Blood Indigo

by Talulah J. Sullivan

  “Did I have to remove an outlier from openly consorting with my tribe? You, of all, should know the answer.”

  As things went, it was better than puffing up and refusing any talk, which no doubt Sarinak would have done in front of others. Ai, but what a tangled and perverse game two once-brothers had come to play. Našobok was owed some obligation for saving their sire’s life three winterings ago—the same sire who, as Mound-chieftain, had made Našobok outcast. It was its own little Dance, truly, and one Našobok usually had few inclinations to join.

  He should have left it there, walked away. But he didn’t.

  “You know what I mean. Did you really have to humiliate Tokela so?”

  “I let you finish Dance with him, Našobok. I did so for Tokela. To expect more is expecting too much. Whatever humiliation he faced, it was of his own making.”

  “Sarinak—

  “I am Mound-chieftain to you, outlier.”

  It shouldn’t have stung, but it did.

  “My eldest son chose a wrong path. He has done, more and more. Should there be no consequence?”

  Inhya said nothing, watching the two of them. Našobok wasn’t sure he liked the canny gleam in her eyes, but shook it off. Argued, “The wrong path for whom? What of Tokela’s rights to choose?”

  “He has that right, a’io. He does not have the right to throw our ways in our faces. Of course, that’s something I don’t expect you to understand.”

  Našobok clenched his teeth.

  “He shouldn’t have asked you to Dance at all.”

  “But Anahli joining Spear Dance is just fine.”

  “She is paying the consequence of her actions.”

  “And the midLands oških nearly goring Tokela with his own spear? Is that also to have consequences?”

  “I removed him, you may have noticed.” Sarinak tilted his chin down, dangerous-quiet. “Perhaps such things happen when we allow outliers to sit in honoured places.”

  Našobok didn’t care; his thoughts were on another course. “And where is the midLander now?”

  “Why does it matter to you?”

  “I merely thought it should matter to you.”

  Sarinak rolled his eyes. “I’ve no more time for your talk.”

  “You astonish me.”

  “I don’t know why,” Sarinak growled. “I have nothing more to say to this. Come, my spouse.”

  “I shall. Presently.” Inhya was still eyeing Našobok. He slid his gaze to her, eyed her right back.

  With an irritated grunt, Sarinak marched away.

  Našobok watched Inhya watch him for several heartbeats, then turned aside. The smartest action to take at this point was to let the entire thing slide off his back. Go back to Ilhukaia, tend his own business even as Sarinak was.

  If only he didn’t keep remembering the disappointment on Tokela’s face.

  If only he could forget the thwarted fury of the Bear oških.

  If only he didn’t keep remembering the inherent promise in Spear Dance.

  Našobok was not one to lightly forsake a promise. Particularly since it had been taken from him with such quiet mystery.

  “Našobok.”

  He halted, slid a curious glance towards Inhya. She rarely spoke to him if she could help it, but using his name?

  “Don’t go after Tokela.”

  Ai, and she was too canny by halves. Pity she hadn’t used half that intellect with the oških she’d hearthed. Eyes narrowing, Našobok peered at her.

  “Show you have some remaining sense. Don’t let this thing go any further.”

  “What ‘thing’,” Našobok ventured, “is that?”

  He’d seen softer eyes behind a drawn bow. “Don’t play games with this, wyrhling. You know of what I speak.”

  Našobok crossed his arms, considered her.

  “The indigo on Tokela’s cheeks was not there upon thisSun’s rising. He put it there himself.”

  Despite himself, a guffaw escaped. “Is that so? Then I’d say he’s made quite a statement, hearth-chieftain.”

  “He made even more of one by asking a wyrhling to Dance!” she shot back.

  “Sink me… I’m his cousin, Inhya. He has every right to ask an elder cousin to be his playm—”

  “By your own choice, you are not.”

  “I never chose to disregard my blood.”

  “Oh, but you did, wyrhling. You walked away without a qualm.”

  “You know nothing of my heart, then or now.”

  “Without a qualm,” Inhya snarled between her teeth. “I was there. You were weak. You let River take your Spirit, refused any help, even when Chogah offered to take it from you.”

