Part 1, Chapter V

V. People of Shadows

            Altogether, there were ten other performers and stagehands with whom I traveled. By now, Bard, you ought to be familiar with Orchid and Quagmire, and with Kindred and Denthilde, who were the only other adolescents in our troop. Mechias, on the contrary, was the eldest of our troop -- perchance with the exception of a nasty old hag named Dragon on whom I’ll say more later. Alongside these I also kept company with an affable musician and acrobat named Gulliver, his bickering wife, Sarah, and his elder brother Rupheo, who never seemed to smile. Then of course there was also Omar, whom I had yet to meet.

            An eleventh member of our company travelled with us at the time, though I did not know it yet.

Outside of the temple, Augustinians were fiercely attached when while rearing their young, but once a child had reached adulthood, it would part ways with its parents once for all. This was not how the Northern crew carried on. Though they had no blood bonds of which to speak, they’d been together many a year, most since reaching adulthood, and they never parted ways. To be adopted into such a family was a possibility which I initially shirked, preferring to dwell on the outskirts of the group and keep to my own matters.

            My strategy, however, proved futile, for whenever Denthilde wasn’t hounding me down, Kindred would be sure to stumble upon me. She caught me behind the wagon one evening, Mechias’s guitar straddled in my lap as I practiced the latest lesson my master had taught me. Out of bashfulness, I immediately ceased my playing.

            “I didn’t know you played guitar!” exclaimed Kindred, snatching the instrument from my lap before I could protest. As she strummed a few chords, tapping along with one foot, she asked, “Why’d you stop playing?”

            “Because I do not wish you to hear!”

            The strumming stopped. “Oh?”

            Hearing an ill humour in my own voice, I stumbled to correct myself, saying, “What I meant was, I fear I lack any skill to speak of, and I would prefer if thou did not hear such unworthy notes.”

            “Why do you do that?”

            “Do what?”

            “Talk like that. You’re all ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘the lady doth protest too much’. You don’t even use them consistently, either -- you’re switching back and forth all the time. Can’t make up your mind, can you?”

            “I do not speak like that, though I think your Northern dialect is corrupting me.”  

“That’s not fair! There are some very respectable people in Ambitus. It’s just Orchid and his crew that talk that way. They’ve already got Denthild speaking like them, too.”

            “You don’t say.”

            A smile spread across Kindred’s face. “We’re going out, you know,” she quipped, hugging the guitar close to her body. “He’s actually a pretty interesting guy. Hey, did you know he’s almost seventeen now?”

            “He mentioned it.”

            She plopped down in front of me, unholy glee lighting up her face. “I’m not even fifteen yet, you know. Isn’t that scandalous?”

            “It would be considered a normal age gap among my people.”

            To my amusement, this made her eyes widen. “Really?!”

            I decided to continue along the thread Kindred had begun, if only for her entertainment, by adding, “Oh yes, the men and women of Augustine are as sordid a people as you’ll ever find. They praise God in the morning and at night fall into copulation.”

            “You sound annoyed about it.”

            I glanced up to see that she was gazing at me with a wistful look upon her face. “Bad experience?” she asked.

            “None of that sort.”

            “How old are you, anyhow?”

            “Nineteen, if you reckon my birth from the day I was brought into the temple, though I might add as much as a year to that estimate.”

            “And you’ve never…?” She pressed her fingers against her lips to keep herself from laughing. “Dark, I’m ashamed! All those lovely, naked nymphs flocking around the temple and you’ve never taken your pick?”

            “No.”

            “Have you even taken up a fancy with one of them? Ever?”

            “I haven’t.”

            “Or do you prefer -- ?”

            “-- By the sun’s path no, I certainly do not!”

            “Well,” she huffed, “I was just checking.”

            “The guitar…?”

