Chapter 2: Little Stone

  Ji’an stood up from the wagon as Ammon closed his eyes. He felt sorry for the man. Happenings like this might just become more common, if the people didn’t do something. And what could that be? They couldn’t very well let the king die, could they? They still had to meet, but would these mystery killers take revenge for that act as well? There was a chance but it was one that they would just have to accept. A tear hit Ji’an on the hand. He wiped his eyes and looked around.

  Micha was arguing with Hima and Ol’ha. “We can’t bloody well leave these bodies here?” he was pacing back and forth in front of the men, glaring at them. Occasionally he pounded his fist on his thigh. It seemed to happen when he looked at the bodies.

  Neither man answered him. They looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes, but they stayed silent.

  “Well?” he asked, staring them down still. “No. We can’t… We won’t.”

  “We have to get to Clear Waters, Micha. We’re pressed for time here,” Ol’ha said gently. He tried to place his hand on Micha’s shoulder, but was shrugged off.

  “Ol’ha’s right, lad, we don’t really have a choice in this matter.”

  Micha looked around like he couldn’t believe his own ears. “You two can’t be serious. Twisted, is what that is. Ji’an, you won’t stand for this will you?”

  Ji’an looked at the dead family. His heart ached and his stomach turned. Micha was right. They couldn’t just leave them out here, not all night. The chance of some wild Pagonas coming up in the night and having a feast was too great, that was if they wanted to save the bodies.

  “He’s right,” Ji’an said quietly, almost too softly to be heard.

  “You’re not suggesting we take these bodies to the Spire tonight are you Ji’an?” Hima said, looking at the very last rays of the sun peeking over the horizon. “We can still see the fires of the torches on the top of the Spire there, when we should be nearly to Little Stone, by now. We don’t have the time to turn all the way around. Not by half.”

  Ol’ha nodded. “Right, but we can’t go off and leave them there like that. Something will come up and then there won't be anything at all left for any kind of rites. We need to at least hide them out of reach of animals for the night. Besides, it’s just not right leaving the ropes on them like that. it… ” Ji’an trailed off and shook his head, not knowing what to say.

  Micha still didn’t look happy, but he was nodding. “I like it. Better than leaving them here, at least. We can send word when we get to Little Stone. They should have some ravens there for Ammon or one of us to write a letter that we can send letting someone know where to find the bodies and let them know what happened.”

  Ol’ha and Hima looked at each other then up at the sky.

  Micha continued. “We have the time, you two, we have time to give this family at least one last shred of respect. Even then we’ll be shoving what’s left of them in a little hole somewhere. It is the very least we can do for them.” They nodded.

  With that they got to work, carefully cutting the ropes off their wrists, revealing rope burns where they had been pulling and thrashing against them. Gently, they lifted each body and carried it down further into the valley, past a wagon that used to be theirs, Ji’an assumed. In the floor of the valley, there was an opening in the rock big enough for the bodies. Just to be safe, and at Micha’s insistence, they pulled the wagon down and flipped it over in front of the small cave. That would help with the scent of blood as well as finding the bodies when they send a search party to retrieve them.

  By the time they were all mounted once again plodding forward, the moon was bright in the sky, and the land was bathed in that pale, ghostly moonlight. Strange shadows dotted the land, cast by the spires and sweeping rocks.

  “What do you think?” Ol’ha asked, riding up beside him.

  “About? Exactly, I mean,” Ji’an said, tripping over his words a bit, lost in his own thoughts.

  “About what this all means, really. Do you think it happened only to us, or what?” An uneasy silence fell upon the group, for a moment as Ji’an chose his words. He could barely see Micha and Ol’ha’s faces in the dim moonlight. They topped a ridge, high enough to at least get a view of the surrounding area. The rocks were choppy in a way that only the Ocean of Sand could be, flowing like water, breaking like waves, frozen in time never to move again. There were valleys and clefts of rocks, sharp jagged edges, smooth grainy ones, and everything in between. Ji’an loved sights like this. They filled him with some sense of pride that he could call this place his home, though it was pointless. He very well could’ve been born anywhere in the world, but the gods chose for him to be born here, in this beautiful land.

