A Fray of Furies, page 7
part #2 of The Waking Worlds Series
“My chief,” the sifter wheezed. “If your daughter is right, my seal will constrict the beast-spirit to its man-flesh, making it manageable. If she is mistaken, this wild boy will wake with a spectacular new tattoo.”
“When will we know?” her father demanded.
The sifter rummaged in his robes, crouching by the prone krin. A small bowl was produced, its mouth tied down with a scraped hide. Face crinkling further, the sifter spat on a lump of chalk – which promptly began to smoke. He pinched it onto the miniscule drum and set it upwind of the krin.
“You mean to quicken it here?” her father realized, growling. “Among our hearths and hapless kin?”
“If the krin’s spirit stirs,” the sifter accepted a hand from the nearest Hunter, “the seal will hold it. There is no danger.”
“If there is no danger,” her father accused, following, “why are you leaving the corral?”
“When two dogs fight, a ten-fingered man keeps well away.”
Her sleep-starved mind finally put it together. The collared krin, the harnessed hounds: they meant to bait the beast.
Shock rocked her.
“What?” Bellem demanded, pulling her by her unresisting elbow. She shook her head, watching the handlers pass the krin’s scent to their hounds. Not a braided twine, she realized, but the beast’s shorn hair. Only then did she register the excitement of the crowd, echoed in the hounds’ eager snuffing.
Laughing toddlers perched on parents’ shoulders. Ritual gestures were exchanged and wagers sealed. Blackwater was slavering for a show – the lot of Kassika forgotten. Or, perhaps, simply slated for the next round. The realization left her cold.
Roused by the scent, the hounds pranced like ponies, testing their short leashes. Foam formed on their purple-black gums.
The lump of chalk appeared to have eaten through its drum-skin. The bowl now belched bilious vapors, raking over the krin.
Conversation coiled, expectant, as the man-beast stirred.
“What’s wrong?” Bellem insisted.
She could find no words. The tribe behaved as though they were baiting a mere bear! Did they not realize the danger...?
“They don’t believe me,” she whispered.
“What?”
Abruptly annoyed, she snatched her hand from Bellem, who was trying to re-bandage it properly. If he’d said there was a krin, people would have believed. But her? The girl who swore at trees and snuck off to worry citymen? Oh, no.
“What?” he said again.
The krin jerked, interrupting her glare. Reflex had her reaching for a bow that wasn’t there. The hounds redoubled their efforts. The krin pawed feebly from slumber’s embrace.
Wakefulness, when it came, came in a rush.
It bucked into readiness, its first view that of a lunging hound – she’d seen sling-stones accelerate slower. Jeers followed as it bolted. At a half-dozen paces, metal barked and its chain snatched it from a headlong sprint. She felt its landfall through her soles.
The crowd screamed their hilarity as the krin clawed to its feet.
The hound it had blindly fled toward bulled forward, the hulking bitch gained two full paces on its tether. Cheers sounded, even as more hands rushed to replace rope-burned ones.
The krin scrambled for escape, only to spot the third hound. And the fourth. Its skidding stop pitched it from its feet.
Mocking laughter met it as it rolled upright. Blood attested to its self-inflicted battering, dribbling from an ear and a nostril.
It circled, desperately testing its tether at every second step. The hounds reared and choked as it neared them in turn. The crowd cried encouragement, just not at the krin.
Giving up on the chain, it turned to dig at the collar. The spectators brayed as it stumbled to its own wild wrenching. More, as it strained itself red as though trying to lift a pony.
The collar held.
Metal eyelets jangled as the krin turned its back, planting bare feet on trimmed timber. But the post refused to part with its spike. Driven beyond breath, the krin fell again.
The crowd booed, not wanting to watch a wild boy fight wood.
At the sifter’s signal, the handlers began spooling their charges more slack. The hounds slid slowly across the turf: deadly kites, driven by a bloodthirsty gale. Buffeted, the krin flew upright. It churned mud, turning at bay but unable to keep all threats in sight.