  “I’d sooner have handed that n’batuweh a dagger and bared my chest.”

  “She was Alekšu, she could have purged the weakness from your heart. You let it take you! You turned your back on your Clan, on your sire’s hopes, your brother’s love. You pulled your dam’s heart from her breast and threw it at her feet.”

  Upper lip curling in a snarl, Našobok took a step forwards, looming over Inhya with fists clenched.

  She didn’t back down; in fact leaned towards him, her own fists clenching. “Do it, then. Prove me right. Show everyone how being Riverwalker means respecting nothing.”

  “You have no concept of what Riverwalkers respect.” It was too quiet. Dangerous. “I’m not the one who swims a tainted pool, sister.” The endearment curled on his tongue, became affront. “I thought I was beneath even your notice.”

  She didn’t miss a beat, bared her teeth. “You’re not only beneath my notice, but Tokela’s. You’ve already pulled my brother into your ‘tainted pool’. You will not drag my son as well.”

  “And how is it,” Našobok marveled, “that you are comfortable being Alekšu’s sister?”

  “As Alekšu, he’s made sacred use of what abomination threatened to take him! He didn’t submit—though I’m sure you would have him do so!”

  “Your mouth sprouts ignorance like flies from a carcass.”

  “I’m ignorant? You besmirch ways which have kept our People vital and safe for generations!”

  “And like anything else walking our Grandmother, there is a price to be paid. The fittest survive, and the weeding out must take place. Sarinak said it, that Tokela’s path is wrong. What if it’s the only choice he has? What if he belongs here no more than I did?”

  Her face leached into ash. Somehow he’d struck a nerve. “You know nothing, outlier!”

  “A’io, you’re right. I don’t know, not near enough. But neither do you, I’m thinking.”

  “I know you’ve been nothing but a disruptive influence every time you’ve deigned to show yourself in decent society. Particularly for Tokela.”

  “Because I gave a few snatched heartbeats of notice to a lonely little ahlóssa?” Našobok snapped back. “Because I answered an invitation to an oških’s first Spear Dance? Perhaps you should wonder why he keeps seeking me out!”

  Again, it pinked her. “And what will you do this time but confuse him more? You’ll guide him as an elder cousin should? Only you are not, and all you’ll ‘teach’ him will be the tricks and games you should have outgrown long ago—”

  “Careful, you’re parroting my sire, now.”

  “—and then leave him to chase after a forbidden Spirit. You’ll abandon my son, just like you did your Clan and my brother.”

  “That,” Našobok grated out, “is something I refuse to speak to with you. What talk you spout!—your brother, your son. Not everything is about you.”

  “Of course this isn’t about me! Can’t you underst—”

  “I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

  “Tokela is the one who doesn’t understand!” The raw plea in Inyha’s voice startled him. “He doesn’t ken what he’s doing! He’s like his dam, reaching for Fire even if Ša burns, and you’ve no right to encourage him!”

  Ai, there. Truth, dripping blood.

  “You ha
ve no right,” Našobok growled suddenly, softly, “to cloak him with the memories of the dead. Even to protect him.”

  He should have expected the slap. Perhaps he even deserved it. But he was not prepared for the glitter of tears in Inhya’s eyes as, breathing hard, she shook her head and backed away.

  “We have nothing more to say to each other.”

  But as Našobok watched her turn and go, he imagined before this was over they’d have a lot more.

  TOKELA SHOULD have expected it. Should have known he never made the right choices even when he tried. Instead it all… twisted, somehow.

  Twisted. Maybe he couldn’t. Couldn’t make appropriate choices, couldn’t be normal, couldn’t belong. He was half-breed to Other. It didn’t matter that all he wanted was to be one with his Clan, because he wasn’t. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want to spend First Running in constant upheaval against almost everyone that mattered.

  Inhya. Sarinak. Nechtoun and his odd friend Galenu. Mordeleg—not that he mattered—and then, Našobok.

  “Tokela?”

  Of course. Only Madoc was left.

  Tokela didn’t stop walking, didn’t hesitate at all and he wasn’t sure why.

