Mei clung to his side tighter than usual, nipping at him for a wrapping arm. Her sombre mood was infectious, though more because of her closeness. Mazin squirmed. Their last visit to a hot spring was days ago. Their pace slowed further despite Mei’s recovery, which didn’t please Master Sobek much. More homesteads and villages cropped up on their path, and most with life. It forced wide berths to avoid curious eyes.
It stole hours from their journey just to find a suitable camp during the evening. Light faded quickly by now, and Mazin was never without a cloak. The scavenged clothes from the abandoned home saved him. Clean and still kept together, the extra layers made sleeping easier, especially when forced to do so without a fire. Mei and himself intertwined in slumber every night.
There was hardly a smile amongst them. No one spoke, the necessity seldom arose. A simple touch, a bite of her lip, the tilt of her head, and Mazin understood. An unspoken connection grew between them through attachment.
Even now, as she returned from nature’s calling with the sour faced Master Sobek trailing behind her, she fed him with her wide grey eyes. Mei’s presence truly troubled Kamaria. She revealed the woman’s prying for information, to no avail. She hadn’t asked for an end, if that was even a consideration in Mei’s mind.
She sat beside him and took a moment before cradling into his embrace. Mei shivered, shaking off the cold before calming in his arms. Her breathing was calm. The staleness of her odour was a strange comfort. He hoped his own stink wasn’t too troubling. Mazin scratched his poisoned right eye just below the eyelid.
“What itch hounds you for your relentless scratching?” Mei asked.
Mazin snatched his hand away, blinking away the irritation instead. She glanced up at him with a smirk.
“I wasn’t teasing. That was a serious question, nor did I mean for you to stop.”
“I didn't stop because of that. Can you see anything strange about it?”
“It’s dark Mazin. I cannot see a thing.”
“Oh, sorry, I forget.”
Mei moaned, adjusting herself on his chest, lifting his arm to wrap around her neck and rest his hand on her chest. She jerked and shivered, then calmed, wakening his mind to something he meant to ask.
“Have you been sleeping well?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you comfortable?”
“Is this a test?” She snorted, then quietened. “Have I been difficult in your arms?”
“Nightmares?”
“The usual. I’m sorry to make you suffer them.”
“I do not suffer them, not at all Mei, I just thought, well, my mother always said it is better to speak on it, lest these nightmares haunt you when you’re awake.”
“Always? Are you troubled by nightmares as well?”
“I was.”
She misses very little.
“Is it Sabah who haunts you?”
“No, definitely not,” Mei answered quickly, then she considered it for a moment. “At least not the Sabah I knew.”
“I’m sorry for prodding.”
“No, it’s my fault for screaming at you like I did. Sabah was a Lion like yourself, who comforted me for some years. She taught me many things about myself, and then she was gone.”
“She promised to free you?”
“Mm, I suppose the others discovered it. She disappeared after that.”
“I’m sorry Mei.”
“You shouldn’t, my prince,” her jest was clear, yet his chest still warmed to her words. A spark of annoyance chilled him, however, and his eye jumped towards Kamaria across from them.
“What if they sent her to break you?”
“It might have started as that; I do not doubt it. But she cared for me in the end. Why else did she vanish?”
“Bannerless caring for their prisoner?” Kamaria scoffed. Mei’s hand caressed his chest before he rose.
“No one can doubt my hatred, yet I cannot deny my pity for them.”
“You pity those traitors?”
“They’re lost, directionless. What I’ve seen from you Tamers, also deluding themselves. They deserve some pity.”
“You waste your big heart on them.”
Mei sighed and left it at that. A different sort of warmth filled Mazin’s chest. He wished to say something, stop Master Sobek before she continued. Yet Mei was calm.
They sat together in silence, Mei fiddling with a lace on his shirt and Mazin eyeing the surrounding darkness. A solitary tree with wide reaching branches clothed by evergreen leaves was their only shade. It was only bitingly cold, and not wet. The dead wood surrounding their camp would have made fine firewood. Their light was the distant flickering lights of farmhouses and villages.
Master Hathor returned, and Kamaria took his place. Galel smiled and nodded at both of them, but was soon asleep in his corner.
“Do they seem warm to you, radiating warmth?” Mei whispered at him.
“I suspect it is a Tamer ability.”
“Ooh, when it is your time, I will never leave your side.”
