by R. Lee Smith
Sudjummar put down his tools and turned at once, hackles raised and his good wing fanning out, ready to meet aggression with aggression.
Sutung eyed him with an expression of frustrated contempt. “Courting her is the very last thing on my damn mind.”
Sudjummar relaxed minutely. After a moment, he said, “Somurg will be fine right where he is,” and picked up the candle bowl again.
Slowly, Olivia set down her son and followed Sutung out of the forge and into the tunnel.
“I found the barrenroot,” he said in a tight voice. “And if you didn’t give it to her, you probably know who did. Fine. Without question it is the most sensible thing to do. But if I am to see no children from all this misery, I for damn sure will not be mated to her.”
He paused there, furiously, for her to object. She didn’t.
“At tonight’s gathering,” he went on, eyes narrowing, “I am putting her aside. It’s been more than a year and she is childless. That’s all the cause I need. I only need you to witness it.”
She felt her guts twist into a cold knot. “Sutung,” she began. “She’s hurting. Please. If she had someone to treat her with kindness—”
“Kindness!” He twisted and spat. “When have I harmed her? After everything she’s done to me, when have I ever even raised my voice to her?”
“That’s not the same as being kind,” she countered.
He thumped a broad finger against her chest, his voice a liquid growl. “You think I don’t know why she has become what she is. Well, I do. I knew she was virgin when I took her. I took her anyway. I did what I was ordered to do! It’s easy for you to stand there and tell me to be patient and to be kind, but to bear our young is the only reason we brought your kind here and the only reason I could stand to stay mated to that miserable creature.”
“Sutung—”
“Miserable!” he snapped. “She hurts herself, did you know that? She’ll sit in the pit for hours, rubbing her wrists on the stone until she bleeds. I don’t dare hold her because she cuts herself on my claws! She burns herself with tallow!” He shook his head hard, nakedly baffled and frustrated. “I’ve removed everything from my cave but the bedding in the pit and twice I have come home to find her binding her head with blankets. I can’t just stand over her all day and night, curse it! I am one of this tribe’s damned few hunters and it’s my duty to feed them. I watch her when I’m there, but when I’m gone, she’s out spraying the tunnels with rut-stink! All this I could bear if I knew there was a baby, even if it wasn’t mine, but you have made her barren!”
“That’s not fair!”
“No, it’s not and I’m bound to her anyway!” he snarled, his voice steadily rising. “I knew she was fucking them—how could I not know?—and I’d fight if I could name them, but how can I? She can’t even name them!”
He broke off and his chest heaved as he struggled with his anger. Finally, he continued. “Do you think I haven’t tried to help her? The first time she came back to me with another male’s seed-scent on her, she came with bruises, too. I tried to get her to come with me to Vorgullum and she laughed in my face. She said we were all the same, and then she put her hand down my loincloth and—” His expression puckered in on itself, turning fury to baffled pain. “And she told me how it was with him while she…did things. Told me where each bruise came from while she…made me…” He shook his head twice, hard and harder, then burst out, “It was obscene! It’s always like that with her! It is always obscene! What the hell would you have me do?”
Without warning, he swung and raked his claws across the tunnel wall, tearing four deep wounds into the rock with such violence she imagined for a moment she saw sparks. Then he stood, his shoulders shaking with suppressed rage, and stared at the scars he made.
“If she were less mad, I could find a way to reach her,” he said at last. “If she were more mad, I could return her and be rid of her as Bundel was. As it stands, I must be bound to her.” Sutung was quiet a little longer, and then turned to face her again. “I tell you this: Vorgullum would never allow me to put her aside if he were here, not unless he knew the reason. And if I told him the reason, he might kill her. I don’t want her to die. Ha. There is my kindness.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes, had to look away at the gouges in the wall.
“But you have his power in his absence. You can sever our bond without dragging the reason out into the open air. Half the tribe will know why and the other half would never question your decision, and there we sit.”
