Children of the Sun: Season Two: Children of the Sun, #2

By Lyn Lowe

Josin and Westan save each other.

When the Tulu ambushed them and took them as captives, they kept each other alive. When Westan was dying and Josin was beaten, they helped each other heal. When the time came to run, they kept each other from falling. When the Tulu came again, it was both their hands that cut down the Laughing Man.

This time, it won’t be enough.

The Blessing is gone. The Brothers of Arisyar are dying. The goddess has abandon them, and their people have betrayed them. The only salvation lies deep in the heart of the Wilds, but to get to it will require more than either of them realizes.

It will require everything.

If they are going to live through the obstacles before them, Josin and Westan will have to uncover all the lies that have shaped their lives. They will have to face the way they’ve been shaped by manipulations. They will find long-buried secrets and plots that have been in motion for hundreds of years.

They are strong together. But to survive what they find, they will have to stand alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lyn Lowe
• Release date: Sep 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536536782

Book preview

Episode One

1.

Death had permeated every aspect of Josin’s world. It was all any of them spoke of anymore. It was lurking behind her eyelids. Today, it was waiting for them to flutter open again, watching her with its own empty and unblinking eyes.

Josin’s hands slid up to cover her mouth, holding back a silent scream.

She should be used to it by now. She’d been a witness to more deaths than she had living companions now. She’d killed a man herself. Twice. She hadn’t even liked the boy who had grown cold beside her while she slept. Kortan had been nasty and distrustful of her right up until the moment exhaustion had dropped her head onto the pack that served as a pillow. None of that changed the fact that, if she could have stayed awake just a few hours longer, he might still be glaring at her. She had failed, he had died, and it hurt so bad she couldn’t breathe.

The groans pulled her out of her grief. There were other Brothers waiting for her. They would all watch her with the same lifeless gaze in the end. Until then, it was not her own time she was wasting aching over a man she’d barely known.

Josin pushed herself up, taking great care to avoid touching Kortan. She would have to eventually. It felt cold enough to turn them all into ice, but it would not actually keep the body from rotting. The thought of leaving one of her people on the ground where any insect or animal could defile them was more than she could stand. She didn’t know how she was going to build a proper pyre for him; her unexpected sleep had not been nearly enough to break loose the ache of exhaustion. She would figure it out. She would have to. There would be more pyres to build in the coming days.

She should have gone to the tent on the left, where the groans were coming from. Josin knew that, even as she headed to the one on the right. It had once belonged to a Brother named Tomgah and now, in theory, was hers. Westan might be there. He was always waiting for her, somewhere. If it was not where she’d woken, it was likely to be her tent. That was a part of the pull.

During their time as captives, both he and Erkson had been forced to cut down their intake of the Blessing. The Tulu did not believe in Arisyar, or the power of the special water bestowed upon her people to protect them from darkness. They would not have allowed the Brothers any if Josin had not intervened. Even then, it had been much less than they were accustomed. Unknown to her, Westan had taken it upon himself to cut his intake further still, despite the risks of the Bakhyar that filled the night and the madness or death that was sure to follow one of Arisyar’s children should they face those without the protection of her Blessing. He’d done so in part because the Tulu had made the cost of a few sips to be hitting Josin hard enough that she still wore the bruises.

It was more than that, though. All the Brothers had balked at that price. No, he was smart. Far smarter than she had realized until the lengths of his preparation had been laid out before her. He had been quietly filling each water skin he could get his hands on with all of the Blessing he could manage. He had not anticipated the betrayal that had left them in this situation, but he had realized what would be necessary to safely escape the Tulu, and had prepared accordingly. As a result of their reduced intake, both he and Erkson were handling the shortage they were now suffering much better than the group of Brothers they had stumbled into during the course of their escape. And Westan was doing best, out of the two of them. The symptoms of the absence were still there. Her experience tending the others only made it easier to spot in him. But Westan could still conceal how badly he was hurting. At least well enough for Josin to pretend she didn’t see. When she was around him, she could almost convince herself there was more to this new reality she’d been deposited in than the creeping specter of death. Almost.

Of course, that was not the only reason she felt so much better when he was around. Josin was not letting herself think of the other reason, though. Not ever, but especially not now. Not with the smell of Kortan still filling her nose.

