by Colt, K. J.
“Ah, leave him alone, Brekken,” said Jahsin behind him.
Brekken’s eyes widened and threatened to bulge out of their sockets. He turned around swiftly and shoved Jahsin so hard he flew backward to land on his back. Brekken whirled around on Talon and grabbed his head with one big hand and pressed his thumb against the bandaged eye, pinning him to the wall of the hut. Pain flashed through Talon’s brain, threatening to drop him.
“I got my eye on you, Plagueborn. This village don’t need no runt like you bringin’ it trouble. If I have to, I’ll kill you myself!” he spat. Talon fought the urge to cry out in pain as he pressed the thumb harder.
Brekken released him with a sneer and stalked off, leaving Talon to slump down against the hut, holding his head. Jahsin got to his feet and walked over to Talon and helped him up.
“Never mind that one. He’s just pissed he was born with a catlip. Thinks himself a Vald at heart, he does; even talks about one day claimin’ Bjodja.”
Talon’s legs gave out and Jahsin caught him before he fell. He guided him to sit upon the snow piled against the hut and sat beside him.
“What’s Bjodja?” Talon asked, gathering the blanket around him before he was laid bare to the world.
“You don’t know much about bein’ a Skomm, eh?”
Talon shook his head but soon regretted it; his head swam and threatened to send him back to the world of dreams.
“Bjodja be a challenge. A Skomm can challenge the Miotvidr and prove he is truly a Vald. Thing is, he’s got to beat three Vald in a fight to the death.”
“Has anyone ever done it?”
Jahsin laughed, “What do you think?”
“Sure,” Talon said.
Jahsin regarded him with disbelief and snorted. “You got a lot to learn, my friend.”
Talon liked the older boy, and when he called him friend, his heart leapt. He had never had a friend aside from Chief; likewise, no one had ever stuck up for him before.
“Why did you do that?” Talon asked.
“What? Tell Brekken to back off? I don’t know, his kind piss me off. Here he is a Skomm himself, walkin’ round like some kind of Vald. Besides, that’s what friends are for, ain’t they?”
“Why do you want to be my friend?” Talon asked, truly curious.
Jahsin laughed again. “You must have taken a good knock to the head; you wanna go back inside and lay down?”
“No, thanks; the air in the hut is too hot and stuffy.”
“Suit yourself,” Jahsin shrugged. He got up and dusted off the light powder of snow from his backside. “But here comes Majhree; bet she’ll have somethin’ to say to that. I’ll see you round, Talon.”
“All right…friend,” he replied, to Jahsin’s amusement. His new friend walked away shaking his head with a laugh.
“Mornin’” he said to Majhree as they passed each other. It was immediately apparent why the old woman had been deemed a Throwback: though she was likely tall enough to pass the women’s measure, her back was severely hunched, leaving her bent and crooked. She leaned so far forward that if not for the two canes, she would have fallen on her face.
“Why you outta bed? If anyone is gonna temp’ the Krellr, it’ll be me,” she said as she approached.
Before he could offer an explanation, she was forcing his mouth open and peering down his throat. She turned his head this way and that, peered in his ears and up his nose, and spread his good eye open wide.
“C’mon, then,” she said, leading him back into the hut.
“I’d rather stay out in the fresh air; I can’t breathe in here.”
“Nonsense, boy; fresh air ain’t no good for the sick. The spirits’ll have you in no time,” she said, guiding him to the bed and stripping off the blanket.
“Hey!” Talon protested, tugging the cover.
She pushed him back with a gentle but strong hand. “Ain’t nothin’ I ain’t seen afore. And ain’t nothin’ you need be ashamed of.”
Talon’s cheeks and ears burned with embarrassment. Majhree shuffled around the small hut lighting a multitude of incense sticks and candles. He sat there awkwardly, wondering how long he was supposed to sit around naked.
“Lie down and turn over if you can. Them cuts and scrapes need tendin’ to,” she said as she took up a jar from a shelf and dipped her fingers inside. Her hand came back with a wad of green jelly.
