Discovering the farmhouse took hours. Hours he did not have. After proving to himself that he followed the wrong half of the river, he had turned his dogs and men back the other direction. Fortunately, his second-in-command had followed procedure and marked the spot of their departure from the riverbank and into the woods. Similar markings led through the woods and to the farm. A farm that provided even more mysteries for an enigmatic mission:
His second-in-command and four other wardens piled dead in a root cellar in the barn. The house reeking of lamp oil. No one in sight. The scent of the woman and girl leading only from the forest and fields to the barn and house, but nowhere else. A third scent, probably a farmer’s, found everywhere, leading everywhere — to the fields, to the woods, to who knew where. The dead sub-commander’s two dogs missing entirely. The farmhouse presented too many conundrums.
Who had killed his men? The farmer? What farmer could kill an entire hand of trained and tested wardens? He had seen those same five men fight odds three times their own number and emerge with only minor wounds. Had the woman followed the path back to the woods? Had Ing-Ku and the dogs been so intent on following his sub-commander’s markings that they missed her new trail? Too many questions with no clear means of discerning answers. The appearance of the new star in the night sky seemed a worrisome omen when added to the puzzle of the farm and the disappearance of the woman and child and the unknown farmer.
His men stood around him, staring at the star in silence, awaiting their orders. Four men, two dogs, three days’ provisions, and a dwindling supply of coins in his pouch — this comprised his advantages in the pursuit of the fugitives. He possessed one more asset — instinct. He turned to his new sub-commander.
“Are you certain the farmer’s scent is more recent on that path behind the house?”
“As certain as I can be.” The newly promoted warden shrugged his shoulders. “There are a few new scents and the dogs can only tell me so much. The scent on the path behind the house is recent, but the dogs don’t seem to want to follow it.”
“That’s good enough.” Ing-Ku turned his back on the new star. “We follow this farmer. If they aren’t with him, he’ll know where they went.”
To continue reading the Fugitives story arena follow this link.
To continue reading Ing-Ku’s storyline follow this link.
THE CARNIVAL
LEOTIN
BLACK WINGS fluttered in the still night air, casting flickering moon shadows across the man’s dark face and broad nose. He reached out his fingers and the night jay landed in his open palms. He held the bird in the crook of his arm, using both hands to remove a thin wooden tube strapped to the animal’s right leg. He slid the bird into one of several small cages, the other confined night jays curiously watching their new companion. The man tossed a handful of dried corn into the cage, and the bird cackled quietly as it began to gorge itself on the grain. He scattered another handful between the remaining cages to keep the other birds quiet.
Leotin pulled the canvas cover down over the side of the wagon containing the birdcages. Ostensibly, the birds served as props in his magic acts, but they also fulfilled a more important purpose — they provided the means of communication with his master. He once thought of himself as a man who directed his actions as his own employer. That time, and all illusions of his status, had passed long ago.
He still did not understand how the birds always found him no matter how far he strayed across the realm. He suspected some manner of The Sight had changed the birds. The alternative, that The Sight had altered him in some dark way, making him a beacon to draw the avian messengers from across the sky, deeply unsettled him. He tried to ignore that notion. Regardless, beyond communicating his master’s wishes and allowing him to report back his progress, the night jays represented an unshakable fact of his life — his master could find him anywhere.
Leotin wandered between the carnival wagons — tall, unsteady structures with long berths and curved wooden or canvas tops. He passed acrobats and actors, animal trainers and tent hands, all sleeping beneath the cloud-cloaked double moons. Dreaming, he supposed. Were they dreaming the same dream that had roused him from his repose in his private wagon? The dream that woke him every night. Were they dreaming of the Forbidden Realm and the new god?
Leotin had never believed in the gods. Any of the gods. Traveling as he did between the dominions and their different faiths confirmed the truth of his faithlessness. He believed in certainties. Money to pay his actors and carnival crew, and the sharp steel promised for his neck if he did not repay his debt to his master. Lack of faith did not mean utter faithlessness, however. He possessed great faith in the cruelty of human nature. He kept a trunk of religious texts and artifacts in his wagon, switching out their place of prominence as he crossed the borders from one dominion to another. His carnival crew all did the same, regardless of what gods they might or might not worship. It reduced the need to fight or flee when confronted with the austere enforcement of religious purity by those who often accosted them in their travels.
He sought a spot between a stand of nearby trees, a tuft of land not visible by the crew, yet bathed in enough moonlight to read his master’s latest missive. The carnival camp took longer to cross than in his childhood, when it belonged to his father. Back then, they were a traveling troupe of ten actors, performing The Saga of the Fallen Lands, the triumvirate of ancient plays from the time before the First Great Dominion spanned the entirety of the Iron Realm more than three thousand years ago. After his father’s death, and with his mother’s blessing, he grew the troupe to a full carnival, adding acts and attractions, increasing their draw and lengthening their stay in each town.
With an enlarged entourage came expanded costs. Debts that grew with bad weather and wars between nations. Eventually, these debts forced Leotin to seek the financial support of a patron. He found one. One who required more than entertainment in return for coin. One who ensured Leotin’s indentured state and loyalty through a mixture of threat and the occasional display of Dark Sight. Leotin did not now need to worry as much about paying his actors and crew; he only needed to concern himself with pleasing his master, a situation he longed to reverse.
