The White Brand (The Eastern Slave Series Book 2)

by Victor Poole

  The bearded man was on his feet at once; he shouted in the old Slavithe at the other man, his arm stretched out. Ajalia saw the other man for the first time. He was thin, like the first young man had been. This young man's hair was wild in a halo around his head. Ajalia could see nothing of his face. The young man argued with the bearded man; Ajalia retreated quickly up the slope behind her. She kept her eyes on the bearded man. He did not follow her. The young man with the wild tangle of hair and the bearded man argued for a moment, and then spread wide and began to follow her up the rocks. The young man with the halo of wild hair moved over the rocks like a spider, swift and sure. Ajalia sat down hard, and tossed the knife a little down the slope in the direction of the bearded man. She held up her hands in surrender.

  The bearded man said something to the young man, who stopped, his eyes warily fixed on Ajalia. She leaned back against the slope, and closed her eyes. She heard the scrape of the knife being picked up, and the snick of it sliding into the bearded man's sheath.

  "You are very fast," the bearded man said.

  "I am tired," Ajalia said.

  "Well," the bearded man said. "Everyone has their days."

  Ajalia laughed without mirth. The shadow of the bearded man fell over her face.

  "Go away and let me die," Ajalia said wearily. A blistering red light was flashing behind her closed eyes; her whole body was a knot of fire and shifting shards of tearing ice.

  She heard a sigh, and a grunt. She opened her eyes a crack, and saw the bearded man sitting beside her.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  "I am no one," the bearded man said.

  "Hello," she said, and closed her eyes. Ajalia waited for the world to stop spinning. The rough ridges of the rock and dirt beneath her back pressed sharply into her skin. She found the discomfort oddly pleasing. She stretched out one leg, and then the other. Sharp cramps shot through her knees; her left foot cramped painfully.

  "My body hurts," Ajalia said conversationally.

  "I did not think you would get my knife," the bearded man said.

  "I know," she said. "People like you don't." She heard an offended silence drift her way.

  "What is that supposed to mean?" the bearded man asked. A curl of indignant fury was in his voice.

  "Slave traders," Ajalia said. A long and imperious pause followed her words.

  "I am not a trader," the bearded man said solemnly.

  "Where is Delmar?" she asked. She hoped she had thrown him off enough to get a straight answer, but his tone snapped back into neutrality at once.

  "He is not here," the bearded man said.

  "Yes, you said that before," Ajalia said. She stretched her arms a little; the man flinched. Ajalia smiled. "You have a very nice knife," she told him.

  "Yes," he said. He sounded doubtful, as if he couldn't decide what he should do with her now.

  "I lost mine," she said lightly.

  "Oh," the bearded man said.

  "I was going to kill Delmar with it, but he got it from me and threw it away," Ajalia added. A strained silence fell over the mountainside. The young man with wild hair said something to the bearded man in the old Slavithe, and the bearded man snapped angrily in response. For the first time, Ajalia heard the young man answer back in a violent tone. Anger and fear were in his voice. The bearded man did not reply.

  "Caum thinks you are dangerous," the bearded man told Ajalia, after a short silence.

  "Well, Caum is right," Ajalia said. She rolled onto her stomach, and stretched her arms out over the rocks. She could hear the bearded man shifting uneasily nearby. Ajalia smiled; her rounded cheek crushed itself against against a sharp pebble. She hoped that the pebble would cut into her skin. The ragged texture of the mountain, and the discomfort of her skin against the earth made her breathe easier.

  "Does he want to kill me?" Ajalia asked. Her voice came out muffled. She got dirt into her nose, and she didn't care. She wished for Delmar, and wriggled her stomach against a particularly vicious plant that was sprouting up just below her ribs. The pounding in her head was going away. She concentrated on keeping still. She told herself that she would not mind dying, but a pinprick of fear at the bottom of her gut said she was lying to herself.

  "Don't kill me, Caum," she called.

  "He cannot understand you," the bearded man said.

  "What is your name?" Ajalia asked swiftly.

  "No," the bearded man said.

