David Farland - Beyond the Gate

Gallen stared up at Maggie for a long time, and she held his face. The sun shone through the clouds on him, and Tallea could see on his nose the pale remnants of freckles that might have been more pronounced in childhood. He had a strong jaw, and clear blue eyes, and for a few moments, all the pain and worry seemed to leach away. Maggie was holding Gallen’s chin, stroking it, and he was gazing up into Maggie’s eyes. So Gallen did not notice when Ceravanne reached down and brushed his lips with the back of her forefinger.

Tallea had heard much about how the touch of a Tharrin could calm a person. Indeed, Gallen licked the back of Ceravanne’s finger, sensually, kissed it, thinking it was Maggie’s caress.

Then Ceravanne pulled her finger away gently, took Maggie’s hand and moved her forefinger into the same position, and he kissed it. Suddenly his eyes became clear, focused, and he stared at Maggie, unblinking, for several moments, then fell asleep.

He rested for a long time in Maggie’s lap, and Maggie said, “What did you do to him? Put him to sleep?”

Ceravanne shook her head. “No. He has hardly slept in three days. I think that we just eased his mind enough so that fatigue finally took him.”

“But what did you do?”

Ceravanne said softly to Maggie, “Every woman’s touch can have a power over man, but a Tharrin’s touch is very strong. There are … agents, pheromones in my skin that he craves, that can cause him to bond to me. I exude them at all times, but I do so more when I am afraid. It’s a defense mechanism that your ancestors gave me. He tasted those pheromones, but it was your face he was watching. He will be more strongly bonded to you now.”

“I envy you that power,” Maggie whispered.

Ceravanne shrugged. “Don’t envy me. I think that it is a power that causes as much harm as good. It has saved me at times, but it ill serves the men who throw their lives away in my defense. I envy you his love, for it is you that he loves above all others.” She watched Gallen sleep for a bit, and whispered, “He will hunger for your presence as never before, and you must stay close to him. Still, the draw of the Inhuman is strong. He may need more treatments before this is over.”

She climbed out of the wagon bed, got back up front into the driver’s seat again, and eased the wagon out slowly.

“I’m glad he’s resting,” Orick said, watching Gallen. “I know that if Gallen were thinking straight, he’d never doubt us.” Orick was lying on his stomach, resting his nose under his paws, watching Gallen thoughtfully with his sad brown eyes, like some great dog studying its injured master. The sight of it warmed Tallea’s heart, for she valued faithfulness above all traits, and instinctively she knew that Orick would never betray Gallen or be unsteady. Orick looked right at Tallea and said softly, “Thank you for reminding me how to be his friend.”

The way that they were sitting, his rump was near her hand, and she patted his rear paw. In response, he began licking her ankle with his broad tongue, and she found this show of affection … curiously sensual.

For a moment she looked around at these strange companions-to strong Fenorah up ahead of the wagon, running in his rolling, lumbering gait; Ceravanne at the wagon’s reins; Maggie and Gallen, resting together with eyes closed; while faithful Orick lay at Tallea’s feet.

It seemed remarkable to her how these people had a way of weaving themselves into her heart, with a song, a sigh, a touch.

Tallea’s Caldurian instincts were having their way with her. Perhaps it was only because she had denied bonding with someone for so long. Perhaps she would have chosen to serve these people anyway. But she felt a sharp need to protect them.

The wagon left the wide valley and began heading up a long road again, into some lonely hills where the trees grew thick and wild. It was a likely place to find Derrits or Sprees, or some other wild animal.

Tallea pulled her sword from its scabbard, a blade heavy near the guard for parrying, and deceptively long and thin, for thrusting. The sunlight gleamed on its edges, and the blade was in high condition, but over the past few days Tallea hadn’t felt well enough to take proper care of it. It had been nicked and blunted in the battle at sea, and she’d managed only a cursory cleaning the day before.

So as the wagon rolled ever closer to Moree, she took her stone from its pouch tied at her back, and began grinding out the nicks, honing the blade to razor sharpness, buffing off the rust, and she considered. If they were going to Moree, she’d need a bow and some arrows.

The travelbeast was running steadily through the brisk air, over the rolling hills. At the rate they were moving, they’d reach High Home by nightfall. She hoped to buy some weapons there.

* * *

In the early afternoon Zell’a Cree had reached the mountains a few kilometers north of High Home when he limped to the junction to the Old King’s Road.

He’d killed two stolen horses to get here, and he’d run without much sleep for most of the past two nights. His right boot was held together with a strip of cloth tom from his tunic.

But his work was paying off. South of Battic he had met up with five servants of the Inhuman who had given him a Word. And more importantly, last night he’d spotted a scout, flying high beneath the clouds. With a gesture he had pulled it to earth and asked it to carry a message south, warning the Inhuman that a Lord Protector was coming.

With that done, Zell’a Cree had felt a great sense of relief. The scout flew south, and it would deliver its warning long before Gallen’s wagon got to Moree. Still Zell’a Cree could not rest. He wanted to capture this band himself.

Marbee Road met the Old King’s Road at the mouth of a small valley where an old wooden bridge crossed the river, its boards whitened by the summer sun. Zell’a Cree stood for some time, tasting the scent of the air. There was no stench of travelbeast, no perfume of the Tharrin or taste of the others, but it was hard to tell for certain. An orchard had been planted here many years ago-Zell’a Cree recalled it from the memories of Anote Brell, a soldier who’d died six decades past-and still there were many apple trees growing on both sides of the road. The smell of the pungent, fallen apples filled the air, so much so that Zell’a Cree could smell little else.

Still, after a bit, he felt sure that the wagon had not passed. More good news. If the Tharrin’s company had not passed, he had managed to stay ahead of them.

He hurried along the road south to High Home, and soon began climbing the long hills. He was well up into the mountains by now, and the air was growing thinner, too thin for a Tosken to breathe comfortably.

Yet Zell’ a Cree managed the climb until he reached the crown of the mountain and stood in the small hamlet. Iron ore was mined from ridges above town, so that on the upper slopes there were red holes gouged in the earth, and the miners had tunneled deep into the hills. Down below town, sheep farmers grazed their herds on the green slopes.

The homes here in town were not your standard northern fare. They were built of heavy stone, mudded over on the outside with a white plaster the color of bones, topped with tile roofs that were an ash-gray. The houses kept cool in the hot summers when the wind blew out of the desert, but in the winters when the snow flew, the folks hereabout would have to fasten tapestries to their walls and stuff straw behind them to provide insulation against the cold.

In the summer, frequent cool winds blew down from the mountain slopes so that High Home had a reputation among desert folk as something of a mountain resort with “healthy air,” a place where the rich could escape the blistering summer months.