Lakhoni (21 page)

The
long, polished oak table shone orange and yellow in the light of the huge fire
in the hearth. Tall-backed chairs also shone in the bright, wild light, eight
of them occupied. Torches lined the wall, adding more illumination to the
cavern room.

Shelu
sat tall in his chair, his back stiff as frozen granite. He fixed his
expression to one of calm anger, knowing the scars on his face only enhanced the
effect. To his right, at the head of the table, sat his lord. Bonaha of the
Separated. The small, mighty man who would lead the true heirs to take
possession of the land. On the other side of the Bonaha sat Gimno, his panther
tattoo barely visible under the red paint of the halkeen. “She has not spoken
of the sword yet,” he told him.

“Perhaps
you are not asking the right questions,” said the Bonaha.

“Perhaps
you should not have let one of your people get away!” Shelu shifted forward in
his seat, directing his anger at Gimno. “You endanger everything!”

“He
is harmless.” Gimno flashed a white smile. “He knows nothing of our plans and
was an impatient orphan who learned slowly anyway.” Gimno turned to Vena, who
nodded confirmation.

“An
orphan?” A pang of alarm drove through Shelu. He pushed forward again, his
muscles tight, ready to pounce like a great jungle cat. “What do you mean?”

“His
village was razed,” Gimno said. “Probably by one of your cohorts.”

Shelu
sprang to his feet, his chair tipping backward to land with a dull thud on the
thick furs layered on the floor. He glared at Gimno, who was far too casual at
this critical point in the plan. “When did this ‘orphan’ come to your village?”

“Calm
yourself,” the Bonaha said. His voice dripped with sweet danger, like poisoned
honey. He lifted a hand, as if to lower Shelu back to his seat.

“Months
ago. He was near death.” The soft tones of Vena’s voice slid across the
polished wood of the table. Her body leaned close to her red-painted husband.
“A head wound, his side torn, he was the last one of his village. The raiding
party must have thought he was dead.”

Shelu
pounded the table, growling. Why would these people not answer sufficiently?
“What village? Where did he come from?”

The
Bonaha stood now. “You have no cause for this! Explain your outburst.”

Two
tall, lean guards at the entrance of the cavern approached. The Bonaha waved
them off.

“An
orphan. The only one living. So is my captive!” Shelu fed the fury in him with
deep, powerful breaths. He leaned over the table on his fists. “Who is this one
who you let escape?”

“Surely
not from the same village.” Gimno flashed another smile, this one less
confident. “Three, perhaps four miles southwest of here.”

Tempted
to draw a weapon and slice the smile from Gimno’s face, Shelu instead turned to
sit. He found his chair upended and turned back. “Exactly when? When was this
village raided?”

From
the corner of one eye, Shelu saw one of the guards approach, right his chair,
and move away.

“Three
or four days after the first new moon of autumn,” Vena said. She exchanged a
glance with Gimno.

“That’s
right.” Gimno idly slid his fingers along the smooth top of the table.

The
pang of alarm grew to a spear of cold dread driving into Shelu’s gut. His mouth
dropped open.
The same village—could it be?
Silence spread like tree sap
on a warm day as Shelu sought words.

The
Bonaha turned to Gimno. They exchanged a questioning glance.

“What
is this about?” The Bonaha, his voice sharp now, rubbed the smooth table
surface.

“After
the first new moon.” Shelu fell into his chair, his legs feeling suddenly weak.
How could it have gone so badly?

“What
are you getting at?” asked Gimno.

There
was still hope. It couldn’t possibly be the same family as his captive—or even
the same village. That would be too much of a coincidence.

“Did
you return to his village?” He heard the urgency in his voice and did nothing
to restrain it.

“I
took him myself. He was my student.” Gimno leaned forward.

“Was
there a hut with a shape on the keystone?” Shelu stared intently, daring Gimno
to give the worst possible answer.

“Yes!
A sun, or something like it, with a line through it.”

“Spirit
save us. The same village.” Shelu’s broad shoulders sagged. “Impossible. All
were dead.”

“You
will tell us what this is about now,” the Bonaha said. He had gone unnaturally
still. “Right now.”

