Andover spent one week in the company of Tusk and his people. He was treated as an equal, which is to say he was treated well enough, but expected to handle his own troubles.
When they left the Durhallem Pass they moved down a short passage to an area that had been set aside for the sole purpose of allowing travelers to rest. The sun shone down on the space and for easily ten minutes, all Andover did was close his eyes and feel the warmth and light of the sun on his skin. It seemed forever since he had felt that simple pleasure and he reveled in it. According to Drask the gods had decreed that the location be tended and left for any Sa’ba Taalor who hunted in the Blasted Lands. As the spot was on the side of Durhallem’s mountain, it was his followers who tended to it.
There was a bathhouse, there were stables old and new, and there were rooms with simple but functional beds. For some it might have seemed rather simple, but for Andover Lashk, who had lived more than once on the streets of Tyrne while he was growing up, the bed was a luxury and after the long walk through the Blasted Lands to get there, the baths were as fine a treat as he could recall.
What he found unsettling was the moment when he was joined in the baths by several members of the Sa’ba Taalor, male and female alike.
The room had a few wooden benches built into the walls where people could sit and take off their clothes. In the center was a rather elaborate collection of stone troughs that could be filled with water by working a series of chains and levers. Andover tried to watch while one of his hosts worked the devices but, really, they weren’t the sort of thing he was used to. Mostly, if one wanted a bath, one went to a place that offered them or one carried the waters from the Freeholdt River and took matters into one’s own hands. As he’d been apprenticed to a blacksmith, he’d simply washed in the waters there and called it done, over the years, and before that when he was a child his mother had prepared his weekly baths. On a few occasions he’d snuck down to the river in a private area and after making certain no one was around to observe his naked state, he’d managed a few quick baths in the extremely cold but fresh waters.
In all that time he had bathed alone, as the gods had surely intended. He listened to the echoes of the water splashing as he settled himself. It sounded like he was in a cavern, not a structure built by people.
According to Drask, again, the waters were warmed by the fire within the mountain, and then released into the long troughs and allowed to cool down from a hard boil to something that wouldn’t actually cook flesh. The method meant nothing to him, but the end result was a delight. He had just settled his body into the heated waters when Drask and Delil both entered the room and stripped down, discussing their reunion with their mounts, who had been waiting in the area when they arrived.
Andover felt himself blush across his entire body, lowered himself in the waters and tried to think himself somehow smaller and less noticeable. Neither of them seemed to have noticed him at first and he was feeling rather pleased with that notion when Bromt and Tusk and seven more of Tusk’s people entered the chambers.
To be fair, seeing Delil and the other women take their clothes off certainly solved a few mysteries of the female body that he had been wondering about for a long time, but watching the men with them peel off their clothing was rather unsettling. Seeing Delil naked also awoke his arousal, and Andover prayed fervently to the gods that no one would notice. Andover had never been in the military and he had most assuredly never bathed with anyone else, male or female. Seeing that much unclothed flesh was unsettling in the extreme and he was fairly certain that sooner or later they would truly see him and make fun of his naked state of being.
The groups continued their talks while they disrobed and then climbed into the waters around him.
King Tuskandru sat immediately to his right. Sheer fear that the gigantic man might accidentally crush him against the side of the trough had Andover sitting up again in an instant.
Tusk was as naked as the rest, and Andover saw more of the man’s body than he wanted to by a long stretch. Nearly every inch of him was scarred. His muscular chest was hairy, which did nothing to hide the signs of old wounds. He had to resist the urge to check if the king’s penis was as scarred as the rest of him.
The only thing any of them were wearing was their veils. Tusk’s was covered with fine metal rings.
Andover contemplated the best ways to make himself seem either so small as to be beneath notice or large enough to feel less like a child around the Sa’ba Taalor. He was of average size, and he knew that, but by the gods even the women of the gray-skinned people seemed more muscular than he.
Tusk looked at him. “You are so pink…”
Andover looked at his hands, at the flesh that had tinged with gray where the iron limbs were fused to the rest of him, and lifted them to where they could be seen by the king. “Not everywhere.” Really, it was all he could think to say.
Tusk roared laughter and cuffed him in the shoulder. He had to assume it was a playful gesture as he was still alive.
“Why are my wrists changing?”
Tusk looked at him for a long moment. “The metal, I suppose.”
Andover looked at him, trying to understand.
Drask leaned over and spoke in their native tongue.
Tusk spoke back and nodded.
When he spoke again it was in the common tongue. “You have not seen our children. You will. When you do, you will understand better. We do not start off gray.”
