Perhaps a hundred paces from the road, trees began to thin out; the mulch of old leaves gave way to talus. Screams from the cat and shouts from a person reached Toril’s ears now. The ravine bent, exposing a rocky shelf jutting over a brook, and giving an open view of leagues of shadowed highlands.
He caught his breath.
Only a stone’s throw downhill, the lithe outline of a clouded leopard crouched near a gnarled pine. It was facing a man-shaped blur in the mist, and its teeth were bared.
A few paces to the right, the page knelt and pulled an arrow from his quiver.
Concerned about accuracy, Toril signaled him to wait. From the page’s angle, the leopard and the man would be almost indistinguishable. Instead, Toril fitted a stone to his sling.
Timing with care, he whipped his arm around and released, leaning into the motion to get more power. The projectile hummed out into the dimness. Almost simultaneously, the cat twitched, and the air was rent by a feral yowl.
He cursed under his breath. If he had hit his mark, the animal would be dead, not angry.
“Hey!” yelled the page, kicking gravel down the slope. “Up here!” He was hoping for some movement to give him a better shot, but the cat merely turned its head and laid its ears back.
“Maurozh!” Toril whispered. Death was a simple word he’d learned long ago. He waited until its bitterness swelled in his mouth, then spat on another stone and loosed it with a snake-strike motion of wrist and shoulder.
This time his aim was true, and the leopard slumped. Toril clambered down the shale, the page close behind.
As he drew closer, he could see that the figure on the far side of the leopard was small, juvenile even. “Move away. Now’s your chance!” he hissed. There was no response except a moan and some sluggish movement that rustled the pine.
This close, the sling could be quite lethal, but having used his two heaviest stones, Toril’s pouch now held only the pebbles he reserved for light game. Not wanting to bloody his staff, he turned to the page; in a moment feathers protruded from the cat’s neck and chest.
A new groan from the youthful shape refocused Toril’s attention. He stepped into the grayness downhill of the pine and knelt. It looked like a boy, maybe ten or eleven years old. “The cat is dead,” he began.
“Hands.”
Toril caught his breath. He had thought the boy was clinging to the trunk in terror, but now he could see coarse hemp binding his wrists. Slashes along the thigh of his britches were stained, and one arm bent at an odd angle between elbow and wrist. The eyes that met Toril’s gaze were adult and calm, even if clouded with pain.
“You’re osipi!” Toril exclaimed. He drew a knife and began to slice away the cords.
“Yes.”
So this was no child, whatever his years might be. He had the same kind of alertness, the same self-possessed maturity that his brother Amar had radiated years before.
The man’s chest was bare, his skin shiny with sweat. He was breathing hard.
“How long had it been after you?”
“Since the moon set.”
“That long? I wasn’t sure I’d heard anything till just a few moments ago.”
“It angered when I broke its ribs.”
“With your feet?” Toril asked in disbelief. Osipi were said to have the reflexes of a hummingbird, but it was hard to imagine anyone tied by his hands to a tree, keeping a hungry leopard at bay and inflicting damage with only heel and toes.
“Need sharpens the dullest blade,” the man quoted with a sigh. He sagged as the last of the ropes parted.
“You’ve lost some blood,” Toril said, eyeing the wound above his knee. “And I think your arm is broken.” Not for the first time, Toril lamented the limits and cost of healing magic. He could kill a cat or conjure an itch with the right word; why did restoring even a small amount of vitality to another’s body have to sap his own so deeply?
A breeze swayed the treetops, and the man began to shake. “I’m cold,” he murmured.
“I’ll make a fire.”
Toril turned to the page. “Run back to the horses and fetch the medicines in my pack. And some food.” It would be easier to take the man to the horses, but he didn’t want to make a fire on the road. The ravine provided better cover.
“Did brigands do this to you?” Toril asked. “Are we safe here?”
