“My king, we are the people of Sedna here, not raiders!” he declaimed, puffing out his massive chest. “Our maidens have been gently reared!”
“And they will be far less gently killed or captured, unless we manage to hold Pajlat off.”
“No true king of the Seal Kindred would devise such means! Or bear such an uncouth weapon.” Olpash’s voice deepened, because for once he was speaking truth as he saw it. “Or fail to keep vigil.”
Kor stepped toward him with flashing eyes, and though Olpash held his ground the onlookers, every Seal of them, shrank back.
“No more vigils, Olpash,” said Kor softly, with a softness fit to chill the marrow, for there was fury leashed in that low voice. “No more cowards’ games. If you wish to fight me, you must do it in daylight, here, in the clearing, where everyone can see. Now. Or else hold your peace henceforth.”
The man shook where he stood, his heavy chin jerking, more from rage than from fear, I thought. He did not give way.
“You are a mighty fighter, Olpash. The Seal Kindred will have need of you when the raiders come.” Tone belied the sense of what he was saying—Kor was forcing himself to be fair, but hatred darkened the words, anger lurked dark like a storm just below the horizon. “We must be as one, that fell day. Draw your knife now, or never more against me.”
The watching folk had gone deathly silent. Olpash did not move except to quake with wrath.
“Is it peace, then? Or have you neglected to sharpen your blade? I would have sworn you had it ready.”
Olpash snatched out the blackstone weapon. “By Sedna’s memory, I will fight you,” he cried wildly, “to show you for what you are. Though I bear no chance against you and your demon helpers.”
“The devourers?” Kor laughed aloud, though it was not a good laugh. Too much bitterness in him for that. “Or do you refer to Dan and Tass, here?”
“Great knives that shine …” Olpash spoke between clenched teeth, already crouched for the combat, his short stone blade at the ready.
“But of course I will put off my ‘uncouth weapon.’” Kor turned his back on Olpash to show his contempt and came over to me, speaking to Zaneb, then giving her to me to hold—the sword sullenly bore the touch of my hand, since he had willed it. Kor drew his own blackstone blade. A murmur sounded among the crowd of his people, more dismay in it than excitement, for these were gentle folk. I also was dismayed.
“Kor, you are not yet strong. Be careful!”
“That one first came against me when I was a lad of thirteen, and far weaker than I am now.” Fury plain and open now, no longer held in check, and at the sound of his voice all his people froze to silence, all heard. “I outwitted him then, and many times thereafter. I do not fear him now.”
With a stone knife in hand he went to combat Olpash.
“This is ill,” I muttered to Tassida, though I scarcely knew why. Surely a king must protect his kingship. Olpash had been a threat for years, and never more so than now, when all of Kor’s folk had to walk as one if they were to survive. Time was when I would have urged him toward this very course. But holding Zaneb in my hands, watching Kor walk catlike away from me, I felt the sense of something deeply wrong.
“Ill enough,” Tass softly agreed, though perhaps her reasons were her own. “If it should go against him—”
“Honor be damned, I will aid him, with Alar if need be.” Ass though he was, I thought savagely.
At a span of ten paces from Olpash he stopped and stood straddle-legged, proudly erect, head high, letting Olpash make the attack.
“Fool!” I whispered to Tass. “Arrogant fool!”
The man very nearly toppled him with his bearlike rush. Olpash was no slackard as a fighter, far faster than I would have expected of him. A jabbing upward knife stroke speared straight toward Kor’s gut at the juncture of the ribs. I could almost feel it in my own clenched body, I almost cried aloud. But lithe as a seal, as if he could yet swim where the rest of us merely plodded and trod, Kor had slipped aside. His knife, trailing him almost absently, a winking black bubble in his wake, slashed across Olpash’s upper arm and left a long streak of red.
A roar went up. First blood to Kor.
