by H. M. Long
The words made my Fire burn, low and sickening, in my gut. It did not help that the Algatt loved to add slow wails and high yips to their songs – better for echoing down mountain ravines, Yske had once said. The sound was beautiful and eerie. It made my skin crawl.
Later, in the cold of the night, Sixnit shifted closer to my side. She and I huddled together, lending warmth and comfort to one another and the sleeping child.
“We need to dedicate him,” I murmured to my friend, eyeing the guards to make sure they didn’t overhear. “In case… in case they separate us. I can’t give the dead their rites now, but I can do this. Do you have a name?”
Sixnit shifted again, not quite looking at me. “But the High Priestess should do the dedication.”
My throat tightened. She was right. The High Priestess – or an elder priest, in remote villages – led all rituals, including the dedication of babies. I wasn’t one of them. I was just another Eangi, one of dozens. I was a servant, and an errant one at that.
But I’d seen dedications a hundred times. And this matter, like releasing the souls of the dead, was too important. Even exiled, I belonged to Eang and was bound to fulfill her will.
“Either the Algatt will dedicate him to Gadr, or he’ll grow up dedicated to no god. Lost.” It was hard to speak those words – the fate of a lost person was eerily close to my own. “If that happens, the gods won’t protect him. No one will hear his prayers, and when he dies, he’ll never be allowed in the High Halls. He’ll be trapped here in the Waking World forever.”
Sixnit hesitated another moment. Some of the other captives watched us now, mute and dull-eyed.
“But Vist isn’t here.” This second protest fell harder than the first. Vist was her husband, dead back in the embers of the Hall of Smoke with Eidr. “Two, for the pledge.”
Silence yawned between us.
“I’ll… I’ll stand in,” I offered, as weak and guilt-ridden as the words were. If I’d killed the traveler Omaskat as I’d been meant to, would we even be in this situation?
But Sixnit relented, expression bleak, and placed the child in my lap. “His name is Vistic.”
I took this with a nod. I no longer had my ritual knife, but the hairpin I’d picked from the ashes remained buried in the tangled mess of my braids. I pried it loose and set one prong against a newly healed fingertip. It was messy and painful, but I knew the pain would be short-lived. My Fire couldn’t heal grievous wounds, but as soon as I burned again this cut would knit, joining dozens of other, finer marks.
Careful to conceal my actions from the guards, I touched the blood to the boy’s forehead and lips and loosened the folds of his swaddle to draw a scarlet rune in the center of his chest.
The Eangen around me now watched in vigilant, reverent hush. Each recognized the magnitude of my actions, both in the ritual of the dedication and the drawing of the rune that enabled it.
A rune of blood was the most powerful of all. Blood was magic. Blood maintained life in every living thing. Its loss brought death. Blood carried Eangi power from one generation to the next, wove life in a woman’s womb, was spilled once a month and at birth. So it followed that an Eangi’s blood, and better a woman’s blood, should be sacrificed in the dedication of a new life to a god.
“Eang, hear me,” I whispered as the Algatt’s songs continued in the background. “Hear my voice on behalf of this child. Bind his soul to the smoke of your Halls and take a drop of his blood in your cup. Prepare a seat beside your hearth for he whom we call Vistic, and when his last day comes, welcome him to his rest.”
Then, placing my palm on the child’s chest, I let my Fire flow. My bloody finger healed, but this was not a flash of deadly rage or blazing violence like I had unleashed on the raider in the Hall of Smoke. This was a blessing, a baptism, binding the child to Eang and bringing him under her eternal protection. And mine.
Exhaustion came hard and fast, and I took a second to steady myself before I looked up at Sixnit. She accepted the infant back into her arms with a fragile, melancholy smile. I saw tears in her eyes – tears for her husband, I was sure – as I began to sing the blessing song that sealed the dedication.
The backs of the Eangen around us straightened. Even Ama watched us with something less than disdain in her eyes. Then, cautiously, they all joined in. Ama was last, but her voice was strongest.
