Remnant: Warwitch Book 1

by Teresa Rook

“What will you do,” she spits, “kill your own horses?”

  “That’s why you attacked us. They’re what you want.”

  The woman scoffs. “You invaded our land. That’s all.”

  “So, you don’t care if I slit their throats?”

  “You won’t do it. You don’t have it in you.”

  The woman is right. It’s a brave gesture, but Ennis wouldn’t kill a beetle. She gestures towards him and everyone who isn’t directly engaged with me or Riksher advances. “He won’t do anything. Get the horses.”

  Crisis averted, my strangler returns his full attention to me. I choke for breath and Ennis moves. I blink, not understanding at first.

  He crouches and jabs the spearhead into the skull of Riksher’s mare.

  The horse screams and kicks, its mangled leg flailing sickly. Ennis adjusts the blade and stabs again, this time going in through the eye. Red spurts into the air and across his face. The horse stills.

  Ennis stands back up, the other two horses stamping nervously beside him. I choke, but not from the hands on my neck. I watch the dead horse. She was dead already. She was dead already. She was dead already.

  “Let us go,” Ennis repeats, holding his weapons back to the healthy horses’ necks. “You’ve already lost people here today. Lose these horses and those deaths are wasted.”

  The woman is silent, perhaps as stunned as I am. Ennis is a sight to see, the blood staining his clothes like a painting and glinting wetly off his dark skin. He stares the woman in the eye, breathing hard. I would hold my breath if it wasn’t being held for me.

  “Release the horses to my people,” she says, two of whom step forward. “Then you and your friends may leave. Forever.”

  Ennis doesn’t seem to trust her, which is probably a good call. He looks back and forth between Riksher and I, perhaps searching for some guidance about how to ensure she keeps her word. What’s to stop them from executing all three of us once the horses have been handed over? But Riksher and I are both silent. This chance is precarious, and even Riksher seems to know better than to open his mouth.

  Ennis hands over the reins. At a nod from the woman, my attacker releases me from his grip. I immediately roll into a fetal position to wheeze. My hands shake and my vision, blackening from lack of oxygen, swims with adrenaline and disbelief.

  I make myself stand. Riksher limps to my side. Ennis, uninjured, joins us both, and walks backwards to keep an eye on the tribe as we make a slow, on-foot retreat.

  thirteen

  When we finally arrive back at the tracks, I want to collapse. All our supplies were strapped to those horses. The strips of smoked pork and the salted fruits, our tents and the flint we use to set the fires that keep us warm at night. Ennis got us out of there alive, but our continued existence now hangs perilously upon one goal.

  “We need those horses back.”

  We all know it. Ennis tries to argue, briefly, for leaving them. A deal’s a deal, he says.

  “Because who cares who’s starving, right?” I sneer. He gives me a confused, wounded look. I take a deep breath and speak evenly. “We don’t have to honor this. I won’t hold myself to exploitive agreements made to save my life in the short term.”

  “We’re not talking about the horses anymore, are we.” Ennis swallows and glances at Riksher, who’s sitting silent with his fingers steepled over his closed eyes. Strategizing.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I get to my feet. Ennis moves to follow me, but I hold my palm up behind me. “I need to be alone for a moment.”

  I step away from the tracks, my feet landing hard on the steep incline that forms the ditches on either side. I reach the bottom, and the land curves sharply back up, just for a step, before straightening out to the desert. I won’t go far. I’ll keep the tracks in sight. But I can’t be near the Chirals right now, so I go.

  Ennis is right. It’s not about the horses. It’s about the way we’ve been stolen from, over and over and over again, justified with a reminder that we agreed to this. I snort and punch the air. This is so obviously wrong. We need those horses. Nobody wins when everybody’s afraid to defend what they need to survive. It reminds me that I’m traveling with two politicians.

  Of course we need the horses. We’re on a mission. Riksher thinks he’s saving the entire world. And he’ll let a stupid, coerced deal stand in the way?

  This isn’t the way life should work. We’re getting those horses, and I’m saving those trains. I’m saving my tribe.