I think I have never seen a man so enraged as was Olpash that day. He fought with crushing force. And there is no fairness in such combat—they strove with fists, feet, even with teeth—I would not have cared to face him. He ranted aloud, swearing mighty oaths by Sedna and Sakeema and Mahela, shouting—but soon Olpash had little time to shout. He panted instead. Kor was making a fool of him, and the onlookers had ceased to roar.
Kor was cool—no, cold, full of hate, full of the icy anger that is more fearsome than any rage. I do not know how many times he let Olpash rush him—ten, twenty, more. And as many times he slashed him, eluding him in as many different ways. It was a combat of speed, whirlwind strokes that blurred the sight until at last Olpash had weakened and slowed somewhat from sheer bloodshed. And still Kor stood in front of him and baited him. Olpash reeled, his mouth hanging slack, the folds of his face wet with sweat, staring stupidly with pain and exhaustion, and still in a blundering way he charged. But Kor’s face was calm and mocking.
“Blood of Sakeema, Kor,” I shouted suddenly, “have done!” I felt sickened, and nearly ready to aid Olpash instead of Kor, and I half hoped—
But no. Kor moved in to strike at his enemy in earnest, and though Olpash scarcely seemed to know anymore where he was or what he was doing, still his strong legs bore him up. Kor felled him, finally, as the woodcutter fells a thick tree or as sea hunters kill a whale, with many blows. Upward jabs to the gut, sideward blows that forced the knife between the ribs. With one hand he held off Olpash’s weapon, not even looking at it. Nor, I noted, did he look long at the man’s contorted face … Olpash was dead, I think, before he finally toppled to the ground. But Kor crouched beside him to slit his throat, then stayed there as if he would never move again.
I had cared nothing for Olpash, but such a nameless heartache was in me that I did not move. I stood where I was, with Zaneb in my hand, and it was Tass who went over to Kor, put her arms around him and helped or urged him to his feet. As he got up, I saw that his cold wrath had left him. He was shaken, trembling and pale.
His people, silent, stared at him in some sort of expectation. Somewhere a widow sobbed.
“This contentious fool has cost us much,” Kor said, utter weariness in his voice. “And the day that must be spent to lay him to rest is the least of it.” He turned his back in dismissal, walking slowly over to me.
I silently gave him back his sword. Only after his people had scattered toward their work or gone off in anxious clusters did I speak.
“What has become of mercy?” I demanded, keeping my voice low.
Tassida still kept her arms around him, steadying him. She loved him too, I knew, as I had always known she must—how could she not love him? But I did not take time for jealousy. Worse trouble was in me.
“Tell me of mercy, Dan.” Kor leveled a stare at me, his tone as hard as his gaze. But I was not to be put off.
“You, who let me live when I was a murderer, now you have killed this one—”
“Who has so often tried to kill me.”
“—who for so long you let live! You, who taught me the meaning of mercy. And you took pleasure in it. Kor, you have changed so, I scarcely know you.”
“Must there be no pleasure in duty? I did as a king must do.”
A king. I had known a king, once, my father, who had changed. A chill as of death, Mahela’s touch, crawled through me, and I felt like backing away.
“What has happened?” I whispered. “Have you let a devourer into you?”
“Slit me open and find out!” He laughed with no mirth. “No, Dan. But I have let myself into a devourer. The many times in the one chill night. Mahela has happened.”
Some of the Seal folk had caught wind of conflict, as folk will. A few of them had gathered at a small distance, li
stening, watching while pretending not to watch. I did not care, angry, afraid, betrayed as I felt. He was … not Sakeema. He was … not even Kor.
“Will you kill me next, then?” I challenged, my voice rising to hold at bay my fear.
You speak of mercy, Dan. Show some. Must you rail at me before my folk? What has become of mindbond?
Mindspeak, he meant—or had he meant that? I stood stricken, unable to answer him either aloud or mind-speaking. I had not mindspoken him much of late, I had not wanted to, and now I felt as if I could not. I stood in horror of him. A devourer took the heart, but mind was left, mind could yet call me.…
I turned away from him and fled to the forest. Only because I did not care to admit that I was fleeing did I take my arrows and bow, telling myself I was off in search of game.
