The Precious Quest Read online

  Rserker struck his fist against his chest and swept out of the tent. I nodded at the pacer, releasing her. She slipped away, silent as a moth.

  I moved to stand in front of Dorn. We were of the same height, but today Dorn’s back was not strong. It bent under the weight of being an advisor with no advice. I sought his gaze, but his eyes were empty. His thoughts were inside, creating a new chronicle.

  I waited while he stored the meeting in his mind, taking the chance to look over his features. In his amber eyes, I found the dark brown flecks, right where I knew they would be. Though the sun had burned my skin grey, Dorn was a light, golden colour. The grit of the region was buried deep in his pores, lining the creases where his smile dimpled. I checked his eyes to make sure he did not observe me, and then I dropped my glance to his lips. They were firm and full, the top line ridging beneath nostrils winging for the air to fill his legends.

  “LAYWREN,” DORN’S SOFT voice held a warm invitation.

  I knew better than to meet his eyes. I had seen them burn before, and I could not chance drowning in their heat. I stepped back.

  “What will you call the wood?” My question was meant to move us away from the moment, but when he answered, his voice was heady and low.

  “Is that what you really want to ask me?”

  “It is what I have asked you.”

  “Pig’s tail Hæsel.”

  Each ‘s’ in his answer was drawn out like a caress. He had to leave. I walked to the slit of the tent and waited. Dorn tilted his head in respect and joined me by the tent’s entrance. He paused and looked out into the grey of first night. I studied his profile, and he knew it. Then, without a word he walked away.

  A smile tempted my lips, but I held them straight and moved to stand between the flanks. The night air was filled with the sounds of voices speaking together, bursts of laughter, fire crackling, and animals snorting and pawing the ground. This song of life belonged to the Horde and filled me with a sense of wellbeing.

  I slid my hand behind my chest armour and pulled out my medallion, Lumen. It hung on a leather cord around my neck, and it was directly connected to every person in the Horde. I had shut Lumen down for the battle for the disc opened a straight path into my mind, and I did not know what talents were hiding behind the District walls.

  I spit on the disc and rubbed my arm in circles over it until it shone free of the grease of my breasts. The smooth surface caught the last light of day and reflected my face back to me. My skin, which had once been the colour of river stone, was turning to the dark grey of mountain slate under a sun that kept burning hotter each day. Each year, I felt more charred. My face, once sharp and dangerous, was now dulled by the red dust and heat into a map of our journey, drawn with lines of fatigue and water-loss. My cheekbones looked like jutting ridges under my heavy-lidded eyes.

  But my eyes were still bright, glittering back at the smooth circle of my medallion with an unquestionable strength of will. My eyes, the colour of jungle violets, Dorn had said. Maybe the only jungle violets left in this world. The colour, so rare, it could grasp another with wonder. But no longer. Wonder had turned to fear. I had seen it in the eyes of my enemies as they took in the thick, dirt-matted braids that cascaded from my skull like a living headdress. My hair had been coated in red dust for so long, I no longer knew its true colour. It had become my battle-cap, fitting for a warrior who had released a thousand souls at the edge of her sword.

  I ran my thumb over the raised runes around the edge of the disc, and a faint glow started up in the heart, erasing my reflection. Through Lumen, the flanks could now feel the quickening of my pulse, and I could feel Dorn’s. I laid the medallion back on my chest above my armour-covered heart and relaxed against the familiar tug deep within my skull. Sending out a gentle seek through Lumen, I counted the living recognizing each presence within the Horde. Many were no longer joined to me, and my awareness of the fallen deepened.

  These lost warriors had fought by my side, under my command. Their gift should be a return, a new chance at life, but without babes their souls had no vessels to fill. And without souls, no babes would quicken.

  Nethaz had said the Firslain, sons of the goddess, had locked the souls in the Hall. Every fiber of my being wanted to deny such a betrayal of son against mother. But I was surrounded by the proof that the souls were not returning. And what I could believe was that someone or something was preventing them. Disharmony haunted me, for my newly slain warriors were lost. I had to find a way to ensure their homecoming. I still hoped the people behind the magicked wall of Hæsel would have answers.

