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.”Pehr closed his eyes, trying to envision it.All of these things were possible, yes, and some of them were even tempting.He could set down the responsibility of saving them, for now, and focus first on saving this one village.He could reform the bonds of friendship with his fellow men, hunt boar with them, and return home to a wife and family after each hunt.This was all that he had ever wanted, once, and if Nani had been any other than his cousin, she would have refused Josep’s necklace and waited for him instead, and he would never have left this place at all.He would have abandoned Jace to his fate and stayed behind to rebuild and be with her.But Nani was his cousin, and so he had gone.He forced himself to picture Tasha lying cold and naked on her funeral pyre, and thought of the promises he had made to her.Would he break those oaths so easily?Eyes still closed, Pehr shook his head.“I cannot do these things you ask.I wish that I could, my friend, but I have made promises and I could not live with myself if I did not keep them.If you will not follow me in this voluntarily, then I must lead by force.I must challenge you.”Josep shook his head, disgusted.“It is a sad choice you have made, Pehr.Death or exile.I will not allow you to remain here if you yield.”“I know what I’ve chosen,” Pehr said.“So be it, then.Tomorrow at midday we will meet in the village center.Go now and prepare.”So it was, Pehr thought.Another test, another challenge, another block in the road toward redemption.Why must it always be so?This was Uru; this was their world and these their ways, and for Pehr there was nothing else to do but that which he had been doing since his birth.He would face the challenge head on and seek to overcome it.He would face it and he would triumph, or he would die.“Until tomorrow then,” he said, and he stood to take his leave.Chapter 28Pehr had expected that others might be waiting to see the boy who had returned from the dead, but the group assembled outside of the hunters’ hall was something more like a mob, large and rowdy and restless.It seemed that the entirety of the village had come together to surround the building’s single entrance.As Pehr emerged, the people surged forward, their collective murmuring swelling to a roar.“It’s true!” a hoarse voice cawed out from somewhere amidst the crowd of bodies, and Pehr took a step back as several hands reached for him, as if wishing to prove the veracity of his existence by touching him.“Leave him alone!” Nani shouted, shoving her way through the crowd and slapping away the hands.“Get back, fools.”She stopped, standing beside and slightly ahead of Pehr, staring out at the crowd.There was a moment of silence.“Nani … what is this?” Pehr asked, keeping his voice subdued.There was something manic in the eyes of the villagers that startled him.They were staring at him now in silence, as if waiting for some proclamation.“It’s my fault,” Nani said.“I told Essa some of where you’ve gone and what you’ve done.She ran off and told half the village that a savior had come back from the land of the Gods to deliver us from the Lagos and raise us up to eternal paradise.”Pehr laughed.“She has a vivid imagination.”“To go into the very heart of the Lagos’s lands and then return? As far as they’re concerned, you’ve risen from the dead.”“And what do you think?”“I think if my brother was still alive, he’d call them all idiots.”“He might be right to do so,” Pehr muttered, but then he stepped forward and looked over the crowd.“My friends,” he began, and then paused, thinking.“You look to me for salvation as you would look to the Gods, but I'm not one of Them.I’m only a man.I have not met Them, and I know not of Their workings.I know only of the workings of men.”“What of the Lagos?” someone else cried.“The Gods have seen fit to strike down the Lagos forces,” Pehr said, and he wondered if Tasha would be offended or only amused that he was using his Gods now in such a way, to gain the trust and faith of those around him.He suspected she would find the situation both horrifying and uproariously funny, and had to suppress a grim smile of his own.“Are they truly gone?” a young girl asked, and Pehr recognized her as the one he had saved from a beast’s clutches at the beginning of the battle.“There may yet be Lagos remaining,” Pehr told her.“If so, they are few and they are scattered.I saw their army destroyed with my own eyes.We must band together, all of the villages from here to the northern desert.We will build an army and sweep through the jungles, hunting down the last of the creatures, so that we may finally claim that which is our birthright.”“What is this thing?” someone called.“It is Havenmont, the last city of man.It was the place of our ancestors in the years after the Great Destruction, and the men who lived there possessed much knowledge that would have made them seem to us like gods.That knowledge has been denied us by the Lagos for thousands of years, and denied to those who dwell on the eastern plains.We are a split people, no longer whole, and it is only by chance – or good luck, or the favor of the Gods – that I have been able to bridge the gap.”Pehr looked out over the crowd.There were faces he recognized, but many were new to him.Merchants and farmers and their families, settlers who had come from other villages to help repopulate the land in the wake of the Lagos’s destruction.These people knew nothing of him, hadn't grown up with him, had no reason to believe him.Surely it would not be so easy as a simple speech to gain their trust.As if to confirm these thoughts, another voice spoke.