Nalavacians crowded around the newcomers. The celebratory songs ceased. Smiles faded. Brows tightened.
The middle-aged woman, Fiona, stepped forward. “You want to see Brenndall? Then you fight!” She slapped her fist into an open palm.
“No,” said Nasira, staring into the fire. “I can't. I won't.”
Fiona shrugged. “Then you die. You and your friends.”
Argus studied the crowd but couldn't find any clues to identify the intended opponent.
“Moira,” Cian said. “She is fourteen years one week ago. But not a woman until she fights in the Ladhar.”
The crowd made way for her to pass.
Argus didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
A pale girl picked her way forward. She was such a runt that she had to be in the very front just to see her. She stopped in front of the bonfire by Cian and glowered at the outsiders.
“How can you ask me to fight her?” said Nasira. “A child!”
Fiona shook her head. “Not a child anymore. A woman grown.”
“If she slays the outsider,” Cian said.
“When she slays the outsider.”
Nasira clutched her stomach like she was going to be ill. “Why me?”
“Because you are a woman,” Cian said. “The only outsider around. We had women slaves before, but they're all dead now. Woman against woman. Man against man. It's only fair. As Setep ordered.”
“I won't do it.”
“Then you'll die. After you watch your friends die first.”
Argus called Nasira and motioned Siggi closer. “Let us talk to her for a moment.”
Cian smiled and folded his arms across his chest. The outsiders huddled together, the eyes of the whole tribe on them.
“I can't do it,” she said. “She's just a girl!”
Argus glanced at that girl waiting by the fire. She stood perfectly still while the rest of her tribe chattered. Those brown eyes smoldered. She tied her hair back and started stretching her limbs. “She may be a girl. But she's a killer.”
Siggi nodded. “Brenn told me the Ladhar is something every Nalavacian must do. The ones who lose are cast out—if they're lucky—or killed. Pass, and you get to stand among the tribe as an adult.”
“How am I supposed to kill a child?”
Argus grabbed her shoulder. “Don't worry about killing her. Just try to survive. Because, like it or not, once they put that knife in your hand there will be a fight.”
Nasira's eyes welled with tears.
“There will be time for those later, love,” Siggi said. “When we're far away from this place. By a warm fire.”
“They're underestimating you,” Argus said. “You can use that to your advantage.”
Nasira nodded, dabbing at her tears. When she looked back at the Nalavacians her eyes had traveled elsewhere. She reminded Argus of a powder fiend dwelling on the past—or imagining a distant future.
“Will you fight?” said Fiona.
“Aye. I'll fight.”
Cian smiled.
Then he dropped a dagger into her hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The forest crackled with voices. Argus knew they'd get a lot louder when someone drew first blood.
The Nalavacian girl took her dagger and allowed herself to be led by an elderly woman toward the edge of the clearing. Next, a little boy rushed up to Nasira and reached for her hand. The escorts led the combatants away from the fires, toward the frozen stream winding through the fringes of the Nalavacian camp. They stepped onto the ice, and when they were halfway across they stopped. The escorts whispered something to their charges before rejoining the rest of the tribe near the stream's edge.
“They're out of their minds,” Siggi said.
The shouting confirmed it. Jostling for the best views, they filled the forest with their voices and beat their chests.
Argus remembered this part from a conversation with Brenn. Before the Ladhar began it was customary to call on the spirits of all the tribe's ancestors to come watch. The Wanderwood sheltered those souls after their bodies turned to dust. The living called to them now, raising their voices to a fever pitch.
Nasira fidgeted in front of them, using her boot to test the ice. A dozen yards away her opponent paced without a care in the world. She tossed her dagger from one hand to the other, stepping effortlessly over thin spots in the ice.
Gods. She may as well do it with her eyes closed.
Cian walked onto the stream and stopped between them. “Nasana hilske schipa!”
His tribe responded with raucous applause.
