SAOLIN didn’t open his eyes as he sank into the pool, but he did stop mumbling. He bobbed for a moment, then took a sharp breath, reaching his hands toward the heavens. After that, he melted into the blue liquid.
Raoden watched the process solemnly. They had waited for two days, hoping against all that the grizzled soldier would regain his wits. He had not. They had brought him to the pool partially because his wound was so terrible, and partially because Raoden knew that he could never enter the Hall of the Fallen with Saolin inside. The mantra “I have failed my lord Spirit” would have been too much.
“Come, sule,” Galladon said. “He’s gone.”
“Yes, he is,” Raoden said. And it’s my fault. For once, the burdens and agonies of his body seemed insignificant compared to those of his soul.
* * *
THEY RETURNED TO him. First as a trickle, then as a flood. It took days for them to realize, and believe, that Sarene was gone for good. No more handouts—no more eating, waiting, and eating again. Then they came back, as if suddenly awakened from a stupor, remembering that once—not so long ago—there had been purpose in their lives.
Raoden set them to their old tasks—cleaning, farming, and building. With proper tools and materials, the work became less an exercise in intentional time wasting and more a productive means of rebuilding New Elantris. Piecemeal roofs were replaced with more durable, functional creations. Additional seed corn provided a chance for a second planting, one much larger and ambitious than the first. The short wall around New Elantris was reinforced and expanded—though, for the moment, Shaor’s men remained quiet. Raoden knew, however, that the food they had gathered from Sarene’s cart wouldn’t last long. The wildmen would return.
The numbers that came to him after Sarene were much greater than those that had followed him before. Raoden was forced to acknowledge that despite the temporary setbacks they caused, Sarene’s excursions into Elantris had ultimately been beneficial. She had proven to the people that no matter how much their hunger hurt, simply feeding their bellies wasn’t enough. Joy was more than just an absence of discomfort.
So when they came back to him, they no longer worked for food. They worked because they feared what they would become if they did not.
* * *
“HE SHOULDN’T BE here, Galladon,” Raoden said as he studied the Fjordell priest from atop their garden-roof observation point.
“You’re certain that’s the gyorn?” Galladon asked.
“He says so in that prayer of his. Besides, he’s definitely Fjordell. That frame of his is too large to be Aonic.”
“Fjordells don’t get taken by the Shaod,” Galladon said stubbornly. “Only people from Arelon, Teod, and occasionally Duladel.”
“I know,” Raoden said, sitting back in frustration. “Perhaps it’s just percentages. There aren’t many Fjordells in Arelon—perhaps that’s why they never get taken.”
Galladon shook his head. “Then why don’t any JinDo ever get taken? There’s plenty of them living along the spice route.”
“I don’t know,” Raoden said.
“Listen to him pray, sule,” Galladon scoffed. “As if the rest of us hadn’t tried that already.”
“I wonder how long he’ll wait.”
“It’s his third day already,” Galladon said. “Must be starting to get hungry. Kolo?”
Raoden nodded. Even after three days of almost continual prayer, the gyorn’s voice was firm. Everything else considered, Raoden had to respect the man’s determination.
“Well, when he finally realizes he’s not getting anywhere, we’ll invite him to join us,” Raoden said.
“Trouble, sule,” Galladon warned. Raoden followed the Dula’s gesture, picking out a few huddled shapes in the shadows to the gyorn’s left.
Raoden cursed, watching Shaor’s men slink from the alleyway. Apparently their food had run out even more quickly than Raoden had assumed. They had probably returned to the courtyard to look for scraps, but they found something much more promising: the still full basket of food at the gyorn’s feet.
“Come on,” Raoden urged, turning to climb down from the roof. There was a time when Shaor’s men might have gone directly for the food. However, recent events had changed the wildmen. They had begun wounding indiscriminately—as if they had recognized that the fewer mouths opposed them, the more likely they were to get food.
“Doloken burn me for helping a gyorn,” Galladon muttered, following. Unfortunately, he and Raoden moved too slowly. They were too late … to save Shaor’s men.
