The Rage

by Lassiter Williams

  Trib felt sick to her stomach and couldn’t eat any more.

  “I remember that didn’t seem right to me, but I was a warrior and it wasn’t my problem. So I just forgot about it. Until now.”

  She looked up then to see the storyteller standing nearby, watching and listening. She could see the marks her fingers had left on his neck. She remembered the look of pity in his eyes earlier that day. It was gone, replaced by a look she couldn’t quite place. There was anger and disgust, which she understood, but there was something else. She didn’t have time to figure it out because he turned away and didn’t look at her again for the rest of the night.

  row perched in a tree. On the ground below stood a group of women, including one to whom Crow felt a strong affinity. This woman wore long black robes, her face was as pale as the moon, and the other women followed her as a leader.

  There were also men on the ground below Crow, but most of them were dead. Crow had witnessed the slaughter. They hadn’t stood a chance against the fury of the women. Only three men remained alive, and these knelt before Crow’s woman. Crow cawed impatiently. She had sampled the remains and was hungry for more.

  Bear sniffed the wind. She smelled humans. They were too far away for her weak eyes to see, but her nose told her everything. Men lay dead, bleeding into the forest floor. Angry women held metal weapons in their sweating hands. Crow was there with her human counterpart. Bear did not trust Crow. She was a carrion feeder, insatiable and unpredictable.

  Bear recognized the scent of her own counterpart among the humans, an older woman with a storm of rage contained and controlled within her. Bear was not generally interested in humans but she respected this one, the devastation she could unleash at will. Bear saluted her with a roar before turning away.

  Crow ruffled her feathers at the sound of Bear’s roar. She could tell Bear was far away and not looking for a fight or dinner. Crow flew down and pulled at her woman’s hair, impatient for the last three deaths. But her woman did not kill the men. Instead she sang to them, a song that Crow had heard her sing before, always to men. It sapped their wills and bound them to her body and soul. When the song ended, the men remained kneeling with their heads bowed until Crow’s woman told them to stand and walk.

  Peyewik woke shivering. It was still night and a chill wind was blowing through the branches overhead. It felt as though autumn had come early, but this wasn’t the only reason Peyewik shivered. He had dreamed again. He thought of the storyteller’s words: The spirits speak through you. It is Manito’s voice... and tried not to be afraid, but the cold crept into his chest and clutched at his heart. He could not imagine why Manito would want him to see the disturbing things he had seen through the eyes of Crow and Bear. He longed for his grandfather. Muhkrentharne would know what the dream meant. But Muhkrentharne and the rest of the People were far away, and Peyewik kept shivering.

  There was movement in the dark, and Peyewik realized Flame Hair sat beside him. He felt her cloak, warm from her body, fall over him. It didn’t smell very good, but it eased his shivering.

  When Peyewik woke again, it was daylight, and Kwineechka and Flame Hair were already awake, sitting a good distance apart with their backs to each other. The silence between them was heavy. Flame Hair kept glancing over her shoulder at the storyteller. Peyewik couldn’t read the expression on her face. The storyteller sat rigid with an air of grievance.

  Peyewik got up and handed the cloak back to Flame Hair. He thanked her for it and looked to the storyteller to translate, but Kwineechka didn’t move. Peyewik went and stood in front of him. The storyteller crossed his arms and stared straight ahead.

  “The marks on your neck are gone,” Peyewik pointed out.

  “That does not mean they were not there yesterday, that she did not attack me like a wild animal,” Kwineechka huffed.

  Peyewik couldn’t help smiling. “You are angry because you got knocked down by a girl.”

  Kwineechka frowned sourly. Then he looked at Peyewik for the first time. “Little brother, you look tired. You did not sleep well?”

  “I dreamed.”

  “Tell me,” Kwineechka said gently.

  “I saw the Fighting Women,” Peyewik replied.

  Kwineechka’s frown deepened. “What did they do?”

  “They killed many Pure Men. There were two…Crow Woman and Bear Woman. The Crow Woman sang a strange song that made the Pure Men obey her.”

