Exotic Animals

—Iraj—

They weren't invisible, exactly. People simply didn't notice them. Iraj stuck close to Sister Khali and her prayer of Overlook, flanked by two bulwarks. They descended into a crescent depression, the sandy remains of an oxbow lake. There was a picket of appalons nearby, observed by two sleepy sentries. The main camp was further along the dry bed, a few large fires set against the steep cut bank. Karoush was working them into a lather with loud exhortations fueled by date wine. The wine was probably from Pashtuk's vault, stolen in their previous raids.

Sister Khali didn't bother with men's dress or makeup for this outing, but went as herself, with her armor and weapons mingling with desert clothing. All the Nexus women did this when they weren't trying to ingratiate themselves with Calique. It was good to see them thus, a throwback to his caravanning days when each person was taken as they were instead of being judged by a garden's ways. She was a young woman, of good marrying age, and she had the aspect of one who had skirmished but never fought in a pitched battle. Her two bulwarks, on the other hand, were Lavradian war veterans. They were friendly men mere hours ago, but now their eyes were dark and hard as river stones.

The four of them closed in on the sentries, and Khali gave the go-ahead. The former soldiers stepped out of the prayer's coverage, knifed the sentries, and dragged their bodies silently into the protected zone. Khali paled at the violence but didn't falter. This wasn't like her other encounters, conflicts in broad daylight, fought in self-defense. This time she was the aggressor, attacking preemptively under the cover of night, and her instructions were not to spare the Satomen. Her Eldest Brother had decided they were obstacles, to himself and his hoped-for allies, and he wanted them removed. Tonight was for single-sided, cold-blooded killing.

The camp never noticed the sentries' passing, not while they were shouting themselves into a frenzy and blinded by their fires. Still under cover of Khali's Overlook, Iraj began to gather appalons. There were so many, he had to make two trips. He led the first group up the old cut bank, which Khali had reshaped slightly to conceal and ease their passing. She stayed behind to maintain the magic that prevented Satomen from looking towards their appalons.

It seemed to take forever, but Iraj knew from experience that he wasn't gone for that long. He led the animals to the rendezvous, knelt them down, and left them with the lead animal hobbled. He counted thirty-five of them. He ran back to the camp, slunk in while the raiders were too fire-blinded to notice him, and realized he couldn't find Khali. She had moved, for what reason he didn't know, and now he couldn't find her. He was about to call out when a hand, out of nowhere, snatched his wrist and pulled him in.

Iraj's voice came out in harsh whispers. "You startled me!"

"You should have seen your face!" Khali whispered back, "But never mind that. What are those?" Khali pointed to the center of the remaining animals.

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There were four exotic beasts in piebald coats, packed together among the appalons like they were hiding. Their general shape was similar to appalons, but a closer look revealed they were very different animals. Their feet had hooves instead of padded soles, and they had no trunks. They were smaller too, built for better speed but lacking an appalon's carrying capacity over long plods. The beasts were rare, relegated to the grassy, mostly unbroken land where Kravikas gradually merged into Hyskos highlands. They were highly valued in Hyskos for racing and as individual mounts, but the rest of the world thought of them as little more than curiosities. Appalons were so much more dependable, and not as delicate.

"Horses," said Iraj lowly, "have you heard of them? If they've been trained then I should be able to handle them. Wait here." He left the safety of Overlook and hid himself among the animals, shouldering them aside to reach the horses. He plied the exotic mounts with dates and slices of dried melon, let them smell his hands and face, and patted each in turn. It wasn't long before he discovered they were hiding a secret: a smaller animal, lurking in their shadow.

At first, Iraj mistook the smaller creature for a foal but its lines were wrong. He was more deer-like, built for sprinting and jumping, with longer more pointed ears. His coat was dark cream, offset by a white mane and tail. A pair of black spiral horns jutted from his head.

The creature was called a jimala, something more exotic than horses, and he shouldn't have been there. It was far too dangerous, for so many reasons.

"I'm going to get you out of here," said Iraj in calm tones. "Just follow for now, and I'll release you as soon as we're away from here." The jimala seemed to understand him, at least well enough to stand and shake itself free of dirt.

Like before, Iraj gathered up the traces into three lines of ten animals each, and led them away. The horses balked until the jimala grunted at them and nudged the bigger animals into line. This time, Sister Khali and her two soldiers went with him. She made her prayer effect large enough to cover all of them, people and animals, but the strain was showing on her face.

As soon as they were near the waypoint where all the animals were being kept, she dropped the prayer entirely and collapsed to her knees. Iraj expected her to reach for water, but she pulled an oblong stone from some hidden pocket instead, a lump gleaming orange and fire in reflected moonlight. Somehow, it helped her: soon she was on her feet again and murmuring into her link with Brother Mahzad.

Iraj had spent enough time around Nexus to understand the earcuffs worn by so many of them were more than a peculiar decoration. At least some of the jewelry was magical, enabling them to talk to each other over great distances. So far, he hadn't been able to distinguish the magic ones from the normal ones. Each piece, magical or not, was unique. The jewelry style had already spread to Dagono women and Pashtuk refugees. It all seemed too deliberate to be coincidental.

It was, he decided, very Nexus of them. It wasn't enough to invent a semi-secret communications device: they disguised it as something else; then they hid the magic pieces among hundreds of mundane ones; and then they exported the new style elsewhere.

The lines of animals had to be set properly, the leaders hobbled, and traces double-checked. With two extra motions, Iraj released the jimala. "You should stick with us. There's food and water in Pashtuk. But you're free to do as you like." He left the beast to its own devices, to fetch his hunting bow and quiver.

It was time to bleed for his garden.