Exile (27 page)

‘No.’ Imoshen hugged Iraayel as hard as she could, tears stinging her eyes. She pulled back. ‘Never say that. Never!’

Tears of love glistened in his wine-dark eyes, and Imoshen recalled a long-lost memory of her mother. She hadn’t seen her since she was five. Iraayel was the son of her mother’s sister, and there was a family resemblance. Grateful, Imoshen hugged Iraayel again, her gift close to the surface.

Iraayel sensed it. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ She pulled back.

A Malaunje hurried past. Word of the causare and her choice-son embracing in the corridor would spread, reaching Vittoryxe’s ears, and Imoshen would be in for a scolding.

As long as the gift-tutor did not hear of Saffazi’s daring.

‘I should go,’ Iraayel said softly.

‘You saved Safi’s life tonight. If you’d touched her without me there to bring you back, you’d both be dead.’

‘I know.’ But his tone told her he would still have risked his life for Saffazi. No wonder he wanted to stay with the sisterhood.

‘Off you go.’

Feeling fragile, Imoshen waited for Egrayne. They walked back through the deserted corridors, silent until they entered Imoshen’s chambers.

Egrayne sighed. ‘She is the last of my choice-daughters, the only one who still lives. I have such hopes for her.’

‘Don’t blame Safi. It’s Vittoryxe. She hoards knowledge. I’ll speak with her.’ As soon as Imoshen said it, she knew it would be the wrong move.

‘I’ll speak with her,’ Egrayne said quickly. ‘I should tell the gift-tutor about Safi’s indiscretion.’

‘No need to invite trouble.’

Egrayne took Imoshen’s shoulders in her hands and kissed each cheek. ‘Your choice-son is wise beyond his years.’

‘He’s in love with your impetuous choice-daughter.’

Egrayne chuckled. ‘So is the Malaunje youth. Ah, what will I do with her?’

Chapter Twenty

R
ONNYN COULD NOT
take his eyes off the great sea-boar. Safe behind a rock, he marvelled at the creature’s size. The biggest he’d seen so far, its body was covered in glossy blue-black skin. Whiskers grew from its snout and each flipper ended in a needle-sharp prong. Then there were the tusks, each was as long as a full grown man’s fore-arm and as thick; they reared up from each side of the sea-boar’s jaw.

Hearing his father’s tales had not prepared Ronnyn for the reality of these magnificent beasts. He glanced to Aravelle to see if she was equally impressed. She frowned, pushing tendrils of wind-blown copper hair out of her eyes. Between them lay the sack of tusks they’d already gathered. Wind whipped in from the sea, driving sand before it, stinging their bare legs and arms.

Ronnyn ignored the discomfort, concentrating on their father. The boars were surprisingly fast over short distances. The tusks their father hoped to collect lay on the beach not far from where the sea-boar sunned itself on the sand. During mating season, the males often gored each other to death. Only the strongest set up a harem of females. The scavengers picked the carcasses clean, leaving the bones and tusks.

It was difficult to decide when to come to Sea-boar Isle. In the autumn, while the mating battles raged, the shores rang with the bulls’ roars, and now that the pups had been born, the females jealously guarded their rush-lined nests, staking out patches of sun-warmed dune.

But all Ronnyn and Aravelle wanted were the discarded tusks, left amidst the bleached bones on the sand.

‘Don’t worry,’ Aravelle squeezed his shoulder. ‘Da knows what he’s doing.’

At that moment, Asher crept out from behind a rock, making his way down the dune towards the ivory. Ronnyn held his breath. The sea-boar male did not stir. The six females continued to groom their pups.

A seagull cawed overhead, hanging effortlessly on the wind. Ronnyn glanced up at the bird, and missed the moment the largest female spotted his father. Her warning bellow echoed across the beach.

‘Quick, Da,’ Aravelle breathed.

The female gave another call. The male reared up and charged down the sand, as the female charged in from the other direction.

‘He’s trapped.’ Aravelle jumped to her feet.

Their father weighed his chances, then dashed behind the female. She was too quick. Changing direction, he tried to run between the two but tripped on a bone, sprawling in the soft sand. He was up instantly, but the female had cut him off.

Now he turned to face the sea-boar. The big male lunged in, goring his thigh, tossing him high in the air. His body spun end-over-end like a toy, falling to the sand in a heap. Ronnyn stared, unable to believe his eyes.

