The Ascending Read online

Dervit cried out and slammed himself against the bag, squeezing it as tightly as he could. The horse lifted and turned its head, fixed one brown eye on him, then stretched his neck to sniff at his new rider.

  Dervit whimpered again, sending up prayer after prayer to his ancestors.

  Ellyesce laughed, Jahrra asked what was going on and Jaax announced that they could afford no more delays.

  Dervit didn’t think any of it was funny, but since he had promised not to be a burden, he continued to cling to the bag and hoped the horse didn’t bite him.

  “He likes you,” Ellyesce said cheerily.

  Dervit didn’t believe it, but after several minutes of holding on for dear life with his eyes squeezed shut, he relaxed a little. He had grown used to the horse’s ambling gate, and he thought that if the huge animal didn’t make any sudden movements, he might actually enjoy the ride.

  For the next several hours, the group traveled up the winding mountain road. Dervit still held tightly to the pack horse, but at some point, he managed to sit up and discover that it wasn’t too hard to stay aboard after all. A half an hour into their ride, Jahrra dropped back with Phrym to ride beside him.

  At first, Dervit thought he’d done something wrong, but when she smiled at him, he relaxed.

  “Thought you could use some company,” she said.

  Dervit gave a timid smile and shrugged. “I’m used to being alone with my thoughts, but it would be nice to have someone other than myself to talk to.”

  Jahrra laughed. “I know what you mean.”

  “What shall we discuss?”

  “To be honest,” Jahrra said, “I don’t know a thing about limbits. Well, I know a little bit, but not much.”

  Dervit gave Jahrra a quick look over. She was tall, taller than his kind, of course, but he thought she might be tall for her kind as well. She wore simple deerskin pants and a white tunic beneath a brown vest that fit her more closely than his fit him. Her hair was long and golden blond, and her blue grey eyes lit up when she smiled. He decided then he liked her very much. She could have easily turned him away, like that brooding Tanaan dragon, but she had been nothing but kind to him, despite what had happened at the pool earlier. The memory made him blush a little. He hadn’t meant to sneak up on her, but he’d been just about to leave the brambles behind for a drink when she arrived with the dragon, and he had no choice but to remain hidden until she was done with her bath.

  Shaking his head, Dervit took a breath and considered what she had said before letting his thoughts wander.

  “How about you start by telling me what you think you know. We critter folk are often portrayed differently than how we truly are,” Dervit offered.

  “Good idea. Although, I hope the picture I’ve been given is a good one. I learned about your kind in one of my classes at the university in Lidien.”

  Dervit nodded for Jahrra to go on, his cap slipping a little from its perch atop his head. He straightened it and pricked his ears forward to help keep it in place.

  “My professor told us that limbits are similar to elves, except for a few obvious differences. You are much smaller, and from the waist down you resemble animals.”

  Jahrra screwed up her face a little, trying to remember all the wild creatures Anthar had listed off. Unfortunately, her notes were back in Jaax’s house, tucked away in a trunk for safekeeping.

  “Not all of you look like foxes. Some of you take after rabbits, badgers, weasels, beavers, hedgehogs, skunks, porcupines, possums …”

  She held up a finger for each animal she named, then started over again once she ran out of fingers.

  Dervit found his first impression of Jahrra, that she sported a very accepting and kind nature, had been correct. Unlike her dragon guardian, she was open with her thoughts and shared them willingly in an attempt to befriend him. Ellyesce seemed reasonable as well, but there was an emptiness about him, something he tried to fill with good humor and quick wit. But Dervit had learned early on how to read people, and although the elf did a fine job of disguising the hollowness that haunted him, he couldn’t quite banish it altogether. Dervit decided he would tread lightly around Jaax and Ellyesce, but he would very much enjoy getting to know Jahrra. Perhaps, he might even call her his friend someday.

  You’ve never really had friends before, he told himself, wondering what that might be like.

  “According to my professor,” Jahrra continued on, breaking into his musings, “limbits live in dens and feed themselves by foraging, hunting and growing their own food. They are very shy and stay hidden away from other forms of society.”

