The camp broke around midmorning once everyone had eaten breakfast. Sokan was surprised at how quickly and efficiently it happened. There were no complaints, no grumbles — just a swift obedience as tents were taken down, fires put out, gear stowed and packed on the horses, soldiers lined up and camp followers began moving in a less-organized if no less purposeful manner. Sokan had been offered a horse but chose to walk next to Basa’s mount. He wore his blue cloak and carried his lyre in one hand so he could play her favorite songs when she requested them. They began the day marching towards the border Patoga and Estalia shared, stopping in the mid-afternoon to rest the horses, change the pack animals, and stretch their own legs while having a quick lunch and attending to nature’s call. The general was also waiting for word from some of their scouts. The princess favored Sokan with an explanation while the two of them explored the shaded forest just off the highway.
“General Xaxis sent a light patrol unit to find your brother a few days ago. They haven’t returned.”
“I’m not surprised, Basa,” Sokan sighed. “Kass may not be home. And, even if he is home, he’s not easy to convince to do anything. Short of the Chief Ranger ordering him to do something, I’m not certain he’ll do anything you ask.”
“Unless you ask him to.”
“Granted,” Sokan nodded. “Still though, even with me asking him, he might refuse. He hates the Prime and your entire family.”
“Why?” Basa asked. She blinked her blue eyes with the innocence of a child who had never been told the whole truth about her father. “I know that my father did some bad things but my whole family was killed when I was a baby. Only two of my sisters are still alive that I know of and I just want to see Kelsa again. What?” she said, sounding distinctly annoyed. Sokan was gaping at her. The more time he spent with Basa, the more she sounded like the little girl she really was.
“Your father did something that my brother cannot forgive, Basa. Something that he takes very personally. He killed our father.”
“Oh,” Basa said quietly. She looked down. Her face went pale and her hair turned pitch black with shame. “Your father was the man who fought back near Selbai.”
“He was.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Basa. You weren’t even born yet.”
“Still, he was my father and he did terrible things. He killed your father. It must have been hard for you, losing your father like that.”
“Well,” Sokan said, grimacing and scrubbing a hand through his hair. He blushed in embarrassment. “I wasn’t born when my father died. I was born seven months later.”
“So your brother raised you?”
“In a way. He took care of my mother and I. Mother had a difficult pregnancy with me and lost her sanity due to our father’s death and nearly losing her own life as well as mine in childbirth. Kass…he took it hard and it made him a very cynical and bitter man. Still, he took care of us both, raised me well, taught me as much as he could, and he’s always been there for me when I needed him. He’s my brother, Basa. But I don’t think it’s fair for us to ask him to track down your sister like this. He’s going to feel ambushed by it and he’s going to feel like we’re blackmailing him into it by having me make the request. If you’ve sent your guards after him, he’s going to be pissed off to begin with and he may think I’m asking under duress.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Basa whispered. She sounded frightened and close to tears. “We’ve had so much trouble with Estalia… I don’t want to spark a war when we already have our own civil war still going on!” she wailed.
“Calm down, Basa,” Sokan said quickly, trying to soothe the girl. “You’re not going to spark a war, I promise.” He squatted down and hugged her, patting her on the back. Her arms wrapped around his neck and he sighed in relief when he felt her relax. “No promises that you won’t have Kass cursing up a storm, though.” He grinned when he felt her laugh. “You might get lucky and make him angry enough that he comes hunting you down just to give you a piece of his mind. And, you’re young enough and adorable enough that you might actually be able to convince him to go look for your sister.”
“That would be funny,” she giggled. “What does your brother look like? Does he look a lot like you?”
“Not really. He looks more like our father,” Sokan explained. “He’s taller than I am and more heavily muscled. He’s hairier, too. His hair is dark blond — almost brown — and he has a beard. He carries a lot of knives and daggers as well as a crossbow. His eyes are blue like mine but that’s where our resemblance ends.”
“So you look more like your mother?”
“Actually…no,” Sokan said, sounding somewhat surprised to realize it himself. “Our mother has honey-gold hair and hazel eyes. She’s short and small, like me, with long, thin fingers and pale skin. I suppose I look a little like her in that I have her build and height. Perhaps someone further back in our family has black hair. It’s not unusual for such a trait to skip generations,” he shrugged.
