Journey 2

The embers of your small fire are grey ash by the time you wake.

You stirs beneath the thin kaiila-hide blanket, the cold of the pre-dawn grass seeping through. Above, the three moons of Gor are fading — the great Ar and Thassa still pale in the west, but the sky to the east over the Hrimgar is beginning to lighten to a sullied gold.

You sit up. Your throat is dry. The kaiila you picketed nearby snorts and paws, eager to be moving.

The Tahari? No. You are still north of the Vosk, you reckon — two days out from the last village where you traded a silver tarsk-bit for dried bosk meat and a refill of your water flask. The road ahead is a rutted caravan track winding between low hills, lined with the blackened stumps of last season's fires.

You kneel in the cold grass, and coax the fire back to life.

A few dry twigs from your bundle, a twist of dried grass for tinder, and the spark from your flint and steel catches. You blow gently — once, twice — and a thin curl of smoke rises, then a small, hungry flame.

You feed it carefully. The warmth bites back the morning chill from your fingers. Your kaiila watches you, ears flicking.

From your pack you take a strip of the dried bosk meat and a small iron pan. Soon the fat is sizzling, the smell rich in the still air. You chew slowly, wash it down with a sparing sip from your flask — water is precious until the next stream.

As you eat, the sun crests the Hrimgar. Light spills across the track.

In the distance, south along the road you intend to travel, you see a faint dust plume. Could be wind. Could be a caravan. Could be riders.

The fire crackles low. You have perhaps an ahn before you should be moving if you want to make good distance today.

kicks loose earth over the small flames, then stamps them flat with your boot. A hiss, a last wisp of smoke, and the fire is dead. You scatter the ashes with a stick until no blackened patch shows from the road.

You shoulder your pack, tighten the girth on your kaiila, and swing up into the saddle. The beast shifts, eager.

Instead of taking the open track south toward that dust plume, you guide the kaiila off to the west, up the low ridge where scrub brush and tassa trees offer cover. From the crest, belly low, you can look down the long straight of the road unobserved.

You wait. The morning breeze tugs at your cloak.

Now you see it clearly: three wagons, high-wheeled, drawn by tharlarion, with outriders — a small merchant caravan heading north, toward you. Their banners are furled. No colors you recognize yet. They move slowly.

They are still perhaps two pasangs off

Prudence wins,

You slip back down the far side of the ridge, keeping the crest between you and the road. No sense in risking a toll, a press-gang, or worse for a lone traveler with a tired kaiila.

You guide your mount eastward, picking your way through the scrub where the ground is firm and leaves little track. The tassa trees thin, then open onto rolling grassland dotted with wild verbena. The air smells of earth and morning.

For a full ahn you ride parallel to the road but out of sight of it, the distant creak of wagon wheels fading behind you. A marsh hawk circles high above.

By mid-morning you come upon a shallow stream, clear and cold, cutting through the plain. Your kaiila dips its head gratefully to drink. Here the land rises again — and beyond the stream, you see the dark line of a forest. Safer cover, but slower going. To the south-east, the open grass continues, faster but exposed.

The sun is climbing. Your water flask is now full again.

You urge the kaiila forward through the cold shallows.

Water splashes up to your boots, then you are across, climbing the far bank. The forest looms — tall Tur trees, their reddish trunks straight as spears, canopy thick enough to dapple the light green-gold.

You enter the treeline. At once the wind dies. It is quieter here, only the soft thud of the kaiila's pads on needle-mast and the distant call of a jay. The air is cooler, smelling of resin and damp earth.

The trail, if it can be called that, is a game path winding between the trunks. You must duck low branches. Twice you stop to listen — nothing but forest sounds.

After perhaps half an ahn, you find a small clearing where a fallen Tur makes a natural bench. A good place to rest the beast and check your gear. From your saddlebag, your sword is oiled, your quiver holds eleven arrows.

As you are re-tightening a strap, your kaiila suddenly lifts its head, nostrils flaring, ears pricked toward the deeper woods to the north.

Something is moving in there. You hear it now too — a snap of a twig, then silence.

You rise to your full height, hand resting on the hilt of your sword, and let your voice ring through the Tur trees as a free man should — no skulking.

"Ho! Stranger! Show yourself! I am Ortossi, a traveler, and I mean no stealth against you. Come into the light!"

Silence for a heartbeat. Then a rustle.

From behind a thick trunk steps a boy — no, a young man, perhaps eighteen winters, lean and ragged. His tunic is torn, his feet bound in rags. He holds his empty hands wide. No weapon.

