by Ginn Hale
“I should bring the tahldi in under the cover of the bridge,” John said. Ravishan glanced up at him and John offered him a brief smile.
“I’ll be right back.” John ducked out of the shelter and strode out from beneath the deep shadows of the bridge. Snowflakes poured down on him like falling autumn leaves. John could only see a few feet ahead of him. The banks of the stream were a faint gray shadow. Beyond that he could barely see the familiar stands of evergreens.
Only they were not so familiar.
John frowned at a line of dark forms amid the trees. They had not been there a few minutes before. Slowly, he deciphered the bulky shapes through the downpour of snow. They were men—men dressed in heavy coats and armed with rifles. At least a dozen snow-shrouded silhouettes lined the banks of the stream.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
John counted twenty-six of them. They weren’t rashan’im. None of them wore uniforms. They were dressed in a variety of bulky coats, thick gloves, and quilted leather pants. Their faces were hidden under snow-caked hoods, scarves, and caps. John might have mistaken them for a large hunting party of villagers, except for their weapons.
No farmer or herder could afford a rifle. Some of these men carried two. The three men closest to John held their rifles ready. The dull silver barrels were not aimed directly at John but close enough to unnerve him.
He wondered if he could survive being shot. He doubted Ravishan would, though he’d be impossible to hit if he were in the Gray Space.
John lifted his arms to display his empty hands.
“I wasn’t really expecting company.” John raised his voice so that it would not only carry to the long line of men but also to Ravishan. “I’d invite you in, but there’s definitely not enough room for all twenty-six of you.”
John felt the cutting chill of the Gray Space slicing open. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he detected the slight distortion of Ravishan’s movements through the Gray Space. Ravishan placed himself between John and the men on the banks.
The man closest to John suddenly shouldered his rifle and pulled back the hood of his coat. The wind caught his bright auburn hair and blew it back from his face. He smiled. Despite the haze of falling snow, John recognized him.
“Jahn!” Saimura bounded down the bank of the stream. His broad snowshoes made his progress look awkward, but he moved quickly.
If Saimura was with them, then these men had to be members of the Fai’daum. He wondered if that was good or bad. Better than being found by bounty hunters, John guessed. But he wasn’t sure how welcoming the Fai’daum would be of Ravishan.
Saimura rushed through the space where Ravishan stood. To John’s surprise, Saimura threw his arms around him and hugged him fiercely.
“You survived the blood market! I feared you were captured and killed.” Saimura turned back to the other men. “This is Jahn, the man who rescued Sheb’yu and me from the Payshmura at Amura’taye!”
The men closest to John shouldered their rifles. Those farther away relaxed. John noticed several of them glancing towards him and then turning to speak among themselves. The white plumes of their breath floated up into the falling snow.
Two of the men climbed down the stream banks and joined Saimura. The bigger of the two sported a huge, bushy black beard. He looked about forty with deep wrinkles lining his dark eyes. The second wasn’t a man at all. Her heavy coat had disguised the curves of her body. Her hair was brown and cut short like a boy’s. But up close her face and build were obviously those of a young woman.
“Jahn, this is Lafi’shir. He’s one of our ground commanders.” Saimura indicated the burly man.
“It’s an honor.” John bowed slightly. He had no idea how highly ranked ground commanders were, but it was more of a title than he had himself.
“And this is Gin’yu.” Saimura held his hand out to indicate the woman. “She’s a scout captain.”
Again John bowed.
Gin’yu glanced past John to the shelter under the bridge.
“We heard voices when we approached,” Gin’yu said. “Is there someone with you?”
“With me? No. You probably just heard me arguing with my tahldi.” John gestured to where the tahldi stood beneath a stand of trees, chewing.
Gin’yu frowned.
“It sounded like two men.”
“No, it’s just me here.” John shrugged. “Feel free to look inside the shelter if you like.”