My voice was not sweet, my throat raspy from cold and sorrow; still, I sang every note. The Algatt’s own songs sheltered us, distracting the guards and leaving us in our huddle of warmth and familiarity. Twenty captive Eangen, the last of our town, in the heart of an Algatt horde.
When the song faded, Sixnit held up her son and studied the blood drying on his face. He still slept, exhausted and frail. She cupped the back of his limp head and leant close, so that her breath touched his cheeks.
“Vistic,” she said, “I am your mother, and this is Hessa. We bind our lives to yours. We will protect you, however and whenever we can, so long as Eang permits.”
So long as Eang permits. I stroked Vistic’s cheek, wondering just how long that would be.
I could not stay here. I may have dedicated this child and bound him to myself, but the Algatt would likely separate us.
I withdrew my hand and forced my eyes away from the two of them, hiding my hairpin back in the tangles of my hair. Perhaps separation was for the best. Sixnit’s presence consoled me and I hated the thought of being apart, but my duty was to Eang, wasn’t it? To the vow that I had failed to keep and my own, uncertain eternity? I didn’t need any more obligations.
Whether or not the goddess had responded, whether or not the massacre was my punishment, there was only one way forward that I could see, one way to salvage any hope of redemption and reunion with Eidr in the High Halls of the Gods.
I had to find the traveler, Omaskat. And then I had to kill him.
FIVE
As a child, I watched Yske’s mother, my aunt, bind my cousin’s dark curls into a spiral of braids. Yske sat patiently on a stool, clad in her finest forest-green dress. The patterns of lynxes and ice blossoms on my aunt’s bone comb caught the light as her fingers methodically hooked and brushed.
I hovered nearby. My own mother had long finished my hair, gathering my crop up into a braided tuft before she bade me wait quietly, and went outside.
“Svala is coming?” My father’s voice drifted through the open door, on a shaft of golden light that cut across worn floorboards, fresh reed mats and up the far wall, where my parents’ shields hung side by side under the beams of the sleeping loft. They were both dark blue, round with glinting bosses, and painted with the lynx heads of our village: East Meade.
I inched closer to the door, my bare feet scuffing on the reed beneath the hem of my grey dress. The mats smelled of summer, warm and dry, and the breeze that came with the light was laden with the scent of the flowers that fringed the overgrown roof.
“You told me the girls would go to Iskir, not the Hall of Smoke,” my father protested, still out of sight.
“No, I told you to send her to Albor, but you didn’t listen,” the headman replied. His tone was soft, far more measured than my father’s booming bray. “Svala herself has taken an interest in the girls.”
“Good. I said Iskir is too close to the mountains,” my mother reminded my father. She sounded exasperated, as always. “I don’t want Hessa anywhere near the—”
“She’s an Eangi,” my father snapped. “She’ll be slaughtering Algatt for the rest of her life, in Iskir or Albor or Meade. I hate that woman. Svala is an arrogant witch.”
The headman’s exasperated hiss followed. “Berin.”
“I’d prefer that her life be as long as possible,” my mother returned, ignoring the slight against the most powerful woman on the Rim. “And not under a Gatti belly.”
“Svala is a fair woman,” the headman’s voice rose, quelling my parents. “A powerful priestess. You know the number of Eangi ordained in the last few generations
has… waned. Hessa is obviously Eangi but volatile. She needs a mentor like Svala. As for Yske, her power is more subtle; she could go anywhere. But it is better for her to stay with her cousin, especially as young as they are.”
Behind Yske, I saw my aunt’s eyes rise towards the door. Since her own husband’s death, she had become my father’s second wife according to law; the cautious counterpart to my mother’s bold.
I could see in her face that she didn’t want Yske to go. I wasn’t sure how she felt about me, but her obvious love for my cousin made me love her, too.
Anxiety stirred in my belly and I shifted closer to her skirts. She cast me a sad half-smile, but her focus remained outside.
A clamor began off in the village and the conversation between my parents and the headman fell away. My aunt, sensing the change, tied off Yske’s braid and fastened the tail of it under the crown with a fine pin. Then, with distracted fingers, she clipped her comb to the beads draped across the front of her apron.
“High Priestess,” my mother’s voice said. More voices came after, low and deferential.
