2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows

Servants of the Crossed Arrows

Book Two of the Rifter

By Ginn Hale

Published by:

Blind Eye Books

1141 Grant Street

Bellingham, WA 98225

blindeyebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may used or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by Nicole Kimberling

Cover art, maps and all illustrations by Dawn Kimberling

Proofreading by Jemma Everyhope

This book is a work of fiction. All characters and situations depicted are fictional. Any resemblances to actual people or events are coincidental.

First edition April 2011

Copyright © 2011 Ginn Hale

ISBN 978-1-935560-01-2

Huge thanks to Gavin, Michael, Melissa and Nicole. I could not have done this without you—

Ginn

 
Environmental Studies graduate student John Toffler intercepts a letter intended for his mysterious roommate, Kyle. Inside John finds a key and a note reading: don’t. Before he can return the key to Kyle, John and his friends, Laurie and Bill, accidently use it to open a gate to another world. In an instant they are torn from the easy life they’ve known and hurtled into the harsh wastelands of Basawar.

Kyle—who in his own world is known as Kahlil—realizes that he must kill John before he destroys Basawar. Despite the Great Gate being shattered, he follows John, Laurie and Bill back to his homeworld. But the passage through leaves him physically beaten and his memories broken. Confused and alone in a world he no longer recognizes, Kahlil takes refuge among men who have a use for his deadly skills.

Meanwhile, John and his friends have lost the golden key. While searching for it, John discovers not only the horrifying sight of a road lined with burning bodies but also encounters his first hope for a return to Earth: Ravishan, a young Payshmura priest training in the mystical art of traveling through ‘Gray Space’ to distant places. Ravishan hopes to one day rise from the rank of ushiri to become the Kahlil and travel to John’s home world. In exchange for lessons about life on Earth, Ravishan agrees to keep John and his friends’ presence a secret and to help them survive in the wastes of Basawar.

But not all of the inhabitants of this world are as kind as Ravishan, and one evening John finds himself hiding at the edge of a river as a dangerous and strange party gathers a few yards from him.
 

John lay still in the darkness, watching and listening. Behind him the slow moving waters of the river lapped quietly at the muddy bank. Just a few yards ahead of him, the shadows of men and trees jumped and flickered in the firelight. A gentle wind brought the scent of wood smoke to him.

The dog paced around the fire, moving among the gathered men. Her thick yellow coat bristled and relaxed as she spoke. Her voice was rough, but feminine like that of a chain-smoking blues singer. Her eyes caught the firelight from time to time and seemed to glow out into the darkness of the woods.

He wanted to understand what was being said, but he could hardly believe what he was seeing. He would have thought that years of talking animals in pet food commercials and other advertisements would have inured him to the strangeness of it. But those animals were manmade manipulations. This was a genuine dog. Speaking.

He watched as her lips curled and parted with the perfect flow of Basawar words. She was definitely speaking. The dog barred her teeth and the last of her sentence came out in a low growl.

John turned his head to gaze up into the dark night sky. He couldn’t look at her and think about the foreign words at the same time. It was just too much for him to manage at once. He concentrated on the smoky barroom voice.

“Ashan...”

That meant brothers.

“Shir’ rashan’ati rashiadu’hi...”

We must kill ... something unclean?
No,
John thought
... soldiers ... guards.

She went on speaking as he tried desperately to follow her.

John knew he was missing words. He dug his hands into the warm soil. Grass shoots seemed to curl around his fingers like they were returning his grip, gentle and assuring.

He had to know if these people would kill him; if they were moving towards the shelter. He had to listen the way he listened to Ravishan, hearing the language like music, feeling the meaning, simply knowing.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax as he did in his exercises with Ravishan, letting the words wash over him.

“Ashan,” the dog said, “we will not waste ammunition in warning shots this time. Take the guards down right away. I want clean shots to the heads or through the hearts. We don’t have the time or spare ammunition to fuck around.” A low growl carried through her last words.

“Daru, you and Saimura will come in from the back,” she went on. “Your objective will be to take the ushiri candidate alive. Kill anyone else, but Sabir wants that boy alive. You understand?”

“Perfectly,” came the response.

“Good. The rest of us will keep the way open for you. Since the group is traveling with a fucking ushiri candidate, we’ll need to watch out for the real thing. Look for the braids. If you even think you’ve got a Payshmura ushiri or ushman in your sights, put a bullet straight into his head. Don’t pause. Don’t think about it. Shoot. Got it?”

“Got it.” The response came in a hushed unison from some twenty different voices.

“Good.” There was a brief pause for a sound almost like a yawn. “This is the Bousim family’s private convoy we’re taking on.”

“Priest-sucking noblemen,” a young man spat.

