Chapter Seven
Chris hung onto the back of Orias’s saddle as the horse crossed a wide dirt road. They plunged back into the trees and emerged, some hundred yards on, into a wide meadow filled with dozens of white canvas tents and maybe a hundred tall, eerily white, long-eared people like Orias.
A squiggle of doubt inched across Chris’s spine. “There are humans around here, right?”
“Plenty.” Orias’s tone was more than a little sardonic. “And not many of them friendly if you’re a Cherazim.”
“So you’re telling me it’s humans killing your people?” He looked around. There seemed to be a disproportionate number of warriors compared to the women and children.
“We’ve had our misunderstandings over the years. But, for the most part, we live in peace with the Laelers. It’s the Koraudians in the kingdom to the east who have tried to put their boots to our necks in the last few decades.” Orias urged the horse forward. It gathered its weight on its hindquarters, leapt a rivulet, then galloped on through the lush grass to the trampled area where the canvas tents mingled with cooking fires.
Two dozen colorful wagons were parked along the camp’s perimeter. They rode past one, and Chris stared at it. Hiked up on spoked wheels, the enclosed wagon was plenty tall enough to allow Orias’s six and a half feet to stand up inside. A glass-paned overhang jutted above the driver’s bench, and through the overhang’s water-spotted windows, Chris could see what appeared to be a child’s sleeping pallet made up on the floor.
“You live in those?”
“Not hardly,” Raz said. “What do we look like, barbarians? Those are just travel carts.”
Pitch hung halfway off the saddle and looked at Chris around Orias’s body. “The Cherazii travel a lot. We left Lael because of what happened with the last Gifted, you know. But now you’re here, so we’re coming home.”
“You’re coming home because of me?”
“Not because of you,” Orias said. “It just worked out that way. The Koraudians have started pushing us harder these last few months.” His voice tightened. “But now it will stop.”
The Cherazii milled, repairing their wagons, cooking food, and grooming horses. They afforded Orias only a glance, but Chris was rewarded with a second and a third and finally a long stare. One by one, the Cherazii straightened from their work and watched the horse and its four riders pass through their midst.
Most of them dressed similarly to Orias, the men in jerkins and long tunics of variously bright colors. They all wore thick-soled boots, and a few sported leather tri-corn hats over their long hair. All were armed with at least two blades, and one memorable individual sported perhaps a dozen throwing knives in a blood-red baldric across his chest.
The women wore long gowns, the bold colors—vermilion, chartreuse, indigo—in stark contrast to their opalescent skin. Their hair was divided, with one half left to hang free to their waists and the other braided and pulled over their shoulders. Some of them had kilted their skirts in their belts, revealing knee-high boots like the men’s, almost all of which offered the glint of a small blade in a sheath at the back of their calves. Children and Rievers roamed about in similar dress.
At the center of the camp, a hulking male, not so tall as Orias, but even broader through the shoulders and chest, stood up from working on a broken wheel. His glance flicked from the dead gazelle and stopped on Chris. His eyes hardened.
A faded red band of cloth wrapped the top of his head, and a heavy silver ring pierced the tip of one tall ear. His face was more angular than Orias’s, his nose thick and straight and his mouth demanding.
Orias turned his head to Chris. “It would be best while we’re here if you try to blend in. Don’t say anything about being the Gifted, and try not to show how strange everything is to you.”
The muscles in the small of his back tightened. “They don’t like the Gifted?”
“It’s not that, exactly. We are sworn to protect the Gifted. But your predecessor was a vile traitor.” He hacked in the back of his throat. “So they’re not going to trust you without some convincing.” He jostled the Rievers. “Mind what I said. Tell no one what he is, and help him blend in.”
“Blend in my sweet mother’s needle’s eye,” Raz said.
Orias reined up in front of the stern-faced Cherazim in the red headband and dropped his reins so he could lay his fist to his chest. “Cabahr Laith.”
The other Cherazim returned the gesture. “Orias Tarn. You’ve had good hunting.”
“Aye.” Orias gave his gazelle a little heft. “As soon as my Rievers butcher it, I’ll be taking a haunch for myself as I journey on. The people are welcome to share among the rest.”
“You journey on?” Laith’s chin lifted. His eyes darted to Chris again and held, as if expecting him to answer. “Why? With rumors that Koraudian detachments have pierced into Lael, our caravans value every sword they can wield, particularly one as proficient as yours. A scout brought word only a few minutes ago,” he gestured to a red-haired youth who stood behind him, fiddling with a heavy dagger, “—that Koraudians are near, maybe only a league or two to the east. If they find us, they’ve no reason for mercy. We’re packing as we speak. We leave before nightfall and pray it’s not too late.”
