Wanderling (Spirit Seeker Book 1) (8 page)

The
sun’s rays peeked at her between the gaps in the canopy ceiling when Adala woke
to the sound of the door unlatching. She sprang to a sitting position and
scrambled to the back wall, too disoriented to guess what may come through the
door.

A
young girl, perhaps 13 years old, stepped through the doorway with a bowl of
steamed oats and a cup of water. “Just your dinner,” she said, setting the cup
and bowl on the cot. Four guards lurked behind her, two of them with swords
already drawn.

Adala
snatched the dishes as the girl backed away.

“Eat
quickly,” the girl recommended, tucking a stray hair into her braid. “The
guards will take you to see Burano soon.”

By
the time she heard the door bolt, Adala had gulped down the cup of water,
savoring each and every drop. The oats disappeared just as rapidly. Plain,
mushy oats had never tasted so good.

After
a few minutes, two scruffy guards entered and took Adala’s arms, escorting her
painfully to Burano’s room.

The
bearded commander stood stooped over a pile of maps when Adala entered.

“You
may release her,” he said, looking up.

Adala
sighed with relief as the guards released her arms. She rubbed her aching
shoulders, cringing to discover fresh bruises coating her skin.

“I
have come to an agreement with your brother,” said Burano. “He has promised to
cooperate as long as you are treated with respect. You will be fed full
rations, will always have a place to sleep, and will not be sold as a wife to
any of our men. I clearly cannot allow you to go free. You’re too much trouble.
Therefore, I vowed to keep you safe and privileged in our little community as
long as you agree not to cause a stir. Will you cooperate?”

“I
don’t have much of a choice.”

Burano
shrugged. “You are quite weathered from your exploits. I will have Sarah put a
wash basin and fresh clothes in your room. You have shown more recklessness
than any woman I’ve seen, coming here to steal your brother back. But now is
the time to work together, you see? Because if you cause trouble or manage to
escape, we will not only find you, but we will punish your brother for your
disobedience. Are we clear?”

“Very.”
Adala’s blood boiled with his every syllable.

“Good.”
Burano gestured to his guards, and they left the room.

When
they were alone, the leader put a hand on Adala’s shoulder as if she were a
good friend. She shivered.

“Now,
I have a special project for you—almost as important as what your brother is
working on with the maps.” He took her to the corner and gestured toward a
crate sitting there. “This will be your desk. I am going to have you reading
scripts to me and copying them from time to time. You may sit.”

Adala
side-stepped the little wooden crate and sat on the dirt floor. “Comfy,” she
said dryly.

Burano
dug through his trunk and emerged with a strip of smooth leather and a quill.

“Where
is my brother?” she asked as he laid the writing materials on her crate.

“He
is resting in a safe place,” Burano informed her. “I assure you, he is being
treated quite well. In the mean-time, I want you to focus on your work. Most
days, you will be reading to me. If I hear anything important that I want to
copy down, however, I will ask you to write the passage on these scraps of
leather. Now, show me what your writing is like—the letters should be as tall
as my thumb is wide. Try it now.”

“What
do you want me to write?” Adala asked.

“Anything.
Write your name.”

She
dipped the quill and laid it to the smooth leather sheet Burano laid in front
of her. Her letters were even and clear, the way she wrote in the ship’s log:
A-D-A—

“No,
no, they need to be
big,
” interrupted Burano. “I told you, the size of
my thumb. I can barely see those letters.”

Adala
studied the face of her captor, from his black beard to the branded H on his
forehead. “You carry the brand for hubris,” she said quietly. The crime of
reaching higher than one’s standing. “Someone well-connected enough to commit
that crime surely knows how to read and write on his own.”

The
man’s dark eyes narrowed. “Write your letters, little girl,” he said quietly.

She
dipped the quill again and wrote in exaggerated, angry letters: “ADALA DAUGHTER
OF RABAN, PRISONER OF BURANO THE ILLITERATE HALF-WIT.”

Burano
took the strip of leather and held it at an arm’s length, scanning the letters.
His lip twitched and brow creased with irritation. “You think you’re clever,
Adala, daughter of Raban. But you would do well never to mock me again.”

She
smiled. “You can read, your eyes have just failed you,” she said quietly. “You
want me to copy everything in big letters because you’re too old to see the
script and you—”

“Silence,”
he barked in a harsh, authoritative tone. “Do not speak unless spoken to. For
the rest of the day, I don’t want to hear anything but the script from my books
and scrolls.” He dug violently through his trunk and emerged with a weathered
book, so old its binding had split into two volumes. “Start at the beginning
and don’t stop reading until it is too dark for you to read.”