Westan was not the only thing that drew her to the tent on the right, though. It was the allure of sleep. Real sleep, not simply dropping from exhaustion while the man beside her died. In her tent, whether Westan waited or not, Josin could lay down and crawl beneath a blanket. She could keep herself properly covered throughout the whole night, and really sleep. No one would dare wake her with demands. There would be no reason to fear what would be waiting for her when she opened her eyes. Westan would keep them all away, and she would get the rest she so desperately needed.

She couldn’t do it.

Even as her fingers caressed the fabric of the tent, the sigh slid from between her lips and she turned back to the left.

They needed her. There were no other Sisters to take up the care of the dying Brothers. There was no one else to parcel out what little of the Blessing they had left. And, despite the fact that they would certainly argue otherwise, Westan and Erkson were not up to caring for the others. Even though there were only four – three, now – both men had passed the point where their ordeal offered them a real advantage, and the decline in their health was beginning. Soon, she was certain, they would both join Kortan. Then she would give them all a proper pyre. She would set the whole camp on fire, and walk into the blaze when she was done. Until then, there were Brothers who needed water and blankets, and foreheads to wipe clean of sweat, and vomit to scrape up. Sleep, real sleep, would have to wait until Arisyar took all her lost children home. The cost of it now was simply more than Josin could stomach.

2.

The smell made her eyes water and bile churn at the back of her throat.

She should have been used to it. It had been, even more than death, the most fundamental part of her new reality for the last week and a half.

Light, had it really only been a week and a half? It felt longer. It felt like an eternity.

There was no growing used to this stench, though. It was more than just the awful mixture of several different kinds of vomit. That was bad enough. This went deeper. It went deeper even than the shit that at least two of the Brothers were no longer able to hold back long enough to make it to the latrine trench. That was an odor that nothing in Josin’s life had prepared her to deal with, but she could’ve gotten used to that too eventually. There was a layer to this concoction, though; a shade that went darker than any of the other scents, one that had taken her a long time to identify.

Rot.

The Brothers of Arisyar had always been impervious and strong in her eyes. Even after seeing so many killed and tormented at the hands of the Tulu, after coming to know them as people instead of merely symbols. Josin had always known that the deep red leather armor and large, two–handed blades belonged to men that held the strength of Arisyar inside them. The goddess might let them suffer but she would never leave them. They would die as shields between the righteous and all the horrors of the night.

They did not carry their blades with them anymore. Strength was abandoning them all. Even Westan. The goddess had abandoned them like a damaged toy. And now the Brothers would die, not keeping any of her faithful safe, but like any neglected toy lost in the grass and sand: they would simply rot away.

No prayers would save any of them. Just as no understanding of the smell would take the horror from it. Nothing would, until the rot was finished with all of them. What waited beyond that was no loving embrace of a righteous goddess, only more horrors.

At least then it would be over. No matter how hard Josin worked to stave off that day, or how much she feared it, there was a part of her that longed for the fire. It was an end to the slide into something worse that she’d found herself on; a departure from the reality that surpassed unbearable. It was the same part of her that had given up and dropped to the ground on their flight from the Tulu hunting parties. She would never forget the serenity that apathy had granted her in that moment. She craved such an escape now.

Instead, she filled a bowl with water from one of the water skins Kalruk had left them, then went to tend one of the three groaning Brothers. The only way to banish the thoughts of the promise that fire offered was to focus utterly on the task before her, and Josin had become so skilled at it in the last few days that she barely registered that Erksan and Westan were not in the tent.

They were important. So terribly important. They were her Brothers, while the rest of those around her would always be something else. Hers were men, while the others would only ever be children. Without them, Josin would not have been strong enough to endure the Tulu’s leader, the Laughing Man. She would have died his ‘Wolf Cub,’ either from his beatings, or the subtler kind of death she had watched swallow Sister Daysin in the Tulun kennels. Until the day she opened her eyes to find both of their corpses, she would keep finding the strength to turn away from the allure of the fire. It was what they were doing for her, and she could not give them any less than that.

