OoOoO
Vinie awoke feeling even more stiff than if she had spent the night back on her cot in Utunma's prison. She and Gideo had gone back to bed shortly after their talk by the window. Getting comfortable on the narrow bed between two other people was next to impossible. If Bakko's bony knees weren't jabbing into her one way, then she was coming dangerously close to kicking Gideo the other. How her dad managed to sleep so soundly, Vinie had no clue. Their voyage from Utunma to Moaan must have drained the meager old man even more than Vinie or Gideo. Come morning, that still did not make Vinie feel any more like a dawn rooster.
Breakfast was a bowl of porridge with a slice of slightly soggy bread. The bread was warm and tasted of cinnamon though, so none of them even paused before wolfing it down. The pudgy innkeeper pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow at them from the counter as they ate. She seemed to have recovered her first look at Gideo the day before enough to really notice how rough the three of them looked. The innkeeper even claimed that refills were on the house when Gideo tried to pay her for topping up their mugs of cider.
With no more immediate needs to guide them after breakfast, the inevitable question rose to the surface; what now? Sitting in their tiny room at the Gull's Nest, Vinie quickly grew restless. She stood and went to the window, adjusting her washed and dried vest across her shoulders. Her still recent freedom had done nothing yet to restore much in the way of flesh to her scrawny frame. Even sitting for too long on hard surfaces was uncomfortable.
"The markets are opening," she commented, peeking through the wooden window slats.
"Mmm, yas." Gideo paused in the middle of the push-ups he had been doing out of sheer boredom. "I can already hear the crowds gathering."
"We could probably go out and mingle safely enough. There must be almost a thousand people out there already," Vinie said.
"Yas, thousands of Moaanese." Bakko got up from where he had been lying back on the bed. "We're darker than they are, more noticeable. What if someone sees you?"
Vinie huffed. "Dad, there are Utunmans out there too. I saw a group of fishermen walk by just a few minutes ago. We can't just sit about in this stuffy room all day."
"We can't just go wandering about like everyday folk!" Bakko looked horrified at the thought, the wrinkles around his eyes multiplying tenfold. "We're wanted criminals now, and they'll be looking for us."
"Bakko, Vinie was barely even an accomplice to a crime that was judged over a decade ago. All that you and I did was sneak in through an unlocked prison door and make get some exercise. I seriously doubt anyone beyond Utunma knows or even cares about us."
Gideo pressed himself up on his hands, giving his spine a good backward curl before hopping up onto his feet. Without waiting for further debate, he went to the door and threw it open.
"I'm going out before we turn this room into a breathy sauna. Anyone up for joining me?"
"Come on, Dad." Vinie went to Bakko and pulled him the rest of the way up off the bed. "We're not doing any good in here anyways."
"This isn't safe," Bakko bemoaned, but allowed himself to be dragged down the narrow stairway.
Once they got out into the hot, salty, sea port air, Bakko seemed to take on a new brightness despite his earlier reluctance. Vinie wondered if being here made Bakko feel like his younger self again.
"Where to?" Gideo asked.
Gideo had to duck to avoid knocking his head on the inn's rough sign outside the door. Vinie was relieved when he didn't seem to be asking her in particular. For all the grandiose plans that roiled around in the back of her head, she certainly didn't know where they ought to be or what they ought to do.
Once again, Bakko's knowledge of Moaan saved the moment.
"Let's head inward. The streets are narrower in the heart of Moaan, with shorter lines of sight."
As they moved away from the docks and the bustle of the market, the character of the city of Moaan became richer and older. The stones on the street were black and smooth from untold centuries of passerby's sandals. Most all of the buildings were fashioned out of a pale yellow, rough stone. There seemed to be living spaces on the roofs too, shielded from the white-hot sun by large white awnings that fluttered in the sea breeze.
"For sleeping on your rooftops at night if the heat is too high," Bakko had explained.
They passed many little shops and cafes in those tight inner streets. Most were reputable looking places with colorful tropical flowers garnishing the window frames and appetizing smells spilling out of their doorways. Sometimes they would turn down a side street and find themselves pressed in on either side by dingy little pawn shops and abandoned spaces. It was an odd juxtaposition. After a while of wandering, Vinie began to notice a pattern; the businesses that flourished seemed to be along what were likely main thoroughfares, while older, neglected streets and their tenants faded away. It was like Moaan was a living entity that had grown so old and so large that it could only choose parts of itself to tend, while sacrificing others to disregard. Overhead, soaring stone bridges cast giagantic shadows across the rooftops, providing quick passage from one quarter of the city to the other.
