Thrall

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “We found more shaptis on our own before,” Lida said slowly. “And they praised us. That must be the way when all the shaptis are lying down.”

  “Yes,” several said, “that must be the way.”

  “The blond warrior told us to stay,” Ell said. “Shall we leave as soon as she returns?”

  They all agreed. They would please the warrior, then they would go, collecting any others on their way.

  *

  Aesa tried to behave as if everything was normal. She helped the others pile the loot and tried to ignore the sheep. She finally found a quiet place to sit and bite into an apple, waiting for Gilka to command them to withdraw so she could tell Honey-eyes it was safe to return.

  Hilfey sat beside her on an overturned bucket. “You’ve been mooning around since the battle. I know you like these sheep people, Aesa, but this is one fight you’re going to have to let go.”

  Aesa ate her apple and shrugged.

  “We’re camping here tonight in case you had any delusions of spiriting them away.”

  Aesa choked until Hilfey had to pound her on the back.

  “What have you done?” Hilfey asked.

  “Nothing!”

  “Don’t lie to me, girl.”

  “I led some into the woods, that’s all.” She glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “I didn’t do any harm.”

  “And I suppose that once we’ve cleared out, you’ll fetch them?” Hilfey blew out a long sigh. “It’s not whether or not you did any harm. It’s that Gilka didn’t command you to do it. Listen, we’re all shipmates, all except for Ulfrecht’s people, but there are plenty among Gilka’s crews who would like to sail on Gilka’s personal ship. They’ll take your place if they can.”

  “Why would Gilka care that I’ve hidden some sheep people?”

  “Is this how you want to find out?” Her mouth set in a firm line. “If some of the others find your sheep, they might kill them, thinking they mean to ambush us or fetch more guards.”

  A chill passed through Aesa’s belly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Just forget them. They’re not your people, Aesa, no matter if you find them beautiful.”

  “Who says I do?”

  “Remember who you have waiting for you at home. Now, come help me set up camp.”

  Aesa followed Hilfey’s orders and set up tents as others dug latrines or put up brushy barricades. If any more guards came for them, they didn’t want to be stuck in the village. All the time, though, Aesa’s stare drifted toward the woods. She expected a cry at any moment, heralding that someone had found Honey-eyes.

  But if Honey-eyes died, she could no longer be an annoying burr in Aesa’s mind. That would be best. As the sun began to fall, though, Aesa’s feet kept drifting closer to the trees until at last she was under their branches, away from prying eyes.

  “The dead gods take it all,” she muttered. She sprinted toward where she’d left the sheep, hoping they were still in one piece.

  Honey-eyes stood when they saw each other, and Aesa was surprised by the bright smile that took over her own face. “You waited for me. I’m glad.”

  Honey-eyes smiled in return. She pointed into the woods and said something in her own tongue. She wanted to leave. Aesa bit her lip, torn. They could tell more guards where Gilka was camping. When Honey-eyes gestured for Aesa to follow, though, that seemed a perfect solution. If they found another settlement, Aesa would command the sheep to wait while she came back and told Gilka.

  And then what would happen? More of the sheep people would be in danger. More of them would be killed. Aesa felt like pulling her hair out. “Why do you care?” she whispered harshly to herself.

  Honey-eyes trailed her thumbs along Aesa’s brow again, smoothing anger away.

  Aesa sighed into her caress. “Let’s go.”

  They headed for a tall outcrop among the trees, a spear of rock, black against the rapidly darkening sky. Torchlight flickered around it, making it seem even taller. The sheep angled toward a gap in the rocks.

  Aesa slowed to a halt. She saw no guards, just a large pool that glittered in the low light. Sheep people gathered around it, walking into it in small groups before emerging soaking wet and with even more tranquil looks on their faces.

  The air felt cloying, heavy with the scent of flowers or something else that tickled Aesa’s nose with sick sweetness. Her sheep moved toward the pool, but when Honey-eyes tried to go with them, Aesa caught her arm, making her stay.

  There could be hidden guards, maybe too many for Aesa alone. And the other sheep could warn them that she was there. She hooked arms with Honey-eyes, ready to bolt, but the sheep nearly ran for the pool, ignoring everyone else. After they emerged, their faces were serene, eyes half-lidded as if they’d been inhaling dreaming leaves. Aesa pulled Honey-eyes away, angling back toward the village so she might have room to think.

