Shannivar

by Deborah J. Ross

  In that moment, Shannivar knew they would do nothing. A heat and a stillness fell around her. She was no stranger to bloodshed, but neither was Kharemikhar a stone-dwelling Gelon. He was born of the steppe, brave and arrogant and deceitful, no better and no worse. Azkhantians did not fight one another.

  They had all seen. Tabilit had seen. What Shannivar did now was as much a measure of her character as it was Kharemikhar’s.

  Eriu rubbed the uninjured side of his head, itchy with sweat, against Shannivar’s shoulder. Her anger receded. Whatever Kharemikhar had done, she would not let Eriu suffer. What happened was not the horse’s fault. He had run honestly, with great heart. They should have won, and perhaps, in Tabilit’s eyes, they had.

  He needed to be walked so that his tendons would not become brittle as he cooled down. Only when he was no longer sweating could he be safely watered and then fed. And then . . . Shannivar could not think what came next.

  Shannivar led Eriu to the horse lines. As she went through the motions of caring for her mount, she became aware that others were watching her. The old rider looked up from massaging clove-pungent paste into the lower legs of the young sorrel. His eyes flickered to the swelling welt on Eriu’s face. He said nothing, but Shannivar remembered his words, “I have already won.”

  Zevaron stood at the edge of the horse area, silent. He saw that she noticed him, and he came nearer. Gravely, he studied the black’s wound. Eriu tolerated the attention, although even a gentle touch on the welt must have caused him pain.

  “This needs a poultice of comfrey and firebane. Do you know these herbs?”

  Comfrey she knew, but not the other. He described it, and she nodded. “Pemmeche, we call it.”

  “Yes. It will draw out the pain and keep the skin supple. I have a small supply in my pack.”

  She straightened up from picking out Eriu’s hooves. Zevaron might claim to know little of horses, but he did not hesitate to offer his knowledge freely. He was no enaree, to hoard his secrets. She thought of how he had handled himself against Phannus, ending the confrontation without serious injury. He must have had many such fights in his years at sea. At Gatacinne. She wished he had broken Kharemikhar’s neck in wrestling when he’d had the chance.

  “When men are willing to use any means to get what they want,” he said, “it is the innocent who suffer.”

  She had no idea what to say to that. He meant far more than one individual horse.

  Zevaron went to his tent to make the poultice and returned quickly. She was grateful for his speed.

  At the first touch of the mashed herbs Eriu flinched, but Shannivar murmured to him, stroking his neck, and he quieted. Watching the gentle way Zevaron applied the poultice, she felt a growing respect for, and also an odd kinship with the outlander. They were both on their own. If the chieftains of the gathering would not act regarding the race, neither would they ever risk a single rider to help Zevaron free his city.

  Eriu would heal, and most likely bear an honorable scar. She need never speak to Kharemikhar again. But Zevaron would not be so easily turned away from his goal. A fire burned in him, the shift of golden light just beneath the skin. She had no words for that fire.

  * * *

  With Eriu settled and resting, Shannivar went to wash herself with the cedar-infused water that had been prepared for the contestants. Her arms and legs felt leaden. She could remember few times when she had felt so drained in body and spirit. Reluctantly, because to refuse would have appeared spiteful, she joined the celebration around a bonfire. Kharemikhar was already drunk, cavorting through a men’s dance to the adulation of several young, unmarried women.

  Rhuzenjin pressed a skin of k’th into her hands and urged her to join in the next dance. “You rode magnificently! Saramark herself could not have equaled you. I will compose another song-poem to sing to our clan!”

  How could she explain her disappointment? She had been a fool to think that winning the Long Ride, or any other achievement, could buy her the life she wanted. And what did she truly want? A marriage to someone like Kharemikhar? Not even when drunk could she endure such a fate.

  “Everyone saw what happened,” Rhuzenjin went on earnestly. “How shameful were Kharemikhar’s deeds this day! But take heart. Everyone knows what he is. No one regards you any the less because of his foolishness.”

  Shannivar was annoyed at his solicitude, but said nothing. Rhuzenjin was her friend, even if he clearly wanted to be more. Except for that moment of ill temper at the dance, he had always treated her with respect. She saw that he still had hope, that he had not accepted that she would never return to the clan of the Golden Eagle and marry him. Bear his children.

