The Ghost Tiger's Lament

Chapter Sixteen

“Harsh beats the oars upon the green paths! But as the hawk must fly, so must I swim. The way is long, the way is lonely. Let us toast our journey with wine and with blood!”

Zsaran grinned. Ashne did not.

He could not be a child of the Turtle. Yet he understood their tongue. Their songs.

And in that moment she knew. Must have known. He was no man to be underestimated, this stranger offering his alliance through laughter and verse...

Thus did their first meeting come to pass: two maidens from the southern rivers, and a single warrior from the western tribes — the former following the water trails, the latter hired to chase down deserters upon his speedy red mare.

Three hunters crossing paths beneath the ineffable vast brilliance of the sky.

* * *

By the next morning, Braksya’s fever had dispersed. Along with his memories, it seemed, for which Ashne was thankful.

He insisted (hiding a little sniffle) that he was well enough to continue on, and so they launched their boat down the river again, even more subdued than usual. Ashne refused to let him row, and in turn, he refused to speak.

For which she was also thankful.

The effort strained her more than she liked to admit, but she hid her exhaustion from him, pretending to herself that the old wound was nothing but a sash bound too tightly, that the sweat dampening her skin was nothing but a result of the fierce sun overhead. In the meantime she allowed the soreness of her limbs consume her, wipe away all other thought. After all, he, too, must have been unwell for days before, and spoken nothing of it. He, too, must understand at some level their need for haste.

Past the junction of the Canal and the Great River, Ashne found evidence of a large encampment, little more than a day old at her guess.

The bandits and Matron’s men. Despite multiple delays, they had caught up.

She was about to leave the site and continue down the river when she spotted a figure lying in the shadow of a tree some distance away. A dead body, she thought at first, but then the figure stirred, and her breath hitched.

A straggler? But no, something was strange about this man.

Braksya, who had been gathering herbs or leavings or whatever else he kept in his basket, appeared at her side with a questioning glance, having evidently spotted the man as well.

The man, in turn, seemed to have seen them.

“Help!”

Ashne approached slowly, wary of a potential trap.

“Please, help!”

The voice was dry, cracked. She could not immediately identify the accent as that of Khonua or that of Awat.

But then, as she drew closer, she recognized him.

A bandit. The same one who had accosted her drunkenly at the magistrate’s residence back in Tham. His legs were bound together, which explained his awkward posture.

And his hands had been chopped off, the stubs seared shut at the wrist.

“Help! Please, take pity!”

She quickened her pace, not quite breaking into a run, hand placed firmly on the hilt of her sword.

The bandit’s desperate pleas turned into fear as recognition dawned on his face.

“Spare me!” he cried, switching to mix of Turtle speech and awkwardly accented Court tongue. “Please... I don’t have anything to do with Chief and them anymore! I were just following orders! I —”