  He had been staring too long. He raised his hand before Hima could force the rattleback up the hill any further. “Careful not to spill out Ammon back there,” Ji’an called as the wagon creaked backwards. Hima simply grunted.

  “Why not that way?” Hima called up to them when he was level again.

  “It's sheer up here,” Ji’an called back. He looked around at the lowlands below them, trying to pick out a course. “Down to your right, there’s flat ground. Light up a lantern, there’s some pits. Pick your way to the left, circle round that spear shaped rock there,” Hima pointed, “yes that one. Circle round that one to the right, then swing back left, there’s a thin bit of ground that should let the wagon over, though it could be shadows. We proceed with caution, is my best advice.”

  “Could’ve just said that last bit, and I’d’ve figured it out,” Hima called back over his shoulder. He hit a large rock that rocked the wagon so hard, Ammon bounced clean into the air.

  “Gods alive, if that bloody old man doesn’t kill himself and Ammon by the time we make it to Little Rock, I’ll eat my boots,” Ol’ha said watching him pick his way down in the flickering and swinging torch light.

  “I myself am just more impressed that Ammon didn’t bloody wake up,” Micha said, his face a mask of over-exaggerated awe.

  Ji’an and Ol’ha laughed, and they picked their way down the rocks. Pagonas were incredible climbers, and had none of the hassle of making their way through the Ocean like the wagons and rattlebacks. While no metal known could break the rock in the Ocean of Sand, and the claw of a pagona was no exception, they could find even the tiniest of cracks already there and dig in for dear life.

  As the pagonas were picking their way down the side of the dropoff, some twenty or twenty-five feet in the air, Ji’an spoke up. “I think someone, either in the market or in the outpost itself, paid off some hitman to kill that family. It certainly wasn’t random, not since they left that note, that much is a given. But I’m not sure that it was some sort of coordinated attack.”

  “But you can’t be sure, now can you? Not completely positive,” Ol’ha shot back. It was not out of disbelief. He knew good and well that there were shady people in all parts of life. Rather, it was covering all the bases more than anything.

  “No, I can’t, but I have my guess,” Ji’an said, annoyance building.

  “Just a guess,” Micha added. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. Micha got jumpy around Ammon, but it was only because he was from the King, and because there was an untouchable quality to Ammon where one couldn’t be friends with him. But Ji’an had made it a point to allow his men to question him, to push back when they knew he was wrong. It made the army stronger when they could each other to make the right choices.

  But it could get bloody obnoxious when all Ji’an wanted to do was be right.

  “I don’t really have all that much to go on here, you two. All I have is one dead family, and some vague note,” Ji’an said, bordering on anger now.

  “But then why do you want to sound so certain?” Ol’ha said, casting him a glance in the pale light. They touched the ground and kicked their mounts to catch up to the wagon before Hima drove it into a ditch. “Look, Ji’an, I want to catch whoever did this too, but thinking someone paid for it, that close to home at least, isn’t likely. There might be some slim chance but ee need more. We bring it up at the meeting, send a message when we get Little Stone, people look into it, then we move forward. That’s all.”

  Ji’an looked down at the saddle horn and thumbed the seams in the leather. “I know. I just want something to be done, that’s all. I need something to be done. For my own sake if no one else’s.” There had been raids on wagons coming to Spireshade at an alarming rate. On even a good year there would still be one or two, but five was the most for the year. There had been twice or more than that in the past month. Ji’an had been sending out scout teams of fighters in hopes of putting a stop to it, and in the recent weeks it had shown signs of improving, so he stopped the scouts from going out so much.

  So it would only happen that on the week that there wasn’t a scout party scheduled to be deployed that a family would die a gruesome death.

  “Ji’an,” Ol’ha said.

  Ji’an didn’t respond.

  “Ji’an, look at me,” Ol’ha repeated. “This isn’t your fault. I know that look on your face. You're blaming yourself for this.” By this point, they had caught up to the wagon. The terrain was finally getting easier to navigate. If Ji’an was right on where they were at, the ridge in front of them was the last one to cross before it was flat and they could make their way straight to Little Stone.

