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Topiara - Chapter 25
Jilan's arrow had brought down two small hares while Farranby and Lyara had been collecting firewood and adding the captured ponies to the four they had had before and currying all eight. Lyara and Jilan had both harts skinned and spitted by the time Farranby came close to the fire and tossed the currycomb at the stack of bundles. He sniffed appreciatively. "I'd forgotten how good a wilderness cook you were, Lyara. Makes traveling with you worth the trip."
"I'm going to miss the tubers again," Jilan remarked, prodding at the flames to make it burn more evenly. "We were in Tandri long enough for me to remember how much I used to love those things."
"Well, guess what I talked Erla out of before we left?" Lyara grinned and dug in the bundle at her feet, pulling three of the thick, brown roots out with a flour ish. "What do you say to having them baked?"
Jilan clapped his approval, and Farranby eyed the size and bulk of Lyara's bundle with an amused expression. "I assume that those aren't the only ones in there, right? Or is this a once only delicacy?"
Lyara looked at him with feigned surprise. "Now, do you really expect me to give away all my secrets?" She pierced each tuber with a long and pointed stick and pushed them one by one into the ashes below the flames. "They should be done when the meat is."
"So you didn't find the little cousin," Farranby said, settling down close to the fire. "All that uproar and upset for nothing."
Jilan looked at Lyara. "We never said we didn't find him."
Farranby leaned forward, intrigued. "You mean you did find him? Then why..."
"Leave it to say that we had our reasons," Lyara stated with a note of finality, returning her attention to rotating the spitted hares over the flames. "Maybe reasons not understandable to Rodayn Torbishahn or the King, but good reasons nonetheless."
Jilan nodded thoughtfully, then looked over at Lyara again. "It all worked out for the best in the end for everybody concerned." Lyara looked up and met his gaze evenly for a long moment.
Farranby cleared his throat, being suddenly very aware of something going on between the other two that he was no part of. The sound broke the look between Jilan and Lyara.
"Jilan told me earlier that you are Kauwlut, Lyara," Far ranby tried again.
"Yes," she acknowledged quietly. "You didn't tell Master Dilan about that, did you? Did you know he would have probably sent you back to the Guide's hall on your ear if he'd known?" Farranby asked her with a smile.
"No," she admitted truthfully. "I just didn't think it was very important."
"Is that why you took him north to look for his cous in?"
Lyara glanced at Jilan and then back. "Why do you want to know?"
Farranby shrugged. "Interested, that's all. After all the fun we had delivering Dynia, you were quite the subject of the hall when you took Jilan off on his little forbidden quest."
Lyara relaxed. "I suppose Dynia was hoping that I'd get myself killed or worse."
Farranby laughed aloud. "Much worse, believe me!"
"Dynia?" Jilan asked, looking at the both of them. "Not the daughter-in-law of Master Dilan?"
"The same," Lyara said with a wry face.
"Oh, I feel for you!" Jilan chuckled. "I was at the university with her brother. The things he used to tell me about his sister..." He broke off again as his chuckles became laughter. "I hear she's found religion now."
Farranby shook his head slowly with a painful expres sion on his face that made both of his comrades laugh. "I don't know how we kept from leaving her for the highwaymen, Lyara. I do know that there are some in the household who think we should have."
The laughter and chuckles died down slowly. Lyara continued to nurse the spitted meat while Jilan, out of old habit, set about cleaning the hides. Farranby sat, seem ingly comfortable in the silence, staring into the flames. Eventually, Lyara looked up at him. "You must have quite a story to tell too, Farranby. How in the name of all the gods did you end up learning to hunt with the Vryies?"
Farranby grunted and poked at the fire with his stick. "Its a long story," he admitted, then looked up. "Before I took a position with Master Dilan, I wandered around the countryside. My family..." He looked down as if to collect his thoughts and get control of himself. "I'd disowned my brother and didn't have a family anymore, so I really didn't have anywhere to go. I ended up close to Yrbia when the uprising happened."
"I learned about that," Jilan nodded and turned to Lyara. "The Vryies came out of the forests for trade, like they always did, and the local aristocracy took it into their heads to try a slave raid. There were a lot of people killed on both sides."
Farranby nodded. "I'd been staying at a farmhold owned by a very nice, very old couple. We ended up directly in the path of a retaliatory foray by the Vryies."
Lyara shivered and reached for her cloak. "So you ended up a slave of the Vryies?"
"No," Farranby shook his head. "The Vryies only attack when attacked first. I talked my hosts out of trying to defend the farm by force, and the Vryies left them in peace. I was curious -- I'd been around the area long enough to have seen the trading parties and learn a little of their language here and there -- so I decided I'd travel with them." He looked at them and shrugged again. "Why not? I always was a little bit on the adventurous side."
