The tintinnabulation which at first seemed to echo so musically from the blacksmiths’ tents had become a cacophony of pain that lodged itself between his ears and throbbed in time to the constant ringing of hammer against metal.
Worse, the air was thick with the smell of meat from the smoke-tents, and him with a belly full of pemmican, journey-bread, and flat water. His first journey into adulthood was three times cursed— word had come through the vash’ai that slavers’ ships had been seen in the waters near Aish Kalumm, so the First Warrior had taken her warriors and left the Ja’Sajani, the craftmasters, and the disgracefully young new-bonded Zeeravashani bereft of female companionship.
A shamsi hung from a belt at Ismai’s waist, a sword of the Sun Dragon forged of red steel from the Seared Lands. His mother had handed him this sword with her own two hands, had kissed him upon both cheeks and called him the child of her heart in front of Tammas and half the pride. The blue veils of a Ja’Sajani’s touar slapped at his face and got in his mouth when he tried to talk, but in that moment Ismai had been glad of them, for they had hidden his tears.
That was then. Now, the blue robes and headdress of the Ja’Sajani seemed to gather all the heat and stink of the day and hold it close to his body, and the veils wrapped so closely around his head likewise held in every unhappy and sleep-deprived thought. His shamsi, the sun-forged and salt-quenched Quarabalese blade that marked him out as his mother’s favorite son, was heaviest of all. It was not an especially heavy blade, but as Istaz Aadl ran them through the first three forms over and over and over and over again, Ismai’s shoulders burned hotter than the forges at midsun, and his arms trembled like grass in the wind.
“Enough!” the youthmaster bellowed. He never spoke to the boys in his normal voice—if he had a normal voice—and he never spoke to Ismai at all except to threaten or demean him.
Jasin groaned and dropped his sword in the sand. “Why do the rest of us have to suffer just because this majdoube does not know his forms?”
The youthmaster closed the distance between himself and the boys and backhanded Jasin across the mouth. “Pick up your sword, you limp gewad. Go on. Now you will hold your sword in Catching the Cat stance until I tell you otherwise.”
Jasin looked as if he had bitten into horse shit, but bowed to his Istaz and did as he had been told.
Catching the Cat was a more advanced stance than Ismai had yet managed. One foot was meant to be tucked behind the other, a body’s weight carried on the ball of the forward foot, with a twist at the waist and hands upraised as if to catch a cat that had been springing at one’s back. Add the weight of a sword and Ismai winced in sympathy. Not that it would win him any friends. His ineptitude among the youths, most of whom would become wardens this summer, stuck out nearly as much as the blue robes that marked him out as a full Ja’Sajani.
The elders had not known what to do with such a young Zeeravashani. He had not trained with the younglings who hoped to become wardens, but they could not turn out a bonded man in the white robes of a child. This was their compromise—that he should have the outward trappings and some of the responsibilities of a warden, while attempting to catch up in his training like a newly tapped youngster. This explanation did nothing to appease his new pridemates, who had trained together for years and resented both his unearned status and the extra work his clumsiness earned them.
“And you!” Istaz Aadl thrust a beefy index finger toward Ismai. “You park your ass right here until you can perform Sun Burns the Flower without fucking it up, or I am going to burn your ass with the flat of my sword.” His gaze raked across the other boys. “The rest of you goat-fathered idiots go find something productive to do. Now!”
The students scattered with scarcely a backward glance. Ismai had made no friends among the other boys, nor was likely to as long as his robes and his bond with Ruh’ayya set him apart. Neither had he made friends among the Ja’Sajani proper, men twice his age or more with whom he had little in common, and whose scars suggested they were not likely to be impressed by his new status. Tammas and Dairuz had gone back to Aish Kalumm with the Ja’Akari almost as soon as they had arrived. His brother was likely in the City of Mothers even now, dining on flaky whitefish wrapped in sweetgrass, and washing it down with a horn full of mead.
Ismai sighed and flowed as best he could into Flower Stance, wobbling a little as he brought his feet close together. He was hot, and tired, and hungry, and he felt more foolish than flowery. He ignored Jasin’s derisive snort, and brought his rear leg forward into an exaggerated step while raising his arms up to his sides, wrists toward the sun, right fingers curled lightly about the hilt of his sword. On the first day, he had nearly chopped off his own toes so many times that Istaz Aadl had forbidden him to practice with his own blade until just this morning.
Ismai put his weight on the front foot and attempted a pivot, a move that ended with him ass-up in the sand.
This is impossible, he thought.
Not impossible. Ruh’ayya rumbled merrily in the back of his head. Merely improbable. You look like a newborn tarbok trying to stand for the first time. That reminds me… I am hungry.
