*****
Amashanae woke up to the first rays of light and slowly opened her eyes to meet the warm glow of the morning sun driving away the cold of the desert still lingering around them in the shadows of the palm trees. She got up to her knees, stretching her slender limbs and took time to rub her neck. It was quite sore after a restless night on the coarse sand of the oasis. She sat down again, crossing her legs under her, pushing the thin blanket aside and gazed upon the awakening desert around her. She looked at the girl, and Asaryen was still fast asleep. Amashanae looked at her calm, sleeping face, still in the shadow, and thought about waking her up to bathe in the first rays of the sun. So innocent she thought to herself as she watched her, forgetting the desert, the chase, everything around her for a fleeing moment. Memories…she felt she should have memories of moments not much dissimilar to this, rushing in her mind, filling her senses…but she was filled with a desperate void once more. What am I missing? Why am I not as she is, without worrying about the unknown? Again she was brought back to the reality of her situation, remembering the chaos and the turmoil of the past few days and it hit her like a sledgehammer. The horses, that man…and then she realized that Juara was nowhere to be seen. Immediately she got her hands on her blade, drawing it out and turning around in a defensive posture. Too careless! This was not the time or the place for laxity in keeping one’s guard.
”Still on yer toes?” she heard Juara say and turned towards where the horses were. ”I’m just readying the horses here, but if ye feel it threatens ye, well, I just can’t help it, can I” he said in a casual tone, stressing his own ease in the situation. He didn’t even look at Amashanae. She felt a twinge of guilt in her chest for a fleeing moment – after all, lately he had done little to deserve her distrust – but she did not want Juara to think so. No, he was not to be trusted. I do know what a pig you are when drunk, she thought, her anger towards the man, now casually smirking at her, rising in her again. It was the first time she actually got a good look at him, and he really did look like a lone warrior: two swords and modest armour mostly covered by a long cloak. I suppose many ladies fall for you easily, prankster, but not me. Because he looked like a man in his prime; black, long and thick hair and ruggedly built body and not an unpleasant face, either. She stood up, sword still in hand, and approached the man with the sunlight gleaming on the surface of her shiny blade. In a cool, steady and almost laconic voice that was purposefully left devoid of feeling she said to Juara:
”Regardless of how I feel about your person, I am grateful for your help. Now would be a good time to keep your promise and leave us!” Juara did not seem to pay any attention, only kept busy readying the horses and making as if he had not understood her at all. Instead, he just mocked her further.
”Well well well, are we getting all soft here all of a sudden? I should have expected ye to resist my charm a little longer…however irresistible a man I am, no doubt…” and exploded into laughter. Amashanae tilted her head on one side and stared at him with an angry twist of her eyebrow, unable to hide her annoyance. And she did not know if it was that helplessness to hold her piece that made her even angrier. She lifted the tip of her blade to point at Juara, and opened her mouth to speak. Yet she could not find the words, and let down her sword, muttering curses under her breath as she turned on her heels and returned to Asaryen. This was not the moment to fight. They might need the man. And there was something else about him too, something she could not put her mind on, and it confused her. She heard Juara laugh on as he lifted the saddle on his horse, but decided not to worry about the man for the time being. She sheathed her blade and prodded Asaryen on the side with the tip of her boot.
”Wake up, girl. Morning has broken and it is time to move on.” Asaryen started, one hand touching her side where the boot hit her and the other waving in the air as if to shake away Amashanae, but did rise up and opened her eyes slowly to the rude awakening.
”Wh…what, is it the morning? I’m still asleep” she nevertheless sat up and begun to rummage through their bags for something to drink and eat. ”I have to get something in my stomach before we leave.” She looked at Amashanae. ”Have you had breakfast already?”
”No time to eat. Just get up and…”, but before she finished the sentence Juara cut in.
”The girl is right. We must eat a little before we leave this place. It is only a day’s journey to the edge of the desert, we shall be much stronger well fed than if we go hungry.”
”I’m not a girl anymore…”, Asaryen complained in a sullen, quiet voice, but kept on looking through the bags.
”Asaryen, shut up!”, Amashanae snapped, turning to Juara. ”For your information, I shall eat whenever I feel like eating. And secondly, what do you mean we shall go?” she stared at Juara intently, her anger and distrust flaring again. ”I do believe we agreed to part our ways with me and Asaryen going our own way this morning.”
”Well, I just thought I might provide ye with some protection, and besides…do ye actually know which way to go from here?”
