The Dirt Eaters (2 page)

THE COMPANY OF FRIENDS

THE FRIEND GAVE HIM THE WORD. AND THE PROPHET TOOK THE WORD AND SPOKE IT. AND THOSE WHO HEARD HIM, FOLLOWED. AND SO THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE FRIEND BEGAN.

—
ORIN
'
S HISTORY OF THE FRIEND

A
MOUNTAIN LION SITS ON A FIELD OF SHORT GREEN GRASS, A SPARKLING RIVER BEHIND, THE SUN BRIGHT, WARM. THE SPECKLED BROWN RAT SITS BY THE BIG CAT, THEIR EYES INTENT ON EACH OTHER.

AN ANCIENT WOMAN, TWO SMALL HORNS ON HER HEAD, LEGS AND TAIL OF A GOAT, APPEARS BESIDE THEM.
“
YOU BELIEVE HE'S WAKING
?”

THE RAT TWITCHES.
“
HE IS AWAKE.
”

THE LION CLEANS HER PAW, THEN GLANCES AT THE GOAT-WOMAN.
“
IT
'
S TOO SOON. HE
'
S NOT READY.
”

“
IT CANNOT BE HELPED.
”

THE GOAT-WOMAN SIGHS.
“
CAN WE MOVE HIM
?”

“
HE IS SAFEST WHERE HE IS.
”

THE LION LOOKS AT THE RAT.
“
HOW WILL WE SHIELD HIM
?”

“
IF WE EVEN CAN,
”
ADDS THE GOAT-WOMAN.

THE RAT RISES.
“
THERE IS NO CHOICE.
”

Roan wakes to the pungent smell of incense. He's alive. He was sure the tree fall would kill him. That rat again. What was this dream trying to say? But the memory of it drifts when he feels a wriggle in his shirt pocket. The snow cricket. Roan's sore all over, but nothing seems to be broken or swollen. His eyes blearily take in his surroundings, a room with walls of black fabric. Some kind of tent.

As he pulls himself up for a better look around, a gaunt young man steps through the woolen threshold. “So you're finally awake.” He gawks at Roan with stark inquisitiveness, as if he's in the presence of some strange, foreign creature.

“What are you staring at?”

“Sorry,” the boy says. “I didn't mean anything by it. I'm here to see if you're hungry.”

Roan looks at him, confused. “Where am I?”

“With friends.”

“How long?”

“Almost two days since he brought you, I think. You were pretty banged up,” the boy replies. He is small, with green eyes, and looks a little older than Roan. “They call me Feeder, on account of I do most of the feeding around here.” Feeder hands Roan a bowl filled with a dark gruel. “Mostly potato and tripe.”

“What's tripe?” Roan asks.

“Sheep gut. Just spit out the chewy bits, everybody does.”

Roan stares at the stew, aghast. In Longlight, sheep's milk and wool were taken, but the animals were never eaten.

“Saint will see you once you're done eating,” says Feeder.

Saint. The tree-breaker. He was the one who'd brought him here. Aching, heart-sick, Roan sniffs the gruel. It has a pleasant enough smell, and the terrible rumbling in his stomach is a fierce reminder of how long it's been since he's had any food. He dips in the spoon, closes his eyes, and tastes. He has to work to swallow, and it's an effort to hold the food down, but the second bite is easier, and by the third he is eating without pause. Wiping his mouth, he stands shakily, takes a deep breath, and pushes through the knit doorway.

The room he steps into is much larger, with a tall pole holding up the canopy's peak. His eyes need a moment to adjust to the candlelight, but then he sees Saint across the room, sitting with his bare back to Roan. Saint has the strongest-looking torso Roan's ever seen, all muscle and tendon. Yet he sits delicately cross-legged on a woven carpet, facing an altar, deep in meditation. As he waits, Roan studies the dimly lit statue that dominates this place of worship. A man half-straddles a bull, pulling its head back by the nostrils and plunging a dagger into its neck. A raven sits on the bull's tail, and a serpent, a scorpion, and a dog are grouped at the bull's feet. In the silence and the flickering light, Roan puzzles over the meaning of the scene.

Saint bends over the incense smoke, brushing it toward his face with his hands. Roan sees that each of the big man's arms is laddered with a column of thin white scars, climbing from his wrist to his elbow. Turning abruptly, Saint locks his deep-set eyes with Roan's. Roan returns the gaze, wondering what Saint hopes to glean from him. Finally, Saint breaks the impasse, puts on his shirt, and speaks as if nothing at all has occurred.

“I'm sorry I had to bring you here this way, but you left me no alternative. You would not have survived out there on your own.”

“That should have been my choice.”

“I couldn't let that happen,” says Saint. “Our faith does not allow it.”

“Is that statue part of your faith?” asks Roan, nodding at the altar.

“It's the center of it. The Friend kills the bull, destroying evil and creating life. Like him, we fight evil and nurture life.”

“So you couldn't let me die.”

“Exactly.”

“And when I'm ready, you'll let me leave?”

“Spend some time with us,” says Saint, a gentle smile on his face. “Accept our hospitality and let yourself heal. There's much for you to learn here from me and my followers.”

Saint doesn't appear to want to hurt him, but Roan's still not willing to trust him. He has too many questions. What was Saint doing in Shrouded Valley? How did he know where to find Roan? And why does he want Roan to stay in this place? Roan suspects that Saint's connected to what happened to Longlight, and he wants to find out how.

“Alright,” says Roan, “I'll stay a while.”

“Then you have to tell me your name.”

“Roan.”

“You lived in that house?”

