Steadfast

by Michelle Hauck

  Her strength moved him not at all, though he looked entirely ordinary in size and build, and she had been trained to handle much larger opposition.

  Instead, he regarded her from head to toe, his weird brown eyes expressing only confidence. Seemingly coming to some conclusion, he rose and pointed to the wooden platform, getting slowly to his feet and letting the foreign words slip slowly from his tongue. “Petitioners. Speak here. Law. I petition to learn of Dal.”

  The people gasped and fled in earnest. Santabe’s anger went white-hot. Tricked. She was used. The man obviously picked this spot, knowing full well that to encounter a priest here gave him this advantage. No petitioner who asked to learn of Dal could be turned away or sent to the next life until the petitioner decided they had satisfied their curiosity about Dal. Who was this foreigner to manipulate their laws? And how had he known?

  “Woodsmen,” she sputtered. “You spoke to the woodsmen outside of town.” It could be the only way this stranger could have known how to protect himself. They must have taught this man to speak their language as well. The woodsmen, who rarely saw a priest of Dal, had started to develop offensive attitudes along with their care of the trees. Priests didn’t want to bother to chase such a scant population through the hills and woods for days, only to see their prey slip away again and again. The woodsmen took pride in being difficult. They had informed this stranger how to circumvent the law.

  “I would learn of Dal,” he repeated.

  Her bottom lip jutted out. She would be considered a fool by her superiors for giving this man a chance to speak—and now she had no choice but to escort him to the temple with safe passage. “Then come.” She rammed her Diviner into her belt with extra force. This was not how her day was supposed to go.

  He pointed to himself. “I Ordoño. And you?”

  What kind of barbarian name is that?

  The pleasant smile on his hairy face only increased her burn, but a petitioner asking to know Dal could not be refused on any question, except for the most sacred mysteries. Not that she had been taught those yet. She shoved her braid over her shoulder. She would give as little as possible. “Santabe.”

  “You priestess of Dal?”

  “Yes,” she bit out.

  “You teach me?”

  “No,” she said much too quickly. Her flesh creeped at the suggestion. His eyes looked at her the way a man looked at a woman, much too familiarly, and not the way people should look at a priestess: with fear. His eyes traveled over her tall body, lingering on the muscles of her arms and her long braid. “You go to the high priests. They’ll teach you.”

  His smile strengthened at her denial. “I think you teach me Dal. I teach you speak my words. We be great friend. Children of Dal like me very much. I learn you ways. We change world.”

  She forced a laugh at his insane words even as a shiver ran up her back, though Santabe could not say why. “And I think I’ll be the one to end your miserable life and send you to the next life.”

  The Great Dal let that time be soon.

  Chapter 11

  Claire and the others pushed through the last of the raspberry brambles, where the fruit was beginning to ripen, to encounter a stretch of scattered cottonwoods. The dark ground was so soggy it squished underfoot. Claire took one look and shook her head, then turned to her companions and saw the same recognition in their eyes. She’d encountered places like this before: hidden death traps, worse than quicksand. The rock here was limestone, and in places centuries of erosion had turned the stone into pits of all sizes, from an inch wide to several feet across. But the pits were not the greatest danger—often only a thin crust covered caves full of groundwater where one unwary step would break through and send a person tumbling twenty feet to break their neck or drown.

  Without a word being said, Claire and Bromisto headed straight for the nearest tree on safe ground to cut branches for staffs. When Errol tried to follow them, Jorga put him to work picking berries, then slid down from the horse to ready the rope. They would have to feel forward on each step while tied together for additional safety. The treacherousness of this terrain couldn’t be overstated, as unlike quicksand, here there would be no clues to give warning, just a quick drop and then inescapable water, with only the rope to pull them out before their lungs filled.

  Luckily, they knew what awaited them and could prepare. Claire didn’t think Ramiro or anyone unfamiliar with the swamp would have fared very well here alone.