  Honey-eyes cast several longing looks toward the pool, but she stayed in Aesa’s grasp, just as Aesa had known she would. Aesa sighed, a little guilty for pushing her around, but they couldn’t stay near the pool. Aesa couldn’t say why, but she couldn’t let someone she cared about run into the unknown.

  The thought made her pull up short, and she regarded Honey-eyes in the soft moonlight. “Why do I care about you?”

  Well, if she found a child wandering near her house, wouldn’t she find out where it lived, why it was alone? The thought wasn’t much help. Honey-eyes wasn’t a child. She wanted to go to the pool, and now Aesa was keeping her from it.

  “Let’s sit. I need to think on what to do.”

  Honey-eyes obeyed, expression placid, as uncaring about what was happening as a little babe. How could a group of adults be so? She’d once met a man who’d had the mind of a child, or that’s what his sisters had said. He was a brute, ferocious in battle but gentle as a lamb outside of it. They’d called him Moose.

  Honey-eyes wasn’t ferocious in the slightest. As an ally in a fight, Aesa would choose a child of her people above any of the sheep. Honey-eyes smiled under her scrutiny and reached for Aesa’s shoulders, soothing away tightness.

  Aesa closed her eyes. When the hands left her shoulders and wandered up and down her arms, she snuck a look, and the expression on Honey-eyes’s face was anything but childlike. She trailed caresses over Aesa’s knees and thighs.

  Aesa stopped her with a gentle touch. “We barely know each other.”

  Honey-eyes tilted her head and said something. Aesa put a hand to her chest. “Aesa.” When Honey-eyes didn’t respond, she said it again, slower.

  “Eh sah,” Honey-eyes said.

  By the rotten gods, her voice was beautiful. She made Aesa’s name sound like a song. “And you?” She pointed. “I can’t keep thinking of you as Honey-eyes.” She touched her chest again. “Aesa.”

  “Aesa.”

  She pointed at Honey-eyes.

  Her eyes brightened. “Ell!” She took a deep breath before she rattled off some other words.

  Aesa held up a hand to stop her. “Ell?”

  Honey-eyes pointed to her lips and smiled widely.

  Aesa returned the look, surprised by sudden shyness. “Ell, then. I’m glad to meet you.”

  *

  Ell watched as Aesa said her name again, several times. A shapti only introduced him or herself if they were very pleased, and even though Aesa wasn’t a shapti, the idea of being found worthy touched Ell’s heart.

  She’d desired Aesa before, but now the feeling overwhelmed her, and the heat of it cascaded through her body. A shapti had never turned away her advances, just as she’d never refused theirs, but as she scooted closer, Aesa stopped her just as before. She said something, and Ell tried to puzzle out her body language, tried to see what she wanted. She always figured out what the shaptis wanted before they could speak it. Some had told her that was why they sought her out, but Aesa was difficult.

  Ell watched her closely and began to pick up a few words, those Aesa used over an
d over. Aesa seemed uncomfortable, nervous, confused, something few shaptis ever were, but Ell had seen many confused fini in her time, had occasionally been one herself. Having a purpose helped them, and if Aesa would not be comforted by sex, maybe having something else to focus on would help her.

  She liked to talk, that was clear. Ell picked up a stick. Aesa eyed it warily, and Ell grinned to put her at ease. “Aesa,” she said, pointing. “Ell.” She pointed at herself, then gestured to the stick.

  Aesa said a word, brows still drawn in confusion. When Ell repeated the word, she cocked her head and muttered something. “Aesa,” Ell repeated. “Ell.” She said Aesa’s word for the stick, and Aesa’s eyes widened.

  They named things for hours, laughing and speaking words back and forth. Ell taught her the word for fini and shapti, miming until Aesa seemed to understand. She had a harder time remembering Ell’s words, but all of her words went into Ell’s mind and stuck there. The black spots began to creep up on her a few times, if she thought too hard about what Aesa was saying, but as the long night dragged toward day, the feeling happened less and less.

  As it grew lighter, Aesa cast more glances toward the village where all the shaptis still lay.