            Kindred glanced at me, face puzzled at first. Then she chuckled and tossed the guitar at me. In a moment of panic, I scrambled to catch the instrument in my arms. All the while she continued to watch me -- with, I realized, with the same amusement with which I watched her. The thought cause my palms to prickle.

            “Goodnight, Dark,” she said. “Don’t let the wild animals get you.”

            Those days of travelling became one long series of motion -- walking, resting, lifting, and working. Each passage of the sun resembled its predecessor, so much so that I could no longer tell individual days apart. This is why I must rush my tale along. Though I wish I could dredge up every second of my life, if only to intensify the specter of suffering, for your sake I shall speak more tersely from now on.

            We’d been traveling for just over a week altogether before the temperature began to plunge. I awoke one morning with white plumes trailing from my lips. Startled, I sprang from beneath the wagon where I’d been sleeping. We’d stopped to make camp by a trickling brook, no thicker than a man’s hand -- over this I flung myself, bowing my head to drink deep and desperate.

            Orchid emerged from one of the wagons, swathed in a nightrobe with a cup of cider in one hand.

“What’s gotten into you Dark?” he demanded, peering at me over the rim of his mug.

            I turned and realized that he too was breathing white smoke. “Why can I see your breath? I woke up this morning and thought my innards were aflame!”

            “Come on, up you go,” said he as he helped me to my feet. “We’re getting up near the north now, and winter’s cold seems to have its teeth still -- that’s all it means.”

            By midafternoon, the fog had vanished from my breath, and the sun warmed the earth exactly as it had in previous days.

When we came upon a thicket of scrawny, tight-knit trees, Denthilde and I were sent ahead with the axes

            “There’s usually a clear shot through these,” he said as we picked our way through the thicket. “Let’s get us ahead and see if there’s a thinned spot we can pick through!”

            Through the brush we ventured, pushing aside stray brambles and limbs as we went along. We had only gone a few steps when just up ahead, I spied a light flitting through the branches. “Up There!” I exclaimed. “I think I see a clearing!”

            “Well, let’s on then! Hold the way!” and with that he shoved past me, scrambling through the thicket until he disappeared entirely in the sunlight.

            I began to swing my axe, hacking a path towards the clearing, when all at once I heard a womanly shriek.  Through the tangle Denthilde ploughed, unconscious of the brambles and thorns that tore at his trousers.

            “Ye Gods!” he wailed. “There’s a poor chum! What stains!”

            To my feet he dived, clutching the leg of my trousers. Curious, I shook him off, and began to pick my way towards the clearing. All the while he called after me, clawing at my boots.

“Come, chum, no need to be going that way! It’s no handsome sight you’ll find there! Let’s go back -- we’ll find another way out.”

            Perturbed by his antics, I kicked Denthilde square in the collar bone, causing him to gasp for breath and free his grasp from my trouser cuff. Undaunted, I strode forward, the grip upon my axed tightening. Such was I in those days, that my curiosity knew no restraint, but everything was new and ripe to be o’er turned and brought to light.

            Just beyond where the thicket terminated, the jungle gave way to a broad and sweeping vale. A few stout trees were scattered hither and thither, but otherwise the pass lay open.

As I strolled towards this break in the narrow stranglers, something warm and wet seeped through my boot.

            At my feet, a pool of filthy red liquid oozed from the ground and filled the indents around my boots. When I lifted my foot, the fluid rushed in to fill my footprint.

            That was when I detected a rank odour. Hesitantly, I glanced over my shoulder. Not far from me, I glimpsed a leather boot protruding from behind a thick tree trunk. Circling around, I immediately saw what had frightened Denthilde: there, pinned to the tree by arrows in his gut and shoulder, was the corpse of a Northern man. His eyes had been torn out, and from the empty sockets black fluid dribble down his cheeks, some of it dried and some of it still oozing. All his clothes except his boots had been stripped. From his collarbone to the shaft of his penis, his torso had been sliced, leaving his belly bared open before me, flesh pinned back to the tree with wooden stakes. His innards had sunk into his lap, still steaming with warmth.