  Jahrra huffed out a breath and let her hands drop to the front of the saddle. Dervit took note that it had four pommels, two in front and two in the back and wondered why the elf’s didn’t have the same. A question for another time, perhaps.

  “How far off am I?” she asked, regaining his attention.

  “Not too far off. Yes, we do have variants, even within our own families. My father was a fox limbit, my mother was a squirrel limbit. All of my sisters took after my mother. Only I took after my father.”

  The reminder of his sisters brought a pang of sadness with it, but Dervit refused to let it overwhelm him.

  A new life, remember? You can do nothing for them now.

  “We are not all shy, we just prefer to stick to our own kind.”

  “Really?” Jahrra wondered aloud, eyeing him dubiously.

  Dervit grinned. “Very well, that’s not entirely true. Most of us consider outsiders and other races to be dangerous. Either we believe non-limbits will murder us for sport, or they’ll teach us new ideas that will somehow destroy our traditions. I never thought either of those were true. Yet another reason I was an outcast. Of course, the former ended up proving to be somewhat true.”

  He grimaced at the reminder of his brush with death, and Jahrra gave him a sympathetic look.

  “We are, however, very superstitious,” he continued, ready to forget about the ordeal at the crossroads.

  “Superstitious? How so? I wouldn’t have guessed that about you.”

  Dervit shrugged. “I try to tell myself that I’m not, and I’m better at ignoring the old superstitions. But I still won’t eat the first apple picked at harvest.”

  Jahrra just stared at him. “You’re joking.”

  He held up a hand, the pale cream fur of his palm stained with dirt. “I swear it. It’s bad luck to eat the first apple pulled from the tree in the orchard. If you do, then the harvest will be bad next year.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Jahrra said with a laugh.

  “Superstition, remember?” her limbit friend answered with a small grin.

  “What else?” she demanded. “What else is considered superstitious for you?”

  For some reason, Jahrra found this subject fascinating, so Dervit proceeded to list as many as he could think of off the top of his head.

  “Always get at least one toe wet when crossing an unfamiliar stream. When pulling weeds in the garden, never mix the blooming ones with those free of flowers. You have to make two piles. When fishing, never bring home an uneven number of fish. If you see an owl before sunset or after sunrise, then you must recite an incantation or else be stricken with bad luck until the day is over. Oh, and never pass between the split trunks of a tree,” he added, pointing out an ancient oak just off the side of the road. The tree had two distinct trunks with enough space between them for someone to walk through.

  “What happens if you do that?” Jahrra asked.

  Dervit took a deep breath and released it. “You will summon unwanted attention.”

  Jahrra quirked an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

  The limbit shrugged one shoulder. “No one knows until it happens.”

  Jahrra snorted, but kept her opinion to herself. It was beginning to sound like fortune-teller’s magic to her. Any misfortune could be blamed on some random act that had nothing to do with it. Regardless of her disbelief in virtually everything Derv
it was telling her, she pressed him to go on. Silly as it may be, it was fun to hear what got the limbit folk so jumpy.

  “If a garden tool breaks or is damaged, you cannot fix it or make a new one yourself. You must ask a neighbor and then pay them part of the harvest reaped from the new tool. If you find a cracked egg in the henhouse, then you must put away one trovet for each cracked egg.”

  “What’s a trovet?” Jahrra asked.

  “It’s what we use as currency. It isn’t worth much, but if you have some clumsy hens in your coop, you’ll end up stowing all of your money away and have nothing left to buy dyed wool or new sewing needles at the market on the last work day of the week.”

  “Are you ever allowed to spend the money you put away?” Jahrra wondered, steering Phrym around a particularly treacherous tangle of roots.

  “Yes. The day after Sobledthe you are allowed to spend all that you saved from that year, if you’d like.”

  Jahrra chuckled softly, and Dervit lifted a ruddy eyebrow at her.

  She shrugged and gave him a smirk. “You can look at it two ways, then. Either you can be annoyed at having less money during the year, or pleased that you have a surplus at the end.”