“What of Josep?”Pehr grimaced, glancing at Nani and then over his shoulder at the entrance to the hall [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.”Pehr closed his eyes, trying to envision it.All of these things were possible, yes, and some of them were even tempting.He could set down the responsibility of saving them, for now, and focus first on saving this one village.He could reform the bonds of friendship with his fellow men, hunt boar with them, and return home to a wife and family after each hunt.This was all that he had ever wanted, once, and if Nani had been any other than his cousin, she would have refused Josep’s necklace and waited for him instead, and he would never have left this place at all.He would have abandoned Jace to his fate and stayed behind to rebuild and be with her.But Nani was his cousin, and so he had gone.He forced himself to picture Tasha lying cold and naked on her funeral pyre, and thought of the promises he had made to her.Would he break those oaths so easily?Eyes still closed, Pehr shook his head.“I cannot do these things you ask.I wish that I could, my friend, but I have made promises and I could not live with myself if I did not keep them.If you will not follow me in this voluntarily, then I must lead by force.I must challenge you.”Josep shook his head, disgusted.“It is a sad choice you have made, Pehr.Death or exile.I will not allow you to remain here if you yield.”“I know what I’ve chosen,” Pehr said.“So be it, then.Tomorrow at midday we will meet in the village center.Go now and prepare.”So it was, Pehr thought.Another test, another challenge, another block in the road toward redemption.Why must it always be so?This was Uru; this was their world and these their ways, and for Pehr there was nothing else to do but that which he had been doing since his birth.He would face the challenge head on and seek to overcome it.He would face it and he would triumph, or he would die.“Until tomorrow then,” he said, and he stood to take his leave.Chapter 28Pehr had expected that others might be waiting to see the boy who had returned from the dead, but the group assembled outside of the hunters’ hall was something more like a mob, large and rowdy and restless.It seemed that the entirety of the village had come together to surround the building’s single entrance.As Pehr emerged, the people surged forward, their collective murmuring swelling to a roar.“It’s true!” a hoarse voice cawed out from somewhere amidst the crowd of bodies, and Pehr took a step back as several hands reached for him, as if wishing to prove the veracity of his existence by touching him.“Leave him alone!” Nani shouted, shoving her way through the crowd and slapping away the hands.“Get back, fools.”She stopped, standing beside and slightly ahead of Pehr, staring out at the crowd.There was a moment of silence.“Nani … what is this?” Pehr asked, keeping his voice subdued.There was something manic in the eyes of the villagers that startled him.They were staring at him now in silence, as if waiting for some proclamation.“It’s my fault,” Nani said.“I told Essa some of where you’ve gone and what you’ve done.She ran off and told half the village that a savior had come back from the land of the Gods to deliver us from the Lagos and raise us up to eternal paradise.”Pehr laughed.“She has a vivid imagination.”“To go into the very heart of the Lagos’s lands and then return? As far as they’re concerned, you’ve risen from the dead.”“And what do you think?”“I think if my brother was still alive, he’d call them all idiots.”“He might be right to do so,” Pehr muttered, but then he stepped forward and looked over the crowd.“My friends,” he began, and then paused, thinking.“You look to me for salvation as you would look to the Gods, but I'm not one of Them.I’m only a man.I have not met Them, and I know not of Their workings.I know only of the workings of men.”“What of the Lagos?” someone else cried.“The Gods have seen fit to strike down the Lagos forces,” Pehr said, and he wondered if Tasha would be offended or only amused that he was using his Gods now in such a way, to gain the trust and faith of those around him.He suspected she would find the situation both horrifying and uproariously funny, and had to suppress a grim smile of his own.“Are they truly gone?” a young girl asked, and Pehr recognized her as the one he had saved from a beast’s clutches at the beginning of the battle.“There may yet be Lagos remaining,” Pehr told her.“If so, they are few and they are scattered.I saw their army destroyed with my own eyes.We must band together, all of the villages from here to the northern desert.We will build an army and sweep through the jungles, hunting down the last of the creatures, so that we may finally claim that which is our birthright.”“What is this thing?” someone called.“It is Havenmont, the last city of man.It was the place of our ancestors in the years after the Great Destruction, and the men who lived there possessed much knowledge that would have made them seem to us like gods.That knowledge has been denied us by the Lagos for thousands of years, and denied to those who dwell on the eastern plains.We are a split people, no longer whole, and it is only by chance – or good luck, or the favor of the Gods – that I have been able to bridge the gap.”Pehr looked out over the crowd.There were faces he recognized, but many were new to him.Merchants and farmers and their families, settlers who had come from other villages to help repopulate the land in the wake of the Lagos’s destruction.These people knew nothing of him, hadn't grown up with him, had no reason to believe him.Surely it would not be so easy as a simple speech to gain their trust.As if to confirm these thoughts, another voice spoke.“What of Josep?”Pehr grimaced, glancing at Nani and then over his shoulder at the entrance to the hall [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]