”Of course I know where to go!”, Amashanae snorted, rising her voice, although deep inside she felt she was already losing this battle of wills again – for she had no actual inkling of the right direction.
”Look, I have no hidden agendum here” Juara said in a more apologetic tone. ”I just do not like the thought of ye two fair ladies all alone in the desert. At the mercy of the elements.”
”We’ll be fine!” Amashanae exclaimed, and held a little pause, staring Juara down. He opened his palms to her in a gesture of letting the argument be. Amashanae turned to Asaryen, who was still going through the bag, decidedly not looking up like a child who wants no part in a fight between parents. ”Or at least I shall manage. Take the girl with you if you insist on saving a poor woman from whatever you fear is out there!”
Hearing this, Asaryen quit going through the bags and looked up to Amashanae with wide eyes, like a puppy whose feelings had been hurt. Juara started again:
”Look, however clever and capable ye ladies are – and I know ye weren’t born yesterday (although while saying this he cast a worried look at young Asaryen, who noticed the look and her face got all red) – trust me, ye’ll be much better off with me, Juara. Do ye even have a place in mind to go to? It is but a day’s journey to the edge of the desert and from there it is a few more days to Kiarra. And there we may wash the desert dust out of our lungs for good, stay at a decent inn, eat, sleep and…” he paused, leaving the final thing in his mind unsaid, remembering his current company’s gender.
”…and perhaps we could put our skills in use and earn a coin or two, eh?”, he looked at Amashanae with an inquiring expression, but she was obviously still at a loss about what to make of the whole situation. She had not planned on him tagging along and making plans on her behalf, but still she felt a strange relief in his words that lured her to accept the offer. Perhaps she would be better off continuing her quest in company. But the distrust he felt for the man confused her, and for a split second she even saw in her mind’s eye how she could simply cut Juara down with her blade and leave her own ways, as she had so far. End of man, end of problem - and uncertainty. And then she got even more confused, when Asaryen suddenly got up and hugged her tightly.
”Amashanae, I want you to come with us. You are my only friend.” Amashanae was dumbstruck and stepped back, but Asaryen kept her hold and she almost lost her balance on the soft sand.
”I…”, Amashanae started, but gulped back her words in confusion. She made to push Asaryen away from her, but she clinged to her body like a child to her mother. No! Her mind screamed, I do not have any friends, yet she had to resist a sudden urge to laugh out loud with a strange delight. And then Juara uttered words that swept Amashanae’s mind clear as a bell once more.
”I hear that in Kiarra there is also this fellow, Tahlthar…”, he said, digging his boot in the sand and turning his suddenly innocent little-boy gaze to the now blue and b
right sky where the sun had already appeared in its full glory, ready to scorch the sandy dunes for yet another day.
”What!”, Amashanae screamed, pouncing at Juara so that Asaryen was cast on her back onto the sand like a rag doll. The muscles on Amashanae’s body twitched with a sudden rush of adrenaline and her voice dropped dangerously low.
”What do you know of Tahlthar?” But Juara still managed to keep his cool.
”Well, I’ve just heard a few things …”
”Tell me now or die right here right now!”, Amashanae said, and suddenly her blade appeared and tickled the man’s throat. But Juara was not easily scared it seemed; he just stared Amashanae straight in her elven eyes. For a moment that seemed like eternity for Asaryen, who still lied on the sand with all her hair standing up, they just stared at each other without blinking, even Juara finally dead serious after all the playful banter he’d teased the women with for all their short period of acquaintance.
”Join us and find out for yerself”, he finally said in a voice as dry as the sand around them, and without batting an eyelid pushed her sword away from his face with the palm of his hand.
”I…”, Amashanae started again, puzzled and taken aback, when all of a sudden she realized there was something moving in the tree above her. Her senses flared as she readied herself and peeked up into the leaves of the palm tree beside them. A bewildered amazement filled her eyes. ”What beast of darkness is this…” she muttered as she found herself gazing upon a small, ashen creature lying in the shadows of the leaves. It was but a foot and a half in length with a tail of some four more inches, which it was fervently but soundlessly snapping from side to side, like a cat about to attack, while staring down at Amashanae. Or at least so it seemed. At first it was hard to tell, for the creature had large, yellowish and bulging eyes that lacked pupils altogether, making it hard to judge exactly where it was looking at. It had a snout of sorts, or rather a trunk, with which he ceaselessly kept sniffing the air, and small ears that twisted and turned constantly as it listened to what was going on around it.
”Up in the tree…a strange creature. Look!” Amashanae said to the others, puzzled, without parting her eyes from the creature’s featureless gaze and holding the sword up between herself and the tree.
