Guardians of the Lost (26 page)

“Besides,” Ranessa called after him, “someone
is
following us. Danger lies behind us as well as ahead.”

Wolfram buried his head in his horse's flank, rubbed the animal's rump with a gentle hand.
The kildeer with the broken wing
—so the knight had said. Wolfram had discounted the warning. Gustav the Whoreson Knight and his mad quest! A good enough ale tale, the dwarf supposed. Nothing more.

Yet Wolfram believed Ranessa. He didn't know why. Perhaps because she was crazy and there are many among the peoples of Loerem—the orks, for example—who believe that lunatics are god-touched.

Privately Wolfram thought the gods might have been kinder to him and touched her a bit harder—hit her with a hammer, maybe. His was not to question, however. His was to obey. The monks wanted her—the gods themselves knew why—and the monks would have her. And not in four months. Especially not if someone was tracking them.

“We can reach Dragon Mountain in a month's time,” he mumbled.

“What?” Ranessa demanded. His voice had been muffled against the horse.

“We can reach Dragon Mountain in a month's time. If we are lucky. That still plays into it. Luck plays into everything. But there is a way.”

“How?”

Wolfram thrust forward his arm, bared his wrist. “Do you see this bracer I wear?”

Ranessa nodded.

“It is not just a bauble. It is a key. A key that unlocks certain doors to me and to me alone.”

He was telling the truth, but not quite the entire truth. There were others who did the monks' bidding who had similar keys, but this Trevenici didn't accord him the respect he felt he deserved.

“What doors?” Ranessa looked skeptical. “I don't see how a door will help us.”

“It will if it leads through time and space,” said Wolfram smugly. “Do you recall your nephew talking about that magical door in the lake, the one the knight came through?”

“What are you talking about? What do doors have to do with lakes?” She frowned. “I'm beginning to think you're addled.”

“I wouldn't doubt it,” he returned, glowering. “Madness is probably contagious. Never you mind what doors have to do with lakes. I know and I have the key and that is what matters. You had best get to sleep. We've many long days' ride ahead of us yet before we get to where we're going.”

“Where
are
we going?”

“Not that you'd know if I told you.” Wolfram snorted. “It's a seaport town in Karnu. Karfa 'Len.”

“And is this door you speak of there?”

“One of them is,” said Wolfram.

 

Someone was following them—the Vrykyl, Jedash. But he was having a hard time of it and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

“For the life of him” was an inaccurate statement. For the death of him would have been more appropriate, for Jedash had been dead for about fifty years. A former Void hedge-wizard in life, Jedash was one of the few who had made the transition from living man to animated corpse with no regrets, probably because he had not been much alive to start with.

Jedash had been sleeping in an alley when Shakur had quite literally stumbled upon him, mistaking the man for a pile of discarded rags. Fortunately for Jedash, Shakur had already fed or Jedash
would have been one of the nameless, faceless souls stolen to keep Shakur's corpse from shuffling off its mortal coil. As it was, Jedash had been roused from his slumbers. Laying eyes upon the Vrykyl for the first time, Jedash had been moved to worship. He had prostrated himself before Shakur and asked to become his follower. Amused, Shakur had presented the man to Dagnarus.

Dagnarus had accepted Jedash, given him food and shelter and increased the hedge-wizard's knowledge of Void magic. Jedash's admiration for Dagnarus changed to adoration. Dagnarus had decided to reward Jedash by murdering the man, presenting him to the Dagger of the Vrykyl as a suitable candidate.

Unlike Shakur, Jedash had no fear of the emptiness into which he would eventually slip. He had known the emptiness of gnawing hunger, the emptiness of grinding poverty, the emptiness of living without hope of anything better. He had known chronic illness and chronic pain. He had known the bitter torment of ridicule, of being shunned, driven from the habitations of civilized men, persecuted, reviled. Thus Jedash did not find tedious the empty hours of the night. He did not long for sleep, because in life his sleep had never brought any comfort to him. He had comfort now in feeling nothing.

Assigned to follow the dwarf, capture him and bring him back to Shakur, Jedash assumed that this would be an easy task. Jedash went to the town of Vilda Harn, reasoning that the dwarf might well have stopped by the only place to purchase supplies between Nimorea and Dunkarga. Jedash was rewarded far beyond his expectations. Taking the form of a Dunkargan merchant he had once slain, Jedash picked up the dwarf's trail the very first place he stopped—a horse trader.

The horse trader remembered the dwarf quite clearly, for the dwarf was one customer who had known exactly what he wanted and, to the trader's chagrin, had seen through all of the horse dealer's best artifices in concealing defects or flaws in his animals. Wolfram had chosen the best animal of the lot and had then spent most of the day wearing down the trader until he had practically given the horse away.

