by Ana Mardoll
"You would allow that, master?"
Hilon gave him a warm smile, the one Nocien associated with safety since glimpsing it so many times during those dangerous days when he was still slipping in and out of consciousness from his wounds. "I have considered you one of my own children since the day I found you bleeding on the border of our hunting lands. Nocien, there are many things I do not understand. I confess I once thought to gain a daughter with you, but I would be just as blessed to count you as my son. Come with us."
Nothing in heaven or earth could tempt him so much as this. Nocien dashed tears from his eyes as he shook his head. "I want to say yes, master. I would like very much to be your son."
"Then leave with us," the older man urged. "Nothing is stopping you from saying yes but yourself."
"I swore an oath." Nocien couldn't meet those dark eyes, finding it easier to look away. "You know I did. How could I be worthy of you as my father if I broke my word to my first father, my birth father?"
Grave eyes studied him, the older man's brow knit with worry. "My son, I did not know your birth father, but I cannot think he would want you to throw your life away on a quest for vengeance. What I know of him through you leads me to believe he would want you to live happily with us. Or at the very least to train with us further before you leave! Guyon and his men will still be here once you are ready to face him."
Nocien shook his head again and gently disentangled himself from the embrace. "If I settle down, if I move with the kinship and marry, I'll lose my nerve. Master Hilon—no, Father—I have to go. You've healed me and trained me and I will forever owe you a debt. All I can offer is a promise that I will try to return."
Hilon sighed and ran a hand through his hair, accepting defeat. His words were a soft farewell in the dark tent. "Be safe, my son. If Guyon does not kill you, come and find the kin. We move east to the sea."
Nocien had sworn his oath two harvest seasons ago when the night breezes had turned cool and life seemed likely to go on in the same way it always had. He'd been on the cusp of adulthood, rapidly approaching the age when his childhood name would be shed so that he might choose a new one, and still slept in his mother's tent. He was asleep when Guyon and his men stormed the camp, bringing fire and death in their wake.
The tent was small, just big enough to cozily shelter the three of them: Rhonwen, third wife of Autarch Cadfen; Nocien, fifth of Cadfen's eight children and one of sixteen born by the autarch's five wives; and Tegwen, who took a wife's name when she came of age yet married no man, living instead with Rhonwen in her tent and dancing with her on festival nights when the moon shone full on her bare arms. Nocien slept apart from Rhonwen and Tegwen in a little area partitioned by curtains, a place of his own.
Nocien liked Tegwen; from birth he had called her 'Mother' just as he addressed Rhonwen, who had born him, and the rest of his father's wives. Children were precious within the kinship and each child had as many mothers as were needed to thrive. Nocien was blessed with six mothers, but some of his siblings had seven or eight or even a dozen to raise them. Fathers were different, of course; there was usually only one father. The mother who bore the child presented the infant to the father and he in turn presented the child to their kin, granting the infant their childhood name and a place within the kinship.
Tegwen was the one who woke him, shaking him awake while covering his mouth with her hand. Nocien swam to the surface of his dreams and broke through to the other side, wondering why he heard shouts and smelled fire. He could see fire, too; Tegwen was lit from behind by a red glow that accentuated the fair splotches on her tan face and hands. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she spoke in a whisper.
"Get up quickly and quietly. Men are attacking the camp; we must go."
Nocien rubbed blearily at his eyes and sat up, reaching for his boots. "I don't understand. What men? Where is Mother Rhonwen?" Canvas walls glowed against the fire outside, illuminating the two of them inside an otherwise empty tent. Rhonwen was gone and her boots were missing.
Tegwen shook her head, long brown hair spilling over her shoulders; she'd not had time to braid it, Nocien realized, and somehow this scared him more than the looming shouts and clash of metal outside. "Rhonwen took her spear to fight. You and I are going to the western spring. She will meet us there. Come!"
He frowned as he yanked on his boots. Rhonwen was the best huntress in the kin and could hold her own against any animal under the sun or moon, but men were not beasts. "Can't we help her?" Nocien wasn't allowed on big game hunts yet but had taken down smaller animals with the other young hunters.