“That
is the village the girl came from. That is the house the guardians lived in.”
Rubbing his face and fingering some scars on a cheek, Shelu went on. “But he
couldn’t—”

“That
was the cub’s home,” Gimno said, comprehension dawning. Vena grasped Gimno’s
hand, hissing in surprise.

Shelu’s
face went slack as the spear of dread turned in his spine. He blinked once at
Gimno, then the Bonaha. “If you are correct,” he said, “you allowed the son of
the guardians to escape your grasp.”

A
new kind of silence filled the room. This one was heavier than the sound of the
crackling fire—heavy like a thick, sodden fur that smothers.

After
a time, the Bonaha spoke, his words clear and deliberate. “Obviously he knows
the girl is alive. He must be seeking her.” He fixed a hungry look upon Gimno
first, then Shelu. “He will come to us. In the city.”

As
he jogged away from the village, easily moving among the trees, Lakhoni kept
his ears open for the sounds of pursuit. Faint voices wafted above the trees
and filtered down through the dimly lit branches.
They must have found out
I’m gone.
Concern for Simra almost had him hesitating, but he forced it
away. They would forgive her; she was a daughter of their village. She would be
safe there. Safer than if she had come with him.

The
decision was made. Instead of faltering, he ran faster.

He
flowed through the forest, the early spring undergrowth cushioning his footfalls
so that he was nearly as silent as the great panthers that sometimes stalked
the forest around his village. As he ran, leaving the raised voices and Simra
far behind, he sent his thoughts into the future. One of the men of the village
had mentioned that there was a road that ran toward Zyronilxa. It was supposed
to be to the north, so if he just kept to as straight a track as possible, he
should run into it.

Would
he need a story to tell to other travelers he met? He would stick as near to
the truth as possible.
My village was destroyed by raiders. I’m going to the
city to make a new life.

Within
a few more minutes, he came to a place where the trees thinned out into small
groves. These groves eventually turned into wide meadows. Everything glowed in
shades of silver, the winter-dead husks of grass glimmering wetly as he jogged.

An
hour later, a long stretch of flattened, hardened dirt stretched east and west
of him with no end in sight. As he approached the strange looking gash in the
landscape, he realized that the road had been covered in a layer of small
rocks.

Stepping
onto the road, he turned east. His confidence soared. All he had to do was keep
to this road, going this direction, and he would finally be in Zyronilxa.

As
he jogged, he tried to maintain a mental estimate of how many paces he took,
remembering that his father had said there were around two thousand regular
strides per mile. He had gone several miles by the time the horizon in front of
him began to change colors. It couldn’t be much farther now.

By
the time the sun truly crested the mountains on the horizon, he felt as empty
and dry as the husks of flat, brown grass that covered the meadowlands on both
sides of the road. He needed a place to rest, preferably somewhere under the
cover of trees so that he wasn’t totally exposed.

He
slowed to a walk, scanning the land. He was much closer to the mountains now,
so if he went much further, he would at least start hitting foothills. Surely
there would be some kind of cover there.

Lakhoni
pushed himself onward, his bag of supplies slung across his chest. He commanded
his legs to continue to move, seeking that place he had found while traveling
during the winter, that place where his legs moved despite exhaustion, illness,
and near-starvation. He was in much better shape now, and the temperature was
only a little cold.

He
tried to imagine what the city would be like, what the houses might look like,
how the people might act. He pictured an arrangement like the cavern of the
Separated, only bigger.

His
feet and legs detected the change in the road before his eyes registered it. He
was climbing a low hill, the first in a series of growing hills that led to the
mountains. He followed the line of the road and tried to predict where it would
lead. It appeared to aim between two of the grizzled, rounded mountains that he
had been told acted almost as a bulwark for Zyronilxa. All he had to do was
make it through the mountains and he would be there.

There,
trees and a stream. Tough-looking bushes surrounded several copses of trees and
spread out from there, dotting the hills as far as he could see. The stream
flowed from his left to his right, cutting a channel under the road at the base
of the next hill; a bridge of strong planks spanned the stream, which was about
his body-length wide.

