Azurite (Daughter of the Mountain Book 1) (19 page)

              “Are you positive?” Sariel asked.  “That is a serious accusation to make so you must be certain.  Could you see clearly?  Was there enough light to make a proper identification?” 

Milo thought back to the details of the previous night.  He envisioned Zora standing before him, the candlelight of his bedchamber making a soothing halo around her body.  And then he recalled the gruesome outline of the scar on her ivory skin.

              “She’s a sorceress,” he told the Guardian, attempting to bypass his questions.  “I had her status with a Reader.  The results were favorable.”  

              “Then I was wrong about the chances of her not being one.  My apologies for doubting your intuition, Warden.  You did the right thing though, if you suspected her of being corrupt by evidence of the suspicious mark.  Taking her to be read is the only acceptable course of action.” 

Milo didn’t want to tell Sariel that he’d taken Zora to see Fae
before
he’d seen the mark on her abdomen.  Even still, Fae would’ve told him if there was something about Zora that he should fear.

              “Sariel, hypothetically speaking, what would the course of action have been if the mark had proved to be evil?  If the Reader had deemed her accursed?”

              “She would be dealt with accordingly,” the Guardian answered with a hint of urgency in his usually serene voice.  “My kind was created as a counterbalance to such wickedness through the use of death itself.  Our unity with humans helps prevent the world from falling into utter destruction as it did once before.  If you have information about a change in Ithillium, it’s your duty to unveil it and deal with it as necessary.  That is a requirement of your Oath as a Warden and to me.” 

Milo already knew all of this; it was the creed he lived by and was bound to. This whole situation was confusing and weighed heavily on his shoulders.  Additionally, the sensitivity of the subject matter made those whom he could confide in extremely limited.  Milo wasn’t lying when he told Zora he knew someone who could help her, and he fully intended to seek out that individual when he got back south.  Whenever Milo felt torn on the right decision to make, he recited the Warden’s Oath over and over to himself until the answer revealed itself.

Flee all that’s evil, do all that’s good, seek what is true, purse only peace, love unconditionally.

Milo chanted this to himself as he rode silently next to Sariel until finally he knew what he had to do.  Although it was the right course of action to take in the scope of things, it still wasn’t an easy decision.

              “I see now why you weren’t misleading her in claiming you’d go with her to Montanisto,” Sariel said suddenly.  “Is that one of the neither black nor white instances you were referring to earlier?” 

              “Yes, I suppose so,” Milo responded.  “But then again, when it comes to Zora, nothing appears to be black or white.”

              “Well, Warden, be quick about getting home,” Sariel continued. “There has been activity around the webs.  Hence your Brother’s message to leave here.  I’ll be close if you need me.” 

Milo nodded and gave the Guardian an appreciative smile.  He looked around to see if Zora had reappeared in his line of sight, but she hadn’t.  He was grateful for that and slowed the pace of his horse to further increase the distance he was to her. Next to him, Sariel also had disappeared.

Part II

‘Flee all that’s evil, do all that’s good, seek what is true, purse only peace, love unconditionally.’

Warden’s Oath

                            Cerendovan Imperial Sentry

                                                                                    10
th
Regiment

                                                                                                                105
th
Cadre

Chapter 12

Four weeks later

The Carian wilderness

The journey from Samaria to Montanisto had taken the caravan much longer than initially calculated, and they still weren’t there yet.  The substantial amount of standing water left over from the years of rain storms had left the land soft and dangerous to travel on.  Therefore, the trekkers had to be extra slow and cautious when moving.  Rivers that once flowed peacefully had risen from the excess water, consuming bridges and soil banks.  They flowed with a severe ferocity and were deemed impassable. 

Once the caravan has passed Idenborough, Cara’s capitol, Prince Percy and Lady Miranda broke off with their household to ride to the capitol before going home.  Zora had barely seen Arianna since they left Samaria, and Lady Miranda was taking the maidservant to Idenborough with promises that she’d be at Montanisto in time to prep Zora for her wedding. 

Zora also hadn’t been able to locate Milo since she’d gone to his bedchamber the night before they’d departed.  She severely regretted telling him anything about her dreams or the scar on her midsection, and she knew for a fact she’d scared him off.  All this time and Milo never realized he was teaching a crazy person. 

A deep depression consumed Zora during this time, since there was no one around who cared for her and no one she could talk to.  To her it seemed like she’d been ripped apart or abandoned by everyone she cared about, and it pained her heavily just to think about.  For the last month, Zora had been forced to spend her days in quiet solitude with Dakota, who rarely spoke at all, as he was her only companion.

             
At least we are in Cara.  Not much more of this awful travel and we will be in Montanisto,
Zora thought with little relief
.

Although not even summer yet, the air down south was sticky and wet causing her hair to press against her neck and forehead, heavy with moisture.  The noble had already relinquished her layers of underclothing that were necessary in the cooler northern countries, but only trapped in heat and steam down south.

“Why so quiet today, Lady Winnser?” 

