9: The Iron Temple (2 page)

When the last shipment rolled out on an evening train, John felt suddenly relieved, and for the first time, he realized just how nerve wracking all this comedy performed in the face of rifles really had been. He wasn’t alone—in fact, Tai’yu and Fenn seemed almost giddy when the entire unit regrouped around the big wood table in the Hearthstone’s dining room. They snickered and giggled like twelve-year-old boys as they recounted their last triumph to John.

“No one paid attention to anything else, once the seams split.” Tai’yu grinned. “And I was shouting for the women to look away. Cover your eyes. Cover your eyes.”

Tai’yu waved his thin arms in the air.

“None of them did, of course,” Tai’yu said.

“Who could with you squawking and waving your ass around like it was on fire?” Fenn grinned.

John smiled at the image. He tasted his stew. Thick hunks of weasel mixed with boiled roots.

“Does someone have the seed salt?” John asked.

Fenn handed the clay shaker to John. Their hands touched as John accepted the shaker and Fenn gave him that same green-eyed glance of invitation that he had offered during combat practice in the Warren. None of the other men at the table seemed to notice it. John wondered if Fenn simply had a flirtatious manner.

John salted his stew and ate. At least the food was hot and John felt well enough to eat it. The last of his bruises had faded and not a single scar remained where the bullets had torn through his neck only weeks ago. Across the dining room, John noticed the door open. Saimura shook the snow off his boots as he came inside. He glanced to the table and met John’s gaze. Then he hurried up the wooden staircase to the rented rooms upstairs. John had hardly managed to say more than two words to him in the last week.

 “It’s better to entertain city guards than to fight them,” Tai’yu said. “This way they don’t even know there has been a disturbance. They just have an amusing story to tell.”

“Pity we can’t win all our battles with buffoonery,” Pirr’tu spoke as he chewed. Then he carefully wiped crumbs of bread from his black beard before flashing a charming smile at the serving girl. She briefly returned his smile, then blushing, disappeared into the kitchen.

At the head of the table, Lafi’shir frowned down at a scrap of paper that had come from the Warren along with the last shipment of munitions. John had stolen a glance at it when they’d been sitting down but only to scan for any mention of Ravishan or the work he was doing for Sabir. To his disappointment, the paper had only offered him the mention of an unfamiliar farm.

Obviously, it meant far more to Lafi’shir. At last he sighed and then fed the paper into the flame of the table lamp.

“So are we moving?” Pirr’tu asked Lafi’shir.

“Tomorrow. We need to get to Sheb’yu’s farm as quick as we can,” Lafi’shir said.

“Trouble?” Pirr’tu asked.

“All I know is that Ji wants us there fast.”

“How long of a ride will it be?” Fenn asked. John suspected he was already thinking about which tahldi to take. Fenn seemed to know all the animals as individuals.

“Four days riding hard through the Stone Hills Pass and sleeping in our saddles.”

 He glanced to John. “Will you be well enough to ride, Jath’ibaye?”

John noted Lafi’shir’s persistent and deliberate use of his new name with a kind of amusement. The man just wasn’t going to allow him to go back to being Jahn. In truth, he was growing used to the name himself.

“I could ride now if you need me to,” John said. He wasn’t sure about sleeping in his saddle, but he wasn’t about to say so. One way or another he knew he’d keep up with the other men.

“Saimura was too right about you healing up damn fast,” Fenn commented. “You must come from a line of tough witches.”

“I was just lucky to have had Ji teach me,” John replied softly. “And to have one of Saimura’s healing talismans.”

“Where is Saimura, anyway?” Tai’yu asked.

“He went upstairs,” John said.

“Go get him, will you, Jath’ibaye?” Lafi’shir asked.

John hesitated. Saimura didn’t seem to want to see him at all lately. But then Lafi’shir’s request hadn’t really been a question. It was an order.

John left the table and loped up the stairs to a long hall of closed doors. Saimura shared the third room on the left with Pirr’tu and Fenn. John knocked lightly.

“What is it?” Saimura sounded annoyed.

“Lafi’shir wants you downstairs,” John said.

“Tell him I’ll be down after I get out of these wet clothes.”

