The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) by Bradley Beaulieu Page A

strangers who had entered their home.
    When they reached the yurt, Datha pulled aside the strings of wooden beads, as if he meant Styophan to enter, but before he could, Datha pointed to Avil and the others. “You may bring one other.”
    Styophan considered, and then motioned for Anahid to join him. She was the only one who’d been in Haelish lands before, even if it had been when she was young. Plus, she was learned; he’d come to value her counsel.
    Together they ducked inside the yurt, where reed mats covered the earthen floor. Bright blankets with curving designs woven into them hung from the walls. Two dozen men and a handful of women sat in narrow chairs with low backs around a small, well-tended fire from which no smoke rose. The men wore thick leggings of leather, as the men outside did, and they also wore no shirts. There was no mud upon them, but several had umber paint in intricate designs over the skin of their chest and arms and neck. The designs reminded him of the traceries of the Aramahn, and though these were more primitive, they had that same feeling of being connected somehow to earth or sky or sea. The paint glittered like liquid gold.
    One of these men, the one sitting on the far side, directly facing the entryway, wore a crown upon his head. The crown was not made of gold or silver or even brass, but of thick brown vines with sharp thorns. He wore the umber paint as well. It matched his deep brown eyes and his stony gaze. He was as old as Styophan’s father. Like the other men gathered here, like the warriors that had greeted Styophan in the forest, he was lithe and muscular and clean-shaven.
    No doubt this was Kürad.
    The women wore soft clothes of buckskin and necklaces made from the same auburn-colored beads that hung from the doorways. One of them—the one sitting to the left of Kürad—drew Styophan’s eye, for her eyes were sunken. She had hair the color of the beads around her neck, an auburn color so rich it reminded him of the boldest autumn leaves. Her cheeks were gaunt, her skin sallow, and she had that same grim look that Styophan had seen among the islands so often, especially of late.
    The wasting, Styophan realized. The wasting had come even here, to Haelish lands.
    Kürad stood as Styophan and Anahid approached. He spoke in Haelish, a language Styophan knew nothing of. Anahid said she knew some, but would be unable to reliably translate. The language was heavy and guttural. It sounded like the land here, simple and pristine. Primal.
    When he finished, the diseased woman sitting to his right spoke in near-perfect Yrstanlan. “Kürad, son of Külesh, King of Clan Eidihla, bids you welcome. He asks if you’ve brought the promised stones.”
    Styophan could only stare. He’d brought them, of course—they’d demanded this of Ishkyna when she’d come to treat with them—but still, he’d expected introductions, perhaps a ceremonial greeting of some kind. Anything but this.
    “My Lord,” Styophan said, bowing his head to Kürad. “Perhaps we could discuss the state of affairs here in the west, and I could do the same for the war brewing in the east.”
    “The stones,” the woman said.
    Styophan reached into the leather satchel that hung from over his shoulder and held it out for the woman to take. She accepted it and brought it to Kürad, who opened the satchel and peered inside. He pulled out one of the tied silken bags within and untied the drawstring.
    “Those are but a taste,” Styophan said. “The rest are in chests on my ship.”
    The woman translated, and Kürad glanced over to Styophan, his gaze resting for a moment on Styophan’s eye patch, and then he proceeded to spill the opals from the bag onto his upturned palm. He looked at them, tilting his palm this way and that under the sunlight that came in through the smoke hole above. He spoke his guttural tongue, and the woman nodded.
    “Are the rest like this?” she asked.
    “They are,” Styophan said. And it