Aesa watched them warily and looked to Hilfey, who also frowned as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. No one ran. No one called for help. Some of the newcomers even gave Gilka hesitant smiles.
“What’s wrong with these people?” Otama asked.
Gilka spat to the side. “They’re worse than thralls.”
Aesa swallowed. Being a thrall was nothing to be ashamed of. Crops needed sowing, animals tending, and as Aesa’s mother had always told her, everyone was born a thrall and if they lived to old age, died the same way. But as she stared at the faces surrounding her, she was repulsed by their wrongness. “Maybe they’re stupid.”
A cry went up from the edge of the huts. “Ah,” Hilfey said, “here we go.”
At last, something they understood! Aesa readied her bow again, looking past the thralls.
A warrior ran toward them from the other side of the clearing, dressed in glittering mail adorned with metal plates. Aesa had never seen armor gleam so. He held a short sword that seemed equally clean, but he raised it far over his head. Quick-footed, but what did he hope to do with that giant, overhand swing? Maybe it was his first fight, as it was hers, but she’d never be so reckless.
He ran for Gilka, but before he could begin his overhead chop, Gilka drew her hammer and let it dip toward the ground, using momentum to carry it up again in a lazy but powerful swing, straight into his bare armpit.
Aesa imagined the shockwaves traveling through his insides straight to his heart. He flew sideways, knocked into the side of a hut, and fell unmoving to the dirt, blood leaking from his nose and mouth, eyes wide and staring.
Now the thralls would scream and run, Aesa felt sure, but they just looked at one another or at Gilka. Some still smiled. One crossed to the downed guard and tried to help him up. When he wouldn’t budge, she dabbed her fingers in his blood and stared at it in wonder.
“Spread out,” Gilka said. “Bear cub, stay with Runa.”
Aesa stayed at Runa’s side, the better to shield her if she needed time to chant. They didn’t bother to kill the thralls but went around them. While Runa scanned the forest for targets, the others barged into the huts, throwing bedding or wooden bowls out of the doorways, collecting anything made of metal. Finally, Gilka whistled for them at the fire pit, and they straggled in from all sides of the camp.
Hilfey dragged a second dead guard behind her. “Otama found him in one of the huts, trying to put his breeches on. Look at this.”
Aesa peered over Gilka’s shoulder as she knelt. The guard’s eyes tilted far back at the outward corners, giving him a catlike appearance, and his long, pointed ears sported several ridges cut in the back.
Hilfey ran her finger over them and grimaced. “They don’t feel like scars.”
“His parents must be quite a pair,” Otama said. “Cat-eyed mother and notched-eared father?”
Through the gap of his mouth, Aesa saw sharp teeth, stained with the guard’s own blood. His complexion was golden tinged, and his hair so fair it was almost white.
A slight touch grazed Aesa’s shoulder. When she turned to see one of the thralls, she jumped.
Otama brayed a laugh. “Be careful. They might smile you to death.”
Aesa tried to shoo the thrall away. “Go on!”
When he just looked at her, she pushed him, but his smile barely slipped as he fell.
“What is wrong with them?” Velka asked.
“Drugged?” Hilfey said.
Gilka surveyed the meager loot and looked into the trees. “Let’s keep going before it gets any later, see what else there is to see.”
“If we leave these alive,” Otama said, “they could warn the others about us.”
Gilka glanced at the dead guards again as Della stripped them. “Let them. At least the guards have something worth taking.”
“They must keep their mounds of gold elsewhere,” Aesa muttered.
Hilfey nudged her. “Your first raid. Was it everything you hoped?”
Aesa watched the robed people try to help the dead, nearly nude guards to their feet. “Not exactly.”
“Don’t worry, bear cub,” Otama said. “When we find the next one, I’ll save him for you.” She grabbed one of the robed people and shook him. “Or you can use these for target practice. Ready?” She pushed the man into a stumbling run. “Go!”