He approached the night guards at the edge of the caravan camp, the three outlanders, the yutan, the wyrin, and the roagg. The moon-walker, the night-cat, and the bear-man. If he could find a rakthor, a snake-man, he mused, he would have one of every breed of peoples on Onaia. Except an urris, of course. But no one of any repute had claimed to have seen an actual urris in hundreds of years. Their actions to enforce The Pact remained the sole evidence of their existence.
The three outlanders watched him as he walked away from the circle of wagons, but said nothing. He nodded to them and continued in silence. He felt bad for them. He sympathized with their plight. Spies who did not wish to spy. He understood that sentiment. It defined his own condition. As his master pointed out when becoming his lifelong patron, a carnival could cross borders during wars, enter castles and palaces, and perform outside temples. An observant carnival leader could learn a great deal by watching the royalty for whom he performed. Even more by bribing servants and merchant traders. Such information could be useful to the right person.
The three spies did not know he discerned their purpose in joining his carnival crew. They made excellent guards, and their act of martial prowess thrilled and impressed the crowds who came to see the three weird creatures from the other realms. Yeth, the yutan woman, tall with fair skin bordering on the albino, held a subtle mastery of her spear-tipped staff. Shifhuul, the wyrin, largely nocturnal by nature, two-thirds the height of a man, with an animal-like snout and a pelt of short black fur covering his body, proved a surprisingly acrobatic swordsman with his slender blade. And Tarak, the roagg, taller than even the yutan woman, wide like a bear, with a razor-toothed muzzle, a shaggy coat of fur, and two massive axes he wielded with the dexterity of a juggler. If nothing else, leaving them to guard
the camp at night frightened off most potential bandits. There had been a time, not so many years ago, when the roads of Atheton were free of bandits, the dominion’s army patrolling the main thoroughfares and protecting travelers. Most blamed the rise in lawlessness on deserters from the war between the neighboring Shen dominions rather than a failing of the ruling Atheton tey. Of late, the blame also fell to rumors of a plague purging towns in the north. Regardless, those bandits who made the occasional error of thinking they had the three outlanders outnumbered rarely lived to make another mistake of any kind.
Leotin cast aside thoughts of the outlander spies, particularly the knowledge that if his own spying were ever to be discovered then he now had three perfectly acceptable marks to take the blame. He hated such thoughts. A man had to be hard to run a carnival and survive the roads between the dominions, but a man could still have honor. Unless, that is, he worked for a master who demanded secrecy and promised far greater punishments for being caught spying than might be found on the chopping blocks or in the jails of a royal palace. Punishments Leotin had seen once and wished he could erase from his mind.
He shook his head, clearing it of the worries that always arose from thoughts of his master. With his fingernail, he removed the tiny, wax covered cork stopper from the end of the slender message tube and carefully pulled the tightly rolled paper out into the moonlight. He unfurled the miniature scroll and scanned the strange script scrawled across the parchment surface. Words written in an ancient language. A language Leotin once struggled to learn. His master did not trust codes. Codes could be broken, but dead tongues held their secrets firm. To Leotin’s knowledge, only he and his master knew how to read the symbols of the long-vanished Tinthar people of the Kytain Dominion. Ever the embodiment of unambiguity, his master’s message held only four words.
Free city. Pilgrims. Now.
The “free city” could only be Tanjii, the independent city-state wedged between two mountain ranges along the coast at the terminus of the Old Border Road between the Daeshen and Tanshen dominions. The word “pilgrims” meant that his master’s continued interest in the dreams of the new god demanded more edification. The word “now” closed out the winged dispatch. His master believed in haste — in obtaining information before potential rivals.
Leotin wondered at his master’s sustained focus on the pilgrims and the dreams. All of his orders of late centered on them, whether gleaning reactions at castle courts and royal councils, or ferreting out the concerns of the priests of the various temples. The dreams terrified people. He doubted anything frightened his master. To his master, the dreams represented an opportunity to be exploited, as did the bands of pilgrims now crossing the land, heading for the western coast and eventually the Forbidden Realm. Pilgrims he would apparently soon join.
As he tore the paper of his master’s message into tiny pieces and scattered them in the light breeze, he looked up into the cloud-patched night sky to admire the stars. He stood there a long time. As he watched the constellations slowly drifting across the canvas of the night, he wondered at their meaning. What were they? Why did they travel so? Were they worlds like his own? Were they suns, like the one now hiding beyond the horizon, distant and unreachable? Were they gods, sitting in judgment, interfering in the affairs of the beings below to amuse themselves? The dream showed a star. Each night, the same dream and the same star. What did it mean?
Leotin gasped as a cloud drifted across the sky and revealed a brilliant new light blooming among the familiar firmament of the heavens. A deep point of crimson luminescence outshining all but the twin moons above it. A new star in the western sky, directly along the path to Tanjii and the Zha Ocean and beyond to the Forbidden Realm.
