NexLord: Dark Prophecies (46 page)

"He is a pompous man, this
Captain.  He acts as though we are barbarians, hardly fit
for his nose to smell.  When I told him we were
recovering from a siege, and that travel could be dangerous he
practically called me a liar and a coward!  ‘Border
skirmish with some rabble,’ he called it!  Like his
meager troops could mop up the entire Togroth
horde
if he were to run into them.  I
think his men are unblooded peacocks and would fall to the first
squad of Togroths that wanted a meal!"

Enolive shrugged.  "I doubt they
are that bad, for all their finery.  However, regardless,
the Regent has summoned you to go before his court to be judged for
the post, as is required by the law of the land.  You
cannot refuse, and quibbling about time will just put you in a
worse position when you come before the Regent."

"But he won't let me bring my Guardsman!"

"Actually, he agreed to let you bring along a
contingent of your personal guard," Enolive reminded him.

"Just twelve men; imagine if we run into a
band of Togroths from that hoard.  We don't know if they
all went into the wastelands after they left the city, my scouts
reported various bands breaking off into the countryside."

"I'm sure you are worried about
nothing.  The Bluecoats found no resistance on their
march here from the Eigen Pass.  Any Togroth bands would
most likely be in the opposite direction, towards the
wastelands."

"We can't be sure, and my father said to
always expect the unexpected when it came to planning a battle
against the Togs."

"Everything will be all right ,
Milord.  You will be in the center of the Bluecoat army
and you will have Niler Corbin and your priest, Hork, along to give
you
advice
and continue your
teachings."

"What about you, Enolive?" Gandarel
asked.

"I had thought to stay
here
unless you feel you need me?"

"Please come along, I don’t want to be the
taffy between Hork and Niler."

Enolive chuckled.  "That’s an
interesting analogy, but I see your point.  All right,
I'll clear it with
Niler
if you
will make the request formally."

"I'll do it right now!  You better
go pack your things."

"Indeed, this will be an interesting
journey," Enolive foretold.

Chapter Fourteen

"And with surprise on their side, I saw them
come like locus, descending to slaughter the King’s army to a
man.  The trap was sprung between east and west, near the
pass that bears the name of its discoverer, Eigen."

-  From the Dark Prophecies

They were two leagues outside of town when
Yearl and Tocor showed up on horseback.  They had two
extra mounts with them.  They tied the two extra horses
to the back of the wagon and then rode alongside. 

Mara called her four students to the front of
the wagon, as they moved up the dirt road going
west.  "Well, it is
time
we got your lessons started again."

"Lessons... now?" Dono asked.

Mara raised a gray eyebrow in his
direction.  "Yes, did you think you had learned
everything there is to know?"

"Well no, but weapons practice would be kind
of hard in the back of a moving wagon."

"Actually, you might have to fight from a
moving platform someday, but that is not what you are going to
learn today," Mara explained.

Aerin nearly missed the next thing Mara said,
as he relived the horrible chase in his parent's
wagon.  Traveling outside the city, after
all
this
time,
had brought back old memories and Mara's words brought back that
horrible day.  With a conscious
effort,
he brought his attention back to Mara.

"Yearl is going to teach you to ride."

"Horses?" Lor
said
as if describing some bizarre creature best left in
a steel cage.

Yearl smiled from his mount next to the
wagon.  "They won't eat
you
if you show them who is
boss
."

Lor looked at the large animal
dubiously. 

The rest of the day's travel went quickly, as
the students took turns acquiring both riding knowledge and sore
muscles
while they practiced
riding on the spare mounts.

As busy as they were, wrestling with their
horsemanship, none of the kids noticed the dust cloud on the road
behind them, as they crested a rise in the
sparsely
tree covered grass hills of the countryside, but
Mara did.

They made their first camp in a small
clearing in a glade of trees.  Yearl was not evident
around the camp, once Mara had cooked and everyone had eaten.