Raoden rounded the side of the building as the first wildman jumped at the gyorn’s back. The Fjordell leapt to his feet, spinning with near-inhuman speed and catching Shaor’s man by the head. There was a snap as the gyorn cracked his opponent’s neck, then threw him against the wooden gate. The other two attacked in unison. One met with a powerful spinning kick that tossed him across the courtyard like a pile of rags. The other received three successive punches to the face, then a kick to the midsection. The madman’s howl of rage cut off with a whine as the gyorn placed another kick at the side of the man’s head.
Raoden stumbled to a halt, mouth half open.
Galladon snorted. “Should have realized. Derethi priests can take care of themselves. Kolo?”
Raoden nodded slowly, watching the priest return smoothly to his knees and resume his prayers. Raoden had heard that all Derethi priests were trained in the infamous monasteries of Fjorden, where they were required to undergo vigorous physical training. However, he hadn’t thought that a middle-aged gyorn would maintain his skills.
The two wildmen who could still move crawled away, while the other one lay where the gyorn had tossed him, whimpering pitifully with his broken neck.
“It’s a waste,” Raoden whispered. “We could have used those men back in New Elantris.”
Galladon shook his head. “I don’t see what we can do about it.”
Raoden stood, turning toward the market section of Elantris. “I do,” he said with determination.
* * *
THEY PENETRATED SHAOR’S territory so quickly and directly that they got nearly to the bank before they were noticed. Raoden didn’t respond when Shaor’s men began to howl—he continued to walk, resolute, focused on his goal. Galladon, Karata, and Dashe—Karata’s former second was one of the few experienced fighting men left in Raoden’s camp—accompanied him. Each nervously carried a medium-sized sack in his arms.
Shaor’s men followed them, cutting off their escape. After the losses they had received over the last few weeks, there could only be a couple of dozen men left in Shaor’s band, but those few seemed to multiply and shift in the shadows.
Galladon shot Raoden an apprehensive look. Raoden could tell what he was thinking. You’d better be sure as Doloken you know what you’re doing, sule.…
Raoden set his jaw firmly. He had only a single hope—his belief in the rational nature of the human soul.
Shaor was much the same as before. Though her men must have delivered some of their spoils to her, one would never have known it from her screaming. “Bring me food!” she wailed, her voice audible long before they entered the bank. “I want food!”
Raoden led his small group into the bank. Shaor’s remaining followers filed in behind, approaching slowly, waiting for their goddess’s inevitable command to kill the intruders.
Raoden moved first. He nodded to the others, and each dropped their sacks. Corn spilled across the uneven floor of the bank, mixing with the slime and falling into cracks and crevices. Howls sounded behind them, and Raoden waved his people to the side as Shaor’s men descended upon the corn.
“Kill them!” Shaor yelled belatedly, but her followers were too busy stuffing their mouths.
Raoden and the others left as simply as they had come.
* * *
THE FIRST ONE approached New Elantris barely a few hours later. Raoden stood beside the large fire they had kindled atop one of the taller buildings. The blaze required many of their precious wood scraps, and Galladon had been against it from the start. Raoden ignored the objections. Shaor’s men needed to see the fire to make the connection—the leap that would bring them back to sensibility.
The first wildman appeared out of the evening’s darkness. He moved furtively, his stance nervous and bestial. He cradled a ripped sack, a couple of handfuls of grain clutched within.
Raoden motioned for his warriors to move back. “What do you want?” he asked the madman.
The man stared back dumbly.
“I know you understand me,” Raoden said. “You can’t have been in here long—six months at the most. That’s not enough to forget language, even if you want to convince yourself that it is.”
The man held up the sack, his hands glistening with slime.
“What?” Raoden insisted.
“Cook,” the man finally said.
The grain they had dropped was seed corn, hardened over the winter to be planted in spring. Though they had most certainly tried, Shaor’s men wouldn’t have been able to chew or swallow it without great pain.
And so, Raoden had hoped that somewhere in the back of their abandoned minds, these men would remember that they had once been human. Hoped that they would recall civilization, and the ability to cook. Hoped they would confront their humanity.
“I won’t cook your food for you,” Raoden said. “But I will let you do it yourself.”