The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (81 page)

“I know you,” he said finally.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I can’t remember why. Or from
where.”

“That’s okay.”

“I forget things sometimes.”

“I know.”

He glanced past her, to where
Solomon was standing, eyed him up and down.

“An Ancestor. How wonderful. Come
on, then. Kirin will be delighted to meet you…”

And he turned back to the
mountain, bounded up and up again like a goat, sword in one hand, skins tucked
under the other. The tigress glanced back at the Ancestor before making her own
way across the rocks.

***

The evening was, like most had
been lately, cold and spectacular.

“Have you found water? Elbow up
and hold.”

“Yes, I have found water. Much
water, in fact. A river, a sea and the water that seems to be in all things,
like the fire. Which would you prefer?”

She pivoted, clasped her hands
and reached them high and far over her shoulders, arching backwards in the
Crescent Moon. She watched as he mimicked her perfectly, all the while, the
cloth still wrapped around his eyes.

“Enough to fish. Spread your
fingers wide. Wider. Good.”

“Ah, that feels remarkable. I
should do this more often.”

 
“You are lazy.”

“Sometimes.”

“We will go tomorrow.” She swung
her arms forward, bent her body, touched the ground with the palms of her
hands.

“Yes, Major.” He did the same.

The Moon Salute was the perfect
way to end the day, channeling Chi, soothing tense muscles, preparing for
sleep. He had been practicing with her every night since his death and to keep
him sharp, every night she changed the routines. Even blindfolded as he was, he
could still follow her perfectly.

“What did you say?” he asked.

One last stretch to finish with
the Mountain Pose.

“Nothing. I said nothing.”

He stretched, finished with the
Mountain Pose.

“You said ‘meehahn.’”

She released a long cleansing
breath. “I said no such thing.”

He cocked his head. “But you did.
I distinctly heard you say ‘meehahn.’”

“Your breath. Release your
breath.”

He did.

“I did not say ‘meehahn. I do not
know what a ‘meehahn’ is.”

He cocked his head again, only
this time, like a bird. “It is a name,” he said softly, and instantly, she
recognized the tone. “It is
her
name.
Mi-
hahn.”

Very far away in the distance, a
falcon cried.

The sun was setting, turning the
sky a brilliant red. The cliffs around them were black in silhouette, and
suddenly she knew that they wouldn’t be searching for water in the morning.

They would be waiting on a
falcon.

***

It was a lengthy climb, although
Kerris managed it well, even with the sword in one hand and an armful of wet
dinner in the other. Fallon on the other hand, was quite bruised by the time
she neared the top, for the latter part of the climb was literally on hands and
knees and her body ached from the strain of it all. It was almost dark now, and
he had disappeared over what she prayed would be the last ridge, when he thrust
a hand back down for her.

“Here,” he said. “I’ll pull you
up. But don’t go in. Wait for me.”

“Um, sure, okay…” And she took
his outstretched hand and let him pull her up and over the rocky ledge onto
flat rock.

As he went to help Solomon, she
studied their new surroundings. They were quite high up in these small
mountains, and she could see the land spread out beneath her. Stars had begun
to appear in the hazy twilight, and behind them, the mountain continued to
climb. But, as it did so, it appeared to have left a cleft, a groove in the
rock, and small trees grew above and beside it like pillars by an open door.
There were piles of sticks by that open door and animal carcasses and bloody
rags.

She swallowed, for she feared
what she would see inside.

“Oh damn,” muttered Solomon as
Kerris hauled him up and onto the rock. “Let’s hope we don’t have to do that
climb again for a while…” And he sat, panting, trying to catch his breath,
allowing his own eyes to wander over the grand view below. “Wow. Pretty…”

“Come, come, but be quiet. Kirin
doesn’t like the noise,” said Kerris, picking up an armful of sticks and moving
swiftly to the crack in the stone. Fallon thought his voice sounded a little
strained and fear tugged again inside her. She pushed herself to her feet and
trotted after him, hearing Solomon mutter as he too struggled to his feet.