Ismai picked himself up and brushed off most of the sand, wishing he dared remove the heavy touar. But the last time he had attempted to tie the headdress without assistance, he had nearly hanged himself.
“You are such a child,” Jasin spat. “The Ja’Sajani probably have to wipe your ass… now that your mother is not here to do it for you.”
Ismai spun, mouth hanging open. The other boy had not moved. He held Catching the Cat as if the human body had been intended to twist just so, and his blade shone against the midsun sky. It was a plain blade, new-forged, identical to any number of blades meant for Ja’Sajani who had mastered the Twenty. Ismai felt his lip curl, and his stomach growled.
Shall I eat him for you? I really am hungry.
No, thank you. I do not need you to wipe my ass, either. He picked up his sword. “Your mouth is too small to speak of my mother.” He stared at the other boy deliberately, and smiled. “And far too pretty.”
Jasin hissed between his teeth and snapped upright. “Would you draw steel against me, then?”
Ismai held out his shamsi, still staring at the other boy, and dropped it contemptuously upon the sand. “You are not worth my steel… you limp gewad.”
Jasin howled at that and tossed his own blade aside. The boys flew at each other headfirst.
Like hill goats in rut, Ruh’ayya noted with approval. Bang your brains out, then. I hear human brains are delicious.
Jasin had trained among the Ja’Sajani for years, but Ismai was a younger sibling in a family of warriors. He might not yet be able to hold Fish Stance without falling over, but his opponent had never had to wrestle an older brother and sisters, and had never learned to fight dirty.
Ismai ducked aside from a punch as if his little sister Rudya had thrown it, and came up swinging with a hook that took Jasin full in the face. He was horrified—and gratified—to feel the larger boy’s nose crunch beneath his knuckles.
Now you have done it, Ruh’ayya observed. She padded into view just as Jasin sank to his knees, yelling and clutching at his face. Blood spurted and dripped from between his fingers. You broke one of them. I do not think the sires will be pleased with you.
Once again, Ruh’ayya showed herself to have an excellent grasp of human nature. An enormous hand grabbed Ismai by the back of the neck. He was lifted high into the air and then shaken like a girl’s rag dolly.
“Enough!” The voice was loud enough to set his ears ringing. “If your hands are idle enough to be at one another’s throats, I will give you something to fill them with. You.” He pointed at Jasin. “The privy pits want work.”
“He broge by dode!” wailed Jasin, hands still cupping his face.
“With a face as ugly as yours, it can only be an improvement. Stop by the healer’s tent on your way to the privies. I said go!”
Jasin retrieved his sword and hurried off, shooting Ismai a look of pure loathing as he passed.
“And you!” The smith glowered. “I expected better than this from you. You should expect better than this of yourself. Fighting in the dirt like some outlander urchin. Spilling your cousin’s blood! Were you half again as big, I would beat some sense into you. Were you half again as smart, I should not have to.”
Ismai felt a sulk welling from his chest, try though he might to hold it back. “He started it.”
“He started it? Did you just tell me ‘he started it’? You, the favored son of Umm Nurati, the brother of one of our finest wardens?” Mastersmith Hadid hawked and spat. “Little cousin, it is high time you let go of your mother’s teats and grew a pair of your own.”
Grow your own teats? I did not know human males could do this.
Ismai bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Are you trying to get me killed?
Mastersmith Hadid turned his face and stared straight at Ruh’ayya until the vash’ai turned her head away and began licking dust from between her toes. “And you! Whatever you were thinking to bond this one so young, he is yours now. You are not to encourage this type of behavior, do you understand?”
Ruh’ayya stuck her leg up into the air and began cleaning her nether parts. The big man snorted.
“Hopeless, the pair of you. Do you at least understand what you have done here, son of Nurati?”
“I defended myself from an attacker.” Ismai scowled at the way his words rang in the air, hollow and without conviction. “It is my right.”
“Perhaps when you had milk teeth and women washing your bottom when you soiled your clothes, but no longer.” He stepped close, and Ismai only flinched a bit as the big man took a big fistful of his blue robes. “What do you see when you look at this? What do you see when you look into the water?”
Ismai stared at him uncertainly. “I see… touar?”
“Yes. You see touar, the robes of a Ja’Sajani.” Mastersmith Hadid released him, and sighed deeply. “What do you think young Jasin sees?”
Ismai shrugged.
“He sees a boy who has been given everything in life, everything he might hope to ever win through sweat and blood, and a great deal more besides. You are the son of Umm Nurati, the most powerful woman in the prides, a mother of six living children. Six! Brother to Tammas Ja’Sajani besides.”
“Oh, yes, Tammas.” Ismai hated the sound of his own voice, even as he said the words. How could he explain to this man how it was, growing up in the shadows of the handsomest and most talented man in the pride? What mother would not wish her youngest to be more like the oldest? Even as he thought this, Ismai caught sight of his red sword lying in the sand and felt a moment of shame.
