“Mother!” cried the shaman in desperation. “What do I do?”
Tears fell from Monkberry’s chin as she said, “Nothing I know. We’ve no wisdom left.”
“There must be something!” Knucklebones spoke up. “Some way to make them listen, and pay attention. I don’t know your ways, Sunbright. What is sacred to them? What honor must they obey?”
“Nothing. I don’t know …” he said. The warrior-shaman scanned the scabby village with slumped shoulders. Returned to his tribe, sought for so long, he saw only their backs. “What can you take from people that have lost all?”
Then his eyes fell on the round common house, and the trickle of smoke rising from it.
“Unless …”
“Unless what?” asked the thief.
But Sunbright ran like a child for the common house. Wondering, Knucklebones caught Monkberry’s hand and they tripped after him.
Sunbright shoved through the retreating crowd, jogged to the common house, and ducked inside to the smoke and haze. Despite themselves, the Raven Clan crowded the entrance to see what transpired.
Madness, it seemed. Sunbright took old Iceborn and Tulipgrace by the shoulders, begging their pardon, and towed them away from the sacred council fire. Then, shouting, the young shaman drew back a boot and kicked the smoldering embers. Ashes and smoke flew in a cloud. He stamped and stomped the fire pit until his moosehide boots were scorched and sparks dappled his skin. In a minute, the fire was out.
Stepping from the fire pit, coughing in smoke, Sunbright pushed past stunned barbarians into sunlight. Sneezing, he crowed in mad glee, “There! If the sacred fire is the heart of my tribe, then my tribe is now truly dead! And since only a shaman can kindle a council fire, it will stay dead! So am I, a dead man, returned to a tribe of dead people!”
This idea, both new and old, sank in slowly. Sunbright saw confusion and shock on their faces. And for the first time, the animation of hard thinking, something they’d been denied.
Sunbright gave them more to chew on. “Think! Do the dead hear? Let me test. Hear this?” People fell back as he drew the long, fearsome, hooked blade Harvester of Blood over his shoulder. Inverting the blade, he used the leather-wrapped pommel to thump Blinddrum on the breastbone, then continued, “I, Sunbright Steelshanks, dead or alive, challenge you, Blinddrum, to combat! Else I name you a stinking, dung-eating, bastard, mongrel dog! Do you hear that?”
“I hear,” Blinddrum murmured. His broad, simple face was uneasy. “I accept.”
“Good!” Turning, Sunbright thumped Thornwing on her skinny chest, and said, “I challenge you! Would you be a barb-lipped, bottom-feeding sculpin picked clean by gulls, or a free and proud barbarian? Do you accept, or be named coward?”
“I accept,” she said drily. “But like it not.”
“I care not if you like or dislike, only that you hear! You, Archloft! Was your mother a maggot, and your father a pusworm, or will you fight me? Good! You, hold still! I name you nest-robber, and egg-breaker! Fight me? Fine!”
With a madman’s delight, he poked Archloft, Goodbell, Magichunger, Forestvictory, others: anyone who’d ever wielded a sword, saying, “I challenge you all, and anyone I forgot! And why? Because I cannot leave the village until the duels are done! This custom would I have levied on Owldark had I been a warrior and shaman, but at the time I was only a boy. Well, that boy is dead, and a man returned! Blinddrum, when shall we fight?”
“Whenever you wish,” replied the swordmaster. “No, wait. An hour. T’will give you time to visit your mother, and commend your soul. For after an hour, you visit the gods.” With that, Blinddrum turned away, as did the rest.
Sunbright was left alone, inverted sword in hand. Knucklebones and Monkberry came forward, having lingered at the back of the crowd. The thief wept from her one good eye. “Why did you do that, Sunbright?” she sobbed. “Why come back just to die?”
Huffing with exhaustion, as if he’d run twenty miles, Sunbright sheathed his sword, and said, “In part, it was your idea.”
“My idea?” Knucklebones shook small fists in his face. “You really are mad! You’ll be killed! And I’ll be left alone. What’s the point anyway?”
Surprisingly gentle, Sunbright enfolded the small woman to his chest, kissed her tousled dark curls, and said, “Oh, Knuckle’, if only life held simple answers.… Come, I’ll try to explain, not that I understand it well myself.”