  Dervit nodded. “Usually people start off irritable, but then, by Sobledthe they boast about their riches. The neighbor who acted as my foster mother had a hen that was in the habit of laying her eggs on top of the others. She was putting away four or five trovets a week. She was so angry that one day in autumn she picked up the axe, determined to turn that hen into our dinner. I begged her not to do it. Only because I made such a fuss, and pointed out it might work in her favor to put away trovets in the long run, did she change her mind.”

  The limbit gave a soft, private laugh, and Jahrra wondered just how strong a memory it was. “She was able to buy an entire yard and a half of the finest patterned silk at market just after Sobledthe. She made herself a dress and wore it to market day the following month. She was the talk of the town for weeks after that.”

  He took a quick breath and let it out with a sigh. “Harnie’s moods could be volatile, and she was a complete sourpuss most of the time, but she knew how to convince other people that she was important.”

  “Harnie was the name of your neighbor? The one who took you in?”

  Dervit glanced up at Jahrra, the answer plain in his solemn eyes. “I didn’t really hate her, honestly,” he whispered sharply. “She just didn’t understand me.”

  The limbit dropped his head and stared at his hands, no longer clutching the ropes for dear life. Realizing his error, his fingers tightened. Jahrra let the silence descend between them for the next several minutes. She knew from experience that grief didn’t always take hold right away. Some days, after losing her parents, and then Hroombra, she would wake up in the morning, thinking everything was okay. And then, she would remember they were gone, the deep sadness striking swift and hard, filling her lungs like icy seawater as she struggled for breath. She imagined Dervit might experience the same.

  Jahrra cleared her throat and peered at the trail ahead. “So, anything else I should know about limbits?”

  The trees were thinning a little, and occasionally they crossed a rivulet of water cutting through their path. More snowmelt dripping from the peaks. Jahrra wondered if it bothered Dervit, not getting his toes wet, as they moved ever upward, but he didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he had kept his eyes lowered, staring at his fingers.

  Perhaps that sadness is already taking root, Jahrra thought morosely.

  “Dervit?” she prompted gently, hoping to pull him from the deep abyss.

  The limbit blinked rapidly, but Jahrra chose to blame it on the bars of sunlight now slicing through the sparse limbs above.

  “I was wondering if there was anything else you wanted to tell me about limbits.” She smiled encouragingly.

  “Oh, well …” He chewed on his lip for a while, trying to recall what she had told him at the very beginning of their conversation.

  “We do grow our own food, raise livestock and hunt. Root vegetables are our favorites, but we eat pretty much anything one can grow in a garden. The livestock we keep are mostly poultry: chickens, ducks, geese. Occasionally, someone will brave raising a turkey or two. The largest animals we keep are pigs and goats. Pigs for meat and for truffle harvesting. Goats mostly for milk and wool.”

  “And do you really live in dens?” Ellyesce called from over his shoulder.

  Jahrra looked up in surprise, not realizing the elf had been listening to them.

  “Not exactly,” Dervit proclaimed. “Most of us live in a cluster of earthen homes, structures built from turf or dug right out of hillsides. Our roofs are made of the same material, and the wild grasses and flowers usually grow in and cover them. A limbit house can be as large as eight or even ten rooms, or as small as a bedroom and common room.”

  “Do you not have kitchens?” the elf asked.

  Dervit shook his head. “Most of our cooking is done outside.”

  “What if it rains? Or snows?” Jahrra added.

  “Then we move the cook fire to the shed. It is like one big open room off the side of the house that we use for storage or sheltering the animals when the weather is particularly bad.”

  They rode side by side in companionable silence for another few miles until Jahrra worked up the nerve to ask him the one question she had been wanting an answer to for quite a while.

  “I was wondering,” she said carefully, “why didn’t you give us up back at the crossroads?”

  Dervit cringed slightly and turned his head away, presumably studying the ferns and mosses covering the hillside.

