"At least two."
Ruari got the last word as he hobbled the second kank and let it go foraging. The surviving kanks were doing better than their riders. Bugs could eat just about anything that wasn't sand or rock; people were more particular. They'd run out of village food two days ago. Ruari didn't consider it a serious problem; he'd had little trouble hunting up a steady supply of bugs, grubs, and lizards—more than enough to keep the three of them healthy, but Zvain was fussy, and Mahtra truly seemed to become ill on the wriggly morsels. She'd sooner forage with the kanks—which she did, after Ruari rationed out their water.
It was midafternoon before they were remounted and headed north. Ruari wasn't as well-organized as Pavek, and certainly wasn't as effective getting Mahtra and Zvain moving; he owed Pavek an apology—
The half-elf closed his eyes and pounded a tight fist against his thigh. Pavek's name hadn't crossed his mind since sunrise. He was ashamed that he'd forgotten his friend for so many hours and was grieved by the memories, once they returned. The downward spiral between shame and grief hadn't ended when Mahtra and Zvain both called his name.
"Look—" Mahtra extended her long, white arm.
Wisps of smoke rose through the seared air. They could be mirages—the sun's pounding heat made everything shimmer by late afternoon. But the smoke didn't shimmer, and it wasn't long before they saw other signs of habitation. Zvain prodded their bug's antennae, urging it to greater speed; Ruari did the same thing—until he got his kank far enough ahead to force the other one to a halt.
"Not so fast! We don't know what's up there, who's up there, or if they're going to be friendly to the likes of us." Wind and fire, he was sounding more like Pavek every time he opened his mouth. "This could still be a trap. We go in slow, and we go in cautious. Stay close together. Keep your heads down and eyes open. That's what Yohan would say—" Pavek, too, but by unspoken agreement, they didn't mention his name. "Understand?"
Still, their kanks could outrun all but the fastest elves. Ruari prodded his bug to a halt and let the strangers come to them.
"What brings you three to Ject?" one of the humans asked.
Before Ruari could voice a suitably cautious answer Zvain announced: "We followed a map!" and Mahtra added: "We're looking for two halflings, and a big black tree."
Chapter Thirteen
So much for keeping their heads down and their mouths shut.
Mahtra didn't know any better. She evidently thought when someone older asked her a question, she had to answer. But Zvain—? Ruari couldn't excuse his human friend for blurting out their secrets. Zvain knew the wisdom of discretion and outright deceit. He'd advised it often enough while they were still in Urik's purview. Once they were on the barrens, though, following that scrap of bark Ruari still devoutly believed was a trap, Zvain's common sense and wariness had evaporated.
The woman who'd asked them their business gave Mahtra and Zvain another eyeballing before returning her attention to Ruari. She was human and standing; he was half-elf and mounted on a kank's high saddle, yet she successfully looked down her nose at him, conveying a wealth of disdain in the arch of her brow.
"You look a tad underprepared for the mountains and the forests," she said dryly. "Do you even know where you are?"
Without hesitation, Ruari shook his head. Maybe there was more of Mahtra in him than he'd thought.
"Ject," she said.
He wasn't sure if that was her name, the name of the settlement, or a local insult—until he remembered someone had greeted them with the name as they rode up.
She grabbed his bug's antenna and got it moving forward. He could have seized the bug's mind with druidry, thwarting her intentions without twitching a muscle of his own. That would have been almost as stupid as mentioning the map or the halfling they were looking for. There was an aura around magicians of any stripe, an indefinable something that set druids, priests, defilers, and even templars slightly apart. Ruari didn't get that feeling from any of the strangers around him. He'd need a better reason than stubborn pride before he gave his own limited mastery away.
Ject was about Quraite's size, counting the buildings or people, but similarities ended there. Costly stone and wood were common here on the edge of the Tablelands. Ject's buildings looked as solid as Urik's walls, yet seemed as hastily thrown up as any wicker hut in Quraite. Striped and spotted hides from animals Ruari couldn't name cured on every wall. Skulls with horns and skulls with fangs hung above every door or window. Weapons, mostly spears and clubs, stood ready in racks outside the largest building. Taken with the hides and the skulls, they gave Ject the air of a community engaged in perpetual conflict.
And perhaps it was. The people of Ject had to eat, and there were no fields or gardens anywhere, just barrens and scrub plants up to the back walls of the outer ring of buildings. Ruari had heard tales of four-fingered giths who ate nothing but meat and the gladiators of Tyr who feasted on the flesh of those they defeated, but most folk required a more varied diet to remain healthy. If the Jectites were like most folk, they had to be getting their green foods and grain from somewhere else, possibly from a forest, if not from a field.
The human woman had mentioned mountains, which Ruari could see, and forests, which he could not. Beyond the mountains, there might be forests where the Jectites got their food, where the creatures whose hides and skulls were fastened to Jectite houses lived free, and where trees with bark smooth enough and pale enough to serve as parchment might grow.
For the first time since they'd left Codesh, Ruari thought they might have come to the right place. He wished Pavek were with them to savor the triumph—and to negotiate with the Jectites for the guide they'd need for the next step in the journey. But Pavek wasn't here. Ruari stared at the mountains oblivious to everything else and waiting for the ache to subside.
"Kirre," the human woman said when Ruari became enraptured by an eight-legged leonine captive.
The kirre had windswept horns to protect the back of its head as well as the more usual leonine teeth, a double allotment of claws, and wicked barbs protruding from its tail. Its fur was striped with black and a coppery hue that matched Ruari's skin and hair. Similar hides were curing on the front walls. Ruari imagined the strength it took to slay such a beast, the skill it took to capture one, but mostly he imagined the feel of its fur beneath his fingers and the throaty cumble of its purr.
"They're the kings of the forest ridge," the woman elaborated. "Are you so sure you want to climb up there looking for halflings and black trees?"
Ruari forgot to answer. As a half-elf, he had one unique trait he owed to neither of his parents: an affinity for wild animals, which his druidry complemented and enhanced. At that moment, deep in the throes of his own grief, he was especially vulnerable to the mournful glare in the kirre's eyes. Had he been alone, he would have been off his bug and reaching fearlessly inside the pen to scratch the cat's forehead.
But Ruari wasn't alone, and he wrenched his attention away. When he did the kirre threw itself against the walls of its pen and made an eerie sound, neither a growl nor a roar, that raised bumps all over Ruari's skin.
The woman gave him a contemptuous glance. "Half-elves," she muttered with a shake of her head. "You and your pets. Don't even think about cozying up to this one. She's bound for the games at Tyr. Turn her loose or tame her, and we'll send you instead."
Ruari's mortification turned to anger, though there was nothing he could do for himself or the kirre who was doomed to bloody death at a Tyrian gladiator's hand—and to be eaten thereafter. The thought sickened him and hardened him. Grabbing the nearly empty packs from behind the saddle, Ruari swung down from the bug's back and led the way toward the front of the large building.