“True enough,” Armun said, raising a hand in protest. “True enough. Yes. There is a great deal more I must say before you can truly grasp the severity of this land’s issues. But there are also some things that you must see and learn for yourselves. In all honesty, Valor, I withhold a lot. All the time.”
“We’ve spent our lives with criminals, slaves, and torturers. We know a thing or two about the vices and virtues of keeping secrets.”
Armun patted at his arms, rubbing off some cold chill. “Good then. One less thing I’ll have to teach you, should you choose to stay with me.”
Valor stuck his skewer in the dirt. “One simple question, then. Did Jerryl truly tell you to look after us? Did he - command you? Assign you a quest, or something?”
Armun made a strange salute, bringing his hand from right to left across his brow, and then down to his heart. “I swore on my life to Sir Trought that I would do everything in my power to take you to Carnim Hale, and to protect you on said journey. He wanted you to be safe, and to have good lives. No less than that.”
Valor nodded, and realized that Orrin was right. He shared a quick stare with his brother, then patted his big shoulders. Wherever they went, they would need more money, and clothes that didn’t stink of rich people.
Armun drug his hands down both sides of his face, stretching his skin like cheap leather. Valor looked up, realizing that Iliana had returned to the camp, standing directly behind Armun at attention. Valor jumped slightly at the sight of her.
“You’re very quiet,” Valor commented.
“I am,” she said plainly.
Valor and Orrin finished what was left on their skewers, then pilfered the carriages for something to sleep on. They found more fine cloth, and laid it across the sand, smoothing it out.
Just when they thought they were done, Armun gripped Valor softly by the arm.
“You should follow me. Follow me because I want to protect you. And because I want you to see Harmenor the way I see it.”
Valor could sense honesty, but he was tired. There had been both too much fighting and too much thinking. “I want to believe you, Armun. But my brother and I have spent our lives being convinced to see life the way Loboa saw it. No more.”
Armun unfurled his own cloth. Valor meant to say more, but Armun seemed to have perfected the skill of interruption. “I understand. I didn’t mean for it to sound so forceful. Well, look at us, now. Just a few hours ago you had a knife in my back.”
Valor smirked. “Yeah. Funny how things work themselves out.”
He looked at Iliana, who was busy with her own makeshift bed.
Armun lifted a finger then, and a small flame ignited around it. “Jerryl also made me promise something else. That I would teach you both to use magic.”
Valor’s blood began to rush as soon as the word magic escaped Armun’s lips.
Orrin began to sign, [ Yes, yes, yes... ] many times over. Valor pushed his brother away.
“Jerryl really said that?”
“Yes,” Armun said. “You both can’t see it, but you have the aura for it. That’s why Lobosa’s noman’s spell was not as effective on you, not like the others down there. Eventually you’ll be able to see it as plainly as the sand under our toes.”
Valor was in no mood to argue. He was only in the mood to stop talking. “Maybe.”
“Excellent,” Armun said with a heavy clap, the fire funnel dissipating from his finger. “Have you all eaten enough?” Valor and Orrin nodded yes. Armun pushed his hand out towards the fire, and it died by a harsh breath of wind that howled through their tiny camp, black smoke billowing against the sandy floor. “Best to do that, lest you wake up and find the vultures pecking at you.” Armun lay his head down upon his carriage seat pillow. Iliana stood up, stretching her arms from side to side. “I will take the first watch.”
Valor turned over onto his side, facing his brother. He stretched out the thick cloth that Armun gave him, just big enough to wrap around both he and Orrin. It was soft, and elegant, though old and tattered. Strange designs originating from it’s center, the shape of a flower evolving into a simple cluster of lines that flowed evenly across its borders.
Orrin’s mouth was open, and he had somehow managed to fall asleep almost instantly. Valor looked up to the sky, wondering many questions. A tear rolled down his face, and his lip started to quiver. The feeling confused him. Happy thoughts confused him even more. He looked over at Iliana, and wondered what she represented. Was she like most normal people? Or was she perhaps more like himself, or Orrin?