"She'll fight better if she's not worried about us," Tegwen said, holding him in a firm grip by the upper arm.
Their tent had been pitched far from the center of the campsite, and chaos had not yet enveloped the back. Drawing him to the rear, Tegwen pulled a knife from her skirt and dragged the sharp cooking tool down the length of the canvas. The rip of the material rang loud in Nocien's ears, but was lost under the roar of fire, the clash of metal, and the screaming. "Come," insisted Tegwen, pulling him out into the semi-darkness.
A red-orange glow remained at their backs as they crept through the darkness, their eyes struggling to readjust after exposure to the firelight. Nocien kept his head down and gritted his teeth, trying to block out the sounds behind them. "Tegwen. Tegwen! Where is Father?"
Her whisper was so low he had to strain to hear her. "He's with the fighters, I'm sure. Rhonwen went to help him. They will try to repel the attackers while we get the children out. Now keep your voice down—"
A soft gasp ripped from her as a hand clamped around her throat. A shadow which had loomed like a tree now resolved into a man. He held her at arm's length and laughed as her fingers scrabbled against his grip. "Trying to escape? Are you one of Cadfen's women, pregnant with one of his whelps? We're supposed to run through the women in case they're carrying, but it seems like a waste of such a pretty face."
Tegwen's legs kicked as the man lifted her by the neck, her head lolling back as air was crushed from her. Nocien darted forward in the darkness, grabbed the knife from Tegwen's skirt, and drove it into the man's belly without pause for thought. The man gurgled in surprise as the blade dragged across him and life gushed out in a rapid waterfall, but Nocien blocked the sound from his ears; it was easier to concentrate on the roar of his own heartbeat and steadying Tegwen as the man crumpled to the ground.
His mother leaned against him in the darkness, choking as she gulped down all the air she'd been denied. "We have to... keep going," she coughed, tugging at Nocien's arm in the direction of the western spring.
"No." He shook his head and gripped the bloody knife with both hands. "You keep going; crouch low and run quiet. Go to the spring. I'll follow and meet you there." She seemed poised to argue, the pale splotches on her face stark in the dim starlight against the darker brown canvas of her skin, but he pressed on. "I must go back for Father and the other mothers. You heard him!"
A heartbeat passed in silence, then Tegwen gathered him up in her arms and kissed his forehead. "Go," she whispered, her voice hoarse but still strong. "Be brave and smart and safe. I will be waiting for you and Rhonwen at the spring." With a final look back, she fled into the darkness and he was alone.
Nocien took a deep breath and looked down at himself. He was wet and cold, his clothes stained black with the blood he'd spilled. Nocien had never killed a person before; never considered that he might. He thought that he should feel something, but there was only a numb emptiness. Shaking his head, he turned back to the camp, the light of the raging fire splashing over his face and making him squint with pain. He didn't know what he could do to save his family, but he had to try. Kicking off from the slick ground, he ran.
Nocien's eyes had adjusted to the firelight before he reached the campsite, but he almost wished they had not. More bodies lay on the ground, some partially covered by the canvas of collapsed tents and others charred from the fire that swept around th
e camp perimeter looking for fuel to devour. Some of the dead were strangers to him, but too many were men and women he knew; hunters and farmers of the kinship. One of the men he recognized as the father of three of Mother Ceinwen's children, and Nocien had to dash tears from his eyes and keep running. He couldn't help the dead, but he might be able to help the living.
The screams were less frequent now and farther away than before; though he still heard the clash of metal in the center of the camp, he imagined most of the kin had scattered into the night. He could hear their calls in the brush looking for their loved ones or, he fervently hoped, howling in fury as they killed their pursuers. Then a cry tore at his heart, a voice he knew as intimately as his own: his littlest sister Mabyn sobbing in a helpless rage.
He darted around a large tent still standing and pulled up short in shock. Rhonwen stood in the firelight bathed from brow to knee in blood. She clutched her spear in her left hand, leaning on the weapon as though it were a tent pole keeping her upright. On the ground around her lay bodies, the dead almost a dozen in number. Two mothers huddled nearby, sheltering in their arms three of Nocien's sisters.
