by Jane Merkley
The town was a single stretch of road with some houses scattered beyond the area at random. The buildings were made from large pine logs harvested from the mountains above Yott and the road was left as dirt so very soon a cloud of it rose around everyone’s feet as they walked.
Altarn was half worried this town would not have an aviary due to its small size, but she found one just before she started to panic about it. She knew Jasper enough to know his threats were actually promises.
Despite the aches from the long ride, Altarn decided there was still just enough daylight to make it to the next town. She went to the stock yard where the caravans assembled, and asked about for one leaving that day in the direction of Athenya.
The sun burnt man looked over his list. “There’s one leaving three days from now, going to Athenya, stopping for a day at each town along the way.
Three days was too long to wait. Altarn wanted to get there and get back. Hearing everyone talk about the war made her feel as if it was already pounding on her door. Every day mattered. She had learned that while in office.
She thanked the man and left. Jasper would just have to understand why she traveled alone.
She pulled out the map and memorized her path of travel before putting it away. Urging her horse forward, she left the small town, the evening sun warming her hair so it felt like a small fire was burning on her head. She looked over her shoulder and wondered if she should go back for a hat. The mountain shadows had kept her cool so far, but she would have to adjust to the hot valleys she would be traveling for the next few days. She hadn’t gone very far but the sun would be setting soon and by then she hoped to be in the next town. She rode on.
It must have just been the time of day because the road wasn’t very populate. The only signs of life she passed was a couple riding in their mule-drawn wagon cart and two men on horseback. After that, she felt like she was the only human on Endendre.
A thick forest of dark pines stood like sentries to an unknown world on her left. The wind pressed against her back and sifted through the pine needles in a roaring hiss. A field of wheat billowed like a rolling golden ocean tide to her right.
She’d only gone about two miles outside of Yott when a rider on horseback suddenly galloped out of the pines and blocked the road in front of her. She stopped her horse and watched him, unease creeping up her spine. The man was simply watching her, clearly blocking the road so she would have to go into the wheat field to get around him. She put her hand on the knife under her skirt strapped to her thigh. He was far enough away that she would have to shout to be heard.
Unease made her hesitant, trying to decide if the man meant ill. She hesitated too long because two more horse riders appeared behind her. She turned the horse around to face them, enabling the rider blocking the road to come up closer so they had effectively surrounded her. A small nub of fear swelled in her throat but she swallowed it back down. She could dash through them if she was quick enough, but as if they had read her thoughts, they each drew a sword so even if she dared, she would be sliced good and deep.
Each of them wore a long sleeve shirt of varying degrees of road wear and a full wooden festival mask with eye holes cut out. One of the men had black hair and the other two had brown.
“I don’t have any money.” Her voice did not betray the tremor in her heart. “And I’m a servant so ransoming me won’t do any good.”
“Well then…” one brown haired said. “What do you have to give us?”
Altarn wondered if she could successfully throw her knife into one of their chests, but it wasn’t a throwing knife. If nothing else, it would distract them for a split second.
Altarn was never good at playing coy and was always disgusted with women who would stoop that low to appear wanton and frivolous. But she saw what advantage she could have now with it, especially since her knife was strapped to her thigh and she was too scared to think of anything else.
“Well…” She gave them her best nervous, flirtatious smile and started to slide the skirt over her knee. “If it’s only that simple…”
The men stared. The black haired man looked over his shoulder.
The skirt paused mid-thigh. Then in one brash motion, she pulled the knife down out of the sheath and threw it at the man directly in front of her. The flat of the knife hit him in the chest. It made a dull ring – did he have armor underneath?
Altarn kicked her horse and dove between them, but the distraction was too short and the closest bandit grabbed the shirt at her neck as she dashed by. The horse escaped out from under her. The man let go and she spun awkwardly around to catch herself before she hit the ground. Her feet came out of the stirrups quick enough that she caught the landing on her feet, but completed the fall onto her hands. Dirt exploded around her a and she curled into the fetal position as horse hooves pounded around her as they tried to… run away?
Choking on the dirt, she came to her knees to see the three bandits running down the road, but there was a fourth horse and rider right behind them, apparently chasing them. The fourth rider stopped when the three disappeared around a bend in the road.
Altarn’s horse had stopped a short ways from her, waiting in trained patients for the rider to rejoin. The fourth newcomer was galloping toward her on a red chestnut horse. His shirt was sleeveless – typical Ruid fashion – showing off the black lacework tattoo which curled from the wrist on his right arm up his shoulder where it disappeared under the fabric. The neck of the shirt was tall and button around his neck snuggly. The angles on his face were sharp with hard muscle and his naked arms spelled stories of his time in soldiery. He had been on the road for a while by tell of thick chunks of copper brown hair in disarray about his skull to match a goatee and several days worth of stubble under his chin. His nose was slightly crooked from an old break and he looked a handful of years older than her.
But he was a Ruid. The tattoo was their trademark. Altarn’s hackles prickled as he came close enough to see that his eyes were blue. It was a bad time for her to be in the company of men, especially men from the state she had threatened with war. Could men not leave her alone for a day?
