It seems like we have nothing to lose, so we can only win..

Well, that was the scariest morning in my life, counting the time baroness Raith sent a wall of fire over Il Ayande (or Jomhur) that hit our ship. I’m not exaggerating, and if I didn’t have my dignity as leader of the tribe to uphold I’d be in Thamsin’s arms, whimpering. When I told her that, she was amused and wanted to give it a go…

But let me go back in mind to what happened — because there’s a lot here that’s quite important to remember correctly. So the King returned from his hunting expedition, with remarkably little fanfare. He went through the camp, through the gate and into his palace, not cheered on much, if at all. But it was ominous.

Very ominous when the King’s adviser, the mage Naranbataar, came to our tent after doing the rounds of the other tribal chiefs’ tents and told us that for reasons of impending famine and sickness all the tribes had to move two days away from the central camp site. Good way to make sure that nobody has an army handy to fight the King! We promised that ours was already on the edge and that they would retreat into the forest. Of course, what Naran didn’t realize is that this move would hide our, well lack of, strength from everyone elese as well.

For the rest, this mage seemed to be a nice enough fellow. He wanted peace, so that was fine with me, and he didn’t smell of burnt children’s meat, so maybe he’s innocent of that. His daughter is gifted and kisses the king’s son on the sly. I cannot imagine he never noticed that — it’s one way of getting him to support our proposals.

Before the big event, there was going to be a banquet, or rather, the King’s men were going to roast some game and we’d eat it and, for the first time, talk to each other. This was obviously going to be a big occasion, and I was not going to do this on my own, so I took Sepideh and Ailin with me. I really had wanted to take Thamsin, but she was shocked by the suggestion.

The evening started very slowly, with people barely talking. There was kumiss to drink, which isn’t much of a drink (but people managed to get drunk on the strength of it anyway), and roast meat. Well, that was fine, and there was enough, even for my appetite. I feel like a kind of giant with hollow legs among the Khas. They are all so small…

Then after some time the mingling started. I spoke to pretty much every tribal chief out there — there were eight other tribal chiefs, me, and the King. I got the impression that peace pretty much was welcome, except for the idiot whose tribe lives to the north of our village. He wanted to get his own back at the Síthi, Valdyans and Iss-Peranians. Most of the chiefs were really cowards, though. They would go with any decision the king made. And then there’s the one chief who is a dedicated hunter, and he’s my designated ambassador to the Valdyan king, to Athal. After all, there’s more to hunt up there, than here on the plains.

And the king is a really nasty piece of work, in my opinion. He is a mage for one thing, and holds his chief advisor and Nayam Suren bound by thick strands of anea. He told me he was going to listen, and then would make the decision on his own, and I had to tell him that that was, of course, very proper.

In the middle of all the mingling, Ailin slipped away, she had noticed that the king’s son (is he a prince?) and a girl were sneaking out and then making out; then she noticed that the king’s mother was gifted. She got her aside and had a talk, but I don’t know about what.

The evening dragged on, but eventually wound its way to its dreary end. My stomach was doing weird things to me because of all the filthy kumiss I had drunk — though I wasn’t even feeling the slightest bit squiffy! — and we still had to go to the god hills, outside the camp with our tribe’s chief people.

This was something we had decided on earlier, before the meeting started. We’d go to the hills I’d seen during my journeyman’s trial and invoke the Gods. After all, Timoine had sent me and Ailin on our way, and Naigha had pushed us on, and then Anshen and the Nameless had embraced me. It was time we talked business.

So in the middle of the night, me, Ailin, Fikmet, Sepideh, Barah and Bath Kuyah (chief, chief’s sister, avatar of Timoine, champion of the women’s cause, sufferer from incorrigible curiosity and my captain, respectively) went out the camp.

We didn’t even have any problems with the gate guards. Does the might chief of the Tribe of Dawn want to go out with a bunch of muckity-mucks? Sure, no problem, let’s open this gate, shall we mates? Hello? If I were king…

The campsite seemed empty and desolate with most of the tribes moved out. Dirty, too, with latrine ditches everywhere. But we came to the edge of the forest, and there we stood, facing the two hills.

We decided on doing the Invocations, the Valdyan text, but in Khas.

I took the lead, as befits the Chief. Timoine was our first, and he appeared to us. He was separate from Fikmet, which surprised Ailin. We asked him for his support tomorrow, in the meeting, and he promised it us, but said none of the Gods would listen to him; and that he, yes, had brought us here to help his brothers and sisters, the children of the Khas, to end the injustice of the burnings of the gifted.

We called upon Anshen, and we got both… As during my journeyman’s trial. I spoke to the light side, and asked Anshen for his support, tomorrow, when I would plead for peace. He was evasive, because he was both, I think, but acknowledged that he had granted me his colours and that I had a call upon him. And he promised me to support me when he could, without getting too definite.

We called upon Mizran, and he appeared to us. He listened to our plea for peace and prosperity, and promised to stand beside us and listen to us, but he could do no more, he said, and he left us.

We called upon Naigha, and she came to us, and explained to us that the way the Khas kill their gifted children and abuse their power and the way the Khas diminish their women and abuse them had divided the Gods themselves, and that she and Timoine had called on us, to end this injustice and bring the Gods together again and end their division.

We promised her that we would do everything we could — and then we went back to our tent.

What was our plan? We had the armour of Khongor Dzol, the famous tribal chief who avenged the massace of her tribe by massacring the other tribe. We had our wits, and the clear mandate from the Gods… How were we going to convince this piece of rotten cheese of a King that peace would make him great, and war would end him?

Sepideh’s idea was to make him ridiculous by getting a child to challenge him. A good idea, but possibly fatal for the child. But a good idea…

After much back-and-forth, we came to a proper plan: we would challenge the king, if he refused to accept our proposals for peace, life for the gifted and their own ownership for women, to a battle royal: Sepideh would challenge him to story telling, Batuhl to wrestling and Ailin to a bout of drinking. Tradition, fight and feast were to be combined in this epic challenge. So we decided, and we went to bed.

Thamsin — I love her so much. She took it in her stride and gave me the rest I needed before we went out to the meeting hall in the morning.

I had taken Ailin and Sepideh, Sepideh clad in the armour of Khongor Dzol, and that armour hidden by her cloak. Ailin proudly carrying her sword and her dagger. They stood behind me, my advisers and bodyguards. I still feel that soon, the Dawn will have a new chief, and that will be Sepideh — and then Ailin will be free to join the Order of the Sworn, and Thamsin and me will go to Lenyas, buy some land and produce the most amazing crowd of children. But that was just me trying to stop thinking of what would come.

The meeting was opened, and the king posed the question: peace or war? There was not much more to his speech! And the chiefs replied.

One was for, one was against — and the rest, the fucking cowards, they were with the king, whatever the king would decide. Oh, they packaged it in beautiful words, some of them. Altanchimeg, the mage chief of the Snake tribe added that the mages of the Khas had been bound and hampered and that that had lost them the war.

So then it was my turn. I told everyone that my tribe was a new one, that I was not Khas by birth and that I had seen the war, and that a new war could never be won. That the Witch of Lenyas had killed as many men as there were in this entire camp in a few hours — and that I had seen her do it.

Peace, a long and lasting peace would bring wealth and contentment to the Khas, and that would make the name of King Batukhan go down the ages as Batukhan the Great — a war would make him known as the last King of the Khas, the King who, when had the chance to give greatness back to the Khas had chosen their death.

He was convinced of that idea, I think, though not properly. He was shocked to learn that the Síthi, the Valdyans, the Iss Peranians, even the Ishey, considered the war to be over, for good, believed that there was no war with the Khas anymore. His dignity demanded a response to that!

But peace — he interpreted that as a period during which he could build up his strength, while his enemies would get soft with peace and content — that was a good idea. But I’ll get him — I’ll take one of the chiefs, his son and his son’s lover with us to Ayneth! To be friends, to be sure, but if not, to be hostages.

I added that I agreed with Altanchimeg — the Khas were wasting their strength by the killing of almost all of their gifted children. Seeing the King make a motion of wanting to speak, I held up my hand, and added that there was another way we, the Khas, were wasting our strength, and gave the word to Sepideh.

She dropped her cloak and showed her fabled armour, the armour of Khongor Dzol.

Her speech was good, as good as mine, and she pleaded for equality, to make women independent of men, owned by themselves and masters of their destiny.

She paused, and when she paused, I added the evidence of the Gods, their division and the desire of Naigha to end that division. I could see Anshen behind the king, but he was also next to me. The other gods were around us as well.

The king moved his bum, took the position of a grave statesman, or rather, of a village chief unsure of what to do, and looked at Sepideh and then at me.

“What do you want me to do? You say women are the equal of men — but that is new, and no tradition warrants that.”

We told him, once again, about Khongor Dzol — and then he asked us whether we would challenge him about it.

Sepideh was ready for that, and she put out the challenge we had thought out.

And he accepted. The only remaining problem was when and where — and I said, in front of all the Khas, not hidden in this palace, and that decided when, too — in two days.

Ferin is a lot more coherent and comprehensive than Ailin in this episode.

Our children are back! I’m so relieved. When they left us by way of the underground river near the big gorge, I was really angry. Hm, maybe that’s the wrong word. Well, it was difficult to figure out what I thought or felt. They had left us a message, true, but they had gone without telling anyone, and left our tribe without any children.