It wasn't odd for Yearl to disappear, so no
one mentioned it, but as they arranged sleeping mats on the ground
Katek looked around and asked a question.  "Are we going
to set a watch?  Or do you think we are safe being within
a day's ride of Strakhelm?"

Tocor chose to answer his
question.  "No lands are safe east of the Dragonback, but
Yearl is out scouting the area, and when he returns I will watch
during the night and rest some during the day
tomorrow.  I prefer the night anyway."

"Tell us about the Quarians, Tocor," Aerin
requested, and then sat down near the subdued
campfire
while pulling his blanket around his
shoulders.  The other students also sat down and looked
Tocor’s
way expectantly.

Tocor's golden eyes considered them for a
moment, and he filled his large mug with tea from the kettle that
sat on a flat stone near the edge of the flames.  "My
country is to the south of the wastelands, in the hot sands of the
great desert.  There we have lived for as long as history
recalls."

"How hot is it?" Dono asked.

"If you are going to interrupt me, perhaps I
will let you tell this," Tocor noted.

Dono looked sheepish.  "Sorry."

"It is hotter than you have ever experienced
in the Borderlands, but not so hot that you would die of the
heat.  On a hot day, at noon, you could cook eggs on a
rock exposed to the sunlight.  For that reason, and
others, my people are nocturnal.  Our eyes are better
adapted to seeing at night than humans.  We can eat
plants, and do, but our primary diet is meat.  This comes
from the lack of croplands in the desert.  There are many
reptiles and large insects living there, some quite large and
fierce.  The deeper you go into the Great desert the
larger the creatures you meet.  It is a wild and deadly
place where creature eats creature in a survival game, and we are
the best survivors.

"Our customs would seem harsh to
humans
as our females are even fiercer than
our males."

"How can a woman be tougher than a man?"
Katek asked dubiously.

Tocor appraised him with his golden eyes for
a
moment
and then
answered.  "We are a matriarchal society."

"What does that mean?" Katek inquired.

"It means that the women rule," Aerin
informed him.

"That's ridiculous!" Katek stated.

"Oh... and why do you say that, Katek?" Mara
asked in a dangerous voice.

Katek didn't pick up the
tone.  "Because men are the strongest, and women need to
be protected so they can bring the young to term and nurture them
as they grow.  It is up to men to protect them, and
therefore rule them."

"Human men do typically have a stronger build
than women, and in humans it is true the woman must be protected
during the long pregnancy, however, why does that preclude them
from
ruling
?"  Mara
inquired.

"It just does," Katek
stated
as if the words alone were proof that it was
true.

Mara sighed, "Katek, you will have a rude
awakening one day, mark my words.  However, I do
understand where your prejudice comes from."

"I'm not prejudice," he defended.

Mara just chuckled.

Tocor spoke again.  "Katek, there
is a difference between Quarian women and Human women, our young
are not carried inside the womb."

"What?" Katek and Lor both said.

"An egg is hatched one month after inception
and the baby grows within, kept warm by the hot sands of our
home.  During that
period,
the men protect the nest area, and I wouldn't
suggest tangling with one of them if you value your hide."

"But how..." Aerin said, trying to picture an
egg large enough to hold a baby coming out of a
human-shaped
body.

"Our women are larger than human
women.  They stand over nine feet tall on the average,"
Tocor explained.

Tocor was large compared to an average human,
but the students looked at him trying to imagine a woman that
dwarfed Tocor.  It was almost incomprehensible.

"How big are your houses?" Dono asked, trying
to picture doors large enough to cope with the women's height.

"We do not live in houses, but tunnel and
build with stone into
great
outcroppings of rocks in the desert dunes.  Natural caves
are expanded, walls added and canyons sealed off and
covered.  When necessary we bore into the very stone to
make our dwellings."

"I'd love to see that someday," Aerin noted,
picturing vast castles as part of the
living
stone.

