“You’ve pictured the moment.”
“Too many times.”
“Wishing you had been there so you could have killed those men. Before they butchered Jared. Or, failing that, after he was dead.”
“But I wasn’t there.”
“And had they been brought to you in chains, trailing behind Jared’s corpse?”
“No.” Rishana shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Just saying the words gave her the strength to straighten her back against Kiv’s relentless assault.
“Does your fire chill so easily?”
“I’m human. If thrown into a situation in which someone I love is being attacked, I’ve no doubt I’d react violently.”
Kiv studied Rishana in silence, then pushed her mug and plate away from her and stood. “Thank you, Rishana. I enjoyed our tea and discussion.”
“So, will you be letting me know?” Rishana knew she had failed, that she had allowed Kiv to slip away from her.
“About what?”
“About your plans to kill the Mwertik who murdered my husband?”
“Come now, Rishana. You know we Alleshi like to discuss all kinds of possibilities, feel the measure of them, then talk them to death.”
“I don’t believe that’s what you were doing.”
“What else could it be? Do you think I have a Mwertik up my sleeve whom I was planning to deliver to you?”
“No, but I had the feeling you knew where you could find the men who killed Jared. That you were testing me to see if I’d want to participate in some violence against those monsters.”
“How would that be possible?”
“I don’t know, Kiv. You tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I’ve learned what I wanted to know. Your hatred of the Mwertik doesn’t run as deeply as I thought.” She shook her head slowly. “It surprises me. If my man had been killed the way yours was, I would burn with dreams of revenge.”
“Perhaps, if your man had been like Jared, you would want to honor him by living according to his beliefs.”
“Ah, yes, the golden Jared. Rishana, you really should be more careful about the myths you choose to trust. The veneer on some is very thin, indeed.”
Rishana bolted from her seat. “Don’t ever use that tone about my husband again!” She was livid, shaking, but whether from anger or fear, she couldn’t say.
“My apologies.” Kiv took one more piece of cheese and popped it into her mouth. “I really must move on before your boy returns. Thank you for the tea, Rishana.”
Chapter 63
“Dov, what I’ll be reading tonight will be disturbing,” Tayar said as she settled into her corner of the sofa. “Please allow me to read all the way through. Then we’ll talk about it. Agreed?”
“Sure.” Dov fell onto the sofa like a playful rag doll and reached for her feet, but she sat rigidly upright. “Aren’t you going to lie down?” he asked.
“Not tonight.” Her eyes were lowered, focused on finding her page in the journal.
“You’re very upset, aren’t you?”
Though his concern was sincere, Tayar couldn’t allow herself to rely on it. So much could change before the evening was over, especially if the foundation she had helped him build wasn’t as strong and resilient as she hoped.
Dov settled comfortably against the cushions. “Okay, so what will you be reading?”
“Some entries in an Alleman’s journal, recording one of our first encounters with the Mwertik Zalogs. Actually, it was before they became known as Mwertik Zalogs, when we had no name for them.”
She began to read before he could ask any further questions.
I rode into the Perlcain Mountains yesterday. The foothills rise so gradually from the western plains that I didn’t note the change immediately. Then this morning, steep, boulder-strewn crags forced my sure-footed mount to pick his way carefully, slowing our progress.
It reminded me of my first mission to beyond our lands, when I realized that the borders of the Alleshine Peace are not lines drawn on the landscape by human hand to mark one step within, another without. Indistinct as this morning’s haze, which hid the mountain peaks, the Alleshine borders are where chaos ends and civilization begins. All I know is that the last village I visited three days ago is part of the Peace, having joined a few years ago, but any people I might meet from here on will probably be outsiders.
I’ve been told signs of the nomads I seek abound in this area. The back side of the Perlcains is covered with dense fertile forest and dotted with trout-filled streams and lakes that empty into the great western ocean. If I were headman of a nomadic tribe, I’d certainly favor this area in the summer for its abundance of game and forage, though it would be too cold and bleak in winter. Perhaps, after all these trips to the borderlands, I may finally see them.
Tayar turned a few pages and resumed.
This afternoon, I saw the smoke of a single campfire downslope. Wary of strangers hearing my approach, I hobbled my horse in a protected pocket canyon near ample grass and water. I followed the stream until it cascaded over a cliff into the lake of a lower canyon. Camped in a clearing by the side of the lake were three men far below me.
“Hey wait, I thought no one’s ever seen the Mwertik. No one who’s lived to tell about it,” Dov interrupted.
Tayar raised her eyes from the journal and gave him a sharp disapproving look.
“Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”
A narrow ledge wound down the steep forested slope, almost as though the water had carved it purposely many years ago into a gentle footpath. Following it, I found a small cave behind the waterfall. Neither the path nor the cave would be visible from below. Yet it afforded me an unimpeded view of the lake, the clearing, and the men. The ledge continued downward, giving me access to many paths toward the clearing. I set up camp in the cave and established several lookouts.
Tayar quickly turned to the next section she had bookmarked, then continued reading.
