Still, the old hunter walked in the camp, answering questions when asked, but never taking command.
The Master and Mistress held talks with the last customers, booking freight for the north or south routes, as he passed their tent, still in the center of the camp. Those would be the last to separate, the Mistress moving into her wagon, the Master to his small cart.
Nearing the south end of their caravan field, a familiar song caught his ears. One rarely heard in this place, but filled with the same love of open spaces those who lived here held. A flute accompanied it, a rare instrument for his people. Following the notes, much like tracking a creature amid the Grass, his steps fell into their pattern. The old dance of the hunter seeking some prey to feed his people.
He found them outside the camp, in the area for those not yet contracted with a caravan. The last tent there. Jzhun's light turned the golden amber beads into fires on the leather walls, fires with a familiar shape. The very eagle that resided on his left shoulder. A member of his clan this far out, one with a tent of his own, was very rare. Jarthun approached slowly, wondering if the darkness to come connected with this visitation from his past.
Before the tent, a girl sat on the blanket of a sand-caster, lowering the flute as the song ended. Women sand-casters were not uncommon, but a girl this young shook the clansman's soul. Legends and stories held such, children touched by the great spirits to allow them to read the sands. Nearby two who contracted with his master stood, watching the girl, their glances not friendly. Those of Kvaeg were said to hold some hatred for seers and mediums, something about their end coming from a vision of sand.
Stepping lightly, he walked the path to the blanket, avoiding the droppings and mud tracked up from the great ford. Amid the grass, one offered flowers, bags of sands for use by the caster, and food. Having none with him, Jarthun tossed a coin on the blanket.
"That was a fair playing of the flute, yashay." He used the word of the Kensori tongue for girl, as she never looked up from the blanket. Some thing in her demeanor told him sorrow walked with her. "It is good to hear from the Grass in this place."
From within the tent a young boy emerged, copper of hair, unlike any of the clans. Most of his folk bore dark hair, brown on rare occasions, until age bleached it through grey to white. His features spoke of elven blood, especially the pointed ears sticking through the long, loose locks.
"They rest now. Thank you, Dia. That tune did wonders for your Hakin." The boy spoke a mix of the Annadari language most used, and that of the Grass.
"We have a customer. Please bring the sands." The girl spoke softly as well. The words all business.
"The coin was for the music only, yashay. I have no food or flowers to pay for a casting." Jarthun worried this was not a true caster, but some children playing at such.
When her head rose, the haunted pride in her eyes told him to accept the casting. She said nothing, though her lids lowered, as if she could not believe her eyes.
The boy moved about, gathering the jars of colored sand, laying them out precisely for her. "Shala, we have no sunflower petals left." Jarthun relaxed, they knew the rites, which items were best for a true casting.
"My brother never used the sunflowers for me, when he cast sands near the Canyon of the Sages." He gestured to a wild rose amid some rocks. "Those, he said, resonated better with my prickly nature. Or a cactus flower, if you have such."
Within the tent, someone chuckled at his words. Mirth broken quickly by a nasty cough. The girl glared now at him, angered at her charges being awakened. Her eyes looked over all his body, widening at the familiar cut of leathers. Then she gasped at the clan mark, eyes darting to the right sleeve's cuff, where a ring of silver beads formed scorpions holding the tail of the one before them in their right claw. "Far-Walker."
Pulling corners of his mouth lent him a tight smile. "Some call me that, though I have met others who walk greater distances than I." The boy walked out a bit, gathering the flowers of the rose gently, using the bone knife as one was to do according to traditions. At least their teacher did not profane the sacred actions teaching them bad ways. He could find little fault so far in their actions.
She stayed silent, even as inside, someone moved. Years of managing people on the caravans taught him the signs of a woman who desires to check on ill children or spouses. She yearned to check on her charges. Yet she knew his first step onto the blanket would force her to wait until the casting and reading of the sands finished.
"Go, yashay. Check on your children." Squatting just off the blanket, he kept her gaze. "The totems wait for one who wanders as much as I have."
