Even as I now pitied them I found myself rather thankful to not be sharing their lot in life. What a change in perspective could make in terms of viewing a situation.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
The voice was feminine and youthful in quality and inwardly I girded myself against any sudden infatuation with a member of the opposite sex. My head turned to take in the speaker and I relaxed instantly.
No vision of temptation’s beckoning allure stood before me. It was just a girl of perhaps 10 or 12. She had a pretty face, but she was so thin that she appeared to be on the point of starvation.
Her features, stark as they were with the lack of food and meaningful care, echoed of something finer. What was it?
I glanced from her to Kuri and back again. She was a Yesathurim, or at least partly so. What was a girl of her ancestry doing in a place like this?
“We would like the best of what you can offer,” Kuri said, giving the girl his full attention.
The girl’s darker cast features blushed for a moment and she looked down before haltingly asking, “Can you pay?”
Kuri reached forward and pressed several coins into the girl’s dirty hands. Her eyes got huge and she quickly hurried off, I presume to get us the best that this place had to offer. That said, I wasn’t expecting much.
She came back quickly with two tankards that looked marginally cleaner than the others on display around the room, although the contents still stank of the same vile concoction of alcohol mixed with something that smelled like rotting fish that the others within the room had before them.
“I’ll just have water. Thanks anyway.” I said.
The girl snorted derisively at me and I glanced at her in indignation as I started to hand my tankard back to her. Kuri’s fingers closed about my wrist and the tankard stayed on the table.
“My friend has reconsidered and will be more than happy with what you have brought,” Kuri said smoothly and the girl, after sending me a condescending look, hurried off to what I presumed was the kitchen.
Kuri released my wrist and picking up his tankard he drank an unhealthy amount of the foul-smelling fluid. He shook his head at the taste of it for a moment before motioning to me to do the same.
I still had some stale water in a skin bladder out on my saddle that, although gamy to the taste, was, by comparison, a far better alternative to what the tankard before me contained. I shook my head and asked, “Why couldn’t I have had water instead of this?”
Kuri’s brow wrinkled good humoredly, “Have you ever had the tumbly grumblies?”
“Worms?” I asked, in verification of what he meant.
He nodded, still smiling.
“Goodness no!”
“Well, if you’d like to continue being unfed upon from within, you’ll drink the beer that’s set before you. The fermentation process of the alcohol kills off all the parasites and, while it doesn’t taste good, it’s the safest thing you’re going to find around here to drink.”
I stared at the tankard before me in revulsion. As revolting as it was though, it was less so than the thought of invaders twisting about in my guts feeding on me from within. I took a sip and about spewed it across the table.
The stuff was as vile as it had looked and smelled! I took a second sip and managed to hold it down and fight off the urge to vomit.
The girl was back with two steaming bowls in her hands. She sat them down with a flourish and I stared at the contents in the bowl before me. The contents of the bowl, for lack of a better description, looked like a grey mound of mud with lumpy twigs stuck here and there in it. No wonder the girl was so thin.
“Thank you,” Kuri said warmly, not at all put off by the sick looking porridge before us, which I wasn’t entirely sure was completely dead. Was that twiggish looking lump moving?
I glanced up to see the girl looking at me and I said, “Thank you.” I saw her smile for the first time and then she left us, presumably for us to enjoy our meal.
I looked back down to the bowl before me. I poked the one lump suspiciously, but there appeared to be no movement. My reintroduction to society wasn’t going well at all.
*****
With the meal finished, and feeling the worse for it, I rose to follow after Kuri, only he wasn’t headed for the door. He stopped and motioned me to go back out to the horses and obediently I did.
It was almost with eagerness that I slid into the saddle of the mare I rode. Eagerness to be gone from this dreary place. What was Kuri doing anyway?
Time stretched on and I was about to dismount and go back inside, when the doors of the shack opened and Kuri came out, only he wasn’t alone. To my consternation the servant girl was with him and she had a dirty sack hung over one thin shoulder.
No, it couldn’t be!
Kuri mounted up and then pulled the girl up behind him. He turned his mount to go and I couldn’t help the question that came from my lips, “Why?”
“Why not? Benaiah, when it is in your power to do good you should.”
“This is good?” I exclaimed.
Kuri gave me a censoring look and turned his horse onto the trail out of this little hole in the middle of nowhere. The girl turned her head back to me and, mildly shocked, I watched her stick her tongue out at me.
The brat turned forward and I turned my mount to follow along after Kuri. Kuri was making a terrible mistake in bringing this girl along.
*****
I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone eat so much before. Early in the day I’d ridden ahead and been fortunate to bring down a Roan deer with an arrow. I had it gutted and dressed out with a fire already made when Kuri had arrived with the girl.
All the while the meat had cooked over the fire the girl had stared at it in rapt focus. Hadn’t she ever had meat before?
As I watched her devour her third steak, I soberly acknowledged the possibility that perhaps she hadn’t. Whether she had or not she was certainly making up for lost time.