  I fought for you! The small wail built, silent, behind his chest. Why didn’t you fight for…?

  His hearth-mother would say he’d indeed sunken low, to hope an outlier would speak for him. Fight for him.

  “Tokela!”

  Even that wasn’t truly his, merely a naming given in denial of the inevitable.

  Tohwakeli. Tohwakelifitčiluka. Eyes of Stars.

  Another call, and the sound of approaching feet, running to catch up.

  Always, Madoc tried to catch him up. Always, Tokela couldn’t help but leave him behind. And still Madoc kept running after, ardent and determined, and Tokela hadn’t the heart to stop him. No one else bothered.

  “Tokela!”

  “What?” He rounded, quick and fierce.

  Madoc just barely managed to not run head-on into him, and backed so swift, Tokela found himself wondering what Madoc saw in his expression. Maybe he needed to cultivate it more.

  Then he saw the wide-wary eyes, the tension quivering along the half-grown frame. Seeing such disquiet, such wariness—and in Madoc, whom he’d never wanted to see with that look…

  It broke something in Tokela. There was a crack, then a shiver, then it all went shattering into friable, uncountable, irretrievable pieces.

  “Why do you keep following me?” Tokela snapped.

  “Because you keep running!” Madoc shot back. Then, with a small quaver in his voice, “You never used to run from me.”

  Too much hurt had piled itself atop Tokela; he was not inclined to remorse or mercy. Not thisnow. He peered at Madoc with flattened eyes, silent.

  Waiting.

  Madoc had never been good at the wait. He shifted, back and forth. “I didn’t mean what I said. When you’re not… Here. It’s not the same as what Grandsire does.”

  You meant it, Tokela wanted to say, and then, What if it is like? What if it’s…

  Worse?

  He remained silent, forelock falling into his face.

  Madoc only lasted a breath longer. “You… you made your indigo.”

  Tokela turned his head, still said nothing.

  “You never said anything, never…” Madoc faltered, tried to re-gather his indignation, like a bellows against Fire. “I didn’t think it mattered. I mean, you were taller, but so was I. Your voice changed, but it didn’t seem to matter either. Even when Yeka… when he spoke to you of you taking your oških Journey, you wouldn’t talk about it. I heard. To him, or Aška. You never speak of anything important.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to.”

  Maybe he couldn’t.

  “You’ve always made a Dance with me, with all the ahlóssa. Instead you made your Marks and a Dance with that wyrhling!”

  “That wyrhling is your Uncle Našobok!”

  “You’re the only one who says that!” Madoc challenged. “Even he knows what he is! What makes you so special as to ignore what’s right?”

  “What makes you so special as to say what’s right?” Tokela blurted out. Talk, so often slippery and unwieldy, suddenly wouldn’t be silent. “Shunning people because they’re different, that’s right? Rendering someone outlier because they do something, hear something, feel something the people around them either can’t or won’t admit to? That’s right?” Thick, salty heat filled Tokela’s eyes, as uncontrollable as the sudden flow of talk. “Is that the sort of leader you want to be? If it is, and that’s ‘here’, then I don’t want to be here!”

  “But you’re my brother! My cousin! I love you!”

  “Našobok is my cousin. Your uncle.”

  Madoc’s lips quivered and he looked down.

  Still, no mercy. Tokela had to know. “Tell me this, Madoc. If I was… gone. A lot. Like Nechtoun.”

  Madoc’s face twitched and Tokela felt his will begin to fragment: too close, too possible.

  “N’da, if I was to go away, go to River, be outlier—wyrhling—what would you do then? Would you love me then?”

  “That isn’t fair!”

  “Answer the question, Madoc.”

  For once, Madoc seemed bereft of anything resembling speech. He stared at Tokela, fists clenched, and his mouth opened several times, yet nothing came out. Finally, with a strangled groan, he whirled and sped away.

  Tokela watched him go. He knew he should be feeling something. Anything. Instead the chaotic and nonsensical hum rose behind his eyes, heat slicking his throat and runnelling down his spine; his fingertips twitched, uncontrollable, as if they wanted—needed—to craft something. Anything.