A group of children ran past, chasing after what Vinie presumed to be a young ape. The little creature was unlike the large, ponderous orangutans that lived a short ways inland around Utunma. If this was an ape, it was the smallest excuse for one Vinie had ever seen. The creature scurried up onto the awning in front of a café and started chattering down at the cluster of children. With its waving black arms and white face, it looked both very cute and very smug at the same time.
"What is that?" Vinie asked, pointing curiously. She felt like a child all over again, wondering at her new surroundings.
"A capuchin," Bakko replied. "They may look cute, but they'll steal your lunch if you take your eyes off the little fiends."
At that exact moment, Gideo let out a short yelp of surprise. Vinie and Bakko spun around to find Gideo trying to contort to get a hold of a second capuchin clinging to his back. The little monkey clung to Gideo's vest with nimble black fingers, bearing its sharp teeth in a screech.
"Otch, get off, you!" Gideo squirmed and reached, but couldn't stretch around himself far enough to catch the monkey. Hearing Gideo's struggles, the children were beginning to gather around the three of them, laughing and pointing.
"No crowds, no crowds!" Bakko whispered anxiously in Vinie's ear. "Put a stop to this right quick!"
Realizing that her dad was right, Vinie squeezed between two of the cheering children to come up behind Gideo.
"Hold still for a second Gideo, I'll get him."
Seeming to know what Vinie had in mind, the capuchin squealed at her before leaping away into the arms of a bright-eyed little girl. Only then did Vinie notice that both this monkey and the one on the awning were wearing collars.
"Olly, you naughty little monkey!" The little girl scolded the creature, although neither she nor her pet looked very sorry for the whole episode. "Sorry mister, he was just playing."
"Don't worry about it, although next time I wouldn't mind being warned about the game." Gideo straightened up and laughed, shaking his head. "Now off with you, all you silly monkeys!"
The children turned and scampered away with a flurry of giggles. The second capuchin leapt down off the awning and onto the shoulder of a skinny young boy as they passed. Olly the monkey popped into sight over the little girl's shoulder and waved something at them before the gaggle disappeared down a side street.
"What was that the monkey had?" Vinie wondered aloud. Around them the people in the shops and restaurants had barely even glanced up at the noisy interlude.
Suddenly Bakko's eyes went wide. He clapped a gnarled hand to his forehead with a loud groan before rounding on Gideo.
"Check your coin purse, quick!"
Gideo's expression went from cheerful to startled in a blink. A quick pat-down of his vest and cloth belt turned up no ringing of coins. With a groan, Gideo made as if to sprint off after the children. Bakko caught his arm before he got going though.
"No use boy, they've already gone into the maze of Moaan's alleys by now. Even if you knew the city, you couldn't fit into the places where they'll hide."
Gideo deflated. Shoving a hand through his curly dark hair in frustration, he ground his teeth.
"That was everything I had left. Now we'll have no money for the innkeeper tonight."
"Bat your eyelashes at her a few times and she might let us sleep on the floor," Vinie remarked dryly. When neither Gideo nor Bakko laughed, she held up her hands placating. "Sorry, bad joke. We'll have to make do. If all else fails we can just sleep in the dhow."
"We might even be more comfortable there than in that scrawny little bed," Gideo grumbled. He glared balefully in the direction that the urchins had run, before turning away with Vinie and Bakko.
OoOoO
The sound of distant shouting distracted them from the theft of Gideo's coin purse. This was far removed from the cheerful shrieks of children at play. Coming from back down the street toward the major thoroughfare, it sounded more like the rumble of a growing crowd.
"Come on." Vinie waved Gideo and Bakko onward. "Something's happening."
"We shouldn't." Bakko hesitated, once again unsure.
"Whatever is going on, it doesn't have to do with us," Gideo reassured the older man. "We won't even be noticed."
With Bakko following reluctantly, Gideo and Vinie joined the folks who were leaving their meals in the café to go see what the noise was about. As they made their way out into the main road they were caught up in a current of people, all headed in the same direction.
Short as she was, Vinie could scarcely see beyond the person in front of her. She reached back behind herself blindly and felt someone catch her hand. It felt like Bakko with his bent and roughened fingers. Doing their best to stay together, they let the crowd carry them along to wherever it was headed.
