Servant of the King Chapter 25

Chapter 25

            Lakhoni was waiting for her when she came in the morning. After she had left the night previous, he had sat with his back against the pelt for a long time. Not long before falling asleep, an idea had come to him.

            So he had woken early, excited to see his plan through. While waiting for Simra, he had been tempted to push himself to his feet and go find her, but he wanted to maintain the surprise.

            She walked in the door, a bigger dish in her hand this time, her face in shadow due to the strong light behind her. It was only a few steps from the door to his sleeping mat. As she knelt, she looked at his face. She noticed the wall next to him.

            "Lakhoni," she read.

            Eyes widening in surprise, then stretching in delight, she turned to him. "Your name is Lakhoni?"

            He nodded, a fierce, too-strong joy filling him at seeing her reaction.

            She smiled at him for a moment and shook her head. "I can't believe I didn't think of that."

            Lakhoni grinned and held up the piece of charcoal that he had used.

            Simra closed her hand around his hand that held the charcoal. "Your name is Lakhoni."

            Brown eyes held his for a long, heart-pounding moment.

            "Lucky I can read," she said. She cocked her head to the side, a musing expression on her face. "Lucky you can write." She gently released his hand, sitting back on her legs.

            He made a show of looking around, waving his hand in the air.

            "You need something you can write on."

            Lakhoni nodded.

            She rose to her feet and ambled around the hut. "Maybe a flat stone, or even a tough piece of leather. It will have to be a light color." She paused and addressed him. "You'll have to tell me how you learned to write. Father taught me because he is the healer and he expects me to help him, but who are you that you've been taught?" Turning back to her search, she continued her monologue.

            Lakhoni set his charcoal down and reached for the deep plate she had brought in, the smells of eggs and fried vegetables too much for him to resist. Real food, he thought, mouth watering.

            "I hope you can write fast, Lakhoni. I have lots of questions for you. Lakhoni, that sounds like a name from the west—one of those warrior names. Is that where you're from?"

            He looked up, his mouth full. He had decided the story he would tell her would be as close to the truth as possible. He nodded.

            "Hey! You're supposed to wait for me to help you." She made to move toward him.

            He shook his head and used large movements to show her he was well enough to feed himself.

            A strange expression flitted across Simra's face. She looked sad for a second there. Isn't she glad I'm getting better?

            As he gobbled the food, he watched Simra wander around the hut. Eventually she stepped out the door. He guessed she was still looking for something for him to write upon. He scraped the last of the eggs and vegetables off the clay plate, setting down the pronged stick Simra had brought with the food and using his fingers to clean the plate off.

            A thought occurred to him. He looked closer at the plate. He turned it upside down.

            He was writing as small as he could with his awkward-shaped piece of charcoal when Simra came back in, holding another, far cleaner plate.

            "Lakhoni, I think this plate will be perfect." The last word was suddenly quiet. "Oh." She walked quickly over to him. "But I am sure I thought of it first."

            He flashed a smile at her, shook his head and pointed at his chest, and went back to his writing. The charcoal smudged easily if he wasn't careful, but it showed up very well on the pale brown plate. He heard Simra settle to a seated position next to him. I wonder if she would visit me if her father hadn't made her take care of me. The thought seemed to come from nowhere. He pushed it away.

            A moment later, he held the plate out to Simra. Before she took it, he pointed at the other side of it, reminding her it was dirty.

            "Yes, I know it had your breakfast on it." Simra took the plate. "And no, I'd rather not touch it, thanks."

            He rolled his eyes dramatically and pointed at the plate she held.

            "Fine, relax." She made a show of peering at the plate, cocking her head to one side and forcing a confused expression. "Wait, are you sure you know how to write?"

            He wished he could shout at her to get on with it, noted the irony of his wish, and flicked her arm gently with one finger. The crafty smile she offered him from under heavy-lidded eyes set his heart pounding.

