2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows by Ginn Hale

let the boy lean on him as they continued climbing.
    Icy mist from mountain clouds drifted over them, enfolding them in whiteness and cold. Sudden, sharp winds swept down, slicing through John’s clothes and chilling the sweat on his back and thighs. Fikiri shivered constantly and wept intermittently. When the sound of his crying didn’t drown it, John could hear the boy’s teeth chattering against each other.
    “They won’t let us enter even if we reach Rathal’pesha.” Fikiri sniffed. “They’ll leave us out to freeze to death on the mountainside. There are prayers that have to be said and words—”
    “I know,” John told him. “I know the prayers and I know the words.”
    Fikiri halted as though riveted to the stairway.
    “You know them?”
    John shrugged and then began to chant the prayers.
    A strange, dreamy expression spread across Fikiri’s face.
    John stopped chanting and said, “You see? It’ll be fine.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I said, it will be fine.” John frowned at Fikiri.
    “No, it won’t!” Fikiri’s lips began to tremble. “There are prayers and words that have to be said . I don’t know what they are.”
    “I just told you that I know them.”
    “You did?” Fikiri’s look of surprise seemed utterly genuine.
    “Yes, I just said one of the prayers to you.”           
    “You didn’t say anything,” Fikiri told him.
    John began the prayer again, and once more the tension and fear drained from Fikiri’s face. His arms hung limply; his eyes drooped nearly closed. A slight, sweet smile spread across his lips and he swayed with John’s voice as if it were music. Then Fikiri began climbing. He took the steps with the rhythm of John’s voice, moving with an ease and grace that he had previously lacked.
    So that was the purpose of the prayers, John realized. Inducing this trance-like state was what the attendant did and why Fikiri needed one. There was no way he would endure the climb on his own will alone. Left to himself, Fikiri would have just sat down and cried until sunset.
    John felt slightly guilty as he continued chanting prayers that compelled Fikiri to mindlessly climb the steps. It seemed like a sinister power to have over the boy and one that, as a decent person, he shouldn’t use. On the other hand, they were making much better time this way and Fikiri wasn’t crying.
    John kept praying.
    The words that had pervaded the last two days flowed from him. One prayer led into the next and the next after that. They repeated in a long cycle, the words pulling him onward.
    John’s climb wasn’t a painless daze like Fikiri’s. His muscles burned and his throat ached. He didn’t dare to look ahead him. He didn’t want to see the endless line of steps still before him. He kept his eyes on his feet.
    There was snow now. Little patches of it filled the shadowed corners of the gray stone steps. Clumps clung to John’s boots. John’s legs felt like weights. The bruises across his back throbbed. Ahead of him Fikiri continued, oblivious to both fatigue and cold.
    Suddenly, John felt something in the air. Something like a breath blown against his ear. It was a familiar sensation. It was the way the air seemed to tremble just as Ravishan appeared before him.
    “Nahara’hi, muhli,” a low voice hissed.
    John instantly looked up, searching for the source of the threatening words. But only Fikiri stood before him, his dreamy expression fading as John fell silent, listening.
    “Shir’im’hir inaye!” the voice came again.
    John whipped around and looked down the steps. Still, no one. He looked farther ahead on the steps.
    “Korud,” a second low voice growled over them. “Shir’im’hir maht!”
    A terrified whimper escaped Fikiri.
    More voices joined in, hissing and growling in Basawar.
    “Turn aside, unworthy filth.”
    “How dare you walk the Thousand Steps to Heaven’s Door, hideous, ugly