“What will Vorgullum do when he comes home and finds we’ve done this behind his back?”
“To you, nothing. For me?” He uttered an acid laugh. “He’ll probably throw his good right hand at the side of my head, and give me a sound kick in the backside to grow on, but he can’t make me take her back and he knows it.”
“I can’t stand her up in front of everybody and say she’s barren. She’d become another ‘safe female’ and I won’t do that to her. I won’t make her fuck the whole mountain!”
“How can you ‘make’ her do something she’s done already for a year?” he demanded, bitterly incredulous. “At least when they go to her now, they’ll have to take care of her, which is more than I can do by myself!”
He was right. Olivia rubbed at her eyes unhappily. “All right,” she said. “All right. I’ll do it.”
“Tonight.” He turned swiftly and stalked away.
Olivia continued to stand in the tunnel, rubbing her eyes as if she could erase the previous scene from her mind and memory. At last, she turned and went back into the forge.
“Well,” Sudjummar said, still filing meticulously at the candle bowl. “That sounded like an interesting little talk.”
“What am I going to do?” she sighed.
“I should think that’s obvious.” He lifted the bowl, examined it closely, blew shavings free of the lip, set it down and started grinding away again.
“I can’t do this, Sudjummar. Look at Victoria. Look what she’s become! I hated Vorgullum for doing that to her. How can I do it to Carla?”
“To Carla,” he mused. “This only goes to show how very different we are. I’m thinking of Sutung.”
Olivia chewed her lip. “I’m going to do it, aren’t I?”
“And now she expects me to have visions,” Sudjummar remarked to no one in particular.
Olivia sucked in a breath, held it, and released it in a sigh. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”
“That’s the spirit.” Sudjummar ran his finger across the edge of the candle bowl, nodded briskly, and set it to one side. “All right,” he said. “I’m not going to give you advice, but I am going make an observation and you can feel free to tell me I’m wrong. I’m not,” he added, “but you can tell me so if it makes you feel better.”
She regarded him warily. “I’m listening.”
“Your problem,” he said, “is neither with Carla nor Sutung. Both of them will go along just fine without any help from you, you just happen to make a convenient audience. The real problem is that when you stand before the tribe tonight and give your command, you will become their leader in every sense, and you will never be able to take that back.”
She slid down the wall and sat, looking dejected. “Vorgullum said you would be the leader,” she said, trying hard not to whine.
His expression became thunderously dark. “Yes,” he said quietly. “And I will be, just as soon as you stand up and announce your decision. It’s going to be a hard night for both of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Given the dangers of my brother’s mission, your mate may be called upon to assume the leadership of the tribe permanently.” Seeing her face, he made an effort to find a more reassuring tone. “I don’t think anyone really expects that to happen, but even if Vorgullum returned tonight, the male who had possession of you would still stand tall until he chose to stand away. Up until now, no one has been very serious about pursu
ing you. But when you sever Carla from Sutung, you’re going to remind every male in the cavern that you stand tall, your mate may become tovorak, and that I am a cripple.”
“Will there be fighting?” Olivia asked, now very frightened.
“I’m certain of it,” he replied, undisturbed. “And it will begin tonight.”
“Oh, Sudjummar.”
“I think if I react fiercely enough to the first challenger, the others may think twice before they follow.” He flexed his body for her, and it was still impressive, but she noted the faint uncertainty far back in his eyes. “Now, give me Somurg and stay close to me when we enter the cave.”
7
There were maybe three dozen gullan and half the humans gathered in the hub of the commons, most of them clustered around Doru as he retold the tale of the Great Medicine Raid. Olivia approached the center rock, but did not mount it, reluctant to steal his thunder. When he swelled to his full size and gave an extremely subdued impression of his charging roar, she managed some applause along with the rest of them, but her heart wasn’t in it. He pantomimed leaping through the window and swooshed his hand through the air, then caught sight of Olivia and leapt up. “Is the medicine working?” he asked.
