“Fine, but then I must insist we move on, out of this area and back onto a level landscape before nightfall.”
Ben shook his head no, “We’re nearly finished with the bodies down below. But we can’t simply move on, not yet at least. That’s partly why I came up here. I'm going to suit up once more and search the trail for the one who got away.”
Leon could faintly hear the sounds of dirt and rocks being tossed and stacked down below. The racket was distracting and the reality, unsettling. To think that so many people who had been up and running, talking, breathing, such a short time before, were now being laid to rest for good. It took him a while to convey Ben's message.
Ferschall shook his head firmly. “That’s exactly what he would want you to do. Lingering here is not a good idea."
"Okay, so how about you tell us what exactly we are supposed to do about him?" Ben asked.
"Leave him. Even if you can manage to follow a scent trail over windblown rock using your magic tech-no-lo-gy, you won’t catch him before nightfall. Then, you may be surprised how the tide might turn. I underestimated you and your men. So did the Hootsi. Don’t make the same mistake." Ferschall lifted his arms, pointing out the desolate landscape around them, one with thousands of places to hide from or ambush one's enemies.
Surprisingly to Leon, Ben slowly nodded his agreement, “Okay, tell the old man we’ll leave, but not because I’m overly worried about some renegade Hootsi. The faster we can make it to this city of his, the better. The men won’t like it after what happened to Jace, but they at least know how to take orders.”
It seemed odd that Ben gave in so easily to one of Ferschall’s suggestions. Leon could only figure he’d had a hard day and was too tired to argue. At least that’s what he hoped. Ben was very good at playing his cards close and the man didn’t make decisions without being a step or two ahead, always with an angle he could exploit.
“Wait here while I fetch the rest of the crew. We’ll all go on up together and gather your gear. Our group remains together from here on out.” Ben made his way back down the gorge and the others remained silent.
Something dawned on Leon as he continued to replay everything that happened over the last few hours in his head. He turned to Ferschall, “Ben used us as bait, didn’t he? He somehow knew they would send scouts up the trail to find us, and he had Cooper waiting, hiding nearby the whole time!”
“It seems so. The man has good fighting instincts, yes? But he doesn’t truly understand Hootsi.”
“How so?”
“Those three Cooper attacked were the leaders of the raid, not the scouts. We would have been cut down had we stayed where we were and allowed them to attack from a position of stealth, regardless of Copper being nearby. The Hootsi must have known they were walking into some sort of trap. They just didn’t expect it to matter. On their cats, they could have easily evaded a few bolts thrown by normal men. At night, they would never have attacked so brazenly” He sighed. “No one could have predicted what resulted.”
“I thought they were supposed to be some real tough warriors, though. Ben and his men sawed through them like a pack of wolves cutting through a herd of sheep.”
From the way Ferschall’s eyes twitched and narrowed at the irony of the metaphor, Leon knew his patience was nearly gone, “The Hootsi are uniquely terrifying to encounter within their element. We were extremely fortunate, yes? Had they arrived this evening or had Ben and his men not been able to change in daylight, we would have no doubt been easily over-matched and at their mercy.”
“But why were the leaders after us without their men?” Leon asked.
Ferschall blinked at them all for the umpteenth time that afternoon. “Their leaders lead, yes? It would have been a tribute to their honor to sneak in and take out as many of us as possible, from behind enemy lines, without help. They probably meant for the men below to posture and toy with our warriors until their deed was accomplished. Also, they were likely competing to be the one to ‘liberate’ Shana.”
He made a placating gesture toward Shana, and the coloring faded from Leon's face.
Ferschall continued, “As I’ve said, the Hootsi value their honor above all else.” Seeing Leon’s distress, he added, “They would not have done anything dishonorable to her. They would instead have taken her home, unmolested, and given her over to one of their worthy young men in marriage.”
"Well, I'm glad we got that cleared up," Shana responded with an icy tone when Leon interpreted.
