Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  But there was little even his feral instincts could do against the suffering of the child. Seeing her reminded him of Janette, his little mother. He would be devastated if she was left somewhere to die, if someone had had the chance to help her and refused. The woman meant very little to him, but no part of him could refuse the suffering of the child.

  The little girl continued to scream, rooted to the spot. Tarrin looked down at her in a way that made her immediately stop screaming, causing her to stare at him with fear in her eyes. He looked away from her as Sarraya flitted over, looking down at the woman. Her features made her the girl's mother, and she was dressed nicely enough to tell him that she was no servant. She had probably owned the wagon that had turned over on them. But why were they still here? Surely she'd been travelling with others, and they should have stopped and helped them. Maybe she could give him those answers.

  Reaching down with his paw, he absently reached out and touched the Weave.

  And what responded was enough to nearly make him faint.

  The totality of the Weave sought to infuse him within a heartbeat, a power greater than anything he had ever felt from the Weave before. It did not try to flow into him. It simply was there, all of it, as if the entire Weave had tried to place itself within him. As quickly as it struck him, Tarrin reacted instinctively, pushing himself away from that staggering power before he could understand what had happened. The backlash of his action was immense, almost mind-numbingly painful, and it tore a ragged cry from him. The physical effect of the backlash, a sudden displacement of the air around him, ripped his shirt in a few places and caused the little girl to collapse on top of her mother in abject terror, hugging her as if Death Herself had come for her.

  Kneeling there in vacant confusion, Tarrin put a paw on the back of his head, panting heavily to overcome the intense pain of the forced separation. What had just happened? That wasn't supposed to happen! There was no buildup at all, the power was just there! Blinking, he looked around, and then he reached out with his other senses, reached out to feel what was around him. And the backlash! It was like nothing he'd ever felt before! If it would have been just a little stronger, it may have killed him!

  Of course. Stupid, stupid, stupid! He was kneeling in a minor Conduit! No wonder! Teach him to go and simply try to use Sorcery without getting a feel for the local Weave! The little girl's screaming and carrying on had distracted him, she and his internal conflict had caused him to ignore what he was feeling around him, because that was something that he would have noticed otherwise.

  "Tarrin, what happened?" Sarraya asked, winking into visibility.

  "I'm kneeling in a Conduit," he said, a bit chagrined. "The cub's screaming distracted me, I wasn't paying attention when I tried to touch the Weave."

  Sarraya looked at him, then she began to laugh uncontrollably. "A Doomwalker can't touch you, you eat Demons for breakfast, and you nearly get killed by a hysterical human child!" she said, nearly falling out of the air. "This is just too much!"

  "Shut up," he growled in embarassment, reaching down and picking up the injured woman gently. The little girl let go of her mother and stared up at Tarrin in confusion and fear. "I'm not going to hurt you," he told the girl in Arakite. "I need to move your mother over to the wagon so I can help her. I can't do it right here."

  Accompanied by Sarraya's endless laughter, Tarrin looked down at the woman. Part of him was ready to pick her up, but the other part resisted, caused him to kneel there for a very long moment and stare down at the woman like she was a live snake. To reach down and touch her, to pick her up, it would be the point of no return. He would be committed to the act, and for good or ill he would have to finish it through. He felt foolish for fearing an unconscious, injured woman, but he simply could not help what he was feeling. He looked down at her, and he felt the fear. This was a stranger, an unknown, a person that could do him harm. He could not deny that. But he also couldn't deny that his need to help the child overwhelmed his aversion to exposing himself to this woman. Feeling like he had very little choice in the matter, Tarrin reached down and scooped up the woman in his strong arms. He picked her up and carried the human woman over to the wagon. It had rolled back over on its top after Tarrin tossed it aside, and the Were-cat laid the woman on the underside gently as the little girl followed behind, finger in her mouth, her eyes still filled with terror. But she would not leave her mother, so she remained close to him as he laid the woman down gently. He reached down absently and scooped up the girl with a paw, making her squeak in fear, but she calmed immediately when he set her down beside her mother on the top of the overturned wagon. Tarrin reached down and put his paw on the woman's chest, and after Sarraya came back, still laughing, he reached out and touched the Weave again.

  This time it was normal. Tarrin resisted the incoming avalanche of power as it rushed into him, caused his paws to limn over in Magelight, until he felt Sarraya's Druidic constraints choke off that flood to a managable level. With Sarraya's continuing laughter chiming in his ears, Tarrin sent flows of Earth, Water, and Divine power into the woman, and wove them together into the complicated weaves of healing. He released the weave and allowed it to do its work, to attack the injuries within the woman, to mend them and restore her to health. The woman's breathing became stronger, the grayish pall in her skin immediately cleared up, returned to a normal dusky brown. The wound in her head knitted itself back to perfect health, though it was impossible to see under the ugly black mass of clotted blood on the side of her head.

