by Dave Smeds
Omi and Peyri complied immediately, but Alemar had the younger women wait long enough to be introduced. Sesheer was an unappealing, somewhat pudgy teenager, timorous and ungainly. Meyr was about the same age as the boy, Rol, in the midst of her growth spurt. She was slender, sharp-featured, with plenty of nervous energy.
“Where are the small children?” Alemar asked. “I thought you said Omi and Peyri were still good childbearers."
Fumlok shrugged. “The desert is not kind to them. Omi lose last young one two seasons ago.” His manner was offhand. Alemar sensed that it was not entirely callousness. To lose several children was simply the way of the desert. Although parents regularly saw infants die in his homeland, Alemar preferred not to think of it as inevitable.
“Don't you have healers here?” he asked.
Fumlok seemed surprised. “The Hab-no-ken are rare. Sometimes they visit a clan only once or twice a year."
“The Hab-no-ken?"
Fumlok paused. “There are four ken. You learn when you are taught the laws of the So-de'es.” He wouldn't elaborate.
The two girls slipped inside the flaps, but the boy stayed. He stood stiffly, and shook when the twins turned toward him.
"Elique pertoh va nagt Po-no-fa!" the boy said. "Oi soh." He spun on his heel and ducked into the tent.
“Why is he angry?” Alemar asked, though, in truth, he understood the reaction better than he had those of the women.
“He say that in one year he rides with the Po-no-pha, the warriors. Then this tent is his. But you kill Am and Roel too soon. Now Rol must listen to you. If he disobeys, you can throw him out."
Abruptly, Alemar heard a deep voice speaking to him in Zyraii. The words meant nothing, but the tone implied a great deal. He turned around to face a burly, barrel-chested man.
Elenya shifted her stance meaningfully. Alemar tensed. Their training would serve them again, if need be, but after the disorientation and physical trials of the day, he wanted only to lie down for a very long time.
“Translate,” Alemar ordered Fumlok.
“Shigmur say that it not polite to wear veil among your brothers, inside the camp. He say take it off.” Fumlok's demeanor hinted that the suggestion was a good one.
Alemar could tell Shigmur was going to press the matter. But weary as he was, he couldn't submit so simply.
“What if we don't want to take them off?” Alemar asked. Fumlok gulped and translated.
Shigmur's reply sounded both calm and ominous.
“Shigmur say no reason to cover the head and face among one's brothers. It is insult. Shigmur does not like it. Of course, a very great warrior do as he please, if he beat ones who disagree. He say you are being a very great fighter to insult so openly."
Alemar pondered the situation for a few moments, then flipped back his cowl and dropped his veil. Shigmur frowned.
“My brother is better,” Alemar said softly.
Alemar stepped back, and Elenya replaced him. “Do as you will,” he told her. “I've had enough of customs and laws for one day."
Elenya stood where she was.
Shigmur said something gruff.
“Take off your veil,” Fumlok repeated.
“No,” she said.
"Na," Fumlok told Shigmur.
The crowd immediately began to clear away from the front of the tent. Fumlok pressed Alemar back. Soon Elenya and Shigmur were in the center of a ring some ten paces wide.
“Shigmur duels you. The loser admits he is wrong,” Fumlok said.
“What are the rules?” Elenya asked.
Fumlok blinked. It was the first time Elenya had spoken clearly, betraying her voice's high pitch. After a moment's hesitation, he said, “First blood or surrender.” Hastily he added, “Killing is not permitted in the camp."
Alemar was relieved. On the other hand, his sister was often only hampered by rules. She was best in an all-out fight.
“Your choice of weapons, or none,” Fumlok said.
She drew her rapier.
Shigmur stared at the insubstantiality of the blade and furrowed his eyebrows. He spoke to Fumlok.
“We have no swords like that here,” Fumlok explained.
“Let him use his scimitar,” she said. She motioned to Alemar, who loaned her his saber. Though less curved than the Zyraii weapon, it was similar in weight and length.
