Blood of Heirs

by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

  A hand gripped her shoulder as the Tolak rangers moved to follow the Namjin, and she flinched, her arm swinging up to turn the grasp away like Loge had taught her.

  ‘Liddy,’ a voice cooed over the rattle and rumble of the passing wagons and she turned to see it belonged to her father. He leaned back in his saddle and their eyes met. ‘Don’t think too much on it, all right? That’s just how he is.’

  Just how he is? Lidan repeated to herself, watching her father’s back as he rode ahead to lead his family to the Corron. She bit her lip to stop it shaking and doubted her father knew Daari Yorrell as well as he thought he did.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The Corron, Namjin Range, the South Lands

  The hills known as Jin’s Brothers rose from the grasslands. They were dark, almost black, even where the light of the sun touched the stone. There was no vegetation along the ridges or crevices and a dusty skirt of grey soil surrounded them in a narrow space at the foot where grass did not grow. Much like the solitary Caine, the rounded monoliths stood guard over the clan below; their massive shadows stretching into the east, growing ever longer as the Tolak group approached and the sun sunk towards its rest.

  For most of her life, Lidan had only ever seen people from her own clan. Every so often, when the weather allowed, traders from Isord or Arinnia braved Fracture Pass to come and barter for the horses her people broke and trained. They had the same faces as her mother; fair skin and bright hair, and their clothes, their finery and their speech all hinted at a world much larger than the one she knew.

  Traders from the south and east also came across the desert, their skin as black as jet and their faces wrapped against the northern winds they swore bit at them with teeth of ice. They too came for the horses and haggled fiercely for a good price. She saw the cloth they carried and grew dizzy at the scent of their spice wagons, wondering at the places they came from, dotted along the Rinay Coast and the islands on the sea.

  In those days of trading, when she was not much older than Abbi, she had marvelled at how so many people could live in one place. While the traders had only swelled Hummel’s population by a quarter, at the time she felt certain if another person walked through the gates, the walls would burst apart in a shower of timber and dried clay.

  Yet, as the track veered left and they turned their horses into the valley between the two hills, Lidan’s breath caught in her throat, and she realised how sheltered her life truly had been.

  The central Namjin village, Jinloh, hugged the base of the southern hill, walled like her home, with a long hall and clusters of homes and buildings among garden plots and animal pens. Jinloh was not surprising in itself—it was the sprawling camp between the hills that stole the breath from her chest, dwarfing the village and sending a murmur of awe through the Tolak riders.

  From the base of one hill, across a wide, shallow valley to the base of the other, tents of all shapes and sizes shifted in the evening breeze. Colours and smells assaulted her senses, banners and flags adorned with clan symbols snapping back and forth to announce their owners’ location. The noise grew as they neared, the clamour of people and animals, adults and children, warriors and tradesmen all crammed into one place rising above anything she’d ever heard before.

  ‘By my grandfather’s balls, Yorrell!’ Erlon’s voice carried on the wind. ‘How many people did you invite?’

  ‘Just the five clans, but they brought a few tag-alongs…’

  The chaos of sound and movement swallowed their conversation. Lidan’s ears rang with the voices of bakers hawking flat bread and butchers arguing with their customers over trade. Theus put his head down and followed the other horses obediently, and it was just as well. As the crowds closed around her family and their wagons, she lost all sense of direction and purpose, instead gaping at the sheer volume of the clans gathered at the feet of the Brothers.

  *

  The sun broke the horizon in the east and poured its light down the Namjin valley to the crowing of a rooster and the barking reply of an offended dog. Lidan’s body felt like stone, her head aching as if it had been filled with mud overnight and beaten with a club. Her father snored in the back of their tent, likely nursing a dark mood and a roiling stomach after too many cups of Namjin berry wine with a few of his rangers and Yorrell. Lidan had quickly made herself absent from their evening celebrations in case Yorrell had any ideas of introducing her to his son.