Despite a sudden desire to push the conversation away from the direction it was headed, another question popped into Leon’s head. “What if Shana’s not a Hootsi type skin-changer? How would that even work?”
Ferschall threw his hands in the air, “Has no one ever bothered to teach you anything about anything? This is not the time for such questions!” With that, he began climbing back up the Ravine, undeterred by Ben's prior directive to stay put.
Leon gave an edited version of the tail end of the conversation to Shana and Reed.
Reed responded, “Different skin-changers can marry and have babies. The babies’ affinity always follows the male’s bloodline. Back home though, when skin-changers marry humans, they simply aren’t able to have babies.”
Shana put an end to that line of the conversation, “Really guys, the birds and the bees? You really want to toss that around right now?”
She demanded Leon stop Ferschall before he got too far ahead.
“Hey, Ferschall, what about the guy who escaped? Shana wants to know if he'll be okay?”
Ferschall turned his head back to face her and held his arms up flippantly. “What about him? He is now shunned. He will not be allowed home.”
“Why?” Leon asked.
Ferschall sighed in defeat and turned back to them once more. “Because, least of all, he allowed his mount to be slain in combat, yes?”
“So, that’s it? Those guys are just dead to their families and friends whenever their pet cats are killed?”
“I said that was least of all. Those mounts are the Anastashie, no? They are the dwindling remnant of the fiercely protected Great Cats of the Nondo Dessert. They are rare and stealthy beasts, and they require a rare talent as well as the better part of a man’s youth for most Hootsi riders to train. It is said a Hootsi on an Anastashie mount at night is the hunter of hunters.”
Leon swallowed as he moved in on the conversation. “But you battled them alone when Gunther was captured?”
Ferschall chuckled as he shook his head no. He held out his fist and extended a finger for each point he made, until he ran out of fingers, “True, but the Hootsi knew my scent. They did not consider me an enemy until I was already upon them. Those who attacked were a small hunting party of four men, yes? All but one were young warriors in training. The moon was out. None were mounted. As it was, I would not likely have escaped with your companion had I not so confused them by swiftly attacking them from behind and knocking their leader out of the fight before they could form up!”
Shana pressed Leon for a translation, then asked, “So, the Hootsi love their giant cats so much they value them above their own people.”
Ferschall growled, “How can I make you people understand? Explain to her that the cats provide them a tangible reminder of a long-lost former glory, a dimmed vision of what they were originally able to become. The Hootsi are skin-changers, no more, no less. But yes, they value the Anastashe as symbols of their ancestors, those originally gifted with the true form of the greater desert panther.”
Leon pushed his hat up and rubbed his fingers through his curly hair. “This place just keeps getting weirder and weirder!”
Shana added, “Ask him if he knew of any of them well? The ones down there, I mean.”
Ferschall softened when Leon relayed her request, “Some, yes. I think the one who got away was our young friend, Dimples. Though I did not know him well, his father was one of the few Hootsi who offered to trade with me when I first came to live near them, years a
go.” Ferschall hung his head. “Such a proud young warrior. He maybe could have killed me that first night, even though I had the drop on him. He hesitated. I didn’t.” Ferschall took a deep breath and marched away without allowing for further response.
Leon felt some measure of grief for the soldier he had so recently come to know as Jace, yet he couldn’t help but feel another tiny bit of sympathy for Ferschall’s disgraced acquaintance as well. His men were all slaughtered, and he was homeless. If he survived, he would have a hard, lonely life ahead of him. It made Leon wonder if perhaps there were indeed fates worse than death.
# # #
From a rocky alcove, perched high above the fray, three stoic faces crept back from the ledge. There, they had observed the entirety of the lop-sided struggle. Their expressions were stern. Two of the three faces were youthful, though their dark eyes were malevolent. They feigned boredom like they were entirely unimpressed. The third had the unfazed look of an experienced leader. Despite wearing a patch over one eye, his good eye was better equipped to see the full picture of what had just occurred below than those of his subordinates.