Shigmur nodded and drew his weapon.
“This is very bad for your brother,” Fumlok told Alemar under his breath.
Alemar agreed. Shigmur towered over Elenya, so wide that he appeared overweight, though his grace denied it. His bulk hinted at endurance, rather than ponderousness. As did the other warriors, Shigmur wore only white, but in contrast to many of the clan, the clothing was well-tailored, the material superior, the embroidery intricate and lovingly crafted. The other members of the crowd gave him a clear berth.
Shigmur didn't smile as Elenya assumed her stance. That, too, was bad. Apparently, he had more sense than to scoff at unknown antagonists.
He made the first move, a sudden thrust. Elenya shifted her hips abruptly, turning her torso away. The point jabbed empty space just in front of her breasts. She held her own weapon upright in front of herself, so that the man's sword edge brushed her own, but it was only a precautionary measure. Her body movement had been enough.
The spectators murmured, impressed, as Elenya wove from side to side. She slashed three times, an irregular rhythm aimed at three different points. The man countered easily, the last time opening a tiny slit in her sleeve above the left elbow.
He tested her again. Elenya parried his blow but lost ground. Though more than twice her weight, he was light on his feet.
The crowd noise grew stronger off to one side. People made room for Lonal and an authoritative group of men, older than most of the warriors. The duellists were oblivious, and the newcomers did not attempt to interrupt. They took places in the forefront of the spectators.
Elenya had clipped a shoulder seam on Shigmur's robe, but it had been a wild stroke. She was forced back another step. Alemar wiped his palms dry. Shigmur was neither impulsive nor unskilled, as the attackers at the water hole had been. The crowd's opinion of him was clear in the way they anticipated his victory each time he moved.
He thrust again. Elenya twisted away, but less gracefully than the previous time. Alemar noted the tenor of the thrust—aimed precisely at her shoulder, where the muscle was thick and risk of a fatal injury smaller and pulled so that penetration would not be deep if the strike succeeded. Shigmur's control was superb.
Not so Elenya. Wheezing, she made another reckless swipe. Alemar began to worry. She was exhausted from the trip through the eret-Zyraii, and though she knew the saber almost as well as the rapier, her skill could be just deficient enough to make her question herself. She was getting impulsive.
Don't kill him, sister, he thought. The humiliation was written in her posture, and he knew what she was capable of in such a state.
The duellists continued to circle and feint. They had engaged eight times now, far more often than an ordinary contest—certainly much longer than a fight to the death. It was a challenge to be able to score against a well-matched opponent without causing serious harm. A definitive move eluded them. Alemar had to consciously remember to breathe.
Elenya's veil quivered from the action of her lungs. Worn, as well as unused to the climate, she had no stamina. She faltered slightly. Immediately, Shigmur rushed forward with a series of power slashes that kept her backing up as fast as she could, each impact threatening to snap her saber. His movements were stunning, most of them hidden within a blur. All eyes seemed riveted to his scimitar.
Alemar, however, watched his sister. He stopped worrying.
Abruptly, the man's sword flew through the air, flipped out of his hand by a tiny but accurate movement of Elenya's wrist.
Children's eyes bulged. The men in the foreground grunted in surprise. Shigmur wielded his imaginary weapon for a split moment
after he had been disarmed. He cried out and stared disbelieving at his own hand.
The sword splashed into the sand behind him.
Alemar sighed. Shigmur had pressed too soon. Thanks to her size, Elenya had rarely trained with anyone weaker than herself. As long as she had any strength left, she was capable of tricking a power fencer.
Elenya stretched her swordpoint forward and made a tiny nick on the back of her challenger's hand, which he offered to her, his expression a mixture of surprise and respect. He didn't seem angry.
A flood of words poured through the crowd, cut short by an elder's sharp command. Another order followed, and Shigmur bowed deferentially to the source and walked back to his original companions. Elenya remained in the center of a circle of highly intrigued Zyraii.