I’d had one steak so far and I’d been about to start into a second, but there wasn't much meat left as most of the usable deer meat I had packed in salt for the journey. I was still hungry, but it didn't seem right to eat more in the present circumstances. I laid the second piece of meat before the girl.
She stopped eating for a moment to glance up and stare at me intensely. She didn’t say anything and after a moment she went back to eating, but at a slower pace.
Why had I done that? I didn’t particularly care for the girl and from all appearances the feeling was mutual. She needed help though and it had been right to give her extra, as I had been far more fortunate than her as of late.
I guess I understood now why Kuri had done what he had in bringing the girl along. There was also the fact that she was of his people and he had already told me that he had plans of gathering them together.
The girl was likely going to still be a nuisance. A nuisance that was going to eat us out of provisions in short order. Where was she putting it all?
Kuri rose to leave the campsite, but before he left he leaned down to whisper into my ear, “After she gets some sleep I’m going to need you to help me cut her hair off. She has lice.” He left and I stared at the girl across the fire from me, who was eyeing me up suspiciously.
Oh this was just great. I had not signed up for this!
*****
“You’re not cutting my hair off!” The girl screamed, as she struggled against my hold on her. My hold was unrelenting though and about the most strenuous aspect of the whole endeavor was trying to keep back from the girl’s unkempt and greasy looking hair.
Kuri stopped the girl’s sharp head movements by grasping her face with both hands. He didn’t say anything. All he did was stare in that way he had that said he knew everything you felt and that he cared deeply for you. I’d been the recipient of that stare many times over the past two years.
The girl resisted the warm current of Kuri’s gaze for only a moment before her body b
egan to shake in a series of deep sobs. I found myself hurting for her, because of the empty forlorn quality of her cries.
Kuri’s words were the soul of comfort, “There is no shame in this. Your hair will grow back and you will be even more beautiful than before. Now are you ready?”
Slowly the girl nodded and I felt a pulse of emotion course through me. The girl had courage. I admired that.
Kuri brought out a sharp knife and began to gently cut all the girl’s hair away. It was a humbling experience, as the girl I held seemed to sink within herself with the loss of more and more of her hair. Finally it was over and I let her go.
She instantly pulled away and headed down a path towards some boulders nearby that offered concealment. I watched her disappear from view, but I could still hear her crying. I hated the sound of that. It affected me like nothing else ever had.
I had no experience with women and every moment with even just this girl was a lesson on what the realm of being female was about. It was nothing for a man to be bald in life, but for her…… well, it was everything.
It made sense to me. It shouldn’t have, but it did. I found myself wanting to help her in some way, but to her I was the enemy.
I looked around the desert environment, at a loss as to what to do. It was hot and the sun was at full strength. Immediately I thought of the newly uncovered skin unused to the rays of the sun.
I went to my saddlebag and opened it, taking out my one and only change of clothing, which also happened to be my favorite shirt. It didn’t matter.
Unmercifully I ripped it up and retied the pieces of it together in a different fashion. Satisfied I approached the nest of boulders. The girl immediately drew back from me, but I pressed forward and backed her up against a boulder. Without saying anything by way of explanation, I reached out with the torn up shirt and began to wrap the makeshift turban around her head in the way that I’d seen Robanic tribesmen do.
She held still until I was done and perhaps the look in her eyes was a little less hostile. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Mayrin.”
“Well Mayrin, we’ll be moving out in a little bit. It’s probably best for you to ride double on my horse for a while so we don’t tire the other one out too much. It’s cooler here in the boulders than out in the open, so stay here and I’ll be back when it’s time to leave.”
I turned to go, but stopped as she husked out emotionally, “You didn’t want me to come along with you and your friend. Why are you being nice?”
I had to think about it for a moment and when I spoke it was as if I was experiencing the reality of the truth that she was hearing as it registered for the first time within my own consciousness, “I was like you once. Alone, afraid and without any hope of things ever getting better. Things did get better and I……”
“You what?” she asked.
I looked back to her and finished my thought, “I hope things get better for you too.”
I watched her nod and then look down as if in contemplation of something. I left her to be alone and went to check up on the old mare. Kuri was there, already tending to his even worse looking mount. I didn’t say anything, but I kept my back to him.
“That was thoughtful of you to do,” came Kuri’s voice from over my shoulder.
I grunted in reply.
“Do you think I should have left her back there?”
I stopped fiddling with the saddle and stared vacantly over it at the distant horizon for a moment.
“No,” I finally admitted.
Kuri’s hand came down to squeeze warmly upon my shoulder, “Sometimes doing the right thing in life can seem to bring with it the burden of something unwanted, but it is often the case, in my experience, that the burden of the present is the joy of tomorrow.” Kuri moved off with his horse and was soon mounted and back on the trail.
Was that what I had been to start out with? A burden?
Looking to Kuri I once again thanked El Elyon for bringing him into my life when he had. The girl was beside me and I lifted her up to the spot behind the saddle that I had made for her, only to then realize it would’ve been simpler for me to mount first and then pull her up behind me. There was always something new to learn.
