by B. Muze
“She says you are pretty enough to be a girl,” he told Jovai. “We should be getting you proper clothes now. We should have done it from the first.”
“I am comfortable in these clothes,” responded Jovai. “May I keep them a while longer?”
“People will think you’re a boy.”
“Only for a little while.”
Difsat seemed about to protest, but paused first and changed his mind. Reluctantly, he agreed. He stopped his daughter, who was busy undoing the braids she had made, and sent her away.
“One more thing,” he told Jovai. “Your White One is almost completely healed. So what will he do now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he stay much longer?”
“I don’t believe so. He has pledged himself against the Akarians. As soon as he is able, I believe he will seek out his people and keep his pledge. He will need the horses and packs with which we arrived.”
“We will return to him what is left.”
“You’ve used the supplies?”
“Only what was needed.”
“Then the White One has been of service to you,” Jovai said carefully. “I am glad.”
“His people owe us much,” Difsat answered.
“Are the horses well?”
“They are being tended by one of the Hawk Clan. I think he is very fond of them. They are much better than the few we managed to come away with. He asked to be your next teacher — I believe in the hopes that you might eventually give him one. Such generosity would be to your honor.”
“They are not mine to give.”
Filani spoke from outside the door, and her father called her in. She was followed by a man, young, strong, and very handsome. His long, straight auburn hair was pulled back from a noble face with a straight, long nose, intense, dark eyes, a wide brow, square chin and perfectly shaped lips that seemed just on the verge of a smile. He wore leggings but no furs or tunic. Only a simple string of hawk feathers worn around his neck and the naked, muscular chest and arms beneath it identified him as one of the Hawk Clan.
“Koban issak. This is Koban of the Hawk Clan,” said Difsat.
“Latohva issak” he introduced Jovai to the man.
Koban smiled and said the polite words expected of him. Jovai just stared back, open-mouthed. She knew she should say something. She vaguely remembered learning what she should say, but her mind refused to find the words. All she could think of was how warm and strong his voice sounded and how pleasing his lips looked as they shaped the words.
“I offer you again some better clothes,” said Difsat, teasingly.
Jovai blushed. She remembered Litazu/Berailen and her master’s anger. If Yaku were here, watching her with this handsome man, he would insist even stronger that she dress like a boy. She could not bring herself to betray him.
“These will do for now,” she said.
Chapter 33
Koban
“I am honored to be your teacher,” Koban told Jovai in Akarian, as he walked her back to her tent.
“You speak the language well!” she exclaimed, smiling at him in surprise.
“I had occasion to learn it,” he answered evenly. His face and voice told her it had not been a happy occasion.
The Gicok was awake and hungrily eating when they entered the tent. At the sight of Koban, he jumped to his feet, his eyes flickering around the man suspiciously.
“Who he?”
“Koban issak,” answered Jovai. “He is Koban of the Hawk Clan, our new teacher.”
“Where Gilix?”
“She is being punished for breaking Kolvas law.” Try as hard as she could, Jovai could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. Koban heard it and watched her, puzzled.
“Only good Kolvas,” said the Gicok with a sour smile, “and Kolvas hate.”
“She is not hated!” spoke Koban. “We only want her to learn to follow our laws. Every people must have laws, and everyone who would be of a people must follow those laws. Who here does not agree?”
The Gicok stared at Koban, surprised. Koban smiled.
“You see, I speak your language.”
“Not my language,” answered the Gicok with such vehemence that it was Koban’s turn to be surprised.
“The language of your masters then,” he said, after a pause.
The Gicok’s face flushed with fury and his eyes flickered faster than Jovai had ever seen them before.
“Your horses have been under Koban’s care,” she said quickly, just before the Gicok lunged. It was the only thing she could think to say.
With impressive agility, Koban dodged the Gicok’s blow. The Gicok swung around, then paused, caught suddenly immobile.
“Where my horses?” he demanded.
Koban was on guard, his body balanced and alert, all his concentration on the movements of his enemy. He did not bother to answer.
“Where horses?” demanded the Gicok again.
Koban rushed him, grabbing the Gicok low, beneath his center and hurling him to the ground. The Gicok brought him down with him and rolled on top, subduing Koban with a swift and painful blow to the gut and held him down with all his weight ready to crush the Kolvas warrior’s throat.
“You eat horse, you die!” he exclaimed.
“Filthy dog…!”
“Where my horses?”
Jovai held her breath in fear, until finally, Koban answered.
“They are in a pasture, not far from here.”
“You take me,” he ordered the Kolvas man.
“Tomorrow…”
“Now!”
At last, he nodded.
“Now,” Koban agreed, “and you can take them and go!”
He led them both out of the village. They walked down river a mile or two, over several hills, then, at last, descended into a golden clearing of very tall grass through the center of which ran a pretty little stream. As they entered the valley, they crossed the beginnings of a fence. Jovai looked up at Koban questioningly. He shrugged.
“Better than keeping them tied all the time.”