The tent flap opened, revealing a man his own age. "Took you this many snows to learn that, brother?"
Now Jarthun felt the surprise around his eyes, as he saw one he only dreamed of most years. "Jarzhun. Brother, hanra!" Rising, he took quick steps to his twin, as his eyes told him his kinsman was ill.
"Hanra, chirat!" His twin spoke weakly, holding firmly to the tent for support until Jarthun grasped his free arm. "Grarkulk na baxha!" The tusked beast is toothless, an old saying about the beasts of the grass that lived to too old an age.
"Nonsense. You look awful, but I bet you drank water from the river coming here." Seeing the strange look on Jarzhun's face, he sighed. "Brother, there is not enough water in this land to dilute the sewage they dump into the rivers. Boil any water, even from wells and springs, unless high in the mountains."
A soft chuckle told him he was wrong. "Try the swamp fever. With your water thing."
Wincing, the overseer guided his brother to the blanket. Each step a bit stronger. "There is a bark you can chew for swamp fever. I have a supply in my things at camp."
"Later." Hand waving dismissively as he settled upon a rock to watch the augury. "Dia must learn reading the sands the totems speak through better. You will be a good subject for her."
Jarthun hesitated. Too long away from the traditions of the Grass, despite trying to keep them amid the sands and ash, he worried what the spirits would say in the grains he now viewed less favorably. Years traveling the desert turned sand from messenger to enemy, something few from his home might foresee. "We have no purification lodge. Nor have I spent a night in the grass for the spirits to know me again."
"Excuses, chirat. You know the spirits sent you here. The kenrathi led you away from the grass for some reason." The words flowed from his brother slowly, almost a cadence, like those the sages of the canyon or some other used.
On the sacred blanket, Dia's young hands moved about carefully, lifting a braided rope of grass, dried to a golden brown with time, but obviously the soft feshani blades of home, not the red saw blades fire grass grew here, or the thick spiny blades of the local water-grasses. Blue-grey strands told of the braiding, swift thistle added to hold the blades together. Her fingers teased its length out, the lowered it to a square of white leather sewn onto the blanket's center.
"On the bones of the land, bound by the sacred Grass, come spirits of the clans, tell us what we must know." Her words, part of an ancient prayer to the animal spirits, hunted and hunters both, signaled she was ready for him to enter the spell.
Casting a last glance to his twin, Jarthun stepped lightly to the edge opposite the girl, squatting down, touching earth and a small tuft of water-grass that survived the grazing beasts of the caravans somehow. "I come to let the sands speak for the spirits, taking their guidance." He knelt onto the blanket, about knees about half a forearm back from the circle laid out.
As sands flowed from his fingers images formed amid the colors. The green and red grains mingled with the base volcanic ash of the desert he loved now, forming blades of grass afire. Nothing strange there, Jarthun thought, the season of the fire-grass blazes was nearing. The still air churned, a small dust devil disturbing that image, breaking the image into shadows of smoke and darkness over those flames, drowning the grass with grey grit. His hand moved to the brown and yellow sands next, trickling them over the circle formed by the grass braid rope.
The Kenrathi, the golden eagle of the clan, formed as the sands dropped, diving into the hungry cinders from distant fire mountains, wings stirring up the smoke and shadows. Beneath it, other shapes formed, lizards the wanderer knew well, other forms strange and unknown to him. One stood out as red grains surfaced again, giving shape to the vulture beasts already seen amid darkness created by Athalan's moons dimming Jzhun's light.
The beasts and skeletal forms tore apart the kenrathi, feathers of golden sands exploding as the air spirit stirred the motes again, dancing in and out of the grass-bound circle. Not a grain crossed that barrier, even in the air above it. Streaks of black, a color yet added erupted, forming skulls of beasts and men. Jarthun's hands shook in fear. This was not a good casting, something bad was coming to him, and the clan.