Zora looked up from her plate of roasted game that she hadn’t touch.  In fact, she hadn’t felt like eating anything the last few weeks.  Dakota’s brown eyes were staring directly at her.  “You seem a bit melancholy,” he observed.  “Usually you attempt to coax one or two words out of me.”  She could barely hear his deep voice over the calamity of shrill laughter around her, despite the fact he sat across from her and their knees were almost touching. 

When Spencer said he had charged Dakota with keeping her safe that was quite an understatement.  Dakota never left her side.  At first she found the man’s companionship aggravating, but she’d actually come to like him.  He was quiet and to the point, and Zora was sure he could wield a deadly sword when necessary.

              “I don’t think I could get a word in edgewise, even if I tried,” Zora replied. 

As she said that, Spencer’s voice could be heard yelling at his slaves to bring him more ale from outside.  The women dressed in black scarves scurried around him constantly.  When they weren’t tending to Spencer’s needs, they stood plastered to the tent wall.  Dakota just smiled.

              “Aye, they are a noisy lot.  Guess that’s why you and I are pushed off to the side, eh?  We can’t keep up with the nonsense that comes out of their mouths.”

              “Oh, I can keep up.  I just choose not to.”  Zora stabbed her fork angrily at her food.

              “Well, my mother always told me whoever keeps his tongue to himself keeps himself out of trouble.”  Zora couldn’t help but smile at this.

              “I’ve heard that saying as well.  Guess the north and the south have some things in common after all.” 

Her eyes drifted across the room to Spencer who sat surrounded by male soldiers and their female concubines.  Her betrothed lay slumped low in his chair, his eyes dazed with drunkenness while the people around him continued to jest with one another. 

              Every night spent with Spencer over the last few weeks had been exactly the same.  He had his slaves set up his lavish tent an hour before sunset.  From there he would send out two or three of his men to bring back a kill from the forest that they would feast on.  Then from sunset until sunup, Spencer would tipple barley ale with the men and women of his party until the regal air Zora had at first respected in him was replaced by a sloppy, crude drunkard.  His despicable traits while sober were only worsened while drunk.  Zora was disturbed by Spencer’s brazenly indecent behavior, but she wasn’t going to allow those feelings to ruin her night just like they had for the last four weeks.  She brought her eyes back to her assigned guard.

              “So, Dakota.  We’ve spent exactly four weeks together, and I still know nothing about you.  You don’t dress or act like the Carian Guard and seem very close to Spencer. What’s your story?”  Dakota finished gulping down his barley ale and whipped the excess foam off of his lips.

              “I have nothing of interest to tell, My Lady.”

              “I don’t believe that,” Zora replied.  She propped her elbow on her knee and set her cheek on the heel of her hand.

“Everyone has a story.  I can be persistent when I want to, so you might as well spill it all out now.”  Dakota laughed light heartedly at this.  It was the first time she’d ever broken his stone-like countenance.   

“Ok, Lady Winnser, you win.  I fear you might regret it once I begin, but I’ll try not to completely bore you.”  He leaned back in his chair and absentmindedly caressed the scar on his jawline.  “Do you know any history of Cara?”

“A little bit,” Zora admitted.  “But I enjoy learning new things.”  She thought back to all the history lessons she’d enjoyed with Milo and became saddened that he was no longer a part of her life. 

  Dakota continued, ”Well, to understand me, you need to understand where my people came from. We are known as the Misou
. 
We are native to this land, and our history goes back further than that of the northern settlements, such as Samaria.  We use to occupy much larger lands then we do now.”

“Hundreds of years ago, a great and powerful king, Raphael DeVore, began invading our lands, trying to take them for himself and enlarge his empire.  We were primarily an agrarian society at this time, and his armies and weaponry were too advanced for my people.  In order to defend ourselves we fled deep into the swampland where we knew he would not venture out of fear.”

“From the Misou lands he had seized, King Raphael founded the country of Cara and named it after his wife.  As Cara grew and flourished, King Raphael imposed a system of taxation on his people to help finance the construction of Cara’s capitol, Idenborough.  He wanted it to be the single most magnificent city of its time.  Raphael was a selfish and arrogant King, and when he exhausted all his own people of their wealth by taxation, he looked beyond his own borders to my people as something that could be used to finance his expansion.”

“So, Raphael set up a military outpost on the edge of Cara and named it Montanisto.  His armies eventually found my people after years of searching, and they demanded payment for uncollected taxes.  He claimed that since we were technically occupying his lands, we were therefore citizens of Cara and had to abide by Carian tax laws.  But my people had nothing to give the King.  We had no money or gold, but Raphael wouldn’t take no for an answer.  He began attacking our villages, enslaving my people to work off of a lifetime of debt he claimed they owed him.” 

“At first we fought back.  For five years we warred with the soldiers of Cara until the elders of my people decided to seek a truce with the King and put an end to the needless violence his war was causing.  Raphael told the Misou elders that if they offered up one thousand of their finest men to help build the city of Idenborough, when it was complete, they would be released back to Misou land and our people would never be bothered by him again.  Our debt would be considered paid in full.  The elders agreed to these terms seeing no other alternative in sight.” 

