Rojuun (7 page)

Liselle shifted on the saddle to get
comfortable. “So you stayed with the monks for a year. Why did you
leave the monastery?”

“They wanted me to join them and become a
monk.” His face twisted in displeasure. “I was not going to become
a monk. I didn’t mind working for them while they taught me, but I
didn’t want to join.”

“Ahh, so where did you go then?” she
asked.

“I traveled to a city in the Kingdom of
Swelth. It astounded me at the time, though I know now that it was
small.” He smiled in remembrance at his naiveté. “From there I
traveled to different cities and countries. It was amazing.”

“That doesn’t explain where you learned the
sword,” she pointed out.

Tathan sighed and chewed on his lower lip
while deciding what to tell her. “I picked up the basics when I was
a caravan guard for a while. I had a natural talent for it.”

“A caravan guard? How long did you do that?”
Liselle seemed fascinated.

“For a while, but one caravan I was helping
to guard was attacked. Everyone died except me. I killed a few of
the attackers and the rest ran off when another caravan came
along,” he said with a dark look upon his face.

“Oh. It was good that the other caravan came
along, yes?”

He shook his head. “It was a rival company.
Their guards captured me and said they would take me to the next
town to accuse me of betraying the caravan and then I’d be put to
death.” His jaw was set in anger at the memory.

Liselle looked at him with a worried
expression. “I’m so sorry, Tathan. How did you survive that?”

“A guard I had worked with taught me how to
pick locks on shackles and I was able to get away in the darkness
that night.” He chuckled mischievously. “I traveled to the capital
city of Lasseria in the Kingdom of Deller, where I was caught
trying to steal some food. While running away from guards,
something hit me as I was passing an alley.”

“You certainly have a knack for getting into
trouble, Cousin,” she said in amazement.

He grinned. “Yes. Anyway, my theft and
escape had been noticed by a thief’s guild. They were the ones who
knocked me out. They took me into their guildhall and told me to
join them. So I did.”

“Tathan! You’re a thief?!” she asked in
disbelief. “Why would you join them?”

“Well . . . It was either I join them, or
they would kill me for stealing in their territory. I decided it
would be more enjoyable to live,” he said with a sad smile toward
her.

Liselle considered his words. It sounded as
though many things had gone wrong for him. Yet he rode next to her,
still alive. His story made her think the life of an adventurer
might not be quite so wonderful. “So . . . You really are a thief,
Cousin?” She studied his eyes to gauge the truth of his
response.

He didn’t answer right away. It was clear
that he didn’t want to answer at all. He pulled his horse to a
stop. “Yes. Like I said earlier; I’m a thief, a rogue and even a
killer.”

She stopped her horse and frowned. “What am
I supposed to do with that, Cousin?”

“Do with it? What do you mean, ‘do with
it’?” Tathan was frustrated. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it.
“You asked me questions. I answered them. If you don’t want to
know, don’t ask!” Then he galloped away.

***

Liselle stared at him in shock as he rode
off. Then the tears welled up once more. “No!” she yelled, not
wanting to cry again. It was ineffective and the sobs racked her
body as she sat on her horse, not knowing what to do.

It took a while for the tears to subside.
When they did, she looked around. Tathan was nowhere to be seen.
Clouds were thickening in the sky. The smell of rain soon to come
was sharp. “How could he just leave me here?!” she yelled in
outrage. Thunder rumbled in the distance, echoing her anger.

She gripped the reins and moved forward,
slowly at first, then into a gallop. The horse she rode was small,
but strong and the packhorse followed easily. Liselle leaned
forward instinctively and the horses ran even faster. It felt good
to ride hard with air rushing past her face and her braid thumping
up and down on her back.

She slowed after a while. Her anger had
subsided and she just wanted to find Tathan. Looking at the ground,
she saw the hoof prints he had left. She followed the tracks,
putting her jacket on and lifting the hood up over her head when it
began to rain.

Tathan was waiting underneath a large stone
overhang at the side of a hill. Liselle guided her horses into the
large area before dismounting. He had even put a rabbit on a spit
over a small fire.

