The Rage

by Lassiter Williams

  The Scath’s eyes flashed with anger, but her body remained perfectly still, reminding Trib for an instant of Chief Okahoki and his hunter’s stillness.

  “Don’t insult me, girl,” the Scath said. “Ye know I take care of my own business. I’d turn ye over to her because I’m loyal to her above all else. She’s my flesh and blood. We’ve been through too much together.”

  “Then the blade stays where it is. Inhale to shout, and I swear to Dess you’re dead.”

  The Scath grinned. “That’s the master-warrior I raised.”

  “I ain’t a master-warrior,” Trib said. “Never will be.”

  “No, I reckon ye won’t,” the Scath agreed. “Since I’m still breathing, I reckon there’s something else ye want from me.”

  “Tell Aoifa to leave the Natives alone,” Trib said.

  “Ye like that pretty-eyed primitive of yers so much?” the Scath asked.

  Trib thought of Kwineechka waiting for her out in the night. “I do,” she replied. “I owe it to his people. And you owe it to me.”

  The Scath eyed her for a moment. “How do ye figure that?”

  “You killed my family and you lied to me,” Trib said flatly. “You took everything from me.”

  “Aye,” the Scath said softly, with a hint of regret. “I did.”

  “Despite it all,” Trib forced herself to continue, “I believe you’re still a woman of honor. I’ve done things I ain’t proud of, things that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I did these things because I didn’t know better. I didn’t know I had a choice because you never gave me one. Right now, I’m giving you a choice. You told me you knew you’d done wrong when you killed my family. Do the right thing this time, Master Scath.”

  “Aoifa won’t listen to me,” the Scath said, her eyes on the floor. “Especially since ye took off with those boys. Before that, she wanted at least the show of an alliance, but now I reckon she’d just as soon wipe ’em all out.”

  “You’re the only person she’ll listen to,” Trib insisted. “Make her leave the People alone. They’re good, peaceful people. You know what Aoifa will do to them if you don’t stop her.”

  The Scath finally looked up and met Trib’s eyes. “I’ll do what ye ask,” she said.

  “Your word of honor as a warrior?”

  “Ye have it. My word of honor as a warrior, my sister’ll do no harm to the Natives.”

  “Thank you.” Trib exhaled, relief racing through her body. “I’ll go now. Since I can’t have you raising the alarm...” She held up a gag and rope, but the Scath shook her head.

  “I won’t call out,” she said. “Ye came to parley, and it’s the honorable thing to let ye go in peace.”

  “Thank you,” Trib said again, stowing her sword on her back and moving towards the door.

  “Tribulation,” the old warrior called quietly, “it don’t mean much coming from one who’s done what I’ve done, but ye would’ve made a fine master-warrior.”

  Trib slipped out the door without answering.

  eer tried to run from the attack, but Crow followed, swooping and diving to peck cruelly at her eyes, beating her around the head and body with her large wings. Blinded by blood and feathers, Deer stumbled, and Crow attacked mercilessly…

  Peyewik awoke full of dread.

  The deer skin tent he shared with his grandfather was dark and stuffy. He could tell from the silence that Muhkrentharne was not there. He pushed away his sleeping skin and crawled outside. He didn’t know exactly what the dream meant, but the possibilities terrified him. It was an ill omen and he needed to warn someone immediately.

  It was as dark outside as it had been in the tent. The moon had already set and dawn was only a few hours away. Peyewik saw a dull glow in the center of the village and heard the murmur of low-pitched voices. One of the cooking fires still burned and around it sat his grandfather, Okahoki, Jongren, and a few of the elders, all smoking pipes. Kwineechka’s friends, the hunters named Nishingi and Nikismus, were there as well. It was their voices he had heard.

  “The Pure Men smelled like the village waste heap on a hot day,” Nishingi was saying.

  “One sniff could knock a man senseless,” Nikismus chimed in. “And their faces were white as the underbelly of a fish. They looked like demons…”

  “Smelled like them too,” Nishingi added, causing his brother to giggle.

