by Sarah Zettel
Without stopping to think, Aria swept Little Eye into her arms, crooning in wordless reassurance. Little Eye buried her face against Aria’s neck and howled. Eric was staring at her. Aria got to her feet, holding her daughter against her chest, and shouldered her way past the blanket into the front room. The fire on the hearthstone had been carefully banked so that the coals were barely visible. Past the front doorway’s hanging, the shadows slanted toward the center of the marsh, pointing the route to the Dead Sea. It was past midmorning then. The clan was awake, well into the tasks of the day—scraping hides, cleaning eels, chopping reeds, and all the other endless mending, maintaining, digging, and scratching that kept the clan alive.
“Come on, Little Eye.” Aria set the girl on her own feet. “Take me to your father.”
Little Eye made a great show of stifling her tears and she trotted through the clusters of workers with a child’s dexterity and single-mindedness. Aria followed Little Eye, barely aware that Eric was following her, too.
They found Nail hip deep in pond water, tossing reeds up onto the shore with a wooden pitchfork. Roof Beam and Hill Shadow combed through the glistening piles, chopping off the edible roots and spreading the stalks to dry on the ground. Later they’d be worked into mats and baskets, and even roofing.
Aria’s sons looked up immediately as she and Little Eye made their way to the pond’s edge, but Nail did not. He tossed another forkful of reeds onto the shore with a grunt, and then impaled the fork securely on dry ground. Then he looked up, first at his sons, then at his daughter, then at Aria.
“Well?” he asked.
“Our…” Aria checked herself. “Your daughter came to me in tears saying her brother has disappeared. What is going on, Nail in the Beam?”
Nail sloshed through the reeds and green-scummed water until he reached the shore. “The whereabouts of my family is not your concern,” he muttered, wringing out the hem of his tunic.
“But it should be yours,” Aria folded her arms. “Or your wife’s. Where is the righteous Branch in the River, Nail?” She spoke with more bitterness than she intended, but the woman’s insults still rang in her ears.
“Aria,” Eric came close enough behind her that Aria could feel his breath against her neck. “You don’t need…”
“Come out! Come out!” Iron Shaper’s voice called out in time with the clanging of a stick on a gong. “Come out! Come out!”
“Nameless Powers preserve me,” Aria whispered. Nail in the Beam was already headed toward the noise at a run, trailing his sons in his shadow.
“What is it?” demanded Eric.
“The emergency call.” Aria snatched up Little Eye in her arms and ran after Nail.
“Come out! Come out!” Iron Shaper beat the gong furiously.
Most of the clan was already in the center of the huts by the time Aria got there. Eyes Above, leaning on Iron Keeper’s arm, pushed her way toward Shaper. Aria set Little Eye beside her brothers and forced her way through the crowd. The ones who knew her gave way, clearing enough of a path for her to see Iron Shaper clearly.
The smith wasn’t alone. Storm Water sat on the ground beside him, holding his arm tenderly. His head was bare and Aria saw a clumsy black bandage under his fingers. A fresh stream of scarlet trickled down his arm.
“What happened to you?” Aria crouched beside Storm Water. She removed his hand from the bandage. He let it drop into his lap and winced as she unwrapped the bandage and revealed a long, ugly gouge in his skin.
“Someone get me some hot water!” she shouted. The wound was caked with old blood, and it looked deep. Storm Water was pale under his eyes and around his mouth
“Branch in the River left the clan yesterday.” Storm Water’s voice was low and hoarse, as though he hadn’t had enough to drink for a while. “Storm Water followed her. She went to a troop of soldiers from Narroways. She’s bringing them here. Storm Water thinks there’s a Skyman with them.” He paused and swallowed hard. “A soldier did this to Storm Water as he ran back here.”
“Nameless Powers preserve me,” said someone.
The crowd was stirring. Some of them were retreating, but Aria barely noticed. She was trying to think of where to get a clean bandage and a needle and thread and…
Eric knelt beside her. “Let me,” he said quietly, and he took Storm Water’s arm out of her hands. “How far away are they?” he asked as he gently probed the edges of the wound with the fingers of his free hand.