He could not sleep; all the questions flowing through his mind would not stay behind the illusionary dam he kept trying to rebuild.
A dream took him more quickly than he thought it would, one of an empty library, save for a solitary little girl, who pushed pages by like they were seconds on a ticking clock, each one hitting the last with a tick, tock, tick, tock…
He kept trying to peer over her shoulder to read them, but the pages were blank.
Chapter 39
The next morning, Valor awoke to a disgusting face, wrinkled and wart ridden, followed by a dull thud as a hard beak jabbed at his forehead.
“Bluugh!” he gurgled, yelling at the buzzard, which raised its wings in defense, hissing as it moved backwards. He placed a swift kick to the side of its neck, and sent the thing tumbling across the sand. “Gegh! What...” Valor turned around, seeing his brother, Armun, and Iliana staring intently at their own little missions, avoiding eye contact. “Did no one see that thing walking up to me?”
“No,” Armun said, “We did not. Forgive me. We’ve all been absorbed in our own duties. It just sort of dropped down from the sky on top of you, eh?”
“Well I don’t know, but probably, because that’s where birds come from!” Irritated, Valor grabbed the cloth he was sleeping on and folded it over, flipping sand into the air with a wide spray. The rising sun was already blazing a heat wave across the Gorabund. “Regardless, you didn’t wake me up to tell me we were leaving?”
“No, we were going to let you sleep a bit more. Gather your strength.”
“It’s gathered, shit...”
Armun chuckled in a low, gruff tone, lips spread tightly in a smile from ear to ear. “I’m sorry Valor, forgive me. In any event, we should finish cleaning all of this out for useful supplies.”
Valor once again delved inside the broken wagons and pockets of dead ferals with his brother. Armun and Iliana argued over a small map, smacking each other’s hands, as if that was how one found their location. Valor noticed that Armun had taken some clothes from the caravann, covering the armor Lobosa had given him in the Scarlett Ring. Iliana apparently had no need of normal clothes.
The first two were empty, save for bloodstains and shrapnel. In the next one, however, Valor found several clean feral robes. Upon pulling it over his head, the idea of wearing his captor’s skin sent a shiver through his spine and up to his neck. He threw it off, forcing himself to be thankful there was something else to wear, and refastened the cloak he had found yesterday.
Orrin’s search was more successful, finding bags full of carrots and tomatoes, along with more jerky. He also found several black bags, and upon looking inside, snatched up a handful of what appeared to Valor as black powder. Valor signed to him, [ Be careful with that, it could be harmful. ]
Orrin sniffed it quickly, then dumped it back into the bag.
[ What does it smell like? ] Valor signed.
[ Nothing, ] Orrin responded. [ It has no smell at all. ]
The brothers left the final wagon, and filled their borrowed packs with the appropriated food and extra clothes.
Armun noted their appearance. “Don’t put the hoods on. Where we’re going, you could be mistaken for a feral.”
“But our cloaks aren’t red.”
“Doesn’t matter. If the local tribes can’t see your face, they’ll shoot.”
Orrin nodded energetically and pulled his hood off. Valor did
the same as his brother, turning the cloak so the back of it touched his chest.
“Alright,” Armun said with a sigh. “We’ve already travelled a good deal north chasing that caravann. For now, our destination is Laranu. In all honesty, I don’t know what we’ll find on the way there. The fall months are usually busy when it comes to trade. Completing harvests and getting final shipments in before the winter comes, you know. Not that it matters to the Gorabund.”
As they began to walk clear of the dead caravann, Valor stepped up to Armun’s side. He left Orrin, walking side by side with Iliana. He could feel his brother’s eyes on him, mentally begging him not to cause trouble, but he had questions for the old mage.
“Tell me…” Valor asked. “How much of our jail break was planned?”
