Jedit

Chapter 7

Under the hard-handed leadership of Adira Strongheart, the Circle of Seven flung themselves at the beasts of Bogardan until blood puddled underfoot.

Needing only orders, Whistledove Kithkin skipped along a row of jugs still upright and in one long leap seemed to glide like a hummingbird over a savage dogfight between townsfolk and monsters. The brownie kicked off an arching lintel and landed light as thistledown beside Wilemina, just in time to jab her rapier up through a goat-dog's jaw and into its brain, dropping the fiend in its tracks. Even Adira grunted approval at the feat.

Jasmine Boreal, meanwhile, had squeezed past the nearby dogfight to peer down a public well. Adira, limping on one stiff leg, readied a filthy epithet to bark at the feather-brained druid, but she stopped as Jasmine extracted some glittery powder like mica from a pouch and sprinkled it down the well. Instantly a column of water, hundreds of gallons, vomited out of the well into the sky. Snapping her callused hand, Jasmine pointed at some townsfolk harried by goat-dogs. Obedient as a spellbound water elemental, the column of water arced across the marketplace and doused the dogfight like a tidal wave.

Cannily, the druid had reckoned the fiery makeup of the beasts of Bogardan would shun water. She was right, for they were knocked silly. Stumbling and shambling as if poisoned, the coal-black fiends banged into one another and snapped at thin air as if demented. Flames around their eyes and mouths extinguished, and smoke and steam billowed around their heads. As the brutes staggered, angry Palmyrans belabored the dog-monsters with knives, butcher's cleavers, crockery, brooms, tent poles, and anything else that came to hand. Six beasts of Bogardan were beaten down and snuffed out.

"Drop the anchor and drag out the gangplank!" marveled Adira and threw Jasmine a mock salute. Smug, but moving on, Jasmine fiddled in a pouch and tucked dry leaves between her fingers. Tripping over dead goat-dogs and puddles, she caught up with Virgil and Murdoch.

Side by side, the two men plied swords in rhythm to hack at another clutch of beasts that stood their ground. The pirates tried to reach Wilemina and the downed Simone, but the dog-monsters punished the men with nips, bites, and flame breath even as they skipped and skittered away from sword blows.

Coming up behind, Jasmine slapped both men on the back with her herb-charmed fingers. Virgil and Murdoch jumped as if struck by lightning-or energized by it. Their arms suddenly swung swords so fast the action blurred. Flashing steel hacked alien beasts a dozen times in seconds, then a dozen times more, so fast and hard the beasts couldn't dodge. Within a heartbeat the infernal fiends lost a dozen legs cut out from under them. Virgil and Murdoch collapsed gasping and wheezing as if they'd run ten miles.

Impressed, Adira scanned the marketplace to see who else needed help. The long-winged bats, keening like seagulls, were evidently smarter than they looked, for three had jittered from the sky and latched onto a little girl's hair. As her mother shrieked and yanked on the girl's legs, the bats tried to get airborne with their prey. Cursing, Adira grabbed the nearest thing at hand, a melon, and hurled it overhand. It smacked into two bats, smashing them against the wall and breaking their wings. The girl fell into her weeping mother's arms. Adira saw more bats fluttering over a crowd and wished for archers with bird arrows.

For that matter, she wondered, where in the seven seas were all her infamous mercenaries? Surely some of them must have heard the commotion. Yet their chief fought on with what resources she had.

Wilemina, Simone, and Whistledove dispatched more hellhounds with deft blades. The women marched in lock step and actually made a pack give ground. Adira shouted a warning too late. The trio went too far, pressing so the goat-dogs' rumps hit a low wall. Instantly, thinking themselves trapped, the fiery fiends rebounded to the attack. Adira saw Whistledove go under a set of cruel paws and began to run that way- until Simone kicked mightily with a boot, bowled dogs off the brownie, and hoisted her to her feet.

Worst off, perhaps, was Jedit Ojanen, who wrestled two tentacled apes. The battle of giants rocked the end of the marketplace. It was impossible to see who won or even gained the top. Carts, stalls, fruit, and crockery went flying as a snarling mass of orange stripes and black backs, white fangs and dark tentacles rolled over and over. Despite the danger of being crushed, Adira trotted that way over smashed bric-a-brac and food. She had to shove past more sensible Palmyrans who fled like rabbits. Yet she halted at blood-chilling shrieks.

