The Yasri had peaceful nomadic origins, but this particular tribe had broken away and established Dorso, content to stay put. Settling in one spot meant defending, and their men were among the best fighters in Calari. Even I had heard of them. They didn’t go looking for a fight, but they didn’t run when one presented itself.
I finally put an exhausted Kymber on Fitz, offering to walk behind the wagon with Mia in my arms. The child lay snuggled against me, sleeping, her thumb in her mouth. Leaving this little one behind was going to kill me, but Mia needed a healer. The bones in her hand had probably already begun to knit together. I hoped it wouldn’t have to be broken again, but I knew better.
We’d taken several goats and a boar into camp for supper the previous night, and everyone’s spirits were high. It’s easy to stay positive when one has a full stomach and fresh water to drink. I even heard Tori and Vilpia, her saddle-mate on Lady Gray, singing a lively counting song in another language. I smiled at their mingled voices, my heart lighter than it had been in a week.
Barking dogs alerted Dorso to our approach. A long, solid line of men bearing spears and blades formed outside the town. Nearly two-hundred, I thought. “Kymber, do you see the welcome we’re about to get?” I called ahead.
“I do. I’ll take Laiia and Malina with me to talk to them.” She reined Fitz to a halt and dismounted, unbuckling the baldric holding Promise and slipping it from her back when she hit the ground. She surprised me by laying her weapon in the wagon beneath Tibbi’s feet.
“Is that wise?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to antagonize them,” Kymber answered. “Malina’s father came from this village. They should know her and Laiia by sight.”
“You’re leaving a lot to chance.” I stared at the men, with their pinched faces and their spears held aloft.
“I don’t know what else to do.” She followed my gaze. “I don’t want to approach them armed.”
“Your choice. I’ll be too far away to help if they attack.”
“Not that it would matter anyway. There are too many of them.” Kymber furrowed her brow. “Surely they can see our group is mostly comprised of females.” She glanced at Laiia. “Do you recognize anyone?”
Laiia shaded her eyes with her hand. “Not at this distance, but don’t worry. We’ll take Malina with us. She looks like Xanio, her father. It will be all right. You’ll see.”
And with that, the three women stalked off across the open meadow.
I held my breath and watched several Yasri men step out of line and walk to meet them. I didn’t truly relax until I saw a few tentative smiles, finally slumping with relief when they lowered their spears.
After several tense moments of hand waving, one of the men embraced Laiia. Kymber turned to me with her own happy smile.
Apparently, we’d passed inspection.
47: KYMBER
“I am Laiia, wife of Xanio. Surely, you remember your epash Xanio?”
“Cousin,” Malina whispered in my ear. I nodded.
“Xanio is dead these many years. He lived in the small village near the mountain.” The tall man gestured with his spear.
“He did, and I was his wife. Malina is his daughter. You remember Malina?” Laiia pointed at the girl by her side.
The man stared; his eyes widened. After a tense moment, he whooped, lifted the diminutive Laiia in his arms, and whirled through the wildflowers.
And just like that, we were one step closer to an audience with Queen Nalhai of Dorso.
Laiia and Malina chattered with the advance party of men in their own language. I walked back to Magnus. We’d cleared the first hurdle and were now facing the second.
“What did they say?” Magnus asked when I reached him.
“They were suspicious at first. They tried to force us to leave, but Malina told them we just wanted to see the queen.”
“Queen?” Magnus scrunched his brow. “The Yasri goat herders have a queen?”
“The village of Dorso does.”
“Then what happened?”
I inhaled deeply, still shaking. “Laiia recognized one of them as her dead husband’s cousin. Once he realized who she was, he literally opened his arms to her.” I gave a short laugh. “They’re not sure of us though. We’re frodjo.”
“What does that mean?”
“Outsiders. City dwellers.” I shrugged. “That’s fine. Laiia can help us plead our case, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“You hope.”
