The older man collapsed with relief against the outer wall of the hut.
Vatar closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. He smiled at Boreala. “I don’t know how to thank you. Or Veleus.”
“Thanks aren’t necessary. It’s what I do.” Boreala sagged. “Is there some quiet place where I can rest?”
Vatar took her arm. “Of course. Our hut is empty. You can use that for as long as you need. Pa and Cestus and I can all use the bachelor hut, if we need to.”
~
Boreala gratefully entered the quiet of the hut. Before she could rest, there was one more thing she needed to do. She sat cross-legged on the floor—there was no furniture in any of these huts, just grass mats—and composed herself. It would be hard to reach across such a great distance, but Father would be expecting some word from her.
“Father.”
“Yes, I’m here.” The speed of the reply suggested that Veleus had been waiting anxiously for some contact.
“It’s as well that I came myself. Another might not have been able to save her.”
“She will live?”
“As long as she doesn’t start bleeding again, she will recover fully.”
“And the child?”
“A boy. Small, but strong.”
“Like you,” Veleus answered with a smile. “Thank you.”
Boreala smiled tiredly. “You know how I love a challenge, Father.”
“Get some rest.”
Chapter 19: The Zeda Waterhole
Riding back across the plains at a more leisurely pace, Boreala was eager for a chance to get out of the heat and into the shelter of one of those ingenious sod huts. They’d left the intermittent shade of the oak-studded hills behind them hours ago and the sun was fierce.
From what Vatar and Lucina had told her they were coming to the gathering place of the Dardani clans at the biggest waterhole on the plains. A place the Dardani called “Zeda”. It had been a month, but she’d refused to leave her patient—Lucina—until she was sure both she and baby Fenar would be fine. In truth, she’d known that by the second day, but she was enjoying the freedom afforded to a woman among the Dardani. So different from the stifling atmosphere among the Fasallon. She’d go back soon. Danar had mentioned gathering a herd of horses and cattle to drive to Caere soon after all the clans had gathered at Zeda. That would be soon enough.
As they crested one of the many rolling hills, Lucina pointed ahead. Boreala stood in her stirrups for her first glimpse of Zeda. No wonder they called this the biggest waterhole on the plains. To her, it looked more like a small to medium-sized lake. Although, from the cattails and scattering of lily pads, it wasn’t very deep, even near the center. On the near shore was the largest conglomeration of Dardani huts she’d yet seen. Boreala squinted. Actually, it almost looked like six separate villages—all about the size of the Lion Clan’s spring village—grouped loosely around a central open space. A scattering of trees stood at wide intervals around the village and its outskirts.
Beside her, Lucina looked ahead, too. She was much stronger than she had been, but the long ride was clearly taxing her endurance. “Something’s wrong.”
Boreala turned to her. “What? How can you tell?”
Lucina shook her head. “I don’t know what. We won’t find out until we arrive. Then, I’ll wager, Danar will be off to consult with the other chiefs and find out.” She looked ahead to where her husband and Vatar rode at the head of the column, both of them turning their heads to scan the scene. “He sees the same things I do.”
“What?”
Lucina gestured to the herds grazing placidly on the outskirts of the village. “The herds are much too close in. Usually they’re set to graze farther away, so they don’t foul the water for the village.”
Boreala nodded. That made perfect sense to her.
“And there are too many herdsmen,” Lucina added. “At least twice as many as are needed to keep the herds in place, especially when they have fresh grass and water.” She squinted. “They’re heavily armed, too. Spears mostly. Very few bows. We’re much too far north for an attack by the Themyri. I wonder what else it could be.”
As they reached the edge of the village, Boreala didn’t need Lucina’s help to notice the tense atmosphere. Yes, something was definitely wrong.
Danar and Vatar wheeled their horses and rode back to them. “You go on and start getting the hut ready. Vatar will help you. I’m going to go find the chiefs and find out what’s going on.”