Again the long-winged bats had joined forces to smother the market like black ashes. The creatures might have been disconcerted by the bright desert sun, but now they flitted down to tear at women and children shrunk in a comer. Adira looked for Whistledove, who was lightning quick with her rapier. Jasmine took one look, fished in a pouch, drew out a pinch of something and, muttering under her breath, flicked it like a marble at the jittering flock.

The white glob spun in the air and expanded into a gossamer web that entangled most of the toothy bats. Their wings gummed, the bats flopped to earth and were quickly stamped to death. The few bats who escaped fluttered into the sky and out of sight.

Stumping past trash and bodies to aid Jedit, tracking scuffles and still counting noses, Adira Strongheart for the first time missed Badger and worried. Surely he'd fallen in pursuing Johan, for the faithful sailor would never miss a fight. Heath, her Radjan archer, was out of town, and Echo nursed a broken head back in the town hall, but reinforcements finally arrived. More than a hundred of her Robaran Mercenaries lived in Palmyra, after all, and the screams could be heard all over town.

"About time you got here, Canute! And you, Gerda!" Adira snarled at the tousled two with swords in hand. "Did you get stuck hiding under your bunks?"

"What?" Canute, a burly redhead, squinted about at the carnage. "Whips and wheels, Adira, I came soon's the noise woke me! What orders?"

Disgusted with herself, Adira didn't answer. Of course. This battle wasn't ten minutes old and had started before dawn.

Everyone in the sullied marketplace froze as tremendous roars rebounded from the walls. The coal-black apes adorned with tentacles shrieked in outrage, for they'd met their match in Jedit Ojanen.

One flame-eyed ape pinned the tiger's wrists above his head with massive paws. It snapped its back tentacles like six whips to blind Jedit or else slice his throat, for each tentacle was edged with horny callous as sharp as turtle shell. The other gorilla clung like a leech to Jedit's back. Black hands like pickaxes were lodged deep in the tiger's jabot, steadily throttling. Jedit Ojanen fought back all the harder.

Bucking, twisting, straining, Jedit dragged down his and the ape's mighty arms. Inch by inch he hauled the ape's face close. Flame-red eyes widened as it saw Jedit's yawning mouth lined with gleaming white fangs. Long strings of saliva had been champed to foam, for Jedit was being strangled from behind. Powerless, now pinned itself, the gorilla began to gibber. With the power of a battering ram, Jedit wrenched the ape close and clamped bone-breaking jaws on its muzzle.

Arriving almost too close, Adira Strongheart shivered as the tormented fiend squealed in terror. Slowly, despite being throttled, Jedit cocked his wrists to trap the ape's paws against his lean hips. Flexing his back, Jedit set clawed toes in the dirt of the marketplace and craned his neck upward. Even Adira, veteran of a hundred battles, felt her stomach chum as Jedit tilted his chin, wrenched the ape's skull out of joint, then broke its neck with a gut-wrenching snap. The ape collapsed like a black rug at the man-tiger's feet. Dark tentacles on its back drooped and died like obscene flowers.

Spitting blood and flexing his paws, Jedit Ojanen fought without even turning around. Adira saw his strategy. Rather than claw to dislodge the strangling hands from his throat, Jedit used them to attack the attacker. Reaching by his rounded ears, the tiger clasped the ape's forearms with mighty paws. Squatting, Jedit tugged the ape forward and off-balance. The hellish creature whipped its tentacles in a pelting storm at the cat's face, but Jedit ignored the stinging, slicing blows. Even Adira could see that for all its fearsome strength, the ape was tiring just trying to strangle Jedit, for the tiger's neck was tough as an oak tree. Now it was too late.

Sinking to his hams, Jedit coiled in a ball. Levering against the ape's forearms, he kicked with sinewy legs. Immediately the ape flipped over the tiger's head. Sucking tentacles ripped fur and flesh from Jedit's head and neck, leaving bloody puckers tufted with fur. The ape's back struck the marketplace. Adira clearly felt the dirt jump under her boots.