John didn’t see much point in going downstairs without Saimura—not when Lafi’shir had told John to get him. John leaned against the wall and waited. After five minutes or so, John knocked on the door again.

“I think Lafi’shir wanted to see you sometime soon.”

“I thought you went back downstairs,” Saimura said through the door.

“No,” John replied. “I’m still here, waiting.”

“You don’t need to stay. Go downstairs and enjoy your dinner.”

John scowled at the door. “Saimura, this is getting childish. Just come to dinner.”

There was no response and John briefly considered burning the lock apart. Then the door opened just slightly. Saimura peered out at John through the crack. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

“You did something to me,” Saimura whispered.

“What are you talking about?”

“In the stable, when you used my talisman, you…did something.”

John realized that Saimura had to be talking about the strength John had taken from his talisman.

“I didn’t mean to do anything,” John said quietly. “I just needed strength. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

The muscles in Saimura’s jaw clenched. John tried to meet his eyes, but Saimura lowered his gaze.

“Saimura, you’ve been a friend to me,” John said. “You brought me into the Fai’daum. I would never hurt you intentionally. I’m sorry for what I did, but I didn’t know it would happen. I don’t even know how it happened.”

“You don’t even know what happened, do you?” Saimura sounded both strained and accusatory.

 “Not really, no,” John admitted. “But I didn’t mean to harm you.”

“You didn’t harm me,” Saimura responded tersely. “You didn’t even hurt me.”

John frowned at him, unsure of what Saimura meant.

“You broke through the barriers between myself and my talisman,” Saimura said. The muscles of Saimura’s jaw flexed again. “You were in me. You were there inside me, taking what you needed, and I couldn’t stop you.”

John felt his face go hot and red. The words Saimura had used made the whole thing sound like a rape. Then John remembered the warm, quivering gasps of Saimura’s talisman. He remembered the sobbing that had stopped him. A sick feeling of horror sank through John.

“I didn’t mean—I never—” John couldn’t think of what to say. He needed some way to make things right with Saimura, to take back what he had done.

He could outrun a tahldi. He could devour a storm, but he could do nothing to retract this.

“I’m sorry,” John said, but the words fell terribly short of the shame John felt.

“I know,” Saimura cut him off. “If I thought you’d done it purposefully, do you think I would have treated your injuries?”

“No. You wouldn’t have.” John stared down at his feet. “I’m sorry, Saimura. I’m really sorry.”

“I know. You’re a very decent man. But it’s still hard to be near you right now.”

“Of course.” John retreated from the door.

“I’ll get over it,” Saimura said.

John removed Saimura’s talisman from his coat pocket. Saimura flinched, seeing it resting in John’s palm.

“You should take this back.” John offered the carved bone to him.

“You may need it,” Saimura responded.

“No, I won’t,” John said firmly. “I want you to have it back.”

Saimura snatched the talisman from John’s hand and something like relief showed in his features.

“Tell Lafi’shir I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Saimura said.

John left Saimura and rejoined his fellow Fai’daum at their table downstairs. As he had predicted, Lafi’shir gave him a questioning look when he returned alone.

“Saimura’s changing clothes,” he explained.

“Takes him long enough,” Fenn remarked.

“Oh, but he’s always worth the wait,” Pirr’tu responded jokingly.

John ate the last of his stew quickly. When Saimura finally made his appearance, John excused himself, saying, “I want to get as many hours as I can with that soft bedding before I’m sleeping rough again.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” Tai’yu commented. “Soon enough we’ll have rocks for pillows.” The other men wished him goodnight and John withdrew to the rented rooms.

His dreams were a troubled wreck of confused guilt and longing for Ravishan. It hadn’t even been a month and yet he already felt Ravishan’s absence like a chronic ache.

The next morning Fenn woke him before dawn. They ate leftover stew from the night before. The other men grumbled because the flavor had grown too strong after reheating. John enjoyed it, but lost most of his appetite when he saw how haggard Saimura looked even after a night’s sleep. Saimura offered John a faint smile. It wasn’t much of an overture of friendship, but it was more than John had expected.

In the stable he, like the other Fai’daum, strapped his rifle to his saddle and hung his saddle blanket low to disguise the shape. Lafi’shir distributed their packs and warned them against breaking into their rations too soon.

