Shawna’s eyes swung to Dormael. He regarded his brother with a narrow gaze, a smile coming to his lips even as the rest of the men in the room began to laugh. He shook his head, then let out a long sigh.
“It’s been awhile, but you’re gods-damned right I remember. I’m a Gamerit,” he said.
“You’re a Harlun,” Saul grumbled. “You’d better remember how to use a spear, boy.”
“Unless you’ve been getting fat at the Conclave.” Allen said.
“Do I look like I’m getting fat?” Dormael said, a challenge in his tone.
“Are you sure you want me to answer that?” Allen shot back.
“Fine,” Dormael said. “Let me at least get a horn or two of ale in me first, then we can fight.”
“D’Jenn?” Allen asked, a wide grin forming on his face.
“No,” D’Jenn said without hesitation. “Have fun hitting each other, though.”
“Father? Think your skeleton could handle a beating?”
“I fought in a spearline before you were more than a thought, my son,” Saul said. “And no—I’ll be getting drunk and watching.”
“It really is too bad, Lady Shawna,” Allen sighed, reaching out to take the pipe from Dormael. “I would have expected more of a challenge from someone like yourself.” Allen moved to take a pull from the pipe, but Shawna snatched it from his hands before he could put it to his lips. The Leaf had filled her head with a pleasant, relaxed feeling, but she still had the quickest hands in the room. She took a long pull before blowing a bit of smoke in Allen’s face.
“Can I see your wrists?” she asked.
“My wrists?”
“You do speak the World Tongue, don’t you?” she smiled. The rest of the people in the room snickered. Allen smiled, and bared his wrists so that she could see them. Shawna leaned forward and gave them a disdainful look, then shook her head as she straightened.
“You don’t seem to have one of these,” she said, showing her own Marks to Allen for the second time. “We couldn’t fight, anyway—it wouldn’t be fair, you understand. If you’d like instruction, though, we could arrange a time for me to show you how to fight with a real weapon. Until then, dear, have fun playing with your…sticks.”
The room erupted with laughter.
“Until that day, then,” Allen smiled, giving her a flourished bow.
Shawna was warmed by the laughter. She’d felt tentative when they had first arrived at Dormael’s homestead. Her experiences with Sevenlanders in general had been trying, since Dormael and D’Jenn were the first two with which she’d ever spent any time. Coming to the west had made her anxious. She was constantly wondering what would happen if she made some unknown social blunder, or made someone angry by accident. Then, there had been Seylia—Shawna didn’t even want to think about her.
Part of her had been nervous about meeting these people, and being surrounded by them. Sevenlanders were strange. They had strange artwork, they had strange customs, and even stranger hairstyles. She had wanted very much to maintain her dignity, to be seen as respectable.
Now, though, she saw something wonderful in all the brusqueness. The constant badgering that Dormael and D’Jenn threw at each other had been forged here, in this idyllic landscape. She would never forget the sight of Dormael calling down lightning from a stormy sky, or of D’Jenn braining the Cultist just a few days before. Here, though, they were sons, brothers, family. She realized that she very much wanted these people to like her.
For the first time since the morning of the attack on her home, she felt happy. She felt welcome. She was actually looking forward to the party. Through the shutters, she saw people hauling tables and chairs out onto the grass, preparing a series of small fires—complete with stumps for seating—and others clearing odd farming implements out of the way.
Dormael’s mother appeared, sleeves rolled to her elbows in the chill, organizing the chaos even as it spiraled around her. She supervised two young boys as they set up a large brick stove that sat out on the lawn, ushered a troop of frolicking toddlers toward the porch where they weren’t underfoot, and personally directed the seasoning of various pieces of meat.
A troop of children ran screaming past like a tribe of barbarians, and Shawna almost laughed aloud to see Bethany amongst them. Her hair had been transformed, with braids and ribbons streaming through it, and she held a pair of wooden swords over her head as she screamed an unknown battle cry into the winter air. The younglings ran through the yard like raiders, and even attacked one of the men who were helping to move things. He went down, screaming in mock death, and the vicious children moved on.