Leaving
the road, he jogged down the first hill and dropped to his knees in the cold
mud of the stream bank. He drank deeply, the crisp mountain water feeling like
a balm to his parched throat. He wished he had food, wished he’d had time to
find his bow or even find a fishing net in the village.

It
didn’t matter. He had eaten well recently; he would survive on the dinner Simra
had given him for a while longer. Lakhoni pushed himself to his feet and
trundled over to the nearest copse of trees. He dropped to the ground again,
sliding his bag under his neck, and fell asleep almost instantly.

He
awoke to the sound of raised voices. Heart hammering, he clenched himself into
a ball and tucked tighter into the bushes between him and the road. Judging by
the sun’s position and the heat, it had to be later afternoon. Feeling rested,
but with a hunger clawing at his insides like a jungle cat, he peered through
the bush branches. Had Mibli and his men come all this way to find him?

He
relaxed. This had to be one of the caravans the man in Simra’s village had
mentioned. Three heavy-looking wagons, each with four thick, roughly carved
wheels trundled down the road, just now passing his position. Clouds of dust
raised by the caravan drifted gently off the road, blown by the soft afternoon
breeze.

The
wagons were headed toward Zyronilxa, hauled along by the largest oxen Lakhoni
had ever seen. Their shoulders had to come up to his head, if not more! The
drivers had been the voices Lakhoni heard. One man walked along on each side of
the team of oxen, a long tool of some kind in their hands. It looked like a
whip, but the handle was longer and the leather part shorter.

Lakhoni
watched from his hiding place, pondering his options.
Maybe I should just go
out there and present myself to them. They wouldn’t have any reason to
disbelieve me, would they?
There was too much he didn’t know. Better to
observe for a moment.

As
he watched, the merchant caravan moved further down the road, slow-moving but
giving the impression of being unstoppable. Standing, Lakhoni examined the men
in the caravan. He needed to find the chief. Surely it wouldn’t be the men with
the ox teams. Perhaps one of the men sitting on the front benches of the
wagons.

Lakhoni
jogged down the slope of the hill, reaching the road quickly. The caravan was
maybe fifty paces ahead of him. Nobody had noticed him emerge from his hiding
place. He glanced to his right, down the road he had already traveled. Dark
shapes several hundred paces down the road might be people, but that was all he
saw. This was his chance.

He
caught up to the wagons quickly, pulling his shirt up to his face to shield
himself from the clouds of dust that grew thicker the nearer he got. He moved
to his left to try to get out of the dust.
What do I say?
Forcing the
worry away again, he cleared his throat, slowing to a walk as he came abreast
of the last wagon in the caravan.
Hello should work.

Strong
hands grabbed his shirt, pulling him roughly away. Suddenly he was on his back,
road rocks jabbing him.

“Back
off, boy.”

Blinking
and spitting dirt, Lakhoni tried to get a look at his attacker. A burly man
with leather breeches, boots, and no shirt loomed over him, his face a snarl.
“Thought to try to sneak up and steal some goods, did you?”

Lakhoni
pushed himself to his feet. “No! I wasn’t trying to steal.
I . . .” He thought fast. Not a good start. “I saw your caravan
and wanted to see if I could make a deal with you.” He looked around, seeing
that the caravan had continued, but another burly man was running toward him.
Of course. These men had to be guards.

The
first man must have been scouting off the road, where Lakhoni couldn’t see him.

“No
deal. Just keep your distance or it’s the brick fields,” the first guard said.

“Razo.”
The other guard came to a stop. “What’s going on?”

“This
pup was trying to steal. Thought he was sneaky.”

The
second guard turned to Lakhoni. “You alone?”

“What?”
Lakhoni knew he had to find a way out of this. He looked down, trying to buy
some time to think.

“He
hid in our dust most of the way. Not a very good scout if that’s what he is,”
the first guard, who had to be Razo, said. “I watched him the entire way. He
came out from behind some bushes back a ways.”

“I
wasn’t trying to steal!” Lakhoni said. “I was trying to talk to the man on the
wagon!”

“You
say that now,” the second guard said. He and Razo could have been twins. They were
exactly the same height and were both as broad as two normal men. But the
second guard had hair on only one side of his head, and it was very short. A
long scar ran from the top of the man’s scalp, down the left side of his face,
and continued on his chest.

