There will be none! She screamed, her voice ringing against the walls of my mind.
I will end your life and the life of every person on the plains, War raged. I will kill every beast that walks or runs or flies or crawls. I will rape the very Earth beneath your feet!
But you will not have him, she challenged, with a courage that I had never seen or known. In my mind’s eye, I saw her hand glow hot and white. I saw a candle facing off against a hurricane, as if it could win.
War swelled – she readied herself to fight and die. She had reconciled herself to me after only so many days and hours, for a reason I could not understand. I wanted to quail, but seeing a strength like that stood me up beside her.
Hoping she would love me. For every failure I had suffered, still unable to give up that dream. War had shown it to me and I couldn’t un-ring that bell.
She said this was meant to be. She said she knew me well.
Spare us, War, and your purpose will still be better served.
A pause on both sides, as if I, the reason for the battle, had been forgotten and just now remembered.
Do not pretend to instruct Me, instrument.
I would never, Lord. But think of how much more effective I will be, if this idea of a relationship, this feeling of loneliness, is out of my mind.
That got to Him. I could feel it. My mind still panted from the shadow of the pain.
You will fight alongside My instrument? He asked, almost accused her.
I am with Him, she said, defiantly. If He is Yours, then you have both of us, for I am His.
And with the finality of an earthquake, we were back on the plains. I awoke with a start, this Andaran girl snuggling into my arms, her breath hot into my neck. I rarely dreamed anymore, but had I dreamed this? I would have thought my body would be wet with sweat, but I felt dry, dust from the plains all over me. Blizzard stood nearby, the mare beside him. Had She Runs awakened a new strength inside of me, or could she be that strength?
No – it couldn’t be a dream. I could never dream the pain.
Then, had I married her because I wanted to?
Had I broken hearts for spite?
I held her in my arms and gazed up at the finite stars, knowing only that I didn’t know.
Chapter Nineteen
Planning for a New World
We rode back to the tribe together, the light coming up in the east. She had tried to ride Blizzard but he wouldn’t tolerate her, so she rode the mare. She remained naked - plains dust, blood and stray bits of grass her only clothing. We went right to her tent, past friends and family who grinned knowingly and said nothing. The Long Manes children, especially the little girls, giggled into their hands as we passed them.
The Long Manes lived in teepees; we had something more like a tent. Eight feet by eight feet, canvas sides and four walls with a peaked top to keep the rain off. Walking into mine, I saw my armor, sword and saddle stacked neatly in a corner – Thorn’s doing. An unfamiliar leather sack the size of my old sea bag lay before it. I pulled it open and pretended to ignore my unnamed wife as she cleaned herself with a damp cloth and a wooden bowl of water. The bag turned out to be hers; she took it from me and picked out a simple harness to wear. It consisted of one piece of soft leather that tied behind her neck, fell down her front to hold her breasts, then made a triangle down to between her legs, coming up between the cheeks of her butt and breaking off in a “T” in back, to be tied in front of her. She put on a skirt over this, cut off about two inches beneath her cheeks.
She turned to me with her hands on her hips. We had said nothing of the night before. On one level it seemed as if the fight had never happened, on another I knew that even if I had dreamt the dream of War, I would or could never have imagined the pain.
“Very pretty,” I told her.
She smiled a cocky half smile and tilted her head. “These are the clothes of a woman,” she said, pulling on the front. “See? When my belly stretches, I can still wear it.”
“Ah,” I said, creasing my brow. “One day and already planning on getting fat on me now?”
She kicked me, and then punched my chest. I jumped and laughed. “Well, I can’t stay thin forever with your seed in me, you great oaf of a man.” I took her shoulders in my hands, keeping her out of kicking range, though she tried. “And I suppose when my belly isn’t flat and my breasts sag, you will want another woman?”
I laughed. “Two like you?” I said, bringing on more kicks. “Not likely. Besides, my peoples’ tradition is just one.”