“Well-armed noblemen,” the dog growled. “Their guns are going to be better than ours, they’ll be mounted, and the guards will be professional soldiers. Real rashan’im.”

“Do they have the new guns?” a different man asked.

“Yes.” The dog sighed heavily. “Our friends in Nurjima say the Bousim family purchased five hundred of the new breech-loading carbines. So, we can’t count on having much time to hit them while they’re reloading shots. We need to get them before they even get their guns up.”

“That’s why you had us hauling scrap iron and blasting powder in the packs. We’re mining the Holy Road under their feet, aren’t we?” It was the same young man who had asked about the guns. He sounded pleased.

“Yes, Saimura. Let’s hope the blasts blow them up the Thousand Steps to Heaven’s Door.” The dog’s voice was low and amused. John heard other quiet laughs. She continued, “The Bousim convoy should be this far north by morning. We’ll need to have the mines in place before then. Let’s get unpacked and get to work. Saimura, Daru, you two sleep. I want you rested for tomorrow.”

“You got it, Ji,” an older man’s voice responded. Daru, presumably.

“I’m already asleep on my feet.” Saimura’s voice was now familiar to John.

Afterward, he heard the rustling of thick cloth and the low rasps of heavy pieces of metal. He opened his eyes and looked over toward the men who ringed the low-burning fire. Their silhouettes melted in and out of each other as they reached and passed objects between themselves. They spoke, but too softly for John to discern.

The dog continued to pace. When the wind picked up, she lifted her head and inhaled deeply. She swung her head towards John and stared into the darkness, sniffing. John’s breath caught in his chest. He didn’t exhale, fearing that she would smell it. After a moment, the dog turned away and drew in the scents coming from the north.

John didn’t doubt that she had caught the scent of him, but perhaps his smell had not struck her as belonging to a man. John
imagined that if he had had a bath in the last seven months she would have discovered him immediately. But, as was, he hadn’t been near soap or a fire and those were two of the most distinctively human scents.

Dressed in weasel skin, with fish blood, soil and grass staining his hands and hair, no trace of civilization clung to him. He smelled only of his surroundings, but the same wasn’t true of Laurie or Bill. They both cooked with fire and the perfume of wood smoke clung to them always. If Laurie came out to get him, the dog would doubtless notice her right away. There was also the problem of what would happen if any of the men came down closer for water.

He doubted that these men would have any qualms about killing him. It was obvious from their conversation that they were already committed to killing a good number of people. The fact that they had to be explicitly told when they were expected to keep someone alive was particularly telling.

They outnumbered John and they were armed with rifles and explosives. He only had his hunting knife and a sharpened stick that he used as a fishing spear.

John considered the wooded land in front of him. The trees weren’t close enough to offer reliable cover. And he was sure that the dog would see him if he stood up. That only left the stream behind him. Its slow flow would take him south, closer to the shelter. But it would make for a terribly cold trip.

Carefully John rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself backwards. His feet slid across the cool mud and then slipped into the cold shallows. Water seeped into John’s boots and soaked into his pants. Slick, clammy mud slithered into his shirt and clung to his arms and chest. His body slipped further back into the water with a soft gurgle. He caught his breath as the frigid water rolled against his groin and stomach.

The stream’s current caught his legs and hips, tugging gently at him. It washed up over his back and sent involuntary shudders through the muscles of his arms. Icy water splashed against his face. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.

John dragged his hands over the muddy floor. He numbly grabbed
  
the smooth stones and fine webs of tree roots. He rolled to his back, keeping his face above the shallow water. The sky above him looked endlessly black and the stars seemed far too bright.

The current pulled him slowly away from the scent and flickers of the fire. As he drifted away, a wild idea came to John. It was almost crazy, but if it worked, he might be able to get them into the town of Amura’taye.

John floated and thought until he knew he was beyond even the dog’s earshot. Then, clumsy with cold and shaking, he pulled himself out of the water and stumbled back to the shelter. The slightest breeze prickled his skin and set his teeth chattering.

Even after he ducked inside the insulated warmth of the shelter, the shivering and chattering made his explanation to Laurie and Bill come out with starts and jumps of vibrato.

John stripped off his wet clothes as he talked. Laurie silently handed him the weasel skin pants she had been sewing for him. John pulled them on. One leg was much longer than the other, though neither reached John’s ankles.

Bill held the flashlight up, lighting the piles of their bedding and discarded winter rags as John dug through them. When John glanced back at him, he noticed that Bill had pulled his blanket around himself more closely, as if just looking at John’s chilled body made him cold.

“A talking dog?” Laurie asked at last. “You call me a flake and then come back and say you saw a talking dog?”

“I didn’t actually say you were a flake,” John said. “Bill said that.”

“Don’t try to pin it on me.” Bill only poked his face out of the blankets.