Nursing wounds, yawns, and tankards of beer lounged Adira's Circle of Seven. The governor of Bryce, Hazezon Tamar, was not present, for he roomed in other quarters when forced to visit Palmyra.
Adira sent Virgil to fetch him, adding, "Insist that Haz come right away, for he's been bred to luxury. If he's hurried at his toilet and denied his morning figs and wine, he'll be grumpy, and that's always a treat. On your way back, fetch a leech to heal our cat friend here. Or a horse doctor. Your choice."
Exhausted and parched, Sister Wilemina accepted a mug of beer and drained it,. then another, before she could talk. Laying her cloak and bow on the table, she shucked her boots. Murdoch massaged her blistered feet. The druid Jasmine Boreal flung off a poncho, slugged half a jug of wine, laid her head on a table, and slept.
Rasping, the archer explained, "We tracked Johan into the Western Wastes. Feet of the efreet, but that tiger sets a fierce pace! We jogged leagues with him, dropping and sniffing every long bowshot. Johan's spoor went straight west. Cursed queer, that. We kept expecting he'd veer north, but he never did. Where he's bound we can't imagine, nor how he survives without water and sunshade. Those rocks would bake a basilisk! After a while, Master Stripes and his hot temper cooled some, and those wounds of his must have ached! They'd cripple a war-horse! Jasmine and I pleaded to turn back. Finally he did, though I'll not deny his courage. He left blood in every footprint. Paw-print. Oh, I hope never again to see such a blighted land! May I eat? Please?"
"Of course. Do." Adira had ordered a sturdy repast because the day promised to be busy. Gracing the table were bacon, cold cock, flat bread, dates, honeyed yogurt, goat cheese, and more. Wilemina wolfed while Adira summed up her crew's state.
"We found Badger in an alley, kicking like a beached grouper and half-blind, but he'll live. The Keepers tend his burns. Heath, our favorite fifth wheel, arrived by packet boat late yesterday, just in time to miss the fun. The marketplace is a shambles. The dead we buried. I attended their gravesides since I'm mayor of this illustrious rat hole. Jasmine and Whistledove and Murdoch have proved official Seveners, so I suppose they'll want higher pay."
Adira Strongheart sipped beer and wiped foam off her upper lip. Staring at the wall, she dandled one booted foot, and finally said, "West? Why would Johan run west and not north toward Tirras? I should think he'd head home to flay his subjects and eat babies. But west? A hundred leagues or more of nothing…"
"That's our biggest setback in brawling with Johan," said the sensible Simone. "You can't outguess a madman."
"Johan's not mad."
Everyone startled as Jedit Ojanen uncoiled from the floor, evidently refreshed by his nap. Scabs on bums and wounds cracked and wept anew, but he scarcely noticed. "That shaman's canny as a wounded fox, but he's not mad."
The Circle of Seven craned their necks. The tiger-man's rounded ears brushed the ceiling beams. Except for a painted green loincloth supported by a thin shoulder strap, he went naked, his body a riot of orange, black, and white stripes, with an astonishing expanse of white chest. Scarred, burned, and wounded, he was still a magnificent creature.
"But you're not Jaeger." Adira thought aloud. "Jaeger was older, steadier. Quick into combat but a thinker. Even a brooder. You're just a cub, albeit a mighty big one. You think with your fists. Claws."
"Tell me of my father," said the tiger. "Please. We know nothing from the time he left Efrava."
"Efrava?" asked Adira.
"Our homeland. An oasis in the eastern desert. The heat and sand wurms prevent our people from journeying west, but my father braved it to gain knowledge. Tell me first, please."
"Very well." Adira tapped another cask to wet her throat. "Though it was Hazezon who found him almost dead north of Bryce…"
Listening, but licking his fangs with a raspy pink tongue, the tiger-man strode to a bench and plunked down, making sturdy pine creak in protest. Without asking, he hooked a roast hen with one hand and bit off half, bones and all. He devoured three more hens, half a ham, a wheel of cheese, a slab of smoked bacon, four loaves of flat bread-everything on the table, including licking clean a pot of honey.
The while, Adira talked about Jaeger, the first cat warrior ever seen in the central desert of Jamuraa, the first tiger-man ever heard of. She spoke of their comradeship and Jaeger's valiant skills, both at fighting and diplomacy, and recounted without emotion the months-long battles and uncounted skirmishes to stop Johan's invasion of the southlands.
The story ran long in the telling, for Simone chimed in with other accounts of Jaeger's valor. "He saved Heath's life once by ripping a fire drake out of the sky. Badger's too, and mine a few times. Everyone loved him. Even those crotchety merfolk liked Jaeger."
Virgil returned with word that Hazezon Tamar was on the way. Coming too was a witch who knew herbs. After those announcements, a long pause hung in the air. All the Circle of Seven watched their leader.
Suddenly weary, Adira Strongheart rushed the story's end. "When we dug out after the sandstorm, Johan's army was dead and buried, though most of Palmyra was too. Yet first thing, Jaeger announced he must quest south. He sensed Johan had survived-how I can't say. His duty and destiny to kill Johan, he said, was cast by prophecy."
"The prophecy of None, One, and Two?" asked Jedit, amber-green eyes glowing.
"Aye." Adira scratched her head vigorously. "It made my brain ache to hear Haz and Jaeger blither about it. They'd spend hours arguing about which was None and which One, and so on, round and round, but Jaeger believed the prophecy implicitly, and…"
"And it killed him?" asked Jedit.
"Perhaps," sighed Adira. "No one knows. Your father never returned. Once we'd gained our sea legs, I sent out scouts and nomads. They scoured the desert for leagues east, but all that new-blown sand made avenues for wurms. They could burrow this far west for the first time, you see. We lost near a score of people to the crawling scourges. That may've been your father's fate, deep-sixed in an ocean of sand. Or Johan may've killed him, though it seems impossible that any mortal could put out that flame. Jaeger Ojanen was a-a living legend." Surprised at her own depth of feeling, Adira fell silent.
After a meal, a tiger would normally sleep, but Jedit picked up a chunk of fallen plaster and filed his claws razor-sharp with a harsh grating noise. In morning sun slanting through the door, his eyes sparkled like cold emeralds. Filing, concentrating, Jedit told his own story, as Hazezon Tamar arrived with clerks and palace guards in tow, of how Johan arrived on an exhausted drake and crashed in the desert only to be rescued by Jaeger's son. How Johan toured Efrava and assessed every feature as if to buy the oasis, or conquer it. Winding up, Jedit asked a score of questions that showed his keen mind had absorbed every detail of Adira's story. The humans' estimation of the tiger's mental prowess rose considerably. Finally, Jedit spoke.
"I believe Johan killed my father. Elsewise Jaeger would have returned to you, his friends. That egg-sucking sorcerer wears my father's medallion like a trophy of the kill. Now Johan's wreaked havoc on Palmyra again. Likely he's a slave to prophecy also. Those few words seem to gang we tigerfolk to Johan like a yoke of oxen. Now to fulfill prophecy and finish my father's work falls to me. No doubt Johan plans new grief for these southlands, as you call them. Surely only death will quell his misdeeds.
"Efrava… Johan must have designs on Efrava too, if only because it's part of Jamuraa, as you call our motherland."
"An oasis in the eastern desert?" Hazezon Tamar spoke for the first time, white beard wagging. "So far? How could such a site aid Johan in conquering the southlands, if that's his goal this time? His army couldn't deviate even ten miles from the River Toloron without perishing. Never could they cross the eastern sands of Sukurvia. No one can, not even nomads."