  I spin around and kick viciously at the air, needing a new release, the strain from the earlier fight wearing heavy across my body. Stretch it, work it, fight it out. Be mad. Be strong.

  But I’m caught entirely off-guard when my foot connects with something solid. A stunned oof turns my surprise to anger. “I told you not to follow me!”

  A small, rough laugh greets me, an on-the-edge-of-grown sound that rattles and breaks high. A brown face peers up at me from where my accidental victim is hunched over, clutching his stomach. “That’s a mean kick,” the stranger says.

  I back away and get low, my fists coming up. “Who are you?” Is he with the people we fought earlier? He doesn’t wear the red stitching.

  “The name’s Korde.” He takes an audible breath and straightens, throwing his shoulders back. He smiles. Young, unfamiliar. Taller than I am, but reedier. A teenager who’s getting taller so fast the rest of his body can’t keep up. “I’m sorry I followed you. I didn’t think you’d all be comfortable with me walking right up to you, after that whole…incident back there.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I said. I’m Korde. Iral Korde.”

  “Tribe Yural?” I get back into my defensive crouch, which had lapsed slightly in my surprise at his youth. That’s what they called their settlement, isn’t it?

  The boy wrinkles his nose and leans back. “No. They’re not even a real tribe. I said Tribe Iral.”

  “Tribe Iral,” I repeat. The name isn’t familiar to me.

  “Yural was our town. We were here first. The so-called Yurals are nothing but thieves.” The boy kicks a pebble with a vehemence the doesn’t match its short, sad trajectory. Not a lot of strength to him.

  “Why did you follow me?”

  He clasps his hands behind his back and rocks from side to side. “Because I saw what you did back there. You’re amazing.”

  Amazing. You killed a man, Darga. “And?”

  “And.” He attempts a sheepish smile. “We need your help. You’re Chirals. Tribe Iral is one of your citizen tribes. And you’ve done fuck-all for us so far, so now’s your chance.”

  I hold up a hand. “I’m not a Chiral.”

  “Really? What tribe are you, if not Chiral?” He tilts his head and looks me over, taking in the bright red of my tunic.

  “I’m Tribe Barnab. These aren’t my clothes.” I feel self-conscious in the Chiral garb, but I don’t let it show in my body language. I stand straight.

  “Barnab. The Farms, right? Okay.” He pauses. “Haven’t you suffered at their hands as well? Don’t you think they owe us help?”

  I do. Very much so. I cross my arms. “Do you have a point, Iral Korde?”

  “Yeah. It’s that the Chirals are supposed to protect us. That’s the promise they made when they got rid of the witches.”

  “You’re too young to remember that.”

  He laughs. “Remember it? I didn’t have to be there. I’m living the consequences now. We weren’t hungry with the Witches.”

  I sigh. “Okay, kid, look. I wouldn’t say I disagree with you, exactly. But,” I say as his face lights, “we’re on a tight schedule with our own stuff. Under different circumstances, I’d fight for your cause. But we just can’t spend any more time here. We can’t help you. We have to move on.”

  “It doesn’t matter how quickly you move on. Without your horses, you’re not getting anywhere fast enough.”

  How long was he watching us? “Okay,” I say, somewh
at uneasily. Waiting to hear where this goes.

  “So, we can help each other, then.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “You have horses to sell?”

  He laughs, loudly. “No. Holy—do I look like I have horses? Oh man. No. But I know Yural, which means I know where they’re keeping yours.”

  #####

  It’s a tough sell when I bring Korde back to the tracks. Riksher is immediately on his feet, and Ennis tilts his head, not sure what I’ve gotten us into this time.

  “Relax,” I say. “He’s not with the Yurals.”

  “Yurals?” Ennis asks.

  “The tribe that attacked you,” Korde says earnestly. “They’re a bunch of thieves who call themselves Tribe Yural. You’re not the only ones they’ve bullied.”

  “Where are your parents?” Riksher asks.

  Korde points back out into the desert. “Right now, our camp is that way.”

  Riksher’s jaw drops open. “Nomads,” he says, his voice high and hopeful. “You’re nomads?”