  "Coward," Ajalia said. She cracked open the eye that was not pushed against a rock, and peered up at the bearded man. All she could see was a long shadow, and the gleam of his curious armor.

  "You cause trouble," the man said.

  "Liar," Ajalia said. Her voice was level and calm. A part of her thought she could stand without pain, but the wiser part of her did not attempt to move. A feeling of dull sickness was gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She had thrown up before; now she felt the kind of sickness that was more than vomiting. She felt herself growing heavy, sinking into the mountain. She imagined herself dripping down through the rocks into the deepest strata of the mountains, resting with the old rocks under the weight of all the world. A horrible ache was on her shoulders.

  She tried to sit up, and could not. She saw the bearded man move forward, and then hesitate.

  "I thought you were going to carry me if I fell down," Ajalia said.

  "You did not fall," the bearded man said carefully.

  "Why don't you go away now?" Ajalia asked. "I will be less trouble if you forget I exist."

  She had turned her head; she was watching the bearded man out of the narrow gap between her eyelids. She saw him shift uncomfortably, glancing at the younger man who was still hovering with anxiety nearby.

  "Or," she said loudly, "Caum could put me out of my misery." She was on her back again. When she said the younger man's name, he bristled visibly. A long stream of the old Slavithe poured out of the young man; the bearded man replied with calm words.

  "He wants to kill you, or bind you," the bearded man told Ajalia.

  "Sounds fun," Ajalia said, closing her eyes. "I look forward to it."

  "You are not a very dignified person," the bearded man said. He sounded annoyed.

  "No," Ajalia agreed. "But then, I have no dignity. I am a slave."

  She was surprised at the effect these words had on both the bearded and the younger man; they both stiffened, as though she had said something horribly indecent. She saw that Caum did understand some of what she said. The young man had been jostling angrily for some time, but now she saw that the bearded man shifted uneasily, glancing hurriedly at his companion.

  "Why would you attack Delmar?" the bearded man asked. Ajalia smiled. She was enjoying this exchange; it distracted her from the sickening nausea that swirled angrily through her midsection. It was the first time the bearded man had spoken Delmar's name; the sound of Delmar's name made Ajalia sigh.

  "He said he liked me," Ajalia said. She thought this was a suitably diplomatic way to convey the gist of the scene.

  The young man with wild hair burst into a rash of frantic old Slavithe; Ajalia judged that he was demanding a translation, for in a moment, the bearded man relayed what she had said, and the young man became incandescent with fury. He repeated a phrase again and again, spiraling into a tirade of angry words.

  "What does Caum say?" Ajalia asked. The bearded man looked away from Ajalia. He shifted uncomfortably again, and put his hand restlessly on his knife.

  "He says, 'It is forbidden, it is forbidden,'" the bearded man said.

  "Well," Ajalia said calmly, "I did fight him off with my knife."

  The bearded man seemed to consider this. The young man noticed his older companion's changed demeanor, and clamored again for a translation. The bearded man obliged, and the young man fell silent.

  "My saddle belongs to Denai, the horse trader," Ajalia said to no one in particular. The young man with wild hair was watching her closely. She could feel the heat of his gaze. Sh
e looked up at the stars. The moon was near the edge of the horizon; soon the sky would begin to lighten. Ajalia felt suddenly immeasurably tired. She wished she had never left the Eastern lands at all. She reflected that her life before coming to Slavithe had been neat and orderly; she had known her place in the order of the universe, and she had fulfilled her part admirably. Philas had been background noise, and she had bargained efficiently in almost every city between the east and north seas. Now she felt that she had lost any idea she had once had of who and what she was. Her mind was tangled into a snarl of endless shadow; nowhere could she find a straight line, or a coherent note. Nothing was ordered; all was chaos and pain. She wished again for Delmar to be nearby. She thought that she could have argued with Delmar, and then she would have known at least that she disagreed with him. Here in the darkness of the mountains, with her body throbbing with a thousand irritating pains, and in the company of these foreign men, she felt bereft of her powers, alone and defenseless, even within herself. She almost wished for further physical pain, to hide within herself the real pain that was gnawing now on her vitals. She felt as if her heart had died.

