Diligence

Yuya was getting good with a scythe.

After half a week of near-constant bed rest, followed by two of work under a strangely patient, gentle sort of coercion by the manor overseers, Yuya was starting to learn a thing or two. He knew now, for example, that there were two key challenges a harvestman faced when scything grain: making clean cuts, and not tiring himself out. The first was explained to Yuya when he made a mess of some wheat his second day in the fields, as a matter of edge alignment. Keeping a straight, consistent stroke helped when cutting vegetables in the kitchen, certainly, but when cutting stalks supported by nothing but the wind, it wasn't optional. “Now that you have the stroke down, remember it,” a foreman had said after watching him practice for an hour, “you might need it if we spot Bekhites on the horizon, and hand you a sword.”

The whole manor seemed mortified by the thought of these Bekhites turning up. That kept Yuya from trying to flee north. And he didn't want to chance another encounter with that tax-collector and his djinn by going south, even if, in theory, he was pardoned by auspice.

Not that farming was half as bad as he expected, once his core muscles stopped aching and his blisters turned into callouses. It was monotonous, sure, but that gave him time to think; if anything, the repetitive motions helped him block out distractions. He could think about what he'd do when he got back to Japan, or what to do if he could not. The djinn-invoker had proved to him there was real merit to trying to learn magic. Maybe magic could send him back, and it could certainly improve his lot here. That would be his next step, once he got off this farm.

The exercise was doing him real good, however, and he was learning how to navigate day-to-day tasks in this more primitive way of life: washing clothes with a washboard, sharpening blades on scythes or kitchen knives, even how to handle beasts of burden. One of the farmhands, a disgraced exile from a Cainite tribe, had given him a quick crash course in… not so much riding as not falling off a horse.

He wouldn't actively look for ways to escape, at least not yet. And before he did, he would ask that exile how to find a Cainite shaman. That nomad confederation, on the whole, was probably not quite as savage as the Bekhites, seeing as the exile never expressed the same taste for human flesh that dominated the Bekhites’ reputation. But to get to his magic teacher in one piece, whether he would be a Cainite shaman or someone else, Yuya wasn't going to pass up on any advantage he could get.

So for now, he swung his scythe. Though he had been given a few other clothes, he wore little now besides the pants he had been crucified in: a pair of sandals woven from vegetable fibers, a clay water bottle hanging across his back on a hemp cord, and a crude, floppy hat of wheatstraw. He was uncomfortably close to becoming that stooped peasant in the rice paddy from his nightmares, yet he somehow felt better now than he had as a beggar. A malaise had been lifted, as though he were suddenly cured of a hangover or depression, though no alcohol except a little weak Jalabartan ale had passed his lips, and he hadn't thought of himself as being in poor mental health. Once the discomforts of the first week had passed– aches and blisters, but also getting used to the utter lack of privacy in the worker cabins, and to waking much earlier than he ever had– he found that, while he wasn't finding any occasions here for ecstatic highs of feeling, his mental lows were never any worse than what he'd faced as a high school student back home.

He was, however, starting to get tired. He has learned a lot about avoiding this state while swinging a scythe. He'd hugged the curved shaft close to his belly, relied more on his core than his arms, followed through on his strokes without jerking the tool to a stop. But the fatigue could only be staved off so long. He pulled the scythe erect, leaned his weight on it, and wiped his brow. After a moment to cool off, he clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. When his eyes met the horizon, he made out the figures of men on horseback.

“Kershan,” Yuya said, addressing a foreman who collected wheat behind him, “are those the Bekhites I keep hearing about?”

The sun-wrinkled Jalabartan looked up. “I would expect Bekhites to try closing distance faster… no, these are friends. Cainites.”

“Cainites are friends?”

“We pay them tribute, and they keep the worst of the Bekhites away. I suppose this lot is here to collect.”

The nomads rode in along the dirt track that wove between the fields. About fifty on horseback, flanking a train of open wagons partly-loaded with sacks, crates, bottles and jars. At their head rode a man in about his mid to late twenties, in armor of steel lamellar and a helm with a loose plume of red horsehair over a stern face. Behind him rode a man who, aside from leather armor of similar overlapping-square construction, wore bright, mirror-polished bronze disks on his chest, shoulders, and brow. His face was veiled by wide-ringed chains hanging down the visor of his helm. When Yuya stared at his own fish-eyed reflection in the shoulder-mirror, the image emphasized his smallness in the great expanse of Nod, yet somehow the vast grassland and open sky surrounding him did not feel empty. There was a sense that the space was full of invisible creatures, flitting spirits and dancing devils swirling about, watching him, licking their lips.

Once the shaman passed– for Yuya could imagine nothing else this man could be– warriors rode by in file on small, stout, shaggy horses, recurving composite bows slid into holsters on the backs of their saddles and heavy, sharply-curved sabers worn over their shoulders or on their hips.

The Cainites did not have the same consistency of features as the Jalabartans. Many had about the same skin tone, if somewhat narrower eyes and straighter hair, but interspersed among them were people with darker skin or lighter, tall and short, bearded or bare-faced, with every eye and hair color Yuya had seen, and a few he hadn't. Particularly distinctive was the only woman in the company.

Probably about his own age, she had her helmet slung from her saddlehorn, and let her shoulder-length blonde curls fly free in the steppe wind. She carried slightly different weapons: a shorter, more gently curved sword with a solid brass hilt bearing both a crossguard and a knucklebow, and a small steel crossbow held in her lap. Her eyes, pale lavender, came to rest on him. She scanned him carefully, then smiled. It was almost as if she…

Liked what she saw. Huh. That had never happened to him before. He pulled himself straight and bowed in the Jalabartan fashion. When he realized he had dropped his scythe to do so, he scrambled to snatch it back up. Rising, he saw her laughing faintly, and a man behind her staring him down intensely.

This one’s features were lighter than a Jalabartan's but darker than the girl's, and his medium-long hair and short beard were a wavy dark brown. His eyes were the same color, and they rested on Yuya's shoulder. He brought his right hand up for Yuya to clearly see. His sleeve, Yuya realized, was an uncannily modern-looking print pattern of photorealistic oak leaves, as was a nylon backpack tied among his saddlebags. And on the back of his hand…

It wasn't quite the same symbol that flapped on a Cainite banner above the column, nor the one on Yuya's shoulder. But all three were unmistakably of a kind.

“Where’re you from, kemosabe?”

It took Yuya a moment to regain his voice. “Earth! Nihon! Hajimemashite!” He was surprised he was even able to make himself speak Japanese.

The strange Cainite warrior laughed deep. “Well, howdy do,” he replied in English. “My name's Grant; I'm from Texas. We'll have to catch up!”

Yuya's eyes followed Grant as the Cainite column rode for the outpost gates. Texas. Wasn't that something?

Well, I think I could use a cowboy, about now.