In a show of last ditch desperation, it rushed the stake, leaping to strike at it with both feet. Mud and momentum shunted the blow aside. The pole swatted the krin, to roll in a graceless tangle.
The crowd crowed its anticipation as the hounds neared, splay-legged, trunks straining close to the ground.
The krin flinched from the foam-flecked jaws snapping in its face. It left ropes of matted hair behind as it rolled to its feet. Dragging one leg, hemmed by hounds, it put its back to the post.
The hounds sensed the high-point to their Hunt, six-toed claws tearing up the turf, nipping vicious warning at their neighbors. Their dark eyes rolled. Spittle flew. Tufts of fur feathered the air.
The crowd was beside itself with bloodlust. War yips and ululations sounded. Elders beat one another’s shoulders. Breathless children bounced to better see the first bite.
She felt hollow.
Blackwater had once baited a plainsman, captive of a failed raid. That warrior had taken up a loop of his own chain as a weapon. Though he’d died horribly, the consensus was he’d fought well and with heart. The same could not be said of the krin.
It could not don its killing skin. Else it would have tried by now. Cold suffused her. Banishing her would break her father, she realized. And leave her second-mother to pick up the pieces...
The woman would finally be chief, in all but name.
Ancestors! She had to run, to spare her father. Now, while everyone’s attention was elsewhere…
“Bellem–!”
But he was frowning into the crowd. Ferek lurked a dozen paces away. Watching. She took an instinctive step back.
“Not staying for the end?” Ordula smiled in her ear.
She stilled in shock. From across the coral, Raylat gave her a satisfied smile, unmindful of the spectacle.
Ancestors forfend! The woman had anticipated–
A crack sounded. Loud, even amid the cacophony.
She had a confused impression of a hound, cavorting at the end of its tether. It came, sloughing through the mud, a mound of lifeless fur.
The krin moved like a different animal, face bestial, eyes bloodshot. An insistent whistle signaled the handlers to reel in their charges. But not before another made a leap for the krin’s throat.
A wet drum, pounded past its breaking point, might make such a noise. Clubbed from its arc, the hound slammed into the mud, bones cracking audibly.
The remaining hounds fought their bonds in a frothing frenzy. The krin gave chase, brought up short by its chain. The nearest onlookers jerked back as the stake juddered alarmingly.
Clawed hands raking the sky, the krin threw back its head and roared. The sound was not wholly human. It cut across the din.
She watched in rapt silence with the rest as it choked off. The livid tattoo across its chest woke to a sullen red, racing toward raucous white. It shuddered, keening in obvious agony. The second, piercing scream was pure pain.
Strength fled on the back of that breath.
Absolute silence descended.
The krin’s chin drooped slowly. Its legs gave way. The seal quenched itself, mottling to the pattern of iron scale. Angry steam curled off the krin’s stark skin.
It pitched forward to plough, face first, into the dirt.
The spell holding the People shattered. Weapons were drawn. Curses flung. Mothers fled, clutching bawling children.
“Well, I’ll be damned…” Ordula breathed, unamused.
Slowly… Very slowly… She let a grim grin break across her face.
Chapter 3 – Of Moths and Flames
The arrow buried itself in the bole with a thok!
“It pulls to the left,” she complained.
“But you hit the bull’s eye,” Bellem argued.
She peered critically at the distant chalk markings.
“But to the left of its center.”
“Only you would nitpick over where you hit the bull’s eye.” He huffed. “Besides, it’s a bow. Bows don’t ‘pull to the left.’”
“Shows what you know,” she scoffed, nocking another arrow.
“I’m telling you. It’s all in your head.”
She half-turned in his direction, “Would you like it in yours?”
He raised his hands in surrender.
“Thought so,” she growled, lingering. In a fluid motion, she drew the fletching to her cheek and loosed. The second arrow drove home right next to the first. Or, at least, just to its right.
“Well?” Bellem dared after a moment.
“I guess it’ll do,” she begrudged of the hand-me-down bow.
