While not all Joratese houses are underground cellar homes—indeed, many aren’t—we have never forgotten we’re host to the most vicious storms to be found in the empire. Joratese architecture derives from the estava, not so different from cellar houses today except in scale. They were not fortresses; they acted as shelters for times when, for whatever reasons, the Horse Lords hadn’t wanted to move their herds away from approaching storms.

Ninavis’s people had lit a few lamps as we entered the shelter. Too few for the place’s size. Presumably, lamp oil was a rare treat for bandits on the run.

The tunnel opened into a gigantic stone hall supported by massive granite columns, so large the lamps didn’t illuminate the far walls. The estava showed signs of great age—cracks in the floor, places where rubble had fallen from the ceiling. Running water echoed beyond the torchlight, but I didn’t know if I heard runoff from the storm or if the shelter had permanent access to fresh water.

Ninavis and her crew would know.

The hall’s current owners had left their mark. Crates rested against a stone wall, opened to reveal foodstuffs and cloth bundles, supplies and rations stolen from across the banner. I even recognized the merchant groups. There, tea from Eight Coins Trade Consortium, and over there, dried mango donated courtesy of none other than the Sifen family. A grand pile of pillows and rugs marked the main bedding location, and someone had taken time to craft an earthen oven.

The refugees needed no instructions; they spread out, set down their possessions, and began making camp.

Brother Qown waited for me to help Ninavis take a seat on a piece of fallen masonry before he bent down next to the woman. “Let me look at your leg.”

I saw her about to protest. “Ninavis, I bear the responsibility for your injury. Let Brother Qown heal your leg. Vishai priests are without equal in the healing arts.” I sat down on a wooden box, stretching as I began removing the black enameled armor I’d borrowed from Sir Baramon. Sir Baramon had been right about the poor fit. My muscles were not happy.

“The Physickers Guild wouldn’t appreciate you telling folks that,” Ninavis said.

“The Physickers Guild is more concerned with lining their coffers than helping people,” I replied. “And they hardly bother doing even that much in Jorat.”

“Maybe if you stopped burning them as witches,” Ninavis suggested, “they’d be keener to take your metal.”

I was about to protest, but I realized she was baiting me. I didn’t have the patience for it. I was about to respond, anyway, when Sir Baramon joined us. His red face suggested both the rigors of a hard march and the tears he’d shed along the way. I reminded myself he’d lost someone very close just a few hours prior.

I didn’t even know his lover’s name.

Sir Baramon sat down next to me. “That was…” He pressed his lips together and tried again. “I’m not imagining things, am I? A dragon attacked us? I thought they were myths…”