  “This Crow Woman is a sorcerer? This is magic like Flame Hair’s Rage?”

  “I don’t know,” Peyewik shook his head. “We should ask Flame Hair about her.”

  Kwineechka’s back went rigid again. “I will not speak to her. She tried to kill me.”

  “She did not try very hard,” Peyewik said, looking over the storyteller’s shoulder at Flame Hair’s hunched form. “Her Rage was not strong. I think she does not know what else to do when she feels bad.”

  “This means she is allowed to behave like an animal?” the storyteller demanded. But he turned grudgingly and spoke to her.

  Flame Hair jumped at the sound of his voice but listened attentively. When he was done, she looked confused and shook her head.

  “She does not know a Crow or a Bear Woman,” the storyteller said.

  “One of her chiefs wears black robes and carries a crow on her shoulder,” Peyewik said. “Ask her.” Then he waited for the wary look.

  It came and Flame Hair answered slowly, staring at him.

  “Flame Hair knows this woman. She is…” Kwineechka struggled to understand what Flame Hair was saying. “She does not fight. She is a priestess. Her sister is the warrior, the one who taught Flame Hair how to fight.”

  “This is Crow Woman, and her sister is Bear Woman,” Peyewik confirmed.

  Flame Hair pointed at Peyewik and said something in a questioning tone, but Kwineechka ignored her.

  “What do you think the spirits are trying to tell you about the Fighting Woman and their leaders,” he asked.

  This question made Peyewik anxious. “Between the Rage and Crow Woman’s spell-song, the Fighting Women are stronger than the Pure Men. Maybe the spirits want us to know we have made the right choice, that the Fighting Women can protect us against the Pure Men?”

  He hoped this was what the dream meant, but he couldn’t forget that the vision had been frightening, and he had awoken from it with the cold clutching at his heart again.

  Kwineechka looked skeptical. “A whole village of women like Flame Hair is terrifying to think of.”

  Later, after they had started the day’s journey, Kwineechka offered Peyewik the pouch of cornmeal. Peyewik took some and then watched the storyteller struggle internally before turning and offering it to Flame Hair as well. She surprised them both by smiling and grabbing a large handful. She slapped the whole thing into her mouth and then gagged as the dry grain caught in her throat.

  “Greedy,” Kwineechka rolled his eyes and thumped her on the back harder than he needed to.

  Flame Hair shoved him away and choked out a few angry-sounding words.

  Kwineechka froze, staring at her.

  Peyewik held his breath.

  Then the storyteller burst out laughing. “She said now we are even! We have both tried to choke the other and failed so now we must call a truce.”

  Flame Hair smiled weakly between coughing fits.

  “You agree?” Peyewik asked nervously.

  “It does not sound like any apology I have heard before,” the storyteller said. “But she made me laugh, so I will accept for now.”

  For the rest of the morning Flame Hair kept pace with Peyewik and Kwineechka. Her leg didn’t seem to be bothering her as much and while she still walked loudly, she wasn’t quite as loud as the moose Kwineechka proclaimed her to be.

  Around midday they stopped to refill their waterskins from a stream. Peyewik knelt down to drink and was slapped in the face by an arc of cold water. He spluttered while the storyteller laughed from a rock in the middle the
stream.

  “I got you, little brother!” he crowed.

  Peyewik sprang to his feet and started kicking water at him.

  “Now you are in trouble,” Kwineechka said stepping onto the bank. “Now you take a bath.”

  He moved to pick Peyewik up, but Peyewik stepped one foot behind him, locked his knee in place, and pushed him off balance, right into the stream.

  “Now you take a bath,” Peyewik said, grinning widely as Flame Hair cheered in approval.

  Kwineechka climbed out of the creek, dripping from head to foot. “How did you do that?” he asked, ignoring Flame Hair’s taunts.

  “Flame Hair showed me.”

  The storyteller looked surprised.

  “I can teach you if you want,” Peyewik offered.