  Bromisto whistled as he swung their small hatchet among the tree limbs. The boy had scrambled up the tree like a squirrel, and Claire left finding the right-sized branches to him, busying herself with catching the tree limbs he threw down to her and striping off leaves and twigs so they wouldn’t catch on clothing. Despite the danger, she hummed along with his tune, quite glad to have a break from practicing the magic. Jorga had worked her hard over the last two days and it felt good not to be under scrutiny, if only for a few minutes. Once they crossed to safer ground, however, it would be back to projecting emotions and images. Most of the time, she could hold the magic until a collection of emotions was shared, and she’d even been able to teach Jorga to match her efforts. Yet, all her work and exhaustion had earned her only a few sniffs and a grouchy “Try again.”

  “Gallant,” Bromisto shouted to Errol in a carry-over of their earlier conversation.

  Errol looked up with a mouth full of raspberries. “Buttercup.”

  “That’s girly stuff. Thunder.”

  “This again?” Claire rolled her eyes. “Her name is Horse and that’s the end of it. Thunder.” She sniffed. As if Horse looked like a Thunder. The animal shied when clouds crossed the sun, the mare afraid of shadows, and certainly was no warhorse like Sancha. More like a plough horse. “I tried two names and I’m going back to the first.” Ramiro had made fun of her for calling the animal Horse so she’d changed it to Jorga, which didn’t work out for obvious reasons.

  The real Jorga arched a brow and Claire readied herself. The woman hadn’t been happy to find a horse named after her and even less to hear they’d attached that name to a goat as well. “Your hands might be busy, but you can still do something more useful with that mouth than talk about flea-covered animals. Sing. Share Memory again.”

  Arguing would be futile so Claire didn’t bother to try. All it had earned her was raps on the knuckles or across her shoulders if her grandmother rode on Horse. She drew her shoulders up straight and tall to lift her diaphragm for the Song, and Errol promptly dropped to his knees and clamped his hands over his ears. Her first note died half done as her uncle screamed.

  “Enemy!” Errol shrieked.

  As her muscles tightened, Claire searched the area and saw nothing threatening, getting only a shrug from Bromisto when she looked to him. The boy had a better vantage in the tree, yet found no signs of danger. Bromisto shimmied out of the tree and beat her over to the other boy.

  “What enemy?” Jorga was already asking. “How soon?” But Errol only shook, eyes scrunched shut, and refused to answer.

  A glimpse of the future then and not an immediate threat. Her uncle’s talent continued to make Claire uneasy. She couldn’t help scanning the skies, though there was nothing to see. Nobody was bleeding. They shouldn’t be in any danger. Her heart beat erratically anyway. Did Dal seek them out? Would the god attack? Warnings were all well and good, but not if they didn’t provide any details.

  Her uncle could be incredibly stubborn at times, more like a child of two than nearly an adult. She crouched down on his level and put an arm around his shoulder. “What enemy, Errol? We need to know.”

  “Enemy,” he repeated stubbornly in a shriek that made her ears ring. “Destroyer.”

  She repressed an angry huff while rubbing at her ear. No wonder danger found them with all his yelling. “Yes, but what?”

  Bromisto swooped in and the smaller boy shoved Errol, causing her uncle to topple over. His hands slid off his ears as he moved to catch himself, and he l
ooked up, his mouth dangling open with surprise. Jorga gave a growl and moved to grab Bromisto, but Claire got between them, putting up her hand.

  “Wait, grandmother. It’s working. Look.”

  Instead of curling up again, Errol wore a scowl.

  “Stop acting like a baby,” Bromisto insisted. “Speak up like a man. What sort of enemy?”

  At first Errol’s brows drew down like he didn’t understand the question, then he blinked as if listening to a voice they couldn’t hear. “Soldiers.”

  “When?” Jorga asked.

  “Soon?” He shrugged, then pointed off vaguely into the batch of raspberry bushes.

  Jorga turned to look at Claire. “That’s the best we’ll get from him. Looks like you’ll get to practice your Death Song again.”

  Claire’s spine stiffened. “If I have to”—she looked out at the cottonwoods—“or maybe not. I have another idea.”