“No,” Mazin chuckled. “That’s not a dark ability. At least I do not think so.”
“You Tamers are a strange lot.”
“You never answered my question, by the way.”
“You asked?”
“On who haunts your dreams?”
“Oh,” Mei yawned. “My father.”
Mazin awoke in the void. An extremely bright light flickered close beside him, pulsing like a heartbeat of blazing fire, searing white in the absolute darkness. The whispers floated like wind around him.
Darkness engulfed the light. Blackness inked its sparkling edges. Drowning out the swirling voices, dulling them into gentle whispers. Magenta sparked, coursing through the light. Mazin blinked, and it vanished. Whispers swirled around the void again.
The strangeness remained; however, his writhing flesh gave it away. His eyes saw bright searing light with the odd flash of magenta. It was long gone, and yet he spun around like a madman, while the fine hairs on his neck were upright.
Eyes watched him. He hoped it was the dark Bagha. A shadow of fear crept into his mind with every passing day since he last saw the beast. How much did his stupidity cost? How many beasts fell?
“Show yourself!”
The words tore from his brow with anger, rumbling the walls of the void and scattering the whispers.
“I feel your eyes!”
There was no reply to his explosion of rage, rumbling the foundations of the void.
Only silence.
Mazin awoke from the void as swiftly as he entered it. Lost for a moment before he felt Mei squirm in his arms. He sniffed and loosened his arm around her as she moaned. She shifted, tossed and moaned once more, perspiration wetting her brow.
“No… no, please.”
His eyes danced up in the night’s darkness, spotting Kamaria with her head resting on her chest and arms crossed. He watched the master Tamer’s chest heave up and down before turning back towards Mei.
“Dada where…”
She calmed down on his chest; her clawing hand eased its scratches on his thick woollen shirt. He adjusted his arm without waking her. Mazin snatched a rag from his pocket, intended for the streaming sweat on her brow, but froze when Mei yelped awake.
“No!”
Mei yelped and clawed, jerking upwards, slapping him away. There was a glaze in her grey eyes, and her jagged scars pulsed with magenta light. Her eyes darted around as she blinked the fog from her vision.
She sobbed and lowered her hands before burying her face in Mazin’s chest. Mei trembled as she wept, only calming when his arms wrapped around her.
“Oh Mazin,” she whispered. “Is it my fault? Is all this death and destruction because of me?”
“No Mei,” he muttered in reply, caressing her back. His brow furrowed.
Where is this coming from?
“I want it to end, Mazin. I want to be away from here.”
“Soon.”
She gave in to the swift return of sleep. Mazin’s eyes fell upon the unmoved Kamaria before following in Mei’s footsteps. Hopefully without the involuntary return to the void again.
The next day was a gloomy affair of silence and stagnating progress north. It was a muggy morning, damp moisture fogged their surroundings and swirled with discomforting warmth. Seeping through their thick wools, moulding their already stale flesh. There might not have been any drizzle, but the ever-present moisture was just as bad.
Mei clung to him, though only snatching at his offered arm whenever the slick grass snatched her balance. He didn’t need her scent to feel her fatigue, which he shared. It was a mere blink between her nightmare and when Master Sobek woke them to resume their journey. The void did not come for him once more, nor did Mei suffer any more nightmares, so she claimed, yet it was a lacklustre slumber.
His limbs ached as if to salt the wound. There were worse, root infested campsites that hadn’t hampered his body as much as the lush grass of their recently departed camp. With no nearby hot spring to loosen the tightness in his limbs, the stiffness aggravated.
The gloom refused to give way to the growing strength of the sun. Heat seeped through the stifling greyness and added humidity to an already torturous environment. Mazin was down to a shirt, forced to carry his other layers, and tempted to free his bare feet.
Mei rolled up her long baggy sleeves and did the same with her loose, yet thick, pants. Eyes ever narrowed into the gloom ahead. She stopped her hand from shifting the cascading stream of raven blackness from the scarred side of her face. He caught Galel and Kamaria staring at her scars through her protective hair. It did not hide them as Mei hoped, at least to their Tamer eyes, but he wouldn’t speak it. The scars were a contentious matter for her. A shame, for he wished to profess their grim beauty to her, not that she needed more to enhance her already grand magnificence.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Mazin cleared his throat when she turned to face him, feeling his staring ruby eye on her. She smirked, then yawned. Master Hathor stomped along further into the east. Engulfed by the gloom that strained even his Tamer eye. He scratched around his right eye as he gazed ahead, barely making out Master Sobek further ahead than usual.