  Ji’an twisted his mouth into a sneer. He spit to the side, contempt for his only foolishness mounting inside him. “I should never have slowed down the deployment of those scouts. If they had been out this week--”

  Ol’ha cut him off. “You don’t know that. What if it had been your scouts? What then? Would it be your fault for sending them out? How many scouts in a deployment? Five? Ten? Fifteen?”

  “Twelve,” Ji’an answered.

  “What if there had been fifteen soldiers who killed that family? Then a family and some scouts would be dead. Maybe there would be some dead mercenaries as well, but for the most part, no one wins. Your men die, the family dies, and I’d wager most of the mercenaries get away as well. You did your best with what you had. Now, move on and try your hardest to fix this.”

  Ji’an didn’t know what to say. He was simply numb. The cold of the night had settled in and was seeping into his bones. His mind began to drift in the direction of the warm hearth and meal waiting for them at Little Stone. His mouth watered and stomach growled.

  Conversation was light the rest of the way there. The men were tired, and Micha was even able to catch a bit of sleep in the saddle, his pagona simply trailing along behind the ones in front, following the leaders as it was trained to do when someone was riding and let go of the reins. Soon they picked their way out of this lowland valley, and up onto higher flatter ground. Though flatter in the fullest sense, as there was no truly flat ground the Ocean. Here that simply meant instead of picking your way over and around massive chasms it meant picking your way around jutting rock formations and towering slender spires. But it also meant they could see the first light of the first torch of Little Stone. The men doubled their pace, pulled forward by the promise of warming by the fires waiting for them there.

  As they drew closer to the towering structure of Little Stone, Ji’an took it all in. There was a simple beauty to it all, in that this structure was almost entirely made by hand. All the other structures were found or naturally formed just adapted for use by the Oceaniers. Little Stone was anything but little though at its inception it had been. Then, it was nothing more than a few tents strapped down under a small stone outcropping, but since then it had grown to many many times that size.

  Now it was a massive meld of sheets and thick blankets with no proper color scheme, but rather a mesh of reds, greens and blues. The part that was naturally formed was underground, which was what the sheets covered, an enormous cave structure that took them years to map out and secure. They had used sheets as wool was abundant in the Ocean from all the sheep farms in the large cities, and they worked well at keeping the heat from the fires inside the caves. Just behind the sheet structure was where they would soon be dropping off their Pagonas, in a stall system the size that the Ocean had never seen and would never see again.

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  Ji’an had only been here about four times, as he had no real reason to be this far north, at least most days, besides it was a fairly new project so it had only been around for only five or six years. But the newness only added to the novelty of the whole thing. It was truly something to behold regardless of how old it was.

  When the group was right next to the sheets, he could hear laughter and fires roaring from the opening of the cave below. They rounded the structure and they saw the massive stalls. They were over half full, the pagonas separate from the rattlebacks as that would end in death for the rattlebacks, the natural food of the pagonas, but even being half full still meant that they could hold over a thousand more. There were at least a two and half thousand total under two separate rock shelves, rattlebacks on the left, pagonas straight ahead.

  As soon as the attendants there saw the group they came running out to take the animals from them. “I’m not sure if they would’ve taken me with the beast or if they’d’ve taken my legs off to get me out of the saddle if I didn’t move quick enough,” Micha said, watching them unsaddle and put up the animals. The stable hand together pushed the wagon to a lot at the end of the stables, and tied a colored ribbon to it so they knew the owners.

  While watching them himself Ji’an caught a glimpse of red in one of the stalls. “Lads, we may learn sooner rather than later more about the killings. Captain Moa is here,” he nodded to the stall with the red Pagona. The beast was legendary. It had been causing problems in the north west with herds of goats so the farmers had tried to kill to no avail so in the end, they had given up. It became a challenge to foolhardy young people looking for a thrill before joining the army, to try to catch and break the thing, but no one had managed to get it. That was until Moa had camped out for a month declaring that she wouldn’t return unless she was riding it back.

  “Uh-oh,” Hima said, pointing into the inky blackness. Ji’an squinted until he saw a figure trudging towards them, shoulders cast forward, at a pace suggesting that he was closer to foe than friend. It was Ammon.