They found themselves suddenly with space to move as they entered into a large square. Tall sandstone buildings ringed the space, hemming in the crowd like weather beaten sentinels. Red and black flags fluttered from a particularly large building with a hippocampus engraved into its face above the doors. Before this building there stood a worn wooden scaffold and a magistrate in black robes with a blood red and gold sash.
Abruptly, Vinie was transported back to the day Zaneo and his family had been executed. She stopped dead in midstride, her heart hammering in her ears. Despite the heat of the day, a cold sweat broke out on the nape of her neck. She could feel the bite of manacles around her wrists once again, could see the gleam of the executioner's axe. A dull roaring grew inside her head as black dots scampered across the scene.
Eyes wide with panic, Vinie fell back a step and knocked into someone. The crushing pressure on her hand brought her back to the present. It was Bakko. Looking equally horrified, Bakko grabbed Vinie's other hand in his and tugged.
"Come away, come away!" he hissed, staring at the scaffold with a terror that almost matched Vinie's.
They were about to turn away when the magistrate mounted the platform and began to speak.
"Citizens of Goran, once again we must gather to witness the law of the realm. No one, be they from Moaan, Derbesh, Syrion, or even Amenthere is above the rules that guide and keep us all living together in harmony. Guards, bring out the prisoner."
At the far end of the square a door opened. The panic still screamed through Vinie's veins, but suddenly she had to stay. She needed to see the face of the prisoner, to know who they were. Everyone around her was so much taller though. Hissing in frustration, Vinie craned her neck in a futile effort to see. A murmur went through the crowd, sounding curious.
"Here, Vinie." Gideo appeared behind her, offering an open arm.
Trying to reassure Bakko, Vinie squeezed her dad's hand before letting go and turning back to Gideo. Gideo wrapped his arms beneath her hips and hoisted her upward until she could get a hold of his sweaty neck. Half perched and half braced against Gideo's side, Vinie finally had a clear view of the square.
The prisoner was not a southerner, much to Vinie's surprise. It was a man, close to hers and Gideo's age, if not a year or two younger. His hooded brows, medium complexion, and almond shaped eyes placed him as being from eastern Goran. He was bound with rope at the wrists, and struggled fiercely as the Moaanese guards on either side hauled him toward the scaffold.
When it came to the stairs, the prisoner almost managed to escape. Vinie sucked in a breath when the easterner wedged a foot against the bottom step and nearly broke his own ankle trying to throw the guards off balance. One guard stumbled, but the other struck the prisoner hard enough across the head to prevent an escape attempt. The crowd was silent, unsure if they ought to be cheering, jeering, or be sympathetic.
With their dazed captive between them, the guards dragged him toward the magistrate and turned to face the square. The magistrate curled his lip at the prisoner before opening the scroll he held.
"Nadathan N'Shar, you have been found guilty of consuming an illegal substance in public. The possession and smoking of sativa weed is banned in Goran. You were caught fouling the air with your fumes outside the Starfish Inn the night before last. Do you deny it?"
Gideo let out a brief snort. "What youth in all of Utunma hasn't smoked sativa at least once?" He kept his voice low though, so that only Vinie heard.
Up on the scaffold, the easterner shook himself back into his senses before lifting his head. His sweaty hair was oddly straight, unlike the wavy locks of southerners. There was almost an amused defiance in his voice when he spoke.
"I don't deny that you Moaanese are the most hypocritical bunch I've ever met when it comes to creature comforts. Your sailors drink themselves silly without a thought, but a few puffs on a pipe are punishable by law? Where I come from we don't even consider smoking uncouth, much less illegal!"
"Enough." The magistrate interrupted. "Sativa is illegal throughout all of Goran, even if the east would like to think itself somehow removed from the civilized world." Closing the scroll, he beckoned to a hooded figure with arms so muscular the veins bulged across them. "The punishment for public use of an illegal substance is twenty-five lashes. Proceed."
"They're going to whip him just for smoking?" Vinie gasped.
She couldn't tear her eyes away as the guards spun the easterner around and tied his bound wrists to a pole in the middle of the scaffold. They tore open the back of his shirt, exposing a lean, bronzed back to the crowd. Quick as a striking scorpion, the man spat straight into the face of one of the guards before he could move away. That earned him a strike to the head hard enough to make even many in the crowd murmur uncomfortably.
"Enough, the lash will have a less meaningful lesson if he's too dazed to feel it," the magistrate was saying.
