NaNo 2013 Day 9

Word count for today 12,754 WC goal 15,000. I'm about 2200 behind, working to catch up by typing 2000 per day instead of 1666.

Chapter 4 Part 1

In Which Much Land is Traversed

The silence on the road the next day after the group left the town behind was strained and awkward. After only a few hours of riding Cain reined in his horse at the side of the road and dismounted. Larkin coughed rather piteously as he followed Cain’s lead and winced at the pain in his broken ribs that had grown with every mile they had ridden. Zija muttered under his breath about it being, “About time to stop,” as he practically fell from his own mount. Seok was the only one of the party who seemed none the worse for wear and as such he was delegated the task of hobbling the horses and loosening girth straps.

            

Eventually, when he could not stand it anymore Zija asked Seok, “What in the hell is wrong with you today?” It was in part Seok’s unusual silence and the odd, guilty looks he had shot at his companions that had made the ride so unbearably uncomfortable. All three adults had begun to wonder if the youth had remembered anything from when his seal was removed.

            

“Nothing really,” Seok said looking up from a fallen leaf he had been shredding absentmindedly between his fingers. “Why?”

            

“You’ve been acting weird as shit since we left town. What’s the matter,” Zija smirked, “leave a girl behind or something?”

            

Seok’s face furrowed in annoyance. “Not like you mean, but it’s not like someone like you would think of.”

            

Zija was amused by the nonsense coming out of Seok’s mouth. He laughed and looked toward Cain, “Hey priest, your protégé over here’s having some love troubles!”

            

Cain raised his eyebrows as if he had not heard the entire conversation then shrugged. “Not my area of expertise,” but the corners of his mouth had turned up in a sardonic smile.

            

“I just told you it’s not like that!” Seok answered the teasing by stomping his foot on the ground like a child having a tantrum. “That girl Shula, I told you before didn’t I? I thought I’d seen here somewhere before, right?” Seok looked between his three companions. “Well the more I think about it the more I think I definitely do know her from somewhere!”

            

“Give it up brat, Mooning over some girl that took off on you is unhealthy,” he paused for a moment, then added, “and useless.” He stretched his arms above his head, then abruptly dropped them again when his shoulder and ribs shot simultaneous stabs of pain through his body.

            

Unlike Zija, Cain had taken in interest in Seok’s words. “You think you know her, or you think you’ve run into her somewhere, sometime in the last four years?”

            

Seok looked surprised by the question, but after a moment of consideration he seemed to understand the significance of it and the reason for Cain’s asking. Seok himself was as confused as anyone about how he was found by the high priest, and why he had been imprisoned in the cave, but the cave was all he could remember of life before he had been discovered.

            

He remembered the changing of the seasons, the interior of the cave getting cold, so cold that it felt as if his hands and feet would fall off, as well as it being unbearably hot. Thanks to these vague memories he knew he must have been there for years; though nothing save the temperature had ever changed inside the cave so he had no way of reckoning time other than the seasons that had run together with such monotonous sameness that his mind had all but shut down.  When Cain had found him, Seok had not even registered him standing right in front of him until he spoke. Then, even after that it had taken so long for his fogged mind to wake enough to comprehend what was happening and what had been said.

            

Seok shook his head in answer to Cain’s earlier question. “I’m not really sure, but it’s bugging the heck out of me. I’m really sure I’ve seen her before somewhere.”

           

“Yeah, we’ve established that, Zija said, lying back on the leaf litter under the tree he was next to. “Why’d we have to leave today anyway, Cain? My whole body hurts like hell, and I’m not…” He was cut off by Cain’s annoyed reply, “You’re the one that gave me the damn wanted posters yesterday, and now you think we should stay put longer than we already have?”

           

Larkin added as well, “If we didn’t get moving soon, even the lower pass will be covered in snow and impassible. Then it would take us another two weeks or more to go around the base of Taka Mountain to get to Death’s temple.

           

“Yeah, I know that, but won’t it be even slower if we have to keep stopping like this ‘cause we can’t even ride the horses?”

            

“It’s less than two days ride to the next town with an inn, Zija.” The red head grimaced. “We should be able to make it within those two days if we aren’t too slow.”

           

Cain sighed and stretched. “Five more minutes or so then,” he said.

           

“I’m also curious about these wanted posters you mentioned earlier,” Larkin directed toward Cain.

           

Zija answered for him, “Make the brat get up and get ‘em for you. They’re in the top of my back saddle bag, whatever it’s called.”