“Two hours, maybe less.” Eric touched a scab and Storm Water grunted.
“All right, Storm Water. You’ve done well. Hold still now.”
He laid his hand over the wound and Aria realized what he was going to do under the eyes of the whole clan.
Storm Water gasped and stiffened. Aria grabbed his shoulders and held him still. Eric’s breathing grew hard and ragged. He lifted his hand away and there was nothing on Storm Water’s arm except some dried blood and a thin white line marking where the wound had been.
Eric slumped backward.
“You’re a TEACHER?” cried Iron Shaper incredulously.
Aria let go of Storm Water’s shoulders and stood up in front of the smith. “I vouchsafed him Iron Shaper dena Voice of the Wind, and I will not hear one word said against him.” She raised her voice so the entire clan could hear. “Not one word.”
“And there is no time for it,” said Nail in the Beam flatly. “We must get ready to move. We have two hours at best.”
Aria looked up at him, intending to say something scathing, but the look on his face made her stop. He was already punishing himself for again finding a wife who would betray the clan for her own purposes.
His words worked like magic. The crowd of men and children and the handful of women streamed toward the houses.
“Wait, wait.” Eric climbed to his feet, but Teacher or not, no one paused to listen to him. “We don’t even know what they’re doing,” he said somewhat helplessly to Aria and Iron Shaper. “Did you hear?” he asked Storm Water.
Storm Water nodded. “They are looking for the family of Stone in the Wall,” he said, knotting his bloodstained head-cloth between his hands.
“The stones,” breathed Aria. “Nameless Powers preserve me, they must want the stones.”
“I don’t think so,” said Eric. “I think they want your genes.”
“Either way"—Aria gripped her son’s hand and raised him to his feet—"we need to show them our retreating backsides. There’s places in the Lif that the upper ranks couldn’t find, even if someone showed them where to look. We can wait this out.”
“You’d just run?” Eric was genuinely shocked.
“We fight, Eric, and all of our own will pay for it.” Aria squeezed Storm Water’s hand. “It’ll be bad enough as it is. And it’s my fault.”
“Yes, it is,” snapped Iron Shaper. “And you’ll be hearing plenty about it from me later. But now we must get ready. Keeper,” he called as he stalked off toward the forge with his son.
“Aria,” said Eric urgently in the Skyman tongue, “we can’t just run from this. We need to find out what these soldiers know about what’s going on in the cities:”
She bit her lip and forced herself to think. The part of her that was still a Notouch and would never be anything else said run, get away, get out of here. The part of her that formulated enough rebellion and heresy to take her over the World’s Wall shouted against a retreat, especially now that they had drawn her family’s blood, first her sister’s, now her son’s. Storm Water was watching her with a young man’s anger in his eyes. She wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“We need to find out who’s hounding us, at the very least, and what side they’re on,” she said at last. “Maybe we can talk some sense to them. They won’t listen to Notouch.” Her gaze strayed to Eric’s hands. “As a Teacher, you could…”
Eric snorted. “A Teacher and a Seablade talk down soldiers from the Heretic city? Not likely.”
She curled her f
ree hand around her pouch of stones. “We cannot fight them. It’s been tried. The costs are…too much.”
“This is not some harvest rebellion we’re talking about here,” he reminded her needlessly. “This is the Vitae, or the Unifiers, and it’s for the entire world. If we lose, it doesn’t matter. If we win, then it will be remembered that the Notouch helped, and no one will blame you for anything.”
Aria gave him a pained look. “Which shows what you know.” She sighed. “But you’re right. I’ll talk to my mother. She’ll go along with it.” Just don’t ask me why I’m so sure, Aria pleaded silently. “That will take care of the Seniors,” she went on. “I know all the clan malcontents. We should be able to put together something. It might even be something useful.” She let go of Storm Water’s hand.
“Especially since whoever’s coming from Narroways doesn’t expect a fight,” Eric added.
