Kushiel's Avatar

half-dozen final farewells. At length, the village faded into the landscape, the mud huts indistinguishable from the tawny plains. Once again, we were on our way.
    On the second day, we reentered the mountains, climbing treacherously narrow trails in single file, ascending to dizzying heights with the valley spread below us like a green carpet, deceptively smooth. Our guides Tifari Amu and Bizan relaxed in the mountains, chatting amicably back and forth as they rode. Joscelin too was at his ease, at home in the highlands of Jebe-Barkal as in his own Siovale, and Imriel-I had forgotten that he had been reared in the heights. I watched him scrambling about the crags in the evenings, gathering deadfalls for the fire, agile as a mountain goat.
    A lost prince raised in secret by the priesthood of Elua, innocent of his origins. That had been his mother’s plan. Watching him in the mountains, I nearly wished it had been so. Too late, now. The goatherd prince was not to be.
    Once, a party of Tigrati tribesmen came upon us. For a few minutes, our welcome was uncertain. Hands hovered over swords, and all of us eyed one another. I held my arm out, extended as Tifari had taught us, revealing the Ras’ passage-token, and Imriel did the same. Joscelin was tense, his hands crossed low over his daggers; he had not fought since his injury. Then one of the men grinned and made a jest, and Bizan replied in kind, and all was well. Give every courtesy, and never reveal fear . We made camp together that evening and shared our goods in a common pot.
    I heard the “mountain-talkers” for the first time that night, the speaking drums that Audine Davul’s father had studied. The hunters carried a smaller version, a short length of log hollowed and polished, which their percussionist beat on with mallets. It made a sharp, staccato sound, carrying over the highlands in a series of complex rhythms. After a time, we heard the great drums of their distant village boom in answer.
    “We will pass undisturbed,” Tifari Amu said in satisfaction. “The news has been spread.” And it must have been so, for we encountered no one else in the highlands.
    After a week, we began to descend once more, following a series of plateaus to rejoin the river. Wildlife abounded in these regions. I cannot even begin to count the species we saw. Antelope and gazelles were plentiful, graceful creatures with russet hides and spiraling, pronged horns. They had a trick of springing straight into the air with all four feet off the ground when startled. Bizan and Tifari Amu hunted them on horseback, with spears. It was an astonishing thing to see the swift Umaiyyati horses keep pace with the fleet beasts, swerving and doubling.
    There were camelopards, too, which is another beast I would not have credited without seeing it. They are immensely tall and angular, with legs like knobbled stilts and necks that stretch to the treetops, pale hides covered with a crazed pattern of darker blotches. For all their size, they are gentle creatures and merely watched us pass, wondering.
    Of a surety, there were other, less benign inhabitants. At night we heard the roar of lions, a fearsome sound. When we could, we would cut acacia branches, dense with sharp, hooked thorns, and assemble a makeshift stockade around our campsite, for beasts of prey would come for our horses if they dared. There were sharp-faced jackals like great black foxes, and hyenas, the carrion-eaters, with their ungainly bodies and spotted hides. After a successful hunt, one could always hear them, the eerie barking laughter ringing out in the night as they fought over the bones, which they cracked in their strong jaws.
    There were scavenger birds, too; the sky would darken with them when Bizan and Tifari made a kill ... buzzards, and vultures with their vast wingspans and bare necks, and strangest of all, great storks that flew with their long legs trailing and landed to pick their way through the throng of bird-life with long, pointed beaks.
    ’Twas a beautiful land, that much I will own. I could understand why Audine Davul’s father had loved it. I could understand, too, why she longed for home. For all the wonders of Jebe-Barkal-and I am glad, to this day, that I have seen a herd of oliphaunts bathing in the river at sundown-I could not help but think that the lavender must be in full bloom in Terre d’Ange, perfuming the air, grapes beginning to ripen on the vine.
    Still, there were far worse places we