Beyond the Great River (People of the Longhouse Book 1)

by Zoe Saadia

  “What sort of medicine did you bring?” Pleased with the way she fell into his step, easily, with no need for any sort of inviting gesture, he glanced at her bag. “Is it something we can put on his wound? An ointment?”

  “Well, no, I don’t, don’t think ointment.” Her voice rang hesitantly, pausing between each word, as though tasting them. “I don’t know what there, in the bag.”

  “You don’t know what’s in there?” Halting abruptly, he stared at her bag rather than at her. “But how? What did you put in there that you don’t know?”

  Her eyebrows created an almost a solid line beneath her creased forehead. “Oh, I didn’t put. It’s not mine. This bag, it’s not mine.”

  “Whose then?” Pushing the shrubs away, he motioned her to pass first, registering her surprise but with no real interest. The medicine matter was more important. “Whom does this bag belong to?”

  “My brother,” she said simply. “I needed hurry, you see. Could not go through it. So took the entire bag.” Turning to face him, as they emerged into the wind of the shore, she peered at him. “I have to bring it back. No damage, no missing things. Except what we use, need to use.”

  “But what?” he exclaimed, dropping back to the whispering with an effort. “What do we use and how? Neither of us knows a thing about healing. Do we?” A hopeful glance at her confirmed the worst. Of course she knew nothing about plants or the way to prepare them. How useless! She must have grabbed that stupid bag, and run here, feeling oh so very helpful. Indeed, a medicine. “This entire bag is of no use to us. No more than your silly child’s bow was to you out here.”

  Even in the darkness, he could feel the intensity of her gaze, and the rage in it. “I do what can! I don’t have to, to do things. You say thank. No accuse of stupid things.”

  For a heartbeat, they glared at each other, but again, the annoying sense of helplessness and frustration, so familiar since landing on this shore, mixed with strange warmth, with an urge to laugh at her and tease rather than say something angry.

  “Stupid things, eh? You’ll make a good Clan Mother when you are old. All bossy, busy telling people what to do. I pity the man who will come to live in your longhouse.”

  She was studying him with an open suspicion. “What mother?”

  “Clan mother. You know, the women who run the longhouses. The Clan Council.”

  Her blank gaze made him remember the ridiculously short dwellings he had witnessed while watching her village. Didn’t they have proper longhouses at all?

  “I don’t know what you talk,” she was saying, her frown as deep as before. “What woman? What mother? What clan?”

  Resuming his walking, he shrugged. “Don’t you have clans?”

  “Yes, we have, have clans.”

  “Then you must have Clan Mothers as well. Women who run your longhouses.” The river was upon them, murmuring loudly, not especially friendly, protected by slippery stones. “Whom do you live with?”

  “My family.” She walked beside him briskly, not concerned with the possibility of slipping, obviously at home in these surroundings, darkness or not.

  “Like, father-mother family? Or aunts, uncles, cousins and all that?”

  He slowed his step and listened, the drone of the river bringing back unpleasant memories. What if some of the enemy stayed to pass the night here?

  “Yes, father, mother, my brother. Aunt and her daughters.” She was speaking more loudly, trying to overcome the hum of the water. “But people are there, there in our house, all the time. Father is the war leader, you see, so the gatherings, every time they need to meet and talk…” Suddenly, she caught his arm. “Not there. Come, I know, know place better, better to get down there.”

  “Our War Council meets outside, always.” Relieved by her taking charge, he followed, still careful, but now more sure of himself. No more spontaneous swimming in that river. “They don’t get together anywhere near the longhouses, or inside the town’s fence even. Their meetings are to be kept private, for the leading warriors’ ears alone.”

  He remembered Cohoes Falls and the days that preceded the War Dance that signified the preparations for their current expedition. The Mothers of the Clans did not hurry to give their consent, and so many meetings outside the town were called, many arguments ran back and forth between the War and the Clans’ Councils. Being those who supplied the provisions for the raid, Clans Mothers had a final say, to the charging of many young warriors and their leaders.

