Bajorak’s eyes gleamed, but he sighed. ‘Atara Manslayer is right,’ he said. ‘Until Garthax’s treachery is proven, he is still our chieftain. And so his cursed covenant will be honored.’
Much of what he had told me we had learned while in winter camp with Karimah and the Manslayers, for the Wendrush is Ea’s crossroads, and news flows as freely as the great sagosk herds over its windswept plains. I had not, however, known about the Marituk’s alliance with Morjin. They were a great tribe, and so this was evil tidings – but no surprise. In Tria, I had nearly claimed the Lightstone for myself; I had spoken a lie and slain a man, and as with a stone cast into a black water, these evil deeds had rippled outward to touch many peoples and many lands.
‘And so,’ Bajorak continued, looking from the Red Knights back at me, ‘we shall not attack our enemy. They know this. It is why they ride so impudently.’
‘But what if they attack us?’ Maram wanted to know. It was a question that he could not stop asking Bajorak – and himself.
‘They won’t,’ Bajorak told him. ‘They haven’t the numbers … yet.’
‘Yet?’ Maram called out. ‘Ah, I don’t like the sound of that, not at all. What do you mean, yet?’
‘I believe,’ Bajorak said, ‘that these are not the only companies of Red Knights or Zayak that Garthax has allowed into our country.’
At this Maram craned his neck about, scanning the horizon. And all the while he muttered, ‘Oh, too bad, too bad!’
Bajorak ignored him and looked straight at me. He said, ‘Until Karimah came to me asking us to escort you, I could not imagine what these companies were seeking in our lands.’
I said nothing as I watched the Red Knights, who seemed to be waiting for us to remount so that they might renew the chase.
‘But I do not understand,’ he went on, ‘why they are seeking you.’
‘Surely that is simple,’ I told him. ‘We are Morjin’s enemies. Surely he would pay much gold to anyone who brings him our heads.’
I rested my hand on the hilt of my sword; I looked into Bajorak’s eyes to see if he desired this gold badly enough to betray us. But I saw there only a blazing hatred of Morjin and a fierce pride.
Then Bajorak looked away from me toward our enemy. ‘Perhaps they do want to kill you. But perhaps they are seeking the same thing as you.’
His perceptiveness vexed me, and I told him, ‘We have not said that we are seeking anything.’
He smiled as best he could and said, ‘No, you say little, with your lips, Valashu Elahad. But your eyes sing like the minstrels. I have never seen a man who desires as you do.’
‘Perhaps,’ I told him, ‘we desire nothing more than to cross your lands.’
He pointed at the snowy peaks in the west. ‘To go into the wild mountains where no one dwells?’
‘Perhaps we wish to dwell there.’
He held out his hand toward Estrella and Daj. ‘It is strange that you take children with you on such a journey.’
‘Is it strange to want to find a place where they might come of age in peace?’
Bajorak’s face softened as he said, ‘No, that is not strange – if any such place exists. But if it did exist, surely you would not seek it in the Sarni’s lands so close to Sakai.’
‘We go where we must,’ I told him. ‘Will you help us?’
‘We would help you better if you helped us.’
‘We ride together,’ I said. ‘If our enemy attacks you, we will fight them.’
‘That is good. But it would be even better if you trusted us.’
‘We’ve trusted you with our lives.’
‘Yes, but not with that which impels you to risk your lives.’
‘As Kane has told you, that would be an unnecessary burden.’
‘You say. But the greater burden is not knowing where we are going or why. It puts my men at risk. And I do not spend their lives as readily as I do gold.’
As the sun’s light broke upon the fillet binding his forehead, I pressed my finger hard into the little zags of the scar that cut mine like a lightning bolt. And I said, ‘You have pledged to ride with us, even so. Will you keep your pledge?’
Bajorak looked back and forth between Pirraj and Kashak as anger clouded his eyes. He shook his bow at me and snapped out: ‘We Tarun are no pledge-breakers! Hai, but you are a hard man, Valashu Elahad. And a willful one! Let us ride then, if that is your wish!’
And with that, he jumped back on his horse, and with Pirraj and Kashak, galloped back to the bend in the river where most of his warriors were gathered.
Liljana stood with her arms thrown protectively around Daj and Estrella. And she scolded me: ‘You were barely cordial to him. I’ve never seen you be so hard.’
I watched as Karimah returned to the Manslayers, who were getting ready to ride again. And I said, ‘We know little of this Bajorak and his true intentions. And you’ve been able to tell me little.’
She clapped her hand to her pocket where she had secreted her blue gelstei. ‘Would you have me try to tell you?’
‘As you tried with the Red Knights?’
Liljana’s heavy eyebrows pulled into a frown. ‘You’re hard with me, too – cruel hard. What have I done to make you so?’
The hurt in her eyes stabbed straight into me. I took her hand in mine and said, ‘My apologies, Liljana. You’ve done nothing. Now why don’t we see if we can lose these damn knights before the sun reaches noon?’
After that we set out as before and continued our race across the Wendrush. We drove our remounts too hard; I felt fire in the lungs of these great beasts and spreading out along their blood to torment their bunching muscles and straining joints. It grew hot, not quite so sweltering as in Marud or Soal, but too hot for early Ashte. The sun rose higher and shot its golden flames at us. I sweated beneath layers of wool, mail and leather underpadding. The wind in my face carried some of this moisture away, but did little to cool my sodden body. I turned to see the others working hard as well. Maram, on top of his bounding brown gelding, puffed and grunted and sweated like a pig. Kane sweated, too, for he was attired no differently. As always, though, he made no complaint. His black eyes seemed to say to me that the Red Knights following us in their thicker armor suffered even worse than we.
The riding quickly became a misery. Biting black flies buzzed around our eyes and ears. I watched Bajorak leading his more lightly-clad warriors ahead of us. Would he honor his word, I wondered? Or did he hope to use us as bait, inviting an attack by other companies of Red Knights and Zayak who would join our pursuers? Perhaps, I thought, Bajorak would then call down a host of Tarun warriors that he might have secreted somewhere among the steppe’s long grasses. He would annihilate his enemy and use this incident as a reason to mount a rebellion against Garthax. And he would not care if my friends and I – kradaks, all, except for Atara – happened to be annihilated, too.
My father had once told me that a king should strive to dwell inside others’ skins and perceive the world as they did. It should have been easy for me to know the truth about Bajorak, easier than it was for Liljana. But it was harder. In the shallows of the Great Northern Ocean,