Blood Indigo

by Talulah J. Sullivan

  Where is he?

  If only you were here.

  Possibilities lingered, burrowed deep into Palatan’s Spirit, and began to gnaw.

  “TOKELA?”

  A familiar voice broke the quiet, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Wanted to just burrow down, curl up in the sudden surcease of everything…

  “Cousin?” Insistent, and a hand lighted upon his arm, gave a brief, firm shake. “Tokela. Wake.”

  N’da, he wanted to growl, but even that would make noise, and it was so welcome, so foreign, so… silent.

  “Tohwakelifitčiluka!” That got his attention even as the grip upon his shoulder pinched, shook.

  Slowly—unwillingly—Tokela opened gluey eyes. A familiar, broad figure knelt besides, hair shining mahogany, for Fire lay just beyond, stirring upwards sparks and demanding notice.

  Yet still, the quiet.

  Tokela blinked, rolled onto his back. A blanket arched overhead, shielding him. But spilling over Našobok’s sleek hair and wide shoulders, the void of adamantine neverending shone. Stars reached for him, glimmered. Tokela squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Come, my heart.” Našobok shook him again, his voice purling soft but grim. “I need you alert. We have company.”

  Company. It shivered cold into even Našobok’s endearment, stirred the possibility: had the tall ones had found them after all? But n’da, nothing lingered. The icy presences remained distant, sniffing around the internal barricades he’d erected.

  At that last, thankfully, he was very, very practised.

  Tokela heaved himself upwards, shivering beneath the blanket, trying to read their surroundings. There was a makeshift lean-to beneath which he lay; Našobok crouched beside him with longspear and hunting knife crossed ready; the mare snorted defiance just past, weaving back and forth. Fire flickered, catching reflections. Luminous pinpoints blinked in the dark, wary. Tokela shielded his eyes from Fire and squinted across the plain. Darksight betrayed furry, brindled bodies pacing, making the Dance of prowlingKin.

  “I suppose,” Našobok drawled, “we should thank Grandmother they are Kin, and not cursed Chepiś.”

  A grin quirked at Tokela’s lip. “How…?” It wavered; he sucked in a shaky breath, held it, let it out. “How many, do you think?”

  “Six at least. Maybe more.” Našobok rose from his crouch, let out a growl that carried outwards. The wild dogs whined and gave ground, but didn’t retreat.

  “They know I’m down,” Tokela reached for his own hunting knife, found it gone. Našobok saw the motion, for without taking his eyes off the pack of predators, he drew a knife from his belt and threw. It sculpted a copper arc against Fire’s light to bury itself in the sand beside Tokela’s knee.

  “I wasn’t keen leaving it close, earlier. Now?” Našobok shrugged, eyes flickering upon every direction. “You’re right, long as you’re down they’ll think to chance it. Even with your elder cousin growling at them in their own talk and a pissing-mad mare ready to kick shit from anything that moves. Are you with me?”

  Tokela took knife in hand, started to rise.

  A quick smile, and Našobok bent down, still not taking his eyes from the half-circled predators. He took the bow from its place as hide prop, proffered it.

  Tokela came forwards…

  Staggered as, from the black, silence broke into screams. Shrilling, beckoning, Stars flicked an icy-bright touch over his face, ran cold-flame fingers through his hair, grabbed hold…

  But others also raised a chorus… closer, expressions and forms, stray images, patterns that drummed as they wove and unwove, attempting translation. As if some ancient, nimble-fingered weaver plaited connexions into the loom of his Spirit, his heart opened and gave voice:

  Stop them. Tame them. You must keep Stars in check; I can help if you can listen. The sand beneath his feet bore him up, kept him upright.

  Do not give. Fire insisted. You must be sharp, have foc—

  Staggered again, as something thwacked into his solar plexus, huffing his breath and sparking pain across his ribs. Starlight broke into small scatters just beyond his vision. Tokela shuddered beneath the relief of it, eyes clearing to see Našobok with bow raised, ready to whack him again.

  “Stay with me, now,” Našobok warned. “Better bruises than our blood on the sand, eh? If you can’t pull your bow then take this.” He tossed the spear; Tokela managed to catch it, hefted it as Našobok strung his bow. A brace of arrows were already stuck in the sand beside him.