“After the Carian troops came to gather up the thousand men to take to Idenborough, Raphael had his army return and slaughter all the children and elders left in the villages who were completely defenseless.  They forced all the remaining woman into slavery along with the men they’d already taken.  So for the last several centuries, that has been the plight of my people.  We are slaves to the Carian elite.  We build their cities, farm their lands, and care for their livestock, among other things.”

“That’s horrible!” Zora cried, completely appalled.  “Spencer speaks of social hierarchy as something that is necessary for Cara’s economical success.  I just never knew Cara relied on slave work to obtain it.” 

Zora sat back and examined Dakota for a moment.  He was dressed in a soldier’s clothing, armed, and unhindered by the shackles synonymous with being a slave.  Even more odd was the fact that he wasn’t wearing the black scarves and uniforms the other slaves were wearing.

“Wait,” Zora exclaimed.  “While I appreciate the history lesson, I asked you what
your
story was.  Not just your people.  How come you don’t look like everyone else?”

Dakota grinned.  His teeth we slightly crooked, giving his smile some character. “The swamps are an extremely harsh place to survive, Lady Winnser,” he explained.  “Unpredictable weather, loads of beasts that don’t fear humans, plants poisonous enough to kill you at a touch.  People fear it, even to this day.  King Raphael recognized my people’s resilience to the dangers of the swamp and found something valuable in that.  He used the Misou’s indigenous knowledge and survival skills to create a small faction of Misou men who were assigned to protect Cara from anything that ventured out of the swamps.”

“Is that really necessary?” Zora asked.  “Are there really that many man eating beasts posing a threat to Montanisto that a specialized faction is required?”

“I’ve hunted serpents twice the length of a man and reptiles whose scales are so thick a sword can’t even penetrate it.  Over the years, our reputation as being fearless soldiers preceded us and wealthy aristocrats began hiring us to protect their lands and manors, despite the fact that our people are enslaved to them.  I am a mercenary, Lady Winnser, and we are a small faction who are fortunate to have more privileges than others of our kind.  However, we are all still Misou, and under the authority of the Carian elite.  And they never let us forget it.”

“I had no idea,” Zora whispered.  The more she learned about the land she was going to be calling home, the more unsettled she became.

“So you have to sit by, day by day, and watch from the outside as your people work as slaves?  It seems as though you have more freedom than them because of your talents, but not enough freedom to change anything.  I think I would die from feeling so helpless.”

“It’s just something I have to do, Lady Winnser.  I use my status as a mercenary to make a better life for my family.  That’s it.  Even if I were bold enough to stand up for the plight of the Misou people, I’m just one man.”

“But
how
do you do it,” she asked.  “How do you find the will to live everyday in a world full of so many injustices?”  Dakota smiled although the subject matter they were discussing was in no way humorous.  He leaned in close to her until she could smell the remnants of ale on his breath. 

“I guess I just have to believe, Lady Winnser, that people really are good at heart.” 

He looked over to where Spencer was sitting, and Zora followed his gaze.  She watched as a female slave bent down to refill Spencer’s empty beer cup.  Behind her, the group of Spencer’s men were wrestling drunkenly with one another, and one of the inebriated soldiers bumped into the woman, causing her to spill ale all over Spencer.  The Prince erupted in anger as he grabbed the girl hard by the wrist then backhanded her across the face.  The woman cried out in pain as she fell to the ground while Spencer just laughed gleefully.  The Misou woman looked around frantically for someone to intervene, but the people who sat around her seemed uninterested in helping. 

Zora stood up from her seat, hands balled at her side.  She wanted to stalk right over to Spencer and do exactly to him what he’d done to the slave.

“Lady Winnser, remember your place,” Dakota instructed.  “If you dare go touch that woman, Spencer will do far worse to you.  And I can’t protect you from that.”

Knowing there was nothing she could do, Zora threw her plate of game to the side and angrily stormed out of the tent.  Outside she was met by dense humidity and the stench of decaying marsh nearby.  She breathed the acrid air in anyhow to help simmer down her temper.  A moment later, she heard the flap of the tent open and the crunch of Dakota’s footsteps approaching from behind her.

              “Go back inside, soldier,” she instructed, not turning around.  “I need to be alone right now.”

              Dakota cleared his throat.  “Lady Winnser, I was instructed not to let you leave my sight.  It’s for your own protection, trust me.”  Zora sighed out of frustration and spun around.

              “Do you take me for a fool, soldier?  I suspect all these ‘legends’ of swamp beasts you speak of are just a fallacy you’re using to keep me close.  Does Spencer think I’m going to flee?  Is that why he assigned you as my bodyguard?  Well look around!  I’m ignorant to these lands.  I grew up in the secure walls of a castle, not the wetlands of the south.  I’d die out here before I’d escape successfully.  So please, trust me when I say I just need some time to be alone.”