Tikka tsked when she saw the bloody cloth, and sent me to take a fresh one. I stole another, tearing it into strips I could wad to absorb the blood until my flow stopped. It was a close call, not the first and not the last. They come every time I let down my guard.
What would happen if Belina or Chavis or Damaji Aleveran found out the truth? The scriptures of the Holy Evejah lay out the many rights accorded to men, and the far fewer accorded to women. They dictate as well the division of labor between the sexes, and there women receive the greater share of the burden, freeing men to pursue the spear.
Occasionally there is mention of push’ting, a word that refers to either gender. Sometimes the book condemns push’ting as men and women so committed to lying with their own sex that they refuse to procreate. Other push’ting tales are whimsical stories of men living as women, or women putting on a man’s armor and becoming warriors.
But there is no tale or scripture about one like me, in the Evejah or the Tenders’ Canon. Mother found mention of intersex children in musty Gatherers’ journals and medical texts from the old world, but it took her some time to find Herb Gatherers in her correspondence with personal experience.
None of the cases sounded quite like mine—the scales between sexes so evenly balanced. I never had health concerns, and Mother is convinced I can procreate as either gender. There is no precedent for that in Mother’s journals.
Are there intersex among the Majah? It’s likely, but no doubt they have as much incentive as I did to stay hidden. Each tribe interprets the sacred texts differently. Who knows how the Majah would see me? The uncertainty invites me to imagine the worst, and I have always had an active imagination. Even in Hollow, I never believed I could be accepted, no matter what Grandmum said.
Konin ladles water on the hot stones in the center of the chamber, and I breathe deeply as the soothing hiss fills the sweat room with steam.
It isn’t the same as a bath. I miss long hot soaks that leave my fingers and toes wrinkled, scented soaps, and brushes to cleanse and exfoliate my skin. I miss Micha’s singing as she lathers my hair.
But neither is the sweat room as unpleasant as I’d feared. In the dry heat of Krasia, it feels luxurious to fill the very air with moisture, letting it seep all the way to my bones. Sweat loosens the dust and grime of the day much as soap does, and the scraper massages tired muscles as it scours the filth away.
And there is peace here. The yard and barracks are full of chatter and struggles for dominance, but the sweat room is a place of quiet. Those who speak do so in low voices, and only as necessary. Chadan and several of the other boys practice their meditation here.
The nie’Sharum are seldom without their bidos, but in the sweat room they are shameless about their nudity. I try not to let my eyes linger, but much as they have not seen women unclad, the sight of naked young men is new to me, and not displeasing. I can imagine all the things Selen would say if she were here. Our training is hard, and the nie’Sharum are…fit.
Even Konin and Faseek have put on weight in the weeks since we began sharing food. They were close to being cast out when I first saw them, but now they are thriving. There is still scuffling for position in line, with the stronger boys getting a larger serve, but even those at the end receive half a bowl. Faseek has fought his way up the line, receiving a nearly full serving, but he does not hesitate to share when it’s his turn. Konin is farther back, but no longer at the end of the line.
As in the barracks at night, some of the boys are intimate in the sweat room. They steal kisses and caresses as they scrape one another clean, but even the drillmasters do not stare or call them out. There is more to being push’ting than a few kisses, it seems.
“Enough,” Chikga calls from the corner of the room where he sits cross-legged in meditation, naked save for a cloth laid across his lap. Thick curls of hair cover a body made entirely of scars and muscle. “Waning comes in two days, and you will be sent home to your fathers, that they might inspect you before going into the darkest nights. So tomorrow, we have prepared a test for you to prove yourselves. Rest while you can.”
It is not yet dark as we emerge from the sweat room, but the warm air feels cool on my damp skin. Hot as it is in the yard, the sweat room is hotter.
