Caravan

  It is not known how this happened, whether it was an accident or a punishment from the gods, but the expedition that went south saw the First Fire, which had been hidden in the bowels of the nd until that moment.

  The skin of the elves, dwarves and humans was darkened by the heat, and the hair of the humans, who were closest to it, was burned. The southern nd was also changed: the rivers turned fiery, the soil hardened and melted, and the coral forests became forests of sea skeletons and giant shells. Only the horses that stood behind the fence got white stripes. "The Book of Distant Distances by Unknown Authors”

  Gloomy found a brown peg that wasn't tied down, next to Grassy and Raven. The guy hadn't seen this peg before and thought it belonged to the big-eared spy-not-to-be.

  "I should have asked for the name, now we'll have to give him a new one," Gloomeye said, watching as Drat nimbly climbed onto his new mount.

  "Squeak!"

  "And if it was his peg," Splinter jumped onto Raven.

  "If he's not his peg, then let his owner find the spy's peg and take it," Gloomeye found a simple solution and sat on his peg as well. "Drat, we're right behind you."

  The company soared up, and now Grassy was much more docile. She changed direction as Gloomy twitched her head ropes. The rat was not hampered by his short stature, it seemed to help him avoid the wind currents. He had a firm grip on Squeak's reins, his hind legs bent and hooked into the saddle by cws.

  The flight, or rather the high jumps followed by the slow descent, pleased Gloomeye even more, though the nausea didn't seem to go away. At the peak of one of the jumps, he saw a procession trudging slowly across the dead pin. It became the peak of his interest as well.

  At the next nding, Gloomy didn't let Grassy jump again, but waited for his friends to arrive.

  "I could see loaded boarlers and people walking ahead. Do you think they're friendly?" he asked.

  Drat rubbed his thumb against the others as if counting coins, then handed them out in all directions.

  "So they're travelling merchants," Gloomeye guessed.

  Splinter looked at him suspiciously:

  "How do you understand him? His fingers itched, and then he started whipping the invisible enemies around him with an invisible whip, and then you said: 'Yep, they're travelling merchants'."

  "Maybe it's an innate talent," Gloomeye suggested. "There was no way to show it before," but the guy himself doubted it.

  "Do you also understand his squeak?" Splinter persisted.

  "No, maybe it's just a sound to attract attention."

  "Squeak!" there was a note of indignation in the rat's voice.

  "I'm just looking at all the possibilities," Gloomeye said, embarrassed. "Let's meet the traders.”

  "You haven't forgotten that the silent wench is on the same mission and is ahead of us in speed and confidence. Or are we going to rob her when she's finished? Then you'll still have to follow her," Splinter was still looking for ropes to make her peg walk without jumping.

  "I thought we'd need food and water on the journey, just like the pegs, and I didn't even know what kind. And it would also be nice to find a safe pce to sleep. These travellers, if they do not dey solving these problems, will at least share advice about the local roads."

  No one objected (and who could? Drat was an employee, and Splinter was an open spy), and the company went after the caravan.

  It turned out that a peg could walk on the ground by throwing its front legs forward and moving its body along with a rider, stretching its hind legs. At first the body was uncomfortable with this shaking, but it soon got used to it and fell into a rhythm with the movement of the alm.

  They moved quickly and soon a massive rump of a boarler appeared in front of them. Gloomy's vision did not deceive him from afar: the alms actually had a pile of chests wrapped in cloth strapped to their sides instead of their sides. Nearby, mounted on striped pegs, were men who had become armed at the sight of Gloomeye's party.

  The skin of the men of the caravan was dark, and over it they wore very wide white trousers, and over the upper part they threw a round cloth with a slit for the head in the middle, also white. Southerners. They did something, and some gods did something to them in return. Gloomeye didn't remember Storyteller's story about them very well, it was once and a long time ago.

  The southerners, meanwhile, took out curved metal sticks and began to hold them threateningly.

  "What do you want?" one of them shouted in a thick accent.

  "We're just travelling to Truth. We've decided to come with you, if you don't mind," Gloomeye shout back.

  "They look suspicious. Send them to the Daycatchers," the man said to his men without an accent. Ah, so the accent is only for locals?

  "Who are these Daycatchers?" Gloomy ventured to ask. Splinter looked at him in surprise.