  How had we come to this?

  Life was once understood through the cycle. We warred, we died, and we were reborn. New life was a gift from the goddess. It had been this way since the beginning. Then, without warning, there were no more gifts. The only way to have a child was to steal one, and eventually, there were none left to steal.

  My people had not borne a child in nineteen years. We traveled far out of our domains searching for one. Further even than our Chronicle Warden’s memory can now trace. Every colony, every tribe we had come to was childless. And, now I would know if the District was as well.

  I felt there might be a clue in this Pig’s Tail Hæsel wood of Dorn’s, for surely anything that could find water in this thirsty world would be a blessing from the goddess.

  I turned to Left Flank. “How do you straighten the tail of a pig?” I asked.

  It continued to chew the grain-tipped grass drooping from its whiskered lips. Its pale eyes slid to right flank. They clicked and clattered—high pitched sounds chirping past the cud in their mouths. Lumen fed the translation directly into my mind.

  Left Flank ~ Bore the boar ~

  Right Flank ~ Bog the hog ~

  Left Flank ~ Ring the rump ~

  Right Flank ~ Hang the ham ~

  The flanks were amused, but I considered their answers carefully. We had “bored the boar” by out-waiting the District, and now, foolishly, a group had fled. A group Rserker would soon overcome. Dorn had said Hæsel would dip for water and bogs were wet.

  While I pondered the flank’s riddles, Rserker and his men rode down the seven who had come through the District wall.

  Chapter 3: The Tongue Holds the Key

  The next night, dusk came in pink, tinting the dry grass until it seemed to flame above the soil. The flanks and I were positioned at the outer ring of tents waiting for Rserker’s return. My guards stood back-to-back, watching the ridge and the forest at the same time. As the sun dipped down past the horizon, the slight drop in heat that marks the coming of night cooled my skin. Finally, out of the dim light, Rserker and his group arrived at the edge of camp leading the captives.

  THE MEN ADOPTED A MORE relaxed posture once they were safely inside the camp’s boundary. The seven who had escaped the District were resting awkwardly against their wrist and ankle bindings. The stillness of one was death. Of the living, three were women. Their small stature, dark brown skin and primitive clothing allied all of them, male and female, to the same tribe.

  But, there was one who was different. Not different because of how he looked, but because of how the others were in his presence. Some were turned to the left and some turned to the right, but they all faced this one man. He was their leader. He was the one I wanted.

  I raised my hood to hide my face and sent the flanks forward. Their long, goat-like legs carried them swiftly to the group. The captives flinched away from their thudding hooves, but the flanks ignored them. They moved to the leader and pulled him roughly into a standing position. The man did not struggle. Rserker sighted me, but I raised my hand, and he understood to stay with the other captives.

  I turned and moved quickly through camp, followed by the flanks as they half dragged the biddable captive to my tent. I held up the skin and they bent, their boney spines hackling their back hair as they slipped through. Left flank stepped on the man’s leg and made no rush to get off it. They were roug
h as they bound him to the thick, centre tentpole.

  Through all this mishandling, the man made no protest, and I made no move to stop the wrenching of his arms. When the flanks were sure he could not get free, they moved past me to guard the tent from the outside.

  Hinfūs growled low, stalking towards us from the shadows of the tent’s back wall. The captive’s eyes rolled white in fear as he tried to twist on the pole to see what was coming up behind him.

  Cradled within my hood, I waited quietly while I observed the man. I was watchful for he had not struggled nor tried to communicate when we had tied him. I did not assume he was a coward or accepting of his fate. To believe so would be to let my guard down and that could be perilous, especially if he had magicks.

  It was hard to know if he held certain powers by how he looked. I was not familiar with his kind or their dress, but I could see his hair had been done with care and purpose. The top of his scalp was scored with four tight braids that fell in twists to his shoulders. The braids were wrapped with swirls of copper wire that ended in crooked-edged loops, each wrapping a clear, green stone.