The crevice was just wide enough
to squeeze through if she turned sideways, and it took several moments for her
eyes to adjust to the darkness. There was a small firepit, embers dying but
still throwing off a faint orange glow. The cave smelled damp too, like wet
moss on old stone, but there was another smell too, a smell that once smelled,
was never forgotten.

“Kirin, look. We have company.”
Kerris dropped the sticks beside the firepit, bent down to poke at the
dwindling hearth with a branch. The ashes sizzled and spat. “They can help us,
Kirin. They’re here to help.”

Slowly and with a thudding heart,
Fallon moved toward Kerris as he began to lay kindling. She felt Solomon
lagging behind and wondered if he felt the same dread tightening his chest.

It was hard to make him out at
first. It was so very dark, but as the grey lion tended the fire and flames
began to lift their golden heads, the light pushed the shadows further and
further back. He sat facing the fire, knees up, headed bowed, arms wrapped
around his torso as if in a knot. As if he could make himself very, very small
and disappear completely, or slip into shadows, becoming one in the process.

She sank to her knees and began
to weep.

Kerris continued talking, putting
the pheasant carcass on the fire for roasting, lifting wet skins to his
brother’s swollen mouth for water. In fact, if she didn’t know it was the
Captain, there would be no way to recognize him. His face was beaten beyond all
knowing, his once golden pelt laced with dark red stripes, his uniform torn and
in bloody rags. But that was only the beginning.

She wished she could look away.
For the first time in her life, she wished she were a normal girl, making
proper allowances for privacy and discretion and tact. But try as she might,
she could not tear her eyes from the sight of him, from the creature he had
become, and she could only begin to imagine the horrors that had been visited
upon him, and she wondered how in the Kingdom he could possibly have endured it
all.

His tail was gone.

The tuft that only lions bore,
plus several inches of shaft, gone, severed, leaving scraps of pelt and tendon trailing
behind.

His claws were gone.

Not only his claws, but she could
tell by the split flesh of his fingers that part of the bones were gone as
well, and that they had likely been torn, not cut, from the rest of his hand.
The tissue had grown stiff, rigid –
‘proud
flesh’
they called it in the University – and she could see flashes
of bone beneath.

And his mane.

Oh his mane. What had once been
his glory, a mane to be boasted about even amongst the fairest of the fair
Races, long straight, silky and pure, pure gold. Gone, torn out in clumps so
that only rare patches were left and those were matted and sticky. The rest of
his head was blood - hair and skin both torn from the scalp, and there was no
hope, she knew this immediately, of it ever growing back.

It was a thing that sat before
the fire, a bloody pulpy mess of a thing, still wearing the tattered sash of
Imperial gold.

“Quiz caught us some dinner,”
Kerris was saying as he hovered and fussed. “A nice fat pheasant too. Should be
done soon. You’ll eat this time, won’t you? It promises to be very tasty.”

A shape moved past her on one
side. As if in a dream, she saw Solomon step toward them and kneel down beside
the Captain. He reached for the man, but a grey hand caught his wrist, dark
claws plucking the cloth and flesh of his arm.

Solomon looked up calmly.
“Kerris, it’s alright. I am a physician. I need to examine him before I can
help.”

She could see the grey claws dig
in.

“Kerris, you’re hurting me. If
you hurt me, I won’t be able to help”

They locked eyes for a long
moment before Kerris finally released him.

“If he so much as whimpers
,”
Kerris growled. “I will kill you.”

“Agreed,” said Solomon. “When was
the last time you slept?”

Kerris stared at him.

“Okay then. You need to sleep.
Fallon dear, can you take Kerris over there somewhere, see if you can get him
to sleep?”

“Um,” she rose to her feet,
wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Okay…”

“No,” said Kerris, struggling to
stand as she approached. “The pheasant isn’t done yet. He needs his dinner. He
hasn’t eaten anything. And he needs water, but I don’t know how to get it up
here. I’m trying to make a water skin, but I have no needles. It’s all my
fault. I should have brought some needles. I’m drying sinew for thread, but it
takes so very long to dry…” Kerris was backing up, wringing his hands as she
came closer. “He’s not very good, not very good at all, and I don’t know what
to do…”

“You’ve done a wonderful job,”
she said firmly. His arms were shaking as she caught them. “We’re going to
help, remember? Solomon is a physician. He’ll know what to do. Now please,” she
turned him away from the fire, away from the sight of his brother. “Sit down,
right here. You need to sleep—“

“No, no, he needs –“

“Can I tell you a story?”