“Yes, Tammas, whom you favor more than you know. Such a family you boast… while most women cannot bear one child to term, your mother births six. Two of your sisters fertile, as well—and young Tammas, himself a father thrice over, ehuani. It can be expected that you will sire at least one child in your lifetime, if not many. You have this pretty beast—” he jerked his chin toward Ruh’ayya, who lifted her head from her important business and showed a bit of fang “—though you are too young to have earned the bond.
“You have a fancy sword which you have never learned to use, you have the blue robes that Jasin has worked to earn since he was five years old, and already the women’s eyes follow you about the camp. You have everything, and you leave the rest of them nothing.”
Ismai hung his head, willing the tears to go back where they had come from. “I did not think…”
Ruh’ayya heaved herself up from the sand and came to stand by him, nudging his shoulder with the top of her head.
I still love you.
“You did not think. I know this, having been young and bone-headed myself.” Mastersmith Hadid reached up to rub his smooth scalp, and tug at his Master’s lock. “But you are a man grown now, whether any of us likes it or not, with a man’s responsibilities. It is time to set the idiocy of youth aside. We are too few, little cousin, to allow you the comforts of childhood any longer. Do you understand how few we are? Nine smiths for all the prides. Nine, when there used to be hundreds. Less than ten thousand Ja’Sajani, perhaps half again as many Ja’Akari and that only because so few of our women are fertile. Do you remember the words? ‘I fight against my brother…’”
“…but I fight with my brother against my cousin…” Ismai continued.
“…and I fight with my brother and my cousin against outlanders,” Mastersmith Hadid finished. “Precisely. Here is the thing, young Ismai. We Zeeranim are so few in number now that every drop of blood is precious to us. Every man among us is a brother. Do you know why we are so few?”
“The Sundering.”
“The Sundering, yes. Wars and earthquakes and worse, and do you know how the Sundering started?”
Ismai had not really paid much attention to his history lessons. “A wicked sorcerer?” he half-remembered, half-guessed. “He brought down the fury of Akari Sun Dragon upon the world, or… or something like that. There are many stories of the Sundering.” He could only remember half of the stories he had been told, and understood fewer than half of those.
Mastersmith Hadid rubbed his face. He did not look angry now so much as he looked tired. Tired and sad. “Many stories, yes, but they are all the same at the heart. There was a sorcerer in Atualon, and he called himself Ka Atu, the Dragon King. During a war with Sindan, this king used the magic they call atulfah, he used too much of it, sucked the world dry like you would suck an egg… and the magic fought him. The battle between this Dragon King and his unnatural magic raged across the land, searing Quarabala and freezing the northern wastes, causing the seas to rise so that they covered the land in some places, where in others the water disappeared altogether.”
“But that was so long ago,” Ismai protested. “The people survived, and we are stronger now.”
“The people survived, but are we any stronger now than we were a hundred years ago? Two hundred?” The older man shook his head. “In my grandmother’s mother’s time, one in every three women gave birth. Now, perhaps one in every four or five women bears a living child. This is what we ward against, Ja’Sajani, my youngest brother. As you take census, year after year, you will come to see that we are failing as a people. We are dying.”
This is true. Ruh’ayya’s voice in his mind was slow and sad. Among the vash’ai as well. Among the kith, and the kin, and even the lesser beasts… the world is dying.
Ismai stared at Ruh’ayya. “But… what can we do?”
“Do? We can do as we have always done. Serve and protect. Take census, make note of the fertile men and the fertile women, and suggest pairings so that we may build another generation. It has been enough, or almost enough, until now.” Mastersmith Hadid laid a heavy hand upon Ismai’s shoulder, and stared into his eyes with such profound pity that Ismai took a step back, alarmed.
“Why now? What has happened?”
“It is not what has happened, it is what will happen… if it is not happening already. Ismai Ja’Sajani, everyone knows of your… fondness… for Sulema Ja’Akari, the daughter of Hafsa Azeina.”
“Yes…” Everyone knows? he thought, dismayed.
“Sulema has been wounded. Perhaps she will die.” He held up a hand to forestall Ismai’s protest. “Yes, I know you will her to live, but she may die on the road to Atualon, or she may die once they reach the city. If she does not die, if she survives… what then? What then, Ismai, warden of the people?”
“If she survives…” When she survives, he thought stubbornly, “I suppose she will meet her father and then return home. She is Ja’Akari.”
“She was Ja’Akari, Ismai. She is the daughter of Ka Atu, and the Dragon King has no heir. He has only the one son left to him, and that son is surdus… deaf to the song of sorcery. He cannot wield atulfah, and so he can never be king. Do you really believe Ka Atu will simply allow this daughter of his to leave, to ride off again into the desert firing arrows into the sunset? After he has spent so many years and so many men searching for her?
