Chapter 15
YUMA
The kitchen carriage, pulled by four harnessed oroxen, was larger than most houses.
The Host would prepare food inside, watch over the herd, and, most importantly, sing melodies that protected the herd and herders alike.
Without the Host, the Grim King’s rainstorm would have caused a stampede that trampled scores of calves.
The Host also treated the herders’ wounds and ailments.
But now he was treating not a herder but an emissary from the Empire, the very spy the Grim King wanted in his grasp.
Yuma changed her dirtied ceremonial garb into clean work clothes and stood before the carriage, facing the setting sun. Clean work clothes were better than her ruined ceremonial outfit. Aidan kept fidgeting with his mustache beside her.
“I don’t like this, Chief. I think we should hand him over to the Grim King as soon as possible.”
Having spent his childhood as an apprentice candidate of the Grim King, Aidan knew the Grim King better than anyone else in Danras did, which allowed him to see what others could not. But all she could read from his attitude was his fear. He would never be free of the shadow of the king.
But am I myself free? Yuma thought of how Rizona had died bleeding on her horse. The Grim King was always said to be powerful, and now Yuma knew that he was so powerful that he did not even need to be present to do such a thing …
Aidan turned to Yuma and said, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to wait and see.”
“And what are you going to do after waiting and seeing?”
Yuma shot him a look. “Aidan. You were friends with my father and mother. You are wiser and older than I. I am aware you have worked for the good of Danras for a long time, but that outsider is under my keeping. Please return to your tent.”
“Chief…”
She knew his dread would cease only if she dragged Lysandros to the Grim King herself, but she was not going to do that. So, the next best thing would be for him to be out of sight of the man.
“Please leave. I have to see the Host.”
Aidan sighed and walked to his tent, looking back at Yuma and the kitchen carriage several times as he did so.
Yuma continued to stand in her respectful pose, waiting. As soon as Aidan was gone from view, Old Vella, who served the Host, opened the carriage door.
“The treatment is finished. The patient’s fever broke, and he sleeps now. The Host asks the Chief Herder to enter.”
“Thank you.” Yuma bowed and climbed up the wooden steps into the carriage, her spurs going tak tak on the planks.
The inside was full of steam from the cauldron.
Wearing ceremonial robes made of several layers of paper-thin leather and decorated in the feathers of rare birds, a thirteen-year-old boy sat on the floor of the carriage.
“Yuma is here, Host.”
“Is she now.”
The previous Host had lived to be almost a hundred years old, so Yuma was still unused to the new Host being a child.
“I must apologize for saddling you with an outsider,” she said.
“Anyone found on the steppe must be cared for. You did the right thing.”
His voice was young but he spoke like an ancient. This child, until last year, had been called Dalan, but he now harbored the soul of the Great Host that was as old as time. Yuma understood this in theory, but his outer appearance still took much adjusting to.
“Where is the man?” Yuma asked.
The Host pointed to the stairs on the left and said, “Resting on a bed upstairs. No need to worry, for now. He was only suffering from exhaustion and exposure. He is weak in body but strong against disease. And yet…”
“And yet?”
The Host frowned. “A very weak body indeed. As if he has never moved his arms and legs on his own. That scaffolding frame around him … You said he could move only with its help?”
Yuma nodded. “That seems to be the case.”
“Old Vella found a way to strip it off him, so he won’t be able to go far.”
“The man claimed to be an emissary of the Empire. I do not think immobilizing him is necessary.”
The Host didn’t answer as he stood up and opened the lid of the cauldron behind him. The steam rose like a cloud, and a scent like flowers in spring spread through the room. Yuma found herself breathing it in deeply.
From inside the cauldron, the Host picked up a steamed meat bun and tossed it to Yuma, who caught it neatly with both hands. It was hot. As the Host sat back down and took a bite of his own meat bun, Yuma did the same. The flower scent and meat flavor spread in her mouth. She hadn’t eaten all day.
“That frame around him isn’t something that moves on its own. There is magic flowing through it. Did you bring the iron lump he rode in on?”
“I’ve ordered herders to use oroxen to drag it here. It should arrive soon.”
“He won’t be able to walk, if he is away from that thing.”
So Lysandros had been borrowing strength from that machine. Yuma’s eyes widened in realization. It made sense—he had indeed collapsed as soon as he had ordered the iron giant to stop.
“When will he be awake?” She stared at the stairs and took another bite of her bun.
“Worried, are you? I suppose aside from being as thin as a blade of grass, he is a handsome young man.”
Something a child might tease her about, or perhaps it was more of an old man’s joke. Yuma swallowed and said, “I only have some questions.”
“Let him rest for now. Come back tomorrow morning. Can he speak our language?”
“Very little.”
“There is much time before the end of the herding; he’ll learn more.”
Surprised, Yuma stopped in mid-bite. “You want us to keep him with us until the end of the herding?”
The Host gave her a look as if to say she was a fool for even asking. “Are we not shorthanded and can’t afford to send our herders to Danras with him? Besides, if he is here as an emissary, he should understand how we live as a people.”
“But Host, this man…” She struggled to find the words. It was forbidden to mention the Grim King in front of the Host.
“I am aware. You want to say that he’s looking for this man, correct?”
Yuma nodded, slowly.
“He’ll come when he comes.”
This was said casually, but there was a bit of worry in the Host’s eyes. Yuma thought of Rizona’s death again.
“I just make the meals and sing the songs. Whatever happens during the herding is up to the Chief Herder. What could a mere boy of thirteen years have to say about such business?”
He then closed his eyes and began rapping his knuckles on the floor.
Yuma stood, bowed deeply, and made her exit.
As she crossed the threshold, the Host began to sing in time with the knocking.
His voice sounded deeper in song, not like a child’s at all.
Her tension melted away, her head cleared.
Yuma stood just outside the threshold, thinking of what to do next.
The Host had implied the Grim King might come to collect Lysandros himself.
Aidan seemed to think there would be repercussions if they did not deliver the man.
If the Host was right, there was no point in keeping the man with them if the Grim King was just going to come for him anyway.
Which meant maybe they should turn him over as Aidan said.
To do otherwise would mean they were defying the Grim King’s orders, which was tantamount to treason. It was insubordination and harboring of an enemy spy. And there were at least a thousand youth like Rizona in Danras …
The Grim King had ruled over Danras and Merseh as a whole for five centuries, maybe more. His cruelty was legend. The Grim King was a part of Merseh, as much as the open steppe and the endless sky. A Merseh with no fear of the Grim King—that was a world Yuma could hardly imagine.
Instead, she thought of Rizona again. The dread she had felt when she called her name and received no answer. The saddle soaked in blood. The final words Jed had said to her, with the very last of his strength, that she must run.
The sun had almost set. Far away, two oroxen were dragging the silver giant, or the mechanical horse, or whatever it was really called.
A powerful weapon, that’s what it was. Impervious to arrows and swords, a moving fortress.
The Empire had entrusted such a machine to a young man who couldn’t stand up on his own.
She couldn’t tell yet if this meant the Empire was that great an empire, or if Lysandros was that great a man.
Whichever it might be, wouldn’t treason be worth a try, with such allies?
Yuma came to a decision. She walked down the wooden steps and whistled long and loud for Aston.