Odd scents tickled his nose from all directions, though the landscape hardly hinted towards any change. It remained flat and lush, with the odd mound to circle around. Nothing to suggest a change approaching. Not even the puff of smoke from a chimney.
Yet Kamaria was still ahead, facing them with her hands on her hips and her Tamed Sinha towering beside her. Master Galel was the first to reach her, with his own Tamed trailing close behind.
Mei glanced at him when she noticed they slowed. Mazin shrugged at her.
“Trouble, or a change of plans?”
“Both, Prince, unfortunately the northern borders of the Dhaar are under heavy guard. We might have risked a brisk ride through if we were able, though our best bet on foot is to join the lynx road and pass through Patt’Shee undetected, disguised as refugees.”
Mazin turned towards Galel, who showed no sign of whether he supported the idea. Then he turned towards Mei, earning a surge of annoyance from Kamaria. This time, she shrugged at him.
“Patt’Shee seems to be the greater risk.”
“We enter separately, in two pairs perhaps. I’m told there are Jaguars and Lions amongst the Tigers. Our presence wouldn’t alert the few Tamers there. Who, according to my Tamed, busy themselves with feeding people. Best to relinquish our weapons to our Tamed, and retrieve them once we have crossed into the Bar Province.”
“I see, very well.”
Mazin was already removing his khopesh from his waist.
“Perhaps you should cover your eye, to be safe, Prince.”
He nodded with a slight grimace, and Mei snarled at Kamaria before caressing his arm. Concern marked her face when he handed over his khopesh, but she nodded her trust for him, squeezing his arm as he wrapped a torn rag over his only good eye.
“Be my eyes, Mei,” he whispered with a nervous smirk.
“Prince?” Kamaria rounded on him.
“I will manage. Don’t trouble yourself. A minor mishap I will rectify in time.”
Both Galel and Kamaria fought the urge to inquire further. They nodded before leading them westwards. Mazin trusted his nose and ears more, despite seeing through the rag. Mei took his arm all the same, and he allowed her to guide.
Mei’s arm never left him, nor did she cease her guiding whispers on their journey west. He remained quiet despite the rag proving rather porous to his ruby eye. There wasn’t much to see, but his ears made up for it. Lush grass crumbled beneath their boots. The occasional twig snapped and soon the commotion of the lynx road tensed his muscles.
“You two go ahead, continue north. We will follow. Best not to arrive together.”
Flattened grass became crunched cobblestone with mud and twigs. The noises of civilisation grew in strength, as well as the subtle scent carried by the wind, but nothing revealed itself yet. Mei’s grip on his arm loosened on him, relaxed now that she trusted that Masters Galel and Kamaria were out of sight.
“Do you really need my eyes, Mazin?”
“I enjoy your touch,” he shocked himself, and held his breath until she pinched him and snorted. Still, she wrapped one arm around his as the sound of foreign boots yielded others.
Figures in raggedy cloth, burdened by many wares, joined the lynx road from well-trodden side paths. Heads bowed, infants sobbing along with the most downtrodden amongst them. Ash and blood dominated their scents, other than the general journey stink to match theirs.
He listened to their mournful mutters, the hopeful amongst them sharing encouragement, but mostly fear. It was fear and despair that dominated the buzz. Mazin fought hard to wall off his heart against their grief.
“There are so many,” Mei whispered.
“Head down, Mei, we don’t want to attract their eyes,” Mazin cautioned as they approached. It wasn’t long until Mei was wrapping her head with a thick scarf, ensuring the hair that masked her scar remained.
They brought up the rear for a few strides before more refugees filed behind them and forced them into the middle of the procession. Soon the slow rise on the lynx road flattened and the long but short wooden walls of Patt’Shee appeared. Beyond were towering stone buildings lined on either side of the road. They leaned over towards each other precariously, almost forming strange arches of tile and chipped stone.
The crowd forced them to a standstill, and the initial confusion made its way down the line and passed them. Mei squeezed his arm as if to stifle her words.
“To the right!”
“Tigers to the left!”
“Everyone else form a line to the right!”