I am almost certain these are the people I seek. Their clothes are adorned with the intertwining geometric shapes that were described to me. Not tall, they have a lean strength of the type that could overpower much larger men. Their dark coloring is similar to others in the region, even to my own people. But their carriage is much more tightly wound, with small, restrained movements that waste no energy. The roaring waterfall drowns out their voices, making it impossible to determine their language roots or try to understand their words.
My first day under the waterfall started cool, but the long midsummer hours quickly turned muggy, with the air weighing heavily in my lungs. The constant roar of the cascade deadened my hearing. Gnats feasted on my flesh. I changed lookout positions frequently, trying to get away from them, but the biting nuisances would not be sated or avoided.
Throughout the day, new people arrived in the clearing; men appearing one, two or three at a time from all directions, while two large groups of women and children came only from the west. Men, women and children are all cut from the same cloth as the first three, with black, lustrous hair, chiseled features and caramel-colored skin.
Unlike the men’s dun and brown tunics and leggings, the women dress in a multitude of colors, some of which may represent a hierarchy of position, for I noticed red and yellow in all their skirts and tunics, but only a handful wear blue accents. The oldest person in the camp is a shriveled, grey-haired woman to whom even the men pay respect.
Nearly everything they carry ~ clothing, tents and pots ~ is decorated with those strange geometric shapes made mostly of circles, spirals and jagged lines.
Tayar thought she heard Dov shift uncomfortably, but it could have been her imagination. Perhaps it was her fear that the description of the shapes would ignite some hint of recognition too early. Without pause, she continued reading.
The women have erected a sizable red tent on the far edge of the clearing, some distance from the much smaller tents put up by the men. Far busier than the men, the women cook, s
erve, wash and organize the camp, stopping periodically to go in and out of the red tent, which no man enters or even allows himself to be seen watching.
The last two men to arrive did so from opposite sides of the clearing, near the end of the long summer day. Both tattooed with a profusion of geometric designs, they wear only loincloths and armbands. But the way they carry themselves, with wide strides and heads high, screams more loudly than any amulet or device that these two are the leaders, probably the headman and shaman. Men swarmed from the camp to greet them with drums and chants. Soon, nearly all the men were dancing around the central bonfire, in rhythm to a coarse guttural rant.
Tayar skipped several pages of detailed description.
In the nether time between night and dawn, I was awakened by slow insistent rhythms that I felt rather than heard, like a faraway drum that thumped its message through the curtain of water. I crawled down the slope to crouch behind a large outcrop of boulders, closer than I had previously dared.
In the grey pre-dawn half-light, I saw a camp devoid of women. Men sat silent and nearly motionless at their morning fires, staring within, swaying to the reverberating rhythms. Only three or four children moved about, untended. The camp was eerily quiet, except for the low rumbling that grew in volume, so I could distinguish it as the syncopated moans of many women, in concert with one another, building ~ overpowering and unfathomable ~ erupting from the red tent.
The wordless chant swelled in tempo and timbre, sweeping through the camp. The men brandished knives and spears, and yet they retreated before it, as though it were a tidal wave pushing them to the far edge of the clearing. The children disappeared completely.
The thrumming rhythms raced through my body. I clutched my rifle and reassured myself it was loaded and ready, then made sure the straps of my backpack were tight and secure.
Suddenly, the deep resounding chant erupted into high, shrill ululations, piercing as ice water. I squeezed my rifle so hard that the ridges of the metal pressed into the flesh of my hands. Though the dawn air was cool, I wiped sweat from my brow before it could drip into my eyes.
Then the women burst from the red tent, dancing with wild abandon around the wizened grey-haired woman, who held aloft a newborn infant. I relaxed my tight grip on my rifle, realizing the exuberant chants were ones of womanly joy. Yet, the men were spurred on to greater anger, grimacing fiercely, calling out their own warriors’ chants, which fought to drown out and overpower the women’s jubilation.
Without warning, the men ran through the group of women, threatening with knives any who tried to resist them. Some of the younger women tried to block the way to the old woman and her charge, with the only weapons they had: their hands, nails, feet and bodies. But they were easily overwhelmed and roughly shoved aside. The men tore the infant from the elder’s arms, and the women’s song became shrieks of terror.
I can write this now, days after the event, and a part of me wonders at what transpired, how it was that I so easily broke code. But what else could I do? The men tossed the infant from hand to hand around the central bonfire. Closer and closer to the fire. I had heard these people were fearsome, but infanticide? I couldn’t stand still and watch. I had to do something.
Rummaging through my backpack, I grabbed two flash-bangs. I scurried to the other side of the clearing, planted one near the rear of the red tent and another, with a longer fuse, further into the forest. After lighting both, I ran back to the side closer to the waterfall.
As fast as I had been, the infant was already in the shaman’s arms. He held it high above a rush altar, then lay it down. The headman handed him a red hot brand from the fire. Grabbing the child’s tiny foot in his bear-like claw, the shaman pressed the brand into the baby’s sole, searing his flesh as though he were nothing but a herd animal.
That’s when the first of my flash-bangs exploded with a blinding blast of white smoke, shattering the air with a percussive sound louder even than the men’s bloodthirsty chants. Everyone hurried toward the red tent to see what had happened, leaving the infant alone on the altar, flailing his little arms and legs, wailing and screeching in pain.
