by Kaelyn Ross
Kestrel rolled woozily to her side, head lolling. Aiden, wooden knives held over his head in triumph, swaggered around the ring. The villagers bellowed their approval. Kestrel found her mother and father standing beside One-Ear Tom. Their expressions ranged from fear to disappointment to pity.
Fury caught fire within Kestrel, gave her the strength to get to her feet again. As Aiden continued to play the strutting rooster, she stood swaying, wooden knives held limply in her hands. Her ribs felt cracked. Blood swamped her mouth, a trickle dribbling from her lips. More ran from the bandages at her hip and neck. In that moment, she saw her mistakes. By falling prey to her desire for revenge against her brother, she had shamed the only person that mattered. Herself. Everyone would remember how she had failed this night, but what she would remember was how she had proven Aiden right about not being fit to be a Red Hand.
No, she thought. Then, with more force, NO!
Play the rabbit, One-Ear Tom and Tessa said as one within her mind.
To defeat the wolf, she had no choice.
When Aiden returned his attention to her, he flashed a merciless grin and stalked close, gaining speed with every step. His blades whirled.
Come to me, wolf.
At the last instant, Kestrel threw her arms high, as if stricken with terror and meaning to surrender. Scalding tears threatened to overspill her eyes, and she let them fall.
Aiden’s pace increased.
Kestrel abruptly lowered her blades. Seeing her ploy, Aiden tried to turn aside, but he was too close, coming too fast, and he rammed against their wooden tips. He grunted sharply when they dug into his belly. Kestrel locked one arm and folded the other, spinning Aiden off balance. She shoved hard, and sent him sprawling facedown.
Before he could leap up, Kestrel brought both blades down on the back of his head, splitting his scalp in two places and slamming his face against the ground.
Stunned silence fell for the second time that night.
Before victory could escape, Kestrel leaped on Aiden’s back, slid the edge of one wooden knife under his throat, and caught the tip with her other hand. Aiden convulsed, trying to buck her off, but Kestrel pulled hard, grinding the blade against his neck. She had only to pull a little harder to crush his windpipe. He went still, his rapid breaths gurgling and strained.
“Do you surrender, brother?” she hissed.
Instead of answering directly, Aiden twisted his head. Blood was pouring from his nose and split lips, and there were bits of grass stuck to his face. He surprised her by rasping, loud enough for all to hear, “I’m beaten. Please, little sister, have mercy!”
As the villagers erupted, Kestrel felt Aiden shuddering, and eased the blade from his neck. She looked again at his bloody face, and was shocked to find that he was laughing.
Before she could even begin to wonder what he thought was so funny, the villagers lifted her above their heads and carried her on a surging wave back up the knoll to the Bone Tree.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kestrel felt dazed and distant from all that had happened. The seeker’s tea, gaining the mark of a Red Hand, displaying her fighting skills alone and against Aiden, and finally the crazed, bouncing journey back up the knoll in the hands of her exuberant people, all seemed like parts of a peculiar dream that fit poorly together.
And now, once more, she found herself standing beneath the Bone Tree. Only one thing remained before the tribe recognized her as a Red Hand, but she had a hard time focusing on it.
Sweat, dirt, and blood covered her head to toe, and tufts of dead grass hung from her hair. She hurt all over, and each heartbeat thumped in her ears, taking the place of the drums that had fallen as silent as the watching villagers. The taste of blood on her tongue made her queasy, and she worried, here at the last, that she would finally vomit in front of everyone.
Somehow, she swallowed the rising bile; somehow, she lifted her head and looked straight ahead.
An engraved box made of aged pine sat on the black and white stone bench between her and the Elders, who were braced on either side by the Warchiefs. Her father gave her a reserved grin and shook his head, as if to say, My daughter, whatever will I do with you?
With some effort, she shrugged meekly, and thought, Let me sleep, I hope.