The dwarf had a companion, the horse trader said in answer to Jedash's question. A Trevenici woman. Why they were traveling together, the trader could not say, for there appeared to be no love lost between the two of them. The trader thought the dwarf mentioned heading south for Karnu.

“They left only a short time ago,” said the trader. “If you make haste, you can catch them.”

A dirt road led out of Vilda Harn. Jedash mounted the shadow steed he rode and galloped off in pursuit, pleased that he would soon be able to provide his master with the dwarf and whatever it was the dwarf carried. The Vrykyl was sure he must soon overtake them, but he rode mile after mile and saw no signs of them. The dirt road dwindled to a dirt trail that turned into nothing more than two wagon ruts, leading south.

Due to the rumors of war, there were few travelers—a Karnuan patrol heading home, a caravan whose nervous drivers wanted only to reach Vilda Harn in safety. Taking the disguise of a Trevenici, claiming to be searching for his runaway sister, Jedash questioned everyone he encountered. Yes, they had seen the dwarf and the Trevenici woman, not long ago either. He had only to make haste and he would catch them.

Jedash made haste, but he did not catch them. They remained inexplicably out of reach. He started to grow angry.

The wagon ruts veered to the west, heading for the city of Amrah 'Lin. Jedash abandoned the useless road, struck off in an easterly direction. The dwarf would be trying to reach more civilized lands, not heading into the frontier. Finding a stream, the Vrykyl traveled alongside it until he came to two sets of hoofprints on the muddy bank, one of them belonging to the type of small horse the dwarf had purchased. These led him through the prairie grass to the remnants of a campfire.

The coals were still warm. The two were only a short distance ahead of him.

Jedash pressed on, confident of overtaking them. The Vrykyl was close. He smelled their blood. He heard the dwarf's gruff voice and the human female's shrill voice bickering over something. He
urged his shadow steed up the next rise, certain that he would look down and see them.

He looked down, but they were not there.

From his position on the rise, Jedash gazed over the expanse of the vast prairie and the only living thing he saw was a hawk diving down to snatch up a mouse in its talons.

Furious, frustrated, Jedash was forced to ride in a wide arc across the prairie to see if he could find them once more, circling far to the east and to the west to discover if they had deviated from their southern course, veered off suddenly one way or the other. He lost two days in this search before he finally came upon their tracks.

The two had not veered off. They had continued on a southerly course. He did not understand how he could have missed them yet again. What magic were these two practicing that they should so confound his efforts?

Once more, Jedash set off in pursuit.

W
hile Jessan enjoyed his journey and Wolfram endured his, Raven's journey was one of misery and frustration. He remained chained to the stake, was never released. His chain was long enough so that he could relieve himself in a pit some distance from his post. Half-taan or human slaves covered the pit every other day with dirt and dug another. Raven was surprised at this cleanliness, but he noticed that while the taan were a cruel race, they were not a slovenly one.

The taan did not bathe—Dur-zor said that the taan had a great fear of water—but they rubbed their bodies with oil and then scraped off the dirt with the oil. Their smell that Raven found so sickening was not the smell of filth, but their own smell—a combination of musk and decayed meat. Taan liked the smell of humans, Dur-zor said, but Raven didn't find much comfort in that, for the taan were probably thinking only of their next meal.

The crude prison cell made of spears was dismantled. The male Dunkargans were now all dead. Their deaths had been horrible. They had been tortured for sport, their screams and writhings sending the taan into fits of merriment. Raven counted himself
brave. He thought he could withstand anything, but the cries of the murdered men had been more than he could bear. He had closed his ears with dirt he scraped up from around his post. One man had lasted three days.

A few of the captured women had died. They were the fortunate ones. The rest were slaves of the taan, made to perform tasks the taan considered beneath them and even beneath half-taan. The women were raped repeatedly, beaten, kicked, slapped and whipped. Their faces haggard, often blood-stained, they looked toward Raven with pleading in their eyes, as if expecting him to do something to help them. He could not. He could not even help himself. He refused to meet their eyes and eventually they gave up.

Raven spent his time watching his captors, for it was said among the Trevenici that it is a wise warrior who makes a friend of his enemy. Raven could not understand the taan language, but the taan also relied on wild and often exaggerated gestures to emphasize their meaning and from these he could occasionally make out what was going on.

There was a definite hierarchy among the taan. Qu-tok and the other warriors constantly deferred to a fellow warrior, a female, and Raven eventually came to realize that this female was the tribal leader. She wore a crested helm of Dunkargan make and design, and it seemed that this marked her rank.

One day, the female warrior, accompanied by a proud Qu-tok, came to look at Raven. Qu-tok took great delight in showing off his prize to his leader.

Seeing the taan approach, Raven jumped to his feet and clenched his fists.

“Fight me, damn you!” he shouted. “Even with these chains on, I'll fight you, blast your lumpy hide.”