The Gicok only grunted. He gave a sharp whistle as they came to the center of the clearing. From far away, toward the foot of the next hill, came back several loud whinnies. The Gicok took his direction and ran. Jovai and Koban followed more slowly.
“Will he take them all?” asked Koban.
“They are all his,” answered Jovai.
“But he is only one rider. He doesn’t need four horses,” argued Koban, as if convincing Jovai might change the Gicok’s mind.
“They are his power. He is now one man alone, against the whole Akarian Empire. He will need all the power he can get.”
Koban snorted in disbelief.
“The White Ones are the Akarian’s dogs!”
“Not anymore.”
The Gicok was greeting his horses joyfully. He talked to them gently in their own language, like old friends sharing new memories. He stroked them lovingly, first one, then another, and inspected each one of them thoroughly from all sides.
“You see, I took care of them well,” said Koban proudly.
“You lucky they alive,” answered the Gicok, but he didn’t seem displeased.
Koban patted the nearest horse possessively on the neck. The horse turned to him with a friendly snort, obviously pleased to see him. The Gicok glared.
“I ride now,” he announced and suddenly he was flying on the horse through the tall, golden grass, the other horses running and prancing beside. They leapt lightly over the stream, circled the pasture and, in one surge of power, they were over the fence Koban had started to build. They climbed part way up the hill, then turned around and flew back down it, back over the fence, back into the open space of the meadow. At a signal from the Gicok, the horse he rode and another came along-side each other, matching their galloping stride for stride. As they did so, the Gicok jumped from the back of the one to the back of the other. Neither horse stopped or slowed, nor did they b
reak from their matching gate until he signaled them to do so.
Jovai and Koban watched in astonishment.
The horses and rider took another turn around the meadow and another couple of passes defiantly over the partial fence before the Gicok finally dismounted.”
“You ride?” he offered Jovai. She shook her head and smiled.
Koban stepped forward to take his turn, but before he could draw near, the Gicok slapped his horses and sent them running on their own. Koban watched them gallop away in obvious disappointment.
“I have never seen such riding before,” he told the Gicok, his voice warm with admiration. The Gicok accepted his tribute with a stony expression. “I have never known such wonderful horses before either,” Koban continued.
“Dolkati horse,” explained the Gicok.
“Yes. The horses of your people are the best in the world. But these four, I think they are even better than the others.”
At that, the Gicok smiled proudly.
“My woman. She know horse good. She get sire and dam and she choose when. That very good. Woman always know. We always have best horses.”
“For horses like that, even I might marry a White One’s woman,” Koban whispered confidentially to Jovai.
“His wife was so beautiful, any man might marry her for no horse at all.”
“Not a White One’s woman,” said Koban.
Jovai shrugged. “I only saw her dead, but even then she was at least as beautiful as the prettiest women I have seen alive.”
“Maybe her face was pretty,” he said, “but her spirit was still one of them.”
The Gicok called for a brush to groom his horse. Koban pulled forth one of their bags from a hidden space between three boulders and dug out the brush from the collection of tools within it.
“I can do it,” he volunteered.
“You watch,” offered the Gicok. “Learn how.”
Koban suppressed his annoyance and stood back with Jovai. Together they watched as the Gicok groomed his horses with smooth, loving strokes, singing, and talking to them gently as he did so. Jovai did not know his words, but it seemed as if the horses did. They snorted and huffed happily and conversed with him until the sun had set and the fog had gathered around the hills and was slowly creeping down into the clearing.
“What are you going to do now?” Jovai asked the Gicok as he replaced the brush in the bag and hid the bag again between the rocks.
“Sleep,” he told her, and he led the way back to their tent in the Kolvas village.
The next morning the Gicok woke Jovai up. It was long before sunrise, and the fog-covered woods were silent and eerie.
“I go now,” he told her. “Find other Dolkati-ka.”
She groaned sleepily but forced herself awake. When the Gicok left the tent, she followed.
The Kolvas still slept. Even their animals stood with glazed eyes and drooping heads, and dogs lay curled before the door flaps of the tents. Jovai shivered in the cool air of morning, but it helped her come awake.
“We could eat first,” she suggested, her hunger already awakening. The Gicok only quickened his pace as answer.
He was on guard, all his senses alert. When two of the guards of the dog clan stepped out to block their path, he was ready.
He had one disarmed before any of them knew what was happening. The other swung at him, from sheer reflex, and found himself suddenly face down in the dirt.
“Run,” ordered the Gicok.
Jovai obeyed. It seemed the only thing to do.
They heard an alarm raised behind them and quickened their pace.
“They’ll have darts,” yelled Jovai.
“We get horses,” the Gicok answered over his shoulder.
They scrambled up the hills and slid, more than ran, down them. The bushes rustled with animals fleeing from their path. A small bat screeched, startled from its tree, and flew at Jovai. She ducked just before it hit her face, causing her to trip and fall, tumbling down the slope of the last hill and into the fence that Koban had started to build. She heard a loud crack and didn’t know if it was the fence or her forehead.
