Hammer of the Earth

by Susan Krinard

  “Perhaps is not good enough.”

  “This is only the first of many such battles we will face,” Tahvo said. “When the next one comes, Rhenna may be forced to let you meet the enemy alone.”

  “Now you speak like Nyx.”

  “Each of us sees only a part of the whole.”

  “I intend to see much more.” He took her arm. “Can you climb, Tahvo?”

  Chapter Five

  R henna sat on the smooth granite bank in the posture of warrior’s meditation, making her mind and body ready as Nyx issued her challenge to the Imaziren. In her quiet state she was aware of the eyes watching her, the whisper of many breaths, tension in the air as taut as a bowstring.

  She was grateful. For weeks she had felt the helplessness of being a leader in name only, dependent upon Nyx while her own skills shriveled in the desert’s relentless heat. Now she would be a warrior once again, and her purpose was clear.

  Nyx spoke the Amazi tongue in a strong, carrying voice. When she was finished, the tribesmen were silent for some time, consulting among themselves while the sun rose higher in a leached-blue sky.

  “One comes,” Nyx said.

  Rhenna opened her eyes. The vast face of rock upon which she sat sloped down from the cave mouth, ending in a waterless river of gravel. Sheer cliffs rose from the river, and from behind the cliffs came a lone rider mounted on a small but handsome horse. The warrior wore a single plain garment, a tunic belted about the waist, and his dark brown hair was cut close to his head. His horse bore neither saddle nor bridle. He guided the animal with a braid of rope around its neck, as much at one with his mount as the finest riders of the Free People.

  It was only as the rider dismounted, carrying both round ox-hide shield and throwing spear, that Rhenna recognized the slender legs and narrow waist of a woman. The warrior planted her spear in the ground and called out in her language.

  Rhenna got to her feet. Nyx exchanged a few brief sentences with the Amazi female, then returned to translate.

  “Her name is Madele,” Nyx said. “She has been sent to speak for her tribe and to answer the challenge. She wishes to know if you are the sorcerer who brought the wind.”

  Rhenna nodded slowly. “You explained the terms of my offer?”

  “I did.”

  “Then I’ll speak to her, and you translate what I say.” Rhenna glanced toward the cave. “Whatever happens, do your best to get the others to safety as soon as the agreement is struck.”

  “The tribes will not let us go unless you have won the battle.”

  “Cian won’t surrender without a fight, bargain or no bargain. If you believe in your vaunted prophecies, you’d better find a way to make them come true.”

  Rhenna walked down the rock slope, Nyx behind her. She stopped within easy reach of the tribeswoman’s javelin and held out her hands to show them empty of weapons.

  “I am Rhenna, warrior of the Free People,” she said. “I am the one who brought the wind, but I mean you and your people no harm. We seek only to cross the Great Desert.”

  The young woman met Rhenna’s stare with gray eyes in a lean, sun-bronzed face. Her bare arms and legs rippled with long, sleek muscle, scarred from many battles. Rhenna had no doubt that she was an able and even deadly fighter.

  “Are you a servant of the Stone God?” Nyx translated.

  “I am its enemy.”

  “And you would prove this with your life?”

  Rhenna glanced at Nyx to be sure she understood. “She wants a fight to the death?”

  “So it seems.” Nyx spoke again to the warrior, who answered in a harsh, low voice. “It is as I told you. The Imaziren will take no risks with sorcery.”

  “Is she willing to risk that I will not turn sorcery against her in our fight?”

  Madele made a short, eloquent gesture with one hand. “You will not,” Nyx translated, “because if one breath of wind rises as we do battle, you will be pierced with a thousand javelins, and your companions will die.”

  Rhenna shook her head. “I will use no deliberate magic. But whatever she and her people may believe, I do not control every movement of the air. These terms are not acceptable.” She turned to go.

  “Wait,” Nyx said. She consulted with the desert warrior. “Madele says that their own elders can judge sorcery from natural causes.”

  “And can her elders be impartial in their judgements?”

  “Yes.” Madele spoke again. “She asks why you call your kind the Free People.”

  Rhenna faced Madele again. “Because we are women who fight to live free of the yoke of men.”

  “Yet there is a man among you.”

