by Claudia King
Only a few moments had passed, yet the night had been transformed, its eerie stillness forgotten. Now it was full of pain, screams, and the taste of blood. The fourth man, his cries still sounding in the distance, would have roused the entire household by now.
Fern whipped around, still snarling and ready to fight. Caspian did not stop her when she pounced on the blade wielder, pinned his arm beneath her paws, and chewed through his neck. She snorted blood from her muzzle and gave him a heated look, her gaze flitting in the direction of Dark-Eyes. Caspian shook his head and padded over to the groaning man's side. He had slumped over on his front, a thick pool of blood darkening the grass beneath him. With a shudder of exertion Caspian reverted from the shape of his wolf. The heart-pounding urgency of survival had carried him through the initial change, but now that the fight was over he could feel every muscle in his body aching. His face stung where Dark-Eyes had clipped him with the knife, and beneath his jerkin he could feel sticky blood running down his stomach.
“You fools,” he gasped out, his voice bitter with anger. He knew he shouldn't be wasting breath on this man, but he said it all the same. “You could have taken your blade and left. Do you see what happens when all you want is blood?!”
“Don't,” Fern said behind him, having abandoned the shape of her wolf too. “Don't feel bad for killing cowards like these.”
Yet Caspian did feel bad. He could not help it. No matter how despicable their intentions, now that his wolf was gone he felt disgusted by the pointless waste of life. Why had these people tried to hurt Fern? Why had they driven Khelt from his home? Why had they taken Netya from him?
Trembling with bitter exertion, he held up his open palm beside him. A moment later Fern pressed the handle of the blade into it.
“I hope you are the last,” he said, and cut the man's throat, sparing him the slow death of his wounds.
—14—
The Sun's Magic
“We'll soon part ways, Sorceress,” Liliac said as he dragged his canoe up the bank. A glittering sheen of water trickled off his freshly-washed braids, lending him a deceptive beauty for a man with so much trickery in his heart.
Adel's stomach rebelled at the firmness of the ground beneath her. After so many days on the river she felt herself swaying from side to side as if to mimic the current's motion. Her shoulder kept bumping against Kiren's even when she tried to sit still. The den mother's whole body ached, but nothing more so than her wrists. The tight bindings had chafed her raw for days on end, and she suspected that the fever heating her brow was a result of more than just the sun. Raw flesh and a lack of bathing had invited infection into her wounds, something that her body should have fought off within a day or two, but the poison keeping her wolf at bay was still slowing her down. She was healing injuries like the Sun People and suffering sickness like the Sun People. They often died of such maladies. Would she die too if the infection grew worse?
She blinked hard against the blistering sun and shook her head to clear it. At least they were off the river now, in these strange lands full of sun-bleached plants and giant wooden houses. About half a day's walk to the southeast she could see a hill rising up out of the plains, dark and smoky with the evidence of a settlement.
“Is that where you mean to take us?” she asked, nodding toward the hill.
“Yes,” Liliac replied. “The temple of the Dawn King. You're to be guests of honour, I think.”
Adel repeated what he had said to Kiren in the Moon People's tongue, and the girl snorted in contempt.
“We'll be trophies for them to stare at.”
“Your friend seems unhappy,” Liliac observed.
“She thinks we are to be trophies,” Adel said. “Can you tell her she is wrong?”
“No, I can't. But if a high priest requests your presence you should take it as an honour. The temple concubines are usually the only women the priests summon. Not even I can claim such status.”
Adel sneered, wondering whether the high priest who had sent Liliac was enough of a fool to want a woman of the Moon People as his lover. She'd known men in power to desire more foolish things in the past.
Alongside them the rest of the surviving pilgrims were hauling their canoes out of the river, gazing about with a strange, shattered sort of relief in their eyes as they looked upon their homeland. It seemed a strange place for them to stop. A lone building, squat and square, stood near their landing spot, and it did not appear to be home to anyone that Adel could see. It reminded her of an earth lodge, the kind of building her people sometimes dug half way into the ground, often to store supplies or provide winter shelter.
“If we are destined for the temple then why have we stopped here?” she asked.
“It was the high priest's request,” Liliac replied. “He would not want you seen by the laypeople until the time is right, if ever. You understand that many of them would call for your deaths if they knew what you are.”
“What is he saying?” Kiren hissed. It annoyed Adel to keep having to translate their captor's words, but that was not Kiren's fault. If only the damnable sun and fever were not already testing her patience she might have found it more bearable.
“Do you think they want us as concubines?” Kiren asked once Adel had finished explaining.
“I wondered the same thing. We shall see when we meet this high priest.”
“Being a concubine doesn't sound difficult. Then we might have time to escape. The men of my clan... they were not concubines, but I think we treated them similarly. I used to slip away with Chali all the time.”
Adel gave her a weary look. “Do you think it was right that your clan treated people like this?”
“The men did not seem to mind.”
“Nor do many of the women the other clans treat that way. They call such things a choice, an honour, even.”