  The Weave felt...different to him. He couldn't quite put his finger on what felt different, but something definitely did. Almost as if it were closer, somehow. Of course, the very close proximity of a Conduit probably was causing that, but he wasn't quite sure if that was the case or not. Sarraya was choking it off, but she wasn't choking off as much as she would have. It was like he had more control of it now, able to manage more than before. The closeness of the Conduit shouldn't have that kind of effect. But there were other things to worry about now, he'd think about that when he had the time. It wasn't an important issue at the moment, not as important as the unease he felt being near the strange woman.

  Letting go of the Weave easily with Sarraya helping him, Tarrin removed his paw from the woman's chest and looked down at the pair of them calmly. The girl had seen the light around his paw, and she had been mesmerized by it, it seemed, for the fear that had been in her eyes had been replaced by wonderment. Tarrin blinked and realized that he was within arm's reach of the woman, and quickly stood up and got a safe distance away. His quick action startled the little girl in the act of reaching out to touch his paw, making her look up at him in confusion before leaning down and hugging her mother.

  Sarraya's laughing stopped, but she still snickered and giggled from time to time. "How is she?"

  "She's going to be fine," Tarrin told her. "She'll be alright, little cub," he told the girl in Arakite. He took his first good look at the girl. She was rather cute, in an Arakite sense, with pattern Arakite skin, hair and eyes. Her features were a bit sharper than the standard Arakite, and he realized that she was very skinny under her pretty cream-colored dress, a dress now brown from dirt, dust, and sand. Her cheeks were sunken, and her lips were swollen. She was dehydrated. It was amazing that she had the energy to scream as loudly as she did. "You need some water, and some food. I think I have some in my pack somewhere. You just sit here and wait for your mother to wake up, and I'll get you something."

  Tarrin stepped away from the two of them, and Sarraya followed. "I think a goodly amount of water is called for here, Sarraya," he told her quietly. "Both of them are dehydrated. They're going to need alot of water. And we'll need some decent food. They have a ways to go, so they'll need enough to get them back to that city too."

  "I can conjure up some bread and honey for them, but you know I won't conjure meat." That limitation was a conscious one for Sarraya rather than a limit on her ability. Sarraya refused to conjure
any animal for food, since it would appear alive, and she objected to summoning animals from the wild with the implicit reason to kill them. She didn't mind hunting, it was a natural process, but her reasoning was that a conjured animal had no chance to get away. So she refused to allow that to happen. If Tarrin wanted meat, he had to find it himself the old-fashioned way.

  "I think that will be enough," he assured her. He looked back at them, and realized that he had to leave them quickly. Stay long enough to make sure they were alright, then leave them. They'd be in much more danger with him near than they'd be alone. Besides, being close to them made him feel uneasy, uncomfortable, and those were very bad feelings for him. It was only a two day walk back to that nameless city for a human, so it wasn't like he was abandoning them out in the middle of nowhere. All they had to do was follow the road. It gnawed at him a bit that he was leaving them alone, but the feral disposition in him squashed that feeling quickly and reminded him that whether or not they lived was none of his concern.

  Sarraya conjured up a large leather cloth, and then set to work conjuring a meal large enough for two starving refugees. She had the foresight to conjure up several waterskins as well as a stone urn, and she filled all of them with water. By the time she was done, the woman began to make low grumbling sounds. She was waking up. Sarraya winked out of sight as Tarrin picked up several of the skins and moved towards the humans.

  The woman opened her eyes just as Tarrin was approaching with the waterskins. She looked up at her daughter, who was beginning to cry and hug the woman fiercely, then she turned and looked at him. Her eyes widened in surprise, but there wasn't the irrational outburst that had come from the girl. There was definitely fear in her eyes, but it was tempered by the fact that she was alive and whole, and that her daughter was unharmed. The woman sat up and cradled the girl in one arm as her other hand touched the massive clot on the side of her head tentatively. There was confusion in her eyes now, and she looked up at Tarrin with fear, bewilderment, and a little awe at his intimidating size.

  "It's healed," he told her in Arakite. "You're safe for the moment."

  "Wh-Who are you?" she asked in a trembling voice. "It's alright, Sami, it's alright. Calm down now."

  "Who I am doesn't matter," he replied calmly. "I'm going to leave you with enough food and water to recover, and enough to get back to a city. There's a city two day's walk that way," he said, pointing the way he'd come. "But I think you already knew that."

  "Sargon," she filled in. "What happened to the others?"

  "I found you alone," he told her. "They must have left you behind."

  "As bad as that storm was, I'd be surprised if they knew it by the time they got to Sargon," she grunted, looking at him. "They probably looked around and realized that my wagon wasn't there."

  "Will they look for you?"

  "They'd better," she said ominously.

  "Then waiting here for a while may not be a bad idea," he said, throwing his cloak back over his shoulders. "If they don't come back, then you shouldn't have too much trouble getting back to that city."

  "You're leaving?" the woman asked urgently. "But I didn't get to thank you, or find out your name or anything!"

  "I am no one worth your time," he said simply. "I was never here."

  "But what if something attacks us?"

  "There's nothing out here to attack you," he replied.

  "What about the Trolls? They haven't come this far?"

