Cazia wanted to say a dozen things all at once, about sadness being a sign of wisdom, deep feeling, and generosity, but her thoughts were too tangled up and it was impossible. Instead, she only blushed.
Both girls laughed and hugged her. It was so embarrassing! Not that it mattered. He was so much older than her and certainly married or something.
Not that she spent much time thinking about him. More pressing was the princess’s dilemma and Cazia’s secret. Would she sacrifice her freedom for Ivy? Obviously, yes, but if there was a way to avoid it, she would.
They camped right there by the road for the night. Cazia was asked to tell the story of killing the flying serpent over and over again, moving from one campfire to the next, while the soldiers listened in thoughtful silence. They would never like her, but a little bit of respect suddenly seemed possible.
The caravan was up and moving before dawn, heading back north for part of the morning, then taking a narrow road that led them north east. Unlike the Ozzhuacks’ okshim, the Indregai’s didn’t seem to mind being turned this way or that.
The way was steep and quickly became steeper. The road became a path, and they had to follow its winding way around lakes and boulders. The trees seemed to draw in closer with every step, and Cazia soon fought the urge to climb one just so she could look over the canopy at something farther than twenty feet away.
Belterzhimi said it would take six days of hard travel to reach the temple, and it did. It was a sudden change when it finally happened. They trudged around yet another curve carved into the side of a hill, and there they were, face to face with a single, lonely column of stone at the foot of the mountain, and the open-sided roof beside it. The mountainside was nothing but rough, black, treeless rock.
Ivy was at her shoulder. “I wanted to show you this, but I had hoped Mother would be with us. Do you see?”
Cazia did not see. Goherzma cracked a lash over the heads of the okshim, driving them along the edge of the clearing. He kept the beasts well away from that stone tower.
Many of the soldiers did the same. When Belterzhimi stalked forward and knelt beneath the stone roof, he did so alone.
Was that how the messages were transmitted? Perhaps there was something beneath the stone roof that carried his voice. Or, by the way he bowed his head, perhaps something like the silver mirrors that Peradaini scholars made was set into the ground.
Should she join him? There were messages she wanted to send, but she needed someone to show her how. Was there anyone else she could even ask for--
“Well?”
The princess looked up at her expectantly, as though expecting some sort of delight or astonishment.
Cazia glanced around. There was the stone column, the rough stone mountainside, the so-called temple--little more than a stone roof held aloft by carved stone posts--and Belterzhimi himself. He was still kneeling in the low grass, still holding his head bowed.
Cazia had no idea what the princess was on about. She strained to hear something interesting, like the commander’s voice, but she could hear nothing but the huff and blow of the Okshim and the thumping of weary soldiers dropping their packs.
“Inzu’s breath,” Kinz suddenly whispered. “Inzu preserve us. Inzu grant us your grace. Inzu...”
Cazia squinted up at her in astonishment. Her first thought was that the two of them were playing some sort of prank. Wasn’t that how the Indregai did things? Mockery and insults?
But no, that was just her paranoia. Ivy wasn’t an Enemy, and neither was Kinz, not anymore.
She looked back at Belterzhimi again. He had spread his hands wide, palms up, as though entreating the grass around him to grow. Was he speaking? She could hear something odd, like a deep tone blowing through a long, low horn. It was clear and wavering but so deep she almost couldn’t hear it.
Then, suddenly, she saw it. It appeared at first as though something was moving on the face of the mountainside, but no. It was the mountainside itself that was moving. The sound was coming from that vertical undulating crevice.
A mouth. It was a mouth, with actual lips, moving as though the gray-black stone was as malleable as flesh. And once she could recognize the lips, she saw the nose, the cheekbones, the brow, and the lidded eyes. Eyes that were barely open at all.
It was a gigantic head lying on its side, with the crown facing the west. It dwarfed the walls of the Sunrise Gate, and it seemed barely awake. It was a giant. A man made of stone. A slumbering colossus.
I should not be here. “Monument sustain me.”
“Hah!” Ivy exclaimed. “Can you bring me to visit one of your gods?”
Chapter 25
As Tejohn and Javien came to the base of the Southern Barrier, they had some difficulty finding the road that would take them through Salt Pass. Javien was certain it was farther west and insisted they push forward. Tejohn wanted to backtrack before they crossed into Bendertuk territory. He had already scraped the paint off the Finstel shield he was carrying, but if they met a Bendertuk patrol, they would be fortunate if they were only robbed of everything they had.
Fortunately, they happened upon traveling merchants held up at a crossroads by a broken wagon wheel. Their little group was too small to be called a caravan—only a dozen wagons or so—but they did anyway. Their leader was a woman who called herself “Granny Nin.” She insisted they call her “Granny,” even though Tejohn thought she couldn’t be more than ten years older than him.
After Javien introduced himself, Tejohn gave his name as Ondel Ulstrik again.
The first thing they did was trade one of the fallen soldiers’ knives for a new coat of paint on Tejohn’s shield, along with a spot in the wagon. Granny assured them they would pass through Bendertuk territory without incident, since she had many friends and relatives on that side of the river and always did fine business there.
