“Because you keep trying to fuck her ass without consent?” Xiphos guessed. “Is that why she hates us all so much?”
Kobb stared at him for a long moment, his face darkening. “You are going to stop with that nonsense. Right now. Or I’m going to tell your mother that you’re being crude, Grandchild of my Mother’s Sister. And inform the Keeper of Your Heart as well.” He shook his head in blistering condemnation. “That’s not how you were raised. Where is your honor?”
Xiphos held up his hands, instantly backing down. “No need to do something that drastic. I’m just trying to understand, that’s all. Sorry.”
“It’s ridiculous.” Tzadok decided. “Your ‘free range’ captive idea is a total failure, Uncle.”
“She is not my captive. I put no one in chains.” Kobb pointed at Tandrea. “I’m still amazed you put Tandy in them.”
“I tried not to! She refused to take the damn thing off!” Tzadok defended, gesturing to the collar in question. “She said that the chain represented ‘an important nonverbal indicator of her status in the community’ and that she ‘didn’t want to go against our rich cultural heritage.’”
“Well… I was right, wasn’t I?” Tandy explained hesitantly. “It might have been offensive to remove it. The Galland League of Diplomacy and Interpretation is quite clear on things like this. Protocol must be maintained for seamless translation to occur.” She reluctantly took the object off and set it aside. “But if you’d prefer that I remove it, I will.” She went back to poking at the herbs again, looking for something to add to her soup.
“See? Now she’s going to pout about it. I think she sees it as some kind of regalia of honor or something!” Tzadok commented to his uncle, still frustrated that Tandrea was afraid of him. “Like a fucking status symbol, signifying her as… Chox only knows what. Something utterly delusional.”
“What a strange child.” Kobb nodded in approval. “But, I suppose Chox says there is no sin greater in life than ‘boring.’”
Tandy beamed, taking his comment as a compliment for some reason. “Thank you, Kobb.”
Tzadok made a face at his uncle, unhappy that the man was making him look bad in front of his prize. “You know, if Chox really said all the things you say he said, his list of principles would stretch from here to where the world ends.”
“Fine.” Kobb shrugged. “Don’t believe me.”
“Chox never said it, you liar.” Tzadok pressed.
“Not to you, no.”
“Now you’re saying you’ve had a personal conversation with a god?” Tzadok raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “You and Chox. Just hanging out and drinking grog, under the plateau in the Land of Ghosts, discussing current events.”
Kobb crossed his arms over his chest. “Mockery is beneath The Lord of Salt.”
“Well, like Chox told me last week at afternoon tea: ‘Fuck it. Mock away, my son. Mock away.’”
“See?” Kobb pointed at him, as if proving a point. “See!?! This is why your woman isn’t interested. This right here.” He shook his finger at him. “You are unsupportive and blasphemous.”
“Tandrea doesn’t give a shit about what I say about Chox!” Tzadok defended. “That’s not even her religion! Her people worship… like… a fucking bear or something!”
“You should respect your culture, Tzadok.” Tandrea informed him, as if it were some kind of classroom. “It’s a fascinating world-view and it needs to be preserved.”
“Absolutely.” Kobb nodded at Tandrea, warming to the topic. “If he’s willing to disrespect his upbringing and Creator, how can you be sure he won’t also disrespect you?” Kobb looked smug. “No. I raised him better than that.”
Tandrea paused to consider that, then continued wandering around the room.
Tzadok looked back and forth between them, recognizing that they were forming a little conspiracy against him. “Oh, that’s horseshit again!” He cried, trying to cut this insanity off before it took hold in the woman’s fertile brain. “Tandrea is… is…” He trailed off as he became distracted by the fact his prize appeared to be taking measurements of the tent by placing one foot in front of the other and walking out the width of the space. “What are you doing?” He finally asked in amazement. “Why can’t you ever just sit still and out of trouble?”
She looked back at him. “I’d like to create an accurate map of the village and I want it to be to scale.”
His brow furrowed in bafflement. “What does that have to do with me respecting my culture?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Why?”