They stood, dressed in well-tailored light tan leathers, the colors blending in well with the surrounding landscape. A solitary rust-colored scimitar sword stitched to their leathers was the only insignia present on their clothing. It had been sown into a patch on the right shoulder of each man. Two carried heavy longbows. Their leader wore only a curved sword with a black pommel at his side.
“Now, that was a pleasant surprise, and surprises are few and far between these days,” the sword-bearer commented.
“Captain, those fools are tainted.” One of the men carrying a bow motioned down below. “Shall we cut them down now? End them? Before they digress further into madness?”
“Typical wolves, they used about as much finesse as a butcher with a cleaver," he spat as if naming them for what they were put a foul taste in his mouth. At that, his subordinates laughed. And though he grinned right along with them, the smile never reached his eyes.
"Even so, they didn't seem so far gone that they warrant immediate intervention. No, there was still a touch of something measured and deliberate about their tactics.” said the captain.
“And if they digress further?” said the other.
“Well then, they will be but a small pocket of rogues. Even the Fang Kingdom should be able to handle putting an end to them. For now, I say we watch from afar.
"Adrial, follow discretely and keep eyes on them. I’ll return with reinforcements as soon as our gifts are delivered. If the wolves are still lucid at that time, maybe we arrange to have a few words?” The captain's dark blue eye remained implacably hard as he spoke.
His gut whispered to his head something was off. Perhaps it could be leveraged to expedite his ambition? Just like dozens of seemingly unambiguous situations in his past, he would use that strange tick in the back of his mind to skirt the danger and find the gain. Or maybe there would simply be lots more killing for him to dole out. Either way, he would be the one to get to the bottom of whatever was off with those wolves below, before any feckless superior had a chance to claim credit.
“And the Hootsi who escaped?”
“One disgraced Hootsi? He should already know better than to cross our forests. Either way, that man is cut off, scorned. Without his mount, he is of no further concern. He'll be dead before the next moon.” The captain's hand fluttered as he spoke, dismissing the thought entirely. He had larger priorities to address than allowing Adrial to spend another day or two hunting one mangy Hootsi.
The men walked back up the trail to where their gear had been stowed. As they approached, the captain glared down at the back of another under his command. This fourth man had been a constant source of irritation over his six-month mission. He wore a uniform identical to the other three, but he was far from being counted as one of them.
The man was supposed to be watching over their two captive women.
The captain stopped and observed his guard's movements more closely. He gently washed the blood from a wound on the brow of one of the two. The women were old and feeble. Even so, they wore long sturdy wooden braces over their shoulders with shackles binding their hands tight against those braces. Linen strips, tied across their faces, held gags firmly in their mouths.
“Rezzin, what in all the sacred glades of the Quiet Forest do you think you’re doing?" he reined his anger in, just barely, and proceeded more warily, with forced warmth in his voice, "How many times have I told you not to baby the prisoners? Your persistent efforts at stirring false hope for those condemned are no doubt crueler than Adrial’s whip.”
The captain had to constantly remind himself not to push too hard against the feeble-minded young man. Lately, that effort had grown considerably more difficult as the fool was less than useful at any task given. Sure, he was deadly accurate with that bow of his, one of the most accurate bowmen to join the Ranger's Guard in a long while. Yet his mind was weak and insolent, unable to carry out orders with the type of cold indifference that made the Guard infamous within the six realms of Fayden.
What had become clear during their time together was that Rezzin wasn't just going through some phase, he was damaged goods. The captain had taken to giving the nitwit under his command backhanded compliments at every new vestige of weakness he exhibited. The fool no doubt knew something wasn’t right but was too blinded by fear and insecurity to see the truth of the matter. However, only one truth mattered to the captain in the end, if he ever wanted to become General Argile, he needed to keep himself ingratiated with the nitwit's father.
