by J. S. Bangs
His tongue burned with frustration as he left the circle. The elders seemed satisfied, but Keshlik was not. Vague plans for spies and interrogations of the slaves did not sate him. His hands jittered, and he smoldered with unresolved anger. So he was especially irritated when he went to the edge of the blessed circle and called for Tuulo, but Dhuja came out instead.
“What do you want, old woman?” he said.
“I want to talk to you.” She was stooped over, but she regarded Keshlik with a haughty, contemptuous gaze.
“I called for my wife, not for her midwife.”
“But you’ll listen to her midwife, since I hold her life in my hands.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Dhuja gave him a wrinkled glare. “Keshlik, a woman like me has no threat to make against the leader of the Yakhat war bands, and I will not barter with the life of a woman in my care. But I want to tell you what the women who tended Juyut said, since no one else has the courage.”
That gave him pause. “What?”
“The men today. They were attacked by fists of earth and crushed by stones. Your brother was hurt the worst.”
“Did you come to tell me what I already know?”
Dhuja shrugged and peered to Keshlik’s right, avoiding the spear point in his glare. “The earth is Khou’s flesh, and the stones are her bones. You were attacked by the implements of our mother.”
Fury leapt up in his chest at the heresy. “What? Khou is the mother of the Yakhat. She doesn’t fight for city-dwellers.”
“Can you be sure of that? Your father was called by Golgoyat, but we haven’t known anyone who could speak to Khou since we left the Bans.”
“You’re saying she’s taken up with our enemies? You’re mad, woman.”
“Maybe she merely stopped protecting us. Our warriors fought without Khou’s protection, or else the stones wouldn’t rise up to kill them.”
“Golgoyat fights with our bands. I don’t know what Khou does, but don’t try to convince me that she’s fighting against us. There are Powers enough in this place to possess an old woman without believing it must be Khou. Now let me speak to my wife.”
She shook her head, refusing to look Keshlik in the face. “I’ll send Tuulo out. But I’ve warned you.”
Tuulo looked like the sun shining in the mist: radiant in the fullness of her pregnancy, but tainted with a film of weariness. She sighed as she stopped a pace away from him. “I’m tired of being pregnant, Keshlik.”
“I’m sorry. I have never seen a more glorious mother than you.”
She merely grunted. “I’m ready to be done. Dhuja says that I’m so close. We’re so close. The city woman that you brought will bear at the same time as me, Dhuja says.”
“Has she been of any use to you?”
“How are we supposed to talk? We have no translator! And even when the Guza slave comes by, she barely talks to him. She doesn’t know their language well.”
He had hoped that she would know something about the witch. “Perhaps I’ll send the translator by more often.”
“Oh, don’t bother. I don’t want to talk to her anyway. If she weren’t as laden as me, I’d say she’s the worst slave I’ve ever heard of.” She looked down at her own belly with resignation. “But I understand.”
The words leaked off his tongue before he could consider them: “Juyut was almost killed.”
Tuulo gave a solemn nod. “Dhuja could not keep from telling me. Will he survive?”
“He’s in the care of the wise women. He’ll recover. But I… I have to go face the witch. If there is someone that dangerous among the remaining refugees, then I have to strike as soon as possible.”
She was staring at him with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. If it were anybody else, he would have slapped them. “You’re afraid,” Tuulo said quietly.
“I am not afraid.”
“Keshlik—”
The anger in his belly burned up through his chest—but when it reached his tongue, he discovered that it wasn’t anger. It was grief.
He began to weep. He covered his face with his hands and turned away from the camp, letting a sob score his threat. Tears soaked his beard. “He could have died, Tuulo. My brother, my only brother. He tried to hide it, but he had been so badly hurt, and his men were so afraid. And for such a pointless raid! If he died, I think I would die after him.”
“Don’t die, my husband. You will have a child soon. And I need you.”