“It’s early to tell yet. We’ll have to take each day at a time, but if we didn’t have the medicine, there would be no hope at all.”
Doru grinned. “Saving babies is thirsty work. Thumperjuice!” He put out his hand imperiously and someone close by thumped a can of Coors into it. He punched two holes in the top with his index claw and took a healthy swig. “I give you Olivia the Fearless!” he announced, thrusting the can out to indicate her. “It was her command that sent us to the hive; it was her hand that found the medicine in the human’s den; and when we were cornered, surrounded by dozens of humans with weapons and alarms, when I asked her what she would command, what did she say but ‘Charge them’. Charge them, yet!” He threw back the rest of his beer while the gullan bayed approval, then mimed lifting and throwing the heavy door again. Chuckling under his breath, Doru settled on a bench and helped himself to a strip of roasting elk.
This seemed as good a time as any. Olivia glanced around only once, to make sure Sutung was present, and when she saw him, she ascended the center stone. Quiet fell at once, as if they had all been waiting for her to do this.
Strange, to look down and see gullan looking up at her just like she belonged there. She tried remember what Vorgullum had said on these occasions and could think of nothing. Helplessly, she looked back and there was Sudjummar with Somurg’s head on his shoulder, watching.
“Sutung,” she heard herself say. To her ears, her voice was dark and heavy. “Come before the tribe.”
Sutung took Carla by the arm, and she walked with him, looking bored. When he reached the stone and turned to face the gathering, Carla sat down beside him and rested her chin on one cupped hand.
“This is Carla, mate to me this past year. We were bound by need, not by desire, and no young have come of our union. I know now that none ever will. I would be free of her.” He half-turned and glared up at Olivia as though daring her to refuse.
Olivia dropped to one knee. “Carla?” she said quietly.
A startled murmur swept out over the crowd.
Carla looked around, amused.
“Carla, what do you say? Would you be parted from Sutung?”
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
“You understand what that means?”
Carla appeared to think about this. “Probably that I’ll move in with Victoria. Is that about right?”
Olivia nodded, sick.
Carla studied her, then laughed. “God, don’t you look tore up about it. Whatever, okay? It doesn’t matter. You need to hear me say yes? Fine. Yes.”
Olivia continued to look down at her, aware that her face was the same impassive mask she had seen on Vorgullum so often. She stood, and turned to address the shocked assemblage of gullan.
“As both parties are in agreement, I sever the union.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “This is Carla,” she said clearly. “She is safe to mate with. Horumn, come and take her.”
Carla got to her feet, ignoring Horumn’s arm when the old gulla held it out. She turned around and looked at Sutung, her lips curved into the coldest smile Olivia had ever seen. “You made me into this,” she said.
He didn’t flinch. “You made me into this.”
She thought about that, then laughed. “Well. Then it wasn’t all bad, was it?” she said cheerfully, and laughed again as she walked out.
Unable to think of anything else to say, Olivia climbed down from the stone and sat down next to Sudjummar.
On her other side, Thurga lowered her voice and said, “You asked the female?” in tones of stunned disbelief.
“Of course I did. She was mated too, you know.”
Thurga frowned prodigiously, edged a little closer. “I do not like this new change, Olivia Urgarna. It is a small space between asking the female to accept and perhaps having the female come to the leader to sever her bond.”
Olivia didn’t know whether to feel humor or despair. “What’s wrong with that?”
Thurga appeared taken aback by the question.
“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me that a female always has the right to refuse any male? Why should this be any different?”
“The time for refusing is before being taken as mate!” Thurga insisted.
“We didn’t have that option!”
Thurga opened and closed her mouth without answering. She looked uncertain.
Olivia glanced swiftly past her, found without surprise that several gullan and humans were watching them closely, and said loudly, “We didn’t have that option, but we have it now. Human or gullan, we are all tribe! Who?” She stood up and took two swift steps out into the crowd. “Who will be parted from their mate? Ask me now.”