“Then why are you doing it in the middle of the conversation!?!” Tzadok pressed, finding the woman so very odd. He put his hands up to his temples in utter bafflement. “One second, you’re sitting here complaining about my lack of faith and…”
“We’re about to go to war over her, and now she’s drawing up mysterious maps of our home?” Xiphos interrupted, sounding suspicious. “Am I the only one concerned about that?”
“Yes.” Kobb assured him. “You are. Be quiet.”
“Leave My Prize alone.” Tzadok snapped at his cousin. “That is the only warning you get.”
Xiphos held up his hands. “I’m just saying that I find it odd, that’s all. And dangerous.” He sniffed in indignation. “If Dory were somehow the subject of a crisis this huge with the other clans, I think she’d be a little more interested in my safety and not be preoccupied with creating maps of how to destroy my village.”
“Tandrea is very interested.” Tzadok assured him, hoping he sounded more certain than he felt. “She is just easily distracted. Her mind is always going because it is so much larger than ours, but her head is still so small. If she stopped thinking things, she might die as a result.”
As if to prove the theory, his prize began to fiddle with another one of the glass jars on his uncle’s shelf. “Can I have this?” She asked Kobb.
Kobb gave a helpless sort of nod, too confused to mount any sort of real defense to protect his belongings from forfeiture. “Uhh… okay?”
Tzadok’s prize beamed and immediately put the glass jar into her pocket.
Xiphos shook his head sadly, apparently drawing a conclusion from that. “I don’t think she’s fully invested in being your woman, cousin.”
“Shut up, Xiphos.” He tried to ignore the man’s nonsense, still focusing on his prize and what trouble she was no doubt trying to cause. Every time he turned away for a moment, she did something dangerous and foolhardy. He was learning that she required near constant effort to keep alive.
“I mean, I look at the deep relationship Dory and I have, and I simply want that for you as well.” Xiphos promised. “But your woman doesn’t seem to…”
“What are you doing now?” Tzadok asked Tandy, putting his face in his hands, unable to go a moment longer without figuring out what the woman’s plan was, but bracing himself for the insane.
“It’s a beautiful jar. You don’t see much glasswork in The Wasteland.” Tandrea announced, before taking a seat beside them again. “I find that it’s the little things which allow you to fully understand a culture.”
Xiphos looked pointedly at Tzadok and then held up his hands, admitting the end of the matter. “It’s not too late to pick another one, that’s all I’m saying.” He looked at Kobb. “You either, Brother of my Grandmother’s Sister. You needn’t be saddled with that monster. Free yourself. Please, for all our sakes. Find a good woman who will share her entire body with you, as Chox intended.”
Before Tzadok could tell his cousin to mind his own fucking business, his uncle heaved a dramatic sigh. “We should be focused on the matter at hand, not my woman.” He announced.
“I thought she wasn’t yours?” Tzadok pressed immediately, arching an eyebrow. “Isn’t that why we’re not supposed to blame you for her inhuman cruelties against us?”
Kobb made an aggravated sound. “Whatever. My ‘female guest,’ happy? The point is that as always, our opponents are nu
merous and multiplying.”
“They’re morons.” Xiphos added, in what was a rare moment of truth for the man. “We’ll kill the loudest voices speaking out against us and the rest will quiet down. It’s worked out for us so far.”
“They are jealous and angry and drawing their plans against us.” Kobb continued. “We are seeking to do something impossible and forbidden. And now they have demanded that we meet with them, so that they can try to convince our few remaining allies to back them instead. This is a very serious problem. We are not coming from a position of strength here. If not handled properly, this will certainly result in our destruction.”
“I’m sorry, I got here late,” Tandrea interjected, “can you please explain that again real quick? If it’s not too much trouble?”
“The Coastal People went running to the other clans and the outside peoples we’re allied with.” Tzadok clarified. “Now we have to go explain ourselves to the Council or we will be assumed to be in the wrong, and all of those armies will then turn on us.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Okay. Got it. Thank you.”
They were all silent for a moment as they considered the crisis.