Seated in Monkberry’s hut, Sunbright shared rations and sipped water from a canteen.
“You asked what tradition I could invoke that would make them listen. Killing the council fire was one. Yet I’m still banished—unless I have promised a duel to satisfy an insult. It’s the only way I can remain with the tribe.
“And I can’t leave, for they need me. They need someone—the gods must believe—and I’m the only one who’s come. If nothing else, I must make them think, and return to themselves. I must rekindle the fire in their minds. Keeping alive customs, habits, and traditions—even mishmashing them when necessary—is a shaman’s job. By challenging everyone, I can stay a long time and work.”
“And get killed!” objected the thief. Angrily she thrust his canteen away. “You’re a fine swordsman, a wonderful fighter, but even you can’t fight nine dozen duels! You’ll be hacked to pieces all at once, or a little at a time!”
“But in between, I can talk to folks, and think how to save us.”
“Until you’re dead,” Knucklebones spat. “Until a miracle occurs.”
* * * * *
In their short hour, Sunbright talked to his mother about the old ways. Monkberry knew them all, for her husband had been the tribe’s shaman for decades. Knucklebones listened raptly to a new world of tradition and legends and superstitions. When Monkberry finally asked Sunbright where he’d been in the years past, the shaman only smiled and shrugged.
“Around,” he said. “Working here and there. Seeing the sights the empire has to offer. Meeting Knucklebones. I was lucky in that.”
Dimly the warrior recalled the days when he’d first left the tribe, how he’d hungered and thirsted for revenge night and day. Then later, after sojourning in hell, he’d become a man, and known that one day he would return to his tribe, and walk amidst them scarred and powerful and mysteriously quiet, for he’d learned true strength lay within, and he could just quietly rejoin his people. And now that he’d really returned, he found himself in an unpredictable role, the preserver and savior of his tribe. Which just went to show, he supposed, how men made plans, and the gods made men fools.
“Yet it’s my destiny to save this tribe from extinction.” He was surprised to hear himself speaking aloud.
His mother smiled and squeezed his broad hand with her twisted one. “Yes,” she said, “your destiny, and our miracle.”
Sunbright smiled back. “Knuckle’?” he asked.
The thief rolled one eye, and answered, “It must be my elven blood that finds this stiff-necked barbarian pride a lot of claptrap and folderol. You need a miracle, I agree, but we’ll help however we can.” She squeezed both their hands.
A voice boomed across the village: “Sunbright Steelshanks! Come out and fight!”
Sunbright dropped both hands to creep outside. “Excuse me,” he said to his mother. “The shaman has a patient.”
Chapter 9
Dusk came early to this rocky wasteland, for the Channel Mountains cut off the sun. In darkness, Sunbright found the tribe waiting for him. Silently, Blinddrum led the way. Boys and girls toted torches with hardwood handles split at the top and jammed full of poplar bark. At the center of the crooked village, tribesfolk had rolled up rocks to make a rough arena. There were over three hundred barbarians now, including many who’d moved to town but had been fetched back by runners. The shaman smiled to see the changes. His coming—for good or ill—had already made an impact on the tribe.
Now, if he could just survive to get his message out.
Sunbright entered a ring of torc
hes and people to stand alone. Monkberry and Knucklebones were admitted to the edge of the ring. The big barbarian shucked off his belt knife and back scabbard, tossed them aside so as to fight unencumbered. The crowd parted, oohed and ahhed, as giant Blinddrum stepped forth with only a long steel sword in his hand. The huge, craggy instructor raised his sword in a lazy salute, then took the first stance a student learned: left toe pointed, right foot and sword back. But he blinked when Sunbright lifted a bare hand.
“Wait!” Sunbright called out. “We must pray!”
The crowd gurgled a question. Blinddrum blinked again, as if his eyes were aging, and asked, “We must? Why?”
Sunbright tilted his sword down, raised his voice so all could hear, and said, “This is a formal duel, not a brawl. We needs pray so Amaunator, Keeper of Law, will oversee the fight and maintain fairness. Otherwise Shar, the Shadowy Seductress, might cast a veil over one of us; or Tyche, Lady Doom, might, on some whim, visit one with luck. To pray before a duel has always been a tradition amongst our people, has it not? Or has everyone forgotten that?”