“You don’t?”
Tusk’s eyes shone in the room. “No, Andover. We are not so different, your people and ours. You will see.” The King called to one of his people who listened and nodded. A moment later, the man was rising from the waters and baring his body to everyone there. Not a one of them seemed to care. Andover had to make himself look away. He had never seen so much bare flesh in his entire life. People should be clothed, that was all there was to it.
The man walked to the doorway of the bathroom and cupped his hands, calling out. A moment later he nodded, responding perhaps to words Andover could not hear, and then climbed back into his bath.
When he spoke to Tusk, he spoke in the common tongue. “Trumdt will bring them.”
“Who is Trumdt?”
Tusk waved a hand. “Trumdt is here to tend this place. He will be here in a moment with his children.”
A moment later the man approached. Like the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor he carried weapons strapped to his body. He also wore a veil. The two young children with him did not. They were dark haired and their eyes bore the same sort of gray color as the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor, complete with the odd light that seemed nearly to come from inside their skulls. But both of the children, no older than five or six years, if Andover had to guess, had dark hair, and their pink skin was tanned from many hours of being outside.
He stared at them as if they simply did not belong where they were.
Tusk spoke his native tongue and the man and his children nodded alike and promptly stripped their clothes away. The children were both girls. They did not hide their nudity. Neither did their father.
Trumdt’s body was a map of scars, a book written in healed flesh and callused palms. He was as much a warrior as any of the others around them. Both of the children bore scars as well, though nowhere near as many.
“Do you understand now?” Tusk’s voice caught him off guard.
“Why are they pink?”
“Why are you pink? They have not yet met with the Daxar Taalor. They have not yet worked the metals and shaped their weapons. They are only just learning the ways of the Sa’ba Taalor.”
The older of the two children eyed Andover suspiciously. The younger stared as well, but without any seeming hostility.
Drask spoke up. “You are wondering why they are pink. They are wondering why you are pink.”
Tusk spoke at the same time and the man nodded. He and his children climbed into the baths as well.
“I’ve worked metal for a few years. My skin has not changed color because of that. It’s changing because of the hands, I think.”
“There are differences in working metal for your people and ours, Andover.” Drask spoke casually enough. “I watched you when you forged your weapon. Your metal is taken from the ground, yes? And heated by fires until it is molten.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Our metal is a gift from the Daxar Taalor, heated just as these waters are heated.” His silver hand splashed slowly through the water, making a small wave but nothing more. “Our metal is the lifeblood of the mountains, the lifeblood of the gods themselves. They give to us, and when they give to us, and we accept, we are changed.”
Drask reached down under the waters and Andover nearly jumped when he felt the warm silver fingers touch his leg. “Look at your scar, Andover.”
Andover looked down at the place where silver metal had healed him before. There was indeed a thick scar there, but looking at it under the water something seemed wrong. He raised his leg for a better view and let out a small gasp when he saw the flesh properly. The skin was tinted there, much as scars can be, but the tint was gray and looked almost dead in comparison to the pink flesh elsewhere.
There was a harsh ringing noise in his ears for several moments. Andover’d had enough surprises in his life to know that noise was not real, merely in his head. “Am I becoming one of you?” The words were spoken softly enough that he wasn't sure anyone heard him.
Tusk looked at him and answered just as softly: “Would that be a bad thing for you, Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands?”
An hour after he’d settled for sleep Andover sat up and took in a deep breath. He’d been having a pleasant dream about Tega and the thought of her in his dream was enough to startle him awake.
He rose from his simple bed and looked around. A few beds were occupied, but many were not. After listening in the darkness for a few moments he heard the sounds of people talking and followed them.
Just beyond the doorway, outside in the night, Drask Silver Hand was speaking in low tones with another man Andover had never seen before. The man was smaller than Drask, but not by much. His elbows rested on his knees and he squatted next to a small fire. The air had grown much colder since the sun went down and the fire was a necessity. One half of the man’s face was a ruin of scar tissue. His left ear was nothing but a hole amid the pitted mess of ruined flesh. If he had an eye on that side of his face, Andover could not see it in the light from the fire.
Andover coughed into his hand and both men looked in his direction. He did not need to cough, but suspected that startling any of the Sa’ba Taalor would be foolish in the extreme.
Neither of the men looked at all surprised by his presence and he wondered if they’d already known he was there.
Drask tilted his head a bit. His hair was down and fell around his shoulders, across his back. “You are awake? I thought you had gone to sleep, Andover.”