Moaan's executioner approached, unfurling a long, wicked looking whip that shone like a snake in the sun. A scuffle broke out in the crowd near the edge of the scaffold. Shading her eyes, Vinie realized that there was a woman fighting to get to the platform. She was shouting so many curses and threats strung together it was nearly impossible to tell where one ended and the next began.
A hand gripped her leg, squeezing warningly. Glancing down at Bakko, Vinie was reminded of how her dad had fought for her on the way to the executioner. No one had stood up and fought with him that terrible day. But what if someone had?
The executioner drew back a powerful arm, raising the whip behind him. The woman's shouting near the front went abruptly from furious cursing to anxious shouts. Some were trying to hold her back, or perhaps comfort her, but she wanted none of their pity.
"Nadathan, I'm here!" she called out.
Then the whip fell, its hissing crack echoing through the air.
That did it. Vinie could not, would not watch this. Hurriedly tearing a strip off the bottom of her shirt, she cried down to Bakko.
"Dad, give me a rock."
Vinie could feel the wild gleam in her eyes—whether Bakko could see it or not she didn't know. He must have, because for some equally crazy reason he did not argue with his daughter. Expression stricken, Bakko bent down and plucked up a large, round stone from the street and handed it to Vinie. The whip cracked again.
Dropping the stone into her makeshift sling, Vinie pulled herself right up onto Gideo's shoulder. He grunted in surprise, but quickly realized what she was doing. Gripping tight to her legs to keep her aboard, Gideo bent his head down well out of the way.
"Stop it! That's enough!" Vinie screamed, hauling back for the throw.
That's enough. No more, she cried out inside. I cannot bear red flags and bloody scaffolds anymore.
Every head in the crowd turned toward her as she spun her sling hard and fast. The executioner paused, the whip already bloody in his grip. Vinie let the stone fly, whistling through the air like a striking bird. It caught the executioner full in the face, hard. The man fell to the platform like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
The magistrate was on his feet, shouting orders to the guards already. He pointed directly at Vinie.
"Arrest that woman, right this minute! I want her whipped raw right alongside the prisoner for that!"
"Over my dead body," Vinie heard Gideo growl.
"This way, we have to run!" Bakko was already pointing out a side street which none of them had noticed before. "We can't let them arrest any of us, especially Vinie."
Four armed guards in bronze platemail started down off the scaffolding toward them. The easterner was trying to crane his neck over his bleeding shoulder to see what was going on.
"Leave her be! She's right; this is nonsense." A booming voice spoke up at the front of the crowd. A large figure moved to block the soldiers, and Vinie was surprised to recognize the innkeeper of the Gull's Nest. Beefy arms crossed over her bosom in defiance, the innkeeper stood up against armed soldiers.
"Out of the way, woman," one of the soldiers ordered.
"No. You, I, and every other idiot on two legs in this entire city has puffed sativa at least once. I don't care what the damn capital says, I'm not moving."
"Get out of the way or I'll make you!" The guard drew his falchion and brandished it threateningly in the innkeeper's face.
Now there were angry murmurs coming from every direction in the crowd. The woman who had called out to the prisoner earlier made to charge the scaffold. She was blocked by one of the guards, who struck her across the face hard enough to make her fall back.
That was a step too far. It had been one thing to watch an eastern "criminal" be whipped by Gorian law. Threatening to likewise flog a fellow southerner and striking a bystander was quite another. The crowd was already uneasy about such a heavy penalty for an infraction that no one in southern Goran really considered a crime anyways.
A fight broke out at the front of the square. Vinie couldn't tell who had thrown the next punch after the guard struck the woman. She thought she could see the innkeeper in the thick of things though, smacking one of the soldiers hard with a heavy key ring.
Wriggling down off of Gideo's shoulder, Vinie threaded through the roaring throng toward the scaffold. She was cuffed, bumped, and bruised by many a wayward elbow, but she hardly noticed through the haze of adrenaline. Her heart was thundering in her ears again, but this time in a good way.
Then she was out in the open, in the middle of a melee. More soldiers had run in from the sides of the square to try and help their fellows. More people joined in from the crowd, all trying to either pummel a guard or help a friend.
The prisoner's would-be rescuer was on her feet again. This time she was unhindered when she rushed to help the prisoner. She was so intent on the rescue that she paid no mind to the magistrate.
Vinie saw the magistrate though; saw as he drew a dagger from the golden sash of his uniform. The eastern woman's fingers flew at the knots that tied her companion to the post. She wouldn't finish quickly enough to see the danger.