“We
have no reason to believe you,” the second guard continued. “And we don’t care.
Stay away.” He pulled a glinting dagger from a sheath strapped to his waist.
Another metal weapon! “Or you won’t even make it to the brick fields.”

“No,
please,” Lakhoni said. He didn’t have to feign the desperation in his voice.
Why did things always go so completely wrong? “I’m not a thief. I’m not a
scout. I’m going to Zyronilxa, but I ran out of food and broke my bow.”

Razo
stepped closer to Lakhoni, producing a long dagger. Scar-scalp grabbed Razo’s
shoulder. “Razo, this is not the time for play.”

“I
just want to give the pup something to cry about to his mother,” Razo said, a
leer forming on his face. “Teach him to stop sneaking up on caravans.”

“It’s
not worth the time,” Scar-scalp said. “Let’s go.”

“Please,”
Lakhoni said. He stepped after them as they turned away. “I beg you. My village
is gone. My family killed. I just . . .” Calm. Center. Make it
real. “I’m hungry.”

The
guards ignored him and kept walking.

Steeling
himself for what would probably happen next, Lakhoni burst into a run. If the
guards wouldn’t listen, maybe he could get their chief’s attention. He ran past
the guards. They must have been taken by surprise, because he was well past
them before he heard their shouts.

Lakhoni
began shouting when he was twenty or so paces from the wagons. “Please let me
join you!” He sucked in dusty air, coughing it back out. “I’ll work for food!”
He glanced back. Razo and Scar-scalp were closing. He lowered his head and
pushed himself to run faster.

As
he reached the last wagon, he shouted again, feeling the guards right behind
him. “I’m not a thief!”

A
heavy body slammed into him, bearing him to the road again. The man felt like a
bag of rocks! Lakhoni squirmed, and tried to get away, shouting the entire
time. “Please! I want to work for you!”

He
saw that the guard pinning him was Scar-scalp. “I’m not a thief,” Lakhoni said,
spitting rocks and dirt. Air squeezed out of him. The man was heavy!

“Stupid
pup!” Scar-scalp said.

“Yed!”

Scar-scalp
looked up. Lakhoni craned his neck to try to see who had spoken. He couldn’t
see the man, but what he did see gave him hope. The wagon had stopped.

“Let
him up,” the voice said.

Lakhoni
looked back to Scar-scalp, noticing that Razo now stood behind Scar-scalp, his
dagger in his right hand.

Scar-scalp—the
voice had called him Yed—stood. He grabbed Lakhoni by an arm and yanked him to
his feet. For a moment, Lakhoni’s body left the earth. Then he was on his feet,
his bones jarred from the impact. Yed stood behind him, his rough hands
gripping Lakhoni’s arms tightly. Lakhoni coughed to clear his lungs and throat
of dirt and fear.

“Boy,”
the voice called. “Who are you?”

Lakhoni
blinked to clear his vision. “My name is Lakhoni.”

A
few seconds of silence passed, during which Lakhoni was finally able to focus
on the speaker. It was the man who Lakhoni had originally intended to hail, the
man sitting on the bench at the front of the last wagon. Lakhoni saw that the
other wagons had stopped. Two more guards had materialized too, one on each
side of the caravan.

“Swords,
boy, I didn’t ask your name,” the man on the wagon said. “I asked who you are.”
The man’s voice was high-pitched for a man. He wore his hair full, long, and
loose. It looked like a black waterfall streaming from his head. His clothes
were all shades of blue.

Lakhoni
pushed his thoughts into order. This had to work. “I’m an orphan. Raiders
destroyed my village and killed my family.” He glanced around, feeling Yed’s
grip on his upper arms grow tighter. He remembered something Gimno had taught
him.
I could break this grip.

“What
does this have to do with us?” The man on the wagon shifted slightly, turning
more to face Lakhoni.

Lakhoni
forced himself to look the man in the eyes. “I’ve been traveling to Zyronilxa.
I thought I could find work there.”

“Where
is this village of yours? This destroyed village?”

“Far
to the west. Nearer to the Wastes than to here.”