by Claudia King
Adel's fingers snapped out, flicking an unsharpened wooden needle from her sleeve. It struck Kiren in the cheek, drawing a peal of mirth from the other girls as she startled and almost toppled off the rock she'd been sitting on.
“What?” Kiren said hotly, rubbing her cheek as she glared at the den mother.
“Do you listen to my teachings as well as you stare at birds, girl?”
“I can listen and watch at the same time, can't I?”
“I have no doubt you can.” Adel squeezed her annoyance into a smile. In the past she would have reprimanded the girl further, perhaps even reached into the concealed pocket within her sleeve that held needles tipped with burning poison instead of blunt wood, but she forced herself not to. There were better ways of showing Kiren that her personal grievances were less important than her learning. “Come, demonstrate to the others what I just taught you.” Adel picked up the grease-rimmed bowl in front of her and held it out to Kiren. A few of the ants inside it were valiantly attempting to wade through the sticky line of animal fat barring their escape, but the rest had resigned themselves to scuttling about at the vessel's base.
Kiren tensed a little, but the eyes of the group were on her now. Sephonie, the most senior of the apprentices, voiced a scornful giggle. Adel shot the girl a glare to silence her, then turned back to Kiren.
“Quickly now. If you cannot handle a few live ants you will never wrap your fingers around a snake or a porcupine.”
“Why?” Kiren said. “They are just ants. Why not kill them first?”
“If you had been listening to the den mother,” Sephonie said, unable to pass up the opportunity to put down her rival, “you would know that a live tree ant's sting can dull the pains of bone and muscle that torment our elders. It is a difficult poison to make use of otherwise, and—”
“Kiren will demonstrate,” Adel interrupted. “If she was listening to me and not watching birds then she should be more than capable. Otherwise, I shall be happy to repeat myself.” She raised her eyebrows at Kiren, offering the girl her one chance to back down.
Don't be like your friend Vaya, girl.
Adel's heart sank a little as Kiren grimaced and stepped forward, reaching out for the ant bowl. She'd not been listening. She had no idea how to handle these ants, yet she was too stubborn to admit it. Adel recognised that stubbornness all too well. In another setting she might have applauded Kiren's spirit, but today it was only going to hurt her. Well, the girl would learn her lesson one way or another.
“Grip them gently between the head and abdomen,” she murmured as Kiren dove her hand into the bowl. The large ants scattered away from her probing fingers, crawling over one another as she made several futile attempts to pinch them.
“They won't stay still.”
“Chase one into a corner,” Adel said. “Near the edge of the grease.”
Rather than heeding the den mother's advice Kiren attempted to scoop some of the insects into her palm. An instant later she recoiled with a sharp intake of breath, sending her handful of ants scattering over the rocks.
Sephonie tittered again as Kiren sucked her reddening palm, fingers twitching in pain from the sting.
“Would you like me to prepare you a salve, girl?” Adel asked mildly.
Kiren ignored her and squatted back down at the rear of the group. “It doesn't hurt that much.” She dropped her hand into her lap as if to demonstrate that the pain had subsided, but Adel could still see her fingers clenching in discomfort. A tree ant's sting burned for a long time.
The den mother allowed her apprentices a moment to dwell on Kiren's punishment before picking up the scattered ants and flicking them back into the bowl. Sensing that Kiren's embarrassment was causing her more discomfort than the sting, Adel took pity on her and motioned for the others to come forward. The girl had learned her lesson.
“The rest of you come and try. Don't be afraid of a little sting.”
Sephonie was the first to dip her hand the bowl. She managed to snag an ant on her first try, though Adel noted that it took far longer than Kiren's bold attempt.
“Sister Lyucia says she knows a fiendish curse that can fill an enemy's sleeping furs with ants like these,” Sephonie said, peering closely at the insect wriggling between her fingers. “Will you teach us how to do that too, Den Mother?”
“Of course,” Adel replied. “You gather a bowl of ants and scatter them over your enemy while they sleep. Then tell them it was a curse.”
Sephonie looked nonplussed, though it was Kiren who voiced her disappointment with the den mother's answer first.
“Is all magic just tricks and lies?”
Adel turned her gaze on the girl. “Once you understand a magic it ceases to be mystical. Our power as seers is not in the things that we do, but the understanding of how we do them.”
“Anyone could understand how to throw a bowl of ants into someone's furs.”
“But would they know how to gather that bowl in the first place, hm? Seek out a colony of these creatures, pluck them from the trees without harming them, and line a vessel with grease to stop them from escaping? This is knowledge only a seer will take the time to cultivate, just as anyone may be able to throw a spear, but only a warrior will understand how to make it fly straight and true. We are all masters of our own craft.”
Kiren pressed her lips together and looked away, stubbornly searching for another bird to watch.
It is not the teachings this girl resents, Adel thought. It is the woman teaching her.