  “Under my protection, as are all my companions.”

  “They will give themselves up to us before the challenge.”

  “They are not warriors,” Rhenna said flatly. “You can take them easily enough if I fall.”

  The warrior’s hard face closed as she weighed her thoughts on some inner scale. “Can you fight astride?” she asked through Nyx.

  “My people are born on horseback.”

  Madele raised a brow. “The horses with you are from your country?”

  “We bought them in a village to the north.”

  Madele’s expression made clear what she thought of such poor, scrawny beasts. “You will have your choice of horses from our herd. We will fight mounted, each with three javelins. If neither is killed in the first round, we will dismount and continue with knives until one is dead.”

  “And if I survive,” Rhenna said, “I and my friends claim the aid of the Imaziren to travel across the Great Desert. You will swear this on whatever gods you honor most.”

  Nyx conveyed Rhenna’s words and waited for an answer. Madele reached for her javelin, lifted it high and hurled it into the loose rock at Rhenna’s feet.

  “The Imaziren accept.”

  The chosen battleground was a level plain of sand and pebbles some thousand paces from the cave. As Rhenna accompanied Madele through a narrow notch in the cliffs, Imaziren emerged from their places of concealment until nearly a hundred men and women, all bearing knives and javelins, escorted their champion and her challenger.

  A handful of stretched-hide tents marked the Amazi camp. Rhenna noted a swell of movement beyond the outermost tents and caught her first sight of the tribe’s horses, a herd of small and fine-boned animals bred for speed and endurance.

  Instinctively Rhenna turned for the horses. Madele fell in beside her, pride in her brown face. There was no need for words between them. Rhenna thought that under other circumstances she and the warrior might have been friends; Madele reminded her of Alkaia and dozens like her, back home in the Shield’s Shadow.

  She quickly smothered such thoughts. Any weakness now could be fatal, for she had no doubt that Madele would fight with every intention to kill. She must do the same. At least the Imaziren recognized the fighting ability of their females; if Rhenna died today, she would do so at the hands of a true equal.

  If she died today, all would be lost.

  Several small children of both sexes ran ahead of the horses as Rhenna approached, waving thorny sticks like swords. Madele spoke to the herders and gestured for Rhenna to move freely among the animals. She breathed in the rich smell of horseflesh, touching withers and rumps, manes and muzzles. Big heads bumped her chest and shoulders. She stood still and held out her arms.

  Soft lips stroked her cheek. She opened her eyes. A bay mare with a white star on her forehead gazed at Rhenna, sucking in her scent with a flare of wide nostrils.

  “Tislit-n-unzar,” Madele said, gesturing toward the mare.

  “Tislit-n-unzar,” Rhenna repeated, stroking the silky coat. “You shall carry me well today.”

  The mare bobbed her head and snorted. Rhenna kissed the horse’s muzzle and led her from the herd. A child brought a braided rope, which Madele slipped around the mare’s neck. Without waiting for permission, Rhenna jumped onto Tislit’s back and felt the quiver of the anim
al’s flesh between her knees. Like any good war mount, Tislit knew this was to be no ordinary day.

  Madele left her own horse with one of the young herders and strode for the camp. Imaziren—warriors in their short tunics and tribeswomen with children in hand—began to gather in a ragged line at the edge of the plain. Men and women in longer robes emerged from the largest tent. Madele knelt at their feet. They spoke words of ritual over her, perhaps offering a blessing, and then sent her to meet her fate.

  A young male warrior brought three light javelins to Rhenna and offered them with a slight bow. A young woman presented her with a knife, hilted with silver and bone. Rhenna tucked the knife in her belt and tested the javelins’ balance. They were made entirely of iron and yet surprisingly light, tipped at both ends with needle-sharp points. She chose one of them and returned the other two to her attendants.

  They gestured for her to follow them five hundred paces across the plain. The young male warrior instructed Rhenna with sweeping motions of his arms, acting out a charge on horseback and flinging the javelin, then turning his imaginary mount back to retrieve another weapon. Rhenna nodded her understanding.

  The crowd fell silent. Rhenna felt their eyes on her, not hostile but only expectant. If they feared sorcery, they showed no sign of it. Even Madele, taking her own javelin in hand, revealed neither fear nor hatred.