“I’m sure that there’s no need,” Saimura began, but Gin’yu stalked past him to the flimsy shelter and ducked inside it. Saimura’s face flushed slightly.
“I’m sorry, Jahn. Gin’yu is suspicious of her own shadow.”
“I don’t mind,” John replied.
“She’s just doing her work,” Lafi’shir said. “It’s best if she’s sure.”
“Of course.” John knew Gin’yu wouldn’t find Ravishan. But his tracks were another matter. John glanced again to where the tahldi stood.
“Do you mind if I go and check on my tahldi?” John asked. “It was what I came out here to do in the first place. I feel a little bad for shouting at him so much.”
Lafi’shir studied the distance between where they stood and the tahldi. John suspected that he was measuring it for a rifle shot.
“Go ahead,” Lafi’shir allowed at last.
John clambered up the bank and tromped through the snow, making sure to walk over Ravishan’s old tracks. He stopped beside the tahldi and patted the animal. It lifted its head, sniffed John’s face, and then returned to eating.
Gin’yu emerged from under the bridge. She spoke briefly with Lafi’shir and Saimura. Then she climbed up the far bank of the stream. She made several fast hand signs to the assembled Fai’daum members. They fell into a single file line and silently followed Gin’yu west into the cover of the forest.
John wondered where they were going.
Then Saimura struggled up the near bank and jogged to John’s side. He looked pleased, which John took as a good sign.
“Gin’yu is going ahead of us to secure our route,” Saimura said.
“Oh?” A little wave of anxiety washed through John at Saimura’s use of the words ‘us’ and ‘our’.
Saimura nodded. He glanced back at Lafi’shir. John noted the quick exchange of gestures that passed between them. Lafi’shir clambered up the bank but didn’t approach John and Saimura. Instead he joined the remaining fifteen Fai’daum members. One of them offered Lafi’shir a cigarette. He accepted. Several of the Fai’daum produced cigarettes of their own. They passed a small tinderbox between them, lighting their cigarettes and warming their fingers.
“We came out here because of this storm,” Saimura said quietly.
“Bad weather normally keeps people in,” John commented.
“Normally, yes.” Saimura cocked his head slightly at John, his expression openly curious. “Were you hoping to keep someone away?”
“What do you mean?” Again John felt a wave of anxiety.
“I know that this storm isn’t natural.” Saimura kept his voice low. “I’ve spent three days tracking it to its source.” He stared directly at John. John said nothing. He hardly moved.
“Why did you summon it?” Saimura asked.
John considered denying that he had. But Saimura seemed far too certain to be fooled.
“I didn’t mean to,” John whispered. “The Payshmura sentenced me to burn on the Holy Road. I used the storm to escape, but I haven’t been able to stop it since then.”
Saimura seemed to contemplate John. Then his expression softened to something like compassion—as if he’d discovered John weak and in dire need.
“Ji will be able to help you dissipate it,” Saimura said, “but until we reach her, take this.”
Saimura handed John a polished bone with strange little symbols cut into it. The instant John closed his hand around the bone, he felt a warmth radiate up from it. It seemed to gently pulse against John’s fingers, as if it were a smal
l animal crouched against his palm.
“It should ease the strain of this storm,” Saimura said.
John nodded, but his attention was no longer on the bone in his hand. He couldn’t keep himself from glancing to the shadowy distortion that loomed over Saimura. Ravishan hung in the Gray Space, almost on top of him.
John wondered what Ravishan was thinking of all this. What would it look like from the silence of the Gray Space?
John dropped the bone into the deep pocket of his coat.
“Thank you.” John stepped back from Saimura and turned to the tahldi. He brushed snow from the animal’s speckled back.
“There’s no reason to be afraid,” Saimura said quietly. “In the Fai’daum we do not condemn men and women as witches. Ji will help you learn to control the power within you, I swear.”
“The power in me might be best left alone.”