Aiden stood among the Warchiefs and the Elders, looking as battered as she did. She did not for a minute believe skill had let her win the contest between them, but luck only. Had they really been fighting, Aiden’s initial attack would have crippled or killed her immediately. When the day came when she fought a true battle, she would remember what had happened tonight, and be better prepared.
At her back, her mother was hidden amongst the rest of the Red Hands and the villagers, who had all pressed in close, but remained silent, listening intently to catch every detail of the ceremony’s conclusion.
Kestrel began to think if things did not hurry up, she was going to have to sit down. If that shamed her in some way, so be it.
It was then that One-Ear Tom came forward with her father at his side. Where Matthias put on a solemn expression, Kestrel’s mentor favored her with a pleased smile. Her father spoke first.
“On this night, the Ancestors have blessed all of us with another worthy protector. That Kestrel is my daughter, and my second child to prove she has the ability and fortitude to serve us as a Red Hand, only blesses me that much more.”
The villagers matched the Elder’s gravity with a low rumble of approval that made Kestrel feel loved and grateful. From this night forward, her sole purpose would be to defend these people at all costs, a task she had wanted all her life. Tears of gladness welled in her eyes.
“Now,” her father went on, as One-Ear Tom opened the lid of the box and reached inside, “let these bones we hang upon the tree of our Ancestors, and those we hang around her neck, prove to one and all that my daughter, Kestrel Stoneheart, has fulfilled all the demands required of her to join those who defend our lives against our enemies.”
The murmurs of approval were louder this time, sprinkled with clapping from the women, and chest pounding from the men.
For Kestrel, what her father was saying, and the response from the villagers, had grown distant. Her eyes had locked on the necklace One-Ear Tom took out of the box. There was something wrong with it. The lion’s teeth were clear enough—four of them, long and sharp, strung on a stout leather cord. But there were other teeth on the cord, as well. Human teeth.
As One-Ear Tom stepped around the bench and came closer to her, holding the necklace out before him, Matthias reached inside the box. Instead of pulling out one skull, two came out. In his right hand, he held the lion’s skull. It had been stripped of all flesh and hide, and gleamed a creamy yellow in the torchlight. In his left hand, he held a human skull, which also shone with a buttery hue. The top of each had been fitted with a short length of wire and a brass clip. As he raised them up for all to see, an awed murmur went through the crowd.
Kestrel stared at the human skull, a low buzzing sound filling her head. What is this? Before she could work up enough spit to loosen her tongue, her father spoke again.
“When my son, Aiden, became the youngest Red Hand by taking a Black Ear as his Kill, I never expected to see his achievement bested. Apparently, my daughter saw fit to follow his example. Not content with slaying a fierce lion, she also pursued and killed one of our vilest foes.” He hefted the skull. “Thankfully, this particular Stone Dog will never join another raiding party against us.”
The cheer that erupted from the villagers was deafening, and despite the formality of the ceremony, dozens of people surged forward, all reaching out to touch Kestrel, as though she were a living talisman that could change the fortune of their lives. At that moment she understood her mother’s strange edginess earlier, and also her father’s look of pride.
If One-Ear Tom had not arrived at that moment and placed the necklace around her neck, Kestrel would have fallen over. As he backed away, an idea struck her t
hat made more sense than anything else did. I am dreaming. I’m lying somewhere up on the mountain, feverish and dying from flesh-rot.
Her father raised his hands, quieting the villagers. “To all those Potentials who seek to become Red Hands in the future, I give this warning. Do not think you must prove yourself better than my children.” Unable to hide his proud look, he added sternly, “Once you become a Red Hand in the usual way, there will be plenty of opportunity to face our enemies. Doing so before you are ready, even if you think you are ready, or worse yet, because you think you should, will only result in far fewer Potentials returning home with their Kill. Is that understood?”
The villagers accepted his words of caution by laughing loudly, and slapping the backs of the few young, blushing Potentials.
Kestrel peered about. None of this felt like a dream, yet she knew she had not killed any of the Stone Dogs who had chased her….
