Olivia (30 page)

And they might.  And certainly Olivia could do it with a clear conscience, knowing that it
had
been Bolga she’d seen that night and it
had
been Cheyenne’s captor riding her, but…

But Cheyenne didn’t know that.  All she knew was that this was the perfect opportunity to see her abuser dead.

It was still the truth, wasn’t it?  Or was it?  That silvered crest along his back seemed so unmistakable and even now, she couldn’t see another one in this crowd, but the doubt remained.  If only she’d seen his face!

“Once more,” Vorgullum said, his rage barely in check.  “Who was it put the spark in Bolga’s belly?  Tell me now and you shall have pardon.”

Bolga herself looked blankly out over the crowd, clearly puzzled by all the attention.  Clay for brains, Murgull had said, and for once, it didn’t appear to have been an empty insult.

Vorgullum suddenly roared into the silence, “Who, damn you?  Who are you that you would rather she die alone birthing your get than admit your crime!  Look at her!  Look at the child you have seeded with death!  Do you think she has any idea what is growing in her womb?”

Bolga blinked owlishly.

Silence, silence from the crowd.  Wings were fanned, glances roved across the sea of male faces.  Anger and outrage rose from them like mist from dark waters, but no one came forward.

Cheyenne’s eyes stabbed and stabbed at her.

Olivia could actually hear the words she was going to say, not here, not in front of everyone, but later, when it was just her and Vorgullum.  He would listen, he would believe her.

And then Cheyenne’s captor seemed to notice that the human under his hand wasn’t watching the performance on the raised rock.  He looked down at her, and then he followed the path of her furious gaze.

He looked at Olivia.

He looked at Cheyenne.

He looked at Bolga.

And then his black eyes were back, piercing her with his narrow, suspicious stare. 

“If I learn you who are,” Vorgullum said in a low, vehement voice, “I will pour out your blood into the water.  I will burn your bones and scatter the ashes.  You will end in this world.  You will never wake into another.”

He waved his arm curtly and Murgull took Bolga and led her away.  The tribe began to break up, the gullan women slinking off while the men drew off into groups and spoke in low, angry tones.  The humans pulled together, and Olivia started to join them when a clawed hand closed on her shoulder.

Cheyenne’s captor had her, propelling her swiftly ahead of him out of the crowd until he could push her hard up against the cavern wall and put his face very close to hers. “What is it you think you know?” he demanded.

“Let go of me.”

He did, but slapped his hand flat against the rock beside her, blocking her escape.  “Tell me.”

“There is nothing to tell.”

He leaned back slowly, holding her eyes even as space grew between them, then finally let his arm drop to his side.  “You can tell me,” he said, now speaking softly, scarcely above a whisper.

Olivia could only shake her head, her mouth too dry for more denial.

He looked at her for a long time, and then finally broke the iron grip of his stare to glance back over his shoulder at the muttering crowds of gullan.  “Your mate knows me,” he said.  “He trusts me.  He will believe anything I say to him.”  He looked at her again.  “So if you ever decide you have something to say…say it to me.”

Olivia was stone, ice and stone.

Cheyenne’s captor stepped back, folded his wings up tight, and walked away.  He found Cheyenne in the grip of another gulla, took her in hand, and left with her.  Neither of them looked back.

Breath came back first, and then warmth, and finally she was able to move.  Olivia stepped shakily away from the wall and immediately found herself grabbed by another clawed hand.  She spun around with a shriek tapping right at the backs of her teeth, only to see Horumn glaring back at her.

“Murgull wants to speak with you,” the old gulla grumbled.  “I resent having to bring you messages.”

Olivia sighed.

“She will wait for you in the women’s commons.”  Horumn turned around.

“I don’t know where that is.”

“Useless!  Naked body and naked brains!”  Horumn stomped off, loudly and bitterly complaining.  Olivia followed.

The women’s commons turned out to be that same mirror-lit cavern just behind the barred door, the same room where Olivia had been shown the dead whelp in its Coleman coffin.  Now there were fires lit in the wide hearth, pots of something simmering over low coals, bread baking in the ashes, and a dozen unknowable chores left half-done around the many work stations, but there were no gullan here, only Murgull slumped heavily on a bench, watching Bolga crouch on the floor nearby, playing with some smooth stones.  Neither looked up when Horumn entered with Olivia in tow, but Murgull flapped a hand at them.