Roaring in rage, free of the clutching black talons, Jedit Ojanen sent a fist big as a kettle into the sky and brought it down on the ape's muzzle. Adira grunted as bone and teeth shattered. Tentacles shot straight out as in disbelief. Jedit brought down the other paw and smashed bone again. Probably the ape was dead by then, but the tiger continued to pound the ape into a shapeless mass. Still the cat vented its fury, now slapping with claws that raked furrows in the battered body. The carcass was more a red hash than black, and Adira had to turn away.

Another roar made her flinch. Jedit Ojanen had risen, seared by fire and drenched in blood, amber-green eyes glowing wildly with battlelust. He roared defiance at the world as he cast about for another foe, and just for a second Adira felt like a mouse about to be pounced upon.

She blurted, "Slack your sails, tiger shark! We've won! It's over."

Somberly the pirate and panting tiger scanned the shattered marketplace. The reek was awful, a compound of smashed vegetables, spilled wine, fresh blood, broken cheeses, and the sour, scorched stink of the beasts of Bogardan. Yet only townsfolk and a score of Robaran Mercenaries were standing. Many tended the fallen, covering them in rugs or blankets, laying them on broken carts as stretchers, stanching and binding wounds, or pinning bodies flat to wrench broken limbs aright. Simone the Siren was on her feet, as were all her Seveners. Worst hurt, Adira realized, was Jedit Ojanen, unless Badger lay dead in some alley.

"Johan escaped." The tiger spat blood off his muzzle, both his own and his enemy's. Both ears bled, as did a dozen other rips and tears. "Give me your best scouts to track him."

"My best scouts?" Used to giving orders, not taking them, Adira was both flustered and irked. "My best scout is Heath, but he recuperates in Bryce. Wilemina can track a trail, and so can Jasmine, she claims-"

"Wilemina! Jasmine!" Jedit's coughing bark made everyone in the marketplace jump. "Come! We hunt Johan!"

"Heave to!" snapped Adira. "No one crimps my crew without-"

Adira froze as Jedit's bloody, scarred, fire-singed muzzle bobbed an inch from hers. The tiger's growl chilled her blood.

"Don't refuse me revenge."

Blood-flecked tail swishing, limping on a chewed foot, the tiger trotted down the street, bearing west. Wilemina and Jasmine tripped up to Adira, breathless, asking questions with arched eyebrows.

"Go," said Adira. "Keep an eye out. We'll need him and. more now that Johan's returned, damn his ornery hide. Damn both of them."

"Enemies beset me, yet I escape unharmed. Such is my destiny. Yet again I am cursed by cat warriors!"

Alone, Johan complained as he marched barefooted into a wasteland. Tatters of his purple lizard-skin robe trailed, ragged and wet and collecting sand. His red-black tattooed skin shone like fresh blood on agates.

"Forced to brawl in a marketplace like a common thug, and I've squandered the secret of my return, forfeited the element of surprise to the enemy! Still, perhaps this is best. Adira Simpleminded Strongheart and Hazezon Hamhanded Tamar will lose sleep knowing I plot against them, knowing doom dogs their every step!"

Had he been lucid, Johan might have worried that he sputtered and fumed like a village idiot and stooped to childish insults. Yet he blithered on, more exhausted than he realized. Careless of eating and sleeping, Johan had spent weeks crossing a deadly desert before reaching Palmyra, months before that exploring Efrava, and a year or more before that waging war. The furious battle in the marketplace had spent his resources, both mystic and physical, yet he was unaware and plowed on in a mental fog. Fleeing the fight, he'd waded the River Toloron and struck west, for no other reason than that his enemies would expect him to push north. Shaking his horned head, he'd walked for hours, barefoot, without hat or waterskin, no possessions but the shredded purple robe and a few spellcasting oddments in his pockets. Magic sustained his body but took a toll on his mind.

No one heard the half-mad sorcerer mutter, not even an errant shepherd. The land was inhospitable. A few miles from the life-giving river, the terrain reverted to broken shale, crumbled arroyos of orange sand, and scanty bush. Neither sheep nor goats could graze out here. A desert by a different — name, these Western Wastes. Few entered these barrens. Nomads shunned the area, considering it unlucky, believing from ancient legends that unscalable cliffs blocked the way west. There was no water, no greenery, no iron nor gems, no animals-nothing to serve as a lure.