            As I turned to call for Denthilde, I noticed a second body lay strewn by the thicket from which I’d emerged -- a female Northerner. Her beautiful hair, brunette and flowing, lay off to the side of her body, having been ripped from her scalp. Blood smeared her face, blending her features into a thick paste so that she was beyond recognition. Like her mate, her eyes had been plucked from their sockets, though they’d left her belly attached. Instead, her breasts had been flayed from her body, bits of fat trailing across the ground.

            All at once, Denthilde came flailing through the bushes, Orchid following after him. The latter knelt beside the woman, gently wiping the blood away from her face. With the gunk cleared, I saw from her countenance that she was young and lovely -- she might have been no older than Denthilde or I. A snub nose and plump lips, high cheek bones and a soft jaw -- all beautiful, but somehow empty and void with two gaping caverns where her eyes had been.

            “Sorry sight, this lot; poor stain,” Denthilde began to say, but he was cut short when we heard low, guttural moan.

            The next few moments were indistinct -- a series of new horrors and confusions. I know not what possessed me, but I saw one of the woman’s formerly lifeless hands twitch, and the first sensible thing thereafter I recall is seeing my axe raised high above my head.

            “Bloody hell, Dark!” Orchid cried. “Put that thing down!”

            In shock, I recklessly allowed the axe to fall from my fingers and drive blade-first into the ground, just shy of shaving off a few toes. Denthilde gave a sob -- he was huddled in Orchid’s arms, blubbering tears that betrayed his age.

“Easy does it now,” said Orchid, patting the boy on the head. He raised his chin to me and added, “Let it be. She’s probably just -- .”

            Again that terrible moan issued, and all three of us froze. At our feet, the girl stirred, groping at the grass.

“Sol! Sol! ” the words came from her lips as a hiss. She repeated this again and again, until her voice was no more than a rasp. “Where’ve you gone to, unholy light? My legs can’t run anymore. Why this darkness?!”

            Quivering, she attempted to claw her way forward, but her knees smarted and gave ‘way. Only then did I notice that her legs were painted in scratches and bruises, as though she’d been driven through miles of brambles and thickets and other treacherous snares.

            At last, the woman relinquished her attempts to stand, and lay spread upon her belly, limbs thrown pathetically about her. There she wept, though there were no eyes from which tears might flow. “Oh where are you, Vander? Vander! Vander! You were right beside me, running… they grabbed him, they grabbed my Vander! Where is he?! Did he leave me here?”

            Over and over she wailed the name of the lover upon whom her eyes would never again light. As I lifted my gaze from her, I caught Denthilde peering at the man’s body.

He opened his mouth and began to say, “I think, dear woman, that --.”

But Orchid clasped his hands around the boy’s mouth. “Was he fair-haired and built like the best of them?” he asked.

            A smile, tainted by agony, crossed the girl’s lips. “The very best of them.”

            “I know the man; when we came thither I saw him fleeing those curs. Near well put them to shame, he did! He says he’ll be back for you soon enough -- he’s gone to rouse his boys to the chase. They’ll lop a few heads off, you can count on that.”

            The pain subsided from the woman’s features and she lay at peace, singing to herself a song which, to my ears, sounded like a fragment from a lullaby:

            “Do you remember where the wind blew?

            Over mountains dark and blue.

            Luna there lays down his head,

            And sends the young ones off to bed…”

            From thenceforth, she seemed absorbed in her haunting song, for her senses became closed to us. Orchid released Denthilde from his grasp, who’d been anxiously awaiting his turn to speak.

            “Orchid!” cried he. “She’s still a good amount of life left in her! Let’s sally her back to the wagons, do you fancy? Listen -- she sings! Death’s not touched this one yet!”

