Harvest of Dreams (The Gods' Dream Trilogy) (23 page)

Khan and Daria gave over the care of the mounts to them. The young men led the four horses to a stream on the right edge of the clearing.

People cast covert stares at them, their eyes lingering on Indaran and Daria, whose blond hair and fair skin made them stand out.

Near the water, portable grills set over cooking fires sent the smell of smoke and meat drifting their way, making Khan realize they hadn’t eaten for hours. His stomach growled.

Indaran must have felt the same way, for he steered them toward the food. “You need to replenish,” he ordered Jasmine. “Just take a few minutes before running around to make sure everyone else is healed.”

A mutinous expression crossed her face.

Recognizing that look, Khan hastened to back up his brother-in-law. “Eat, Jazy. You’re not going to help anyone if you keel over.”

Daria merely raised an imperious eyebrow and crossed her arms. But her body language conveyed that Jasmine wasn’t heading past her to the wounded.

Jasmine rolled her eyes but started in the direction of the cook fires.

With a shout of greeting, Jora hurried over to them, carrying a tray of rolls. The straps of two leather waterbags hung over her shoulder.

“Just what we need,” said Khan, and everyone drank until the water was gone.

Jora handed over the food, bread with meat inside, and urged them to eat.

Famished, they dug in. Once Jasmine had finished, she asked Jora to introduce Indaran, Khan, and Daria to Arvintor. With a quick hug for Indaran, she left them to join the healers.

“You go first, Indaran.” Khan gestured at the statue. “Then you’ll be free to help Jasmine.”

Indaran nodded, looking weary, and left them.

Daria waved toward the stream. “After we meet with Arvintor and everyone is settled, I’d like to have a bath. Is that possible?”

Jora laughed. “You two are jumping over the fire tonight. You
must
bathe. I’ll show you where. But first…” she tipped her head in the direction of the statue. “Come touch Arvintor.”

Indaran had already woven through the crowd to reach the statue. He stood palm to palm with the God.

Jora took Khan and Daria through a more leisurely route, sometimes stopping to introduce them to a person or group of people. Everyone was welcoming.

By the time they’d reached the statue, Indaran had completed his time with Arvintor. He turned toward them, the weary expression he’d worn earlier replaced with a glow. “Wonderful.” He shook his head. “I can’t get over how each God and Goddess is so different.”

Daria laughed. “Of course They are.”

“I guess they would be.” Indaran made a wry face. “After all, no two people are alike. But after living with Yadarius for all my life until I left Seagem, aside for some visits with Besolet when I stayed at Ocean’s Glory, then to have Ontarem torture me for fourteen years…Arvintor feels…” He shrugged and grinned. “Present…Loving…I can’t describe it. Best you experience Him for yourself.”

Daria glanced at Khan to see if he wanted to go first.

He waved for her to precede him, and she left.

Indaran said to Khan, “I’m going to see if my wife needs me.”

Khan’s gaze followed Indaran as he strode to the “hospital” area.

Jasmine stood in the midst of the injured, giving orders. She stooped to check the bandage on a man’s arm and, apparently satisfied, moved to a Che-da-wah woman, touched her under her chin, and lifted her face to gaze into her eyes. Placing her palm on the woman’s forehead, she began the healing process.

In watching Jasmine’s newfound assurance—the little sister who’d followed him around from the time she could toddle—pride rose in his chest. Khan had to swallow down a lump in his throat. Jasmine had walked through fire to come into her own. He was so very full of gratitude for her transformation, and he didn’t even know toward which God or Goddess to direct his feelings. He walked to the statue to join his wife.
I’ll start with the One in front of me.

When Daria stepped away from Arvintor, the shadows had vanished from her eyes.

Seeing his wife look lighter, relaxed, brought a feeling of relief to Khan. Daria had suffered so much. She’d only recently healed and found happiness. On the ride to Exonlah after the battle, he’d worried how the fight affected her—if it would send her reeling back into the pain of Thaddis’s attack, and her remorse for the killing she’d done to survive after Seagem’s fall.

