“…where are they now?” Gokren asked.
“The Fishers are keeping their borders tight, but they should have left days ago,” Jai Long said. His information was sadly lacking, but he was confident in his conclusion. The Arelius Underlord had no reason to linger in the Desolate Wilds an hour longer than he had to.
“An Iron,” Gokren mumbled. He pressed one hand against his eyes. “My son…an Iron. They left him no pride when they killed him.”
For his sister, Jai Long had played up Kral’s death in battle to make it seem as though he had met a respectable end. That wouldn’t work for Gokren, so Jai Long stayed quiet.
Gokren took a moment to master himself, then rose. He cast one last glance at Kral’s body, brushing hair away from the pale forehead.
“I know you will avenge him,” Gokren said quietly. Jai Long had come in here expecting a battle, but there was no fight in this man. At least not directed at him. “In a year, you will take back his honor, and I must only endure.”
Gokren straightened, and a shadow of the Sandviper chief’s poise returned. “But I know you will not spend this time idly. What is your plan?”
Jai Long hadn’t been sure how to approach this topic. He had feared that Gokren might learn about the Ancestor’s Spear from one of the Sandvipers and decide to take it away. He wasn’t worried about that possibility anymore.
Placing the long wooden case on the floor, Jai Long flipped it open and revealed the shining white weapon.
Gokren clenched and unclenched his fists, watching the spear. Minutes rolled by as he stared, the acid-green Sandviper on his arm hissing every now and then.
“You’re going back to your clan?”
Jai Long said nothing, which was answer enough.
“Will Jai Daishou stop you?”
The Underlord Patriarch of the Jai clan was a legend; with his own hands, he had built the Jai from a remote clan in the wilderness to an Imperial power. If he acted, Jai Long’s dreams of revenge would melt like snow in the summer sun.
“To him, propriety is the highest virtue,” Jai Long said, bitterness in the words. If the Patriarch had been the slightest bit flexible, Jai Long and his sister would still belong to the head family. “Every step must be taken in its proper order, and he will defend that order to the death. He will not act until his Highgolds, Truegolds, elites, and Elders have all fallen.”
Green light dripped from Gokren’s body, half-Forged madra from the Path of the Sandviper, but he didn’t seem to notice. “They will feed themselves to you, one by one.”
“And by the time Jai Daishou reveals himself, I will be more than his match.” The Underlord had once groomed Jai Long to be his replacement, after all. The Ancestor’s Spear would allow him to close the gap on his own.
But Chief Gokren shook his head. “The gulf between Gold and Lord is wider than you imagine. It requires a certain insight that I’ve never gained.” He flexed his hand into a claw. “If it was only a matter of power, I would have broken through long ago. But you may not need to face him. Rumor says he is dying; is this true?”
Reflexively, Jai Long remained quiet. Those were clan matters, and not to be spoken of before outsiders.
That thought was replaced by disgust in an instant. Years away from the main Jai clan, and Jai Long was still keeping their secrets. How deep their poison sinks.
“Unless they’ve discovered a miracle cure, he won’t live five more years.”
“You only have to avoid him for one. By the time you kill the Iron, you’ll have gutted the Jai clan. Then you retreat west, back here, and we’ll hide you until the Underlord dies.”
Jai Long searched for words, but none came. At best, he had expected the Sandviper chief to berate him for leaving. He’d even come prepared for a fight.
He’d never dared to hope that Gokren would break a long-standing alliance for him. He was tempted to tell the grieving father to reconsider, that he was risking the future of his sect for personal vengeance.
But the truth was, Jai Long needed every ally he could get.
The Sandviper crossed the room and grabbed Jai Long by both shoulders. His grip was painfully tight, his eyes fevered. Jai Long had to suppress the instinct that told him to break the hold and escape.
“You were a brother to my son,” Gokren said. “Your enemies are mine.”
Jai Long’s eyes welled up, but he pressed fists together and bowed.
Gokren squeezed his arms one more time and then released. “Unless they’ve fled already, some of those enemies are right here in camp. Let’s see if you can’t test out that new spear.”
He threw the stable doors wide open, and the Sandvipers at the entrance straightened in respect. These were the veterans of their sect, the oldest and most loyal warriors. Kral’s death would stain them all. They simmered with suppressed anger, eager for a chance to vent their pain and shame.
“We march with Jai Long against his clan,” Gokren announced, tearing one of his short spears free. “Sandvipers! We hunt.”
Jai Long was prepared for hateful looks cast his way, for words of hesitation and blame, for the Sandvipers to turn their anger on him.
Once again, he saw how deeply he had misunderstood his allies.
They roared in agreement with their leader’s words, their sandviper Goldsigns shrieking to the heavens. They clapped him on the back as they passed him, whispered words of encouragement, or pressed their foreheads against his for an instant before rushing off to battle. Not an instant of hesitation, not a word of blame.
With a new family at his side, Jai Long marched to destroy his old one.
***
Lindon had to spend one more night in the woods, scripting their camp against Remnants and dreadbeasts and curling up in a crude tent only yards away from Fisher Gesha’s. After the day’s attack, he had woken with every cracking twig and gust of wind, groping for his launcher construct.
But dawn broke without event, so he and Gesha returned to the Five Factions Alliance camp with the rising sun. He read as they walked, committing simple scripts to memory.
“Put that away and listen to me,” Gesha ordered as they approached the camp walls. “You are no longer a Copper with one friend and no enemies. You should learn to conduct yourself as a member of a great family, hm?”
Lindon opened his pack and slid Soulsmithing for Coppers inside, resting it between the Sylvan Riverseed's glass case and the advanced notes he'd stolen from the ancient Soulsmith's foundry. “I await your instruction.”
Her mouth tightened and guilt flashed across her face. “I did not teach you well before Eithan Arelius took you in.” He started to disagree—a polite fiction, because she really had been a terrible teacher before the past few days—but she cut him off. “It’s true, and I’m not afraid of the truth. You were never my disciple before the Underlord picked you up, no matter what I told you. But I could never treat a member of the Arelius family so disrespectfully as to ignore them.”
“Gratitude. Your instruction is appreciated, but I have no voice in the Arelius family. Nothing you say to me will reflect on them.”
That wasn't entirely true, and they both knew it; before he was attached to Eithan Arelius, Gesha could have cut his head off in broad daylight and the passersby would have simply stepped around his bleeding trunk. Now, she'd have to answer to an Underlord.