Armun snickered. “Does it matter? You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“I suppose not. You’re Urenai, though… really, I’m not tryin’ to be an ass. But that was sloppy work.”
Armun bounced his head from side to side, stretching his lips. “No. It wasn’t my best.”
Valor decided to abandon that questioning. “Do you think Lobosa underestimated your strength?”
Armun pushed back his hair. “Undoubtedly. Lobosa seemed too smart to make that mistake, but I have a feeling the desire to torture me won out over knowledge of his own safety. Had he been ready for me, I would have found it more difficult, but I’d still have left that room alive.”
“Another question.”
“Alright,” Armun relented.
“Did you kill him?” Valor asked.
Armun scrunched up his eyes. “I took an arm and a leg. An arm so that he could never perform memorias again. And a leg so that he may never stand above another… whether or not he died from those injuries, I can’t tell you for sure.”
Valor sighed. “You should’ve just taken his head. That’s the only part that matters.”
Armun said nothing, merely nodded his head. Valor felt sure that if Lobosa had presented a difficult fight for Armun, he would have answered the question more seriously. He had to have taken the Warden by surprise.
Valor’s step quickened to keep pace with the old man as they began walking towards their destination; this place called Laranu. He looked back towards what was once his home. The vast dagger peaks of the mountains now fit in the cupped shape of his palms. After a while, he dropped back and walked alongside his brother, and Iliana moved up next to Armun. Valor watched as the smaller but still daunting heights of the Arnaks crossed the northwestern Gorabund.
Valor couldn’t help but feel his brother’s down trodden expression.
[ What’s wrong with you? ] Valor signed. [ I hope you don’t regret escaping. No one there was a friend to us, except for Jerryl. ]
Orrin shrugged and responded, [ But they were not all enemies. Some were just victims. We are all victims in there, you know that. I regret leaving those behind that cannot defend themselves. ]
Valor did not respond for a while. We couldn’t do anything, he thought. [ What could we have done? Nameless things were everywhere. Ferals everywhere. Nothing to be done. ]
[ Jerryl, ] he signed to Valor.
[ Jerryl will live. He’s stronger than anyone. ]
After a short silence, Orrin signed. [ How have we switched sides on this? Weren’t you the one who threw a punch at Armun? ]
Orrin had invented a sign for Armun. He pulsed his hands, as if pretending to cast a spell. Valor was glad to see that the previous day’s events hadn’t killed his brother’s energy for imagination.
They reached a tall sand dune with a slope steep enough to kill anyone who took a wrong step. Armun and Iliana quickly traversed it, as if their thick clothes had no weight at all. Orrin did so a bit slower, but with no less grace. As Valor ascended the hill, he looked back over it, knowing that when he hit ground level it would be the last time he would see his prison home.
Valor looked back then, promising himself it would be for the last time. The Arnaks were not so ugly from far away, he thought. They looked soft now, fuzzy in the haze of heat.
Good riddance, he thought. Good riddance to the slaves that hated him, and to the ferals that hated him more, and to everything else that resided deep in the Arnaks. One day, he knew he’d come back for Jerryl, and leave the rest of them in the dust. As he turned away after a final lingering moment, he felt a sudden weight lift off of his chest, as if some unseen ancient blood tie had been broken by strange power.
Orrin turned towards his brother and quickly signed. [ Perhaps we can go back some day. Help those who should be helped. ]
Valor nodded, though his thoughts differed slightly.
The only one who needs help is Jerryl.
Iliana led the group directly, checking her compass every couple of minutes. Every hill of sand they walked upon revealed another just like it. Valor had always known that this was how the ferals had ended up with so many as their slaves. Without magic or a crew, traversing a desert, any desert, was impossible. It was, however, another thing to experience it.
Valor couldn’t help but to continually search Iliana with his eyes for a long while, attempting to place where she could be from. She was the first human woman he’d ever met who wore her sharp mind on her face, instead of make up or face paint.