Fumlok was called to the elders and questioned briefly. The cripple was especially meek, blending into the audience as soon as permitted. The elders traded a few comments among themselves, and Lonal came forward into the circle.
Elenya waited, saber lowered but still drawn. Lonal stopped a few paces away.
“You are a good fighter, which I had already seen. This morning you had cause to fight. But this is too small a thing,” and he flicked the cloth of his own lowered veil. “You do insult to all present by refusing to reveal your face. I cannot demand it of you by law, but if you persist, you will duel every warrior in this camp, one by one."
Something in his tone told Alemar that Lonal would be the first one Elenya would have to battle. He saw her fingers twitch. If Lonal had physically threatened her, she would have dealt with it. But he had approached with undrawn weapon, so close that he could not have escaped a critical wound should she care to deliver one. He stood within her power, yet told her what to do.
Alemar knew that part of his sister would have been glad to fight every man of the tribe. She would have known her measure against such a task. She was not defeated, yet she had won little beyond passing admiration. And in order to have her way, she would have to go through Lonal. They both knew that her victory over Shigmur had been a combination of surprise and luck.
The war-leader remained as he was, supple arms lax at his sides, breath easy and regular.
Elenya took off the veil.
The crowd was silent. She shook loose the thick black hair framing her delicate features. The children of the clan were the first to express their astonishment.
"Reimi!" a small boy shouted.
The tribe chattered. The stern, stultified visages of the elders melted in shock. And Lonal, after having so tranquilly dealt with the situation, suddenly looked very young and, so it seemed to Alemar, a bit frightened.
Lonal stared at Elenya's chest and crotch. “Is it true? Are you a female?"
“Of course."
Lonal looked as if he had been betrayed. He turned to Alemar, as if to double-check that he were, in fact, a male.
“Fumlok!” he yelled.
Fumlok limped forward.
Lonal didn't look at the cripple but said fiercely, “Explain to these two what this means after I leave.” To the twins he added, “Go to your tent, and do not come out until bidden.” To Elenya he said, “You have destroyed me."
The war-leader, no longer the confident figure they had known up to that point, strode off, the block of elders in his wake. The twins were left to the stares of women and children and soon slipped into their tent to escape them.
“What happened?” Alemar asked Fumlok.
The little man kept gulping and opening his mouth like a fish. At first, Alemar worried that the discomfiture concerned Elenya's gender; then he realized that Fumlok had been terrified to have been so close to Lonal's anger. When he could finally speak, his answer was tentative.
“It is a religious question. Toltac, most high of the Bo-no-ken, must judge."
“I don't understand."
Fumlok pointed to Elenya. “She wears white. She plays the ju-moh-kai, the duel. And she kills a man in combat. Women cannot do this."
“Why not?” Elenya demanded.
When Fumlok replied, he spoke only to Alemar. “Because women have no souls.”
* * *
IV
LERINA PLUNGED INTO THE WATER, feeling the tug of drenched fabric against her body. The warmth of the Dragon Sea enveloped her, familiar as a lover. She surfaced, flung the salt water from her hair, and waded, waist-deep, toward one of the many small islets that dotted this section of Cilendrodel's coast. Fishermen and smugglers feared the reef offshore, providing Lerina with a privacy broken only rarely by visitors combing the tidewaters for shellfish. The isolation pleased her, the beach and the islets a refuge to which she would escape whenever possible, often spending entire days sunbathing or diving. Her favorite place of all was a tooth of land about a hundred lengths out. From the coastal side it appeared to be steep and rocky—inhospitable—but the far side had been worn by the ages into a minuscule beach, a treasured place she had never shown even to her lovers. As now, she went to it when she needed relief from the uninspired existence of Garthmorron Hold.