  The points of light began to glide closer.

  The surcease of breathlessness and pain was subsiding; brilliant shards were starting to flash and regather behind Tokela’s sight. He gritted his teeth, let one sharp canine score his tongue.

  Intent upon the predators’ advance, Našobok also kept an eye upon Tokela. “Perhaps you can make their talk better than my feeble attempts?”

  Make their talk? Wasn’t he there enough to contend with, with Elementals nattering and complaining and singing—Ai, shrieking—in his Spirit? As well as Stars?

  Stars…

  This time Našobok brought the bow against the small of Tokela’s back.

  This time it really hurt. With the pain came clarity, and anger. “Yuškammanukfila ikšo!” The epithet snarled and snapped. “Reason with hungry prowlingKin? Are you mad?”

  Is it so different? Another Voice, dispersing Starlight. River, then Fire; now the sand beneath his feet echoed Grandmother. Are you not all kindred and my children?

  “Ai, there you are,” Našobok flashed his teeth—smile or return snarl, Tokela wasn’t sure. Perhaps both, knowing Našobok. “I’m not the one balancing upon an unsteady spar, little brother.”

  It drawled soft into condescension. Ire was almost as good as pain, sifting through the internal bedlam and lulling it quiet.

  “I need you at my back, in yourself. It isn’t my intent for either of us to die hamstrung by prowlingKin—”

  “Našo—!”

  With a whirl and push against the bow, Našobok’s arrow released, found its target with a sullen thud and a shrill yelp.

  Chaos erupted beside them. The mare leapt, twisted and bucked, kicked out with a furious, hoarse grunt. Another ki-yi. A shadow rippled to Tokela’s knife hand; he spun, flung his spear. A third shriek answered his aim.

  Našobok took down another. Several more pairs of glowing orbs joined those waiting on the fringe.

  The speared dog was trying to drag itself away. Tokela followed, whispered apology for not making a clean kill even as he grabbed the spear shaft and twisted, sharp, hopping sideways to avoid the dying snap.

  Front hoofs striking and great teeth flashing, the mare squealed as one of the predators leapt for her. She grabbed ša by the nape, shook with an audible crunch, then flung ša aside. Another lunged into the lit circle; Tokela leapt forwards and pinned ša to the ground with his spear, finished the job with his knife.

  The pack ringed tighter. There were more than had started. The mare drew closer to her companions, snorting low in her chest.

  Stars throbbed dull behind Tokela’s eyes. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood. They receded.

  “Tokela?”

  “I’m here.”

  Našobok’s gaze flickered back and forth, troubled. “This isn’t good. There are”—he loosed another arrow, and the predators scattered as one fell—“too many. I thought to save you from the tall ones, and instead…”

  It was hard to stay angry at Našobok for long when such raw concern broke his talk.

  “I think you have to try. Influence them. Not with outLand witchery, but your Elemental’s aid.”

  “I can’t hear Her, don’t you under—”

  She is not here, true. But She is not the only one who will stand in you, little brother. The diminutive curled fond-quiet, no insult. Earth, rippling beneath Tokela’s feet. Fire, tongued with a faint breath of Wind…

  Eyes no longer his. Or reflexes. With a negligent flip of spear, Tokela s
trode towards the waiting predators.

  “Tokela—!” Našobok tried to snatch at him, but missed, as if the swift motion had been done underwater.

  No worry, Tokela wanted to whisper, he wasn’t about to walk into the waiting jaws; thankfully his body obeyed, halting beside the makeshift hearth. Another flip of spear, the bloodied point swinging downwards.

  Sparks leapt. As if the spear were a conduit, a gust of smoke and flame roiled up. Našobok cursed and tottered back; Tokela didn’t move as heat glossed his eyes, flared up about him.

  The mare snorted, popped a front hoof towards the flames but stood fast.

  Yelping panic, the predators scuttled back.

  Fire surrounded him, touched him, filled him. Opened him—

  Panic rose. Let me go. Please don’t, let me go—

  —but didn’t burn, held firm.

  And from searing edges whispered a soft not-voice. Some things needn’t be done alone, cousin. Better, though, if you learned to ask before you reached and nigh yanked me from my horse.

  GNAWING WORRY grew sharper teeth, bit down.

