by Joe Jackson
“But none of his people try to collect it?” Danilynn asked.
“As I said, most of them here do not respect him. He is not a good king to his people by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Why haven’t you just gone to Anthraxis and tried to find a way home?” Kari asked.
“I have been to Anthraxis before, but no one has ever been willing to help me get back home,” he answered. “The Overking watches anyone who can go back and forth between worlds very closely, so those who try to help our kind escape Mehr’Durillia are typically rooted out and killed. I spent some time in Anthraxis, but it is not a very pleasant place to live, so I returned here in the hopes I might find some others of my kin still stuck here, as I am.”
“But no luck so far?” Danilynn asked rhetorically.
“You are the first ‘familiar’ faces I have seen in years,” he said. “I have searched this realm from one end to the other, listening for rumors or gossip about elven prisoners or slaves, but I have heard nothing with respect to my kin. I believe I am the last survivor. Which brings me back to why you are here, and how you plan to get home if you came here by choice?”
“We have a contact in Anthraxis that’s going to take us back to Citaria,” Kari said, sitting up straight and meeting Shefter’s eyes. “If you can get us safely back to Anthraxis, she can take you home, too.”
“We are but scant days from the border of Tess’Vorg,” he mused aloud. “King Emanitar is one of the more trustworthy kings, if you have not already learned that yourself. We should be able to cross his realm and reach Anthraxis easily, as long as we avoid notice here – which is where my specialties should serve you well. I have already put considerable work into hiding your tracks, and setting false ones. Now that we have a lead on your pursuers, we must make our way to Tess’Vorg and Anthraxis with all due haste.”
“We need to make a stop in Pataria on the way, though,” Kari said, drawing interested looks from everyone except Se’sasha. “I made a promise to a woman there, and I intend to keep that promise.”
Sonja began to cry lightly, but she got herself under control quickly, especially once Danilynn put her hand on the sorceress’ shoulder. Shefter was clearly at a loss, but Kari simply told him she’d explain later. With the bird nearly fully cooked, they started preparing to have an actual hot meal, and Se’sasha looked eager to get real meat into her belly. Shefter started to serve everyone their portion, and while he handed out the food, he told Kari and her friends a little bit about the travel ahead. It sounded like it would be straightforward enough, and he even suggested that they could stop in a small town in the southeast of Si’Dorra without worry. He was certain the trackers wouldn’t expect them to go there, and the people weren’t loyal to Arku.
Dinner passed with some quiet introductory chatter amongst the rir women and their new elven companion. Kari explained that she had met Shefter in her prior life, and that the elven ranger had been one of several to help teach her some of the elven peoples’ ways. His primary contribution to Kari’s education had been tracking and hunting, naturally, and they had shared a mutual respect as teacher and student. In return for his tutelage in the ways of the elves, Kari had taught him some of her swordplay expertise, which, he explained, eventually led to him being named to the Arborean Guard’s highest order.
They took turns keeping watch, and with the rising of the sun, Shefter set them out toward the east. He seemed less concerned with the prospects of discovery or capture, even right along the bluff that marked the border between realms, as with leaving false trails. Kari deferred to his judgment, given that he had survived more than three years in Si’Dorra and Mehr’Durillia in general. That proved a wise decision, as he led them around obstacles and the occasional dwelling without issue, and several days passed free of incident. He checked often for signs of pursuit, but he was doing a more than adequate job of throwing their trackers off the trail.
The weeks on the road were beginning to grind on Kari well beyond the soreness of pregnancy and travel, though, and she had to laugh at herself. There’d been a time when being on the road for weeks was her normal routine, traveling across Terrassia again and again in her prior life. Now she had gotten so accustomed to bathing all the time and sharing a warm bed with her mate every night that traveling felt alien to her. She shook off the feelings and tried to keep her focus on aiding Shefter in scouting the forest, and getting home safely.