Liselle listened to the rain coming down
harder. Lightning brightened the sky momentarily. A few moments
later, thunder rolled down from the mountains. Gusts whipped loose
strands of hair about her face. She breathed in deeply as Tathan
finished with the horses.

“This is a nice place to camp,” she said.
There would be a great deal more to say, but it was a start.

“I found it when I was younger. It was fun
to explore the valley.” He paused for a moment then said, “I’m
sorry I left you. You have every right to be mad.”

“That’s good, because I
am
mad. You
left me out there by myself.” The ride had given her time to calm
down and handle the conversation maturely.

He stared at the fire. “I wanted to give you
the opportunity to leave in a different direction should you not
want to travel with a killer.”

“Don’t be condescending, Tathan! I
want
to travel with you.” She threw her arms up in
exasperation. “What I
don’
t want is for you to be a
killer!”

He moved his gaze to her. The expression in
his eyes was solemn. “You saw how I fought those warriors. I
learned to fight like that in the guild and other places. There
were a few guilds in the city and they were always fighting. The
one I was in was destroyed by a rival guild.”

Liselle put her hands on her hips. “You seem
to get into a lot of trouble, Cousin.”

“I know, right?” he agreed with another
mischievous chuckle. “I escaped the city and went to another,
Dralin in the country of Altordan. It’s a crazy place of magic and
wizards.” Tathan motioned for her to sit as he continued. “In
Dralin, I took a few small jobs before working for a wizard as his
bodyguard. Eventually I left and rambled wherever my feet took me,”
he finished with a smile.

“It sounds as though you’ve had an amazing,
but dangerous life, Cousin.” Liselle looked out at the rain coming
down as he offered her a plate of rabbit with roots and bread. “You
said you were a killer. Does that mean you kill people for fun? Do
you enjoy it?” she asked.

He looked at her in shock. “Enjoy it? . .
.”

“Yes. Do you kill because you like killing?”
she asked.

“I . . . No. No, no, no,” he said, shaking
his head. “I don’t enjoy it, but I’m good at it. I do what I feel
is needed.” Tathan looked at her intently. “I promise you that I do
not kill for fun. I don’t
like
killing.”

“Do you like thieving?” she asked, curious.
Lightning struck nearby, illuminating the camp in eerie light. She
felt a drop of rain splatter into their shelter and hit the side of
her face.

“I . . . well, yes.” His fingers fidgeted
with his plate. “It’s challenging and fun.”

“You are odd, Cousin, but you’ve been honest
with me about everything. I just don’t understand you,” she
said.

“You’re my family, Liselle. The only family
I have left,” he told her. “I’m being brutally honest with you,
even though I know you may hate me and leave. I would rather you
hate me now than find out later and hate me then.” He hung his head
in dejection.

She came over and hugged him. “I don’t hate
you, Cousin. We need each other right now and I’ll figure out how
to deal with the rest.”

He returned the hug and they held onto each
other for strength. It rained for the rest of the evening and into
the night. The occasional lightning and distant thunder was oddly
comforting.

Chapter
7

“Aaaggghhhh!” Tathan woke with a scream,
sword swinging through the air as he jumped out of his sleeping
bag. He landed on his toes, looking for danger.

Liselle jerked awake. Her sleeping roll was
wrapped around her and she struggled to get out. When she did,
Tathan was standing there looking sheepish. “There’s no danger
Cousin. It was just a nightmare.”

“Oh. Well I’m awake now and dawn is showing.
We may as well grab some food and head out.” She shot a sideways
glance at him, wondering if the nightmare was about the attack. She
had woken up with a nightmare too, just without the screaming and
sword waving.

Breakfast was quick and simple. As the sun
rose, they mounted the horses to continue their journey in silence.
Liselle had never been this far north in the valley and spent a
good deal of time looking at the scenery. The rugged eastern
mountains were closer, still capped with snow. Liselle loved
spring. It was striking how green the grass and trees were.
Brilliantly colored flowers opened and bloomed as the day went on.
She smiled happily and pointed them out to Tathan.