Friends were the secret to doing business, she exclaimed, and she had so many! She couldn’t wait to get up into Salt Pass to see her friend Iskol, and after that they would venture into the Sweeps to trade with her friends the miners and herding clans.
Tejohn tried to warn her that there might be few customers in the Sweeps this year, considering how much trouble was spreading, but Granny wouldn’t hear of it. She knew how people were. They always needed something, and she was there to trade.
They crossed a bridge into Bendertuk territory without any hassle at all. Granny was as friendly with the soldiers as she’d claimed, and they let the wagons pass without incident. Tejohn thought about the spear and shield Granny had insisted on loading into a wagon; walking without it through enemy lands made him feel as though he’d been stripped naked, but he did it and he survived.
For sixteen days, they walked through the northeastern corner of the Bendertuk lands, following roads that became steeper with every passing day. Everyone in the caravan except Granny took their turns following the wagons with a broad wooden shovel—okshim patties couldn’t be left in the road. What’s more, a pair of young boys had little wagons of their own, into which the shoveler loaded the dung. Then the boys ran to the front of the caravan and dropped it for the okshim to eat.
Yes, Granny assured him, it was revolting, but the beasts would starve if their grasses passed through their bellies only once. What’s more, even the fresh grass cut from the side of the road had to be mixed with dung first; otherwise, the okshim might think themselves in charge of the pack and become unruly. There were tricks to leading a caravan, she insisted, and not everyone knew them. Tejohn better understood his father’s decision to tend sheep and pull his own wagons.
Javien stopped at every village and performed weddings, said prayers, or more often, granted divorces. The temples had been emptied at the beginning of summer, they were told, and every beacon in the land had been summoned to the Bendertuk holdfast.
In the past, Javien had been happy to accept food and lodging for himself and Tejohn in payment for his services, but Granny explained it would be unfair to exp
ect newlyweds or penniless divorcing miners to host the whole caravan, so at her suggestion, he asked for a small bit of coin, of which she took a reasonable share.
The young priest didn’t seem to mind. Javien was careful never to be seen crying in his bedroll, although he did awaken with terrible dreams more than once. He spent his days talking with the merchant families, sharing stories, jokes, and gossip in that easy way that always made Tejohn a little envious.
For his part, Tejohn manned the shovel when it was his turn, ate with the group, but otherwise kept to himself. The others knew only that he was a farmer turned soldier and assumed he was the priest’s bodyguard.
Eventually, the roads became so steep that the okshim foundered and the families had to get out of the wagons and push. It was strenuous work, but Tejohn did his part. They camped that night in a wide, tree-lined place on the side of the mountain. Tejohn stood at the edge of the little cliff and looked out over the treetops. He would have thought it lovely if it hadn’t been in Bendertuk hands.
Granny Nin came up behind him. “This is the last grove of good hardwood until we cross into the Sweeps. It’s all scrub pine from here.”
“I like pine,” Tejohn said. It occurred to him that he hadn’t yet seen a stand of evergreens with his new eyes. There were so many things he wanted to see. “I like that they’re green during the winter.”
This made Granny smile for some reason. “I’m pleased to see you coming this far with us. You and your companion have more than earned your keep. I wonder, though, what you will do after we visit my good friend Iskol at the top of the pass. Will you be turning east with us to visit the mines in the Sweeps?”
Tejohn considered his answer. He and Javien would have to split off from her at some point, but would it be better to announce it after they left the pass or before they visited this friend of hers? Would it even matter?
He quickly realized that the delay in his answer was answer enough. She knew he wasn’t heading east. “We have other plans, I’m afraid. Not that you haven’t been wonderful hosts.”
“Hosts!” She seemed delighted with him. “You surprise me again. But I wonder if I might change your mind. This is a bad time to travel westward in the Sweeps. The Durdric are a lovely people, as long as you keep away from the Holy Sons. That will be hard to do at the height of summer.”
“There are Holy Sons in the east, too. I’ve heard tell of raids on mining camps west of Caarilit.”
“I would not put much stock in those rumors, my friend. Miners love to tell stories, and those stories grow like weeds in the telling. I put as much faith in stories of Durdric raids in the east as I do of giant eagles swooping down and carrying people away.”
“What about the grunts?” Tejohn said evenly. “Do you believe in them?”
“It’s hard to say. I believe something happened in Peradain, but I’m still not sure what.”
“So you don’t credit tales of monsters with pale purple fur--”
“Purple?” she interrupted. “I’d heard they were blue.”
“One kind is purple. One kind is blue.”
Granny Nin smiled kindly. Even when she was being condescending, she had charm. “You see? The stories change and grow. Oh, please don’t think I’m being rude. I don’t mean to be. It’s just that I’ve heard so many stories in my travels. Mermaids in the high salt-water lakes of the Southern Barrier. The goat people who are at war with them. The secret city of the alligaunts. It’s all very colorful and quite hard to believe.”
“I see your point.”