Shefter halted the group in the later afternoon of their fourth day traveling with him, and Kari understood why before he even said anything. Kari wrinkled her nose and Shefter nodded, but Sonja and Danilynn still didn’t seem to understand. “We’re getting close to a town,” Kari said, glancing northeast into the wind. “You can smell the sewage and the garbage…not far off that way. Shefter, is this the town you said it might be safe to stop in?”
“The additional risk would seem minimal,” the ranger said with the barest of nods. “The people are less and less loyal the farther you get from Arku’s stronghold. They have little reason to believe we would be wanted by King Arku, and even if they thought so, I find it unlikely they would do anything to aid him. With this town’s proximity to Tess’Vorg, I would assume they are not particularly fond of their king.”
Sonja didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Are we anywhere near Curlamanx’ holdings?”
“We are currently in Curlamanx’ holding,” Shefter answered. “How exactly do you know the duke?”
“My siblings and I bested him during the Apocalypse, and forced him to flee back here,” Sonja answered. “If this is his duchy, we should probably just keep moving.”
“It would seem unlikely that he would be looking for you here,” Shefter returned. “If anything, King Arku is looking for Kari, and possibly this syrinthian girl, though I suspect it is also possible he is currently sparring with King Sekassus over the incident when you crossed the border.”
Sonja shrugged away her anxiousness. “If you think it’s safe, I’ll trust your instincts.”
“Frankly, my back is telling me that sleeping in a bed again will be a welcome change,” Danilynn said, and she turned a wry smile toward Kari. “It’s been too many years since we camped out in the mountains, it would seem.”
Kari chuckled but didn’t bother explaining what Danilynn meant to their elven guide. She set her feet to follow Shefter again, thinking about the possibilities of a bath and a drink to warm her blood. Just a bed, as Danilynn said, would be a welcome change. It was possible they might be refused service by the inhabitants of the town, but Kari had the sack of marks that Amastri had given her, and she had to hope that the currency would be sufficient to overrule the fact that they were outsiders. The biggest possibility of trouble lay in the people of the town telling their king that Kari and her friends were there or had passed through, and that seemed highly unlikely.
They agreed to take the risk, and Shefter led them toward the village. In all honesty, it didn’t smell that bad, but the presence of concentrated waste made it easily identifiable among the more natural scents of the woodlands. The town was barely that: more of a central market and meeting place for those who lived in the nearby woods. From her initial glance, Kari could see what looked to be a general goods store, an open marketplace, an inn, a blacksmith, and a meeting hall. The wide street was dry but had the ruts and track-marks that said it was quite often muddy, and there was a dredged-out ditch that served as a gutter running down the slope toward the south.
There were a fair number of beshathans in the town, with the greatest concentrations being elestram and mallasti. Kari wondered what realms the valirasi, harmauths, and even sylinths were more prominent in, other than Sorelizar for the last of those. There were a few erestram here and there, and the ten-foot-tall wolf creatures stood out among their shorter peers. A couple wore armor and carried the long war scythes that were common among the lupine demons, and Kari assumed they might be town guards. The blacksmith was also erestram, and was busily h
ammering away at tools and other metal bits.
“We should not dally here,” Shefter said. “Let us find rooms at the inn, and restock our rations and travel supplies. The less time we spend on the streets, the better.”
“Agreed,” Kari said, and she turned to her friends. “Why don’t you two take Se’sasha and head to the inn, and see if you can get us two rooms? You two can pair up, and Se’sasha, Shefter, and I can share the other room. Or he can get his own, if he prefers.” The elf nodded to this last suggestion, probably out of modesty, Kari thought. “Better that no one’s sleeping alone, but if you don’t mind, Shefter, that’s up to you. In the meantime, we’ll head to the market and get some fresh meat and some other hard rations for the road.”
Sonja and Danilynn agreed, so Kari split off a fair portion of the marks to let them go with Se’sasha to secure rooms for the night. The market wasn’t far from the inn, so they didn’t have to split up too soon. Kari gave Shefter the sack of marks to do business, since he knew the infernal tongue, and Kari wasn’t sure whether or not the people here spoke any of the languages she did. The elven ranger took the coins and headed straight for one of the stands with fresh game. Kari looked the selection over: it was mostly birds, but there was what appeared to be some venison as well, and the merchant also displayed a fair amount of jerky. Shefter began to haggle with the merchant, a narrow-eyed elestram who looked like a shrewd businessman.