  “Dead,” Ell said.

  When Aesa looked at her curiously, she lay down and closed her eyes. “Dead.” She pointed to her face. Aesa said something else, and Ell repeated it dutifully. Aesa nodded, her sign of agreement.

  Thinking of the shaptis as dead brought Ell little distress, though. The black spots didn’t even appear. “Did you make them dead?” Ell asked in her own language. “Why?”

  Aesa just stared at her, clearly not understanding. Her people had grabbed everything the shaptis had and put it in sacks. They’d seemed happy to kill. They didn’t want to be helped if they were hurt. They were utterly mystifying, but Aesa was different. She hadn’t killed any fini, only shaptis, and she’d kept the krissi on the road from hurting Ell.

  “Why?” Ell asked. “Why do your people do what they do?”

  If Aesa understood, she had no answer. Ell suddenly remembered something from her childhood, memories that only bubbled up when it had been too long since the calming. Another fini child had taken something from her, and some…feeling…had come bursting out of her. The other fini had tried to soothe her, but nothing except the calming would make the feeling go away. Some of the shaptis felt it when the fini didn’t move fast enough, or one of the grays got in their way.

  “Anger,” she said. She’d been angry as a child, and she felt it creeping within her now. It only made her vision darken a little where she knew it would have crippled her before. Aesa’s people had killed the shaptis, some had killed fini, and why? To put their things in a sack?

  Ell frowned, and Aesa stared at her with an open mouth. Ell supposed she should be amazed. She was more than a little amazed herself. “You should go back to your people.”

  Aesa grasped Ell’s hands like a woman in pain, and Ell found it difficult to stay angry with her, the need to comfort a powerful one. Aesa pointed in the direction of the pool. “No,” she said in Ell’s language and then pointed again. “No water, Ell.”

  That one was easy to figure out. Aesa hadn’t wanted her to go in the pool to begin with, but why insist upon it now? Ell could hear the sounds of Aesa’s people stirring. Aesa gripped her tighter, face frightened. “No water, Ell! No water.”

  “Yes, yes,” Ell said in Aesa’s language, nodding like she did, anything to calm her. “No water.”

  Aesa exhaled and began to pull away, paused, and then seemed to search for something else to say. Ell took her hands back gently and gestured toward the sounds of Aesa’s people. Aesa smiled and bounded away.

  Ell watched her go with a sigh. And now she’d said she wouldn’t do the thing she most wanted to do. She thought of just defying Aesa, but that brought the black spots again. She breathed through them and headed in the direction of the pool, wanting Lida’s advice.

  *

  Aesa skirted around the edge of camp. She’d wondered how people could be so dim, and now she had an answer. Something happened to the sheep, the fini, when they went in that pool, something that kept them from thinking or fearing. When Aesa stopped Ell from going in, there had been a change in her. At the end, she’d even looked angry.

  Aesa grinned, though she’d never been happy to make a woman angry before. Maybe it was because she sensed potential in Ell. Or maybe she didn’t like seeing anyone’s choices taken away. And if Ell could change, they could all change, could cast off their lives as fini and be something else. Or maybe some of them would stay sheep, but that didn’t matter because they’d have the choice.

  “Where have you been?”

  Aesa froze. Otama stepped out from behind a clump of trees, spear resting against her shoulder. Gilka must have put out sentries. “Nowhere. Here.” She put on a look of defiance, daring Otama to call her a liar.

  Otama smirked. “Were you seeking companionship? Was all your high talk of not attacking the sheep simply a way of saving them all for yourself?”

  Aesa bristled. “I’d never do that.”

  “So she went willingly, then?”

  Aesa turned to stomp away.

  “Stop. I haven’t cleared you to enter camp yet.”

  Aesa turned slowly, and though she was tired, clarity surrounded her. The early morning sun turned the leaves into bright jewels. Several hairs had escaped Otama’s braids to curl about her ears, and sweat stains darkened her collar. Her leather bracers were scuffed, and a line of blood marred her smirking lips.

  “I’m not your enemy,” Aesa said softly, “but I could be.”

  Otama’s eyes widened. “Is it time for another lesson?”

  “Would it mean you’d stop talking?”

