by J L Forrest
“It is said they keep the Oudwn sacred grounds, mind their libraries, teach their chieftains sons. The flesh walkers are holy demons, nay?”
“Holy? Demons? Neither.” Yw Sabi touched her forefinger to her chin, a thoughtful gesture. “Tell me the trouble between your people and these Oudwnii?”
“We have fought for many reasons. Longer than I remember, since before I was even born.”
The Atreiani’s dark eyes reflected the firelight. “What do the Oudwnii think of the Atreianii? You have some reverence for me. Would they?”
“Mayhap.”
“Tell me more of them.”
“Most are no more than hill farmers, but their archers are deadly. When my father was a boy, the Oudwnii opened the mountain roads through their lands. They traded with us. Now they do not.”
“While they traded, did your father travel those roads?”
“Long seasons ago. The feud is old and my father is aged, but he remembers more than I can tell you.” Nyahri regretted these words at once, realizing the Atreiani’s intent.
“Go on.”
“Nay, I would not—”
“Go on.”
“Many years ago,” Nyahri said, “an Oudwn chieftain claimed Abswyn, where we have buried our dead for many generations, and we fought the Oudwnii for it. That is how the worst killing started.”
“Who is their chieftain now?” Yw Sabi paced slowly, her arms crossed.
“Shwn Jhon Oudwn,” said Nyahri. “When my father first knew him, they were both boys. When my father was older, he led a war party and burned the Oudwn lodge in Cohltos. Some of Shwn Jhon’s family died.”
“If these Oudwnii stumbled upon us tonight, they might choose violence?”
“They might.”
“We will meet them, tonight or soon. Three days ago, Abswyn exploded, its annihilation visible for a hundred kilometers in every direction. You comprehend this?”
Nyahri shook her head.
“A long distance.” Yw Sabi plucked a swollen water skin from a tree branch and emptied it on the fire, which guttered, hissed, and died. The camp darkened. “Men clearly still care for the Citadels, even if they don’t remember why. These Oudwnii will come. Would they attack for the sake of it?”
“Who knows what any man will do?” Nyahri fought a shiver. The dark shown only the Atreiani’s faintest outline, her hair blacker than the night. “Forgive me, yw Sabi, but are you afraid of the Oudwnii?”
“Last night, a firelight appeared upon the mountain ridges to the west.” The Atreianii fetched another container of water and doused the last of the embers. “A encampment, I’m certain.”
“Oudwnii.”
“To answer your question, I’m not afraid, girl, but cautious. I’ve slept long and woken to a changed world, a world I never expected. I must go to Sojourn, but first I’d learn more about these Oudwnii and their flesh walkers. The Templarii were wretched cockroaches when I knew them—not my creations—and I bet they’re cockroaches still.”
Not her creations, Nyahri thought, having heard in ritual of Sultah yw Sabi’s more horrifying creations.
Cricket chirps grew louder. Somewhere an owl called.
Nyahri clenched her jaw. “You wish to go to my father.”
“I do.” Yw Sabi’s lips curled upward, an expression visible in the dark only for the paleness of her skin.
“I fear, goddess, you might harm my people.”
“So it’s goddess now? A promotion from devil.” The Atreiani sighed.
“Promise me, Atreiani, you will not hurt my loved ones, my cousins, nor anyone in my tribe.”
“Promise?” The devil’s voice rasped. “I promise no one anything. They’re not far from here, are they?” The Atreiani stepped close, crouching on her heels, touching one of the feathers braided into Nyahri’s hair. “What do you call this bird?”
“A night-falcon.”
“We called it Aquila umbra.”
“The stories say you created the night-falcons.”
The Atreiani nodded. “An engineered fancy.” She studied Nyahri. “I surmise something of you, E’cwni, with night-falcon feathers in your hair and barely disguised worship in your eyes.”
I have worshipped mere ghosts, Nyahri thought, and here now, she is more flesh than spirit.
The Atreiani’s skin smelled fresh, not merely bathed in the creek, but scented with soap or oil, something rare, something E’cwnii seldom encountered.
“Is worship what you wish?” Nyahri asked.
“No,” yw Sabi said.
