Journey of the Messenger Cycle 2 Part 7b

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Despite the chilly afternoon Ijah still felt hale and warmed from the solstice dance three days past. The ceremony had reminded her of how much she had missed over the past decade. Although there had only been four hundred dancers in the main chamber of the ancient temple that was now the heart of the Kereshi enclave, it had been the largest ritual she had participated in since arriving in the north. Both she and Merhaj had danced through the entire twenty-five hours with most of her people present in West Port and a couple of dozen of the northern initiates. The mage-born had used the energy generated during the ceremony to do their magic, the arcane defences of the enclave had been bolstered, there had been healing magic as well, life prolonging spells and sorcery that would boost people’s ability to resist disease and sickness.

She knew Merhaj and at least a few of the other new arrivals had been underwhelmed by the experience and dissatisfied with the presence of the northern women. That was unfortunate, but to be expected. After all, a year ago most of them would have been dancing with thousands of women. Sailing halfway around the world and then being immersed in a foreign culture took some time to adjust to. Some never made that adjustment.

Merhaj was presently demonstrating her stubborn ability to deny the reality of her situation. While Ijah had dressed in a couple layers of pants and shirts with a fur lined hat, mittens, coat as well as her travel boots, Merhaj had opted for a couple thin layers of traditional cloth, belted at the waist. Her only concession to the weather had been a pair of ankle high boots of soft leather. She felt it important that people saw a Kereshi warrior when she was on patrol, not someone bundled up in northern garb. To her credit, despite periodic episodes of light slushy rain, which had dampened her hair and garments, she showed few outward signs that the cold was bothering her.

Ijah and her daughter had been assigned to patrol the areas along the north and northwest of the enclave. Aside from discouraging unwanted incursions into the enclave, the patrols were also an exercise in public relations and intelligence gathering. Those assigned the job were to keep their eyes open for possible recruits.

Merhaj strode down the centre of the street, a few paces ahead of Ijah. She did look rather magnificent and she certainly attracted a fair amount of attention. So Ijah, while amused at some of the responses from the locals and the refugees, was in a good position to see who moved off or gave a warning signal at Merhaj’s approach. She took note of who behaved in such a way, observed closely when there was opportunity and otherwise went about her business quietly.

It was Merhaj who many of the most desperate approached, begging for food or marks, help for a sick child and twice today there had been marriage proposals. It was likely a good thing that she still understood little of the Maldorn language. Or Tannican, for that matter.

The Tannican language had little in common with their own tongue, even though they had both originated from what was now commonly called ancient Tannican. They sounded nothing alike. Though the alphabets were similar, two millennia of separation had created two distinctly different languages. Some of the women she had talked to said that the present Tannican language was more difficult to learn than Maldorn, which used an alphabet similar to the Elquinian and put words together in ways very different than how the song of the goddess was spoken.

Voices raised in anger further down the street drew Ijah’s attention. Merhaj lengthened her stride and moved towards the disturbance. She saw a lone man angrily shouting at a small group of other men who seemed less than impressed by the attention they were receiving. One fellow gave the angry man a push and told him to move along.

The shouting man was having none of it, he demanded, “Where are my daughters!” He pushed back against the man who had shoved him.

One of the others spotted Merhaj’s approach, he gave a whistle and two of them headed into the building they were standing in front of. The two who had been shoving each other moved off in opposite directions. Merhaj grabbed the man who had been shouting, swept his feet out from under him and slammed him to the slush covered street. While many of the spectators casually moved off, the last of the ruffians laughed as the man was taken down, he leaned back against the nearby door frame, amused by what he was witnessing.

The shouting man tried to get back up. Merhaj kicked him in the head and put a hand on her sword, “Stay down!” She commanded.

Ijah calmly approached, kept the man by the door in her field of vision and gestured for her daughter to back off. Merhaj did so, throwing a scowling glare around the area, her attention focused on the man near the door. Ijah crouched down and gave the angry man a hand up. He was soaked, shivering from rage and the cold. He appeared on the verge of tears, he kept muttering, “My daughters, my beautiful daughters, they took my daughters…”

Ijah encouraged him to start moving, leading him in the direction of the enclave, to her daughter she said, “Let’s go.”

“What about this shit stain?”

“Later, let’s go.”

“What are we doing with him?” She asked as she moved to follow.

“Taking him back.”

The man by the door shouted after them, “Thank you ladies, have a good afternoon.”

They were halfway back to the enclave when Merhaj asked, “Why are we bringing him back?”

“To see what happened to his daughters, get him warmed and dried, give him some food.”