  "Where's Delmar?" she asked again.

  "He is in Talbos," the bearded man said. "He has gone there for a time."

  "What is your relation to Delmar?" Ajalia asked. She was relieved to hear that the men knew where Delmar was; she thought this made violence less likely.

  "He follows the old ways," the bearded man said slowly. "We call the one who may be, the falcon. As there is no one yet who is the one, we speak of the dead falcon."

  "Delmar is the dead falcon," Ajalia said.

  "Yes," the bearded man said.

  "Because he may become what you wish for," she said.

  "What we know will be," the bearded man said. "The falcon will come, we do not know when."

  "Then," Ajalia said, moving gingerly into a sitting posture, pushing on the rocks to raise herself up, "as I have no relation to your falcon, I will be on my way."

  Caum of the wild hair burst once more into violent speech; the bearded man attempted to talk him down, but Ajalia saw that the older man was no longer succeeding.

  "In order to obtain your goodwill," Ajalia said gently, "I will explain my relation to your king."

  "He is not a king," the bearded man said angrily. Ajalia ignored this.

  "I am trading peacefully in Slavithe," she told them both. The blood had rushed to her head; she closed her eyes and ignored the awful pressure behind her eyes. "My master gives me great authority over his slaves."

  She cracked one eye open and saw that the bearded man was listening intently. She closed her eye.

  "Delmar, as you may know, is the oldest son of the Thief Lord," she went on. The bearded man made a dismissive snort. "Delmar's mother," Ajalia said, "greatly desires my master's wealth."

  She heard a creaking of metal pieces; she knew the bearded man had sat up to attention at this. The young Caum interrupted with a stream of old Slavithe, but the bearded man hushed him angrily.

  "I believe," Ajalia said carefully, "that, for reasons of his own, Delmar seeks what I have." She waited for these words to settle down thoroughly on the pair of men. After a moment, Caum asked again for a translation, and the bearded man rendered a long speech in the old language. Ajalia began to silently move her lips along with the words, feeling out the shapes of the sounds in her mouth. The old Slavithe was tangled and heavy, like golden chains buried in a heap of black earth. The sounds twisted over and around each other; Ajalia's tongue felt clumsy in her mouth.

  The bearded man finished his translation; a thick silence fell over the three of them. Ajalia sensed that the other two saw her now as an equal in their cause, or at any rate, a close ally. She moved her head gently from side to side, loosening the cords of tension that had settled into her neck. She waited. Breathing was much nicer now that she had rested for a while; her ribs were not so determined to lock out all the air.

  Ajalia cleared her throat. She rubbed the dirt off of her nose. She had lost her hair pins back in the road when she had fainted. She reached into the packet of yurl hair that was lying deep within her inner robe, and pulled out a thick blue hair. The two men watched as she tied her long black hair up on top of her head. Ajalia was aware of how well she looked in the thinning darkness; she knew the two men were staring at the gleaming blue yurl hair, and the way it nestled snugly against her thick locks.

  "Well," said the bearded man.

  "Yes," Ajalia agreed.

  Caum made a comment in old Slavithe. He gestured to Ajalia, and said something to the bearded man.

  "Caum wishes me to say," the bearded man told Ajalia, "that he understands the desire to have what you have."

  Ajalia made a ceremonial bow with the upper part of her body.

  "All that I have," she said, "is my master's. I am nothing of myself."

  The bearded man laughed, and got to his feet. He told Caum what Ajalia had said; the young man bowed respectfully towards her.

  "The young man thinks I am a bore," the bearded man told Ajalia. "I see that you are clever like a snake."

  "If I am a snake," Ajalia said, "then your hawk will destroy me, and you will have what I have."

  The bearded man laughed again.

  "I will not argue with you, silver-tongue," the bearded man said. "I was taking you to Talbos. You will see the city when you reach the farther ridge." He pointed to the north. Caum scrambled down the hill and retrieved Denai's saddle, which Ajalia saw he had dropped when he had chased her up the mountainside. Caum brought the saddle to Ajalia, and set it down near her. He spoke to her again, and held out his hand in the same curious sign the first guard had made near the gate in Slavithe.