            At Denthilde’s suggestion, I felt a pang of discomfort. Looking to Orchid, I saw his face reflect my feelings. Though I knew it was wrongful of me to do so, I prayed that he would tell the boy no. I wanted nothing more to do with the husk of life that lay broken before me; I wished to continue on and forget we’d ever come upon the sorry pair. The scene of gore bothered me far less than the sight of the girl who clung to life.

            “You can forget it,” said Orchid, much to my relief. “She’s too far gone, Dent.”

            “You lied! She’s going to lie here all night now, thinking that someone’s coming for her!”

            “True -- it’s a noble lie, though. It’s not just a someone coming for her, boy -- it’s her Vander.”

            A thought slipped into my mind. I asked, “Did you know these unfortunate spirits, Orchid?”

            “Not on a talking basis, of course; I don’t even remember if we’ve butted heads before! But she and her happy other here were performers. Acrobats. You catch wind of names all the time when you mingle with our kind of crowd. Here’s Paolana, and Vander here’s her groom to be. Was. Far better she be pricked by the pains of waiting than feel grief’s stab this late on. Besides, she won’t hold -- I’d give it an hour or two before the Amazing Paolana is no more than a bag o’ flesh and bone.”

            “Who did this?” I demanded.

            Clasping his knees, Orchid stood and shuffled towards the forest’s edge.

Denthilde grasped my arm and said, “Where’s he think he’s getting off to, Dark? Your butcher might still be scurrying ‘round, for all we can reckon!”

            “Make a man of thyself!” I snarled. “Or would you rather I tell Kindred her beloved was made the coward by a couple of corpses?!”

            That shut him up. Sniveling, he trailed behind in the footsteps of Orchid and I.

            Before us, the trees disappeared and we found ourselves peering down upon the bleak vale, around which was girded the jungle’s soaring canopy. Both vale and canopy stretched on for as far as the eye could perceive, until one mingling with the other became a green-black line on the horizon.

            “See there?” asked Orchid, pointing to a clump of jungle at the vale’s rim.

I looked, and beheld a plume of smoke drifting over the treetops. “Yes; I see it.”

            “That’ll be where you culprits are. They’re probably burning our friends’ cart and horses, if they had any.”

            “Who are they?”

            “Take my word for it when I say: you don’t want to know.”

            Perhaps by seeing that danger was nearly half a day’s ride away Denthilde was able to regain a shaving of courage, for he bounded ahead to the vale’s lip and scanned the sight below. “We’re getting close now, aren’t we? I can’t rap my fist on it, but there’s something about the spot that’s familiar.”

            “That’s a fair enough guess. I’d give us less than a week to reach Ambitus. Come here, Dark -- I want to show you where we’re headed. This…” he swept his hand across the horizon, “… is the Vale of Sinon. The road here’s broad and easy, so many prefer it -- it’s the fastest way back to Ambitus, for sure. It’s a dangerous one, though, as our lovebirds here managed to find out. No place to go if there’s any waylaying on the road.”

            “Whoever they were,” I observed, “they must have chased Paolana and Vander for quite some distance -- their cart appears to half a day’s journey ahead, from what my eyes perceive.”

            “Quite right. It’s easy to run like mad when death’s nipping at the a*s. Near as I can tell, there might’ve been an ambush up here.”

            “Ambush!” cried Denthilde at once. “You never brought these thorns up before, did you chum? Why, we passed right on through the vale last time, if I remember it rightly, and not a hair on our heads suffered the more!”

            “It doesn’t happen often -- not during peak season, when most of the traffic comes through. I’m ‘fraid to say we’re a bit late pulling our way up this far, though. The temple was a bit too lavish with her generosity, eh? Besides, the forest’s been a devil this year. All the old trails have already been grown over since last winter. Bloody pain that is. Wouldn’t worry about it too much, though.”

            Inching forward, I joined Denthilde in squinting at the horizon. At first, it seemed as though it ended with vale and jungle, but as I peered closer, an indistinct shadow appeared on the horizon, gently sloping from the jungle canopy.