Talon did as he was told and Majhree began applying the sticky ointment to his many wounds. A hiss escaped his lips; the goo stung at first but soon began to soothe his burning flesh.
“Is he awake?” Akkeri’s voice suddenly came from the doorway. Talon cringed with embarrassment at her view of his bare backside. He jerked his head around over his shoulder and saw her flush and quickly avert her eyes.
“Ask him yourself,” said Majhree.
She opened her mouth as if to speak, shuffled nervously, and quickly turned and ran out the door. He buried his face in his pillow wanting to scream. How could he ever look her in the eye again? It didn’t help that Majhree was chuckling to herself softly as she applied the ointment to his scratched bum.
“Ain’t nothin’ she ain’t seen either,” she laughed. “Was she done brought your frozen, bare arse here on a sled anyhow.”
If Talon had been embarrassed before, he was now mortified. To think Akkeri had gathered his naked, beaten body and dragged it to Skomm Village: the idea made him want to crawl in a hole and disappear.
“Turn over,” Majhree told him as she scooped another handful of the green goop.
Talon did so without complaint. What was the point? Likely the old woman had cleaned the dirt and mud from his battered body while he was unconscious. He told himself without conviction that surely it had not been Akkeri. He didn’t bother asking Majhree; he didn’t want to know.
“Who is she?” he asked, trying to gain more information about the mysterious beauty.
“None you need worry yourself ’bout. You just keep your eyes down round them Vald and Vaka. Almost got yourself killed for not keepin’ your mouth shut. They ain’t your people no more. Best you learn that and right quick. You’re a Skomm now; you’re a slave. You do what they say, and don’t ever look ’em in the eye, lest you wantin’ to go to Val’Kharae afore your time. Anyone with two good ears best listen.”
Talon barely registered what she was saying. His mind was filled with visions of Akkeri and her fiery locks. Their eyes had met for a fleeting moment. Talon stopped the moment in time in his mind and gazed into her bright eyes.
“She is beautiful,” he said with a sigh.
“That’s enough fool talk, boy!” she said angrily and threw the blanket over him at last.
“Any fool can see she’s a looker; it’s bound to be her biggest curse. If I had the stones, I would take the blade to her face myself and save her from her fate. You best forget ‘bout that one. Ain’t nothing gonna come of it but tragedy, heartache, and certain death. Mark my words boy. Forget her,” she warned.
“What do you mean her fate?”
Majhree shuffled to the door, reminding him of a slow moving turtle, her back was hunched so. She looked back at him with empathetic eyes. “Girls like her are sold before they reach their eighteenth year. There’s coin to be made by the Vald for such beauties as she. I tell ’em every season she be too valuable to be sold, but they ain’t for hearin’ it long.”
She looked at him like maybe he didn’t understand. “You knowin’ why men might want a girl like that, don’t you boy?”
Talon thought he did, but it wasn’t the same reason he wanted her.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Sure you do,” she said with a disapproving scowl. “Like I said, boy, forget her. I ain’t for wasting my time healin’ someone’s gonna get themselves killed over a pretty face.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MANY NAMES
HE IS HATED, yet he loves; he is injured, yet he soothes; if measured by his heart alone, he would stand a giant among the V
ald.
—Gretzen Spiritbone, 4976
Talon stayed another two days in the hut before Majhree would let him out. He had spent the last day lying in bed with dried rat bones covering his body. Majhree said they would lure the evil Krellr out. When he asked her why evil spirits might be attracted to rat bones, she stared at him like he was simple.
“You understand anything about the world, boy?” she had asked.
“I understand people are very mean to one another,” he replied and quickly wished he hadn’t. Majhree broke down in heavy sobs that racked her crooked body and made her weak. He sensed she wanted to be alone, but she didn’t have the strength to make it to the door. So she slid into the chair opposite Talon’s bed and hid her face low.