“Share our blanket,” Montidahr offers as he and Menin settle down to sleep. It is a generous offer, but not too generous. They know I could take it from them if I wished. I was a match for either of them when I arrived, and my skills have only increased in the weeks since. I’ve sparred with all my classmates in the yard, learning their tricks and tells. All save Chadan, who continues his private training with the dama.
“You honor me,” I say, “but the warmth of the others is enough.” I’m surprised to discover I mean the words. Faseek and the younger boys have become fiercely loyal since I helped them find a fair portion of gruel. I’ve grown accustomed to their comforting heat enveloping me in the night. So much that I wonder if I could rest at all if I were alone on the floor, blanket or no. My feathered bed in Cutter’s Hollow, big enough to sleep half a dozen nie’Sharum, is a fading memory.
* * *
—
After breakfast, we are led to one of the low adobe buildings in the training grounds, where Master Amaj waits. Each drillmaster has a specialty, and we’ve visited each in turn, learning different weapons and techniques.
“Fists may serve you in the gruel line, but hitting an alagai with your bare hand can have a heavy price.” Drillmaster Amaj removes the clawed metal cap at the end of his muscular right arm. His wrist ends in a mass of scars, faded with age. “You must learn to find other weapons. Rekaj, step forward.”
Rekaj is the weakest of the full-bloods, standing at the back of the gruel line at most meals. He isn’t a coward, but he lacks aggression, more likely to defend than commit to an attack. I’ve seen it cost him again and again. Everyone is fed now, but none are fool enough to think the drillmasters won’t still make the weakest boys khaffit. I wonder how long he has left to prove himself.
“The test is simple.” Amaj gestures to the darkened doorway of the training building. “Enter, find weapons, defend yourself, and make your way to the exit.” He points to another doorway at the far end of the building.
“Simple,” Thivan scoffs. “The drillmasters love nothing more than to send boys home bandaged and bruised, so our fathers know they are making men of us.”
Rekaj seems equally skeptical, but he does not hesitate, descending the steps and entering warily, already with his fists raised in a guard position.
For a few moments, there is silence. The nie’Sharum all hold their breath, waiting, until there is a crash, and Rekaj cries out. I tense, wanting to go to him, but I am not so stupid as to interfere with the test. Soon after, Rekaj is thrown back out the door he entered, and the boys around me jeer and laugh.
Drillmaster Amaj walks over and hauls Rekaj to his feet. There is blood on his face, one eye swelling, and welts are forming on his arms and body.
“Konin!” Amaj calls. “Enter!”
Konin freezes, and I can see fresh sweat break out on his shaved head. I lay a hand on his arm. “You can do this.”
He nods, but his shoulders slump as he walks to the doorway, a boy on his way to punishment, not a test. And indeed, in less time than it took with Rekaj, he is cast out clutching a leg that is already turning purple.
“He’ll be at the back of the line again tonight!” Gorvan laughs, and others join him, though many of them have worried looks of their own. What is inside that building?
And so it goes, each student called in turn. Some last longer than others, with sounds echoing from deep in the building, but none of them make it to the far door. All are cast out the way they came in, bloody and bruised.
With every failure, the jeering of the boys who have yet to enter grows louder, a sign of their own increasing tensio
n. The boys who have been tested are kept separate, but they, too, shout and hoot as each new boy is cast out. Perhaps it isn’t cruelty, as I once thought. If everyone fails, it is merely a rite of passage.
By the time Gorvan is cast out, his face purpling with bruises, my stomach is in a knot. I remind myself that it is day—that whatever’s inside that building is human and not coreling—but it does nothing to alleviate the tension in my muscles.
“Princess Olive!” Amaj mocks, pointing to me.
I swallow the lump in my throat and march forward. Aleveran promised I could see Micha on Waning. Whatever’s in that building stands between me and my sister, and I won’t hide from it.
“Olive!” Faseek calls, and the other boys I sleep with take up the cry.
“Olive. Olive. Olive.” The chanting does nothing to calm my nerves as I approach the door.
