Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [19]
“My thanks,” Jahdo said. “You did save my life.”
“And my own as well, eh?” Meer felt the front of his shirt and began brushing off mud and grass clots.
“I do thank you anyway. You could have fallen and broken your neck, trying to save me.”
“I feared your mother’s curse worse than I did dying. A mother’s curse follows a man into the Deathworld, it does. And I thought we’d lost you for sure, lad. What happened?”
“I did step too close to the edge, that’s all. This soft dirt, it be a jeopard, Meer. It’s needful that you do test every step with that staff you carry.”
“And so I shall from now on. Here, do you see a good place to camp? How late is it? I feel a powerful need to rest, I do.”
“Well, the trail runs downhill from here, and I see some trees and grass down over to our left.”
“Downhill, does it? Huh, I wonder if there’s mountains ahead. Can you see any, off on the horizon?”
“I haven’t yet, not even from the top of a hill I did never hear any stories about mountains between us and the Slavers. I think that’s why the ancestors could escape. They never would have survived in mountains.”
“True. Huh. Another thing I wonder. This city, where Thavrae was heading, I mean, is it northeast or southeast?”
“You don’t know?” Jahdo heard his voice rise to a wail.
“I’m afraid I don’t. The lore’s a bit sketchy when it comes to details like that. Well, we’re in the hands of the gods. In them lie our true hope and our true safety. Let us pray for guidance.”
Although he never would have dared to voice such a thought, Jahdo decided that he’d rather put his trust in a man who’d traveled there and back again. Yet, much to his surprise, not long after they did indeed receive a sign from the gods—or so Meer interpreted it.
For the next few days they traveled slowly, stopping often to let Jahdo rest his sore back. Although he soon realized that out of sheer luck he’d broken nothing, he hurt worse than he’d ever hurt in his young life. Sleeping on the ground did nothing to ease his bruises, either. At times, thinking of his warm mattress at home would make him weep. At others, he would simply wish that he had died, there in the fall, and put himself out of his misery. Yet, of course, he had no choice but to keep traveling. Going back would have hurt as much as going forward, after all, and he learned that much to his surprise, he could endure a great deal and still cope with the work of tending animals and making camps, to say nothing of a hard walk through broken country.
On the fourth day it rained, a heavy summer storm that boiled up from the south. Although they were soaked within a few moments, they took shelter from the wind in one of the wooded valleys. Meer insisted that they unload the stock for a rest while they waited out the rain in this imperfect shelter.
“They might as well be comfortable, anyway,” Jahdo said. “Even if we can’t. I hate being wet. I do feel all cold and slimy, and my bruises from that fall, they do ache in this damp. My boots be wet inside, even. This be miserable, bain’t?”
“I take it, lad, that you’ve not spent much time in wild country.”
“Why would I?”
“No reason, truly. You’re not Gel da’Thae. Our souls belong to the wild places of the world, you see, and deep in our souls, all of us yearn for the northern plains, the homeland, the heartland of our tribes.”
“But I thought you did live in towns, like we do.”
“Of course, so that we may better serve the gods here in the latter days of the world. But in our souls, ah, we yearn for the days when we rode free in the heartland. Our warriors make their kills to glorify its memory, and singers like me make our music in its honor.”
“Well, if you do miss it so much, why don’t you go back?”