alongside another young man, a grim-faced warrior dressed in blue who bore a strong resemblance to the other figure from the shadows last night. As the two of them rode, assembling a formation that cut off their prey from an attempted escape into the trees, they turned and called out to another in their company.

So Ga looked in that direction and watched as a great gray horse come to stand near the edge of the valley. Upon this gleaming, silver steed sat a figure dressed entirely in red, a shining silk golt that flapped in the cool wind. His hair was long, his fine, young face pale and calm. Around his waist was fastened a wide leather belt studded with rubies and gíth. He carried in his hand a long, slender sword with a pale green hilt.

“It cannot be,” So Ga breathed.

“What?” Min La asked.

“That man,” So Ga pointed. “I think it is—”

But at that moment, one of the riders — the one in blue — let out a cry as his horse fell and he disappeared in a cloud of dust and groping hands.

The other riders encircled the melee, the figure in red at their head. Only four of the bandaged men had been killed and in the swirling chaos, the rest seemed to have abandoned escape and desired only the destruction of their hunters. This singular, brutal focus was proving difficult to combat, even for the skilled warriors. Especially given the strength of their opponents.

The man in blue had found his feet and, with his sword, was cutting through the men who surrounded him. His companion, the warrior they had met earlier in the inn, seemed ready to leap off his horse and help him. But the figure in red gave him an order and he withdrew. The men on the ground realized that they had trapped someone whom their opponents valued and so redoubled their efforts. Several of them fell upon the blue warrior with their swords, while the remainder made a barrier around him with their spears out. They had, it seemed, at last managed to organize themselves. The blue-clad warrior cried out when one of the men slashed at his sword arm. The spear-bearers let out a burst of raucous laughter.

The man who was Íojin’s father called out, “Let us leave this place and we will spare him.”

The riders continued to circle around the spearmen, while the blue warrior clutched his bleeding arm to his chest.

So Ga leaned close to Min La’s shoulder. “You must help him.”

Min La stared at him. “What?”

He pulled the three remaining arrows out of the quiver and held them out to him. “You must help him,” he said again.

“We don’t know that he isn’t our enemy.”

“He isn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.” He pointed to Min La’s bow. “Please. Help him.”

Min La stared at him, and then at the arrows in his hand. Seconds passed that felt like minutes. Then he looked out at the scene in the valley and his face darkened.

He took one of the arrows from So Ga. Standing back from the tree, he nocked it and drew the bowstring back. So Ga saw his drawing arm tremble and then steady itself. His knuckles around the bow’s grip were white and his eyes narrowed. He was still for what felt like hours. At last, he released.

The arrow sailed through the teeming knot of figures, it slipped between two men on horseback, past the spearmen, and then landed with a sickening sound in the face of a looming figure who had raised his sword to threaten the disarmed blue warrior.

The man crumpled so quickly that his comrades did not even notice the arrow. The man in blue had, however, and turned to scan the edges of the valley.

Min La released his second arrow. This one whistled past the figure in red, moving his hair slightly, and then pierced the unbandaged eye of Íojin’s father. He let out a cry and dropped his spear. Blinded as he was, he couldn’t even see the sword that killed him. The figure in red shook the blood off his blade and turned to glance in Min La’s direction.

The men on the ground had begun to notice that an unseen enemy was targeting them. And their confusion rose to a panic when their leader was felled. The firm barrier they had made with their spears began to falter. And the mounted warriors were able at last to attack. But the man in blue was still surrounded. And in their desperation, his opponents seemed to have decided to dispatch him before they were defeated. A man with a bandage covering his neck and jaw dropped his spear and pulled out his sword.

Min La nocked his last arrow. He glanced at So Ga, as if, it seemed, for permission to use their last arrow.

So Ga nodded. And Min La drew the bowstring. At the moment he released the arrow, one of the other bandaged men stepped into its path. They watched, stunned, as the arrow skewered both through their throats.

“This is not,” Min La repeated, “a normal bow.”

The warrior in blue took up his sword with his other hand and with it removed the heads of the skewered men. Then he turned and looked directly at Min La. Several of the spearmen also turned and saw them, their faces twisted with anger.

“I think we should go,” Min La said.

So Ga nodded.

Turning, they ran through the orange trees — keeping the valley to their left — hoping for some kind of shelter. Failing that, Min La said as they ran, they would return to the inn.

“But above all we need to find a way to leave this place,” he added. “Though I think we’ll have to wait for that battle to end before we can do that.”

Their path took them down a steep hill and then up the sloping incline of another. So Ga was beginning to feel the strain in his chest. His breathing came in labored gasps. As they reached the top of the next hill, he stopped, doubled over, and struggled to catch his breath.

The sounds of the battle had been dimmed somewhat by the silence of the orange grove. But he still felt that enemies and steel were just beyond the trees. Taking a deep, steadying breath, So Ga stood and tried again to run. But then he looked down the hill at Min La and stopped in his tracks, dumbstruck.