“What do you wish?”
“I told you—to go to Sojourn.” The Atreiani pulled the feather from Nyahri’s hair. “The night-falcon was my demesne’s crest, and I’m guessing this is one land where you might encounter such a crest from time to time. You’ve seen it before?”
Crest faltered in translation, but Nyahri understood the concept of any symbol. “Everyone in our tribe has, in the old places. It appears cut in stone, scattered throughout the plain. We wear the feathers to honor the Atreianii.”
“Many Atreianii hated my emblem before the end, despised the umbra feather.”
“I do not understand.” Nyahri shook her head.
Yw Sabi shrugged. “I tested you when I sent you, a horsewoman, to your horse. I would’ve let you go.”
Nyahri swallowed, her heart pounding at yw Sabi’s every movement, gestures sometimes smooth and slow, other times quick, the movements of a snake or bird. Thinking of cats, Nyahri remembered how lionesses might sleep, languid and lazy, so easeful until an antelope wandered too close to them.
“I felt your friendship for Suhto,” yw Sabi said. “You would’ve died to save him. I suspect such devotion’s not your character alone, but your people’s, hmm?”
“In my heart I still fear you a devil.”
“You think I might kill your family, everyone you love?”
“Did the Atreianii not do such things once?”
Yw Sabi nodded. “Will your people try to kill me?”
“Nay.”
“I must relearn the world, who to trust. You’re smart. Think it through.”
“Think what through?”
“We’ve spent some hours together now. I’ve tended you, looked after you these days. You watched me, as well.” Yw Sabi folded her arms.
Nyahri inclined her head. “You will not harm them.”
“Not likely.”
“What will you do?”
“Whatever I please.”
Would my mother have trusted her? Nyahri sighed. Mother would have prostrated herself—
“All right,” said the plainswoman, “I will take you.”
The devil gathered her possessions. “Come. Those Oudwnii make me think we should leave before sunup. You’re a known factor—they are not. You feel well enough?”
“I do.”
“Take your weapons. Harness my bag, as well. Can your horse carry us both?” yw Sabi asked, nodding toward Kwlko.
“At a walk.”
“Let’s be on our way.”
Nyahri rolled her blankets and tied them, moving slowly, her body still aching. She adjusted Kwlko’s tack, smoothed his padding, and set the stirrups forward. Last, Nyahri strapped the Atreiani’s black bag to the cantle, hesitant to touch the fabric, a cloth alien to her. Her knife regained its place at her belt, and her bow and quiver hung at easy reach. She kept her spear in hand. As Nyahri eased into the saddle, yw Sabi stood beside the stallion, running her pale fingertips over his hide.
The Atreiani’s skin reflected the barest moonslight, even to her white lips. Her long limbs and fingers reminded Nyahri of an antelope; her corded muscles, of a mountain lion; her neck, of a bird; and always, the serpent.
Something in her walk, Nyahri thought, not quite human. Her mouth, the frame of her face.
“You are not tired?” Nyahri asked.
“No.”
“How is that possible?”
“I’m supposed to be a goddes
s, right?”
“I have not seen you so much as close your eyes.”
“I slept long enough in Abswyn.”
“How long, yw Sabi?”
“Too long, for certain, but I don’t know the answer to that question. I’ll seek it at Sojourn.”
◆◆◆
Nyahri helped the Atreiani climb behind her, for the devil showed no skill with the horse. They rode from camp at an easy gait, beginning the trek to the plains, stopping often to listen and look.
They paralleled the smaller stream, back to the river, following it downward. Once Nyahri discovered a clear path east, she increased their pace, trusting the stallion’s keener senses to keep the way in the predawn darkness. The Atreiani studied the woodland by starlight.
The witch-scepter, hanging from yw Sabi’s belt, brushed Nyahri’s leg. The plainswoman pushed the thought of its unnaturalness from her mind, its black-magic taint, along with the wicked possibility she rode with a devil at her back.
Soon, the sunrise cast a golden light on the lowest foothills and rocky boar-backs. Dew glistened on the trees, and birds burst into chorus. The undergrowth thinned and, on the rises, the prairies appeared.