  She slipped from the bedroll of pelts and collected her coat, wondering how long she might need it today as the sun rose and warmed the valley. She left her mother and sister sleeping in the same cot, Sellan’s arms wrapped around Marrit for warmth and protection. Holding her youngest daughter close was the most intimate gesture Lidan had seen from her mother in a long time. She couldn’t remember the last time her mother had held her in an embrace like that, or if she ever had. She bit down on a pang of jealousy. Perhaps a little fear was good for the dana.

  Outside the large hide tent, the day seemed filled with the rising smoke of cooking fires lazily drifting in the still air, the smell of meat and porridge wandering through the tents to draw the clan’s people from their sleep. The rangers took to cooking what food they’d carried in the wagons, awake before the rest of the family.

  Loge handed her a bowl of sticky porridge and a spoon, then nodded at the village to the south of their camp. ‘You’re going to need all the energy you can get today.’

  He moved away before she could ask him why.

  Her gaze followed his gesture to the walled village and the hall at the centre, a single storey built into the soft earth at the base of the monolith, crawling with activity. The sun was barely above the tablelands and already the place hummed with the movement and voices of hundreds of people. Loge’s meaning slid down her spine like cold water and she shivered.

  Today the Corron began.

  A deep cough, something close to retch, echoed behind her and she spun with surprise. Her father leaned against the side rail of a wagon and shook his head. ‘I’m too old for this shit…’

  Siman tossed him a water skin with a smirk. ‘We’re all young men when the stars are out and the wine’s flow’n. Then we wake to find we’re as old as ever and feel’n every year of it.’

  ‘It’s that bloody Yorrell. I never could let him get a drink ahead of me, and he knows it.’ Erlon took a draw on the water skin, rinsed his mouth and spat beside the cart’s wheel. ‘Feel like a horse shat in my mouth. And he’ll be up in that hall, fresh as a flower while I’m hack’n my guts up.’ Erlon noticed Lidan and winked before taking a long drink.

  A ranger offered Erlon a bowl but he waved it away.

  ‘Got any wine?’

  The ranger smiled and an urn appeared with a cup and the daari drained three cupfuls without a word, then looked at Lidan. She sat frowning, unsure what to make of this unveiled glimpse into the world her father inhabited.

  ‘It’s going to be a long week, Liddy. You might need a drink by the end of it just to dull the pain.’

  After seeing what the Namjin wine did to her father, she doubted his assertion. Porridge would suffice for now.

  ‘Have they sent word?’ asked Erlon.

  Siman glanced up from fitting the belt for his new bronze axe. ‘Just after dawn. The Corron begins at midday in the hall. You can bring a second, but everyone else has to stay in camp.’

  The daari nodded and glanced at his daughter. ‘Hope you don’t have anything planned, Liddy. You’re coming with me, too.’

  Lidan fumbled and almost dropped her breakfast in the dirt between her feet. When her father said the family must travel to Namjin lands, she thought it merely a formality and a show of pride. After all, how often did the daaris of all five great southern clans have the chance to parade their offspring before their rivals and allies? She didn’t realise he meant for her to attend the Corron with him. What possible use would she be?

  She scrambled to stand as he moved away, the wine urn under his arm. ‘
Father, I… why?’

  He turned back casually—or perhaps drunkenly—and shrugged. ‘You’re my heir.’

  He vanished between the tents and left Lidan by the cooking fire with her bowl hanging precariously from her hand. Elation warred with trepidation in the depths of her belly and she bit the inside of her lip.

  There was sad resignation in his voice as the words echoed in her ears. She heard the scorn and ridicule in Yorrell’s words the day before, mocking her father for his lack of sons and her cheeks flushed with heat. Erlon must be the laughing stock of the clan daaris, forced to bring a girl to the Corron when his peers undoubtedly had at least one son to their names.

  Would it ever matter how well she rode or fought? Would it ever matter that she could read and write symbols and argue the Law? Would it ever matter that she could do all the things an heir needed to, as long as she was a girl and all her father wanted was a boy?

