Zara the Wolf (6 page)

"Well Zara, what do you think about caravan duty?"
Dimas asked. I had come to accept him as a good-natured clown. He couldn’t help
flirting, accepted rejection well, and appeared to be liked by the tales I
heard around the campfire at night.

"Except for the occasional interruption of my sleep, it's
been interesting. I'm enjoying the experience," I said.

"Did you really live with the savages?" asked Cesar,
the youngest of Raigosa's sons, which got everyone's attention. "That must
have been exciting."

"No, it wasn't. They raided my village, killed my
father and mother, and made me a slave. Their camp dogs are treated better than
a slave."

"But they trained you to fight," said Fillpe,
Raigosa's oldest son.

"They used me as a live opponent for their youth to
practice on, assuming they would cripple or kill me eventually."

"But you survived," Cesar said, eyes bright with
excitement.

"Yes. A mistake they will long remember," I said.
"Those with the warrior's spirit make poor slaves."

"You think you have the warrior's spirit?" Ricci
asked. His face had a sneer, and his voice dripped with contempt.

"Don't know, but they would tell you I made a poor
slave." I smiled. "Where is our next stop?"

"Berone," Fillpe said quickly, cleverly changing
the topic and easing the tension. "We will be there for a week. The town
has an earl, several barons, and more than ten thousand people. Father has a
lot of contacts in Berone and does a lot of business there."

* * *

"Come in," I said to the knock, and Raigosa opened
the door. I had been going over a map of Aesona I purchased at one of the
vendors in the market. The country was huge and would take years to travel. It
bordered another country, Bratti, on the other side of the Black Mountain Range.
Otherwise, it was surrounded by water: the western and eastern oceans, which
met at the southern tip at the town of Kariso.

"Zara, I have an appointment with the Earl of Berone
today. He has asked me to bring you along. Somehow, he heard you lived with the
mountain tribes," Raigosa said. I didn't doubt he was the one that told
him about me.
I should ask for a bonus
,
I mused, not letting my amusement reach my lips. I nodded, slipped on my boots
and leather belt, and slid my sword and dagger into their sheaths.

Outside, Lutz and Cesar waited with a mule loaded with two
packs and two horses, one mine. Four soldiers armed with pikes and swords and
dressed in the earl's red and silver colors waited.
Honor guard, security, or escort
? I wondered. We made our way
through the city at a slow trot with two of the earl's guards leading and two
trailing.

Inside the walls, a four-story castle stood at the end of a
long narrow courtyard flanked by several one-story buildings for staff, a
barracks for the soldiers, and a stable. The castle looked hundreds of years
old judging by the ivy growing on the walls. A grey-haired man met us at the bottom
of the twenty steps leading to the double-door entrance.

"Welcome, Merchant Raigosa. The earl is looking forward
to seeing you. If you would have your son and Lutz carry your merchandise into
the reception room, he would like to see you and ... the woman alone in his
study."

"Of course, Minister Warin," Raigosa said, then
nodded to me before turning and following him down a wide hallway with paintings
of men and women to a large wood-paneled room. Inside, a broad-shouldered man
with a square face sat behind a large desk. Based on the heads of animals
decorating the walls, he liked to hunt. His eyes travelled from my head to my
feet before turning to Raigosa.

"Good morning, Raigosa. You look well. Sit. Would you
like some wine?" When Raigosa nodded, Warin quickly poured a glass and
handed it to him as he sat. "Who is your new employee?"

"This is Zara. She is my new cook. She signed on in Oberen.
Zara, this is Earl Pasquel."

"Zara," he said like he was naming a new animal.
"I'm told you lived with the savages in the Black Mountains."

"As a slave," I said, still standing.

"But they taught you to fight." He pointed to my
sword.

"For the amusement of their youth."

"How would you like to join me in wiping out the
savages?" His eyes locked on mine.

"I hate the tribes as much as anyone. I watched them
kill my father and mother, and they made me a slave. But going after them is … a
waste of time and lives," I said, barely stopping myself from saying, ‘a fool’s
errand.’

"You don't think I'll find and kill them?" he said
in a snarl, defying me to contradict him.

"They are warriors and hunters, not gatherers. They
will know you are coming days before you reach them and will be gone before you
get to their camp. If you bring fewer than two hundred, they will kill you all.
Their warriors are better trained than your soldiers, and the mountains are
their hunting grounds. They begin their warrior training when they are
children. If you send more than two hundred troopers, how will you bring enough
supplies to feed your men over the weeks and months chasing them? They can live
off the land, can you?"

I had said too much.
Royalty
don’t like to be lectured by savages
, I mused mentally.

"They caught you as a child. I'm afraid you have a
child's view of their superiority," he said, giving me a knowing smile.

"I was very young, sir," I said, tired of the topic,
of the earl, and of wasting my time trying to help. I idly wondered what he
imagined: riding into their camp with his cavalry, hacking off their
heads—for mounting later—and returning victorious, in a week at
most. In reality, it would take him and his soldiers a month to reach their
camp, since the terrain for the most part wasn't suitable for horses. The tribe
would be gone, along with the supplies he had taken for his glorious week’s
savage-hunt.

"Well, Raigosa, let's go look at what you've brought
me," the earl said, dismissing me. He spent the next two hours haggling
with Raigosa over items. Eventually, he bought two jeweled daggers, a vase, and
several leather items. Raigosa and his son were asked to stay for dinner, and
Lutz and I were told to take the mule and packs back to the market.

"What did you think of the earl?" Lutz asked as we
rode back.

I didn't answer right away, as I had conflicting emotions. "Arrogant
if he believes he can invade the mountains and kill the savages. A fool if he
tries," I finally said.

Lutz laughed. "That's typical of most royalty. They
have all the answers and don't like being told they don't or being made to look
the fool."

