Chapter 17

  Using runes and glyphs took a bit of adjustment, but mostly it was just a matter of learning to flex a new muscle. If you pushed, you got the external effect. If you pulled, you got the internal effect.

  Of course, there were all kinds of details and exceptions. Some ‘internal’ effects could act on other people, and from significant distances. Some ‘external’ effects only worked on the wielder.

  The thing that turned out to be hard for Mato was that his first pairing didn’t do anything flashy. It was easy to tell if you generated a firebolt, but this was either not working, or it was more subtle. Ezhno gave him about a dozen ways to visualize activating a pair, and encouraged him to keep trying.

  The day was almost a holiday for Mato. The cohort moved slowly with three stretchers to carry, and he roamed the trail ahead and the forest off to the sides with Ezhno, playing ‘what’s that’ a good deal of the time.

  They were in the process of harvesting an excellent crop of mushrooms when they heard some excited sounds from the trail.

  “Better check on them,” Ezhno said. He headed back toward the trail immediately, and Mato stayed to finish filling one of their shade cloths with mushrooms.

  “No!” Ezhno shouted.

  Mato abandoned the mushrooms and raced toward the shouting. By the time he got there Tupi was trying to twist Ezhno’s arm.

  Up the trail a massive snail examined a rotting stump. It had black scales like a snake on its body, a huge round shell, eyestocks almost as tall as Mato, and a belly covered with broad, flat scales.

  “Wisdom, please,” Mato said. Tupi glared at him, then shoved Ezhno forward. His teacher stumbled several steps, and Mato stabilized him.

  Ezhno looked him in the eye and winked, then turned back to Tupi. “That is not a forest snail. That is a cave snail. It travels almost as fast as a man can run, it is an excellent tracker, and it has a dart that it can shoot. This one is pretty big, and I would guess it can hit you from twenty feet away. The dart has fast-acting poison, and I do not know an antidote.”

  Mato noted that Poplar was watching, but had not interfered yet.

  “And we have twenty-eight archers to surround it with,” Tupi said.

  Ezhno shook his head. “The wounded will not be able to help, or run. Our duty is to the seekers, Wisdom.”

  “Do not tell me my duty, Ezhno.”

  Ezhno bowed. “Apologies, Wisdom. I was worried for their safety.”

  “What do you recommend?” Poplar asked, finally joining the conversation.

  “That we wait patiently and let it pass,” Ezhno said. “We will have difficulty carrying the wounded through the forest, and it has to get bored and leave sometime.”

  “Very well,” Poplar said. “We will wait for a time.”

  “Mato, go get the mushrooms,” Ezhno said. “I will stay here and watch the snail.”

  Mato turned and walked back toward the shade cloth, wondering what Tupi was thinking. Ezhno was a skilled wrestler, and he hadn’t been trying to escape Tupi’s hold. Despite the lack of resistance, Tupi still hadn’t been able to knock Ezhno down. Clearly if there was real combat, Ezhno would defeat Tupi in seconds.

  He found the cloth and finished filling it with mushrooms, then tied it into a bundle.

  Screams erupted from the trail again.

  “Get the wounded back, get back.”

  It was Ezhno.

  Mato dropped the cloth and rushed toward the trail, but up where the snail was, instead of straight toward Ezhno.

  He came into the relative open right behind the creature. It was moving downhill, and at a quick pace. Arrows bounced off of its shell and skin. Mato raced up beside it, hoping one of his party didn’t hit him. His sword came out of the sheath cleanly, and he swiped it through the snail’s tail.

  It tried to turn, and tipped over, shell toward the seekers. The mouth was underneath, and full of sharp, flat teeth. An eyestock twisted around so it could see him, and Mato cut it off. The snail heaved itself around to face him, and fired its dart. With one eye missing, its aim was off. The dart slammed into a tree behind Mato, and then he sliced the tube of muscle that connected the dart to the snail.