  Hinfūs growled again. I brushed my fingers at my side, and my hound stopped, backed up into the shadows and gave a grunt as he lay down.

  The captive spun his head my way. He squinted at me, trying to read my shadowed face. When I did not move or speak, he lowered his head and hung relaxed in his bonds.

  I took a step forward to look more closely at the stones. Immediately, the man lifted his oval face, his uncanny green eyes piercing the distance between us. His lips were ringed with tattoos and above, the slits at the bottom of his flat-bridged nose blinked like side-ways eyes. I had once seen a nose like his on a warrior who had been burned in the face. That warrior had not unnerved me, for I knew what caused his disfigurement.

  This man did not look made. He looked born. Born with cheekbones that were flat and extra skin that hung down along his jaw like a flapping curtain. Each ear was punctured with a large piece of the twisted wood from the wall. The skin puckered angrily around the slivers. I wondered if this was how he controlled movement through the barrier.

  I moved to him and pulled one of the wooden slivers from his ear. Blood pooled on his lobe, but he did not cry out. Instead, he sniffed loudly at the air as if to draw in my scent. I stepped away from his strangeness, twirling the wood in my fingers.

  “Does this bind to your blood and allow you to pass through the wood?”

  In the dimness of the tent, the tattoos made his mouth seem unnaturally large. The man jerked forward, but the ropes stopped his body before he could reach me. He grunted, the cords in his neck standing out against the coarse rope wrapped above his collar bone.

  I ignored his futile struggles and glanced over his thin hairless chest and sagging stomach. The panting heaved his guts over the rectangle of soft animal hide that hung over his groin. The loincloth was marked with lightly burned symbols of half-moons and snaking lines.

  When I did not move to harm him, or respond to his display of anger, the man stopped straining. The sweat of his fear filled the air with an oily, pungent scent.

  His helpless struggling convinced me he was nothing more than a savage. I loosened the clasp of my cape and pulled the hood from my head. As I was revealed, the man’s breath hissed through his teeth. His green eyes roved over my height, crawling up my torso to the top of my head. Let him read my hair, wild with knots, to know the soul he dealt with.

  “What tribe do you hail from?” I asked, holding my head high and looking down my nose at his smaller stature.

  He pulled back his lips in a sneer and his bottom lip cracked.

  I reached up and unhooked my water flask from a hook. I had not had my evening drink, and though it was not yet time, I sucked just enough to pool on my tongue. I held the water in my mouth, then swallowed the trickle.

  The man’s apple bobbed with thirst, but his gaze was steady.

  I held the water flask up to him.

  A click sounded as his throat tried to swallow what little spit he had left.

  I moved slowly forward, keeping my eyes on his, I placed the spout of the water flask against his bottom lip. He latched onto the bag, sucking like a calf at its mother’s teat. I allowed him two swallows before I pulled away the skin, popping his thick lips with a loud smack. The man’s eyes roved over me eagerly as he licked the drops from his tattooed mouth.

  His tongue was pierced with a copper ring that glittered with a small tear-shaped, green stone, just like the stones in his hair. When he saw the direction of my eyes, he pressed his lips together and quickly turned his head to the side.

  I reached out and grabbed him by the jaw. Twisting the loose skin under my forceful grip, I pried his jaws open. Within his mouth, his tongue leapt from side to side, as if to escape me. The swinging gem knocked against his tooth, and a pure clear note found its way to my ear, ringing into silence. My wound-hound rose from its resting place by the pile of furs, whining for the source.

  “Ring the rump,” the flanks had said about the twisted wood.

  I released the man and stepped back. His mouth tattoos merged with his newly bruised skin. I looked closer at the pattern of circles interlinking around his lips. He frowned at my study of his face and sucked his lips into his mouth until all the loose skin and his tattoos were pulled in between his teeth.

  Hinfūs growled at this strangeness. I waved my hound back, though I too was disturbed.

