by Pemry Janes
Leraine looked around again. Surely this was impressive but . . . she noticed the unease in more than one of the women. Rock might not be wielding a sword right now, but he was clearly demonstrating his skill as a warrior. And he looked a little too much like their men, their sons, brothers, and fathers.
Rock switched from punching to kicking. His acrobatics while he did that should have made the exercise impractical but given how fast he was doing it, Leraine wasn’t sure she would be capable of capitalizing on that.
He finished by leaping up and pummeling the pillar with a staccato of kicks before landing on his feet again. He staggered back, breathing hard.
Leraine pulled up the rope as she ducked under it and entered the ring. “Tired already?”
Rock shook his head and kept quiet. She glanced at her fellow warriors, then nodded toward the pillar. “Get rid of that and I’ll give you something more challenging to fight than an immobile object.”
“I’m not—I don’t think a lesson in the sword will work right now. It would be a waste of your time.”
Leraine lifted up a single eyebrow. “I wasn’t talking about lessons or swords.” She took a ready stance. “A true warrior doesn’t use weapons, she is the weapon. The sword, the bow, the spear, they are merely an extension of her ability. I might not be able to summon the wind or cause earthquakes with a stomp, but I don’t need a blade to take you on.”
A hint of a smile grew on Rock’s face. “Unless I summon the wind or cause an earthquake.”
“You’d be a poor guest if you destroyed my home just to win a spar.” Her extended hand struck out, easily deflected by him. But he almost missed the real attack that came right after, having to step back and out of reach of her knee.
She was going to say something about holding back next, but Rock had other ideas. His movements sped up, forcing her on the defensive. At least, she judged that to be his plan but she felt no obligation to go along.
As she called upon Ghisa, Leraine’s limbs quickened as well. First to deflect Rock’s strikes, then to catch his arm as she spun around and put her hips into a throw. Keeping a hold of the limb, she wrenched it around and trapped it with her legs. They were both on the ground now, but Leraine had all the leverage as she pushed off against Rock’s face.
“I’ve noticed you never go for a grapple,” she said.
Rock grunted as she put the squeeze on. He resorted to Linese. “San . . . don’t have bones. This . . . wouldn’t work . . . on one of them.”
Suddenly, the give was gone. It was like she was wrestling a tree, or a stone. He pulled his arm in and got up with Leraine still hanging off him. “Was actually a problem when they started teaching me.”
“Do tell,” Leraine said as she let go with her hands to reach for the ground. With her legs still clutching Rock, she now hung upside down. Rock hadn’t straightened out yet so she could actually get her hands flat on the sandy ground to try and knock him over again.
But it was no use. With that stone magic flowing through his body, it truly was like wrestling a tree. So Leraine let go entirely and got out of Rock’s range with a flip. He stomped forward, his stance solid and rigid.
“You normally start the Ways with Course of the River, but I simply couldn’t make the connection. Or bend my limbs enough,” he said as he flicked his hand out. A puff of sand flew into Leraine’s face, blinding her.
Her hands moved automatically through Six Fangs Strike, reacting to sounds she could barely hear even in the silence of the ring. It shouldn’t be this quiet. The technique didn’t quite work, her fingers just about buckled even when they struck pressure points on Rock’s arms, chest, and neck. But he still backed off, his foot scraping over the ground.
Moving to the side, she wiped the grit out of her eyes. “Sneaky. I approve.”
“I wouldn’t want to insult my host by not giving it my all.”
“Then I shall do the same,” Leraine said, pulling a training spear from the nearby rack and lunging at Rock.
She was still blinking some sand out of her eyes—his face was a blurry mess—but the jerky movement with which he backed off told her enough. Leraine pressed forward with quick thrusts, only for her fifth strike to hit a plate of stone that shot up from the ground.
The ground around her right foot stirring was her only warning. It gave way and with most of her weight on that leg, it was hard to get out. She resorted to striking the ground with the butt of her spear and using that to lever herself out of the trap.