“Saul!” Yannette yelled from the other side of the lawn. “Has anyone seen my damned husband?”
“Get down,” the old man hissed, and Shawna followed everyone else’s example, crouching below the level of the shutters. “If she sees us in here, she’ll put us all to work.”
“Saul!”
“Do you think she sees us?” Dormael asked, raising his head a little to look.
“Doesn’t matter, she’ll check the drying hut anyway,” Saul said. “Come on—out the back!”
“Stay low,” D’Jenn snickered.
“Saul!” Yanette’s voice was closer this time.
“What do you want me to do with this?” Allen asked, proffering the pipe to his father.
“Bring it, of course,” Saul said. “Now, come on—unless you want to be conscripted into the witch’s army.”
Shawna followed the men from the drying hut, barely holding back her laughter.
***
Maarkov held tight to a slippery rope as the ship bucked beneath him, frigid water spraying in all directions. Thunder rumbled across the sky, chasing a flicker of lightning, which left a burning afterimage on Maarkov’s vision. He ignored the screaming sailors around him, the rushing water, the spray, and the fury of the storm. Maarkov kept his eyes in the distance, at what would be eastern Soirus-Gamerit. What filled his world was the sea, rain, lightning, and—just at the edge of sight—land.
Just close enough to give you hope, he thought.
He turned from the bow and picked his way hand-over-hand back toward the stern. His brother would still be in the captain’s cabin—though what he would be doing while the ship was being tossed about like detritus in a flood, Maarkov didn’t know. He was probably munching away at one of the cabin boys. A picture came to Maarkov’s mind of his brother presiding over the corpse of one of the young boys, an apple stuffed in its mouth like a festival pig.
Come in and eat, he would say. The food is so good, the gods must think it sinful.
Maarkov tried not to snicker as he picked his way over the deck, and ignored the horrified glances the sailors sent his way. Despite Maarkov’s warnings, his brother had culled the crewmen down to a bare minimum needed to man the ship. The only thing that kept them from a general mutiny was the cold, hard fact that it would get them nowhere. Maaz knew it, they knew it, everyone knew it. Maarkov wondered what it must be like to be one of these men, holding their eyes to the planks underfoot and praying to the gods that Maaz didn’t notice them.
He wondered if the pig felt something similar before it was spitted.
He fought his way into the cabin, and slammed the door shut against the driving storm. Implements that had once belonged to the old captain—from oddities hanging in rope baskets to trinkets lying about—jounced around the room as the ship was tossed by the swells. Water dripped from every crack, seeped from every corner in the room, and wood shuddered under strain. Maaz was soaked in his voluminous cloak, gathering up a pile of his possessions in quick, desperate motions.
“Maarkov,” he snapped, “go gather your things! We’re leaving this ship.”
Maarkov looked at his brother like he was insane.
“Leave the ship?” he asked. “And go where, Maaz? Have you noticed this fine weather we’re sailing in? I’d say our chances of staying afloat out there are about one in ‘fuck-the-gods�
�. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Stay, then—follow this box to the bottom of the sea for all I care. Let the crabs pick at your swollen corpse,” Maaz growled. “If, however, your mind starts working, then you’ll want to gather your things. I can get you and I out of this, but we need to make it to one of the rowboats.”
“Aren’t you now the captain of this vessel?” Maarkov asked. “Shouldn’t you be making some noble last stand, going down with the ship? Shouting your defiance of Devla on the way down—or would it be Saarnok that bent an ear for you?”
Maaz gave him a flat look, and shook his head.
“Do you really care so much for them?” Maaz spat, his disgust boiling out of his tone. “For the meek, for the uninformed, for the sheep?! We have lived longer than any of them, and we will continue forever! They are nothing but meat to us, Maarkov—you would do well to remember that, and see them for what they are. We are gods compared to them.”
