Steelflower in Snow

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “You are merely talanach,” Redfist said. “And after I take yer head I shall be taking Kalburn, too.” He used a particularly pungent Skaialan verb for coupling, one used to describe rutting beasts, and a shiver of distaste went through me. Emrath Needleslay colored, but I had no time to worry for her or her pride, for one of the Ferulaine tain slid his hand below the third of his kelta flung over his middle and shoulder, and my dotani half-leapt from its sheath. The small sliding noise broke the tension, and Dunkast merely glanced in my direction, perhaps not even seeing me clearly, before turning and shoving between his two guards, passing from the Great Hall of Kalburn like a poisonous, invisible gas draining away.

  For the first time Redfist had seen the man in five years, it went tolerably well, I thought.

  I was wrong, for more than one reason.

  Strike the Weak

  The Needleslay swept from the Great Hall after giving a few crisp orders in Skaialan, and Redfist hurried in her wake. I followed, my stride lengthening and my head a-whirl. I might have caught Redfist and dragged him aside, had Darik’s hand not closed about my elbow hard enough to pull me to a halt. “Kaia! Are you well?” Behind him, Janaire was pale under her copper coloring, her s’tarei’s long Tyaanismir face almost as bloodless as he held her upright, his arms about her waist. No sign of Gavrin or Diyan in the hall, thank the Moon.

  “Well enough.” I pulled against his hold, dismissing the two G’mai—Atyarik was more than capable of caring for his adai, and now that I had seen Dunkast and his gem, there was much to be done. “I must speak to—”

  Darik did not let go. A flush spread along his high, blade-sharp cheekbones. “That thing he wears struck Janaire. It is dangerous.”

  Did he think me unaware of the peril? “It’s Pensari, of course it’s dangerous.” Irritated, I plucked at his fingers. “Turn loose of me, D’ri, I must speak with Redfist.”

  “She needs you more than he does, adai.” His face set, as if an unpleasant smell drifted by. His G’mai was sharp, and its inflection perilously close to chastisement. “Must I beg you?”

  Wait. “It struck her?” I repeated his phrase, hoping I had misunderstood. “Is that what you said?”

  “Yes, adai’mi.” The faint unsteadiness was his, trembling inside his bone-channels and spilling into me. “I thought it might have touched you too.”

  “No, of course not.” I almost added, I have enough wit to avoid being witched, but it was ill-tempered of me, and untrue besides. “Perhaps he thought her…” Perhaps he thought her me? At least at first?

  “She requires an adai’s care, Kaia.” Again, as if I were an idiot.

  I could not blame him. Such a request was, of course, more important than speaking to a mere barbarian, and no doubt he wondered at my tardiness. I shook free of Darik’s grasp, finally, and pierced the crowd of milling tain with long swinging strides. “Yada’Adais.” It was little trouble to find the most honorific inflection. “What ails you?”

  Chalky, trembling, she peered at me as she would a stranger, and Atyarik’s arms tightened about her. “That thing,” he said, curtly, “is dangerous.”

  So we have established. “I am well aware.” They had been here for less than a day, and already I was well past irritated and upon the road to anger.

  Atyarik’s long lean face set against itself. “And you did not think to warn another adai?”

  That would be a heavy charge indeed. “I did not know what it was, until I saw it. I am exactly as surprised as you, Tyaanismir.”

  He cut my explanation short, his inflection killing-sharp. “Then do you know how to treat her?”

  “I…” I examined her more closely. Her breathing was high and shallow, her lips drained of color. “What happened?”

  “The thing sought to use ba’narak’n’adai.” His mouth twisted with distaste. With good reason; the stealing of another’s will was one of the most abhorrent acts possible with Power.

  “Mother Moon.” I peeled up one of her eyelids, conscious of my practice-chapped and cold-roughened skin against the soft fineness of hers. The lowland G’mai are not bred of mountain-bone, and of all the Blessed, their beauty is the least harsh. Her pupils flickered, swelling and shrinking, and a fine, misty dampness lay upon her copper skin. “Oh. Ah.”

  “Help her!” Atyarik was sweating too; the word was sharp, cut short in the imperative, but the lift in the middle made it a plea.