  "Do you understand our nguage?" the southerner was also surprised, and again without an accent.

  "As you heard," Gloomeye chose calmness.

  "Fatron' will want to speak to a native who knows the Outer Male," the southern woman joined in, it was clear from her voice as well as her clothes, which took on a certain shape.

  "Is this your chief? I would like to meet him," the guy decided to be polite when touching cultures.

  If he is executed for breaking some foreign taboo, at least he will not feel it was his own fault, as if he were being rude. But the southerners widened their eyes, their whites clearly visible against their skin, and some of the caravaners opened their mouths in surprise.

  "Do you even know the Outer Female?" the woman finally asked, coming to her senses. “What about the Inner Female?"

  "You sure have a lot of dialects," Gloomy said, not understanding anything, which meant that all possible words were equally dangerous. But the one he chose brought a roar of ughter from the southern women, who turned out to be quite a few in the crowd. They knew how to ugh: with their heads held high and not holding back. The pegs moved uneasily beneath them, and the men looked at the women uncomprehendingly, but seeing their undisguised joy, they too smiled and hid their weapons.

  "If we hadn't all gone crazy here at the same time, then you and they spoke a foreign nguage. I expected that from them, but from you, hero? You couldn't read a few days ago," Splinter said, sounding surprised, confused and amused. Something between "What's going on here?" and "Should I be ughing too?"

  "It looks like my gift from my employer is in action. When they speak with an accent, it's in our nguage, but without an accent, it's in theirs. By the way..." Gloomeye took out the round stone his father had given him. Indeed, the meaning of the runes was now clear: "Wind Cleaver". And what does that mean? A characterizing name? For a dragon?

  They were led to the front of the caravan, where Gloomeye counted six loaded boarlers. On the first sat a southerner with a prominent belly and a red middleshroom cap on his head.

  "The long-distance traveller greets the long-distance traveller, O all-knowing one," the portly man said, gncing at the newcomers riding beside him.

  "Ahem. Greetings," it sounded like a ritual phrase to the guy, but he didn't know the answer and decided (in general) to say less words.

  "My iron people say you surprised them with your knowledge, even of things you shouldn't have known, O open gate of my heart," Fatron' looked at them again, but Gloomeye saw the smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.

  "I just wanted to be polite," Gloomy said diplomatically.

  "Oh, it's wonderful, the warm light of my home! Courtesy is the duty of all good people. The World Rebuilding is no reason to be rude. Did a man and a woman teach you our nguages?”

  Gloomeye remembered the strange room with Regent and the demoness, and nodded:

  "Except for the one who was in the man's arms, but he didn't speak."

  "You must be a very close friend of theirs, O ughter that dispels the darkness," the man said with a satisfied look on his face, as if his guess had been confirmed. But Gloomy dared not say that it was probably wrong. This assumption is better than the truth.

  The guy looked at his group: Drat was concentrating on riding, and Splinter was watching the conversation, as if waiting for Gloomeye to turn around and say, "Well, stop pying along, let's talk in the existing nguage."

  Gncing back at Fatron', he noticed that a belt had ruffled riding boarler's stubble. As he rode closer, he smoothed the boarler's hair under the belt to make it more comfortable. The boarler gnced at Gloomy for a moment.

  "It will be my pleasure to welcome you as guests, my iron one," the caravan leader announced with an accent. "It's nice to speak in the Inner Royal again," he finished without the accent and winked at Gloomeye.

  It seems that Gloomeye has inadvertently pretended to be a pyer in a game he doesn't know the rules of, and it's too te to back out.

  "We are ready to do the work," the guy hastened to assure Fatron'.

  "As you wish, O my industrious ones. Seifo!" the leader called to the other side of his mount. "Find a pce for our new friends. Seifo is my heir," he expined to Gloomeye. "There will be a stop in the evening, then I would like to speak with you, O sweet of my souls."

  Seifo turned out to be a young man who had chosen not to wear a white cape, showing off his toned torso to anyone who wanted to see it and who did not want to. This annoyed Gloomy at first, but then, after evaluating the emotion, he decided to discard it. Fatron''s group seemed to be a good one.

  Fatron''s heir led them to the centre of the caravan. There he coordinated the movement of his peg with the others:

  "Watch out for possible enemies here. Aren't you hot in bck, wastender?"