  “About time you woke up,” Ol’ha called to him, as the torch light finally touched his face. The flickering light did nothing for the dark cast over his narrow face.

  “I can’t believe that you all let those brutish stable hands cart me away like they did.” The little man was incredulous.

  “What can I say, we got used to the peace and quiet that your absence allowed for,” Hima said dryly. “Guess we just didn’t want to give that up.”

  Ammon opened his mouth to say something back, but Ji’an cut him off before he could. He stepped over to him and through his arm around him. “Come now, Ammon, some spiced wine, a warm fire, and some wonderful stew will make you laugh about all of this. Afterall, the lovely stable hands did let you go, didn’t they? How brutish can they be then?”

  “I told those fool stable hands off is what I did. I suppose they aren’t so much brutes as they are idiots. ,” he said, seeming satisfied that they had paid for what they did. “Though, I would think that I had brought enough of my own idiots with me that something like that wouldn’t have happened,” Ammon joked, a slight smile appearing on his lips.

  The men all laughed, and Ammon seemed to practically glow.

  “So they had a good reason to let you go-- you opened your mouth,” Ol’ha said, and everyone laughed again, including Ammon. Ji’an thought that, for the first time in four years, Ammon was making progress to finally becoming one of the men. He smiled wider.

  They went inside.

  The cave was massive with extreme tunnel systems running all over the place that some said lead around the whole Ocean, though most were dead ends. Normally in the caves around the Ocean the air chilled a bit, but not here. On every wall there was a fire roaring in every space that could handle one, warming the cave to the point that sweat pricked out of Ji’an skin the moment the warm air brushed him. There were massive fires blazing in the middle of the room, with even bigger stew pots hanging above the flames, from being bolted onto the frame of a natural formation. They required even the tallest person to use a step stool to reach the top. Benches, sat in neat, two rowed order, filled with people laughing and talking, red faced from the heat of the air and of the drink, the roar almost deafening from inside.

  “Go, all of you, drink, get something to eat, find a bed. We leave at noon tomorrow. Going should be smoother from here on out and this last bit will be much quicker to make. I have business to attend to,” Ji’an yelled over the din. He was already scanning all the tables looking for Moa.

  He began snaking through the massive dining hall, looking for Moa. Normally she would be with her soldiers, gambling, tossing dice, playing a drinking game or two, but every crowd gathered around a table he checked were just random travelers. The attendants who ran Little Stone wore purple and gold vests and he began looking for one to corner.

  He spotted one, a short blonde man, who was balding on the top of his head, trying to wrestle a mug out of a far too drunk man’s hands. “Sir, you have had far too much. Give me your mug. Hand it over, or I’ll have no choice but to call Asan over here, and he will not be so gentle getting you out of this establishment.” He turned and pointed to a mountain of a man who was already watching the whole exchange. Ji’an himself wasn’t short but that Asan character made him look like a toddler. He found himself standing straighter so as to not attract the ire of Asan. After the drunkard saw who he was up against he grumbled something about fairness, but handed over the mug, got up from the table and staggered off.

  The attendant sighed, the color draining from his taunt face. He wasn’t tan, and his face was devoid of any sign of seeing the sun too much. Though his nose had obviously been broken once or twice before, from the shape of it. .

  “You handled that well. I wouldn’t want to get on that man’s bad side either. Good employee you have there,” Ji’an said to the man who slumped down on the bench.

  “Him? I’ve no clue who he is. My name’s Asan, he’s just scarier than myself. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I’m looking for Captain Moa. I know she’s here, I saw her Pagona out in the stalls, it’s just this place is a maze. I’m Captain Ji’an. We were recruits at the same time. We’ve been good friends most of our lives. She wouldn’t mind you leading me to her. You have my word.”

  The man studied Ji’an up and down with his eyes, taking in every bit of him in just a moment. Ji’an shifted his feet, slightly uncomfortable for some odd reason. It seemed to him that Asan had learned more than he should have from such a quick glance. “Captain, is that right? You look like you could be one. Got the vest of one for sure.” Ji’an fingered the bottom green trim set against the sky blue of the vest. He shook himself slightly. “Could’ve killed one for it though, I suppose, not out of the realm of possibilities, that’s for sure, with the likes of people we see in here.”