My heart stilled in my small chest. I had never seen the High Priestess, but I knew of her. I’d heard her Eangi Fire was so powerful she could turn bones to ashes with a scream. I’d heard that she traveled to the High Halls, in spirit and sometimes even in body, to speak to the dead and hold council with the gods. And when the Algatt raiders came, her Eangi fought and died to protect us, their people.
I held very still as the door swung wide, sunlight washing around the forms of my parents, the headman, and a new, fourth figure. She was younger than my mother, with ebony hair and ruddy skin, like most Eangen. She was tall, evenly muscled beneath a tunic of muted hemlock-dyed red and loose undyed breeches, and her kohl-rimmed eyes reminded me of a hawk – or perhaps an owl. A hooded axe hung through a ring at one hip and a knife sat at the other, its wooden hilt dark and smooth from use.
“These are the girls?” asked the High Priestess of the Goddess of War.
My mother led her forward. The High Priestess surveyed Yske, but as she neared, her attention fixed upon me.
Svala crouched, shifting her axe as she did so, and beckoned me forward. I shuffled up to her knees and she ducked to meet my gaze. “So, you are the child who killed two Algatt raiders?”
My throat constricted. My memory of the event was fragmentary, blurred by the exhaustion that had overtaken me after the fact, but I still didn’t like to think of it.
“How did you do it?” Svala asked me.
Over the High Priestess’s shoulder, half-silhouetted in the doorway, I saw my mother watching me with her arms crossed. My father stood beyond her, staring outside with an unhappy expression around his eyes.
“I don’t remember,” I said.
At the sound of my voice, the High Priestess’s attention sharpened still more. She studied me for an uncomfortable length of time before she took my hands. Hers were scratchy with calluses and mottled with scars.
“Do you understand what it is to be an Eangi, Hessa?”
I sensed Yske fidgeting nearby, displeased that all the attention had fallen on me. Her status as an Eangi was something her parents had suspected for years – her dreams and visions and unnatural strength were known to everyone in East Meade.
But me? Me, they had not expected.
“Eangi serve Eang,” I said, uncertain. “She gives them Fire. They write the runes.”
“Yes. You are one. I am one. Your cousin is one.” Svala considered my younger, smoother hands. “We are chosen by the Goddess of War to serve her and the Eangen people.”
I felt like I was supposed to nod, so I did. My gaze was serious, my hands still.
“We’re marked by Eang with the Fire, a piece of the goddess herself,” Svala continued. “It’s not real fire – you cannot see it – but it is hot like fire. It burns like fire, in the blood and the mind and through runes. Eangi Fire is magic, magic that we can use to kill, to bless, to write the runes and call visions and heal our simple wounds – though we must pay for it with strength. Eangi Fire is power, and that, Hessa is what you used to stop those raiders.”
Again, my mind shuttered. I didn’t want to remember that night. Not now. Not ever.
I wanted to pull away from the priestess. I was scared. I was scared of her and scared of myself. My eyes darted up to my mother, searching for solace. Her expression softened, but her stare warned me to stay where I was.
Svala tugged me closer. “This world is dark and unkind – no, look at me, child.” When I tried to break her gaze, she slapped my cheek lightly. “You may be Eangi, so may Yske, but that will not spare you. Your days will be short, full of violence and difficult choices. I am going to protect you. You will be far from your family, but the Eangi will become your family. You will learn to fight, and you will never, ever, be alone. You will learn to control the fire in your blood. And when the Algatt come down from their mountains to raid, you, child, will protect your people. You will make our enemies fear the name of Eang.”
SIX
We were herded into an enormous Algatt encampment before dusk three days after my capture and the destruction of the Hall of Smoke.
The size of the camp made the hair on the back of my neck rise. How many tents were there, clustered between the hills beside the great river Pasidon? A hundred? Two? And how many stolen Eangen boats were beached between them, among the equally stolen flocks and carts and wagons?
I stared at the boats, at their carved rails and ornate figureheads of bears and eagles and stags. These were the vessels that moved Eangen people and goods up and down the river, roughly thirty strong. But now, it seemed, they had borne Algatt south. That meant the north itself was overrun, and, judging by the lack of warning they’d sent us, it had happened fast.