Adala
surveyed the tiny script over yellowed book pages and began to read. “Before
man ruled this earth, before life christened the expanse of nothingness, and
before the earth, the air and the sea came into being, the gods arose to rule
the cosmos. They arose forth from the Creator’s flesh. Tiscus, the god of
knowledge, came from his head; Shayanna, the goddess of bravery, from his
heart; Celia, goddess of peace, from his hands; Weatherbie, god of youth and
beauty, sprung from his loins.

“What
is this?” Adala said. “What use could you have with these myths?”

“Keep
reading,” Burano said. “Don’t ask questions.”

She
turned back to the cosmogony. Burano listened to the tale, reclined on his cot
with eyes closed in concentration. The story told of the first humans, Hasha
and Aradese, made by the Creator to govern the gods’ creation with solemnity
and peace. The gods created their own children: the wood nymphs and sea nymphs;
dwarves and giants; centaurs and fauns; sprites and elves. All the magical
beings ruled in harmony with humans, multiplying and spreading throughout the
earth. But the seed of envy planted itself in the hearts of men, and they began
waging war against each other, and then against the children of the gods. The
magical beings retaliated, waging war against man and other races. The
slaughter was horrific, nearly ending all humankind. That was when the gods
came together and bound the magical creatures by the old laws, forbidding the
harm of any mortal. From that point on, man’s numbers grew and the magical
beings dwindled, until eventually they were only heard of in whispers and
tales.

“You
may stop there for today,” Burano said quietly as Adala was about to begin the
tale of the first king of Old Sabria. She tucked the loose pages together into
the bind of the book and studied the bearded villain before her. He ran a hand
through his mane of grey-streaked hair and sighed with what appeared to be
satisfaction.

“It’s
like meeting an old friend again after decades,” he whispered.

Adala
knew at once that he meant the quality of the words, the familiarity of high
speech that was so rare in her own city and even more diluted in the crude
accents of her criminal captors. She never had much use for the old tales
herself, but her father used to read aloud from his single book of poetry while
they were at sea, just to “wash out the sailor language” from her vocabulary,
and used to give the same satisfied expression after reading the fluid words.

“You
will come again tomorrow, and we will read the rest of this volume,” he said,
voice soft and wistful.

Adala
eased the pages shut and stood as Burano brought in one of the guards to escort
her. “When will I see Shem?” she asked. The question hung in the air for a
second. Deciding to play the weakness role, she softened her tone; “May I see
my brother?”

“I
can’t trust you to talk to him,” Burano said. “And besides, I need him for more
tests.”

“What
kind of tests?”

“I
have to be certain his gift is reliable before I gamble on it,” he said. “Take
her back,” he added with finality, and before Adala could utter more questions
she was wrenched out the doorway and guided forcefully to her holding cell.

Adala
leaned against the stone wall of her cell as the door slammed shut behind her,
closing her eyes to alleviate the pounding of her head. Every joint in her body
hurt to move; even breathing seemed a chore after reading to Burano for a few
hours. How long had she read? Half the day, perhaps? She sighed. His final
words haunted her.
I have to be certain his gift is reliable.
She might
have laughed if her situation wasn’t so dire.
This man is a believer,
she thought to herself,
placing his hopes on some fabricated magical ability
he is projecting onto my brother.
She smiled despite herself, but then
scowled. Her thoughts drifted to Shem’s episode the morning before he was
kidnapped.
Georgetta believed him, that Father died at sea,
she thought.
What if she thought he was some sort of seer and sold the information to
Burano?
Adala gritted her teeth. She had never trusted that witch.
When
I get home safely with Shem, I will have to pay that witch a visit,
she
thought.

The
bolt outside her door scraped, and in came the girl who had delivered
breakfast, Sarah. She carried a wooden bowl with water. “For your wounds,” she
said, setting it on the ground by the door. Behind her loomed the guards,
always watching.

Adala
reached for the bowl at the girl’s feet and paused. “My boots,” she whispered,
startled. Sarah’s browned, spindly legs ended in sturdy boots that were too long
for someone with so small a frame.

The
girl balked at that statement, jaw falling open. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know!”
she whispered.

“I’m
not going to fight you for them,” Adala said, a bit more harshly than she meant
to. “You aren’t the thug who pried them off my feet.” She glanced longingly at
the boots, her feet growing even more sore at the sight of them.