“Would you expect one?” she arched her eyebrows.
“I can’t say. After all, what do I know?” He turned his face away.
Aria reached one hand toward him. “We can’t be self-pitying now, Eric. We’re about to start a war.”
“I don’t think so, Aria,” he said, turning around so she could see the tired smile on his face. “If anything, I think we’re about to finish one.”
A hole broke between the clouds, dropping a broad beam of sunshine onto the huts. Aria dipped her eyes automatically and had to forcibly stop herself from beginning the Chant of Thanks for Another Day.
The oldest and the youngest of the clan were loading themselves onto the rafts and pushing off for the deeper marsh. Everyone else had set to work with a speed and decision that, she could tell, disconcerted Eric. He had expected a few knives to be sharpened, not kettles of boiling water and fat set out on fires. He hadn’t expected to see the men tightening up slings that could take down a wild dog or do serious damage to a human being, or to see the women running whetstones over sickles for harvesting rice.
He hadn’t expected the Notouch to know exactly how much damage they could do.
“We’ve had to fight before,” Aria told him. “Every now and again, you get a band of rovers that decides it’s tired and knows no one cares what goes on out here. We don’t keep the land we tame by running away from that kind.”
A shrill whistle sounded over the noise of the wind and the babble of voices. The soldiers were coming. Aria took her place, busily stirring the kettle of fat.
See, she thought toward the coming band. There’s nothing unusual here. Just tallow we need to waterproof door blankets and ponchos.
Around her, men and women were cooking, or washing, or harvesting more reeds. There was nothing unusual to be seen anywhere, unless some sharp eye noticed that the tiniest children were all somehow invisible.
The soldiers came in on bald-legged oxen. Aria counted fast as she dropped to her knees and raised her hands in homage to the higher ranks. A dozen of them. Narroways Heretics, by the clothes. They were armed with swords and clubs and shields, but they didn’t look particularly alert. She noted that Branch in the River had had the sense to keep herself out of their ranks. She was probably lurking behind them somewhere, wondering if her absence from the clan had been noticed.
Aria raised her eyes a little and caught her breath. A Skyman rode in the ranks. She recognized him. He’d been the one who sank the needle into her arm when Cor had taken her to their shelter. She glanced involuntarily toward Shaper’s steps, where Eric had taken up his position.
He was not there.
Aria had no time to curse.
“We are looking for the family of Stone in the Wall,” said the troop’s leader. He was a big man with Nobility’s swirls on his hands. Green and scarlet. Aria faced one of the rulers of Narroways.
Well, she thought with a mix of satisfaction and sourness, let’s see how astute this Lord of Narroways actually is.
“My lord, forgive this despised one. She can say only that they are not here. When Stone in the Wall was cursed as a Heretic by the Teachers, the Nameless Powers preserve them all, we hurled that tainted blood from our clan. If they live yet, this despised one doesn’t know where or how.”
The totally expected happened next, which was why Aria had insisted on being the one to deliver the bad news.
The Lord of Narroways took a foot out of his stirrup and aimed a kick at her head. She covered, ducked, and rolled backward, but the blow set her ears ringing anyway.
“Don’t lie to me, Notouch!” he bellowed. “Where are they!”
“My lord?” said a voice. “If I may?”
That was a surprise. Aria took great pains to blink stupidly as she heard the sounds of someone dismounting. A shadow bent over her. She felt the weight in the air as the entire clan stood silent in the face of this startling gentleness.
“Stone in the Wall’s family is in no danger.” She heard the accent under the voice and she saw the blue-and-white swirls against sun-browned skin as the Skyman’s hands reached to help her up. Aria shrank back under her poncho hood.
“We come as the Servant of the Nameless came to their ancestors,” he went on. “To get help.”
How dare you…Aria forgot to keep her eyes down.
“Got you, Stone in the Wall.” The Skyman hauled her to her feet.
In that second, the clan poured out of their doorways and the fight was on.
