Strong Heart I - 1

The caravan guards lingered over the remains of their midday meal, sheltering from arid afternoon heat in the dark of the tavern. Five of the battered and dusty mercenaries sat together at the end of a long table; one of them leaned back against the cool mud-brick wall while studying a piece of parchment.

...have heard several reports now about new jinn breed, Akmanshe north to Gholadun. Invisible except eyes...

But how did they survive the encounter to tell the tale?

The mercenary suppressed a sigh. Little gods grant that you put that in your next letter, Boz, and that it gets to me before these new jinn do. Gholadun, curse it. Right where we're headed.

"Somet'ing unnatural about a soldier reading," muttered one of the other four guards nursing small beers at the table, studying the reader with gray eyes. Those light eyes along with his fine, sandy hair and fairer skin under the permenant sunburn suggested that the commentor was Nitali. The prominently hooked nose confirmed it. Unlike the others, all young men, he had a touch of iron in the stubble on his chin.

"You've been stuck with me for two months now, Jerom," the reader said without looking up from the parchment, "You should know by now I'm no plebe soldier."

"No, he's worse." One of the young guards spoke this time. His wavy black hair, brown complexion, and brown eyes could place him anywhere in the Fers provinces of Tevre or Armyria. He smirked over his clay mug. "Jo's one of those honor-mad desert warriors, little gods help us."

"Damn right," Jo replied, still obstensibly reading the letter, "For all you know, the little gods sent me to watch your honor, Ros."

Rostam laughed and raised his mug. "Good luck with that, boss!"

Big, bald Babak chuckled at the exchange from his seat next to Rostam. Across the table, the youngest guard, Khusru, glanced at Jo first, before cracking a smile. He had joined their caravan only two weeks ago. Aside from the Babak's shaved head and Khusru's brown hair, both of them had the same generic Fersi appearance as Rostam.

"Hey, Jo! You still looking for some extra coin?"

Jo sat up, facing the speaker. It was another guardsman, Haik of twice-broken nose fame, standing in the doorway. Beside him waited a nervous-looking young man with curly black hair and a gently shabby version of the local robes.

"Yeah, but can he pay it?"

Haik barked a laugh. "Now, now, Jo, sword-swingers are like beggars and whores, you can't be too picky." He jabbed a thumb in the young man's direction. "The kid wants a guard for a couple days at his family's shop."

Jo stood up abruptly and walked out of the shadows, over to Haik. Standing, the thin guard towered over the other men in the tavern. Thick black hair was braided in tight rows along the mercenary's scalp, which left nothing to hide the scars slashing at an angle from mid-brow to right jaw and the chunk missing from Jo's lower left ear. A ruby stud winked in the right ear.

"You might fuck around at sword-swinging, but some of us take our jobs seriously," Jo said, standing squarely in front of Haik with a scowl twisting the scars.

Beside Haik, the young man's eyes widened and he glanced up hesitantly at the broken-nose guard. Jo's eyes rolled.

"Tell him I don't bite, Haik."

"Don't worry, kid," Haik said to the young man, grinning and unperturbed by Jo's irritation. The heavy scarring on his own face and the odd missing tooth made his expression less than reassuring. "He looks like a skinny desert devil, alright, but he knows better'n biting the hand that feeds him."

"Never mind, I'll do the talking," Jo sighed and waved the stranger back out the door, following him through. Outside, the mercenary turned to the young man with a more polite expression. "Don't mind Haik, he isn't as mean as he looks. Now, you had a guard job?"

The local straightened slightly at the question. "Yes. Honored Guard, my name is Tobias. I'm staying with my cousin and her family, but her husband needs to go to Eret, that's a town about a day and a half from here. We're worried that some men might cause problems if he's gone, so I'd like someone to help guard the shop then. Guard Haik didn't seem interested in the job, but said you might be?"

Jo smiled crookedly. "Haik doesn't have the patience for that kinda job, but it sounds good to me. When, and what's the pay? We're only staying a week while the caravan master takes care of his business here."

"As soon as my cousin can leave. I can offer two cuprics up front, room and board, and three cuprics when my cousin gets back," Tobias answered. "Or we could trade you in embroidery thread instead."

The crooked smile disappeared. "I don't embroider."

"Oh, no! I meant as trade goods." He blushed faintly. "My cousin's family sells dyed embroidery thread; mostly linen but some nice silk hanks, too. That's why her husband wants to go Eret, to look into a new dye supplier."

"And these men who are gonna cause trouble if he does?"

"My cousin-in-law is a respected merchant in this town, but not everyone approves of him taking me on." Tobias' gaze drifted down the street as he spoke. He glanced back up at the mercenary, his hazel eyes briefly meeting yellow-brown ones before he added in a quieter, steady voice, "I'm a magician."

"Ah." Jo's gaze gaze roamed for a moment as well. That complicated things quickly. Not only a magician, but the first one I've heard of that isn't in a nobleman's retinue. But if he was a local village witch, why bring a stranger into a dispute with the neighbors? "Can't defend yourself?"

"I don't know how familiar with magicians you are, Honored Guard, but defending ourselves without patronage or local popularity often leads to nefarious accusations."

Jo suppressed the instinctive desire to make the hand sign warding off demonic magic in front of this potential employer. There must've been some motion, though, because Tobias smiled ruefully.

"Fine," Jo said, "But I also want another pair of cuprics for every broken bone or stab wound I get, unless you're paying to fix me up. Sound fair, hey?"

Tobias hesitated, but then nodded. Jo smiled broadly.

"My name's Joa Na v'Fasainjd, by the way, although Jo is fine if you haven't pissed me off. I need to go talk to the caravan master to make sure this won't interfere with his business. Why don't you report back to your kin meanwhile, and then meet me again here? Say, mid-afternoon?"

"Yes, and thank you, Guard, ah, Jo. I hope we can finalize the arrangements then. I just..." The magician hesitated, glancing down at the guard's clothes.

Jo looked down. Tunic, belt with a sword in a plain scabbard and curved desert warrior's knife in its colorfully woven sheath, Armyrian-style trousers, sandals, all the same as the other guards except for the desert knife.

"The knife-sheath looks like it has the Fasaid pattern, but I've never seen it with those three white bars before."

"That's the mark of a dagha pavadkar."

"Oh!" Tobias blushed. "You're, um, you were, ah... Yeah."

With a sinking feeling, Jo realized that not only was Tobias one of the few people outside the desert who recognized the term, but also knew what it meant - what it really meant.

She scowled. "Yeah. Once I was a girl."