by Mike Brooks
“It can’t be right for them if it leads to this sort of thinking,” Ada countered. The last of the clan’s witches had been out with the fishing crews all day, and the smell of salt was still strong on her, as it used to be with Zhanna. “Who’s to say this practice of theirs wasn’t what caused the sickness you spoke of?” She folded her hefty arms, and sat back. “It’s unnatural, and there’s an end to it.”
“No one’s arguing it isn’t,” Saana replied. She cast a glance at Kerrti, just in case, but the young healer didn’t say anything. “The question is: what are we going to do about it?”
“Is Blackcreek dealing with this man of his, at least?” Esser asked.
“Yes,” Saana replied, “but we can’t trust him to protect our people from his before they act, he’s made that clear enough.”
“So we must protect ourselves,” Ekham said firmly. “Will he tell us who these men are, at least?”
Saana didn’t even bother trying to play out in her head how that conversation would go. “No.”
“Then we must warn our own,” Ekham said with a resigned nod. “We can’t afford to assume any Flatlander is innocent.”
“Is it just men?” Kerrti asked. “Or do their women do this as well?”
“Why?” Tsolga leered. “Got your eye on one?”
“That’s not funny!” Saana snapped, and for a wonder the old woman subsided. “He was quite clear they do,” she added, addressing Kerrti, who was now glaring at the Hornsounder. “Apparently they’ll even take in parentless children, and raise them with another woman.”
“This country is cursed,” Ekham declared flatly.
“I won’t be having that,” Esser said sternly. “Don’t you dare go spreading that sort of talk, Ekham! This land may be strange, its people may be stranger, and they may be powerful wrong about what they do, but they’re not cursed. Any fool who listened to half the tales Tsolga tells would know that.” She turned to the Hornsounder, who was picking at one of her remaining teeth with a ragged fingernail. “You’ve raided many of their towns, haven’t you?”
“Sure have,” Tsolga agreed around her own finger.
“Are they a cursed people? Are they fading from this world?”
“Fuck no,” Tsolga snorted, removing her finger from her mouth and inspecting the end of it with considerable interest. “There’s hordes of the bastards. I saw one of their big settlements once, from out at sea, when the Greybeard decided to swing in close and hit them when we were already on our way back home. There were enough of them that they actually put to sea to come chase us off! They couldn’t catch a drenching in a gale, of course, but that’s beside the point. There were two whole hillsides covered with their buildings. Covered. If I had to guess, I’d say there were more of them in that one place, just that one place mind you, than there are in all of the clans of Tjakorsha, and that’s no lie.” The old woman shook her head. “That was the time we picked up Nalon, actually.”
“Speaking of Nalon,” Ada said, frowning, “how is it he’s never made any mention of this?”
“I’ve sent for him,” Saana said darkly, running a finger over the engraved plates of the belt encircling her waist. The belt of the Brown Eagle clan chief was older than any living member of the clan, and a constant reminder of the responsibility weighing on Saana’s shoulders. She’d never felt it more keenly than over the last year, when The Golden’s breaking of the clans had forced her to choose between her people’s destruction, or the uncertainty of life across the ocean. She thought she’d been as prepared for the challenge as she could be, yet there were many things she’d never considered.
“How’s the fishing going?” she asked Ada, who snorted.
“Fish are fish, here and everywhere. It goes well enough, and will doubtless go better once we’ve learned the tricks of these shores.”
“Can’t you follow the locals?” Ekham asked.
“Sure, but who’s to say these grassbloods know where the fish are to be found?” Ada said. “They make their catches, that’s true enough, but I’d trust Esser’s instincts over theirs, and all she knows is sheep.”
“Thank you,” Esser murmured, not looking at her fellow witch.
“Besides,” Ada continued, either not noticing the comment or choosing to ignore it, “they pretty much shit themselves should we haul near them. Probably think we’re going to steal their fish, or just board them and cut their throats!” She drew a finger across her neck with a grin. Back when she’d sailed the seas around Tjakorsha not all of Ada’s prey had been under the waves, and not all of the silver she’d returned with had been fish.