The Lion Clan, which had ridden together as an organized column from the spring village, began to break up, separate family groups going off to find their own huts. Boreala, Lucina, Kiara, and Cestus followed Vatar toward a hut that Boreala couldn’t have distinguished from any other.
Vatar dismounted and reached up to take his baby brother from Lucina. He handed the baby off to Kiara and then helped his mother dismount. He led her over to the shade of a nearby tree. “You sit here and take care of Fenar. Boreala can look after both of you. Cestus and I will take care of getting the hut ready for the summer.”
Kiara handed the baby back to her mother. “I can help, too.”
Vatar smiled. “Of course you can.” He pointed a finger at her. “You take care of mats and lamps. Cestus and I will take care of the roof.” He reached over and tugged on Kiara’s long pony tail. “You couldn’t reach that anyway.”
Boreala smiled as she watched them go to work. It was hard to tell with young men Vatar’s age. Some of them were good with younger children and even infants. Others weren’t. Vatar was. Unlike some of her brothers, Boreala could see Vatar being a good father someday. Like Cestus. At least she’d get to be an indulgent aunt.
Boreala couldn’t see what the others were doing inside the hut, except that some sort of covering over the top seemed to jostle and bounce from time to time.
“They’re raising the leather roof covering on supporting poles,” Lucina said. “Then they’ll look for any chinks in the sod walls. Generally, the walls stand pretty well through the winter, but the hide roofs would never stand the load of snow, so we take those down and store them along with the mats.”
Another tall blond man hurried toward the hut. Were no Dardani short and dark? Apparently not. He shouted for Danar.
Vatar came through the door at the man’s cry. “Pa’s not here. What can I do for you, Larad?”
“Is your mother here? We need her urgently,” the man Vatar had called Larad said.
Lucina stood up. “I’m here, Larad. What’s your need?”
Boreala scrambled to her feet, too.
Larad turned and took several steps towards them. “It’s my daughter. She was attacked two days ago. You’re the best healer among the Dardani. Please come.”
Lucina handed baby Fenar off to Kiara, who’d also come out of the hut behind Vatar. “Take care of your little brother until I get back.”
“I’ll come too,” Boreala said.
Larad looked at her with some suspicion.
Lucina put her hand on Boreala’s arm. “This is Master Healer Boreala from Caere.”
Larad ducked his head. “If you can help, we’d be grateful.”
Vatar stepped forward. “Who attacked Miriada?”
Larad looked at him in confusion for a moment before shaking his head. “Of course. You just arrived. You wouldn’t have heard yet. It was one of the tigers.”
Vatar took a step back. “Tigers? Here?”
Larad nodded. “Mostly, they’ve been attacking the herds. But they’ve attacked a few people who were caught too far away from the huts. One of them mauled Miriada down by the waterhole yesterday.”
Lucina pushed forward. “If it’s been a whole day since she was attacked, we should get to her as soon as possible. Just let me get my healer’s bag.”
Vatar ducked inside the hut and came out with both Lucina’s and Boreala’s bags.
Larad nodded and led the way.
When Lucina and Boreala entere
d Larad’s hut, they found a girl a little younger than Vatar, lying on her stomach. There were wide-spaced tearing wounds down the length of her back. One claw had caught the side of her face, barely missing her eye. The ear lobe on that side was partly torn off.
“Lords of Creation! What did he say did this?” Boreala asked.
“Tiger,” Lucina answered as she inspected the wounds. “A very large, striped cat. They’re forest-dwellers usually. And normally solitary. I’ve never known them to hunt in pairs. Or to come this far out onto the plains.”
Looking up at the mother, she asked, “You gave her a sleeping draught?”
The mother nodded miserably. “It was all I could do for her. I was afraid to use too much pauver juice.”
Lucina nodded. “You did right. She has survived the initial shock. The danger now is infection. We must clean the wounds thoroughly. It will be easier if she sleeps through that.”
“I have something that will help prevent infection,” Boreala said.
“Pink Root?”
Boreala nodded once. “Yes.”
“Good. I’ve never been able to get any from Caere.”