“You are a god compared to them,” Maarkov retorted. “I’m just your toy—your gods-damned experiment!”
“Now is not the time for this, brother.”
“And when is the time, Maaz? You did this to me. You can end it.”
“You don’t want me to end it,” Maaz laughed. “What a ridiculous thing to say.”
“Oh, my blinded brother,” Maarkov smiled, the chaos of the storm a fitting backdrop for his state of mind. “You have no idea what I want. All I want is an end. It is what I dream about when I let myself sleep. It is what I long for.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Maaz hissed. “Go get your things. You will delay me no longer.”
Maarkov felt an instant of fury, a white-hot spike of rage so palpable that he could almost taste it, like bile in the back of his throat.
“My things? Oh, I don’t know,” Maarkov said, feeling the cold anger take residence in his chest. “I think I might have misplaced them. It will probably take some serious time to find them.”
“Then leave them.”
“I can’t—there’s something with them that I really need.”
“What?” Maaz growled, his tone growing dangerous.
“My whetstone.”
“Your…whetstone,” Maaz said. “Your fucking whetstone?”
“A blade has to be sharp, Maaz. What would you do if you needed me to carve up a nice mother of three for you, or maybe a child? They have the sweetest meat, don’t they? Still tender. Have to get them before they start working in the fields, so their muscles aren’t all tough and sinewy—”
“Brother, I swear by all the gods in the Void, I will leave you on this rickety piece of garbage if you waste one more moment of my gods-damned—,” Maaz spat, but he trailed off as a loud cracking noise rang out from somewhere nearby. Maaz paused, looking past Maarkov toward the bow of the ship, a horrified expression blossoming on his face. “Maarkov! Get—”
There was a crash, and everything went dark.
***
Dormael’s room was almost as he remembered it as a child, like a memory frozen in time. His old wooden bed still sat huddled into a corner near a window facing the southern horizon. He’d enjoyed gazing out at the landscape as a boy, dreaming about roaming through the highlands. There was a dresser on the opposite side of the bed against the eastern wall with a few knick-knacks scattered about its surface—treasures he’d acquired as a boy.
Dormael smiled as he picked things up and turned them over, trying to remember where he’d gotten them. A pile of old arrowheads had come from a hill that he and his brother had discovered, where their grandfather told them that a battle was fought between the Red Hills Clan and the Pinedale Creek Clan over a hundred years past. The old man had never been at a loss for stories to tell them. The next item he picked up was a rock, a piece of a strange footprint frozen in its surface. The print looked similar to something a lizard, or perhaps a bird, would have left—if a bird could have grown to the size of a small horse. Dormael’s grandfather had asked him, with an ominous tone, what sort of animal he thought could leave footprints in hard stone.
For the rest of that summer, Dormael and all his cousins were searching the Red Hills for this mysterious beast. They’d never found anything, of course, but those summer hunts were some of the best times in Dormael’s life. He and his cousins found a great tree that had been struck by lightning—proof, of course, that the beast could breathe fire—and a secluded stream that was the perfect size for swimming on hot summer days. They found a rusted sword, which led them to an ancient skeleton, half-buried in the dirt. He and the other children had promptly decided that this unknown warrior had died fighting the fire-breathing beast, and spent the rest of that afternoon burying him, and building a makeshift shrine. Dormael smiled, remembering how many times he and his brother had said prayers to the unknown warrior—someone who had probably been a brigand, or something equally unsavory.
The following year, Dormael’s Kai had awakened. He was sent off to the Conclave, and his cousins were scattered around the Red Hills, or elsewhere. His grandfather died before Dormael had been able to see the old codger again, or hear any of his stories. That summer had been his last as a child.
Sighing, he turned toward the bed, and the reason he’d stomped up the stairs to his old room. He crouched down and reached under the bed frame, looking for what he knew he would find. His hands alighted on a wooden case, and he slid it out onto the floor.
Of course it’s still here, he thought. The old man is more stubborn than I am.