So she should have noticed. They needed her now, even though they tried so hard to hide it. The should have been her first priority, as she always was theirs. That was what they owed each other, the three of them who had survived the Tulu just long enough for a friend to kill them all. She should have, but she didn’t. Not until she heard the sound of Erkson’s voice lift over the ones trapped inside the cloth walls.

Josin did not make the decision to eavesdrop on the Brothers consciously. If she had given it any thought, she would have stayed within the safety of the tent. Dusk was approaching, and there were too many people depending on her life and sanity to risk both for nothing more than to satisfy her own curiosity. More importantly, she would never endanger what had been forged between the three of them.

She did not think about it. From the moment she heard the lifted tone of the older Brother’s voice, Josin was drawn to it. With only the barest awareness of doing so, she slid out the flap of the tent in a crouch and slid into the bushes the Brothers had not bothered to clear away. She maneuvered herself around the space carefully, ears straining to coax the meaning out of the sounds she was not quite close enough to hear.

The night was closer than she had realized, and shadows were stretching long across the small space. It was never truly bright within the Wilds. Arisyar’s light struggled to penetrate the thick canopy of leaves arched above them and the wall of black trunks that filled the land that many across the old Sorna Empire feared. Night came early in this place, and if it was not a true night than it was no less dangerous. The Bahkyar thrived in darkness; they had little care for the hour in which it occurred.

…die here. You know that.

Westan spoke next. She could hear the lower sound of his voice. It was not the soft tone he’d used with her when her terror had kept her awake. Still, it came close enough that there was no chance for her to make out the words. She wasn’t sure it was necessary. It was clear to her that he was attempting to calm Erkson down by the soft tone, as well as the way he held one hand raised. Josin could almost guess the things he’d say. Likely the same ones he’d used to her, weeks ago, when trying to kill their captor and tormentor had left her shattered.

That’s not an option anymore! Erkson snapped in response to whatever it was Westan had said. That oath–breaker isn’t coming back, and it’s past time we dealt with it.

They were talking about Kalruk. The Brother had abandoned them weeks before, taking all of the water, blessed by the goddess Arisyar, with him. He was why they were dying and why Josin would soon find herself utterly alone. She knew that Kalruk and Westan had been close friends, and she’d been especially fond of the Brother herself. But before he left them, he had been acting frighteningly unhinged. She found it hard to believe he would change his mind and come back to save them weeks later. Whatever else they might be discussing, she certainly agreed with Erkson on that count.

Westan did not offer comfort after that comment. She recognized the scowl that had taken over his face. She’d spent a great deal of time becoming familiar with that expression. Though he still spoke too softly for her to hear the words, Josin knew that whatever it was that he was saying would be venomous. She shifted closer.

A stick snapped, inexplicably louder than the river and the two men’s conversation. The sound of it filled the clearing. Josin knew she was about to be discovered. A flurry of explanations swirled through her mind, each more absurd than the last. Her body ached with the need to run back to the tent and pretend she’d never come out here in the first place. It was far too late for that.

Both men pulled the swords strapped to their hips. They were not the same ones the Brothers had brought in to the Wilds. Those were confiscated when the Tulu had captured them. Westan and Erkson had been left with only the weapons they stole from the Tulu corpses. They did not carry these swords with the grace of their own, but Josin had seen enough to know that they were still utterly deadly with their borrowed blades. As poor shape as they were in, they were still more than a match for her. All hiding was likely to do was get her cut in half when one of them, driven by the foul tempers and high agitation the lack of Blessing fostered, dove after the intruder. With a grimace and a low sigh, she moved to stand, hands lifted before her.

She did not make it up.

A massive weight collided with her back. She tumbled end over end into the clearing with it on top of her. Claws raked down her side, carving bloody gouges into her right arm. Josin cried out and scrambled away, not certain what had hit her beyond the vague glimpses of massive red–rimmed eyes and gnashing teeth.

Westan was at her side in an instant, interposing himself between her and the beast. Erkson was no more than a step behind. Soon, Josin couldn’t even see the creature through the wall the Brothers had created. She could hear the snarling, though. It sent a shiver down her spine. How close had she come to filling its belly? If the stick had not snapped, would she be breathing now?