“Hmm? Flowers? Yes. They are very nice. It’s
like a rainbow barfed all over the grass,” he said. She stared at
him slack-jawed as he went back to riding, lost in thought.

With a shake of her head and a chuckle at
his careless disregard for beauty, she continued to look around.
Green forests covered the east and west slopes up to the frost
line. The mountains were lower in the north toward the Willden
Forest.

They reached the edge of the forest in the
middle of the afternoon, just as thunderclouds were beginning to
gather. Thunderstorms every single afternoon became tedious after a
while. When Tathan put on a hooded cloak to protect him from the
rain, she slipped into her jacket and put its hood over her head.
They turned east at the tree line and Tathan began to search
intently for his path.

It was well hidden. Had someone been looking
at the trees straight ahead, or traveling to the west, they would
have missed it. The path opened to the side with underbrush
covering the entrance. They carefully made their way through. From
there, it curved to the north, going deeper and deeper into the
forest.

Tall trees bordered the path, but never grew
directly on it. Drizzle pattered the leaves of plants and
wildflowers covering the ground along with old fallen tree trunks
and moss covered rocks. The smell of moist wood was strong. A deer
watched them ride by, completely unafraid. Squirrels, rabbits and
various other small woodland creatures darted everywhere. Birds of
all types flitted from branch to branch singing a myriad of
songs.

“This is about as far as I was ever brave
enough to venture,” Tathan said. “It’s an awe-inspiring forest and
a little intimidating too.”

“If this is the farthest you’ve ever been,
how do you know where the path goes, or that it goes anywhere?” she
asked suspiciously.

“Well, I
don’t
know.” he said
sheepishly. “I always had the feeling it went somewhere. It’s an
instinct I suppose.”

“So we’re traveling on a path through a
dangerous, possibly haunted, forest because you
think
it
goes somewhere.”

He looked up the path ahead. “I know it goes
somewhere. That’s not enough for most people, but I have a good
feeling about this.”

Liselle rubbed her face with both hands. It
wasn’t much to go on, but she didn’t have any better ideas.
“Alright. It doesn’t look like we have anywhere else to go, so
we’ll find out one way or another.”

He nodded his head and continued. “I don’t
think it’s haunted if that’s any consolation. It’s just a big,
scary forest with standard violent beasts like dragons, bears and
that sort of thing. I doubt there are many ghosts.”

Liselle rolled her eyes. “Oh, that makes me
feel much better. Thanks, Cousin.”

“No problem, any time, I’m here for you.”
Tathan grinned when she playfully glared at him.

A pleasant clearing with a stream running
through it made a nice camp for the night. Tathan took care of the
horses while Liselle gathered wood to set up a fire pit. Once
everything was set, she sat down on a small log and debated whether
to light the damp wood with flint and tinder, or use her magic.
Tathan hadn’t said much about the spells she had cast yet, so she
wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Tathan came over, made a gesture with his
hand and spoke a word. Red flames swirled from his fingertips to
ignite the wood. Liselle’s jaw dropped in amazement. After that, he
just went back to setting up the rest of the camp as though he had
done nothing out of the ordinary.

“Tathan . . .”

He turned to look at her, wondering at the
tone of her voice. “Yes, Cousin?”

She stood and gestured toward the fire. “You
didn’t tell me that you could do magic. And so casually too! Where
did you learn it?”

“I picked it up along the way.” He took a
tripod with a pot and set them over the campfire. Then he poured
water in and began adding roots and vegetables. “Magic is very
useful. Most people can learn a trick or two, but few have any
talent.”

“I can light a fire, but it’s always blue,”
she said.

“Always blue? Blue, purple, green and other
colors are all magical fires and more difficult to create than
regular fire.” A puzzled look crossed his face. “How did you first
learn to cast a spell? I’m curious.”

The fact that Tathan knew about magic
excited Liselle. “It was after I became a young woman. I could feel
something in me.”

Tathan nodded. “The mind and body of a child
aren’t capable of handling the forces of magic. It comes with
maturity. It grows stronger as a person ages. When they get older,
it begins to decline.”