Aesa turned away, fighting down disgust. Hilfey sighed beside her. “Shut up, Otama.”
Chapter Four
It was a tiny house but well made. Maeve would have been happy to see it after a long voyage. “It looks nice,” Laret said, her tone flat, probably waiting to see what Maeve would say.
Gilka’s steward had seemed happy to pass it off to someone. As Aesa’s thrain, she had to make sure her warriors had somewhere to come home to. “Get to know your neighbors,” the steward had said. “Trade for what you can’t make at the farm.” He’d given her a stern look. “Make sure you keep it nice.”
Maeve had nodded when she’d wanted to punch him in the nose. Yes, keep it nice for Aesa. Maeve couldn’t forget that it wasn’t really hers, but she had to tend the garden, the livestock. All that was expected of Aesa was that she bring home treasure and heap glory on Gilka’s name.
“Didn’t someone live there before?” Maeve had asked. “What happened to them?”
The steward shrugged. “People die. But the neighbors have been checking in from time to time.”
Well, at least there was that.
“I hope they have goats and not chickens,” she said to Laret. “I know where I am with goats.”
“So you mentioned. Did your family raise them?”
“My parents died when I was little. I lived in the longhouse of the local thrain, near Aesa, until I was old enough to train as a witch. I helped everyone with their chores.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”
Maeve grinned. “Having no parents meant that everyone was my family. Is it not so for orphans in Asimi?”
“I didn’t know any.”
Maeve turned to the side and rolled her eyes. For a day and a half she’d listened as Laret deflected every question. Maybe she’d met too many curious people in her life, though that didn’t explain her pained expression. Maeve resisted the urge to sigh. No matter what had happened, Laret would never heal unless she first lanced her wound.
They investigated the house and the surrounding land. Two goats waited in a side pen, to Maeve’s satisfaction, and a little plot of land had been set aside for a garden, though the weeds had begun to overrun it. The house itself was a large room built around a fire pit with a small section off to the side that held a bed. Another space had been built near the peaked roof, big enough for another sleeper or two, probably the children of the house. Well, Laret could squeeze in there.
Someone had dug another fire pit in front of the house and dragged a log beside. In the distance, Maeve spotted a shining lake, fishing boats skimming across it. Near its shores stood a row of houses, probably fishermen. She knew other neighbors farmed the nearby fields, but she couldn’t see their houses from hers.
A tree dominated the back of the house, lending it shade. Others dotted the area until the edge of the forest began nearby, smaller trees quickly giving way to towering pines.
“It’s a nice place,” Maeve said quietly.
“A little lonely.”
“Do the people live on top of one another in cities?”
“Well…”
Maeve gave her a long look. “It’s going to be a lonely place if you won’t ever speak of anything but what’s in front of you.”
Laret’s lips narrowed into a thin line. “Buildings were constructed like this, where I lived.” She laid one hand atop the other. “Like putting a house on a house on a house, with stairs connecting them through the floor.”
Maeve tried to picture it and failed. “What of the fire pits?”
“We used small fires built into the walls. It’s hard to explain. It never gets a
s cold in the south as it does here.”
“Fires in the walls.” She shook her head. “Let me show you how we do it here.” She stoked the fire in the pit so they could have an evening meal. Some dried herbs still hung from hooks on the walls, and she found several clay pots sealed with wax. A small table sat in the far corner, and she dragged it into the open. A bench ran along one side, and there was another stashed underneath.
Laret helped investigate but awkwardly, as if unsure what to do until she’d been given an order. She’d claimed to be an explorer, but she asked few questions, didn’t even seem as curious about Maeve’s people as Maeve was about hers.
“Why did you come here?” Maeve finally asked.
Laret blinked. “You asked me to.”
“And I’m glad you’re here, but if you want to know more about my people, why aren’t you on a ship? Why accept my offer and hide yourself away on a farm?”
Laret sank onto the bench. “Fighting and gaining treasure never appealed to me.”