“Bandits have left the pass,” the man said, his teeth chattering. His eyes glazed for a moment, and he shivered abjectly. “I’m s- so c- cold.”
Toril took off his cloak and handed it to the osipi, then busied himself gathering pine needles and dry branches. A spark from flint and steel, augmented by a whispered incantation, conjured flame by the time the page returned with arms full. The stranger crawled to the fire and leaned close, stretching his uninjured arm into the waves of heat.
“I need to clean the gashes on your leg,” Toril said, rummaging in his saddlebags. “And straighten the bone in your arm.”
“Let me warm first.”
“It’s not that cold,” the page responded, offering a waterskin.
The stranger drank greedily. “I’m Oathizhi,” he gasped after a series of swallows. “Or just Oji, if you like.”
Like all of his race, his skin glinted gold, and his build was slim and wiry. His hair was short and ash black, with a clan insignia cut into one of his sideburns, and a spare mustache on his upper lip. He wore an ivona—a battle collar—of braided leather around his neck, but it contained none of the glass beads that indicated experience. His face suggested young adulthood.
Toril studied him with mixed feelings. He rejected the prejudice common among border folk. How could he not, knowing Amar? Yet Toril had to admit the osipi complicated life for everyone. They looked different. They spoke with a strange twang, when they weren’t using their secret sign language. And they wandered where they weren’t wanted.
But mostly, their differentness was disquieting. Bound by magic that they either chose or inherited, time ran faster through their veins than it did for ordinary people. Toril had felt it himself, for a few moments, on his naming day; he still remembered the strange explosion of senses, the dilation and connectedness, the intensity.
It was alien. Even if it had once kindled in his own heart. Even if his brother, Amar, had walked this path.
Osipi were constantly hungry. If they lived to old age, they died at twenty or thirty. They napped multiple times a day. Toril had heard that they could outrun horses over short distances.
They made fierce fighters, but they fatigued easily, and the churn of rearing children and new initiates left little time for aggression. It was a struggle just to feed a population with unnatural appetites. By the end of the winter rains, when they would tolerate weather in the north again, they had depleted their homelands of any easy game, and they pressed through Tirin Pass with gaunt faces and bows at the ready.
Osipi were tolerated because of shared genealogy. His parents had loved Amar when he went down into the water; how could they stop when he emerged, glinting?
But emotions were complicated. Besides regret at the loss of a common future, families and friends felt… betrayal, perhaps, or rejection. Was humanness not good enough for the osipi? How many other values did they see differently?
“How did you end up tied to a tree?” Toril asked, as he knelt with some of the salve he used on injured livestock. It stung bitterly, he knew, but Oji merely winced when it touched his leg.
“Agiruhir?” Oji asked.
Toril nodded. The herb was used to prevent gangrene. “You know of it?”
“I’m healer trained.”
“A healer with a battle collar?”
Oji gazed into the flames for a moment, then shrugged. “Rare combination, I grant you.”
“You have not fought much,” said Toril, gesturing to the unadorned leather.
Oji looked down and fingered it with a half smile on his face. “I’m not roostering my honor, you mean? This ivona holds tal
es.”
“Tell me.”
Oji leaned back until his shoulders touched gravel and lifted his crooked arm. “Set this first. I can’t think while it throbs. Besides, the break’s too old. I fear it healing wrong.”
Toril raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t break it in the fight with the cat?”
Oji shook his head. “Foot-step my shoulder. Grip my hand and pull. You must use strength, but do it steadily, so the muscle stretches.”
Soon, Oji’s face was pale and bathed in sweat, but the arm was straight. Toril hesitated, then gritted his teeth and whispered a quick incantation to alleviate the pain. It left him swaying on his feet, but he was pleased to see his new friend’s face relax.
He caught his breath, then began to apply a splint, using the cords that he’d cut from the pine to bind it in place. Oji’s wrists, he saw, were crisscrossed with deep, bloody chafes.
“Who tied you?”