‘Save Da,’ Aravelle ordered, even as she leapt over the rock and raced across the beach.

Stunned, Ronnyn was three strides behind her by the time he jumped over the rock. His heart raced. In disbelief he saw Aravelle run behind the female, which was about to inspect their father as he lay in an ever widening circle of bloodstained sand.

‘Over here,’ Aravelle cried, dancing perilously near the other females.

Fierce admiration burned in Ronnyn’s chest.

Both the male and female charged Aravelle. She ran along the beach, away from the nest, away from their injured father.

Right into the path of another bull.

Ronnyn froze. Time seemed to slow. Fear stole his breath. He was too far to help.

His sister’s legs faltered. A surge of determination took him. She must get past. Everything became incredibly clear and sharp.

A gust of wind whipped up the sand right in front of the male, flinging it in the creature’s face, into its eyes. It reared back.

Aravelle leapt past the sea-boar, and kept right on running.

Ronnyn darted over to his father, hooked his arms under Asher’s shoulders and dragged him along the beach.

Only when he had his father safely behind the rock did he look back. To his relief, there was no sign of Aravelle’s body on the beach. The rest of the females had begun the weaving motion they took up when threatened. The biggest female and the male were out of sight, presumably chasing his sister.

As long as she didn’t trip, she could outrun them.

Turning his attention to his father, he rolled Asher onto his back. So much blood, and that open wound, right down to the bone.

The sight of it made him sick with fear.

Drawing his fish-gutting knife, Ronnyn cut the torn breeches away, making strips to bind the long, deep wound. Ronnyn tore off his vest and pressed it to the gash. He strapped the bandage as hard as he could. He’d glimpsed things inside his father’s leg that weren’t meant to see the light of day.

Blood still seeped through his jerkin. What should he do? Behind him, something crunched on the sand. He spun, knife lifted.

Aravelle glanced to the knife and grinned.

He put it away.

‘How is he?’ she asked, dropping to her knees. Her cheeks were flushed, hair wild.

He had never been so glad to see her. ‘We must get him back to the boat. I’ve slowed the bleeding, but not stopped it.’

Between them, they carried their father down the beach and around the headland. Neither mentioned the other unconscious man they had carried like this.

The boat was anchored in the shallows, and it was hard getting their father aboard. Ronnyn had to rig the net as a sling. Their rough handling worsened the bleeding.

‘That wound needs to be sewn,’ Aravelle said. ‘Best do it now, before he wakes up.’

Their mother had sewn Ronnyn’s hand after he cut it with Da’s fishing knife. It had hurt so much he’d cried, even though he tried not to.

They used their mother’s brindle-berry wine to clean the needle and then the wound. That woke their father. He cursed and struggled to sit up. Ronnyn tried to hold him down.

‘Your leg’s bleeding real bad, Da,’ Aravelle said. ‘We’re going to sew it up.’

Asher’s expression cleared and he nodded. ‘Do you want me to do it?’

Ronnyn caught Aravelle’s eye.

‘No, I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘I can see what I’m doing.’

Ronnyn was glad he didn’t have to.

She used the finest of the sail-mending thread. Ronnyn helped hold his father’s leg still. It jumped around as the muscle spasmed. It was easier when their father passed out again.

Finally, Aravelle stood up, looking pale. Her hands shook and the front of her shirt was covered in blood. Ronnyn was so glad she was with him.

They studied their father. There was a worrying sheen to his skin.

‘We should sail for home right now,’ Aravelle said. ‘I’ll go back for the ivory bag. You get the boat ready.’

But first they carried Asher down to the single bunk in the cabin and strapped him in. Then Ronnyn packed everything securely away and drew up the anchor. The tide was coming in. Aravelle ran back through the shallows with the ivory bag. When he hauled it over the side it was heavier than he expected.

‘You went back for the tusks?’ he guessed.

She nodded, scrambling up to join him. ‘Let’s go.’

He couldn’t believe her daring; he wished he was as brave.

Before setting off, they checked on their father. His skin felt hot.

‘Fever,’ Ronnyn whispered. ‘That’s bad.’

‘Ma will know what to do,’ Aravelle said.