  Flame Hair was still laughing. Kwineechka raised an eyebrow at her and then shook out his long hair, spraying her with water.

  “Teach me,” he said quickly, before Flame Hair could retaliate.

  It soon became clear that the storyteller had indeed spent more of his youth learning stories than playing with other boys. The move did not come easily, and he kept cheating, picking Peyewik up, or tickling him until he fell down. Finally Flame Hair put a hand on Peyewik’s shoulder, indicating that it was time for her to take his place. He stepped aside, laughing at how quickly the storyteller’s face went from playful to anxious.

  After many bruises and rolls in the dirt, Flame Hair managed to show the storyteller how to knock her down. He threw his arms up in triumph and made up a song for himself on the spot.

  Mighty Kwineechka!

  Felled the Flame-haired monster.

  Such a strong storyteller, such a brave storyteller.

  He translated it for Flame Hair, which earned him a punch on the arm.

  “Ow ow ow…” Kwineechka rubbed his arm and kept singing.

  Wounded storyteller

  Treacherous Smells-Like-Rancid-Bear-Grease-Woman…

  Peyewik laughed, his dreams from the night before all but forgotten.

  They continued their southeastern journey in good spirits for the first time, laughing and joking as they went. As the afternoon light turned gold and the shadows began to stretch, Peyewik noticed that the terrain was changing, the ground was flattening out. The soil underfoot was sandy, and there were more short pine trees among the taller sycamores and oaks. He also noticed that Flame Hair grew quieter and moved more slowly.

  “Her leg is bothering her again?” he asked.

  Kwineechka shook his head. “We are close to the bay.”

  Peyewik nodded, realizing this meant they were also close to the camp of the Fighting Women. His good mood evaporated as well, and their meager supper was eaten in silence.

  Before he slept, Peyewik murmured a prayer of thanks to Manito for his odd traveling companions. He thought of his dream the night before, and of what might come tomorrow when they arrived among the Fighting Women, and he felt his heart grow cold again. He heard Flame Hair sigh restlessly and wondered why she wasn’t happier about being back among her people when she had been so anxious to return earlier. It made him think of how much he missed his grandfather. Just before sleep overtook him he sang a prayer of well-being for Muhkrentharne.

  Owl swooped low over the village of the People. He looked down with his night vision and gave a hoot of warning. There were pale-faced men creeping through the forest towards the sleeping village. There were many of them, and they all carried weapons in their hands.

  he boy cried out in his sleep, waking Trib just after dawn. She reached out to wake him in return, wondering what his nightmares looked like.

  Just then the storyteller began to sing his morning prayer. Trib couldn’t see him, but his voice came from a cluster of pines near the river’s edge. The boy seemed to hear it as well, and was soothed by it. He rolled over with a sigh and slept peacefully. Trib let him be and climbed to her feet, groaning at the pull of sore muscles. As she packed up her bed roll, she listened to the storyteller’s song with half an ear. When it ended, she was surprised to feel her heart skip a beat and looked up to see him emerging from the pines.

  His long hair was wet. Beads of water, crystalline in the morning sun, sparkled on his neck and chest. His skin was flushed a coppery red, and Trib sent an uncharacteristic prayer of thanks to the Goddess that her attack two nights earlier had not left a mark.

  “You bathe every day?” she said, trying not to stare at the tiny bumps raised by the cold across his chest and arms. “You ain’t afraid of getting sick?”

  The storyteller gave her a familiar look, incredulity bordering on disgust.

  “You never bathe,” he observed. “You are not afraid no man will want a wife who smells like rotten bear grease?”

  Trib snorted. “I got no plans to take a husband. Even if I did it wouldn’t matter how he wanted me to smell. I don’t like water.” She scratched vigorously at her scalp for emphasis.

  The storyteller studied her quizzically. “The Fighting Women do not marry?”

  “None of the New Murians do,” Trib said. “We got rid of that along with the rest of the Puritanic’s oppressive ways.”

