Free In Legend Born by Laura Resnick Page A

—the knotted, woven, and beaded belt that conveyed a shallah 's name and history—then go to a distant corner of Sileria and become someone else; the Valdani would be unlikely to find him or learn the truth. Yet he had chosen not only to stay right here, but also to incite the populace, launch further attacks against the Valdani, and make himself the most hunted outlaw in Sileria.
    Why? Did he enjoy the fame? Was he insane with hatred? Did he simply like killing, burning, and stealing? He was obviously no fool, but it was too soon to be sure just how shrewd he was. Could he be goaded into a fight with a shatai , or would he run away? If he wouldn't come to Tansen willingly, could he be tricked or trapped? Would a peasant who had lived his entire life in these mountains even know what a shatai was? Tansen hadn't known, after all, until he'd seen one kill three men in the streets of a Kintish port city nine years ago.
    While he considered these questions, he searched for Josarian's trail and found exactly what he expected to find: nothing. Josarian wasn't careless. He had covered his escape route and left no clues about which direction he had gone from here. Tansen would have to find him some other way. Having been born and raised in eastern Sileria, Tansen didn't know this district. No people anywhere in the three corners of the world were more secretive than shallaheen , and this was Josarian's territory. Without cooperation from the locals, Tansen could well spend the rest of his life searching this district to no avail. So he'd have to find a way to make Josarian come to him.
     

     
    "He wears a jashar and speaks the mountain tongue like he was born to it," Zimran told Josarian one night.
    They sat by the cooking hearth of Josarian's younger sister, who kept urging her outlaw brother to eat more. This was Josarian's first visit home in nineteen days, and his sister Jalilar had been so certain of his death that she'd even gone to see the Guardians on Mount Niran four days ago. They didn't seem to think he was in the Otherworld yet, but Jalilar knew that was no guarantee. The Otherworld was a mysterious place, and the journey to get there was long and arduous. Many never arrived, and no one knew why. Others were believed to be there, but wouldn't answer when Called. No, there were no guarantees.
    So, unconvinced by the reassurances of an old woman whose three-fingered hand seemed too small and delicate to have endured torture by the Valdani, Jalilar had left the secret Guardian encampment and returned home to wait impatiently for Josarian to sneak into Emeldar one night. The continued presence of the Outlookers in the village was her proof that, whatever else may have happened to her brother, they hadn't caught him yet. Outlookers were such fools, they really believed that their failure to catch Josarian here meant he hadn't been home since that fateful night he'd become an outlaw. Jalilar looked at her brother again, relief warming the chill of dread that had settled into her bones. Her husband, Emelen, would be home soon, and he'd be almost as relieved as she to see Josarian, with whom he had grown up.
    "You think this stranger is a shallah ?" Josarian asked Zimran. He refused the additional food his sister tried to coax him into eating. "Jalilar, I'll burst soon."
    "He must be," Zim insisted. "He has the first two bloodpact marks on his right palm. A few on his left." He added as an after-thought, "No marriage-mark on the right palm, they say."
    Josarian absently looked down at the marriage-mark Calidar had carved on his palm the day they had married. It ran from the base of his thumb diagonally up to the base of his fourth finger. She had carved no child-marks across it, and now she never would.
    "And he carries swords?" Josarian asked. "You're sure of this?"
    "I am sure."
    "Have you seen him? With your own eyes?"
    "No."
    "Then how do we know it's true?"
    "Josarian, who would make that up?" his sister