Their voices carried on the wind to his ears, though many around them remained unresponsive. Mazin almost dragged her to the right before freezing with worry. Would he give away his Tamer ears by obeying this early? What trouble might that attract if they thought he was pushing ahead of them? Mazin’s skin crawled at the mere thought of the crowd braying at them.
He gently nudged Mei towards the right until they stood just off the lynx road. His chest tightened as those behind shifting towards anger and confusion, but their mutters remained soft.
A pair of Tamers, one dark, one not, rode alongside the endless line of refugees. Repeating the orders after each other and riding forward. Mazin watched as a few others far ahead broke off the road and marched down on the right, yet he waited still. There were a few more who followed, a solitary figure, and a pair to step away and rush for the town.
No one else followed, and Mazin waited, despite Mei’s growing restlessness. She glanced up at him a few times, though said nothing against it.
“To the right!”
“Tigers to the left!”
“Everyone else form a line to the right!”
Mazin hesitated with his first step but was soon guiding Mei towards the pair of Tigers. Their Tamed Bagha’s eyes followed him as they approached. Both red and yellow pairs.
“You two, Tigers, stay on the…” she trailed off when she focused on Mazin. Her plain lamellar armour smelled rain soaked, and the under leathers added a hint of mould. Her sun kissed face beneath the open helm was beyond weary, yet it softened into a wistful smile. “Forgive me, carry on.”
He nodded and quickened so much that Mei was almost jogging beside him. She yanked him and he slowed, much like his once racing heart.
“I didn’t realise there were other Bagha that weren’t black.”
“You’ve never seen others before?” A simple glance at Mei’s exasperated expression brought out a hurried, yet humoured, apology from him. Her smile warmed him as the sky rumbled above.
They suffered the odd impatient grumble from the refugees they passed, not moving forward as they neared the rear of the three-person line. The wooden wall stretched east and west, far beyond the borders of Patt’Shee. With mounted Tamers patrolling it.
“Come forward,” a seated Tiger droned while he finished his scribbling. He handed off the sheet of parchment to a studious-looking fellow wearing ink-stained linens. He disappeared into Patt’Shee through a rickety postern gate. The Tiger didn’t move until his studious compatriot returned.
“Names?”
“Sabah,” Mei blurted out. The Tiger raised an eyebrow at her, though when he glanced at Mazin, with narrowed eyes this time, he began scribbling. “A Tiger with a Lion’s name, I have come across stranger things.”
She took on more colour since she recovered, despite the gloom. Her olive skin darkened already. He wondered what the southern sun would do.
Will she come south with me?
Mazin’s internal question faded when the scribing Tiger looked up at him now, expecting a name. Mei, forever without scent, found it easy to lie. He was on the brink of revealing his panic.
“Your partner, Sabah?”
“A shy man at the best of times,” she tapped his chest with a caring hand.
“A Lion with a Tiger’s name, hmm? What do I call you then?”
“Asim.”
There was no hesitation from the Tiger this time. He wrote it in red ink beside Mei’s chosen name, but held in his sigh. Mazin eyed the details through the cloth covering his ruby eye. The man was attentive, having barely had any time to study them, not a word wasted. He described everything about their appearance in red ink, right down to the apparent sprinkling of dirt on his cheek.
The Tiger tore off the bottom of the page, after stamping it and handed it over to his ink-stained companion.
“Take this page. This is your official pass through Patt’Shee. Do not lose it and do not squat. If we find you within these walls after two days, we will throw you out on its southern borders. Present this pass to the guards at the north gates, and do not change your appearance too much. Your passage through depends on it.”
Mei squeaked her understanding before snatching the sheet of paper and handed it to Mazin. He folded it into a pocket over his chest and nodded at the Tiger. Through the postern gate they went, and Mazin grimaced when his senses suffered a sudden attack.
It amazed him it took passing the walls for the sensory overload to hit. All dull and in the back of his mind before, now forcing its way in. Bitter grief and sour shame ruined his nostrils and tongue. The endless din drummed in his ears, and there wasn’t one raised voice amongst them. A collection of moans, groans, disgruntled murmurs, mournful whispers, and quiet rage.
In no time, it swept them up in the ocean of bodies. Shoved back and forth without a chance to control their own movements. They pressed Mei up against him, trying her best to keep a calm face while they we groped and touched, squeezing between sweaty, and sometimes bleeding bodies.