  There was no time for gentleness, and in any case, I have none of that quality. So, I did the only thing I could think of.

  I slapped her.

  Not too softly, either, for a half-measure is worse than a double when it comes to thumping a fellow sellsword back into her skin and away from battle-shock, but with nowhere near my full strength. Her head snapped aside, the crack of the blow slicing through the shuffle-murmurs of the tain, and if Atyarik had not been so busy holding his adai to her feet, he might have struck me in return. As it was, he jerked as if I had hit him as well, and sense flooded Janaire’s dark gaze. She sagged in his grasp, her hands lifting—fluttering doves, helplessly flickering to drive away a pursuer.

  “Come back,” I rasped, in deliberately harsh G’mai. “Back into yourself, lya-ini.”

  It was the first time I had called her age-mate, and perhaps that was what stopped Atyarik from dropping her and drawing his dotanii. That, and Darik’s hand biting my shoulder, fingers digging in cruelly as he spun me about, my balance on the third dais step grown precarious.

  “What have you done?” my s’tarei hissed, and I realized, perhaps a moment too late, that striking an adai is a great crime. Of course it would shock them both.

  But it was only and fully what was necessary. Janaire reeled, shuddered, and clasped her palm to her reddening cheek, wonderingly, staring. “Kaia?” she whispered, a bare breath passing her lips as they shaped the word.

  “Aye, lya-ini. Come back to your skin and bone, I have not time to nurse you.” I nodded and changed to tradetongue, harsh after the song of G’mai. “That is what I have done, princeling. And if you do not take your hand from me I shall strike you, not nearly as softly.”

  His grasp fell away, I nodded to Janaire, spun, and took to my heels.

  I managed to track Redfist and Emrath by following the shouting.

  “Ye’re a great fool, Rainak, and ye ever have been. Ye think you shall be taking Kalburn, too? Is that so?” She was capable of great sonorousness, the Lady of Kalburn, and used every inch of it.

  Redfist was not precisely quiet himself, but at least he was seeking to explain and not to overpower. “Emrath, twas said to unsettle—”

  “Was it now?” Emrath apparently thought little of his tactics. “All of ye, the same! Men, men, men, thinking a woman no better than a kelta to wipe with! No, not even a kelta, for ye prize yer colors boldly, do ye all!”

  For once, I was in complete agreement with the grey-eyed queenling of Kalburn. I closed the heavy wooden door, fitted into an alcove some distance from the Great Hall’s entrance, and leaned against it. This chamber was no doubt for a guest or supplicant to wait within, perhaps for hours at a time; dark wooden benches ringed it, and the reflected light was weak and wavering. Tapestries, all colorful and some very fine, curtained dusty stone; there was no fireplace, and only a cold, empty brazier in the middle of the room broke the monotony of the naked flags, no sweetstraw or rushes scattered to cushion bare stone. The tain were not in the admittedly small and cramped hallway outside the door, but I thought it only a matter of time before servant and guard alike clotted wherever they could hear raised voices.

  Emrath rounded on Redfist, her fists clenched, high color staining her usually-pale cheeks. Grey eyes snapping, drawn up to her full regal height, glowing with rage, she was…well, not as beautiful as my darling Clau Kesa at the Swallows Moon, but very fetching indeed even with uncooked dough for skin. “Ye could have challenged him without smirching me, Rainak, and ye chose not to. Just as ye chose to leave me to his clutches.” />
  “Ye did not complain!” Redfist parried, his tone rising to match hers and his red-tinged hands knotted into fists.

  “I wished ye to live!” Emrath fair screamed it, and I crossed my arms, my palm stinging. Perhaps striking Janaire had not been the best solution, but it had been effective. I had little skill in the use of Power, and if the gem or the things it made in the shape of men were so dangerous to an adai using an adai’s gifts, well, other methods were called for.

  It was only now it occurred to me that perhaps both all three G’mai would not see my logic. But Mother’s tits, the witless, blundering castoffs had followed me to this place, and now I was tasked with not only watching Redfist’s back—a proposition I was beginning to think somewhat large for even my talents—but corralling and protecting them as well. Which leaving them in Antai had been to avoid.