I looked more closely at the inhabitants of the camp. A woman paused in the midst of bathing her baby in a bucket. Her hair was so pale that it was nearly white, smudged with blue about the forehead, but carelessly so – as if it were days old, and she simply hadn’t the time to care for herself. She stared at me while the infant shrieked and splashed and, beyond her shoulder, a score of small children herded goats into a corral. Nearby, a pregnant woman leant on a man’s arm as they entered a simple hide tent and an old man brushed down a horse. Through them all wove trails of warriors, male and female alike, wearing mail and padded armor over their squared shoulders.
I recalled the dying Algatt’s words, back in the Hall of Smoke. Arpa in the mountains. If the legions had somehow thrust their way into Algatt land, driving the clan south, it certainly explained what I saw here. Families. Entire villages. Carts of meagre possessions. These weren’t raiders – at least, not all of them. They were refugees.
“If they separate us… Hessa?” Sixnit’s voice broke through my observations. She knew exactly what her fate was about to be, but when she looked at me, her eyes were still open, expectant. Searching for something to hold on to. “Hessa. We’ll meet in East Meade?”
I nodded. We’d developed this plan over the last few days, along with the other prisoners. The Meades, closer to the western coast, had the best chances of having survived the Algatt tide. Perhaps I held a selfish, naive hope that my father and sisters were alive in East Meade, but it nonetheless gave us a direction to run.
Sixnit offered me a tight, grim smile, but I still saw the pain in her eyes. Neither of us could bear the thought of separation, but that, like so many aspects of our world, was unavoidable. “Good.”
In the center of the camp we were herded into a line, all twenty of us. Algatt crowded in to form a wall of beards and braids of blond and red, full of afternoon light.
The hair on my neck rose again and my fingers twitched, wishing for a weapon. My hairpin still dug into my scalp, but though its prongs were sharp, it would hardly carry me out of an Algatt horde.
One of our captors was in charge of the auction. The lean warrior paced down the line of us, toying with a braided cord
of leather and horsehair. His own hair was cropped short in the back but left long at the front in typical Algatt style, falling over his eyes in an angular, wind-blown tuft.
“Offers?”
Rough hands turned my face towards the sun and I squinted, shying away. I didn’t see the owner of the hands lifting my tunic, but I felt the knot of my trousers jerk free.
Every muscle in my body went rigid. My free hand shot forward, fingers plunging towards my attacker’s eyes.
Something slammed into the side of my head. I staggered, disoriented, until gruff hands jerked me upright again.
“I see we’ve fought before.” An Algatt ran his eyes over a large scar on my thigh. “Turn her around.”
I stumbled over my own feet as someone spun me in place and I found myself face to face with my captor. It was a woman, a blonde, but I found no solidarity in her compassionless, kohl-streaked eyes.
I glared at her. Then I felt the man’s fingers trace three raiding seasons’ worth of scars on my back and fear exploded through my mortification. Would he realize I had more scars than the average Eangen? Would he notice the scars on the tips of my fingers and realize I was Eangi?
I instinctively reached out for my Fire, coaxing it into flame, and curled my fingers into my palms. I could shatter this man’s bones with a flick of my will. This woman’s too. But where would that leave me? Fighting my way through a hundred more warriors to the edge of camp?
The Fire was a berserker’s tool, a short-lived burst that would eventually leave me exhausted and weak. It was one reason why Eangi always fought in concert, in pairs or groups, not alone like me. And more than that, as soon as I used the Fire every person in this camp would know what I was. I would burn out, and I’d be left with no weapon but my fingernails and a hairpin.
I had to be more tactful, smother my indignation, and bide my time.
That resolve immediately faltered as the Algatt man slapped my bottom. “Too damaged and too masculine,” he declared, and moved on to Sixnit.
The Algatt woman released me, passing on down the line in case Sixnit decided to mount her own resistance. Trying to swallow my rage a second time, I jerked my clothing back into place and eyed my friend.