Half Magic | Book 2

Fifteen: The Stone of Souls

"No wonder it's a sacred place," I said. "But there is a curse on it?"

Kai shrugged. "That part I don't know about. I just know what the stone is from my mother. Her name will be up there too, but with a strike through it to show her dishonor."

Kai's face darkened. "I don't care if they want to treat me like a jadaama, but my mother loved her people. She was outcast for loving my father. She deserves her name on the Stone of Souls."

"That's awful, I'm sorry, Kai." I placed a hand on his shoulder and Puko pecked it. "Ouch! You little imp."

I scowled at the raven and Kai laughed, reaching up to stroke his feathers. "What's done is done. I think we should go break our fast. I'm sure they will want to ride out soon."

"Sure," I said. "Um, where should we go?"  

I looked over to the Headman's tent but there was no bustle of activity around it like there was last night. In fact, I could still see a couple of men passed out on the ground. 

"The regular meal tent will suffice this morning. They even let me eat in it last night, so I'm hoping I can get something if I stroll in with the great aoyi'ka."

He winked and I sighed.

"Glad to be of assistance I suppose." 

Kai laughed and took us to a tent with a little more head room. A lazy drift of smoke from the back told me they were cooking right behind it. 

Few people were in the tent when we entered. Some glanced up to see me and a few heads bobbed a greeting, but for the most part I was left in peace to get my food.

Kai showed me to a flap at the back where we were passed a large, flat piece of bread from the cook and a bowl of thick brown paste. 

"What is this?" I asked as Kai sat us down at an empty space of mats.

"Flat bread and hummus. Here, dip it in like this." Kai tore a piece of his own bread and scooped up some of the paste with it. He then put the large bite in his mouth.

I mimicked his actions as best as I could, but took a much smaller bite. "It's good."

"I'll see if they will give me some for the rest of the aoyi'ka's party and maybe we can bring Schula and Nassir breakfast in their tent."

"They'd like that," I smiled. "Although, I'm not sure Nassir would want to miss his chance to ask the cooks questions about the origins of their food or something."

"Well for the cook's sake I'll try extra hard to get them breakfast." Kai winked and went off to ask for more, taking another large slice of bread and hummus with him as he went. I gathered up what I could and by the time Kai came back with more food, we were ready to go to the tent.

It wasn't a far walk, and I ducked into our sleeping tent to see Nassir and Schula yawning.

"Mmm, Wren. Is that breakfast?" Schula asked.

"It is." I giggled. "Here. And here, Nassir. Let me help you with that."

We sat and had a pleasant breakfast before making sure our bags were packed and secured. When Tali poked her head into our tent, I knew our time at the Khusuru village was over. 

"Come, aoyi'ka. It is time." Tali delivered her brief message and pulled her head back out of our tent without waiting on an answer. I looked to the others and Schula sighed.

"Well, let's go break a curse," she said as she stretched her arms over her head.

"If we even can," I said cautiously. 

"I don't know what may have changed in the last few centuries," Nassir added. "But most curses upon the humans are simply mischievous unseelie creatures."

"If that's the case, we should be fine," I said. "I just hope it's something simple that we can help with."

"Well, there is only one way to find out then." Nassir stood, took his pack, and left the tent. The rest of us followed into the evening light.

"Aoyi'ka," Tali addressed me. "Headman wants us to take you to the Stone of Souls. We will bring some hunters too. Let's go."

We didn't have much option but to follow Tali as she stalked through the camp and to a group of Khusuru outside the line of tents. All had horses, as well as extra horses for Kai and Schula. Nassir and I would still have riders to help us, apparently. 

"Aoyi'ka, this is lead hunter, Meon." Tali pointed to a lean man, carrying one of those short spears and curved wood sets that I kept seeing.

"Meon might find things to bring back, or might need help fight." Tali shrugged. "Either way, he comes."

I nodded. "Nice to meet you, Meon."

"He don't speak jadaama. Let's go." The ever efficient Tali whistled and rounded up her riders. Meon waved his hunters to their own formation, and the rest of us were shoved on horses. I had a new rider this time, one a little softer around the edges and who could speak better in the common tongue. Her light green clothes billowed around her as she moved with grace. If I didn't know better, I would have thought she was part elf too, but she smelled completely human and had no trace of the Wyldes in her. She was simply elegant. 

We took off and went mostly south. The ride was hard again, and silent. The winds were a little high tonight, and I instantly knew why Tali and her riders covered their faces. With the speed of horseback and the winds brushing by us, bits of sand could take us by surprise and hit me in the face. After a while of working up the courage to remove my hands from my rider's waist, I balanced on the horse and tried to refashion my new head scarf like the Khusuru riders did, wrapping most of my face save for my eyes. I'm sure it didn't look as neat as Tali's, but it did the job.

We stopped for a break to eat and relieve ourselves and our horses. Then we rode again. Puko stayed mostly on Schula or Kai, or took to the skies. The Khusuru were uneasy about him at first, but soon he was playing games with them like racing the horses or weaving between the riders. 

The evening pushed on, and the sun began to rise. When we stopped to set up a sleeping shade, I knew we weren't reaching the stone tonight. 

I was helped off the horse by my rider, and Schula was already there to subtly lend me some of her cooling relief with a mischievous grin. 

"It gets easier with time you know. Riding the horses," Schula said. 

"I should have asked for a pair of those padded pants," I grumbled.

"Let's get your mat down and see how you feel," Schula said and took my pack from me.

The shades were set, our mats were laid out, the horses were gathered and some hard tack was passed around as dinner. It wasn't particularly appetizing, but we all ate it anyway. Puko refused though, and flew off to find his own dinner. 

I found out from Tali that we had two more days to go before we were at the Stone of Souls. At least we were still getting closer to the southern border of the desert, according to Kai.

One things is for sure though, once this was finally over, I was done with horses for good.