            “Orchid,” I said, “are those mountains that lay beyond the vale?”

            “Spotted them, did you? Yep, there you have your Hellstooth Mountains -- the very border of Augustine.”

             As I trained my eyes upon that shape, I saw a dark gauze gathering at her crown.  “That darkness which hovers at its peak -- is that a storm?”

            “Fine eyes, boy! There might well be a storm gnashing its teeth ‘round those parts, but that’s probably not what’s before those sharp peepers of yours.”

            “I think I know the answer!” Denthilde exclaimed. “That’s the valley Carmanite, isn’t it?”

            “Right on! And I was just about to point that out to our Dark, before you so rudely took the bit! But that’s Carmanite, alright. Bloodiest piece of hell on earth you ever did pass through.”

            Denthilde snorted. “Oh, I remember it! It wasn’t all that bad.”

            “Hold your tongue and keep the peace! So long as you tread quietly, it’s nothing more than an empty wasteland. Not the prettiest of places. But there’s word that Sol likes to tread thereabouts, and by the gods, I’ve seen it with my own eyes! In all my thirty years of crossing this way, half a dozen times I’ve seen Her stride these parts! And three times more I’ve seen her face-to-face, that black-hearted s**t! Once she tried to seduce me, and two times besides she’d-a run her sword through me if I weren’t quick of tongue.”

            “Bullocks!”

            “Oh, you’d best believe me. It’s true as anything else you’ll ever put eyes to. That’s no storm brewing there ahead -- it’s smoke. Sol’s footprint, see. You can bet she’s up to some mischief that way. This might be your chance to greet the lady, Denthilde! Just don’t accept any of her offers -- I’ve heard she burns her lovers to a crisp.”

            Having surveyed the scene, we headed back to the caravans to break news with the others.  By nightfall, we’d passed the sunburnt bodies of Paolana and her mate and continued on along the edge of the jungle, circling around the mouth of the vale. Though progress was slow, Orchid seemed unwilling to venture out into the open just yet.

“We’ll make for the lowlands tomorrow,” said he. “Better to spent a night in the safe, just in case there’s any marauders still poking about these parts.”

            That night we burned no fires, but slept in the dark, each apart from one another and swathed in silence. Restless, I abandoned sleep and snuck out onto the ridge, where I sat and peered off in the distance. There on the horizon, where the mountains ought to have been, I saw a faint scarlet blush, and wondered whether Orchid’s words concerning Sol were true.

Since I abandoned any notion of Sol’s divinity during my time at the temple, I had abandoned also the notion of her corporality, thus the thought of coming face-to-face with the goddess seemed so abstract to me. I understood not how the sun could be both in the sky and on earth at the same instant; it embodied what had always seemed to me a disjoint in nature. A flower was but stem and petal, and if I took them apart nothing happened, but together something caused them to grow, that could not possibly be within either stem or petal. And then there was the goddess, who could be both woman and sun in one body, but without either was not a goddess at all.

            While I contemplated these things, Mechias joined me. He’d brought with him his guitar, and asked me to play for him. So I did, and like a good master he listened quietly the whole way through.

When I finished, I cast the guitar aside in frustration and cried out, “It’s useless, master! I’ve neither thy talent nor the capacity within me to achieve it!”

            “Not if you continue talking like that,” he told me. “You only do something as well as you wish to.”

            Thus he spoke, and I despaired a while, but soon I knew not my grief, for I fell into a slumber. Daylight pounced upon us far too quickly, and within half an hour of waking, we descended into the Vale of Sinon.

            At first, Orchid was cautious, keeping along the steep edge of the vale where the forest was near, but when hours passed without any sign of danger, he led the team into the vale’s shallow belly, and there we kept our track steady.

            During that time, we spoke little and slept sparsely. Even Kindred and Denthilde, who would usually have their share of foolery around the camp, kept to themselves and communicated only in nods and smiles.