  “We are now,” the kid says with a scowl. “And hungry ones, too. The Yurals took all our food a few days ago. We’ve got nothing now.”

  “Sound familiar, Riksher?” I ask.

  “And you’re Chirals, aren’t you,” Korde says. “Which means you have to help.”

  I want to high-five the kid.

  #####

  “Riksher doesn’t trust him,” Ennis whispers to me as we follow Korde through the desert. The tracks are still in sight, but it makes Riksher nervous to be walking even this far from them. He glances around constantly, and his hand keeps straying to the hilt of his cutlass. But he’s also got an almost kid-like excitement to him.

  “Too bad. You Chirals want to be in charge, you have to take some risks. Besides, if we want the horses…”

  He shakes his head, but I’m not sure what he’s disagreeing with.

  “So, what’s with Riksher, anyway? What’s the big deal about the kid?”

  “He’s a nomad,” Ennis says with a shrug. “That’s how Carnigans were before the witches, you know. It’s what Riksher wants us to return to.”

  “Ah. I get it,” I say. “It’s a sign of success. The genocide paid off and people, at least some people, are back to normal now.” I say this with no small degree of animosity. Isn’t it obvious to Riksher that nomad life hasn’t been kind to this kid?

  We follow Korde to the home of Tribe Iral where we’re greeted, in the loosest sense of the word, by a slender woman in skirts so worn they’re translucent. She blends in with the desert, her dark hair held off her neck in a tan bandanna. It’s just her and an iron pot hanging over a fire, with a few bags of supplies stacked to one side.

  Beyond this tiny camp, it’s just desert, a muted yellow-brown as empty as the cloudless sky. There’s a small square pen ringed with wooden stakes that hold stalks of corn, but they’re dull and withered. I’m surprised at how small it is, but they must have more like this nearby. Without a river like Barnab has, their crops would have to be more spread out so as not to compete for what little water is available. This setup would also make them difficult to defend against thieves, I imagine.

  The woman straightens from her place in front of the pot and shields her eyes from a sun that’s sunk low in the sky. She takes a deep breath and seems to grow a few inches, planting herself in the ground like a tree.

  “Who are you?”

  Korde looks even younger compared to her. His whole character seems to change from the scrappy, resourceful, dissonant kid to one who occupies the lowest place in his tribe’s pecking order. He steps in front of me with his hands held up in a gesture of peace. “Please, mother. I brought them here. They can help with the Yurals.”

  But his mother watches us with fury in her eyes. “You manipulate my son,” she says. “What do you want from us?”

  “Your son has offered to help us retrieve our stolen horses,” Riksher says in his leader’s voice. The mother looks sideways at him.

  “Korde,” she says, “go get your father.” The boy scampers off, and she bends back to her pot, showing Riksher her back. Her vertebrae stand visible under thin cloth. “We have nothing to give.”

  “Your son knows where they’re being held.”

  “Then go get them. What are you here for?”

  “Maybe we should leave,” I say to Ennis under my breath. He puts a finger to his lips, asking me to be silent.

  “He won’t just tell us where they are,” Riksher says. “There’s great benefit for your tribe as well. You show us where our horses are, and in exchange, we help you take back the food that’s been stolen from you.”

  The woman narrows her eyes. “Korde shouldn’t have spoken to you.”

  “You can trust us,” Riksher says. “My brother and I are Chirals. Your Wolf is bound to protect you.”

  “If so, this is the first we’ve heard of it.” She says it with a sneer, a challenge. “Where was our Wolf when the Yurals drove us from our home? Or the many times they’ve stolen from the fields we can’t defend?” This makes me root for her, at least a little bit. I bite my lip and stare at the back of Riksher’s head. Have I been forgetting to see him as the enemy? “Tribe Iral has no Wolf.”

  “The Wolf you knew has passed on. I am preparing to take her place.” Riksher speaks of this with incredible calm, like it’s just a transaction. Power from there to here. He’s good at that, I realize. He can switch his temper off entirely in a way I’ve never been able to. A dam in his brain, with himself stopped up in the back and a rational husk to face the world.