Jilan's knife had ceased moving during Farranby's narrative. "How long did you stay with them?" he asked in a curious voice.
"Almost two years."
"Why did you leave?" Lyara seated herself next to him.
"If you stayed for two years, you must have liked it there," Jilan commented, nodding at Lyara's question.
Farranby shrugged again. "There was a certain kind of peace, living in those forests -- a feeling of being close to whatever deity one wishes to worship. I guess the truth of the matter is that the wander bug bit me again. I don't know, maybe I got tired of nothing but forests and cities in forests and wanted to go back to the intrigue and excitement of Talandria."
"Cities in the forests?" Jilan sat up straighter. "Really?"
Farranby looked up at him. "Oh yes. The Vryies are quite civilized in their own way. There is a regular organization of classes, from the lowly hunters and servants to the Rotal and his family at the very top."
"Rotal?" Lyara prompted.
"The King or supreme leader. He's also the head of their religion."
"Did you ever think of taking all the things you saw and heard there to the university?" Jilan asked excitedly. "Everything we know about the Vryies is hearsay. There's nothing firsthand."
"Right," Farranby's voice was tainted with bitterness. "The pride of the Talandri aristocracy would listen to the tales of a former scoundrel like me, who was wanted in at least two parts of the land for crimes?"
Jilan ducked his head. "Yeah, I suppose not." He shook his head and looked at Lyara. "I'd forgotten that part. The powers at the university would have considered the source of the information almost as important as the information itself."
Lyara snorted, once more amazed at the arrogance and ignorance of the Talandri aristocracy. She looked over at Jilan. "I sure am glad you don't consider yourself any part of them anymore." She reached out and tested the meat. "This is done."
Jilan finished tying the second hide to a drying frame and set it aside, huddling deeper into his cloak at a gust of chilled wind. Across the low-burning fire, Farranby reclined against his saddle with his cloak pulled tight around his shoulders. Both men looked up as Lyara returned to the fire from checking on the ponies. She sat down close to the fire and put the last of the larger branches into the center of the circle of stones.
"How soon do you think we can turn southeast, Farran by?" Jilan broke into the silence. "Will Vinzen figure out what we're up to if we skirt Tandri and head southeast once we're past?"
Farranby thought for a moment before answering. "If we barter the ponies in the first village north of here tomorrow, then turn east for one whole day, we should be able to go almost straight south towards the Straits. And as for Vinzen," he paused and took a deep breath, "he shouldn't start wondering what's happened until tomorrow morning at the earliest."
"And it will be the day after that before he could get a party together you said," Lyara remembered from their previous conversation on the subject.
"Unless his lines of communication are better than they were when I rode with him." Farranby sighed. "Just getting to the Straits and getting a boat capable of get ting across at this time of year will be the easy part." He stirred and sat up straighter. "You never did tell me why you were going after him," he said pointedly at Lyara.
Lyara's face in the flickering light was void of expression. "It wasn't my idea, believe me. Vinzen wants something that I have and is willing to kill me, Jilan, Karlo, or any other Guide to get it. I decided it might be better for everybody else if I went to Vinzen instead of waiting for him to come to me."
"Karlo!" Farranby stared. "I thought it was highway men who killed him. You mean this all started on your first trip north, when we brought Dynia back?"
Lyara nodded. "I can't tell you much more than that, Farranby. What I can tell you is that it is very important that we find Vinzen and get back something else that he's stolen."
It was Jilan's turn to stare. "You mean we're going across the Varren Straits to steal from a master thief?"
Lyara looked at him. "We have to. You wanted to ride with me, remember?" She turned to face Farranby. "I know you want revenge for something. I don't want to know what or why. Just get us on that rock alive. Then you can do whatever it is that you feel you have to do, and I'll do what I have to do."
"What does he have to do with all of this?" Farranby asked, nodding in Jilan's direction.
"Vinzen knows that he's with me and threatened him," Lyara answered simply. "He decided to come along instead of sitting and waiting."
"No, that's not the whole story," Farranby disagreed. "It can't be."
"No, but the rest is between Lyara and me," Jilan said firmly, bringing Farranby's eyebrows up. "I really don't think it's any of your business."
"Um." For a moment, Farranby was at a loss for words. "All right, then. At least now I know where I can step, huh?" He leaned back against his saddle. "That does make a difference."
"Farranby," Lyara began, giving Jilan a glare. "Let me explain..."
"No, no, Lyara. Its fine, really." Farranby's voice held no trace of being offended or angry. "I'd already got the idea that there was something between the two of you."