The muscle under Orias’s biceps scar flexed. “It’s not you they search for. It’s me. It’s all the Keepers. If they can find the Orimere, sooner or later, they’ll find the Gifted.”
Chris’s ears tingled. The Orimere hung heavy in the purse on his belt.
Laith shook his head. “They’ll settle for slaughtering a random caravan whether they find you among us or not.”
Orias shifted in his saddle. “May the God of all allow the raids to end soon.” A note of determination underlay his words. “In the meantime, I have no choice. I have come across a man—a farmer from near Ballion—to whom an oath binds me.” He inclined his head back toward Chris. “I must see him safely to his home.”
“And the human cannot see himself home?”
Chris bit his tongue. These Cherazii seemed like the sort to take offense easily. If he made the wrong move, he’d not only blow his cover as an innocent native, he’d also likely end up challenged to a duel or something. Judging from the size of their swords, not to mention the fact that his sword was apparently back in that thicket where Pitch had hidden it, that contest wasn’t likely to end well. He had gotten into enough fights over the years to know how to recognize the ones likely to end with him lying flat on his back, busted and woozy.
“This is a private matter,” Orias said.
At Laith’s feet, a shriveled Riever peered up at them. He hugged a thick fleece, leather side out, around his stick-like body. His arms jutted through arm holes whipstitched with sinew. “And is your oath to him more important than your sacred mission? You’re to take the Orimere straight to Réon Couteau. Ballion will carry you leagues out of your way.”
“I go where I must.” Orias’s head tilted back to Laith. “Will you give me my leave?”
Laith pursed his lips. Maybe Chris looked like he didn’t belong as much as he felt it. Or maybe it was Orias. Maybe his actions were strange in some way.
Whatever his suspicions, Laith still nodded. “I give you leave. And the human—will he not offer his name while he is among us?”
Orias canted his head back, and Chris took it as permission.
“Chris Redston.” On impulse, he mimicked the fist-to-the-chest gesture. “And it is my honor to be welcomed among the Cherazii people.” A little bonhomie never hurt.
A smile ghosted across Laith’s face. “I never said I welcomed you, Chris Redston. I do not know you, and I do not know your fathers. But one of our own brings you and vouches for you, so be at peace among us.” He fisted his chest and turned away.
Orias’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. “Everybody down.” He gave Raz’s shoulder a little slap, and the Riever slid down Orias’s leg until he was close enough to drop to the ground. “S
kin out the zajele. I’ll pack up and be back as soon as you’ve finished.”
Pitch peered around Orias’s body and motioned with his fingers for Chris to follow. “You come with me.”
“No shenanigans,” Orias said. “You remember what I told you.”
Chris slid off the horse’s rump, and Pitch jumped down to claim his hand and lead him forward to where the wizened old Riever had moved into the shade of a tent.
“Jupe, this is Chris Redston,” Pitch announced, even though Jupe had been there when Chris introduced himself. “I found him while he was sleeping, and he is my servant now. I wish to proclaim it.”
“Wait just a minute,” Chris said. “What if I decide I don’t want to be your servant?”
Jupe looked at him, askance. “You can’t decide. It’s Riever law.”
“And just what is that?” The question was out of his mouth before he thought about it. Likely, every native with a brain in his head was expected to know the answer.
Jupe’s squint deepened, engulfing his eyes entirely. Finally, he gave his head a shake. “We make our own laws.”
“I see.” Chris tried not to sound like he was humoring a five-year-old. This old Riever was probably seeing right through him anyway. “So you just made up a law that you could claim any human you happen to find?”
“Of course not.” Jupe thrust out his chin. “Not any human. Only if he is sleeping, and only if he has a sword to be taken.”
Pitch tugged on Chris’s hand. “Come on. We have to hurry. We must have the proclaiming before Orias is ready to leave.”
“I will gather the others.” Jupe hobbled away with a last shake of his head at Chris.
“We’ll do it over by the zajele,” Pitch said, “so Raz can’t get mad at us for not helping.”
Chris let Pitch pull him out of the tent’s shade. “Listen, I have nothing against you personally. I like you personally. I’m just not so keen on this idea of being proclaimed your servant.”
Pitch ran along in front of him, throwing a little skip into his stride every now and then. “It’s all right. I will be a good master. I promise.”
“I’m not planning to be around here much longer.” He gave himself another pinch, just on the off chance it would be enough to wake him up.
“You can’t go away unless I say you can. And anyway,” Pitch grinned back at him, “Orias said to blend in. This is blending in.”
Chris gave up. Riever logic was too blunt a weapon to pierce so much as a piece of paper, but who needed a sharp edge when you could just bludgeon your opponent over the head?
They reached the zajele in the middle of the camp.
“’Bout time,” Raz said.
