Seven Swords, Michael E. Shea [readict TXT] 📗

Ca’daan slept soundly for the first night in nearly a month. He awoke and began preparing for his trip before dawn. He packed two weeks of dried meat and bread, two skins of water, thick wool clothes for the first part of the journey and lighter cotton for once he had passed the mountains. His bed roll and much of the rest of his camping equipment remained prepared from his journey south.

True to his word to his faithful mare, Ca’daan left Whitebelly in Fena Dim and borrowed Gray Cloud from his uncle. The black gelding had made the trip north before and wouldn’t panic at Heaven’s Highway.

Ca’daan left Fena Dim as the red sun painted the outline of the Old One in scarlet ribbons. Two dozen salt miners watched him pass, their lined faces still dusty from the previous day’s work. Edlin, working his wheat farm, hailed Ca’daan.

“Good journey, friend. Return soon.” If word of his journey had already spread, word of the attack must have also spread, but he saw no sign of panic in the village at all. Two of Edlin’s daughters, lithe legs bare under their cotton tunics, ran to Ca’daan with fresh bread. He laughed and thanked them. How they had grown. Soon they would have children of their own. He felt a pang of jealousy. How Anda had wanted daughters. If they had had any, they would have been ten or eleven by now.

Ca’daan followed the trail north from Fena Dim. He enjoyed the first day’s ride through the grass lands and the marsh. He crossed the mountain rivers that roared down from the mountains of the west. He looked for the black moon but could not find it in the dark sky of night. A good omen.

He awoke as the sky lighted into deep violet and began his trip through the crags. Many years past, Fena Dim sold brill to Fena Kef. Fena Kef acted as a bridge to the southern deserts and the kingdoms within the dunes. Brill were ideal for the desert. They carried ten times their considerable weight in water and needed water only once every two weeks. They were slow, smelled awful, and had terrible temperament but Fena Dim made quite a profit on them.

Now the northern trail had become too perilous for the brill. Two years after Ca’daan had ceased his own brill trade north, choosing to sell south twice a year, his neighbor and his neighbor’s sons lost an entire herd of six brill off of Heaven’s Highway. Only one son had survived to tell of the disaster. The Fena Dim villagers who searched for them found the remaining son starved and feral a month later, drinking from rain puddles and eating carrion.

Ca’daan still made the trip north to sell salt. He mined none of it himself but his experience of the trail made him of use to the salt miners. The money helped him through the off-season. He brought two sacks of salt with him now in hopes of buying supplies for himself and any others he brought with him on the return trip.

Doubt started to sink into Ca’daan as he rode the ragged trail high into the western ridges. Could he really expect to find valiant warriors in Fena Kef? The town was a haven for bandits, whores, slavers, and the wasted souls who chewed the red lotus until they went blind and no longer cared. If he could only bring one or two, enough to properly train the rest of them, perhaps that would help. He had to try something.

Ca’daan spent two days in the high crags, winding through the join between the eastern and western mountains. The road was hard. He sat at night and gazed at the stars, considering whether his journey was heroic or folly. It made little difference. He was here now.

On the fifth day Ca’daan reached Heaven’s Highway. A single rock path crossed a canyon thousands of feet deep. It was fifteen feet wide but the edges tapered downward and the lack of any support made it seem much smaller. Ca’daan’s father had taught him the secret to crossing the highway without fear. Watch the end of the road at all times.

Gray Cloud knew the path and did not stumble. Ca’daan had affixed the leather blinders his uncle had given him and across they went. Against his own advice, Ca’daan dared to stare off the edge once as they neared the end. He felt the cold wind rush over him. A deep chill ran through him as he stared down nearly a thousand feet to the razor sharp rocks peaking through the fog below. It was like staring into hell. Ca’daan’s mind built a terrible vision. He imagined the train of brill tumbling and scraping off the edge taking a cart full of supplies, barrels of salt, and three men over with it. For a moment he could almost hear them screaming.

Ca’daan closed his eyes and let Gray Cloud take him the rest of the way across.

Two mountains soon passed and Ca’daan found the descent to the barrens soothing. High cliffs and plateaus rose from the rock-hard cracked mud. No trail presented itself but Ca’daan knew the way. Few others did and that fact protected Fena Dim from marauders or bandits. No large tribe would bother to navigate the small trail for a week or cross Heaven’s Highway and few knew the trails that led through the crags. Those who would bother with any of those barriers would likely find themselves in the middle of a torrent where they could watch shards of ice tear the skin from their bones.

The next day Ca’daan’s path led to a large road used by caravans traveling between Fena Kef and many of the other southern and eastern kingdoms. Half a day north along the road Ca’daan watched a slave caravan pass. Twelve whipmasters pushed nearly one hundred slaves. Two brill dragged an ornate wagon on huge iron-rimmed wheels. Ca’daan caught sight of an ivory face, beautiful eyes, and bare breasts of a woman from behind a silk drape. Beside her sat a small man, the caravan master if Ca’daan had to guess, who barked orders at one of the whipmasters and squeezed the beauty at his side.

The whipmasters eyed Ca’daan as he passed and the caravan master laughed through the drape.

More and more caravans and riders crossed Ca’daan’s path as he grew closer to Fena Kef. More than one band of bandits rode past, eyes hungry for the sacks hanging over Gray Cloud, but they did not stop for him. His was a treasure not worth the effort. Soon small huts and tents dotted the landscape. He reached the town as the red sun stood high in the sky, baking the ground. Everyone covered themselves in white cotton or took shelter during the hottest hours. Dressed in a cotton cowl, Ca’daan watered his horse and waited for the heat of the day to pass.

Four men in black leather armor and bronze masks stopped in front of him. Curved swords hung on their hip and bows sat across their backs. One of them, cloaked in red, barked in a language Ca’daan didn’t understand and they left. Another cart of trade goods dragged by dark-skinned slaves passed. Ca’daan began to feel less and less sure of himself.

As the sun set, Ca’daan made his way into the town of Fena Kef. It had grown over the years, but not gracefully. Where once stood only tents and shacks of loose wood, now structures of hardwood, clay, and stone rose into the air. The streets were alive with trade and travel. People of all kinds walked in garments unfamiliar to Ca’daan. Yet there seemed no organization or plan for the town. The buildings seemed to grow against one another and dirt paths ended with no warning. Ca’daan looked nervously at a body laying face up on one side of the path. He was naked, old, and small. There were flies crawling on the man’s wide-open eyes.

From time to time, Ca’daan’s father had told him, the town had nearly grown into a city. Soon someone would attempt to rule that city. War would strike, blood would flow, many hundreds, even thousands of people would die, and the city would be cut back to the small town once again. Over the years the town had been ruled by god-kings, warlords, dark priests, rich aristocrats armed with mercenaries, and bandit lords. None held the town for more than a year. Even now, with the armies of Dan Trex measuring over one hundred thousand, last time Ca’daan had heard, and the empires of Gazu Kadem and Gazu Tevel rising like monuments to the god-kings who ruled them, no one now dared to attempt to rule Fena Kef.

Beautiful women in silks ignored Ca’daan as they passed. Large men armed with swords and axes passed, giving Ca’daan narrow looks until he looked down and away.

Ca’daan rode to the eastern edge of the town, the trader’s court.