"Jilan!" she growled in disgust.
"Leave him alone," Farranby counseled. "I can't blame him for being jealous. I should have said something a long time ago." He waved a hand at Jilan. "Settle down. I understand, believe me. And I won't intrude." He looked at Lyara again. "Besides, I'm far to old to be thinking of a young thing like you. Better you put in your lot with someone closer to your own age." He nodded in Jilan's direction.
Lyara didn't know if she wanted to be offended or flattered at the outcome of the conversation. She stood up, brushed the dust from her trousers and pulled her cloak close around her body. "It's late. I'll take first watch." She turned her back on both men and stalked toward the trees.
"She'll get over it by morning," Farranby said softly to Jilan in a conspiratorial whisper.
"You never know sometimes with her," Jilan shook his head. "I hope so."
Lyara had regained her sense of humor by the next morning, as Farranby had predicted. The conversation as they rode along was light and about trivial matters, and seemed to match the pleasant, spring-like weather. Without the worry of another group of Vinzen's men following them, each of them was more able to appreciate their surround ings.
Midmorning saw them on the outskirts of Jerzak, a small gathering of stone huts near the banks of a lazy river. Men looked up from their tasks, and women and children peered from open doorways and windows at the sound of so many ponies walking peacefully through the village. As the strangers seemed to mean no harm, most of the vil lagers quickly returned to whatever they had been doing, although two or three of the more husky men kept an obvious and watchful eye.
Jilan, who had taken over the responsibility of bartering the captive ponies by the mutual consent of his comrades, nodded to Lyara and Farranby as he kneed Fleetwind in the direction of the large, gape-doored building on the far end of the village that was the village stables. Meanwhile, Lyara and Farranby tied up their mounts in front of the inn, distinguished from the other stone huts by the sign hanging by one loop from a crossbeam extending from the roof.
The innkeeper was a swarthy little man who quickly found a fresh loaf of bread and slab of cheese to accompany the steaming pitcher of armetto, not needing to be told to provide three mugs instead of just two. The tables were rough-hewn, but the inn was furnished with comfortable chairs hewn from individual stumps instead of the usual benches. Lyara found it a relief to lean back and stretch her tired back against the hard support.
"I like the look on your face," she commented as Jilan came into the inn, smirking mischievously.
Jilan tossed a pouch that clanked nicely on the table next to the platter of cheese. "I think I did pretty well for us, considering that this is a forgotten village in the middle of nowhere and not the pony-mart in Tandri."
Farranby had no hesitation to hefting the pouch, and then dropped it with an appreciative nod at Jilan. "Not bad at all! I'd say Master Dilan wouldn't have done much better. He could do with a trader such as yourself, if you've any wish to join his service when you finish with this."
"No," Jilan shook his head with a sideways glance at Lyara. "I don't think I'll be staying in Tandri for very long anymore."
Farranby shrugged. "Suit yourself, then. It was just a suggestion."
"Where did you get those ponies?"
None of them had heard the light footsteps approach their table; so all three glanced up into the sharp fea tures of a young girl in surprise. Her tone had been harsh and accusing. Lyara dropped her right hand into her lap, where it would take little movement to draw her sword. "We took them from three who wouldn't have hesitated to kill us to do the same," she said cautiously.
"Congratulations," the girl stated with little inflec tion other than satisfaction. "You've saved me the trouble of searching for them myself, then. I bid you good-day and good travels." She turned to leave.
"Wait a moment," Farranby called, making her pause and turn toward the table again. "Join us." He waved his hand at the empty chair.
The grey eyes studied both Lyara and Jilan seriously. Lyara nodded agreement immediately, and Jilan pushed the chair away from the table slightly with his foot. The girl seemed to come to a decision and seated herself slowly, almost painfully.
"I am Lyara Chivan," Lyara introduced herself, and then continued to point out her companions, "and this is Jilan Torbishahn and Farranby."
"Sharin," the girl responded, her voice softer and less harsh.
"You know of the men who rode those ponies?" Farranby inquired with an innocently light tone. "How? Were they people you knew?
Sharin focused her grey eyes on the older man, eyes that reflected a deep pain. "I knew them," she stated, her voice growing softer. "They came to my village several months ago looking for a Kauwlut girl rumored to be travel ing north from Tandri. When we said we knew nothing, they didn't believe us." She swallowed hard and did not continue.
After a sharp glance at both Jilan and Farranby, Lyara leaned toward the girl and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "How did you come here then?"