The young ranger dropped the cloth like he had been struck with a forging iron, while his comrades laughed from behind. His scarred cheek grew white along the seam of an old battle wound and red everywhere else. He quickly rose but didn't make a move one way or another, literally caught red-handed in the act of attempting something utterly taboo among his peers.
The captain continued, oblivious to Rezzin’s discomfort, “Good news, everyone. False alarm! What we saw was no rescue party. Just some idiot tribal dispute. It's over and there’s nothing more between us and home.”
The other two guards smiled expectantly back at the women with an evil glee in their eyes. Then, they chuckled at the mournful sounds of despair from the gagged women.
Rezzin still attempted to hide the red in his face while he busied himself packing up the supplies from their camp the night before. If he hadn't been the son of one of the highest-ranking officials in the Silent City, Captain Argile would have found a way to lose him long ago on the patrol. But Captain Argile was no fool. An accommodating report for Rezzin would be an accommodating advancement for himself, and so the young Ranger was doomed to continue his advancement up the ranks of the Ranger's Guard.
The warmth in the captain's voice went cold as his true derision surfaced. “To think, you people traded Ageless beauty for useless hunks of metal!" He turned to address his subordinates, "Come on men, let’s get these old 'teachers' moving. It's hard to tell from their stink, but I don't think they're dead yet and I don't want them dying on us out here before they have a chance to learn the sorts of lessons the Vindarri give their kind for the type of seditious insolence they spread.”
Another one of the Rangers lifted the prisoners to their feet and ordered them both forward. Both women winced as the renewed motion caused the wooden staves resting over their shoulders to aggravate the chaffing on their wrists. The despondent slump in their shoulders was only intensified by the familiar weight that each of them felt against their right hip, where their bone-handled Blades swung loose in leather sheaths, well out of the reach of their bound hands.
The small party moved west, and a lone figure returned to his watchful perch above the ravine.
Chapter 11
Three days following the massacre in the gorge, Leon and his companions came upon the first flowing water larger and deeper than any of the knee-high creeks they had previous
ly crossed. Ferschall called it the Murk Water River, though the crisp cool waters appeared clear to Leon and the others.
Upstream, across the river, Leon could see the beginnings of a massive forest. It rose a quarter mile to the west and spread to the north and the west as far as one could see. The water rushing down along the periphery of that forest churned and foamed with the spray of rapids. Navigating such waters would pose a nasty challenge for anyone venturing to cross upstream. Downstream was much calmer, but the distance between opposite banks continued to widen the further east one traveled.
"Ben, you could walk up and down this river from sun-up to sun-down either direction and you would not find a more optimal place to cross, yes?" said Ferschall.
Ben nodded his understanding before Leon had a chance to translate. Leon continued to marvel at how the man was a sponge when it came to language. If he had been intimidated by Ben's physicality before, he was downright terrified by the depth of his intellect.
For nearly their entire time in Fayden, Ben had been insistent that Leon practice the Fayden language with all of them at every possible moment, and yet he alone could grasp and retain each new word or phrase after hearing them only one or two times. Recently, Ben had even begun communicating directly with Ferschall and Leon was being called upon to translate between the two of them less and less.
His clipped response was strained but the meaning was clear enough for Ferschall to comprehend, "Maybe, but we no want wet things. It deep here."
Ferschall stroked his beard and spoke slow, "If you give me a few hours, and lend me a hand, I may be able to furnish some crude rafts from some Shephard's Grip I saw growing upstream."
Ben scowled in response and pretended to mull it over before reluctantly agreeing to the offer. Leon rolled his eyes at Shana. When she arched a brow, he gave her a nudge, and they wandered off from the main group.
"I'm getting so tired of having to suffer through Ben's skeptical BS," he told her.
"I don't know, Leon. He's a jerk, sure, but at least he's turned out to be a pretty smart guy, and he's got some sort of an idea for how to get us home, right?"
A Choice of Blades: The Blade Remnant, Book One Page 13