Chapter Eighteen
Istas died three days later. Like Olpash, she was laid in a deep cave beneath the headland: bathed and scented with oil and herbs, then clothed and taken down the cliffside amidst weeping and left in the darkness. There was no feast held for the passing of her spirit. There had been none, either, for Olpash. In his case, it had been said that he died in disgrace, that he deserved none. Once the first shock was past, Kor’s folk admired their king, most of them, for what he had done. Here was a strong ruler, a savior. No feast for Olpash. But it could not be said that Istas had died in disgrace—no elder of the tribe was more loved. Truth had to be faced that there was no food for feasting, and all my hunting had brought down only a few netted doves and some marmots snared atop the scree.
The evening of that day, after Istas had been left in the abode of the dead, after the meager meal had been eaten and most folk were abed, I was wandering and found Kor standing in a passageway, his face hidden in the collar of Tassida’s tunic, weeping, or having wept, her arms around him. I was glad of it, for I had known Kor would be in need of comfort, and I had not felt able to give it to him. I turned away without speaking and left them.
Later, Tass came and lay with me, not for the first time since we had taken up abode in Seal Hold. Silent and proud, as always, she came to me, young warrior that she was. No flirtation in Tass, no giggling behind soft hands, no teasing. Gravely she gave herself to me. Ai, Tass … Those days were both a bliss and a misery to me. Bliss, when I held her. As long as the night lasted and we were together, I knew that we would love one another forever. Truly forever. I had never felt that of any other woman.
But daytimes, often as not, she would greet me coolly. She would pass me as if she scarcely knew me, avoiding my eyes.
“Why, Tass?” I asked her softly in the dark hour before dawn, when she rose silently to leave me again. “Are you ashamed? Tarry awhile, come to the morning meal with me.”
I could not see her, but I heard unease in her voice as she whispered, “I cannot.”
“Why?” I reached for her hand, not finding it in the darkness.
“It is not fitting. All around us, nothing but dying.”
I understood, I had seen that misery. It was not only Istas. Everyone in Seal Hold was in mourning for someone. And there would be war, and more dying—every day the youths and young women trained for war. It was a springtime full of dying. Wildflowers everywhere, so dainty, seemingly so frail, but few birds flying, few creatures afoot, scarcely a deer anywhere, scarcely a fawn. Few nests, no birdsong.
“We will defy it,” I said fiercely. But even as I spoke a scream shattered my words, a woman’s scream that must still echo somewhere, the terrible sorrow of it. I scrambled up and fumbled on some clothing—Tass was already gone, the Hold in a babble, scream after scream sounding, then sobbing. When I blundered out I saw the mother with empty arms. Another child had vanished in the night.
There was nothing I could do or say. These were not my people after all, and I felt the stranger among them. I went out and netted cormorants for the horses, watched numbly as they rent the scrawny birds, more feathers to them than flesh. The steeds were growing thin. It must be better elsewhere, I told myself. It must be better in the Red Hart Demesne. I longed to be there, to see how my people fared, to talk with my brother Tyee.
Misery only increased as the days went by, because of Kor.
This stranger, my bond brother, what was wrong with him? The first few days back at Seal Hold, harsh and grim as he had been, he had at least seemed to care. Now even that dark caring had left him. He moved through his days like someone dead at heart, like one of Mahela’s pet persons going to pay court. He ate little, never smiled, and seldom spoke, though I spoke to him sometimes, trying to rouse him, exhorting him. To no avail. He scarcely replied to me, whether I joked, prodded, or lashed out at him in anger. As days went by, he did less, and often sat idle in the dim hearth hall, staring, his face hardened into a mask.
“What ails him?” I appealed to Tass.
“He is mourning Istas. Time will bring him back to us,” Tass said, but so slowly that I knew she was not at all sure, that the silent, angry stranger frightened her as much as he did me.