“Here is the human,” Horumn announced.  “Tell her your secrets since I am too old and ugly!”

“Oh, go soak your foot,” snapped Murgull.

Horumn bared her yellow teeth at all of them, and then limped off down another tunnel and was gone.

Murgull motioned for Olivia to draw near, and she sat on the floor close to the old gulla’s knee.  Murgull stroked her hair once or twice, and then simply rested her hand on Olivia’s head.  They watched Bolga, chanting to herself in nonsense sing-song as she stacked and arranged her stones.

“It is a heavy day,” Murgull said at last.  “Like smoke is heavy.  Hate and fear and anger, squeezing on old Murgull’s heart.  Old bodies like mine need no encouragement to die.  It is a heavy day, hmm, and there will be more, heavier every day until the dying starts.”

“What will happen now?”

“Bolga will stay with Horumn.  If the baby can be brought safely into this world, so be it.  More likely it will flow out of her screaming body in blood and pain long before its time.  If the baby comes in its proper season, it may draw a breath.  More likely it will be dead.  If it breathes, it may even survive to breed another terrible life.  More likely it will die in days.  So.  If it lives, Great Mother show mercy, this poor tribe will surely celebrate its every breath, for it will be the first in far too many years.”

“And Bolga?” 

Murgull looked over at the mindless mother-to-be and grunted.  “Most likely she will die in birthing.  Her body is weak.  Her mind is weaker.  Even if she lives, she will not understand what is happening.  She does not even understand that she is pregnant.  Murgull says to her, ‘You have a child inside you.’  Bolga thinks she’s swallowed it.  Murgull says, ‘Why did you couple with that male?’  Bolga says, ‘It felt good.’”  Murgull shook her head.  “Felt good,” she muttered.  “Hot bath feels good.  Long sleep feels good.  To that idiot, playing with rocks feels good.  It would be a simple thing, little sister, to put out the spark she carries and make certain there will never be another, but Horumn says no.  Ha.  Horumn says what your mate says, that every life is precious, even terrible life, monstrous life.  Old Murgull wants to grab her and shake her until her last tooth falls from her fool head.”

Olivia said nothing, but she slipped her arm around Murgull’s thick leg, just to hug something.

“This is not life, little sister,” Murgull said, and turned her head to spit.  “This is only the shadow of a life that is long dead.  We have become spirits in the living world.  We are haunting our own mountain.”

Bolga gave Olivia a few darting, nervous glances, then edged towards her and shyly offered a stone.  Olivia took it, handled it while Bolga anxiously watched, and then gave it back.  Bolga retreated to the fireplace, crooning to herself, and began to paint ashes on the hearth.

Murgull spat again.  “See her there, no better than a child herself.  What monster must live in a man to make him poke that star-filled fool?”

Tears stung, and Olivia had no strength to fight them back anymore.  She buried her face in the coarse hair of Murgull’s knee and just let it happen.

Murgull grunted above her, her gnarled hand stroking her hair.  “Lost my eye ages and ages past, but I see more with one than most people do with two.  You know, don’t you?  The male who bred poor Bolga.”

“I’m in awful trouble, Murgull,” Olivia wept.  “He knows I saw him.  I’m afraid he’ll kill me.”

“He might,” Murgull said bluntly.  “Your mate meant what he said.  He might have spared the male castration if he had come forward, but by allowing Bolga to stand alone, he showed he had no care for her, no care for the thing he sired.  Such a man is less than cattle.  Such a man is not tribe.  Now if he is found, he will die.”

“Vorgullum would never do that,” Olivia whispered.

“So sure, are you?  These are desperate days, little sister, desperate men, and a leader must be hard.”

“What am I going to do?” Olivia asked, raising her face to meet Murgull’s grotesque gaze.

“Do nothing.  Say nothing.  Olivia saw nothing.”  Murgull hushed her before Olivia could protest, her good eye narrowing to a cold slit even as the bad one whitely bulged. “But tell me, little sister.  Tell old Murgull.”

And oddly, she did.

Murgull listened and recoiled in surprise.  “That one?  Are you sure?”

“I saw him,” Olivia insisted.