  That made his ears pick up. Were-cats--all of Fae-da'Nar for that matter--hated Trolls. Goblinoids existed outside the natural order, destroying the balance of nature more aggressively than humans did, and that made them the mortal enemies of the Forest Folk. Any Were-kin worth his fur would go ten longspans out of his way to kill a Goblinoid.

  But what were Trolls doing out in this arid plain? This wasn't the range of a Troll. They preferred forested foothills and mountains, a climate much cooler than the hot plains of the mid-continent.

  "I haven't seen any Trolls," Tarrin told her warily. "I haven't seen anything, because of the storm. What are Trolls doing in Saranam? This isn't their range."

  "They started showing up about two months ago," the woman replied. "At first, it was just one or two, but then we saw more and more of them north of the trading post. About a month ago, we realized that there was all but an army to the north, and the Trolls were only a part of it. They swept down about two tendays ago and took over the border with the desert. We barely managed to get away."

  Trolls raiding in Saranam? And they were spreading out along the border of the desert? He'd seen Trolls working for his enemies before. These Trolls would have no reason to block off the desert, but to keep him from getting into it. Whoever had sent that Wyvern and the Trolls was up to his or her old tricks again, setting up a picket, a gauntlet through which he had to pass to reach the safety of the Desert of Swirling Sands.

  They knew where he was going. He had never really made that much of a secret, and those that knew him knew that he was friends with a Selani, so it was no stretch to conclude that he was going to go to the desert. Now he understood why they weren't actively hunting him down. Why waste resources trying to find him on the vast plains of Saranam when they knew where he was going to be? He had to cross that border to get into the desert. So long as they covered a majority of it, they had a good chance to encounter him when he arrived. And Trolls were one of the few enemies which Tarrin feared. Not any single Troll, he was much too skilled and powerful to be bested by one, but Trolls fought in packs. A single Troll was no problem, but thirty of them was another matter. If he had to wade through a pack of Trolls to get to the desert, it put his success very much in doubt. He would have to resort to Sorcery, and he had the feeling that his adversaries knew that he would have to resort to Sorcery...so they may have some sort of plan. They wouldn't put their Trolls in jeopardy otherwise, it was a foolish waste of very powerful assets. There wasn't an army in the world that would relish the task of having to face a horde of Trolls.

  No, he wasn't going to play their game. He had the feeling that they had set the rules very much in their own favor. Now that he knew what was waiting for him, he could devise a way to get past them safely before he reached that juncture. If it took her twenty days to get this far in a wagon, then it would take him about ten to twelve days to run the same distance. If he didn't hurry.

  "I haven't seen any sign of Trolls," he repeated. "There's nothing between you and the city but an empty road. If you're that worried about Trolls, then I suggest you walk fast."

  "You're going to abandon us?" she asked in disbelief.

  "What happens to you after I leave this place doesn't concern me," he said stonily, staring at her with emotionless eyes. "If not for that child, I would have left you to die. Don't push my patience, female, or I'll put you back in the same condition I found you in."

  She gaped at him, clutching at her child instinctively.

  "I am no savior or hero, female. I am just a nameless traveller with too much of a soft spot for children. I'll give you what you need to make it back to your city. Whether or not you reach it all depends on you."

  There was nothing she could say in the face of such a statement. She just clutched her child in tight arms and stared at him in disbelief, and not more than a little fear.

  Sensing her fear, angry with himself that he would fear someone who was obviously terrified of him, Tarrin snorted and threw the waterskins down near the wagon. "There's a spread back there with enough food on it to last you to that city," he told them testily, pointing behind him. He placed the visor over his eyes, pulled up the hood of the cloak, then wound the scarf around his neck, around the outside of the hood loosely. "You should wait here for tonight, then start out in the morning. Once you do, don't stop until you reach safety."

  He looked sideways at the little girl. There was something about her, something curious. It was something he was just starting to notice, as if there was an aspect of her that had been
hidden from his view before, but was now becoming clear. It wasn't just her. He could almost see the Weave, almost as if he had charged the strands around him and set them glowing, but barely enough to see them in the daylight. Despite that unseeing sense, he could feel them all around him much more clearly than he usually would be able to do. Usually he could only feel the local strands, and discern a Conduit from a strand, but would have to touch the Weave to learn anything more precise. But now each strand seemed to be distinct and separate, as if he could feel how large they were without touching the Weave, how much energy they possessed, and where and how they joined with Conduits or other strands.

  The little girl had potential. Alot of potential. She was a Sorcerer. Or she would be, in about eight years, and a very strong one.

  That was why she seemed suddenly unusual. He was sensing the Weave, and despite the fact that her talent had yet to manifest, it still connected her to the Weave in a manner unlike other people.

  "What?" the woman asked in a cautious voice. Tarrin realized that he was staring at the girl. He blinked and looked away, trying to understand this alteration in the Weave. Was it in the Weave? Maybe it was something of an aftereffect of touching the Weave inside that Conduit. Perhaps it left him with a temporary connection to the Weave, a tenuous one through which he could do nothing but sense. He'd never touched the Weave directly through a Conduit before--at least not willingly--so he wasn't very familiar with any possible side effects of such an act.