We went after them of course, looking for them with our spirits, only realizing when it was too late that they had crammed themselves all in that hollowed-out log sorry excuse for a boat down the hole, near the underground river.

But Fikmet assured us that they were taking a safer route than us, and that we would see them again, that they hadn’t left the tribe. I just hope that next time they’ll realize they can discuss their plans with us, and that we’re unlikely to object to a good plan!

So we went on, and on — until at long last we came to a forest-like area, where there were wolves, water and snow. But Ailin has told of that already.

I might be in the Guild of Anshen, and as the Khas reckon such things, a mage, but I’m not a particularly spiritual person. Which is why I did a double-take when the path through the forest was exactly the path I had trodden in my journeyman’s trial. There was the same fork in the road, the same small mounds — but beyond those mounds there was a huge hill, almost a mountain, hundreds of feet high.

At the foot of the hill was a great camp, thousands of tents scattered across the plain around a biggish stone wall that protected a small cluster of stone houses.

We’d finally arrived at the King’s City!

I was determined that the Tribe of the Dawn would make a good impression, so we dressed our ranks and marched into the camp. Yes, people were surprised, and sometimes more than surprised. More than once we were held up by a Khas man, asking us who we were, and what we were coming here for.

Our answer was clear: we were a Khas tribe and we had come to the gathering of all tribes, and did the other guy have a problem with that? It helps if you can look down on someone’s balding pate from a height, of course, so we never actually had to fight our way through.

Through the tents, we marched to the gates in the stone wall. It was guarded, but the gates and the guard weren’t that imposing. I suppose we could have stormed them and taken them with just our tribe, but that wasn’t necessary.

Truth be told, most things in the Khas world seem worn and tawdry. This is one tired people, tired from being bled in endless wars. Wars don’t make a people strong, it’s trade that does that! (And farming.)

The poor people have just spent years pouring out their soldiers into the the butchery that King Athal, the Baroness and General Beguyan prepared for them. All told, there were perhaps forty thousand men and women in this camp! That’s less than one Iss-Peranian army, it’s also much less than the hordes of Khas that invaded Iss-Peran, Solay and Valdyas.

But these people, let’s not forget that, have the habit of burning gifted children, or, if they don’t burn them, to give them to one of their mages to suck dry of power. That’s something I have to keep in mind, because we are making good friends here, now.

So let’s make some things clear in my mind:

When the king comes back from his hunt, I’ll tell him, first, that the Khas should admit defeat. There’s no way this rabble can mount another attack on Solay and get anywhere near. It’s over, with the Khas wars.

The second thing I’ll tell him is to listen to our Sepideh. After all, the women in the big camp are listening to her, too. She’s been making rounds to all the tents, and talking to whoever wants to listen.

And the third thing is to make him stop burning children. And if he won’t do that, I’ll fight him, Timoine and Anshen are my witnesses. What I want is to go back to Tilis with Thamsin and have children and live — but if it’s needed, I’ll know my duty. I’ll fight that King if the Khas mages don’t stop burning the gifted.

But that’s later — the king is away, hunting, and we only discovered that after some days.

We arrived at the gates, and the guards asked us who we were — and I told them I was the headman of the Tribe of the Dawn, and they said, oh, well, go in then — but leave your tribe outside.

We all went in, after all, every headman has his entourage, right? And these are mine. Nobody needs to know that this is the whole tribe.

There were about half a dozen tents already pitched in a big courtyard. A bit further along were those stone houses, I’d almost call them shacks, and that’s where the king and his wives live!

Nobody joined us, nobody asked us whence we came or who we were — we were ignored. Every headman’s tent did have an entourage, too, but smaller than mine, which makes me, I guess, the biggest headman present!

And nobody talked to anybody else.

I sent some people out on reconnaisance, to find water and food, to find out about the king and how many mages there were around. And we had our reading and writing lessons and so on — but no semsin, since the kids were gone and Ailin and I needed to hide our gift from the mage-headman in another tent in the courtyard, a yellow tent.

The next day, I took the tribe outside for training, sword, bow, slingshot, wrestling, running. The women excused themselves, they proposed to go to the other women in the great camp and talk to them, and talk, and talk. And that seemed like a good idea to me. Only Ailin stayed with us, all the others went.

Thamsin took some beads I had been carving for in her hair, and she managed to do good trade with them, so I spent most of my evenings carving more, in the shape of cats’ heads, spirals, faces — all kinds of things. I’ve got big hands, but I’m pretty good with them, as all seamen are.

But that was a bit later. First, when we had our first training a big Khas man came to me and started the “I’m not scared of you big man, so fight me, unless you’re scared of me” dance. I threw him down after a bit of wriggling, then did that again. It wasn’t hard, but it was also clear that it was easier than it should have been: I am so inexperienced in wrestling that it was more surprise than anything else which threw the guy off balance.

I got him to promise to teach me proper wrestling, and we’ve been having fun just about every day since. Yesterday, he even invited me to his tent, to meet his lady wife and to drink some weird drink, apparently made of horse milk, fresh, but a bit boring. I’ve promised to share a bit of Valdyan brandy with him!

Almost every afternoon some other headman put up his tent in the courtyard. None of them approached any of the others, which struck Ailin and me as weird, but our Khas weren’t surprised. After all, what if they were in a feud or got into a new feud? There’d be fighting, and the King was still away.

But one of the headmen had two small kids with him, a boy and a girl, and their natural curiosity had not abated yet — they were watching us closely, and finally came over to us. Ailin took care of them, and made them feel at ease. We gave them food, and taught them some letters. There were awfully proud of that, though the boy was indignant we were teaching his sister as well. Another chance to strike a blow against the women-are-cattle idea!

I think we got really friendly with the kids, and when I saw their mother steal a glance our way, I knew they’d been talking about us. That could be good, or it could be bad, but on the whole, I think good. After all, the more people know about the Dawn and what we are, the better.

We really were pressed for food now, though, and hunting near the camp was an impossibility, so we sent Sepideh and Ailin out to hunt, while Thamsin was going to try and trade beads for plains grain. That’s when we realized our kids were back!

Without everything that happened to Ailin, though Ferin was watching over her all the time that it happened.

Our tribe is growing. I really think it deserves to be called that, now that we’ve conquered another group of Khas and added half a dozen men to our strength. Not an unmixed blessing, because we lost Batuldzi in the fight.

It’s strange, though, these four women want to be become fighters, have been training as fighters, and have become quite good, too. But losing one of them makes me think we should perhaps keep them back. What’s the use of finding the king if all the women who want to find him are dead? On the other hand, what’s the use of finding that king if, after all, all those women are dependent on their protectors. It’s a tough question, and I’m not sure I’ve got the answer.

It happened yesterday. We had been trekking over the plains for a couple of weeks since the mice, and hadn’t encountered any people whatsoever. So when Fikmet found fresh camel tracks, we were a bit wary.

Ailin looked around with semsin that evening, and found about ten people camping out in the vicinity. We decided to spy them out, sending out Bayat and Sepideh.

That was a mistake: we hadn’t counted on there being a mage in the camp, and the mage spotted Bayat and grabbed him with his filthy tricks. Sepideh came running and warned us, and we stormed the camp. If we hadn’t sent Bayat, but someone who wasn’t gifted, who knows what might have happened? Maybe nobody would have died.

But there it was, Bayat was caught, and Ailin and I went for the mage and the captain, while the rest of our tribe went for the soldiers.

It was a confusing fight, it was already getting darker. We managed to kill the mage, but it was touch and go, since he was strong enough to hold Bayat and Ailin at the same time. We don’t know how they do it, but determined to figure it out.

We had some more wounded, the others had some more dead, apart from the mage, and of course our Batuldzi. For the funeral, we dug a deep pit and filled it with dry grass, all the brushwood we could find, dung and then heaped the bodies in there, all of them, then set fire to the pyre.

Apparently Ailin and I were now the unquestioned leaders, so it was up to us to say the prayers for the dead. Tough luck for the Khas: we said the Invocation to Naigha in Ilaini then in Khas on all sides of the pyre, more we couldn’t do.

Apparently there are long dirges that need to be sung, stories told of the heroic deeds of the fallen — but nobody present could do that, so we didn’t.

We did take the conquered Khas into our tribe — six men, a woman and their captain. Their captain was wounded but had survived, and he submitted to me. Though he told me that he just might challenge me, later on! I gave them the ground rules of life with us, viz. keep your hands of any woman who doesn’t want you, everyone fights and teaches each other and we have a break on the day of Anshen.

They were a bit surprised, I guess, but their woman was really happy to be her own woman. They came from Solay, actually, and had fought in the final siege — having been beyond the mountains will have shown them that there are other ways of living together than the Khas way, in any case.

Not that all Khas are the same, apparently. The newcomers, I still don’t have all their names, had tents that were much more practical than ours: just three long stakes with some leather wrapped around. I didn’t seen any protecting snakes or owls, but I might have missed those.

It’s probably good that we have some more fighters in our little tribe, especially when we get nearer to the King’s court, where our new people were going as well.

But next time we come across another tribe, I’m going to take four soldiers and investigate myself. No more pussy-footing but a reconnaissance-in-force.

