"It is done."
Karia sat down in the grass. He was tired beyond reasoning. When was the last time he had eaten? They slept whenever they had a chance but without food sleep helped less than he would have thought. Fighting in the mountains was never this bad. Long days of waiting followed by moments of frantic fighting, but never the endless hunt before the killing began. Executions more than fights.
He rose and swept the plains for more prey. None to be seen, none left. They had kept count. Not a single man lived to brag about rape and murder. Wherever she went after death Nakora was avenged.
Strange then that he should only feel tired. When they started the strange game of predator and prey he had hoped for satisfaction, but that emotion never emerged. Somewhere he understood that they had become even less than animals, because only an unthinking avenger could have managed the eightdays of horrors they had brought upon the hunted as well as themselves.
"Gring, we're done. What now?"
She walked back from the last corpse, trampling grass ahead of her. "Don't know. We created honour, but I feel dirty, and we're not done yet. More dirt will cling to me before we are finished."
Karia looked at her. Taller than any of his sworn men, tusks red with blood after she ripped the throat out of the last of the murderers and more human than most he had ever known. Maybe she was right about humanity after all.
"Then what?" he asked. "Ri Khi, to bring vengeance to their very homes?"
"Ri Khi," she confirmed. "This must be paid in full. Honour demands it. We are but tools."
There it was. She liked this even less than he. Too much killing. More than he'd been involved in during years of campaigns against his enemies. Khraga like Gring.
"So be it. Could we at least rest, feed and wash. My men follow me out of loyalty, but I have forced them far beyond that border. It is not fair. I," he faltered. "I would dishonour them otherwise," he finished when he realized what he wanted said.
Gring nodded. "You are right. I apologize. We rest."
Karia turned and went through the high grass in search of his men. Blood everywhere. The last they found had crawled and begged. Two even weapon less. It never mattered. The very last, the one Gring killed with her tusks, tried to flee with only his hands. He couldn't walk with two shattered legs.
Karia wondered what made someone using the very last of his body that way. They must have known the end was coming, and still.
"Aphitus, make camp upwind. We're finished here," he said when he saw one of his riders. We're finished, and so are my men. Seven alive. Twelve dead. Why did we have to run into those nomads?
He walked to his horse and dug for some scrap of food he knew he wouldn't find. It graced while he searched his pack. Searching was more important than finding. It gave him something to do. Something to occupy his mind with.
They would rest for a day or two. Hunt perhaps and then west. Trailing the caravan, he guessed. If they could even find its tracks. The hunt had taken them far, far out into the Sea of Grass, and he no longer knew where they were. Gring did. She always did.
***
Gring wiped her tusks with grass, spat some out and swallowed some. She would throw it all up later, but she had a need to clean her throat as well.
In her mind she thanked Karia. She owed him more than he could ever guess. Truly he was no halfman. His humour and make pretend stupidity kept her sane when otherwise she would have broken. No human should kill this much and not feed once. Prey lived to be eaten. They were precious and it grated in her consciousness to kill only for the killing.
She didn't even have coins as an excuse. Halfmen did. They could argue almost any deed was worth doing if only the money was right, or power. She couldn't. That was not her world.
She owed Karia more than her own sanity. Of the men sworn to him less than half lived. They had fought like true humans and died to keep his promise. She should have known of course. His was a strange lot. Every summer they fought her own on equal terms in the snow where humans had the benefit of strength as well as resistance to cold. She had heard rumours of the halfmen warriors but always discarded them as exaggerations. No halfman born took up arms against those odds, or so she believed. Now she knew she was wrong. Those who valued loyalty higher than life would. It was almost like honour Just a different kind, this loyalty.
So much to learn about the world. So many years squandered protecting her honour That way lay ignorance, and in its wake followed a danger she was only grasping the edges of.
First vengeance, though. After that she had an entire life to learn and relearn. A vague feeling of disapproval settled in her mind, but she firmly pushed it aside. All great humans had met with disapproval, and she slowly understood why. There were truths that hurt and secrets buried deep inside human ways. The greatest maybe that halfmen lived lives so short they were forced to learn that much faster, and so, as a whole, they had learned more than humans. If her kind didn't catch up a day would come when this world had no place for them. Just a different kind of the hunters game, and prey who didn't learn became meals.
She growled a laughter and released a full burst from her predator's glands. Prey! She had seen her own become prey even before they left Braka. Those villages would be nothing but broken wrecks by now.
Random thoughts flew through her mind as she gathered grass. Time to make a nest. She would burrow deep inside it and sleep. Tomorrow her fur would need cleaning. Picking straws took a long time, but she didn't care. The need to grow young again, if only for a single night was too strong. She wished she could nestle into her mother's embrace. Memories of days lost flashed through her, and smells of safety, and love.
***
Infinity and nothingness changed places. He was everywhere and in between, and then he was elsewhere. Harbend had forgotten just how strong Escha was. Jumping with him was becoming a little bit like the sleeping gods Escha used.
Borrowed a tiny bit of the gift from, Escha said. He always refused talking about the gift as something you used. Only a loan, and all loans had to be paid in full or else you died. Harbend didn't really understand, but then he wasn't a mage.
He looked up and remembered. The Sea of Grass. This was where he had spent one glorious season with Nakora. Wonderful memories. Hurtful memories. She was gone, forever.