Some children were lucky, sitting atop shoulders or raised up by thoughtful parents and guardians, spared the claustrophobic collection of people. The overload of his senses became too much. Mazin couldn’t take in the tarps that stretched from rooftop to next rooftop, sheltering the lynx road running through Patt’Shee from the grumbling gloom above. Nor did he care for the merchants atop boxes, presenting their lacklustre wares with deadpan faces. Not bothering to call for any eyes, for no eyes spared them any attention beyond their own troubles.
“Mazin?” Mei managed, tugging at his arm.
His throat tightened. He gave up trying to push north along the lynx road and pummelled into the west of the town. Arm raised and strength not held back, he tossed aside anyone in his way. Mei clung to him. She moaned one more time, but gave up after a while. Not one grunt of complaint or wail from one of his victims deterred his strength.
His vision became spotty, for his chest refused to fill. It didn’t until he collapsed onto his knees before an alleyway reeking of death. Mazin wept as he searched for any air to fill his dying lungs. Mei knelt beside him, caressing his back while he struggled. Left alone in their little corner, with more space than he expected. Soon he was sitting against a wall, blinking the spots out of his vision.
Mei knelt on his right, saying nothing, but wearing a mournful expression as she gazed upon the masses he battered through.
“I’m… sorry,” he finally managed.
“Take your time. It is all right.”
He scratched under his darkened right eye and yearned for it to see again. A pulse of energy jolted his finger, and he snatched away his hand with a flinch.
“Sweet girl,” a woman hissed, emerging from the rancid alleyway, hunched over and dressed in once rich cloth. Now tattered and endlessly stained, devoid of its vibrant colours and patched by ugly materials.
“Sweet tainted girl and her boy, won’t you save us?”
Mazin rushed to stand over Mei, but other than her wide eyes, she showed no fear.
“Cleanse yourselves of your corruption and free us from this prison,” the woman cackled at them. Her rheumy eyes and rotten teeth were a troubling sight. “End this war, sweet children, for we have died enough.”
She offered an age stiffened hand to Mei. Her vision glazed and looking beyond. Mei waved away his concern and took it, concern dancing amongst the mourning on her face.
“Alas, my sweet Pearl has departed. I would have ridden with you girl and her boy.”
Mazin gulped when she named her Tamed.
“You did this to us!”
Mei yelped when the crone strangled her wrist with her stiff fingers.
“You tainted Witch, burn, begone, take your evil away!”
Mazin swiped at the crone, but she already relinquished Mei, and left a welting bruise on her dainty arm. She cackled maniacally and wept black ooze from her misty eyes.
“Save us girl, save us girl, save us girl, and her boy!”
He took Mei gently and rushed into the death stinking alleyway as the crone continued her chant, and didn’t stop even as they stumbled in the darkness, upon covered mounds rotting with flies and maggots. Mazin lifted Mei up before she realised his footfalls were crushing dead bones.
The old woman’s voice died, but the rank stink of death refused to leave him, even though he found more fragrant alleyways between shacks and the towering stone buildings. Mei followed close behind him, now on her own two feet, though forever straining her eyes through the darkness.
Baked bread, ripening fruit and raw meat fought away the death clinging to his nostrils. Gloomy light pierced through the gaps of the many dark alleyways. The odd mound they passed now was breathing, huddled in corners beneath thin blankets. Though many sounded haggard, and some whistled, soon to litter new grounds with death.
Mei muttered under her breath as he led her back onto the lynx road, where the number of tattered civilians were at a minimum, but armoured Tigers brought a newfound worry on him. He allowed her a moment to gather herself, wiping away her stained cheeks, before continuing towards the north gate.
Mazin’s legs vibrated with relief and he became blissfully unaware of the untrusting eyes of the Tigers that snarled as they passed them. He’d never thought the sight of a fiery orange Bagha, striped with black, would lift him so much.
He produced the stamped slip of paper before the Tamer asked for it. The spectacled scribe beside him studied them for a moment before pouring over a pile of parchment to produce a familiarly red inked page. She grunted her approval to the Tamer seated beside her. Then he signalled and the wooden gate snapped with parting metal before sliding open.
“I sense a heavy rain to fall. Find shelter while you can,” he muttered.
Mazin didn’t care to notice the falling spittle, his eyes watered as they crossed into the Bar Province, leaving behind the cramped stink and unrelenting noise of Patt’Shee behind. Mei appeared haunted by the brief horror of what lay in their wake.