Leraine didn’t stay still but circled around. “I thought you were not going to stir the earth.”
“I thought you said you were the weapon.”
“I got five coppers on Silver Fang,” Misthell shouted from his spot against a post. “Three to one odds. Who’ll take me up?”
“Misthell, aren’t you supposed to be rooting for me. And what’s with those odds?”
“Sorry Eu—I mean, Rock. Silver Fang has the victory spirit and I have to go with the victor or I’ll lose the bet.”
“How do you—”
“Because I do not get distracted,” Leraine exclaimed as she jumped forward and extended her spear fully. The wood cracked but Rock did take a step back as the air left him with an audible oof. She pulled the spear back even as she ran forward, whirling it around for a swipe at his legs.
The shaft shook and bucked as it impacted a small rock instead. Leraine whipped it around but Rock went on the attack. A clump of sand hit the spear’s head, stopping it in an awkward position. Another clump hit her in the chest while more of it slid up her left leg, immobilizing her.
She brought up the shaft to block his punch, but it powered right through. Leraine bent backward, farther than she could have if her foot hadn’t been trapped. The two broken halves of the spear she slammed into the sides of Rock’s knees, then the crook of his elbow, his flanks, she kept on pummeling him.
With his arms up and his skin as tough as old bark, it didn’t do much except keep him occupied. The sun was high in the sky and beating down on her. Even not wearing armor, she still felt sweat rolling off her back like a waterfall. Her lungs demanded air, her limbs ached. She knew she couldn’t keep this up; she had to go for victory now or surrender.
Leraine chanced it, switching targets to the sand trap and cracking it loose with a strike on either side. She threw herself to her right, over a rising slab. But Rock wasn’t done; a wave of sand picked her up and threw her away.
She rolled along the ground and bounced up, her back hitting a post and knocking the air out of her lungs. It cost her only a moment, but a moment was enough. Three spikes of sand and stone sprang up around her, trapping her.
Leraine sagged, the remains of the training weapons clattering to the ground. “So, feeling better?”
Misthell cried out in anguish. “Oh, come on. Can’t I win just once!”
Rock was breathing hard as well. He gave a choppy nod. “And you?”
He pushed down with spread hands and the spikes sank away, as did everything else he’d done. She brushed off some sand as she got up. Misthell had shifted from complaining to arguing with Swift Hop, who had taken the living sword up on his bet.
As she looked around, Leraine saw that the audience had only grown. Perhaps this hadn’t been such a bright idea. This will only bring more attention to Eurik. She nodded to the longhouse and switched back to Thelauk. “Come, let’s get out of the sun and clean up. We’re no longer traveling, might as well take advantage of the luxury.”
He hadn’t taken her hint and kept speaking in Linesan. “That sounds like a great idea.” He stretched, then grimaced as he put a hand on his stomach. “You could have pulled those strikes a little more. I can make myself tough, but I’m not literally turning my flesh into stone.”
“Better to suffer pain in training than death in battle. And I believe Misthell needs rescuing.”
Rock glanced at Misthell and he smiled. “I’m sure he can talk his way ou
t of it.” He raised his voice. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he told the sword.
“Wait, Rock, wait a moment. Hey, don’t leave me. I need you to pay her. Rock!”
***
Refreshed, Eurik joined Silver Fang in the upper hall. The bench she was on had enough space to seat half a dozen people, and only one other was using it right now. He was spinning yarn and keeping an eye on a couple of very young children playing with little wooden figurines of people.
Eurik couldn’t suppress a wince as he sat down. “You really did not have to hit me that hard.”
“Likewise,” Silver Fang said, also in Thelauk. Even after a couple of months of instruction, just being surrounded by the language for a couple of days had done wonders for his grasp of it.
“I am sorry.” But Eurik still felt like he was a child whenever he tried to hold a conversation in the language.
Silver Fang shook her head. “No, it is fine. You clearly had something on your mind.”
