The Dawn King (The Moon People, Book Five)

by Claudia King

  “No!” his mother exclaimed. Pushing past his father, she ran to embrace him. “My son is no demon!”

  “No,” his father said softly, “he is a shaman. A spirit warrior with the body of a wolf.” Taking a hesitant step forward, he reached out with his hand. Kale gripped it. His father smiled. A pained, conflicted smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I'm not a man to go back on my word. I don't want my son leaving us again.”

  The upwelling of relief in Kale's chest drew a gasp from his lips. They did not hate him. They were afraid, confused, and upset, but their love for their son was stronger than their fear.

  “Come back to the house,” his father said. “You're a child of ours like any other.”

  —41—

  Rodan's Counsel

  Caspian did not know whether to think Kale had been foolish or touchingly noble in doing what he'd done. When the young man came back to fetch them he had been accompanied by a pair of frightened, but undeniably curious Sun People that he introduced as Kavi and Rodan, his mother and father. Caspian could tell from their expressions that they knew the truth even before Kale explained what had happened.

  The following night was a tense one. They were invited along with Kale into Rodan's house, a large circular building with woven screens segmenting off four different areas inside. Kale told them it was the chieftain's abode, not the same house he had grown up in. They talked briefly over a broth of goat's meat and cups of a weak fermented drink, but the uneasy atmosphere made conversation difficult. Kale had to reassure his mother and father many times that they had nothing to fear, and Caspian was too weary to put much effort into winning their affection. Fern fared slightly better with her natural warmth toward others, but it was not quite enough to dispel the lingering tension entirely.

  Eventually Rodan showed them to a pair of hammocks in one of the secluded segments of the house and left them to rest. Caspian declined the man's offer of fetching the village shaman to tend his wounds. The cuts on his neck were all but healed anyway. He just needed a good night's rest on a full stomach, then they could see about gathering travelling supplies and moving on.

  Despite his weariness, sleep was a long time in coming. Kale's close family had been told of his return, and several of them came to visit Rodan's house throughout the night. The joyful hubbub of a dozen happy reunions kept Caspian awake. He hoped that Kale would be able to settle back into his life here. His wolf would have been a disaster waiting to happen had he kept it secret, but if his parents were willing to accept what their son had become then perhaps there was hope for him yet. Others might be persuaded to accept him too, then Kale would not have to live alone with his burden. His choice to tell them might have been a foolish risk in the short term, but that kind of courage was the only way the Moon and Sun People would ever truly be able to make peace with one another. Adel had probably arrived at a similar conclusion, for if she had chosen to stay at the temple willingly it must have been because she believed she could win the friendship of the Dawn King and his priests. Caspian did not know whether that risk was worth endangering Netya and Kiren's lives, but he tried to look past his heartache and trust in Adel's wisdom. She was not always right, but no woman was more determined than her.

  After the visitors had gone Caspian finally drifted off to sleep, but he woke twice more to the sounds of Rodan and Kavi whispering on the other side of the room. They were anxious about the Moon People in their house, and he could hardly blame them.

  After sunrise their attitude warmed significantly. Their guests had not devoured them in their sleep, and that seemed to be enough to set Rodan and Kavi's minds as ease. The conversation they shared over the morning meal was far more relaxed than it had been the previous night. Caspian felt refreshed enough to smile and talk eagerly once again, lightening his mood and ingratiating himself with Kale's parents. They asked him and Fern where they had come from, and he explained in simple terms the arrival of Liliac and the recent confrontation at the temple.

  Kavi paled at the news of the Dawn King's death, but her husband immediately descended into thought, considering the implications with the urgency of a born leader.

  “Meet with me after the noon meal,” Rodan told him once the women had taken their eating bowls down to the river to wash them. “I'll bring my shaman and a few trusted men. They need to hear this.”

  “What do you plan on doing?”

  “That's what we're going to decide.”

  Despite his separation from Netya and the lingering weariness of travel, that morning was the first time in days Caspian had been able to relax. They were not pursuing anyone, waiting anxiously in the company of an enemy, fleeing for their lives, or listening to the rumbling of their stomachs. Rodan's people greeted them as friends when they learned they had travelled with Kale, who had become the centre of a small celebration as half the village gathered to welcome him home and hear tales of his adventures. To the young man's credit, he spoke truthfully without revealing anything that would unsettle the villagers too much. Caspian joined the circle that had gathered to listen to Kale talk about how his pilgrimage had met with great peril, wandered lost, attacked a pack of Moon People in fear, and fallen prey to their fangs. Despite Caspian's impression of him as a somewhat nervous and timid man, he proved to be a surprisingly good storyteller. Perhaps his timidity had only been born of his isolation among the Moon People, and now that he was back home the true Kale was re-emerging. Children gasped in fear as he described the wolves of the Moon People, and their elders fell into awed silence at the revelation that the very pack who'd slain his fellow pilgrims had taken him in and cared for him. The idea of friendly Moon People was bizarre to most of them, but the general attitude quickly shifted from nervousness to curiosity when one of the apprentice shamans pointed out that the great traveller Ilen Ra, who had visited their village several times, had once lived among the Moon People as well.