Folk muttered. Some frowned at the interruption, but old Iceborn, blind and seeing only in his mind, quavered, “He speaks aright! It was always thus!”
Sunbright twirled a circle, raised his arms, and called out, “Rengarth, pray with me! Keeper of the Sun, please hear us! Send us truth, send us light, send us wisdom as we see these men battle for what is just! We praise thy name!” The crowd echoed, “Praise Amaunator!”
Grinning foolishly, Sunbright waggled his blade at Blinddrum. “We may begin,” he said.
But the swordmaster stood still. “Your travels addled your brain, Sunbright,” he said. “You grin before a death duel.”
“I’m just glad to be home.”
The fighter’s grin had become a death’s head rictus. White teeth gleamed in the torchlight.
“To come home to die is foolish.”
“I could have died a thousand times in battles past, Blinddrum, but my sword prevailed because I had fine instructors. Probably the best in the world. You and Thornwing.”
The straight sword drooped. Almost petulant, Blinddrum rumbled, “You make it hard to kill you. And I don’t think you came home to fight.”
Children scuffled bare feet around the ring, eager for battle. Adults stilled them to hear.
“I came home to talk to my people, to make them listen and think. They will not listen, only let me fight. So I fight. Prepare!”
Sunbright Steelshanks leaped into battle. Illuminated by torchlight, Harvester of Blood glittered like a crescent moon as it swung across the night sky. The shaman’s howled war cry, “Ra-vens!” sent a shiver and thrill through the audience.
When his blade crashed on Blinddrum’s upraised sword with an awesome clang!, sparks scattered. The crowd roared.
Instantly, Sunbright dropped back for the parry, as he’d learned long ago. And it came, for Blinddrum scythed his sword sideways to shear Sunbright’s leg or knee. The young man was not there, having hopped free, and Blinddrum had to snap his blade up to protect his shoulder from a hissing sideswipe. When their blades clashed and rebounded, Sunbright feinted a head blow, then aimed for the same spot again. His quadruple blows came so fast that Blinddrum was slashed across the shoulder. The big man grunted and stepped back.
“You learned much in the southlands.”
“I learned everything from you,” Sunbright panted. “And practiced it every day. Have at you!”
Blinddrum stepped back, almost into the crowd, as Sunbright grabbed Harvester’s pommel in two hands and slashed sideways. The giant tilted his blade, and banked Sunbright’s off. Normally a fighter using two hands couldn’t poise his blade quick enough, and Blinddrum swung at exposed ribs. But Sunbright surprised everyone by whirling a complete circle and slashing again. Blinddrum whipped his blade too slowly, and was pinked across the wrists.
The giant, much older than Sunbright, waggled his blade as a shield. He puffed, “You make me recall tricks I’d forgotten!”
“Recall them then! That’s why I’m here!” Sunbright shouted. “Hyaah!”
Two-handed, Sunbright aimed a down-angling slash, but feinted once, then twice. His blade spanked Blinddrum’s both times, lightly, then he knocked it high. Leaping, he tipped Blinddrum’s tunic at the breast, shearing the old hide and drawing a trickle of blood.
But the wily instructor took the nick and snapped his steel up to wound Sunbright’s right elbow. Blood dripped from the barbarian’s forearm as he stamped backward.
“The lion is not toothless!” Sunbright shouted over the yelling of the tribe.
“The cub is,” Blinddrum gasped. “You won’t kill me! You pulled that blow!”
“Prove it!” Sunbright yelled. “Huzzah!” Stamping forward and driving hard, Sunbright aimed a two-handed lunge at Blinddrum’s belly. The instructor batted it aside heavily and swung wild, just clipping Sunbright’s chin. The younger man flicked his head aside, reached too far, but snagged Harvester’s barbed hook behind Blinddrum’s bicep. Whipping it back, he dug a furrow in the man’s bronze skin. So sharp was the cut, it bled little at first, but soon ran a river.
