The Sacred Band: Book Three of the Acacia Trilogy by David Anthony Durham Page A

lay sleeping on his side on a woven mat. He was alone, as was his way in recent years, since his first wife had died and he had found most restful sleep in solitude. Kelis had only moved a step closer when the old man’s eyes snapped open. They fixed on Kelis, who must have been a featureless silhouette against the star-touched fabric of the opening.
    Kelis said, “Father, forgive the night its darkness.”
    The old man took a moment to respond. “I do, for the night air is cool. Kelis?”
    “Me.”
    Sangae pushed himself up to sitting and received Kelis’s embrace. He squeezed him tight for a moment and then pulled back. He ran his fingers over the younger man’s features. “You are living?”
    “I am. We all are. Shen as well.”
    “Light a lamp so we can see,” Sangae whispered, motioning toward a tea lamp on the floor beside him. “Keep it low. There is danger here. No, let’s move farther inside first.”
    A few minutes later, the two men sat facing each other on low stools in the compound’s storage shed. The lamp cast a yellow glow that etched their features from below; around them were the large vases, shelves of household goods, and stacks of grain sacks. Sangae had called softly for his dogs and tethered them to guard the shed.
    Kelis told of their strange journey to the Far South. Sangae listened, brewing a tiny pot of tea above the lamp as he did so. Kelis found words pouring out of him. He had not realized he had held so much in. Running from the laryx pack with Shen strapped to his back. Mountains that moved around them, as if the land were sliding under their feet instead of they moving over it. Flocks of birds that flew above them like thrown darts, only to crash down and die. The way the peaks just ended one morning, and the famous general, Leeka Alain, stood waiting for them, alone in a desert. Walking still farther south, until the Santoth appeared, stones whirling into sand and taking Shen with them for a time, then bringing her back and announcing that they would all march to confront the queen.
    “That was wise,” the old man said, when Kelis explained that he had left the rest of the party in hiding well away from the village. “Sinper Ou has spies everywhere. Even here, I fear. He never trusted you. Ioma even less so. Do you know he began sending spies across the plains just after you left? It ate at him that he had let the girl go. He only let me come home because he thought he would catch me at something.”
    Sangae poured a small saucer of bush tea and offered it to Kelis. The man took it and sipped. “Ou has many friends, Kelis. And many more wish to be his friend. Money such as his has bought many eyes.”
    “Shen has friends of her own. The Santoth, I mean. They have come with us. They want to stop Corinn from doing harm with her magic. They feel it, Shen told me, and know she is opening rips in the world or something.”
    Sangae worked his mouth, but found nothing to say.
    “I doubt any could take Shen from them against their will. I don’t know what the Santoth are. I don’t know what they really want. I have been with them weeks now, but they don’t reveal themselves. Shen trusts them, though, but—”
    “Then you must, too.”
    “I don’t,” he heard himself say. “I’ve tried, but I can’t trust them.”
    “Why?”
    Kelis clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “I don’t know. They feel … wrong. They never speak a word.”
    “Because their tongues are dangerous. You know that. Perhaps the time has come for them to rejoin the world. If Corinn could teach them … she might become incredibly powerful. Another Tinhadin. That would have frightened me before, but, listen, there is something else.” Sangae placed his old, coarse hand over Kelis’s and squeezed. “Forgive me for not saying this first. I wanted to hear your words before clouding your mind with this. It may not be true, but many believe it. People are saying that Aliver lives. They say