Talon froze; so strange was her sudden coming apart, he thought to leave. Surely she wanted him to. But something made him stay—a feeling in his heart and a voice in his mind. He had seen a lot of violence and pain in his life among the Vald; he believed the greater sin was ignoring the situation. Talon understood how Majhree felt; he had heard the names all his life and he carried those names with him everywhere he went as if they were signs strapped to his back that everyone read. Even he believed those names: Runt, Plagueborn, Throwback, and now Skomm. Majhree had her names as well, and they cut just as deep.
He got out of bed in his trousers and put a hand on her curved back. Talon recognized the voice of her tears; he had oft cried so in the early years when the beatings had been the worst.
“I love you, Majhree; you are kind, and you are funny. Your hands work with the grace of a white lynx. Your smile is like Mother Spring, and your laughter is a harvest of happiness. If you ever believed any of the names called you, believe mine.”
Majhree turned from herself to regard him with a wide assortment of changing emotions. For a moment she seemed angry, then puzzled, now happy, then sad. Talon bent to give her a long hug, and her shuttering breath subsided to make way for a soft, steady one.
“Somethin’ special about you, Talon. Anyone with two good ears best listen,” she laughed with a sniffle. “Bless you the special don’t get you killed.”
Talon was met by Jahsin when he was released. The big guy put his good arm over Talon’s shoulder and strode him through the village as if he were a lord. Talon had often wondered what went on here all the time. The Skomm village was thrice the size of any of the other villages, or so his amma told. He had only been to two other villages in his life—to get the more exotic herbs she used in her mystical conjuring.
“Throwbacks from every village are sent here to the center of Volnoss,” said Jahsin.
The village was not only bigger but more densely populated than any he had seen. He couldn’t guess how many Skomm lived in the village; he guessed thousands. The Skomm headed in all directions in the morning bustle, each one assigned to a job in one of the villages. They did everything for the Vald, from catching and skinning the fish to cooking and cleaning, and even discarding the Vald’s bodily waste. As the Skomm saying went, “a Throwback could follow a fish bone from the sea to a Vald’s arse.” Meanwhile the Vald lived like kings and dedicated every moment of the day to tournaments of strength and endurance, as well as fights of bare hand and weapons of every variety. Even the females participated in the games. To the Vald little difference was made between the two. They did not choose mates out of love, but size and strength. They proudly claimed they had raised the average Vald height by more than a foot in the last one hundred years.
Jahsin showed him to the food tent; the Skomm had no time for a domesticated lifestyle with their every waking hour dedicated to serving the Vald, and they got no days off. The ruling barbarians, however, did not oversee the work assignments, but rather left it up to the Vaka—the watchers.
“Vaka are Throwbacks like you or me, and they are almost as bad as a drunken Vald looking for an arse to kick. Brekken is a Vaka, and now you caught his eye. I would watch you don’t screw up and give him a reason to come down on you more than he intends.”
“Such is my luck,” Talon replied.
“Haha, chin up; ain’t all bad. Look who you’re bunkin’ with,” said Jahsin, stopping and extending his hand to a hut.
“This your place?” Talon asked, going inside.
“Yup,” Jahsin replied with a proud smile. “Made it myself last year. Beats the hells outta sleepin’ in the commons, smellin’ other people’s broken wind all night long. Besides, durin’ the Freista it is the first place the hunters look.”
Freista! Talon’s mind screamed; he had forgotten all about the Freista. He had heard stories about the day of killing, but many stories existed about many things, not many of them true.
“I have heard stories about the Freista; is it as bad as they say?”
Jahsin’s smile faded and he shrugged his shoulders trying to keep his eyes busy; when they met Talon’s, they darted somewhere else quickly. “I’ve survived almost eighteen of ’em,” he laughed without conviction.
Talon didn’t want to bring up any bad memories Jahsin must have had regarding the day, so he didn’t press the subject. They were far from the day, though, which wouldn’t be until the Sumar Mal when the season changed and the green came.