“Daughters?”

“Did you not hear what he said?”

“Well, I could hear him well enough, I don’t have much command of this Maldorn language.”

“He’s been speaking Andalee, the freehold tongue. I thought that is what you have been studying.”

“Hmm, sounded like Maldorn to me.”

Ijah decided pursuing the discussion further at this time was not useful. She kept quiet for the rest of the walk back to the old temple. She took the man over by the large fire at the far end of the main hall, she found him a blanket and told him to get out of his clothing, to dry by the fire. She sent Merhaj off to the kitchen.

After the man had recovered somewhat, she asked, “Can you tell me what has happened?”

He glanced at her, pain and guilt etched on his face. He looked away, “I lost my family.”

“Tell me how this happened.”

He took a deep breath, “Folks call me Bollorod, I was a farrier in Malref’s Hold… that’s part of the HorseLord freeholds, west of north from here by about three eight-days walk. Things were pretty good, even after the fighting started… at least at first.

“The HighLord had called his banners, over twenty thousand gathered and they rode to the west to fight the Tannicans. With a host that size… well, we did not think we’d have problems driving them back from our lands… My oldest boy and his new wife had gone with the host, he, like myself, is… was, a farrier… I don’t know if he still lives, but from everything I’ve heard about the fighting, it does not seem likely.

“We had not known that a number of slaver bands had moved ahead of the army, flanking the region where the fighting was taking place, pressing eastwards into the unprotected holds… There was little advanced warning of their approach, the first we became aware of the problem was when many of the women and children down from Kalm’s Brook showed up…

“The slavers were a day behind them, we tried to fight, but there were only a few us able to do so, most of us died in the first attack. They sacked and burned our town and the outlying villages, overran our defences and took the children and women they could get their hands on, the older folk were killed… My second son, my wife, most of her family, dead or captured… A handful of us escaped the slaughter, we gathered the survivors, my three daughters and I, my brother’s wife, two of their children, that was all… all of my kin that made it out…”

He cried openly for a long while. He did eventually continue his sad tale, it came out a bit at a time. After spending over a month walking through the wilds, as those he had known slowly died, either from violence, deprivation or despair, he and about forty others had made it to the outlying regions around West Port. They had thought they would be safe in the camps outside the city, but there was not enough food or shelter for everyone and more folks arrived every day, sometimes thousands. Having a trade and three daughters near adulthood he thought he had been lucky when they had been chosen to come into the city from the camps. It had been better for a while, but as the number of refugees arriving from the west grew, the food slowly became less and less. As the autumn settled he was told there would be no more work for him until the spring, he and his daughters found themselves homeless and impoverished on the streets of West Port.

What followed was grim, his eldest daughter eventually agreed to work at a pleasure house, in the employ of some gentlemen who promised she would be able to feed her family and at least she would have shelter through the winter. It was not a good arrangement, the gentlemen running the establishment kept shorting her and she worked an unseemly amount. They started feeding her small doses of shadow essence to help her and they came around looking for his other two daughters, offering them work as well.

Over the previous few eight-days they had continued to pressure the younger girls, he saw less and less of his eldest. Shortly after the uprising his two youngest daughters were abducted and when he tried to demand their return he was beaten and thrown to the gutter.

Ijah gave him a bit more soup, water, some clean, dry clothing and found him a place to sleep. His old clothes would be laundered and patched. Ijah promised they would try and find his children.

Merhaj was set to go back immediately to where the confrontation had taken place and set things right. Ijah had other ideas however, “This man can identify a number of people and places involved in slavery and using shadow essence to subdue the women they put to work. If we go after the ones we know about now, we’ll likely miss a lot. Most of those responsible will slip away. I intend to get as many as we can and shut down their operation, in its entirety. We’ll need help, though, and hopefully Bollorod will be able to give us better details after he gets a bit of rest.”

“Then what? I’m all for putting a stop to this, but what will we do with the people we rescue? Anything more than a few dozen will be difficult for us to help properly.”

“Well, I know Lady Roddarra. She’s here in West Port trying to raise an army from the remnants of her people. People like him. I’m sure she has the resources to provide for a large number of them, the enclave can handle more than you think and there are others in this city who could be convinced to help. First, I’m going to have a talk with Dema Alavvah, we’ll need as many of our warriors as are available and likely some magic to support us.

“You should return home. No doubt this will take some time to sort out.”

Merhaj seemed like she was resistant to the idea, after a moment she said, “Alright, but I want to be part of this.”

Ijah nodded. She went to find Dema Alavvah.

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