“I was wondering if you’d heard about Tega or the rest of my people? We’ve been so busy I forgot about the travelers who passed us on the way here.”
“The soldiers.” Drask stared at him for a long time. “They are dead. Tega, the girl, I think went home.”
“The soldiers are dead?” There was no moisture left in his throat.
Drask answered calmly enough. “Your Emperor died. He was killed, to be precise. The soldiers tried to accuse Tusk of killing him.” Dry mouth, yes. But now there was the problem with his knees feeling weak, too. Drask continued, “Tusk and the rest of the people with him killed the soldiers. The girl, Tega, was with Tusk at the time and under his protection, but she lifted into the air like a bird and soared away.”
“Oh. I. Oh. Um.” There were words he wanted to say, but they were hiding themselves very well.
“Nothing more has happened yet, Andover. The kings have met to discuss matters, but that does not change your position here. You were invited by the Daxar Taalor themselves. No one here will blame you for the actions of the soldiers.”
He nodded his head, swallowed the dryness and desperately wished he had a drink.
“You have questions?”
“Oh, yes.” Andover nodded vigorously. “Many questions.”
“You may ask them of Tusk in the morning. He is sleeping and I would not awaken him without good cause.” Both of the men offered smiles at that comment. He suspected there was a story behind those smiles, but just then could not make himself ask after what that tale might be.
He was alone among the most violent fighters he had ever met, and apparently his nation had attacked them.
Andover had no possible idea how to respond.
“Would you drink with us, Andover?” Drask held a skin that sloshed with fluids.
He nodded and the man tossed the skin to him. A moment later he took a deep drink of the cool, sweet wine within it. He had not consumed many wines but rather liked the taste.
A moment later a pleasant warmth ran down his throat and into his stomach. Within a dozen heartbeats that warmth was moving through his entire body.
He nodded his thanks and tossed the wine skin back. The man with Drask caught it and offered a ruined smile from the ruined face.
Andover smiled back, though he felt like screaming in fear, and then waved his good nights.
He moved back to his bed and settled in, but he did not sleep. Instead he found himself lost in thoughts of Tega flying like a bird and armies clashing over the body of a dead Emperor.
The following morning the entire group, excepting only Trumdt, his two children and the others that tended to the place, rode and walked up the steep slope of Durhallem, scaling the mountain at a steady pace. After the time spent in the Blasted Lands, the trek was easy enough for Andover. He did not complain and felt no reason to, instead he enjoyed the view as he climbed.
Tuskandru was well ahead of him in the procession and he contemplated how to approach the man about the attacks and the deaths he’d heard of. How to find out what the King knew of Tega.
There was an odd sense of guilt lingering in his mind. When he’d left the city she had been on his mind constantly. Now? The girl he’d adored from afar for so long was almost gone from his mind.
That was for the best, perhaps, but still he felt as if he might somehow be betraying her.
The valley below was lush with greens and other hues. He had not expected that. He wasn't sure what he would expect after walking through the desolation outside of the mountain range, but truly the notion of farmlands had never seemed a possibility.
“Who tends the farms, Delil?” He couldn’t imagine a farmer among the Sa’ba Taalor.
“Mostly the children.”
He looked at her to see if she was having a jest at his expense, but the girl seemed completely sincere.
Andover stopped to look long and hard at the distant fields, and Delil stopped with him. “How?”
“How does anyone tend a farm, Andover? They plant the seeds, they grow the crops, and they cut them down and harvest them. It is different for each kingdom, of course, but Tusk’s people teach the children to farm so that they will always be prepared to grow whatever foods they need.”
“I have never seen a farm before.” The words were out before he knew what he was saying.
She looked at him for a moment and her eyes smiled behind the veil. “Then we shall have to take you to see one.”
By the time the sun was on its way down, they had stopped at a wall of buildings. That was the only way he could think of it.
According to the stories he heard, the people in the area had once lived in stone huts they built themselves, but after the Mound Crawler came, that great and terrible beast that Tusk had killed when he became king, Tusk ordered his people to change their ways and change they did. The people lived in the mountainside, in homes that they carved from the rock themselves, though it had taken years to accomplish the task.
Stairwells cut into the rock of the mountain itself led to openings at different heights, some of them only a few feet from the ground and others that required climbing nearly a hundred feet from the flat plateau where the odd town was settled.
There were rooms and they were solid, as they should have been, seeing as they were hacked from the side of the mountain. The work was not primitive, as he’d first imagined it might be. Instead the rooms were smooth walled and even floored and as squared and balanced as any he had ever been in. Some were simple in design and others far more complex. It seemed to depend entirely on who lived there and what they did to complete their dwellings.