The water deepened; she swam the last of the way. The sun and the Sister both shone in a cloudless sky. Lerina slipped off her only item of clothing, a brief overtunic, and left it on an eroded chunk of stone above tide level to dry. As she reclined on the sand, she purred at the warmth penetrating her skin. Her jet-black hair curled as it dried; her nipples, enlivened by the swim, flattened with the effects of the sunshine. She was a petite woman, flushed with youth. As she created patterns with the salt crusting on her abdomen, she wondered how her figure compared to those of the fine ladies of the Calinin courts.
Lost in reverie, she almost didn't notice the first moan.
The rising surf lapped at her ankles, eroding her drowsiness. She sat bolt upright. Faint sounds of torment came from the cave at the head of the beach, ordinarily her ultimate retreat. Heart racing, she inched her way toward the rock on which she had laid her garment.
As she put it on, she discovered a bloodstain on its front. Not hers. She heard another moan. Holding the wet spot away from her breasts with one hand, she examined her surroundings.
Fresh blood on the rock had soaked into the fabric. Other drops marred the sand nearer the cave. The spoor of dragging footsteps was clear now that she was paying attention.
Abruptly she rushed forward, pausing briefly at the cave entrance to allow her pupils to adjust to the shadows. Now that the thunder of the surf no longer muted her hearing, she distinctly detected strained breathing.
He sat, body leaning against the far wall of the cave, eyes open and glazed. Sickly anemic skin peeked through the rents in his clothing, coughed blood brightening older, darker stains on the front of his jacket, clotted areas on his scalp and thigh betraying recent seepage. His hair hung in disarrayed, fevered strands.
“Oh, no....” she whispered.
He didn't respond when she squatted beside him. She brushed him on the cheek.
“Who are you? How did you get here?"
His eyes focused briefly on her hand. A croak emerged from his throat.
“What?” she coaxed, leaning her ear to his mouth.
“Water..."
He closed his eyelids. “I'll get help,” she said, gently squeezing his unwounded shoulder. She rose.
“No,” he said, and tried to lean forward. He made it only the width of a finger. He sagged back.
“But...” His expression contained a plea she didn't understand. “You'll die without care."
He didn't speak again but continued to stare at her. She was transfixed. The fear and helplessness on the surface couldn't hide the life of challenge and courage beneath. No men such as this lived in Garthmorron.
Finally, he closed his lids and slumped into unconsciousness. She had to do something. She arranged him more comfortably, leaving his upper body against the cave wall to ease his breathing. He would be dead by the time she returned. But then, he should have been dead already.
She r
an, she swam, and she climbed. By the time she had gained the mainland, mounted the bluff, and navigated the forest trails between the shore and the hold, the wind of her passage had dried her apparel once again. She used the back entrance, through the vegetable gardens, and entered the central grounds without being seen.
Cooking smells wafted from the kitchens near the main house, stablemen groomed oeikani, and Lerina's great-uncle conversed with two serious-faced townsmen in the courtyard. She stole into her father's cottage and cast off the overtunic, choosing a blouse and skirt to replace it. Locating a watertight satchel, she stuffed it with tights, leggings, blankets, a cape, and sundry articles.
Next she slipped into the pantry while Brienna, the old cook, was busy in the kitchen. Lerina grabbed a large wicker basket and filled it with food, particularly that easy to consume in a weakened condition. Then she hid both basket and satchel behind a dilapidated, abandoned outhouse.
No longer concerned about concealment, she removed two large flasks from the tack room, and filled them at the well in the middle of the courtyard. The stablemaster greeted her.
“Good morning, young mistress,” he said.
“Morning, Rictane."
Rictane limped to the other side of the oeikani he was grooming and reapplied the brush. “You must be very thirsty today."
She smiled. “I'm planning on staying at the beach all day. I thought I'd make sure I had enough."
Rictane waved an aged hand toward the main house. “Best ask your uncle about that. There's been some trouble in Eruth. He may want you close to home, especially with your father gone with Lord Dran."
“Trouble? What kind?"
“Can't say. Two riders pulled up a short time ago. They're talking with the chamberlain now. I don't like to repeat rumors until I've had the story straight."
“I see,” she said thoughtfully. “All right. I'll wait."