  Rhenna prepared herself with a warrior’s chant, spoken only in her heart lest she convince the Imaziren that she was working some sorcery. Across the open space that lay between them, Madele made peace with her own gods.

  One of the long-robed elders lifted a twisted ram’s horn to his lips. Its wailing drifted above the camp like shimmering waves of heat. Rhenna secured a cloth about her forehead to keep the sweat from her eyes, shifted her grip on the javelin and waited for the signal to charge.

  Madele gave a high-pitched cry and kicked her horse into motion. Rhenna bent low over Tislit’s back. At her lightest touch the mare sprang forward. Pebbles crunched under the mare’s hooves. Rhenna lifted the javelin and aimed at the rider hurtling toward her.

  She threw. The javelin whistled a song of death. Madele’s weapon slashed by Rhenna’s temple, narrowly missing flesh, and suddenly Madele’s horse was galloping past.

  Rhenna let Tislit fall into a trot and wheeled the mare about. She thought she had heard a shout from the crowd, but her pulse pounded so loudly behind her ears that she couldn’t be certain. Madele sat her mount unharmed.

  The warriors passed each other again as they returned to their original positions. Rhenna took the second javelin from her attendant and ran her hands along its smooth length. This time it was she who broke first, urging Tislit from standstill to gallop in a matter of moments.

  Tislit didn’t fail her. The mare threw her heart into her run, never wavering. Madele’s horse was equally fearless. The two beasts seemed bent on collision when Rhenna threw her javelin and saw it strike a glancing blow from Madele’s shoulder. Madele’s spear sliced through the sleeve of Rhenna’s shirt, drawing blood.

  Pain came swiftly, but it was a small thing and easily dismissed. Madele had suffered the worst of the second encounter. She clutched briefly at her shoulder, and her hand came away stained with red. She exchanged a few harsh words with her own attendants, took up the last javelin and turned toward Rhenna.

  The last charge flew by as if in a dream. Tislit became insubstantial between Rhenna’s legs, a creature of mist floating above the ground. The javelin was weightless in Rhenna’s hand. Madele and her horse were a blur of motion, a streak of light. The desert warrior’s javelin arced toward Rhenna’s chest.

  Rhenna twisted her body to the side, and the javelin hissed past. Madele’s horse was almost upon her. Rhenna stiffened her arms and wielded her weapon like a club. Madele knocked it from her hands as she swept by.

  The sun beat down on Rhenna’s head, and her mouth was dry as bone. She drew Tislit up and leaned over the mare’s sweating withers. The young female warrior offered Rhenna a waterskin. Rhenna drank, watching Madele accept a drink from her aides. Then Madele tossed the skin to the ground, dismounted and drew the knife at her waist.

  This, then, was the final round, from which only one warrior would emerge alive. Rhenna slid from Tislit’s back and gave the faithful mare a firm pat.

  “Thank you, my friend,” she said. She smiled at her attendants. “Take good care of her. She has a great spirit.”

  The boy and girl bowed to Rhenna, respect in their eyes. The boy led the mare toward the tents, but the girl lingered, searching Rhenna’s face. Rhenna thought of Derinoe and all the young initiates of the Shield’s Shadow who waited so eagerly for their first test at arms. She touched the girl’s hand and walked away.

  Madele waited, the left shoulder of her tunic soaked with blood. She grinned at Rhenna and flexed her arm to show that she was far from disabled. Rhenna stopped, bowed and drew her knife.

  The Amazi woman lost no time in attacking. She lunged with a backhand slash at Rhenna’s arm, and Rhenna felt the blade slice her flesh before she dodged and struck in turn. Her knife’s edge nicked the back of Madele’s hand, releasing a spray of blood.

  Barely pausing, Madele stabbed toward Rhenna’s neck and angled her body at the last moment, cutting for Rhenna’s leg. This time Rhenna was better prepared. She spun on her toes as she feinted, narrowly missing Madele’s cheek. Madele lashed out with her foot and caught Rhenna in the knee. She dove as Rhenna fell, so swift that Rhenna saw with cold clarity that she would not be able to block the thrust.

  It will end here, she thought in the strangely quiet space between life and death. Devas have mercy on my friends….