There was a brief knock at the door, but the latch lifted and it was pushed inwards before Saana could get up. The firelight illuminated the dour features of Nalon, who pulled up short as he scanned the faces of those already in the stilt-house.
“Ah shit,” he said glumly, then dropped down into a cross-legged position between Ekham and Ada with an air of resignation. “What am I in trouble for?” His tone was that of a man hoping that if he jokes about his fears then they will prove unfounded.
He was to be disappointed.
“You and I had a lot of conversations about this land,” Saana said sternly, “and not once did you mention that men fuck men and women fuck women.”
Nalon blew out his moustaches. “Oh. That.”
“Yes,” Ada said sternly, “that. How many years have you lived with us now? Why did you hide your people’s deviancy from us?”
“Maybe to hide his own shame?” Ekham suggested, his eyebrows lowering.
“Hey, no! No,” Nalon said firmly, raising his finger. “I don’t have any interest in men. Never have. It’s not like everyone does here, far from it. It’s just that some people do.”
“And you never mentioned it?” Ada demanded.
“Well of course not!” Nalon snorted. “Why would I? First off, like I said, I have no interest in men, so I’d no reason to bring it up. Second, by the time I’d learned enough of your language to talk about things, I’d already worked out what you thought about it. I reckoned that if I mentioned how other people acted in Narida you’d get all suspicious about me, like you’re doing right now.” He folded his arms and glowered at her. “Don’t think I ever forgot the Greybeard would have sent me over the side too, no matter what Avlja had said, if it weren’t for the fact he worked out I knew iron-witching. I didn’t know how far that would help me if one of you got it into your heads I was looking at a man the wrong way.”
“One of us?” Saana echoed him in disbelief. “You married into our clan, have fathered children with one of our women, and you still think of us that way?”
“Hey, she just said the Naridans are my people,” Nalon protested, pointing at Ada. “So you tell me, chief: am I part of the clan or not?”
Saana shot a glance at Ada, who’d jutted our her jaw pugnaciously in response to Nalon’s retort. The trouble was, it was an entirely fair and just retort, and Saana was somewhat ashamed she hadn’t caught what Ada had said.
“Of course you’re part of our clan,” she said firmly, looking back at Nalon. “And I’m sorry if you’ve been made to feel otherwise.” Ada pursed her lips, but said nothing. “But I hope you can understand, Nalon, it would’ve been better if you told us about this before we came here.”
“No disrespect, Chief, but that’s easy for you to say,” Nalon replied, albeit without heat. “I had Avlja and the boys to think about. If someone cast suspicions at me, what would’ve happened to them? For that matter, what would they have thought of me?” He shook his head. “Sorry, but no. You’ve got precious little to fear from the Naridans on that front. I’d be more worried about some fool getting drunk and pulling a knife, if I were you.”
“One of them kissed Timmun today,” Saana said coldly.
“Timmun’s not innocent,” Nalon sneered. “He got it into his head that Inkeru wanted him, and she broke his nose when he did the same—”
“Yes,” Saana
cut him off before he could finish his sentence. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“Well of course it doesn’t, but… Look, you get Timmuns everywhere,” Nalon said, waving a hand. “Arseholes, every one of them.”
“You’re saying that we should consider this to be normal?” Esser asked, her lips twisting in disgust as she spoke. “That we should just forget about it?”
“I’m saying I lived, what, nineteen years in this land before the Greybeard took me,” Nalon said flatly, “and I knew more than one man with a taste for men in that time, and none of them ever harmed me.” He paused. “Well, one tended to cheat at dice, but you get my point. Shit, there was a stablegirl up at Bowmar who was more predatory than any man-fucking man I’ve ever met.” His gaze unfocused slightly and his lips quirked slightly upwards beneath his moustaches. “Good times, they were.”