He tensed as she reminded him of the thing he’d been trying not to think about all day. He finally had an answer, but he didn’t like it. “And you?”
“What about me?”
Something in her words, how she held herself . . . “Something is wrong.”
Silver Fang glanced at the man on the other end of the bench and switched to Linesan even as she lowered her voice. “Why would you say something is wrong?”
He went for a shrug, only to falter as his muscles protested. Much of it wasn’t Silver Fang’s fault. He’d been training for quite a while before she’d come along. “You threw yourself into that spar, same as me. You’re usually very aggressive, very much like fire, but there was less thinking behind it. You just acted.”
She let out a long breath. “Yes. I . . . am finding that my return is not as I imagined. White Gale, Irelith’s daughter, renounced all ties with me. Me and Mother.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I knew them, Rock. I trained with them, White Gale taught me how to ride a horse, how to fight on one.” Her left hand went up and traced a cord in her draen, slowly drawing it out of the braid. She dangled the white and gray string in front of her. “And all that is mist now. Fading away under the morning’s sun.”
“They are angry at you about their mother’s death?”
Silver Fang nodded. “They pointed out that I had abused tradition to excuse my travels throughout the land. That Irelith would not have been killed by a blooddrinker if she’d stayed here. They have a point.”
Eurik hesitated, but only for a moment. “Someone once told me I can’t be responsible for what others decide to do. That they aren’t children and can take care of themselves.”
She let out a bark of mirthless laughter. “So I did.” She nodded. “And Irelith wanted to go, I know that. And yet, and yet. There are a hundred decisions of mine that would have led to a different outcome.” Silver Fang dropped the cord. “What stings most is that I avenged her. I killed that blooddrinker and all everybody wants to talk about is how I slayed that scaleless demon. That, and—”
“And what?”
Silver Fang shook her head and leaned back, hands on her thighs. “No, I will not burden you with that. Some things must stay beneath the roof. But what of you?”
Eurik frowned. “What about me?”
“You never answered my question. What burdens you so? Ah, have you found no information on your parents? I can come along tomorrow. Perhaps some people will be more forthcoming with me.”
Eurik tossed his head in what wasn’t a shake or a nod, but something in between as he was caught between lying and telling the truth. But why hide it from Silver Fang? That there were things she couldn’t share, well, that didn’t matter. In the end, she truly was Mochedan . . . and Eurik wasn’t.
“I did find some answers, actually. A blacksmith called Rolling Anvil had heard of my mother.” It helped that they were still talking Linesan; few here would understand what he was saying.
Silver Fang’s smile died before it had a chance to grow. “It wasn’t good news.”
“No. She killed, she murdered another woman. A drunken argument over something, who was the better blacksmith, or a man, Rolling Anvil didn’t know. Then she ran away and ended up with the Immortal. That’s what she’d heard, anyway.”
Silver Fang shifted on the bench and put her head close to his. “You are sure? Perhaps this was not your mother. Who was the victim?”
“Ah, the dates Rolling Anvil gave lined up with what I guessed before. And there’s not a lot of blacksmiths called Ardent. She only knew of the one.”
“And the woman who was murdered? This is important, Rock. What sept was she?”
“The ruling sept of, uh, Caetiwo. A cousin of the leader back then. Rolling Anvil seemed to think they would still be looking for my mother. Should I let them know they can stop?”
Rolling Anvil told me to keep quiet, but why? I wasn’t even born when the crime happened.
“No. Not now. Caetiwo is not as powerful as Urumoy, but when their leader speaks others in the tribe pay attention to her words. Her name is Fervent and you have a blood debt to her family.”
“Me? But I wasn’t even born when my mother—” It still felt a little odd to refer to anybody like that out loud, but that wasn’t what stopped him. It was Silver Fang’s expression, as if he’d been barking like a dog rather than speaking as a person would.
