by Jesse Teller
Silence, deep and terrible, filled the afternoon until she reached the stairs, and a familiar voice shouted out. “This is a night for high honor and feasting. This is not a night for whores and those with no soul.” Her father’s voice still cut, though she spent years trying to get it out of her head.
She looked at the ground. She could not bring her gaze up. There was something so horrible about looking at Breathos when Tena Black Knuckle called her whore. The whole of the assembly gasped as hard, pinching hands closed around her arm.
“Every bone.” Breathos said it loud, and he stood. The crowd hushed. Ellen looked up at Breathos, unable to bring herself to look at her father, who stood so close she could hear his breathing. “If you do not let her go and step back this very moment, I will break every bone in your body with this shield.” He lifted the mighty Steeltooth and flashed it in the sunlight. The glint of the day on the polished steel face blinded her. Her father stepped up beside her, and with an arm, shoved her to his back.
“You will not tell me what to do and say to my daughter, Breathos Steeltooth. You have no right here.”
Breathos brought his shield down hard on the table, splitting it in half. Mugs filled with ale flew into the air. Fruits and dates flew in a cloud, and citizens ran in every direction. Breathos stepped through the ruin of a table and leapt from the platform on high.
Tena let loose a slight whimper and backed into her. The two of them spilled out onto the ground, and her father fought frantically to get to his feet. His legs tangled up in hers. He slapped and kicked to get away.
She could not see her father, though he struggled atop her. Her eyes were for Breathos stepping slowly forward, his face harder than his mighty relic, his rage tempered with will and resolve. Her father got to his feet as Breathos reached out for him and snatched him up by the hair.
Tena grabbed for his weapon, but Breathos’s shield swung, then every bone in her father’s hand could be heard snapping and breaking. One swift sweep of the leg, and her father dropped to the ground on his knees and Breathos looked at her.
“Ellen, are you okay?” he whispered.
She could only stare at him and nod, her mouth hanging open in utter shock and dismay.
“I will be back,” he said to Borlyn, and Steeltooth began dragging her father away.
“Please, mighty king chief, do not let my blood soil your brother’s day,” her father said. “This beast has given no thought to the day of your brother’s branding and wishes to—”
“Who is this woman to you that you would shame her so before your king chief and your tribe?” a boy said. He stood no taller than any other boy of twelve, and though he was handsome, and stood beside Borlyn himself, he seemed no one of consequence.
Terala stood beside the boy and cupped her delicate hand to his ear. She stared in shock at Ellen and whispered to the boy. With a spasm of violence, his face ripped through horror and stopped at rage.
“This is your daughter?” he snapped. “You call your daughter a whore before your king chief? You grab a woman in fine standing with my brother, and you wish to what, drag her away, for what end? You will not hide behind my branding day, foul man. You have shamed yourself, and I see no reason to save you back from the relic of the Steeltooth clan. You want him, Breathos? You have him. Break him if you will, but please, do not do it where my love can hear.”
The boy sat at the broken table. He sat beside the girl Ellen had seen grow from a child. He took Terala’s hand and turned to his brother. When he waved his hand in the air above his head in a tight circle, everyone sat at the shattered table. The dancing sparked up again, and the minstrels struck their chords as Breathos dragged Ellen’s father away.
She rushed to his side. “Please, no. Breathos, you do not have to do this. You can let him go.”
Breathos paused, but did not look up. His eyes were for the ground as he spoke. “No, Ellen, this ends now. I have sat by for four years while this entire village has spoken ill of you and befouled your name. I have stood by and let it happen.” He turned his face, letting her see a bit of it, but still too furious to look at her. With the rage bubbling off him, his full face might just consume her.
“My fathers would be horrified by my inaction. No more. For the sake of my line, for the sake of my son, and for the sake of my relic, this dog will be beat. I will leave him with his life, but—”
Her father began to talk, and Breathos gripped him by the neck and stood him up. With one resounding crack, Breathos’s mighty hand smacked Tena. The man reeled back, staggering, and reached with his good hand for his weapon. Breathos seemed not to notice. He stepped forward as her father pulled back his arm to swing, and Breathos slapped him again. The man stumbled back and dropped to his ass. Breathos grabbed him by his collar and jerked him to his feet. Her father pulled back his sword, and Breathos smacked him again.