A delicate snow fell, filling their tracks as they rode north into the Stone Hills towards Sheb’yu’s farm.

Chapter Eighty-Nine

After six days of skirting bad weather and rockslides through the Stone Hills, they reached the last pass only to be engulfed in a brutal storm.

A hard wind drove down from the steep cliff walls, spilling snow over John and the other Fai’daum fighters. John’s tahldi gave a low groan. The other tahldi echoed the quiet call.

Riding beside John, Fenn leaned forward and stroked the jaw of his dappled tahldi. He whispered softly to the animal and it seemed to relax. John attempted to emulate Fenn’s actions, but his own big buck just pulled its lips back to show its yellow teeth to John. He stopped trying to soothe the animal.

“He doesn’t like riding behind the others.” Fenn had to shout to be heard over the wind.

“My tahldi?” John shouted back.

Fenn nodded and then bowed his head against another blast of wind. A thick crust of frost clung to Fenn’s scarf and hood. He kept his gloved hands tucked into his coat.

John felt crystals of ice condensing on his eyelashes and in his nose. He tugged his scarf up a little, like Fenn, and bowed his head down against the cutting wind.

Snow and wind poured over them until all John saw were swirling white masses. He squinted ahead and picked out the gray shadows of Tai’yu and Pirr’tu riding ahead. Snow caked Pirr’tu’s beard. Tai’yu hunched his long body low, using his tahldi’s thick neck as a windbreak.

Lafi’shir and Saimura rode farther ahead on the mountain trail. John lost sight of them in the storm. But then their forms seemed easier to pick out. He saw Lafi’shir raise his arm and signal a halt. John reined his tahldi back. The buck blew out an annoyed breath, but stopped.

Saimura rode back down the trail towards them. He gave a greeting sign to Pirr’tu and Tai’yu but continued past them to John. Ice caked his eyebrows and the loose strands of his auburn hair. Clumps of frozen snow covered his coat and pants so completely that it almost looked like he was blanketed in matted wool. He jerked his scarf down and leaned in a little towards John.

“The weather looks worse up ahead,” Saimura shouted over the howl of the wind.

John nodded. He could feel the storm’s dark mass rolling and churning in the north. Ice and vapor writhed in wild, driving winds.

“I’ve done all I could to protect us, but these natural storms are much more powerful than anything conjured,” Saimura yelled to John. “Still, if we’re going to reach Sheb’yu’s farm before spring, we need to get through this pass.”

John pulled his own scarf down. The wind felt brutally cold as it rushed over his bare cheeks.

“You want me to try to dissipate the storm?” John asked. He’d managed it before, but that had been a blizzard of his own creation.

“Yes. I told Lafi’shir that I thought you might have the endurance to do it. He’s waiting for you.” Saimura gestured up the trail to where Lafi’shir waited. John urged his tahldi ahead. The buck’s ears flicked up. It bounded forward, barely pulling to a halt as John reined it in beside Lafi’shir’s mount.

At the head of the trail, the full force of the wind and snow drove down onto them. Lafi’shir’s eyes were barely visible between his ice-encrusted scarf and snow-caked hood. John quickly pulled his own scarf up. The humid scent of wool and his own breath wrapped around him.

Lafi’shir lifted one gloved hand and signed his displeasure at the brutal cold. We don’t have time for this shit. Sai says you can break it. Do it.

Yes, sir, John signed back.

John closed his eyes and lifted his hands up so that the full force of the wind poured over his fingers. He felt the vast expanse of the storm rolling up and out for miles. Currents of ice crashed against the hard faces of mountains. Winds howled together, tearing moisture from clouds and hurling it aside.

John reached up into the maelstrom. He concentrated on the hard, driving gale. Its force rushed over him and he pulled it deep into his body. He tasted ice in his mouth. His lungs ached with cold.

 The air stilled.

 Then another frigid wind hammered down on the mountain trail. John shuddered. It wouldn’t be enough to drink in single gusts of wind; at the same time he didn’t trust himself to draw down the entire storm. If he lost control of the storm, then they could all be buried under miles of snow.