Netya had managed to win her apprentice's trust, but Adel, it seemed, could not. There was too much bad blood between them after the troubles with Vaya and Orec's clan. Adel rarely regretted her past decisions, but if the spirits could have taken her back one year she would have handled that problem very differently. It had taken Netya pushing her to the very brink before she understood the dark path she was heading down. In her mind she had always trusted that her way of doing things would be for the best in the end, that despite their similarities she would never make the same mistakes as her father. Overconfidence had blinded her to the simple truth that she was clinging on to fragile distinctions. She might not have been sending warriors to their deaths, but she had been oppressing her followers in a different way. She needed to let go of her old ways.
A familiar frustration began to boil within Adel, and she sensed that this lesson with her apprentices was over. Once they had all made an attempt with the ant bowl she dismissed them, allowing the girls to enjoy the rest of the summer afternoon without the oversight of their mentors.
With a sigh Adel picked up the bowl and carried the ants back to their colony at the edge of the forest, taking a meandering path along the valleyside that avoided the den below. Once the contents of the bowl had been scattered she set the vessel down and climbed back up the rocks, watching the distant shapes of her people milling about in the valley from afar. She looked down at her hands, fingers tracing the lines worn into her skin. Scars from a dozen old cuts, the blisters of a burn on the heel of her palm. How many years had she been in this world now? More than three dozen, but less than four. Her body had scarred and aged, but the days of her youth still felt like they were only a footstep behind her.
Adel's anger began to rise in her chest again as she thought back to those days, thinking of her father, her brother, and Jarek.
She took a deep breath, exhaling those memories away. They were all long gone now. No point in clinging to them. She had to draw her strength from elsewhere.
A crease of concern worked its way across Adel's brow as she looked back up at the valley. A group of figures were hurrying down from the slopes of the southern ridge, wolf-shaped and urgent in their speed. They had come from Orec's den via the hidden pass at the top of the valley.
Adel ran a finger along the side of the golden-furred fox pelt she wore upon her scalp.
“Important news do you think, Mother Fox?” she murmured. Tired though she was from the heat, a den
mother's duty could indulge neither weariness nor discomfort. Gathering her gown about her, Adel let her wolf rise up and claim her body. Dark-furred with flecks of white in its sleek coat, the beast gave her the agility to bound down the valleyside and meet the messengers. Whatever they had to say to her, she hoped it was important.
Their paths converged near the centre of the valley, where half the pack had gathered to lounge beneath the shade of a few scattered trees. Weary from their run, the messengers were two-legged and dousing themselves with the contents of the seers' waterskins when Adel arrived.
Netya and Fern were taking care of them, sending a pair of apprentices off to fetch more water while a handful of onlookers gathered around. The messengers dipped their heads in respect as Adel approached. Curiously, Alpha Orec was not with them. The leader of Adel's warrior clan often prided himself on delivering important news in person. Instead he had sent Kin and two other men.
“They've run themselves to exhaustion,” Netya said, hurrying to her mentor's side. “I don't think they even stopped to pace themselves.”
“There wasn't time,” Kin wheezed, taking a few more breaths before straightening up to address Adel with obvious effort. “We were scouting—the southern edge of our territory—one of the rivers—”
“Catch your breath,” Adel said. “Whatever you have to say to me may wait a few moments longer. Sit down in the shade you fools. Netya, is there any more water for them?”
Netya turned to the others. “Anyone? A spare waterskin? Our warriors have been running under this sun all day.”
An anticipatory silence had fallen over the group, tense and anxious. Half of the women seemed too fixated on the messengers to bother searching, but Kiren and Fern hurried off to root through the belongings that had been left scattered in the shade. Kin and his companions slumped down to catch their breath. Noting the lack of perspiration on Kin's brow, Adel knelt down beside him and gestured for Netya to join her.
“The sun has taken the water from their bodies,” Adel said. “Does your head hurt, boy? Are you dizzy?”
Kin managed a weak nod.
“You shouldn't have run so hard on a day like this. Be still now. You are going nowhere and saying nothing until this passes.”
Despite the messengers' silent protests, Adel managed to get all three of them to lie down with Netya's aid. Shortly thereafter Kiren appeared with a half-full waterskin someone had left by one of the trees, and Adel shared it between the men until the apprentices returned with more water.
“Heat and thirst together can kill much faster than either one on their own,” Netya said to Kiren. “Look for dryness on the skin where there should be sweat. Ask them to describe their pain. If it fills the body and makes them ill, the sun's sickness may have taken them.”
Adel watched the pair from the corner of her eye. Unlike the lesson with the ants, this practical instruction from Netya had absorbed Kiren's full attention. Despite how it sometimes seemed, she did have a seer's potential in her. All she needed was the right person to draw it out.
Thankfully after taking a little more water the three messengers seemed to be recovering, and once Adel was sure they were not in any danger she allowed Kin to speak.
“Don't worry yourself over us, Den Mother, there is something in the south—”
“Whatever it is cannot have been worth risking your lives over,” Adel said. “But tell me.”
“Sun People, Den Mother. At the river bank.”
Adel's eyes narrowed. Sun People, again, and so far north. How was it that they kept coming to these lands?
“We watched till we counted two dozen of them,” Kin continued. “That was a day and a half ago. Orec came with more warriors once we told him.”
“Did you fight them?”
Kin shook his head. “We only watched, just as you told us to.”