Smiling, his wife ran the few steps to him and threw herself into his arms.

Khan held her close, grateful Daria had come through the battle without a scratch—at least on the outside. The God seemed to have taken care of any emotional damage.

She reached up and kissed his cheek. “Go meet Arvintor.”

He squeezed her and dropped a kiss on her nose. “I hear and obey, my princess,” he teased.

Daria wrinkled her nose. “You’re not obeying
promptly
,” she said with mock arrogance.

He laughed and sauntered over to the statue, touching his fingers to the God’s. His introduction to Withea had begun so subtly, Khan had initially thought he’d been dreaming. Somehow, he expected Arvintor’s greeting to start in the same low-key fashion. Instead, the God flooded his body with warmth, with light, with love.

A connection like a web snapped into place between him and the God. And Khan sensed the strands soar across the ocean to also include Withea. A conversation between the Deities took place over his head, so fast he didn’t understand the message. Afterward, Arvintor released him, and with a small push of loving energy, sent him on his way. The whole exchange couldn’t have lasted even a minute, but Khan knew he’d always remember the experience. His muscles quivered as if he’d run a marathon, yet he felt exhilarated, not exhausted.

Daria held out a hand to him. “He gives you quite a wallop, doesn’t He—in a good way?”

Khan brought her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss on the back. “That He does.” He eased her away from the statue so the Ocean’s Glory soldiers who’d been guarding the prisoners could herd them to Arvintor.

The twenty-one men moved with stiff reluctance, their expressions fearful.

Khan pointed at the biggest man. “You first,” he ordered. “Touch the hand of the God.”

The man took a sliding step forward, obviously braced himself, and placed his hand in Arvintor’s. His eyelids drifted closed. After half a minute, the man opened his eyes and let go of the God. With a groan of pain, he collapsed to his knees. His shoulders shook with sobs.

The other enemy soldiers edged back, terror on their faces.

What had the God done to him?
Before Khan could move, Jasmine, with the bottom of her chador bunched in her hands for speed, raced over to the soldier.

“I didn’t know!” The man’s words were almost a wail. “My son died when Ontarem took too much of his energy. I told myself Tarak had an honorable death serving our God. But now I know Ontarem murdered him as surely as I have murdered the Che-da-wah. I touch Arvintor and feel love and warmth from a God. Never did I feel that way with Ontarem. Never!”

Jasmine placed her hand on the man’s shoulder.

Through his othersense, Khan could feel her using her healing energy to comfort the man.

“My son!” The man sobbed out the words.

Khan motioned for the next prisoner to step up toward Arvintor, but before the soldier could move, the man on the ground sprang to his feet. He thrust his fist into the air. “I am Febar!” he yelled. “Hear me, Ontarem. No longer will I do your bidding! Let my voice ring out across the plain. I now belong to Arvintor!”

~ ~ ~

At his gruptah, Roe-al paused at the entrance, the hide door tied back to allow in light and air. After escorting the wounded and the prisoners to Arvintor, he and his father had taken a group of men to the battlefield to bury the bodies. The families of the dead Che-da-wah had accompanied them.

After they’d raised two burial mounds—one for Ontarem’s soldiers and one for his people and the soldiers from across the sea—his father, the Stridzat, conducted the ceremony, accompanied by the sobs and wails of the grieving kin. The Stridzat sent his people’s souls to ride forever across Drayleth. For the first time, the ritual had included references to Arvintor, and Roe-al could see by the looks on the mourners’ faces that the words brought them comfort.

Afterwards, filthy and exhausted in heart and body, he’d returned to Exonlah to bathe and change for his wedding. But first, he’d taken a moment to touch Arvintor, to release his anger and his grief, and to fill his depleted spirit with the love from the God.

Now Roe-le turned to survey the interior of the gruptah. It had taken him two years to acquire the hides for the conical tent, hunting down the fanged and clawed ebil. But he’d been determined to bring Jora to their own home, not one they shared with his parents. He’d finished tanning the last of the hides, sewing them together, and cutting out the huge circle shape right before Jasmine’s entry into their lives, when
everything
changed. They’d found a new God in Arvintor, and Ontarem had escalated His centuries-old war on the Che-da-wah.

