As Zaria and her new little companion made their way to the priestess assistant's house, she began to feel blessed by her good fortune. Spending a few days there in the safety of the Hamani would be a relief. She knew her health would be rejuvenated and her lack of sleep regained, as her long ordeal thus far had left her exhausted and visibly undernourished. Sati, the young woman who would host her, was warm and friendly for someone who had just met Zaria. It turned out that she lived alone, and like Zaria, had a dog as a close companion. Her protector and friend was an older animal, female, and took immediately to the younger, clumsy Divan, whom Zaria introduced to them them both.

Giving Zaria a space on the floor atop a large rug—the hide of an elk, was all she needed with a roof above to feel comfort away from the wilds. For Zaria had traveled many days alone and without protection. Sati, like most of the Hamani, was darker skinned than the Slavic race but not so much as the desert peoples to the East---who like her love, Tsudros, had a different look and temperament. The Hamani claimed they had descended from the Scythians long ago and had been members of the Amazon clan at some point in their long history. But now they were a small, independent culture embracing those agricultural developments of village life which Zaria had known as a child. Even their food was different from the nomads on the Eastern frontier. Baked bread, ground from grain, was a delicacy for Zaria, as was the way they prepared their meat, raised in captivity—-sheep, game hens, pigs and cattle. After such a satisfying meal, Zaria and Sati reclined in the evening on the floor and communicated as best they could. The two dogs wrestled playfully just outside the door of the small house.

It was learned by Zaria that Sati's parents had been killed in a raid—something that she felt the pain of and shared with her the fact that her own parents had died in a similar way. Sati did not seem saddened by her own story, though she showed empathy for Zaria's tale. When Zaria told of her abduction to the East and her enslavement with the Pazyryk people for several years, she showed great interest in the drama. She expressed how she admired Zaria for her ability to escape and even was more impressed that she would return to rescue her adopted sister, Svetlana, now with a baby. Sati stroked her own long brown hair and blinked her slightly Asian eyes while Zaria told her, without many details, of her duties to the cruel king and how he kept her as a virgin princess. She told how she had to be at his beck and call, and how being at his side most nights was intolerable. She only hinted at the vagaries and sexual perversions her two sisters had to endure with such an unbearable tyrant.

As the night became cooler and later, Sati offered as thanks for Zaria's storytelling to play music for her on a wooden flute which she produced near her bed. Zaria smiled and agreed to listen, as she could tell her host was proud of her abilities with the instrument. Beginning to play the flute while seated with Zaria on the floor of the small place, the two dogs came in, also attracted to the mellifluous  sound. They sat as company and were, like Zaria, seemingly charmed by the gentle melody Sati produced. Zaria commented at the end of the song that it reminded her of all that is good and healthy of nature—the sound of birds, the sound of the winds. Sati smiled in appreciation and after this brief musical interlude, she suggested they sleep for the remainder of the night. Both young women allowed their dogs to come close and lay next to them, not only to share their abundance of warmth, but as personal sentries aware of the outside world and its dangers.

The following day, Zaria was invited to share in Sati's duties at the palace and home to the priestess, Kani and her queen, Thessa. While helping her sweep the premises and prepare the midday meal for the four women who occupied this seat of power, Zaria was curious about something she had been anxious to ask about since her arrival. When the women met formally, each seated in a circle in the greater hall over food, the conversation moved to Zaria and her plight to travel east as soon as she was able and ready. Remembering how this queen had sent her hunters out to locate the whereabouts of Moshtok's during those frightful days they had lost him, she thought perhaps these same men might know something of Svetlana's rescue party. Her countrymen would have been on the trail to the Pazyryk kingdom a full moon before her now. Perhaps these hunters of the Hamani, she would ask, might have seen or heard something of her own people and her beloved Tsudros through their recent forays.

"I remember well," Kani said, smiling. "How our hunters helped you find your friend one summer ago. Our men are careful hunters," she continued propudly. "They see all and they cover great distances. We do not communicate much with them and they only inform us of true dangers when they return from their journeys. But yes, I will ask them of your rescue party. About these Slavic warriors you speak of."

Zaria was pleased with this commitment, and once again gave thanks to the two women for their previous intersession in finding Moshtok. They all were amused and happy with the news that he had indeed returned to the West with his woman Branka and how they were now expecting a child. It was the reason, Zaria told them, that Moshtok was not allowed to join the mission and why her brave Tsudros came along as interpreter and possible liaison to his former people.

"We have heard the Pazyryk are again in a great crises," the queen told Zaria. "Their king came back to power after being removed by his people. But now, from his cruelty, he is again a prisoner of his people."

Zaria took great comfort in hearing this. "Who is in power of the tribe now?" She asked anxiously. "Is it true Sharvur may still be alive?"

"I have heard of no new king," the queen reported. "Only that their people are now no real threat to us these times because of the chaos. But I have heard they have killed many of their own people in a great civil war for power."

This was not totally new information to Zaria, but it made her more anxious about the current fate of Branka and her child. Hopefully, the Hamani hunters would respond quickly to the queen's request for news. To tell what they might know of her countrymen and the condition or whereabouts of her lover out in the badlands of the East.

That next morning while Zaria was still at Sati's house, helping her with her own domestic chores, a man appeared at the door who was obviously a warrior-hunter. He was dressed and armed in the manner she had become familiar with. Sati asked him his business there and insisted that he speak to her while outside her residence, seemingly an acknowledged rule of the clan concerning unattached men and women. Zaria stood next to her and waited for the young man's report to be translated awkwardly by Sati.

After several sentences by the hunter, which seemed to come with great and somber detail, the man lowered his head and respectfully left. Sati was reluctant to speak at first but then put her hand on Zaria's shoulder as she did so.

"He said that several days go, far to the east, they encountered only three men on horseback. Two young like himself, and one older. The men told him they had been attacked twice on their journey and that most of their party of fifteen had been killed. He said they were nomad horsemen who struck—first the Jin, and then later a small party of Pazyrak raiders."

Zaria felt her knees become weak and her breathing stopped momentarily while listening.

"But he also said the Pazyryk warriors took a single man of their own people. Took him back with them as a prisoner."

Zaria felt a flash of emotion consume her. On the one hand she was relieved that the only man in the rescue party of Pazyryk origin was Tsudros, and he was, now at least, purported to be alive. Yet, she also felt the rush of anxiety as she knew he would have to face Sharvur's supporters back in the kingdom. If still organized and with any power at all, this cadre of the old guard would undoubtedly torture or kill him for leaving the tribe and being instrumental in her own escape along with Moshtok and Branka.

As for the members of her own people on the mission who had been reportedly killed in the attacks, Zaria put her hands over her face and wept quietly. Sati did her best to comfort her, hugging her affectionately like a sister. Besides the shock of learning of Tsudros' unknown and dire condition, Zaria also felt the uncertainty for Andrik, Svetlana's brother. Was he one of those who died with the rest, or was he possibly one of the two young Slavs who had escaped with the older Marjan, the elder?

This entire revelation by the young hunter came with profound sorrow for Zaria, and yet it only gave her more resolve to leave the Hamani for the Pazyryk kingdom at her earliest opportunity. She would ask her benefactors that very evening for some basic provisions to leave for the East the following day.

* * *