Her silent denial drifted way like so much thistledown, along with the rowdy villagers. And then she was on the mountain again, only a few steps ahead of rough men howling for her blood, sprinting through darkness slashed with pulses of lightning, the trees around her whipped by wind and rain.
She saw the hazy outline of a man rise up before her, saw herself lifting her knife and locking her elbow, turning her arm into a spear. A second later, she collided with him and bounced away. When she got to her feet, the knife was gone from her hand, and her enemy was making breathless gagging noises. She might have knocked the wind from him, or.…
Or did I bury my blade in his chest?
It seemed possible, even likely.
The memory danced away, and another took its place.
She was sitting on the soggy ground across the fire from Aiden, angry and hurt after listening to him tell her how honorless and weak she was, but she was also frustrated because he refused to believe the number of men she had seen—eight on the mountain, and another lying in wait at the edge of the forest….
Another shift, backward, to the moment Aiden attacked the Stone Dogs, his blades whistling through the rainy night air as easily as they cut through the men. They fell, one by one, and she counted them now, as she had then. The number remained the same. Seven dead. Seven Stone Dogs. Not eight or nine, but seven….
Another shift, forward to the moment before they set out for the river. A true Red Hand, little sister, never loses their weapon, Aiden had said, and then hurled a knife into the ground beside her hip. The knife her father had given her; the knife she had lost. There was only one possible way Aiden could have retrieved it.
While I was unconscious, he must’ve gone back up the mountain. Kestrel clearly imagined him ghosting through the sodden forest, a shadow among shadows, until he came to the fallen man—The man I stabbed … the man I killed.
Kestrel blinked away the images in time to see her father and One-Ear Tom move under the Bone Tree. After nodding to each other, they each grasped a nearly invisible wire—which a Red Hand or two had strung through the branches, and who were even now hidden out of sight—and clipped the skulls to the looped ends. As the two old warriors stepped back, the hidden Red Hands slowly drew the two skulls aloft, stopping when they dangled twenty feet up.
Kestrel stared along with everyone else, but her mind had snagged on another detail: How did I bring the skull of the Stone Dog home without knowing it?
The answer came swiftly.
Aiden had found her knife, and when he did, he had also taken the Stone Dog’s head, and then hid it within his knapsack. Later, somewhere outside the village, Aiden must have placed the Kill in her hands. The bundled, bloody hide had seemed heavier and larger, because it had been. With the same eerie clarity as before, she saw herself lolling about on a night-shadowed forest trail, caught in the throes of delirium, while Aiden stole a sly glance her way, then carefully wrapped the skulls of man and beast together in the lion’s hide….
A final question bubbled to the surface, and it troubled her more than everything else. Why would Aiden make her a hero amongst her people?
Before she found a suitable answer, the stillness of those around her brought her back into the moment.
Matthias and One-Ear Tom stood looking at her, quizzical frowns wrinkling their brows. One-Ear Tom’s lips moved, but the buzzing in Kestrel’s head had returned, a sound like countless flies swarming within a tiny cave.
Others were looking her way now, some with patient smiles, some with concern, but most with guarded alarm, as if something about her expression worried them.
“What did you see, young Kes?” One-Ear Tom said, his voice pushing through the droning in her head.
I cannot tell you. Kestrel swallowed, ran her leather-dry tongue around her mouth, and raised a tentative finger to the teeth hung on her necklace. Lion teeth. Human teeth. All in a row, cool against her neck.
Her mentor tried again, leaning forward, peering intently at her. She saw herself reflected in his pupils, and behind her dozens of frozen faces. “What did the Ancestors show you?” His lips spread in a tentative smile. “Come girl, tell us, so that we can get on with feasting, and you can get some rest.”
“The Ancestors?” Kestrel rasped, stupid with confusion. What did the Ancestors have to do with any of this? “I … I don’t understand.”
One-Ear Tom glanced sharply at Matthias. “She came too soon to the ceremony. We should have waited. ”
He spoke under his breath, but Kestrel heard him as plainly as if he had shouted. Her eyes rolled in her head until they landed on Aiden. He wore a self-satisfied expression that made no more sense than anything else.