            "Okay." She cleared her throat and began to read aloud. "I'm from a village far to the west. Everyone was killed in a raid." She gasped softly and looked up at Lakhoni. "Really? I'm so sorry."

            He nodded, hoping he hid well the sudden pain he felt in his throat.

            After a moment of seeming to search his face, she turned back to the note he had scrawled. While she read, he grabbed the clean plate she had brought back with her and began to write.

            "I was hurt bad," she continued aloud. "They thought I was dead. I think my sister might be alive too. I think they took her."

            He glanced up quickly as she finished what he had written and held up a hand for a moment. In another minute he was done with the second note.

            They traded plates and she continued reading as he scrubbed the first note off and began writing again.. "I tried to follow them, but I am not sure where they went. Someone told me they might be in Lemalihah. I came here to find my sister."

            In his haste to keep up with Simra, his writing had become larger, giving her less to read on each plate. They traded again.

            "I thought someone was trying to capture me, so I traveled in winter to get away from them. I can't say who they were, or if they followed."

            Another trade.

            "I ran out of food. I tried to kill a deer and broke my string. I ate part of my cloak." At this, Simra burst into laughter. Lakhoni laughed too, although the noises he made sounded like a dying dog to his ears. "I ate winter moss too."

            She took the next plate. "I kept going because if I stopped, I thought I would die. I want to find my sister. I found your village."

            When Simra finished reading the last note, she straightened and gave Lakhoni a stern glare. "That was somewhat abbreviated, wasn't it? Are you sure you can't give any more details?"

            Lakhoni raised his eyebrows and hands in question. Like what? he thought. He was proud of the story. There were no outright lies.

            "Like why your sister would be in Lemalihah and who took her and killed everyone in your village. Or maybe about who you thought was trying to follow you. Or maybe about how you survived on pieces of cloak and winter moss while you traveled through the heart of winter?"

            Lakhoni picked up a plate, using his hand to clean off the previous note. She read while he wrote. "I think the king's warriors did it."

She sat back quickly. "Why would you think that?" she asked.

            He wrote more. "Somebody had seen them do something like that before."

            "And you think they kidnapped your sister and now you think you can go find her? And what? Do you plan on getting revenge?"

            He held up one finger and nodded. Then two fingers and he shook his head.

            "Yes to the first question and no to the second one?"

            He nodded and wrote one more line. "I just want to find my sister. She's my only family."

            Simra regarded him for a long, quiet minute.

            Lakhoni hoped she would be satisfied with his story. He didn't want to try to explain the Separated or the murder of the young boy. Every time he tried to understand those people, he ended up just becoming confused. And her question about revenge touched too close to home regarding the justice he still felt he needed to find or administer for the deaths of his family and village.

He tried to think of something more to write that would end the somewhat awkward moment. As he searched Simra's face for a clue to her thoughts, he had the impression that she was trying to decide if she would believe his story.

She nodded.

Tension he had been holding in his shoulders left him. He leaned forward to try to push himself to his feet. He had been sitting and lying down long enough.

"I know there's more you aren't telling me."

He glanced at her face, her brown eyes, but looked away quickly. Pushing himself to his knees, he met her gaze again. He nodded. I can't. For lots of reasons.

"Maybe you'll decide you can trust me," Simra said. She put out a hand to stead Lakhoni as he eased himself to his knees. "Until then, I suppose that story will have to do." She rose with him, clearly ready to either catch him or slow his fall if he couldn't keep his feet.

The room didn't spin, although his legs felt shaky and boneless. He found his breath coming fast and could feel his heart beat in his ears.

"Take it slow," Simra said. "Give it time."

He stepped off the sleeping mat. He felt shaky like an old man, every muscle in his legs and torso protesting. He extended a hand toward a hut wall, but Simra was there. She stepped under his arm and wrapped her left arm around his back.

"I'll help," she said.

He pushed a small smile of thanks onto his face, taking another step. He felt like he had been running for miles!