Pitch crossed his arms over his body and, with a flourish, pulled out both his blades. He handed one to Chris, then scrambled on top of the zajele’s haunch, stabbed the blade into the flank, and began sawing at the back leg.
Chris hunkered down, one hand on the zajele’s neck, and thrust in the knife, just to make it look like he was doing something. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the movement of the camp: the children playing some kind of game with sticks and hoops, a tall blond male carrying buckets of water from the rivulet, a woman lying on her stomach on top of a wagon and polishing the overhang’s glass window. For a dream about blue-blooded aliens, it was remarkably coherent.
Maybe a dozen Rievers filtered in from the edges of the camp and congregated around the zajele. Speaking charitably, they were the ugliest sentient beings he had ever seen—and that included the lowlifes of Chicago’s South Side. Even the youngest among them had faces pocked and pitted like raisins. Their ears were shaped like a human’s, but the round upper halves were too big for the tiny lobes, most of which sported dangling jewelry, made from twisted bits of wire and leather and, in a few instances, teeth. Their eyes were black clear through, like a bird’s, with only the faintest darkening at the center to highlight the pupils.
Chris looked down and realized his hands had been moving almost of their own accord. He’d never gutted an animal in his life, but between him and Pitch and Raz, the zajele now lay in neat quarters, skinned and boned.
Raz wiped his knife clean on the grass and glanced sideways at him. “Maybe you’re not entirely useless after all.”
Chris stared at the bloody knife in his hands. “How’d I do that?”
“Muscle memory. Your mind may not have been here before, but your body has. You’ve probably skinned out dozens of zajele in your life. But now ain’t the time and this ain’t the place to be talking on the wonders of it all. Not if you’re hoping to pretend you’re a farmer from Ballion.” He stood up, sheathed his blade, and faced the Riever contingent with crossed arms.
Pitch bounded to Chris’s side and took his hand. “It’s time.” He led Chris forward to where Jupe and the other elderly Rievers fronted their group.
“This is Chris Redston.” He held up Chris’s hand. “I swear I found him asleep in the hills to the south. I swear I took his sword. I swear he did not wake up until I had done so. I swear I gave him just notification of his claiming. Henceforth he is my servant. Do the Rievers proclaim it?”
Jupe and the other old ones gave a nod of consent, and all the Rievers smacked their fists to their skinny chests.“The Rievers proclaim it!”
Pitch reached a hand into the collar of his tunic and came out with a little leather pouch. He held it up to Chris. “You have to give me something too.”
Now they tell me. He searched his tunic and then his trousers for pockets. Then he remembered the leather pouch on his belt and pulled out a gold coin.
At his other side, Raz sniffed and shook his head. “Not money. You’re his servant. All your money belongs to him anyway.”
Of course. Why would he have imagined differently? The Rievers obviously had this subjugation thing down pat. He dug a little deeper into the purse, past the Orimere in its green pouch, and came up with a two-inch triangle of stiff leather. A circle of brass, bearing some kind of letter or symbol, studded the leather, and two thongs hung from either side.
For all he knew, it was money too, but he tilted it toward Pitch. With any luck, the Riever would make some sort of signal before the rest of the clan figured out he had no idea what he was looking at.
Raz raised himself on tiptoe to look, and his brow lifted in frank admiration. “You were in the Guard?”
Chris stopped himself from shrugging his own confusion.
Pitch took the thing in both hands, and a lopsided grin tugged at his mouth. He turned back to his fellow Rievers and held up the triangle. “My servant Chris Redston is a Guardsman!”
The crowd appeared suitably impressed. Probably he was the first Guardsman dumb enough to fall asleep in Riever territory and get his sword stolen.
Pitch’s leather pouch still lay in his palm, so he pried open the knot at the top and upended it. A teardrop of glass fell into his hand. When he held it up, the sun showed an interior made of intricate shards of glass twisted around each other. Fire and water danced within, clashing, fighting, but never dying. It was a fawa-radi sculpture, like the one Harrison had in his backroom.
“Where’d you get this?” He stared at Pitch, then caught himself. He’d seen Harrison’s sculpture just before he’d blacked out. Why wouldn’t he dream about it?
_________
After leaving Cabahr Laith, Orias packed up his tent and few belongings and bartered a pony away from a shrewd-faced grandmother. If Koraudians were near, then time was blowing away from him like leaves on the wind. He must get the Gifted away from here before it was too late. But to leave his people like this, under the threat of attack . . .
He snugged his horse’s girth, then leaned both hands against the saddle and bowed his head. This Gifted—unlike his predecessor—had done nothing wrong. Chris Redston could hardly be blamed for events that occurred before his own crossing. And did not the very fact that he had landed right in front of a Keeper make it clear what the God of all wil
led Orias to do?