Her gaze felt like sparks on his face, and he looked away, blushing from the heat. “I’ll be here for you, my wife. You and Juyut are all I have left. My father, my mother, almost every friend I knew in childhood—all are gone. But if either of you—” His words crumbled into a sob.
Tuulo knelt, settling her ponderous belly between her knees, and placed her hand on the ground on her side of the burnt circle, as close as she could bring it to Keshlik’s. “I’m here. And I am not afraid. My husband is the greatest warrior of the Yakhat, the leader of the war bands, and the heir to his father’s calling. I wouldn’t let any lesser man into my yurt to give me a child. And no mere witch will bring him down.”
A wind shivered the grass around them. Keshlik wept until the spring of his tears ran dry. He looked up at Tuulo. Her eyes, too, were red and swollen. She smiled.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t thank me. Instead, bring me one thing.”
“What?”
Her grin bore the deadly humor of a coyote. “I’ve heard that witches have unique eyes, and I’d like to see some. Can you bring me the eyes of the witch? Preferably removed from the head.”
He chuckled. “You may need to wait. I need to give Juyut’s men time to rest, and I should enlist the aid of a few other tribes. But I’ll bring you the witch’s eyes.”
Chapter 14
Saotse
Drums sounded through the village. The beating resounded off the walls of the lodges and dove into the mosses on the trees, resting finally in the cedar rafters of the akan’s lodge, where Saotse sat on a wooden bench next to the Eldest’s chair. The voices around her created a mist of expectation. Three days ago, word had reached Ruhasu that the kenda was sending emissaries, and the akan had invited Saotse to sit next to him when they met their visitors. He was right to do so: she was their prize and their terror.
The women of the akan’s enna had combed her hair and dressed her in a soft leather gown, talking in hushed tones, calling her grandmother and using their most humble language, no doubt fearing she might strike them down with earthquakes. Their obsequiousness did not displease her. She knew as well as they did that she was the most valuable thing that had ever entered Ruhasu.
The beating of the drums grew louder then stopped with a mighty daroom just outside the door. A voice called out, “The speaker Palam of the enna of the kenda of Kendilar and all the Yivriindi begs permission from the akan of Ruhasu to enter.”
From beside Saotse, the akan said in his mild, hoarse voice, “Come in, Grandchild.”
The air of the akan’s lodge crackled with attention. A young man’s footsteps crossed the threshold into the lodge, followed by a pair of attendants, then a muffled rush as those who had been waiting outside huddled around the door.
“Come and sit, Palam,” the akan said.
The messenger’s feet scraped against the floor as he settled himself on the ground.
“Ruhasu has never had an emissary of the kenda before. What brings you to our village now?”
A high, milky voice answered him in a Yivrian accent. “Surely you know, Grandfather. The rumor of your wars has passed Tsingris by now. We received word many weeks ago that the Guza had been overrun and that Prasa was threatened by savages. Not long after that, we heard that the city had fallen. Now the kenda comes to repay the insult given to the Prasada, his friend, and to pr
otect his northern border.”
“It’s unfortunate that he couldn’t come before the city was plundered.” The akan’s words were accusing, but the lightness of his tone told Saotse he didn’t direct any anger at the emissary.
“We weep for all the city’s dead.”
You don’t know the first thing about weeping.
“We also weep,” the akan said. “The village is swollen with those whose ennas were killed in whole or in part, and even those of us who never lived in the city have given sons to it in marriage. Ruhasu is overfull and deeply taxed. Now what does the kenda want with our village?”
“Your aid.”
“The kenda wants us to help him?”
“The kenda sent me to visit all of the villages near Prasa—those that still stand, at least. He will give spears and bread to any man that will join his ranks. The Yakhat still hold Prasa, but he hopes to draw them out and crush them in open battle. Those of you who were from the city may be able to return to your lodges.”
“Interesting that you should speak of crushing. Did you know that we suffered an attack a few days ago?”
“An attack?” For the first time, Palam seemed genuinely surprised. “By the Yakhat?”