  They set the trap on an area of stable ground in front of two massive cottonwood trees. The sogginess prevented anyone from actually sitting and appearing relaxed, but they scattered enough items around to make the area look like a campsite. Errol and Bromisto stood close to the fire at the rear of the pretend camp with Horse, feeding sticks to the flames. It smoked abominably from all the wet wood, but that was just as well. They wanted to draw the soldiers in, not blunder into the Northerners accidentally.

  Bromisto whistled a tune and Errol tried to imitate him, blowing out more spit than noise.

  “How long do you think this will take?” Claire asked her grandmother. The two of them crouched in a patch of tall grass.

  The words barely left her mouth before Errol shouted, “Enemy! Destroyer!”

  Everyone jumped, but settled quickly. Errol had shouted the same in a seemingly random pattern since the first warning, often slapping his hands over his mouth afterward as if he couldn’t stop himself.

  “Enemy!” Bromisto hollered in imitation, obviously enjoying the romp. Errol yelled again in return. Both boys laughed until they wobbled unsteadily, shouting their new chant whenever they got enough breath, like a bizarre new form of Scream Tag.

  “Long enough to give me a headache,” Jorga answered the almost forgotten question. “It’s not a game,” she called to the boys and then said to Claire: “Not all of the enemy will go down in the trap. Are you ready to use the Song?”

  Claire gave a nod. She’d already set herself to do what had to be done, though butterflies became bats in her stomach.

  “On my signal then,” Jorga said. “We’ll do this together.” Her eyes continually scanned the landscape and jerked back as a line of men in black and yellow emerged from the raspberry bushes about two hundred yards away. Not a long wait after all. Ten soldiers . . .

  Wait. Twenty-five.

  Claire managed to keep her breathing steady and even, at the right depth for Singing, though her hands shook.

  Errol and Bromisto gave one more shriek and then took off running as directed with Horse. They’d prearranged to go to the next nearest group of cottonwoods, the ground already checked and double-checked for safety.

  The lure worked, as twenty-plus Northern soldiers barreled in their direction, drawing their weapons as they came. Claire took in three breaths before they halved the distance and reached the trap. She stood. Her nails cut into her palms as she waited for them to go down when they hit the thin ground. The lead man ran right past the tree branch they’d left as a marker. Ran right past it and kept going.

  Claire stepped backward, eyes widening. One. Two. Three . . . then finally twenty-five. All twenty-five thundered across the trap without failing or slowing, cutting the distance. Their faces contorted with hate as they sensed victory over the helpless victims.

  “Impossible,” she gasped. How can this be? Her feet wanted to run, get away, but she pushed the debilitating panic away and held firm.

  Think.

  The ground was so thin and crumbly in that spot, it wouldn’t hold up a bird, let alone twenty-five full-grown men. She expected a few to get through, but not all.

  Jorga clutched at her arm. “The magic. Use the magic! I’m still too weak! You must stop them!”

  What happened to doing it together?

  The men pounded closer. The dull sunlight glinted off swords coming for her blood. Claire’s pulse raced with adrenaline. It all depended on her. She drew up tall for her Death Song, the words ready . . .

  Wait.

  It didn’t make sense. At least one should have plunged through the earth and into the cave inches below the ground. Jorga was well able to use the Song again. A trap . . .

  A trap in more ways than one.

  By the Song, if she’d guessed wrong, they died. Fifty yards away.

  “Hurry!” Jorga shouted.

  Instead of letting the words of the Death Song slip from her lips, Claire fed all her anger and resentment at being used into a Song of emotion, holding it in a sphere-shaped bubble around her body, layering in intent and depth. With a last scream of competition, she thrust the magic containing nothing but passion, not toward the soldiers, but in every direction. It exploded outward with a vengeance, cutting through rock, stone, earth, and tree.

  Jorga cried out and dropped to her knees. Dozens of answering cries echoed that first from behind trees and in clumps of brush. The Northern soldiers wavered, flickering, then vanished like the illusions they actually were. Nothing but a figment in her mind created by the Song.

  A Song fashioned by others.