            As for myself, I withdrew more than usual from the troop, wandering from the caravan to gain some solitude in my thoughts, against Dragon’s warnings. She was what one might describe as the troop’s matriarch -- a sullen woman great in years who despised Orchid, yet with her youth long vanished, she relied on him for his hospitality, and he upon her for her ability, as he put it, “to keep the books in balance”.

            When we had been on the march through Sinon’s Vale a day and half, the Hellstooth Mountains towered above us, as though a piece of the night sky had been left behind at dawn, dark and impressive.

            I was in the process of circling back towards the caravan after one of my retreats when I sensed a vibration course through the soles of my feet. It was a quick, steady beat like the throb of a heart, which at first I could only feel, but by the time I reached the caravan, the pounding could be heard aloud, booming forth from the jungle ba-thump-thump-thump.

            Orchid was already waiting for me, a grave look upon his face. “You heard it too?” he asked.

            When I nodded, he ordered me to join the other men at the rear wagon. There, I found Quagmire distributing long, flashing swords to all. Denthilde and Kindred had already claimed their weapons, and we mock-fencing away from the rest of the group.

            After I’d been given a sword, I rejoined Orchid. By now, the sound had grown louder, and I finally recognized it as the playing deep-bellied skin drums, the same variety used by the temple dwellers in hymns and prayers. Out of instinct I longed to tap my foot and sing, but I realized that this primal, angry beat was nothing like the songs of praise around which I’d been raised. It was one-minded, unchangingly railing on with the same dull ba-thump-thump-thump as it drew nearer.

            Suddenly, from the jungle there swarmed a mass of black, squirming bodies. They were Augustinians, naked but for the bright red and gold paint which was smeared all over their bodies. Their skin, unlike the rich cinnamon color of the temple-dwellers, was dark and sooty, so that the whites of their eyes stood out clearly against the rest of their faces. Their hair, too, was different, for it came in all shades of grey and silver and platinum blondes. The Augustinians were perhaps forty in all, lean and warped with starvation, raving and waving their feathered spearheads on high.

Pictured: a painting of a North Augustinian woman.

          

     “There’re your marauders for you, Dark!” howled Orchid. “Greet them for me, won’t you?”  Before I could put him to question, Orchid bounded away, screaming, “Omar! Omar!” at the top of his lungs.

            Quagmire appeared at my side, with him Denthilde, Rupheo, and Gulliver.

“Not your usual lot, are they?” asked Quagmire.

            The Augustinians had come to a halt, forming a half circle around us into which they thrust the heads of their spears, shouting angrily in a language I could not comprehend.

“They seem frail,” I observed.

            “These lands by the mountain’s foot are mighty unforgiving,” Quagmire explained. “Nothing but hardy-rooted trees sprout up -- no soft-fleshed fruits here. These be the borders of North Augustine, the land lady Sol forgot. They’re too much in the sun -- she’ll scorch them one day, and let ’em starve the next.”

            “Why?”

            “Sol only knows! She’s bred a cult through ‘ere every bit as big as the cult you’ve got going on down south -- but this one’s no hymn-singin’ c**k-toos here, they’re fed by fear and worship with fear. Every day’s a day for dying when you’ve a god as both lover and enemy.”

            “Gods spare us,” Gulliver murmured.

            All at once, Orchid shoved past us, muttering, “Pardon me, coming through!”

            When I caught sight of the woman he towed along behind him, my breath stilled in my throat. Her skin was the color of the midnight sky, soft and matte like brushed black velvet. Fine ornaments of gold, silver and jasper were woven into her hair, which was as fair as her skin was white. Her eyes were pools of unleaded honey, and when she smiled I saw that her teeth were like perfect snowballs. Around her waist a fine, silk cloth was tied, but her black breasts bared their violet-blushing areolas to me, covered only by heavy, golden necklaces which descended all the way to her navel. She was rarest, most exquisite woman I’d ever seen.