           

“The one at the back is called a cantle bag,” Larkin explained in a voice that said he had given out this particular piece of information too many times. Seok had found the wanted posters and was looking at them instead of handing them to Larkin.

            

“How do you even know crap like that?” Zija asked only to be drowned out by Seok.

            

“Look at how much you guys are worth!” he exclaimed. “What did you steal from the emperor Cain?”

           

Zija looked astonished. “How the hell can you read that?”

            

Seok looked down at the wrinkled papers in his hands and shrugged. “Don’t know. I just can I guess.”

           

Larkin, curious, reached up and pulled the posters from Seok’s hands. After a moment he asked, “If you can read these then you can speak Watu language too? What was that watu in our room saying the night of the attack?”

           

Three pairs of eyes now stared at Seok. “Something about,” he paused and his forehead crinkled, “betraying some gods or other and fighting beside humans. He thought I was a watu, I’ll bet.” His voice turned annoyed. “Do I look like a watu to you? My ears aren't that big are they? Zija’s stick out more than mine do!” Zija’s hand shot to his ears, as if to check that he did not in fact have the characteristic protruding ears of a watu.

            

Cain ended the conversation there by saying, “Neither of you looks particularly like a watu; though Zija does have the hair for it and big ass ears. Let’s get going.” He stood and went to tighten the girth strap on his grazing piebald horse.

           

“See, I’ve told you before that you have elephant ears!” Seok crowed.

            

“Get your asses moving!” Cain barked before Zija could reply. The group was back on the road in no more than five minutes.

           

Once again Larkin’s uncanny ability to estimate time was proven to be accurate as the group arrived at the next town just as the sun set on the second day of their journey. The group arrived late at the tiny inn, and managed to get the only open room in the building. The general word around the taproom that night over dinner was that there was an unusual number of people coming in from around Taka Mountain to the east because of something going on with the watu. Their raiding was getting bad, it was said.

            

Watu raids were far from uncommon in the areas alongside the border between human and watu lands. The former watu emperor had declared war on humans for an unknown reason, only months before he died and his first son Mfalme ascended the throne. Emperor Mfalme was far from a peaceful man, and before his first year as emperor had elapsed, all three of his legitimate younger brothers had died in mysterious accidents, and the most popular of his bastard siblings as well. He had shown no inclination to stop the war his father had declared on the human race, and instead supported it, growing the strength and loyalty of his army with cruel shrewdness to make up for the rumors among his own people that he was not a legitimate heir to the throne because he could show them none of the power the emperors before him were known for having because they were descended from the very spirits of the earth and fire themselves at the beginning of the world.

            

In the last twenty years the watu army had made several forays into the human territory and had actually taken a strip of land adjacent to the west side of Taka Mountain, which they called Marefu, and had been leading raids from it on the villages to the east and west. The only thing that seemed spared from these raids was the huge temple due west of the mountain’s foot dedicated to Lord Death, the holder of balance among the Three.

          

Even though the watu and humans were different species, they both knew of the gods of creation, and the pious of both species also followed the same lesser gods as well. Both humans and watu knew the stories of the mage kind who had striven to use the power their ancestors had gifted them with to become as powerful as the gods. Five hundred years ago they had attempted to enter the heavens, saying that their magic put them above the other earthbound species. The Three had not even had to lift a finger, the lesser gods had destroyed the mage kind. Within one year every mage on earth had died. Now human or watu, believer or not, none was willing to risk the anger of the gods, and so the main temple of Lord Death, placed on the border between human and watu lands, as Lord Death was always placed between the Lady of Light and the Lord of Darkness in depictions of The Three, was safe.

            

It was to this temple that Cain’s party was headed, and they hoped that by going through the pass on the east side of the mountain and avoiding the foothills they could also avoid the danger the watu presented to human travelers. Normally Cain could, as a High Priest of the Three be safe passing through such roads, as the robes worn by those of his rank were the same for both species and as such would be recognized as easily by any watu as by humans. Now, however, with wanted posters spread throughout the watu army with his and Larkin’s faces on them, it was more important that they take the road less likely to lead them into peril.

            

As it was, they were admitted to their room in the inn, where they gambled  until they had the money to pay for their stay. Zija seduced his way into the room of the innkeeper’s oldest daughter for the night and the other three spent an hour over the dicing table, deciding who would get to sleep in the bed based off of who could win the best of seven rounds. Cain had the best hand at card games of the group, though he typically avoided the cheating that Zija and occasionally Larkin were prone to. Larkin however, using that same extra sense he had for telling and guessing the time, was the best at dice games. He got the bed, and the next morning the group prepared to leave the inn.