“Istaza Ani told me once, and this was years ago, that Hafsa Azeina had killed more than a hundred men to keep her daughter hidden away. A hundred men, and all of them sent by Ka Atu to seek this girl out and force her return. Does it sound to you as if Sulema will be free to leave? Once she reaches Atualon, boy, she is lost to us. Best you think of her as lost to us already.”
“But the dreamshifter is so powerful,” Ismai said, stunned. The world tilted beneath his feet. “Her mother will keep her safe.”
“Keep her safe? Boy, have you been listening? Ka Atu is like the Sleeping Dragon in the old stories, powerful enough to crack the world open and destroy us all. His daughter will be Sa Atu, the Heart of Atualon, a sorcerer-queen. It is no longer a question of how to keep Sulema safe from her father. Now it is a question of how we will keep the world safe from Sulema.” He squeezed Ismai’s shoulder and then let his hand drop away. “I am sorry to tell you this, ehuani. I rather liked the girl, myself.”
Ismai stared for a moment, then turned and walked slowly to where his sword lay, half-buried in the sand as if it meant nothing to him. He picked up the blade and looked at it for a long time, watching sunlight ripple and dance upon the bright steel, the swirls of color that drew the eye in. It was a beautiful sword, sweet to behold and balanced in the hand, and he felt shame for the way he had behaved earlier.
“You should spend some time with your vash’ai,” Hadid said. Ismai looked up, startled. “What?”
“New Zeeravashani are expected to spend some time alone getting to know one another. Perhaps you and Ruh’ayya should walk out for a day or three. Your brother would tell you as much, but as he is not here…” The big man nodded. “No camp, no chores, no jealous looks, hey? And no hammering for a while? Just a short walk, mind you. Practice your forms while you are gone, that will make Istaz Aadl happy.” He unfastened a large leather bag from his belt and tossed it to Ismai. From the feel of it, the bag was mostly full of food and waterskins. “You have had many changes in your life, in a short amount of time, and I daresay you have much to think about. I, myself, find it much easier to think when I am not surrounded by other people.”
I would like that. Ruh’ayya had ceased insulting Mastersmith Hadid with her bath and was sitting straight, ears perked forward with interest. I would like that very much. We could hunt and would not have to share the meat.
Ismai nodded, unable to speak for the lump in his throat.
The smith began to turn away but stopped, a slow grin spreading across his coarse face. “We are not far from Eid Kalmut, you know. The Valley of Death. When I was a boy, I was hot to ride out and see the ruins, but of course we were forbidden. I suppose no one has thought to tell you that it is khutlani?”
“No,” Ismai sheathed his sword. “But if it is forbidden, I promise I will not—”
“Ah-aat!” The smith held one hand up in warning. “If no one has thought to tell you a thing is forbidden, you can hardly be faulted for doing it. I do not want to know your plans, boy. So, go, spend some time with your vash’ai. When you come back to us, you will have to leave all this boyish nonsense behind. You will dedicate yourself to your training, and we will find you a horse of your own, and you will be Ja’Sajani in truth. You understand this.”
Ismai nodded.
“Good. Then go, be a foolish boy one last time. When you return, perhaps you can tell me tales of the Valley of Death.” The mastersmith of the pride winked, and then he turned and strode away.
Valley of Death? Ruh’ayya yawned and stretched, digging her long black claws into the sand, and then she shook herself and showed her tusks in a pleased smile. That sounds promising.
“You are a very strange cat,” he told her. He loosened the cords that tied the bag shut and looked inside. It held maybe three days’ worth of fish-and-jiinberry pemmican, which was his least favorite food in all the world, two fire bundles, and several wax-stopped waterskins. He would be sleeping under the stars with little food in his belly and no tent, no bedding, no companionship besides an enormous saber-tusked cat who had never promised not to eat him.
Perfect.
Perfect, Ruh’ayya agreed.
He shrugged the bag onto his shoulder, reached up to ruffle the soft fur behind Ruh’ayya’s jaw, and they set out to the north and east, toward one last great adventure.
* * *
The sky was wide and blue, blue as the robes that billowed and flapped about him like a bird’s wings in the thin wind, drawing cooler air up and against his skin. His new boots, still bone-white, shuffed softly against the sand. His muscles were sore, but it was a good sore, the kind of ache that comes from being young and hale and pushing the limits.
Without warning Ruh’ayya swatted him, claws-in, and sent him rolling down a steep dune. He tumbled ass-over-touar, limbs flailing. He lost his headdress, he lost his bag, and any semblance of dignity that had been left to him as well. When he finally came to rest at the bottom of the dune, face planted firmly in the sand, butt-high and with his legs splayed, Ruh’ayya laughed at him in his head and took off running, tail held high in an invitation to play.