Raven knew that Qu-tok could not understand a word he said, but the raised, clenched fists were a challenge to battle in any language. Unfortunately, Qu-tok was goaded to laughter rather than to rage or Raven presumed that was what the taan was doing, for he made a chortling sound in his throat and showed every razor tooth in his ugly head.

Qu-tok advanced to just outside of chain length and waved his hand at Raven with a gesture that was a perfect copy of one used by a performer exhibiting a trained bear. Realizing he was only putting on a show for the amusement of his captors, Raven grit his teeth and ceased to struggle.

Qu-tok pointed out some of Raven's finer points to the warrior, who eyed Raven with interest. She had an inordinate number of scars on her body, far more than Qu-tok or the others. Flashes of light glinted from beneath her hide. The warrior had gems embedded beneath her skin.

Having lived around the pecwae all his life, Raven was familiar with gemstones. He recognized the purple of amethyst, the pink of rose quartz and was astonished to see one large green gem that might well have been an emerald inserted beneath the hide of the warrior's right arm. He assumed these stones were merely decoration and thought it a strange and painful way to wear jewelry.

As if in reward for Raven's performance, Qu-tok tossed his prisoner a hunk of cooked meat. Raven bent and picked up the meat, closed his fingers around it. Qu-tok and the head warrior turned their backs, strode off. When Qu-tok was about six feet distant, Raven threw the meat as hard as he could. The meat struck Qu-tok squarely on the back of the head.

Feeling something splat, Qu-tok whipped around. He saw the meat on the ground, saw Raven standing with clenched fists, glowering at him.

“Come on, skink,” said Raven grimly. “Fight me.”

Qu-tok bent down to pick up the meat. He held the meat up before Raven's eyes, then slowly ate it, making a great show of enjoyment. Turning on his heel, he walked off, accompanied by the head warrior. Raven was given no food that night or the night after.

“I hit him in the back of the head in front of his chieftain,” he said to Dur-zor when Qu-tok finally decided to feed him. “With a human, an ork, even one of the simpering Vinneng-aeleans, that would have been a mortal insult. He should have fought me on the spot.”

“Had another taan thrown the meat at him, that would have been
an insult,” Dur-zor said with a pitying smile for his ignorance. “You are a slave, Raven. Such a low worm can do nothing to insult him.”

Dispirited, Raven slumped back against his post. He reminded himself of the many times he had lain concealed in a lair, sometimes for days on end, waiting for his prey to come to him, waiting for the elk to walk into the clearing so that he could get a clean shot or the wild boar to blunder into his nets. He was in much the same situation, he told himself. He had to be patient, bide his time, whatever time he had left.

“Tell me of this head warrior,” he said.

“Dag-ruk,” Dur-zor replied. “She is huntmaster. A renowned warrior, she has proven her skill in battle many times over and has taken many slaves. Our god himself gave her the helm she wears. Most think she will be named a nizam—the head of the battle group—this next god day.”

“Is she anyone's mate?” Raven asked, thinking that her mate might be Qu-tok and wondering how this would affect his plans for revenge.

Dur-zor shook her head. “No, Dag-ruk does not want to be encumbered with the bearing of children. Thus she does not permit any to lie with her. It is said that she favors one of the shamans of the battle group.”

Shamans, Raven had learned, were skilled in the practice of Void magic. They acted as sorcerers for the taan and they were shadowy and scary individuals. Even the taan feared them, or so it seemed, for whenever one entered the camp, all the taan—warriors included—went out of their way to accommodate him and rarely took their eyes off him.

At first Raven had found it difficult to distinguish the shamans. In fact, the first time he saw one, he mistook the shaman for a slave, for the taan wore no armor, but was wound about in strips of cloth that covered his breast, his loins, and his upper legs. He carried no weapon and had few scars on his arms or his head. Raven had been surprised to see the other taan make much of him and Dur-zor had explained that this was R'lt, the shaman of the battle group.

“He has the ritual scarring,” Dur-zor assured Raven. “And a
great many magical stones embedded beneath his skin. He has more scars and more stones than almost any other taan in the battle group. He does not show them, but hides them beneath his clothes. Thus when he goes into battle, his enemies mistake him for a weakling and fall easy prey to his magicks.”

The taan war party remained camped outside the conquered city of Dunkar. Inside the walls, representatives of the taan's god brought the Dunkargan people under control, stocked up on supplies, and made ready to carry the war on to other lands. Raven had no knowledge of this first hand. His information came from Dur-zor.

Once a day, near evening, the half-taan female brought him food and water and was permitted to remain to talk to him. Raven knew that she received permission to talk to him, for he could see Qu-tok keeping an eye on them. Whenever he thought the conversation had gone on long enough, Qu-tok shouted for Dur-zor to return. She was quick to obey, often leaping up in the middle of a sentence to avoid being punished for dawdling.