"Please," he says hoarsely, in the dialect of the Vosk river towns. "Do not strike. I am unarmed. I fled —"

Behind him, deeper in the brush, you hear another sound. Heavier. Not a second fugitive. Something large, moving deliberately.

The youth's eyes go wide with terror. "It follows me," he whispers.

The branches to the north tremble.

In one smooth motion your blade is free,

You step forward, putting your body between the trembling youth and the trembling branches. The steel sings faintly as it catches the dappled light.

"Behind me, boy," you growl, not taking your eyes from the treeline.

He scrambles behind you, clutching at your cloak.

Then it bursts forth — not a man, but a sleen. A wild forest sleen, long and low, six-legged, its fur matted, eyes yellow with hunger. It must have been tracking the youth for pasangs. It snarls, revealing white fangs, and crouches to spring.

Your kaiila screams and rears, pulling at its reins tied to the fallen Tur.

The sleen tenses —

You reach for a burning brand by instinct,l but your fire is long cold, doused back on the ridge at dawn!

Your hand closes instead on a dry, dead Tur limb. You snatch it up anyway and with a roar hurl it hard at the beast's muzzle while shouting at the top of your lungs.

The limb cracks across the sleen's snout — not fire, but pain and surprise!

The sleen yelps, twists mid-crouch, momentarily baffled by your fury. It is enough.

With your sword already in your other hand, the beast is off-balance, its flank exposed for a heartbeat.

You do not hesitate

As the sleen recoils from the thrown limb, you step in with the practiced lunge of the warrior codes and drive your sword deep into its exposed side, behind the forelegs where the heart lies.

The beast shrieks — a terrible, high sound — and convulses. Its claws rake the air inches from your leg. You hold the hilt firm, twist, and withdraw clean.

Blood darkens the needle-mast. The sleen thrashes once, twice, then lies still, its yellow eyes glazing.

Silence returns to the clearing, broken only by your hard breathing and the frightened snorting of your kaiila.

The youth stares at the carcass, then at you, his face pale. He drops to his knees.

"My life is owed to you," he whispers. "I am Davos, of the river town of Siba. Taken by bandits, escaped in the night — it hunted me since."

He looks up. "Take me with you, I beg. I can cook, tend the kaiila. Do not leave me to the forest."

Your blade is bloodied. The sun is past mid-morning. The forest path south still waits.

You wipe your blade clean on the moss, , sheathe it, and turn your full gaze on the kneeling youth. Your voice is level, but hard as iron.

"Rise, Davos of Siba. You will have your answer, but first I will have mine."

He scrambles to his feet, still shaking.

"How many bandits? Where is their camp? What arms do they bear? And why should I believe you are not their lure?"

Davos swallows.

"Six, master. Six men, camped in the ruins of an old watchtower, perhaps half a day's march north-east of here — where I fled. They have two crossbows, swords, and a tharlarion they stole from my father's wagon. They took me when they raided our cart on the Vosk road three nights past. My father..." His voice breaks. "They slew him."

He holds out his wrists, showing raw rope burns. "No lure, I swear by the Priest-Kings. I ran barefoot in the dark. The sleen picked up my scent at dawn."

He looks north, fear returning. "If they find their sleen did not finish me, they will come searching."

The forest is quiet again. Your kaiila has calmed, cropping at sparse grass.

You have a wounded boy, a dead sleen whose meat could feed you for days if you take time to butcher it, and knowledge of bandits uncomfortably close to your line of travel.

Then we go south, and now," you say.

You make the decision swift as a sword-cut. No butchering — the smell of blood will draw more than sleen. You leave the carcass for the forest.

You untie the kaiila and tighten the saddle. Davos you haul up behind you; he is light as a boy half-starved, his arms gripping your belt.

"Hold on," you order.

You take the game path south, deeper into the Tur forest. You ride not at a gallop — the trees forbid it — but at a steady, ground-eating trot, weaving between trunks, doubling back once across a rocky streambed to spoil any track.

Behind you, the forest swallows all sound of the clearing.

By late afternoon the trees begin to thin. Golden light slants through. Ahead you hear the welcome rush of a larger river — likely a tributary of the Olni.

You emerge onto its bank. The water is wide but fordable, stones showing. On the far side, open rolling hills stretch south toward distant smoke — a village, perhaps, or a roadside inn. Safety, and news.

Davos slumps with relief against your back. "Thank you," he murmurs.