He stopped and tried to slow his breathing. And this is just walking!

"Just make it outside. You can sit in the sun for a time," Simra said.

Her hand and arm were warm and strong. This was a new experience for Lakhoni. He wished he felt more like himself so that he could savor the experience of her touch on his back. As it was, it was all he could do to stay upright.

After a minute of standing still and taking long breaths, his heartbeat had slowed considerably. He pushed forward, taking one step, then another. Maybe two more paces to the door.

On his next step, his foot bumped against a slight unevenness in the dirt floor of the hut and in a moment of panic he knew he didn't have the strength to keep from falling. He clenched his jaw and stepped back leaning heavily on Simra. Her arm tightened and she grabbed his hand that draped over her shoulder with her right hand.

Her voice was soft in the hut that had been his home for over two weeks.

            "It's okay. I won't let you fall. We'll do this together." 

Servant of the King Chapter 22

Chapter 22

            All he saw was the flame dancing. The orange-gold-red, like living spears, swept up to the sky nearly as high as he was tall. He imagined the heat before he felt it.

            Bumping into the stone of a hut, he stumbled into the light cast by the fire. He heard noises, saw movement to both sides, but paid it no heed. The fire, huge and powerful, blazed and drew him in. At its edge, Lakhoni dropped his bow, barely registering its clatter on the frozen ground. He pried his hands off of his cloak and stretched them forward.

            Perhaps he had died and this was the world of spirits. Some said the world of spirits was paradise and others said it was for the damned. He didn't care which one he was in, or even if he still lived. The entire front of his body seemed to be melting into the glowing heat of the fire. When he felt his hands could move well enough, he reached up and pulled his cloak off his head, and untied the leather mask from around his face, letting them both drop to the ground. He wished he could remove all of his clothing and bathe in the flame.

            As his face thawed for the first time in what felt like years, Lakhoni began to understand the noises around him. Voices raised in question and anger. A baby crying. Deep voices. Dogs barking. He turned to allow his back to get some heat.

            "Who are you?" A man, shorter than Lakhoni and with narrow, sloping shoulders stood in front of him. His voice carried anger and suspicion. "Why do you invade our circle?"

            Lakhoni opened his mouth to answer. He tried to speak, but his throat felt as if he had swallowed a live coal from the fire behind him. A cough tore through him. He tried to speak again and failed again.

            "Speak or be cast out!" The man took a small step forward. He was certainly smaller than Lakhoni, but his sloped shoulders belied the strength that was evident in the man's chest and the rest of his body.

            Lakhoni coughed again. "I-" he said, trying to swallow to create space in his throat.

            Another man's voice, sharp like a knife, cut through the darkness. "Mibli! This boy is clearly sick!" Scuffling sounds followed.

            Lakhoni blinked. He was surrounded by people. Men, women, children, even some dogs were there. And they were all looking at him.

            "He must answer!" the slope-shouldered man, who must have been Mibli, said. His protective posture didn't change.

            "Let me through, curse your ancestors!" the second voice protested. "He is sick!" A bear pushed two people aside and entered the circle of firelight.

            Lakhoni wanted to turn back to the fire to work on his hands again, but realized this might be a rude thing to do.

            "And he is probably hungry! Can't you see he's nearly dead?" The bear was actually a hugely thick man with his body covered entirely by a bear pelt.

            "This is not your place." Mibli glowered at the enormous man.

            "This is exactly my place," the other said. He turned from Mibli and faced Lakhoni.

            A shudder slammed through Lakhoni. It was as if the warmth of the fire at his back had reminded him how frigid the temperature around him was.

            "Boy. Can you speak?" The bear man's eyes glowed with the gold of the fire.

            Lakhoni opened his mouth, but knew nothing would come out. He shook his head. Another spasm of coughing tore out of his chest.

