“I know,” Maia answered. “But that is what I learned. I . . . I can read myself.” She looked down at her lap, feeling a subtle blush rise to her cheeks.
“And if that were not enough to bind you to a pole and light you on fire,” he said darkly, “the charm you wear around your neck certainly would.” He grunted and shifted to one knee before rising. “As I said, it explains why the Dochte Mandar are hunting you so fiercely. Ach, what a kettle of fish.” He tapped the haft of the axe against his meaty palm. “Let me tell you something you should know.”
Maia nodded and brushed away one of the mule’s ears that clung to her sleeve.
“The King of Dahomey, blight the man, is always on the prowl for another war. Rumor has it that he intends to invade Comoros because your father cast out all the Dochte Mandar. He claims his motives are pious, of course, but a wild goose never reared a tame gosling.” He sniffed, spat, and continued. “If he got his hands on you, my lady, he would use you to cause a civil war in Comoros. He has not been king for very long. The man has a reputation of being a notorious rake. He is a seasoned warrior and always has an army in the field to test the boundaries of his neighbors. A greedy little seeder with the ambition to rule all the kingdoms. I cannot work for a man like that, and I have refused his offers to do so. His lot are insufferable, and I stopped caring long ago how much he is willing to offer me—some men cannot be bought for coin when the cause is wrong.” He wiped his nose. “Not that I throw away coins, mind you, but that man is greedy, ambitious, and dishonest. He’s no maston. What I am trying to say, Lady Maia, is you have trouble coming behind you as well as trouble in front of you. Our best hope is to get some supplies in the little town down the mountain and then avoid as many other towns and villages as we can and cross over to Mon.” He looked at her and growled stiffly, “Unless they are hunting you there as well?”
She shook her head. “Your plan sounds reasonable, Jon Tayt. How far is the nearest town again?”
“Before dusk if we stop yammering and start walking.” Argus lifted his head, ears suddenly pointed straight up, and a growl eased from his throat.
“Ah, your protector is back,” he quipped. Hunched over, he maneuvered to the edge of the cave and exited into the sunlight. Maia found her sack and quickly slung it around her shoulders and edged her way out as well, the boarhound trotting ahead of her.
The kishion glowered at her as she emerged.
“I slept overlong,” she apologized. Some of her strength had returned, and she felt light-headed with hunger.
“Some sleep while others kill,” he said with a savage frown on his face. Her mood darkened in the face of his wrath. “They have no more hunters following us, you can be assured of that. I got as many of them as I could in the dark, but in the daylight even a blind man could follow our trail. We must go.”
“I am sorry,” Maia said, gripping the kishion’s arm.
He thrust her away. “Why must I keep repeating this lesson,” he said with a dangerous tone in his voice. He pitched it lower, but he did not seem to care that Jon Tayt could hear him. “You are tenderhearted and it will get you killed. That man hunting us, he does not care how many innocents perish to achieve his aim. He is not bound by the rules of your conscience. Innocent folk will die because they crossed our path. Settle it within yourself, Lady Maia. It is a harsh reality in this world that those in power need no justification and beg no excuses. Even your father is this way.”
Maia’s heart shriveled with dread at the words. Her heart pounded with fury, and she wanted to force him to deny it. Her father had been a maston. A descendent of the first Family and the ruling houses of Comoros. He would not stoop to murdering his enemies as the rulers of Comoros had done in the days of her ancestors, the days before the mastons fled the realm on ships.
“I do not. I will condone neither the death of innocent villagers nor the purposeful deaths of my enemies,” Maia said through what felt like chalk in her throat.
“What would you have me do?” the kishion sneered. “Beg them to stop hunting us? The only reason they stopped hounding our trail was fear. They feared me; they feared the dark. We must use whatever weapons are available to us. At present, we have little but our ability to flee. Two men against twenty is an unfair fight under any circumstances.” He turned and gave an earnest look to Jon Tayt. “Lead on, hunter. We must not let them overtake us on the trail.”
The burly hunter sheathed the throwing axe in his belt. “Yes, I am not squeamish about leaving corpses behind us to rot in the woods. Or under rocks.” Maia watched him bend over near the edge of the cave mouth and scatter mule’s ear leaves over a thin, rough cord half hidden by the edge of the stone. She realized he had triggered it to collapse.