His size had already started to work against him as he strolled into the town just before noontime, having taken his time coming down out of the foothills to reach this place. They already began to point at him and stare, and the children had started following him from a distance. Strangers were uncommon in towns like this--he should know, he was raised in a place that saw maybe two strangers a year, outside the mysterious visitors from the Frontier--and it was probably even more uncommon given their distance inland and their position by the Sandshield. Strangers were probably unheard of here, and here was one, just striding into town as easily as he pleased. He looked around at the town as he moved into it, seeing many similarities between this town and the city of Shoran's Fork. They had the same whitewashed walls, the same red tiled roofs, the same long shuttered windows flanking the doors and lining the upper stories of the buildings. But this was a northern town, and the necessary differences in building were apparent. The roofs here were not flat, they were angled rather sharply to help the snow slide off of them. The streets were a little wider, as streets in small towns tended to be, taking advantage of the available space, and they were unpaved. This town was large compared to Aldreth, but it was little more than a bump in the road compared to some of the cities he'd seen, like Suld, Dayisè, and the monstrous Dala Yar Arak. It had maybe one hundred or so buildings, a nice sized town surrounded by farm fields, with a small, lazy river flowing just on its eastern edge.
But the people didn't look strange. They were Arkisians, which meant that they were actually Arakites. They had the same swarthy brown skin and black hair, the same sharp features and thin, willowy appearance. They also had that irritating Arakite attitude, looking at him like he was some kind of diseased leper; it was obvious to any of them that he wasn't Arkisian. Neither Arkisians nor Arakites grew as tall as him. Arkisians were a stand-offish bunch outside the coastal cities, and that seemed odd, since the kingdom's main source of income was trade. This far north, deep into Arkisian territory, they seemed to be borderline xenophobic, as parents hurried children off the streets in front of him, and adults gave him a very wide berth and stared at him openly.
But at least they weren't fleeing in terror. He had a feeling that it they knew what he really was, they'd either run away or attack him with torches and pitchforks.
He intended to make this as short as possible. Tarrin's Were-cat pride was getting irked at the reaction he was getting, and that short-tempered attitude was going to cause him trouble. Tarrin didn't fear these strangers, not the way that he used to fear them, but he still didn't really want to have anything to do with them. He wasn't in the habit of trying to be civil to people who weren't civil to him.
He needed information, and the best place to get information in a town was the local tavern. It would hold what few strangers were visiting the town, and they would know what dangers could be lurking on the roads and in the territory he intended to travel. Armed with that information, his movement through Arkis to the Frontier would be smoother and quicker, so it was worth a wasted day and a little annoyance.
It didn't take him long to find the tavern. There were probably more than one in town, but this one was near the southern edge of town, and it would probably hold the most travellers within it. A town this far north in Arkis would have most of its traffic coming and going south. It was a typical tavern, from what he saw from the doorway, a doorway he instinctinvely ducked to get under, though it wasn't necessary, a rather rough-looking place with patched furniture and a slightly delapidated hearth on the far wall holding a large stewpot over it. The tavern's bar was on the left wall, and the rough tables and benches held some ten men in rugged leather clothing. A smallish, thin man stood behind the bar, and two bored-looking barmaids, both wearing dresses that showcased much more cleavage than they concealed, moved between the tables. The men here, about ten of them, had the looks of caravan guards or travellers, and they were exactly the kind of men who would have the information he desired. That information would be easy to get, if he went about it the right way.
Provided he got the chance. The look the little barkeep gave him was very flat and unfriendly, frowning and staring at him like he was some kind of Ogre. The conversation quieted down to a halt as the men in the bar stared at him, and it caused Tarrin to consider the best way to go about this.
"We don't serve no outlanders here," the barkeep said in Arkisian-accented Arakite. "Why don't you take your overly tall tail out of here and go somewhere you won't bother us honest folk."