Freista was a night when one man from each tribe was chosen to go on a killing spree in the Skomm village; the Vald referred to it also as “the Culling.” The seven men killed anyone they found; whether they be man or woman, young or old, any Skomm became fair game. Tournaments were held for the entire week before Sumar Mal, and one winner was chosen to represent each tribe. The ultimate competition, however, was too see which tribe’s chosen one could collect the most heads. Legend told the record was one hundred; Talon didn’t want to know if the legend was true.
He shook the thoughts from his mind and gazed around the hut with a nod. “You did a good job; I couldn’t build something like this.” Even with two hands. He thought to himself. “How do you make these bricks?”
“Can only be made during the hottest days of Sumar. Well, I guess I mean the driest days. Can’t have no rain or sticky air; you’ll just end up with a soggy mess, eh. Most Skomm use a big stone oven to cook the bricks, but I prefer doin’ this kinda work by the olden ways. If you’re goin’ to build somethin’ as important as a Hus, you might as well do it right the first time, eh?” He patted the wall opposite the doorway. “Nope, she ain’t goin’ nowhere; built her on the driest days, I did.”
“Why is your hut a her?” Talon asked.
“I don’t know,” Jahsin shrugged. “You wanna sleep in a he? Just don’t sound right; we all came from women, ye know.”
“I know,” Talon stammered. “Just askin’s all. Could be you call it an it, since that’s what it is. It’s not a people.”
“It’s not a people…well no shyte,” Jahsin threw his hands up. “But it ain’t as romantic as she or her. Feikinstafir, man, you got more questions than a Vald village has arseholes!”
Talon laughed, Jahsin was the funniest person he had ever met. There wasn’t a lot of joking to be found in the Vald village. Jahsin showed Talon where he might put his things, by which he meant his tools for whatever job he was assigned by the Vaka.
The two cots were identical, with a wooden chest at the foot of each. Inside his, Talon found another pair of burlap trousers and a fur vest, and though they seemed too big for him, he thanked Jahsin all the same. He didn’t like the scratchy material; his wounds were still scabbing over and he itched all over when he moved around. But he supposed wearing the coarse material was better than being naked.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Jahsin,” said Talon.
“You just did,” he smiled. “C’mon, let’s go get some grub.”
“Good idea; I am starving. All Majhree fed me in that stuffy hut was gruel. What do they have to eat in the food tent today?” Talon asked with mouthwatering anticipation.
“Gruel,” Jahsin laughed.
“Such is my luck,” Talon sang.
&nbs
p; CHAPTER SIX
VAKA KASTALI
THEY WILL TRY to break him with word and stone.
—Gretzen Spiritbone, 4977
After Talon had eaten as much gruel as he could stomach, Jahsin brought him around the sprawling village some more. Located on a high expanse of rocky earth at the center of Volnoss, Skomm Village stretched for miles east to west and was half as wide. The land deemed Skomm contained a few of the crops as well, along with rocky land and dark forests.
The commons Jahsin had mentioned turned out to be a series of long buildings made of stacked bricks of ice and snow called Svell Hus. Lining the walls inside of each of the ice buildings were rows of cots, each with a similar chest at the end. Tables had been set in the middle of the buildings every dozen beds or so; fire pits they placed in the center as well.
“They are warm enough during the long Vetr, but come Sumar they tend to melt, and everybody livin’ in them sleeps under the stars till they can be built again,” said Jahsin.
“And you have to smell everyone’s farts,” Talon laughed, quoting his friend.
“Exactly,” Jahsin chuckled. “Besides, ain’t enough fire wood for everybody to have their own Hus, not after the Vald’s needs are met. I cut trees for the Vald, so I got wood covered. Other people round here got other ways of getting’ what they need. Aside from makin’ our lives a livin’ hell when we are around them, the Vald pretty much leave the runnin’ of the village to the Vaka, and those traitors live almost as good as the Vald.”
Jahsin pointed at the large wooden building at the center of the village as they came upon it. Since it was the dead of winter, many tunnels and rooms of ice had been added to the wooden structure, which was the closest thing to a castle Talon had ever seen. The building rose up four stories and had a number of chimneys jutting out from the thatch roofs.