And except for Tass—and her only at nighttime—I did not know anything anymore. I did not know what to do about Kor, or about the dying everywhere. I did not know what I was about, why I stayed at Seal Hold when I longed to be back in the deer meadows and hemlock forests of my people. I no longer knew who Kor was, that I should follow him, since he was not Sakeema.… All I knew was that Tass was with me, in her way, and she had said that we three ought to stay together.
So I floundered on through that coldest of all springs, until the day the storm broke.
I saw it first, from an outlook far up the spruce steeps, a dense black line of cloud pushing over the western horizon. It was dawn of another gray day, the men below were just getting the coracles into the water—enough were finally mended or built anew, now, that at last the fishermen were bringing in fish worth mentioning. I hailed them with a loud whistle, swung my arms like a madman when they looked at me, gesturing them to stay. They waited by their boats, and I ran or slid down to them, told them what I had seen. These were the old men and the striplings, and though the boys merely looked excited, the faces of the elders turned bleak and gray as the day. They questioned me, they peered anxiously out over the sea—no storm was yet to be seen from their low vantage on the beach.
“It sounds just like the last one,” one of them declared. “Black as Mahela’s heart, and no warning.”
“Not even the thrushes to sing it in.”
“That last black storm, Dannoc, it came on so fast that we could not make shore once we had sighted it, even though we were out no farther than—” The man pointed. “—than yon bobbing gull.”
“I hate to play the coward’s part,” said another, sounding not at all certain, “and we need the fish—”
“Ai, we could stay ashore all day, and it could sail by and make proper fools of us.”
“Or we could go out,” said the one who had spoken first, “and it could strike and shatter us.”
A youngster gave a shout: the first finger of black was edging above the horizon. All the men took a step back from it, their faces ashen.
“Let’s get the boats up the headland,” I snapped. “You,” I ordered the stripling, “go tell Korridun.”
He stared back at me, looking more frightened of Kor than he had been of the storm.
“Very well, I’ll go tell him myself!” I swung one of the leather-covered boats onto my back and head, then ran as best I could under the burden, taking it up the steep cliffside trail, across the windy brow of the headland and right into the Hold, into the feasting hall, where I set it down. There, at least, lay one coracle the waves would not smash.
Kor was sitting in the shadows, his face blank.
“One of those hellish storms of Mahela’s making is coming this way,” I told him. “Like a black hand reaching over the sea’s edge.”
His glance shifted toward me for a moment, then away. He said nothing. He did not move.
“Can we bring in
the horses, think you?”
“It’s no use,” he muttered. “No one can withstand Mahela’s hand.”
“We can at least try!”
“She is stronger,” he said dully. “It is no use trying.”
I glared at him and strode out. Tass and the young women were on the clearing, drilling. I shouted at them, “Storm coming!”
They looked up and gasped. Cloud was curling across the sky like black smoke. Already lightning could be seen.
“Gather the children, get them into the Hold!” I ordered. “Some of you help the men bring the boats up!”
The women scattered, at the run, in all directions. Coracles were coming up over the edge of the cliff, the men, young men now as well as the old, struggling under them. I ran to help.
“Take them right into the Hold, into the hearth hall!”
A hand grasped my arm from behind, flung me around with surprising force. Blinking, I faced Kor, and his eyes were ablaze with rage.
“What, are you taking the place of Olpash, now? I will give the orders among my own people!”
Men hurried past us without looking at us, bringing up the boats.
“Then give them!” I shot back. “But no, you would rather sit in a twilight place—”
Wind struck, swaying us both. Beyond us, everyone was running for the Hold. And I stood shouting at Kor, a torrent and a tempest of anger pouring out of me—I had not known it was in me, so much black anger, sudden as the storm, louder and more furious than the wind.
“You defeated King! All the great things I had thought of you, and now you have given up! You coward, fleeing Mahela’s realm like a kicked cur! No mercy in you for a petty mortal enemy, no, but you did not kill her, the great glutton who eats us all, even when she lay sleeping under your hand!”
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