As they cantered over open ground, the Atreiani tapped Nyahri’s shoulder. “On the ridge to our left, do you see them?”
Two hooded men stood in full view, too far for a bowshot. Deerskin cloaks wrapped them, and they leaned on longbows, watching awhile before melting into the forest.
“Oudwn archers,” Nyahri said. “Others will know soon.”
“Couldn’t be avoided,” said yw Sabi.
They rode on and, after some hours, yw Sabi took a thirsty drink from the water skin. She licked her lips as if relieved, as if the water meant as much to her as to any mortal.
Nyahri felt some relief. More proof of her flesh.
Having paused, they took an opportunity to stretch and eat. The Atreiani helped herself to Nyahri’s flatbread and roasted grains. Once more, she tipped back her head to drink.
Nyahri glimpsed the Atreiani’s teeth more clearly: four canines above and two below, long and sharp. Yw Sabi wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, handing the skin back to Nyahri.
Fangs, Nyahri thought, at least six.
By the creekside, Nyahri refilled the skins, glancing over her shoulder. Yw Sabi waited at the widening path, facing away. Several times, the Atreiani turned her back on Nyahri, easy prey for a knife or spear—
Nay, she is no easy prey. She reminds me also, she is the predator. It is a test as much as sending me to my horse was a test. She feared death at Abswyn, but I doubt she much fears me.
They continued downslope and, by afternoon, the pines blended with cottonwoods. Golden grasses mixed with the greenery. The scent of a cooking fire reached them, Nyahri reined the stallion, and a breeze carried distant voices to her ears.
“My people,” she said.
Kwlko stamped and turned, anxious to reach the horses and humans and dogs he knew. Yw Sabi’s lips brushed Nyahri’s ear, an over-familiar gesture, disconcerting and warm. Her unnatural hair tickled Nyahri’s cheek.
“Let us go to them, girl. I will not harm your family.”
At those words, Nyahri set heel to the stallion’s flanks. They rounded a bend and the land opened. The camp lay before them, the E’cwnii watching them come.
{08}
Cries arose, many voices calling her name, “Nyahri!” Women and young men rushed forward but stopped short before the Atreiani. They blanched at her, their arms slack. The hunters, those few Nyahri counted, put their hands to their weapons—a hatchet loosed from its sling, a spear raised—and they gawked.
The mottled dog ran beside Kwlko, barking and tail wagging, playful but careful of the horse’s legs. Children, less fearful than the adults, sprinted past their horrified parents.
As the children approached, Nyahri tensed. To bring the Atreiani to her cousins, their children, and their infants.
Have I made a mistake? she wondered. Did I have a choice?
Nyahri kept her hand on her longknife.
“What was the boom?” the children asked. “The bright light in the west?”
“Has Suhto come back?” A girl looked past Kwlko, awaiting a rider who would never arrive.
A boy asked the Atreiani, “Who are you? What are you?”
Yw Sabi leaned down to muss his hair. Her closed-lipped smile vanished as quickly as it appeared, a brew of sadness and joy.
She nodded to him. “A friend to you, child.”
As she entered the camp, Nyahri’s foreboding grew. Defensible shelters encircled a central fire, its smoke rising across the river into darker clouds which rolled from the west. The horses stood near the water’s edge. Prepared saddles hung on stands, bags packed and sheltered by half-folded woolen blankets. Too few adult men appeared with too many skirted women, not huntresses but tent wives, and too many babes and young boys.
Where have all the hunters gone?
A few elders prostrated themselves before the Atreiani. After a moment, the younger men and women dropped to their knees, touching their foreheads to the earth, extending their hands along the ground.
Leaning on his spear, a thick-boned, tan-skinned young man stepped forward. Braver or more foolish than the rest, a hunter still in his trials, he was Nyahri’s second cousin.
This is who remains to speak for the E’cwnii?
“Greetings, Muuteh,” Nyahri said.
He looked beyond Nyahri to the Atreiani, and he bowed his head to her, though he kept to his feet. One woman sobbed. The children, so spirited before, echoed their parents’ dread, and some ran crying to their mothers’ arms.
“You are not the leader here,” yw Sabi said to Muuteh.