Then Cian hopped back onto solid ground, and the Nalavacian girl began to circle. The crowd went quiet while the combatants sized each other up. Nasira had never looked heavier and less graceful. Between her stomach wound—still fresh—and her reluctance to fight, she moved as if covered in thick clay.
The girl was faster. She feinted left, right, and then shuffled up the middle. She danced across the ice, screaming all the while.
Nasira watched. Her amber eyes narrowed into slits. She stopped moving and waited for the attack to come.
The Nalavacian girl leaped into the air and landed with a dagger slash. Nasira redirected the blow. Sparks illuminated their faces. Their eyes locked with just as much ferocity as their blades. From the bank of the stream, the tribe cheered.
“She's a fighter,” Fiona said. “A real fighter. Praise be to Setep!”
Siggi clutched Argus's shoulder and squeezed. “Who's she talking about?”
“No idea.” He didn't know and it didn't really matter. The only thing the Nalavacians seemed interested in was a good fight.
The girl crouched and moved forward. This time she went for Nasira's legs. The Comet Tailer stabbed while the girl advanced, slid, and started to scream. Instead of landing a counterblow she lurched forward.
Right into the girl's dagger.
Blood splashed onto the ice. Nasira cried out, but her voice was swallowed up by the rabid Nalavacians. She landed hard. Her fall was the only thing that saved her from a deeper wound. It looked nasty enough as it was, gushing while she clawed for something to hold on to.
“Watch out!” Siggi yelled. Nasira looked up, found the Nalavacian girl midair, and rolled aside just before her dagger pricked the ice.
Cian glared at the Rivannan and said, “This is their battle. Theirs alone. Do you understand?” He didn't express the consequences for further coaching, but his eyes implied they'd be nothing if not painful.
Siggi nodded.
Nasira was on her feet again, wobbling like a baby fawn. The girl's dagger lodged in the ice, and Nasira used the opportunity well. She lunged with her dagger before her, sliding across the stream until it landed in the girl's side.
The Nalavacian shrieked. Powerless to stop the slide's momentum, she hooked an arm through Nasira's and then they both went down in a tangle.
Argus stood on his tiptoes. With so many tall Nalavacians between him and the fighters, it was next to impossible to see what was happening. He glimpsed flailing arms. Fingernails clawing. Brown hair warring with black.
The crowd had gone silent. He couldn't tell if that was a good thing or they were just saving their energy for the celebration about to explode.
Get up, he thought, wishing he'd found a way to learn thought magic. The Nalavacian girl was aggressive but sloppy. Argus had made a name for himself defeating such foes. Her weak spots glared at him like the midday sun. If he could only project those thoughts to Nasira—to tell her when and where to strike—the girl would already be dead.
At last they struggled to their feet, circling each other with a fresh ferocity now that both had drawn blood.
Nasira limped along. She was sleeveless now, with claw marks tattooed on her bronze arms that matched the gashes on her face. Her dagger was missing. The Nalavacian girl wiped ice slush off her face. Somehow she was standing with the dagger still embedded. She glanced at the onlookers and reached for it. Whistles
and screams. Argus leaned forward to watch, wondering if she had it in her.
She did.
A yelp. A pale face. Rivulets of blood. Those were the only signs that it had been in her at all. She held the dagger—her dagger now—and snarled.
Nasira feinted, tried to edge around her, but even with her wound the girl was still faster. That's when Argus saw why. The dagger that had belonged to the Nalavacian rested farther downstream, well past her opponent. By not letting her pass, the girl had turned the game from a battle into a hunt.
Unless the prey finds a way to fight back…
The crowd went quiet again, watching their kin stalk the outsider. She had her backpedaling toward the narrowest part of the stream. Once corralled there, Nasira risked stepping off.
In the Ladhar, a misstep meant death.
Fiona had explained that whoever stepped off the stream before the fight ended was declared the loser. And the only redemption for losers was death.
The girl smiled. Maybe she didn't know that there was still a good chance she would die, depending on how deep into her lung Nasira's blade had punctured. Even if she did, it didn't seem to concern her. She raised her dagger, sniffing the blood amid cheers.