  “Do your father and other leading warriors have to ask for the Clan Mothers’ permission?”

  Halting upon the last of the stones, she turned back, obviously puzzled. “Ask for mother’s permission?” Her laughter overcame the noise of the river easily.

  “Not your mother.” Annoyed, he stared at her, but her unreserved hilarity proved difficult to resist. “You are impossible!”

  “You said… you said ask mother. I didn’t say that! You say…” By now she was doubled over with laughter, hugging her stomach with both hands, not falling into the river raging behind her back by a miracle as it seemed.

  “I said ‘clan mothers.’ The heads of the Clan Council. Not every mother that is wandering around the town.” He took a deep breath, trying to overcome his own outburst of mirth. “Stop laughing. You’ll bring every two-legged creature roaming these woods tonight here.”

  “No one is … roaming.” Her stutter mixed with the murmuring of the water, not as loud as before, her panted breath making him think that if she fainted, he would have to fish her out of the river again, like on their first encounter. “I just try to imagine … to imagine Mother say no go to Father…”

  “You are insane.” Pushing his way past her, he bettered his grip on the flask, then reached out, trying to fill it without getting wet. He was too cold for that, his loincloth still revoltingly clingy and his moccasins in the worst of shapes. “Think about him asking you if he can go on a raid. That will make you faint from too much laughter.” Her renewed guffawing made him feel better than he had felt in days. “I can just imagine it, you know? ‘Oh, no, Honorable War Chief, you can’t go. It is not advisable. Not so soon after the Harvest Moon.’” He lifted the flask, pleased with its solidness. No more half of the water lost while he raced back as fast as he could. “But I know who can, eh, who can replace the warriors on the raid.”

  “Who?” she breathed, leaning on one of the stones, still hugging herself, still trembling, gulping the air.

  “Don’t you guess?”

  “No.” Her eyes sparkled as she leaned forward, lips partly opened, expectant. Again, a very pleasant sight in the more generous illumination of the shore.

  He got to his feet, trying to pay no attention to the wild thought of pulling her closer. “The girl with the toy bow. If they sent her on the raid, that would make the fiercest of enemies shudder.”

  “Starting with you!” The glow of her eyes deepened, reverted back to the old daring spark, but this time there was something else there, a different sort of a challenge. It made his struggle to control himself more difficult. “You be scared, you shudder, fierce enemy. Yes?”

  He forced a light grin. “We’ll see about that.”

  Luckily, she moved along as he turned to go, avoiding the necessity to push his way past her again. Relieved but somehow disappointed, he followed.

  “So your mother tell your father what to do?”

  He hastened his step, not wishing to lose sight of her as she skipped between the glittering stones, too briskly for his general state of exhaustion.

  “No, she doesn’t. Well, not very often, unless it’s something to do with our clan or our longhouse. She is a member of our Clans Council, you see? She is listened to by the people of our longhouse and the others around the town. She has a lot of influence.” Concentrating on his step, he hid his smile, thinking about Mother and her lively, determined way of talking, with this slightly wrong way of pronouncing some words. “She came from the lands of the Crooked
Tongues, you see. She wasn’t born among our people. Still, no one ever mistrusted her, or belittled her words or opinions. She was elected to be one of our Clan Mothers, and no one thought it to be a bad choice.”

  She paused to let him catch up with her. “So clan mothers, what they do?”

  “Everything.” He shrugged. “They make it all work, the longhouse and the clan. And the town, if you ask them, although, of course, it’s not true as we have a Town Council to deal with important matters.” Halting beside her, he grinned. “They tell everyone what to do. That is their main duty. To order everyone about. That’s why I said you’ll make a good Clan Mother.”

  She answered his grin with a face, wrinkling her nose in the funniest of manners, one of her eyebrows climbing so high it almost met the fluttering fringes of her ruffled hair. “We don’t have this, this sort of mothers. Our people do good without them.”