Boiling with the heat of the moment, Vinie didn't even think before bolting up the steps of the scaffold. The prisoner noticed the magistrate then, and shouted out a belated warning. His rescuer looked up just as Vinie sprinted past and pounced on the magistrate.
She fought like a wildcat, using every dirty tactic that she had never dared use in her girlhood days when play fighting with Zaneo and Gideo. Getting a hold of the knife and getting it away from her opponent was the top priority. Her face was scratched, her nose was bloodied, but still she hung on as the two of them toppled to the wooden boards. On the ground the upper hand shifted to the larger magistrate. He was taller and broader than Vinie, and she just couldn't control all of his flailing limbs on her own. Something bit at her arms, and Vinie returned the favor by biting with her teeth.
Then abruptly the fight shifted again. Now there was a third combatant, even bigger than the magistrate and smelling of strawberries. Vinie was knocked to one side and went rolling away into a crouch. Now Gideo was straddling the magistrate, choking him with one hand and bashing the hand that clutched the knife with the other. Gideo was both tall and strong, and it didn't take too much convincing for the man to buckle. The knife slipped out of his grasp and went skittering away across the platform.
"Are you alright?" Gideo shouted, both hands now wrapped around the magistrate's neck. Fire blazed once again in his dark eyes as he glowered down at his captive. A bit of blood leaked from the magistrates's mouth into his iron-grey beard.
"Yas, yas I'm fine." Vinie staggered up to her feet. Her face ached and she could feel blood on her lip.
Limping as he ran, Bakko finally caught up and rushed to Vinie's side.
"You're a damn fool, girl, a damn fool!" Bakko scolded, grabbing hold of Vinie's waist and pulling her further upright. "Are you trying to go back to prison?"
Vinie didn't really have a good answer, so she just smiled what was probably a rather crooked smile.
"No one is going to prison, Dad...look!"
Down in the crowd, the guards had been thoroughly beaten by the sheer crush of numbers. One was unconscious and currently being sat on by the Gull's Nest's innkeeper. The other three were nowhere to be seen, but it sounded like the edge of the crowd was driving them away at the far end of the square. The roar of excitement was still piqued, and everywhere people cheered with pride at their perceived accomplishment. To confront Gorian officials was simply not done, it just wasn't. To the folk of Moaan, they might as well have faced and conquered a dragon with that one simple skirmish.
The prisoner was free now, and together he and the woman approached Vinie, Bakko, and Gideo. If he was in pain from the lashes on his back, the easterner did not show it. His only concession was to grip his companion's elbow as he walked.
He was strange to Vinie's eyes. Neither he nor the woman was as exotically pale as the king or his Obads had been at Zaneo's trial, but neither were they the rich, dark complexion of the south. They reminded Vinie of one of Selmay the bawd's half-blooded children. Their hooked noses and hooded brows made their faces seem rather thin, but that was evened out by the fullness of their lips. Both had vibrant brown eyes and hair to match.
Their garb was different than everyone else's too. The man's shirt was gone, but his pants were loose, a sort of billowing fabric that cinched at the shins. The woman wore similar pants with a long tunic slitted at the hips and decorated around the collar with tiny beads. One of her eyes was swelling, lids already bruised dark purple.
The man gazed curiously at Vinie for a moment before cracking a slight grimace that might have been a smile.
"Either you are even more of a committed smoker than I am..." he ventured "...or you're even less of a follower of the law. Either way, you started all this for our sake. For that, I am in your debt."
He made a fist and curled it to his brow before opening it and extending it toward Vinie. The woman mirrored the gesture at his side.
"I am Sula G'Hesh, and he is my lover, Nadathan N'Shar." The woman spoke in a surprisingly deep, throaty voice. "His debt is my debt, owed to you and your friends."
Vinie wiped her nose with the back of her hand, stemming the slowing trickle of blood before she answered.
"I'm Vinie, Vinie..." She was about to elaborate when she realized that her surname no longer applied. What was she now? "Just Vinie. This is my dad, Bakko, and that's Gideo."
Bakko and Gideo both nodded, Gideo perhaps more curtly, as the magistrate was trying to buck him off at the moment. An elbow to the windpipe kept the man fastened to the scaffold. Vinie noticed the executioner lying nearby, blood pooling around his head from where her rock had struck him. Whether he still lived or no, Vinie couldn't tell. She decided she didn't want to know.
"We'll have time for further talk later," Nadathan was saying. "Right now, we have an audience."
