Faery Worlds - Six Complete Novels (7 page)

In the mountains, however, autumn had already given way to winter, and he found the pass already thick with snow, where he sacrificed a night and a day to lay a trap. He had to choose his spot, plan his moves against possible countermoves, dance a spell without making it obvious to any hypothetical observers what he was doing. The crisp powder proved a convenient medium for false footprints. By the next nightfall, he was ready. He cast his prepared illusion around a log to make it look like his sleeping form, and then he doubled back over his trail, climbed a tree, and watched his own camp.

The moon rose with no sign of any intruder. Once he heard scritching in the tree where he waited and looked up into the stare of a snow snake, camouflaged like a fall of snow on the branch. Their venom was quite lethal, he recalled. He glared at it until it slithered away to find its own damn tree. He took this living echo of his journey omen as a sign he wasn’t just trying to catch an enemy who existed only in his paranoid imagination.

Then, close to midnight, he heard a twig snap below his tree.

Two masked Tavaedies crept into position, and, after exchanging a silent nod, rushed to hack apart the log he’d left in his sleeping roll. They cussed like drunks when they discovered they’d dulled their flint axes for no reason. In the dark, he couldn’t see their tribal marks, and might not have been able to guess in any case, since they both wore furs against the cold. He shadowed them back to their camp, a neat affair of two leather tents and seven canoes. The snow gave way to the ice-choked grasses of a frozen river. The ice was unbroken, and the grass tall enough to offer cover, so he followed cautiously, but something nagged him. Two men had attacked his sleeping roll, but there were seven boats.

Five more men cracked out of the ice in a circle around Kavio. Human, not fae. He couldn’t tell their tribe. Lathered with lard for warmth, camouflaged by mud and rushes, they were clumps of living marsh. They’d been crouching under a layer of ice no thicker than flatbread, breathing through reeds, waiting to spring their trap. Nets weighted with rocks dragged Kavio down while the men cudgeled his back. The blows brought agony without the solace of oblivion —the warriors knew their art, and steered their blows away from his head, aiming to hurt and subdue, not kill—yet. They tied his hands and feet, yanked his hair to expose his neck.

A mountain of muscle tattooed on both arms and both cheeks loomed over Kavio.

“The death blow is mine, blame or fame. You are all witness,” the leader barked at his men. They grunted back.

This man knows who I am. Unfortunately, their acquaintance was not mutual.

“I know why you plan to kill me,” Kavio announced. Bold lies worked best. “But just the opposite is true.”

The leader shot a beefy hand out to grip Kavio’s neck. “Don’t waste my time.”

“Let me prove it.”

“How?”

Good question. Kavio would bet his mother’s goat and toss bones the big man and his sept of disciplined warriors weren’t petty bandits. The big man fought for kin and glory, but whose? What was his rank? Too good to be a mere sept leader, too far in the wilderness to be a War Chief. A war leader, then.

“Take me to your War Chief and let him decide after he hears my proposal,” Kavio dared him.

“Why should I waste War Chief Nargono’s ears on your begging?”

Nargono was War Chief of the Blue Waters tribe, once an ally of Rainbow Labyrinth, now one of his father’s bitter foes. To be fair, his father had a knack for embittering foes.

“Did you know my own father once gave me as a slave to the War Chief of Yellow Bear?” Kavio asked. “Yellow Bear—are they friends of yours?”

The big man glared at him through narrowed eyes. Whatever he saw, it bought Kavio another day of life. “Dump him in the boat.”

“Gag him, Rthan?” asked a warrior.

Kavio trotted the name through his memory, but it didn’t sound familiar.

“No, I want him to talk.” Rthan unclenched Kavio’s throat one finger at a time.

Chapter Three

Doll

Brena

Before dawn, the clanhold of Sycamore Stands already throbbed with the sounds of women pounding nuts. The astringent smell of acorn drifted from the leeching ditches between the clay domed huts. Once Zavaedi Brena made certain her snoopy neighbor, Auntie Ula, was not following her, she urged her two daughters, Gwena and Gwenika, past the clanhold stockade, down the embankment, to a spot hidden by sycamore trees. They did this every morning, yet every morning Brena had to battle all over again to force them to move, as if it were the first time.