In the Golden Sands, there was not a beautiful woman who didn’t want something from you. They used beauty like a tool, the same way he used his pick in the mines. But here was Iliana; she wanted nothing from him.
He mulled over his contradictory emotions. What little he knew of her, though, told him a different story. She seemed to want nothing to do with anyone, except maybe Armun. Her demeanor was consistently as cold as the magic she wielded. The pure white clarity of her skin told him that she was obviously northern.
Jerryl had taught him that the north was a big place, a place that none had ever fully mapped. He’d heard northerners were all but barbarians, however, cruel and merciless, and that their faces were withered and craggy from generations of snowstorms.
The thing that grabbed most of his attention was her cloak. It appeared ancient, as if crafted from dust of a forgotten age by some great northern king. In the strong light, he could see that it bore silver and grey weavings, a design much like the ones Orrin had often drawn in his sketch book, but in straighter lines with less curve.
Valor walked closer to Armun, who had strayed a bit west of the party, whispering to him. “May I ask you something about her?”
“Hm?” Armun said, as if coming out of a daze.
Valor waited for a more prominent response.
“Go ahead, yes, certainly,” Armun said.
“Where in Harmenor do you find someone so cold?”
Armun smiled his usual grin and said, “You find cold people in cold places. She is from Nowaveiss. A country to the north, hidden in shadows and mountains similar to these.” Armun waved a hand around to the Arnaks in the distance. “They were once most savage, and were all but removed in one of the many attempts at unification by the human tribes. To classify them as religious killers is a bit harsh - they have their ways, and they simply didn’t fit with most. The harmians were the only ones who had contact with them once they migrated north. The people of Nowaveiss eventually turned on them, however, when the harmians left them to their own devices. Theirs is the way of true isolation.”
“Why did the harmians leave them?” Valor asked.
“No one knows. But for that matter, why did the harmians leave at all? They started to wither around the time of the troll wars.”
Valor plugged one nose hole, and blasted sand from the other. “Snf! Snf! so… they just up and left Harmony?”
“I’m sure it’s not all that simple. I know some rumors, but I try my best to speak about history in facts. Things can be misconstrued speaking in the former. Anyways, what little Iliana has shared with me of her people, well... she seems knowledgeable, but I have learned not to press her on certain things. The people of
Nowaveiss are almost as secluded as ferals.”
Iliana turned her head as if catching their conversation, causing Valor to turn away from Armun with a jerk. Armun chuckled quietly.
“I fear few things but a female skilled with a sword,” Valor whispered. “They are better fighters. They love to cut at your balls, your toes, fingers, neck... all the weak points. I can only really say I know of female ferals as fighters, however. More aggressive than the males. I’ve read that they sometimes kill their lovers while mating.”
Armun stifled an outburst of laughter. “Sometimes that happens with humans as well, but over a much longer period of time.”
Valor jerked his head towards the old man. “Really?”
“Well, sort of. No, no, no they don’t. Promise... don’t ever repeat that. To anyone.”
Valor shrugged. “Alright. Is she your student?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Armun brushed his hair away from his eyes.
Valor wondered what it would be like to grow up in a place so opposite of his own. “I’ve never seen snow. Just the thought of it bothers me. Frozen water falling from the sky?”
Armun nodded. “It can be difficult to manage. Please, Valor - don’t talk to her about these things. Leave her alone. She almost killed you not even a day ago.”
Valor wondered how Armun and Iliana got along. In the Arnaks, only their care and trust for one another kept them afloat on Lobosa’s sea of mistrust, and Jerryl’s care was the dinghy itself.
He wondered if Armun was Iliana’s dinghy.
He grabbed at the flask Armun had taken from the caravann, devouring half its contents. The sun beat at their bodies like a massive flaming club head. Hours passed by before he looked up at it again, and despite the powerful members of his traveling friends, or at least he thought they to be so for now, a foreboding sense of danger constantly forced his head back in the direction of his old home.
Chapter 40
How?
Memorias: Deep in the Arnaks Page 37