“Why does he let you visit me, Dur-zor?” Raven asked this evening as she squatted down comfortably in the dirt. She never came within arm's length of him, was careful to remain outside his reach. He added wryly, “I can't think he does it out of the kindness of his heart.”

“Oh, no,” said Dur-zor with a smile. “Qu-tok says that I am a torment to you. That's why he sends me and why he lets me stay.”

“A torment?” Raven was puzzled. “How do you torment me? You've never laid a hand on me.”

“Qu-tok thinks you must want to lie with me,” Dur-zor said, grinning. “And that when I am close to you, you are in torment because you want me and you cannot have me. I know this is not true,” she added. “I know that you think I am ugly, a monster. But I tell Qu-tok what he wants to hear.”

“I don't think you're a monster, Dur-zor,” Raven protested uncomfortably. He had thought her monstrous the first time he'd seen her. And though her visits were the high point of his day, he could not look upon her bestial half-human features without a feeling of
revulsion that made his belly shrivel. “As for being ugly, I'm not much to look at myself.”

“I do not find you ugly,” she said, looking at him with frank appraisal. Her brow crinkled. “Although I do not know how you humans smell anything at all with that lump of flesh you call a nose.” She shrugged, amused. “I know you could not feel about me the same that you would feel about a female of your own kind. The taan consider us abominations. Humans consider us monsters. Our god says that if humans get hold of us, they will kill us.”

“Some would, maybe,” Raven was forced to concede, thinking that this didn't say much for humans, for it made them no better than the taan. “Others would say that your birth wasn't your fault. You have a right to live, same as any of the rest of us.”

“Is that what you think?” Dur-zor asked curiously.

“I didn't at first,” Raven admitted. “But I do now.”

“That is the same with me,” she said. “I thought you were a monster at first, but I don't now.”

“What will happen to you, Dur-zor?” Raven asked. He could forget his own troubles, his own disgrace and dishonor, when he talked to her.

“One of the taan will kill me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Maybe Qu-tok. Maybe another.” She smiled at his shocked expression. “One day I will move too slowly or I will spill the water or not keep proper watch on a child. They will kill me and that will be that.”

Raven felt such pity and anger that he could barely contain himself. What sort of terrible life was this?

“That is the fate of my kind,” she added. “I know this. It is useless to fight against it. In this life, I serve my god and that is enough for me.”

“Perhaps you will find a mate,” Raven said, struggling to offer comfort, although—to be honest—the girl did not appear to require it. “You will have children.”

“Half-taan cannot bear children, not with taan, not with humans, not with each other,” she said with a shake of her head. “Our god wanted us to have children, but even he, a god, cannot cause us to be fertile. I have never lain with anyone and I do not expect to,
since there is no reason to mate other than pleasure and slaves are not permitted to have pleasure.”

“The taan don't…well, use you for their pleasure?” Raven asked.

Dur-zor stared at him, amazed. “The taan would find no pleasure in lying with us. They consider us monsters.”

Raven began to have a glimmer of understanding. “The taan think human females are monsters, too, don't they? The taan don't find pleasure in them. They lie with humans only to subjugate them, to exert their power over them.”

“In the old world,” Dur-zor explained, “it was said that if the humans were permitted to do so, their population would grow like that of rabbits. They would soon outnumber the taan. The taan feared that and so they took measures to keep the human population in check. They needed humans for slaves, so they did not kill them. They abducted their women, forced them to bear half-taan children.”

“What would you like to be, Dur-zor? If you could be anything you wanted?” Raven asked.

“A warrior,” she answered promptly. “Becoming a warrior is one way in which a half-taan may gain some respect among the taan. It is even said that in another battle group, a half-taan has risen to become a huntmaster. That is far out of my reach, but I think I would make a good warrior. I have practiced with the kep-ker. I am skilled at it.”

“The kep-ker? That is—”

“What you humans call a staff, except that it has a wooden ball at one end and a stone ball at the other. The wielder grasps hold of the wooden ball”—she demonstrated with an imaginary weapon—“and swings the staff like this.”

Raven had seen the taan carrying such weapons. He had thought they used them like a quarterstaff, grasping the weapon in the center with both hands. He was surprised to learn this other method, but could see where it would have its advantages.

“They taught you to use a weapon?”

“Of course,” Dur-zor replied. “When the warriors leave for battle,
the taskers and the half-taan are left to keep watch over the camp. We have to know how to defend the children, should the camp be attacked.”

This was something important to know. Taskers, he knew from Dur-zor, were taan who were not warriors, nor were they shamans. The taskers were those male and female taan who took care of the needs of the warriors: cooked the food the warriors brought in, kept the camp clean, tended to the young taan.

Although the taskers always treated the warriors with deference, the warriors respected the taskers, did not mistreat them as they did slaves or the half-taan. Still, Raven had never seen a single tasker carrying a weapon. He would keep this in mind.