"Tigers. Tiger-men. Man-tigers. Why?" Befuddled without knowing it, Johan talked as he blundered on west. "The cat warriors are too great a force to ignore, so I must control them. Conquer them. But how? Killing them seems too easy. Yet to break them to harness, render them docile, exploit them… What do we know of them? Nothing. What's their secret? How to decipher animal minds? Fabulous knowledge could be had. Yet so much was lost, smothered and crushed by the Ice Ages or swept away by the glacial floods. Somewhere must be preserved the ancient key to subduing the cats-Hunh!"

Johan halted as if poleaxed. Before him, silhouetted against a flaming desert sunset, wavered a mirage-or a vision.

A beautiful woman in blue layered robes, with startling black hair and golden skin, stood with one small hand poised as if to ask a stranger a question.

Hideous in red skin and black stripes and horns like a dragon's, Johan squinted to make the vision freeze, but the woman rippled and shimmered like smoke on water.

Not wishing to appear ignorant, he stated, "I know you!"

"Perhaps." The vision didn't argue. The woman's eyes slanted upward at the comers. A foreigner to Jamuraa. "I am Shauku. I reside in the west."

"You have a library in a palace." Johan nodded like an angry bull. "Hundreds of volumes collected from the far corners of Dominaria. I read of it long ago but only now recalled."

The woman nodded. Johan could clearly see a chipped rock on the horizon through her head. "It's true. All you might wish to learn would lie at your fingertips, were you here."

"Knowledge of the catfolk?" blurted Johan, and could have bitten his tongue for giving up a secret.

"Catfolk? Talking tigers, do you mean? Yes, they are chronicled. A thick book is bound in orange-black hide. Everything to know of cat warriors lies therein."

"Such a book exists?" Johan jerked forward as if yanked on a leash. "To see that-"

He stopped himself rather than reveal a desire, a weakness, but anything that could give him power over the cat warriors he wanted. They were his personal curse conjured by the spirits of the sky, he was sure.

Shauku gestured with a ghostly hand, and from the desert sands seemed to spring the sketchy outlines of a massive palace that just as quickly blew away on the breeze.

She trilled, "My abode is not far for one who can shift body and essence through the planes."

Johan didn't answer, for he could not. To shift, to conjure a spell that whisked one's self immeasurable distances in an eye blink, was a power denied him. Shifting was the first step toward true planeswalking, a feat of true sorcerers who'd grasped the most fundamental secrets of the cosmos. Johan had striven for years to shift but had always failed. So had every other mage in Jamuraa, he knew, even the hated Hazezon Tamar. Perhaps no one in Dominaria could shift. In ancient times drenched in magic, wizards had snapped their fingers and flown to the stars, but it seemed the Ice Ages had first frozen and then diluted all magics. A curse on the current generation, Johan feared.

Lacking an answer, Johan lied. "I'd need an entourage to pay proper respect at your court. It's too much bother to shift weaklings, a strain upon them. I'll come over land."

A smile creased the woman's ghostly cheeks. "I understand. We shall prepare for your visit. It's been too long since so distinguished a guest graced our halls. Until then."

Shauku tipped her chin or perhaps blew an imaginary kiss. Johan wasn't sure, because her visage had already faded. He was left squinting at a chipped rock framed by molten sun.

"Shauku," he muttered. "The ageless librarian, guardian of all the wisdom accumulated by men. Yes, there I must go! And see? I embarked westward before even knowing my journey! No one is more clever than Johan except Johan!"

Pausing, Johan noted his surroundings for the first time. The sun dropped below the western horizon. A cool breeze blew against his right ear, a wind from the north, as always. Already he spoke in imperious tones.

"Very well. We must send word to Tirras for lackeys. Make ready to journey. We strike west! Toward knowledge and greater conquest!"

The far-roaming scouts limped into the town hall just after dawn. Jedit flopped on the floor like an overfed housecat and instantly nodded off.

For a while, people stared at the tiger-man, plainly awed. He sprawled on the floor like a colorful rug, more than seven feet long from toes to nose, with an armspan a fathom wide and a chest like a hogshead barrel. The striped tail, big as a king cobra, stirred and squirmed, never resting. The cat bore scars and scabs from combat that would have killed a man. Ferocious bites marred his muzzle, neck, and shoulder. Some wept fluid, some were swollen and infected and already in danger of breeding maggots. The gruesome burn down his back continued down one leg, and to scorched skin had been added sunburn and rash. All four paws bore bloody scabs from sharp desert shale. He was ticked and dinged and scratched in a dozen other places. Yet despite the homey purring noises, Jedit Ojanen looked deadly as a dozing dragon, and people lowered their voices rather than wake him.