  In her mind, she saw Grandmother as a young woman, full of the same fire that burned in her own breast. And then she saw the old woman again. Someday, that will be my face. Someday, I will ride Eriu beside Grandmother and Saramark through the Pastures of the Sky.

  She did not fear old age. She feared only arriving at the end of her life without having lived it.

  * * *

  The celebration following the Long Ride went on most of the night. As the young men got drunker, the dancing got wilder. The musicians played in a frenzy. Skin after skin of k’th flowed down the throats of the revelers. Eventually the old people retired, but the festivities continued. Couples went off together. Rhuzenjin glanced hopefully at Shannivar, but she gave him no sign of invitation. She danced a few times, but only with other women.

  At last, one of the Antelope clan men stumbled into a fire, scattering burning sticks and embers everywhere. Everyone scrambled to help him. Shannivar slipped away, not to her jort in the Golden Eagle camp, but to the horse lines.

  As she drew near, the familiar, comforting smells of the horses swept through her. She remembered how Mirrimal had brought her to this refuge on the day Grandmother died. Grief rose up in her like thunder and then subsided. Mirrimal would have understood without words.

  Eriu was lying down, resting deeply. Radu stood only a short distance away, alert, keeping guard over her companion. She nickered in the manner of a mare greeting a trusted friend. Eriu lifted his head as Shannivar approached, but did not rise. His nostrils flared to catch her scent. She spoke his name, and he sighed.

  Curled against the solid warmth of his body, she slept.

  Chapter 17

  SHANNIVAR rose at dawn, fed and watered Eriu and Radu, returned to her jort, and lay down again. The interior of the jort, with its familiar objects, the smell of the old carpet, the small carved chest from Grandmother, soothed her jangled nerves. As she drifted in and out of sleep, the ordinary sounds of the camp lulled her further. She heard familiar voices and the clink of cooking implements. Inhaling the aroma of buttered tea, she imagined herself at home again, in a place where she belonged, a place where no one would dare to strike her horse. Someone lifted the door flap and left a plate of sheep’s milk cheese and boiled barley with wild onions, along with a cup of tea, just inside the threshold. It must have been Ythrae, Shannivar thought, and sank again into half-formed dreams. She did not want the next day to come, for then she must face Kharemikhar. And Rhuzenjin. And Zevaron.

  She woke again, this time to the sounds of excited cries. Still groggy, she could not make out what was going on. She stepped from the jort, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she sought the source of the disturbance.

  A girl of ten or so, mounted on a spotted pony, rode into the clan area in a cloud of dust. Feathers fluttered from her single long braid, and her face glowed with excitement. Shannivar recognized her as belonging to another sept of Golden Eagle, although she could not recall her name. The entire party, including the Isarrans and Danar and Zevaron, gathered around the girl. Even Dharvarath, who in his mourning had kept apart from the others, peered at her curiously.

  “Come, everyone!” the girl called, wheeling her pony. “Come and see!”


  The last dregs of sleep dropped from Shannivar’s senses. “What is it? What has happened?”

  “The Snow Bear party has just arrived and brought with them a thing of wonder! You must all come at once!” Without a backward glance, she kicked her pony into a canter toward the jorts of her own family.

  Shannivar and the others glanced at each other with expressions of puzzlement and delight. Ythrae clapped her hands and exclaimed, “What a mystery!”

  “Is it permitted that we view this wonder?” Danar asked, clearly as interested as any of them.

  “Oh, yes,” Shannivar said. “You are free to participate in any of the gathering events. Did Tenoshinakh not declare so?”

  “I know that he did, but I am so much a stranger here, I was not certain—”

  “Shannivar! Rhuzenjin! What are you waiting for?” Ythrae called over her shoulder. She trotted away in the direction the young girl had indicated, and everyone rushed to follow, skirting the tents and cook fires. Danar and Zevaron came with them, as did the two Isarrans.

