Chapter 44
Escape from Gasara
Wataru couldn’t summon up the strength to meet with Kee Keema right after talking to Meena. I’ll do it later, he thought. Thankfully, there were other things to keep him busy.
In the area around Gasara, there were several smaller towns that helped facilitate local trade. Refugees from these places were arriving daily at the town’s gates. Wataru, along with his fellow Highlanders, had his hands full with all the incoming traffic.
“If all this confusion continues much longer, then I’d gladly give myself up as the Halnera sacrifice just to get back a little peace and quiet,” one of the refugees said with a sideways glance at his exhausted wife. He led a small child by the hand. The simple lodgings that had been set up for refugees had only the barest necessities, yet still, many were glad to be able to bathe and eat a proper meal after four days on the road.
“You don’t have much longer to wait. Halnera will soon be over,” Wataru told them.
The man nodded slowly. “I hope so…” he said with a sigh. “You get to wondering if they really need a sacrifice. I’d think the Goddess in all her power would be able to make a Great Barrier of Light by herself. I started thinking that maybe the Goddess’s intent with this whole Halnera thing lies elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?”
“Yep. Look how we struggle and tremble just hearing that one of us is to be chosen as a sacrifice. We’re so weak. And in the end, all we care about is our own hides. That’s why there’s all this chaos. And of course, some people have tried to make a profit off it. Some have even used the confusion as a cover to do away with people they don’t like. It’s all greed, and it runs deep. Ugly stuff. That’s why the Goddess has to shake us up a little bit every now and then. She wants to remind us of our weakness, and our ugliness. She wants to make sure that we don’t fall any more in love with ourselves than we already are. That’s why she started this whole Halnera thing—at least that’s what I think.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to Wataru.
“Wouldn’t that make the Goddess a little harsh toward her own people?”
“Harsh? You bet. But, I figure she has to be strict. If she was nice all the time, nothing would ever get fixed. Words are empty. You can pass the greatest teachings of the sages down, but if all they see is prosperity day in and day out, they’ll forget what the words mean. People are forgetful creatures, you see. That’s why at least once every thousand years the Goddess has to come down and give us a jolt—something to remind us of what the teachings really mean.”
They spent so much time talking that it was late into the afternoon by the time Wataru could take a break from the refugee camps. The man’s heavy questions weighted down his already laden heart, and his feet trudged across the ground as he walked back toward the branch office.
Then he noticed something odd. People were gathered out in front of their houses and talking in hushed voices. What’s going on?
Just then Wataru turned a corner and ran into the doctor from the hospital. His medicine bag was tucked under one arm, and he was speaking with some of the townspeople. Wataru called out to him, but the man was so engrossed in his conversation he didn’t even notice.
“Hello there! Has something happened?”
“Oh, it’s you!” the doctor said, blinking eyes half-buried under thick brows. “You mean you don’t know?”
“I see people standing around…”
Everyone, including the doctor, looked at him in surprise. “You’re a Highlander, aren’t you? How can you say you don’t know! Gasara has been surrounded by a company of the Knights of Stengel for the past hour!”
Wataru gaped. “Surrounded—what’s this all about? Didn’t the guards do anything?”
“What was there to do? They saw a company of the Knights of Stengel approaching from across the grasslands, and they thought maybe they were coming for supplies or just to visit. The next thing you know, they had us all surrounded.”
“The town gate is closed,” the doctor said. “No one is getting out or coming in.”
“I’ve been with the refugees this whole time.”
“Aye,” said one of the townspeople, “and the Knights of Stengel move fast—faster than the wind. That group is quiet as a snake ready to strike.”
“I need to get back to the branch!” Wataru made to run off, when the doctor grabbed his collar from behind. “Wait. You might want to see how things develop first.”
“What do you mean?”
“Captain Ronmel came in with some of his men. They went into the branch office. Whatever business they have is in there.”
Wataru’s eyes opened wide. “You mean they’re chasing a criminal or something?”
The doctor shook his head. “Remember when the four high branch chiefs sent out orders to the Highlanders without the approval of the Senate? Word is that Captain Ronmel’s business here has something to do with that.”
With a start, Wataru remembered the dangerous tension that had passed between Captain Ronmel’s troops and the Highlanders in front of the Lourdes observatory. And Captain Ronmel’s words: if the branch chiefs and the Highlanders get on the bad side of the Senate, then one day the Knights of Stengel and the Highlanders might stand on opposite ends of the sword.
So what Captain Ronmel feared had come to pass.
“Apparently, the captain has come for none other than Kutz herself,” the doctor said. “Someone in the Senate wants her detained and sent to the capital. Not sure what the matter could be…”
Wataru knew. The assassination plot. Word must have leaked from somewhere, and someone in the Senate caught wind of it. There would be those in the Senate who didn’t favor the idea of the emperor in the north suffering a sudden demise.
Kutz said it had been her plan. That made her the ringleader. If she’s arrested, she’ll be tried for sure. Where was High Chief Gil in all this? And the three who were supposed to go north with her?
“I don’t care what they say she’s done. They can’t come in here and take the chief away,” one of the townspeople said, snorting loudly. “Those Knights of Stengel are just the Senate’s lapdogs. Who can trust them? And they’re all ankha too. You can bet they don’t think too highly of us beastkin.”
Several others standing around agreed. One waved his fist. “If anyone is going to put those Knights in their place, it’s got to be us!”
The doctor’s ears flattened against his head. “I’m sure the government and the Knights know how you all feel. That’s why they have us surrounded. It we strike back unthinkingly, I fear something terrible may happen.”
“Then you’d just have us stand here and watch them take Kutz off without a fight?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Well then?!”
Wataru slipped away before the argument grew even more heated.
He ran until he reached the front gate. It was closed and barred, as the doctor had said. Knights were stationed outside, and a notice of some kind had been posted in plain sight. Probably a warrant for Kutz’s arrest. A local beastkin was loudly arguing with one of the Knights. Across the street, a small child was crying as he clung to his mother’s skirt hem.
A darbaba cart was parked off the road by the gate—perhaps stalled by the arrival of the Knights. The waterkin driver was upset with the situation and was locked in a debate with another of the guards. Wataru hid behind the large wheels of the cart and listened to their exchange.