He froze, brow furrowed, mouth
open in mid-sentence. She took that as a yes and lowered herself to the stony
ground. She pulled him down with her.

“It’s a story of Kaidan. You
remember Kaidan, don’t you?”

He blinked at her. His expression
hadn’t changed.

“Well, Kaidan is a very famous
cat. A legend. A ghost cat, people call him. Some people say he’s a tiger, some
say he’s Sacred. I believe he’s a lion, a very special ghostly grey lion.
Actually, he probably looks very much like you…” As she spoke, she worked his
hands, squeezing his palms, his fingers, his wrists. “Anyway, he’s been on this
amazing adventure for almost a year now. He’s battled snowstorms and
avalanches, rats and pits and fires, bandits and bears – oh wait, not
bears. That wasn’t him. Anyway, he made it all the way to the very borders of
the Upper Kingdom, and do you know what?”

She slipped a hand round the back
of his neck, pulled him down beside her.

“On the back of a wild little
mountain pony, Kaidan went
Beyond
…”

He was asleep in a heartbeat, and
she continued talking, telling her own story, as Jeffrey Solomon the physician
worked by the light of a spitting fire on a man that had once been a lion.

***

He spent the night in meditation,
he said, but she knew he was speaking with the bird. They had been moving south
ever since the night of his death, but through mountains and forests, it was
slow going. She wasn’t sure if they’d ever reach the
Shiriyan
border, and frankly, she didn’t care overmuch. She was at
peace here in this wild land. She was needed, and for the very first time in
entire span of her life, Major Ursa Laenskaya was happy.

She watched him from the corner
of her eye. He was smiling and she felt the anger stir within her breast.
Stupid,
she thought to herself, to be
jealous of a bird. She had almost liked the last one, had even mourned when it
had died. But they had shared a bond, the falcon and the Seer, and she had only
observed, intruded, never truly shared it with them. Now, with this ‘Mi-hahn’
somewhere in the cliffs above them, she realized that she did not wish to be
shut out again.

“Major,” he was calling her over.
The makeshift blindfold was still across his eyes and when she approached, he
reached out a hand. He had taken to removing his gloves more and more often as
of late, and now, they remained tucked in his obi. She knelt beside him, but
did not take his hand.

“She is very young,” he said.
“This is her first summer. She and her siblings were a late clutch, and she
knows little of falcon-life, let alone feline. Here, feel her mind, here…”

It was odd, she thought, that he
couldn’t feel her resentment. Or perhaps he could.

So she took a deep, cleansing
breath, and reached for his hand.

??????

Ursa, his voice in her head, this is Ursa sense her Mi-hahn She is your
friend

???Ursa?? Ursa!! Mi-hahn!!!!

And suddenly she was airborne,
diving from a great height, spinning like a child’s toy, strong wind in her
eyes, her mouth, her feathers, pulling up from the dive and soaring above the
cliffs, the night sky so black and yet she could see.

!!!Ursa Sireth Mi-hahn!!!

It was impossible to separate
herself from the young falcon, and the soars and dips and spins and dives were
making her sick. She was a snow leopard, at home in mountains, not jungle, not
desert, and certainly not sky. Suddenly the connection was gone, and it was
only the Seer’s hands on her arms that brought her back down to the ground.

“That is madness!” she wailed. “I
do not wish to do that ever again.”

“In time, dear. Give it time.”

“Dear?”

That grounded her better than any
hand on her arm.

“Dear?”

She spun around on him, and he
released her as if releasing a scorpion.

She leaned into him, willing him
to feel her wrath. “When I am healed, I will bed you. I will bed you as you
have never been bedded before. You will experience such pleasure and such pain
and you will weep and moan for days afterwards and you will never, ever,
ever
think to call me ‘dear’ again. Do
you understand, Seer?”