He was given a room in the same structure as Drask and Delil and Bromt. None of them lived in the area and so all of them were hosted in places set aside for visitors. The rooms were comfortable and functional, with little or no decoration.
What little Andover carried was left in his room without fear of it being taken. The idea seemed insane for a moment. Back in Tyrne you kept your possessions close by and hid them away if you were going to leave them behind. Here the idea was as foreign as he was. The Sa’ba Taalor did not have much of a problem with theft, according to Drask. Thieves had to fight to keep what they might take, and especially where Durhallem ruled and mercy was not an option, it seemed one would only risk theft if one was willing to die for what was taken.
It was a very different place from what he was used to. Then again, he was a very different person. All he had to do was close his eyes and think back on the fights he had survived to know that.
After the sun had set, there was a feast before the wall of structures. A broad area had been cleared of all brush and artificially leveled. He could see the cut marks where stone had been meticulously chiseled away until the area was as flat as a well-planed board.
In that area, there were four deep pits and in each of those was a fire. They proved necessary as the sun set and the chill of the night came across the mountain. From their height the people could see the entrance to Durhallem’s Pass and also see into the valley far below. Andover saw rivers and lakes that he had spotted when the sun was still up. They were a different shade of black in the darkness of the valley and from time to time he could spot fires along the edges of the water.
Drask Silver Hand joined him in observing the valley, as more and more of the people from the area came down from their homes and started gathering around the four fire pits.
Drask gestured with his hand. “The valley is larger than it looks from here.”
“It does not look small. How many days would it take to travel the length?”
Drask assessed him for a moment, his eyes once again catching whatever light was around and reflecting back a silvery glow. The more he stared, the more he suspected the light was internal somehow.
“To walk the Taalor valley would take you at least two weeks from end to end.”
“Impossible.” The word was out before he could stop himself and he dreaded the man would take offense.
Drask’s eyes smiled behind his veil. “As I said, it is larger than it seems. There are seven vast mountains, Andover. They are not neatly lined up. They are staggered. You cannot see the other end of the valley from here.”
“Which mountain do you call home, Drask?”
Drask shrugged his shoulders, a gesture he had picked up from the soldiers he’d traveled with a while back. Very few of the Sa’ba Taalor ever seemed to shrug, now that he thought about it.
“I follow Ydramil and his King in Silver, Ganem. I have a home near the top of Ydramil, but I have not been there in over a year now. I have been busy.”
“A year?” Andover frowned at that. “Why so long?”
“Ydramil makes demands of his followers. We are told to study much of the world. I have been visiting each of the mountains, each of the kings and each of the gods.”
“Like I’m supposed to?”
“Just so.” Drask sighed, the thin veil fluttering with his breath.
“Why the veils, Drask? I have seen every one of you naked, but still you wear veils.”
“We do not question the Daxar Taalor. They have not yet said you are ready to see our faces and so we cover them.”
“What is so special about your faces?”
Drask chuckled. “What is so special about yours? To us, they are just faces. We are who we are.”
“Does your face look like mine?”
“No more than my skin looks like yours or my hand looks like yours.”
He held out his silver hand and placed it close to Andover’s right hand. Both were metal. Both moved through sorceries Andover did not even try to understand, but beyond that they looked like hands and had five fingers, there was little that they had in common.
“Your children do not wear veils?”
“The children have not yet met with gods.”
“Like I’m supposed to meet with them?” That thought was still too large to completely take in. It was easier to try to study the whole of the sky and count the stars than it was to comprehend meeting actual gods.
Drask looked away. “You ask many questions. I can only answer a few. You will meet the Daxar Taalor. They have reasons for wanting to meet you that they have not shared with me.” There was no anger in his comment, not even disappointment. Drask merely stated a fact. “I can tell you only this: no one stands before gods and remains unchanged by the encounter.”
They were silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts as the sounds of people gathering and preparing food came to them. At each of the fires, carcasses were spitted and set above the flames. There was a time when the notion of eating a Pra-Moresh would have been repellent, but having endured the Blasted Lands and eaten even stranger things – for strange things indeed lived in the wastelands – Andover found the idea had a certain appeal. His stomach rumbled agreement.
“I’ll be leaving after the feast.”
“Feast? Leaving?” Andover frowned at the other, larger man.
“Ydramil tells me I must go back into the Blasted Lands. He has plans for me and I will obey.”
