Chapter 11: 11

Vines clutched at Barrin as he fell, sloughing away and revealing a cloudless sky that rose up above a high ridge. He did not flail, or attempt to catch himself. If he fell upon a hard surface, he would die as easy whether he attempted to arrest his fall or not. A feeling of lightness passed through him as the air rushed past him and he almost felt regret as he fell into the waters below, immediately holding his breath and twisting to begin his rise back to the surface. He had heard the rushing sound of tumbling water, but that did not mean he would have landed in it. As it was, he felt thankful that he had.

Swimming one-handed, the other still clutching his treasured new sword, he powered himself to the sand banking, hauling himself up to a line of trees where he flipped over onto his back and took a long, deep breath. Maeal would think that her god, Aa, had guided them, or the god’s unseen hand had aided them in their fall, but Barrin knew better. It happened. No god had saved them.

“Praise Aa! Praise him!” The sound of coughing and spluttering came from the side, gasped breaths interspersing the exaltations. “Blessed be the Knowledgeable One! Praise him. Praise him.”

Her words drifted to silence as she continued to fight to control her breathing and Barrin shook his head. Praise a god for helping themselves, saving themselves. He would never understand that. Weary, Barrin turned and pushed himself to his feet. Looking up, he watched the vine covered tunnel entrance for any movement, but none came. Still, he gripped his sword and watched, and waited, until he felt satisfied the stunted humans showed they had no intention of throwing themselves from that precipice.

“I do not know this place.” He slipped the sword into its curving sheath and took stock of their surroundings, noting the waterfall away to the side, pouring from a tunnel distinct from the one they had emerged from. “Remain wary.”

“I think ... I think I shall simply lay here for a while.” She, too, had turned herself on to her back, her thin chest rising and falling, arms splayed to the sides. “If they come for us again, then I shall be wary.”

“I do not believe they will leave that place. Not during the day, at least. Rest, if you must, but look out for crocodiles. They frequent such places.” With one last look back to the precipice, Barrin turned to the trees. “Can you make fire?”

“I can.” Maeal turned her head to the side, short, black hair plastered against her forehead. The make-up had washed away and Barrin could see, now, how young and pretty she truly was. “You do not think us safe.”

“You are never safe until you know for certain.” He looked to the sky, to gauge the time of day, but found the Sun obscured by the tall trees before him. “Make a fire, if you can. I shall return.”

Before she could answer, Barrin strode out into the woodland. Palms, mostly, with some nut bushes. At least they had something to eat, though these nuts, he knew, had a particularly bitter aftertaste. Any older, ready to fall from the branches, and those nuts could turn poisonous. These, however, remained edible. He passed them by, forging his way in one direction and not turning either way to the side. He needed to know where he was.

It took several moments before he reached the other side of the thick wood, to the more sparse outer reaches, where the trees began to sit further apart, seeds unable to find purchase in sand that had encroached over the years. He had visited a number of oases, over the years, but he did not recognise this one.

True, not all oases had the size of those along the trade routes. Mar-Es Khaddin, Mar-Es Sahh and Mar-Es Kurr, especially, could hold half-a-dozen oases of this size within their borders. He had no way to tell how far they had travelled underground and, as he turned to look back, gazing up to the rise of rock that he and the woman had fallen from, he still could not place it. The Sun, however, blazed above, low in the sky, readying to pass beyond the horizon, only to return the next day. They would soon need that fire.

Later, after he had rested, he would climb that escarpment and seek any sign of places that he knew. Even he tired, though, and could not continue forever. Night would soon fall and he did not wish to have to awaken in an instant and fight, should those stunted humans venture out from the safety of their ruined city. On the way back, he hacked two stout, straight branches from a tree, marvelling at the ease with which the crescent-moon sword sliced through them.

“You wanted a spear.” He tossed one of the branches to her side as he returned. “You may need it.”

He had stripped the branches as he walked back through the trees, using his sword to bring the ends to sharp points. Maeal had started to gather wood for a fire, stones for a makeshift hearth and strips of dried wood for kindling, thinner strips for tinder, yet her ministrations at dragging fire from the spinning wood in her hand had proven ineffective. She didn’t stop, however, taking a quick glance at the branch and nodding.

“As a child, my mother taught me how to make fire. I thought it sorcery. The way she would twirl the stick between her palms, the first, tiniest wisps of smoke appearing and then a flame. I felt great pride in her for that. Later, of course, I learned it was not sorcery. I still find it magical.” She paused, checking the tinder upon the bevelled stone before returning to spinning the stick once more. “Did your parents teach you how to make fire?”

“Father.” Barrin checked the sharpness of the new point upon the makeshift spear before moving back to the large pool they had fallen into. “He taught me how to make fire only after I had survived in the cold for three nights. He said it was to teach me to appreciate fire more.”