She shook her head. “That’s not how . . . Right, grew up among plant-men. How to explain this. Yes, your mother has, or had, the direct blame for the offense. And I’m assuming the story you heard was true, so best not say what you were about to if the sept confronts you.”
“I—”
Silver Fang held up a hand. “Let me finish. When a murder occurs, not a duel or a battle. When a murder happens, guilt flows from the murderer to her family and her sept. If they protect her, or she flees justice, then the sept has a debt to the victim’s sept.”
“I don’t know what family she had, or has. Except for me. Uh, they’re not going to want to kill me, right?”
“No, I’m sure it won’t come to that.” She pressed her lips together, her head twitched. “Don’t worry about that. But as her surviving child you still have a debt. Less on account of being an outsider and a man, but not free of it. The matter will be put before the loremistresses and they’ll decide how much . . . galautik you must pay. It is not money, it is . . . a fine. But there are many ways to pay. Ah, how much of that prize money do you still have?”
“I . . . don’t think enough to pay for a person’s life.”
“We will figure something out. Until then, however, best you keep your distance and don’t mention you are her son. The old ways are dying out, but they die hard.”
Chapter 7
Face
“I can’t believe you left me with her.” Misthell’s complaining no longer elicited so much as a look from the others with whom he shared the table. “Do you know what they do with people who can’t make good on bets here?”
“I don’t,” Eurik said. Their lunch was interesting. It was bread with preserved fruit jelly smeared on it. The bread was a little different as well. Until he’d left he island he hadn’t considered that a word like bread could cover such a diversity. Then again, there were a lot of kinds of trees as well.
“You work off your debt,” Misthell said. “She explained it all. And all the oil and polish I need to maintain my luster would just pile on top of it. I could have ended up being sold, traded and used in battle after battle. You’d never see me again.”
Eurik furrowed his brow and looked at Silver Fang. “Is that true?”
She was already shaking her head with a light smirk. “No. Not over as light a debt as that, not when Misthell is a guest under this roof. And you can’t sell people either, we’re not the soulless. The debt can be bartered away, but there are limits to what you can demand of a debtor.”
“I see
.” What mirth he’d had over Misthell’s situation fled as he considered his own debt, as the Mochedan saw such things. What did it say that his mother had murdered someone? Had she actually done it?
Silver Fang looked up and past him at something. “Gliding Blade, good to see you. Is there something you need?”
“Not me. Raven Eye,” a woman said. Eurik turned on the bench and saw she was older, a deep scar running from the corner of her mouth up her left cheek. The top of her left ear was missing as well.
Silver Fang got up. “Then I’d better see her.”
“Not just you. This one as well,” Gliding Blade said, looking directly at Eurik. Her blade and armor looked very much like what Silver Fang had been wearing at their first meeting. “Come.” She didn’t move until Eurik had gotten up, then she quickly left the hall and went down to the first floor.
Eurik looked at Silver Fang at his side. “Do you know what this is about?”
“No. Consider my mother’s words carefully.” She opened her mouth again, then closed it with a shake of her head. “Very carefully,” she muttered. He wasn’t sure he had been meant to hear those last two words.
They were led to a door with a raven painted on it in blue and white, with something black in its beak. He followed Silver Fang into the room, Gliding Blade remaining behind. A strange smell was the first thing he found inside.
Raven Eye herself sat in a large chair, on a heap of cushions with her cane loosely dangling in her right hand. She wore a different eye patch than when last he had seen her, red with the head of a raven embroidered on it. “Rock, Misthell, I hope you’ve found my home hospitable.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
“Oh, think nothing of it,” she said as the door closed behind him. “I’ve had worse guests, recently even.”
***
Leraine twitched and knew that Raven Eye would have caught it. “What do you want, Mother?”
Mother gave her a look, both her real eye and the one on the patch staring into her. Leraine planted her feet apart and put a hand on her hip. “You requested our presence, and made sure to do so when we were in the upper hall for all to see. I’m not a fool.”