"No barkeep I've ever met could be called an honest man," Tarrin replied in a blunt, flat tone, in flawless Arakite. That elicited a few chuckles from the men at the tables, but got him a very hot look from the barkeep. "How long I stay here depends entirely on how quickly you answer my questions."
"I ain't answering no questions for you, outlander," the barkeep said hotly, brandishing a pewter mug like a sword. "Now get yourself out of my inn before I call the Watch."
"Go ahead," Tarrin said, boldly sitting at the nearest available table. "I'm sure they'd love to see someone like me sitting in your fine inn. Why, I'm sure that the rumors that'll fly afterward will make you the most popular fellow in town."
"What do you mean?" the barkeep said suspiciously.
Tarrin withdrew his shaeram and presented it to him. "I'm sure you know what this is."
"Witchcraft!" the barkeep gasped, recognizing the symbol.
"Sorcery, actually. Witchcraft is an entirely different form of magic," he said absently. "Now then, would you like to answer my questions, or will I have to make sure that no soul in this town will come within a hundred spans of your inn?"
"What business do the katzh-dashi have in Arkis?" one of the men at the tables said in a rough voice. He was a tall, stringy fellow with a scraggly beard and a scar over his left eye. He wore a rust-splotched tunic, meaning that he usually wore armor. This man was a caravan guard. That meant that it would be a man like him that may know what he wanted to know.
"The Goblinoids," Tarrin said. "I've been sent to find out when they got here, what they've been doing, where they are now, and if anyone's had any encounters with them."
"Suld is on the other side of the West."
"Increased Goblinoid activity is everyone's business," Tarrin said to him crisply.
"True enough," the man chuckled gratingly.
The barkeep, who had been fuming for a few moments, banged down his pewter mug and glared at Tarrin. "Go ahead and ask your questions, then get out," he said heatedly.
"I'll be sure to recommend your inn to everyone I meet, barkeep," Tarrin said in a light tone, which made the man flinch. He just couldn't resist doing that. Sarraya had been a bad influence on him.
"That's a really big sword for a katzh-dashi," another man noted. "I thought you magic types didn't use things like that."
"I don't use the services of a Knight, so I've learned to do my own fighting," Tarrin told the man casually. "I was trained to be a soldier long before I was sent to the Tower."
That admission had a strange effect on the men at the tables. They all seemed to relax slightly, as if knowing that Tarrin was a fellow man of the sword gave them common ground.
"When did the Goblinoids start getting noticed?" Tarrin asked.
"Well, from what I heard, they started showing up about two months ago," another man said, a rather burly fellow sitting with the bearded man. "Only a few were seen at first, and then more and more. They were all seen on the edge of the Sandshield at first, but now they're being seen up to five days' walk west."
"Any large numbers of them?"
"One Troll is usually large enough," the bearded man chuckled. "They've been seen in small groups."
"Just Trolls?"
"That's all anyone I know has seen," the burly man answered.
"Hasn't the Emperor mobilized the army to deal with them?" Tarrin asked.
"Aye, but they're moving south to north," another man answered him, a short, pudgy man n
ear the hearth. "They're sweeping the Sandshield near Arkis and Ardin before bothering with the small principalities. They'll get up here after chasing the Trolls out of the southern Sandshield. So it may be a while."
"Probably," Tarrin agreed. "Have they been making trouble?"
"Not at first, but there have been raids on villages and caravans recently," the burly man told him. "We got lucky not to get attacked, but Gren here and me, our caravan passed what was left of another one attacked by Trolls."
"It used to be easy money escorting caravans on this route, but not anymore," the bearded man, Gren, said sourly. "Them Trolls have made a sure thing not so sure anymore."
Most of them growled in agreement of that. No sane man wanted to fight a Troll.
"What about the local garrisons?"
"The nearest garrison is at Salimon," the burly man said. "That's a tenday south of here, and they're all too scared to come out of their barracks."
