“We need transportation to Veldwaite across the Plains of Grass,” Lorit said. “I want to purchase a team and a wagon to carry us there.”
The serving girl laughed. “You don’t take a wagon across the Plains. You need a sled and a pair of lizards,” she explained. “Fortunately for you, I have an uncle who owns a livery down the way. His name is Kinem. He’s an honest man and can outfit you properly at a reasonable price,” she added with a wink.
“We look forward to meeting him,” Lorit said.
“I’ll send a boy to fetch him. He should be able to make time to meet with you tonight,” she said, departing to get their drinks. She called over her shoulder, “My name is Hois. Just call for me if you need anything else.”
“Lizards?” Lorit asked. “Did you know they used lizards to cross the Plains?” Lorit thought he was well educated for a farm boy, but he’d never heard of the lizards. Everyone knew the Plains were covered in sharp grass, but he thought it was an exaggeration.
“I knew that the travel across the Plains was unconventional, but I never heard why,” Chihon answered him. “Now we know.”
The serving girl returned with their ale. “Something to eat?” she inquired.
Chihon looked up at her and asked, “What’s the fare tonight?”
“We have an excellent carved roast,” Hois said, licking her lips. “The proprietor came across a particularly lean cut of meat. He’s had it roasting all day. It’s better than most of the usual fare. We also have roast fowl, and fresh fish.”
“How much for the meat and does it come with bread?” Lorit asked. He was hungry from the treatment on the ship. He was eager to make a meal of something other than dry bread and fish.
“Three silvers for the two of you, and a fresh loaf of dark bread. Butter comes with it, and gravy,” she added hastily.
“We’ll take that,” Lorit said. He took three silvers and laid them on the table in front of him, to show he could pay. He covered them with his hand, to indicate that she would get the coins when the food arrived.
“Be just a moment,” Hois said, turning and heading for the kitchen.
A man dressed in black leather seated himself across from Lorit. He extended his hand, “Honynt is the name. I couldn’t help but overhear that you were in the market for a pair of lizards, and a sled. I know Kinem,” he said, shaking his head. “A nice man, to be sure, but he just can’t get the quality of livestock I trade in.
“It takes a special breed of lizard to make it across the Plains this early in the year. Your regular hauler is too cold blooded. They spend too much time asleep, and not enough hauling.” He illustrated his words with his hand running through the air as if it were a sled skimming along.
“Where is your livery?” Lorit asked him.
“I’m new in town,” Honynt replied. “I’m trying to establish myself here and can offer you a great deal. Something no one else in town can afford to offer. I’ve just made a purchase, and I’m overstocked so I have to unload my excess quickly,” he smiled at Lorit. “Today is your lucky day.”
Lorit could sense that the man was fabricating his story. “You said you were new in town? How long have you been here?” he pressed. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve only just arrived here, just as you have. I came across from Watock just a few weeks ago, on a cargo ship, just me and my stock.”
“And here you are, overstocked already.” Lorit leaned in toward the man. “I don’t trust you. Please leave us alone, so we can eat in peace.”
The serving girl came out of the kitchen with the tray and saw the man across from Lorit. She carefully avoided him and eased the tray onto the edge of the table, in front of Chihon. She backed away watching Lorit and the stranger.
“Don’t be that way, friend,” Honynt said, emphasizing the word ‘friend’. “We can still do some business. He opened his leather jacket to expose a long skinning knife. He looked at Lorit. “There’s always some sort of business to be had.”
Lorit slowly reached for his staff. He placed his hand on it and leaned even further into the man. “I asked you nicely to leave us alone,” he repeated. “Please don’t make a scene.”
Honynt quickly stood, reaching for the knife. As he started to move, Lorit shoved his staff between the man’s feet and twisted it. Honynt fell to the floor with a whuff, rolling to avoid landing on his own knife. Before he could get his bearings, Lorit stood over him, staff in hand.
Lorit jabbed at him with his staff, delivering quick successive blows to key areas of the man’s body. Honynt screamed in pain and rolled into a tight ball, trying to protect himself from Lorit’s staff.
“Do you yield?” Lorit shouted as he jabbed repeatedly at the man.
“I yield,” Honynt said.