The last bits fell from his hands, leaving only three colors to add. Hands faltered a moment, the whirling spirit within the circle, so common to such magics here, shook him. In the grass, only the sand, feathers and blades affected a casting. His grand-niece shook the feathers, softly chanting the ancient ritual still. Knowing he could not stop lest the spirits be angered, fingers dipped into the blue and white sand pots, rising with fists full, Jarthun pressed his hands again above the dancing feathers held by Dia's young hands. Sky and clouds fell onto the image, streams from his hands broken by feathers dance, adding to the visions the sands told.
Releasing the blue sands first, Jarthun gasped as a shape rose from the mixture before, cloaked in the blue that marked the sky and magics. Yellow sands in the form of a man walking, as the red and blue ringed him.
Beside him, Jarzhun stirred, knowing the meanings, obviously. The older men waited on the girl's efforts, watching the sands of white now fall from the overseer's palm.
Two bolts of lighting formed amid the palette, twisting around the man still wreathed by the magics. Beside him, green sands formed grass, then the grey ash of the desert swallowed the blades, eroding the man's figure. Two bits of the man became clearer, as the red and yellow sands mingled, staining his body the brown of leathers only his folk and the elves wore in this place.
One last swirl arose from the wind spirit, which revealed a fallen eagle amid the skulls, rising up and moving into the east, settling out upon a fringe of green sands near the rope's ring. Two shadows of birds followed the kenrathi to that place, where a solitary tent seemed to form around them from the grey ash as the wind spirit departed.
"This place will turn upon you, but your fate keeps you here a bit longer. The clan has fallen, the beasts from the Ringed Orb taking the grass from us." Dia mourned. "The eagles have fled, but the beasts hunt us down." She shook her head, trembling hand replacing the feathers into their leather protecting sheet. "The golden man, that one I fear. Shalu cast him as well. As does Harzan. He has pointed ears, but is not Harzan."
"One of the long lived ones." Jarzhun spoke soft, taking up the telling as the girl grasped her leather vest, chilled as the wind-spirit hovered over her. "One who hunts. But no hints from the sands or this spirit as to who or what."
"Who? The hunter of men has come then?" Jarthun gazed at the young boy, standing arrogantly by the entry to the sacred diwim.
"The hunter of men is of another line. Not the boy. Though the sands say he will aid the hunter at some point." Jarzhun sighed. "We knew the clan to be dead. I came to find you, hoping some girl here at last convinced you to raise a child, my brother. My grandchildren cannot be the last. Or so my sands said when cast this morning."
"Unless some wench away west has a child by me, there is none." Jarthun said. "The Scorpions led me here, where I am the last of our father's clan, and now you say our mother's clan withers away as well. This is good, for the one to kill men will not arise if the clans die."
A stray puff of wind stirred the sands, before the girl could break the rope and free them to the air. Within, the swirl of the wind-spirit again stirred the sands, dropping over her shoulders much as her clan's totem dove upon prey. The golden figure was joined by another, topped with copper hair, fighting off attacks of beasts and something darker. Then all was rent asunder, as the wind-spirit wildly lifted all the sands into the air, before they fell again, all still inside the rope.
All gazed at the marks the sands made, shocked. The girl looked desperately to her grandfather for guidance in reading the image laying there.
Jarzhun gazed at his twin, then looked away. "The hunter of men will rise." His whisper died in the wind left by the spirit's departure. "But the men he hunts..."
Staring at the sands, for the first time in years, Jarthun smiled at the sands. "He will hunt only those that prey upon the defenseless and those who drink blood." The overseer leaned back. "And the companion to the hunter has arisen."
Dia whispered softly. "But the clan...."
"Shall rise from a storm of dust, and give the hunter of men the support he needs." Jarzhun laughed. "Weasels will never live this casting down, nor the fact that they will forge this hunter, by their treachery amid the Grass."
Jarthun rose up. "The storm still lies before us, brother. And the desert is very unforgiving."
"Who is this hunter?" The boy asked, stepping forward at last.
Looking at him, and that hair, Jarthun wondered that as well.
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