Kiren narrowed her eyes. “I did not like the way my mother forbade the men from hunting and travelling with the rest of us, but they were treated well.”
“Hm,” Adel responded. Her thoughts were too foggy to draw Kiren into such a lesson. She recalled discussing the roles of men and women with Netya often, teaching her to dwell more deeply on the things she had once taken for granted. Kiren could benefit from a few deeper thoughts of her own, but now did not seem the right time. Against all of Adel's assumptions, however, the girl surprised her by pushing the conversation forward on her own.
“Which way is better?” Kiren asked. “Should men lead, or women?”
“What do you think, girl?”
Kiren frowned, mulling over the question. She always appeared perplexed by the things Adel asked of her, as if they were precise, needling queries that burrowed deep into her soul.
“Men lead these Sun People, and they built all this,” she said after a moment, nodding toward the settlements around them.
“So you think men make better leaders?”
“I don't know! Why would I ask if I already knew?”
Adel smiled a little. Perhaps now was the time for a lesson after all. Liliac and the others were mostly ignoring them as they busied themselves with the task of unloading their canoes.
“The truth is that there is no answer to that question, Kiren. Whether the leaders we follow are men or women matters no more than whether they are hunters, seers, or craftspeople. Good leaders are good leaders.”
“We are all still different, though.”
Adel nodded, acknowledging the point. “Many of us, yes. Among most of our packs men bear the burdens of leadership and responsibility, leaving them little time to dwell on matters of the heart. They seek mates for comfort, to soothe them in their times of rest, like the mothers that once tended them when they were young. Women do not face the same outward burdens, and so they understand the troubles of the heart more keenly. Perhaps too keenly. Their attention strays to what is within rather than without.”
“Netya is like that,” Kiren said, her voice twitching with a note of sadness. Adel felt
it too. Once again she prayed for the safety of her apprentice. “But Vaya was not. She was more like a man.”
Adel scowled, but she tried not to let her distaste for Kiren's friend colour their conversation. “So you see now why your question has no answer.”
“But most women are still similar. Most men, too,” Kiren replied argumentatively.
“As a seer, would you use a medicine that only worked most of the time?”
“Of course.”
“And what if instead of healing it sometimes made a person sick?”
Kiren gave her a confused look. “What does that have to do with men and women?”
“Because it is the difference between wisdom and assumption, girl.” Adel jabbed her with her bound fingers. “As a seer you must seek certainty. You will rarely find it, but that should never stop you from trying. If you assume a person is one way, because they are a woman, a man, a warrior,” she paused for an instant, swallowing painfully as her thoughts returned to Vaya, “even an old foe, then you risk stumbling down a blind path of ignorance. See each piece of the world for what it is, uncoloured by the things around it. Learn from what you know and assume what you must, but never take those assumptions for truth. Only the spirits hold truth in their eyes, and we are not spirits.” There was an edge of anger behind Adel's words. Anger toward herself. Kiren had just given her a means of expressing it.
She slumped back on the bank, turning her eyes downward. Her own foolish decisions had led her here, she knew. That past winter Netya had shown her how she had been blind to her own shortcomings, so convinced had she been that she knew what was best for everyone. In trusting Liliac, in hoping, believing, that he could be a friend to them, she had led her clan into his trap. Many of her people might be dead now, and Kiren was a captive because of her.
“Why did the Sun People take you and no one else?” Adel asked, the question suddenly occurring to her as she thought back on what had happened.
Hesitant in the face of the den mother's angry tone, Kiren shrugged and said, “I swam after you. I must have been the only one close enough.”
Adel wanted to say something, but the words caught in her throat. She had never particularly cared for Kiren, truth be told. The girl's closeness to Vaya had been offputting, and she showed little promise as a seer beyond perhaps a stubborn sense of determination. She had been an important bridge to Octavia's clan, and a challenging apprentice to help Netya grow as a seer, but under different circumstances Adel might have paid Kiren no attention at all. Now, hearing that she had braved the arrows of the Sun People to try and save her, Adel felt the first twinge of admiration for the girl.
“That was a very foolish thing of you to do,” she said.
* * *
Word of Liliac's return reached Jarek through the unlikeliest of messengers. The dark-haired nomad girl who still refused to go by any name other than “Rat” stood in the doorway of Jarek's domicile, staring in silently until he turned and noticed her.
“Ho!” he cried. “Spirits, you looked like a phantom stood there! You should announce yourself before approaching a high priest.” He stood up from his table, shaking off his surprise with a smile as he gestured for her to come in. She really did have the look of a phantom, wrapped in the hooded black robe Thakayn had given her, her pale face framed by threads of dark hair. She should not have been allowed into the hall that held the high priests' domiciles without invitation, but since Thakayn had taken her as a personal servant she seemed to wander everywhere without much consideration for the temple's rules. Jarek still did not know exactly what it was she did for the priest of the Sister, but if it kept her well fed and out of the refuse pile he saw no reason to object.