  Peyewik saw Chief Okahoki smile around the pipe in his teeth, his eyes crinkling with a sense of humor that hadn’t been seen since the attack on the village of the Original People. It made Peyewik want to turn around and go back to bed without telling anyone of his dream. He told himself that maybe this once it was just a dream like everyone else’s dreams.

  Just then Muhkrentharne caught sight of him standing at the edge of the firelight and greeted him through a puff of smoke.

  “These young men could not sleep because they are still excited from their encounter with the Pure Men,” he explained.

  “And these old men could not sleep because they are old,” said Okahoki, causing some of the elders to chuckle. “So they are letting the young men entertain them with their tales.”

  “They are not tales!” Nishinigi said. “The rest of the People sleep soundly because of the peace I secured from the Pale Ones!”

  “You forget I was there,” Okahoki pointed out.

  Peyewik could still see the shadow on the chief’s spirit, but it seemed lighter, which made him feel even worse about his dream.

  “Yes, so you know it was mostly me, not my brother,” Nikismus jumped in. “I intimidated them with my hunter’s prowess, and they had no choice but to agree to peace…”

  “Kinteka and the women were more intimidating than you,” Nishingi interrupted, punching his brother in the arm. “I was the one who scared the Pure Men away…”

  Peyewik hated to interfere with their feeling of victory and security, but he could not forget his dream.

  “Has Trib returned from speaking to Bear Woman yet?” he asked.

  “She has not,” Jongren said, looking up from the fire. Peyewik could see the worry in his face.

  “What is wrong?” Muhkrentharne said then, peering closely at Peyewik. A look of recognition crossed his face. “You have dreamed, haven’t you?”

  Peyewik nodded as all eyes turned towards him. He opened his mouth to describe the dream but stopped, drawn up short by the sight of something moving in the darkness on the far side of the fire. At first he thought it might be Trib returning, but the figure that stumbled forward into the light was not human.

  It was a young doe. Peyewik gasped at the sight of her, but not because it was strange that she should venture so close to human. Her delicately pointed face was covered in blood and one of her back legs dragged sickeningly as she limped forward.

  Peyewik heard the men around him reacting in alarm, but they already sounded far away. He felt the deer’s spirit reaching out to him and knew she had not come by chance.

  What has happened to you? he asked.

  There is no time, she said. You must come with me to the spirit world.

  t was a long walk from the fortress back to the village, but the time went quickly for Trib as she walked along beside the storyteller. They hadn’t spoken since she stepped off the ferry and said, “It’s done. The Scath promised to make Aoifa leave the People alone.”

  His only reply had been, “Thank you,” but she had heard the relief in his voice.

  He was silent after that, but she had been intensely aware of the nearness of him as they walked together. He stayed close to her and she heard every twig he stepped on, every leaf that rustled under his feet. She was quick to notice when he started slowing down and for a brief moment hoped that he was trying to prolong their journey together. Then she realized that he was holding his side.

  “It was stupid of you to come all this way with that injury,” she said gruffly.

  To her surprise the storyteller laughed. “Such stupidity never stops yo
u, why should it stop me?”

  His tone was lighter than she had heard it in days, and the sound of it warmed her insides.

  “Well, I ain’t carrying you back if you collapse,” she blustered, though the sudden idea of touching him gave her goose bumps.

  “This injury isn’t so bad,” he continued. “There are things that hurt more than wounds of the flesh.”

  His tone was still light, but Trib knew he was talking about Aoifa and the warmth she had been feeling disappeared instantly. In its place rose a sickly feeling of guilt and wrongness. She stopped walking.

  “I…I’m sorry,” she said, her voice catching, “for letting Aoifa…do what she did to you. I’m sorrier for that more than anything I’ve ever done before.”

  The storyteller didn’t say anything. He kept walking without even looking at her.

  Suddenly Trib wanted him to get angry at her, to yell at her or hit her, to make her pay for her wrongs. But he did nothing, leaving her to punish herself.