The Notouch hefted the kettles and sickles. Aria tore her sling off her belt and whirled it over her head. She brought it across the Skyman’s temple while the Narroways lord was still fumbling for his sword. She whirled it again and took down the soldier unlucky enough to get in her way. Then she had to start ducking and running. The noise of metal on metal, and the screams of battle surrounded her. Eric appeared out of nowhere, dragging soldiers off the oxen and throwing them to the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him haul off one in Teacher’s robes, dragging him back toward the huts.
What’s he doing? She had barely time for the thought before she was nose to nose with another of the soldiers and had more important things to deal with.
It probably didn’t last that long. Aria lost track. All she knew for sure was that there came a moment when she looked wildly around her and the only people standing were also of the clan.
A flash of brown and black darted out from a thicket of bamboo. Without even stopping to think, Aria took off at a run. Her quarry ran like an expert, dodging the worst of the mire and ducking low tree branches without breaking stride. A Notouch poncho and headcloth flapped behind them. Aria realized whom she must be chasing and adrenaline and anger gave her an extra burst of speed. She launched herself forward and threw all her weight against her quarry. With a “whoof!” of lost breath they both hit the marshy ground.
Branch in the River rolled over and swung her fist out. Aria scuttled backward and snatched her sling off her belt as they both scrambled to their feet. For a moment, they did nothing but stare at each other. Then Aria swung her arm slowly backward.
“You try to run and I will drop you like a dog before you get thirty feet,” she said.
“Do it, then.” Branch in the River gulped air and wiped soil off her face. “You want me dead anyway.”
“Oh, no.” Aria shook her head. “I want you alive. I want you to face the clan with all of them knowing who brought the soldiers and the Skyman down on us. You can either walk back or be dragged back. It’s your choice.”
Branch glanced toward the open marsh and back toward Aria. Aria locked her elbow and held still, even though her arm was beginning to feel the strain. The adrenaline rush was leaving her and a slow trembling was taking hold of her limbs. If Branch did try to run, Aria wasn’t sure she could stop her.
With more dignity than Aria really wanted to see, Branch lifted her chin and began walking back toward the huts. Aria followed warily, her sling still in her hand.
Although the fight was over, the clan was still engaged in a flurry of activity. Several of them had picked u
p swords and were making sure no soldier would rise from the ground again. Others clustered around the oxen and the supply sledge, laying claim to the spoils of battle.
A shout went up as Branch in the River stepped into the clan’s view and Aria heard the distinctive whistle of a sling being swung. Before she could do anything, Nail in the Beam broke through the shifting crowd. A blanket of silence dropped across the clan. Aria’s breath caught in her throat.
Nail in the Beam stood directly in front of his second wife.
“Go home.” His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. “And know that I am glad my children have already been sent away.”
“I did what was right,” said Branch loud enough for every ear to hear her. “I will answer any who challenge it.”
“You will answer.” Nail’s hands were trembling. “I just hope we will not have to answer with you. Go home.”
Branch, chin still held high, walked a straight line through the crowd and the clan returned to its grim work. Aria turned away, suddenly weary beyond belief.
“Mother?” Storm Water laid his hand on her arm.
“Your mother is all right,” Aria said, although she was not certain she spoke the truth. She squeezed his hand firmly and straightened her shoulders. “What’s happened to the Skyman?”
“He is fallen here.” Storm Water led her to the prostrate Skyman on the edge of the pond.
He was sprawled on his back. Aria laid her hands against his chest to feel for his breathing. It was ragged, but strong. He had a bruise from her sling, but was probably all right. Iron Shaper made his way through the crowd to them. He had a captured sword in his fist and he raised it over the Skyman’s head.
Aria held up her hand. “This one we keep. He’ll be able to tell us what’s going on.”
The smith grunted. “We need to sink the bodies.”
“Go ahead. Storm Water, go help unload the sledge.” Storm Water stayed where he was until she gave him a long, stern look. Then he ducked his head and trotted toward the gathering around the soldier’s supply sledge.