Gwena, the oldest, spent an inordinate amount of time combing her hair. On the way to the woods, she craned her neck to attract the attention of young men burning brush for gardens. Several of the hooligans smiled at her like idiots, until they saw Brena and hastened back to work.

Gwenika, younger by two years, started her whining earlier than usual. “Do I have to practice today?”

“Yes. You have to practice every day.”

“But I’m feeling very dizzy this morning.”

“Hrmf.” Brena still smarted from her cousin Ula’s admonishments last night. For fifteen years Ula had failed to have children of her own, but she insisted on lecturing those who did. “You’re too soft on the girls, that’s why the little one is so lazy. A good mother wouldn’t put up with that.” In the next breath, Auntie Ula went on to say, “And why do you push those girls so hard? It isn’t natural for a mother to put so much pressure on her daughters to become Tavaedies. What’s wrong if they just want to be wives and mothers?”

Brena wanted to shake her.
Well, which is it? Am I an unfit mother because I’m too soft on them or an unfit mother because I’m too hard on them?
She already knew the answer. She couldn’t win either way. A woman, even a Zavaedi, had no business raising a family without a man, and Brena had made it clear to the whole clanhold years ago that one husband had left her bitter enough for a lifetime. The last thing she needed was another man in her life.

And if my girls become Tavaedies, they won’t be dependent on a having a husband to tend their fields either.
After her husband died, what would have been her lot if she had not been a member of the secret society, able to earn gifts from the community by her own skills? With one hungry babe toddling at her feet and a belly full of a babe to come…she shuddered at the memory. It had been hard enough as it was, returning to the troop after she’d quit to raise her family.

She checked the clearing again to assure they had privacy, then clapped her hands to retrieve her daughters’ errant attention. “Today, girls, I want to see you walk through the Badger and Deer Positions, in both the Still and Moving forms.”

“Yes, Mama,” they chimed. Warblers chirped overhead.

“Begin girls!” commanded Tavaedi Brena. “Deer Leaps, from Still to Moving.”

Gwena flawlessly performed the steps several times. Gwenika, however, slumped through the forms with limp arms. She kicked at the dry leaves on the ground, then bent to pick up one of the spiky sycamore balls that littered the dust of the clearing.

“Can we dance somewhere else? These keep poking my feet.”

“No,” said Brena. “This is the safest place. I don’t want anyone spying on us.”

“How can you expect me to dance with poked feet?”

“Gwenika.” Every day it was some new complaint.
Maybe Auntie Ula is right. I must have done something wrong with this one.

“Besides, my head is spinning. I’m feeling dizzy again.”

“Gwenika, I’ve told you—”

“Also, I’m suffering from fatigue. And my heart is beating more rapidly than usual.”

“Your heart is
supposed
to be beating more rapidly. You’re exercising.”

“Yes, but my face is pale and my lips and fingertips are white. See?” Gwenika held out her hand. “I recognize the symptoms from your Healing stories. I think the fae have hexed me with Feeble Blood Lack. Can I sit down?”

Beside her, Gwena rolled her eyes.

“The fae have not hexed you,” said Brena. “No one has hexed you. You’re just not trying. Let’s start that again. Gwena, good job, but keep your toes pointed in the leap. Gwenika, your leap looked like a frog, not a doe. Copy your sister.”

“I’ve been bleeding in unspeakable places for no reason,” Gwenika said.

At that, Brena swiveled her head and focused the brunt of her attention on Gwenika. For the first time, she noticed her younger daughter’s slightly swelling chest and widening hips.
Oh no. It’s too soon. Where have the years gone? Yesterday, you were still my baby. Today . . .

Half encouraged, half disconcerted, Gwenika said, “I think the bleeding is causing Feeble Blood Lack.”

“You might be right,” said Brena.

“I might?”

“You should sit down and just watch for a while.”

“So that means that the fae are hexing me?”

“No.” Brena pulled her hand through her hair. “It means that you, like your sister, have already had your first moonblood. It means I am running out of time to teach you everything I can before the Initiation.” She paced the clearing and gestured at the sycamore trees. “So little time left! These girls are still not ready!”

Or is it that I’m not ready for them to be ready?

“We’re trying to learn as fast as we can, Mama,” said Gwena.