This time, we know where we’re going but not how long it will take! Navigating in the Khas way is a useful skill to learn, though.

We left late in the morning… After some more sword training, semsin training, reading and writing and lots of good advice. Which rather set the tone for our journey! We were still a respectable crew, and we had two camels, good weapons and everything we needed, including two mysterious sticks that Sepideh had mooched off commander Faran.

It was raining a bit, more drizzling, but we were all quite eager to be off again, somehow Ailin and I had gotten infected with the need for the open plains and the wide horizons. Or something.

We got into a good habit of practice and study: stories, semsin, Ilaini (so we’d have a secret language when at the king’s court!) reading and writing and other skills (like cooking) in the evenings, sword fighting (Mahar was pretty good at that), wrestling, knife throwing, slingshot work and more of that kind of thing in the mornings. We’d break up camp late, strike camp early and make sure we made good progress, both as in distance and as in edification.

We hadn’t travelled that far when we saw a solitary soul up north, one evening. The next day he or she was still around; we never figured out who it was, or what his or her purpose was. It was too far for us to go, and the person wasn’t gifted. But it made mighty good exercise for us!

Soon we came down one of the gullies and saw the wide plain stretch out in front of us. Now we had to decide, south, to visit our — weird thing to say, but we did say it! — our village, or straight ahead. In the end, it was Bayat who had “family” in the village, his womenfolk, and he seemed confident they’d stay put and not abscond. Accordingly, we went straight ahead.

Well, straight ahead sounds simple, but life was complicated by the scarcity of wells. Sepideh’s sticks were handy here: she knew how to calculate her course from well to well, using the sticks and some stones that had been put down in patterns. It wasn’t very complicated, not as complicated as it looked, but it was still quite easy to lose ones way!

Ailin asked Sepideh to teach her how to use the sticks, stones and notches and she managed very well. We still haven’t died of thirst, and haven’t visited the same well twice. At least, I think we haven’t…

We’d been walking to the west like this for days, now and then catching an animal to eat, now and then going short water rations when little Fikmet threw her very welcome temper trantrum.

She said she was sick and tired of walking and lessons, walking and exercises. Couldn’t we just have a day off? She was right of course, and I declared that the next day would be the day of Anshen, and that we would celebrate with games and game.

Nobody had any inkling that the games were another exercise — things like climbing the only tree and keeping lookout for the others who were playing hide and seek — but it was a day of rest, too. We prayed at the fire, we caught something good to eat, a bunch of goats if memory serves. and we had a feast.

Ailin and I invited the Khas women to tell their stories for a change, and they told us about their king, who had been a good king, who had ordained the stones giving the directions to the next well, and who had conquered many other kings.

I think it was at this point that my Thamsin started to rather fancy me as the next Khas king… I’m not sure, maybe it was because I asked whether, if I were a Khas king, I could order canals to be dug through the plain. But it was a good day of Anshen, and in the evening, Thamsin and I went over to the next hillock and made love in the dry grass, and I told her I’d take her to my place in Valdyas, and she seemed to like that, too.

We moved on for quite some day, day after day, and Ailin started wondering how far away the king’s court was.

Sepideh told us — between three weeks and nine months! That was more than any of us had thought! How did the iron mine people get their ore to the king’s city if it were that far away! And they also told us that the king’s city was made of stone, too.

Still, there was no going back. Of course! So we went on, day after day. With Sepideh and Ailin charting our course, me keeping everyone together, all of us learning from each other, we kept going west.

We had an adventure one night when our camp was overrun with thousands upon thousands of mice, eating our freshly slaughtered cow, we had to go without water for a day because the well was full of mouse-piss, we kept our Day of Anshen every seventh day after the first one — but we kept going west.

Ailin will have it known that snakes aren’t slimy! They’re dry and firm and smooth and altogether awesome.

And then we were twenty! I haven’t counted exactly, let me do that… Ailin and me, and Thamsin. The kids: Fikmet, Tascal, Mahar, Raham, Makhane and Bayat. “My” women: Odgerel, Sepideh, Batuldzii and Sarangerel (I got their names exactly now, because I’m teaching everyone to read and write). From the village, Phuli with her kids Behen and Atayu, and also the widow Serla. And then the Sithi merchant Thalai and his boy Bar and soldiers Sanyat and Ishi. That makes twenty-one. Not bad when you consider that that witch Mina was trying to keep everyone in the village with her foul songs!

For a while, life in the village was quite fun. I got to play a land-lubberly kind of bosun, making sure the layabouts in this village got a field day or two, three. And none too soon! The creepers on the tents, the leatherwork, the cording — I had them all cleaned and repaired. Made some of the men — uncle Taschal might have a leg-and-a-half, but he could handle a broom, dammit! — clear the rubbish between the tents. The clothes needed a thorough washing, the grain got in from the fields and stored, and, great Mizran!, no matter what was I going to eat gray dried meat when there was beef on the hoof to be had!

I was still not well enough to turn a hand to it myself, but one day Ailin came to the village to tell me that she had caught a big, shaggy wild cow, and that the boys and Fikmet couldn’t get it home! So I took some of “my” women and went out, finding the right spot by looking for Fikmet’s brightly burning mind. That night we were going to have roast beef with onions, even if we had to strip one of the side-valleys of all its wood!

We also got talking, about who would go with us, first to the Valdyan Fort at the river, and then to the Khas king. There was only one left — old Taschal had seen him once, from a distance. This king had killed all the other kings. Taschal didn’t seem particularly impressed with the Khas that had gone over the mountains, to Valdyas, Solay and Idanyas.

Indeed, he seemed to think of them as wasters, who knew they didn’t stand a chance fighting against real men, Khas, in other words. Taschal was proud he’d lost his leg not against a sissy easterner, but in a real fight, with a real opponent.

Still, people from the village must have been over the mountains, because otherwise, how could Phula and Serla have arrived here? Besides, it’s only two, three days.

The next day we fixed that we would leave the day after. One of the tents was demolished, and we would take it with us, having confistaken one or two of Thalai’s camels for the purpose. He protested, but not too much, because I was up and about again by then. I was going to walk, though Ailin and Thamsin protested bitterly and said I should ride on the third camel.

It took three hours to take down and pack up the tent! And it would take just as much putting it up again! I was all for leaving it behind, but by then Ailin had made friends with the guardian snake, and she was going to carry the slimy brute and take it with us.

The day we left the village, the sky was gray, and it got darker and darker as we went eastwards. For some time, I was afraid that Mina was doing some weather stunt, like our Witch, I mean, baroness, but Thamsin assured me Mina could not change the weather. Still, it was nasty: wet, dark, dreary — and the damn tent was all but useless.

Fortunately, the fort was only a couple of days distance. Amazing, so close to the Order of the Sworn and a place where Valdyans live, and then the situation in the village… With slavery, girl-robbery and apathy.

We felt even more out of sorts when we arrived in the fort. Ailin was carrying the snake around her shoulders, we had very nearly an army of Khas, some of them gifted… I had warned Faran before we arrived, but nothing could have prepared the guards for us.

Still, we were allowed in, and made welcome. Ailin shooed our snake cellar-wards, to hunt rats, and we got food. And beer! Glorious beer. Great Mizran, what had I longed for a mug of cool, dry beer. Thamsin was cute enough to steal sips from my mug, which made her sleepy.

I told Faran all about how we had fared, about our adventures — see earlier letters — and how I had come to be with Thamsin. At one point, when I told him I had chosen her from all the other women who were making eyes at me (he didn’t believe me at first, that there would be actual women competing for ugly old me, but then, for those women brawn and a capacity to protect come before finely-chiselled features!), Thamsin looked up from my beer, a bit disturbed, as if she understood what I was saying.

Nonsense of course, her Ilaini is still limited to “No” and “Yes”. But I decided that the fact that I had gone to bed with her was caused more by a desire to provoke Khopai into a fight than a desire for her is something she doesn’t need to know. It’s stupid, I still don’t know whether I want to spend the rest of my life with the girl, but I can’t bear it to hurt her in any way…

My wound had opened again, but there was a Guild doctor who healed it like poof! with his hands. Just like the Iss-Peranian doctor girls who had visited the Princess, just before we left. With my pain gone, after a good night’s sleep, I shooed all the other people out of the dorm, and made sure Thamsin still was sure she was with me. That made me worry again… We’d been together for four, five weeks now. Wasn’t it time for her period? The Iss-Peranians call that the Offer to the Mother, which sounds nice, but doesn’t make the women any less grumpy.

Anyway, it was time for sending Serla, Phuli and their kids to Solay, together with a guard from the fort, and lots of letters to the Princess and the witch. After that — Faran taught us to handle a sword, since all of us had been selecting old Khas armour and weapons from the armoury. Weird swords, one side sharp, one side blunt and quite pointy at the business ends. They fitted me like a dagger fitted Fikmet… Until we found one my size, that is.

In the meantime, we all got checked by the Guild doctor, and given a clean bill of health. And Thamsin had started to bleed that morning, so that was okay as well. I asked the doctor whether I had made her bleed, but that wasn’t so, phew! And she had a good, long talk with all the womenfolk, about babies and how not to have them, also the beauty and strength of the word “No”. Good doctor!

