The Venomancer

1.9 - The Painted Poacher

"So, you chose to stay," Cassa said, returning with a platter of spiced meats, unleavened currant bread and a bowl of sun-roasted nuts. "Can I tempt you with some more sva akem?" Tan pulled a face. "Complimentative as ever. Well, besides water, it's all I have. My apologies it is not to your taste. I hope my food suits you better."

Tan had already sunk his teeth into a peppered sand-fowl leg and he watched as the guard leisurely stripped the bone of its meat with a small, brass knife.

"I see your table etiquette has improved with your status," Tan said through his food.

Cassa blinked at him slowly. "I see yours is still as disgusting. Your mother leads a pack of wolves, it seems. Though your Farban tongue is rather good. Do you still practice?"

"Yes."

"Even in green Almysia?"

"'Bout that," Tan muttered, spooning a handful of nuts into his mouth, "I don't live there. I don't live anywhere."

"You must have somewhere you are based? Somewhere you keep your belongings?"

"Mostly on my person, but you could say I spend a good portion of my time looking for opportunities in Odeis."

"The city of scholars?" Cassa replied incredulously. "How do you find it? Do you understand any of their science?"

"A little," Tan shrugged. "But the way they obsess over it... Been out in the sun too long and drank the seawater, I think."

Cassa raised an eyebrow. "Tandei, jokes aside: Odeis is a continent apart from the forests, with Farba the warden between them. Why would you choose to flee in the opposite direction of your birthplace? Your home?"

Tan grabbed another leg, tore off the skin and slurped it. "Cassa, I want nothing more in this world than to go home to my tribe. I want to feel welcomed somewhere at last, and not hated - judged - for everything I do. I want to live comfortably and unafraid of being myself, but you know I can't just do that. Besides, the forests would have been my obvious destination. I felt Odeis would be safer."

"Understandable, yet the Western Wastes teem with ghûls of late. I should know; I hunt them." Cassa refilled his cup. "Tell me, why would you come back here at such terrible times? You heard about the mass ghûl attack, didn't you?"

"Yes, but Odeis will never put its trust in kuzoroism, and shuns it even when conventional medicine fails. Farba'al Mar relies on sorcery. I've seen the posters; you can't miss them. You only need walk the streets five minutes to understand how the Rera Kuzorocari is loved like a father and worshipped like a king. I felt there was more hope of finding what I sought, here."

"And what is that?"

"My nephew in Odeis is dying, my friend. His mother begged me to come all the way out here to find some way of reversing it."

"Nephew? But your family live in the forests - "

"People don't have to be blood to be your family. He's my nephew in name only. I owe Shara for my life and the least I can do is save her little boy's."

Cassa scratched his whiskered chin. "What happened to him?"

"He was one of victims mauled by a great winged beast when it swooped down on the plateau less than a month ago. Cassa, ghûls that far west of their desert haunt are unheard of. That's what made it so terrifying. Soldiers brought it sailing to the ground with their flaming catapults, but it recovered in a matter of seconds and took to the air again. Now the Odeise are almost as unsettled as the High Farbans, living in fear of that monster haunting the skies at night. Phaladri lies wailing in a cot and his skin turns stiffer and bloodier by the day. Six people have already died and the doctors can do nothing more for him."