A single strange man faced Rhonwen with an unfamiliar sword in his hands; not the short cutting implement the hunters used to hack away brush and tree limbs, but a thin weapon for stabbing. Longer than Rhonwen's spear, the sword was tipped with blood. The huntress' tunic was torn and stained with wounds. The man laughed and feinted at Rhonwen, mocking her sluggish dodge, tormenting her.
Even as the fires raged and screams drifted on the wind, Nocien felt a strange peace. The world slowed around him, and he stepped out of his body to watch himself move. The stranger had his back to him and Nocien's feet closed the distance. He was shorter than the other man, but the cooking knife was long and easily stabbed up through the stranger's neck. If he gurgled, Nocien couldn't hear above the roar in his ears.
Arms swept around him. Branwen, the dark-haired mother who walked with a limp and always had a kind word for Nocien, wrapped him in a hug as the body lurched forward. Her hands shielded his eyes, which seemed odd to Nocien since he was the one who had caused the sight. He looked at Rhonwen and was glad to see her supported by Eurwen, the golden-skinned wife who spoke with her hands instead of her mouth. Eira, his oldest sister, held Mabyn in her arms while Tesni clung to Eira's sleeve and tried to look brave.
"Where is Tegwen?" Rhonwen's voice was hoarse with smoke and blood as she leaned heavily on her spear. "She was supposed to be with you."
Nocien shook his head, feeling as though he were coming out of a trance. "She's heading for the western spring. I came to get you. The attackers are after Father and our family."
"We know." Branwen brushed his hair back and kissed his forehead. "They gathered us together. They're killing the men on sight. Whoever spread the fire woke the whole camp and gave people time to scatter, but we don't know if..." Her voice trailed away as tears filled her eyes.
Nocien shook her off as gently as he could and gave them what he hoped was his most serious gaze; in his mind, he could feel Father Cadfen behind him. "Mother Rhonwen, you're wounded. Go to the spring and find Tegwen; she's alone and unarmed. I'll follow as soon as I have Father and the other mothers."
Rhonwen stared at him, her eyes dark in the flickering shadows. Eurwen was the one who agreed, making the motion of acceptance with her hands; they did need to leave, and Nocien could follow after finding Cadfen and the others. Rhonwen sighed and nodded, pausing only as she passed to press her hand to his shoulder, her whisper catching at the base of her throat. "Come find me, my own flesh and blood."
Eira pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, shifting her grip on Mabyn as she carried her out. "Be safe." Nocien nodded and tried not to look her or Tesni in the eye. He didn't want to cry. When they melted into the night, it was easier. He might die, but that was a fear he could handle, a smaller thing than watching a stranger with a strange sword menace his mothers and sisters. Now he just had to find his father.
He followed the sounds of fighting, creeping into the center of camp. Crawling to stay out of sight, he poked his head out from under a collapsed tent and had to fight to keep his stomach from emptying itself. Bodies lay everywhere, and these were ones he knew all too well. He counted their names in his head without allowing himself to focus on where they'd fallen or the wounds they'd suffered: Ceinwen, the prettiest of the mothers; Meinwen, the bright gangly one who was all arms and elbows; Iolen, Emrys, Aneirin, and Morcant, his brothers. All four of his brothers, the sons of Cadfen, struck down and unbreathing.
Father fought in the center of the camp, a fierce whirling blade of fury. He was wounded and bleeding where a gash had been carved above his right knee, but he hadn't slowed yet. Men jabbed swords at him but his spear struck back and the bodies of their band littered the ground as testament to his skill.
For a heartbeat, Nocien allowed himself to hope. So many were dead and could never be replaced, but Father would kill the attackers and they would go in triumph to the survivors at the spring. They would know peace again and would rebuild. Then a fist reached down to grab him by the hair and haul him up. He yelped and sputtered at the unexpected assault, his cooking knife dropping uselessly from his hands.
"Guyon! Look what we have peeking out from under the tents. Another family member?"
Father's face fell as a man turned his gaze on Nocien. The stranger wore leather armor studded with metal that flashed in the light. His eyes were hard and the set of his lips cruel. "I see a resemblance," he said, studying Nocien with interest. "One of yours, Cadfen? Stand down, for the sake of the child."