Pictured: a sketch of Omar.

            “That’d be Orchid’s wife,” Rupheo or Gulliver -- I forget which one -- whispered. The other added, “Omar. She cuts a regal figure, doesn’t she?”

            Orchid gently nudged his wife, and out she strode before the frenzied horde, chin held high and eyes never once blinking

            When they spotted her, those droves of Sol’s fell quiet, every man and women peering at her with a look of awe upon their face.

            “Speak you the North-man’s tongue?” Omar demanded.

            One of the brood stepped forward -- a hulking matriarch, wreathed round the neck by a chain of rodent bones. In one hand she grasped an ashen staff, upon the top of which was fixed a human skull, framed by the antlers of a great stag. Her wrists were fitted with golden cusps, and in gold was her silver hair draped.

            “We know it,” she bellowed, “but we won’t speak their words! These are mud to us! If you wish to speak, you will use our people’s tongue.”

            “Very well. Salvete. In pace venimus.”

            Thus the pair continued on speaking in this strange tongue for a time.

            Orchid had returned to our side, so I leaned over and asked, “To what do I bear witness?”

            “A negotiation,” he whispered. “The North Augustinians don’t take well to us Northerners. Can’t blame ‘em. When we -- our grandfolks, that is -- first starting coming through here near a hundred years or so ago, we pressed their lot to work for us. Didn’t like that one bit, they didn’t! They began slaughtering Northerners who travelled the Vale, and for a while no one would come through these parts. They won’t talk to anyone caught yabbin’ in our tongue, so Omar’s our go-to if we want to chatter our way out of this mess.”

            “Where did you find her, Orchid? She appears to be one of them!”

            “That’s because she is. A princess of theirs, actually. Her tribe got in a scuffle with a large band from the North -- the lot of them nothing more than a bunch o’ thugs. They were at odds for numbers -- she was the only one to get away. I found her when I came along this path five years ago, half-bled to death and starving. Nursed her back to health with my own bare hands, I did. Adorned her with every bit of wealth I had, asked her to be my bride. She said yes, after she quit trying to kill me, and you’ve never seen a more faithful bride! They’ll listen to her, you bet.”

            I watched Omar negotiate with the Augustinians, face clam as she gestured emphatically to the crew. The matriarch, on her part, appeared attentive -- but all at once, she made a guttural sound in her throat and smote her staff upon the ground. All at once, the Augustinians advanced on us, drawing their weapons.

            A murmur of panic swept through the troop, but upon seeing Omar’s face, which was no less collected and serene than before, doubts vanished and we submitted to being poked and prodded by the North Augustinians’ daggers and spears. Some even crawled up onto the wagons, poking holes in the canvas covering to peer inside.

            To my left, I heard a disturbance. Rupheo and Gulliver were speaking harsh, hushed words to Denthilde. The boy had one hand on the hilt of his sword while the other was occupied in swatting an Augustinian man away, much to the latter’s annoyance.

            “You’ll just set him off!” Rupheo snapped. “Hold it steady!”

            “Easy now,” added Gulliver. “He probably don’t want trouble any more than you do!”

            Shouting something in his own language, the man grasped Denthilde’s arm. He wailed and attempted to wretch free, but as Rupheo predicted it only angered the man further, who struck his spear against Denthilde’s hip. There was a flash of steel and a spurt of blood, and all fell into chaos.

            As the Augustinians rushed upon us, I took up sword and charged into the fray, ears filled with a savage roar. It would be false for me to claim that I acted on part of some decision whose end I’d calculated, for it was not so. It was a will to survive, raw and boundless and screaming, which caused me to draw my sword.