A man’s voice yelled from ahead of her. It was not the Gicok. A man’s voice answered from behind. They were surrounded then. She scrambled to her feet, but then a rush of darkness swept in through her eyes and forced her to the ground again. She was too dizzy to move, and the pain in her head was intense. She held it in her hands and waited for the men all around her to catch her.
“Why were you running?” she asked herself, realizing suddenly that it hadn’t made any sense.
The yelling was right over her now. A pair of hands grabbed her roughly and pulled her to her feet. Her eyes squeezed shut with the pain. She tried to stand but found she couldn’t, and another pair of arms caught her as she fell.
Voices, voices — all of them meaningless and loud, shaking the air around her with pointless noise. Then, from the sea of voices, one bit of meaning was somehow caught.
“Stay.”
And then another voice, not so high-pitched but sounding human, like a man, “Are you all right?”
She floated on those words for a moment. They were something solid to hold on to. She didn’t want to let go.
Firm, strong hands gently lifted up her head. She squinted and tried to see who it was, but the fog seemed thicker. Everything was very bright and very blurry.
“Can you hear me?” the man asked again, concerned.
“Yes,” she answered the voice.
“Are you all right?”
“The bat,” she answered. It was hard to talk, as though she were struggling against a weight and needed her energy for that instead. “I fell — hit my head. Let me rest. Just a moment. I’ll be all right.”
“Why were you running?”
She gathered her energy, but could think of no answer worth the effort of speaking, so she let it go.
“Do you know me?”
Maybe, she thought. She could probably identify him if she had to, but again it did not seem worth the trouble.
“I’m Koban. Do you understand?”
“Koban,” she repeated the name, knowing that it would mean something to her when she thought about it. “You’re angry.”
“Yes. You break our laws. You make trouble. Now I might be blamed for this like Gilix was. Why?”
She sighed. The shock was lifting. Her mind was clearing, but she still didn’t try to open her eyes.
“You wanted him to go, you said. Then you try to stop him. He has to get to his people before it’s too late.”
“You mean the White One?”
She tried to nod, but the effort hurt her head.
“The Akarians are killing them. He has to warn them, while there are still enough to fight.”
Koban spoke quickly in his language and several voices, just overhead, answered. She heard many footsteps, men running off, running back. It was a swirl of activity just beyond her eyelids. The pain was receding from her head. Slowly she opened her eyes and blinked and squinted. It was still dark. She looked up at Koban. His attention was directed elsewhere, to the other men who stood, looking down at her, and to the younger men who took his orders and ran off. Yet he held her head gently and kept his body still in deference to her pain. She was struck once again by how handsome and strong his face and body were.
“Have you killed him?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
“He got away.” He looked down at her, not bothering to hide his anger. It made his eyes flash in a powerful, brilliant way. “We let him get away. He took all of the horses.”
This sunk in slowly. “All?”
“There is none left for you. He does not plan for you to follow?”
“Stay,” said the high-pitched voice again. She glanced around for its source but could not find it.
“No,” she answered, still confused. “I am to stay.”
Making a Woman
Chapter 34
The Bat’s Choice<
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“The moon has shown on us only six times since we found you and only four times since we welcomed you among us and already I am regretting it!” yelled Difsat. The little tent he had lent Jovai and the Gicok shook with the anger in his voice.
Jovai kept her head bowed and eyes lowered, hoping he would not see her squint in pain.
“Another of my people is hurt now, and the White One has gone to find his people and maybe bring them back to war on us…”
“He has gone to warn them of Akarian treachery and to raise a war party against the empire.”
“Not against us?”
“Not against you.”
“Are you sure?”
Jovai nodded.
“And you are sure that he will not come back for you and hurt or kill more of my people in the process?”
Jovai shrugged. “It wouldn’t make sense…”
“Sense?” exploded Difsat, “Sense? When have our enemies ever made sense? The White Ones slink into our homes like thieving dogs and think themselves great warriors if they can steal a few trinkets! The only thing they have of value is their horse stock which they’ll trade with no one for any item of any real value, but they’ll give away to people they can’t trust and happily walk like slaves behind their mounted enemy. Is that the sense you talk of?”
“You are right, Shaman, I cannot answer for him, but I don’t think he will come back for me. He has too many people to find, before it’s too late, and too much to do to make good his vow. It is good that I stay here where I am safe and out of his way. I don’t know the land, I don’t ride well, and I’m no warrior or even a hunter. He has seen how kindly you have treated me and he knows I do not need rescuing.”
“Does he still feel the bond of loyalty with you?”
“The Dolkati loyalty is constant — unless it is betrayed.”
“Then that bond may be enough to cause him to attack us.”
“No. Just the opposite, I think,” or rather, she hoped. “He has brought me to a place where I could be safe and happy. He would not jeopardize that for me by hurting the friends who so generously welcomed me.”