  But he’d said it. He’d actually said the words. She was his heir, the one he was taking to the Corron, the one who would sit at his side through the meetings and face the daaris of the other clans, just as she’d promised her mother she would. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, ignoring the nervous thud of her heart and the weight of expectation settling on her shoulders, and prepared herself to leap into the unknown.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The Corron, Namjin Range, the South Lands

  Jinloh’s gates stood open, the empty space between yawning like the maw of a great beast preparing to swallow Lidan whole. The walls loomed above the nearby tents, diminishing the sprawl of humanity at their feet as though they were no bigger than ants. They stood at least twice as high as the walls around Hummel and at the top wore a crown of timber spikes, which by the look of the wood, had been cut and placed recently. Were they to ward off ngaru or a human enemy?

  Theus followed Titon, her father’s broad back filling the gateway as they rode with Siman through throngs of villagers pushing past in the opposite direction. She noticed their curious glances, their whispers and their pointing fingers, and she lifted her chin, staring straight ahead in an effort to disguise her apprehension. Bundles of goods and children in hand, the clan folk hurried on around the horses and into the camp in the valley, leaving the village near empty and strangely quiet. Groaning timber caused Lidan to turn, the gates easing closed at their backs and booming as the thick locking beam fell into place.

  The commotion of the camp faded, muted by the high walls and Lidan’s blood ran cold. Loge was locked on the other side of those imposing ramparts, the spikes atop the wall standing between them, and she felt oddly uneasy at his absence. Sitting atop her fierce horse, beside her father and his chief ranger, Lidan should have felt untouchable. She should have felt safe. Instead, she felt like a mouse waiting for a snare to snap shut around her neck.

  Yorrell emerged from the hall, waving as they dismounted and smiling with his fleshy lips. His brown eyes sparkled, not with joy, but an anticipation Lidan didn’t care for. His gaze fell on her too readily, finding her too easily behind Erlon and Siman and lingering for longer than she liked. If her father noticed, he didn’t show it. He approached the daari and clasped his arm with a smile on his face, albeit a weary one.

  ‘You’ve arrived!’ Yorrell remarked, taking his eyes from Lidan long enough to glance at Erlon. ‘You Tolaks don’t like to rush, do you?’

  ‘Blame your wine,’ replied Erlon, and Yorrell nodded knowingly.

  ‘You’re out of practice, old man.’ He turned and gestured to the doors, open and waiting. ‘Come, we have much to discuss.’

  *

  Smoke haze stung Lidan’s eyes, unused to the choking way it collected beneath the thatch after so long away from home. Even at midday, the hall’s central fire pit popped and danced while lanterns on the walls glowed to illuminate the great round table that encircled it.

  Three men sat around the table, each with a younger boy beside them and another man behind their shoulder, while a tall boy and a man stood beside an empty chair directly across the fire pit from the door. As they entered the hall and the doors shut behind them, Lidan felt the eyes of the men move to track her and her father to the empty chairs on the left. Her hand itched to hold the handle of her knife, hidden under the length of her coat.

  Her mother’s insistence on an overskirt of dark green and a fine shirt and tunic seemed apt now that she saw the gathered men in their finery. Gemstones and beads flashed in their hair and beards; thick leather vambraces and bracelets of bone and fine polished wood adorned their arms. A polished stone axe lay on the table before each of them. The blades faced the owner, the handles pointed towards the fire, almost out of reach. It was a spectacle of intimidation and respect, on one hand showing strength while on the other, disarming each leader in the presence of his peers.

  Lidan swallowed her fear and thanked the ancestors she had Raeh braid her hair before she left the camp. At least she looked regal amongst this not-too-subtle display of manliness. Her father wore his finest tunic and his hair tied back, fine braids from his temples flashing in the firelight with rings of bronze and copper. The eyes of the gathered men shifted as he drew closer, their brows creasing and lips curling.