In the evening, we did our usual semsin exercises, this time with Faran helping us out. He was quite impressed by all what we already had done, but had a lot to teach us.

Whether it was because of that, or something else, I don’t know… But that night I became a journeyman. I had the strangest dream, where I was walking through a forest, dark and damp, with tall trees, and no brushwood. I was going down a path and arrived at the edge of the forest. There the path forked, and I saw a young boy at the fork. So similar to the Dayati we’d seen in Solay, and also similar to the Timoine I knew from home. But unmistakably Khas. What was a Khas doing here at the edge of the woods? I hadn’t seen any trees in the Khas country.

He told me I had to make a choice… Go one road or the other. At the end of each road was a small hillock, a kind of mound. They looked man-made, somehow. One was occupied by two — gods, really gods. Naigha and, again, Timoine. At the other, Anshen, the Nameless and Mizran were waiting. Well, I use the Ilaini words, but these were clearly the Khas gods. I should have remembered their names.

I don’t want to have anything to do with the Nameless! But Naigha is not for me, I am a man, so I went left.

When I arrived at the mound, all three surrounded me. They touched my shoulders. It felt like a blessing, but also, somehow, like taking possession of.

Then I woke up…

I was a journeyman, now, I knew that. I didn’t know what the Nameless’ touch had done to me — whether that had made me his, too.

Faran came almost running to our dormitory, where Ailin and others had woken up already. He could reassure me, somewhat, he looked at me and didn’t see a sign of the Nameless. But whether I was now bound to go and learn the Khas way of semsin, that he couldn’t tell me either. Fikmet and Makhane didn’t think I was bound on the path to become a Khas sorcerer, and that made me feel better.

We resolved to leave for the King’s court as soon as I was fit again to travel. The irony! The biggest, beefiest person in our group, and every time everyone had to wait for me before we could travel!

I like Ferin! Though Ailin is exasperated with him at times. (And he with her; they’re exactly like brother and sister at the moment.)

In other news, this is an adventure story, danger and all.

I’ve taught her to say “no”.

In Ilaini.

I’m not sure whether that was stupid or not. I do know that I have had it with obedience — with owning women. Especially those four — and why I’m so pissed that Bayat owns Bakhmet, instead of me, and her daughter, I don’t know. In any case, I’ve taught her to say “no” to me. In Ilaini.

It was on our way out of the village of Khusai, Khusai and his dozen women, girls and children, all his private property, except for my Thamsin.

Well, I’m still not sure about myself — but Thamsin has been good for me. Ailin, too, and I’m afraid Ailin is getting jealous of Thamsin. And I’ve been around long enough that I cannot say, “I don’t know why!” Damn… Life is really complicated these days.

So, to get back to the beginning, we’d moved out of Khusai’s village, that’s me, Ailin, Thamsin, Talai-the-Sithi-merchant, Tassel, Bayat, Mar, Makhane, Raham and little Fikmet. We had one camel, a waterskin a person and some sackfuls of grain.

Lousy grain.

We went north, cautiously, trying to find two-week old tracks of a camel, a girl and a woman. That is just not as hard as tracking a two-week old spoor of a dolphin past the gulf of Tal Havin, but not much easier. Even for our hunter boys!

Of course it was little Fikmet (I love that girl, she went hunting with Ailin the other day), who found the first trace of a camel’s foot, a very nice, clear print in some muddy ground near a pool. We compared it to our camel’s footprints and one thing was clear: the older one was much deeper.

We knew we were on the right track then — to the north, disregarding the plains to the left or the gulleys in the cliffs to our right. There weren’t many animals around, some mice and rabbits, our boys’ owls, some distant big beefy beasts on the plains. Once Ailin caught an egg, while the owl caught the bird. The egg was edible, even though there clearly was what would later be a baby bird inside.

Four days later the rumbling of my stomach became a point of earnest discussion between Thamsin and the boys, and we went out for a hunt. I’d prepared a net, they had spears, Ailin had her knifes. We caught a small cow with black hairy skin and long, curved horns. We left the innards for Mizran. No sooner had we left the kill site, or the vultures were gorging themselves.

Thamsin knew how to skin it, but she did it different from any butcher I’ve ever seen: she cut the meat from the skin, instead of the skin from the carcase. Still, it worked, and we had lovely cuts of meat. It was extremely tasty and lasted us a long time!

We traveled for four, five days before we saw the first human beings. Someone, gifted, but not much, about a day ahead. We made ourselves inconspicuous in one of the smaller gorges. There I made a seal, and we went ahead with our usual evening tasks: I was teaching everyone their letters, Ailin and me were teaching the gifted kids semsin — such a pity that Thamsin isn’t gifted! — and then there were wrestling lessons for everyone, including Thamsin and Fikmet.

The next day, we were surprised by a cloud of dust to the west. Two men, seated on a single camel were travelling westwards. Our boys said that they probably were out hunting. But the gifted mind was still in the same place, an hour or so to the north. Besides, there was no way, not even with our camel, that we could have overtaken those two. Not even if we’d just put Fikmet on its back.

By then, Talai was the most frequent camel jockey, since his poor merchant feet were reduced to tatters. My Thamsin, despite her soreness, had walked gamely on and even little Fikmet hadn’t had any trouble keeping up with us.

The first people we saw were four women. They were dressed in the usual Khas layers of cloth, maybe thirty-ish, maybe younger, and they were digging in the rock which came out of the cliff here. Two were digging with picks, the other two were crushing the stones to pebbles. All four were awfully thin, underfed — and not too pretty, but that goes without saying, for they were Khas themselves.

Ailin and I looked at each other and then asked Thamsin to figure out what was going on. That seemed the quickest way — to me, these women didn’t look like desperate girl-snatchers, and they weren’t.

There was a captain here, they said, and he was the boss. And a mage, and he was bad news, too. And two underlings, soldiers, and they were not nice either. Fortunately, they had brought themselves a woman and a girl. To care for them, these women said. Thamsin’s face was a study all by itself when she heard that.

But when we were talking, a small, wiry man came out of the entrance to the mountain works. He had a sword, leather vest and he snarled, “What’s up here? Why don’t I hear you fucking cunts work?” Then he paused, and asked, “Who the fuck are you?”

Ailin translated that for me, of course.

Although I did know the Khas word for “fuck” by now. (I’m still trying to find better, more fun words for Thamsin to use, but I guess I need to teach her some more Ilaini.)

I went up to him and said, “Well, I’m Ferin, this is Ailin, those are our kids — and I’m going to get these women out of your foul hands.”

Ailin had to translate that, too.

The captain turned an interesting colour and started spitting words I didn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand.

So I stepped up to him and gave him a shove against his breast. He nearly lost his footing and shouted, “Are you challenging me?”

I got that, so I said I guessed I was — and gave him another shove.

He drew his sword, and I didn’t want to get out of reach, my reach I mean, so I closed with him, grabbed him in a bear hug and hugged until I heard him pant for breath. The bastard dropped his sword, and I hooked my arms behind his shoulders, grabbed his chin in my hands and pushed his head backwards. His neck snapped, just like that. I had seen my old skipper do that before, in the East, but I had never tried it myself. Works fine!

Only then I noticed the shouts around me. And I felt my side, and it was spurting blood. He had stabbed me with his sword, and I hadn’t even noticed! Thamsin started staunching the flood, and in the meantime, a tallish man in a huge blue, patched, gown came out. He was the gifted one…

But I couldn’t move, it was all I could do to not fall, so I stood my ground and let Thamsin do her best. It was Ailin’s turn to face the blue-gowned one, again.

I’m not sure what she did — I was seeing floating black spots and feeling a bit faint — but she hit out with her mind at him, and the coward fled… Followed by a bunch of spears and Ailin’s knife. She caught him right where it hurts, in the buttocks, and he fell over, whimpering a bit, until he lost consciousness.

I looked at the women, and asked them whether the mage should be left to live. They were still gaping at us, but at that they came up to me and told me that, no, no, not at all — please cut his throat! I wanted to ask Ailin, but she was helping Thamsin to clean my wounds and bind them up. So Makhane took his knife and — easy like slaughtering a goat — he cut the mage’s throat.

I’m not too sure what happened afterwards. I was still losing quite a lot of blood, but a woman and a real pretty girl, the first really pretty Khas girl I’d seen, came out of the works’ entrance. Thamsin came up to her and they embraced each other and chattered in their lingo, I couldn’t understand it. But Ailin didn’t need more than one look and she went up to them and helped them with salve and good words. Poor woman, poor girl — three, four men they needed “to take care of”, and the girl twelve, if that old. I got pretty pissed off at that, but I was feeling like I was drunk, so I kept that bottled up.

We made to leave then. We didn’t want to be here when the two soldiers on their camel returned, not with me mostly out of action. Makhane wasn’t sure at all that he and the boys could tackle the two soldiers. I think those women have to learn to fight, they are all pretty strong!

It turns out that this was an iron mine, and that the iron ore was brought to the King’s Army, to the west. Now that was interesting — if only I had been clear enough of mind to think!