  “There are no children in your settlement?” he asked.

  “There’s plenty of kids,” Trib replied.

  “How do you get them if you have no husbands?”

  He seemed completely at ease asking the question, but Trib wasn’t used to discussing such matters with pretty-eyed, half-naked men. She noticed glints of blue where the sun struck his black hair. She wanted to touch it, to let the shining strands slide through her fingers. She cleared her throat, hoping her blush wasn’t giving her away.

  “Children are, uh, gotten...from whoever a New Murian fancies. If we want him, we just take him.”

  The look of incredulity and disgust deepened. “Your men choose to live this way?” he asked. “How do they know which children are theirs?”

  She shrugged. “The choices of manservants and farmhands ain’t important,” she said. “We don’t put much stock in fathers anyway.”

  “Fathers love their children as much as mothers do,” the storyteller said.

  “Not where I come from,” Trib replied, remembering the fierce-looking man she’d seen in the village, his simple delight in the company of children. Native fathers didn’t treat children the way Puritanics did. “I told you what Puritanics do to kids,” she said.

  “But these men who still live in your settlement, they are not Pure Men.”

  “They used to be,” Trib explained. “Until Aoifa made them give up their old ways and swear to serve the Goddess and New Murias.”

  “Who is Aoifa?”

  “The Scath’s sister, the woman in black robes that Peyewik dreamed about yesterday. She’s the head priestess in the settlement.”

  “Peyewik said she sang a song that made the men obey her,” Kwineechka said.

  “Aye, her siren song. The Goddess taught it to her to make sure the former Puritanics truly serve us, so their strength and skills can be put to good use in the settlement.”

  “This woman sings this spell song to these men, and then you use them for whatever you want? You just take them?”

  “Well, no…” Trib said, flustered. “I never…”

  The truth was that she didn’t have any experience in taking a partner in New Murias. She only knew about it from listening to Cuss and the other apprentices brag about it.

  “But I always heard that they liked it,” she said defensively. “Or at least they didn’t mind…”

  “You cannot take a person or any being with a spirit,” the storyteller said, and Trib could hear both revulsion and fear in his voice. “Why would you want to?”

  Trib didn’t know what he meant. Cuss had never mentioned anyone’s spirit when she talked of being with men.

  “Your ways are not right,” the storyteller said, turning away from her. “Such people cannot help us,” he said over his shoulder. “We should never have come.”
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  He began to gather his belongings. Trib felt a sinking in her stomach and wondered if there was anything about her that wasn’t repulsive to him.

  “We’re almost there,” she said. “We’ll reach the camp by afternoon.”

  The storyteller shook his head. “We will go back. I will explain to the chief of the Original People that he was wrong…”

  Just then the boy sat up with a cry, his eyes wild with fear.

  The storyteller dropped to his side and began speaking in a low, soothing voice. Slowly the boy’s eyes cleared of his nightmare visions. He spoke and tears ran down his face.

  “He has seen the Pale Ones attacking his village,” the storyteller translated.

  “Seen? You mean dreamed?”

  “Yes. He has seen it in a dream.”

  “He had a nightmare?” Trib struggled to understand.

  “No,” the storyteller said impatiently. “He has seen it. This thing has happened or it will happen.”

  Trib remembered the boy’s uncanny description of Aoifa the morning before. He had called her a crow woman, echoing the warriors’ irreverent title for the black-robed priestesses. This ability of his to see things happening far away reminded her of the priestesses, of the powers they were rumored to have, and sent a shiver up her spine.

  “If it’s true that this thing has happened,” Trib said, “then you got no choice but to ask my people for help. We’re the only ones who can save you from the Puritanics.”

  The storyteller shook his head. He looked as though his mind was made up until Peyewik spoke again, his voice frantic.

  “He is saying you must help us,” the storyteller said resignedly. “We must go to your people…”

  Trib suddenly felt the weight of her promise and realized she couldn’t guarantee anything. But she told herself the Scath would do the right thing. She had to.