I remounted Fitz. “I have no reason not to hope. Will you make sure everyone stays together behind me? Laiia’s cousin said we should all go to the center of the village to see the healer. They want to make sure no one has body vermin or anything else that might be contagious.”
“Will do.” Magnus handed me Lady Gray’s lead.
I urged Fitz forward. “See you there.”
Dorso’s healer was a middling-aged woman named Koram. She spoke the common tongue, though her accent was thick and difficult to understand.
She was brown as a nut, her silky brown hair piled high atop her head and held there by an impossible number of bone pins. Giving orders firmly but with a kind smile, she sorted the girls out according to the severity of their injuries, then made them sit in a row along a tile and rock fountain. We were all given leave to drink and splash in the fountain, which alleviated some of the tension. It was delightful to hear the children laugh. I hadn’t heard much laughter in the past three days.
Magnus was positively adamant that the healer see Mia first. Koram took one look at her hand and agreed.
Hoping to keep Mia calm, we allowed Tori to accompany us into the healer’s hut. She was, after all, the only family the little one had left.
Koram had Magnus lay Mia down on a small cot in the cool shade of the hut, crooning to her while she gathered the things needed to examine her. “What they do to you, poor baby? Does your hand hurt, little chipana? Koram will fix you right up, good as new.”
The healer had a nice touch and a soft voice, a woman born to care for others. I felt nothing but relief. Mia’s hand was now a sickly shade of greenish-purple. I knew it had begun to heal during the time we’d traveled. A good thing, if the bones were in the right position, but I was certain they weren’t. Mia’s thumb stuck out at a strange angle; the knuckles were lumpy and swollen.
Magnus put his arm around my waist. I leaned into him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “She’ll be all right, love. You’ll see.” I didn’t know which one of us I was trying to convince.
“I know,” he whispered.
Koram sat Mia up and held a vial of clear liquid to her lips. Mia drank it willingly. “Children quick to heal, Mister Magnus. Thankfully.”
“What was that?” Magnus asked tersely. “What you gave her to drink?”
“Help to sleep,” Koram answered. “I need to push and press, and I don’t want to hurt her any more than I have to.”
Soon Mia’s eyes drooped and her head lolled to one side. The healer began at the child’s wrist, deftly moving her fingertips over every inch of skin, occasionally looking up at the ceiling when a certain spot caught her attention. She hummed a tune as she moved up Mia’s hand and out each fingertip, a thorough process which took so long that Tori laid down on the floor and fell asleep, clutching a cornhusk doll she’d found propped up in the corner.
The healer finally laid Mia’s arm across the child’s stomach and turned to us. “Broken, as you suspected, but not so bad as it could’ve been. Thumb is a mess and has already begun to heal. I will need to break again and push bones into right place. Three other fingers broken, but bones in good position to grow together.” She nodded at Mia. “Child sleeping now. Good time to do it, but I must ask you to go and take the sister with you.” She scowled. “This is not a pleasant process.”
Magnus went white and staggered a bit. I steadied him then knelt down to awaken Tori. “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We have an audience with the que
en anyway. Will you send word when you’re finished?”
“I will.” Koram gave us a firm nod of dismissal.
I caught Magnus’s gaze as we turned to leave the hut. His eyes glistened. “Kymber, I can’t leave her.”
“You can. You will. You’ve done as much as you could. This is what Mia needs. She’s in capable hands now.” I reached up and brushed away a tear clinging to his lashes. “I love you, Magnus. You’re a terrible bonehead sometimes, but you truly do have a big heart.”
Queen Nalhai was frosty with us at first. She sat stiff on her biriwood throne, every inch a queen, wearing deep blue, purple, and gold robes. She was an older woman, still beautiful, but it was her eyes that caught me. Her pupils were a rich golden brown surrounded by a thin ring of moss green, as unique as mine.
I was only half-listening to Laiia and the queen speaking in their native tongue, when Laiia gasped and turned to me. “She wants you and Magnus executed.”
“What?” I tried not to shout. “Why?”