  His words give the woman pause. When she speaks, her voice has lost all contempt. “Wolf Iskielle is dead?”

  Riksher nods.

  The woman lowers her head and says a reverent something under her breath. Whatever gripe she has with the Wolf, it’s not enough for news of her death to be a welcome revelation. She breathes deep and looks back up at Riksher, drawing herself up to her full height, looking him in the eye. “So, you are one of her pups. Who runs Salis now, while you’re out wandering the desert?”

  “My brother Dyren,” he says without inflection. “It is not a permanent arrangement.”

  This is the first I’ve heard of Riksher’s intentions to seize power. I have a hard time picturing him bartering with delegations or settling tedious disputes. I have no wish for Dyren to remain as Wolf, but is Riksher truly going to usurp him?

  “And what sort of rule can we expect from this brother of yours?”

  Riksher’s loyalty to the current Wolf runs shallow at best. He will not protect him the way he would have protected Iskielle. He would have moved heaven and earth for her. “War,” he answers immediately. “I expect a campaign against Niroek within the year, if he’s allowed to stay in power that long. Dyren blames the river-walkers for our mother’s death and will use that as an excuse to invade.”

  “Par for the course for a Wolf, then,” she says.

  Riksher flexes his jaw but doesn’t argue. That bit of him is dammed up.

  “Chloje.” A man approaches, Korde trailing behind him. He moves to stand behind the woman and puts a hand on her elbow. She doesn’t acknowledge this except to lower the arms that were crossed at her chest.

  This man softens her, and the parallel with my own family strikes me hard.

  “Hello,” he says, holding out his hand first for Riksher to shake, then me, then Ennis. His palm is dry and leathery, his fingers meaty and warm. He smiles at me through a scraggle of days-old beard. “I am Fariq of Tribe Iral. I see you’ve met my lovely wife, Chloje, and, of course, our son Korde.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say.

  “We’re sorry to hear of your troubles,” Ennis says, placing his other hand on top of Fariq’s as they shake. Fariq nods and returns to his wife’s side.

  “They want us to break them into Yural, Fariq,” Chloje says.

  “Yes, Korde mentioned.”

  “We’re not going to do it.”

  “Why not?”<
br />
  “Because we can’t trust them.”

  Fariq rolls his eyes, a move that seems especially dangerous. But he does it with a grin, so Chloje’s narrowing eyes must be less deadly than they seem. A secret code that looks like annoyance but is really maybe love. “We can’t trust anyone, Chloje, remember? You remind us of it often enough.”

  “The Chirals stole our way of life.”

  Riksher wants so badly to interrupt. No, I imagine him saying, we returned it to you.

  “That Wolf is long gone, Chloje. Iskielle hasn’t earned our hatred.”

  “But Iskielle is now gone as well.”

  Fariq’s mouth drops open, and he turns to Riksher. “Is this true?”

  “It is.”

  Into the silence that follows, I venture, “You knew her?”

  “No. Sort of.” He squeezes Chloje’s elbow. “But she gave us hope.”

  Riksher clears his throat and changes the subject. “The patrol that ambushed us was eight strong. I imagine there will be many more within their borders. We’ll need numbers if we’re to free our horses and take back your food. Where is the rest of your tribe?”

  Chloje spreads her arms wide. “Here we are. This is what is left of Tribe Iral.”

  #####

  We won’t move in until the night is well underway. We eat a meal together made from two desert rabbits brought by in Korde. He's mostly the one who talks. And talks.

  “They chased us out and took Yural for themselves. And ‘Tribe Yural,’ that's not an original tribe. They took that name when they took our home. Knew they didn't belong, so tried to fool themselves. They're not a tribe at all. They're just bandits.”

  Korde tells us all this in a jarringly cheerful tone. Facts, probably from before his time. His mother looks blankly on. His father seems deep in his own thoughts, with only a few faint smiles for his son. Worry is deep and clear on his face. He’s not confident about what we’re about to do.

  “You remind me of someone,” I tell Korde. “A kid I know, back at Barnab, where I’m from.” My smile fades, and I look down at the leg of rabbit held limply in my fingers. “I'm sure he's hungry, too.”