That stopped her, had her brown eyes looking up into my own. “Really?” she asked.
She fell into my arms before I knew it, burying herself there. Her long nails were in my back, her knee between my legs. She wanted me to take her right there, and I wanted to do it.
But Nantar and Thorn’s voices came to us through the side of the tent, and I knew we wouldn’t have the time. I hugged her and stepped out into the light with her just as they were coming in. There was an awkward pause, then a lot of grinning.
“We have to get back,” Nantar said, finally. “Ancenon will be sending out search parties.”
I nodded. I looked down at my unnamed wife.
“Shela,” I said. It just came to me, as if I had been waiting for Shela, and now, here she stood. “Collect any other of your belongings, then give your family and friends your new name and say goodbye. We have to go now, and I don’t know when we’ll be back.”
Taking her new name in stride, she nodded, kissed my cheek and ran off, her body bouncing pleasantly in the leather outfit. I watched her go, Nantar and Thorn with me, and then turned back into the tent to get my armor and sword.
“She is a hot one,” Nantar said. I nodded.
“Long Manes are good people,” Thorn added. “This is an important tribe for you to be allied to.”
I nodded again.
Nantar punched my arm and laughed. “Said all you had to say, hmmm? Well, I’m married and I know. We’ll find a good dropping off spot for her and get on with things – keep her around for now. Maybe we can use her to guard our wealth in Chatoos.”
“I’m sure she and Genna will get along well,” Thorn sniggered.
“I have been dreading that,” I said.
Nantar’s eyes widened. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It occurred to me last night,” Thorn said. “I don’t see how we could have done anything differently.”
“Other than not making this trip at all,” said Nantar.
“Kind of late to change our minds,” I said.
“How did you leave things with Genna?” Nantar asked me.
“They had a falling out,” Thorn answered. “Not a good one.”
“That will make this no better, then,” Nantar said.
“What is worse is that now Genna might think that she doesn’t have to enter the Fire Bond,” Thorn said.
“D’gattis would kill her,” said Nantar.
“Really?” I asked. That seemed kind of harsh.
“Count on it,” Thorn said, looking me in the eyes. “For that much gold, D’gattis wouldn’t hesitate to kill a Man.
“Because of the fire bond, you won’t be able to stop him.”
My heart pounded. Better Genna had never recovered.
I felt guilty for the thought, even as it came to me.
They helped me on with my armor and I sheathed the Sword of War. It felt hot in my hand for some reason. I hoped it just itched to be used. My lifestyle would certainly allow for it.
The tribe gave us a big, general good-bye, and a warning from Kills that he expected to see his daughter regularly. A few of the bucks eye-balled me, as if wondering what I had done to get a girl like her, and what it would take to get her back from me. Many of them had sparred with me and lost, most of the rest hadn’t had the nerve to try. I met them all with a level gaze and let them wonder.
“You are a good man, White Wolf,” Two Spears told me. “I regret that we
did not hunt together. I would have liked to kill with you.”
I laughed. Two Spears was a savage, you had to love him. The scars I had put on him were purple flowers on his face and body, and he wore them as carelessly as his leather tunic.
“I will see you again, Two Spears,” I promised, taking his forearm in mine. “I will find something worthy of us to kill.”
He gripped my arm tightly, and then turned and left in the tradition of the Andarans. We left as well, the horses pounding out the distance on the plains. Shela traveled light, her horses burdened only with a few changes of clothing, stuff for cooking, her leather pack and some wild grain. She had a multi-curved bow and a lot of strings and arrows for it. From what she told me, she could be deadly with the weapon.
We talked the whole way, trading places in the order of our ride. She had a lot to say about her people and a lot to talk about, gossip and oral tradition both, to share with Thorn. When the city rose up on the plains before us, Thorn grinned to her and spurred his horse, Nantar after him, then with a “Hya!” Shela took off on her gelding, leaving the two mares to follow as best they could. I let them go, still trotting, though the stallion balked and snorted and wanted to run.