What could he do but spit sand, collect his belongings, replace the touar as best he could, and give chase? His legs pumped and burned as he tore up the next dune after her, the air burned in his lungs, and he roared with vengeful laughter.
They were Zeeravashani. The world was theirs.
Ours, agreed Ruh’ayya. She paused, poised at the top of the next dune, tail still dancing. But only if I agree to share it with you. Then she was gone again.
They played like this for some time, Ismai never quite able to catch the taunting young queen. They ran laughing from the noise and stink and demands of humanity, from the weight of other people’s minds as they looked on and thought, Too young, too foolish, too lucky, too loud. There was only the sky, and the Zeera, and Ruh’ayya who loved him.
A shadow passed overhead, and for no reason he thought of Sulema. It was as if she ran with them, and felt so real that it seemed she would be waiting for him with a skin of pilfered mead in one hand, two drinking-horns in the other, and a smile wide as the sky. Ismai was suddenly overwhelmed by the certainty that she was waiting for him, just ahead. But when he reached the top of the next rise and stopped, chest heaving, there was only Ruh’ayya.
Of course he had imagined it. Just as Mastersmith Hadid had imagined that she might ever pose a risk to her own people. “Now it is a question of how we will keep the world safe from Sulema.”
Ismai snorted, and removed his touar and shook it free of sand before rewrapping it as best he could. It was still lopsided, but at least it sat firmly where it should. Keep the world safe from Sulema? She was a terror to the kitchens, and a headache to Istaza Ani, but she was a danger to no one.
Ruh’ayya jogged up the hill and shook herself so vigorously that sand stung his eyes. You are thinking of your mate?
Sulema is not my mate.
If you say so. She showed a bit of tusk. He stuck his tongue out at her. We should hunt. I am tired of dead fish and stinking fat. I want meat, red-blood meat squealing and hot.
“Za fik,” he swore aloud, disgusted with himself. “I forgot my bow!”
Oh, however will we hunt without your puny bow? she mocked. Surely we are doomed to die. We should lay down right here and let the buzzards eat our guts. Ruh’ayya stretched, extending her proud black claws and showing every inch of gleaming white tusk. Or you could find a watering hole so that we can hunt.
Ismai shook his head at her, grinning. I could… if I wanted to.
She blinked her great shining eyes at him and waited.
He let his eyes unfocus and allowed his ka to blossom in the desert heat, unfurling like the petals of a blackthorn rose. He could feel Akari Sun Dragon looking down upon them, could feel the thrum of the desert song, he could feel Ruh’ayya blazing like a fire, and he could feel water, water and life, not too far to the east. An oasis, though not much of one by the feel.
Ismai came back to himself slowly, and set out at a slow jog toward the oasis. Ruh’ayya trotted along with him, sometimes to one side or the other, sometimes bounding ahead a short distance, and now and then dropping behind. This last trick made the hairs at the nape of his neck prickle.
Would you stop that?
She laughed in his mind again, but quit her teasing and came up to run at his side.
Ismai was winded by the time they came within sight of the oasis—not much more than a puddle in the sand flanked by a few blackthorn bushes, really—and dropped the bag from his shoulder onto the sand. He dug out a waterskin and took a long pull at it. Perhaps the water at this place would be sweet and he could refill the skin, perhaps not. He would not be away long enough for it to matter, in any case.
Ruh’ayya’s ears swiveled forward and she tensed, her body fairly humming with excitement.
Meat! She dropped to her belly, haunches wiggling as she prepared to launch herself downhill. Ismai followed the line of her stare, and his heart leapt like a stag.
Wait! Wait! That is not meat. That is a horse! Not just any horse, either. She was a dream, a vision, shimmering in the air before him as pale and perfect as a shell at the river’s edge. She raised her head from the water, ears flattening along her neck and then pricking forward again, poised for flight. Ismai looked at her and understood, after all these years, what it meant to love a horse.
But it is not your horse, Ruh’ayya protested. She is young, she is tender, she is sweet! Then the vash’ai glanced up at him and blinked, and her tail sank to the ground. Oh, scat and offal. Very well, if you must have her, you must. It will be interesting to watch you try to catch her, at any rate. She relaxed, sinking fully onto the sand, and folded her paws beneath her chest, eyes shining with amusement.
Ismai shouldered his bag again, not wanting to lose it, and took a deep breath, trying to loose the tension in his gut. His hands were shaking and his mouth was as dry as if he had caught an accidental glimpse of Sulema bathing again. He slowly unwound the upper belt from his waist and knotted one end into a simple halter, and then, heart in his mouth, he began the long, slow walk down to the water.