“It can’t be, Jahn. This storm of yours is dangerous to the people in the mountain heights and to you as well. It has to be stopped before it kills any more flocks and before it consumes you.” Again Saimura gave John that soft, compassionate look. “I’m amazed that you have withstood it for so long, as is. When Ji sent me out, I expected to come across a group of Payshmura mystics feeding the storm, not just one man.”
“Payshmura mystics?” John asked.
“Those in the Black Tower often send hard weather against us in the north. Ji can usually break a storm moving across such a great distance. But this one of yours was different.”
“And you think Ji could show me how to stop it?”
“Certainly.” Saimura nodded. “She will teach you to control your power so that something like this doesn’t happen again.”
“What if she can’t?” John asked. “What if I…”
“Can’t be taught?” Saimura asked with a smile. “You don’t strike me as a man who can’t learn. I’m sure Ji will be able to instruct you. She’s trained far worse students, I promise you that.”
“But what if I’m something…” John trailed off, not wanting to admit more than he had to. And yet he wanted to know what the demoness Ji could teach him. “What if I can’t be stopped?”
Saimura laughed. John frowned at him.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“Your own power isn’t something that you can’t stop. It should be like your breath. It is always there, but you can hold it, slow it, and quicken it. It is part of you. Ji will teach you all of this. I promise.”
John just nodded.
He hadn’t read anything in any Payshmura text about a Rifter controlling his power. There had been nothing but blind destruction in the old books. But then no previous Rifter had survived in Basawar for more than a few days. Maybe it was possible.
If he could learn to control the Rifter within him, then maybe he could use that power without destroying everything in his path. Maybe there would be a way to save Laurie. It would mean going with Saimura and joining the Fai’daum. But if he could help Laurie, it would be worth it.
John wiped more of the snow off the tahldi’s back. Droplets of water gathered around John’s hand. He brushed them aside. Tiny rivulets slid down the tahldi’s neck to its lowered head. The animal snorted in vague irritation. John put his hands back in his pockets.
“Can you excuse me for a few minutes, Saimura? I have to piss.”
“Of course.” Saimura looked slightly embarrassed.
“I’ll be right back.”
John waded through the snow back into the deep cover of the stands of black trees. He waited for Ravishan to drop out of the Gray Space beside him.
“Who is that man?” Ravishan demanded the instant he emerged. White snowflakes drifted into his black hair but didn’t melt. The chill of the Gray Space still clung to him.
“Keep your voice down,” John whispered.
“Who is he?” Ravishan hissed.
“His name is Saimura.”
“Why was he embracing you?”
“Because I saved his life,” John said. That seemed to give Ravishan pause.
“When?” Ravishan asked.
“Years ago. The Fai’daum attacked Fikiri’s convoy. Saimura was injured and I hid him.”
“Those people are Fai’daum?” Ravishan’s expression was troubled as he gazed back through the trees at the shadows of the gathered Fai’daum.
“Yes.”
“Shit.” Ravishan studied John in silence for a moment. “There’s no way you could outrun them. They have rifles.”
“I know,” John replied.
Ravishan nodded, almost to himself. He turned his attention back the way John had come. As Ravishan stared out through the trunks of black trees, his entire stance changed. His arms drooped slightly. His knees bent, bringing his hips into perfect balance with his chest. His lips relaxed and his eyes lowered just slightly.
At a glance another man might have thought that Ravishan looked half-asleep, focusing on a passing dream. John knew that distant expression and deceptively relaxed stance. He had seen it countless times in Rathal’pesha. It was the brief moment in the ushiri battle forms that came before a violent attack.
John caught Ravishan’s hand. “Let’s not resort to killing before we have to.”
“They’re armed. And they will be able to track you through this snow,” Ravishan replied, the urgency of his tone belying his obvious attempt to sound reasonable. “We have the advantage of surprise now.”
“They aren’t threatening me, Ravishan. Saimura doesn’t have any reason to want to harm me.”