Rat ignored the invitation into Jarek's small chamber and remained in the doorway, gazing with mild disinterest at the simple domicile. Unlike the other high priests Jarek was content with little more than a cot to sleep on, a table at which to take meals, and a clay basin for washing. He lived almost as humbly as some of the servants.
“Why do you live here?” Rat asked in her blunt way.
“I don't. I live in the world out there.” Jarek pointed over her shoulder. “This is just a place I can rest my head.”
The girl made a noise of acknowledgement, finally tiring of peering around the room. She swept her mercurial gaze over to look at him. “Thakayn has gone to meet some pilgrims,” she said.
“The high priest of the Sister,” Jarek corrected her.
“Yes. I spotted them coming down the river from the temple watch.”
“Why are you telling me?”
She frowned, and in that instant of contemplation Jarek realised that she genuinely did not know. Was it because he had been the only other person to show her kindness?
“It was strange,” she said. “He sent servants to run down into the village and make sure no one went out to greet them. Then he took guardsmen and hurried off himself.”
Jarek moved to the window, suddenly remembering Liliac. The shaman was the only pilgrim who had not yet returned. It had to be him. Had Thakayn learned of Adel and his secret instructions somehow? No, it was impossible. Unless, of course, Liliac had told him before he departed. Why else would the priest of the Sister be taking such a hasty interest in a group of returning pilgrims? Jarek grimaced. It would be just like Thakayn to meddle in something like this.
Gripping the edge of the window, he leaned out and craned his neck to try and look to the northwest. He could see the distant part of the river trailing away toward the horizon, but not the stretch that approached the temple.
“How long ago did he leave?” Jarek asked, turning away from the window and slipping on his sandals.
“Long enough to walk down to the village, but I don't think he will have gone much farther.”
“Thank you,” Jarek said, pausing to put a hand on her shoulder as he squeezed by. “It was good of you to tell me this.”
Rat said nothing, she only turned to watch as Jarek hurried out along the boarded passageway and down the creaking steps to the temple's central hall.
What if Thakayn knows what I sent Liliac to do? Jarek asked himself. His instructions to Liliac had certainly been unusual, but were they blasphemous? No. He knew the nature of the Sun People's spirits as well as any of the high priests, and there was no spiritual taboo against holding commune with the Moon People. That was a purely mortal prejudice. Thakayn had even been friends with Ilen Ra, a man who had lived alongside Moon People in his travels.
As Jarek hurried out into the sunlight, ignoring the protests of the guardsman Ryndel behind him, he began to wonder whether Thakayn simply wanted to take credit for the success—if indeed it had been a success—of Liliac's expedition. That, too, would be very much like Thakayn. He enjoyed respect and adoration more than anything else. But would making contact with the leaders of the Moon People earn him respect? The whole reason Jarek had given Liliac his instructions privately had been to avoid the spread of sinister rumours. The people would not take kindly to the news that one of their high priests might secretly sympathise with the Moon People—not to mention the even greater secret that he was one of them himself.
He wiped his brow clean of perspiration as he reached the bottom of the hill, kicking off his flapping sandals so that he could run properly. Whatever Thakayn was up to, it was unlikely to work in Jarek's favour. He had to reach the pilgrims before the priest of the Sister did, and that was going to be difficult with the head start they had gotten on him.
Glancing down the busy path, Jarek turned aside and hurried through a gap in the houses, vaulted the old irrigation ditch, and made for the open plains on the northern side of the village. Thakayn would have been slowed by the laypeople clamouring to greet him on the main path. It was a roundabout way of travelling upriver as well, requiring a short walk to the west before turning to follow the road north. Jarek would cut out that distance by running northwest across the plains straight from the base of the hill.
A
s the wind began to whip back his braids he felt his wolf stirring. His bare feet beat against the ground, thighs pumping, arms chopping the air as they swung in time with his movements. It had been days since he'd last taken the herbs that kept his wolf dormant, and even without changing shape he felt suffused by the strength and stamina of his feral soul. It gnawed at him desperately, begging for a taste of the wind rushing through his nostrils, yearning to run on four legs again.
For a moment he almost considered it. His wolf would outpace Thakayn with ease. Yet it was far too dangerous. Anyone wandering the plains or tending one of the nearby fields might see him in the bright sunlight. And if they did, Atalyn would never forgive him. Breathing hard, he sprinted as fast as he could, praying that his body would rise to the challenge as readily as his wolf.
* * *
“How long have we been waiting here?” Kiren asked.
Adel kept her eyes shut, leaning back against the outer wall of the squat building. She wanted to saver her time in the shade. However long they had been sitting there, it was not long enough. She would gladly have gone her whole life without spending another day on a canoe under the baking summer heat.
“Look at the sun, girl,” she murmured.
“I didn't see where it was when we arrived.”
Adel sighed and opened her eyes, looking at how much the shadow of the building had moved. “About a third of a day.”
“I hate this waiting.”
“You would. You have a huntress's heart. A seer enjoys sitting still.”
Kiren huffed. “I suppose I'm not a very good seer, then.”