“Good. Because the sun is setting. We’d better be getting back.”
The days were still short. Spring had yet to brave the mountains and snow crunched beneath their winter moccasins. Their ponies stood, nosing through the white for frozen grass.
Bow slung on her back, she drew on her mole-skin mittens.
Thing rolled a bashful eye at her approach. The mare’s spade-like nose and whiskers were speckled with snow.
Silly Thing, she couldn’t help but think, as she dusted her mount’s blunt face. Her back hid her gentle scowl from Bellem. She’d named the leggy foal when she was herself just a toddler.
She cleared her throat self-consciously, vaulting into the saddle.
Their ponies navigated the drift with practiced steps. The sun bled bright where the peaks raked its belly.
“How are things between you and the chief’s wife?”
Rolling her eyes in her furred hood, she clenched her teeth.
“Only,” he persisted, “you’ve not said a word since the...”
Baiting. He’d been tiptoeing around the krin-issue. She didn’t know why. She knew which conniving, bloodthirsty beast she’d rather discuss. And Bellem had not been the only one tiptoeing.
“Raylat,” she spat, “has been avoiding me of late.”
And wasn’t that a strange change? The woman used to hound her and delight in doling out degrading tasks. Tasks only an obstreperous daughter would refuse. In his absence, the chief’s wife ran the tribe. Mostly, she’d loved to run Kassika ragged.
Run and fetch me my good shawl … run and tell the potter I’ve decided on the red glaze … run and tell the council I’m on my way … run and give the boys cleaning fish a hand …
She’d ended up spending a lot of time in the woods or slinking among the tents – a fox in a bulkbear burrow. Only now, the bulkbear had moved out. If she saw her second-mother at all, it was a view of the woman’s retreating back. She might have celebrated, except she suspected it somehow boded ill for her. Most things involving her second-mother did, eventually.
“You must be relieved?”
She gave him a jaded look.
They crested a low hill. In its lee, the tribe’s tents streamed thin smoke. The smells of rendered fat and sharp herbs set her stomach rumbling. Nodding at the unseen sentinel, they rode down.
It was early in the season to pull up stakes. Blackwater preferred to weather the winter in the warmer foothills. But a Chiefs’ Council had been called, in advance of spring’s break.
The Pacts were a yearly show of survival. The People would gather and the chiefs would rehash their alliances and territories.
There would be trade, for Deepmeadow iron and Hillhopper ale.
There would be mingling: who’d outgrown their pimples or grown into their jug ears?
Most presciently, there would be competition: who could drink more; dance longer; ride harder; fight better and shoot straighter than any other?
It was that last one that interested her. She was of age to compete this year. Against the likes of Jorum Yellowshaft and Toori Windwinder. Being a respected woodswoman was one thing. Being a Pacts champion carried the kind of honor she craved.
She slowed Thing near the krin’s coral.
The tribe’s outlook had altered somewhat. A Hunter stood attendance at all times and the central stake had thickened from a sapling to a seasoned oak. Each evening was now rung in by the retorts as hammermen pounded that pole home.
The krin cut a pathetic figure, to merit such precautions. Shivering in its threadbare blanket, it rocked in its own embrace.
“Still at it?” she asked, listening to its desolate moans.
It was the Hunter whose saddle she’d shared – Polkin. He pulled a plug of wax from his ear, “Eh?”
“Never mind,” she grinned.
“What were you two doing out in the white?”
“Testing my new bow,” she shrugged, jostling the weapon.
“Nice,” Polkin mused. “Old Man Moret’s work?”
Moret’s bows were much prized. She could not guess what Bellem had promised in trade for it. Still, it was not her father’s bow. She dropped her gaze so as not to show her lackluster enthusiasm.
Prints ringed the coral. She read them by rote.
Track the future, not the past; Lest this present be your last.
Sidelong stances. Telltale skips. The scuff of small moccasins.
“The children come here to throw stones?” she breathed, aghast.