“Of course. Who else would attack us?”
“And you drove them back?”
“Well.” The amusement grew in the akan’s voice. “Do you see the woman on my left?”
“Yes…” the emissary said, sounding confused.
“If anyone can aid you in our campaign against the Yakhat, it is this woman. Her name is Saotse, and she is Kept by the Power named Sorrow. Were it not for her, you would have found Ruhasu a bloody ruin.”
“A Kept? Here in a fishing village?” His tone was flat with disbelief.
“Did you see the fallen spruces on the far side of the village?” the akan asked.
“No. We came from the west—”
“They were thrown down by Saotse’s fury in the Power that Keeps her. The Yakhat attacked us, and Saotse drove them back by rousing the earth and the stones to hurl themselves at our foes.”
“Really? And why hasn’t any rumor of this ever reached Kendilar? Or even Prasa? I would expect that the Prasada would have told us if he had a Power of the earth at his disposal.”
“This was the first time that Saotse roused the Power in that way.”
“Ah. The first time. Are you certain it was the work of the Powers?”
Saotse perceived challenge in Palam’s words and judged that it was time to speak. “Only the first, Grandchild,” she said. “Do you think that the work of Sorrow in the battle is easily mistaken?”
“I think nothing, Grandmother. I’m here as a mouthpiece of the kenda, and the kenda as of yet knows nothing about you and your Power.”
“So you merely intend to put a doubting word in the ear of the kenda.”
“Saotse,” the akan broke in, “there’s no need to treat the mouthpiece of the kenda as an enemy.”
“Not as an enemy,” Saotse said. “As a friend, I hope. Even I need as many friends as I can get. But a friend does not doubt the word of a friend. Akan, this man hasn’t even seen the wreckage of the forest where I vanquished the Yakhat force. Perhaps he should witness what was made of the place where the Yakhat fools charged in, and so will believe the story better.”
“Of course,” Palam said. “I don’t intend to bring any word of doubt. But I would bring a better report to the kenda if I could report to him that I had seen the Kept’s power myself.”
The Power’s grief was anything but subtle, and once it was stirred up for battle, she might turn the lodge to rubble before she could constrain it. If she admitted that to Palam, he might perceive it as lying or weakness. Instead, she attempted to look haughty. “The Powers do not manifest themselves merely to sate your curiosity. But if you’d like, we could go now to see the place where Sorrow drove off the Yakhat.”
Palam chuckled softly. “Perhaps we should do that.”
The akan made a noise of displeasure. “Fine. We’ll go together.” His feet scraped on the boards beneath his seat, setting off a flurry of movement around the lodge.
Tagoa was sitting behind Saotse, to her left, and he leaned forward and touched her elbow. “I’ll guide you to the place.”
She let him nudge her forward and guide her right behind the heavy, slow steps of the akan as the lodge was drained of people.
The ruckus of Ruhasu’s onlookers and Palam’s entourage drowned the sound of the akan’s footfalls, but she heard Palam fall into step beside her. Tagoa’s hand on her arm pulled her back from him a little, as if he were afraid Palam would harm her.
The walk to the edge of the village enclosure took a quarter of an hour. Saotse could hear a large crowd trailing behind them, but when they approached the site of the cordon, the onlookers grew suddenly quiet. Saotse recognized the place by the way the air opened up to the sky, funneling the sound upward, and the smell of wormy, tumbled earth that had not yet regrown its hide of moss and grass.
Palam’s footsteps slowed, and he drew a sharp breath.
“So,” the akan said, his voice heavy with satisfaction. “You see.”
Palam breathed heavily. “Remarkable,” he whispered. “This was forest before… before what, exactly?”
Saotse answered, “The Power that Keeps me fought against the band of Yakhat. This is the result of her attacks.”
“And the men who attacked you?”
“Were swallowed up by the earth.”