”I know” Asaryen said in a bored voice. ”It is Juara’s pet, Trahur”.
”What?” Amashanae exclaimed, turning towards Asaryen in disbelief. How could the girl know of this creature when even she with her elven senses hardly had noticed it appear. ”What?” she again asked, in a more steady voice but the sword still cautiously held up in front of her. Juara seemed to be quite amused by the whole situation and just got up shaking sand off his cloak with a content smile on his lips. Then he spoke:
”I introduced it to Asaryen last night when ye slept. Indeed it is my pet, Trahur. The best scout I have ever met.” Amashanae turned to Juara, her sword never wavering, and her expression suggested Juara to continue. She begun to feel like she had been played a fool for long enough, and Juara proceeded to explain in a more calming tone, wiping the smirk off his face.
”It is my own little scout. It never communicates with anybody else, it has sort of…chosen me as its host. It serves me well and seems to require no nourishment, no sleep.” Juara looked up at the strange little creature.
”Noerzh graumngg” he said deep in his throat, and the creature slid down the tree trunk like dark quicksilver, and jumped on Juara’s shoulder.
”But…” Amashanae begun, still suspicious and wondering, but started to lower her blade. ”What does it want from you? How can you talk to it? How come I did not sense its presence here?” These days Brodérunn had far too many new things to throw at her.
”It comes from another level of the world…” Asaryen begun to explain with an excited glee in her eyes, but Juara interrupted her.
”Quite right, it comes from another level of the world. It is something we cannot understand. That is why ye could not sense its presence. And what comes to why me…it has chosen me simply because it seems to need one, and I happened to be there. I do not know what it does or where it goes, but it seems to use me as a beacon to home in this world, or something to that effect. That is my part of the bargain. That is what I can offer it. It does me no harm. And the language…I cannot explain how it happened, but it taught me how to speak to it. The words just come to me in its company. As ye now know, this being is hard to notice…but even harder to comprehend. Ye never did notice it, yet it has followed ye all the way from Salvatágg.
”Trahur” Amashanae said quietly as she sheathed her blade. The creature looked at her with those lidless spheres of eyes, head tilted to its side, impossible to read and alien as anything she ever saw.
”I know, I know, but that is the way it seems to be” Juara suddenly spoke at the creature, which had apparently communicated with him somehow. The women looked at Juara questioningly, stunned as if by a magician’s trick on market. But, before either had time to ask further questions, Juara clapped his hands together.
”Well, shall we be on our way, then? The sun is up already and we ought to make it to the edge of the desert before sundown.” He looked at Amashanae and added, as if to make sure she would come along with them. ”We shall go and seek Tahlthar.” His voice was such that the women understood that he did not wish to delve in the subject any further, at least for the time being, and so they begun to make ready. Amashanae felt a twinge of anger in her again, but managed to keep it under control. She had little to carry, so she stepped in a shadow of a palm tree and just watched as Asaryen and Juara collected their belongings and packed them in the saddlebags. Then they readied the rest of the horses. Amashanae still did not quite know what to make of this all. So much had happened within just a few days. Asaryen, to start with. The innocent, young girl who seemed to be almost painfully earnest and naive. So quick to bond with her, yet she was not sure at all if she needed a friend. Then Juara, not to mention his strange little creature from nowhere. Back at the inn she had certainly considered him to be an enemy, but she was not too sure any more. She looked at Juara and Asarayen quietly loading the bags on the horses. How can he know of Tahlthar? Is he deceiving us? Is this just a plot and is he leading us into a trap? Yet she knew now she had no choice but to follow the path destiny seemed to throw at her. After all, it seemed to be a rare opportunity to find people she did not end up killing or maiming right away, and any clues about her past seemed few and far between. Am I going to find you now, Tahlthar, whatever you turn out to be? She walked to her horse and caressed its flank, and the horse turned its head and lowered it.
”Shall we?” asked Juara as he helped Asaryen up to the saddle. He smiled at her with a playful expression on his face and pushed her up by her buttocks. Asaryen giggled and glanced down at the handsome warrior, face flushed. Amashanae mounted her horse, which neighed and reared to go, well rested and anxious to respond to her every command. Ready and able as she herself felt after a night’s rest, even if the morning had been full of surprises. Despite her plight and suspicions, she suddenly found she could not help smiling a little, but she kept that feeling well to herself as she whispered to the horse to go. There was promise in the air. And thus the three of them embarked on their journey towards the edge of the desert and the town of Kiarra – and Tahlthar.