Ellen was crying now. Not for her father, though it wounded her to see his mistreatment. Not for the rage on display, or the love Breathos showed her with his violence. She wept for the end of it all, the last vestiges of dishonor she would ever have to face from any of the village. Tena was crying now, though he tried to hide it in his growl. Breathos slung his shield on his back and stared as her father came at him. When the sword flashed, Breathos seemed to step right through it. His hand was a stone when it slapped the man in the face.
Everything shattered.
The eye socket cracked. The nose shot to the right cheek. The jaw came loose and hung ragged in the maw. She saw her father’s tooth fly from his mouth, and his lips ripped like dry cloth. The face became a nightmare, and her father dropped to his knees. He sheltered his ragged face in his hands and sobbed.
Breathos turned to her. Remarkably, he had no blood on his entire body. It seemed as though his work was too justified to soil him in any way. With a shrug of his shoulder, his shield fell into his hand.
“I’m going to take that filth,” he said, pointing at Tena, “into that forest right there.” He pointed with a steady hand, free of any tremble of rage or anything else. “I’m going to walk him to the stream and I am going to take this shield and ring it, like my family’s gong, on his body. He will survive. I am not in the killing mood right now. But this dog will never snap again.
“You are welcome to come with me, Ellen. You can watch me vindicate you on this man’s flesh. Or you can go back to the party and wait for me, meet Ruggamon Flurryfist and see his honor. Meet the new bastay, and congratulate Terala of the Forge on her great fortune. She has long asked after you these past years. Come with me into the darkness, or go into the light and I will be with you shortly.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
She touched the spot.
“I must go now. I am about my fathers’ work.” With that, Breathos gripped Tena Black Knuckle by the hair and dragged him into the forest. Ellen stared after them.
She turned to join her king chief in the light.
She had been in the dark for so long.
“Four years ago, my brother and I came to this village,” the young Flurryfist said. “Borlyn was talking to the men in the Warrior’s Circle that day, and the mighty boys of this tribe wanted to play Wolf Lords. I drew a Ragoth lot, and so it was my duty to vie for saving the girl. That is when I saw her.”
His name was Ruggamon. Ellen could not take her eyes off him. There was a humble quality to him, but that did nothing to diminish him at all. This was a Flurryfist, to be sure, but he did not possess the Flurryfist size they were legendary for. This did nothing to diminish him. He seemed to have a shy asking nature when he turned to take Terala’s hand, as if he were frightened she might turn away. This fear did nothing to diminish him.
“Terala of the Forge they called her,” Ruggamon said. “Because I asked. When I saw her, I needed to know her name. She was the best thing about me, even before I knew it. For upon gazing at her, I was suffused with great pride. I knew her mine already, and I knew I possessed the most treasured beauty a
ny man could ever hold. When I beat the noble Wolf Lords that day, I whispered to her.”
When he looked down and smiled, Ellen could see tears in his eyes. She remembered this moment he was describing, remembered the soft way the boy had spoken. “I asked her if I could go tell her father.” Ruggamon looked across the crowd to the blacksmith, Terma of the Forge, and he smiled and nodded. “She said I could.” He looked back at Terala then out at the crowd. “I told him then when I was eight, that I would come back on this day, the day of my twelfth birthday, to marry her and take my brand. Told him I wanted him to see it. Wanted him to witness my fearlessness and my will. And when I proved myself to him, my first act as a man would be to marry his daughter.” Ruggamon smiled and turned to Terma. “Do you remember what you said to me?”
“I told him he could marry my daughter if he took his brand on his knees.”
The crowd gasped. Borlyn looked up, glanced at Ruggamon, and back to Terma, but Ruggamon held his hands in the air to silence the whole of the crowd.