  The captive’s spirit shone through his eyes, challenging me. I could see his inner strength, and though it thrilled me to imagine trying, I did not have the luxury of time needed to break him. Each day, we used more of our water and supplies. I needed to breach the wall and get into the District.

  Torment aside, my other option was to use Lumen, my medallion. There was always risk in opening a bridge to my mind. I rubbed my teeth against each other as I weighed the idea. The captive did not break eye contact, and his raw challenge aided my decision.

  I touched Lumen with my thoughts and felt it thrum to life. Then, I imagined a thought strike, and before a heartbeat had passed, the man arched on the pole. His eyes rolled, glaring white in his darker face. His lips popped from his mouth as it grew slack. The tension dropped from his body, and he slumped in the bindings, drool stringing off his slack lips. Those challenging eyes were now closed.

  “Saigire,” I commanded the disc

  I created an image of the man on a journey, tracing events backwards from where we stood at this moment, to when I had first seen Rserker and his men enter the camp. Lumen prodded this into the captive’s mind, which continued with the rest, feeding me his memory. I led the way by imagining the thorny wall as he had crossed through it with six from the inside.

  The captive moaned, his eyelids fluttering but never opening.

  I was surprised. Lumen cast no sensation when I did a seek, yet the captive seemed to know what I was up to. Never had I seen such defiance of Lumen’s seeking.

  The captive was becoming more aware, his body taking up the battle. He strained against the tent pole, thrashing his head from side to side as if being beaten.

  It did not matter; his struggling could not stop me. I ignored his half-conscious writhing, focusing instead on the answer I sought. Lumen dug deeper into his core. There were many strange thoughts and images within him I did not understand. I passed them quickly, blurring them behind my seek like fog stirring over water. Moving backward through his memory, a tune flipped up like a loose stone and tripped my search. I discovered his view of the Hæsel wood wall.

  He threw back his head and howled like a beast. Hinfūs scrambled up from his resting place, growling and snapping at the captive’s legs.

  I ran Lumen over the memory again. There was a pause as the group waited on the inside of the barrier, then that note, a tune played. I had heard a note within, once before. It was of the same pitch made by the jewel in the captive’s mouth, but this was a song, and there was a second player, a me
lody twisting around the first.

  I ran the memory one last time, until I was sure I had the tune in my own mind. Then, I pulled out of the seek and looked into the man’s open eyes. My lips curled in triumph.

  “Do you wish to speak now?” I asked him.

  His entire body trembled with rage. But he dropped his gaze, his lashes thick and lush against his flat cheeks. I stepped closer, basking in his defeat, when suddenly, his chin shot up and then he was there, in front of me, and I was caught by the intense green of his eyes. How strange it was that his pupils were no longer round but squeezed into oval slits.

  Unnerved, I stepped back but spoke brave words. “I do not know what manner of man you are, but I know your secrets.”

  The man howled again and thrashed against the ropes like a tormented beast.

  “Slæpen,” I whispered, and Lumen sent the man to darkness. I watched with relief as his lids closed over his unnatural eyes.

  Pulling on my hood, I left the tent.

  The flanks were half squatting on their hinds when I passed them. They rushed to follow me, but I sent them back to the tent’s entrance to guard the captive. I wasn’t sure how long the sleep would hold, and I did not want Hinfūs to chew the meat from his bones. Not until I had what I needed.

  Night had grown late, while I had been using Lumen. Dying embers cooled in the shallow pits, and snores rose on the cooling air. Few were about to witness me slipping between the tents.

  I slowed as I came upon Rserker and his group. His warriors squatted together, speaking in quiet voices. One threw out his arm in a game of throwing bones. The captives dozed among them. Rserker became aware of my presence and rose to greet me. Though he knew my night-sight was a blessing, he held his torch high to light the last few feet between us.

  “All is well?”

  “Hm,” he grunted.

  Stepping closer, he tipped his face closer to the opening of my hood.

  “What did you learn from the man?” he whispered.