by Paul Smith
Nym's Road Trip (The Orphans Revolt 5)
By Paul Smith.
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Nym's Road Trip (The Orphans Revolt 5)
Paul Smith
Copyright 2014 Paul Smith
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to people, places or events is purely coincidental, and bears no malicious intent.
ISBN: 9781311393883
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'For Sam.'
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Author's note:
gladefaun.deviantart.com
Thank you.
5.
Ikari Trosan was quickly discovering that he did not enjoy the company of llamas. Particularly not the monstrous breed they cultivated in the highlands about Faeron’s three Great Lakes. Easily three meters at the shoulders, the beasts reminded him more of camels than the spry creatures he'd grown up with round Lake Peshra. His mount was surly and bad tempered in the mornings, and unless he offered it a lump of sugar cane point blank refused to move some days.
That said, it put up with the sorts of incline that would break most horse's legs, thereby cutting out several of the sweeping curves the Caravans usually took to reach the shore. So he endured, swaying in the saddle as the llama's padded feet picked their way confidently across slopes of scree and boulder ridges, down the winding route that was the descent from Junon Town.
His only problem was that the glaring sunlight, unfiltered at this height, kept threatening to send him into a fugue. The last thing he needed was to go tumbling unawares from the saddle as his steed made a particularly ill advised change in course. It wasn’t that the llama was a poor judge; indeed the skill it displayed in predicting where to place its feet as they traversed a gravel-strewn slope, or how to descend an escarpment was nothing short of miraculous on occasion. But the creature had clearly been trained for a rider who leaned into the various twists and turns, shifting his centre of gravity with his mount.
Someone who paid attention, in other words.
Not a quality one associated with your average Nym. Particularly not when the sun was out.
Fortunately it was freezing up here. Away from the sheltering walls of the caldera that housed Sha’Klairon and its oasis of hot springs and rainforest, the highlands of Faeron were a broad vista of wind swept plains and low scrub. The wind alone was enough to help keep him on his toes with its constant buffeting, never mind the cold. It was enough to stave off the worst of the sun's song.
The slopes to the east, further along the line of the Kantars, sported forests of their own, great swathes of pines that crept up the sides of the peaks towards their snow-caped pinnacles. But the land here to the west was bare at this altitude, the bones of the earth poking through to the surface in places. Broad meadows of tough grasses and bright wild flowers gave way to up thrusts of bare rock and steep slopes, cloven by deep, boulder-strewn valleys where the fingers of the long winter storms had once reached.
With its high, clear blue sky the place held a certain stark beauty that Ikari found quite arresting.
He soldiered on. Following the caravan trail that led down, nodding to those few other travellers he met passing the other way from beneath his hood. Pitching his tent each night in slightly a warmer clime.
It had been hard to leave the Grove. The ruins there had been his home for so long. His only home, since he touched the thorn all those decades ago. The familiar spaces of the Cathedral were like a balm, the warm sunlight through the leaves overhead the sweetest of gifts that he, Ikari, was privileged to receive every day.
The drugs and the sex were a trifle beside that.
He’d gone for a walk the following morning, after he’d spoken to Kye. Taken a tour of the sun-dappled halls formed by the interlocking branches overhead, beneath ceilings of tessellating green and gold. Passing through the circular labyrinth that was the Cathedral. Avoiding the central grove, he’d stared up at the arching limbs, glimpsing the twisted shapes that slumbered amidst the filigree of branches.
The ancients had been quiet, their boughs silent in the still air.
Calm faces, forever immortalised in their sleep, stared back at him. Their empty sockets as blind on this side of the grid as they were far-sighted on the other.
Reaching out, he’d placed a hand against one of the trunks, closing his eyes. Immersing himself in the flow of sap, the deep thrum of sunlight against his skin matching that of the raw brilliance pouring over the canopy.
Their contentment touched his mind. Lent him a modicum of calm for the road ahead.
Gratitude came in the only form he had to hand. Taking his palm from the trunk, pulling one of the thorns from the skin of his left forearm and using its iron like edge to incise a gash along the inside of his arm.
Holding the wound out to let the blood trickle red and vital to the ground below, soaking into the rich carpet of moss and grasses that peered up through the loam.
Blood and light.
Our people’s ultimate benediction.
Smiled as he walked away.