Claws of ice gripped his spine and made him shiver. He wiped the sudden sweat from his forehead with his now clammy hands. He could not slow the quickness of his breath. A new star. Just as the dream foretold.
Leotin stood and watched the newborn star, wondering if his master also gazed upon its brilliance and what the next dispatch carried by night jays would instruct.
To continue reading the Carnival story arena follow this link.
To continue reading Leotin’s storyline follow this link.
THE FUGITIVES
SAO-TAUNA
DRIED LEAVES from the previous autumn skittered across the packed and pockmarked dirt road, driven by the same strong wind gradually dissolving the clouds from the dark, night sky, the pale light of the setting twin moons growing dimmer with each footstep.
Sao-Tauna swayed in Lee-Nin’s arms as she and the big man walked the narrow road. The big man had carried them both at first, for span after span until he sat them down on the road. He said it would help fool the dogs. Fooling dogs sounded good to Sao-Tauna, but Lee-Nin complained about not being a sack of radishes.
They walked the road for an unknown time. Sao-Tauna dozed often. Tired from the running. And everything else. More tired than the day she spent running through the palace halls trying to catch Ja-Na. The cat liked to eat mice, but he didn’t like to be petted. She understood that. She did not enjoy being held either. But she did enjoy petting kitties. She found the purring of a cat helped make the world quiet. The world could get too noisy even when no one spoke. The cat gave her a scratch on her nose as punishment for petting him. Her father had laughed when her mother told him the story of the cat chase that day.
Her father.
She did not understand what had angered her father. She knew she did things others did not do. Or could not do. And she had sensed the need to tell no one — to do those things only when alone. And she thought she had been alone. But the wrinkly man must have seen her. She heard him tell Father.
She had not known it to be a deep wrongness. If she had realized, she would have ceased. Father could have asked her to stop. Instead, he had come with a knife…
Sao-Tauna frowned and squished that thought like an ugly, black bug beneath her heel.
Her mother had not even tried to…
Squish, squish, squish.
And the wrinkly man had held her…
Stomp, stomp, stomp!
Sao-Tauna bit her lip. Hard. Her eyes watered with the pain, but the dark thoughts receded — a sneaky cat darting into the shadows of the palace gardens.
Through her bleary eyes, she saw they were approaching a spot where another road crossed the one they traveled.
“Look.” Lee-Nin spoke next to Sao-Tauna’s ear, raising an arm to point upward.
Sao-Tauna followed the aim of Lee-Nin’s finger to watch as a cloud drifted apart in the sky opposite the steadily glowing sunrise. A reddish star shone brighter than any star she had ever seen. So bright, she wondered if it might not be a star, but rather the light of a giant glow-fly, hovering in the night air.
Then she remembered the dreams.
“I’ve seen that star.” Lee-Nin came to a stop.
“No one has seen that star before.” The big man looked upward. “It should not be there.”
“The dreams,” Lee-Nin said. “It’s the star from the dreams.”
The big man looked at Lee-Nin and then back to the star, but said nothing.
“Do you have the dreams?” Lee-Nin asked the big man.
The big man watched the star so long, Sao-Tauna assumed he would not answer.
“I do not often sleep.” The big man lowered his eyes but did not return them to Lee-Nin and Sao-Tauna.
Sao-Tauna briefly considered that odd, but then she realized it made sense. The big man appeared to be merely a big man, but she knew otherwise. She could sense it. Like she sensed … things.
She would not think such thoughts. Thinking them had led to the doing of things that resulted in Father’s knife and the wrinkly man’s screams and Lee-Nin helping her flee from the palace and the running and the dogs and the cold and the hunger and the wardens on the floor bent like broken sticks.
Squish, squish, squish.
“Why did you come with us?” Lee-Nin�
�s voice brought Sao-Tauna’s attention back from within her mind. Her guardian turned to face the big man. “I want to know now, before we go any farther.”
The big man looked down at Lee-Nin in silence. She stared back as she switched her hold of Sao-Tauna, using her other arm. The big man frowned.
“You are not the only one being hunted,” the big man finally said.
Sao-Tauna sensed Lee-Nin step back half a pace.
“Who is hunting you?” Lee-Nin asked.
“A lone woman hunts me,” the big man said.
“Why?”
“I have done things.”
Lee-Nin stared hard at the big man. Sao-Tauna felt glad Lee-Nin did not ask what things he had done.
“I don’t even know your name,” Lee-Nin said.
“Sha-Kutan,” the big man replied.
“I am Lee-Nin, and this is Sao-Tauna.”
“Why do the soldiers hunt you?”
“I have told you.”
“You do not have a dead husband.”
“No.”
Lee-Nin’s grip on Sao-Tauna tightened.
“Then why do they hunt you?” The big man continued to stare at Lee-Nin.
“They wish to kill Sao-Tauna.”
Sao-Tauna squirmed under the increased pressure of Lee-Nin’s arms, but her protector did not notice.
“Why?”
“I do not know.”
Sha-Kutan stood silent for a moment. “That is the truth.”
Lee-Nin eased her hold on Sao-Tauna as she turned back to the road and began walking once more.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 9