  I do not deny a certain satisfaction in slapping the Gavridar, either. Perhaps, if I were to be absolutely, strictly, and fully honest, I only regretted I could not repeat the act upon all of them, stem to stern, and perhaps force some sense in through the blows. If they were to attach themselves to me, was it too much to ask that they would stay where I placed them, where I could be reasonably certain they were safe?

  And how many times had I repeated to myself, at least the others are in Antai, and not suffering this?

  “I wished ye to live,” Emrath repeated, losing some of her volume but none of her force. “I sold myself to yon bastard to keep my people safe, and to keep your trail clear. And what do ye do, Connaight Crae? Throw mud upon me, at every turn.”

  “I could have brought ye, Emrath!” Redfist had well and truly lost any desire to restrain his voice. His bellow was almost a battlefield-shout. “We could have made a fine life in the underlands, away from this!”

  “How far do ye think I could travel to escape the Stones?” She regarded him as a laundress might a stubborn stain upon fine material, her chin up and her hands knotted to match his. They were indeed a fine pair. “I am Kalburn, Rainak! Kroth himself cannae undo that chain, and taken from the Stones I wither.” Her shoulders sagged, crushed by an invisible weight, a feeling I knew all too well. “Great bloody bairns, the lot of ye. If I could escape to the underlands, aye, I would, but not in thy company.”

  Breathless silence. Emrath clapped her hand over her mouth, the double marriage-ring glittering.

  Redfist stepped forward, his arm lifting, and I realized he meant to strike her. From his stance, it would not be a love-tap, or even a shock-breaker.

  “Are you twain finished with your courting?” Deliberately loud, deliberately crude, my Skaialan jarred them both. “There are more weighty matters before us, idiots.”

  It might have been amusing to see them realize another was watching their display, if not for Redfist’s half-turn towards me, his great ham-fists clenched and his face suffused with ugly ruddiness. “K’ai! Ye little sneaking—”

  “Be very careful how you end that sentence, friend Redfist.” I crossed my arms, my dotani a comforting weight upon my back and each knife upon me easy in its sheath. “I know what your once-brother Dunkast carries, Rainak Redfist, and we must speak. Else I would leave you to your business here, and tend to my own.”

  Emrath, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not think much of my interruption either. “I have had enough of ye.” Her grey eyes all but spat sparks, and she hissed like a cat seeking a mate upon a Hain balcony in the dead of summer, when every touch against sweating skin is an irritation and fur double the burden. “Were ye not my guest, susnach whore, I would have ye scourged and driven from Kalburn.”

  “No doubt.” I showed my teeth, and it was not a smile. “If you had any among your tain who could match me, Skaialan queenling, for I would not go quietly as long as my friends were in danger.”

  That halted her.

  “K’ai.” Redfist sighed, his rage draining as wine from an empty skin. “Can ye not be graceful, for once?”

  “Ask yourself that before me, barbarian.” It boggled the mind, that he was seeking to chide me for ill behavior. “In my country a man does not strike his lover.” They had no word for adai, and did not seem to feel the lack. “In any case, your Dunkast has found a bit of Pensari witchery, and Janaire kept it from turning the entire room into snarling dogs fighting over your entrails. You should thank her, and prettily too for it drove her into shock that might have stoppered her breath entire.”

  “Pensari?” He repeated the word, incomprehension coloring its syllables.

  “Do your people have no word for them? That is strange indeed.” I shook my head. History was not our quandary now; the bards could fight over exactly where the light-eating jewel came from at leisure after its danger was met and surpassed, and Dunkast Ferulaine neutralized in one manner or another. “Come. Let us go where there is at least a fire, and speak of it. You have challenged him, you should know what you are fighting.”

  They regarded me as if I had suddenly grown another head, or begun speaking in an ancient incomprehensible tongue.

  Finally, Redfist unclenched his fists, and his battle-readiness faded. “Very well. Step outside, K’ai. I would speak to the Needleslay some little more.”

  “Do that.” I paused. “But keep your hands off the lady Needleslay, Redfist. It is beneath you to strike the weak.”