As they came out onto deck, Ronnyn caught his sister’s arm. They’d never sailed the boat on their own, and never been to the trading isle. There were so many things they didn’t know, Ronnyn realised they’d never manage without Asher. ‘If Da dies, our family will have to go back to the brotherhood. Won’t we?’

Aravelle blinked and frowned, as if she was about to tell him not to be silly. Then she nodded slowly and he knew his father’s wound was as bad as he’d feared. But he was also pleased, because it meant she acknowledged he was old enough for the truth and they were in this together.

Once the wind filled the sail, Aravelle took the tiller. She knew the way back through the island channels. It fell to him to sit with their father and, even though it was mid-afternoon, he was exhausted. The tiredness was like a great, smothering grey blanket creeping over his mind.

He fought it, but the waves of weariness kept returning, inevitable as the incoming tide. Each time he drove it back, it rolled over him. In the end, he picked up the curved needle and pricked his skin repeatedly to stay awake.

As long as Aravelle was on duty at the tiller, he had to be alert at their father’s side. It was the least he could do.

I
MOSHEN DIDN’T WANT
to be here, but she had no choice. She’d known Bedutz since he and Iraayel first became friends. As a child, Bedutz had smiled trustingly up at her when she told the boys stories. Today he was seventeen, and Vittoryxe would send him to his brotherhood.

Imoshen didn’t want to be here, but as leader of the sisterhood, she had to witness the ceremony. While the Malaunje played a solemn dirge, she lit the ceremonial candles. Their scent of bitter almonds reminded her of other deaths, both real and symbolic.

The candles sat in their niches, illuminating the underside of the sisterhood gate. It was that grey time before dawn, when babies are born and the elderly die.

Schooling her face to betray nothing, Imoshen stood to one side while Vittoryxe plaited Bedutz’s long hair. As his choice-mother, Vittoryxe had done his hair since it grew long enough to braid and now, in their last moments together, she braided it again.

Some of the females chose not to touch their choice-sons, preferring to distance themselves. Imoshen was surprised to see Vittoryxe do Bedutz’s hair, but the gift-tutor was nothing if not devoted to T’Enatuath ritual.

After completing the braid, Vittoryxe wound the ceremonial leather around Bedutz’s plait at shoulder height. Then she took the scissors and cut his hair off above that point. While cutting his hair, she was also cutting the shallow gift link that all T’En mothers shared with their children.

Lifting the severed braid to show the sisterhood, Vittoryxe said the words to complete the ritual. ‘My choice-son, Bedutz, is dead. This is all I have to remember him by.’

The sisters moaned in sympathy.

Imoshen’s heart raced as her gift tried to break free of her control. She would not declare Iraayel dead. She would not turn her back on him. She would not...

Be able to do otherwise, because her sisterhood would refuse to acknowledge him. Even as she thought this, Bedutz walked past the long row of sisters and each one symbolically turned their back to him.

When he came to Imoshen, she refused to look away. With tears in her eyes she met the gaze of the boy she had grown to love.

For a heartbeat his chin trembled, then he clenched his jaw and turned away from her.

Would that be Iraayel on his seventeenth birthday?

Seething with fury, Imoshen watched as the Malaunje stripped Bedutz so that he stood naked on the cold paving stones. Seeing him like this, there was no denying he was an adult man, but this did not mean he was their enemy.

Turning him out and forcing him to give his loyalty to an all-father – that was what turned him into their enemy. It was all so wrong.

Pale-skinned and perfectly formed, Bedutz went through the sisterhood gate and out of their lives.

Hueryx’s gift-tutor and four adepts waited to escort him to his new home. At least he was not going to Kyredeon’s brotherhood.

The gift-tutor placed a cloak around Bedutz’s shoulders, symbolically cloaking him with the protection of the brotherhood. Then the warriors strode off with him in their ranks. He did not look back.

Imoshen watched until she could see him no more. Other leave-takings had not caused her so much pain. She knew it was because her time with Iraayel was running out, but even knowing this she could not armour herself against the loss.

Blinded by tears of impotent fury, she walked home with the women of her sisterhood, her back stiff and straight. She did not blink, for fear the tears would fall. Some sisters sobbed softly. Not Vittoryxe; she walked in front of Imoshen, head held high, Bedutz’s plait cradled in her arms.

No one spoke. After today, no one would speak his old name, Bedutz Choice-son Vittoryxe. He would be Initiate Bedutz of Hueryx’s Brotherhood.