  “Who manages your clans’ affairs, then?” He looked around as the darkness thickened, the gathering clouds concealing the moonlight, letting it pour down more faintly, not as generous as before.

  “The chief, the head of the clan.” She looked around too, clearly perturbed. “We better go.”

  “Yes.”

  This time, he led the way, hurrying to cross the open space, wishing to be in the safety of the foliage again. It was still too bright to feel safe on the open ground.

  “What you do?” she asked, catching up with him. “What will do now? About your friend.”

  Suspiciously, he eyed the bushes ahead of them. Something wasn’t right there. What?

  “I don’t know,” he muttered. “We’ll see in a little while.”

  “He no better?”

  He pressed his lips. “No.”

  “It’s bad. He weak? Hot? Dreaming?” She halted as he did, not about to give up.

  “He will be well soon.”

  “But what if not? What you do, will do?” He could feel her searching gaze, sliding over him, expectant. “If wounds rot—”

  “They are not rotting!”

  The sharp exclamation shook the darkness, and he clenched his fists, angry with himself as much as he was angry with her.

  “He will be well,” he repeated quietly, suddenly aware that with no constant humming of the river, it was back to whispering for them.

  Again, his attention drifted to the darkness under the trees. He could feel it watching him, hostile and afraid, just like the first time when they landed here.

  “You don’t yell, stop yell at me!” she was saying, not bothering to keep her voice low. “I say what is reasonable. I say good sense. Even if you afraid, don’t want to hear—”

  “Quiet!”

  Grabbing her shoulder, he pressed it urgently, signaling her to keep still, but, of course, she did not comply. Instead, she fought to break free, a wild thing. Even amidst his mounting worry, he felt the familiar tickle of amusement. This girl was an untamed thing, the fierce spirit of the east.

  “Stop it, you wild fox. We need to keep quiet.”

  The darkness broke with an urgent rustling. Before the familiar hiss followed, he pushed her away from the possible range of an arrow.

  Her cry of surprise barely registered in his mind as he threw himself down, hearing her stumbling and falling as well. The arrow swished above, harmless.

  As he pushed himself up, to half-run half-crawl toward the source of the shooting, his fingers tore at his girdle, reassured by the touch of the knife, locking around its smooth handle.

  Another arrow sliced the air, too far to his left to make him worried. Whoever it was, he must have been a lousy shooter.

  The darkness of the trees enveloped him before the third arrow came. Feeling safer under its concealing protection, he let his senses guide him toward the foreign presence. Oh, yes, the frantic rustling and some breaking branches told him that the enemy was on the move. Also, that he might have been there unaccompanied, a lone shooter.

  Oblivious of the bushes and trees that stuck out everywhere, trying to prevent his progress—the local woods proved to be hostile time after time—he put everything he had into the effort to reach the source of the noise, to get to the enemy before the dirty piece of rotten meat caused any more trouble.

  Eyes strained, ears pricked, he spotted a silhouette darting behind the low cluster of bushes. Throwing his body toward it, he caught a glimpse of a gaping face, as his shoulder smashed into the wide chest, using his own body’s accumulated drive to push the enemy off his feet.

  It wasn’t a difficult goal to achieve. In another heartbeat, they were both on the ground, with Okwaho’s fist crashing into his rival’s face, his body bettering its position on top of the sagging form, pressing with all its weight, his other hand jumping up frantically, fastening its grip on the knife.

  The man didn’t even squirm. Seemingly stunned, he just lay there, face gaunt and thin, one cheek swollen, eyes round, enormous, reflecting no understanding. Okwaho brought his knife up.

  “No!”

  The cry tore the darkness. Like in a dream, he felt the body underneath him jerking back to life, his own lurching as well, trembling with the surprise and the accumulated tension. His hand holding the knife shook, struggling against a force he did not comprehend for a moment.

  Something was hindering its progress, and as he tried to shake it off, he felt her familiar presence. She was crouching next to them, her hands fastened around his arm, clinging to it with desperation.