“It is believed that every father wants his daughter to marry a Son of the Seven, but this is not always true. Fathers who raise proud and mighty daughters do not want them living in the shadow of a great man. So he told me if I was humble enough to take to my knees when I took my brand, I could have his proud daughter.”
Ruggamon dropped to his knees. Borlyn looked about to panic.
“When next I rise, I will be dead or a man.” Ruggamon turned to his brother. “The brand, my king chief. Do it now.”
Borlyn turned to the crowd. He turned to Terma and looked about to crush the man’s skull. He stared down at Ruggamon and saw his little brother was not looking at the hot brand, sizzling and poised for flesh. Ruggamon’s eyes sat gently on his love.
Borlyn said nothing. He coughed, and Ellen could see he fought to find words. He found none but these: “I brand now the greatest person I have ever known. The greatest person that ever walked the mountain. This love you have humbles me. This union will change the course of our race for all time.” When the brand hit Ruggamon’s chest, he gasped and looked up, blinking at his bride.
Ellen did not know if he was gasping at the pain or at her beauty.
In the drinking hall, the men danced and boxed and drank and sang.
Ruggamon had been bound to his love. He said he had heard of the ceremony when a Howler shaman came to visit the Flurryfist village. Said the Howlers bound their loves together for the first day. They decided when they talked last night that they wanted to do the same. So, the young couple sat at the feet of the throne, watching and whispering to each other, bound around the middle by a white cord. Terala kissed Ruggamon’s fists every now and again, and they laughed often.
Breathos Steeltooth sat with his wife on his lap, a drink in his hand, his shield leaning against his chair. The woman’s name was Drea, and Breathos was committed to her completely. Ellen tried not to hate her for it, but failed every time she saw the woman. Their boy was five. A serious little boy who stared at Ruggamon and Terala often and asked no questions. He had with him a fussy little three-year-old brother named Helgor. The two of them were always together, and it seemed Burle told Helgor everything to do. It seemed Burle had more to teach his little brother than their father did.
Every now and then, Breathos would reach beside him and give Ellen’s hand a little squeeze. He would smile at her and wink.
At the table sat Gaulator, and stare at him as she did, she could not understand why he was chief of the tribe. He was four years younger than Breathos. He had not been on the mountain as long as Breathos, and he was not as great a man as the Steeltooth either. But there he sat, at the seat of honor beside Borlyn, deep in talks she did not understand. They talked of Tergor. They talked of Yenna, and they spoke often of the need for patience. She sat watching Gaulator, seeking the reason why he was better than her Breathos, but not finding it.
On the other side of the king chief sat the bastay. He was tall and thin, not muscled and hard as the other men were. He possessed no great weapon and seemed altogether unarmed, save a small knife he carried on his waist. He had the oddest hair she ever saw. Stare at it as she might, she could not figure it out at all. It was white and black. The roots of the pate were white, the length black. She could not figure how that was possible. The bastay was very handsome, and looked to be the smartest man at the table. He did not speak often. When he did, it was usually funny and light hearted. His smile was nice, his manners perfect. His eyes shone with kindness, and he had a way of making everyone at the table comfortable and at ease. Still, as she fought to puzzle him out, she could not tell why she loathed him, why she decided that, if he were to try to touch her, she would run. Run as if Hell itself were coming. She told herself she was being foolish. And she watched him closely.
“Villains!” a man shouted as he stumbled toward the table. He dropped to his knees at Borlyn’s feet, and frantically grabbed at Borlyn’s hands until the king chief gave them to him. The man kissed Borlyn’s hands as if they would save his soul, then looked up with a red, sweating face and crying eyes. “We are all villains.” His mouth opened in a wide O of dismay, and she could tell he was drunk beyond measure.
“Who here are villains, Kank? We sit now with noble blood,” Borlyn said. The bastay pulled in close and watched the man on his knees very carefully.