“Why do you wear it so long?”
“Preference,” he quipped. “It makes me stand out in the crowd.”
“You bards,” she grinned. “You always have to be the center of attention.”
“Kass says much the same thing only with greater invective.”
“How it is he came to be a ranger and you came to be a bard? They’re such different paths to take, Master Llhersian.”
“Please, Basa. Call me Sokan.”
“Fine then, Sokan. How did two brothers come to choose such different paths in life?”
“I suppose it’s because we’re such different people to begin with,” Sokan answered honestly. “We were raised very differently. Kass had our father who taught him a love of the woods early on in life.”
“Your father was a ranger?”
“Gods no! Our father was a farmer.”
“Then how did he teach your brother a love of the woods?” Basa asked in confusion. Her blue eyes were clouded and her brow wrinkled as she tried to decipher the meaning on her own. Sokan grinned. He remembered wondering much the same when he’d asked his brother how their father had taught him how to hunt.
“Kass always loved to solve puzzles and find things,” Sokan said. “It started when he was a little boy around your age and he noticed that eggs magically appeared in hens’ nests. He decided to try to figure out why. After he learned that, he became quite fond of the chickens and they, in turn, were quite fond of him. He was the only one they would allow to handle their chicks and they never hid their eggs from him. Even the roosters didn’t bother him. However, one night, a fox got into the hen house. Kass was very upset. He followed the fox’s tracks back to its lair and discovered that the fox had kits. He killed the fox but took the kits home and raised them and trained them to guard the new chickens.
“One night, the foxes began barking. Kass woke up and ran outside to see what was going on but couldn’t see anything. Deciding that maybe they were just in heat, he went back to bed. The next morning, Father discovered that deer had gotten into the garden and eaten just about everything. The foxes had been barking at the deer but were too well-trained to chase after them — Kass had trained them not to go in the garden after they’d been caught digging in there as kits. So, dutifully, Kass took his bow and one of his foxes and followed the deer tracks and brought home a nice-sized buck. He set a guard on the garden and wound up getting another few bucks but left the younger ones alone — just ran them off. After that, he trained the foxes to make water in a trough and poured that around the garden — that scared the deer away nicely.
“Still, tracking the deer and being out in the woods… he loved it. And he loved tracking and finding things. He loved learning things and seeing how things worked and how they behaved. And, though you’d never believe it, he loves understanding how people work and behave and he’s damned good at it. That’s part of what makes him an effective ranger.”
“You love your brother very much,” Basa said softly.
“He’s had a hard life,” Sokan said simply, “but he’s a good man. And I do love him. He’s my brother.”
“So why did you become a bard instead of a ranger?”
“I grew up in inns. When I was a boy, Kass was too busy hunting, trapping, and foraging to keep food on the table and and roof over our heads. Father was gone and Mother wasn’t well,” Sokan sighed. “She worked in a tavern but her mind wandered more often than not. Grubar kept her on out of pity and loyalty to our father’s memory. I didn’t really see much of Kass except for in the spring when the hunting was poor and there wasn’t much to forage. That’s when he would teach me things. The rest of the year, I saw him a day or two out of the month. By the time I was learning my letters, I’d spent more time in Grubar’s tavern than I had in my own home,” Sokan laughed. “I did start doing chores around the house, though, and can garden and take care of animals as well as any farmer. And I can wait tables and cook and brew beer and any number of other things. Kass later taught me to hunt and track, to skin my kills, to fish, to trap, and to live off the land as well as how to fight with a variety of weapons. But I am far more at home among crowds of people. When Jevenar came through Lavari, he took me on as an apprentice and I decided to become a bard. I’ve never regretted it.”
“Sometimes I wish I could do all of those things,” Basa said wistfully. “I don’t even know how to saddle my own horse.”
“Begging your pardon, my Lady, but you’re all of seven years old. I couldn’t saddle a horse at seven either.”
“What could you do when you were seven?”
“Well…” Sokan thought for a long moment, scanning mentally for an idea. His eyes fell on a strange looking vine. “Do you know what that is?” he asked, pointing to it.
“No,” she said. “What is it.”
“That,” he answered, “is called an old climber. Kass taught me what it was used for when I was seven.”
“What’s it used for?”
Sokan grinned. He could sense an epic in the making.