“Are you ever allowed to spend the money you put away?” Jahrra wondered, steering Phrym around a particularly treacherous tangle of roots.
“Yes. The day after Sobledthe you are allowed to spend all that you saved from that year, if you’d like.”
Jahrra chuckled softly, and Dervit lifted a ruddy eyebrow at her.
She shrugged and gave him a smirk. “You can look at it two ways, then. Either you can be annoyed at having less money during the year, or pleased that you have a surplus at the end.”
Dervit nodded. “Usually people start off irritable, but then, by Sobledthe they boast about their riches. The neighbor who acted as my foster mother had a hen that was in the habit of laying her eggs on top of the others. She was putting away four or five trovets a week. She was so angry that one day in autumn she picked up the axe, determined to turn that hen into our dinner. I begged her not to do it. Only because I made such a fuss, and pointed out it might work in her favor to put away trovets in the long run, did she change her mind.”
The limbit gave a soft, private laugh, and Jahrra wondered just how strong a memory it was. “She was able to buy an entire yard and a half of the finest patterned silk at market just after Sobledthe. She made herself a dress and wore it to market day the following month. She was the talk of the town for weeks after that.”
He took a quick breath and let it out with a sigh. “Harnie’s moods could be volatile, and she was a complete sourpuss most of the time, but she knew how to convince other people that she was important.”
“Harnie was the name of your neighbor? The one who took you in?”
Dervit glanced up at Jahrra, the answer plain in his solemn eyes. “I didn’t really hate her, honestly,” he whispered sharply. “She just didn’t understand me.”
The limbit dropped his head and stared at his hands, no longer clutching the ropes for dear life. Realizing his error, his fingers tightened. Jahrra let the silence descend between them for the next several minutes. She knew from experience that grief didn’t always take hold right away. Some days, after losing her parents, and then Hroombra, she would wake up in the morning, thinking everything was okay. And then, she would remember they were gone, the deep sadness striking swift and hard, filling her lungs like icy seawater as she struggled for breath. She imagined Dervit might experience the same.
Jahrra cleared her throat and peered at the trail ahead. “So, anything else I should know about limbits?”
The trees were thinning a little, and occasionally they crossed a rivulet of water cutting through their path. More snowmelt dripping from the peaks. Jahrra wondered if it bothered Dervit, not getting his toes wet, as they moved ever upward, but he didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he had kept his eyes lowered, staring at his fingers.
Perhaps that sadness is already taking root, Jahrra thought morosely.
“Dervit?” she prompted gently, hoping to pull him from the deep abyss.
The limbit blinked rapidly, but Jahrra chose to blame it on the bars of sunlight now slicing through the sparse limbs above.
“I was wondering if there was anything else you wanted to tell me about limbits.” She smiled encouragingly.
“Oh, well …” He chewed on his lip for a while, trying to recall what she had told him at the very beginning of their conversation.
“We do grow our own food, raise livestock and hunt. Root vegetables are our favorites, but we eat pretty much anything one can grow in a garden. The livestock we keep are mostly poultry: chickens, ducks, geese. Occasionally, someone will brave raising a turkey or two. The largest animals we keep are pigs and goats. Pigs for meat and for truffle harvesting. Goats mostly for milk and wool.”
“And do you really live in dens?” Ellyesce called from over his shoulder.
Jahrra looked up in surprise, not realizing the elf had been listening to them.
“Not exactly,” Dervit proclaimed. “Most of us live in a cluster of earthen homes, structures built from turf or dug right out of hillsides. Our roofs are made of the same material, and the wild grasses and flowers usually grow in and cover them. A limbit house can be as large as eight or even ten rooms, or as small as a bedroom and common room.”
“Do you not have kitchens?” the elf asked.
Dervit shook his head. “Most of our cooking is done outside.”
“What if it rains? Or snows?” Jahrra added.
“Then we move the cook fire to the shed. It is like one big open room off the side of the house that we use for storage or sheltering the animals when the weather is particularly bad.”
They rode side by side in companionable silence for another few miles until Jahrra worked up the nerve to ask him the one question she had been wanting an answer to for quite a while.
“I was wondering,” she said carefully, “why didn’t you give us up back at the crossroads?”
Dervit cringed slightly and turned his head away, presumably studying the ferns and mosses covering the hillside.
Jahrra hurried on, hoping that her curiosity hadn’t spooked him into complete silence. “I mean, I know you saw us up the trail. Why not just tell the soldiers we were there? You might have been able to get away.”
Dervit forgot about the passing foliage and turned to face the road ahead once again. He wasn’t troubled by Jahrra’s question; he just didn’t have a perfect answer for her. He shrugged, deciding to do his best.
“Didn’t want to give them what they wanted, I guess,” he grumbled. “That and I knew what they were capable of.”
His voice hitched, and Jahrra realized her question had scratched at that raw wound after all.
“I didn’t want them to hurt anyone else,” he finished softly.
Ellyesce’s semequin stopped in front of them, bringing both Phrym and Rumble to a standstill as well. Jahrra, who had been studying Dervit’s face, chose that moment to glance up. Jaax was standing several yards ahead, waiting patiently for them to catch up. He wasn’t so far away that he hadn’t caught the tail end of their conversation, and at the moment, he was giving Dervit that scrutinizing look he used on so many people. A look that, if you didn’t know the dragon, made one wonder if he was contemplating what you might taste like. But Jahrra knew better.
“Well,” she murmured, a hint of pride in her voice. “Look who might have just impressed the dragon.”
She smiled at Dervit, then gave Phrym a gentle nudge. With well-practiced ease, the semequin stepped forward and pulled ahead of the pack horse. Dervit could only look on in surprise. Was it true? Had he really just lifted his status in the eyes of this group’s fearless leader? Without even trying? He sure hoped so, though he couldn’t imagine how he had pulled it off. But maybe that was the point with Jaax and his companions. Perhaps it was all the little things, unseen by most, that held clout with the green Tanaan dragon.
Dervit shrugged, trying to stretch out his shoulders and back. Whether or not he had moved up on Jaax’s approval list didn’t really matter. He was now all but convinced he would find a friend in Jahrra after all. He grinned. It would be nice to have a friend.
-Chapter Seven-
The Red Flange
Dervit was given his first chance to prove his usefulness that evening when they stopped to camp. As Ellyesce used his strange magic to check on their pursuers, Jahrra rifled through their food stores, hoping to find something appetizing.
Grumbling, she came up with a few stale loaves of bread and enough jerky to feed one of them.
“Good thing Cahrdyarein is so close,” she said, trying her best not to sound too forlorn. “We barely have enough left to last through tomorrow.”