“Maybe,” he shrugged. The pocked snow gave him the lie.
“It’s a krin!” she protested.
“Sifter made sure it’s either a man,” he crooked a thumb at the miserable figure, “or a sizzling steak.”
“Still…” she appealed to Bellem, who studied her in silence.
“Besides,” Polkin leaned on his spear, grinning. “Those stones don’t even come close to riling it. You can rest easy.”
Unaccountably angry, she turned Thing with her knees.
“You’re absolutely sure of that?” she challenged.
She let fly with her own missile. Thick furs made throwing difficult but the dark lump streaked true, striking shin.
The krin flinched, losing its blanket to a violent collapse.
“Ancestors!” Polkin swore, readying his spear.
She grinned as she rode away, “Rest easy, Polkin!”
“Do you even need a bow?” Bellem griped, following.
Behind them, to the spearman’s great relief, the krin had retaken its crouch. Unseen, a black-rimed hand snaked toward the lump of smoked elk. It disappeared under the dubious clime of the blanket.
* * *
Her walking sticks click-clacked, regular as a Rasrini metronome, and her pack’s straps cut into her shoulders. Ahead, the Barrier Mountains dominated the horizon, their chill breath teasing grey locks from beneath her shawl.
To the outward eye, she was a wandering goodmother, parceling the burden of care out among her many relations.
In truth, Malaika had no relations. She was a witch of the old ways. Hers were the magicks of blood and bone – the power to banish, bind, curse and confound.
And to see, as so few others saw.
Let the priests keep their mood-meddlers and streamers. Parlor tricks! Bah! There were many ways to light a candle, theirs the most onerous by far.
But they were legion and their Temple brooked no competition. To be a witch in the Empire was to live small.
It hadn’t always been thus.
In the age before the greedy goddess, every village had had a witch. No chieftain would’ve been caught dead without one. Her forebears had seen to that. When the priests came, with their pyres, all of that had changed.
True, there’d been no witch burnings for centuries. Not sanctioned ones, anyway. But witches had long lifespans and even longer memories. They recalled what the priests did not:
Given time, all things come again.
She looked to the east.
A new power had come into the world. Its birthing pains had torn her from sleep and she’d sent her mind aloft, scenting after it.
A witch, she’d found, born of desperation and death.
Power. Of the kind not seen since before the burnings.
Witches were contrary creatures, prone to argument and abhorred by the idea of fealty. But they would unite behind one such as this. For a witch nation, restored to position and power.
She smiled slyly.
A force, certainly, but green as yet. Untrained. Malleable.
It was imperative she reach the fledgling before the priesthood (or worse, her sisters) could.
At her back, the sun had sunk low.
Turning from the road, she stabbed her walking sticks into the soft earth. The tall grasses shivered and bowed. She trod their bent stalks, watching the stones of a forgotten fire pit fight their way to the surface. Groaning out of her harness, she set off to find some firewood.
It was fully dark before she had her little kettle boiling and her bedroll spread to her satisfaction. She need not worry about the weather. Rain had never caught any worthwhile witch unawares. But that didn’t mean something else might not. Besides, she was close enough now to gather a better sense of the one she sought.
Settling, she flung her mind’s eye to the winds. It winged away, soaring over dark woods and light-speck villages.
The fledgling’s birthplace was not hard to find. It bled pain and power into the ether. Fire and rage had taken the whole village.
Born at the stake… she mused, quashing her unease.
Tacking into the wake of that power, she let it buoy her up the mountain.
What is this? She wondered, when the unbruised snow darkened to purple. Her ghostly feet set down among the fronds.
Flowers?
Their saw-toothed blooms guarded throats of vibrant orange. In their depths lurked ruby innards.
Nightmare blooms, she identified. But in numbers unheard of.
She stared, overawed.
Perhaps it would be best, she considered, if she delayed. Let one of her sisters approach the fledgling first–
She felt a pull on her essence so strong she stumbled, fighting vertigo. To her horror, a very solid hand settled on her shoulder.