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I was riding up the road when I saw them surround you.”
Altarn glared at him. She picked her knife up from the dirt, sheathed it, and turned to mount her horse.
“Wait a second!” In two bounds, he was beside her horse and holding the reins. “I just saved you. A ‘thank you’ is fairly inexpensive.”
“I was handling it,” she snapped. “What is it with you men that think you have to rush to every woman’s rescue?”
He blinked as if it were obvious. “Would you rather I stood by and watched them rape you?”
His sharp accusation stung her so she mumbled around for words to soften the harsh, starkly possible reality. “You could have stood by and realized that women can take care of ourselves. You’re foolish if you think I’m traveling unprepared. Let go of my reins.”
“I think you are foolish to be a female traveling alone, no matter if you are armed with a battering ram.”
Altarn tensed as he said those forbidden words, combining foolish and female in the same sentence.
“You’re not from here, are you? This road is teaming with all matter of persons who would do someone ill, even in daylight. The idea to travel alone is idiotic.”
She shot him a look. “You are traveling alone.”
“Well, obviously I’m a man –”
“Of course, men are untouchable and so can travel said dangerous road alone. But females can’t because they are easily victimized and weak. I will not accept the double standard that you can travel alone and I can’t. Give me my reins.”
He stared at her in vast disbelief. “This has nothing to do with a double standard. It doesn’t matter if you disagree that men will take advantage of a lone female. They are going to do it because you are a female. Don’t you get it? It is unsafe for you because you are a female.”
She held out her hand. The Ruid narrowed his glance at her, and she was reminded of Jasper the morning she left. Jasper she could tolerate looking at her like that because she had known him long enough to earn that privilege. This man was looking at her like he would at every other female he thought was helpless. Finally, he slapped the reins into her hand and she started off at a hasty trot.
She turned to see if he was following, but he had dismounted and was standing on the ground, holding something that shown liquid silver under the sun.
Her hand went to her neck void of the necklace and tags and she remembered the bandit had grabbed her shirt at her neck. Her heart dropped to her stomach.
The Ruid looked at her. “Kyree… from the House of Lady Altarn Shadheing?”
She was at his side in a flash. “Hand those over!”
He held the tags away from her. “Only if you let me travel with you.”
“I don’t need a man to hold my hand.”
“Look, I’m not going to hold on to the hope that bandits down the road will leave you alone because you have a temper and think that you have the same prowess as a man. I’m not saying you can’t defend yourself, but there is good reason why a fox would run from a wolf rather than fight him. It’s not because he wouldn’t do any damage to the wolf, but to avoid damage to himself – herself – goodness, woman, are you seriously that sensitive?”
Altarn calmed herself. She shouldn’t let it bother her, but it did, the way that men always referred to any living creature or a group of mixed genders in a masculine preference.
“I’m heading down this road anyway,” the Ruid continued. “We might as well travel together.”
Altarn wanted to argue, to prove that in no way did she need a man to see to her safety, but then an idea occurred to her. This man was Ruid, and looked to be that of a soldier, likely from Greatmar which is Ruidenthall’s capital and the army’s hub which was overseen by Byrone himself. She could get information about Byrone from this man.
“You are right. I am so sorry for being rude. I don’t have a lot of masculine influence in the Lady’s house. I get a bit nervous around them, as well as defensive. Thank you for saving me. I would gladly accept your offer to travel with me.” If he had suspected her false show of appreciation, he didn’t show it. He handed back her tags. “My name is Torren. I’ll call you Kyree?”
She nodded and he mounted his horse. “To where do you travel, Kyree?”
The chain was broken so Altarn put it in her bag. “Athenya.”
“Perfect. Me too.” He urged his horse forward. “May I ask what takes you so far away as Athenya?”
“Family,” she lied. “The Lady has granted me a holiday.”
He smiled and flexed the hard muscles in his bare arms. “I’m on a holiday of sorts myself. Athenya has a fight house. It’s always a great joy to throw a punch at a willing opponent and get paid for it.” Torren smiled at himself, to which Altarn nodded mildly, mostly disinterested about the topic or conversation with a Ruid in general.
They made it a mile in silence before Torren looked directly at her. “I hope us traveling together does not violate your Lady’s rules.”
Altarn had to think back on what rules she might have set forth on the matter. She gave up. “What rules?”
“I figured she would outlaw any Blindvarn associating with Ruids, with the threat of war and all. Might make for some conflict of interest.”
“Ah. Well, I suppose she doesn’t have to know, does she?” She looked askance at him to look playful. He nodded with a grin.
The sun started to fall behind them. Altarn looked ahead but couldn’t see any signs of a town yet.
Torren saw her looking. “Gaynord is still another five hours. The ilk of men become especially bold in the dark. We’d be best to camp in the trees and remain quiet and hidden for the night.”
Altarn moaned. If she had known that, she would have stayed in Yott for the night, might have even avoided the ambush and now this Ruid. But the damage was already done.