“Ask her again,” Matthias said.
One-Ear Tom nodded hesitantly. “When you drank the seeker’s tea, Kestrel,” he said, speaking every word precisely, “did the Ancestors show you anything that might help our people?”
Kestrel looked back to Aiden, but now he would not meet her gaze. What have you done?
“Kestrel Stoneheart! What did the Ancestors show you?”
Startled by her teacher’s shout, Kestrel forced herself to concentrate. Had the Ancestors shown her anything? She thought there was one thing that had happened after she drank the seeker’s tea that had not happened in real life. Could that be the message One-Ear Tom wanted to hear?
Say nothing about this, Aiden had warned in the old city, and in her mind tonight, when the seeker’s tea had filled her with so many strange sensations.
You do not frighten me. I am a Red Hand, she had responded in the vision, the words bursting from her in the form of a shimmering blast that struck Aiden in the chest and exploded him into a cloud of dust.
Did the Ancestors want her to kill Aiden with something that looked like a blast from a firelance pistol? That made no sense!
Kestrel shook her head, trying to understand—
She could almost hear the click in her mind when everything fell into place.
The old city. The stock of firelance pistols Aiden intended to use against the Tall Ones. And the last thing, the power of her words rendering him harmless…. Was that a sign from the Ancestors telling her that they would protect her if she revealed the truth he wanted kept hidden?
It must be.
The thought was half hope, half certainty.
When I tell, everyone will object to Aiden’s mad scheme.... Ancestors, protect me.
Kestrel looked directly at Aiden. “The will of the Ancestors is for me to join my brother in making war against the Tall Ones.”
Shocked silence held for a moment, before a frenzied uproar swept through the villagers. And for the second time that night, her brother burst out laughing.
CHAPTER TWENTY
One-Ear Tom moved swiftly to haul Kestrel away from the villagers, and then placed her behind the black and white stone bench for good measure. Looking at the faces of her people, some livid, some shocked, she wondered if the Ancestors had played a cruel trick on her.
Some villagers had pushed forward, waving fists, demanding answ
ers, but most had retreated, faces tight with fear at the idea of attacking the reclusive Tall Ones. Anytime something bad or unusual happened, the Tall Ones were blamed. If a child died in the womb, or someone vanished, or if a drought or flood destroyed the crops, or if the game herds were thinner one year, stories swept through the village, whisperings of just-glimpsed phantoms, or strange lights, or any number of odd occurrences. There were many reasons no one had ever made war against those people—or monsters, as most believed—but the most prominent reason, if never admitted aloud, was fear.
“Quiet!” her father called, glaring. “I assure you, my daughter is mistaken. She has earned great honor among us with her deeds, but at great cost. She needs rest. After she has had time to heal, she can reveal the true will of the Ancestors.”
That calmed people down, and many nodded eagerly, but then Aiden broke away from his band, his smile and laughter gone, replaced by a look of grave certainty.
“She is not wrong,” he said, leaping up onto the bench, and then hauled Kestrel up to stand at his side.
“I will hear no more of this nonsense!” Matthias bellowed. “Both of you, get down from there!”
Kestrel moved to obey, but Aiden held her in place. “What do you fear, father? What do any of you fear?” he asked, sweeping his gaze over the villagers.
“The living cannot fight evil spirits! It is madness!” One-Ear Tom declared, earning a few calls of agreement.
Aiden spoke up. “Who are any of us to refute the will of the Ancestors?”
“We are not refuting the Ancestors,” Matthias said, “only the words of a girl who barely made it back to the village alive, and who is obviously still suffering from her trials.”
“This suffering girl beat me in a fair contest,” Aiden retorted, lifting his chin to show the red mark on his neck, then turning to display the blood beginning to dry on the back of his shaved scalp. He did not need to add that beating him was no small feat. Everyone knew it, and Kestrel could see the renewed flashes of wonder in their eyes when they glanced her way.