The outsider would die first.
And then she would be a woman grown.
Some of the Nalavacians climbed onto others' shoulders for a better view. All of them leaning forward, covering their mouths and ready to erupt when the ritual ended.
In that breathless waiting Argus turned to the Hearing Branch. He listened, and heard things that no one else could. A shrill creaking made him wince. The sound moved slowly, but it was inexorable. He tracked it along the stream. Held his breath as it edged ever closer to the combatants.
The ice…
With Nasira backed into a narrow bend, the girl decided to show off. She spun and jumped and played to her audience. She was light, but every footstep made that creaking louder. The girl smiled one more time. Then she jumped. Her face was twisted into a primal ecstasy.
She landed, thrusting the dagger.
Nasira ducked aside and stuck out a foot to trip her.
The girl never made it. A fissure tore through the ice and swallowed her up to the waist. She screamed. So did her tribesmen, horrified while that hole spread.
“Nasira!” Argus yelled.
Cian was too preoccupied to chide him.
Siggi called out too, but by the time Nasira pulled her hands away from her face, rigid hands that had expected a dagger, it was too late. Her amber eyes bulged. She fell right through, gasping along with the girl with ice chunks between them.
“Get out of there!” said Argus.
Her lips turned white, then purple, then a hideous shade of gray. The Nalavacian girl was up to her neck now. She clutched a ledge and tried to pull herself up, but it broke away and sank into the water.
Argus shoved past some of the Nalavacians before strong arms stopped him. A part of him noticed they were holding each other back just as much as they were restraining him. Fighting every familial instinct so the Ladhar could proceed uninterrupted.
“Sometimes they both die,” said Fiona, with a shrug.
Nasira's torso thrust out of the water like an icepicker. She grabbed the ice sheet, tried to push herself up, and fell back into the stream. Argus saw a bobbing head. When it went under he saw nothing at all.
No. It can't end like this…
Siggi thrashed beside him, pummeling their captors with his fists. While he swung he prayed to a litany of old gods to save her. Argus watched the roiling water. The Nalavacian girl was blue, and struggling on the edge of the ice.
Then he saw a leg.
At first he thought it may have been a seal fin with the way it flopped up on the ice. Until another leg followed, this one bleeding, with an angry red spot where a dagger had punctured. After those legs came arms and shoulders and the rest of his friend.
“Nasira!”
She flopped onto the ice and lay there. Her entire body convulsed. Her eyes opened and closed, exploring the boundaries of consciousness. Breath steamed from her gray lips, and for now that was all that mattered.
“Get up,” Siggi cried. “Get the dagger!”
Argus turned back to the Nalavacian girl, who was still struggling on the other side of the hole. She grunted and tried to toss her body over. But her movements were imprecise. Her muscles weren't working right.
Nasira didn't get up.
How would this Ladhar end? Would they just wait there and see who died first before declaring a winner?
Nasira made one attempt to get up, collapsed, and abandoned the effort. She started to crawl away from the widening hole, pulling herself along with her hands. Years passed. Centuries. Every moment anguish. By the time she had the dagger, the Nalavacian girl had pulled herself over the edge.
Nasira crawled back toward her. Those amber eyes bored into the girl—burning her and nothing else—and looked hot enough to melt the ice. She tried putting the dagger between her teeth to crawl with both hands, but they were chattering too much to be of any use.
Closer and closer she came. The girl watched, clutching her side, her dagger lost in the stream. Suddenly she looked very young. Suddenly she looked very scared. Her eyes widened until they were nearly as big as the dagger at her throat.
Kill her, Argus thought. End this.
Nasira held the blade with both hands and waited. She looked at the girl, nodded, and turned back to the crowd after receiving the submission she wanted.
“You must kill her,” said Fiona. “To end the Ladhar.”
Nasira tried to speak. When that didn't work she just shook her head and lay there with her dagger. Argus didn't know much Nalavacian, but he knew the curses when he heard them. They erupted now. Moments later half a dozen tribesmen—the lighter ones, Argus noticed—edged onto the stream. They picked up Nasira and brought her closer to the girl, putting her down on the ice.