“That ... that is horrible. I shall say no more about your father, but I can think of better ways to teach such lessons. Three days? Tt!” Her hands moved with even greater speed and ferocity, angry for him and his childhood, it seemed. “Where are you from? You’re not Khaddushite, for certain. Ah! Ah! Got it!”

She paused in her spinning, dropping her face down to breathe on the tinder while reaching across for kindling, sprinkling it around the tinder, teasing the infant flame until it caught and began to spread. Barrin nodded at that. She had skill and that could hold her in good stead should they have to travel far. They could not stop here, not for long. Not if he ever wanted to find Kahri again. Maeal had no such motivation save that she could return to her priesthood or her family.

He hadn’t answered her question and had no intention of answering it. In truth, he had no idea where he came from. Father had raised him in the unforgiving reaches of the Yaavik mountains, but Barrin did not have the same look as Father. Where Barrin stood tall and wide, made all the more wide with powerful muscles, Father had more of a squat stature, little taller than the woman building up the flames of the fire. Where Barrin had green eyes, Father’s eyes were brown, almost black. Where Barrin had fair hair and skin, Father had black, rough hair and ruddy skin that became a deep brown in prolonged sunlight. Father was a child of Yaavik. Barrin a child of nowhere. And he cared not a jot where he came from, nor who his mother was, or why she had died upon that mountain. None of that mattered.

Knee-deep in the pool, Barrin stared into the crystal clear waters. As he had swum to the shore, he had caught a flash of movement in the waters, below the surface. Fish. After days of little food, and then only slips of salted meat, and then nothing, he fancied fish would satisfy far more than a few nuts and berries. He held the makeshift spear at his shoulder, watching the ripples fade away and waited for a fish to pass by.

“I don’t know.” The silence had crept about him and he cursed his own voice. “Where I come from. I am a foundling, raised by Father in Yaavik. Other than that, I know nothing.”

“I know of nowhere where white hair is prevalent, or even not rare.” Maeal continued to tease the fire to life, one knee raised, her chin resting upon it. “And you are tall, even for people from Lanyuvat, and they are thin with it, so you don’t seem to be of that people. Perhaps you are bred from two distinct peoples?”

“It doesn’t matter. I am my father’s son and that is all I need to know.” His eyes caught movement, but it passed as soon as he readied the spear. “I am who I am, finding out who my parents were may satisfy some urge to belong, but I don’t care to belong. At least until ...”

“Kahri?” Those big eyes, less so without the kohl, rested upon him, unwilling to release him. “The way you speak, not that you speak much at all, it sounds as though Kahri has had a profound affect upon you. That is love. That is belonging. Why would you ever deny belonging to something, or someone? If I did not belong with my family, and the priesthood of Aa, I do not know how I could survive.”

“I survive because I must. I have no need of anyone, or thing, to survive for. Not even Kahri.” That was a lie. He knew it as soon as he spoke. Had he not thought of Kahri, he doubted he would have survived that city. “Enough talk!”

A flash of a tail caught his eye and he plunged the spear into the water, cursing the woman for spoiling his concentration. She talked and talked and never said anything of worth. Asking questions, trying to wheedle her way into his confidence. He paused, retracting the spear from the water, beads dripping from the whittled end, and turned to look at her. She had turned away, collecting more wood from the undergrowth now that her fire had caught.

He knew nothing about her. Nothing at all. And her personality and attitude changed so often that he sometimes thought her a different person entirely. Too friendly. Too quick to talk to him within the confines of that filthy carriage where no other spoke or even looked at another. And her branding. He had not had a good look at it until now, sat at the top if her shoulder, but it was not as fresh as the one upon his arm.

Father had often taught him to trust no-one, but he would temper that with a warning not to see enemies that were not there. A balance to remain maintained between trust and distrust for if it tipped in either direction, allies could soon become enemies. Barrin couldn’t say whether he did, or did not, trust Maeal, but she merited watching. If she deserved his trust, she would receive it. If she did not, he would kill her.

She must have sensed his attention upon her. A seer’s instincts? No. Barrin still did not believe in the powers of seers, at least not in many people. Intuitive she may be, but a seer he doubted. A true seer would never have found herself in this position. She didn’t smile, but her features softened before her eyes widened, her head nodding toward the water Barrin stood in. He didn’t know how she saw it, but he reacted as fast as anyone could possibly react. He turned and thrust the spear down with speed and power.

As he lifted the spear, large fish struggling in its last throes of life, he saw her smile then. A little curl of the corner of her mouth, as though she knew something he did not. Not a seer. He felt certain about that, but intuitive? That he could see.