He was to protect the Gifted and, events being what they were, deliver him safely to the Searcher in Réon Couteau. That was the most sacred responsibility of any Keeper. And yet his heart felt as if it was wringing itself in two.
Koraudians wouldn’t venture this far into Lael unless they were tracking someone important. Someone such as a Keeper bearing the Orimere to the Gifted. If Orias left his people now and they were attacked, he would be at fault. But if he stayed to help the caravan fight and the Gifted fell into the hands of Koraudians, would that not be his fault as well?
He straightened up. Duty must come first. But his whole body screamed with the need to stay and fight.
He led the horses over to the Rievers’ proclaiming caucus and picked up a zajele’s canvas-wrapped haunches.“Kalel ti star nad piuser tulle,” he told them. Take the rest and disperse it.
He fastened the haunch to the front of his saddle and turned his back on what was left of the meat while a few of the Rievers collected it and carried it away between them. The remaining Rievers hung back to say their farewells to Raz and Pitch.
Orias tossed a glance at the Gifted. Taking the measure of him was still difficult at this point. Today was still only his first day, and he was obviously bewildered and even a little suspicious.
But at least he wasn’t hysterical, as the histories suggested some of the Gifted were upon crossing. He had not a look of perfidy about him, as the rat-faced Harrison Garnett had possessed from the first. But who knew what weaknesses his heart held? Just because a man was a Gifted was no indication he deserved the honor.
Orias cleared his throat. “We’re going to need to move and move fast. If Koraudians find us, they’ll as lief slaughter us as they would the caravan.” He couldn’t keep a muscle from hopping in his cheek.
Chris peered around the caravan, then back to Orias. “They’re after me, aren’t they?”
“They want you to use the Orimere to bring back their dead leader.”
Chris snorted. “Last time I checked I wasn’t too handy at the resurrection business.”
“He’s only dead in our world. In yours, he’s still alive.” He looked at the fawa-radi sculpture in Chris’s hand. “Pitch gave you that?” After winning it in a traveling circus last year, Pitch had hardly parted from the bauble. “He must place a high value on his servant.”
Chris upended the sculpture. “It’s worth a lot then?”
“Not so much in money. You should see the fawa-radi in Glen Arden. There’s a huge one, twice the size of a Cherazim, in every quarter of the city. Now that is a sight. It’s the most beautiful city in the civilized world, let alone Lael.” He held out the pony’s reins. “Can you ride?”
Chris shook his head.
“Well, I bought you a gentle one. Just keep a leg on both sides and your mind in the middle.”
Pitch and Raz trotted over, and Pitch waved the leather triangle. “Look. Orias, he is a Guardsman.”
Orias turned for a closer look. If the new Gifted was a Guardsman, that might put things in a more reassuring light. The skill and dedication of the King’s Guard almost rivaled the Cherazii’s.
He took the triangle and ran his finger over the center medallion. “At least if you get into trouble, you’ll know how to handle yourself.”
“Why? What do Guardsmen do?” Chris asked.
“They’re the king’s crack troops.” Orias looked him up and down. “You’re not in uniform, so you’ve probably been discharged. All Laeler men are required to train with the army for a two-week period out of every year so they’ll be ready to respond if the kingdom comes under attack. But the Guard is the elite.” He let the tiniest of grins escape. “I thought you looked like a fighter.”
Chris shook his head. “I have a feeling fights around here are a lot different from the ones I’m used to.”
“If you get into trouble, blank your mind. Let your body take over. It’ll know what to do.”
“That’s mighty comforting.”
Orias handed the Guard badge back to Pitch, who bound it around his upper arm. He had to wrap the thongs twice and hold one end with his teeth while he tied it off.
Orias turned back. “Do the same with the horse. Listen to your body.” He mounted slowly, so the Gifted could watch and learn.
Raz scrambled up behind him, but Pitch stood waiting for Chris. He was quite enamored with his new prize. No doubt, he had completely forgotten Chris would be his servant only until the Searcher claimed him.
The pony didn’t budge, and the Gifted managed to haul himself aboard without too much difficulty. Pitch clambered up Chris’s leg to stand on the horse’s hindquarters and rest his hands lightly on Chris’s shoulders.
“Kick him,” he advised.
Chris did, and the pony lumbered a few steps.
Orias urged his own horse forward before he could change his mind about leaving. But he couldn’t stop a long backwards glance. If the Koraudians did attack, his one lone sword could hardly make much of a difference. He told himself that twice over. But he didn’t believe it. The strength and power of a single Cherazim had turned the tale in too many battles to count.
He needed to be here with his people.
He needed to be on the road, taking the Gifted far away.
Two impossibly conflicting duties. He had to choose one or the other, so he turned away and rode into the trees.