Kari turned away from the haggling and looked out over the town. Late in the afternoon, there were a fair number of people walking the streets, particularly near the market, and Kari assumed many were purchasing food for their dinner. She wondered where the farms were, as there were fruit and vegetable stands among the stalls as well. Kari had always assumed the demons were carnivores, but again, here they were buying and selling fruits and vegetables, so she had to believe that wasn’t the case. Somewhere nearby, they had to be running farms to keep their kind fed; hunting alone couldn’t sustain their populations for long, and the myth that they went to Citaria to capture people as food wasn’t exactly supported by evidence – or logic.
A flash of yellow caught Kari’s eye as she scanned the marketplace, and she saw the slit-pupiled golden eyes of a syrinthian through the throng. It was the one thing she was absolutely dreading seeing here in the town, and she tried to peer through or around the crowd to gauge if the syrinthian was looking her way. She almost growled in agitation: the people kept walking into her line of sight, and the syrinthian – if they were even watching Kari – was wisely standing on the far side of the road, using the cover as best they could. And then Kari’s eyes went wide and her ears angled back when she got her first good glimpse of the snake-person.
It was Turillia again.
Only sheer willpower kept Kari’s hands from the hilts of her swords, but she straightened out and tried to get a better view of the half-syrinthian, half-succubus assassin. The eyes, the hair, the wings, even the armor were an exact match of the woman Kari had killed just a couple of months before in Barcon. How the half-demon woman was still alive – even her mother thought she was dead, it seemed – or had tracked Kari to this place, she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of, however, was that Turillia’s presence meant nothing good, and whether they stayed in town or took back to the woods, she and her companions were in great danger.
“What alarms you?” Shefter asked.
Kari turned her head only briefly, but that was all it took for the assassin to disappear, even among the somewhat meager gathering of people in the marketplace. Kari started to reply, but then she cast a glance over her shoulder at the elestram merchant. She wasn’t sure he could understand her language, but she didn’t want to take the chance and say something that might be repeated in the market square. Ultimately, she shook her head and gestured to the inn. With a nod, Shefter finished up their purchases and walked with Kari toward the building.
The inside was dim and quiet, only a few beshathans seated here and there throughout the tiny common room. Kari looked from face to face, but the people here were all elestram. Sonja appeared at the top of a rickety wooden staircase and gestured for Kari and Shefter to come up. If Turillia had come into the inn, she’d done so quietly and found a spot to hide. Kari gestured for Shefter to go up the stairs first, and she followed behind with her hands low near the hilts of her swords. She wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of fighting a half-demon in an inn in the underworld, but she reminded herself that she had beaten Turillia once, and would do so again if the situation demanded it, their location be damned.
Sonja led them to a large room on the upper floor with a bathtub in it. Danilynn was in the tub naked, and Shefter balked when he saw the priestess splashing around in the water. The elf immediately took a seat facing away from the bathtub, next to Se’sasha, who was doing the same. Kari closed and latched the door behind her. She immediately went to the large, wide windows on the far side of the room. They didn’t open, but that didn’t ease Kari’s spirits at all: they could always be smashed. If they opened, they would likely at least have shutters. Kari stood at the window and tried to get a glimpse of the market square and any sign of Turillia, but it was no use from here.
“Everything all right?” Sonja asked.
“Yes, something alarmed you when we were in the marketplace; what was it, my friend?” Shefter added.
“I saw Turillia again, down in the marketplace,” Kari said.
“But didn’t her mother come after you because she thought Turillia was dead?” Danilynn asked. She hung her arms over the edge of the tub and stretched her back in the steamy water, but she kept her curious blue-eyed gaze upon Kari.