            "Get some soup!" The bear man's voice carried through a strange haze that had begun to settle over Lakhoni. Soup was food. Lakhoni wanted to listen, to understand what more the bear man had to say, but the haze grew thicker.

            How had he gotten to the ground? The hard thing under him: was that his bow?

            He laughed through his nose, or more of a snort, at the contrast between his front and back. His rear-end felt as if it was cooking, while his front was already frozen again.

            Lakhoni moved to turn around, but found himself falling to his left.

            Darkness consumed him.

            He opened his eyes when the first hot splash touched his chin. A shape moved above him, making some kind of noise.

            Blinking and drawing in a deep breath, Lakhoni tried hard to focus. He was lying on his back, something soft between him and what was probably a hard dirt floor. A bundle of something that was also soft held his head up somewhat. The roof above him was mostly in shadow, but it looked like it was made of reed and river clay tiles. Like Salno's house back in his village.

            "Please, drink this."

            Lakhoni turned his attention to the shape—a young woman—that was leaning over him.

            "My father says you must have this or you will die," the young woman said. Her skin was the color of scraped and cleaned deer hide, her hair a glistening black that glowed in the light of a small fire behind her. He couldn't see her face very well with the shadows on it, but he felt he could sense some tension.

            "I-" the croak that came out sounded like an animal of some kind. He tried again, this time with worse results. His throat felt scraped and raw, like a fresh deer hide.

            "Just open your mouth and I'll pour it in," the woman said.

            Lakhoni complied, licking his lips. The thin soup, or whatever it was, tasted of meat, some kind of earthy, sharp root, and many vegetables. It was good, but unusual and strangely spicy. Not in a way that hurt though. He opened his mouth for another sip. No, the spiced flavor seemed to be soothing his throat somehow.

            "It won't really fill you, but he said it should help you fight off the winter sickness."

            He wanted to answer, to say thank you or something, but he didn't want to kindle the coal in his throat again.

            "You have to drink it all."

            He nodded. She lowered the clay bowl to his lips again. He felt ridiculous, as if he were a baby being fed by its mother. He tried to reach up to take the bowl, but the motion caused violent twinges of pain all over his body. His vision spun.

            "That was stupid. Don't move."

            He sucked in a breath, trying to stop the spinning in his head.

            "You lie there and I give you soup. It's simple," the woman—or was she just a girl?—said. 

            In response, he opened his mouth.

            He carefully kept his body still as she administered to him. Long minutes passed as small sips of the strong broth slid down his throat, warming him from the inside. He realized at some point that he was covered in several heavy blankets or pelts.

            "That's all," she said.

            Forgetting, he tried to reach for the bowl to tell her he was still hungry, but nausea stopped him. He drew in a slow breath.

            "No, that's all. More later." She turned. "Sleep now."

            Lakhoni lay there, knowing the hunger growling in his stomach would not let sleep come.

            Sunlight streaming through cracks in the doorway told him he had been wrong. He didn't even remember closing his eyes. No dreams of his village had come. No dreams of a terrible funeral pyre had assaulted him. No dreams, but plenty of hunger.

            And he felt hot. Sweat seemed to pour off his body, sliding down his neck, over his shoulders and dropping onto the mat he lay on. A shudder passed through him, bringing pain and hunger.

            He groaned, trying to turn onto one side and curl up.

            Now he felt cold.

            A soft noise came from the doorway. Carefully keeping his head still, Lakhoni glanced in that direction. Someone came in, a blinding flash of light behind them obscuring their features. Lakhoni blinked rapidly and regretted it. His head pounded and he realized that he was very thirsty.

            "Good, you need more soup." The same voice from the previous night.

            He watched as the young woman approached, then knelt at his side. As his vision returned, he realized something he hadn't noticed the night before.

            She was beautiful. Her long black hair framed an oval face with even, perfectly shaped features. Eyes the shape of an elm leaf, a straight and strong nose, and a lovely mouth. Lakhoni knew he was staring and didn't feel inclined to stop.