  “I told Jongren I’d stay and help him secure peace,” she said, hurrying to catch up with him. “I’ve done that, so I’ll go away as soon as I can. Tomorrow maybe.”

  Kwineechka still didn’t respond, and she let herself fall behind again, berating herself for all the foolish things she had been feeling about him. He could never care for her, just as Aoifa had said. He had found her strange and repugnant from the beginning, and after she had stood by and allowed Aoifa to do what she did, he had every right to hate her forever.

  Then she tripped over a tree root. A stream of annoyed curses came out of her mouth as she hit the ground. Before she could pick herself up again Kwineechka was standing over her, holding out a hand. She grabbed it reluctantly and tried to let go as soon as she was on her feet. But he held on. Her heart gave an involuntary flutter that annoyed her even further.

  “You do not need to leave,” he said. “Not soon.”

  “Why should I stay?” she whispered, wishing she could see his face more clearly.

  After a slight pause he said, “Your father will be sorry.”

  Trib pulled her hand out of his grasp. “Never had use for a father before,” she said shortly. “Why should I start now?”

  “So you will have a place,” Kwineechka said quietly. “With him.”

  It was what Jongren had offered her the night before the Prayer Ceremony, a new place in the world despite everything she had lost.

  “What about you? Where is your place now?”

  “I do not know,” he said.

  “If I can find a new place, maybe you can too. With someone…”

  He didn’t say anything, but Trib realized with a thrill that he was staring at her through the darkness. She stared back at him, wondering desperately what he was thinking.

  “I know you don’t want it,” she muttered, “but you’ll always have a place with me.”

  “Trib,” he started to say, reaching out to touch her shoulder and sending an electric shock through her entire body.

  “Behind you!” he warned.

  Trib turned and saw a dark shape looming towards them.

  “Stay behind me!” she cried, pulling her sword off her back as the shape resolved into human form and staggered forward.

  “Tribulation.”

  The figure spoke her name in a cracked, exhausted voice, and then collapsed at her feet.

  “What in Dess’s name?”

  Trib crouched down and pulled away the folds of a cloak. The face beneath was barely recognizable as human. Kwineechka made a sound of distress behind her and moved away.

  “I know her,” he said.

  Horror gripped Trib as she realized she knew the beaten, bloodied face as well.

  “No…” she whispered.

  The figure groaned and turned its head, revealing the scar, dark and ugly against the white flesh of its throat.

  “Morrigan,” Trib said. “What happened? Did Puritanics do this to you? Those murdering bastards…”

  She looked over her shoulder at Kwineechka, who had his hands on knees and his head down as though he might be sick.

  “I don’t know if she can make it,” she said, “but we have to try to get her back to the village.”

  The storyteller didn’t move.

  “She freed you from Aoifa’s prison. We have to help her!”

  Kwineechka straightened up, as if throwing off a bad dream, and came to help Trib lift Morrigan to her feet.

  “I’m going to kill the men who did this…” Trib swore.

  They had to stop many times to rest. Trib began to fear that the storyteller might collapse as well. Sometime around dawn, however, he said, “We are nearly home,” and soon Trib could smell the smoke from the fires of the village.

  “Thank Dess,” she said, grateful that Morrigan was still alive. “We’ll need Peyewik’s grandfather.”

  “Muhkrentharne is there,” Kwineechka said as they entered the village, nodding towards a group of people standing around one of the cooking fires. Trib saw Okahoki and Jongren as well.

  “They must’ve been waiting for us all night,” she said.

  Morrigan groaned in pain.

  “Don’t worry,” Trib tried to reassure her. “The old man is a great healer. He patched me back together…”

  “Trib!” Jongren cried.

  She could see the relief in his face as he hurried to meet her.

  “What has happened?” he asked. “Who is with you?”

  “Lay her down,” Trib said to Kwineechka. As soon as she was safely on the ground, Kwineechka dropped beside her, exhausted and holding his side. Trib was worried about him, but Morrigan was in more danger.