“Kill!” they shouted in thickly-accented voices. “Kill!”
Nasira stayed still. The Nalavacians grew impatient enough to lift her arm and shake it so the dagger danced in the girl's eyes. Shivering, her face twisted with effort, Nasira unhooked her fingers one by one until the dagger bounced harmlessly off the girl's shoulder.
The Nalavacians screamed. A few kept chanting “kill!” but most of them turned to boos and hisses. Some of the tribe edged onto the stream, unable to contain their wrath, but more ice fell through and sent them scattering.
“She won't do it,” Argus said. “They'll have to hold her arm and force the blade through that poor girl themselves.”
Siggi frowned. “They can't do that. The Ladhar forbids them from affecting the outcome.”
“Then the girl will freeze to death. They'll probably still kill us afterward. For Nasira's refusal.” Argus glanced at the Comet Tailer, who was enduring a barrage of curses without a flinch. She seemed to shiver less now that she'd dropped the dagger. If it had been Argus fighting, he would have killed without hesitation. But that's what made her so special.
The Nalavacians who'd swarmed Nasira stopped shouting. A red-haired woman pulled them into a huddle. They spoke in quiet voices, watching the ice closely. The huddle broke amid shaking heads and grumbles. One man bent down and threw Nasira over his shoulder. He crossed the stream, tore off her clothes, and called for his kin to wrap furs around her.
“She lives,” Fiona said. “For now.”
Once Nasira was naked and bundled up, some of the women disrobed and joined her. They added their coats to her own, pressed together to share their warmth. Nasira's face was still that awful gray, but her convulsions weakened. Soon they diminished to quivers.
The freezing Nalavacian girl wailed, shucking off a few icicles that had formed in her hair. Argus waited for one of the tribe to put her out of her misery. It never happened. They turned away and headed back toward the bank of the stream, their faces stoic.
The girl screamed once more. W
hen Argus turned back to look she was gone. She said farewell with a splash, disappearing into the frigid stream. She sank right down. Somewhere deep beneath the ice sheet, she breathed her last breath.
Gods, Argus thought. He hadn't even known her name. Yet he couldn't deny the hole in his heart. A brawler, a fighter, a scrapper. She reminded him of the orphan children of Azmar. The ones who, despite having come into this world as mockeries of circumstance, managed to smile and sometimes even laugh. They left her there. They left her to die.
Her kinsmen sang a mourning song. Women wailed, men beat their chests. Some of the boys and girls around her age knelt at the edge of the stream and carved markings into the ice. When that song ended, it was time to carry on as before.
Cian said, “The Ladhar is not supposed to end like this.”
Nasira, who'd had enough time to rekindle her fighting spirit, glowered at him. “I fought. And I won. I did everything you said.”
“You'll get very good at following instructions,” said Fiona, whose face was covered in tears. “The three of you look like good fighters. Strong backs. You'll roam wherever we roam. As slaves.”
A furnace ignited in Argus's face. His anger burned, simmered, and prepared to boil. If these promise-breaking bastards were going to try that, he would force them to kill him first.
Siggi said, “What about Brenn?” said Siggi.
“That's right,” Nasira said. “You said if I won the Ladhar you would take us to see him.”
Cian looked her up and down, the way a farmer might examine the musculature of a plow horse before deciding which one to buy. “For having a friend from Nalavac you know very little of its people.”
“I know their word is their bond,” Argus said. “That's what Brenn always told me.”
“Aye,” said Fiona. She must have spent a good deal of time in other kingdoms to use that expression. Maybe came to Nalavac a slave herself. Sometimes outsiders assimilated into the tribes. Learned their language and dress and way of life, and, when the time was right, asked to test themselves in the Ladhar. “Our word is our bond,” she said. “As hot and true as our beating hearts.”
Fortune's Toll (The Legion of the Wind, Book Two) Page 15