“Peradain has fallen. This we know. But who did it? Think on this: where do blue dyes come from? The Indrega Peninsula. In fact, you can’t make purple without mixing red with blue, yes? And we’ve recently opened trade routes with the Indregai again after many years of conflict. So let me ask you: which seems more likely, that we’ve been invaded by blue and purple monsters or that Peradain was sacked by warriors wearing dyed bear fur?”
“Warriors,” Tejohn said flatly.
“Perhaps. Another story could be that the Indregai, who have long fought alongside their serpents, have found a new beast to accompany them into battle. Bears, perhaps, with dye splashed onto their backs.”
“Warriors and bears.”
She slapped him playfully on the arm. “Don’t make that face, you.” Tejohn laughed. “Is it any more outrageous than tales of monsters? No, the real dangers here are bandits, and the tyrs in this part of the world never let their bands grow too large. We know how to stand up to them and how to drive them off.”
Tejohn couldn’t let that pass. “I’d like to see that.”
They had settled the okshim at the westernmost part of the meadow, where the trees were thinnest, but they had not had a chance to eat. Good. Granny Nin scrounged up eight of them, four men and four women. Grumbling, they took up their unpainted shields and long wooden poles, then formed a shield wall two deep.
“They look fine, do they not?” Granny said. “They’re all former soldiers, and the bandits always think twice when they see us.”
Tejohn thought they looked adequate. “Bring me my shield and...and a pole, I guess.”
One of the young lads ran to the wagon to get it, and a crowd began to gather. Javien stood among them, and he was the only one not smiling.
The weight of the pole felt wrong without a spearhead at the end, but he moved his grip farther back. There. The merchants saw that he intended to attack them and, looking a little incredulous, they made ready.
Tejohn glanced at their line and saw instinctively where the weak points were.
He charged toward them, his feet staying close to the ground and moving in little crescents. Just before he came in range of them, he jolted to the right.
Two of the merchants tried to lunge forward and two held their spot. He knocked aside their poles with his shield and the haft of his own “spear,” then dealt one a sharp knock on the forehead. She tumbled back into the row behind her. Tejohn stepped back, to the right, then lunged forward again to deal the same blow to the man at the end of the row.
He sidestepped around them, moving onto their flank. The merchants tried to reform their line, but they were too slow. The man on the end of the line held his shield high enough to protect his head and Tejohn gave him a jab on the inside of his thigh just above the knee.
He kept moving to the right, knocking away their attacks with his shield and striking at their fingers and feet. They could have overwhelmed him, but they were afraid of taking a tap to the head.
“Enough!” Granny Nin called. The merchants stepped back and lowered their poles.
Tejohn gave one last hard knock to the shield of the nearest merchant, and she gave him a sour look. “You don’t lower your weapons when your commander calls for an end to the fight. You lower them when the other side agrees to it.”
“A fine point,” Granny said. She turned to Tejohn. “I’m glad the bandits don’t fight as well as you do.”
“You should drill them more often,” he said. “Start with their footwork. It’s not the heroic part of soldiering, but it’ll keep them alive.”
“I was only injured,” one of the merchant’s said. He sounded a little peevish. “He only gave me a flesh wound.”
“No,” Javien said. “He hit you on the inside of the thigh. If there had been a blade on the end of his pole, you would have bled to death by now.” The merchant looked like he wanted to argue the point, but a look from Granny Nin silenced him. Javien turned to Tejohn. “You used the grunts’ tactics against them.”
“What’s this?” Granny Nin said, startled.
“Flanking a line or a square is standard tactics,” Tejohn said. “If they’d been well trained, they would have adjusted the line.”
“Beacon Javien,” Granny Nin said, “what’s this about a grunt?”
“We saw one fight a line of spears barely a day outside of Ussmajil. They were Finstel soldiers and they...Were they well trained, my--friend?”
Granny laid a hand on the young priest’s shoulder. “You saw them? Truly?”
Javien looked confused for a moment. “Granny Nin hears a lot of stories,” Tejohn said, “and is naturally skeptical.”
“We killed two of them,” the priest said. “We tricked them and burned them to death. And then... And then...” His face went pale and his hands began to tremble.
“Ssshhh,” Granny said. She took Javien’s hands and held them in hers. “We’re going to talk about this, my friend, but not like this. We’ll build a fire, serve a meal, and then we’ll talk. Would that be all right with you?”
He nodded. That’s what they did. Night had fallen by the time they had all eaten, and the entire caravan gathered close to listen to Javien tell the tale of his and Tejohn’s encounter at the farmhouse. He told it flatly, without affect, leaving out only the spells he had cast.
The merchants were understandably upset by the fate of the grunts’ victims, but they never doubted the necessity of it, not when the story came from a priest in his red robe. After he finished, two of the older women pulled him aside to talk quietly about what he had done. Tejohn was concerned at first, but when he realized they were going to exchange stories about painful choices they’d had to make, he backed off. As he’d told the Freewell girl a lifetime ago, talking with others who had experienced a similar pain had been the only useful thing that had ever helped his own case of the flinches.
As he settled back down in his spot, he realized that Granny Nin and the rest of the merchants were staring at him. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked.
“You would have laughed at me,” he said, trying not to be cruel about it. “You would have thought it was another folk tale.”
The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way Page 26
