Theomancy Chapter 20
The ride back was painful, bumpy, and passed Jarah in a dream of agony. Her shoulder hurt, but nothing more than she'd experienced before. The wound wasn't particularly deep, and a tight bandage and an immobilized arm would do more for it than anything short of injecting herself with ichor again. Her face ached constantly, and she felt certain that her nose was broken, if only with a fracture. It was nothing compared to Rihn, of course. No, the agony was less physical and more emotional. Losing Kimhan like this was more painful than any number of broken bones or ripped flesh. It was like losing Lillah again, but with the thorny reminder that Kimhan was still alive…and not with her. They spoke very little as Rihn kept the horse on a steady path. He said that he felt Paudra be syphoned away from him after they'd made it a good league from Nan. "That's why I picked the God of Distraction," Rihn had explained. "I knew that, of all the domains that would be hardest to defeat, it would be his." Jarah had nodded a painful agreement: After all, Paudra was a tricky god, one who could easily cause a distraction, thereby fueling off of others' distractions, which allowed him to cause further distractions. That it took Tenhaim as long as he did was a good sign, though it was even possible that Rihn was simply too far away from the god to keep him Invoked. If that were the case, Jarah hoped that Paudra gave Tenhaim plenty of grief before getting his men rallied to the point they could pursue. Ahead of them, somewhere in the growing brightness of a red-tipped morning, Kimhan was being whisked away. The idea sickened Jarah, forcing her back into her memories of what had just transpired. Questions wracked her: Why hadn't she acted sooner? Why hadn't she noticed the gaps in Lylen's story before it was too late? How was she supposed to survive this? One question, however, stirred as her stomach cramped with hunger. "How did you not fall asleep?" asked Jarah, shifting in order to make herself slightly more comfortable. "Huh?" "Back there. You drank the tea and ate the rice, yet you didn't fall asleep." "Neither did you." Rihn twitched the reins, keeping the horse moving at a brisk pace. They had a lot of distance to cover and it was clear he didn't want the animal to tire too much before they reached the city. His pragmatic decision was logical, though she wouldn't have had the patience to do so. The kidnappers had too large a head start for them to cut it, especially since they rode in a wagon, but Jarah would kill an entire herd of horses if it meant she got to Kimhan faster. She glanced behind them. Still no pursuers from behind. Small mercy. "I didn't eat anything." Rihn glanced at her, surprised. "Really? Why not?" Jarah shrugged. "The fire's eruption was my clue not to." "Oh, that's when I knew I was safe to eat it." "Why?" "That's an old Tenhaim trick: By throwing the right powder into the flames, it acted as a signal to the rest of the ambush. His sleeping concoction was also one of Tenhaim's versions. We guards have to build up an immunity to it, so that we can't be knocked out easily." Jarah blinked a couple of times. "You can do that?" "For some potions. Also, Lylen didn't know how to mix it very well. I bet, had you eaten it, you would have been drowsy, but not actually unconscious." He made a face. "Gave the rice a weird flavor, though." "You ate it readily enough." "I didn't want to arouse suspicion. Besides, it ended up working well for us, right?" Jarah gave him a blank stare. "I'm wounded and they captured Kimhan, plus they have the Blade and, most likely, Honu." "But we have the key for map, right? That much is good." "We don't need the map anymore, Rihn. They have all the pieces." "Well," said Rihn, doggedly attached to his optimism, "at least we know where we're going." "We do?" "The compound." Jarah scratched an itch on the back of her head, wincing as she did so. The jarring of the buckboard's wheels over the rutted dirt road made it difficult to feel comfortable under normal circumstances. With as much damage as she'd taken, it was downright miserable. "Why would he do something as obvious as take her to the compound?" "Because that's where we're going to look first." Jarah frowned, thinking. "He's willing to let us arrive at the compound before he does in order to, what, capture us again?" Rihn nodded. "Oh, yes. It wouldn't surprise me if Honu were there, too." "Everyone in one place, huh?" "Yeah. It makes it easier on him: He doesn't have to hunt us down." Rihn gestured southward, toward the city. "He wants us, too, Jarah. He thought he could snag us in Nan--almost did, too--but since we gave him the slip, he'll wait for us to come to him." "Then, we're headed into another trap." "Did you think it somehow wouldn't be? He has someone we want to save. He has, as you pointed out, everything that we needed. So we're not racing him back to the city so much as getting there with enough time for us to do a tiny bit of preparation." Jarah shot a look over her shoulder. Rihn was right about being pursued--at least, at this point. Jarah had genuinely expected some advanced riders, unencumbered by a wagon, to advance on them. She had been going over what she could do to stop them, which deity she could Invoke to get the fighters off of their trail. But no one was behind; Rihn had guessed correctly. "Like what?" He shrugged, flicking the reins to keep the horses from slowing down. "That was a part that I wanted you to figure out." Jarah sighed. "I'll work on it," she said. "How long can we keep up this speed?" "A couple of hours more, I'd guess, before the horses would need a break. I think I saw some supplies in the back. Do you want to check them?" Jarah did as requested, wincing at the jolting pain. There was a barrel of water--from which she quickly drank her fill--and some hardtack in a chest. The rest of the buckboard was filled with tools, an old tarp, and some frayed rope. "Was this Lylen's, do you think?" she asked as she brought forward the hardtack to munch on. "Probably. Looks like his lunch and something to drink…" He shook his head. "I almost feel bad for him." "I don't," said Jarah, trying hard not to taste what was essentially baked blandness. "He betrayed us." "Nah, he only did what he had to. Shedding blood, Jarah, Tenhaim was inside his home." "What do you think the villager said to him to get us inside?" "Probably something along the lines of 'These may be the people he's looking for' or something like that." Jarah nodded. "That makes sense." She took another bite. It was difficult to chew for many reasons, not the least of which was that her jaw hurt and she worried that maybe one of her teeth had been wiggled loose. "So tell me, Rihn: How did you get mixed up with Tenhaim in the first place? You seem to know a lot about him and how he thinks. Why is that?" Rihn took a long moment before answering. "That is a long story." "We have a lot of time, as I understand it." Rihn rubbed at his chin, wincing. "Okay," he said at last. "But if I'm going to tell mine, you'll have to share yours." Jarah thought for a time, then nodded. "All right. Mine goes like this…"
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