Chapter 9
YUMA
The rain brought on by the stormbird had soaked the steppe, making it nearly impossible to walk through. The grass, delirious from this unseasonal gift from the skies, thickened and greened.
The Grim King had killed two herders, neither of whom had even reached the age of twenty.
The rage Yuma felt could easily overflow into tears.
But the Grim King was right—there were over a thousand such youths in Danras, and he held their lives in his hands.
Yuma was the Chief Herder, one of the two most respected people in Danras.
She was expected to follow his orders, even after witnessing him commit murders just to make his point.
The other herders could wail with sorrow, but not the Chief Herder.
She had to show no fear, nor sadness, nor disgust at her own helplessness, like the unmoving faces of the dead the Grim King commanded.
Early the next morning, Yuma selected a few herders who well knew the ways through the grassy plains and sent them westward.
If the Imperial spy had indeed entered the plains as the Grim King had said, there would be only so many places they could hide.
And there would be limits to how far the spy could range as long as the land remained flooded.
As she watched the searchers go westward into the still-dark steppe, their backs to the rising sun, Aidan asked, “Have you gone to see the Host?”
“Not yet. But I met the Grim King last night, so I must wash before I visit.”
Aidan nodded. “That is the way. Then I shall bring you your meal. And your wound…”
Yuma placed a hand on her injured hip and said, “Stallia saw to it. No need to worry too much.”
The two looked toward the west in silence. When the herders disappeared into the grass, Aidan said, “I assume you’ve heard I grew up learning sorcery with the Grim King a long time ago.”
“I’ve heard rumors, yes.”
It was said that Aidan had been sent to Eldred as a child and was almost apprenticed to him, but that Aidan had returned to Danras as a man and become a herder instead. This was the first time she was hearing him speak of it himself.
“Do you know why I was sent to him?”
Yuma shook her head before turning away from Aidan. She was, after yesterday, quite sick of the Grim King. Whether they caught this spy for him or not, she wanted to forget all about him and just finish the herding for the year. But Aidan continued with his story.
“When I was a child … this was over forty years ago now. But the Host at the time prophesied that the apprentice of the Grim King would become the King of Merseh.”
Yuma winced. “I’ve heard about the prophecy, but not what transpired after that. All I know is that many children of magic from all three cities were killed.”
“Well, once the prophecy was made, the Grim King issued an edict saying he sought apprentices. Danras sent children, as did Lansis and Iorca. For what he seeks, he gets. The Grim King accepted all who had magic, and I was one. We really thought one of us would end up ruling this country one day.”
She looked back at him. There was a bitter smile on Aidan’s lips.
“The children with no affinity for sorcery were turned away at the gate of the palace, and those of us with magic were taught by the Grim King for ten years. Some weren’t clever, and others found the trials too difficult.
Those children did not survive. Four did, though, including myself, and the Grim King declared he would make the one who passed the final test his apprentice.
” Aidan sighed. “I was the only one to pass. The other three … they disappeared into nothing. But the Grim King did not make me his apprentice.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t know at first. He simply destroyed the magic in me and banished me to the steppe.
” Aidan rubbed his paralyzed right cheek.
“But later on, I understood. The reason one takes an apprentice is to pass on knowledge. Somewhat like passing on a family’s legacy to a child.
But the Grim King is immortal. He needs no child or apprentice, and he never will. ”
Yuma thought of how the Grim King had killed Rizona without giving it a second thought.
If the Grim King thought so little of apprentices and children, how much less would he care about others?
Merseh had been ruled by the Grim King for at least five centuries.
No one knew what he was before that or where he even came from.
Perhaps every life was as ephemeral as spring flowers to one so long-lived.
But Yuma became curious about one thing.
“Aidan, if the Grim King gave so little regard for the lives of his other apprentice candidates—”
“Why would he spare my life?” Aidan touched the deadened side of his face again. “The best I can figure is that maybe he wished for me to have children. I was not good enough to be his apprentice, but he might have been hoping that a worthy successor would appear in a few generations.”
All Yuma could do was nod.
Aidan adjusted his hat and said, “That’s just the way he is. The Grim King can never be understood by the measure of those who don’t live even a hundred years.”
Yuma nodded again. Aidan tipped his hat and got on his horse. As she watched him leave, she imagined him as a young boy. Not in leather, riding a horse on the steppe, but in a gray robe given to him by the Grim King, chanting ominous spells in a dim room.
For days afterward, Yuma kept an eye to the west. If the searchers found the spy, they were to send up a smoke signal during the day or light a fire at night.
Nothing happened for three days, aside from the occasional adventurous young orox that needed to be returned to the herd.
The water drained from the earth, and the sky was clear and blue as if it had never known rain.
On the morning of the fourth day, Yuma washed herself in rainwater that had been gathered on a tarp.
There were not many days she could bathe during a herding.