  The caravan of the Snow Bear people had just arrived at the northern side of the khural-lak. To everyone’s surprise, there were no women among them. Their horses were light gray with heavily-feathered lower legs and dorsal striping, sturdy and thick-boned. The newcomers brought no camels, only a string of laden reindeer. The beasts’ hooves made odd clicking sounds on the dirt. The two largest had been harnessed together to draw a sledge, to which was lashed a large irregular shape, wrapped in tattered blankets. Under its weight, the wooden runners had carved deep gouges into the earth.

  Tenoshinakh and several of the enarees stood talking with the Snow Bear party. As the crowd gathered, the oldest of the Snow Bear clan turned to survey the newly assembled audience. He assumed a formal stance, legs braced wide and chest thrust out.

  “I am Chinjizhin son of Khinukoth, chief of the Snow Bear people!” he proclaimed in a voice roughened by the passage of many harsh seasons. He introduced his son, Chinzhukog, and the other Snow Bear kinsmen. The northern people called themselves ‘tribes’ rather than ‘clans,’ and made no distinction between one sept or family group and another, considering all fellow tribesmen as brothers. Everyone could see that Chinjizhin came from a distant land. His vest was strangely cut and a fur-lined hood instead of the usual felt cap lay folded back across his shoulders. His skin, although weathered into creases, was unusually pale, his skull oddly shaped. The hair that was drawn back into a complicated single braid was almost as colorless as his skin.

  “On behalf of all the northern tribes, I bring you greetings, news of dire portents, and also a thing of wonder,” he announced.

  “Dire portents?” someone cried, and another, “What has happened?”

  “We have had no bad news from the north.”

  One older man said to his neighbor, “Some say all manner of ill fortune began last year when the white star fell from the sky.”

  “So it was,” the Snow Bear chief said, “for the night sky turned bright as day, and the ground trembled.”

  “What is he saying?” Zevaron bent toward Shannivar. By now, he knew a little Azkhantian, but the Snow Bear man’s accent was too difficult for him to follow.

  Shannivar translated the Snow Bear man’s words into trade-dialect. Behind them, Senuthenkh did the same for Leanthos and his bodyguard.

  “Smoke rose up to cover the Road of Stars,” Chinjizhin said, accompanying his story with dramatic gestures, “but our enaree prayed to Tabilit and it blew away.”

  Shannivar nodded, remembering. At that time, Bennorakh had spent many days in prayer, fasting and chanting and inhaling dreamsmoke. If Tabilit had granted him any visions, he would not speak of them. Nothing dire had happened afterward, so everyone believed his magic had prevailed. The white star’s passage had faded into just another story.

  But perhaps it had, indeed, been a portent. Perhaps Grandmother had known. What had she said? “I do not wish to see this doom upon those I love.”

  “It is not certain,” Bennorakh had answered.

  And Grandmother had responded, “We have seen what we have seen. Do not cling to foolish hope.”

  “We thought all was well,” Chinjizhin went on. “Some of our young men rode off to find the fallen star and returned saying the mountains themselves had been broken.”

  Zevaron’s head shot up. Shannivar felt the leap in his attention as if she herself had been stung. Until that moment, he had been curious in an ordinary way. Now he radiated preternatural alertness.

  “How can that be?” someone asked, astonishment overtaking courtesy. “The land endures forever, for so Tabilit has promised. Mountains do not just fall down. Anyone who says so must have drunk rotten k’th!”

  A few of the onlookers laughed, but others looked grave. Tenoshinakh and Shannivar’s kinsman, Sagdovan, scowled. The mockers quieted. It was one thing to deride outlanders with their strange notions and uncivilized manners, but an outright breach of courtesy to treat another Azkhantian in this way.

  “I myself saw this thing,” the Snow Bear man insisted, pounding his chest with one fist. “Where once the mountains stood as Tabilit had shaped them at the beginning of time, a wall reaching to the sky, there I found only shattered stones.”

  Murmurs swept the audience. No one would dare to question the word of a chieftain, especially one who had witnessed the sight himself.

  “Then in the winter, in the night,” Chinjizhin’s voice dropped into the cadence of a storyteller, “even stranger things were seen.”

  The crowd hushed and drew closer, even those who only a few moments ago had been loud in their skepticism. Shannivar continued to translate for the outlanders, in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “The Veil of the North was torn asunder. Wolves came howling into our kishlak, our wintering-place, although there was still ample game for them to hunt. They threw themselves on the fires, as if they had gone mad.”