Malina’s mother leaned to whisper in my ear. “The guards we met misunderstood what I said. It’s my fault. I was speaking a pidgin mix of the common tongue and Yasri. They, in turn, told Nalhai that you were the ones who’d beaten and abused the girls.”
“Oh.” I covered my face with my hands. “Now what?”
“Don’t worry. My old mother is setting her straight.” Laiia pointed at Tibbi, who was chattering furiously at the scowling queen. Charin was by her side, nodding his head in agreement.
I didn’t understand a word of it, but I was relieved to see the queen’s face shift from fury to astonishment.
“You save Yasri girls?” The queen looked at me and spoke in the common tongue. “You and that man?”
If I’d known she understood our language – could speak it, though her accent was as thick as the healer’s – we might have avoided this misunderstanding. Still, I bowed low, swatting at Magnus to do the same. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Nalhai eased back on her throne and tapped a finger against her chin. “You did good. Yes?”
“We thought so.” Not wanting a single thing to go wrong, I remained bent at the waist.
“Why you do this thing?” She gestured at me then Magnus. “Girls nothing to you.”
I straightened, a chill wind blowing over my soul. My first instinct was to say something noble about helping others, no matter the cost.
Instead, I threw my shoulders back and looked straight into Nalhai’s eyes. “I was held captive by the king of Pentorus for eight years, Your Majesty. I never want another woman to suffer the way I did.”
Laiia translated what I’d said in Yasri, so my meaning would not be lost.
The queen nodded slowly, taking my measure with those fascinating gemstone eyes. “You strong. I see it. Proud. Bad king took nothing away from you. He gave you much though, eh?”
An interesting way to look at the time I’d lost. I wasn’t sure, but I nodded politely anyway.
She waved two fingers at Magnus, who was still bent at the waist. “He your tilà corani?”
Tibbi began to laugh. I shifted a glance to Laiia. “What?”
Her cheeks were the color of a summer plum. “The queen asks if Mister Magnus is your hard cock.”
I grinned. “Yes. He is.”
Laiia relayed the message. Nalhai returned the smile. “He big man. Strong. He love you.”
I bowed again. “I think he does.”
“I certainly do love her,” Magnus growled.
“It good.” The queen visibly relaxed. “They our girls, ones you save. We take them here.”
A man shouted outside the queen’s hut. He was still shouting when he burst into the tent, moving straight for Nalhai. She rolled her eyes and covered her brow with one hand.
He was older than the queen, not terribly tall, and as bald as an egg. He chattered at her – an unhappy, one-sided conversation, I thought – while waving his hands in the air.
Before Laiia could translate, the queen lifted an apologetic gaze to me. “This my hard cock, though not so hard anymore. He worse than old goat, bleating all the time. Sometimes I think of push him in the fountain and hold him down, but he pretty good cook, so I don’t.”
I fought the urge to laugh. “This would be . . . ?”
“The queen’s husband,” Laiia murmured. “Tokani.”
“Is Tokani angry?” I asked.
Laiia tipped her head to listen. “He isn’t terribly happy about taking the girls. Too many mouths to feed, he says.”
I stiffened. “Ask him if he’d be this upset if I’d delivered nearly three dozen strong male warriors instead.”
Twisting her fingers, Laiia haltingly asked my question.
Nalhai smirked, but Tokani turned red. “Who this big mouth, pale frodjo?” he asked.
“My name is Kymber Oryx. These girls have nowhere else to go. Their village was burnt, their parents killed, and they were about to be sold as slaves.” Tokani continued to stare, wide-eyed at my impertinence. “They’re your blood, and they are homeless. If you won’t take them, who will?”
Nalhai turned the smirk upon her husband. “They goat herders, same as us. Should we send them away to the city to marry frodjo men who will only weaken the blood of their children? I say no. They our daughters. We take them, yes, and that’s the only answer I want to speak or hear today.” She leaned to one side on the throne. “You have other to say, husband?”