  It took a moment for Lidan to understand as she sank down in her seat, scanning the gathering and realising not one man in the room had a metal trinket on his person. Except for the three members of the Tolak clan, the adornments of the other leaders and their companions were strictly stone, timber and bone, and while they were beautiful, they paled in comparison to the lustre of her father’s metal.

  Erlon sat down, followed by Siman and waited for Yorrell to stand in his place at what could be called the “head” of the circular table. The Namjin leader drew his axe from his belt and laid it on the table, turning its shaft to the fire in silence, then gestured to Erlon to do the same. With a distinct nonchalance, her father hefted his axe from his belt and it thumped down on the tabletop, the bronze blade shining in the orange firelight. The sharpened edge seemed to sing as he gently spun the handle towards the fire, dragging with it the gaze of the daaris and their companions.

  ‘And so,’ Yorrell began, ‘the Corron is in session. It is customary to spend at least the first day commenting on the progress of our clans and leave the talk of more important things to the coming days. However, we have no time for such formalities.

  ‘As detailed in the messages sent last moon, our people have come under attack this season from an unknown and foreign foe. It has torn apart villages and harried ranging parties from the Wolban range in the north to the Daylin marshes in the southwest. It comes by night and takes the lives of our innocents as readily as those of our warriors.’ He placed his hands on the table and looked at each daari in turn. ‘This Corron will not speak of the progress of our clans, but the preparation and defence of them. We will decide what must be done to stem the advance of this scourge and how we can ally ourselves against it.’

  Lidan heard her father shift in his chair but did not dare move to look at his face. She stared at the flames and committed every word to memory, etched in the stone of her mind. She would not forget the words spoken here. Today marked a tipping point, a place in time when the people of the South Lands put aside their differences and turned to face the snarling terror of the ngaru.

  *

  On the afternoon of the fourth day, Yorrell waved and a tine-woman approached with a wine urn. She filled the cups around the table, and just as her father predicted, Lidan held hers out to be filled with the rest of the men and boys. Her hand ached from days of scratching symbols on sheets of parchment, her fingers stained with ink. Her mother bit back on her distain and only once muttered an underhanded comment about potential husbands disliking girls with ugly, inky fingers. Lidan suspected she did so only because her daughter was now at the centre of everything, finally acting as an heir, despite the impending birth of Farah’s child.

  Sellan became more restless as the days of the Cor
ron progressed, fussing over Lidan’s hair and clothes, scolding the girls if they left the tent with so much as a mark on their faces. She even worried after the younger girls, insisting they wear the finest things they owned and hurrying to barter more fabric from stalls in the camp’s market when the supply of worthy clothing ran out. She had her sister-wives and the tine-women sewing through the day to produce garments for Lidan and the others, all in an effort to show the clan’s wealth.

  None of it made sense to Lidan until, on the fourth day, Yorrell leaned back in his chair, wine in hand and said, ‘Now we come to the matter of alliances.’

  Lidan’s hand stopped squeezing the aches from her bones and she swallowed her mouthful of wine, slowly returning the cup to the table. She looked up and saw the daaris nodding, their hands never far from the berry wine while a few of their sons glanced at each other and smirked. A chill wrapped its hands around Lidan’s throat, her gaze shifting to Yorrell and his wide lips. His eyes were on her again, flicking away only when her father leaned forwards and cleared his throat.

  ‘Are we five not already allied against this threat?’ asked Erlon. His wine stood untouched, as it had since the first day. His was the only cup the tine-woman never needed to refill.

  ‘Of course,’ Yorrell hastened to agree, then spread his hand to indicate the gathering. ‘But even the strongest halls can benefit from repairs. We all know the best way to strengthen an alliance is by matching.’

  Lidan’s ears filled with the thumping sound of her blood, powered by her racing heart. In her naivety she thought Yorrell had forgotten the promised introduction to his son, consumed as they were with talk of the ngaru. Now the roving eyes of father and son found her and her skin crawled.