He turned his head to look at me, the big, brown eye angry. “How dare you?” he seemed to want to know. The day was fresh and bright. I remembered waking up at the Lake of Tears – the fear and the uncertainty; knowing nothing, wondering if I would survive. Blizzard had found me, saved me, and been my friend. He had done more to make me a success here than I had.
The three were nearing the city; the gates open in greeting. This wouldn’t be the last race; this couldn’t be the last challenge. But for a few moments, I savored peace and a sense of contentment that had eluded me until now.
No one else, no one, had ever stood up for me like that before. Even if I had dreamed the whole thing, and I grew more and more certain that I hadn’t, I felt secure in that knowledge. A woman loved me, for whatever reason. It had happened before, but it meant something with Shela.
I would have to face Genna with her on my arm. Genna wouldn’t handle it well.
But for now there were races to be won too. “Go, Blizzard!” I challenged him, and he all but leapt into the air in hot pursuit. We pounded past the pack-mares first, and then caught Nantar’s animal, the slowest and most heavily encumbered. Next came Thorn’s – a local horse but still encumbered and needing more exercise to be at its peak. Finally, we caught up with Shela, light in her saddle, her horse in his prime.
Blizzard screamed his challenge, straining, refusing to be outdone. Shela’s reins whipped the gelding’s ribs, goading it on. Blizzard needed no such urging. He caught the other horse, and for a few moments they ran side by side.
She looked at me, a huge grin on her face, exulting in the moment. Then Blizzard pulled ahead, approaching the gate and the gate guards who dropped their pikes with fear in their eyes, wondering what this could mean.
I arrived first and pulled the stallion up short, slinging gravel and dirt. Shela followed a close second, then her pack mares, and then Thorn and Nantar, his horse blowing like it would die. The gate guards looked up at me quietly; I looked down at them, feeling the horse between my legs quivering with the excitement of the victory.
“We can kill you for approaching the gate that fast,” one pikeman said. The other nodded.
“There are archers on the wall,” the second one said.
Shela laughed. The enmity between the city and the plains people lived on.
“You could try,” she challenged, and pushed past them with her horses. We followed behind in no particular order, the oaths of the guards barely heard.
It took very little time to find our ship, and from there to get directions to the tower Ancenon had bought in town. Another guard, a huge brute of a man in heavy armor, stood outside of the one door to a tall tower in one of the better sections of town, standing in the shadow of the palace walls. The guard drew a two-handed sword, almost six feet long, as we approached, then saw the mark on our armor and resheathed it.
“Lupus, Thorn and Nantar?” he asked.
I nodded, as did Thorn and Nantar.
“And the other?”
“His slave,” Shela said. My head whipped toward her like she had slapped it.
“She will have to be cleared with D’gattis,” the man said. His accent didn’t sound native, more Volkhydran to me. I opened my mouth to protest but Thorn interrupted me.
“D’gattis must have warded the tower,” he said. Nantar nodded. “Most likely you die or worse if you walk inside there and he hasn’t changed the spell to accept you.”
I didn’t know a spell could do that, however this sounded like something that would appeal to D’gattis. Shela had stunned me with her last announcement, now she dismounted and walked right up to the door.
“Ah, yes,” she said, putting a hand on the frame. The guard went to push her aside but a look from her stopped him. He shrugged and called for D’gattis. Shela seemed to be studying the door intently.
“Nasty spell,” she said. She opened the door and stepped through, bringing a shout from the guard, from Thorn and from within. A purple ripple danced across her skin and simple clothes, to run dripping down her hair like electric rain. A moment later she flickered back to her old self and walked through the door non-plussed. I needed no other evidence that I hadn’t dreamed what she had done on what I had mistaken as our wedding night. I didn’t know what gave her the power to do something like this, and to do it so easily, but I now had a lot of questions for this simple plains girl.