  Not once did Kale mention becoming a sun wolf, nor did he speak the names of anyone from Adel's pack. His tale implied that he had never learned the Moon People's tongue, which made it easy for him to keep details vague. When it came to Caspian and Fern he simply introduced them as two travellers he had met at the temple village. Once again it was true, but it was not the whole truth.

  For a time Caspian was almost able to forget his misfortunes, bathing in the peaceful atmosphere of the village as if it were a warm pool on a summer's day. The Sun People seemed to want for nothing with their fields of food, their houses of wood, and their numerous children. He could see why Kale had missed this place. It was idyllic in a busy, exposed sort of way. Had Caspian not grown accustomed to the security of a den with deep stone caves he might have wanted to live in a place like this too. He appreciated what the villagers had here, but his wolf would not have been comfortable with it.

  The Sun People had their own dangers, however, as he soon learned. After the noon meal Rodan appeared with a group of a half dozen men and invited him to join them in the chieftain's house. Kale came too, though when Fern attempted to follow them Rodan turned her away.

  “This is men's talk,” he explained, looking slightly bemused. “Caspian can tell you about it afterwards.”

  Mild indignation aside, Fern acquiesced without objection. She was a huntress of significant status in Adel's pack, but this was a land ruled by men. It seemed that women were not allowed to be warriors, shamans, or leaders of any sort in the heartland plains. The idea perplexed Caspian a little. While it was true that men were also the traditional leaders and warriors of the Moon People, capable women sometimes made names for themselves in those roles as well. Adel and Octavia were the most notable examples of this, and there had been a surge in prominent females among several other packs in recent years.

  Perhaps it was because women of the Sun People were so much more fertile that they had fallen into a different role here, Caspian thought. He had noticed that the majority of the mature females in Kale's village had children to tend, and at least two o
f them were visibly pregnant. Motherhood was rare enough among the Moon People that mothers were often a caste unto themselves, whereas here it seemed natural for almost every grown woman to have children. Given that they worked alongside the men in the fields while still having to bear the duties of motherhood, it did not seem like many of them had time to train as warriors or handle the weighty decisions of leadership. When Caspian thought of it like that, it made a little more sense why the males had become so dominant in this land. Perhaps it worked well enough for most of the Sun People, but he wondered how well their way of life served the women who did not want to raise children.

  Rodan led them to the centre of his house and had Kale light a fire while he covered the doorway with a grass screen. Another man, likely one of Kale's older brother's by the look of him, pushed open a section of the roof with a long pole to create a smoke hole. Caspian had noticed that the thatching on the Sun People's dwellings was often layered on top of wood sealed with some kind of mud or plant glue, and the areas around the smoke holes had no thatch at all. It would be very easy for stray sparks to take root in the dry fibres overhead, and the idea of being inside a house like this while it burned made Caspian shudder. All the more reason to rely on caves.

  The rest of them sat on mats around the fire, while Rodan took his seat on a carved stool. At his side sat a man with a shorn scalp and a tunic of ochre-stained wool who Caspian took to be the village shaman.

  “Tell them what you've told me,” Rodan said, gesturing to Caspian and Kale, then added hastily, “About what happened in the temple.”

  “The Dawn King is dead,” Caspian announced. “They say he was slain by a shaman named Liliac, but I was there when it happened. I think it may have been his own high priest, Thakayn, who killed him.”

  The men exchanged looks of concern.

  “You saw this with your own eyes?” the shaman asked.

  “No, but I was outside the chamber, and I do not think Liliac had any desire to kill the Dawn King.”

  “Neither would a high priest,” one of the others said indignantly.

  To Caspian's disappointment, Rodan immediately turned the conversation away from the subject of Thakayn.

  “This isn't what's important. Not all of you remember the time before the Dawn King, but I'll forsake all the spirits before I let us go back to those days.” His words drew a frown from the shaman. “When the Dawn King came here and took Eral to be one of his high priests, he told us the boy might take his place some day.”

  “The apprentice always supplants the master eventually,” the shaman said. “I can see no reason for it to be any different within the temple. Without a leader one of the priests must surely become a new Dawn King.”

  Concerned mutterings circulated around the fire. Seeing his chance to interject again, Caspian said, “It could be a man like Thakayn. Could anything be done to stop that from happening?”

  “Forget Thakayn,” one of Kale's brothers said. “Mountain Sky is the one we should fear!”

  Rodan got a stony look in his eye. “We're done fearing that man. He hasn't dared touch our village in years.”

  “He would dare if he was the Dawn King. We need to send word to Eral, he needs to stop this!”

  “Do you think he has that kind of power?” Kale asked.

  “I don't know,” Rodan said. “Does anyone know what magic happens inside that temple?”

  The shaman raised his hands for quiet as the group began to debate again. “This is all too hasty. All we have is this stranger's word that the Dawn King is even dead.”

  “I was there with him,” Kale said. “He speaks the truth.”

  “And what did you see, Kale?”

  “I... I was not part of their audience, but the temple was in chaos after it happened. The Dawn King is dead, I swear it.”

  The shaman eyed Caspian suspiciously. “Very well. But why would you have us blame a high priest for his death?”