She did not want to share a camp site with a man, especially a stranger… a Ruid… But he was already veering off the road to the trees on their left. She thought about leaving without him, but traffic on the road had become rare, and there was a reason why every traveler they passed were in groups no less than two.
Grumbling, she followed him.
Blind Heart
Miraha knelt on the rug in front of the door, knocked, and bowed deeply so her forehead touched the soiled weave of the fabric. The door opened. Light fell across her bare shoulders, followed by a shadow of a man who stepped softly out of his room. Miraha lifted her head enough to see his sandaled feet, then looked down once more.
“Priestess Miraha.” His voice was thick and full, belaying his true age.
She looked up then, into his blind eyes. “But Good Priest, how do you know it is me?”
He smiled. “Because you smell of candle wax. But what factor of importance have I earned your respect to have you kneel before me?”
She was going to ask how he knew she was kneeling, but then her voice was coming from the area about his knees and what other reason would her voice be that low?
“Respect simply for you.”
“I am not a god. Stand, and welcome yourself into my house.”
Miraha stood, but hesitated before entering the Good Priest’s house. No one had ever gone farther than the prayer rug at his door. He was a respected man, one who made all compelled to kneel at his feet, to stand when he entered the room, to hush when he spoke. Being three times her age, he had been to more places than she could imagine behind her eyes. He claimed he did not know every question to life, but he certainly did know where to send you to find it.
Feeling a sinner upon entering his house, she took off her slippers and lowered her eyes, as if she entered upon a new kind of respect as she stepped past the doorway.
Priest Herten’s room engulfed her in a warmth she had only felt in the sincerest of prayers. As if every burden of the world slipped off her shoulders as she walked in, she took in a deep breath of sage and musk and shuddered in relief, closing her eyes because it hurt so much to feel free.
A fire place opposite the front door and center on the wall threw orange slicks of light across the two wooden chairs in front of it.
These chairs and the rug beneath them were the only items in the room. There weren’t even pictures. The fire was the only light, which Herten had lit solely for warmth despite he was already wearing a thick brown wool robe. His sleeping chamber was a dark room beyond the fire place.
He sat in one of the simple wooden chairs before the fire, indicating to another across from him for Miraha to do the same. She sat, and watched his milky blind eyes glisten with the fire in front of them and from a fire within that only he could see.
Blind from birth, Miraha had lamented when she first learned this man, so respected, could not see the fruits of his labors, but in that same breath corrected herself because his smile had broadened and Miraha, for the first time in her life, was filled with jealousy.
To envy the blind… oh! What a thing only they are lucky to have, to shut out the world and not see its abuse, its sins, lies, and ignorance, to never have to witness as the world slays yet another good man, to never writhe in the dark because an awful sight has made them ill. To say that everyone is beautiful because he has no reason not to believe so! To love the heart and not the face. How Miraha envied the blind.
His white beard touched the center of his chest. He had told her once that there was no use for shaving since he could not see if he had even done a good job of it, but it also kept him warm in the cold seasons, so it still served a purpose.
Herten reached forward and took Miraha’s hands in his, his skin soft like wet paper so Miraha feared it might tear. “Good Daughter, tell what brings you to my house.”
She took a deep breath. “I was in the temple praying just now, and was blessed to receive insight.�
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Herten’s blind eyes glowed with excitement.
She explained every detail she could remember. By the end of it, she fluttered her eyes as if the vision was playing itself before her again. “That’s all I saw. I let my emotions get too anxious and I lost the connection. Perhaps nothing more happened after that.”
“No,” Priest Herten corrected gently. “Terrible things are still happening. We have a sixteen year old girl wandering around with a piece of Huilian inside of her. It doesn’t look like Gildeon fell. It looks like he pursued Huilian to stop him from whatever the angel had fled to Endendre to do.” Herten’s lips pursed seriously. “It seems reasonable to believe you received that insight so we could take the next step to whatever has started, whatever that might be.” Herten chuckled, a sound that rumbled in his chest. “I sound just about as educated as a fool, trying to speak about something I know nothing about.”
“Another thing…” Miraha was still disturbed by what she was about to tell him, “before the vision began, a soft male voice spoke into my mind. He said, the time to know begins this night. What do you think of that?”
“I think,” began Herten without any hesitation, “that for whatever reason we have been without answers for sixteen years, whatever happened the night of your vision triggered the final need for us to know. I can’t even guess what that might have been, but I can believe that it had to happen for us to finally receive answers, or else we may not understand.”
Miraha could agree with that answer, though she was still bothered that something of that magnitude would be withheld for such a long time. “What are we to do from here, then?”
Miraha watched intently as Herten’s eyes squinted in thought. “It seems to me, that we need to find Gildeon. Perhaps he was the one that generated your insight and wants us to find him so he can tell us what the next step is. I think it is safe to assume he is not in Velmashyn. He came to Endendre to pursue Huilian and I doubt he’s going to leave until Huilian is stopped.”