Chapter 75

Battulga Tanghun had watched the fight that was no fight. Kudjan had not been the greatest of warriors but he was a Yorak. No woman should have been able to kill him ... and she hadn’t. Not the woman had killed Kudjan, the stallion had. A Thaki stallion worthy of being ridden by a god, but a woman rode him.

He watched them return, unhurriedly, at an easy trot. The woman sat lightly on the stallion, bareback, and instead of reins, she held one hand loosely in his long, black mane. Battulga watched her face – no anger, no relief, no pride about her victory, nothing. Her face didn’t reveal anything ... apart from a single truth. It was the face of a warrior.

“The woman warrior defeated her Yorak challenger and saved the Binju.”

The voice of the foreigner interrupted Battulga’s contemplations. He stared at the man, willing him into silence. It didn’t work.

“It may look like the gods are laughing at you but that’s not true. There’s only me.”

Battulga’s hand rested on the pommel of his scimitar as he watched the man. This was not a warrior. His hand slid onto the hilt of his blade and clasped it.

“Any other challengers?”

This time it was the woman’s voice, interrupting his thoughts.

“No?” the woman insisted.

Battulga looked at her. So close to him, he could see her eyes. She hadn’t killed the challenger herself and the hunger for blood in those cold, green eyes remained unsatisfied.

“No,” he decided, returning his hand to rest on the pommel of his blade. “What is your name, warrior?”

“Her name is Evanis Danjala,” Zaya eagerly provided, rushing to Evanis’ side.

Battulga watched his daughter and frowned.

Zaya nudged Evanis’ thigh. “This is my father. Address him as Tömujin Battullga,” she urgently whispered.

Evanis watched the excited young woman and frowned as well.

“My father,” Zaya muttered, “the one who decides about my future. The one you have to talk to if you want me to become your concubine.”

“You think this is a good moment to ask him for your bride price?”

“Better now than later, after you kill some more of his warriors.”

“Good point,” Evanis conceded and turned to Battulga. “Ah ... Toemukin Bat--”

“Tömujin,” Zaya hissed.

“Toemudjin Battulga,” Evanis corrected. “I was just made aware you are Zaya’s father and I was wondering--”

“Not here, not now,” Battulga interrupted.

Without another word, he turned his horse and rode off at a fast gallop. The other Yorak riders spurred their horses and quickly followed their leader.

“I think you scared him,” Jabbit commented, watching them ride away.

“You think?” Evanis asked with a grin. “I think Zaya’s father has a crush on me and just wants to meet more privately.”

“Then he has good reason to be scared,” Jabbit rejoined.

“Battulga will report this encounter to Shunken Targhun, the Great Dobhan,” Aishen Mashuren intervened.

“Has the Great Dobhan some pretty daughters, too?” Evanis asked.

Zaya slapped Evanis’ thigh. “You’re terrible.”

Aishen Mashuren gritted her teeth and looked up at the sky. “When the Great Dobhan comes looking for you, my god, will you tell him who you are or will you delude him?” she asked, watching the circling scavengers.

“My name is Jabbit,” her god answered. “I chose this name before I became a god. Now I am a god but my name is still Jabbit. Failing people’s expectations was never a delusion, it’s the truth of my existence.”

“You are a god but who are you?” Aishen asked pleadingly. “You called the Yorak to war against Aloria in the lands of the Great Snake. Are you the god of the Yorak or will you protect the Alorian snakes? Or are you the god of the crows and will destroy us all?”

Jabbit looked at the Alsani, at her crumbled poise and the tears in her eyes. “I’m neither the god of the Yorak nor the god of the Alorians and crows are not religious,” he answered impassively. “I am not the god of the many, I am the god of the few. Who are you, Aishen Mashuren? One of the many or one of the few?”

The Alsani dropped to her knees and bowed deeply enough for her brow to touch the ground. “You are my god. I am whoever you want me to be.”

“I’m hungry,” Jabbit remarked as he walked past her toward the tent.

Evanis slid down from the back of her stallion and crouched next to the Alsani. “I think he likes you,” she said.

Aishen looked up at the face of the demoness, searching for the derision she expected to see, but there was none.

“Hey, most people stay dead when I chop off their heads,” Evanis justified her conjecture. “Well, apart from the patch-men, but that’s another story. However, you got your head back so you are still able to annoy him with your stupid questions. Why do you do that? He’ll never tell you anything he doesn’t want you to know. Make your own plans. That’s what I do. You are one of the few, isn’t there anything you want for yourself?”

“Advice from a demoness on how to handle a god?” Aishen asked but with a smile – which looked strange on a face not used to smile. “Thank you ... Evanis.”

Evanis stood up. “Just go and get your little sluts to make him breakfast.”

Aishen got up as well. “Yes, I heard him. The Devourer is hungry,” she said, still smiling.

As the Alsani left, Evanis looked for Zaya. She found her in a whispered but apparently heated conversation with Quara.

“And what do you two conspire about?” Evanis asked, approaching the young women.

“Nothing!” Zaya exclaimed, startled. “I mean we weren’t conspiring – not at all. Quara wanted to ask Lord Jabbit something and I told her she better should ask you. That was all.”

Evanis raised a brow and looked from Zaya to Quara. “And what do you want to ask?”