“Why exactly did the woman try to stab you, Kobb?” Tandrea asked unexpectedly, apparently utterly unconcerned about the thought that armies of shadowy foes would soon descend on the village to drag her off, and instead, was more interested in a discussion of clan gossip.
Kobb turned to gape at her, as if unsure if he’d heard that correctly. “Huh?”
“Dory doesn’t randomly accuse The Thirty-Two Hundred of trying to rape his own woman.” Xiphos shook his head at Tzadok sadly, like this proved some point in his own mind. “Not in the rear or anywhere else. Nope. Because my woman is normal.”
“When My Prize speaks, it is my voice you hear.” Tzadok growled at the man. “My power backing up every fucking word she says, no matter how little sense she makes to you.” He pointed at him. “I don’t understand what she means or why she’s saying it, but I understand that if you open your fucking mouth against her again, I’m going to rip out your fucking tongue and use it to clean the filth from the windows!”
Tandy shook her head calmly. “You don’t have any windows. I’ve checked. It’s part of my map.”
“Still worried about the map.” Xiphos announced to the group. “Just so you all know.”
Kobb rolled his eyes, looking tired. “The Council of all Councils has been called. That is what we should be talking about.” He paused. “…And we do have windows, just not at this camp.”
“What are we going to do?” Xiphos asked, focusing on the matter at hand.
“Meet with them.” Kobb shrugged. “What other choice do we have?”
“We should just ignore them.” Tzadok suggested. “They’re all too busy with the war to make much of an effort to stop us. And no foreign army has won a battle on The Great Nothing for a hundred generations.”
“It isn’t only ‘foreign armies’ we are fighting. Aix walked right into camp the other day.” Kobb reminded him. “We are not safe from them. Even here.”
“Yeah, but whose fault was that? Because I think the blame rests on one evil dark-haired head.” Tzadok made a face. “She scared off the guards I posted, like scorching flames put an end to dry wood.”
“Oh, she did not!” Kobb protested. “Aix just walked right by them because he could see them a mile away. It’s pretty hard to miss a man standing in the middle of a barren wasteland.”
“And yet somehow the guards managed.” Xiphos observed. “I too blame your demon woman. She is a buxom wench, but she was spat from the fires of hell itself as punishment. We need to figure out why Chox cursed us with her and make sacrifices to him in order to stop this damnation.”
“None of this helps us with the matter of the Council of All Councils.” Kobb reminded them, eager to change the subject.
“Well, we can list pros and cons, right?” Tandrea suggested. “What is the worst thing that can happen if we go?”
“They kill us.” Xiphos said bluntly.
“Okaaaay,” Tandy nodded, processing that bad news, “and what’s the worst they can do if we stay?”
“They kill us.” Xiphos repeated.
Tandrea made a face. “You guys are not being very helpful. It’s like you’re intentionally avoiding proper debate procedure.”
“My one flaw.” Tzadok intoned sarcastically.
Tandrea laughed. “I just think it would be easier if we followed proper debate etiquette, that’s all.”
“We have to go.” Kobb said again. “It is the only way to secure our position. If we remain here, they will all be against us. If we go, there is a chance to avoid total war.”
“I’m not really concerned with ‘etiquette’ at the moment.” Tzadok informed his prize. “I’m a little more preoccupied with the looming threat of our total excruciating destruction and the horde of our fiendish enemies which is, at this very moment, crouching in their blood-fouled lair, laying their gruesome schemes against us.”
“It is in times of crisis we must pay the most attention to the way things are done, so as not to lose our way.” She nodded her head. “This all goes back to Kobb’s observation about you ignoring your culture and religion.”
Tzadok opened his mouth to argue with that, but then realized he had no idea how.
Xiphos pointed at her. “That is an excellent point. Tzadok has never made time to learn about proper behavior or etiquette. It is no wonder he cannot keep your attention.”
“Stop talking to My Prize. Don’t look at her, don’t speak to her, leave her alone and stop telling her things about me which aren’t true.” Tzadok demanded, then focused on his uncle. “If we go and the Council of All Councils decides against us, they will have us right in front of them when they decide to kill us.” He argued. “Why make it easy for them?”