            "Good, you remember. Just keep your mouth open," she said.

            "Y-" he still couldn't speak. All that came out was a noise that he wouldn't have believed he could make if he hadn't just heard it.

            "No, don't talk. Give it time."

            Lakhoni didn't want to blink. She looked like—like a messenger from the First Fathers. Her hair dipped as she leaned closer.

            "By the stones! You have to swallow!"

            The moisture running down his chin and neck brought him back to the present. He closed his mouth, swallowing the small amount of spicy soup that hadn't dribbled out. Blinking at the heat of the liquid, he pulled his thoughts back together.

            "There. Father says you must drink it all again, so let's go," she said.

            Beautiful woman or no, he had to get back on his feet. Alronna had to be in Lemalihah.

            Looking up at the woman—no, she had to be the same age as him; she was a girl—he found his eyes getting tired. They felt strained and dry.

            He dropped his eyes to her hands. This was better. He and the girl quickly found a rhythm and only minutes had passed by the time the clay bowl was empty.

            "Okay. Now sleep."

            It cost him a moment of dizziness, but Lakhoni forced his hand to move. He tried to grab her wrist, but succeeded in only brushing it with his finger tips. Fingertips that he only just now noticed were wrapped in soft cloth. He had to get up, get moving again.

            The girl's eyes flashed for a moment. She gritted her teeth. Seeing him open his mouth as if to talk, she said, swift anger in her voice, "No. Don't try to talk. Just rest. We will make you better."

            Frustration welled up in him. Alronna had waited long enough.

            The anger in the girl's eyes seemed to dissipate. She unclenched her jaw with a visible effort. "Listen. You are very sick. We don't know where you've come from, but we have traditions that we must obey." Her reddish-brown eyes met his. "So we'll make you better. We have questions, but you can’t answer them so we will wait. You wait too."

            The girl sighed, glancing around the hut. Something in her face looked pained. Lakhoni instinctively followed her gaze as it traveled the walls. The home looked almost exactly like those of his village. Stone walls, sleeping mats, a small table, wooden shelves with trinkets, hooks sunk into some of the rocks of the wall. It was all the same, except for the tile roof. Like Salno's, because Salno had been important in the village.

            "I'm sure this is hard. But we will help you get better. I can't promise Mibli won't throw you out or do something awful to you once you're better, but my father has claimed a duty to you."

            Her hand rested briefly on his arm. A shock went through him at the spot she touched—it felt cold and hot at the same time. "My father is Neas. He is the healer of our village." The girl stood. "We will bring you more soup soon. As your throat heals, you can eat other things. But you have to rest now."

            Lakhoni blinked, wary of moving his head.

            She turned to the small fire in the middle of the hut. Bending slightly, she fed a small log to the flames. Straightening, she looked over her shoulder. "Soon you'll be able to tell us your name, and your story. For now, I'll be your healer. My name's Simra."

            She turned and left the hut.

            Simra.

Urgency to move toward Alronna prodded Lakhoni, but he could not deny the weakness and pain in his body. Alronna probably thought everyone in the village was dead. She was alone. Had she known about whatever it was beneath our mother's bed?

            He would find out. He would heal fast and waste no time getting back on his journey.

            On his back, sweat pouring from his skin, the sight of deep brown tiles not far above him, Lakhoni thought back to the cavern of the Separated.

            First Fathers, please don't let this be the same, he thought. The memory of his journey through the frigid winter, the wind that was sharp as swords, was still fresh, but it seemed that someone else had experienced it. He already felt distant from those days. Images of Gimno and Sana and Corzon flitted behind his eyes.

            They had cared for him and treated his injuries too. Were Simra's people going to do the same, then try to keep him captive? Am I even close to Lemalihah?

            His bones ached with exhaustion; his muscles still trembled periodically.

            I'm free from the Living Dead. And I'm alive.

            That means I'm closer.