“I
need to have words with that thug,” Sarah said quickly, her lips pressed into a
thin line. She turned on her heel and left, and the door thudded shut behind
her.

Adala
sat for a moment in silence. Her mind, occupied for days now with the drive to
win her brother back, felt numb and stagnant, unable to calculate a plan B. She
mechanically reached into the bowl of water and found a tattered rag. With it
she wiped the scum of travel and bits of dried blood from her face and neck,
then removed her shirt to wash her limbs. They were riddled with cuts and black
bruises. She didn’t even remember the blows from each fight that caused them;
the whole night was a blur in her memory now. And Shem, little innocent Shem,
was not any closer to freedom after all her efforts.

Adala’s
eyes stung with welled-up tears. “I let you down, Father,” she whispered. “You
wouldn’t have let them get away with Shem in the first place. You would have
protected Mother.” The thought of her mother’s last moments brought another
memory to Adala. Her mother’s dying words floated in her mind. What had they
been exactly? She told her daughter to protect Shem, to save him. “It’s what
you were raised to do,” she had said. Adala bit her cheek to keep the tears of
shame from spilling down her cheeks. The words didn’t make complete sense to
her—why would her parents think that she should be her brother’s sole
protector?—but the distinct sting of her failure to fulfill this duty made her
sink onto her cot defeatedly.

“I’ve
got to keep trying,” she whispered. She knew she couldn’t do anything now; her
body would take weeks to recover, and she needed that time to plan an escape.
But she couldn’t accept defeat, not while she was still able to walk. And she
could never return without her brother. If her father
was
still alive,
something she was very confused about after Shem’s tearful revelation, she
could never face him after failing to bring his son home.

The
door swung open abruptly, interrupting her thoughts. A guard threw down a pile
of clothes and departed just as hastily as he arrived, the door slamming shut
behind him. Adala sorted through the bundle, discovering a ratty blanket,
shirt, and a brown skirt.

Below
the skirt lay her boots, leather wiped clean and straps tied up neatly.

By
the time the sun began to rise on the horizon, Sarah was already up, fetching
their daily ration of water at the well and sitting down to work at her loom.

Tobin
greeted her as he rose, yawning. Today was his first day of combat training,
and Jarod had been assigned as his instructor. It was sure to be a long day.

Sarah
coldly ignored his morning greeting, focusing on her weaving.

“Is
there any breakfast?” Tobin asked.

“I
don’t know,” Sarah replied. “Maybe you could go steal some breakfast from a
defenseless woman and then lie to me about it. That sounds about right.”

So
that’s how it’s going to be,
he thought, sighing. After last night’s
lecture, he hoped the topic would come to rest. He would have to make some kind
of gesture to apologize about the stolen boots. Until then, at least she was
going with the quieter, passive-aggressive treatment instead of yelling at him
more.

Tobin
tied up his bedroll and met the morning air with determination despite his
sister’s silent anger. He knew the best way to soften her temper would be to
ignore her, but he could feel her bristling as he ate a breakfast of dried
coyote meat and a stale piece of bread. He had other things on his mind besides
appeasing her wrath. He was, after all, about to join the ranks of Wanderling
soldiers.

When
he arrived at the clearing on the south side of the village, where the soldiers
trained, Jarod was waiting for him, leaning with both hands propped on the hilt
of a bulky wooden sword.

“You’re
late,” Jarod barked. “Let’s begin.”

Tobin
raised an eyebrow at the pile of armor on the packed dirt. Chainmail, shields,
helms, wooden swords and other weapons Tobin didn’t recognize. Around him, the
clearing was alive with action, soldiers sparring in full armor everywhere he
looked. He dodged sideways as Ollie ran past in an uneven path, wielding a
wooden mace and panting beneath a heavy breastplate.

“Why
are you sparring with armor now?” Tobin asked. He couldn’t recall ever seeing a
soldier in full armor. The heat made it unrealistic, and they hardly ever saw
battle anyway. Most of Burano’s soldiers were over-glorified patrolmen, and
only saw battle in the occasional dispute with the desert clans. Most of those
turned into bloodbaths anyway, with the Wanderlings on the bloodier end of
things.

“Burano’s
orders,” said Jarod. “It’s important, if we ever come to a battle, to be
accustomed to the weight of the armor. However, since this is your first day of
sparring, we will start without armor. I want to see how you fare in a
bare-handed fight.”

Tobin
nodded. In his time in the desert, he had learned to fight and shoot alongside
the fierce young Roharian men, so defensive responses to simple attacks and
punches were not new to him.