Before them stood a ruin, a partly destroyed round tower of sparkling marble stone. The sloping exterior wall — the section that still stood — was smooth and seamless, hewn from a single massive block of granite, while the tower’s rampart was constructed of small marble bricks, most of which had toppled and were embedded in the grassy brush below. What had once been a perfectly solid tower that had stretched higher than the tops of the orange trees, had been ruined by a wide gouge on one side, as if a child had torn a section from a soft clay structure, leaving the rest standing.

“This is—” he breathed, pointing to it. “This is Énan’s tower, this is Láonén Kíthenev¹. The one Unolreth broke when they had their battle here. And it’s broken.” He turned to Min La. “Don’t you understand? This means—”

Min La took him by the arm and dragged him as quickly as he could through the trees to the shattered opening in the tower’s wall. “That’s all very interesting, I’m sure,” he said, “but now is not really the time.”

He didn’t let go of So Ga until they were inside the tower, where boulders and stones of all sizes had been smoothed by time. The tower was exactly as it had been on the day Volhathin had destroyed it when he returned from the Young Sea. They sat between the largest boulder and the tower’s standing wall and labored to catch their breath. So Ga pressed his hand against his chest and winced with every pained inhale.

Min La took the water from his bag and handed it to him. He took it without a word. It was cool in the tower, though there was no breeze. They were both coated in sweat and the blood on Min La’s jaw had dried in a line down his throat.

So Ga handed the water back to him.

“You are a gifted archer,” he said.

Min La half-smiled and looked again at the bow he had placed by his feet. “It is my only martial skill, I’m afraid.”

“Do you know the old stories of Imnethrun’s bowmen?”

Min La nodded. “Those were popular in Hin Dan. My brother used to tell them to me.”

It was strange to hear him speak of his home and his family so freely. It occurred to So Ga that this was the first time he had said anything about either.

He said, “They say she still selects one man from every generation. She comes to him when he is an infant within the confinement and touches his hands that he may wield the bow with her power.”

Min La picked up the bow and studied it thoughtfully. It was finely crafted from a single piece of white wood. A design in silver had been inlaid in the grip, spotted here and there with tiny rubies. “If that is true,” Min La said, putting the bow aside, “it is not me, but my brother-in-law. He was not martial at all, but like all Nŭnon men, he was raised with archery lessons. Few ever witnessed his skill, however. His father never let him compete in the contests our Housemaster held every year.”

“Why not?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Did you ever see it? His skill?”

Min La nodded and the look on his face was something So Ga had never seen before. It was a thoughtful, melancholy expression full of warmth and love, like that of a child remembering the face of his mother.

“He all but lived at our home, as he and my brother were very close. He had fallen in love with my sister and for almost two years she pretended not to notice.

“One day, he and my brother and I were practicing with our bows in the field behind our house. My sister kept rabbits and earlier that day one of them had gotten loose. They had looked for it all morning but eventually she was forced to abandon the search. While we were practicing that evening, as it was growing dark, he suddenly turned his bow to the left, waited for half a breath, and then loosed the arrow into the brush hundreds of yards away. It struck a hawk that had, at that moment, dived into the grass for its prey. When we went to retrieve the arrow, we also found my sister’s rabbit, frightened but unharmed. It was an impossible shot. My brother and I had not seen or heard the hawk. It had descended so fast and so silently that no one should have been able to see it, much less kill it with a single arrow. He returned the rabbit to my sister and they were married less than three months later.”

So Ga watched as Min La smiled at this memory.

“What was his name, your brother-in-law?”

“My brother used to call him Tírot, though my sister hated it when he did.”

So Ga laughed in surprise. “Is that not the Ethadux word for raven?”

“If you had seen him, you would understand.”

“Was he a good man, this raven?”

“I once heard the prince call him the finest Nŭnon had ever produced.”

“Was that true?”

Min La closed his eyes. “Yes, I think so.”

So Ga hesitated before he spoke again. Finally, he said, “Is he—?”

“Dead,” Min La replied abruptly. “Because of me. Along with my sister and niece.”

Then he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “You should try to rest. Later I’ll go see if it’s over and if there’s a way to leave this place.”

Before So Ga could reply, a shadow fell across the place where they sat. Turning, they saw standing in the fractured opening of the marble tower a single figure.

It was the same old man from last night, the one with the straw hat, who had shared his table with them. But he was no longer old and bent. He stood tall and upright, his face free of the weariness of age, and though his eyes seemed weary, they still shone with strange light. Instead of the coarse cloth they had seen last night, he wore now a fine golt of buttery-smooth black silk. Along the collar shimmered gold embroidery that resembled a twisting array of thorny rose branches stained here and there with splashes of recently spilled blood. His short dark hair tucked behind his ears was streaked with white.

He stood with his hand upon the hilt of his sword, which was tucked into his wide leather belt.

“My young friends,” he said with a warm smile. “I think you had better come with me.”

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1. LAY-oh-neen KIYTH-en-ev; an Ethadux name that translates literally to “tower of fearfulness” or “tower of caution”