The little mare lifted her head immediately and followed his approach with her enormous dark eyes. She was gray, the color of smoke against the sky, or river-foam among the willows. Her body was limber and sleek, her legs like a dancer’s, her mane and tail a rippling waterfall of silk.
Enough, Ruh’ayya complained. There is no excuse for bad poetry.
“Ehuani,” he breathed. Beauty in truth. So would he name her. “Ehuani.”
The mare absorbed him with her eyes, flared her nostrils and drank in his scent. She was not afraid of him, that much was apparent.
“Ehuani,” he named her three times. He closed the distance between them slowly, letting his eyes remain soft, his intentions clear. I would never harm you, beautiful one. She was a pale moon in a pale sky, glowing with the promise of spring. She was…
She was very clear about her intent not to be caught by a stripling boy, flatterer or no. Ehuani—for that was her name now— flagged her tail disdainfully before wheeling and trotting away with a toss of her head that reminded him exactly of Sulema’s reaction, that one and only time he had approached her with a stammering admission of love.
Ruh’ayya brushed past him, shoving him with her shoulder as she passed and nearly knocking him down. Well, what are you waiting for? She laughed. Let us go catch your horse.
The mare led them on a merry chase. Had he not already spent one half of his energy at his morning’s training, and the other half playing with Ruh’ayya, it would have been exciting. As it was, the excitement soon gave way to miserable, teeth-gritting, scowling exhaustion and even a little irritation as Ehuani played her game with obvious enjoyment.
She was no wild horse—she was too well groomed, well fed, and too obviously not afraid of either of them for that— but neither was she compliant. She would stand for a bit, allow them to approach, flick her ears forward at Ismai’s outstretched fingers, and then she would be off again, bucking and kicking and squealing as if his offer of friendship was deeply insulting.
Still, every time the mare stood still it was for a little while longer, every time she let him near it felt like this time when he reached to touch her, his fingers would not brush empty air still swirling and warm with her scent.
In this, too, she was like Sulema.
Finally, just as Akari Sun Dragon turned his thoughts and his gaze toward the western horizon, Ehuani allowed him to touch her. It was a whisper, the slightest brush of her velvet lips and the tickle of her whisker against his outstretched palm, but the sight and smell of her so close, the heat of her breath against his palm, the promise of touching such beauty gave Ismai the heart and energy to continue.
He turned to Ruh’ayya with a grin. His touar was falling off one side of his head, the bag of food and waterskins weighed him down as if he was carrying Mastersmith Hadid across the Zeera, and the shamsi had bruised his hip and thigh so that it felt as if he had lost a sword fight with his shadow. But he was so close.
Then he saw the way.
Ruh’ayya, O my beauty, he cajoled, if you would angle off to the side and drive her toward that tangle, I could come at her from this side, slowly, and I think this time she would not run away…
Tangle? What tangle? She narrowed her eyes as he pointed.
Due north, beyond the tangle of brush and bones, he could just see the dark line that was Eid Kalmut. Za fik, no wonder he was so…
BONELORD!
Ruh’ayya pinned her ears and screamed, bringing herself up into her shoulders so quickly she almost stood on her hind legs.
Bonelord? His brain stopped still. It was as if he had been turned into a solid lump of stupid. Bonelords are children’s stories. There is no such…
The air was rent with a hiss, a whisper of wind in the reeds at first, then the cries of birds, the whistling of all the tea-kettles in Aish Kalumm come to a boil at once. The tangle of bones began to shake and grow as something shook itself free of the desert sand, something so big and so utterly wrong that Ismai’s mind shied from it as Ehuani had shied from the touch of a rope.
The mass thrashed and grew, an oasis of carrion, a forest of bones, and then a cavern opened in its side, tall enough for a man to walk through without ducking, wide enough that four might walk abreast. The cavern stretched wide, and wider still, and then emitted a bloodcurdling shriek thick with hatred and despair. The cry brought Ismai’s heart to his mouth, and tore the veil from his mind.
The thing emerging from the Zeera was big enough to swallow a herd of tarbok. It was long and flattish in shape, like a leech, and covered all along its length with bones and branches and entire rotting carcasses. Ismai saw the hips and legs of a man, the tusked skull of a vash’ai, the long, delicate ribs of a huge lionsnake.
Run! Ruh’ayya screamed.
Run, agreed his mind. But his body refused to answer. His blood ran cold and slow as the river after a killing rain.
Then Ehuani screamed, a silvery cry ringing out against the horror, and thundered past the thing’s gaping maw. The bulk of the thing twitched and twisted, bones flailing and waving about like willow trees in the wind, and it turned to follow her. Its flat sides rippled across the desert in an oddly graceful dance as it moved with a speed that belied its size.