Nursing wounds, yawns, and tankards of beer lounged Adira's Circle of Seven. The governor of Bryce, Hazezon Tamar, was not present, for he roomed in other quarters when forced to visit Palmyra.

Adira sent Virgil to fetch him, adding, "Insist that Haz come right away, for he's been bred to luxury. If he's hurried at his toilet and denied his morning figs and wine, he'll be grumpy, and that's always a treat. On your way back, fetch a leech to heal our cat friend here. Or a horse doctor. Your choice."

Exhausted and parched, Sister Wilemina accepted a mug of beer and drained it, then another, before she could talk. Laying her cloak and bow on the table, she shucked her boots. Murdoch massaged her blistered feet. The druid Jasmine Boreal flung off a poncho, slugged half a jug of wine, laid her head on a table, and slept.

Rasping, the archer explained, "We tracked Johan into the Western Wastes. Feet of the efreet, but that tiger sets a fierce pace! We jogged leagues with him, dropping and sniffing every long bowshot. Johan's spoor went straight west. Cursed queer, that. We kept expecting he'd veer north, but he never did. Where he's bound we can't imagine, nor how he survives without water and sunshade. Those rocks would bake a basilisk! After a while, Master Stripes and his hot temper cooled some, and those wounds of his must have ached! They'd cripple a war-horse! Jasmine and I pleaded to turn back. Finally he did, though I'll not deny his courage. He left blood in every footprint. Paw-print. Oh, I hope never again to see such a blighted land! May I eat? Please?"

"Of course. Do." Adira had ordered a sturdy repast because the day promised to be busy. Gracing the table were bacon, cold cock, flat bread, dates, honeyed yogurt, goat cheese, and more. Wilemina wolfed while Adira summed up her crew's state.

"We found Badger in an alley, kicking like a beached grouper and half-blind, but he'll live. The Keepers tend his burns. Heath, our favorite fifth wheel, arrived by packet boat late yesterday, just in time to miss the fun. The marketplace is a shambles. The dead we buried. I attended their gravesides since I'm mayor of this illustrious rat hole. Jasmine and Whistledove and Murdoch have proved official Seveners, so I suppose they'll want higher pay."

Adira Strongheart sipped beer and wiped foam off her upper lip. Staring at the wall, she dandled one booted foot, and finally said, "West? Why would Johan run west and not north toward Tirras? I should think he'd head home to flay his subjects and eat babies. But west? A hundred leagues or more of nothing…"

"That's our biggest setback in brawling with Johan," said the sensible Simone. "You can't outguess a madman."

"Johan's not mad."

Everyone startled as Jedit Ojanen uncoiled from the floor, evidently refreshed by his nap. Scabs on bums and wounds cracked and wept anew, but he scarcely noticed. "That shaman's canny as a wounded fox, but he's not mad."

The Circle of Seven craned their necks. The tiger-man's rounded ears brushed the ceiling beams. Except for a painted green loincloth supported by a thin shoulder strap, he went naked, his body a riot of orange, black, and white stripes, with an astonishing expanse of white chest. Scarred, burned, and wounded, he was still a magnificent creature.

"But you're not Jaeger." Adira thought aloud. "Jaeger was older, steadier. Quick into combat but a thinker. Even a brooder. You're just a cub, albeit a mighty big one. You think with your fists. Claws."

"Tell me of my father," said the tiger. "Please. We know nothing from the time he left Efrava."

"Efrava?" asked Adira.

"Our homeland. An oasis in the eastern desert. The heat and sand wurms prevent our people from journeying west, but my father braved it to gain knowledge. Tell me first, please."

"Very well." Adira tapped another cask to wet her throat. "Though it was Hazezon who found him almost dead north of Bryce…"

Listening, but licking his fangs with a raspy pink tongue, the tiger-man strode to a bench and plunked down, making sturdy pine creak in protest. Without asking, he hooked a roast hen with one hand and bit off half, bones and all. He devoured three more hens, half a ham, a wheel of cheese, a slab of smoked bacon, four loaves of flat bread-everything on the table, including licking clean a pot of honey.