“This is a serious matter, Nalon,” Ekham snapped.
“No,” Nalon said, getting to his feet, “it isn’t. You just think it is. Don’t get me wrong, I like the way the clan lives far more than I like the ‘because Nari said so’ shit on this side of the water, but you’ve really got more important things to be worried about than who fucks who, like learning the fucking language.” He dusted his arse off and snorted. “I need to make nice with Gador, because becoming his assistant is the best I can hope for here, and I can’t make nice with him if I spend all day every day translating for you. Besides, I doubt the folk of Black Keep are going to spend much effort learning Tjakorshan.”
“One moment,” Saana said, raising her hand. Nalon scowled, but halted in the middle of turning for the door. “Speaking of that: did you teach Blackcreek how to greet me in our language?”
Nalon frowned in puzzlement. “Not me. Maybe Zhanna did.”
It was certainly possible, Saana had to admit, but perhaps Blackcreek had merely heard someone else say it and imitated them: she wouldn’t have put it past him. She’d been so caught up in rage and worry she hadn’t asked her daughter how much contact she’d had with Daimon past the gifting of a baby dragon. Blackcreek had a member of the clan who could speak at least some of his tongue within his walls. Would he have the sense to learn from her? Would he have the humility to?
“Very well. Thank you for coming, Nalon.”
“My pleasure,” Nalon grunted, heading for the door. Saana could hear the lie in his voice, but didn’t call him on it. Sadly, she suspected she was going to be reliant on his help to bridge the gap between the two peoples for some time yet.
“I think he forgets himself,” Ada said darkly after the door had closed behind Nalon again.
“I think he remembers himself all too well,” Saana countered. “You heard what he said. Nalon’s always felt his presence with us was down to his usefulness, and that’s doubled now. He knows we’d struggle to do this without him. Besides,” she added, “he may say he prefers our way of life, but I suspect he could fit back in with the Naridans if he needed to. We’re no longer his only option.”
“And endanger his family?” Ekham scoffed. “The Flatlanders would never tolerate them.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Kerrti said quietly. “Iron-witches are valuable people here. If it came to it, I feel he’d take that chance.”
“We’re getting dragged away from the point at hand,” Ada said, clapping her hands together. “What are we to do, now we know about the Flatlanders’ deviant ways?”
Saana rubbed her hand over her face. She was incredibly tired, and didn’t think that was going to change any time soon. “We can’t force them to live like us. Daimon Blackcreek may have gone against his family to allow us to settle here unopposed, but he’s no coward.” His willingness to fight Ristjaan over the honour of a farmer had been proof enough of that. “He’ll hold firm to what he believes when it comes to his people, and damn the consequences. We must look out for—”
She was interrupted by a thunder of knocking at the door. She sprang to her feet, heart in her mouth and her hand on the grip of her dagger as a succession of unpleasant scenarios ran through her head. What if Blackcreek had set someone to watch her? What if Blackcreek had decided he now knew who the witches were, and had sent men to kill them out of fear? The clan would rise up, and Black Keep would burn: Blackcreek would know that, but wouldn’t he do it anyway, if he thought it the right thing to do?
All that flashed through her mind in a moment, so by the time she’d reached the door and pulled it back she was almost startled to find it was only Tsennan Longjaw.
“What is it?” she demanded, angry at being disturbed. Then she saw his wide eyes and heaving chest, and tension gripped her bowels again. Something was very wrong.
“Kerrti!” Tsennan puffed, gasping for air as he looked past her. “Is Kerrti here?”
“I’m here,” Kerrti’s calm voice replied. Saana heard the swish of her skirts as she rose to her feet.
“Come quickly!” Tsennan pleaded. “It’s Brida! She’s taken ill!”
The tension in Saana’s bowels turned to ice, and she looked up and around at the walls and ceiling. A house where someone had died of sickness, and it had been left to stand instead of being burned as was right and proper.
A house just like the one where Brida, her husband, and her children now slept.