  “The priestess who helped us escape from the fort,” she told Jongren quickly. “Puritanics beat her and left her to die in the forest. She needs the old man…” she said, looking around for the healer.

  “What in hell is going on?” she hissed suddenly, seeing Peyewik’s body for the first time. The old man crouched beside him and a few paces away lay the bloody body of a deer.

  “Peyewik has fallen into a trance,” Jongren explained. “The spirits are speaking to him.”

  eyewik knew better than to question such a summons. He closed his eyes and felt his body falling. Before it hit the ground, he found himself travelling the long, dark tunnel downwards. The deer spirit did not offer comfort and reassurance as Panther had done last time he made this journey, but Peyewik no longer needed such things. He knew where he was going. He could hear the deer moving before him, its breath labored and painful until it no longer needed to breathe. The journey went much faster this time, and soon Peyewik found himself standing beside the River of Death. There he saw why it had been a deer spirit sent to summon him.

  “Deer Girl!” he exclaimed. Before him stood a pale, yellow-haired figure dressed in black robes. It was the young woman who had helped him and Kwineechka escape from Crow Woman’s prison.

  She smiled. “Hello Peyewik. My name is Morrigan.”

  “Mor-gun,” Peyewik tried the name, awkward at first. “Morr-i-gan, why are you here?” he asked, alarmed as the meaning of his dream about the crow and the deer began to come clear.

  “I need to warn you,” she replied.

  “You sent a deer spirit to summon me,” Peyewik said. “You speak to the spirits, as I do?” he asked.

  Morrigan frowned slightly. “I don’t know. All I know is that my body is close to death. I prayed to the Goddess for a way to speak to you before I died. And here you are. The Goddess has even made it so that we can understand each other when we speak.”

  She smiled again with a warmth that felt like the sun on Peyewik’s face, but his heart felt heavy. He hardly knew Morrigan Deer Girl, and yet from the first moment he had seen her in the fortress of the Fighting Women she had felt like an old friend, someone with whom he had much to talk about.

  “What happened to you?” Peyewik asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Aoifa found out that I helped you es
cape,” she said. “I was beaten and left to die in the forest…”

  Her voice faltered. She drew herself up and continued. “But there is no time to dwell on that. Aoifa told me of her intentions towards you and your friend, the storyteller. You are both in danger.”

  “Tribulation has gone to ask the Bear Woman for peace,” Peyewik said. “If she agrees, surely Kwineechka will be safe.”

  Morrigan shook her head sadly. “The Scath may agree to peace, but Aoifa never will.”

  “Why?” Peyewik said. “What is wrong with her? What does she want?”

  “Aoifa has not always been like this. At one time the Goddess was her source of strength, as she is mine. But Aoifa has forgotten the Goddess. She found a new source of power, and it is making her greedy. She can never get enough of it.”

  “What is the new source of power?” Peyewik asked.

  “Using her siren song to drain people of their wills and make them do as she wishes,” Morrigan said. “You’ve experienced it yourself.”

  Peyewik remembered how the song lulled him into wanting to give everything he had to Crow Woman. He would have given up his spirit if she asked for it, before he figured out how to break her spell, and understood how this gave her strength.

  “Kwineechka escaped from her,” Peyewik said. “She can’t hurt him now.”

  “Aoifa experienced great power when she took your friend’s will, unlike anything she has felt before. She is hungry for it now and won’t stop until she has it.”

  Suddenly Peyewik understood.

  “But that power wasn’t Kwineechka’s,” he said. “She took the thing that was most precious to him. It was the Story of the People. Our story is our power. Is it our connection to our ancestors and everything that has happened to us. It’s about our connection to Manito and the spirits. It’s how we know who we are and where we belong. It is the source of our strength.”

  “Then it’s worse than I thought,” Morrigan said. “Aoifa doesn’t understand this yet, but once she does, not only you and your friend will be in danger, but all of your people. She will do them great harm.”