It was a weird journey back to the village. I remember ordering everyone to go up through the first gully to the top of cliff, the mountain ridge, to make sure we would avoid the camel guys. Then those two, we saw them ride with great haste (poor camel! ours hates to even amble around) to the north. Then we sent Makhane and Mar to the north, post-haste, to warn our village…

I remember being cleaned with water and brandy and bound up by Ailin. I remember her telling me that soon she would feel hale enough to allow me to touch her, like I was touching Thamsin. That made me wonder what was going on in her mind… I remember Thamsin cooking… We still had meat. I remember those four women telling me they were mine…

I remember talking to Talai, when I was riding the camel with little Setsie (her full name is Erdenetsetseg Ailin tells me, but that’s too hard for me, she is Bakhmet’s daughter) sitting behind me, holding my shoulders. He told me he’d planned to grab everyone in Khusai’s village, after fighting Khusai and taking them for slaves to Solai. That’s when I realized that my plan to bring all of them to the princess was too close to his plans to succeed. Later on I realized that it was Ailin’s and my presence that had kept him from going on with his plan.

I remember telling my four new women that they needed to learn to fight.

I remember teaching Thamsin her first Ilaini word — “no!”.

I don’t remember much from the fight when the two soldiers overtook us in the dark. Their camel stumbled and broke its forelegs. One of them was killed, the other escaped. How, on the strength of killing him, Bayat took Bhakmet and little Setsie as his womenfolk, I don’t understand. Maybe Khusai gave them to him, now that he was a man.

They use iron sticks for money here, it’s really strange.

And then, I hadn’t slept for days, because I knew that if I would stretch out on the ground, not all the combined strength of all of the others would get me up again, I remember waking up in Mina’s tent, feeling woozy and hungry.

The women were all giggly, all looking at me — “my” women as well as those in the village. When Thamsin came to help me eat, she was blushing, and I think, but I’m not sure yet, that she had been telling the Khas women not just about my fight, but also, well, that they should expect more of a man than they had known. That’s good, I’m sure of that. I won’t blow my own horn now that Thamsin takes care of that, but the women here need to learn a thing or two, and then make sure the men get taught!

Bayat was pretty insufferable, with his two women, but I’m going to give him a lesson in civilized behaviour — and if he doesn’t take it, well, I guess I can allow his women to make their own choices.

Like my four women… Well, “my”… They felt that way, but they were at least part-way to becoming their own people, they had gone on strike, not a work-strike, but an eating-strike, and they had stopped eating to force the four men to stop mis-treating poor Setsie. Good for them!

Though they do need feeding up. Seeing me, seeing Ailin, seeing Thamsin, too — and also Fikmet, who had decided to go out hunting, despite hunting not being work and therefore man’s work, they decided to make their own decisions.

They told me Khas men never do any work — it all gets dumped on the women. No wonder, then, that there wasn’t any work going on in the village, the women were taking a break now there weren’t men to force them. But, as I told Khusai later on, I think that village was dying. Weird, I keep thinking of it as “our village”, and the gray tent as “our tent”. Mine and Thamsin’s, mainly, with the communal part for our boys and Fikmet. The four mine women had grabbed a tent of their own, good for them again!

I have to admit, I was pleased, real pleased. I had foreseen difficulty telling them that I am a one-woman-per-country man, but it was easy. They told me they had come to a decision.

They wanted to visit the Khas King, the last King, in his Army camp, the last Khas Army, and tell him that women were no longer to be chattels, but people.

And I think we’ll join them, and go there too. Visit the fort first and give Faran letters for the Princess, maybe Mina wants to learn from Dushtan, maybe Serla and Phuli want to go to the City, maybe others. But our kids, what I think of as our four soldiers (even if they’re women, and we’ll get swords and shields for them at the fort), me, Ailin and Thamsin — we’ll go and take a look at that Khas king.

I’m still wondering whether we didn’t harass a completely innocent hapless NPC, but there must be something behind it.

So we suddenly had six kids with us… Fikmet, Tassel (Ailin tells me it’s “Tasgal”, but I don’t hear it that way), Mar, Makhane, Bayat and Ram. It was still quite early in the morning, and we decided to go down the gorge, to the plains where there were big, edible animals.

I know I often sound a bit greedy, but then, I’m a big, beefy fellow. I can do without food, have done without food, often, but the last time we’d had something real to eat was in the fort, and I was looking forward to these big, beefy beasts that were edible. Yes, I was. Of course, I was courting disappointment.

So we went down, the gorge took a turn to the south-west, and in under half an hour, long before I had expected it, we were on the plains. An endless amount of rolling hillocks with dry grass and low shrubbery. To the east, there was a steep cliff running north to south. Mar and Makhane told us there was a village to the south, and that’s the direction we took. We passed many other small gorges and gullies, some with water, others without.

It didn’t take long before we saw a small village in the distance. A bunch of tents erected in a semi-circle, some people milling about and some badly kept grain fields to the west. When we came closer, we saw a low, stone building in the entrance to another gorge. Three, four camels were tied to a railing next to a trough. The tents turned out to be painted in all kinds of colours.

We couldn’t get closer, though, because a man was blocking the path. He was a man, but only just, I learned later on. Only I thought he was sixteen, seventeen. He had a hard, pinched face, was quite brawny — but all these Khas are small and a bit muscular. Hard to see the age of any Khas man who’s not gray yet! Later on, Aylin told me his granny had told her he was only twelve.

He asked us where we came from, who we were and what we came to do. Tough questions, but in the end Ailin and I told him we were from Solay, were travelling and had some good stories to tell. That was kind of the bait: we figured that these people probably were dying for some outside news and maybe even more for some new strong stories.

And that was true. The village was small: apart from this man, boy — man, whatever — he was called Khusai — and his uncle Tasgal there were only women and children here.

To our surprise, there was even a gifted Valdyan woman and a Síthi woman. The Síthi woman was the mother of two children.

The youngest children in the village were about four years old, except for one two-year old toddler.

Something was really wrong here, and we couldn’t figure it out, but once we were told, it was obvious: all the men had gone to the war and had left their womanfolk behind. And only Tasgal with the peg-leg had returned from the war, and since they hadn’t had any news from Solay, that must have been a long time ago. He didn’t even know about our witch.

Well, we were shown the stone building, it was the “water house”, where we washed ourselves. Also our kids: they protested a bit, but hey — there was no knowing when we would next find water to wash! At least it was fresh water, not salt! Then we saw the other party… The camel guys from Solay. They were here as well… So much for staying out of their sight. And we still did not trust them. Not at all.

Nothing much seemed to be going on in this place… There was a fire in the middle of the semi-circle of tents, the fire was poked up a bit, water was heated in a kettle and some leaves thrown in. Time for a nice cup of tea!

Even though it was early in the afternoon, nobody went out to work — it really frightened me somehow. Everyone, more than a dozen women and children, the two men and the camel party, sat down around the fire and waited for our stories…

I had some good ones to tell, and Ailin kept up her side as well, and then we told them about the sorcerer we’d killed and his mother who’d chosen death. That’s when the looks started. Darting looks from one person to another, between Khusai and his uncle, Khusai and his granny…

“Did you kill the sorcerer?”, asked the granny of Ailin, and she said “Yes”, of course.

“That’s not allowed! Women cannot kill men!”

Obviously they can, and do, and we instanced our great witch, Raith. That led to some more silence. As I said, they had not heard about Her.

I broke the silence, asking Khusai about the village. He was pretty sombre about it all. With no men, they would soon be conquered by another village and he wouldn’t be village head anymore, only there didn’t seem to be any villages with men around, however far you’d walk. For the rest, he seemed to get younger and younger by the hour, less and less self-assured. He was angling for our kids to stay, become men to the village’s women, but they didn’t seem willing to me. I was getting really antsy now. There were some customs here that seemed really strange to me, especially when I figured out that actually all the women in this village were Khusai’s until they got conquered by other Khas…

Ailin asked him whether it would be good if some of the women were to bear children made by, well, foreigners, like me. He didn’t like that idea at all, and his granny said that we’d have to fight for that right. That made me think…

Really, this village was dying, women and children and all. They lived in tents, but the tents didn’t look like they were moved often, if ever. Creepers and green stuff were going up the tent walls. What’s the use of tents if you don’t travel?

We asked Khusai and his uncle — Tasgal, but also Mina, the granny, whether they wouldn’t like to come to the big city with us. The Valdyan and Síthi women here did like the idea — but especially the Valdyan woman was a bit simple, really. Not someone the others listened to a lot. But she was gifted, as were other women here. But that was safe, apparently, with no sorcerer in the neighbourhood.

And then the camel people — they were too silent to make me feel comfortable with them. Something scrabbled at the back of my mind. I got even antsier…

In the end, when Ailin had gone with granny to talk, I felt that something had to happen.

I made it happen. This was not smart of me.

Several of the women and girls had been looking at me… Making eyes at me. Refilling my tea-bowl. Brushing the slips of their robes against my cheek. Making clear that, yes, this really was a village full of women and no men apart from the boy Khusai, who, as I said, was looking younger all the time, and his mauled and mangled uncle.

I decided that maybe I should create a cause to make Khusai challenge me. I was already thinking that maybe I could bring all of these people to Solay, to the princess. I was also — not thinking, wrong word, don’t know the right word — well, having tramped across Solay alongside Ailin who feels she’s my sister by now, but who is real pretty, and being ugly old me who’s completely unused to being ogled at by almost all women around (not granny nor Ailin, but everything female my age or older did ogle me), I think I didn’t think too deeply. Still, making Khusai challenge me and then taking charge of the village served as an excuse.