Quara swallowed and wrung her hands. “I wanted to ... I ... after the trial,” she nervously started. “After the trial, one of the Great Dobhan’s concubines came to take me back to him but she told me Tanju and I wouldn’t be safe because Bayani Nikhara wants my death. So I don’t know where to go and I wanted to ask Jabbit if ... please forgive me for calling Lord Jabbit just Jabbit but that’s what he told me to do. Well, I ... I wanted to ask Jabbit if maybe Tanju and I ... if we could stay with him for a while. But then I met Zaya and she told me I should ask you ... Bayani Evanis, because--”

“Bayani?” Evanis interrupted. “I’m no bloody Bayani!”

“I’m sorry,” Quara anxiously apologized.

“Of course you are no Bayani, Evanis,” Zaya soothingly intervened. “You’re a warrior. Quara is just nervous and misspoke. I told her to talk to you because Lord Jabbit defers to you in such matters. As a warrior, only you decide who may become a member of your household.”

Evanis crossed her arms over her chest, cocked her head and looked at Zaya. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Of course not,” Zaya answered, doe-eyed and innocent. “Why would you even ask that?”

“Because I’m not stupid,” Evanis retorted. “Let me explain something you apparently don’t understand. I spent the night bartering with the god of shady business about the price I have to pay to get you as my concubine. It’s a hefty price and I doubt you’re worth it, but I’ll pay it. So you’ll get your wish. You will be my concubine, but if you piss me off, I’ll hang you up at your nipples as a warning for all the other little cunts who think they can walk over me to get to Jabbit. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Evanis,” Zaya meekly agreed, her innocent, doe-eyed gaze directed on the ground.

“Bloody Bayani!”

All three women spun on their heels and stared at the little boy on the buckskin mule.

Evanis put her hands on her hips and cast a punitive glare at the youngster. “Do you think that’s funny, midget?”

Tanju answered her question with a wide grin, proudly displaying a brand new gap in his baby teeth.

Evanis snorted and turned to Quara. “You better let Jabbit sort out his leg. With his smartass attitude, pipsqueak will need to be able to run fast. Being cute won’t save him forever.”

Quara gasped. “Does that mean we can stay with you, Bay- I mean, warrior Evanis?”

“And you get a tattoo,” Evanis grumbled and walked off toward the tent. “Something really nasty. A big hairy spider. No, I don’t like hairy. Better a scorpion or maybe a poisonous frog.”

Disappointingly, Aishen did not send any pretty sluts to prepare breakfast but a group of completely un-slutty, older women. After breakfast, Evanis saddled Braggart, picked up Zaya and rode off, leaving Jabbit to fend for himself. Just as the previous day, he was walking at the very end of the miles-long caravan. Unlike the previous day, he was surrounded by a group of very taciturn women with packhorses - who also didn’t talk a lot. Although Quara and Tanju were around as well, Quara mimicked the older women’s reticent behavior and Tanju was asleep most of the time. So it was a long and boring day of traveling for Jabbit and only the god knows what he thought about to occupy his mind.

Nahseyra sat on the windowsill in her family’s quarters and absently stroked the black bunny in her lap. She was looking out the barred window, watching a drizzling rain falling upon a town which was as gray as the sky the rain was falling from. There was a knock on the door ... again. She ignored it. Her silence had worked the first time but this time it didn’t. The door opened.

Nahseyra looked at the illicit intruder and wrinkled her nose.

Anseyla shrugged. “I knocked.”

“But I didn’t invite you to come in.”

“That’s because you didn’t know it was me who knocked.”

“Poppa is at the harbor and momma went with Hammie into town,” Nahseyra stated. “So now you can leave again.”

Anseyla didn’t leave and sat down on the windowsill next to Nahseyra. “I didn’t come for your mom or dad. I’m here in my official role as Ambassador of the Alorian Empire, requesting our ally, the Queen of Ibanee, to participate in a conference with the legate of Barthobar.”

Nahseyra looked out the window. “I’m not a queen. I’m a little girl and no one cares what I say.”

“Oh, alright,” Anseyla accepted. “I’ll tell Sybil you couldn’t come because you’re too busy sulking.”

“I’m not sulking,” Nahseyra protested.

“You make a face like a day-old soft cheese and bewail that the other kids don’t want to play with you. That’s sulking.”

“I don’t look like cheese,” Nahseyra pouted.

“I admit the cheese metaphor works better on Sybil,” Anseyla conceded. “You’re a bit too tanned for it.”

“Does Empress Sybil sulk sometimes, too?”

“Sometimes?” Anseyla snorted. “She’d stay in bed and sulk all day if I didn’t drag her out of it.”

“Is she sad?”

“Sad, worried, angry, feeling helpless and lonesome.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Anseyla confirmed. “She feels the same as you.”

“But she’s not lonesome. We are friends.”

“Does that mean you’re done sulking?”

Nahseyra nodded. “Can you take Jabbit for a moment, please?” she asked, holding her rabbit out to Anseyla.

Anseyla took the black rabbit and pursued his tender loving care. Nahseyra climbed off the windowsill and rushed into her adjacent chamber. When she returned, she held her small, golden crown in her hand.

“Can you put it on my head, please?” Nahseyra asked. “It always sits askew when I do it myself.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” Anseyla answered with a smile.

They exchanged their holdings and Anseyla carefully placed the crown on the little girl’s head of curly hair. Then the Queen of Ibanee, the Ambassador of the Alorian Empire, and a cuddly black bunny went to a meeting with the Empress of Aloria.