  Gloomeye didn't know what the colour of the cloth had to do with it, but he didn't feel hot, so he said it. But Seifo was already riding up to Splinter:

  "It's always good to meet girls. I'm sure you're a real..." Fatron''s son brushed the hair from Splinter's face with his hand and stammered. "...hair owner. You have real hair. Sorry, me do not good talk your nguage."

  "What a stunning compliment, it's a good thing I'm on a peg," the girl suddenly realised what kind of trouble she was in. She turned her head slowly and jerkily towards Gloomeye, her tress still in Seifo's hand. Well, of course! Gloomeye had a sneering smile on his face, and he would definitely take revenge on her for everything she had said about him and Princess. Just as slowly, Splinter returned her head to its original position.

  "Hero, tell him he can let go of my hair if he doesn't decide to walk around with it for the rest of his life."

  "You can let go of her hair if..."

  "No, in his nguage. Do you hear how badly he suddenly starts to speak our nguage?"

  "I think I have to hear someone else's speech first to speak it," Gloomeye discovered.

  But the nguage of the southerners was not needed, and Seifo let go of Splinter's hair and jumped from his pce.

  Throughout the day, southern women approached Gloomeye with ready smiles and started talking to him. They always burst out ughing at his answer. Some groping his chest and rubbed his skin, as if he might be a hidden southern girl. It's a good thing no one thought of a real test. Gloomeye got tired of it after the third time, but he knew they meant no harm and simply entertained themselves as best they could on the boring road.

  In the evening the caravan stopped. The boarlers were set up in a circle, given food, and the caravaners themselves lit a fire in the centre of the living fort and began to cook or just rex. Gloomeye and Splinter had sore legs and butts after a day's riding, and they y down on the ground with their backs to their (also lying) pegs. Drat showed no signs of fatigue, only a desire to help with the cooking, but they wouldn't let him, probably because he was covered in fur from head to toe.

  The southerners began to tell short, funny stories. Gloomy only realised that they were funny from the general ughter. For example: An alm walks into a tavern and says, ‘Nothing is visible. Let me open this’. But alms don't talk, and if one of them wants to go into a tavern, people chase it away, or if it's a big one, they runs away themself. Often there were wastenders in the stories, but remembering that the wastenders were here, and that one of them understood their nguage, a storyteller would often add 'well, or not them' and continue a story.

  The food turned out to be a piece of hard, salty meat with a taste crystal and porridge with a mushroom fvour. Fatron' sat down to talk with Gloomeye.

  The southerners called themselves the Children of Fire, but Gloomeye couldn't hear the name, only the meaning, not the sound. An unexpected drawback of the talent. This nd they called the Wastend, and its inhabitants were called the wastenders. Fatron' has been leading a caravan back and forth from his nds for seven winters.

  When asked about the Sky-Eyed Emperor, he ughed:

  "You have given me back my rumour, O my enlightened one, that I brought to Capital. The Sky-Eyed Emperor or Dominica the Invader, I don't care, as long as they rid the world of the Daycatchers sect. Look, O most observant one,” Fatron' pointed to a deep, long scar on his elbow. "They make monsters out of people, nd burn them. The asheater who gave me this scar was a flying serpent with a human body. How was I supposed to know that his mouth was on the top of his head?”

  Fatron''s wares were all different: long-stored food, some ground into coloured powder, devices with fire inside, patterned strips of coarse woollen cloth, bck ore, parchments (but they are not very popur here). From the Wastend he brings cloth, mushrooms, meat, gold for jewellery, and all sorts of odds and ends from local artisans, such as metal vines.

  The caravanner could use an airship, which would make him an air merchant rather than a caravanner. However, this is dangerous because the states no longer control the skies, and it is much more expensive to maintain ships than a group of boarlers.

  The next few days were much the same, except for two occasions when the caravan strayed from the path to avoid a megashroom forest. Mushroom caps are easy pces to an ambush, Fatron' expined. The second time, the procession passed huge round pieces of gold jutting out of the hills. But no one even developed them.

  Gloomeye entertained the women and used his sling to scare away alms who approached the caravan. Seifo entertained Splinter, though not in the way he would have liked. His weapons decided to go further than the other weapons of the caravan, which were called boomerangs, and connected the ends. It was called a "chakram", a metal ring with a pointed outside (slightly rger than the open palm) that had to be circled around a finger and then released. Splinter tried to learn how to use it, with varying degrees of success, which was not well received by the others.