  A gust of air swirled up from Rhenna’s feet, spattering dust and tiny pebbles into Madele’s face. She fell back, pawing at her eyes, and a cry of rage roared from the watching Imaziren.

  …if one breath of wind rises as we do battle, you will be pierced with a thousand javelins, and your companions will die. Those had been Madele’s words. The very air had betrayed Rhenna, coming to her defense against her will.

  Running feet pounded the earth. Rhenna rolled to her knees, knowing there was no protection against five score warriors bent on her destruction. She clutched the knife and waited for iron to pierce her flesh.

  There was no blow, no pain. The shouts of the tribesmen faded to a murmur. The gentlest of breezes licked at Rhenna’s sweat-soaked hair.

  She opened her eyes. A black streak sliced between her and the Imaziren, tail lashing and yellow eyes ablaze. Stones rattled and bounced beneath Cian’s paws. The ground under Rhenna’s knees bucked and shuddered.

  Madele cried out, her voice hoarse with warning. The surging crowd stumbled to a halt as if with a single will. Rhenna reached for Cian’s shoulder, burying her fingers in his fur.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she said. “Now they’ll kill you.”

  Air shimmered before Rhenna’s eyes, and supple beast became naked man. Cian turned to catch her hands in his.

  “If we die, we die together,” he said. “Tahvo and Nyx are safe. They—”

  A collective moan rose from the Imaziren, silencing Cian. One of the long-robed elders pushed from the throng, wielding a staff of polished wood inlaid with metal and stone. He stared from Cian to Rhenna with mingled awe and disbelief.

  “It seems we have made an impression,” Cian said.

  “You showed them that you’re not human,” Rhenna said. “If these people revile all magic…”

  The elder struck the ground with his staff. Every face turned toward him. Madele took a step forward and spoke a word in a tone of reverence. Others repeated it, over and over again until it became a wave rushing from one edge of the crowd to the other. Then a new ripple of motion started far back in the gathering, an invisible wedge scattering tribesmen like a dull sword thrust into sand.

  Nyx broke through the Imaziren, leading Tahvo by the hand. The Southern woman showed no expression, but Tahvo faced Rhenna and Cia
n with a smile.

  “Tahvo,” Rhenna whispered. “Why?”

  “They will not harm us,” the healer said. She turned her head back and forth, following the swell of chanting. “Do you know what they say?”

  “Guardian,” Nyx said slowly. “The Guardian has returned.”

  The tent had been hastily abandoned by its former occupants, set aside for the unexpected guests while Amazi elders and warriors talked and argued among themselves in the day’s growing heat. A party of half-grown boys brought the village horses from the cave to join the Amazi herd; a silent woman came with bandages, a jug of water and some sweet fruit drink, quickly departing before Nyx could ask a single question.

  Cian was not eager to hear the answers. He had intervened in the fight as he’d planned from the beginning, prepared to join Rhenna in death. He should have known that Tahvo and Nyx were no more likely to obey his orders than he had Rhenna’s.

  He hadn’t reckoned on surviving long enough to suffer Rhenna’s anger.

  “You did not know of this?” Rhenna asked Nyx as Tahvo cleaned and bound her wounds. “You haven’t heard the Imaziren speak of Cian’s kind before?”

  “Nothing,” Nyx said. “I would have approached them very differently if I had suspected such a reaction.”

  “I did not expect him to provoke it,” Rhenna said with a hard glance at Cian. “But what’s done is done. Tahvo seems certain they’ll do us no harm.”

  “They will not,” Tahvo said serenely, tying off the bandage on Rhenna’s arm. “The Imaziren will reveal their purpose in time.”

  “Time.” Rhenna snorted. “Time for any who follow us to catch up. Perhaps you’d better explain to these people once again, Nyx. Surely we’re still being pursued—”

  The tent flap opened, and Madele stepped inside. Her shoulder was bound in cloth bandages, but she continued to move with an easy grace that Rhenna observed with wary calculation. The tribeswoman nodded to her former adversary and bowed in Cian’s direction before addressing Nyx.

  “She apologizes for keeping us here without proper explanation,” Nyx translated, “but it seems there is an argument among the elders about what Cian’s arrival portends.”