“Yet you trained to become something other than a thrall.”
“My people don’t have thralls.”
Maeve cocked her head. “But they have warriors.”
“Yes.”
“Then what is everyone else?”
Laret lifted her arms and dropped them. “Many things.”
Maeve sat on the floor, tucking her feet under her. “Tell me about them.”
Laret licked her lips and glanced around the room.
Maeve had to laugh. “You’ve already told me a little about a city.” She held her hands out. “Give me more.”
Laret sighed and started hesitantly, picking up speed as she went. “My father was a rich man in Panar, on the coast of Asimi. I suppose that’s what really divides my people, not thralls, warriors, and witches but wealth and poverty. Not everyone can attain the status of the wealthy, and a person is only beholden to his family or guild. My father’s wealth never made me happy.”
“Panar of Asimi,” Maeve said, tasting the words. “Where there are houses on top of houses, and you have to climb to reach your bed.”
Laret laughed softly. “On staircases.”
“I’ve seen a staircase. There’s one on Asny Mountain, where the gods were killed. Did you leave your rich father to find something that would make you happy?”
Laret didn’t respond, but she didn’t shrug either, so Maeve decided to wait.
“Women are not the equal of men in Asimi,” Laret finally said. “Their fates are often decided for them.”
Maeve had heard this before and thought it laughable then, too. “Like the men on Kairnisle.”
“I’m not familiar.”
“It’s an island to the east. The women keep the men on leashes, or so rumor says. And the Bruna are said to keep slaves, those that they don’t eat, anyway.”
“The world is a strange place.”
“Difficult to understand, perhaps, but we can be grateful we’re not in Asimi having our fates decided.”
“Or on Kairnisle.”
Maeve nudged her with a toe. “Don’t fancy a man on a leash?”
She shuddered. “No.”
Maeve nodded. She wouldn’t want one, either. Her people might be born thralls, but there was always the potential for more. She couldn’t imagine living without that possibility.
But wasn’t that what she was doing now? Without her wyrd, she was left in this tiny house, feeding Aesa’s goats, tending Aesa’s fire, coming to know Aesa’s neighbors. It wasn’t a leash, but it was someone else deciding her destiny. She could leave, she supposed; nothing was holding her here. But where would she go? Back home to tend someone else’s livestock?
Laret touched her lightly on the shoulder. “What is it?”
“Just thinking of my place in the world, if it’s always going to be with the goats.”
“I thought you liked them.”
“You know what I’d like more?”
Laret sighed. “I don’t think blood magic will grant you a wyrd.”
“We won’t know until we try.”
“If you’re teaching me how to tend livestock, I suppose I have to repay you somehow. In the morning?”
Maeve tilted her head back and forth. “If you insist.”
*
In the light of dawn, Laret thought the house seemed even smaller. Her father would have called it charming in that condescending way he had when magnanimously speaking to the poor. Still, it was a peaceful house. And beyond the house or the lake, the tiny goat pen or even the garden, one thing called to her: the forest that began only a short distance away. They grew such big trees in this land, giants that towered over anything Asimi could put forth, even among the mountains keeping their northern border.
While Maeve slept, Laret slipped among those trees, letting the smell of greenery surround her: the soft moss that dotted trees and ground alike, the tang of pine, the heavy green of fern, and over all of that, the deep rich scent of loam. The ground gave way to her soft steps, springy. Thousands of years of dead growth lay underfoot, the entire forest built on the backs of dead trees that lived again, nurturing the new.
Laret knelt among them and sent her spirit out, touching the essence of the plants, reveling in their strength, for they didn’t need her to mend them or help them grow. She pulled back into herself reluctantly, not wanting Maeve to sense her magic.
But Maeve couldn’t detect her wyrd. Laret chanted words of her homeland to bring the magic out from within her. The plants swayed in time, vines uncurling, ferns reaching upward, sapling branches moving back and forth. Even the giants groaned in time to her call, but she wouldn’t seek to move them; they would only crack and splinter.