“Your oath?” Lorit demanded.
“On my mother’s grave,” Honynt said, cringing from the anticipated blow.
“Slide your knife across the floor,” Lorit demanded. “Then get up and get out of here.”
Honynt retrieved his knife and slid it across the floor. Chihon caught it with her foot and picked it up. He stood with the aid of the table and headed unsteadily towards the door.
“That was quite brave, sir,” Hois said. “You are very quick with the staff.”
“I used to be a kine herder,” Lorit said. “I learned how to deal with wolves when I was still young.”
Lorit took his seat as Hois handed out the food. He slid the silvers across the table to her, and she disappeared into the kitchen once again.
Chihon looked at him with a questioning look. “Your staff?” she asked.
“I don’t want to attract attention,” Lorit said as he helped himself to the roast. It was quite tasty, seasoned with a few seasonings he didn’t recognize, but quite enjoyable. “Try the roast,” he said to Chihon. “It’s very good.”
“But your staff?” she asked again.
“I carried a staff on the farm,” Lorit said. “Gareb taught me a few nice moves with the staff as part of my training.
”
Kinem arrived just as they were finishing the meal. He was a large man with short cropped gray hair and a large mustache of the same color. He wore an apron of scaled leather, over a coarse shirt and trousers. His hands were large and calloused from hard work.
Hois introduced him, “My Uncle Kinem,” she said, putting her arm around the large man. “He runs the livery just down the street.” She guided him to the seat across from Lorit where previously Honynt had sat.
He placed his hands on the table in front of him and casually pointed at Lorit’s cup of ale, then looked up at Hois. The girl nodded and scurried off to the kitchen. She quickly returned with a cup of ale for Kinem. He fished in his pocket and tossed her a few coppers.
“I understand you’re looking for a team,” he said. “Headed across the Plains of Grass, are you?” He looked first at Lorit, then Chihon, sizing them up, not as one would size up a mark, but getting the measure of them.
“Yes,” Lorit said. “We’re headed for Veldwaite.”
“That’s quite a haul this early in the season,” Kinem said. “You’re going to need a team that can handle the cold or you’ll spend all day getting the lizards warmed up enough to walk.”
“I don’t know very much about lizards,” Lorit explained. He shrugged his ignorance. “I didn’t even know they were used to get across the Plains. I always assumed we could make the crossing on a horse,” he added, waving his arm to show the expanse of the journey ahead of them.
“The grass would slice a horse’s belly to bits before you got half a day’s walk from here,” Kinem said. He took a drink from his cup and set it carefully back on the table. “Lizards,” he continued to explain. “They don’t mind the grass. They’re built for it. They can walk in it all day.”
“Is that the reason for the sled?” Lorit asked.
“That’s right. Without the iron-bottomed sled, you’d slice through anything wood in a day, and be left with a pile of kindling,” Kinem explained. “That grass is sharp and dangerous.”
“What inhabits the grass?” Lorit asked. He took a careful drink from his glass of ale, nursing it while they talked.
“Lizards, and what they eat, mostly,” Kinem said. He gestured with his palms up. “I don’t rightly know what lives in there, but it don’t usually worry too many folk. We get a lot of trade through there, and no one’s ever had much trouble.”
“I am glad to have your advice,” Lorit told him. “When can we have a look at this team?”
“Come by in the morning. I can get a good team and sled together. You have your provisions prepared?”
“Not yet,” Lorit said, “We’ve only just arrived.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can have your provisions ready for you. My brother runs a chandlery and has all of the supplies you’ll need to make it across.” He rose and bowed to Chihon, then Lorit in succession. “Until tomorrow, then, Lady,” he said, “Gentleman.”
“Until tomorrow, then,” Lorit said.
Lorit and Chihon arrived at the livery early in the morning, just as the smoke from the chimneys was reaching into the cold morning air. When they entered the livery office, Kinem was seated at a table near the entrance. Hois was busy setting out cups around a steaming hot pot of dark tea.
“Come on in,” Hois said. “You’re just in time for tea.” She pulled a chair out and gestured to it, before she disappeared into a side room, quickly to return with a plate of bread and cheese. She placed it on the table next to the steaming teapot.