"My mother's father had a brother from Jerzak. My cousin is the only family I have left." The eyes focused on a spot on the table. "He sends me to cook here at the inn so that he can drink here at night without needing specie. When you came riding into the village with those ponies, I thought that if you hadn't killed the men, I would have a good reason to go after them for what they did. But you have accomplished my goal already." Now the soft voice had a bitter, defeated tone. "I have no reason to leave Jerzak anymore, to get away from this half-life."
"How did you expect to do anything against an armed group of men?" Jilan asked derisively. "You would have been killed."
Sharin shook her head. "My mother was a healer and was training me. She knew all the healing and poisonous herbs and plants in this part of Talandria. I thought to somehow become cook for them, and poison them when they least expected it."
Lyara motioned for Jilan and Farranby to come closer. "This gives me an idea," she whispered. Then, raising her head to look at Sharin again, asked, "Do you know of herbs that can put a man into deep sleep?"
Sharin nodded in a dazed way. "Of course. Several." Her face grew confused. "Why?"
Lyara leaned back toward the men. "She could make this a lot easier for all of us than we had thought if we take her with us."
"We don't need a helpless girl on this trip," Farranby complained in a whisper. "If anything should happen, we'd have to defend her."
"Having a healer along could be helpful, especially if something does happen. You could fall off your pony," Jilan remarked pointedly, drawing a scowl from Farranby.
"Stop it," Lyara snapped. "She could put something in the food on the island -- something to put the men there asleep and make it easier for us to do what we have to."
She smiled as Farranby began to see the threads of her thoughts and agree with them. "Now you see," she nodded.
"We'd still have to defend her," he pointed out rea sonably. "Can we?"
"We need every edge we can get against Vinzen," Jilan added, nodding. "Can we afford to leave her behind?"
"I don't like being talked about as if I weren't here," Sharin's voice broke into their conference. "My cousin does it all the time, and I hate it."
"We're sorry," Lyara apologized for them all. "We were discussing taking you with us, whether we thought it would be a good idea."
"Why in the name of all the gods would I want to go with you?" Sharin stared. "I don't know you."
"I'm the Kauwlut girl those men were looking for when they attacked your village and killed your family," Lyara said simply, and Sharin's face drained of all color. "The man responsible for what happened to you also killed a very good friend of mine and has hurt two others. It seems I have something he wants very badly. I decided to find him before he hurt anyone else looking for me."
"Who is this man?" Sharin's voice was brittle ice.
"His name is Vinzen," Farranby answered quietly. "I too ride with Lyara for revenge, for what was done to my family." Farranby paused a moment. "For me, the revenge will be bitter. Vinzen is my brother, and I will kill him or die trying."
Sharin looked from Lyara to Farranby, and then over at Jilan. "You seek revenge too?"
"I ride with Lyara," Jilan responded quietly. "My reasons are my own."
The girl looked surreptitiously around for the inn keeper. "What will I tell my cousin? He won't allow me to go with you."
"Is he your guardian?" Lyara inquired quickly.
"Not officially."
"Then he has no hold over you unless you are not of the age of consent," Jilan said with a tone of finality. "No law forces you to stay in those circumstances."
"I am seventeen," Sharin informed them with half a smile.
"Old enough then," Lyara said with a nod.
"Are you sure?" Sharin looked steadily at Jilan. "I can't be forced to go back to what he wants for me?"
"I have a friend in the Guides," Lyara told her with a smile, "who did basically the same thing to get away from her family." A portion of her mind wondered briefly how Iliria was healing, and Topiara flashed a quick vision of Iliria's face. The slashes in her face were nearly healed, and it was easy to see that what scars would remain would be nearly invisible.
"Then," Sharin looked around the table tentatively, "I would like to come with you, if you would have me."
"Good," Lyara said, grasping the girl's arm firmly. "Do you have a pony?"
Sharin's face fell. "No," she admitted.
"I'll just have to go back to the stable and buy back the best one of the ponies I just sold," Jilan stated, shaking his head and taking up the pouch of specie from where it still lay on the table. He gave Sharin a frank, studying stare. "Lyara, do you think your trousers and jerkins will fit her?"
"Stand up," Lyara ordered, and she stood up to measure herself at Sharin's side. "They should fit well enough. You don't have hardly any meat on your bones at all. Doesn't anyone ever feed you?"
"I get scraps in the morning, and whatever tastings I can get while cooking."
"Disgraceful." Farranby shook his head. "I have an extra cloak in one of my packs. She can have it."
"Then you're set," Lyara said firmly. "Go tell the innkeeper that you won't be going back into the kitchen while I get you some decent riding clothes. Jilan, go get that other pony." Sharin stood, staring, and Lyara gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the innkeeper. "Go on. You need to change so we can leave within the hour.
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