Sure enough, Vinie noticed then that the entire crowd gathered in the square was watching them. What were they waiting for? It wouldn't be long before word got to the city center of what had happened here. There would be many, many more Moaanese guards overrunning this place very soon.
Glancing back and forth between Nadathan and Sula and her own companions, Vinie was shocked to realize that they were all looking to her. What was she supposed to say to all of these people? She had never spoken to a group larger than say, a dozen before. Would half of them even hear her if she shouted?
Tentatively, Vinie cleared her throat. Looking down, she saw a smear of blood on the boards beneath her feet and remembered Zaneo's blood on a scaffold not unlike this one. The memory lit a fire in her belly that brought her voice rushing back, strong and unfaltering to her lips.
"This is not our way." Her words carried sure and strong, loud enough even to surprise Vinie herself. "This is Amenthere's way, the crown's way. The capital has no right to come here and force their laws on us." An approving look from Nadathan and Sula spurred her on. "What if things could be different? What if we could choose our laws and lives for ourselves, without fear of the king? What does Mahir even know of the south?
No one in the square moved, not even when the soldier beneath the innkeeper began to stir. She merely shifted her considerable weight, eliciting a muffled groan from the man. Emboldened and gaining momentum, Vinie continued.
"Amenthere tells us Goran is one country, belonging to the heirs of a hero who conquered the world a thousand years ago. If Amenthis was a hero, that time was long, long ago and past. What right does Mahir, son of Maheadron, have to bend the world to his word?"
A head bobbed in the crowd. Attached to it was an older woman in rich looking orange silks with a colorful head wrap. She stared back at Vinie with a curious intensity.
"Our world is not his, not if this is how he intends to rule; with absolutism and arrogance. The south is not some meek, lesser province, and we do not have to be Gorians...not if we choose a new way for ourselves."
"You are not alone. The east is no fiefdom either," Sula spoke loudly and firmly. "Like you, we are tired of answering to a king worlds away in his marble tower. Our ways are not the same, and still we are expected to bow to the laws of Amenthere. See how the capital treats those who do not obey!"
Sula gripped Nadathan by the upper arm and turned him around. Nadathan did not bow his head as the crowd rumbled angrily. Two bright red stripes crisscrossed his back, the flesh around them inflamed and painful.
"At the king of Goran's word, a beautiful, gentle young man whose only crime is being born a Son of the Sea can have his head struck from his shoulders." Vinie's voice rose higher, louder, ringing around the entire square. "At the king's word, the girl who loved him can spend ten years wasting away in a dark prison cell alone. Tell me, is that our way?"
"No!" Several voices called back in the crowd, causing heads to swivel.
"Today can mean something," Vinie cried out. "You can go back to your homes, write this off as just a strange day in Moaan, or you can think of something bigger. You can imagine what it would mean if the south made its own laws. What would it mean to you, your family and your friends? What if we had a country to call our own? Would you fight for that country and for every son and daughter of the south who ever suffered beneath the rule of Amenthere?"
At the mention of fighting there was an uncertain silence. Vinie did not shy away from the void. She flung out a hand toward Nadathan.
"Today you fought for him. Tomorrow we could fight for a hundred more such as him. We could stay the lashes and break the chains. You have seen here how it is not impossible, it never was impossible! The only thing that has ever held us back is our own fear."
"Soldiers coming!" Someone shouted from the far edge of the square.
Immediately everyone began to jostle and scramble for an escape. Vinie knew she only had seconds left before she would be lost in the chaos. She had to choose her final cry carefully.
"Don't forget what it felt like to stand up today. Let us choose our own way!"
Everyone in the square was far too busy trying to find a safe exit route to respond, but Vinie hoped her words had reached them.
"Vinie, come on, we have to go!"
Bakko grabbed Vinie's hand and pulled her toward the stairs. This time she went with him, quickly catching up with Gideo and the others. The clatter of armor and the thunder of dozens of heavy footfalls grew closer with every second. Getting lost in the crowd was easy. Suddenly someone caught hold of Vinie's wrist.
It was Nadathan. "As I said, we owe you a debt, Vinie. If you wish to find us, we would hear more of your talk about finding a new way." He had to shout to be heard above the din.
"Where?" Vinie shouted back
"Look for the jaliboot with the green hull in the Serpent's Tunnel. We'll leave a lantern lit."
Just like that, Nadathan was gone, slipped away into the throng of fleeing Moaanese with Sula. The fire the easterners had rekindled within Vinie burned brightly still, even as she, Bakko, and Gideo fled into the alleys of Moaan.
OoOoO