  “Well done, Mato,” Ezhno said, as he stepped around the snail. “Stab it right here.”

  He indicated a spot between the eyestalks. Mato sunk his blade in, and twisted it around. After a couple of tries, the creature was still. Mato pulled on the sword, and Ezhno put a hand on his arm.

  “Wait.”

  Then there was a tingle in his hand and arm. It grew stronger for a few seconds, then subsided.

  “You won’t always have the opportunity to make a clean kill like this. When a thema falls, you may be too busy to maintain contact between your sword and their body. Most of the essence will leak away.

  “Not only that, there is a natural effect that splits power between hunters. If both of us had stabbed it, each of us would have received half.”

  “I think it’s done now,” Mato said.

  “What is this?” Tupi asked. “How did Mato manage to take our kill?”

  “Bravery and skill,” Ezhno said.

  “Explain that statement, right now,” Tupi said. His hand went to his sword hilt.

  “Now, now,” Poplar said as he walked up behind Tupi. “Withdraw that blade, Mato.”

  Mato extracted his sword from the snail. No fluids stuck to the blade.

  Tupi snatched the sword out of his hand. “What is this? An unknown rune, and an unknown glyph? Sotsona will be very interested.”

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  “Not unknown,” Ezhno said. “I cannot recall the rune’s name, but the other side of the pair is the essence glyph.”

  “Essence of what?” Tupi asked.

  “Essence of life,” Poplar said. “This is not a preferred glyph, but I have seen Sotsona approve them.” He took the sword from Tupi and examined it from end to end. “The unknown rune is interesting, but the most interesting thing is the essence level in this blade. You are nearly ready to collect your second rune, Mato. How full was your blade before you killed this creature?”

  “Empty, Wisdom.”

  “Completely empty?”

  “Yes, Wisdom.”

  Poplar turned to Ezhno. “Have you ever seen this much essence from a single kill?”

  Ezhno nodded, and his eyes flickered back and forth as he thought. “I saw something very like this when I was young. My teacher killed a cave snail a bit larger than this one, but I don’t think he got quite as much essence.

  “I have also heard claims of men killing large anathema in single combat and earning two runes from the same kill. Those are old tales though. Perhaps they are exaggerated.”

  “Wisdom!” one of the seekers called.

  Poplar handed Mato’s sword back, then led the group back around the carcass. One of the wounded had been dragged from his stretcher and was laying face down in the trail. There was a huge wound in the base of his neck.

  Ezhno ran up to him and rolled him over, then listened to his mouth and nose. He shook his head sadly, then closed the seeker’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, young man. At least no one will fail you again.”

  * * *

  They spent the remainder of the afternoon clearing ground. Then they built a fire, placed the seeker on it, and added more wood. Most of the seekers cried as he burned. Mato did too.

  Ezhno sat down beside him and put a hand on his knee. “At times like these I envy you, Mato.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you know how to cry. My sadness just builds up inside.”

  “You don’t cry?” Mato asked softly.

  “I cannot remember a single time. With the baby we just ended, I felt like I should, but I couldn’t. Now, with this fallen youth… he should have gone on to be one of Abo’s heroes.”

  Ezhno leaned in and whispered, “Where is Tupi?”

  Mato glanced around. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to start quizzing you. I want you to know where Tupi is at every moment of every day.”

  Mato nodded.

  Morning brought the sound and smell of sizzling meat. Ezhno had built a new fire and was frying steaks cut from the cave snail. He handed Mato a skewer, then put another one over the coals.

  “Is this safe?” Mato asked.

  “No. I brought you all the way out here to kill you in front of a pair of wisdoms and a cohort of seekers,” Ezhno said.

  Poplar snorted and held his hand out. Ezhno handed him a skewer, and Poplar nodded in thanks, then went to the edge of the trail to eat.

  The flavor was mild, a bit earthy, and the meat was flaky and dry. Mato ate, but needed water to wash it down.