  Untutored. Strong. Overwhelming, if Palatan hadn’t his own strengths.

  Anahli gasped. Her horse tried to take off; she held her, held on. Palatan’s own mare shied sideways, and the same muscles his daughter had just used—trained since before either of them could walk—also kept him a-horse: thighs against hide, fingers laced into ebon mane.

  It took some doing, but Palatan retrieved control over what had been snatched from him—

  before you nigh yanked me from my horse—

  —and slid off his mount, teeth and fists clenched. Turned towards dawn, where the horizon was beginning to light itself silver-grey as the fleethounds, panting and watching. Anahli had also dismounted, grasped both sets of reins, awaiting his lead. Her eyes once again whirled with faintest Starlight; Wind breathed from the coming dawn, lifted strands of hair about her cheeks, and Fire kindled upon a horizon…

  Where a wilding talent groped unaware for whatever help ša could find, surrounded by predators in the desert.

  Palatan smiled, spread his feet upon Grandmother’s grassy flank. He extended one hand, felt Anahli’s fingers lace snugly into his, and… reached.

  It should be difficult, at this distance. It wasn’t. Fire reached back, welcomed and spun Palatan into contact, would have locked him tight-bound into the Sharing. But Palatan kept his own control firm, snugged Anahli at his side, and spun out what Spirit he could…

  Not without a fond whisper for an absent oathbrother who willingly Walked with shamanKin.

  Not just Fire, but Earth and Wind, a longing, faraway whisper from River, and…

  Stars. A scream of Ice and Fire and Other set upon taking, to capture a changeling boy and whatever he had touched, Shaped. Anahli leaned forwards, wilful mutiny; Palatan denied the wilding Power, slamming his own shields down just in time.

  “Yeka!” Anahli protested, “we can’t just—”

  “We have given him what we can! This… this is a Chepiś thing!” Palatan snapped back. “It is the one thing we cannot join with—”

  “Tokela has, and won!”

  “So far,” he whispered, looking to the horizon.

  Anahli untangled her hand from his. Defeat lingered about them, skimming the back of Palatan’s tongue like soured mare’s milk.

  Scavengers. Not Kin. Nonetheless the lingering wait dissolved; filling the space was an oddling approach, careful-slow.

  “It’s them, isn’t it?” Anahli breathed. “Chepiś. They… hunt him.”

  No need to ask which “him”.

  Hunting. Against the truce. Against…

  “Follow!” Palatan leapt on his horse, whirled her on her muscular, spotted haunches, and galloped back the way he’d come.

  Anahli, after a breath of hesitation and a glance towards the horizon, followed.

  THE DISENGAGEMENT, so abrupt, nearly felled Tokela. Only then did he realise he’d sought the contact, unaware of what, or how.

  “Tokela?” An odd mix of apprehension and composure laced Našobok’s voice.

  Fire had opened the way. Fire was Palatan’s… co-tenant, that was Ša’s calling, gleaned from faraway embers of memory and experience. And though Palatan had closed the opened place—fear? horror? revulsion?—Fire hadn’t subsided, Ša’s Spirit waiting, beckoning, and Wind wafting Tokela’s hair, faint.

  Stars had tried to overtake, use him—Tokela wasn’t certain the opposite was possible, even now felt it anathema, evil. But the Spirit-presence bound down to Grandmother’s soil, the flames behind his eyes; those were welcoming-warm, buffering infinite chill. Tokela sucked in a breath and opened his eyes wide, letting the coppery light within. Without.

  He raised the spear. Flames twisted upwards about the shaft, hissing in sheer delight as the edge traced patterns in the dark.

  “Tokela!”

  “I am well.” The talk lingered, grew into a snarl. Like, yet unlike Našobok’s attempt, the not-voices reached outwards. His dam’s horsetalker blood uncoiled beneath his tongue, adding layers heard as well as unheard. Shapes flowed up the spear and into Tokela’s chest, smoke and heat and Spirit all a vortex of wilding flame. Fear and desperation were moulded into a spear of command and thrown, unerring, to the target’s heart.

  Within one heartbeat, the pack was steadily advancing with one objective, one heart. In the next they were broken; separate and cowed individuals scattering and slinking away, melting into all corners of the desert.

  Gone.

