The Forgotten Stone, page 34
Clucking to Inferno, Enouim crouched along the branch and crawled further out along it as he trotted underneath her, then she swung herself down and stood upright on his back.
“Monkeys, all of you!” Gabor called, but his tone was lighthearted.
Proud of her little accomplishment, Enouim bowed with a flourish, but as she did so the stallion beneath her started to trot off. She squealed and crouched down, her friends laughing behind her, as she wormed her way into the saddle and reached forward to give Inferno a hug. “I missed you!” she told him, slipping her hand beneath his shining mane. He had clearly been well taken care of during his stay. He tossed his head as if to say he knew how handsome he looked.
Behind her, Vadik and Serete did flips off the tall branch and landed light on their feet. With a joyful cry Rindyl emerged from the window and hurtled himself off the branch. Vadik and Serete caught him mid-flight and set him on the ground. Oloren, close behind, ran down the branch before launching herself onto an opposing branch and down to the ground below. Laughter filled the air, and the warm light fit the mood. Enouim dismounted to reorganize her saddle bags a bit and say her goodbyes to Mereámé.
“I needed you here with me, I think,” Enouim said to her. “Your warmth and sincerity, and the way you listen so entirely, was a beautiful thing to help me get through the last couple of months. Thank you.”
“You have been so welcoming and kind to me,” Mereámé said. “I’m sure we will see each other again. I can feel it. This is only a pause in our friendship.”
The two women embraced, and Enouim had a hard time trying to express everything she wanted to say. She’d developed many wonderful friendships, but Mereámé was so warm and safe, her gentle touch could validate and soothe any experience. Enouim had often been drawn to Mereámé when needing space to process freely. Wiping away a tear, Enouim laughed as Gabor stood awkwardly next to Mereámé for his own goodbye, saying, “I’m … glad you’re not dead anymore. Stay that way, okay?”
Rindyl and Koko gave parting remarks as well, wishing them all a safe journey and welcoming them back to Rehim anytime. “Remember that what you see is only a sliver of what is there,” Koko reminded them. “Lean on Vadik as your seer into the hidden layers.”
The rest of the company bade Mereámé and their Rehi friends farewell, and Rindyl and Mereámé waved them off. Nine had come into the forest, one had died and been revived, and nine now exited the forest again. Serete took the ninth place, and Enouim wondered if all nine would make it to Gorgenbrild.
Fresh air wafted by, rolling hills spread out before her, and the sun brought a glisten to every blade of grass. Enouim breathed in deep. A new day had dawned, and the hopelessness of night had lifted. Surely Eh’yeh had not sent them from him simply to die. Enouim bent her thoughts toward Eh’yeh. Okay, a dream would have been nice. It would have been more than nice, and I think I would still prefer it. But if you choose not to send any specifics today, I will do what I can with what you have sent. And right now, you send us home. Enouim closed her eyes and gave herself over to the rolling motion of Inferno beneath her, the familiar feel of horse and rider, the sound of excited chatter on the road. Could it be she had missed this?
Enouim prayed the sun still shone on her loved ones in Gorgenbrild.
38
Back in the saddle, they traveled west through the forest of the massive trees that characterized Rehim. It was going to be a long way home, and it didn’t take long for the group to pass the time by getting to know its newest addition.
“So, Serete … jumping headfirst into almost certain death,” Baird grinned. “Is your home life that bad, or did you just have nothing better to do?”
“Oh, just bored, really,” Serete replied. “I could be tracking dragons, charting new land, or sourcing the problems with the river, but I’d miss out on where the real action is.”
“I don’t know,” Gabor said. “Anybody who volunteers to spend this much time with Baird is questionable to me. That’s where the real concern for survival comes in.”
Vadik laughed.“Because you’re so easy to get along with. Serete, you seem like an optimistic man. Get out now before Gabor steals the sunshine from your soul.”
“Or before Vadik smothers you with questions just for a good debate,” Oloren added.
“He also sees things and doesn’t tell you,” Canukke said dryly.
“Well if he mentioned everything he saw, he’d be talking all day long,” Serete pointed out.
“No … he sees things. Invisible things.”
“Invisible is not the same as nonexistent. Sounds like your friend has valuable abilities.”
Vadik snorted. “If you think that’s something—” Enouim shot him an icy glare, and he nearly choked on his words, but he stopped and smiled to himself.
“Something to share?” Serete asked.
“Yes!” Vadik said. “But apparently not from me. Even though it will inevitably come up in conversation.”
Enouim glared at him but tried to hide it when Serete looked from Vadik to her.
“Hmm … well, perhaps I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.” He looked at her again, and she felt her face flush.
“And just like that, we are back to certain death,” Baird said. “Honestly, why are you here?”
“Sounded like an adventure I hadn’t had before.”
“Well, we gladly accept!” Canukke said. He seemed in better spirits now that the company was back on the road. “You’re insane, but if it channels fortuitously into battle, we will take whatever we can get. Tell me, have you traveled the mountains before?”