  “Is it sacreligious to eat something that killed one of us?” a seeker asked.

  “Not at all,” Ezhno said. “We draw strength from his enemy, so that we may honor our fallen in the days to come.”

  “Okay. Can I try one?”

  “Of course.” Ezhno handed him a skewer.

  * * *

  Mid day brought them to a mountain river. It was twenty paces wide, and even though the water was clear they could not see the bottom in most places.

  “That is freezing,” one of the seekers said as he pulled his hand out of the water.

  “Snow melt,” Ezhno replied.

  “What is snow?” another seeker asked.

  “It’s rain, but the water freezes into little flakes… maybe like the thinnest coconut you’ve ever sliced.”

  “What makes the water cold?”

  Ezhno shrugged. “It always gets cold as we climb higher. Maybe it’s just being up high, or maybe something else does it.”

  “The Great Spirit wants it cold, so it is cold,” Tupi said.

  “Exactly,” Ezhno said.

  Crossing the river turned out to be a problem. The land was growing rocky, and moving up or down stream would require significant climbing. The water itself was excellent. Mato drank his fill, and washed out his water skins.

  The real issue was some sort of creature the color of rocks that lived in the pools. Ezhno spotted them first. Mato couldn’t even tell what Ezhno was looking at until they got a long branch and poked the creature. Then it snapped the branch in half with a pincer the size of Mato’s two legs.

  They went upstream for a ways, scouting, but it looked like the river ran for miles without changing character.

  “The cave snail attacked because Tupi threw a stone at it,” Ezhno said. He scanned the area around them carefully while he talked.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Completely certain. I warned him that it was dangerous, and he waited for everyone to settle down before angering it.”

  “Why would he do that?” Mato asked.

  “He is hateful inside. Nothing makes him happy, and happiness in others makes him angry.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Where is he?”

  Mato pointed back toward the cohort.

  “Close enough for now,” Ezhno said. “But learn to keep track of him. I’m serious. It is only a matter of time before he tries to stab one of us in the back.”

  “Should we kill him first?”

  “No. If I am wrong, we would have killed him for nothing. Plus, the disappearance of a priest is not something you want to be around. They will kill you for the thinnest of reasons if they feel threatened.”

  “Is that why you did not fight Tupi when he twisted your arm?”

  “Good, Mato. That is exactly why. The best thing we can possibly do is deliver Poplar and Tupi home, alive and well. If we lose the rest of their cohort, but save them, we will probably be okay.”

  “How often does a cohort lose someone?”

  “Every trip. I’ve had two trips with no deaths. A couple of the others have had three or four. Typically we lose five or six before we return home.”

  Mato couldn’t understand that. Abo didn’t have many people to waste. The entire city was probably only ten thousand people. Shouldn’t they make a better effort to see the courageous ones come home?

  “Why not have more trail masters, Ezhno? If we sent four with every cohort, maybe there would be fewer deaths.”

  “Hmm. To be honest, I’ve never thought about it that way. There are fourteen trail masters. And that is now many there are. End of discussion.

  “I suppose we could train more. There is nothing in the histories to suggest that more would be bad. In fact, the knowledge we protect is knowledge that almost every man was expected to have when we lived in the mountains.”

  Mato felt like he was onto a good idea. “Even if we wanted to limit trail masters to fourteen, we could train the seekers better. If they knew what I know, they would need less help along the way.”

  Ezhno patted his head. “You’re cute. You’ve had almost three moons of training now, and you think you know things.”

  “I’m more help to you than one of the seekers, right?”

  Ezhno held his hand out and tipped it back and forth.

  “Really?” Mato asked. “But I helped with the snail.”

  “You also helped with Leelee. Never think I fail to appreciate your contributions. I’m only saying you still have a long way to go.”

  Mato grinned at his teacher. “That’s okay. Learning is fun.”

  “That it is, Mato. That it is.”