Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [7]
A young page girl handed him his towel, and Rafiq nodded in thanks, dripping. The girl was of Mortar caste—of low rank, but clever and dutiful—one of the many pages, squires, aides, and valets Rafiq had met during his travels throughout Bant.
“What’s your name?” Rafiq asked. He made a point of learning all their names; he thought it was only right. Although she was of a lower caste, it was the patronage of honest people such as the page girl, and the sigils bestowed in their honor, that gave him his own rank and renown. Some treated the caste system as an excuse for scorn and pride. Rafiq knew that the archangel Asha would have wanted it otherwise.
“Tholka, sir,” answered the girl quietly. She returned to shining his sigils, the vast pile of medallions of patronage that weighed down Rafiq’s armor.
“Thank you, Tholka,” said Rafiq, dabbing his face and neck with the towel. “That’s the Sigil of the Salted Wind,” he said, observing Tholka polish one of his sigils carefully.
Her eyes were wide. “All the way from Jhess?”
Rafiq nodded. “It was for resolving a dispute between the ship patrols and the island aven,” he said.
“Resolving … with combat,” she said, a small smile in her voice.
“Of course,” he said. “Heroic combat, in the honor of the arena. Their champion was a brute of a rhox, silent but mean as a wild leotau when he wanted to be. His skill and shrewdness were so great that I invited him to my knightly order.”
“You mean … Mubin? The famous knight? You met him in the arena?”
“Yes,” said Rafiq. He laughed. “The old rhox was just a poor monk and scholar, but you wouldn’t know it from his strength that day. He fought for the rights of the aven as bravely as if he were fighting for his own life. In the end, we compromised. Both sides got what they wanted, and we both got a sigil. His first.”
The girl finished her polishing. She bowed. “Your armor is ready, sir,” she said.
“Thank you, Tholka,” said Rafiq. “May Asha watch over you.”
“And you, sir,” she said. “Good travels.”
NAYA
As Ajani fell through the air toward the behemoth, he gripped the splintered axe handle in both hands, just to cling to something solid. The beast beneath him opened its toothy jaws to catch him in its mouth. As Ajani landed on the behemoth’s face, he didn’t have time to contemplate his angle or swivel the axe’s head around toward the beast—he moved on instinct, plunging the wicked point of the axe handle deep between its eyes.
Ajani fell onto the jungle floor in a heap. Fortunately, so did the behemoth, flattening a few fat trees as it fell to the ground. It thrashed once or twice before releasing its death rattle.
Ajani didn’t move from the ground for a long time. He lay there, listening, feeling his heartbeat slow from a frenetic slamming to an excited thumping to a regular rhythm. As he listened, he felt the blood of the plane of Naya pumping through the ground below him. It was as if there was an awakened spirit, a drumming pulse deep below the earth that only he could hear. It made him feel connected to everything around him, as if he were a plant with its roots reaching deep down into the layers of the world. He felt he had a role to play in nature, which made him as important as birdsong, or the elves of the far woods, or the gargantuan that lay beside him.
As he listened to the rhythm, he realized he was hearing only footsteps. Padding footsteps, coming closer. Other nacatl were approaching.
Ajani sat up to see the fangy grins of Tenoch and his gang, a mangy bunch of fellow nacatl leonin from Ajani’s pride. Tenoch was one of the nacatl who had left him to die when the humans were hunting him that day.
“White-Fur, you disgraceful freak,” said Tenoch. Tenoch was tall and golden-furred, the son of the pride’s most revered elder. His laugh was a derisive staccato wheeze through snaggly teeth, which caused a little rain of spittle to arc onto Ajani’s fur. “This is our patrol. What