  "What does Caum say?" Ajalia asked the bearded man.

  "He says that he hopes the spirits of the air guide you on your way," the bearded man said.

  "Tell him," Ajalia said, "that if I meet him in any civilized place, I will repay his kindness with a blue hair." She put her hand to her hair, where the yurl hair shone. The bearded man relayed her message, and Caum bowed again. He turned parallel to the mountain, and moved away. Ajalia watched his wild head of hair bob through the tangles of rock, and vanish.

  "What is your name?" she asked the bearded man. The bearded man laughed again, like the booming of a drum. The air was beginning to lighten, and his curious armor gleamed in the half-light over the mountains.

  "You may have beaten me," the bearded man said, "but I retain my dignity. You shall not have my name."

  "How will I tell of your great strength to those of my land," Ajalia asked, "if I can give them no name? I cannot call you a god."

  "You are a stealthy one," the bearded man told her, "and I like you. But I will not tell you my name."

  "Then I will call you a name of my own," Ajalia warned.

  "I am listening," the bearded man said. His face was becoming visible in the brightening sky; Ajalia saw that he had dark blue eyes, and that his hair was encircled with a band of metal.

  "I will call you Raephos," Ajalia said. She spoke in the oily Eastern tongue, and then translated. "I will call you the Shining Tree."

  The bearded man bared his teeth at her in a fierce laugh. His smile was like the rising sun.

  "That is a very good name," he admitted.

  "I am called Ajalia," she told him. She drew the packet of yurl hair out from under Delmar's brown tunic, and opened the fold of fabric. The old female slave, Erai, had straightened the blue hairs into a long row, and knotted them neatly at the top. The blue hairs shone against the packet like a living river; Raephos whistled between his teeth.

  "I give you the hairs of the yurl," Ajalia said, "in token of our peace with one another." She held out the packet of cloth, and Raephos took it gingerly from her. He smoothed a finger over the shining lengths of hair.

  "Your yurl must be a mighty beast," he said.

  "If I return to the East before the coming of the second moon," Ajalia told hi
m, "I will sell the yurl in this land." She saw his face perk up a little at these words.

  "Perhaps someday I will see your beast, this yurl," Raephos told her.

  "If you ask for the house of the Eastern trader in Slavithe," Ajalia said, "you will be shown the way."

  "You are a strange one, Ajalia," Raephos said. His mouth moved slowly over her name. Ajalia smiled at him.

  "I am a slave," she told him. "Many of us are thus."

  "I do not believe you," he said, "but I will not forget." He pointed again towards the north. "The city of Talbos lies there," he said. "Go straight as the hawk flies, and you cannot lose your way."

  "The finger mark of the dead falcon," Ajalia asked quickly, "is it dangerous to make?"

  Raephos's eyes sharpened; she saw his beard move as he settled his jaw.

  "You ask strange questions, little bird," he said. He raised the packet of yurl hair in a gesture of farewell. "May you find your lost knife," he told her, and turned away.

  Ajalia watched the bearded man in his curious armor walk away. He followed the path that Caum had taken, and soon he and his shining gear were out of sight. Ajalia sighed, and dragged the saddle back so that it lay beneath her head. She lay against the saddle, her eyes closing at once. The sun was beginning to peer over the farthest edge of the mountains when she fell asleep.

  THE CITY OF TALBOS

  Ajalia found Philas in the evening, down at the docks. He was dozing on a bench in the shade; Leed was with him. Ajalia motioned for Leed to come to her. The brown-haired boy jumped up, and walked to where she stood some distance away. The rough leather saddle was propped on her hip.

  "How is Philas?" she asked the boy. Leed rubbed the tangle of brown hair out of his eyes.

  "Drunk," Leed said, "but only a little. I kept him out of the worst places."

  "Good boy," Ajalia said. She gave Leed a coin, and his eyes almost burst out of his face. He buried the coin in his fist and put his fist deep into his pocket.

  "Delmar came in the morning," Leed added.

  "Did he speak to you?" Ajalia asked. Leed nodded. "What did he say?" she asked. Leed shrugged.