The Elevener, a quiet, elderly man, had set Luchare’s leg and helped carry her to a shelter. He had then gone away, but soon had come back with a large draft animal, something like Klootz, apparently, but striped and light in color, with short, straight horns, which stayed on all year, unlike antlers. It was commonly called a kaw. Both of them had ridden the kaw away on a trail to the northwest. The Elevener, whose name was Jone, had told the girl that he was going to try and take her to a place of safety run by his order, but that it was a long way off and that they would have to be very careful. He had asked no questions of her at all.
They had traveled for many days through the great, tropical forest, avoiding the main roads between the warring city-states, but using game trails and village paths where they could. The peasants and woodsmen were always glad to see them, gave them food and shelter, and warned them of migrating herds, rumored appearances of Leemutes, and other signs of the Unclean. In return, Jone had helped the village sick, sat with the dying, and distributed sets of little carved wooden letters he had made, so that the children could learn to read and write. This idea, Luchare interjected, was one of the tricks that really annoyed her church about the Eleveners, since the priests did not believe, and still less did the nobles, in giving the peasants new ideas.
“Some of my own church don’t like them any better,” Hiero admitted, “though everyone can read and write in our country. But conservatives dislike them as a rival religious group. I guess they are in a way, but if we’re not doing the job properly, then they should take over, as better men, that’s what my abbot says. But go on.”
After some three weeks of traveling, in a generally western direction, tragedy struck. They were now far beyond the limits of any of the city-states and their appendaged villages. Jone had told her that another week or so would bring them to a place of safety.
Actually, she had never felt more safe than with the gentle Elevener. Dangerous animals almost never came near them, and if they did, snorted for a moment and then went away. Once, she said, a herd of giant snakeheads, the lords of the forest, had simply parted to one side while the patient kaw had carried his twin burden down a lane in the middle of the huge beasts. Jone simply had smiled when she expressed awe.