Ismai dropped the bag, drew his sword—though it was shorter than any but the smallest teeth in that stinking, gaping maw—and ran downhill screaming at the top of his lungs, ready to die in defense of a horse that wanted nothing to do with him.
Stupid boy! Ruh’ayya snarled in his mind. This way. He saw at once what she was about and angled his path to meet hers. This way would take them to the west a bit and then north again, hugging the midsection of this line of dunes, and bring them to the very mouth of Eid Kalmut just in time to die. Stupid, stupid, she repeated. But she ran beside him nonetheless, tusks gleaming red with the dying of the sun.
His boots pounded sand as they curved upward, around, and down. The dunes flattened out as they reached Eid Kalmut as if they wanted nothing to do with the Valley. He tucked his elbows and ducked his head, lungs screaming, heart pounding, legs burning like iron on the smiths’ anvils as they raced to cut the bonelord off and then—
Ruh’ayya disappeared in front of him with a flick of her black-and-bronze tail. She stretched out above the Zeera, swift as thought, brave as thunder. Ismai’s heart flew with her and he slowed—how could he ask her to do such a thing?—but Ehuani screamed in fear, rising up on her back legs and thrashing the air in terror and defiance as the bonelord raised its bulk high in the air above her, emitting a thin wail of bloodlust and victory.
Ruh’ayya came to a skidding stop between the mare and their doom, hackles raised all along her spine, mouth gaping to reveal her beautiful, deadly tusks, and she yowled a cat’s death-song, terrible and wild and proud. Ismai sprinted to her side, one last mad dash, and then lifted his sword and shook it full in the face of death.
This close, he could see bits and chunks of rotting prey clinging to the rows of hooked and inward-curving teeth, could see a cluster of eyes bright as a beetle’s just above the apex of its gaping maw, and most of all, he could smell it. Worse than offal, worse than latrine pits, worse than a week-old corpse. It smelled of disease and rot, of unclean death and the musk of endless terror.
Ismai sucked in a final breath and used it up again in a defiant scream.
“Come at me, then, you miserable vomitous mass! You venomous sack of entrails! Show me yours!”
The thing paused in its swaying, and turned its head—if such a thing could be said to have a head—toward him. Its flesh pulled back from the tooth-studded hole of its mouth, and it gurgled and hissed, a long, low, drawn-out sound so like a laugh that all the hair on Ismai’s arms, his scalp, and down his spine stood on end. It reared higher, horrid bulk blocking out the last rays of sunset, dropped its jaw open with a sloppy, sucking noise…
…and stopped. It stopped swaying, and hissing, it stopped twitching, even its little beetle eyes held still.
Ehuani dropped to all fours and stood, sides heaving, roaring through her nostrils. Ruh’ayya breathed in soft little grunting snarls, and Ismai’s heart pounded in his ears like a war drum, tha-rump tha-rump tha-rumble, but the bonelord did not move.
Tha-rump, tha-rump, tha-rumble…
Then it sank down, down, down, sinking and shrinking and seeming to draw in upon itself. The mouth closed and the eyes pulled inward defensively. The thing’s sticky-looking gray hide crawled and shrank as it sank down into the sand, down down down till it was the faintest tumble of bone, and then it turned and swam away through the rippling desert sands just as the last red ray of light winked out and left them shrouded in darkness. Ismai shook so much that he had to hold his sword with both hands, lest he drop it and shame himself.
“What,” he said aloud, “just happened?”
“Venomous sack of entrails?”
He spun about so fast that he did drop the sword, and scrambled to pick it up again. “What! Who!”
A slight figure stood before him, a little wisp of a thing, one slender hand stroking his horse’s nose. She was dressed in robes of many colors, a patchwork of spidersilk and wormsilk, linen and cotton and cloth-of-gold, fine materials but tattered and mismatched and worn. She was swathed in veils so that only her eyes showed, enormous and dark in the fading light, and enough skin so that he could see the dreadful scarring, the bright pale patches of pink and bone-white against darker skin.
She ducked her head and looked away.
Do not look at her. Ruh’ayya warned. Her voice was very soft, as if her very thoughts might be overheard. Do not frighten her.
Do not frighten her? Ismai had to remind himself to close his mouth. He used both hands to sheathe his sword, slowly and gently as if he stood before not one, but two wild fillies. He stepped forward, careful not to step too close, and laid a hand upon Ehuani’s shoulder.
The horse snorted but did not try to pull away. She was soft, soft as silk, and he was still alive to touch her. His skin tingled—he was alive—his heart beat, breath still filled his lungs. He had not yet soiled himself. All in all, the day had turned out better than he had any right to expect.
“I am Ismai,” he told the horse. She swiveled an ear and rolled her eye. “Ismai,” he said again. He named himself to her three times, binding his fate to hers. “I am Ismai.”