  I had thought Emrath would be grateful. The look she shot me was anything but.

  Children or Slaves

  If it was a council of war, it was an exceeding uncomfortable one. Janaire, the mark on her face swiftly fading, kept glancing nervously at me. Atyarik, fuming, stood behind her chair—it was not the first time he thought me a sad excuse for an adai, and I knew it would not be the last. Darik stood behind my own seat, but otherwise did not acknowledge me. Gavrin, his dark hair rumpled into a harpy’s nest, sat next to Jorak Blacknose, since bards are the repositories of history and lore in whatever land they find themselves. Redfist did not look at Emrath, who was bloodless and almost silent at the head of the great table.

  A few more of her tain attended as well, two blond giants and a dark one. The dark one—Emrath’s High Steward, Korbrin Brightbock—was grey-grizzled and lean for a Skaialan, and an iron archer’s ring sat upon his right thumb. He rubbed at its carving, meditatively, and his gaze was just as quick and sharply intelligent as Blacknose’s.

  The blonds blurred into each other; many Skaialan look the same to me. But one was the high-captain of the tain, and the other a blesagathk—a priest sworn to one of their gods, one who married and rode to war like the followers of the Hain butterfly goddess who, every six of their thousand-summer cycles, changes from female to male, or back again. She is the patron of acrobats and those who fight in the pits, and the Hain hold the Moon to be her lamp, lifted as she traverses the halls of night searching for her breasts when she is female or her shaft while he is male.

  “He rode to battle against the blue tribes,” Blacknose said heavily. “And came back with the gem. Some say he found it in a tomb, or that the chieftain he fought had it in an iron casket.”

  “A tomb is more likely.” I spread my hands upon the tabletop and studied them. “Perhaps some Pensari who escaped the ruin came this far North. Though the Anhedrin hold that their last Khana retreated south. I do not know.”

  “Tell us of these Pensari.” Korbrin, the steward, addressed the words over my head, as if he expected D’ri to speak.

  I cast through mental storehouses, arranging what I had been told. “The Anhedrin called them the travelers. They were said to come from elsewhere. They were pale, but ruddy at lip and fingertip, and they worshipped death.” A blood-bubble under my left firstfinger’s nail was a reminder of daily sword-drill. Janaire’s hands were much softer, and unmarked, laying decorous in her lap as she studied me, quick intelligence in her dark gaze. “They had their witchery, brought out of the Sundering when their home was shattered. Though they may have come from the North, who knows? Your kind are certainly pale enough.”

/>   “It matters little where he got the thing from,” one of the blonds—the head-captain, Sorek Piercefoot—remarked. “He used to only wear it in battle. But he brought it into the Great Hall, before the Needleslay.”

  “Ba’narak’n’adai.” Janaire shuddered, her G’mai soft with loathing. “He wanted them to become as dogs. Wild dogs, and to kill our big red barbarian.”

  Korbrin’s expression darkened. “What does she say?”

  I had to pause, to find the right words in Skaialan and the slurry of trade-tongue, to be as precise as possible. “She is a teacher among the G’mai, and knows much of the shapes Power may take. She says your Dunkast was seeking to use the stone to rob the assembled of their will and turn them upon Redfist. To tear him apart like dogs after entrails.”

  A tiny movement of revulsion went through the Steward, echoed by every other Skaialan. Gavrin opened his mouth, shut it, and shot me a furtive glance.

  “Well?” I prompted.

  “Nothing.” But all gazes were focused on him, now. His Skaialan was halting, so he used tradetongue instead. “I heard a lay, in Antai, of the Khana Alhai’s fall. Tis sung he sent treasures north, to keep them from the hands of the slum-citizens who threatened his throne.”

  “Ah.” I nodded. It made sense, though why would a king send his treasure where he did not intend to follow? “Perhaps. In any case, the thing is carved with a Pensari word, over and over.”

  The steward regarded me narrowly. “And which word would that be?”

  “Death.” I used the Skaialan, so there could be no misunderstanding, but my left hand still jumped to an avert sign. When speaking of the Pensari, it is always best to be cautious. “And you said he was dark before, Redfist. The thing is…bleaching him.”