Great Gods, I was stupid!

I returned the glance of the prettiest of the Khas girls. Khas aren’t that comely, but then, neither am I. They don’t compare to the Síthi girls, but then, the average boar is prettier than me. Besides, I’ve am through with S´thi girls, I swear. She looked back… Batted her eyelashes.

Oh well, I went over to her, asked for more tea and before the bowl was empty I had my hands under her shirt… Lots of layers of cloth, and she was pretty greasy underneath, but under the grease, the flesh was firm and she giggled. I liked that. She also whispered something to me. Not sure what it was, but I liked that, too.

It was Khas of course, but she had a really nice, clear voice, not giggly, not husky, but clear and firm. I looked around me and — damn it! — Khusai was gone. He hadn’t seen me flout his authority!

Then the girl, she told me she was called Thamsin, she tried to make me stand up, and when that succeeded, took me to a tent. I’ve seen sailors that eager after a long journey, but never a peasant girl. From touching her tits under her jacket to dragging me to her bed — half an hour, at most!

By then, I was no longer thinking with my brains. Gods, I was stupid, so enormously stupid!

When we got into the tent, she made a weird noise, said a weird word. I kissed the nape of her neck. She got a bit worried, and said something I didn’t understand, so I kissed the tips of her fingers.

There was a screen made out of felt at the other end of the tent, and since she glanced that way, I picked her up and took her there. Thamsin doesn’t weigh anything, really, most of the weight was her clothes, and she isn’t that big either. But since I’d felt her tits, I knew she was old enough, and she was eager — that’s all I could think about. Damn Kheti and her hidden husband! I’d gone without properly making love since — damn — since Il Ayande and Meghina… I wonder whether Meghina is pregnant, actually.

But Thamsin only got more and more fidgety. I thought it was because here vest and shirt and skirt were bothering her, but she stopped me undressing her.

She pointed to the floor…

A huge snake was slithering towards me! It was longer than me, it was thicker than my thigh and it had a huge head, mouth wide open and tongue flickering.

I felt like I turned into stone, or ice or something.

“You say welcome, you say after me!” Thamsin whispered, urgently.

I did… I still don’t know what I said, and I need prompting every time to say it.

But the snake closed its mouth, bobbed its horrible head and moved out of our way.

“That was saying, hello, good bye, welcome, good folk.” — at least, that’s what I think Thamsin said. I might be coloring it a bit with my extensive knowledge of trade pidgin…

But I didn’t have time to think, or even to come to my senses. Thamsin dropped her clothes in record time and started to fumble with mine. I had to help her a little — buttons were new to her, but very soon we were lying down on the cushions behind the screen.

Thamsin on her back, waiting for what was about to happen.

Well, women can (and do) complain a lot about what sailors do when they visit foreign ports, but one thing we learn is how to please a woman.

I know I pleased Thamsin. I guess I don’t have to explain how I knew? We ended in a sticky mess, glistening with sweat, cuddling and kissing. Maybe I pleased her a bit too much, even.

At various moments, especially when Thamsin was making a noise, Ailin had been touching me with her mind, making sure all was well, asking me to keep the whole business a bit quieter — but how could I? I mean, I have my pride, and part of my pride is that no girl ever is sorry about having bedded me. (Though they might not be too happy when the ship sails and me on it.)

I was slowly coming to my senses and beginning to feel monumentally stupid when Thamsin started nibbling my earlobes… I think I taught her that. But I realized that what I wanted first and foremost was to wash her. She wasn’t filthy, there was no vermin on her that I could find, but she was definitely on the sweaty side, and greasy too. And of course, bleeding like a stuck pig, poor girl, no longer a virgin. Weird, how much importance they attach to virginity in Il Ayande or Albetire. Nobody cares in Velihas, and I’ve never met a virgin in Essle.

So I got my blanket, Ishey-style, and went to the water-house to get water to wash. Only it was still bright daylight. I felt like it was night, and I was hungry like I had skipped a dozen meals. But then — if this wouldn’t goad Khusai into fighting me, nothing would.

It didn’t! And when I came back, a blushing Ailin told me she’d prayed to Anshen and had been talking to Mina and had come to the conclusion that fighting wasn’t the answer here, but negotiation. Er…

A little sigh from inside the tent made me cut short my conversation with my “little” sister, though…

We washed each other, I started thinking how wonderful a woman with a sense of humour who still didn’t share enough language with me to nag at me was, when my stomach made a huge sound. It’s a huge stomach, of course. Thamsin had tried to wrap her arms around me, and had failed. Not that I’m fat, I’m just one-and-three-quarters size of pretty much everyone I meet.

She started, giggled and asked me whether I needed to eat.

Great Gods, yes! Of course! Big, beefy, edible animals, for preference.

But apparently it wasn’t dinner time yet, but specially for me, they started cooking. Corn, grayish dried meat and some green herbs were dropped in the tea, together with more water, and Ailin had stirring duty, so we couldn’t talk.

Talking to Aylin would have been impossible anyway, since Thamsin gave a very good impression of an old, tough and implacable barnacle. Now I started getting really worried. After all… I might have exaggerated a little later on, during the evening, when talking with Ailin, but, yes, I do know some girls who are very dear to me in Il Ayande, Albetire, Istila, Tlenac and even Essle. And this girl gave me the impression she would never let me go.

Weird, that — I might have been too nice. Khas women regularly let their menfolk go to war for years on end and aren’t too surprised if they never get back. But then, from what Ailin tells me, Khas men’s ideas of what to do with a woman are too limited for words. They seem to make love to women like an oarsman rows a boat: in, out, in, out. More out than in, in fact.

Well, we got food, and I surprised everyone by eating four, five, six, bowls of the thick tea-flavoured stew. Every bowl lovingly filled and handed to me by Thamsin, who after the third seemed to take me kissing her fingers as no more than her due.

By then, it started to get dark. Time for some really tall tales from around the world! Mina especially asked for tales from the sea, and the assembled party, except for Tasgal, the uncle of Khusai, declined the offer of tales of the war.

We did our best, it wasn’t hard to make the tales reach to heaven with Thamsin looking admiringly at me. I’m only seventeen or so, but I’ve been at sea for almost ten years now, I’ve done the Great Eight twice, and I’ve been around.

Then I had to answer a call of nature — there was no beer, no brandy, no wine, only water, but nature was still calling me, and I asked Ailin to sing something. She may not be trained, but she’s got a nice, clear voice that easily reaches to the other side of the camp, even if she’s not scolding someone.

When I came back, she’d gone. It took Thamsin a bit of effort to tell me that Ailin’d gone with Mina to learn how to sing the Khas way. Serla, the Valdyan woman, told me that the Khas sing with their anie as well. That sounded interesting, but it was a woman’s thing, and if I wanted to learn that, I would have to learn from Khusai and his uncle Tasgal. All right… Outside the camp, the village, whatever, I heard swords clanging, and Thamsin told me that Khusai was doing sword-fighting practice with his uncle.

I wasn’t too worried about that, even though I thought it might be a preparation before challenging me, so I went to our kids on the other side of the fire, to teach them some semsin. That got Serla’s attention as well, which, her being simple and besides having lived a long time with the Khas, led to me telling everyone about how Anshen and the Nameless are different in Valdyas, and that Anshen is the God who asks people to help and share and care, and the Nameless is the one who teaches people to lie and be selfish. A bit simplified, but then, Serla is a bit simple and she was the one translating to the Khas. Making seals amazed them, and we had great fun, actually.

Thamsin was still climbing on my lap, hanging on my back, putting her head next to mine all the time — all the little ways a girl makes clear that this man is hers, causing dirty looks from all the thirty-something matrons — except when Ailin came back to take us to our sleeping place. Ailin took one look at Thamsin and asked me “She was a virgin, right? She seems to have trouble walking…” and I answered, “Yes, she was a virgin… But unstoppable. Do you have the greasy salve? It might help her.” After which they went to the washing place, where our kids were already, washing themselves.

It was really late, but I got into a talk with Mina, too, before the girls returned. She told me about another tent, also with a snake — every tent has a guardian snake, and the roof of the water-house was full of owls, and that snake was pissed off because its humans had gone away, without taking leave.

I got intrigued by that and resolved to look into it in the morning. First I had to spend a night with Thamsin behind the screen, with all the kids and Ailin in our tent, listening in. I had gotten some oil from the Síthi merchant from the camel party, and used that to shave myself and then gave Thamsin a thorough rubbing down.

She blissed out without me having to make her even more sore, but then came back with, and I admit I was pleased, even though I still felt I was being stupid about this all, asking me whether she should give me a good rub down…

Ailin was giggling like an idiot all the time the other side of the screen! Stupid sisters!

The next morning we were up and washing ourselves at daybreak, but the village was deserted. Everyone was still sleeping! I hadn’t been able to wake Thamsin, but then, she had had a tough afternoon, evening and night full of exercise that was new to her. Only Bahr, the Khas boy from the camel party, was up, he was feeding the beasts.

I was clean, I was awake, I wanted my breakfast! We started scooping out, all three of us, the remainder of last night’s dinner from the communal pot, making balls of it and eating it cold. As I said, I don’t care much what I eat, as long as I eat, so I was fine and satisfied when finally the village turned out. What a bunch of lazy lobbins!