“Because it’s the only way we have a chance of coming out of this intact.” Kobb sounded as serious as he’d ever heard him. “We are in trouble here. Real trouble. There is a very good chance we won’t make it through.”
Tzadok met his eyes. “I can protect my woman, Uncle.”
“Against six different armies?” Kobb shook his head. “You are a strong man, Nephew. A true slayer, by any definition. But many a strong man has gone under, all the same.”
Tzadok opened his mouth to protest that, but then closed it. His uncle was right. That was simply too many men to fight alone.
“Well, how do we stand then?” Tandrea asked simply. “With this ‘Council of All Councils,’ I mean? If they’re going to decide the issue, do we have any favors we can call in? Friends who can help us? Things we can use as blackmail?”
“That’s your ‘time-tested procedure to see us through the imminent war’!?!” Tzadok gasped in incredulity and shocked horror. “Blackmail and extortion!?!”
“Her thoughts are so dark.” Xiphos observed again. “They scare me.”
“It works in Galland!” She argued to Tzadok passionately, almost sounding insulted.
“Except for the fact every single countryman you’ve ever mentioned to me has ended up being slaughtered like a hog…” Tzadok started.
“Which only goes to prove my point!” She insisted, cutting him off. “You go with what has worked for you in the past, not something complicated!”
Xiphos nodded in deep understanding. “Very wise.” He decided. “I agree with your woman, cousin. Her ideas are as demented and frightening as a half-remembered nightmare, but her reasoning is impeccable. A warrior’s mind. While other female creatures are content to eat grass, she has her sights set on meat.”
“But that still doesn’t make her ideas part of a ‘debate’!” Tzadok yelled at his cousin. “Surely you see that ‘proper debate procedure,’ as she calls it, shouldn’t…”
Kobb heaved a tired sigh, cutting them all off. “We’re going to lose the Coastal People, obviously. The Riders of the Steppe will probably side with them. The
Bearskin…”
“He’ll vote with us.” Tzadok said with certainty, returning to the central discussion. “The Grizzwood won’t back down from a fight. Not ever.”
“Particularly after you were so nice to his brother, the pirate gentleman.” Tandrea added helpfully.
“I’m hoping he’ll overlook that, actually.” Tzadok admitted. “It won’t make him happy. Had I known how this would turn out, I would have simply killed the pirate and brought his severed head to The Bearskin as a gift.”
“The Men of the Thunder Forest will side with the Coastal People. No doubt. They are a heartless society.” Kobb decided, then shook his head. “But I don’t know what the Hardmen will do. They’re always a wild card.”
“Ella is a lunatic, Uncle.” Tzadok made a face. “She will take whichever side serves her purposes best.”
“I like her.” Kobb declared. “She has spirit.”
Tzadok rolled his eyes. “Why do you always like the crazy ones?”
“So, we’re looking at 3 to 2 against us, with the ‘Hardmen’ undecided?” Tandrea summarized. “Right?”
“Yes.” Kobb still didn’t look happy. “I think that’s about the shape of it.”
“What happens if the Hardmen side with you and it ends up being a tie?” She asked them seriously.
“Nothing.” Kobb shook his head. “Things would remain as they are with the Council and it would return to the individual clans to settle the disagreement on their own.”
“So… you’d win.” She concluded.
“In effect.” Tzadok nodded. “I’d have to kill Hawser, but that’s going to happen no matter what. And there would be a chance that the Saltmen and the Coastal People would war, but without the interference of the Council of All Councils.”
“But if you don’t go…” Tandrea trailed off.
“All of them will invade our lands and slaughter us.” Kobb finished for her. “No question. They’d have to.”
“I don’t want to fight the Hardmen.” Xiphos announced, like the others were volunteering him for the front line. “The whole world is just raw meat to them; blood and cleaved naked flesh, laid bare. I’m telling you, their shire reeve, The Thirteenth Son, is the result of dark spirits and dissatisfied gods.” He shook his head. “I don’t fuck with sorcery. You all know that, I’ve been sayin’ it for years!”
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