“Enter, find weapons, defend yourself, and make your way to the exit.” Amaj sneers as I pass him. Chikga has eased his harassment of me as my skills have improved, but the other drillmasters have not.
Dim light filters through the half-drawn window curtains of the building as I enter, illuminating a room with little feature. A waist-high rectangular wooden table sits in the middle with wooden benches on all sides, two long and two short. The floor is hard clay. There is nothing resembling a weapon—or a threat—in the first room, so I move to the far doorway, presumably leading to a hall.
Before I am halfway across the room, two figures emerge from the shadows of the doorway. They are clad in gray robes, veiled and turbaned, and they are not as large as the warriors I have seen drilling in the grounds. Older students from another sharaj, perhaps. Each carries a sturdy baton.
I see now what the drillmaster meant. If we want weapons, we will have to take them.
The first assailant swings his baton at me, but I leap to the side, putting one foot on a bench and kicking off to add power as I punch him in the head.
My fist cracks against a helm wrapped beneath his turban, and I cry out in pain. I stumble as I land, cradling the hand, and the other attacker strikes me across the back with his baton.
I roll with the blow, tumbling out of reach as I flex my fingers. My hand does not appear to be broken, but it was a near thing. My fingers scream with pain, but they obey me as the two come at me again.
I catch one by the wrist, twisting to yank him into the path of the other, fumbling his attack. I grab the baton with my other hand and bend my knees, twisting into a throw that will send the attacker hard into the ground, leaving his weapon in my hand.
The throw is perfect, but instead of yanking his weapon away, I am the one pulled off balance. I realize too late the baton is lashed to his hand to prevent students from taking it.
Find weapons.
I cast around the room helplessly. The curtains are held by a thin rod. If I could get to it, I might use it as a weapon, but what good would it do against armored foes?
I manage a forearm block as the other student attacks again, and the blow nearly breaks my arm. I kick out to drive him back and create space, but like my hand, my foot strikes armor beneath his robe.
I’m limping as he stumbles back, but like my hand, my foot continues to obey, albeit painfully. The student gives a grunt of pain as he strikes the table, and then I begin to understand.
I snatch one of the smaller benches, lifting it like a shield as I rush the first attacker, who is getting to his feet. I drive him into the adobe wall, blowing the breath from him, then pivot just in time to catch the other baton on the bench. I kick the student’s knee and as he stumbles I charge him with the bench as well, throwing my full weight down on him as he begins to fall.
The floor and bench are harder than my hands and feet, and I feel the breath blow out of the student as we land. The wood of the bench cracks, but it’s still enough to deflect the other baton as I roll away from the grounded student in time to meet his fellow.
His baton strikes are rapid now, jarring my arms and numbing my hands as he tries to knock the bench from my hands. I give ground, but the odds grow worse as the other student gets to his feet, moving to flank me.
As he comes in close, I shove the first attacker back, then throw the bench at the second. He is unprepared for the move, and cannot deflect it fully. Before either can recover, I tear one of the curtains from the wall and wrap it around the first student’s head, twisting and pulling tight as I roll around, yanking him from his feet and smashing his back into the corner of the heavy table. I punch him twice in his covered face for good measure, then leap the table just in time to avoid the other student’s baton.
The first attacker does not rise as the other and I circle. I snatch the bench off the floor, holding it before me like a shield.
“Half-blood scum,” the student growls, and charges in. I lift the bench, but he delivers a powerful kick, shattering the cracked wood and splitting the bench in two. The blow is blunted by the time his foot hits my chest, sparing me a broken sternum, but I am sent stumbling backward as he presses the attack.
I still hold a crossed pair of bench legs in each hand, now attached to jagged boards of wood. Instinctively, I bring them together, my opponent’s helmeted head in between. The blow stuns him, and I drop the bench legs, tackling him about the midsection. I lift him clear off his feet and throw him through the doorway I entered. Outside, I hear the nie’Sharum shouting at the sight, and the sound gives me new strength.