“Some of them we recovered and buried properly, so they wouldn’t be uncovered by landslides or coyotes,” the akan added. “The ones that we could find.”
Palam began to laugh. Saotse heard him kick a stone into the pit. “You need to return with me to the kenda. This is a gift too great to put aside.”
“So you’re not asking for any further demonstration of my power?” Saotse asked.
“I wouldn’t dare to impose such a request on one of the Kept.”
“And where do you want me to go with you?”
“Back across the bay toward the south shore. Over the water, of course. The city is still taken.”
“Perhaps we could free it, instead.” Saotse’s words came out softly, and she could barely believe that she said them, but she felt a thrilling chill as she did.
“Are you suggesting that we attack the city?” the akan asked, incredulity weighing down his words.
“We have an ally among the Powers,” Saotse said. “That counts for a thousand men.”
“Still, we’re only a handful here in Ruhasu. Prasa is still thick with the Yakhat.”
“The elder,” said Palam, “wishes to demonstrate her prowess. If I don’t presume too much by saying so.”
“You don’t,” Saotse said. “Perhaps you’re both right. It would be good to let the Yakhat feel our sting, though to purge Prasa of Yakhat might be beyond our abilities. Perhaps a different target.”
“With respect, Grandmother, I object,” the akan said. “Why are we striking at the Yakhat at all? Let’s join with the kenda and strike against the Yakhat from there.”
“No,” Palam said. Saotse heard greed in his voice. Though his manner was deferential, he, too, wanted to do more than merely bring announcements from village to village. “The kenda’s goal is to drive out the Yakhat, which is better done all at once than piecemeal. If we strike at them now, we’ll stagger them, and when we join with the kenda’s forces, we can deliver a fatal blow.”
“It is just as likely that they’d scatter, and we’d spend ages finding and attacking individual bands,” the akan said.
“Have the Yakhat been that prone to scatter?” Saotse asked.
No one had an answer to that. They had all heard the stories, but none of them knew much firsthand about the Yakhat’s habits in battle. Finally Sao
tse said, “When does the kenda need us?”
“It will be two weeks yet before his main force approaches Prasa. His vast army moves slowly.”
“So we have time. A little, at least. Enough to stir up the Yakhat and give them a taste of the defeat to come. Is there a target nearby?”
The akan reluctantly suggested, “We heard there were camps scattered to the northeast of here, on the high plains. Within a few days’ journey. They don’t come into the woods.”
“I will survive a few days’ journey. I’d rather endure that than be cooped up in the village waiting for rescue or attack. Am I the only one?” There was a quiet, timid murmur of agreement between Palam, the akan, and the nearest of those listening. “I say that we strike out to meet our enemies before we return to the kenda. Who would come with me?”
“I would go with you,” Palam said.
The akan’s voice was full of resignation. “There are enough men here to equip a force. We have bows and what might serve as spears. If you’re determined to go.”
“I’m determined,” Saotse said. “A blow to draw them into our jaws, and then a blow to crush them. As the Kept of Sorrow, I’ll see to that.”
Chapter 15
Keshlik
On the western horizon moved little shapes, like crows picking at the heads of the grass. Keshlik pointed the spot out to Chuuri, his partner in the patrol around the Khaatat camp.
Chuuri stared at them. “It’s just prairie grass. We should move on.”
“Wait,” Keshlik said. “We need to be sure.”
Another patrolling pair was still about two miles behind them, visible as a pair of brown silhouettes above the grass, and a third was about two miles ahead. Keshlik had set the Khaatat on this circuit to watch every approach to the camp, lest the witch and her people attempt to strike. He very much doubted that they would, as the Prasei had given little evidence of martial prowess. Still, they had surprised him with their speedy construction of the earthen wall around Prasa. They might surprise him again.
The specks that bobbed along the horizon could have been deer or birds. Or people. The little line of movement dropped into a shallow dell and disappeared from sight. Keshlik pointed to the head of yellow rocks about a mile away then urged Lashkat ahead.