DAIMON
THE SOUND OF wood striking wood caught Daimon’s attention as he set foot upon the bridge across the fishpond, and brought him to a puzzled halt. He couldn’t fathom why any of his household would be making such a noise in his family’s private copse. He set off again, crossing the bridge and turning towards the sound.
What he found, shortly afterwards, was the sight of a Raider engaged in combat with a tree.
Zhanna had a sturdy length of dead branch, as long as her own arm, and was practicing cuts with it. Daimon watched her for a while, fascinated. She was engrossed in her work, and was not without skill. Her blows had considerable force, and she was consistent in her aim; they all landed in more or less the same spot on the trunk, no matter which angle she struck from, and the bark was starting to look worse for wear. As he watched, Daimon saw echoes of the swings of Ristjaan the Cleaver, and his hand went involuntarily to his ribs. The tip of the big man’s axe had done little more than graze him. Tevyel the apothecary had washed and bound the wound and Aftak the priest had prayed to Nari for good health and swift healing, but it was still tender.
“Is it dead?” he asked as Zhanna struck the tree what looked to be a final blow, judging by the way she doubled over panting afterwards. The girl was straight-backed again in a moment and whirled around to level her branch at him, face flushed red and eyes wide. Had he been a little closer, Daimon might have feared she was going to attack him. As it was, he was well out of range of her makeshift weapon, and recognition dawned in her eyes a moment later.
“You watch long?” she asked, eyes narrowing as she lowered the branch.
“A little while only,” Daimon admitted. He felt uncomfortable, now, about not having announced his presence, despite this being his land. He changed the subject. “How is your dragon?”
“Good. Eats well.”
Daimon nodded. He didn’t have much more to ask on that front, since he’d never paid close attention to the raising of rattletails. He was glad to hear the dragon lived, though; he’d hoped the gesture might go some way towards bridging the gap between Naridan and Tjakorshi.
The silence stretched out, started to become awkward. “You are a warrior?” That was how the girl had been referring to herself, at any rate.
Zhanna’s lip twisted, and she shook her head. “No warrior.” She touched her forehead, where her mother—and virtually every other adult Tjakorshi Daimon had seen, come to think of it—had a dark stripe running from their hairline to the bridge of their nose. “No fight yet.”
So the stripe marked a person who’d been in battle? It must be a rite of passage, given how many of them bore it. “This lord does not envy your opponent, should that come to pass,”
Daimon said politely.
Zhanna gave him the sort of blank look Daimon knew he’d given Osred as a boy, when the steward had tried to teach him numbers.
“You look to fight well,” he tried again, and a fierce grin lit up her face.
“Thank you.”
Daimon snorted in surprise. “You know how to say ‘thank you’?”
“Is important,” Zhanna replied with a shrug. “Nalon say so.” She eyed him in what Daimon felt was an appraising manner. “You are warrior.”
It wasn’t a question, and yet Daimon suddenly felt uncertain about his response. He’d had one fight in earnest, an honour duel where he’d been terrified nearly out of his wits, and he’d only been saved by the relentless and none-too-gentle training his father had insisted on. He didn’t consider himself a warrior in the grand traditions of Narida; a mighty sar who rode into battle with keen blade and clear head, or who single-handedly fought and bested twisted monsters of the mountains.
“Yes,” he said firmly. His self-doubt was just one more measure of his unworthiness, and there was no point revealing it to his hostage. How he wished he could talk more freely with his brother!
“How do fight?” Zhanna asked, pointing at the longblade at his belt. She mimed a two-handed cut with her branch.
“This lord has trained with the longblade since he was five summers old,” Daimon informed her. It hadn’t been with a full-sized weapon at first of course—that would have been ridiculous—but Lord Asrel had insisted he take up an adult’s practice blade by his tenth naming day. Daimon could still remember the soreness of his arms and shoulders.
Zhanna nodded as though this was nothing unusual. “Show this warrior?”