The ponds that dotted the grasslands were mostly for the oroxen—their water was too muddy to bathe in, much less drink, which meant the herders would need to strain it and let the silt settle before boiling it with a fragrant herb before imbibing. Clean water on the grasslands was rare.
So, bathing oneself was even rarer. But Yuma did so for the sake of meeting with the Host. Three days with no news from the searchers meant she needed to consult auguries.
The occasion forbade herder dress, so Yuma took out ceremonial clothes from a bundle in her tent.
The trousers were made of black wool, which had to be imported to Merseh, and the tunic was white muslin.
The clothes had been made for her grandfather, modified to fit her mother, and taken in again by Yuma—both items were at least half a century old.
She put on the somberly beaded string that cinched her collar, thinking of the last time she wore these clothes, last winter.
She had been seeing off the youths who had been conscripted by the Grim King.
Yuma adjusted the back of her ceremonial clothing and tugged the creases out of her sleeves. The Host was meticulous when it came to ceremony. If she didn’t want to be turned away, every seam had to be lined up. Rizona would’ve made sure …
Yuma adjusted her hat and left her tent.
But as soon as she stepped into the pewter light of dawn, Aidan came running. He wasn’t on his horse, nor was he even wearing his hat. His hair, which wasn’t properly tied back, was mostly flying in the breeze. Herders everywhere were also making haste as they climbed on their horses.
“Chief!” Aidan’s voice was full of panic.
“What has happened?”
“The signal! But … it’s a rescue signal. And very close to us.”
There was no true rescue signal—setting the grassland on fire in panic and hoping someone would notice was the “rescue signal” of the Merseh Steppe. It wasn’t used lightly, for obvious reasons.
“But there is still so much rainwater left on the ground…” Yuma rationalized, but the western sky was indeed filled with smoke, the early light of morning tinting the smoke blue.
“I don’t know what has happened. It could simply be wildfire. How many herders should be sent?”
“A wildfire this big when it’s this wet…” Yuma shook her head. “That would be a problem in its own right. Gather six, including yourself. I will go with you.”
“Go with us, Chief? But the danger—”
“It can’t be more dangerous than confronting the Grim King.
” Yuma tried a smile, which seemed to reassure Aidan a little as he returned it and ran off, saying he would bring her a horse.
She almost told him to bring Falco, then remembered how the monster had killed the stallion.
Too many things had happened that night.
Only when Aidan brought the horse to her and her eyes fell on its auburn hide did she remember that she had picked Aston the night she met the Grim King.
She mounted Aston. Her side still ached, but riding a horse and feeling the wind on her face for the first time in days made her forget her pain. As she rode, riders joined her, tipping their hats to her. If she hadn’t been galloping toward a possible disaster, she would’ve simply been happy.
They rode for about an hour before heat hit their faces and curtain-like smoke heralded a sizable amount of grassland going up in flames.
“Isn’t that Barund?” a sharp-eyed herder shouted, recognizing a shadow behind a leaping flame. Yuma kicked, and Aston picked up speed, the wind whipping her face stronger than ever. Her hat flew off and hung behind her neck by its string. She leaned forward, giving herself to the momentum.
It would take too long to go around the flames, and who knew what would happen if they did.
Yuma could feel Aston’s fear, but she stroked his neck at his brave, unceasing gallop, and squeezed the horse with her thighs right as they reached the flames.
Aston did not hesitate for a second as he leaped over the fire, the flames licking at Yuma’s calves.
Yuma and Aston flew through the smoke and fire and landed on the other side.
Barund stood there, an old hand at thirty-three.
He must’ve experienced everything there was to experience on the grasslands.
Egan and Trudie must have as well, who were with him now.
That was why Yuma had sent them out in the first search party.
But what she saw before her was something neither Barund nor Yuma, or any other herder of Danras, had ever seen before.
There was a giant box of gleaming silver standing on four spindly legs, dwarfing Aston and Yuma with its height.
The box had metallic, whip-like arms with pincers that threatened the herders.
One of the pincers had grabbed Trudie by the ankle and was dangling her upside down.
Trudie struggled, but there was nothing she could do in that position.
The horses were gone. Judging by Aston’s extreme revulsion, Yuma could guess they had run away from this unknown thing.
“Barund! Egan! Trudie!”
Only then did Barund and Egan realize their Chief Herder had come, and their eyes lit up. Even Trudie waved her arms in her direction. Barund shouted, “Chief! We found the spy!”
“That box?”
“No, beneath it!”
Under the giant’s body was a hammock-like net, sagging like the stomach of a pregnant horse.
It looked rather makeshift, compared to the shining, riveted giant that was obviously the result of expert craftsmanship.
Yuma realized there was a man lying in the net, wearing some kind of metal frame all around his body.
He looked unconscious, or maybe dead. This was the spy from the Empire in the west?
Yuma unhitched her crossbow from Aston’s saddle and took aim at the person under the belly of the giant.
The thing seemed to understand her movement. Lowering its belly and shielding the person in the net with one arm, it charged at Yuma.