He circled one ear with his index finger and spoke in Yasri. Nalhai gave a short bark of laughter. “Maybe so, but I still queen here. Decision is mine. Go find something and do it, before my patience gets lost.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. Nalhai’s husband scurried off, murmuring under his breath.
“That one.” The queen shook her fist at him as he fled. “One these days he step over an edge and then . . . boom. I show him stars like he never saw in the sky.”
I did laugh then, and so did the queen. “If that’s all, Your Majesty, we’ll take our leave. You have our profound thanks.”
“No!” shouted Magnus, giving me a start. He knelt before the throne. “I have a request, if Your Majesty will permit me to speak.”
“Talk,” was the response.
“There are two girls that I’d . . . well, I’d like to come back and get them, if you’ll allow it. Mia and Tori are their names. I’d . . . we’d like to adopt them,” my big man stammered.
“Why?”
It was only one word, but it was terse and loaded with emotion. I wasn’t sure if Nalhai was suspicious of his request or she just didn’t care for him personally. In any case, I stepped up to help. “Mia’s hand was broken by the slavers. Magnus looked after her and her sister Tori the entire time we traveled. He was able to ease her pain and stop her tears when no one else could.”
“Where chipana now?” The queen furrowed her brow.
“She’s with the healer. Koram is setting her broken bones. Malina Blackhorn told us their family was dead, killed in the attack on their village. We don’t want to split up the sisters.” Though Laiia was translating as fast as she could, the queen’s look of confusion baffled me. I decided to put it in the simplest terms possible. “We’ve come to love them, Queen Nalhai. We want to share our home and our hearts with them, though we have a quest to finish before we can take them back with us.”
“They Yasri,” she said sternly. “Not frodjo, pale white, like you and man.”
“I know.” I lowered my gaze, prepared for disappointment.
“What this…quest?” The queen tipped her head.
“The man who held me captive has my sword. We’re going to get it back.”
Magnus lowered himself even more, pressing his forehead against the ground. “If you’ll allow us to finish raising them, they’ll want for nothing. I understand they’re Yasri. Your blood. I would be more than happy to bring them back to Dorso to visit any time you wish, and especially when it comes time for them to marry, if you so
decree.” A quiet sob escaped him. “I just can’t bear the thought that I’ll never see them again.”
I held my breath as several quiet, uncomfortable moments passed. We had no right to the girls. If Nalhai refused, I’d have to pull Magnus to his feet and haul him out of the hut.
The queen cleared her throat. “Soft heart in that chest. Big love.” She shooed us away with both hands. “Go! You two go on quest. Get the strong one’s sword, eh? Then stop here and ask again. If I say yes, it still up to girls. If they don’t want to go, they don’t.”
“Fair enough,” I said hastily. “That’s more than fair. We won’t take up any more of your time, Your Highness. Thank you for seeing us.” Magnus rose, stepped forward, and kissed the queen’s hand. I hastily gripped his elbow and steered him toward the door, before he said something he shouldn’t.
We were just about there when I heard Nalhai call my name. I turned to see her shaking her fists at me. “I got eyes, woman. You hold tight to that one. He good man. Better than most.”
“He has a few rough spots that need smoothing, but I agree.” I smiled. “I’ll hold on tight, Queen Nalhai.”
“That went well,” said Magnus as soon as we left the hut.
“It went extremely well. I thought she was going to refuse us.”
“Me too. I was getting ready to cry and beg.”
“That would’ve been something to see.” I gave him a crooked grin.
We filled our water skins at the fountain and said quite a few tearful goodbyes. We were about to check with the healer on Mia’s condition, when Tori came running toward us with my boots in her hand.
“Mia is still sleeping, but the healer said to tell you it went well. Koram said it went as well as something like that can go,” the girl huffed, breathless from running. She dropped my dusty boots at my feet. “You’ll need these, Mistress Kymber. You won’t want to walk so far without them.”
“Mia is all right?” Magnus asked.
“My sister will be fine.” Tori’s smile was like the sun parting the clouds. “Healer said her fingers may be stiff for a while, but she should be able to use them.”
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