They started making pancakes, but I was already talking to Khusai and Mina. Turns out there were only two people in the green tent — three tents had been empty until last night, when Thamsin had decided that the gray tent was hers, now that she had a man. These were Bhakmet and her daughter. They had disappeared about a dozen days ago. Khusai had seen camel trails to the north that morning. The village’s camel hadn’t disappeared, so it must have been others.

I got worried now. Real worried. Tales from our Princess got me spooked. Iss-Peranian merchants would pay good money for a young child, or even a servant woman. And the Queen is really against that sort of thing. Like, really pissed when that happens. To me, it looked like we needed to look into that.

And we started with the Síthi merchant from the camel party. I had asked our boys to sort of spy on that party. They had heard from one of Phuli’s kids, the five -year-old one, that the Síthi merchant had said something like wanting to conquer the village. That was suspicious, too.

So I approached our merchant friend, with Ailin as knife-wielding backup. I proposed a friendly chat, outside the village. He came with me — I can be quite convincing, even if it’s not a girl I’m trying to convince.

Really, his story didn’t work for me. He came to trade, he said. Well! Everyone knows that the reason the Khas tried to conquer the east — Solay, Valdyas, Iss-Peran — is that they were poor like temple. Grain, Khusai had said the merchant was after. Three camels cannot carry enough grain to Solay to make all the bother worth it! I couldn’t believe him when he told me that he wanted to fill his bags with grain.

It’s lousy grain, too.

So I decided to ask the question a bit more pointedly, and gave him a friendly bear-hug. He still didn’t come clean, and I couldn’t figure out a way to be more persuasive without becoming a murderer. Though we found a temple letter that Phuli could read that said he had ten thousand golden eagles to spend on trade over here. Payment for an army to invade Solay? That was my best guess.

I’m not only stupid enough to hitch up with a girl who’s taking me serious, like, ferin-for-always-and-forever. I’m really not officer material. You won’t, never, ever, never, see a ship sail into harbour with one Miallei Ferin, skipper. That’s a bet you can make without any fear for losing your money.

I settled for making sure that the merchant fellow would join our expedition for finding camel-abducted Bhakmet. In the meantine, Khusai and his uncle Tasgal were quite happy to give a welcome to the two soldiers that had come with the camel party. In fact, one of the widows took the male soldier in, and Tasgal decided that the female soldier was welcome in his tent.

Ailin and I didn’t care much. We promised Khusai that we would return and set out. It was quite a procession! Me and Ailin, our six kids, and of course, my lady love. Maybe I’ll fall in love with her, I don’t know. Right now, I know one thing: it was stupid, stupid, stupid to feel her up and kiss her down.

I understood the names that Ferin spells “Tassel” and “Middaya” and as “Tasgal” and “Mitea”, but we’re probably both equally wrong. The other boys (the ones who were with the old woman) are Makane. Bayat and Ram.

We didn’t want to join the camel, Khas and Síthi party, but we didn’t want to lose sight of them either. I knew nothing of the world beyond the fort, and neither did Ailin. We decided to wait for a while and then follow them. I thought it would be easy, after all, camels are like horses: they don’t use the chamber pot.

It had been pretty cold that night: cold enough that we had almost but not quite cuddled together. We hadn’t counted on that, in Solay it had been warm, even hot. But we’d been climbing steadily all day yesterday through increasingly hilly country and, as I said, it was cold.

So we begged a bunch of old blankets from Faran, who, I guess, didn’t really know what to think of us, but who was really helpful anyway. I quickly cut two of the blankets and sewed them together into longish, rough, warm jackets. What there was to spare from Ailin’s jacket went into mine! And two other blankets I quickly converted into the kind of rolled-up blanket with a cord that the Ishey men always seem to carry, even in hot-as-a-smithy Solay.

The road was nearly untravelled, the scenery bleak and uninviting. Rocks, pebbles, stones and the occasional clump of dry, sharp grass. There was a nasty wind coming from the south-west, cold and dry, carrying quite a bit of dust. We lost sight of the river pretty soon, since it was down in a gorge which went west-north-west, while we were going due west.

When we arrived at the first heap of camel dung I started collecting it in an old shirt of mine. The shirt will never be the same, I’m afraid, but on the other hand, there wasn’t any wood, nothing, not even bushes around.

There wasn’t any water to be found either, and we were glad to have taken double rations with us. We drank our fill — Ailin proposed to only sip a little, but I knew that you can either drink enough, or die. There’s no way you can eke out water rations, as I had learned when we we caught in the doldrums off the Velihas coast.

The camel dung was already incredibly dry and we made a — smoky! — fire and cooked ourselves some rice, while we put some more rice to soak for our breakfast. Great Mizran! We were smart to have blankets, jackets and the fire, for the night was cloudless and cold.

Next morning we continued our way. Near noon we found a place where the camel party had halted and there was a track leading to a knoll of greener grass. Water! In a shallow, muddy pool, but now we knew what to look for, when searching for water.

From here, the path went west-south-west, and there were other patches of high grass, and even some bushes. We heard some owls, sometimes some other birds, saw a few field mice, but no other animals.

Near one of those dry, gray-leaved bushes we found Tassel. Only we didn’t know he was called Tassel, of course! He was lying face-down half on the path, half under the bush, knocked out, a short, sharpened wooden stick near him. When we turned him around we found he had a gaping wound in his forehead. He was Khas (of course, this being Khas country).

While I started washing his wound with brandy and clean water, Ailin looked around. She spotted a party of three men, boys actually, coming towards us over the grassy plain.

They weren’t gifted, but Tassel turned out to be gifted indeed when he came to his senses. Very gifted, only ten years old, he must have the potential to become a grand master! There was a bit of the Nameless to him, though not really recognizable.

Ailin speaks a little Khas gibberish, and she was yammering at the three boys while I was helping Tassel. They were also carrying spears, and wore some kind of leather trousers and coarse cloth shirts with leather vests.

It turned out that they had hit Tassel because he was dangerous somehow. We had thought that it had been people from the camel party, actually. But when I shook the oldest of them a little they promised they wouldn’t kill him and they proposed to take us to their witch.

That turned out to be in a little, narrow gully which went south-south-west from where we were standing. There was a small stream trickling down, and next to the little stream the witch.

She was an old woman and when Ailin took a look at her, she gasped. So did I when Ailin showed me what she saw: nothing. There was no anie at all! For all practical purposes she seemed completely empty. But she could still speak, and from her we learned what was going on here:

There was this mage (later we figured out he was her son) who was keeping three small, gifted children, kind of like pork in a barrel: anea ready for use. They had freed Tassel, and now the mage would come looking for Tassel. They intended to put an end to him, though they didn’t have any real plan yet.

By then, it was late. We shared our rice with the others, they shared their grain with us. Ailin and I took a look at Tassel with semsin: we discovered that it probably was true that the mage would always be able to find him, there as a sticky line coming from his breast that went all the way out of sight. Middaya, that’s the witch, she had the weirdest colored clothes on, she warned us not to touch it or do anything about it, or it would sick the mage onto us as well.

The next morning I explained how I wanted to set the trap.

Basically, we’d set Tassel as bait. Middaya, she would hide us. The boys would grab the two other children and make sure that they were out of action.

And we would grab the mage and, well, kill him. We had had a long talk with Middaya about the gods, about Anshen and the Nameless, or Anchuk-Den and Anchuk-Mar as they call them here, thinking they are one and the same, and we realized this was really the kind of Khas mage our witch, that’s Raith, had been fighting in the war, the kind that kills young, gifted children to abuse their anie for power and cheating Naigha of them.

Middaya said she couldn’t harm the mage, but I didn’t feel any qualms. That might sound callous, but I was there, in the Palace of Solay when Raith released the poor children’s souls to Naigha, the ones that had been locked up in the palace walls.

Ailin in the meantime had kept, carefully, watch and she had spotted three gifted people coming along: one adult, two children. It was time to set the trap! Tassel, by the way, had agreed to his role, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it!

Then we spotted the mage. He was wearing something that looked like a tattered, frayed Síthi gown, like the Mitshalashuk priests are always wearing. He started when he saw Tassel in the middle of the path, and then I sprang my surprise.

When I had seen his gown I figured he might have seen, or heard of Raith, and I gave him Raith. Everything I remembered of her I put into a blast of anea that simply must have smelled enough of Raith that had our Princess been there would have put her in heat! For the mage, it had the opposite effect and he took a step back.

That was when Ailin stabbed him with her dagger, and I grabbed him, kneed him, gave him a blow to his head that made him reel. Ailin then cut his throat with her throwing knife.

The children who had been following him, a boy and a girl — she was only about seven years old! — had been collared by our boys. While Ailin was retching, I and Middaya took a look at the two boys and the girl. They were free indeed — I had been afraid that when he died, the mage would have taken their anie with him. They were so scared… But Tassel told them who we were — and they told us they were Mar and Fikmet.

There remained one more thing to do: to bury the mage. I started collecting big stones, but that was wrong, apparently — he had to be burned, and Middaya already had a pyre prepared. I put him on it, and she climbed up with him! I tried to stop her, but Ailin stopped me.