Tarrin paused to consider it. There were respectable numbers of them, they focused on the Sandshield, but they were patrolling out to five days' walk from the mountains. That was everything that he needed to know. That also satisfied all the questions that he told them men he'd been sent to ask, so he had no real reason to stay now. He stood up and looked at the men, then nodded. "I think that answers all of my questions," he told them. "The Tower thanks you for your willingness to answer, and be sure that your answers will help Arkis deal with the Trolls."
"Are the katzh-dashi going to do anything about the Trolls?" the bearded man asked.
"They already are," Tarrin replied. "Arkis isn't the only place having trouble with them. But the Trolls here will probably leave very soon, because the Tower has made certain arrangements." As soon as the Selani hit the Sandshield, he thought to himself with a grim smile. "So don't worry about them deciding to take up residence in the Sandshield."
"What kind of arrangements?" one man asked.
"You'll see," he said with a mysterious smile. He put his hood up once again, then pulled his cloak around himself. "Good day to you, gentlemen, ladies," he said calmly, then he turned and filed out of the inn in a regal manner.
All in all, that went better than he expected. He got his answers, and he also planted rumors and hints that the Tower was taking steps to help Arkis with its Troll problem. If the Selani chased off the Trolls, it very well may be that it would be seen favorably for both the Selani and the Tower. The Arkisians may be grateful that the Tower enlisted the aid of the Selani to deal with the Trolls, and the Arkisians may be less fearful of their desert neighbors when they find out that they aided Arkis with its Troll problem. It was a win-win situation, as far as he could see.
Turning a corner, he started towards the western edge of town. He couldn't wait to get somewhere private and shed himself of his annoying human form.
Travelling west in Arkis was much different than travelling in the desert.
Tarrin moved swiftly yet surely in the dwindling darkness of night, racing the dawn, running along a twisting farm road that led steadily westward, through a surprisingly warm night covered in clouds. Those clouds hid the moons and the Skybands, making his travel a bit less swift that it would have been had he had more light, but enough light was filtering through to allow him to see the dirt road well enough to move quickly. The night was warm compared to the desert, but there was the humidity in the air that had been missing there, a humidity that trapped the ambient heat and caused it to feel much closer to him. It still was cool--after all, it was spring--but the air lacked the bite that it had in the desert at night, so it felt much warmer. There was so much humidity that misty tendrils of fog clung to the surfaces of still water, like ponds or slow moving streams, adding yet another strange distinction to remind him that he was out of the desert. The land through which he travelled was that of very gentle hills, covered with farmland. Strange raised embankments with bushy hedges separated those tracts of farm, making the land look like some vast lanceboard when he could see down into valleys from the few high vantage points to be found in the progressively flattening terrain.
It had taken him no time to revert to a nocturnal pattern. Cats were active at both day and night, but their senses were geared more towards hunting in the darkness of night, so they were diurnal beings with a bent towards nocturnal activity. The darkness concealed him, protected him, and allowed him to travel virtually unmolested through the rather hostile Arkisian territory. For five days, he had moved steadily westward at night, and had concealed himself to rest during the day, hiding himself in cat form in whatever small cubbyhole or barn he could find, hiding from the Trolls that were prevelantly prowling the countryside in small bands, looking for him. At first, he considered simply killing them and moving on, but he realized that that was going to leave a path of dead bodies to show the others which way he was going. That may give them the chance to organize another blockade of sorts near the Frontier, and he couldn't afford to take two or three days to detour around a concentration of Trolls. So he chose instead to avoid them, and that was best done at night. Trolls could see in the dark, but nowhere near as well as he could, and he had the advantage of smelling them long before he got anywhere near them. Nothing that smelled as bad as them was going to come anywhere near ambushing him. He had neatly evaded several such small ambush points, Trolls hiding in hedges at the sides of the road and waiting to pounce on anyone passing by them.