Lucina and Boreala worked together to clean and dress the wounds. Boreala carefully reattached the ear lobe. When they finished, Lucina handed a jar of nearly pure pauver juice to Miriada’s mother. “Before she wakes, put this on the wounds. Use it all. I’ll bring more tomorrow.”
The woman chewed her lower lip. “Will she be . . . ?”
Lucina nodded. “Scarred? Yes. I’m afraid she will.”
“I may be able to keep the scars from stiffening, at least,” Boreala said.
As they started back to Lucina’s and Danar’s hut, Boreala asked, “What was that? The salve you used on her wounds?”
“Pauver juice. It’s a numbing agent made from a fruit that grows in the forest,” Lucina answered. “We trade for it with a tribe to the east, the Modgud. Very useful, but it can be over used.”
“What happens then?” Boreala asked.
“The feeling never returns. That’s why we generally use only a small amount in a salve. Miriada’s wounds need more, in spite of the risk.”
“Still . . . We have nothing as effective in Caere,” Boreala said.
Chapter 20: Tigers
Vatar spent his days with the weapons makers, rather than helping to guard the herds. There was no question of taking a small group across the plains right now to return Boreala and Cestus to Caere. That was much too dangerous. Apart from tripling the guards on the herds and warning everyone to stay inside after dark, when the tigers were most likely to hunt, there wasn’t much more that could be done until the Horse Clan, last of the clans to arrive at Zeda this year, finally turned up. Then there’d be a tribal council to try to come up with a plan. There had to be something they could do.
Vatar worked on hammering edges on the bronze spears. He’d learned to work bronze and copper at the Guild Hall. Bronze weapons were fine for most of the Dardani’s purposes. As good as iron in most ways, but they weren’t steel.
Pa stopped by the workshop to pick up some fresh spears for the men riding guard on the herds.
Vatar handed them over, but couldn’t help venting his frustration. “If I just had steel and the tools to work it. Then we might be able to accomplish something. I bet steel would penetrate the tigers’ thick hides.”
“I wish you did, too,” Pa said. “We need any advantage we can get. But there’s no way to get those things now.”
A sudden outcry to the east made them both stop and turn in that direction.
“That’ll be the Horse Clan coming in. We’ve been expecting them for days. I hope the herdsmen were able to get to them before the tigers did. But, from the sound of it, I’m afraid they didn’t.” Pa said. He clapped Vatar on the shoulder and headed off to find out what was going on.
The uproar over the arrival of the Horse Clan masked the arrival of a much smaller party—just two riders and three pack horses—arriving from the west. Vatar saw them as they crossed the open space at the center of the village.
“Arcas!” Vatar strode across the square to meet them. He noticed the glint of a brand new torc around Arcas’s neck. There’d be time for congratulations later. There were more pressing concerns right now.
The two riders turned to intercept Vatar in the middle of the open space.
“What’s going on?” Arcas asked.
Vatar shook his head. “You may wish you’d stayed safely in Caere.” He filled Arcas and Bolar in on what had been happening since the clans began to assemble at Zeda. He ended with, “I’ve got nothing to work with but copper and bronze. If I had some steel and the tools to work it, maybe I could forge some weapons that would be able to kill those tigers.”
Arcas gestured to the extra pack horses. “Then we’ve come at the right time.” Father decided it’d be a good idea to send along your forge tools and some raw materials. He thought that as long as you’re here, you could start showing off your new skills by taking care of most of the repairs and maybe doing a little new work. Start building your market.”
Vatar grinned. “Come on. We need to start setting up for some real work.” He led Arcas to the busy workshop.
Vatar looked up from setting up a corner of the workshop as a blacksmith’s forge when a shadow crossed the floor.
Pa stood in the doorway, watching. His eyes were serious.
“How bad was it?” Vatar asked.
Pa shrugged. “Not as bad as it could have been. The tigers dragged off a goat and a horse. If the horse hadn’t bolted and thrown his rider, the boy would have been killed, too. The tribal council is set for tomorrow morning. I only hope we can come up with some solution to this.”