She asked, “He was your son, wasn’t he?” And Middaya answered, “Yes, he was my son, but now my life is done. Let me go with him…”

And suddenly her anie flowed into her body, as if it came out of nowhere, filling her with gentle — well, I don’t know what, I’m sailor, not a clerk. It was amazing. Ailin asked her whether she could learn that as well — but Middaya set the pyre on fire. We prayed to the gods — and left.

Now we had six children with us! What to do — go back to Solay already, with them, giving them a chance to learn semsin and letters and so on in the Palace? We were sure Ayneth would welcome them. But we hadn’t figured out yet whether the Khas were making themselves ready for another invasion, and that was our duty.

In the end it was Tassel, I think, who proposed to stay together and go down the gully, to the plains where there were animals to catch and eat, and to go and see what else we could find out!

Here’s Ferin telling the first part of the new adventures. It’s promising!

“Hey! That’s my goat! She escaped when I wanted to milk her!”

And I thought it was dinner, running into my arms, on its own four feet, as it were. It was Aylin who was pursuing her — I know the girl. Quite a cute itty-bitty girl, well, woman, but unfortunately, like so many here in Solay badly treated by their Khas overlords.

Me, that’s Ferin. I’m from Tilis, and I’ve been on a boat since I was four, and on sea since I was nine. Eight years later, I arrived here in Solay with the King’s army and left my nice, steady job as third mate on the Black Swan of Lenyas, or Our Wicked Witch as we call her in honor of baroness Raith, who once put nearly all the cordage and canvas to fire with her firestorm off the coast of Iss-Peran.

I decided to stay here because there are cute, itty-bitty girls (only the one I stayed for apparently had a boyfriend, a half-Khas ex-soldier!), good food — and of course, the Princess! Now that’s a woman to die for!

I was one of the first the join the Princess’ Guild, before she knew about its existence, when it was still a boys-only affair. When those Iss-Peranian girls arrived, it became a bit broader, and Aylin sort of joined as well. Good girl, lots of pluck and lots of backchat.

She took her goat and invited me to help eat up its little brother. She might have several Síthi forebears, but her one Valdyan grandmother means she feels she can eat meat with impunity. On the other hand, my nine years in the fo’c’sle means that anything freshly slaughtered, except for biscuit-fed rat, gets my automatic approval. And her, rather grumpy and taciturn, granddad even provided some wine. He was also unusually talkative, full of sententious good advice and little bits of insight into marriage and so on.

When Aylin and I went off to do the dishes together we were surprised by a small girl blocking the doorway. (Aylin lives in the third courtyard, that’s one courtyard from the Princess’ First Courtyard, and nextdoor is the spring in the ruined baths.)

“Hi! I’m Dayati. I want you two to do something for me.”

We gaped a bit. Aylin said that the girl looked a bit like one of the twins from the second courtyard, but not quite. I wasn’t too sure, but I asked, “Are you Timoine-Dayati?”

“Yes, I’m Dayati. Please go to the guild meeting, because I want you two to do something for me.”

Off we went. We were anxious enough that we wanted to make sure the Princess and her doxy (that’s the Bitch which is our Witch!) were safe, but armed with apples and wine from Her kitchen, we went to the usual meeting place, the big oval stairs at the beach.

Most of the Guardians of Ayneth were already there, and when Erian (the Khas bloke who is apprentice with our Witch) had arrived we started. It turned out that Lan, a rather small half-Síth, half-Khas boy had started getting nightmares about the Khas returning.

And that’s no joking matter.

The Khas had retreated beyond the two fortresses guarding the canyon through which the river that brings all the fresh water to Solay flows, beyond the mountains maybe, even. Except for the Khas who had surrendered or who simply had stayed in Solay and gone on living with their Síthi families. But nobody, and that’s really nobody knows what’s beyond those mountains. Are there still thousands and thousands of Khas making ready to invade again? Or are the remaining Khas nice flower-gathering, hat-tipping polite gentlemen who wouldn’t think of importuning our Princess (and her Witch)?

Put it like that, yes, we all started wondering. We sort of knew, because otherwise Erian would have picked up some hint (he’s got free access to the Witch’s mind during his lessons, and sometimes the Princess’ mind, too), as I said, we sort of knew that there had been no official mission sent across the mountains.

The next possibility would have been the Order of the Sworn, who had just founded a Chapter House in Solay, on the market square. But their Commander happened to be drinking wine with the Palace Guard’s Captain, and Aylin and I offered to subtly ask him whether they had sent a mission…

Commander Geran took one look at us, then told us:

“No… I can’t tell you. I couldn’t tell you if we’d done it, I couldn’t tell you if we hadn’t done it, I cannot tell you either way. But it’s an interesting idea. Pity, though, those gangsters in the North of the city keep pretty close tracks on us. What we’d need would be some gifted people willing to go… Without our direct involvement.”

Aylin and I were practically jumping up and down with excitement. We sort of felt, both of us, quite sure and certain that this is what Dayati wanted us to do. It would be Guild business, since it would be protecting our Princess. And it would be interesting. More interesting than milking goats or clearing away rubble in the war-damaged parts of the palace (my day job…).

In the end, Commander Geran gave us a couple of hands full of gold and silver, little coins from all different countries and then bade us leave, telling us he had never seen us, and would we leave the next day? The Palace Guard Captain was grinning all the time — I don’t know his name but he had a big nose, like he was Eraday by birth.

The Guild agreed with us, and the next morning we went out through a gap in Palace Wall I knew about. First to get some stout shoes and other necessities for a long tramp, then to a woman Aylin happened to know. Pretty interesting woman: her house had a back door, and that back door was in the City Wall… A very nicely overgrown part of it, lots of rubble, plenty of opportunity to go in and out without showing your furlough pass to gatekeepers. The woman told Aylin that a little Khas boy accompanied by some other people and three camels had paid her for their passage as well.

It was really nice weather, now the rains had passed and the cool season had begun. I wasn’t hot in the least, though Aylin was sweating like a fresh ship’s boy on his first trip. We were walking along the river, discussing Commander Geran’s strictures to teach each other all we knew about semsin — with me not being a journeyman, and Aylin knowing even less (though she is good in hiding!), when I discovered she didn’t even know how to read and write Ilaini! Well, that’s something the Princess and her sis-in-law is very keen on, so I promised her I would teach her her letters.

Then we had a wonderful stroke of luck! On the river was a smallish, rather cute, girl trying to run her barge westwards, up-stream, on her own. The boat was empty and bucked like a drunken captain. I hailed her, and in my best Síthi I offered her my help. Later on, Aylin told me that I had said something like “you, two nice breasts, how much, I help, big pole!”, but I don’t believe that, since she hailed me.

I gave my bundle and clothes to Aylin and swam towards the ship. Swimming is another thing Aylin probably needs to learn, at least in something that’s more lively than the Princess’ pool! I helped the woman land her boat, and helped Aylin in.

Dear Gods, dear Timoine, it was so good to have a pole in my hands again! I was very nearly born on the river, and we made good time. The bottom was nice, mostly quite gravelly, like on the Rycha, not muddy like the Valda. The occasional muddy, marshy part was easily navigated by sculling. Lots and lots of birds around, blue sky and two pretty women admiring my prowess! (I usually don’t get much admiration, on account of the usual shipboard mishaps that took away what little cuteness I had when I went to sea.)

We passed a small group of people on camelback, with a Khas boy apparently leading them. That seemed a bit suspect — why would Khas travel westwards if not to cross the mountains? — so Aylin made us inconsipic… — dammit, whatever, nearly invisible with semsin, and we passed without attracting attention.

Soon, we arrived at the girl, well, woman, she was called Dhekhi, at her village. Three small, round, reed huts next to a landing stage. Two boys and an older man came out to help us land the boat. They prepared dinner for us, even gave us some wine, and were all ears when we started telling them about the Princess. They gave us two bags of rice. In turn, before we left next morning, I caulked their barge for them.

It was a good place to stay, and I was sort of sorry our cover story was that Aylin and I were travelling to the farm near the fortresses that the Princess had given us for our services. Dheki was really quite cute… And good with a boat, too! And smart — she followed along when I was giving Aylin her letters.

But the next day we were walking along the old Gold Road to the west. A nice fish for lunch, lots of semsin work all the time to get back into training. I think we both felt we were lucky with our travelling companion!

Some time later, we passed the Khas boy and his mates again. One of the camels was having something tiresome with its hoof or foot or claws or whatever that ship of the desert has for a keel. We greeted them, they greeted us, and we went on our way, towards the South Bank fortress.

It was very nearly dark when we could reach the Sworn guarding the fortress with our mind, and they opened the door for us. A hearty welcome, nice food and a chance to speak under six eyes with their Commander, Faran.

Faran told us that he had sent out several expeditions, actually, but that none had returned from the Khas lands. He was quite worried about us, but before he could use his authority as a Master in the Guild (of Anshen) to forbid us to continue, the Khas and his people arrived.

Looking very puzzled, Faran returned to us some time later. The Khas boy had told him he was guiding the Síthi and Valdyans in his retinue to his native village, to trade there, and that he was only the guide, not the leader of the party. To me, he looked quite a bit like the boss of the crew… We asked Faran to keep us and that party apart for a bit.