Slowly, she folded the smaller plants around her, weaving a dome. When she was shrouded in a green haze, she ceased her chant and slipped off the woolen tunic and breeches that kept her warm in this cold land.
Next came the silk hanab that she’d never been able to part with. She still saw the market boy’s gap-toothed smile as he held it forth. “Red would look wonderful on you, sera.” Sera, and without prompting. It had been the first time she’d passed.
She unlaced the leather halter that held her made-up breasts and laid it among the clothing, squeezing each cup to make sure they were still even. Her padding had leaked once, and she’d gone lopsided for a day. All born-women weren’t perfectly symmetrical, but she’d wondered how many people had noticed. Vanity wouldn’t allow her to be uneven. She’d already had to talk herself out of manufacturing larger breasts. Smaller ones fit her frame, and they also kept her from attracting too much attention.
She sighed; some attention now and then might not be so bad.
Not at the moment, though. She rubbed her cheeks and chin, feeling slight pebbling under her fingers. The concoction kept her from having to shave for days, and she was lucky the men in her family had never been as hairy as some. If she’d been her neighbors’ daughter, she would have had to shave twice a day. She took a small case of clay vials from her knapsack and shook the one that held the concoction. A little over half left; she’d have to find more pregnant mare urine. The thought used to make her shudder. Now she just remembered where she might have seen any horses on the way to Maeve’s house.
A vial of oil, the ultra-thin blade she’d purchased in Jalai, and a thin layer of herbs, and she was ready. She went slowly, taking off every speck of hair around her mouth and cheeks before moving to her neck and then her chest. She liked the smooth feeling under her clothes, near the hint of breasts the concoction gave her.
Out of all the changes the herbs had made, she’d anticipated the tiny breasts, the change in her voice, the shift in mood, but the softening of her skin had surprised her. Unexpected but also luxurious.
Once shaved, she drank the recipe of her own devising, mostly red clover and the boiled down urine, plus soy and a few herbs. As usual, she gagged but clamped her teeth shut. When the nausea passed, she washed her mouth out with water and c
hewed raw clover, the better to counter the taste. In a piece of polished copper, she examined her reflection and clucked her tongue at the lump in her neck. She forced herself to remember her unfortunate former neighbors again. She could conceal her lump beneath her scarf and the neck of her hanab, and even when it slipped, no one seemed to notice.
With a sigh, Laret lay down in the loam, reveling in the feel. Even knowing that she’d have to tell Maeve about blood magic, she was glad she’d come to this green place. She knew what Maeve wanted, knew the look in those eyes. And Maeve had been happy to speak of those desires during the long walk to her new home.
A curious woman, Maeve seemed to blow hot or cold on a moment’s notice. But even an ounce of pain seemed to sway her; she’d leapt at the chance to heal or help any they met upon the road. She adapted to camping or minding someone else’s house with ease. If only she could become so comfortable with herself, her wyrd might just appear. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be proven until it happened, and until it happened, Maeve wouldn’t be comfortable in herself.
And on and on it went.
Laret understood perfectly. A similar discomfort had first drawn her to the witch of Sanaan. In a flash, Laret could summon the memory of those hard red eyes. Everything about the witch had been hard: bony fingers, a beak of a nose. Her shoulders had jutted through her simple shift like pottery shards, and she hadn’t seemed to notice how frigid her little house was, how hard the dirty wood floor. The animal skulls hanging from her ceiling might have been to scare curious locals, or they might have served a purpose in her magic. Laret didn’t care as long as she got what she came for.
But the witch of Sanaan had just stared at their first meeting, only moving to bring acai berries to her stained lips and teeth, the black lines in her cheeks shuddering as she chewed. Laret fought the urge to fidget or speak, letting the witch set the pace if that was what pleased her. “A little trouble in the beginning saves a lot of trouble later,” Father had always said.
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