“I came with ... a handful of others.”
“How many?” asked Toril quickly. The last thing he needed, when he was headed for debate with warmongers, was a large, organized band of ivona-wearing osipi on the road to Bakar.
Oji sighed. “Nineteen, besides me.”
“Also warriors?”
“All of them.”
Toril whistled. “They’ll run afoul of the Guard if they linger,” he warned.
“The Guard already caught us.” Oji’s voice was full of disgust. His eyes were closed—to avoid eye contact, Toril thought.
“Here? I didn’t see any signs of battle up on the road.”
Oji shook his head and sighed. “No, stonecaster. Guile snared us long ago. We came here at their bidding.”
“I don’t see what you mean.”
“My clan pacted Gorumim generations ago, when he was young. For years his promises brought us hope and prestige. But this spring he contacted us and asked a ... favor.” Oji spat the final word, his face full of revulsion.
Toril’s brow wrinkled. “What favor is that?” he asked, as he extended a hand with bafla and some dried tomatoes.
Now Oji met Toril’s gaze. “I cannot reveal it without dishonoring my clan,” he said. “Besides, why should I? I thank you for your help, but I don’t even know your name.”
Toril introduced himself and the page. “We are traveling to Bakar,” he added. “We could probably fit you on one of our horses, if you feel up to the ride. But we have to leave quickly.”
The osipi was wolfing down the food, but he swallowed and paused long enough to purse his lips. “Son of… Hasha, I’m guessing?”
Toril raised his eyebrows. “How did you get that?”
“You’re used to authority, and you travel with an escort, on a valuable horse. Your accent says either Kelun or Umora.”
“What do you know of my father?”
“I’ve never been to the Crown,” Oji said, using the osipi name for the circular ring of mountains around Kelun holdings. “But his name is familiar. Your clan has been kinder to my people than most.”
“We have no quarrel with you.”
“No. But you ride to a war council.”
Toril blinked. “How did you jump to that conclusion? I’ve said nothing about my business.”
Oji tore a piece of bread in half, chewed fast, cleared his mouth, and shrugged. “What should I make of a clan chief’s son, riding through the night? You carry little food, and no heavy gear, so Bakar must be your final destination. You hold a staff of authority, which puzzles me. You’ve no trade goods, and you’re not sneaking to a rendezvous with a woman if you’re taking a page.” He sniffed and smiled. “Although I can tell you were near a woman not long ago. I smell the perfume.”
Toril felt a flash of envy. He’d spent most of the night remembering the sensation of Malena’s lips yielding to his own; how would it be to capture her scent with such ease?
He eyed Oji. “Somehow I think there’s more to your guess than shrewd observation.”
There was a long silence, broken by the chatter of birds and the crackle of the fire. When Oji ran out of food, he sighed. “I know something of this council. You will see the rest of my band there. They will be Gorumim’s prisoners.”
“I thought you said they came at his request.”
“They did. But Gorumim will claim they were captured. He will invent some mischief to blame on them, and use it to inflame the clan chiefs.”
“Why would osipi consent to such a thing?” Toril said. “Surely you don’t want war.”
“I don’t, but Luim seems willing to act out the charade. I think his pact with Gorumim involves some quick end to whatever conflict arises, but when I demanded details, he got angry. Luim will not tolerate any challenge to his leadership.”
Luim? The man was a powerful osipi cacique; Toril had heard his name often. If he was among the band in custody, something big was afoot.
“I came thinking we were going to negotiate about the turmoil to the west. After we entered the pass, Luim announced our true purpose. I could not see how deceit would serve our cause, especially if we allowed ourselves to be blamed for violence we did not commit. I pled with him to reconsider—and when that failed, I appealed to the others. But they were dreams-caught. They want reward and glory, and Luim promised it to them in abundance. He said our people would see a permanent end to hunger and want if we’d just trust him.”
