Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [60]
Kahless grunted derisively. “Are you still here?” he asked.
Morath didn’t answer. He simply got down off his s’tarahk and let the animal approach the stream. As it drank, Kahless grunted again.
“Have it your way,” he said.
Kahless considered his mount again. The starahk wasn’t going anywhere in its depleted condition-not for a while. The outlaw was tired too. Taking his sleeping mat off the beast’s back, he rolled into it and closed his eyes against the starlight.
It was possible that Morath would kill him while he was asleep. But Kahless didn’t care. It would be as good a death as any other, and he wanted more desperately than ever to end his suffering.
Kahless woke with first light. The sun’s rays were hot on his face and blinding to his eyes.
For a moment, staring at the starahk grazing placidly beside him and the blanched hills all around, he didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there. For that moment, he knew peace. Then he remembered, and his load of misery crushed him all over again.
A shadow fell over him. Turning, he saw Morath standing there. As before, the younger man accused his comrade with his eyes.
“What is it you want from me?” asked Kahless.
Morath grunted. “I want you to pay for what you’ve done.”
“Pay how?” asked the outlaw.
The other man was silent. It was as if he expected Kahless to know the answer. But Kahless knew nothing of the kind.
With an effort, he got up, his muscles sore from striving against Morath the day before, and limped over to his s’tarahk. The beast looked rested. That was good, because he didn’t intend to pamper it.
There was a pit in his stomach, crying out to be filled.
Kahless ignored it. Dead men didn’t eat.
Getting back on his mount, the outlaw turned it north again. It wasn’t as if he had a destination-just a direction. He would follow it until he could do so no longer.
But Morath wasn’t done with him. Kahless could tell by the shadow the man cast as he mounted his starahk, and by the scraping of the animal’s claws on the hard, dry ground behind him. Morath followed him like a specter of death, unflinching in his purpose-whatever it was.
Not that it made any difference to Kahless. He was too scoured out inside to play his friend’s games, too empty of what made a Klingon a Klingon. Nothing mattered, Morath least of all.
For a total of six days and six nights, Kahless led Morath high into the hills. Twice, they were drenched to the bone by spring sleet storms, which came without warning and disappeared just as suddenly. Neither of them cared much about the discomfort.
On some days, they wrestled as they had that first time, consumed with hatred and resentment for one another; on others, they simply followed the track on their poor, ISO
tired beasts. With time, however, their wrestling matches became shorter and farther between.
After all, their only sustenance was the water they came across in streams running down from the highlands.
Neither of them ate a thing. They left to their mounts the few edible plants that grew along the path.
There was no conversation either, not even as prelude to their strivings with one another. Neither of them seemed to find a value anymore in speech. On occasion, Kahless saw Morath speaking to himself. But the outlaw wasn’t much of a lip-reader, never having seen the need for it, so he couldn’t discern the sense of the other warrior’s mutterings.
Finally, on the morning of the twelfth day, in the shadow of a great rock alongside a windy mountain trail, Kahless woke with the knowledge that he could tolerate Morath’s presence no longer. One way or the other, he had to be rid of the man.
Turning, Kahless eyed his comrade, who had more than once saved his life. When he spoke it was with a voice that sounded strange and foreign to him, a voice like the sighing of the wind in a stand of river reeds.
“I will go no further, Morath. I cannot stand the thought of looking