  Otama’s smile faded. “Careful, bear cub. We’re shipmates, but my patience only extends so far.”

  Aesa ground her teeth. “Can I enter camp or not?”

  Otama shrugged. “Do what you like. I’m only out here to take a piss.”

  Aesa snarled but stomped toward camp instead of launching a swing at Otama’s head. When she got to the tent she was to share with Hilfey, she met another inquisitive stare.

  Aesa began gathering her gear. “Don’t ask.”

  “As if you can stop me.”

  “The sheep people headed deeper into the forest. I followed them.”

  “Alone? Aesa—”

  “I know.”

  “If you had found a group of guards—”

  “I know!”

  Hilfey put her hands on her hips. “Did you at least find anything interesting?”

  She thought of the pool, of how Runa could maybe taint it so that no more fini went in. But if Gilka wanted to go there, she might spot Ell on the way. But when they got to the pool, maybe she could push Otama in. “To a small camp. Then I left them.”

  “Do you remember where?”

  When Aesa shrugged, Hilfey marched her to Gilka and Runa, who listened to the story without expression, staring hard at Aesa the whole time. “And you didn’t see any guards?” Gilka asked.

  “I didn’t stay long. The sheep seemed happy to be there.”

  Gilka rubbed her chin, standing so close that Aesa had to stare upward. With a sigh, Gilka squeezed her shoulder, and Aesa fought the urge to cry out. Her bones had to be rubbing together. She could almost hear them in her head. “Do you think yourself brave, bear cub?”

  “No braver than most,” Aesa said, fighting to keep her voice even and failing.

  “Were you seeking glory or just watching over the sheep?”

  “I…don’t know, ja’thrain. I…wanted to see…” Her shoulder would buckle any moment, and she pictured Gilka’s thumb digging under her collarbone all the way to her back.

  “Aesa has shown a certain curiosity for magic,” Runa said casually. “Perhaps that’s what makes the sheep so interesting to her. The Mists of Murin, this magic staff, the sheep, maybe they’re all connected
.”

  Aesa nodded, and Gilka took the awful pressure away. Aesa fought not to sag or rub her shoulder. She hadn’t mentioned Ell, and she could have kissed Runa for giving her a way out.

  “Do we raid this camp?” Runa asked.

  Gilka shook her head. “I want you to study that magic staff and learn how to break it. We can’t afford to lose more witches. I already have to tell Ulfrecht that his is dead.”

  Runa nodded. “I might need other breakers. We might have to bring them here.”

  Gilka winced. “Bringing thralls on a raid?”

  Aesa couldn’t help but lean forward.

  “They could stay in camp,” Runa said. “Some can defend themselves well enough, even if they don’t have wyrds or wylds.”

  “A healer could be useful, too,” Aesa blurted.

  They both gave her a wry look. She tried not to squirm under their stares. Coming on a raid but staying in camp? It was the perfect solution. Maeve could come on a raid, leaving Laret behind, and Aesa and Maeve could share their life again.

  Gilka stared at the ground. “I don’t like it.”

  “Well, I’ll need to speak to them and anyone who knows of fae magic.”

  “Fae?” Hilfey said. “What do tales of immortals have to do with this?”

  Gilka glanced at her as if just now realizing she was there. “Hilfey, break camp. Take the bear cub with you.”

  Hilfey grabbed Aesa’s arm as they walked away. “Don’t get your hopes up, Aesa.”

  “But you heard her. Thralls! Maeve could come here.”

  Hilfey raised her eyebrows. “Then what would you do with your pet sheep?”

  Well, there was that.

  “You’re lucky Runa was there, or you might be on the ground with a broken arm. And what do you think she meant by fae magic?”

  Aesa didn’t know, and at the moment, she didn’t much care, thinking of Maeve and Ell in the same place and wondering if that was a good thing or not.

  As they broke camp, Aesa tried to let the enthusiasm of her crewmates surround her, just as she did after their first raid. There were more spoils, more glory for all of them, and this time, word of Fernagher would surely get out. She wouldn’t have to keep her travels secret from Maeve for much longer. Maeve might even get to come on the next voyage. Joy should have been lifting Aesa as a winged spirit might. She’d been part of the raid of mythical Fernagher, her space in the songs reserved.