I grab the other short bench and run the other way, through the door at the far end of the room. As expected, it opens into a long hallway. There are doorways on either side, but I am focused on the light at the far end.
The exit.
I sprint down the hall, but am not caught unaware when another baton-wielding student emerges from one of the darkened doorways. I shift direction mid-run, putting my shoulder to the bench and smashing him into the doorframe. He grunts and falls back into the room, and I waste no time to see if he recovers, turning and resuming my mad dash for the end of the hall.
Another figure appears and I throw the bench at his legs, tripping him long enough to deliver a kick to his face and run past. A third appears, and a fourth silhouette steps in front of the exit, but I’ve already seen my next weapon. A small, unassuming table stands against one of the hallway walls. I veer to the opposite wall just as I come in range of the student’s baton, then duck his swing and cut back the other way, leaping atop the table as his baton strikes the hard clay wall, sending a shock up his arm.
He whirls and tries to sweep my legs with the baton, but I jump over the wild swing, hooking his weapon arm as he retracts it. I throw myself into a somersault off the table, and the student has no choice but to throw himself head over heels to keep me from breaking his shoulder. I deliver an open-hand blow to his unprotected throat, leaving him gasping on the floor, then upend the table and break off two of the sturdy legs before I approach the final opponent between me and the exit.
If he’s concerned that I have two weapons to his one, he doesn’t show it. He works his baton masterfully, parrying blows from both the table legs, but as I watch him fight, I begin to see the drawbacks of a weapon lashed to one’s hand. He can’t adjust his grip, or move it with the fluidity that I can. On the third pass, I lock his weapon in a clinch with one of mine and turn a half circuit, swinging the other one in an arc that comes up right between his legs.
It’s hard to armor the groin and maintain mobility. The table leg connects solidly and the student cries out, crumpling up to protect himself…too late. I kick off one wall, driving him hard into the other, then barrel out the exit into the sunlight.
The nie’Sharum cheer, and I’ve never felt so alive.
* * *
—
A moment later, three of the gray-robed nie’Sharum fighters charge out the doorway behind me. I’m breathing hard, too tired to put up
much resistance, but Drillmaster Amaj holds up his claw hand, stopping them. “Go. Reset. Replace the injured.”
The students are unaccustomed to losing. They growl and glare at me, but they comply, disappearing back into the building.
“Well done.” The drillmaster’s tone is grudging, but respectful. “I can’t remember the last time a student so young passed the test. No gruel tonight. You’ll have meat and couscous.”
My mouth waters at the words. It’s a wonder that such a simple reward could have that effect. I want to refuse, to make some show of solidarity with the other students, but I can see how it stings the drillmaster to offer it, so I bow instead, hiding my delight. “Thank you, Drillmaster.”
“Chadan!” Amaj says. “Let us see if you can do as well as the half-blood.”
I catch Chadan’s eye as he walks past, winking. He smiles in return, eyes twinkling. “You were slow.”
Indeed, Chadan enters, and there are crashes and shouts from his assailants. I made it through with a mass of welts and contusions, but when the Majah prince exits the far end of the building—in half the time it took me—there isn’t a mark on him.
The nie’Sharum cheered me, but they lose all control at this, stomping their feet and filling the air with an enormous cacophony. “Nie Ka! Nie Ka! Nie Ka!”
27
WANING
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so full as I do after the meal of meat and couscous. I curl contentedly into the pile of nie’Sharum and fall deeply asleep.
Dawn’s light is just beginning to filter through the windows of the clay building when I am awakened by a nudging foot. It’s gentle, nothing like the swift kick Drillmaster Chikga is fond of giving when he wishes to wake a sleeping boy.
I look up to see Chadan standing over me. The light is at his back, haloing his handsome face as he tosses a folded set of light gray robes to me. “Come. It is the first day of Waning, and I am to escort you to the palace.”
The Desert Prince Page 32