Inside the box was a spear. It was a bit longer than Dormael’s staff, which put it at around three hands taller than his full height. Its haft was made of a dark wood that had been sanded to perfection, and hardened through some process that only his father knew how to explain. The bottom end of the thing was surmounted by a steel spike that could be used either as a weapon, or to anchor what was on the other end. This particular spear was made to the Gamerit design, mounted with a wide, leaf-shaped blade more than a hand long. The steel bore the stamped initials of his father—S.H.
“He comes up here once a week and oils that thing down for you,” Allen said from behind him.
Dormael almost jumped to the ceiling. He turned, clutching the spear, and scowled at his brother. Allen stood with a horn of ale in his hand, a wide grin on his face.
“Just thought I’d take it out, have a look at it,” Dormael said.
“Before I whip you despite the craftsmanship of the weapon our father made for you?”
“If I’m going to fight in the damned spear tournament,” Dormael said, holding out the spear to his brother, the shaft balanced on his outstretched fingers, “I’m not going to use some crooked stick from the woods, am I?”
“I suppose not,” Allen smiled, snatching the spear from his hand and looking at it. “It’s a nice spear. If you’d have taken this with you when you left, he’d have made you three more by now, each better than the last. He’s made me a lot of weapons.”
“You know it’s not that simple,” Dormael said.
On the day he’d discovered that he was Blessed, he and his father had been arguing. Dormael couldn’t recall what it had been about, but it was probably something ridiculous. He did remember, however, how angry he had been. The argument had provoked his magic into action, and a tree near to them had burst into surprising, hot flames.
That day had been a starting point, and had planted a seed of tension between the two of them. It wasn’t long until a Scout had come around, and Dormael had been packed up and sent to the Conclave. Years passed between the intervals when Dormael could even make it home to see his family, and the gap between him and his father had deepened, though they pretended it didn’t exist.
One day, he had come home to find the spear waiting for him. Saul never said anything about it, never tried to foist it upon him, he just left it where Dormael could find it. The spear was more than a weapon crafted by a master weaponsmith—it was an apology for years of distance, and an offer of reconciliat
ion. Dormael had left that offer where it sat for years.
Perhaps it was time to take it up.
“I know it’s not that simple,” Allen said. “Just try it out. Let the old man see you using it. Hells, Dormael—take the damned thing with you when you leave. It can be as simple as you want it to be.”
Dormael took the spear back from his brother, and looked it over.
“I’ll take a few swings with it. I’ve got my staff, though, and I’m used to it.”
“That walking stick you carry around?” Allen scoffed. “Bah! A weapon for children.”
Dormael scowled. “It does its job. You forget—I have other weapons at my disposal.”
“That’s not something you just forget,” Allen said. “Still, a walking stick is no weapon for a Gamerit, and sure as the Six Hells isn’t good enough for a Harlun. Regardless of what else you are, you’re still one of us. That’s all the old man wants to see, you know.”
Dormael looked away, sighing. “I know. I said I’d take a few swings with it. Go bother someone else.”
Allen laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.
“I’ll see you on the lawn, brother.”
“I’ll see you there,” Dormael smiled.
***
By the time he faced off with his brother across the circle designated for spear matches, the sun was starting to sink below the horizon. Bonfires had been lit in intervals around the lawn, and the yard was both bright and warm. Dormael had doffed everything but his shirt and pants, and held the spear his father had made for him out in both hands, tip toward his smiling brother. Buzzing conversation make a constant hum of noise around them, though the people in the immediate vicinity of the spear circle were quieter.
The spear circle was a Gamerit tradition, upheld since only the gods knew when. Fathers were expected to teach their sons how to fight, and everyone would compete in festivals held at every level of Gamerit society. The champion was given a gift, however small or large, and celebrated until the next fight. Dormael had never had the pleasure of competing himself, since he had left before the age of maturity, but he had fought in spear circles at family gatherings.
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 53