Chapter Seven
Dark Invasion
We made our way slowly, but without delay, across Ezon. We skipped Sarran and instead went south through Portanisha and then Orpital. The grandness of the Targon Mountains lay before us. We’d seen them for several days now and yet it seemed that we’d gotten no closer for they still lay off in the distance.
At midday Kuri stopped. He had the girl with him and I pulled up alongside both, curious to know why he had stopped. He was staring at the mountains before us as if in a deep trance and although I wanted to ask what was going on I waited, not wanting to bother him for he seemed to be praying.
Kuri spoke all of a sudden, “We will be in the foothills of the mountains in another two days’ time. The situation here in these mountains is a very grave one.”
He turned from the mountains to look at me and the character of his bearing had me sitting up in the saddle in expectation of something I didn’t think I’d want to hear.
“Benaiah, this is as far as you and I go together. I’ll take the girl on from here, but you will need to go another way.”
I was so startled at his words that for a moment I had the thought that he was trying to play a cruel joke on me, but that wasn’t his way. Instead, cold hard reality stared me in the face. It was the first time that I’d had to face it on my own in years and I wasn’t prepared for it. The words fumbled from my lips in a rush, “What am I to do? I thought I was to be with you?”
“You always will be, in spirit Benaiah, but for now our paths go a different way. Even though we are parted in the lands of the living, what I have taught you goes on with you and so a part of me will always be with you.”
Beyond even thinking of embarrassment before the girl, I felt tears fall down my face unchecked. Why was this happening?
I looked to the mountains ahead, searching for answers. Kuri’s people were in those mountains. Was he getting rid of me because I wasn’t of his blood? No, I knew better than that. But the question of why remained.
“You will see me again Benaiah. When that day will be I do not know, but I’m sure that it will take place.”
Still staring at the mountains I asked, “What about my final lesson? How are you going to teach me diplomacy, if you’re not with me?”
“That’s easy, just do and say what you know I would do and say.”
“What about the dangers of these mountains? You can’t want to face them all by yourself and what of your people? What if they don’t listen to you? What then?” I asked, as I finally turned to look at him again. I felt completely raw and exposed before the world, lost at the idea of going on without him by my side; teaching me the difference between right and wrong and the endless encouragements that he’d given me so generously, not to mention the feeling of self-worth and love that he had imparted to me.
Kuri’s words were kind, but the look in his eyes was firm, “I can take care of myself Benaiah.”
I looked down to the ground. Obviously he could take care of himself, but I had just figured that it would always be me and him slaying monsters together.
Then, in a way that I hadn’t experienced from Kuri since our first days together in the Wastelands, his words emblazed across my mind, “Oh Benaiah, if you could only see what I do of what is to come! Whether together or apart we both strive to please El Elyon. In His name we will both slay our share of monsters. This is not an end, but rather it is the beginning of something that will go on into eternity without end, an eternity where I want to have you right by my side, seeing and partaking in all that has been prepared for those who are faithful to believe.”
I looked up into Kuri’s eyes then, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt just who he was. The clues had been there and I had thought it many times, but
now I knew. I knew. I knew and the enormity of knowing almost drove me to fall off my horse to my knees, but Kuri’s hand kept me from doing so.
I stared into his knowing eyes, seeing the wealth of a future that I could only imagine, but falling short in terms of comprehending.
Completely overwhelmed and yet needing to be of service I asked, “What would you have me to do my King?”
“Remain faithful and help those of our shared belief in El Elyon, even as by your faith you open the doors for others to walk through into what has been prepared before the foundations of this world were ever laid. The Ruach of my Father is strong within you. Listen to Him even as you have been faithful to listen to me. He will lead you in the way you should go and He will be your strength in the darkest of hours and your encouragement in the face of all opposition. I send you out armed and ready for the battle. Armed with El Elyon’s Spirit there is nothing that you cannot accomplish, for even as you ask in faith so shall it be done!”
Kuri pulled back over into his saddle and with kind but firm resolve he asked, “Are you ready for the journey?”
I knew all his words were true even as I felt a strength within that was not my own, so even though my human weakness said no I knew that the opposite was true, because I was a man not ruled by my flesh but rather by the spirit of El Elyon living within me and so I wished it forever to be.
I nodded and Kuri spoke, “When the time is right I need you to go and collect my bride and bring her to me. She rejected me of old and yet the prophecies will be fulfilled. Although she has done evil she will yet be flawless in my sight, when she turns from her fallen ways and believes in me, for I am the King!”
“You are the King! Where will I find her?”
“In the country of Vella to the far north there is a temple over which she presides as high priestess, but I tell you now that she is a witch and has fallen away after every abominable practice of the fallen ones and to them she is chained. Do not go for her now, as it is not yet time, but when it is time, go without fear for I will be with you as a strong defense against all that oppose you!”
“I will do it, even as you give me strength,” I solemnly pledged.
“I know you will Benaiah. I know you will.” Without another word Kuri turned and rode on towards the mountains.