“Aren’t we supposed to wait until Initiation to learn all the secret dances anyway?” Gwenika asked.

“Don’t let nonsense fall out of your mouth.” Brena scowled at what trouble Auntie Ula could cause if she had the idea that Brena was actually teaching the dances themselves. “I haven’t taught you any tama. I’ve taught you the basic steps, the hand gestures and the foot positions, the flips, the turns and the leaps. Believe me, without knowing those, you would never pass the Testing. And you also better believe that all Tavaedies teach their children these things. Why do you think that the honor of belonging to the secret society tends to stay in families?

“It isn’t forbidden for me to teach you what I do, as long as you’re still children. But once you are initiated, I will not be allowed to teach you any more. If you fail the Test, that’s it, that’s your last chance. Do you understand why it’s so important that you pay attention to everything I tell you now?”

“Yes, Mama,” both girls said in unison.

“Good.” Brena drew a deep breath. She put her hands on her hips. “Let’s begin again. Gwena, start with your feet in position—”

“But Mama!” said Gwenika.

With a toe tapping in annoyance, “Yes, Gwenika?”

“Gramma says that the best cure for anemia is eggs. Should I look for birds eggs?”

“Did nothing I said mean anything to you? You must practice, girl, practice!”

“But Mama, you said yourself, I’m sick…”

“Are you really going to go find eggs?”

“Of course.”

“Not just go play in the woods?”

“Mama.” Gwenika looked the model of wounded innocence.

“Fa! Go, then. Find eggs. Take them to your Gramma. I’m sure she’ll be glad to prepare them for you.” By mercy, she coddles you. Meanwhile, your sister will stay and practice. At least one of you will not fail her family honor. Go!”

Gwenika scrambled away.

No sooner had Gwenika departed, however, than a niggling suspicion began to plague Brena. “Stay here,” she told her oldest daughter Gwena. “Keep going over the Deer Leaps until I return.”

“Yes, Mama.”

It did not take Brena long to find her younger daughter. Gwenika was climbing a low leaning sycamore tree with fist-sized nest built on a horizontal limb thirty-five feet above the ground. Brena was surprised. Maybe she really is after eggs. She recognized the nest as that of a sycamore warbler. The interior of the nest would be lined with last year’s sycamore balls.

When the girls had been younger, Brena had walked with them in the woods, holding up a feather or a leaf, challenging them to guess the name of the bird or tree it belonged to. Brena’s own mother had used the same technique of those guessing games to pass on the shape of every bird, tree and herb in the woods.

Gwenika apparently hadn’t noticed her. The girl reached the nest. She reached into it—but not to remove something, to deposit something.

Eeeep.

Brena heard the tiny cry.

“There you are, little lost one,” Gwenika cooed. “Safe back at home.”

The eggs in that nest had already hatched, and one of the baby birds must have fallen out. Gwenika had helped one of the chicks back into the nest.

Brena shook her head.
She’ll learn soon enough that good deeds are repaid with cruelty, sure as offering food to a wolf only leads to lost fingers.
Nonetheless, she turned to leave without saying anything to her daughter. Brena didn’t have the heart to yell at her for saving the baby bird instead of practicing.

Suddenly, Gwenika screamed. Brena ran back to the tree.

An immense, shaggy blond bear, wounded by an arrow and nursing its bad paw, had crashed through the underbrush and now stood between Brena and her daughter.

Brena

Brena stared at the bear, torn between fear and awe. Her tribe used bear hides for rugs and hangings, for door curtains and room dividers, so she knew that bears were large, but she had never encountered one in person. Those lifeless skins hadn’t prepared her for the immensity of a live bear. As large as an aurochs bull, but with sharp teeth, the bear had thick honey colored fur that darkened to cinnamon around its haunches. Black ooze dripped from the arrow wound in its hind leg.

“Girls,” Brena said, “Walk until you are out of sight, then find your sister and run to the clanhold as fast as you can.”

“But Mama, what about you?”

“Go.”

For once, to her relief, Gwenika did as she was told and ran away through the woods.

Slung over her shoulder, Brena wore a bark fiber sack where she kept a number of useful things: herbs, a water skin, a rock-like lump of sugar, another of salt, various elixirs in stoppered jars no bigger than a finger.