“That's right,” replies Roan. “Did you get everything you wanted from there?”

“I saved some books. Whose were they?”

“My father's.”

“He could read?”

“Of course.”

“He taught you to read?”

“He, and my mother.”

Saint's brow furrows. His voice acquires an almost reverential tone. “Your mother was a reader too?”

Puzzled, Roan nods.

“Did everyone in Longlight know how to read?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing,” Saint mutters.

“Why do you say that?”

“You've never been outside your village, or that valley, have you?”

Roan, cautious, makes no reply.

“If you had, you'd be aware that few people know how to read,” says Saint. “People are suspicious of learning.”

Roan is bewildered, though he hides his real concern. No one in Longlight ever spoke much about the Outside, and it had never occurred to him to ask why. What else was hidden from him?

“Why are they suspicious?” he asks.

Saint sighs. “They blame the Abominations on books.”

“And you don't?”

“I blame men.” Saint moves close to Roan and bends down to face him. “You have a gift that became even rarer when your people were lost. Share it with me. Teach me to read, Roan of Longlight.”

I have something he wants, Roan thinks. Should I give it to him? If Saint has some darker purpose, teaching him to read could be disastrous. But then Roan remembers what his father often said:
Reading is like breathing. Words are like air
.

“I've never taught before,” Roan says cautiously.

“I'm patient. It may take us a long time, but I'm sure you'll manage. Help me with this. Of course, we would have to agree on some form of compensation.”

Roan chooses his words carefully. “You're already providing me with food and shelter,” he says.

“I've done nothing more than help someone in need.” Saint breathes slowly, contemplating Roan's face. “Perhaps there are others in need. You may not have been the only one from your village to survive.”

Roan can't stop the quake that surges through his body.

Saint's eyebrow lifts. “You agree. It might be possible.”

Despite himself, Roan whispers, “It might be.”

A smile spreads across Saint's face.

“Teach me to read, and if any are alive, we'll find them.”

If any are alive. The words make Roan shudder. Suddenly he's overwhelmed with rage, an emotion he's unable to hide.

“My offer makes you angry?”

“Your offer seems...fair,” Roan chokes out.

“Could it be the thought of what was done to your people?”

Roan nods, not trusting himself to speak.

“You want vengeance.”

Roan imagines finding the killers of Longlight, the skull-masked invaders; pictures himself clubbing them, then throwing them screaming into the Fire Hole. He tries to stop the hideous thoughts, but he can't. They're too strong. Roan looks up at the giant and the word lurches out. “Yes.” The snow cricket stirs in his pocket, scratching hard against his heart.

“I can help with that too,” says Saint. “I will teach you the Way of the Friend. You will find He is always there when we are in need.”

For a moment boy and man regard each other in silence.

“So, Roan of Longlight, do we have an agreement?”

“We do.”

Saint smiles and pats Roan on the shoulder.

The camp is on a rise overlooking a wide valley. A stream leads off to a nearby mountain. In a paddock, powerful horses stand grazing. Everywhere Roan looks there are tents and looming tent-like structures. All of them are covered with grass and branches, no doubt making their presence invisible from a distance. Under a low canopy protected by a rock wall, seven men bundled in black fur with cowls over their heads sit silently tapping grains of colored sand into the center of a giant flat stone.

“It's a form of meditation,” explains Saint. “It takes four seasons to complete the image. When finished, it's swept away and they begin again.”

“What will the image be?”

“A tribute to Him we serve.”

Roan's attention is drawn by a clanging sound.

“Come. There are other activities you may find intriguing.”

Saint takes Roan to a flat area at the edge of another rise, where men in loose tunics practice intricate sword movements, led by a brawny man with a shaven head. Slashing, leaping, they move with grace and precision. Despite his misgivings, Roan watches with fascination.

“Did they practice like this in Longlight?” Saint asks.

“We had no swords,” says Roan. “They were forbidden.”

“How did you protect yourselves?”

“We didn't.”

“But I saw evidence of a great battle.”

“There was no battle.”

“Surely when attacked, your people defended themselves.”

“We do not fight,” repeats Roan, his eyes locked on the flashing blades.

Saint makes a small gesture to the man leading the exer­cises. With a word to his brothers, the bald man joins them, bowing to Saint.

“Friends to all,” he says.

“The Friend is true,” Saint replies, also bowing, though not as deeply. “Roan of Longlight, meet Brother Wolf, our movement master. Roan has joined us today, Brother. His journey here has been a hard one.”

“Everything is only as difficult as the mind perceives it to be,” Brother Wolf says, his eyes meeting Roan's.

“The massacre of my village was more than a perception,” retorts Roan.

“The greater the pain, the greater your will must be to master it,” Wolf tells Roan, “unless you wish to be a slave to it.”

“I'm not a slave.”

“Then you will find our training useful,” says Wolf, and returns to the acolytes.

A numbness sweeps over Roan. The commitment he's made to this strange place suffocates him. There is no going back, no hope of rescue. Longlight is gone. And now he is here.

Touring the camp with Saint, Roan sees that though no walls surround it, a formidable gully of jagged rocks protects the perimeter. High in the trees, wooden platforms are manned by cowled Brothers whose eyes never stop scanning the valley below. Saint draws Roan away from the camp's defenses, introducing him to the Brothers' other activities. Some Brothers are horse trainers, some are metal craftsmen, some are hunters. Seventy-five Brothers in all, Saint tells him.

At a tent that stands between two alder trees, a gray-bearded man greets them.

“Brother Saint! I have a salve I think may help that sore wrist of yours.”

“Thank you, Brother Asp.”