Tocor considered him for a
moment.  "If you ever find yourself in the Great desert,
make sure you take a Quarian as a guide, it is not a place where
the uninitiated can survive.  I miss my people, but I
can't say I miss the desert, it is a hard place."

"That is enough for now, Tocor," Mara
stated.  "These curious youngsters need to get their
beauty rest.  Tomorrow will be an interesting day."

There were moans from the listeners, but they
started moving to their bedrolls.  Only Lor stayed at the
fire and stared into the flames.

Mara squatted down by her and looked into the
flames.  "What do you see Lor?"

"It's not what I see now that worries
me.  Will the future burn me worse than these flames
could now?"

"I don't know for sure, Lor, but trust in
your friends, only they can bring you through the fire."

Lor looked at Aerin, where he was laying down
on his bedroll.

"He saw something, Mara."

"Aerin... what do you mean?"

"He saw a vision where I was killed; I don’t
want to leave him alone."

Mara didn't answer; her eyes were locked on
Aerin.  Many thoughts were dancing behind her eyes as she
gazed at the young man.

"What are you thinking?" Lor asked.

Mara broke her thoughts away from Aerin and
stood up, "I'm thinking that he has an overactive imagination and
that you need to quit worrying so much and get to bed."

"Yes, Mara," Lor said and then got up and
headed for her bedroll.

But Mara did not hear her reply; the old
teacher’s mind was on Aerin and his vision.

They were up before the dawn, much to Lor's
disgust. 

"What, in Gedin's name, is wrong with you
people?  The sun isn't even awake yet!"  Lor
grumbled, sitting up on her bedroll with her blanket wrapped around
her and her short hair in disarray.  Around the
camp,
everyone else was busy
cleaning, rolling and packing their gear into the wagon.

"Get a move on, slug-a-bed," exclaimed Katek,
cheerful to be traveling again.

Lor growled something unintelligible and
primordial.

"Careful," Dono noted, "I think it
bites."

Lor stood up and dragged her blanket into the
back of the wagon, where she proceeded to curl up and do her best
to ignore the morning.

Three hours later the sun had crested over
the high jagged teeth of the Dragonback Mountains, far ahead to the
west.  Lor's face poked out of her blanket and found
Tocor stretched out next to her resting.  When she stuck
her head out of the front, to see where they were headed, she found
Dono and Katek walking beside the wagon, while Aerin and Yearl rode
horses in front of them. Yearl was busy giving him occasional
advice.

"It lives!" Katek noted, seeing Lor's
disheveled head poking out of the canvas covering.

"Barely," Lor noted, "I think this wagon has
a curse on it."

"Curse?" Dono inquired.

"It finds every rut in the road, it must be
cursed," Lor muttered.  She climbed over the front bench
and plunked herself down next to Mara, who was steering the
team.

"Where are we headed, Mara, and how soon will
we get to civilization?"

Mara appraised the young city girl next to
her
and wordlessly handed her a
comb.  "As I told you, we're headed for the Eigen
pass."

"Is that our destination, or is it just a
place on the way?"

Mara pursed her lips, it was obvious she
didn't want to discuss this, but Lor was feeling feisty.

Mara finally answered, "It is not our
destination, merely the direction in which we travel."

"So, what is our destination?"

"Don't you already know?" Mara asked in
return.

Lor rubbed at her sleep
encrusted
eyes.  "I suppose you are
going to tell me that I should have figured it out from things you
have said, and maybe you are right, but the truth is, I'm just too
tired to figure it out, so please tell me."

"We're headed for the Chamber of the Nexus
where Gandarel will become the new NexLord."

Mara delivered the statement as if it carried
the weight of the universe behind it, but Lor's response didn't
sound too impressed.  "Shouldn't we have Gandarel along
for that?"

Mara smiled.  "He's coming."

Lor looked
around
as if he would pop out of the wagon
somewhere.  "What did you do, turn him into a
reptile?"