She dragged out a chair with her foot and sat down, reaching for a plate and napkin.
“Welcome,” she said. “Please,” she gestured to the food and tea, “help yourselves.”
Kinem laughed and patted Hois on the shoulder. “She doesn’t think we should do business on an empty stomach. She looked after me since my wife passed a few years back. Like the daughter I never had.”
“We do appreciate the breakfast,” Chihon said. She helped herself to a cup of tea and one of the biscuits. “We had planned to get something on our way out of town.”
“Not after what you did last night,” Hois said. “That Honynt’s trouble. He tries to swindle every newcomer in town. He’s always after Kinem’s customers. It’s high time someone finally put him in his place.”
“It was nothing,” Lorit said. “There was just something about him that I didn’t trust. When he decided to rob us instead of sell to us, it was all I could bear.”
“Well, you have my gratitude either way,” Hois said.
Kinem reached beside his chair and pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment. He cleared a space on the table before him and spread it out. It contained a map showing the Freshen Sea and the lands all the way to Quineshua. He traced a route for them with his finger.
“If you follow this route, you should be to the foot of the Swion Mountains in about two weeks,” he explained. “There are faster routes there, but they're a lot harder on the team and your bodies than this one.”
Lorit looked over the map. “How do you navigate across the Plains without any real landmarks?” he asked, indicating the large flat expanse on the map.
Kinem smiled at Lorit. “How good did your ma teach you numbers?”
“I am passing with numbers,” Lorit said. He looked at Chihon who was leaning forward, looking intently at the map.
“I’m very good with numbers,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
Kinem glanced over at Hois. “Go get them a transit sight,” he asked.
“What’s a transit sight?” Lorit asked.
“You use it to figure out where you are,” he said. “He lifted a finger, tracing along a curved line on the map. The thin line had sets of numbers printed along its arc. There were several sets of these lines overlapping and intersecting in a bizarre pattern that Lorit could not fathom.
Hois came back with a brass instrument that looked like a spy glass with a large arched base. The base had two sliding markers that could be positioned along its circumference. Kinem twisted each of them and moved them around the arc.
“You take a fix on several peaks. Once you know how far apart the peaks appear, you can calculate where you are on this map. It takes a little effort to learn how to do the figuring, but it’s not all that bad once you get used to it,” he explained. “Ships at sea use the stars to get their fix. On the Plains, you use the peaks of the Swion Mountains instead of the stars.”
Lorit looked over at Chihon helplessly. She leaned in to take a closer look at the map. “Show me how you do it,” she said. “I think I see what you’re talking about.”
Hois stood and shoved her chair back under the table. “Come on,” she said to Lorit. “It’s time to look over the team and sled. They’ll be a while, explaining. If you don’t have a head for numbers, this won’t make any sense anyway.”
Lorit stood and followed her into the barn. “I think you’re right,” he said.
The first thing he saw in the barn was a long row of stanchions, each with the head of a lizard trapped inside. They munched silently at the fodder placed before them, a heavy green grass as thick as Lorit’s wrist. He reached for some of the grass, to examine it, but before he could touch it, Hois grabbed his arm.
“That’s Plains Grass,” she said. “You have to be very careful, or it’ll slice you open. You get cut with Plains Grass, and you don’t stop bleeding until you’re all bled out. It has some kind of sap that keeps the blood flowing,” she explained.
“Doesn’t seem to bother the lizards,” Lorit observed.
“They’re born to it.”
Lorit examined one of the lizards closely. Their large, powerful jaws munched lazily at the razor sharp grass. Just behind their jaws, heavy gold rings pierced the cheeks on both sides of their scaly green heads.
“What’re these for?” Lorit asked, pointing one of them out to Hois.
“Those are the guides,” she said, indicating a fine brass chain hanging near one of the stalls. It had clips on either end that would snap into the rings. It was used to control the lizards like a bridle on a horse.
“You can’t put a bit and bridle on a lizard. They’re too strong. They could bite through one easily. The rings in their cheeks work just as well. They’re pretty sensitive there, and guide more easily than a horse, once you get used to it,” she explained.
“Come on down this way,” Hois indicated the rear of the barns. “We have a fine sled ready for you. You’ll love this.”