~
Vatar and Arcas gathered with the rest of the Lion Clan along one side of the open central space. They called it a square, although it really had six irregular sides. The other clans gathered similarly. Horse Clan to one side of the Lions and Wolf to the other. In the center, a temporary tent, its sides rolled up, had been set up to allow the chiefs to confer in private, but any Dardani old enough to have received his or her Clan Mark was entitled to be heard first.
Pa, Mother, and Uncle Bion gathered at the tent with the other chiefs. Since this was a very formal occasion, each of them wore the fringed sash that marked their status. The only chief Vatar didn’t see in the group was the tribe’s shaman, Maktaz. Odd, but Vatar was just as glad not to have to face Torkaz’s father again. He’d been dreading that since they’d arrived at Zeda.
The eldest chief of the Horse Clan stepped forward to open the council. “We are here to discuss solutions to the problem we all face. How are we to deal with these tigers?”
“We have to move! We can go back to the river. If we remove the herds, take away their food, the tigers will go back to the forest,” one man said.
Vatar shivered at the very mention of the river.
“No! If we move, they’ll just follow us. They followed the Raven Clan all the way here. They would follow us and our herds to the river,” a woman said.
“And both the herds and the Clans would be spread out on the move. It would be impossible to protect them all,” Uncle Bion said.
“Then we must kill them,” someone else said.
“How?” one of the herdsmen asked. “Our arrows cannot penetrate their tough hide. It’s impossible to get close enough for a penetrating shot. Those who have tried are dead.”
“We might kill one. But two together are impossible. If we concentrate on one, the other comes up behind us. Nothing we’ve tried works,” a Raven Clan herdsman said.
“Maybe with enough men, we can corner both of them,” said one.
“Or maybe we can lure them into a trap,” said another.
Vatar stepped forward. This was getting them nowhere. With iron and steel to work with, at least he could supply better weapons for the Dardani to fight with. “I can make . . .” Vatar broke off and shuddered at the prickling feelin
g between his shoulder blades. The tigers couldn’t have stalked into the village, could they? Should he try to send someone to check on the younger children who were supposed to be playing safely in the clans’ main huts?
Silence fell and all heads turned as Maktaz strode into the square, wearing his full regalia as shaman.
“I have sought guidance from the Spirits on this current crisis,” Maktaz announced as he reached the center of the square—where all eyes were on him. “Their answer is clear. The tigers are a test. Specifically, they are the test that the Spirits have set for the manhood rites this year.”
Boys all around the square blanched. Vatar could see Ariad make the warding sign against evil and Daron shake his head in disbelief. They must be wishing that their fathers hadn’t held them back from the test last year. Vatar reached up to touch his torc. At least he and Arcas were safe. Now he had to think of a way to save his friends, too.
“That’s murder!” someone shouted. “We can’t possibly send boys against monsters that have killed seasoned men.”
“The Spirits are clear on this. If we fail to accept their will, worse will come,” Maktaz answered.
It seemed to Vatar that the shaman struggled against an unpleasant smile. The itch between his shoulder blades flared to fire.
Maktaz turned to face Vatar directly. “The Spirits also decree that you, Vatar, must undergo the rites of your people. Proof of manhood amongst the city people is not sufficient.”
For a moment, Vatar saw white spots in front of his eyes that pulsed in time with his heartbeat and rapid breathing. He clenched his fists and his jaw to slow his pulse. Arcas moved to stand closer to Vatar. Boreala and Cestus, who had been watching from the back of the crowd, moved to flank them, as if they could protect him.
“It was sufficient for me,” Pa said loudly.
Maktaz did smile at that—a smile that sent chills down Vatar’s spine. “I cannot speak to what the Spirits had to say about that. It was in my father’s time as shaman. But the Spirits spoke very directly on this. Vatar must be part of this test.”
The Shaman's Curse (Dual Magics Book 1) Page 11