  “What in the name of the …” He tried to shake her off without removing his other hand from his rival’s throat. A difficult feat as she clung to his arm with both hands, her entire weight upon it. “Get off me!”

  “No, no, don’t!” she was moaning. “Stop. No kill, don’t kill…”

  The man underneath was squirming with more spirit now, gurgling, trying to wriggle free from the strangling hand.

  “Stop, please!” Her eyes were very close, pleading.

  He let her pull his arm away. “Let go!”

  Rolling off his rival was easy, a relief. He watched the man closely, ready for his next move, but the stupid would-be-attacker was helpless, sprawling on his side, coughing and drawing such loud breaths, Okwaho fought the urge to smash him into unconsciousness, just to make him shut up.

  The girl was kneeling by his side, whispering urgently, her foreign-sounding words muffled, interrupted by hiccups.

  “What is happening? Who is it?” The feel of the rough bark behind his back was welcome, offering support. Still, he left it for a heartbeat, picking the fallen bow, this time a good, impressively large weapon, something worthy of keeping. First the club, and now this. Since the enemy came to collect their boats, his arsenal of weapons had grown considerably. He pulled it closer, not amused.

  “That brother, my brother,” she said, straightening up, her hair askew, fresh mud staining her face. “He didn’t want to harm. He didn’t know.”

  Okwaho rolled his eyes. “He was shooting. At both of us! That first arrow might have been stuck in you.”

  “It’s not…” Frowning, she dropped her gaze, hunching above the coughing man again, supporting his head. “He is not, not the best. No shoot good.” This came out quietly, in a hesitant manner, atypical for the forceful fox.

  Okwaho leaned back against the tree. “What was he doing here now?”

  Her shrug was barely perceptible. “Maybe he follow, follow me.”

  “Probably!” He watched the man struggling to sit up, suddenly too tired to think. “What do we do with him now?”

  “I… well… I talk, talk to him.”

  He wanted to shut his eyes, to let his exhaustion lull him into oblivion, at least for a little while. It was all too much, too many things to worry about, to take care of. Akweks and the hidden boat, and the enemies that would be scanning these shores first thing in the morning, looking for him. Not to mention their people who were killed, all of them, to the last man, and the rest of their forces somewhere down there at the mouth
of another great river, raiding some other settlement, killing more of her countryfolk. Was it right to do that?

  He shook his head, to get rid of unwelcome questions. Would they understand what had happened when they came back? Would they blame him for this failure, like Kayeri had?

  And most importantly, would he manage to bring Akweks back home alive? His friend’s wounds were rotting. Or maybe only one of them, but one was more than enough to kill a person, to put him on his Sky Journey, and in the most agonizing of ways. She was right about that. He was a coward to refuse to face this reality, but his reluctance changed nothing. Father said it many times: never succumb to the temptation of lying, not to yourself, surely.

  So Akweks would die, and probably he, Okwaho, would too. And it would all end here, in this strange, foreign forest, on the windy shore, with no one to mourn their passing, no one to dance and pray and help their spirits find their Sky Paths, to avoid getting stuck wandering about. A true danger, a true possibility without the help of the mourning family and friends.

  He watched her talking to the man, gesturing, her face alive with emotion, again a very pleasant sight. Maybe she would do that for him. Pray if not dance, with her funny way of using the words of his tongue, so fierce and strong but vulnerable too, needing protection. Protection from whom? Him or her people? Why was she helping him, anyway?

  The man was saying something, talking angrily, with an open resentment. She overrode him quickly. Was this the same nosy bastard who had sniffed around earlier this evening, forcing him, Okwaho, into desperate means to take them away from his wounded friend? Somehow, he was sure it was. Her brother, of all things.

  He watched her frowning, talking again, in a rush. Why was he spending his time here? Akweks needed his water, and if he had heard the noise, he would need reassurance as well.

  Water! The thought hit him, the memory of the flask rolling away. He cursed loudly, forcing his way back onto his feet.

  “What? What happened?” They both were staring at him, the girl startled, the man aghast.