“Yes, but…I don’t know how she’s still alive, but unless she has a twin, it’s her. Right down to the eyes, the hair, the armor, the swords…I swear, it’s her,” Kari said, looking back down toward the market again. “She looked right at me across the marketplace, and when I looked away for a second, she was gone.”
“You were looking at her across a street full of people, in the waning afternoon, with no clear line of sight,” Shefter said. “It is possible you simply saw a syrinthian; they are not all that uncommon this close to the border. Perhaps you are looking for trouble where it does not exist. We will remain vigilant, but come, take off your clothes and get in the tub with your friend. A hot bath will likely help relieve some of the stress you are under.”
Kari chuckled that he was telling her to get naked and in the tub when he wouldn’t even look in their direction, but she couldn’t argue with the last of his words. She stripped down quickly and piled her armor and padded clothes near the wardrobe. Her undergarments came off last and were added to the pile, and she resolved to wash everything once her companions were bathed. Kari climbed into the tub with Danilynn and found there was plenty of room for both of them: the tub was large enough for erestram to use if necessary. Sonja took a brush and began washing Kari’s wings from outside the tub, and Kari in turn washed Danilynn’s back and hair.
“You know, we have to do this some time when we’re not in mortal danger,” Sonja said, the first trace of humor Kari had heard from her since Uldriana’s death.
Kari started laughing, as did Danilynn. It did seem weird to the demonhunter to be sharing a bath with her sister-in-law and a female friend in the underworld. Kari looked to see what Shefter thought of the situation, but he still kept his back turned to them, busying himself with taking in the pictures on the wall and the pattern of the wooden planks. Kari tried not to waste too much time having fun in the tub with others waiting. Once she’d done a good enough job lathering Danilynn’s hair with soap and giving the fures-rir woman’s back a good scrubbing, Kari set to washing herself. She got cleaned up in a few minutes’ time, and lathered up her own hair and let it settle on her scalp. With her hair soaped up, Kari rose and sat on the edge to make room for Sonja, who wasted little time getting in the steamy tub.
Sonja began washing with help from her two companions. Kari washe
d her sister-in-law’s wings and back in return, and their priestess friend washed Sonja’s long red hair. Once Sonja’s back and wings were done, Kari plunged her own head underwater and rinsed the soap from her hair. She stepped from the tub and Shefter handed her a towel without looking, and Kari began to dry herself off. She smelled good again, and could hardly wait to wash her undergarments and padded clothes so she’d stay that way for a little while, at least.
Kari sat on the edge of the bed to let the air finish drying her off. Danilynn soon joined her, and then Sonja not long after that. Shefter, unsurprisingly, declined the offer to take a bath in front of a room full of women. Se’sasha seemed hesitant, but at last she took off her robe and stepped into the tub. Kari was surprised to get her first glimpse of a nude syrinthian, and based on Se’sasha’s hesitation, Kari assumed nudity was taboo among the snake-folk, as it was among the humans. She tried not to stare too long, but her curiosity did get the better of her at first, as she took in the sight of the reptilian girl’s nippled breasts and pubic hair. It seemed the syrinthians were a lot closer in form to humans than Kari had thought, despite their serpentine nature. It was a pleasant surprise, all things considered.
When Se’sasha emerged and wrapped herself in a long, thick towel, Kari and her friends did their best to give her some privacy. The girl’s body looked horrible, and it was clear she had been fed just enough to keep her alive. That brought something to mind, and Kari turned and asked Danilynn, “How did Sekassus expect her to have a baby when she looks like she’s barely eaten enough to stay alive?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” Danilynn answered with a shrug. “Remember that everything we think we know about King Sekassus’ plans was gained secondhand.”
“Good point,” Kari agreed.
Kari spent a little while cleaning her clothes and her armor, and her companions did the same. They shared a chicken and garlic stew from the common room once they were all washed and dressed, and found the food savory and quite thick. The stay at the inn proved a welcome and much-needed break from the rigors of the road, and the women enjoyed it as much as they could without letting their guard down. Sonja and Danilynn retired to their room before the night got too old, Shefter went to his, and Se’sasha and Kari went to theirs in turn.