  Gloomy asked to be trained as well, but the caravan master's son said that no training was needed. Gloomeye took that as a compliment.

  In the evenings, there was always a bonfire and stories that reminded Gloomy of his vilge. He learned that the southerners were afraid of the Burning Man, or just a Burner, and he was afraid only of ughter. That's why the Children of Fire ugh whenever they can, especially in the Wastend, where the wastenders underestimate Burner.

  Alm attacks became more frequent, which was unusual. Once they were even attacked by bird alms - bck flying creatures with many wings and beaks on their heads, but without the rest of the expected body parts. They were all called "murder" for some reason.

  The caravan rarely encountered travellers. They usually made way for the crowds of boarlers in silence. But not a band of Mourneers on pegs - they were moving in the opposite direction to the caravan.

  As the long line of people (or whatever they were) nded and jumped, fshing past Gloomeye, a burly Mourneer with sawn-off horns on his forehead slowly approached. He rode up beside Gloomy and announced:

  "You are not a southerner," it sounded like an incredibly profound revetion.

  Gloomeye was about to say, "What gave me away?" but then he thought, "Why make trouble if you can not make it?" He also noticed that Drat was hiding under the boarler's cargo-side.

  "Yes," the guy agreed.

  "Why? The southerners don't usually hire locals," the Mourneer turned out to be persistent and stupid.

  "We just share a common way. I was able to make them ugh, and they like that," Gloomy tried to put an end to this unexpected interrogation.

  "That's strange. I don't like strange. That's smell of magic," the new philosopher concluded.

  An alm of murder appeared out of nowhere, swooped down on the Mourneer, ripped off his veil and flew away with it. Gloomeye saw that the victim of the air attack had no nose, only three slits, and in the yellow eyes the bck pupil was trying to split. The Mourneer quickly covered his face with his hands (or whatever it can be called now?), then jumped with his peg, chasing the thief.

  "Demons! Bad news!" immediately appeared Splinter with Seifo. After a moment's thought, she added: "I think I should change my swear word. Perhaps "heresy"? There are no more churches, no one will be offended. Heresy! Bad news! I spoke to Yar, the cursor assigned to us, the one you exorcised so well in the pace. He said that Almcatcher and Alm are following us. These Mourneers are putting the alms on us because they are unhappy that we have joined the caravan and want to hurry us."

  "They control the alms? Just now a Mourneer was distracted from me by a part of the murder," Gloomeye said.

  "Yes. Almcatcher. Don't think the bckies are a homogeneous organisation. Ours are of the Hand, and these are from the Eye. They have a kind of internal competition: who will cut more wizards and all that."

  "Let them try to attack us, we're not afraid," said Seifo.

  The st Mourneer brushed past them, and Drat scrambled out of hiding.

  "Are we far from Truth?" Gloomeye asked.

  "Squeak!"

  "Half a day's journey," Seifo replied.

  "Then we'll leave quickly. Get ready to show us the way, I'll say goodbye to Fatron'.”

  Seifo perked up and spoke to Splinter:

  "Why don't you stay?"

  "Oh, if you looked like Gloomeye, and acted like Gloomeye, and were really Gloomeye, and he was you, then yes," she said.

  Seifo, having heard the rest of the story, soared up on his striped peg.

  "That was necessarily cruel," Gloomy said.

  "But it's true. My job is to keep an eye on Gloomeye, not Seifo," Splinter didn't even realise she had offended Fatron''s son.

  "You see, people, even men, have feelings," Gloomeye said.

  "Well, go, stay with him, then I'll have to stay too," the girl sent Raven forward, but then slowed down and took the chakram from her belt. "You think I should return his gift?"

  "So you want to finish him off? If I were you, I'd apologise to him while I talk to his father." Gloomeye went to the front of the caravan. He felt he knew Splinter, but perhaps he was too quick with his senses. He'd known her for less than a month, not his whole life.

  The leader of the caravan was, as always, sitting on his head boarler.

  "We must leave you, Fatron'," Gloomy said, matching the other's movement.

  "May you walk the cool paths, O breather of my hearth smoke," Fatron' replied, his eyes fixed on the road.

  "Thank you for giving us shelter and your food, and we haven't done you much good," the guy continued.