No matter what happens in the future, we have tonight
, Roe-al reminded himself, making sure everything was ready for his bride. At this time of year, they wouldn’t need a fire, and he’d arranged the combined bedroll in the center directly under the smoke hole, so they’d have the sun on their faces waking them to the dawn.

The sweet-scented pink jerbell flowers he’d set on her pillow perfumed the air, combining with the fragrance of the herbs he’d strewn the around the edges. His blue monga, Jatay, slept at the foot of the bedroll. Finally, after he’d changed into his wedding finery, he’d packed the dirty clothing he’d discarded in a leather box and stacked it on top of the others containing the rest of his possessions. Jora’s father would bring her things over after she’d finished changing for the wedding.

Roe-al touched the side of the graptah.
Tonight, I will be a married man.
The thick beading on his shirt weighed down his arm. At the same time he’d begun hunting for the ebil, his mother and sister had started the painstaking work of stitching tiny beads in ancient patterns in preparation for this night. He’d known he wanted to make Jora his for a long time. But he’d assumed there’d be plenty of time to wed, to father children, to see them grow up.

Foreboding shivered down his back—not an auspicious emotion for beginning his new life. He shook it off and ducked through the door. The iridescent hue of the God’s body had paled, and the bright blue beams of light from his eyes shaded to gray. The healing had drained the God.

The line in front of the statue had dwindled to one. Even as he watched, an aged crone from the West Clan released the statue’s hand and stumbled away.

He leaped to catch her arm and hold her up.

“Thank you,” she mumbled. Her wrinkled face was alight with joy. “I’m so overcome, I can’t see right, much less walk.”

“I know.” Roe-al smiled at the elder, remembering his first encounter with Arvintor when he’d raged at Jasmine for stealing his horse and his fear that she spied for Ontarem. His firm belief that to belong to a God was to become a slave had melted away when he touched Arvintor’s hand—felt the God’s love and acceptance. Even now, he couldn’t put words to the depths of how that experience moved him.

Roe-al steadied the woman until he felt her footing become stable. “May I escort you to your family?”

“I feel more alive, thanks to the Good God. But I won’t turn down the company of a handsome young man.” She fingered his sleeve and gave him a good-humored smirk. “Beautiful work. I’ve heard there’s to be a wedding tonight.”

Squaring his shoulders, he proudly drew himself up. “All the clans are here. It’s going to be quite a celebration.”

She playfully smacked his arm. “Let go of me, young man, and go prepare for jumping over the fire.”

Roe-al released her, making sure she wouldn’t fall, then watched her thread through the crowd. For the first time, he realized the clearing had gotten much bigger to contain all the clans and the newcomers from across the sea. But he hadn’t seen any tree stumps, and he wondered what Arvintor had done to push back the trees. Then he shrugged, realizing the futility of trying to figure out the ways of a God.

He turned to the statue, took a deep breath, and slid his fingers into Arvintor’s hand. Palm to palm, he absorbed the love from the God and gave him homage and energy. He tried to convey, through what Jasmine called
othersense
, his deep gratitude for the connection. “Bless my marriage, Arvintor,” he whispered. “I’d like a long and fruitful life with Jora, but if that’s not to be, keep her safe. That’s all I ask.”

Arvintor’s palm warmed, and Roe-al absorbed the feeling into his body. No matter what happened, the God was with him. He wasn’t alone. Nor would he ever be alone again.

Feeling complete, Roe-al disengaged. Opening his eyes, he surveyed the crowd, searching for his pespayzae. He caught sight of Jora walking to her family’s gruptah, carrying a towel. She’d obviously just bathed, but hadn’t yet changed into her formal clothes.

Porval-nic, Roe-al’s West Clan rival, stepped in front of her, cutting her off from her line of direction and grabbing her arm.