Andover shook his head at the notion of speaking directly to a god. The notion refused to sit comfortably. “Where will you go?”
“The feast is in your honor. You should remember to thank Tusk properly.” Drask stood up, not answering the question. “Should we meet again, after you have spoken with the gods, you may ask me more questions. Until then, Andover Lashk, the Daxar Taalor watch over the both of us.”
The man who had taught him harsh lessons tapped him lightly on one shoulder and walked away, his thick dark hair swaying with his steps.
Andover was uncertain how he felt about that. In part he felt he was losing a friend, though in truth Drask had done little that could be called a kindness.
Aside from teaching him not to die. That had been a very large kindness indeed.
Andover contemplated all that Bromt and Delil and Drask had done for him, even as he ran one hand gently along his bound ribs and felt the area where the pain still flashed if he pushed. The ribs were mending. They’d felt fine when he was fighting – too busy staying alive to care about the pain, and he’d been fueled by the thrill of combat – but now his side ached with a dull throb again.
He heard Bromt laughing and saw the man walking with a few other men of similar stature. They wore no armor at the present time, though all of them still sported weapons. He imagined this was as close to relaxed as they managed.
Delil talked with several others, men and women alike, and though Andover wanted to speak with her, he did not wish to interrupt her homecoming.
Tuskandru walked toward him. He was again taken by how large the King was, how striking a figure. One of the soldiers, who had traveled with the Sa’ba Taalor to Tyrne, a man named Wollis, had told Andover that Tusk cut a Pra-Moresh nearly in half with one swing of a sword. Despite having seen the monsters, having fought them, he did not have trouble believing the outrageous claim.
The King wore a tunic and leather breeches, the same as he had when Andover had first seen him. His necklace of teeth was wrapped twice around his thick neck, and his hair was pulled back into a heavy braid, wrapped with leather and decorated with a few small pieces of onyx. He did not carry any weapons. That fact alone was unsettling to Andover.
Tusk stopped before him and nodded. “Drask said you want to know what happened with your people.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” His voice only cracked a little as he spoke.
“They came for us. One of them claimed that your Emperor is dead. He said that someone killed the Emperor and said we must go back and speak with your generals.”
Andover nodded his head. He’d been on the receiving end of demands from the City Guard and, in comparison to the soldiers, those men had almost no authority. Certainly not as much as generals in the Imperial Army.
“They did not ask. They tried to command me. I am a king. I do not answer to your Emperor or his generals. When they would not accept that, one of them drew his weapon. I killed him.”
Andover nodded again. He could think of nothing at all to say to that.
And so instead he asked, “Tega. She flew away?”
“She spoke with the voice of her master, the sorcerer. He asked that your soldiers not attack and they did not listen.”
“So is she safe?”
Tusk crossed his massive arms. “None of my people hurt Tega. She was under my protection and helped me speak with your soldiers.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“You wish to go home? To your people?”
Andover shook his head. “No. I made a promise to you and your gods, Tusk. I keep my promises.”
Tusk nodded his head. “This is good. In the morning, I will show you how to reach Durhallem.”
“You’ll show me?” His voice broke a second time. “Are you not coming with me?”
Tusks eyes looked at him hard, their light burning. “No one goes before Durhallem who does not walk alone. That is Durhallem’s demand.”
Tusk gave him an amiable thump on the arm. Andover managed to keep his balance, but it was a close call.
A moment later the King was moving away, heading for one of the fires and calling out cheerfully in his own language. Andover understood a few words of the greeting, but only enough to feel embarrassed that he had not yet learned more.
Of course he had been learning other things.
“Tusk!” He called out before he could let himself think too much.
The King turned to look at him. He did not walk back and it was clear that if Andover wished to speak discretely it would be he who did the walking.
Instead he called out, “Are our people at war?”
Tusk looked at him for several heartbeats and nodded. “We are at war. Fellein has attacked us. You will be asked to defend that attack before the kings of the Sa’ba Taalor.”
Oh yes. His heart hammered away in his chest and he nodded. “When?”
“First you meet the Gods of the Forges. Then you answer to their kings.” Tusk spread his arms wide in a gesture that almost looked like he wanted to embrace. Only the fact that he’d seen the gesture before let Andover know the move was the equivalent of a shrug. “You will be given the chance to prepare.”
“Can I speak to my people?”
“You have agreed to be here. Unless they send you a message, no.”
Andover nodded again and Tusk started walking. This time he didn’t try to get the King’s attention again.
Andover shook his head. He’d rather hoped to know the love of a woman before he died. That seemed less likely all the time.