Blinddrum hollered, stamped and slashed, feinted and double-thrusted, but only pinked Sunbright once in the thigh. By then the instructor’s left arm was spider-webbed with blood and hanging limp. Finally he cried, “Hold!” and dropped his point to the rocky ground. “I cannot continue. I concede.”
“No!” cried many. “No! To the death! Finish him! Kill the outsider!” Yet others yelled, “No death! Honor is satisfied!”
Blinddrum shook his head, handed the long steel blade to Thornwing waiting in the ring. The tall, thin woman used her hem to wipe blood from the pommel and blade, then entered the ring and saluted.
Sunbright blew like a bellows, wiped sweat off his brow and blood off his chin. Salt stung and he winced, for he was pinked in four places. He kept his swordpoint down.
“You’d make me fight another duel right away?”
“Yes,” Blinddrum wheezed. “We counseled, and decided it was best to get it over—”
“You cannot council,” the shaman interrupted, “for you have no council fire.”
The giant demurred, corrected, “We talked then, and decided it was just. You must abide by the decision.”
“Talk is fine,” the shaman said, shaking his head, “but only the council can change the rules of a duel. True?”
Confused, Blinddrum turned to Thornwing, who nodded and dropped her swordpoint. “He is right,” she said. “Tradition gives him a day to rest before the next duel.”
“Saved by tradition!” Sunbright gulped. “I choose to rest.” He limped to the circle, where he joined Monkberry and Knucklebones to return to the hut.
Behind, noise swelled as the crowd argued. Why didn’t Blinddrum strike to kill? Why grant Sunbright a day of rest? Was the duel even necessary when Sunbright was under a sentence of death to begin with? Why not just execute him? Who would wear the wolf masks? Did they even have a wolf mask now?
Monkberry smiled in a small way, resembling her grinning son. “You’re not back one day, child,” she said, “yet the tribe buzzes and talks as they haven’t in months. Would your father could see this.”
“See people squabble endlessly?” Knucklebones demanded. “They gabble like ducks in a pond and say nothing!”
“At least they’re not crying, lamenting their fate,” Sunbright offered. “They discuss how their lives should run, not be run.”
The thief shook her head. “It must be the water here,” she mumbled. “Or the thin air. It drives people insane.”
Sunbright chuckled in the dark as he crawled into his mother’s hut. Knucklebones striped cold light on rocks and angrily prodded his wounds. Lying on dirt, his head pillowed on stone, Sunbright hissed at her touch, then sighed, “Ah, it’s good to be home.”
“Completely,” growled the part-elf, “insane.”
* * * * *
Su
nbright and Knucklebones used the next day to scout the camp, identify old faces and learn new ones, climb a low hill and scan the wasteland, and walk to the mountainside to check the local resources. In a narrow cleft, fresh water spilled into a shallow, pebbled pool where they swam and made love. They spotted a few small deer and rabbits, so set wire snares, but found little else. Rocks ruled this corner of the world. Sunbright concluded, “This land can’t sustain us. We must move out.”
“Where? And why do you keep saying ‘we?’ I’m not a member of your tribe, and never will be. A part-elven thief is as different from your yellow-haired northerners as a fox from a fish.”
“True.” The two sat on a rock and watched mountain shadows overtake the wasteland. He put his brawny arm around her small shoulders and said, “But it’s tradition in our tribe to steal wives and husbands, for we’re forbidden to marry within the tribe. My own mother was stolen from the Angardt in a raid. Father said he picked the female who fought back the wildest, then just hung on. He showed me scars she gave him, bite marks that never went away. He lacked an earlobe that my mother spat out. Mostly we marry other barbarians, but some have dark hair. Note you Archloft has brown hair? He was kidnapped off a trail by a raiding party and married to Jambow.”
Knucklebones snuggled under his arm, waggled her bare feet in the air, but was not comforted. “There are none of elven blood,” she said, “and I am more of the old folk than human, I think. I wish I could talk to my mother for an hour.…”
Sunbright leaned forward to peer at her face. This wistful heartsickness was new, but then Knucklebones’s city-tough shell had been gradually eroding under his loving attention, and by traveling where she needn’t battle for her life every minute. He kissed her forehead above the eye patch.
“I don’t know much, but I know your mother was beautiful and gentle and sweet and bright, for so is her daughter.”
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