Chapter 3. Beneath the Hood

Pushing themselves and their horses to the edge of endurance, the unlikely pair drew nearer and nearer to the outland frontier.  Hardly five words passed between them   N'rak had withdrawn completely into himself, mourning his lost life and love, and the mysterious woman remained hidden entirely within the black folds of her hooded robe.  They took fresh horses as the opportunities presented themselves, shared salted meat, and passed a flask of water back and forth, but almost always they rode on.

As evening fell and the sun dropped at last below the horizon, they began looking for a place off the road to pass the night in relative safety.  They saw a small creek paralleling the road and so they entered the fields there and tethered their mounts.  Each fashioned a small pallet of leaves and grass deep within a copse of trees just beyond a mound of earth far enough from the road not to call attention to itself but only a short distance from the water.

"There is more driving you than the deaths of those men in the field this morning."  The woman's tone was soft and simple.

N'rak hesitated for the space of three heartbeats before replying with a nod, "Yes, by now it is certain that everyone in this land hunts for me.  We should separate in the morning."

From within her hood, the woman's voice answered, "You think I'd be safer apart from you?"

"That's certain."

The silence returned, leaving them with their private thoughts until at last the woman said, "You haven't asked my name."

"You haven't asked the reason behind mine.  N'rak.  What used to be Rak.  Honestly, you've been ideal.  Your company anchors me to this life, and you don't pick at my wounds with any understandable curiosity."

"I have missed ... the company of people."  A heavy sigh escaped her lips.  "Whatever happens tomorrow, thank you."

He only nodded.

The night passed, the constellation of the Scimitar rose and a short time after that the moon followed it.  From a dreamless sleep, N'rak awoke to a movement nearby.  He watched closely as an inky black shape within the shadows stood and moved away from him through the trees, and although the woman walked through dried leaves and twigs she made no sound.  In seconds, N'rak was unable to discern her outline in the darkness.

The warrior arose and followed, using all his skill to move as silently as she had.  His eyes strained to find recognizable shapes in the faint moonlight.  At last he believed he had found the woman standing under a small tree.  He shrank into the shadows to find out what had brought her to this spot.  A light breeze came across the nearby running water and brushed N'rak's face with the faint smells of springtime surrounded by autumn.  The figure stirred!

Silently, N'rak cursed himself for a fool.  What he was looking at so carefully was only the woman's hooded robe hanging from a branch.  N'rak was deeply in his own sorrow, but there comes a time when other thoughts must finally intrude upon even the most profound grief.  N'rak had not seen any part of his traveling companion, had not truly cared while running from a lost love and thoughts of what might have been and by now surely legions of the god-king's soldiers.  But N'rak had at least as much curiosity as any other man and probably more.  That curiosity was fully awakened within him now.  Moreover, N'rak's long-trained keen sense of security required an answer to the question.  What was the woman doing without her robe in the middle of the night?

In his first year as sworn companion of Sur-Pashno, N'rak had been with the god-king's heir one brightly moonlit night when a foreign chieftain had arrived at the palace with a gift for Lord Ha-Pashno IV.  The supreme ruler and all his family and advisers had proceeded to the Courtyard of the Winds to see the gift.  Under a spectacular full moon in a clear and starry sky, N'rak had seen the most magnificent white horse with the longest and most luxurious white mane he had ever imagined.  And in the light of the full moon, the incredible animal had seemed to positively glow.  It was enough to take the breath from the young boy N'rak had been.  N'rak was older now – in more ways than one – but what he saw next left him even more breathless and more nearly stupefied than even that amazing white horse had.

She seemed to shimmer into view from the deep shadows.  Her hair was white, her skin was white, she reflected – in fact she seemed to magnify – the moonlight.  Clearly she had been bathing in the creek and now stood wearing nothing but the eerie glow of the moon and stars.  N'rak felt a dizziness wash over him.  She was a living statue of finest purest whitest alabaster, a statue of perfect femininity.  Her slightest movement seemed the most graceful dance ever witnessed.  N'rak gradually came to realize he was not breathing.

He shook his head slightly and squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and deliberately averted his gaze.  This voyeurism was never his intention, and now that he realized he had unforgivably invaded his traveling companion's privacy, shame flooded into his heart.  The shame was multiplied when he had to admit in his heart of hearts that for a brief moment he had completely forgotten his beloved, his forever lost Tay-Vasani.  Guilt and shame and failure now choked him.  He bowed his head low, and bitter tears sprang from his eyes as he closed them tightly again.

When he had regained his composure, N'rak saw that the woman had dressed and left without a sound.  He stood and walked down to the water's edge.  There he gazed out upon the eternal trickle of the creek.  The moon and stars spun slowly overhead until at last, N'rak's thoughts turned to the wisdom of bathing in the cold waters himself.  Self-purification had been a daily ritual for him and he admitted to himself that he missed it.  He sat down and one-by-one removed each article of his own clothing, hanging them on branches as the woman had done.  Finally he stepped into the creek.

Even though he knew what to expect, the cold still shocked him.  A voice within chided him for having become so spoiled that a cold bath should strike so hard.  He willed his feet to move on into the deeper water, inhaling sharply as the cold passed up to his waist and higher.  At last, he took one deep breath and ducked his head fully below the surface.  Each movement seemed to renew the icy grip of the water on him, but finally he rolled onto his back and floated for a long spell.  Looking up into the vast star-filled sky dominated by the white luminescent moon, he allowed his thoughts to float as well.