            Suddenly, a feral shriek pierced the fray. Somehow, Omar had drawn herself between the Augustinians and the Northerners, singling out Denthilde. Her talons sunk deep into the boy’s face, crimson blood dribbling down his pale cheeks, as she loosed another horrible cry. The man whom Denthilde had struck now grasped his wounded arm and watched on with eager eyes. Falling silent, Omar shoved Denthilde aside and launched into a rapid series of words and gestures directed at the Augustinians. While at first they listened patiently, once again they grew restless and the shouts and cries and swinging of spears began all over again.

            Then, Omar shrieked and pointed at something behind me. When I turned, however, there was nothing but an empty stretch of vale. It was at that instant I realized every barbarous eye was trained upon my person, and every mouth spread agape.

            “Not a word, my boy,” Orchid hissed in my ear.

            It was hardly necessary to warn me, for soon the entire hoard of Augustinians was creeping towards me on their hands and knees, bottoms raised like animals preparing to pounce. In such a fashion they slunk until they were at my feet, curious hands touching the legs of my trousers. One woman, eyes clouded with blindness, reached up with trembling hands and touched my ears, running her fingers from the deep cleft in my left ear to their pointed tips. At first I flinched, but then she murmured softly and touched my face. All together, the North Augustinians collapsed to their knees, arms sprawled out before me, muttering in unison.

            Omar shouted and forty heads all rose at once. As quickly as they had arrived, those savage shades fled up the hill and into the jungle, mingling with shadow and undergrowth. Only the Matriarch remained. Shoulders thrown back, she approached me, staring long and hard into my face. Then, she stooped at my boots and proceeded to kiss them, her gnarled spine exposed as she bent over.

Omar approached me, her long, lean legs stepping easily beneath her. “This is Tiamat -- she’s the leader of the tribe,” said she. “She wishes to know your name.”

            I gazed up down at Tiamat’s face, which had lifted to peer at me, and saw no hostility there.

“My name is Dark,” I told her.

            “Dark, Dark…” she whispered. Rising to her feet, she addressed Omar in her own tongue then raced off after the others.

            When Tiamat was beyond hearing range, Orchid whistled. “Well done, darling! Though I’m curious to know how you spoke your way out of that one."

            “Before this foolish child injured one of their men,” she spat, glaring in Denthilde’s direction, “I had assured them that you were friendly North-men, and that you would leave them supplies in exchange for safe passage.”

            “Then?”

            “They were ready to slaughter us all, before I remembered our Dark. The Augustinians perceive bodily abnormalities as a sign of blessing. I told them he was an archangel of Sol, sent to reconcile the Northerners to the Sun Cult, and that by killing him they would bring a curse upon their heads. I’ve promised them that neither Dark nor any of us will call upon them Sol’s curses, but that we will pray for them and leave behind some goods.”

            “So we’re leaving them supplies now, are we!” Orchid exclaimed. “Wasn’t it enough for ‘em to have their god’s blessing, was it? We’re low enough on goods as it is!”

            I agreed with Orchid -- the week before we’d been placed under rations in order to make it to Ambitus. How strange, that moments ago we would have given the Augustinians all we had to purchase our lives, but now, with the danger past, we would scarce begrudge them a morsel!

            Omar seemed to sense this too, for she turned upon me, her forehead creased by a frown. “You above all ought to be thankful! I could have told them to kill you, for all it matters, but I did not. These people have already given us a great gift: our lives. So also we would do well to give them something, for we have much and they have nothing.”

            “Much!” exclaimed Orchid. “Fine for you to make that call, but a week from now it’ll be our bellies that cry for a scrap of bread!”

            “I said we would only give them a little,” Omar replied in an icy voice. “Before, you would have lost nearly everything. Be grateful. And Dark,” she said, catching me by surprise, for I thought she’d already forgotten about me, “I don’t know if you really are one of the blessed or not, but I would advise you to pray for these people. Someday, you may need their kindness.”

            “I am not religious.”

            “All the more reason to pray, then. I’m going back to my carriage, now -- Arachne’s fever has gotten worse.”

            She turned, hair swishing around the small of her back, and strode off.