* * *

We left four days later. From the conversations I heard,
Raigosa had made a nice profit in Berone and was in a good mood.

"Zara, what did you think of Earl Pasquel?"
Raigosa asked as he rode up beside me.

"He seems to know more about the savages than I do."
I shrugged, not sure what he was looking for. I was still learning about the
world of Aesona and its conventions. The Ojaza world was much simpler.

"You're adapting well, Zara. There is little to be
gained by arguing with royalty. Your comments to him sounded valid to me. I'm
glad you're along," he said and spurred his horse ahead toward his wagon.

The next town was Turnus, about a six-day journey. I was
happy with my decision to join the caravan. I didn't mind cooking; it was
better than walking around the camp in the early hours of the morning, and I
was being paid well—a half-silver more than several of the guards, I
learned. And being with a merchant, I was learning a lot about people, prices,
trading, and being a caravan guard.

We had finished dinner, and I sat by the fire watching Lutz
working with Dimas, Goyo, and Juan on sword techniques.

"Zara, come over here," he said, stopping an
exercise he was showing Goyo. "What can you tell us about the Indians'
sword techniques?"

"They have no ethics," I said. "Everything is
fair game, even things you might not consider worth scoring against, a leg for
example. They are happy crippling you. Their swords are shorter and lighter, so
they can reverse direction easier. It means they have to get close to you to be
effective, and up-close you are less effective because of your longer sword."
I spent the next ten minutes demonstrating what I was talking about.

"That was good," Lutz said afterward. "In
Turnus I'm going to have a practice sword made like yours. I think it would be
good training, and I'd like a session with you, if you don't mind."

"No, I could use practice against a long sword." I
liked the idea.

* * *

I lay quietly listening to the night sounds of owls and
occasionally a wolf, which I did each morning before rising to prepare
breakfast. Then I heard it, a thud followed by an explosive release of breath.
Throwing off my blanket, I grabbed my sword and dagger as I scanned the
area—someone had shot someone. I had heard that sound before, an arrow in
the chest. Then I saw Goyo sprawled on the ground with an arrow sticking out of
his chest. A man kneeling on the far side of the camp was nocking an arrow as
he looked in Dimas’s direction. I screamed an Ojaza war cry as I jumped up and
raced toward the bowman. At the cry, he jerked as he released the arrow. I
hoped it had missed Dimas, and that my war cry had awakened the camp. The bowman
fumbled as he tried to nock another arrow as he watched me closing the distance
to him. He dropped it, but another man came running past him, sword raised for
an overhead hack at me. Rather than attempt to block the downward strike, I
ducked under his arm and delivered an upward slice into his armpit. He
screamed, dropping the sword. I twisted my wrist, reversing my sword as it
cleared him, and sliced through the bowman's neck as I passed him.

I spun in a circle, barely avoiding a thrust to my stomach by
another man and delivering a slash across his kidneys as my momentum carried me
past him. In front of me, three men were running toward a group of horses held
by a mounted man. I caught up to the one I was chasing and sliced through his
thigh as I ran past him. Five men rode off before I reached the horses. I
stopped, having no reason to chase them. A minute later, Lutz and Sammie
arrived. They were panting hard.

"By the gods, you're fast," Sammie said between
gasps for air.

"Are you hurt, Zara?" Lutz asked.

I looked at my arms and down my body. There was a fair
amount of blood, but none of it was mine. I shook my head.

"You explained this to me the other day," Lutz
said. "You told me they work as a team and are content to cripple. That it's
faster to wound and keep going, letting the next warrior or the next finish the
person off, and that the ferocity of the attack tends to freeze their opponents.
I heard you, but I didn't understand."

"Thanks, Zara," Dimas said a few minutes later. "That
arrow tore the sleeve of my jacket. If you hadn't screamed, I'd be dead."

"Maybe he was just a lousy marksman," I said as
Raigosa, his two sons, and Shelia approached.

"He got Goyo through the heart," Sammie said.

"What happened, Lutz?" Raigosa asked.

"Zara just saved the caravan and our lives. They had a
bowman to take out the guards and eight or nine men with swords ... " Lutz
went on to explain what he’d seen, which was mostly my Ojaza charge into the
group. It took several hours to catch the dead men's horses, collect their
gear, and bury the dead. Apparently, Ricci had killed a couple of the wounded
as he followed behind me along with the others. Two others had bled to death.

"You're not very good with that sword. I had to kill
several you only wounded," Ricci said with a sneer.

"I'm grateful, Ricci," I said and walked away. I
had ignored the Ojaza's insults and taunts because it would have caused me more
trouble. I had ignored the baron and earl and others like Ricci for the same
reason. I didn't care if they considered me a slave, or savage, or stupid. I
wasn't a slave who would be a warrior; I was a warrior who wouldn't be a slave.
And I wasn't a savage who would be civilized. I was still a child trying to
find my way in a somewhat savage world.

* * *

Turnus was about the size of Oberen, with a baron the highest-ranking
royalty. Fortunately, he didn't seem interested in talking to me. We spent only
three days there. In each town, I tried to take every opportunity to visit and
talk to whoever would talk to me. Usually, when people found me interested in
what they did, they were eager to talk about their lives. I didn't know what I
was searching for but knew from the Manola Community that all knowledge was
useful. True to his word, Lutz had a practice sword made but without my special
hand-guards.

"Zara, what do you think of this sword?" he asked,
handing me the wooden practice sword our first night out of Turnus. It looked
to be an exact replicate when I laid it against mine.

"A perfect match," I said, smiling.

"You said you wouldn’t mind working out with me,"
he said, looking excited at the prospect. Lutz was a professional mercenary and
wouldn't pass up any opportunity to improve his skill.