"Where are we?" he asked. Idiot question!
Escha looked back as if to answer the question. Instead he only shook his head and smiled. He nodded south and a wide path cleared in front of them. There was more than one way to use the gift.
Harbend followed in Escha's steps. They would walk the last bit. There was no reason to arrive too close to Gring, even if she was a mindwalker.
He looked west. Strange. He didn't remember the caravan ever veering this far from the mountains, and where was the caravan?
"Escha, where are we?" he repeated, this time in earnest.
Escha turned. "Further east," he answered and smiled that sad smile again. "I believe we are not the first to hunt."
Harbend frowned but said nothing. Gring would have answers to his questions.
Together they continued following the path Escha created ahead of them, Harbend trailing the khar and planning what he would do next.
After some time he heard horses, and then a rider arrived. He didn't recall seeing him before. Leather, dirty and torn, a short bow and a quiver dangling at the saddle and a sabre in hand. None of Trindai's men, that much was certain, but neither did he belong to the men from Ri Khi.
The rider barked a question in a language Harbend didn't understand.
"Who are you," he asked in De Vhatic, then in Khi and last in Veric. He didn't receive as much as a glimmer of understanding.
Another rider approached. This one he remembered. From Belgera? Yes, their guide in the capital.
"Do you remember me?" he asked.
"I remember you very well, Master de Garak." There was a haggard smile oh his face. "I wish we could have met in happier times."
"Karia Graig?"
"Your memory does you honour," Karia said. "What brings you here?"
"Do you have to ask that question? By rights I should be in Verd now."
Karia bowed in his saddle. "I didn't, but it was only polite to do so anyway."
"Where is Gring," Harbend asked. He was less than graceful, but need ate his soul.
Karia frowned slightly but pointed across the grass rather than spitting out the sharp retort Harbend had expected.
Harbend followed Karia's direction with his eyes. A slight breeze carried the smell of the plains mingled with decay. Suddenly he was certain Gring had already started his work.
Heavy steps announced another arrival. It had to be Gring. Anyone else would have come on horseback. It was.
"Harbend, I thought you would come. Not this fast, but I knew you would come for the sake of your mate."
Harbend stared at her and nodded. What should he say? He looked at her. How long since she cleaned her fur properly? How long had she been doing his work?
"Karia, why are you here?"
"I was sworn to Nakora," Karia answered as if everything came clear with those words. Maybe it did.
"How many are left?" Harbend asked. How many do I get to kill?
"They're all dead. At least all who rode with us. More where she lived," Karia answered.
Harbend felt fury rising. He'd been cheated. "None left?"
"None," Gring said. "Not here. We are going to her home, as Karia said. Those truly responsible for the dishonour are still left."
Not cheated after all then. He had promised himself to visit revenge on all involved.
"Good," he said. "I have hired Khar Escha's services for some time. We should be able to arrive there before anyone else."
"Bastard gherin! They don't even know!" Karia didn't look happy.
"They do not have to know. What need do the dead have of knowledge?"
Escha grabbed Harbend's shoulder. "I will help, but are you certain this is the path you want to follow?"
"Want? I must!"
Escha shook his head. The smile was long gone and in its place Harbend saw a sadness so profound that the dead man inside of him momentarily woke. It was no use. He couldn't afford becoming that man again. "You understand, you must! Trai died and you had your revenge."
"And an empty satisfaction that was indeed. Yes, Trai died. I lost him. He's gone and my life is bleaker for that, but Harbend, that loss was nothing compared to the memories of what I did."
Harbend shook himself loose. "I will have my revenge, just as you. I can live with what I did. I will not live with what I did not do!"
Escha turned to Gring. "I promised him I'll help. I won't like it, but I will."
"I understand," she said.
"I need you to help him. I can jump us all to Ri Khi, but finding people is not my gift. I need the mindwalker you are."
"I have started something I must finish. I am, as you halfmen say, getting second thoughts, but I am honour bound to finish in Ri Khi what I've started here."
Escha clasped her arm. Harbend watched them. Escha's unhappy face was easy to read, but he was surprised to understand that Gring shared those thoughts. No, not so much that she shared them as his being able to read her so clearly. At least that was what he said to himself. It had to be done, or else he would never rest again.
"If we're decided then we have a long ride ahead of us," Karia said.
He was in for a surprise, Harbend thought grimly. "I said ahead of everyone else. Escha will jump us there."
"I won't leave our horses. Your blood thirst will have to be delayed."
"Who said you would have to leave your horses behind?"
Karia stared at him, then at Escha. "Are you serious? I've heard about the khars from Khanati, but horses?"
Escha gave Karia one of those sad smiles. "Master de Garak is quite serious. It's taxing, but I could jump a small army all over the world. I might die if I did, but I could."
Karia looked as if he was about to protest, but then he took the reins and turned his horse around. "I guess I had best gather the men then," he said as he rode away. He even managed to radiate disappointment from behind.
It was settled then. Harbend would join the quest for revenge that should rightfully have been his from the beginning. He pushed away the feeling of resentment. Nakora was one to love. He could hardly blame her friends for avenging her.
He settled down and waited for them all to get in order. Gathering men and horses would take its time, and even if he was in a hurry there was little he could do to speed them up.
Leaving the Sea of Grass, for the last time, he hoped. If he never saw the open plains again in his life it would still be too soon. They had taken too much from him.