The while, Adira talked about Jaeger, the first cat warrior ever seen in the central desert of Jamuraa, the first tiger-man ever heard of. She spoke of their comradeship and Jaeger's valiant skills, both at fighting and diplomacy, and recounted without emotion the months-long battles and uncounted skirmishes to stop Johan's invasion of the southlands.

The story ran long in the telling, for Simone chimed in with other accounts of Jaeger's valor. "He saved Heath's life once by ripping a fire drake out of the sky. Badger's too, and mine a few times. Everyone loved him. Even those crotchety merfolk liked Jaeger."

Virgil returned with word that Hazezon Tamar was on the way. Coming too was a witch who knew herbs. After those announcements, a long pause hung in the air. All the Circle of Seven watched their leader.

Suddenly weary, Adira Strongheart rushed the story's end. "When we dug out after the sandstorm, Johan's army was dead and buried, though most of Palmyra was too. Yet first thing, Jaeger announced he must quest south. He sensed Johan had survived-how I can't say. His duty and destiny to kill Johan, he said, was cast by prophecy."

"The prophecy of None, One, and Two?" asked Jedit, amber-green eyes glowing.

"Aye." Adira scratched her head vigorously. "It made my brain ache to hear Haz and Jaeger blither about it. They'd spend hours arguing about which was None and which One, and so on, round and round, but Jaeger believed the prophecy implicitly, and…"

"And it killed him?" asked Jedit.

"Perhaps," sighed Adira. "No one knows. Your father never returned. Once we'd gained our sea legs, I sent out scouts and nomads. They scoured the desert for leagues east, but all that new-blown sand made avenues for wurms. They could burrow this far west for the first time, you see. We lost near a score of people to the crawling scourges. That may've been your father's fate, deep-sixed in an ocean of sand. Or Johan may've killed him, though it seems impossible that any mortal could put out that flame. Jaeger Ojanen was a-a living legend." Surprised at her own depth of feeling, Adira fell silent.

After a meal, a tiger would normally sleep, but Jedit picked up a chunk of fallen plaster and filed his claws razor-sharp with a harsh grating noise. In morning sun slanting through the door, his eyes sparkled like cold emeralds. Filing, concentrating, Jedit told his own story, as Hazezon Tamar arrived with clerks and palace guards in tow, of how Johan arrived on an exhausted drake and crashed in the desert only to be rescued by Jaeger's son. How Johan toured Efrava and assessed every feature as if to buy the oasis, or conquer it. Winding up, Jedit asked a score of questions that showed his keen mind had absorbed every detail of Adira's story. The humans' estimation of the tiger's mental prowess rose considerably. Finally, Jedit spoke.

"I believe Johan killed my father. Elsewise Jaeger would have returned to you, his friends. That egg-sucking sorcerer wears my father's medallion like a trophy of the kill. Now Johan's wreaked havoc on Palmyra again. Likely he's a slave to prophecy also. Those few words seem to gang we tigerfolk to Johan like a yoke of oxen. Now to fulfill prophecy and finish my father's work falls to me. No doubt Johan plans new grief for these southlands, as you call them. Surely only death will quell his misdeeds.

"Efrava… Johan must have designs on Efrava too, if only because it's part of Jamuraa, as you call our motherland."

"An oasis in the eastern desert?" Hazezon Tamar spoke for the first time, white beard wagging. "So far? How could such a site aid Johan in conquering the southlands, if that's his goal this time? His army couldn't deviate even ten miles from the River Toloron without perishing. Never could they cross the eastern sands of Sukurvia. No one can, not even nomads."

"One thing bubbles from this muddle." Adira Strongheart shook her head of tousled curls. "Johan's off the leash, and someone must bring him to heel."

"True." Jedit surveyed the room and the Circle of Seven as if ready to take command. "Terrent Amese makes our path shine clear as moonlight. The sooner we hunt down Johan and kill him, the better for all our peoples. Are we avowed? You know what such an endeavor entails."

"Suffering and death," said Adira without self-pity. She rubbed her game leg. "We've done it before. Yet what must be, must be. We mount an expedition westward into the wastes. For justice, and finally, we hope, for a lasting peace."