  "The long-distance traveller bids farewell to the long-distance traveller," Fatron' looked at Gloomeye and smiled. "You are always welcome in my caravan."

  When everything was ready, Drat, Gloomeye and Splinter jumped on their pegs. It still took Gloomy's breath away. But out of the corner of his eye he noticed that a shadow behind him, in the distance, had also jumped into the sky with them. With the next jump, it did not even think of disappearing, but actually grew. With another jump, Gloomeye saw that it was a rge bird-alm with many parts (at least seven heads, all with small, downward curved beaks) and a small rider. Even if they are smaller than Drat, the alm is much bigger than a peg. At the next jump, Gloomy saw that there was a murder of smaller alm beside the big alm, and that the rider was all in bck.

  "Is that Almcatcher coming for us?" he shouted to Splinter, who had lost a little of the rhythm of her jumps compared to the others, and now appeared as Drat and Gloomeye began to slide down.

  "Yes!" the girl managed to shout.

  Gloomeye waited, then jumped together with her:

  "How well have you learned to use your chakram?"

  "Let's not discuss that. In any case, the chakram will not return, even if it does not hit. It will be a one-off attack.”

  Gloomy had prepared the sling projectiles in advance, but found only soft stones in the area, which crumbled when they hit any hardness. A small grove of megashrooms appeared ahead.

  "Move faster! Open the membranes closer to the ground," Gloomy decided.

  This speeds up the jumps, but Almcatcher was still getting closer. Several parts of the murder outstripped the main pursuit and reached the fugitives, but Gloomeye threw stones at them, not hitting them, but forcing them to fall back. Almcatcher herself could already be seen. She was a thin woman, with two brown braids sticking out from under her veil.

  "Which one of you wizards cut up my hounds?" came her voice on the wind.

  "It was an elf!” Gloomy shouted, but she didn't hear him or ignored him. Then why ask?

  "Simurgh, attack!" she commanded her riding alm. Simurgh gained altitude and put out sharp cws on the paws in front of him (or rather, in the direction of attack. Given the jumble of body parts, an alm's front could be in all directions)). The high metal walls of the city loomed far ahead. But the megashroom grove was very close.

  On nding, Gloomeye managed to grab the head ropes of Drat's peg, who was about to jump again.

  "Into the grove!" Gloomeye shouted. He tried to duck under the caps of the approaching megashrooms.

  The pegs could move quite quickly on the ground, especially if they sensed a rge predator nearby. Simurgh waited a while for the hunted to appear, but then, realising their pn, he rushed down and destroyed a mushroom cap under which Splinter was passing. A curtain of spores flew from it, stopping Simurgh for a few seconds.

  The city walls were getting closer, but to reach them they had to get out into the open. Almcatcher smashed another megashroom directly over Gloomy's head, and debris rained down, almost pinning him down. Nearby, Drat's peg jumped onto a mushroom's stalk, also dodging, and bounced off it with great force, swaying the entire megashroom.

  On leaving the grove, the rat repeated the bounce to speed up. Gloomeye tried as well, but Grassy didn't understand and stopped in front of a stalk. This saved them, as Almcatcher's alm crashed into the spot in front of them, apparently hoping that the victim would accelerate on the bare ground and not stop. As Simurgh's heads gathered together, Grassy jumped on her own, much higher than her usual leap. Gloomy barely managed to stay on her back.

  He could already see the city gate and a guard wearing the same armour as Aigo, but he also noticed a shadow above his head, blocking out the light of Dayorb. Gloomy felt death approaching. He didn't let the pega straighten her membranes and swooped down. She straightened and looked like a spear. He pressed himself against her back, feeling the wild heartbeat of his mount. Or is it my heart? It was only a short distance to the square opening in the wall where the guard stood.

  When there was only a tiny space between them and the ground, and fear gave way to almighty terror, Gloomeye let go of his pega's membranes and she stopped her high-speed fall. But they couldn't get up again in the wind, and Gssy fell to the ground, throwing the rider from the saddle. A roar of victory came from above.

  Unnecessary author's note: This chapter is given to us by my subconscious nostalgia for the various cultures of the Wheel of Time.

  I have no idea how to add the ending 's to words that end with '. But what I have done could be a joke. Yes, the linguistic joke. Definitely!