I darted into the center of that camp, grabbed the child and ran for the forest, as the second flash-bang ignited, luring them farther away. As fast as my legs could carry me, I made for the path behind the waterfall. I had my pack on my back, but I was unbalanced, carrying both the rifle and the infant. As I passed the waterfall, I flung my rifle into the lake but didn’t watch it fall, having to trust that the men who followed me would not see where I had discarded it, would not retrieve it, or, barring that, would have no ammunition for it, other than the round in the chamber.
I dared not look back to see if I were being chased. I had to assume they were at my heels. I had a screaming child in my arms, a steep slope to navigate, and a fierce tribe to outrun. Yet I had never felt so right in anything I had ever done. The child was scarred, but alive.
When I finally reached the hidden canyon where my horse awaited, I held the baby in one hand while I pulled my knife from my waist sheath with the other, and in midstride, cut the hobbling rope and jumped on his back, leaving the saddle and my other belongings behind me. I could control the horse with my legs, but I needed to free my hands. Quickly, I flipped my pack off my back, upended it to spill its contents, secured the child inside and slipped it over my arms so the pack rode on my chest.
Only then did I dare look over my shoulder to see the entire tribe pouring into the canyon, yelling and brandishing spears. Arrows flew at our backs, but Zeka galloped even faster than their arrows, saving our lives.
“Zeka?!” Jumping up from the sofa, Dov grabbed the journal from her hands, glanced at the page and recognized the handwriting. He threw the book down, breaking the spine. Kicking off his right slipper, he pulled his ankle over his knee to look at the strange geometric scar on the bottom of his foot. “You knew! That’s why you kept touching this! How long have you known?”
“Dov, please sit down,” Tayar said calmly.
The boy paced back and forth in silence, occasionally shaking his head in agitated denial.
When he finally looked at her, she touched the sofa cushion. “Dov, please.”
He glared at the sofa, then at her, and threw himself down onto it. Only after a long silence did he talk, initially very softly, muted by the weight of memories.
“I loved Zeka. You’ll never find another horse his like. One of my earliest memories is how Pa would put me up on Zeka’s back, tell me to hold on tight, then walk us around. I thought I was higher than the sun on Zeka.” He looked at Tayar. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I believe it is.”
“Pa and Zeka saved my life.” It was a toneless statement, more wrenching than the raging emotions she had expected.
“That’s what he believed at the time.” She kept her voice neutral, factual.
“What do you mean?”
“Your father had never seen the Mwertik before. None of our people had. He had no way of knowing. All he saw was an innocent baby being tortured, possibly sacrificed. It fit into our ideas of the strange nomadic tribe that had been raiding our borders.”
“What are you trying to say?” He leaned forward, demanding yet fearful of the truth.
“Mistral found out much later that it was a ritual honor, probably reserved only for the first son of their hereditary headman.”
“By roasting him — me — over a fire? Branding my foot like a beast’s?” He slapped at his scarred foot in anger, as though he would cut it away if he could. “What if he doesn’t survive the honor?”
“Perhaps it would be deemed a sign that he was too weak to lead the tribe, or that the gods did not approve of him.”
“This is crazy! You’re telling me I’m Mwertik!” The word curled like a curse off his tongue. “Pa stole me from my real parents.”
“He thought he was saving your life.”
“And when he found out the truth?”
“Skies! Mwertik! Can you really believe it of me, that I’m one of them?”
“By blood, you’re Mwertik, but that doesn’t make you any less Birani.”
“How can a man be both? Especially those animals. They aren’t anything like the Birani.”
“Do you remember the story we read? Death to the Enemy?”
“This isn’t a story; it’s my life! Don’t you understand? It’s all over. I’m Mwertik. I shouldn’t be here. I’m your enemy!”
“Never! You are and will always be my Dov.”
“But what about Ryl?”
“Yes, what about Ryl? That’s always been the central question, hasn’t it?”
“Is this why Pa — Mistral — kept insisting I had to come here?”
“You’re here because we believe you will make a great Alleman.”
“But I’m Mwertik,” he repeated yet again, spitting out the bitter taste that wouldn’t be expelled. “How can you even want to be near me?”
“Because you are also Dov and Ryl and Birani and whatever — whomever — else you become. Because you are my First Boy, and will become my first Alleman.”
“You’re being sentimental and not thinking straight.”
“No. I’m being realistic. It would have been much easier never to tell you, not to have had to put you through this.”
“So, what am I supposed to do now?” He shook his head. “Hell, Mwertik! It sort of makes sense, though. In a twisted way.”
“We can figure that out together. We still have a few weeks left in our Season.”
“But it was based on a lie. I’m not one of you. I don’t belong here.”
“I hope you don’t really believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Then why don’t we take a rest from all this?” Tayar rose, picked up the journal from the floor, gently tucked it under her arm, and walked toward her bedroom while saying, “I’ll be waiting for you in the inner room, when you feel like joining me.”
The Winter Boy Page 39
