The Wandering God

4 A Journey of a Thousand Miles is Started with a Single Step

千里之行，始於足下
qiānlǐ zhī xíng, shǐ yú zú xià
A thousand-li journey is started by taking the first step.
Big accomplishments come from little achievements made one by one.  
*~*~*~*~*~*

The morning was beautiful, sunny and bright. Birds sat unseen in the trees, their songs refracting through the forest with the sunlight. Occasionally one would dart overhead in a flurry of feathers and air.

"So, it's Sanli you're after, then," Zakhar asked me bluntly as I walked beside his horse munching on my third crab apple. After living in the wilderness for so long, I had learned to take what you could. The sourness was rousing this early in the morning. Usually I slept until well after sunrise.

"I'm not sure what you mean by after, but he's caught my attention, yes." Tossing away the now well gnawed core, I smiled slyly up at Zakhar in affirmation. With his horse and his own height combined, he towered above me.

"Sure you don't want to change your mark?" the big man said, leaning in the saddle, a suggestive smile sliding onto his mouth. Or what I could see of his mouth, beneath his overgrown golden bush of a beard.

"Sorry, you're not my type," I said bluntly, hooking an arm over my shoulder to pull a fourth apple from my pack. "I like my men pretty and not much else." I knocked my head with the apple to mime emptiness.

Zakhar laughed loudly. "Aiishh, I'll take your rejection as a compliment then." He nodded to where Sho and Sanli rode ahead, close enough to be seen but too far to be heard. "Careful though, Sanli's far cleverer than he pretends." I looked at Sanli's straight shoulders and heard him laugh at something Kageyama had said.

My attention wandered to the dark-eyed man beside Sanli. "He's not human, is he? Kageyama, I mean," I said, studying Kageyama's posture. His shoulders were straight like Sanli's but tenser. Probably tense with weariness after a night spent sleeping in a hay loft, I noted as I observed the strand still trailing from his hair.

I understood the feeling well. Last night was the first time I had slept in a bed in months.

Zakahr's eyes shifted from me to Kageyama and back again. He said nothing, and his silence confirmed it.

"What is he then? A fox? A kappa? Dragon kin?" Again Zakhar said nothing. "I'll bet I can get him to tell me."

Zakhar snorted. "Not a chance. It was years before he finally told me."

"I bet I can find out in a week."

"Three triangles says you can't."

"Triangles? Don't insult me. Three rounds."

Zakhar whistled and considered it. "Fine. But figuring out on your own doesn't count. He has to tell you from his own mouth."

"Deal," I said. Suddenly a giant hand hovered open before my face. I stopped.

"Shake on it," Zakhar insisted. As though a handshake could guarantee anything. I acquiesced though. His hand enveloped mine like a tattooed blanket being tucked around a small sleeping animal. As I observed the lines and triangles inked on the back of his knuckles, my eyes widened. Though they blended with the rest of the tattoos, I recognized them. They were ranks, the insignia of an officer.

"You serve the Black Lord," I said. It was a statement, not a question.

Zakhar withdrew his hand. "I did," he replied, then faced forward, a distant look in his eyes. I knew that look well. The look of remembering things you'd rather not. I wanted to question him further, but decided it wouldn't be wise to aggravate the only ally I seemed to have among the three men.