Tobin
stood opposite his trainer. Jarod rolled his neck and said, “Okay, now if an
opponent approaches you like this,” he said, stepping forward slow-motion to
swing a fist towards Tobin’s face.

Tobin
adopted a defensive stance and swatted away Jarod’s slow-motion punch with the
palm of his hand.

“Good.
What about a stomach punch?” Jarod said, and suddenly sprung forward full-speed
and walloped Tobin in the gut, taking the breath out of him.

Tobin
staggered backwards, clutching his stomach. “That was foul play,” he breathed.

“I
gave you warning,” Jarod said with a shrug. “You should be ready to defend
yourself in a fist fight. I’ve seen you spar with the other lookout boys when
you should be on duty. Let me show you how a man fights.”

Again,
Jarod stepped forward and reached back to throw a swing into Tobin’s stomach.

Instinct
took over, and Tobin seized Jarod’s shoulders and neck, pulling downward and
kneeing him in the face.

“Sorry,”
he stammered, startled that his attack had gone through, “I didn’t mean for it
to be that hard.”

Jarod
groaned, clutching his nose.

“Are
you all right?” Tobin asked, stepping forward.

Jarod
threw a punch, and this one took Tobin by surprise again, hitting him squarely
in the face, where his nose had just recovered from his fight with Adala. His
eyes watered from the sting, but he quickly regained his footing.

“Show
me what you’ve got, Tobin. Show me why your people are called savages,” Jarod
spat on the ground.

Tobin
backed up and bent his knees to remain grounded in a defensive stance.

When
Jarod attacked, it was fast. He swung for the face, and Tobin raised an arm to
deflect the blow, stepping to the side.

“Not
going to hit back?” Jarod taunted, flinging a punch again.

Tobin
tried to deflect again, but the blow struck the edge of his jaw.

“Come
on, you rat. Give me your best shot.”

Jarod
stepped forward to punch again, but Tobin was ahead of him this time. When
Jarod’s arm shot out to land a punch, Tobin grabbed it as he stepped aside,
yanking Jarod off balance. He took his trainer’s fist and twisted it, pulling
his arm behind his back so he was doubled over in pain.

Jarod
writhed in pain, but then jutted out his boot and kicked backwards hard,
hitting Tobin’s shin full-force.

Tobin
lost his grip, and suddenly Jarod had turned around and was upon him, throwing
punch after punch. Tobin dodged and deflected, but he felt himself growing
weak. Half of the blows struck him in the face, and he found himself retreating
backwards through the crowd of sparring soldiers. All around them people turned
to watch as Tobin ducked and tried to punch back, but his movements were slow
and sluggish. Jarod’s broad arms struck him with brute force that Tobin could
not match.

He
did this on purpose,
thought Tobin.
He wants to humiliate me on my first
day to tear down my spirits.

“Don’t
want to fight back?” Jarod taunted, stepping inward.

Tobin
mirrored his movements, stepping back.

“Maybe
rats don’t fight, they just run away.”

Tobin
gritted his teeth and landed a solid right hook straight into Jarod’s stomach.

In
response, Jarod grabbed his head while it was low and pulled him into a
headlock under one arm.

Tobin
felt his neck squeezed in the crook of Jarod’s arm, and he struggled for
breath.

“Remember
this feeling, you disgusting desert cockroach,” Jarod said, loudly enough for
the whole crowd to hear. “This is what it feels like to be put in your place.”

With
that, Tobin felt himself released suddenly from the vice grip on his neck, and
Jarod shoved him backwards, hard.

Tobin
tripped on something and landed painfully in a heap of what he realized was the
pile of armor and fighting  equipment. Somewhere underneath him a wooden
sword was poking him.

His
face grew hot with anger as the crowd laughed.

“It’s
nearly midday, rookie,” Ollie said, emerging from the crowd with a slight frown
on his face and offering Tobin a hand. “Time to get some rest. You and I have
guard duty on the girl’s cell tonight.”

Tobin
took his hand reluctantly, relieved to see the others going back to their
business.

“See
you tomorrow at sunrise,” hollered Jarod, leaving the camp.

“You
did well, considering,” Ollie said, following Tobin’s glare at Jarod’s back.
“If he’s being a jackass in the future, I suggest you remember that he was
stabbed in the hand by a girl recently. It helps you not take him too
seriously, you know?”

Tobin
allowed himself to crack a smile. “An amusing image,” he said.

“I
want to share a drink with that girl for putting him in his place,” Ollie said
with a throaty laugh.

“I
do too,” Tobin said quietly.