In a rain-filled dawn, the three of them rode from the stable to discover the seven Mericslanders waiting on the path with a string of heavily laden packhorses, four bearing Limtir book carriers. Two Meric Loremen that Breea had known for years, and a Second Sanis Weapons Scholar, waited with them.
Taumea gave Breea a Bay-ope grin—reserved, amused, and quietly calculating. For her ear only, he said, "Now they ride with you."
Ston Meric greeted her with a bow and said, "Scholar Banea, occasion smiles. Frashe blesses us with a minor tempest, and wise company is a blessing on such a path. Shall our parties take the pass together?"
"Certainly," she replied. "An honor."
He bowed. "You give grace to such a day." Bowing then to Valiena, he said, "A double blessing."
Valiena inclined her head with a knowing look.
Ston’s eyes went to Taumea. The Limtirian lay the fingers of his left hand to the hilt of his sword, and said something in the Meric language. The nobleman’s reply was formal, with the lilt of poetry. He turned his horse back to his fellows, and rode to the head of the column beside the emissary.
"What did you say to him?" whispered Breea.
"Brahae be our guide."
"Brahae?"
"A wandering god, traveler’s protector."
"You say it with a hand to your hilt?"
"That is a kingsman sign. My blade with theirs. A kind of pledge."
"Who is Frashe?"
"Goddess. Wife of Borhom, the storm god. Borhom makes storms, is storm. Thunder is his voice, and his wife’s breath is the wind, her tears the rain. They quarrel endlessly. Rain and wind like today, without thunder, is Frashe alone."
Breea considered this, then said, "To the Mericslanders, then, a tempest without lightning is a woman."
Taumea chuckled. "Borhom likes to bed the two goddesses of winter, and one of spring, Fidliehd, I think; thus Frashe’s tears. Yet so true and pure is Frashe’s heart that her tears are as sweet and clear as purest spring water."
"They are complicated."
"A gnarled and interwoven pantheon," agreed Taumea.
Breea had meant the Mericslanders, and bored her eyes into the backs of the seven men. Taumea was right, she should have studied Meric traditions. There hadn’t been time enough, and her father had so wanted her to study the homeland of his ancestors. Yet Yasharn writings made her feel unworthy, and guilty somehow. She never could reconcile what her father had said of Yasharn belief and what she found in their books and scrolls. By comparison, the passionate Meric gods were fascinating, and she felt an attraction toward these men that she didn’t entirely understand. Nobility was intense in them.
Rain poured from the backs of their wide felt hats. Oiled-leather cloaks shed rain from their broad backs and covered their legs to their boots. Breea wondered if it rained a great deal in Mericsland to warrant such garments, though the feathers were looking bedraggled and seemed ill suited for travel. She pulled tight her bear fur, not so well suited to the wet itself, and raised the hood. Already the first Meric riders were past the last grassy swales beyond the wayhouse and heading up the broad graveled path. Passing two weathered boulders hewn into in the likeness of rearing horses, Breea leaned back and looked up into the rain. The track cut back and forth up the mountainside until it vanished into sheets of rain and pale cloud belly.
After a long morning climbing, the parties paused to gather food from saddlebags, and the midday meal was taken in the saddle, which Breea regretted, as the days of riding were beginning to make her sore.
Winds gusted over the rocky landscape, blowing rain into her face and threatening to blow back her hood. She bent her head down, and allowed Letet to follow the others. The way leveled, leading deeper into the mountains. Everything became shrouded in cloud; boulder fields of sharp-edged granite faded away to the faint misty bases of gray cliffs. A stream gushed milk-white to the right of the trail, and still they climbed. Looking down past Letet’s neck, she saw that the path was made of fine gravel. On the stone beside the trail, countless weathered score marks told a tale of monumental labor. What kind of man was Dachidfal to have hammered a path through leagues of rock-fall? All the work of getting through the pass, rediscovering and even mapping the valley, and never to have seen Limtir. Breea wondered if there was a god somewhere who decided how much a person could accomplish in a life.
As the valley narrowed, the wind increased and she had to hold on to her hood with one exposed and soon cold hand. The cliffs were now within a stone’s throw to either side of the trail, water rippling down their dark faces. The roadside stream rose to a frothing torrent, and its sound drowned most others.
As evening rode in on the back of the storm, the Mericslanders took a fork in the trail leading to a jumble of giant stone slabs bigger than the gate doors of Limtir. The Meric men dismounted and led their horses into a high cave formed by the leaning of the slabs against the cliff face. Inside was dark and quiet except for the echo of running water and distant wind ripping itself on rock. The floor was of stone slabs cunningly fitted. They tied the horses to rusty rings set in one wall above a stone trough filled with fresh hay. Across the floor a channel gurgled with running water that threatened to overflow with the abundant rain. A storm lamp burned in a wall sconce. Torches set into iron brackets were lit, revealing a long, tall chamber. Beyond the horse area at the entrance, every dry nook and hollow in the cave was filled with wood. In its depth, where the roof was highest, the cliff face was blackened above a large, fitted-rock fire ring. Around it sat ten stone seats, roughly carved.
One of the Mericslanders busied himself with starting a fire as Valiena retrieved cooking things from the packhorse. The other Meric men set about caring for their horses, and Breea helped Taumea with their own steeds. As they brushed the packhorse, Breea was impressed by the thickness of his coat and the number of scars in his hide.
"Seen a few journey roads, you have. Strong yet, though, aren’t you?" To Taumea she said, "What’s his name?"
"Hardhoof. Could have walked the pass without a trail and not have noticed. My grandfather’s stock."
For years she’d seen this horse and a few others of similar breed in the stables and never knew their origin, so rare was it that Taumea revealed anything of his family or life before Limtir. She tucked the knowledge away where she gathered bits of her friend’s history. Someday she would put it all together and finally figure out where he was from.
After caring for the horses, preparing her bedding, and checking their gear, Breea took a seat by the fire as Valiena announced the meal. Since Valiena was finished with the fire, wood was thrown onto it to make it blaze, and all ate in silence except for appreciative grunts from the Mericslanders as they mannerly wolfed the stew. Breea was amazed at how much food Valiena had managed to cook. A second helping was had by all, along with tea in copper mugs seasoned with some fiery liquor. Their clothing steamed in the heat of the fire, and Breea thought what a strange sight it was, her with these foreign nobles in a cave heading for the outer world.