N'rak had broken his oath to Sur-Pashno, he had given his heart to Tay-Vasani and had seen her life taken much as he himself had taken other lives without number, he had fled from the righteous vengeance of Lord Ha-Pashno IV, he had stolen horses, and he had thrown his lot in with her – his enigmatic traveling companion.  She had been a taciturn mystery wrapped silently in a hooded cloak before, but now he would never be able to erase from his mind the extraordinary image of her as she had stepped naked from the shadows into the dazzling moonlight.  His life had been one dedicated to a single purpose with razor sharp certainty, and now he was floating – falling forever through the endless constellations of the night sky with no control, no anchor, no plan except to flee from the land of his birth.

N'rak's training at last took hold.  When faced with seemingly impossible odds, he must pick one target for one instant in time and deal only with that, trusting in his sword and his skill to carry him through.  His mind finally clear again, he glided back to the shallows and waded out as quietly as he could.  He gathered his clothes but dressed only in a loincloth.  In the same manner as he had walked in the early morning to his deadly daily training sessions for years, he made his way back to the shadows where they had tethered their horses and settled down to sleep.  There appeared to be the same darker shadow as before over where the woman slept, but he could not be certain without approaching her more than he knew would be right.  They had wordlessly established a trust – a trust he felt he had broken by following her to the creek, a trust he knew he had broken by viewing her nude body, a trust he had broken as he began to think he had broken every trust ever placed in him.

He scowled to himself and willed those futile thoughts away.  He cleared his mind and sharpened his focus on only their safety for the now, for this night, trusting in his sword and his skill to carry him through to the dawn.

Melodic birdsong woke N'rak to the beginning of the new day.  He arose and dressed, quickly noticing that the woman was not where she had been and neither were their two horses.  When he had laced his boots and folded his bedroll, N'rak stood and began scanning the fields around the small copse.  He saw nothing at first, but just before he could whisper a curse to himself, the woman stepped into the field slowly leading both horses out of the tree line by the creek's edge.  She was again fully immersed within the folds of her black hooded robe.  The horses appeared to have been watered, fed, and – most surprisingly – groomed.

As she approached, N'rak said, "Good morning."

"Good morning to you," she replied from within the impenetrable shadows of her hood.

"You've taken care of the horses."

"You were sleeping well.  I saw no reason to wake you yet," she said, answering his unspoken question.

"I'm not accustomed to sleeping late," he said and then added, "but thank you."

They mounted the horses and returned to the road.  After the sun had climbed halfway to its highest point, the woman observed, "We'll cross the frontier river today."

"I don't know," he replied.  "We'll reach the ferry, no doubt, but we may be forced to look for a place where we can ford on our own."

"Your pursuit?  They would have to press very hard to have passed us," she said.  "But it is possible.  We might leave the road and approach the crossing from upriver."

N'rak nodded.  "I thought we might move off the road after taking a midday meal."

They rode on in silence.  N'rak was unable to keep his eyes from returning frequently to the robed figure beside him, despite his best efforts to clear last night's images from his mind.  At long last, she reined in and turned toward N'rak.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I ... I meant no offense.  It's just that ..."

"What do you think about stopping here for midday?" she clarified.

"Oh.  Yes, this is fine."

They left the road and made their way through a pasture and into the shade of a group of trees at the base of a small hill.  Here they rested the horses and took out hard tack, salted meat, and water.  N'rak scanned the horizons, idly thinking how the easy silence of the day before had now become so awkward.

"Maia," said the woman suddenly.

N'rak turned to look at her with confusion.  "Pardon?"

"My name," she said.  "I am Maia Tsa Crenill.  I would like it if you called me Maia, but I would ask that you not do so before others."  And as she said this, she lifted off her hood and let it fall back.  Her long silken white hair flowed thick and straight to below her shoulders.  Her pure white profile was startling, but when she turned to face N'rak directly, his jaw nearly came unhinged when he saw that even her eyes were fully white with no apparent pupils at all.

N'rak's mind spun with questions, but something stopped him from giving them voice.  "Maia," he managed to say aloud.  "I am honored."

"You are an unusual man, N'rak."

Unusual, he thought.  Unreliable, without honor, without love, without freedom, hunted, running.  He turned away and willed the bitter empty thoughts out of his mind.

"The usual man," she continued, "would recoil in horror or fear or demand to know why I look the way I do.  You do not stare.  You turn away, but not in revulsion."

N'rak turned back to her, "Revulsion?  What ...?"  But before he could finish his thought, the breeze shifted, and they both smelled cooked spiced meat.  The breeze came to them from over the small hill.  "Wait here," N'rak said.  He rose and swiftly made his way to the crest of the hill, the last part of the way on his belly.

Peering cautiously over the rise, N'rak groaned quietly.  The frontier river was spread out at a distance before him, flowing from left to right.  The ferry crossing and the ferryman's small stronghold sat off to his right.  But the fields on either side of that building were filled with tents and wagons and horses – and most of all, soldiers.  N'rak estimated eight thousand of the god-king's men-at-arms were encamped here.  Most were eating their own midday meal, but some of the leaders were busy organizing pickets and the digging of earthen defenses.

N'rak returned to Maia and the horses.  "We almost rode right up into the middle of about eight thousand soldiers.  From the look of things, they only just arrived themselves."

Maia lifted her hood and once more disappeared into the dark recesses of her cloak.  "Then we should pick a new path.  Upstream?"

N'rak nodded.  "We would have to backtrack a long way to safely cross the road to go downstream.  I suggest we move right away.  They are sure to place pickets at the top of this hill soon.  We must be out of sight before then."

In a moment, they had packed their things and were leading their horses away to the left of their original path.  N'rak kept glancing back to the crest of the small hill, but no one appeared there even as the fugitives at last led their mounts into a dark thick wood