  “Tricked,” Claire shouted. “You can come out now! I figured it out.” How dare they use her this way? There were never any enemies but what she saw in her mind. Their manipulation would have worked, too, if she were the same frightened girl who’d first run into Ramiro. But she’d been tempered in a hotter fire since then.

  Somehow, the Women of the Song had even fooled Errol into giving his false warning. A trap indeed, only set by her own kind to test her. “Is this how you greet everyone?”

  “Only daughters of a certain age,” Jorga said as she climbed stiffly to her feet. “And only on their first visit. I don’t think my bones could take it more than once.”

  “You knew,” Claire accused.

  “Of course I knew. Ever has it been this way. No true Woman of the Song would give our secrets away.”

  “And Errol’s warning.”

  “A surprise indeed. He sensed the initiation, yet also the form the illusion would take in your mind. Each woman sees her own deepest fear made flesh, making each initiation different. Errol is more attuned with his family than I expected.”

  Other women appeared now, most with fair hair cut short or worn in a variety of styles of braids or even loose and rippling down their backs. But one or two had dark skin like Father Telo, taking after their fathers. They emerged from their hiding spots. The majority appeared middle aged or older. Some few looked more ancient than Jorga, clinging to canes or other women.

  “Welcome, Daughter,” the closest said, one of the older members.

  Welcome,” the others all called their own greetings.

  Claire held tight to her irritation, figuring she’d need it for whatever came next. “Did I pass your test?”

  The first woman smiled, cutting sharp wrinkles around her lips and eyes. She rubbed her elbow as if it pained her. “With power to spare, Daughter. Welcome to the Rose Among Thorns gathering. Share our Song.”

  “Destroyer!”

  Everyone jumped, sparing Claire from having to give these women a friendly greeting in return.

  What now?

  Errol hurried into their midst with Bromisto hanging on to one of his arms and trying to drag him back.

  With his free hand, her uncle pointed straight to Claire. “Destroyer!”

  Chapter 12

  Claire sat at the center of a mud shack that looked like it had been added onto repeatedly over the years to enlarge the space. In places the clay and mud coating had cracked and crumbled to reveal the branches wit
hin the framework. The floor was of plain dirt, swept tidy, and the single window had an oiled sheet tacked over the frame to keep out the rain, yet still allow in a thin light. Chairs made up the only furniture, the room bare except for the simple necessities needed for a gathering of women. A lantern hung on one wall and smoked with an oily smell.

  Claire wiped her hands free of sweat, which had nothing to do with the stuffy heat of the room and everything to do with the scrutiny upon her. Her three-legged stool was surrounded by the plain-backed chairs of four other women—the Elders—and Claire felt rather like a newborn lamb being inspected to see if it was healthy enough to join the herd—or the stew pot.

  All four women were large, but the one facing her outmatched the others. She had three chins and no neck to speak of, while her heavy cheeks pushed up her flesh to make her eyes tiny. Her bust projected forward like a shelf, resting on a stomach that had no waist. Short white hair hid under a lacy cap. For all her size, her composure reminded Claire of Ramiro’s mother. The Elder might have matched Beatriz in unyielding authority, but with none of the ability to laugh at herself and none of Jorga’s soft spot for kin. It added up to a woman Claire had no desire to know better.

  The piggy eyes stared down a bulb-like nose with a flat expression. “You bring a man to our most sacred enclave.”

  “Bromisto is ten, hardly—”

  “I allowed it, Eulalie. The blame lies with me.” Jorga sat wedged in the corner where Claire couldn’t see her grandmother unless she leaned half off her stool. “It was to help Errol—as a companion for my son. I am an Elder here as well.”

  “Not when it comes to your own kin,” Eulalie snapped. “You know the laws. Be grateful we allow you here to listen. But you will not speak again.” She tented her hands across her vast stomach in satisfaction of scoring a hit, and Jorga hastily looked down and settled against the wall. “Now then. Our sister Jorga is not on trial here—yet. We can deal with her later. What do we do with this flibbertigibbet?” Her mouth pursed like she’d swallowed a gnat.