  Slowly, Tokela became aware that he had stepped forwards, over the flames and towards the pack. The -tracings hung in the air, faded and disappeared. He still gripped the spear in his hands, corposant…

  Burning.

  Tokela dropped it on the ground, stared disbelieving at his undamaged palms.

  The flames upon the spear writhed, lighting the sandy pan with indigo and silver. They flickered, guttered, then sucked away, leaving merely a sturdy, unremarkable spear, its bronze head a dull gleam, gut lacings and wooden shaft not even scorched.

  Tokela staggered, unsure what he had just done. Unsure, in fact, of where he was, only that he was suddenly burning from inside out, shivering and sweating and filled at fever pitch.

  Reality came to him, strong and solid, in a firm handclasp pulling him close. He wanted to give to it; reason fought instinct and dictated otherwise, sparked recoil.

  Even Palatan had done.

  “Not now. Don’t… don’t touch me.”

  But Našobok didn’t retreat—more, didn’t let Tokela retreat and pulled him even closer. “This is me, remember?” he whispered against Tokela’s cheek. “I can touch you. You cannot hurt or change me.”

  Ai, it was true: Našobok was a worthy wall to batter against. A rock in the rapids to hold to; someone to remind Tokela he was… here.

  Even when he wasn’t.

  A teasing murmur in his ear, a nip to that same ear. “Rut me stupid, but you are the most amazing and beautiful thing I’ve laid eyes on in a while.”

  It sent Tokela further sideways—an utter mystery that Našobok did, somehow, actually think him lovely, didn’t shun or fear this… this whatever it was, lying within him. Another draught of reality, shivering his body from the strange hold/trance.

  Yet it remained, heart-deep, waiting white-hot behind the eyes he clenched so tightly. “I think that’s a good thing. Because we’re safe for the moment and I think…” His voice creaked; a faithless reality tried to pull itself out from under him again.

  Arms caught him, held him—real, and solid, and here, as present as Našobok’s breath heating his temple. “I think,” it was wry, “that you need to stop thinking, and start asking.”

  Tokela twisted about and practically climbed Našobok’s muscular frame, breathed his breath and shut his own eyes. Asked.

  Begged.

  25 - ShamanKin

  “Alekšu? What is—?”

  “Let the drums ta
lk!” In one smooth motion, Palatan dismounted and slipped the rope from his mount’s nose. “Lapis Council convenes soon!”

  The drumKeeper was seated on the edge of camp, greeting the fingerlings of Sun’s rising. She stroked the taut, wide skin with callused fingers, whispering a query; the talking drum hissed and vibrated like a wakened, wise serpent. She smiled at Anahli, eyes following Palatan as he ran off in the direction of the chieftain’s tipo. Then she started to drum.

  The rhythm pounded within Anahli’s breast, thick comfort, as she released her own mare and followed.

  A horse waited, ground-tied just outside the chieftain’s tipo. Anahli’s youngest sister, Vinka, was grooming the horse’s sweaty, dusty hide. The other two were eating, dipping flatbread into the large pot upon the outside cook. Cavern or tipo, the stone kettle was always heating with good things.

  “I thought you were both gone for—?” Samke’s query trailed away beneath the drum-talk. “Yeka’s called Lapis council. What’s happened?”

  “Let her eat, first.” Nishe handed Anahli a rolled-up piece of flatbread, soft and warm. Anahli took it and bit down gratefully. She was famished.

  “Whose horse?”

  “A message-talker just arrived,” Vinka said, in rhythm with her strokes—and the drum. “From midLands, and the old khatak.”

  “Vinka!”

  “Well, that’s what Aška calls him.”

  “No drumtalk?”

  “Private.” Samke shrugged. “Aska and Yeka are both in there, so we’re stuck outside.”

  “At least it isn’t pouring,” Nishe reminded.

  “Ai, but we need Rain.”

  “Anahli?” Aylaniś pulled back the door flap. “Your sire wants you.”

  With a shrug, Nishe passed over another piece of hot flatbread. Anahli grinned thanks.

  The message-talker was rising from a guest blanket; clearly he’d finished his errand. Palatan stood in a shadowed curve, frowning thoughtfully whilst Aylaniś told the message-talker, “Please. Eat at our hearth until you’re ready to depart. My daughters will see to your comforts.”