"No! Father, watch out!"
He shouted the warning as movement rose from behind Father. One of the men had circled quietly around when Cadfen stopped moving and now his blade stabbed forward. Father's face contorted with pain, one hand rising to touch the blood staining his chest before he fell to his knees and sagged to the ground. "Father!"
Nocien wasn't sure if he was crying or if the world was swimming. The armored man approached him without haste, his gloved hand gripping Nocien by the chin to turn his head. Studying his face, he noted the birthmark, the broad splash of color on Nocien's cheek, warm and red as wine. "So he was your father? Tell me, do you have any more brothers than these?" He jerked his head at the bodies. "Sons of Autarch Cadfen, I mean. I don't care about the rest of your kin brats."
This question made no sense until the man repeated it, his kinsman gripping Nocien's hair tighter and pulling his head back with a sharp painful tug. "No! My brothers... my brothers!" A sob escaped his throat, not knowing how to begin to mourn. "You killed my brothers."
The man they called Guyon studied him a moment longer, then released his chin and turned away. "Keep tracking the women," he ordered, pointing directions to the men clustered around him. "One of them may be pregnant with another son. Anything that so much as looks fertile, you kill it."
"What about this one?" The man holding Nocien shook him hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Guyon's lip curled with distaste as several of the remaining men made leering noises. "Fine. Do it quickly and get back to tracking the survivors."
Four of them dragged Nocien away from the firelight into the shadows and brush surrounding the camp. His arm was pinned hard against his back, fresh tears leaping to his eyes when he felt the bone fracture from their manhandling. But they'd pinned his right arm, not his left, and they'd taken him for a helpless thing and not a hunter in his own right. The dominant left hand he'd inherited from his mother darted out to grab a knife from a man's belt and stab it into the thick flesh of his thigh. A howl, a scrabble to hold blood inside a body no longer able to contain it, and Nocien was free and running into the night.
He didn't dare run to the spring, fearful of leading them to the others, so he ran south, pelting through brush that tore at him as sharply as any knife. Only once did he run into one of the attackers, beating his way through the fields looking for survivors. Nocien killed
for the third time that night, but not before taking wounds of his own. He ran on, stumbling and falling when the soft light of false dawn filled the sky above.
When he woke some time later, the same ethereal light illuminated the gentle face that peered down at him. "This child is injured. Lykos, ride to fetch Phile and tell her to bring bandages."
Master Hilon's kinship abandoned their campsite at sunrise the morning after their scouts noticed the approach of Guyon and his kin. Nocien stayed behind, waiting high in a tree overlooking a pond on the outskirts of the cleared camp ground. Hidden among thick leaves, he rested and dozed in the summer heat, sipping at his water-skin and watching the dust on the horizon as it marched closer. They were coming.
Guyon and his kin marched into the camp just after noon. Men kicked at the smoldering fires, and Nocien listened with grim pleasure to their grumbling over all that had been burned rather than left behind for the invaders to use. Nocien had begged Master Hilon to pollute the wells in addition to destroying the food and goods they could not carry, but Hilon had drawn a line at poisoning earth to which his kin might one day return.
Watching from his perch, Nocien was troubled to realize that the kinship carrying blood-red banners was not entirely composed of fighting men. On the night they'd attacked Cadfen and his kin, Guyon had brought only men with him, but of course those men were not his entire kin. Nocien watched women scurry through the camp helping to pitch the tents, draw water, and start cooking fires. Their heads stayed down and their eyes trailed the ground; more than once Nocien saw a man raise his hand in anger to one of the women.
He bit back his fury and studied the bodies moving about the camp. Women of all ages lit fires and helped to pitch tents, from elderly grandmothers to tiny babies barely big enough to toddle. Nocien recognized none of them, not a sister or a mother among them, and wasn't sure how to feel. He didn't want his sisters and mothers to be captives of these men, but his heart ached at the loss of them. Master Hilon had sent scouts to look for them after Nocien had trusted him with his story, but by then the trail was cold.