  Jahrra hurried on, hoping that her curiosity hadn’t spooked him into complete silence. “I mean, I know you saw us up the trail. Why not just tell the soldiers we were there? You might have been able to get away.”

  Dervit forgot about the passing foliage and turned to face the road ahead once again. He wasn’t troubled by Jahrra’s question; he just didn’t have a perfect answer for her. He shrugged, deciding to do his best.

  “Didn’t want to give them what they wanted, I guess,” he grumbled. “That and I knew what they were capable of.”

  His voice hitched, and Jahrra realized her question had scratched at that raw wound after all.

  “I didn’t want them to hurt anyone else,” he finished softly.

  Ellyesce’s semequin stopped in front of them, bringing both Phrym and Rumble to a standstill as well. Jahrra, who had been studying Dervit’s face, chose that moment to glance up. Jaax was standing several yards ahead, waiting patiently for them to catch up. He wasn’t so far away that he hadn’t caught the tail end of their conversation, and at the moment, he was giving Dervit that scrutinizing look he used on so many people. A look that, if you didn’t know the dragon, made one wonder if he was contemplating what you might taste like. But Jahrra knew better.

  “Well,” she murmured, a hint of pride in her voice. “Look who might have just impressed the dragon.”

  She smiled at Dervit, then gave Phrym a gentle nudge. With well-practiced ease, the semequin stepped forward and pulled ahead of the pack horse. Dervit could only look on in surprise. Was it true? Had he really just lifted his status in the eyes of this group’s fearless leader? Without even trying? He sure hoped so, though he couldn’t imagine how he had pulled it off. But maybe that was the point with Jaax and his companions. Perhaps it was all the little things, unseen by most, that held clout with the green Tanaan dragon.

  Dervit shrugged, trying to stretch out his shoulders and back. Whether or not he had moved up on Jaax’s approval list didn’t really matter. He was now all but convinced he would find a friend in Jahrra after all. He grinned. It would be nice to have a friend.

  -Chapter Seven-

  The Red Flange

  Dervit was given his first chance to prove his usefulness that evening when they stopped to camp. As Ellyesce used his strange magic to check on their pursuers, Jahrra rifled throug
h their food stores, hoping to find something appetizing.

  Grumbling, she came up with a few stale loaves of bread and enough jerky to feed one of them.

  “Good thing Cahrdyarein is so close,” she said, trying her best not to sound too forlorn. “We barely have enough left to last through tomorrow.”

  Jaax peered over her shoulder, his scaly brow furrowed.

  “What happened to all the cheese?”

  “Finished it off this afternoon for lunch,” she answered.

  “And I haven’t spotted nor smelled a deer since we crested the pass,” her guardian noted, almost as an afterthought.

  Jahrra narrowed her eyes. Oh, how convenient it must be to only have to eat once or twice a week. And then, just to torment her, Jahrra’s stomach growled. As if her disappointment at the lack of food hadn’t been made apparent enough.

  “What seems to be the matter?” Ellyesce asked, rejoining them.

  He looked pale and haggard again, and Jahrra was starting to wonder how far he could push himself with his magic.

  “We are out of provisions,” Jaax answered tightly.

  “And this section of the mountains seems to be short on prey,” Jahrra added with chagrin.

  Ellyesce seemed to deflate. “I cannot keep performing checks on the Red Flange if I have no way to refuel.”

  “Refuel?” Jahrra asked.

  Ellyesce nodded, his mouth grim. “Normally, I wouldn’t complain about missing a meal, but if I don’t maintain my magic with sustenance, it fails me.”

  “So you’re saying your magic runs on food?”

  “What he’s saying,” Jaax interjected, “is that if he doesn’t keep himself healthy, we will have no way to tell where the Tyrant’s men are.”

  Jahrra felt the blood drain from her face. She recovered quickly, lifting her arms and shoving the loaves of bread against Ellyesce’s chest.

  “I’m not hungry. You eat these.”

  Ellyesce took the loaves gently, but tried to press one back into Jahrra’s hand.

  “You must eat, too,” he rasped.