That was good. The last time a band of Sun People had wandered into Adel's territory it had ended in a massacre. She gestured for the warrior to continue.
“They had many canoes on the water, so we waited for them to move on. They remained, though, calling out a message in our tongue.” He swallowed, watching the den mother anxiously. “One of them stands on the shore and calls, ‘Adel! Adel! We seek the one Adel!’”
Netya gave her mentor an anxious look, but Adel ignored the worrying question of how the Sun People knew her name for the moment.
“The fools camp in the heart of our territory screaming for us to come and find them?” she said. “Do they want to die?”
“I say they are baiting us,” Narolen, one of the other men, said with a grimace. “Many of their warriors hide out on the water where we cannot reach them. The cowards hold bows and javelins at the ready.”
Adel looked away as a sickening feeling rose in her throat. “I have known hunters like this before. Trophies taken from our kind are valued among some of the Sun People.”
“I know them too,” Kiren said.
Adel noticed her own curiosity reflected in Netya's expression as they both looked at the girl, but Kin continued on before Kiren could say any more.
“Orec wonders if they really do wish to talk. They must have spoken with others of our kind to know your name and speak in our tongue.”
“Why wait on the water with their weapons, then?” Narolen said. “That river passes through Alpha Halau's territory before it reaches ours. He may have sent them here to trick us into a fight!”
“Halau is not that cunning,” Adel said. “He would sooner slaughter the Sun People than treat with them. I doubt anyone in his pack even speaks their tongue.”
“Yet these Sun People still speak ours,” Netya murmured.
“You'd know them better than anyone, Sun Wolf,” Narolen said. “Why would they do this?”
Netya shook her head. “I do not know. Perhaps it is best if we wait for them to leave.”
“But they know where your den is!” Kiren blurted out. All eyes fell upon her. It was not the place of an apprentice to keep interrupting during such a grave discussion.
“This is the den mother's concern, Kiren, not yours,” Fern said.
“Wait.” Adel gestured for Fern to stop when she made to usher Kiren away from the conversation. “You have something to say, girl?”
Kiren glowered, looking between Netya and Adel. “They found your territory. They know your name. What if they bring more of their kind here? The Sun People have a way of guiding others in their footsteps better than we can.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was... I forget the word for it, something in the Sun People's tongue. When I came here with Vaya we met Sun People like these. Kale did too. Their shaman, he was making a picture on leather, a guide to lead more Sun People along the same path. It was like the mural in Sister Meadow's cave, but larger and with more lines.”
“A map,” Adel said.
“Yes, that was what he called it.” Kiren hesitated, gnawing on her lip as she glanced past Adel's shoulder. “I took it from him when we left. It is hidden in the rocks near the top of the valley.”
“Why did you not tell me of this before?” Adel demanded.
“Did you give me any reason to?”
“Kiren!” Netya reprimanded her for her tone.
“I will punish her insolence later,” Adel said. “Speaking plainly serves us better right now. Kiren does not trust me, she makes that clear every time we speak. Were she the only wolf at my back I doubt I would trust her either.” She held the girl's gaze for a moment, allowing the silent understanding of their relationship to settle in. Pride could wait. Now was the time for pragmatism. If there was a single lesson she hoped Kiren would take to heart, it was this one. Adel had struggled with it enough herself over the past year.
Despite the indignant glares of Narolen and the other warriors, Kiren remained uncowed.
“Bring me this map, girl,” Adel said. “If it tells an accurate tale of our lands then we may not be so well hidden as we once thought.”
She rose to her feet. “And if one band of Sun People can make such a map then others can too. I would rather talk with our enemies before that happens.”
“We will come with you, Den Mother,” Narolen said. “You will need all your warriors.”
“No. You shall stay here and rest. Fern, find Caspian and bring him to me. Terim, run on ahead and have someone take you to Orec. Tell him we will be joining him before dawn. If these Sun People truly wish to speak with me then perhaps they shall have their wish. Netya, Kiren,” she beckoned the two over, “show me this map.”
—3—
Forgotten Family
“Why aren't we hurrying?” Kiren said as she waited for Adel and Netya to catch up. The girl been forced to stop several times on the hike up the southern side of the valley. Adel understood her haste, but if they ran flat out on the legs of their wolves they would risk exhausting themselves like Kin and the others. A coat of fur did a person few favours under sun like this, and Adel needed her mind as fresh and sharp as possible for what was to come.
“Pace yourself,” Netya said. “We can run once we are under the shade of the forest.”
“The Sun People may have gone by then.”
“Perhaps that will be for the best,” Adel said. “If they truly know we are here then they will not turn tail so quickly. And if they give up, well, they shall return home with tales of empty shadows where they sought to find the sorceress Adel.”
Kiren scowled and turned to run on ahead.
Once she was out of earshot again Netya said, “She is learning, slowly.”
“Of that I have no doubt. You are a fine mentor to her, Netya.”
Netya smiled. “You have stopped calling me girl.”
“Hm. Perhaps I've grown tired of it.”
“If you say so, my friend.”
Adel glanced sideways at her. “Do not call me that in front of the pack.”