Ravishan scowled at this. But he didn’t interrupt John.
“He’s offering to give me shelter. I think he may want me to join the Fai’daum,” John finished.
“And you’re actually thinking of accepting?” Ravishan demanded.
“Shh. Yes. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because they’re Fai’daum. They are the enemies of the Payshmura Church.”
“And so are we,” John said. “Those bounties on our heads aren’t a friendly gesture, you know.”
“I know. But to go to the Fai’daum…” Ravishan frowned down at the snow.
“Just two weeks ago in Nurjima you said that you agreed with their—”
“That was in Nurjima,” Ravishan cut him off, “when I was going to be leaving this world and you and I were going to live together in Nayeshi and I…There’s a difference between being sympathetic to a cause and allowing them to take my lover away.”
“They aren’t taking me away—not from you,” John said.
“I can’t come with you.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe you can. I want to talk to their leader, Ji Shir’korud.” John reached out and gently pulled Ravishan close.
“You would be a powerful asset to the Fai’daum, you know,” John said softly. Though, he wasn’t thinking about that exactly. He wondered what he would do if they wouldn’t accept Ravishan. He kissed Ravishan’s forehead. His skin felt ice cold.
He’d just have to find another way to help Laurie. He wouldn’t give Ravishan up.
“Will you give it a chance?”
“I don’t like this,” Ravishan said.
“We don’t have too many other choices,” John replied. “Even if you kill all of those men—and I wouldn’t want you to—but even if you did, there would be more of them. I would still have to travel on foot through this weather to get away from them. They would still be able to track me.”
“What if you can’t convince them to take me?”
“Then I’ll leave,” John said it as though it would be easy.
“You think they’ll just let you go?” Ravishan gave him a skeptical frown.
“If they don’t, they’ll have you to answer to.”
“I’m serious,” Ravishan said. “How will you get out?”
“I’ll find a way.” John kissed Ravishan again. His skin felt a little warmer. “This is the best option we have right now.”
“If I say no?” Ravishan
asked.
John sighed. “Then we start walking east right now.”
Ravishan surveyed the expanse of deep snow and bare trees. “You just don’t want me to kill that redhead, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” John said firmly. “I don’t want you to kill any of them. It would only make the situation worse and give them more reason to hunt us down.”
“I don’t like the way the redhead looks at you.”
“Would you rather he wanted to kill me?” John asked.
Ravishan gave him an annoyed glance.
John smiled at him and then kissed him deeply. Ravishan’s lips were soft, his mouth hot and inviting.
“You are the one I love, Ravishan. No one else.” John held him close, feeling the tension melt from Ravishan’s body.
“So what do you want me to do?” John asked at last.
Ravishan pulled back from John’s embrace. “Go with them.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be close by.” Ravishan lifted his hand, splitting open the Gray Space. He said, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” and disappeared.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
John marched with the Fai’daum. They bore west, through the stands of bare trees, up into rolling foothills. Steadily the deciduous trees thinned away and dark green conifers closed in over them. The sharp scent of pine surrounded John, dimly reminding him of Christmas in Nayeshi.
Thin trails of snowflakes poured down through the boughs of firs and pines. Close stands of trees blocked the wind and sheltered the ground from the heaviest snow, but they also obscured much of the afternoon light. In the dim twilight the Fai’daum soldiers faded in and out of the forest shadows. Snow caked their coats, hoods and pants, creating a powdery camouflage.
A few times John glanced up into the trees overhead and realized that someone was up in the branches looking back down at him. Saimura exchanged hand signs with one of the men high up above them.
“Gin’yu has reached camp,” Saimura spoke softly. “She’ll tell them to expect us.”
John nodded. He hoped that being expected might involve a warm meal and somewhere comfortable to rest. Behind him, his tahldi heaved a tired sigh. With each step the poor animal sunk nearly to its knees. It struggled through the deep snow, plowing through the narrow trench John carved ahead of it.