“I have. I enjoy learning about anything there is to learn, from land navigation to combat, tactical games, history, and interesting creatures. Whether I am protecting, tracking, or exploring, I am liable to cover a lot of ground. It’s the nature of the lifestyle.”
“Well, we have some interesting creatures up our way. Have you ever killed a zegrath?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
Canukke’s face took on a satisfied expression.
“But I have followed a few to their dens to observed them,” Serete continued.
Canukke sobered.
“You what?” Oloren stammered.
Gabor frowned in disbelief. “You followed them? Without getting eaten?”
“Well, if I had been eaten and still managed to look this good, I would say that’s pretty impressive. But if I was eaten in the first place, the zegrath would have gotten the drop on me … Hmm. Okay, the truth is. I followed them without getting eaten.”
“I think the obvious question is how, precisely,” observed Kilith, a twinkle in his eye.
“I tried several times to pick up a trail, but zegraths do not often go directly to their dens. They take time doubling back and losing their tracks in rivers. I saw one once, and after it left I went to the place it had stood and tracked it from there. They have very distinct tracks with those massive talon feet of theirs, though not as obvious as they might seem. Luckily it was close enough to home that I found the den, and after I knew what their dens looked like, it was easier to locate them in the future. Zegraths in my experience prefer dens near rivers and on high ground.”
“Fascinating,” Ruakh said.
“Why would you want to do that?” Vadik asked.
“Why not? I was curious, and who knows when the information might come in handy one day.”
“You are a roaming academic,” Ruakh noted, nodding.
“Of sorts, perhaps. But I prefer to learn by interacting with the world directly.”
“So you just go around trying to answer random questions for yourself?” Gabor asked.
“Sounds really intellectual when you put it that way. Now I use what I learn to help and protect others, but I suppose you could say that’s how I started out, wanting to know what else was out there. I don’t have a family I need to be home for, and the travel was an escape.”
“I can relate to that,” Baird said.
“Of course you can,” Vadik said. “If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t volunteer for dangerous missions. The only one of us that didn’t volunteer was Enouim.”
“I did eventually!” she chimed in, defending herself. “And I might not be Bondeg’s first or second or eighty-seventh pick for high stakes quests, but I have always longed to soak up the world with my own eyes. I dreamed of traveling the trade routes with my father. I read all the old documents I could find. Warriors aren’t the only ones enthralled by lands far away.”
Serete turned to Enouim.“If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”
“Home,” Canukke said curtly. “To a Gorgenbrild that is as I remembered it, safe and without trouble.”
Serete’s eyebrows rose. “You certainly are a ray of sunshine.”
“I don’t see the use of frivolity on the eve of darkness.”
“Nonsense!” Oloren broke in. “Frivolity is your favorite eve-of-darkness pastime. Once you challenged everyone to a drinking contest and said whoever held their liquor best could lead the charge the next day.”
“I never did that.”
Vadik groaned.
“I was there,” Gabor said. “And that is exactly what happened. We nearly gave away our position the next day because our point man was still hungover as a pelt on a rack.”
“That was different. Our people are on the line.”
Oloren rolled her eyes. “Two weeks after we lost Lornet you said we needed to lighten up and threw torches at us.”
Gabor turned to Oloren. “On my first excursion he added animal blood to my drinking water and let me find it when I got thirsty. He said it was a ritual. It wasn’t.”
The corner of Canukke’s mouth twitched.
“Remember when he told that hostage he would make a victory crown out of the man’s entrails, and then laughed when— ”
“Enough!” Canukke burst in. “First of all, laughter can be strategic for the good of comrades, and that last one was a tactic that earned us some valuable information.”
Oloren looked him dead in the eyes. “Yes, but as you just said, humor is instrumental for the bonding of comrades, and bonding can make the difference between mercenaries and squads. The question is, why does it bother you now? You know you hate it when you are miserable, and other people are enjoying themselves.”
“And you hate it when you’re wrong,” Canukke countered. “You’re so stubborn you would die just to be right, and almost did—four years ago on Liombas mountain.”
“No, Canukke. No. You don’t get to drag that up every time you get angry with me. You always deflect. I’m not doing it today.”
Several beats of silence. Enouim involved herself with untangling a knot in Inferno’s mane as she rode, stealing glances at her friends as the horses walked on.
“Excellent conversation,” Vadik said.
Kilith drilled him a stare.
Ruakh shook his head.
“We will never get home at this rate,” Canukke stated. “We need to pick up our pace.” He dug in his heels and spurred his mount into an easy canter.
Baird gave a disgusted grimace, and Vadik rolled his eyes.
Gabor grinned. “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a good gallop in a while!” And off he went.
With whoops and hollers, the others flew down the hill to join him, and the horses tossed their heads in the wind as they relished every hoof beat on the ground. Enouim leaned into Inferno, urging him forward and letting the air ripple past her face and over her shoulders. Serete was closing in, and she peeled off with a laugh, delighting in the maneuvers of her steed.
Kilith and Ruakh slowed first, then Canukke, alone, and the others one at a time. Enouim caught up to Serete, who had managed to pass her for a spell, and slowed Inferno to a walk.