  “What does that mean, exactly,” Ji’an said, curious now. Ji’an supposed that he should’ve been offended, but instead he found himself glad for the man’s skepticism. There was safety in that. He also wondered if the family’s killer could have made their way north and stayed here.

  “We have everyone here, from Representatives to Captains, and the common man to the thieves. We don’t ask so long as one doesn’t give us a reason to, and you, my friend, have given me a reason to find out. Now, who’s your Representative, hum? You come from the what,” he studied the pattern on the sides of his vest, “the Blue Skies Tribe, yeah? Who is it?”

  “Jamma of Sandstone Hold Settlement. I was his Leader of a Thousand for a time before he made me Captain of Blue Skies Army.”

  “Right. Good. Good. But you see, you could beat that out of the last guy for sure, don’t you think? Something --”

  Ji’an cut him off. “I’m not sure I have time for this, Asan. There is a pressing matter at hand, and I really need to speak with Captain Moa, it is urgent.”

  “Yes, well, Captain, if you are to be believed, we have a problem as well. You know how many bloody people come down that slope yonder and claim to be a Captain of some off tribe when the vest is fake or stolen? You know what times we’re in right now? Story after story comes into these walls about increased raids on travelers, more killing going about. Thieving and looting. My apologies for perhaps going a bit too far in my questions here, but you can see why I might be this way with what just happened--” Asan clamped his mouth shut.

  Ji’an’s vision narrowed on the man, the rest of the world fading. “Asan, what happened here? You have to tell me.”

  “No. No such thing is required of me,” he stood and tried to leave, but Ji’an caught his arm and sat him back down.

  “This is the most urgent thing you have ever experienced in your life. I am sure of it. Now, tell me what you know.” Ji’an was eye level with him now.

  His face was calm, mouth flat, breathing steady, but his eyes were rolling, looking for a way to get out, to escape Ji’an, but there was none, and he knew it.

  He dropped his eyes. “Yesterday. A few of the stablehands went out over the ridge above the stables. They’ve got them a nice little cave set up out there where they can take breaks and shoot dice or smoke a pipe. But when they crossed over the ridge, they found the bodies of two or three families. Brutalized, they said. I haven’t the stomach to see something like that, so I avoided going over there, but they said it was awful. Most of those lads either deserted in the night, or can’t go back to their nice little shelter. Says it still smells over there.”

  “How brutal do you mean? I need to know.”

  “What’s the worst thing you can think of to do to a person after death, Ji’an? No heads. Gone. Whoever did it is keeping these poor people from their shot at the afterlife. I shudder to think…” and shudder he did, afterwards falling silent. He covered his mouth at the thought then closed his eyes, as if he was trying to crawl inside his own head and have the rest of the world melt away.

  “I need Moa. Now.”

  With that Asan began his hunt, Ji’an following close at his heels. Eventually, after cornering and asking fifteen or twenty other attendants, Asan finally grabbed a torch from a stack near the wall fires, lit on one of them, and ventured off down a dark tunnel. They walked for so long the roar of the crowd was nothing more than a dull ringing in Ji’an’s ears. The sound of flowing water filled the tunnel. “How deep are we?”

  “Very. These tunnels go far, though not like the stories. We will eventually hit a dead end here too. This water you hear? You’ll never see it.”

  Finally, after walking for at least ten minutes, Ji’an saw the flickering of torchlight once again, coming from a room to the right. “Captain Moa?” Asan called, stopping short of going into the room. “You have a visitor, one Captain Ji’an of Sandstone Hold Settlement. Do you know him?”

  She stuck her head out from around the wall and smiled. “What? Ji’an, is it really you? What do you need?” Moa reminded Ji’an of his wife. She was of medium height, brown tanned skin, sun bleached, nearly white hair, and as blunt as an old hammer. A terrifyingly good Captain, strong willed and cunning, but still reserved enough so as to not be rash.

  “Good to see you too, Moa. A family was killed at the Spire sometime yesterday. I have a sinking suspicion that you have a similar story.”

  A dark cast fell over Moa’s face, the torch light casting odd shadows on her sharp features.

  “Come in.”