She climbed to her feet shakily, cringing as she stumbled into Westan’s back as she did. Neither man was overly large; they were built of lean muscle instead of the giant bulk of the Tulu. Josin was shorter than both, but she was tall enough, as far as her people went, and she could see in between their shoulders.

Josin was not prepared for the sight that greeted her. She’d expected one of the dark cats she’d caught sight of during her months in the Wilds. Barring that, perhaps a small bear. It was not a cat or bear that glared at them all from beneath dark matted hair, but a man.

Or, it had been a man once. He had barely a scrap of cloth on him, and his body was covered with cuts and bruises of various intensities. Some of them looked as fresh as the marks on her arm, others were old enough to be scabbed over and caked with grime. He was thin, but not so much thinner than the Brothers in the tent behind the man were. His whole body quivered, like a line pulled too tight and then plucked. Any instant, he would snap.

Slowly, recognition seeped in through her startled fear. It was not some barbarian savage. She knew this man.

Tomgah?

He had been the leader of the group of Brothers she and the others had stumbled into, during their desperate flight from the Tulu. He had seemed terrifically rash and young then. Josin had been more than half convinced he would rather kill them than help. Still, he had helped, in the end. He’d even given Josin his tent and shared all their supplies. They might have come to a peaceful arrangement to return to Orsbiinek, if Kalruk hadn’t stolen the Blessing. Tomgah had followed Kal into the heart of the Wilds, determined to recover the wagon with their supplies.

There was little trace of that young man in the creature before them.

Get back, Josin, Westan hissed and rolled his shoulder to push her away. She hadn’t even realized she’d pressed forward.

But… But it was one of the Brothers. Someone she could trust, on some level, to look out for and protect her.

Except, even as she thought it, she remembered the story that Westan had told the Tulu. He’d said that some Brothers went mad when they were denied the Blessing. She’d been certain it was a story, no matter how much he insisted to their captors that it was true. The idea of a Brother of Arisyar eating his whole expedition was simply too horrific, and the utilization of the tale far too clever. It had been just brutal enough that the Tulu had been unwilling to take the chance that it was true. And, if it was she surely would have heard about it. At least one of the books in her great library would have had some reference to the occurrence.

Of course, none of the books she’d read had talked of the Blessing much at all. And here, standing before her, was what looked to be proof that he’d been honest after all.

How many Brothers had Westan claimed it had taken to stop the mad Brother of the story? She couldn’t remember. More than two. He’d also said they were ‘armed and armored’. That part she recalled quite clearly. While both of her Brothers were as well, the heavy armor they’d worn to fend off bears was as lost as the swords they’d been trained for.

What do we do? She murmured, forcing herself not to drop into a sobbing ball of terror. They’d faced down so many horrors. She couldn’t understand how she wasn’t immune to it. Surely she’d seen enough to stop being such a night cursed coward by now.

No one answered her. Josin wondered if they were thinking the same thing she was: that the only thing left for them to do now, was to die. Neither would ever say that. Not out loud and certainly not to her.

Another groan came from the tent. The sound startled all of them, but the rabid man most of all. A powerful shudder ran through his body and he spun.

Somehow Tomgah and ended up between them and the tents. For a second, they all stood there, not wanting to break the standoff. Then the madman surged forward.

No!

She couldn’t tell which of the Brothers had shouted. It might even have been her. The command was useless. Tomgah was long past hearing. He was already moving. Westan hurtled after him, Erkson on his heels. Josin stood for a heartbeat, torn between the fear that wanted to root her to the spot and the need to protect the Brothers inside. When the screaming started, she finally began moving.

The tent could not hold all six men. It collapsed in a heap almost the instant Westan and Erkson made it inside. For a moment, there was nothing to see but the handful of forms struggling with the thick, well–tended canvas. For a moment, she dared to hope that the obstacle might prove enough to dampen Tomgah’s madness. It was an empty hope, and did not survive but a heartbeat after she’d had it. That was as long as it took Tomgah to hurl the fabric over his head and break free of the mess.

He uncovered one of the dying Brothers with his actions as well. Josin skidded to a halt as Tomgah’s eyes dropped down to the man still curled on his blanket. Her gaze met the Brother’s, and understanding flooded both of them. Tomgah fell