“Nay,” he said, “but I have the watch.”
A few bolder women crowded the horse, touching yw Sabi’s clothes. Nyahri’s father emerged from his tent, wearing only his breeches, standing with his arms folded, his white hair aflutter.
He raised his hand. “Welcome, Atreiani,” he said. “Do you wish for the Ahtros of this people to prostrate himself?”
“I’d rather speak with you,” the devil replied.
He beckoned, disappearing again inside.
Yw Sabi dismounted clumsily, turning on her heel instead of her toes, balancing by strength alone. Nyahri swung her right leg over the horn and slid from the saddle, handing the reins to Muuteh.
“Your father has sat and smoked and sang to spirits,” he said to Nyahri, “and done little else since you went. He sang so hard for your return—” Muuteh glanced at the Atreiani. “—a spirit came back with you.”
Yw Sabi walked toward the tent, and Nyahri hurried after her. When they reached the tent door, yw Sabi turned, her gaze stern.
“Stay out here.”
“But I—”
Yw Sabi’s eyes narrowed to razor lines. “Stay out here.”
“Why?”
“Because I tell you to.”
“You cannot tell me—” Nyahri began, her voice trailing. The Atreiani’s countenance told her otherwise, that the goddess could command anything she wished. Nyahri stepped back. “Do not harm my father.”
The Atreiani’s expression sharpened before she swept the door aside. Nyahri glimpsed her father, seated by his sacred fire, adding incense to the coals.
Nyahri retreated, stung by the rejection. She tromped back to Muuteh, who stared at the Ahtros’s tent, and the tribe gathered to hang upon every moment which followed. Nyahri stood beside her cousin, her attention also transfixed.
“What is happening?” Muuteh asked.
“In the world? Or here in our camp, now?”
He shrugged.
“I do not know,” she said.
“It has been almost a week since you departed. Seems much has happened in so few days.”
“Yea. The other hunters, where are they?”
“To Abswyn, looking for you and for Suhto. They play hide and seek with the Oudwnii,
who infest the plains like termites since the western night lit with hellfire.”
“Have the Oudwnii come here?”
“They test our defenses, and three came to speak with the Ahtros.”
“And?”
“We told them we knew no more than they.”
“Did you tell them we went to the House of Hell?”
“We played dumb,” Muuteh said, “telling them only that you had a simple rite to perform. You would be a priestess, nay? They need know nothing of our affairs.”
“They believed you?”
“Your father thinks so. I am less sure.”
“They will believe no longer—their scouts spotted us this morning and must have seen the Atreiani for what she was, even from a distance.”
After a long while, the tent door opened, the flap held aside by the Atreiani’s pale hand. She waved Nyahri toward her.
“Brush Kwlko,” Nyahri said to Muuteh. “Touch nothing else.”
Muuteh scowled at yw Sabi’s bag, at its unnatural fabric, and he turned his nose up at it. “You need not tell me to stay away from witchcraft. You should heed your own advice.”
Nyahri entered her father’s tent. The central fire’s white-hot embers nestled in a hollow, a cooking tripod set over them, sage smoking in a censer. Nyahri took her place on the floor rugs with her legs crossed, one knee against her father’s, the other near the Atreiani’s, forming a triangle between them.
“Pour us tea,” her father said.
Nyahri passed the cups, and the Ahtros lit his pipe, smoke wreathing his brow. Politely, patiently, they drank their teacups dry before speaking.
Her father broke the silence, “The Atreian Sultah yw Sabi and I have talked. I have learned a little. She has learned a little.”
Nyahri listened.
“Suhto is not with us,” the Ahtros said, “and he is not with you. Our scouts out-rode you twice over, bringing news of a deep void where once Abswyn watched over our E’cwn palanquins, and everything in the Red Valley is destroyed. Oudwnii ask us questions for which we have no answers. They test us and, soon enough, testing may become fighting.”
“Yea, father.”
“Proud Suhto is dead, or so the goddess tells me. She tells me it is neither your fault nor hers, but only the way of things—men cannot enter the Houses of Hell. If our legends said otherwise, well, Suhto was not a legend.”