He couldn't fault them for not trying, that was for sure. In the five days since leaving the small Arkisian border town, he had seen no less than fifty Troll patrols, and had avoided no less than twenty ambushes or Troll camps. They had indeed come boiling out of the Sandshield after the news that he had gotten past them had filtered through their ranks, and were now virtually taking over the northern sections of Arkis, tearing the place apart looking for him. He'd seen not a few columns of smoke in the distance, both during the day and the night, smoke caused by Trolls attacking farmsteads. Tarrin didn't care about the people on those farms, but he did have some small hopes that they saw the Trolls coming and fled. Odds were, they were probably very careful right now, and would flee at the first hint of something big marching down the road.
Part of him considered it a brutal concept, but those villages and farmsteads were actually helping him. Trolls delighted in plundering and raiding, and more often than not they would detour to sack a farmstead rather than continue about the business of finding him. Those little delays were allowing him to pull outside of the border of their invaded territory, letting him get away from them. They were continuing to expand to the west, but he had seen fewer and fewer of them as he moved west, and he knew that by midnight, he would be outside of their claimed territory. He would be free to really put his feet on the ground, rather than spend much of his energy watching for Trolls, and going slow enough to react to them in time to avoid them.
The five days and then some had only reinforced his feeling of isolation. He had been alone nearly a ride now, and he did not like it. He did not like it at all. No matter how solitary the Cat was, the Human in him wanted company, companionship, and it missed even the condescending chatter of Sarraya. Her talking would be much preferable to the painful silence that surrounded him now. But unlike what had happened in Yar Arak and Saranam, he only felt a longing pang, not the intense homesickness and yearning for his family he had felt then. He knew that he could talk to any of his sisters any time he wanted, and that brought him a large measure of comfort. Keritanima certainly took advantage of that fact to contact him every day, if only just to talk. She did, however, pass on information in carefully worded phrases, however. Some of her additional forces had arrived from Wikuna, and Shiika's cambisi also were there. The five Alu, as Kerri said they were called, had already begun to prepare quietly on the Tower grounds for both the arrival of their mother and the coming enemy Demons. The Sulasians were a bit perplexed at the large numbers of Wikuni and Vendari that had flooded into their city, but the Keeper was making sure tha
t the Sulasian garrison in Suld cooperated with the Wikuni and the Knights to fortify the city against possible attack. That would be a logical precaution for them, given that Dal armies were in Sulasia, and it helped hide the fact that the preparations were being made with a specific objective in mind.
Talking to Keritanima every day, around noon every day, also helped ease his sense of loneliness a great deal. It gave him something positive in his day, something to await expectantly, something to brighten a quiet day spent staying out of sight and being somewhat bored.
Tarrin slowed to a stop as the sun began to appear over the eastern horizon, a horizon no longer dominated by the Sandshield. He looked back at the rising sun absently, realizing that he'd lost track of time again. It was time to start looking for somewhere to hide for the daylight hours. That usually wasn't a very hard thing to do. That region of Arkis was dominated by farms, and there were any number of farmsteads from which to take his pick. He looked back to the west and saw one sitting on a small hilltop, surrounded by planted fields. There was already activity out on that farm, the workers starting their day early, as all farmers did, and it was relatively close by. It would suit him.
Shifting into cat form, he wriggled through a hedgerow and started moving through plowed fields, fields planted with seed yet not yet showing any green from their growth. It took him about a half an hour to reach the large farmstead on the top of the hill, slinking into the compound in his cat form, stopping to appreciate the prosperity of the place. It had two farmhouses, not just one, and had six other buildings built in a roughly circular array around a grassy lawn in the center. Two of them were barns, one was a stable, and the last one was a small smithy. He sat on his haunches at the corner of one of the barns and looked out to see about twenty people bustling about the central lawn or near the buildings. There were older men and women and children, young adults and lots of chickens. There were three dogs laying on the porch of the house on the right, which was larger and looked older than the one beside it.
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