“I love the hills,” she said, after catching her breath.
“These are beautiful. Some are more welcoming than others, but these are beautiful.”
“Where do you come from exactly?”
“Not terribly far from here, actually. Morthed is northeast of us, and beyond that what you would call the eastern hills. The particular township I am from is called Kalma.”
“Do you have any family there still? What led you to be a ranger?”
“Not really. I was raised by my grandparents, and our village is small. There are all sorts of great beasts in the hills, and I was a young teenager when I had to start protecting our home from various creatures. I never wanted to be a ranger, but I did want to learn more about these animals and thought understanding them could help protect us.”
“That’s how you started exploring.”
“Exactly.”
“If you don’t mind my asking … what happened to your parents?”
“They passed away from sickness when I was young.”
Enouim paused before speaking again. “That’s hard, not knowing your parents. I was adopted, so I don’t know my birth parents, but the parents I grew up with were wonderful. My father died when I was eight though, so it was just my brother and my mother after that.”
“How did he die?”
“He was a trader, and one day he left and didn’t come back. My mother always blamed tribesmen, but I suppose there’s no way to know.”
Again they rode in silence, listening to birds and a wistful wind. After a moment, Enouim began again. “So Rehim—how did you end up there?”
“I met Rehi Waymakers for the first time when I was ten. Wonderful people. Aside from my grandfather, I had determined by then that adults didn’t have any fun. When I met the Waymakers, they came and played games with us and cared about people in a way I hadn’t seen before, but the village elders ran them off when they started talking about Eh’yeh. I focused my energies on protecting the village and then left at sixteen, determined to know what else was out there and what kind of meaning life might hold. I’ve always loved kids, and when I stumbled onto some Waymakers in my travels, we struck up a bond. Now I drop in whenever I’m in the vicinity.”
Enouim smiled, remembering his interactions with the children at Rehim. They were entirely taken with him, but the feeling was mutual. She watched him for a moment, deep in thought.
“And how did you come to be there?” Serete asked her. “You said it was a long story. And here we are, with lots of time on our hands. Kilith says the journey will take us two months.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to hear it? My amazing tale of bravery might intimidate you. I’m quite the conquering hero.”
Serete laughed. “So I’ve gathered from your friends! I’ll brace myself. I promise not to see you differently after I hear of your conquests.”
Enouim spent the next few hours talking to Serete, telling him of Gorgenbrild, the accident with Chayan, her hasty escape and unfortunate unconsciousness, and waking up in the wagon. She shared her experiences from then until now, reminiscing about all that had happened, but leaving out her strange new relationship with water. Serete seemed to have heard and seen a lot, but Enouim wasn’t convinced his promise not to see her differently would be kept if he learned she had gills. Or that she had nearly killed the rest of them with her new abilities, flying them through the river.
Enouim found him easy to talk to, conversation flowing as though they had known one another for years. And no one as attractive as Serete had ever seemed drawn to her before unless they had particularly repulsive personalities. But then, personalities praised in Gorgenbrild weren’t her cup of tea. Enouim studied Serete, at ease and comfortable. How did he do that? Bright-blue eyes studied her soul, and when they turned away she caught herself stealing glances. Even so, with death looming low on the horizon, it seemed hardly the time to let her focus drift.
As morning gave way to afternoon, and afternoon wore on into evening, the company evened out their pace and fell into a rhythm. Light began to fade, and the troop dismounted and made camp. Oloren and Gabor were debating whether being drunk or being tired caused the most impairment in battle, and Canukke was jovial and making underhanded comments. Life was back to normal. Whatever that meant.
“I get tired when I drink,” Ruakh said. “So I’m not sure there is much a difference for me. I can never seem to keep my eyes open long enough to tell any other difference.”
“You drink?” Enouim asked. “Somehow I didn’t picture that!”
“I have, but like I said, nothing too interesting happens.”
Canukke broke in loudly. “Once I drank a keg and killed twenty men in battle only shortly after! If anything it made me more lethal. Tame warriors never strike fear into the hearts of men.”
“True, but tame warriors don’t strike fear into the hearts of their companions either,” Oloren said. “Wildness is good when appropriately channeled.”
“Is it still wildness if it’s channeled?” Vadik asked.
“There are different kinds of wildness,” Enouim stated. “One can be wild like a stallion running free, powerful and beautiful in its rawness. Or one can be wild like a pig with its little tail on fire, mucking up any organized thing, destroying anything in its path, and a brute any way you look at it. There are soft wilds, like a flower, and harsh wilds, like fire. But even fire is better contained than it is raging without boundary.”
“Some of us call it discipline,” Kilith said evenly.
“If I were truly a danger to my own people I wouldn’t have allowed it!” Canukke countered. “Not every man can hold his liquor.”
“Nor should every man try,” noted Oloren.
“Nothing bad seems to have come of it, so I’m not sure what seems to have turned the discussion so sour,” Vadik said. “So he drinks—don’t we all?”