“Ismai.” The girl whispered, eyes still averted as she stepped back from the horse. “His name is Ismai.” She turned half away from him, thin hands disappearing into the folds of her robe.
Ismai stroked his horse’s neck, her shoulder, under her jaw. He scratched the spot on her chest that horses so love, and smiled as she fought against making a funny face, still not entirely willing to trust him.
“Lovely girl. My lovely girl. Look at you, just look, you are a breath of morning, you are wind made flesh, just look at you, my lovely girl.” He loosed the halter that had become so tightly wound around his hand that it had turned his fingers white, and held it up so that she could see. The mare rolled her eyes at that, and tossed her head in a most haughty manner, obviously recognizing the halter for what it was and just as obviously wanting nothing to do with it.
“Shhhh, pretty girl,” he soothed. “I will not hurt you. I will never hurt you. My tent is yours, my water is yours—” He had to smile at his own words then. “—if I can find it.” He rubbed the soft rope against her softer hide.
“You called Arushdemma a ‘venomous sack of entrails.’” The soft voice was a bit closer now, though the girl still stood some distance away and poised on her toes as if prepared to flee his presence. He reminded himself that this delicate child had just faced down—and frightened away—a beast so monstrous his bowels still ached to think of it. Still, she seemed younger than and far more timid than his next sister, Dennet, who had just seen her thirteenth winter. “You called him a ‘miserable vomitous mass.’” Then she did an astounding thing. She laughed. Her laughter was the lightest, prettiest, and altogether most delightful sound Ismai had ever heard.
“Arushdemma? That thing has a name?” He brought the halter closer to Ehuani’s face, and she stretched her neck high to avoid him.
“Of course he has a name. All things have a name. Even you.” She shrank away from him again, gliding backward over the sand as if a breath would carry her away. “Even I have a name.”
He moved the rope back down to Ehuani’s withers and rubbed her with it, on the itchiest of itchy spots, and finally the mare twisted her lip upward, baring her teeth in a comical grin.
“You know my name.”
“Ismai,” she agreed, and relaxed a little when he did not ask for hers in return.
“I dropped my food and water out there on the sand,” he told the horse, and not the girl. “I might find it, if I had a torch.”
Or you might ask the vash’ai, who has excellent night vision, Ruh’ayya reminded him, amused.
The girl hesitated. “You will not follow me?”
“Never,” he assured her.
She was gone with the next breath, dissolved into the deepening twilight like a drop of ink into a river of dark water. Ismai stayed where he was, letting his horse get to know him, enjoying the sound of his own heart beating and the feel of air in his lungs and wind in his hair. It had been an excellent day to die, but it was far, far better to have survived.
Just as he slipped his arm about Ehuani’s neck, and the halter over her head, just as she shook her head and blew softly through her nostrils and allowed him to tie it, the girl reappeared in front of him, carrying a torch that spluttered and spit and cast an odd reddish glow. Ruh’ayya spat and slunk away into the darkness, but Ismai was glad for the light. He kept his eyes averted as the girl drifted close, closer, close enough almost for him to touch, and when he reached to take it he was careful not to brush her fingers with his own. Ehuani did not care for the flame, but neither did she pull away.
Ismai held the torch in one hand, and Ehuani’s lead rope in the other, and he bowed as if he was facing every Mother in Aish Kalumm, and all the wardens besides. The girl laughed again, and again the sound pierced and lifted his heart.
“Will you come with me?” She was small, and all alone. He had to ask.
The girl drifted close again, and laid her hand upon Ehuani’s soft muzzle.
“Go with him,” she whispered. “Be good to him. He has a kind heart.” Ehuani snorted and nodded her head, and the girl’s eyes crinkled with what might have been a smile. Ismai wished she would laugh again. Those eyes met his, briefly.
He was falling, falling through the dark. He opened his mouth to cry out…
…and she looked away. “Arushdemma will not come near, as long as you carry my torch. But he has your scent now, and you have insulted him. That was not a wise thing to do.” Her eyes crinkled again. “But it was funny.”
“Can I come back and see you again?” Ismai bit his lip as soon as the words were out, but he could not take them back. Nor, he realized, did he wish to.
Her eyes met his again, the briefest glance. This time he stayed put. “If you do, bring the torch.”
Ismai bowed again, and turned to follow his own footprints back the way he had come. He could feel Ruh’ayya’s brooding presence, and the dark closing in all round, and the moons as they prepared to rise full and brilliant, and the stars so far away, so cold and indifferent to the yearnings of a young boy’s heart.
“Char.”
“Hm?” He half turned back to face her. Dark eyes flashed in the light of his torch.
“Char,” she told him, and then a third time, binding their fates together. “My name is Char.”