There were five humans in the common caves. Damark stepped closer to Amy and she patted his arm absently, looking back at Olivia with a thoughtful expression. Ellen put her hand over her baby-hard stomach and let Mudmar rest his hand on her shoulder while his gullan mate, his true mate, touched the other. Anita, sitting beside the male appointed her by Murk, made a discreet thumbs-up gesture and winked. Sarah J., mateless in Sung’s absence, only twirled her spear and kept quiet.
Olivia faced Thurga again and folded her arms in unconscious imitation of Vorgullum at his most authoritative. “We didn’t get to choose to come here. We didn’t get to choose our mates. We choose to stay.”
“Forgive me,” Thurga said, crouching slightly and looking at the floor. “I should not have questioned your wisdom.”
“Feel free to question me anytime,” Olivia replied, allowing herself a faint smile. “Keeps me honest.” She touched Thurga’s shoulder briefly, and then sat back down beside Sudjummar.
“So,” murmured the metal-maker, not looking at her. “That’s done it for sure. Come with me. Pretend we’re getting thumperjuice.” He stood up and moved over to the stack of stolen human goods brought in earlier by the hunters.
Puzzled, Olivia followed. “I said something wrong, didn’t I?”
“I sure didn’t think so. But there are three males out there working themselves up for a challenge. I’m going to provoke one. I need you to be ready.” Sudjummar stretched his good wing around her and lowered his voice until it was scarcely audible. “Now,” he said calmly, “I think I know you very well, Olivia, and what I am about to say is going to make you absolutely furious, but I ask you to stand very still and quiet and let me say it all. Promise?”
“Promise.” She braced herself.
“There is going to be a fight. I plan to win, but if I don’t, here is what will happen. The victor will ask you to come to his pit, claiming you as his mate. You can refuse. No, Olivia, you promised. Hush. If you refuse, he will demand the right to couple with you once as victor of his challenge.”
“Oh weeping,
creeping Christ, I knew it!” she hissed.
“You can refuse him,” he went on. “If you refuse, you will be taken to the women’s tunnels as an unmated female.”
“What’s stopping you from coming directly to the women’s tunnels to fetch me out again?”
“Nothing. Except perhaps the knowledge that if I do, I’ll almost certainly meet my challenger on the other side for a fresh fight. As often as it takes, until I stop coming to claim you. If you agree to couple with him—”
“You’d better not be telling me to,” she spat.
He waited for her to stop talking, began again, “If you agree to couple with him, he will take you to a certain chamber here off the commons. Once there, he’ll ask you again if you refuse him. You can, and after you sit there for a while, he’ll return you to me. In the eyes of the tribe, I will have lost the challenge and you will have coupled with the victor, and all will be satisfied. He might challenge me again if he’s feeling spiteful, but sympathy will be against him if he does, so I doubt it. Do you understand?”
“Do I understand? You’ve got to be kidding! You’re about to butt heads over me like a couple of rutting goats and you expect me to prance off into the corner with whoever the hell wins, and I’m supposed to understand that? Oh, but I can always refuse,” she said bitterly. “There’s some comfort for me as I stand over your broken body. I can always refuse.”
“In the event that you ever do stand over my broken body,” he said quietly, “I advise you in the strongest terms not to refuse. Not in public, at any rate.” He cast a swift glance over his shoulder. “I’m running out of time if I’m going to have the advantage here, Olivia. Tell me what you would have me do.”
“Oh, you…” She didn’t bother to finish. “Go,” she said at last. “And for God’s sake, don’t lose.”
He offered Somurg, and when she accepted the baby, Sudjummar turned and moved away from her with studied casualness to melt into the crowd.
Olivia dropped heavily onto a bench and stared helplessly into her sleeping son’s scowling face.