“If the southern clans go to war, thousands of osipi women and children will feel the sting. They are migrating back to Merukesh now that summer is ending.”
“I know. It’s madness. But when I said as much, Luim called me a traitor and told the others to shut me up. We fought. That’s how my arm broke. They tree-tied me to starve or freeze to death.”
6
sisters ~ Malena
Malena sat up, her half-finished yawn vanishing. Her eyelids, cracked the moment before, now stretched wide. What were these strange shutters streaming dawn?
Memories of the wedding feast flooded back. She caught sight of the daisy she had laid atop the chest beside her new bed, and sighed. Beyond the shutters, a pigeon cooed. She heard a flutter of wings as it dropped away from the roof.
Her fingers traced a seam in the muslin of her pillow while she waited for her heartbeat to slow. She felt like a stranger here. That would have to change.
Her eyes wandered across the tidy room. Last night, it had been yellowed by lamps; this morning, it was brighter, with gentler and bluer shadows. Yet the sense of—what? wholeness, blunt comfort?—remained. Her parents’ chambers at home—former home—abounded with embroidery and silk and expertly carved woodwork. Somehow, she liked the afghan and rocker better.
A man who lived in a space like this was the sort of man she could like.
Was that wishful thinking?
She padded barefoot across stone and knelt at the window to offer prayers. A dish in a corner of the sill held char from incense sticks; apparently she was not the only one who faced east each morning.
As she straightened a moment later, a soft clap sounded beyond the door.
Still in the gown she’d worn for sleep, she puffed some errant hair away from her forehead and cracked the door.
“Is he awake?” her younger sister hissed.
Malena found herself grinning. Of course Tupa wouldn’t have known that Toril was away on business. The audacity of the girl…
“He was called to a meeting,” she said. “He won’t be back all day.” She swung the door wide.
Tupa bounced in.
“What’s he like?” she asked sotto voce, as if soliciting scandalous gossip.
“He seems like a good person,” Malena said blandly. “But really, I’ve only had a few moments to talk to him.” Out of habit, she motioned her sister to a chair and reached for a brush. Tupa’s hair was always scraggly unless Malena attended to it.
Her fingers smoothed and straightened, adjusting as her sister’s head swiveled to study the room in each direction.
“He’s
not messy,” Tupa observed.
“No.”
“But that’s just the servants,” Tupa said, trying to sound knowing.
“Maybe.”
After a long silence, Tupa cleared her throat. “I’m scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
Tupa stared at the floor.
“What do you have to be scared of?” Malena prodded, keeping her voice as gentle as she could manage. “The trip home?”
Tupa shook her head. Malena waited.
“I’m going to be the only one at home now,” Tupa finally said. “I won’t have anyone to talk to.”
“We can still talk by Voice.”
Tupa hesitated. “And it won’t be long before I’m going to Erim’s.”
Malena stopped fussing with hair and put her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “Is that what’s got you worried? The fosterage?”
Tupa nodded.
“It is a bit of an adjustment to live in a home that’s different from where you grew up,” Malena acknowledged. “I remember being homesick for the first couple weeks. But it’s part of what got me ready to move here, I suppose. I’d be more timid if I hadn’t already learned some independence.”
“I don’t know anybody in Erim’s household,” Tupa said, her voice acquiring a quaver at the end of the sentence.
Malena sighed. “Do you trust Father to send you somewhere that you can be happy? Do you trust Mam?”
Tupa’s face grew even more troubled.
“All right,” Malena said, putting her palms on Tupa’s cheeks and resting her chin on the crown of her sister’s head. “Do you trust me?”
In the looking glass beside the bed, Malena watched her sister’s lip quiver. She bent down and gave her sister a long, heartfelt hug. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
Tupa sniffled. “I’m going to be so lonely. Even before I leave, home will be empty without you. And once I leave, I don’t know if I can stand it. I won’t have anybody.”
“Maybe I can visit you,” Malena suggested.
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