  The tale sent a shiver through Shannivar, as if her bones had been brushed by shadows. Not natural shadows, but Olash-giyn-Olash, the Shadow of all Shadows. Certain things—unlucky men, diseased animals, ill-fated actions, cursed objects—were said to have fallen under that malevolent influence.

  Shannivar had never seen anything to make her believe in curses, not when fortune, illness, or simmering blood vengeance could so easily explain the stupidity of men. Like all Azkhantians, she regarded predators such as wolves and cloud leopards with respect, as one warrior race to another. Usually, there was little reason to fear them, unless hunger drove them to stalk the herds. Everyone knew that an old or injured predator could be dangerous. But the madness of animals, and totem animals at that, defied ordinary explanations.

  The Snow Bear chief spoke of how his people had fortified their wintering-places and of the rites and sacrifices they had performed according to the received visions of their enarees. For a time, their lives had continued as before. The Snow Bear tribe believed that all ill had passed.

  But it had not, his voice and manner clearly indicated. That spring, more than a few babies were born dead. Other infants bore strange growths upon their bodies, toes and fingers stuck together like hardened daggers. One of the women in the audience cried out and cradled her pregnant belly. Her friends made signs to ward off evil as they hurried her away.

  The Snow Bear chief told how, when the men gathered in their reindeer herds, they found carcasses with throats torn out but not by any wolf. The flesh had been mangled, chunks of meat ripped from splintered ribs. The livers and hearts had been left intact, something no natural predator would do. The men had followed the trail of blood to find a huge bull reindeer, the leader of the herd, standing in a circle of bodies. Antlers and jaws dripped with hot blood. Several of the fallen reindeer still lived, but barely. Strips of hide had been slashed from the bull’s sides, and many of the others were injured in like manner, as if the ordi
narily placid beasts had turned cannibal on one another.

  The voice of Chinjizhin shook as he told this part of the tale. His eyes gleamed, glassy and half-blind, as if he had looked upon far more terrible sights. He reminded Shannivar of an aged cloud leopard she had once come upon at the very end of its last hunt. Encircled by jackals, it had been too exhausted to run and too feeble to fight. As it gathered itself for a final charge, she had seen in its eyes that same expression of desolation.

  The Snow Bear chief explained they would have arrived sooner, except that a party of their young men had gone exploring in the mountains and brought back a thing of surpassing strangeness. An omen, some had said, but there was no agreement of whether it boded ill fortune or good. Their enaree had inspected the find and then entered a dreamsmoke trance, only to emerge no wiser. In the end, the enaree had determined the object must be brought to the gathering.

  At a gesture from Tenoshinakh, the Ghost Wolf chieftain’s son went to summon the enarees of the khural. The men around Shannivar muttered and drew back from the sledge. None would dare to come any closer until the shamans had declared it safe.

  While they waited, Shannivar inched her way to where she could see more clearly. Zevaron followed, as if he were personally drawn to the object.

  Shannivar had never seen reindeer closely before, although the smiths of the northern tribes often depicted them in ornaments. Their backs were smooth, their coats gray and soft brown. Tufts of pale undercoat dangled from their bellies in tangled clumps. The two drawing the sledge were males. By their hoarse breathing, the crusted foam on their nostrils, and the way their heads drooped, they were near the end of their strength.

  As for the sledge, it seemed an awkward affair, clearly not designed to travel across the tough steppe grasses. A camel would have been far more efficient in carrying even a larger load. The bundle of tattered blankets masked the shape of its contents.

  After a time, the enarees proceeded at a stately, measured pace into the cleared space. None gave any sign of haste. All was in order, their motley garments and magical implements, even their dignified expressions. Gravely they examined the bundle. One by one they peered at it and passed their hands over it, carefully avoiding direct contact. From time to time, one would straighten up, close his eyes, and mumble a chant; another would shake strings of bells and pause, listening to the jangling echoes. When each had performed some test, according to their own enigmatic protocols, they withdrew a short distance to confer. The onlookers, who had watched in awed silence, now whispered among themselves.