Your kaiila is lathered and blowing hard. It needs rest, and so do you.

You do not wait for dawn, Ortossi. Night in a forest with bandits abroad is no place to linger.

"Hold tight," you tell Davos.

You urge the tired kaiila into the current. The water is cold as mountain snowmelt, rising to your stirrups, then to the beast's belly. Stones shift under its pads. For a moment mid-stream the current tugs strong — Davos gasps — but the kaiila, sure-footed and brave, lunges and finds footing on the far gravel bank.

You climb out, dripping, as the sun touches the western hills.

Before you, perhaps a pasang off across rolling grass, thin columns of smoke rise — chimneys. A village. You can see the palisade, the thatched roofs glowing amber in the evening light. A barking tarsk-dog carries faint on the wind.

Davos laughs, a broken, joyful sound.

You ride in as the gates are still open. A guardsman with a spear eyes your blood-stained cloak and sword, then your weary beast and the ragged boy behind you.

"Halt! Name and business, traveler?"

Behind him, villagers pause to stare. The smell of roasting meat drifts from an inn doorway.

You choose the humble path, Ortossi — pride can wait for a full belly.

You lower your hood and incline your head to the guardsman, keeping your hand well clear of your sword.

"I am Ortossi, a traveler from the north," you say evenly. "No raider, no bandit. This boy is Davos of Siba, whom I found fleeing in the Tur forest. We seek only water for our beast, a roof for the night, and honest trade for food. I will pay."

The guardsman studies you a moment longer, then notes Davos's rope-burned wrists and the weariness in your kaiila's stance. He lowers his spear a fraction.

"Well spoken," he grunts. "We have had bandits on the road. Keep your blade sheathed within the palisade, and you are welcome. The inn is the Yellow Tarn — Marta keeps it."

He waves you through.

Inside the gates, the village breathes evening life. Children run, a blacksmith hammers last nails, and the inn door stands open, spilling warm light.

Davos slides down from the kaiila, his legs buckling. "We made it," he whispers.

You stable your mount with the ostler, giving the last of your silver for grain.

Now the inn beckons. Your stomach growls.

Prudent and human, Ortossi. Warning can wait an ahn — a starved man makes a poor messenger.

You clasp Davos by the shoulder and push open the door of the Yellow Tarn.

Warmth hits you like a blanket. The low-beamed common room smells of roast bosk, ale, and woodsmoke. A fire crackles in the great hearth. perhaps a dozen travelers and villagers sit at scarred tables.

Marta herself — broad, red-cheeked, with arms like a wrestler — sizes you up.

"Travelers, eh? You look half-drowned and half-starved. Sit."

You take a corner table with your back to the wall, as a cautious man should. Davos collapses onto the bench.

Soon before you are set two wooden platters: thick slices of roast bosk dripping gravy, boiled sul roots, and dark bread. Horn mugs of ale, foaming.

Davos eats like a starved tarsk. You eat slower, listening.

At the next table, two merchants argue in low voices:

"...toll's doubled on the south road, I tell you. The High Captain at Venna demands it for 'protection' against the bandits."

"Aye, and the forest road's worse. No one goes north-east now. They say the ruined tower's haunted by deserters."

Marta refills your mug. "You came from the north, stranger? Through the Tur? Brave — or lucky."

Your purse is now light. You have enough for tonight's lodging in the common loft, but little more.

Davos looks up, ale on his lip. "Master Ortossi... what now?"

You give a slight shake of your head to Davos — not here, not now.

You finish your meal in the manner of a man who has learned to savor what the Priest-Kings provide. The bosk is tender, the ale strong. You wipe your platter clean with the bread, drain your mug, and feel strength return to your limbs.

Davos follows your lead, quieting.

Marta collects the empty platters. "Loft's two copper tarsks for the night, straw pallets, blankets. Stable's included."

You pay. It leaves your purse painfully thin — a few copper bits rattle.

You climb the ladder to the loft. It is dim, smelling of hay and other travelers' sweat. You find two pallets near the far wall. Davos is asleep almost before his head touches the straw, exhausted.

You lie awake a while, listening to the inn's murmurs below, the night wind outside the shutters. Your sword is beside your hand. The boy breathes softly.

You have survived the ridge, the river, the forest, the sleen. You have gained a companion who owes you his life. To the south lies Venna and its tolls. To the north-east, bandits in a ruined tower.

But for tonight, you are warm, fed, and behind a palisade. No

You close your eyes.