  Caspian was beginning to regret making his intentions so obvious. The spirit-talkers of this land had a cunning way about them, just like the Moon People's seers, and Rodan's shaman was growing wary of him. Perhaps he thought one of Thakayn's rivals had sent him here to sow dissent.

  Caspian gestured to the others. “Your own people agree it would be a terrible thing if the wrong man were to take the Dawn King's place. Rodan is a man of great status as a village chieftain, is he not? Would his voice not hold weight if he were to go to the temple and speak his mind?”

  “It might also call down Mountain Sky's wrath upon us,” the shaman said. “You do not know this, but that man and his warriors burned our farms when we refused to trade with them. They killed men, ravished women, desecrated our very shrines to the spirits.”

  “And we made them suffer for it in return every time,” Rodan muttered.

  “Something that I doubt Mountain Sky has forgotten, even after all these years. If you go to the temple it will remind him of that old humiliation.”

  “That's a coward's way of talking,” Kale's brother said. “If Father does nothing then Mountain Sky may become the Dawn King, then what will we do?”

  “The boy's right,” Rodan said. “We've more to lose by sitting idle than by taking action.”

  Caspian remained silent for a while as the group debated. Everyone agreed that something should be done. It was likely that other villages had heard the news as well by now, and they would all be anxious about what the future held. The shaman suggested that it might be wise to find other likeminded chieftains who would be willing to band together with them. This was how tentative peaces had been kept in the past, before the Dawn King's warriors had existed to bring swift and decisive ends to violent feuds. Rodan suggested that it might also be possible to gather a group of respected men and present their concerns to the temple as one, to ensure that a fair and just successor took the Dawn King's place.

  Yet time and again the question of risk reared its head, bringing the discussion to an uneasy halt. Village chieftains visited the temple to negotiate tributes or to ask for assistance in protecting their lands, not to argue for who should and should not be granted positions of power. That was a duty that fell to the priests, and to think otherwise was almost blasphemously presumptuous.

  The biggest problem, Caspian realised, was that none of them truly understood what was going to happen or what could be done about it. Nothing like this had ever occurred before, and while Rodan was adept at leading a sizeable farming village, he understood precious little about the thinking of men who ruled entire lands.

  “You said one of your own was a high priest,” Caspian said at last. The group fell silent, all eyes turning toward the strange newcomer. “He would understand this better than any of us, would he not? What if you went to the temple village and pretended it was for some other reason? Perhaps to pray at the ashes of the Dawn King's pyre. Then you could speak to your priest alone, hear his counsel, and decide what to do.”

  “And lie to the priests about our intentions?” the shaman said icily.

  Caspian was growing exasperated with the pedantic man. “Then go with the intention of praying.”

  “He talks sense, like it or not,” Rodan said. “I think he's right. Eral will be able to tell us what we should do.”

  The shaman frowned. “He's still barely more than a boy.”

  “And he's a man of greater status than anyone in this house.” Rodan rubbed his fingers across his lips, staring into the fire for a moment. “Thank the spirits we've not had to think about defending this village in years. That's a blessing I'll never forget, but if the spirits mean to test us now then I'll be ready for it.” He turned to his shaman. “I want you to go to the villages of Casara and Jemor, and all the farmsteads you pass by along the way. Tell them what's happened, and ask them for their aid. Casara defended this village by my side when he was young. He'll not have forgotten Mountain Sky's cruelty.”

  “What should I promise them?”

  “Strong young me
n who can hold a spear, the same way it was before. Theirs for ours. If any one of us needs aid, the others come.” Rodan pointed to two of Kale's brothers. “You two should accompany me to the temple. I'm going to speak with Eral, and if he thinks it's wise then by the Brother I'll stand before the high priests and do everything I can to keep Mountain Sky from becoming the Dawn King.”

  Caspian wished he could have done more to nudge Rodan's ire toward Thakayn, but these people had their own enemies, and it was not right to insist that they fight his battles for him, not when they were afraid for the safety of their home.

  The idea he'd been pondering had worked, however. Kale's father had been persuaded to go to the temple and speak his mind. Even if the chance was slim, a man of his status might just be able to sway the outcome of whatever happened next. If they could ensure that a noble man took the Dawn King's place, then Netya, Adel, Kiren, and perhaps many others might be able to return home without the fear of a tyrant looming over them. This kind of fight suited Caspian far better than the violence they'd faced in the Sun People's lands so far, and a small part of him began to feel optimistic again. He and Adel had always been at their strongest when they worked together with persuasion and trickery. With her in the temple and him here, they might yet have a chance of leaving this land with everything they'd hoped for.

  “Fern and I will accompany you,” he said to Rodan. “We mean to travel back to the temple anyway.”

  Kale looked at him nervously. “That's not wise.”

  “We should be close by if our friends need us. Don't worry, we'll stay far away from any danger.”

  “I don't trust this man,” the shaman said. “He speaks so furtively.”

  “Well, I trust him,” Kale replied, “and if he goes then I will too.”

  Rodan grunted and gave his son a nod of approval. “You've become a true man of honour, my boy. Your mother will hate to see you leave again so soon, but a man's choices are his own.”