“But he has a mate, a human mate.  With striped hair like a skunk.  Why would he take such a foolish risk when he could polish his tool at home?”

“He hates her.”

Murgull snorted.  “She hates him.  I see that one, that one with spears for eyes and fire in her tongue, oh yes.”

“So they hate each other.”  Olivia wiped at her eyes.  “He hits her.”

The old gulla actually gaped.  “
That
one?  He would
never
!”

“But he does!  He hits her to make himself hard, and he hurts her as much as he can when he couples with her.”

The shock on Murgull’s twisted face began to melt into doubt.  Seeing it broke something inside her, as sharp and brittle as glass.  Olivia struggled up, fresh tears scouring at her eyes.  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me!”

“Sit down,” Murgull said, rubbing thoughtfully at her neck folds.

Olivia hesitated, then slowly lowered herself onto the very edge of the bench.

Time passed.  Whatever was cooking on the fire began to smell very, very good.  Bolga got tired of playing in the ashes and wandered away through one of the tunnels.  Now and then, a gullan face peered in at them and retreated again, but Murgull remained deep in thought.

Finally, she raised her head and looked at Olivia.  “If red skunk-human said this to me, I would not believe her.  No, if she had bruises on her naked body and blood in her mouth, I would believe she put them there herself before I believed it of him.  But you, little sister…you, I must believe.  Still, old Murgull thinks, if he used pain to put iron in his tool, we would have heard this from Bolga.  This, even that star-filled fool would remember.”

“Maybe he didn’t have to because she was in season.  Or because she didn’t fight him.  Or maybe it was enough for him just to know what he was doing to someone with clay for brains.”

“
That
one,” Murgull muttered. 

“How am I supposed to know why he hits Cheyenne but not Bolga?  Maybe he just thinks sex with humans is perverted.”

Murgull scowled and shook her head.  “That one…I know many who would think so, but not that one.  He was the first to tell your mate that humans must be taken, that your kind was our only hope.”

“That was before he actually had to couple with one.”

Murgull absorbed that.  Finally:  “Does he know you saw him?”

“I’m sure he suspects.”

“Has he threatened you?”

“Not with words, but he knows I know something.”

“Then you are in danger, little sister.  An angry man will bluster.  A killing man hides his spear until he means to blood it.”  Murgull patted her knee before heaving herself to her feet.  “You have some protection.  Your mate is powerful and cares for you.  If you were to die, he may, in his grief, actually do all in his power to find someone to blame, even one he has trusted so many years.  And if that does not comfort you,” she added, grinning back over her shoulder as she opened the iron door to leave, “remember that when you do not stand in our leader’s shadow, you yet stand in mine.”

That did help, some.  Even Vorgullum was afraid of Murgull. 

“What will you do?” she asked, following her out into the tunnels, and down the narrow, winding way that led to Murgull’s secret workshop.

Murgull shrugged.  “What would you have me do, little sister?  I could put him in the ground easily enough.”

“No.”

“No?”  That bulging, blind eye peered back at her, shining goblin-green in Olivia’s flashlight.  “When you are so certain it was him you saw?”

“I’m not so certain of anything that I want to kill a man.”

“Fool,” Murgull said, and they walked the rest of the way in silence. 

Olivia opened the secret door and then they were inside, Olivia shining her light where Murgull pointed so that the old gulla could rummage through her shelves.  “What are you doing?” she ventured at last.

“What is there to do?” Murgull countered, flapping a hand behind her without turning.  “You have decided already to do nothing, so have the sense at least to do it well.  Stay in your lair when you can, but do not avoid this male any more than you do already.  If he suspects you of suspecting him, he is certain to attack.  Where is it, then?” she muttered last, slapping crossly at the wall as she moved to another shelf.  “Years and years it clutters up this place, but when old Murgull wants it—aha!”

“What is it?” Olivia asked apprehensively.

“Something for your friend.  For Cheyenne the skunk.”  Murgull limped back, offering a glass bottle in her cracked claws, holding maybe three ounces of blood-red liquid.  “Give this to her.  Tell her to wear it.”

“What is it?” Olivia asked again, starting to uncork the bottle.

“Leave off!” Murgull said sharply.  “Your mate is making iron enough for a thousand tools!”

Olivia started, lifting her eyebrows.  “Excuse me?”