  This wasn’t feeling. It couldn’t be, because he was cold and stilled, as if he were game for the board hung and up and split open, entrails removed. Heart taken. Bled out, with nothing left in his veins but…

  But chill Riverwater.

  Tokela stumbled in the opposite direction, away from Madoc, the drums, the compound… everything.

  13 - Breaking

  Anahli preferred standing firm over running—she’d in truth never met anything she cared to run from. But there was no standing against that sea of hostility. She’d kept her head high, true, but her swift, angry walk had been a retreat, nothing but. Where to, she wasn’t sure, but for now, away from these withering, hidebound, fish-stinking cliffs.

  Her dam’s ire was easily understood. Her aunt’s, less so. But her sire… disapproval from him had always put salt to any wound. And it seemed since he’d taken upon Alekšu’s horns, his gaze had turned, more suspicion than sympathy. As if he waited for some strange happenstance, one both feared and hoped-for.

  Palatan had always concealed things . His heart and smile had never been withheld; his love for his spouse and children—indeed, for all horseClans—was there for all to see. But he cloaked his eyes any time Anahli spoke of anything concerning the Elementals they must inexplicably deny even as they revered them.

  Anahli wanted to rip that cloak away. And she’d found a keen, sure weapon: talk.

  You mean to give me to River, even as you gave him up to Her! You let him abandon us! Let him turn his back on caldera’s Fire for cold-cruel Rivertalk, even as you would abandon me in this place where fems are barely warriors!

  Anahli’s feet had eyes in them, and a good thing, too. The woodland lay tangled with new growth, what paths she discerned made for short hoofedKin, not lanky horsetalkers. Nevertheless, she took the smallest, ill-travelled one she could find and kept going, both heat and wet spilling over her cheeks. A bramble slapped her, then one of treeKin clawed at her hair. Giving an angry dash of hand across her face, she looked up, ahead.

  The trees had thinned, dwindling into a small meadow. Across from her hunched…

  What was it? Some ancient cavern? A gate such as the midLands herders used to corral their sheep? To be sure, the tangled hedge to either side seemed impenetrable. />
  The thing was nearly tall as the ancient trees curving around it, shining ebony and—somehow—silver. If it were indeed some kind of stone, it bore no moss or greenery. She could see now that even the close-hemmed trees and bracken hugged—but didn’t touch it. Even the Riverling that had followed her had retreated from the thing. Narrower now, a mere burble and tumble beneath thick bracken and a clump of grass that waved in Wind’s breath, dotted with tiny budlings and braver blossoms. The Riverling disappeared—or seemed to—beneath the cavern’s entrance.

  If it was a cavern.

  Anahli rose to a half crouch, wiping her hands on a patch of moss thick as a horse’s fur during snowMoon. Head cocked, pace measured-slow, she advanced upon it.

  As if in answer to the tens of questions vibrating upon her tongue, the thing seemed to shiver. Something akin to SkyFire chased across its surface, followed by a thick crack! that made her start. Frowning, Anahli reversed her steps, her eyes never leaving the thing.

  It was then she heard the approach. Quiet, but clumsy, at a two-footed half trot that occasionally stumbled.

  And was there anything she desired less at this breath than encountering a clumsy someone?

  Anahli, still keeping an eye upon the ebony cavern, slid behind a thick quartet of trees and hunkered down, silent.

  NAŠOBOK KNEW how many hiding places there were within and without the Great Mound. He had, after all, frequented most of them—and, it seemed, for many of the same reasons Tokela had.

  So. If he were a pissing-angry, hemmed-in oških again, where would he go?

  Hunh. There were too many places still.

  He had to narrow down to what he knew—which wasn’t much, but it was something. Tokela was drawn to River. Tokela liked his own company. Tokela liked…

  Two places suddenly came to the forefront in Našobok’s mind. One was a place where he’d found a small ahlóssa wandering, several furlongs downRiver from the Mound. The other was an overflow, a Riverling several leagues distant, with a lovely cavern in which to make camp, and a deep pool perfect for a soothing swim. He knew it well, knew Tokela was aware of it—the last time Našobok had visited, Tokela had let slip he’d found the very place a young Našobok had once made his own.