D’gattis confronted her right inside the door, Ancenon behind him. Both wore only their leggings, the former placed himself nose-to-nose with Shela as if to pick a fight right there.
“Back, plains witch,” he warned her.
She pointed at me. “That is my man, and I am with him,” she challenged the Uman-Chi. “And as for being a plains witch, I think you know better.”
D’gattis bristled and Ancenon laid a hand on his shoulder. “Ware, cousin. You are unready and she just walked right through a Cheyak Ward.”
“And,” I added, dismounting behind her, “she is with me. I, um – traded for her.”
“Oh, well, that is just fine, then, isn’t it, Lupus?” D’gattis said, turning on me. I had never seen him as emotional as now. “Do let’s just bring a full-blood witch into our abode – “
“I think we should be having this conversation inside,” Nantar said. The rest nodded and we stepped in, the guard calling two more men to take our horses.
We entered the one room at the tower’s bottom level. Instead of couches and chairs I saw pillows on a wood floor and a table with a vat on it. One inside servant ran the place and he helped us off with our armor while Ancenon and D’gattis hurried up the one stair that ran along the curved inner wall to the next level.
Opposite the door, Genna lay on a pile of pillows with her back to the wall. Her hair had been braided and lay down over her shoulder, and she wore only a linen shift, her half-empty bandolier beside her. Her skin remained pale and I could see circles under her eyes. She left her mouth open as she regarded first me, then Shela.
Shela helped me off with my armor and cold-shouldered the servant. I wondered how long that would last, but reminded myself that a slave would do it until told to stop. I had thought slavery illegal here, but she and the rest seemed to take it in stride. I looked her in the eyes and she leaned forward so that I could whisper in her ear.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“You mean, am I a plains witch?” she asked.
I nodded; she laughed, unbuckling my breastplate. “I am the woman who belongs to you, and a daughter of Power,” she said. “Much as you are to War, I am to Him.”
“I can’t do any of the things you do, though,” I whispered.
She looked in my eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Can’t you, in your own way?”
I had no answer to that.
“Is she your other woman, White Wolf?” she asked me, pointedly not looking at Genna.
“Inasmuch as she isn’t my woman at all, yes,” I said. “That’s Genna.”
“She is staring at us,” Shela said. “She does not look well.”
“I told you, she’s sick.”
Shela stayed quiet after that. Nantar and Thorn greeted Genna and asked how she felt. Genna avoided eye contact with me, so I ignored her. Finally Ancenon and D’gattis came back down stairs, D’gattis looking unhappy.
As we finished getting our armor off, Thorn updated the Uman-Chi and Genna, painting a picture of an unavoidable conflict and an ally on the plains because of it. In his narrative, Thorn never used the words “married” or “wife,” and it occurred to me that no one else had either. Neither had there been any sort of ceremony. Still, the Priest in Purple and the Wizard in Yellow were obviously unsure.
Genna’s lips were fixed in a thin line, her eyes avoiding me.
“You don’t plan to include a slave girl in the Free Legion?” Ancenon asked. After consulting Nantar and Thorn, I had explained the Free Legion to Shela, and what we had been doing, on the trip into the city. She would find out anyway, better that she hear it from me.
“I have no desire for that,” she said. The two looked at her as she tightened my breeches and pushed me down on a pillow. Standing behind me, working her fingers into my shoulders, she added, “I am a Long Manes plains woman. I follow my man and I mother his children, and I want no allegiances other than that when the children start coming.”
“Good,” Genna said, not looking at anyone.
“Fair enough,” Ancenon said, fending off the impending argument. D’gattis just grumbled, a response which I could tell Shela liked.
“What have you been up to for five days, then,” Thorn asked. He looked around. “Redecorating and hiring manservants, apparently.”
Nantar laughed and D’gattis stood, walking to the vat on the one table. He dipped an ale mug and raised it dripping to his lips. The servant who had helped Nantar and Thorn with their armor returned from upstairs with a platter stacked with some cold meat and bread.
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 29