“My line,” the man sobbed. “My line, all the way back, as far as we can trace, were villains. Criminals and fiends, they were the worst lot imaginable. My father killed my own mother. He did worse to my brother. It is in this blood.” The man scratched at his arm and Borlyn had to pull the fingernails away or they would indeed draw blood. “There is darkness here, my king chief. Send me from your side before evil finds me.”
“I will not send you away, Kank Brass Shield. You are honorable and noble until you prove to me otherwise,” Borlyn said. “Your family does not define you.”
“This table would say that to me? I see a Steeltooth, a Black Hand, a Flurryfist and Stonefist. I see sitting before me four Sons of the Seven, and you will say to me a man is not defined by his line?”
“I said it once, and I will say it as many times as I need to. We are not better than you,” Borlyn said. The bastay, who must have been a Black Hand, frowned at Borlyn’s words, but did not refute them. “We are noble men because we choose to be. You will be noble as long as you make that choice as well.”
“Promise me.”
Drea stood and Breathos pulled his shield from the floor. He set it on the table and all fell silent. When he rapped his knuckles on the surface, his two sons looked up instantly and came running. “By this shield, we will all take a pact,” Breathos said. “If ever I see you walking the path of dishonor, I will get in your way,” he said. He rapped his knuckles again and Borlyn knocked twice.
“I as well.”
“And I,” Gaulator said.
“Yes,” the Black Hand said. Ellen did not know if that was quite a vow.
Two rings.
Two solemn tolls of the greatest bell Ellen ever heard, and she looked up at Gaulator Stonefist. All eyes swung, and suddenly the entire room was looking to their chief. Two rings meant the son of the bell was coming home. Two rings meant Gaulator’s big brother was home. A thrill ran through Ellen’s body as the entire hall broke out into chaos.
“I’m gonna need that throne,” Borlyn said, as he stood and walked to the high seat of honor. The chief sat in the seat, which now would serve as the seat of the king chief of the Ragoth.
She moved as every Son of the Seven rose to step onto the dais to stand beside their king chief. Even young Burle and Helgor stood beside their father, proud and serious. The door was kicked once, then again, before flying open in a sudden display of violence.
She stared at the silhouettes that lined the door, many men cutting an image of darkness. She looked to Borlyn, who sat still as stone, waiting and thinking. The man who strode into the hall could not have been Tulbo Stonefist, bro
ther of Gaulator. He wore a breastplate of black, nicked and hacked with scratches and dings. The plate was framed by white fur, the symbol emblazoned upon the plate unrecognizable from the punishment it had weathered. She saw a spear. Comical in size, it could not have been wielded by any man, even one so insane with rage as this man had to be. She stared in horror at his face, his eyes, his snarl, and knew him to be the most terrifying thing she had ever seen in her living days.
He stomped into the hall, walking so fast as to be nearly running. Great men followed him in, and Ellen searched their faces for one she recognized. A tall man bore the great sword of myth, the ancient relic of the Stonefist family. This could be none other than Tulbo himself. He walked with the easy grace of a panther. His eyes devoured everything he laid them upon, his face unreadable as stone, as inscrutable as a slab of steel. His gaze came to her and seemed to tremble before he walked on. More men walked in. More and more, until six men, all massive and powerful, stood before the throne. Borlyn’s greedy eyes drank up every face before settling on the fierce man with the spear.
Borlyn did not speak. He simply let himself be seen.
“I am taking him with me,” the man said, stabbing a finger at Gaulator. He swept his finger over to Breathos. “Him, too, if he will join me.”
Ellen’s heart stopped in her chest.
“You are Gerber Beastscowl, son of Etamaz. I met you when I sat with Yenna Redfist. It is a fine thing to see you again. Sit with me and drink a—”
“Borlyn, is it?” Gerber said, glaring. He seemed about to chomp her king chief’s face off.
“I am Borlyn Flurryfist, son of Cochran, King Chief of the Ragoth people.”
“On the mountain,” Gerber spat.
Tulbo laid a hand on Gerber’s shoulder, and Gerber snarled at it until it was removed. “You are the king chief on this mountain. Are you not?”
