The Demon King (4 page)

The Matriarch Lodge could have been a small market, all on its own. Great bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling, and casks and baskets and pots lined the walls. On one side were paints and dyes and earthenware jars of beads and feathers. On the other were the medicinals—salves and tonics and pungent potions of all kinds, many rendered from the plants Han gathered.

Hides stretched over frames, some with designs painstakingly drawn on them. Three girls about Han’s age huddled around one of them, their sleek heads nearly touching, brushing paint onto the leather.

Hangings divided the room into several chambers. From behind one curtain, Han could hear the murmur of voices. Patients and their families often stayed over so the matriarch could tend them without leaving the lodge.

Willo sat at the loom in the corner. The overhead beater thudded as she smacked it against the fell of the rug she was weaving. The warp stretched wide and winter-dark, since weavers worked a season ahead. Willo’s rugs were sturdy and beautiful, and people said they kept enemies from crossing your threshold.

Still shivering, Bird disappeared into one of the adjacent chambers to change into dry clothes.

Willo laid down her shuttle, rose from the bench, and came toward them, skirts sliding over the rugs. Somehow, Han’s resentment and frustration faded, and it was a better day.

Everyone agreed that the Marisa Pines matriarch was beautiful, though her beauty went deeper than appearance. Some mentioned the movement of her hands when she spoke, like small birds. Others praised her voice, which they compared to the Dyrnnewater, singing on its way to the sea. Her dark hair fell, beaded and braided, nearly to her waist. When she danced, it was said the animals crept out of the forest to watch. She was a crooner, who could speak, mind to mind, to animals. Her touch healed the sick, soothed the grieving, cheered the discouraged, and made cowards brave.

When pressed, Han had trouble even describing what she looked like. He guessed she was in a category all on her own, like a woodland nymph. She was whatever you needed her to be to find the best in yourself.

He couldn’t help comparing her to Mam, who always seemed to see the worst in him.

“Welcome, Hunts Alone,” she said. “Will you share our fire?” The ritual greeting to the guest. Then her gaze fastened more closely on Han, and she raised an eyebrow. “What happened to you? Did you fall into the Dyrnnewater?”

Han shook his head. “Old Woman Creek.”

Willo looked him up and down, frowning. “You’ve been in the mudpots as well, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Well. Right.” Han looked down at his feet, embarrassed that he’d been so careless with Willo’s beautiful boots.

“He can have my flatlander breeches,” Dancer offered. He studied Han’s long legs. “Though he’ll show some ankle, I guess.”

Like most clan, Dancer owned the minimum one or two pair of leggings and one pair of breeches to wear into town. He’d be happy to give up the breeches. Dancer wore the uncomfortable flatlander garb under protest anyway.

“I think I have something that will work.” Willo crossed to the assembly of baskets, bins, and trunks that lined the wall. She knelt next to one of the bins and dug through clothing. Near the bottom she found what she was looking for and pulled free a pair of worn breeches in a heavy cotton canvas. She held them up and looked from Han to the trousers and back again.

“These will fit,” she proclaimed, and handed them to him, along with a faded linen shirt that had been laundered into softness. “Give me the boots,” she commanded, extending her hand, and for a moment Han was afraid she intended to take them back for good. She must have seen the panic in his face, because she added, “Don’t worry. I’ll just see what I can do to clean them up.”

Han tugged off his muddy boots and handed them over, then ducked into the sleeping chamber to change clothes. He stripped off the wet leggings and shirt and pulled on the dry breeches, wishing he could wash the mud off his skin. As if his unspoken wishes caught the ear of the Maker, Bird pushed the hangings aside and entered with a basin of steaming water and a rag.

“Hey!” he said, glad he’d got his trousers on. “You could knock.” Which was stupid, really, because there wasn’t any door.

She’d changed out of her wet trail garb into skirts and an embroidered shirt, and her wet hair was drying into its usual intriguing tangle. Han still had his shirt off, and she kept staring at his chest and shoulders as if she found them fascinating. Han looked down to see if he’d got mud smeared under his shirt as well. But he was clean there, at least.

Bird plopped down on the sleeping bench next to him, setting the basin on the floor between them. “Here,” she said, handing him a chunk of fragrant upland soap and the rag.

Rolling his breeches above his knees, Han soaped the rag and washed the mud from his bare feet and lower legs, rinsing in the basin. Then he began scrubbing his arms and hands. The silver cuffs around his wrists kept turning when he tried to wipe them clean.

“Let me.” Bird picked up a boar-bristle brush, gripped the cuff on his left wrist, and took the brush to it. She leaned in close, getting that familiar frown on her face that said she was concentrating. She’d used some kind of scent—she smelled like fresh air and vanilla and flowers.

“You should take these off if you’re going to get into the mud,” she grumbled.

“That’s helpful,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You try to get them off.” He tugged at one of them to demonstrate. It was a solid three-inch-wide band of silver, and too small to slide over his hand. He’d had them on ever since he could remember.

“You know they’ve got magic in them. Otherwise you’d have outgrown them by now.” Bird used her fingernail to dig out some dried mud. “Your mother bought them from a peddler?”

He nodded. It must’ve been during some prosperous time in the past, when there was money to spend on silver bracelets for a baby. When they weren’t living hand-to-mouth, as Mam always said.

“She’s got to remember something,” Bird persisted. She never seemed to know when to leave off. “Maybe you could find the peddler who sold them to her.”

Han shrugged. They’d had this conversation before, which he mostly got through by shrugging. Bird didn’t know Mam. His mother never came to the camps in the mountains, never shared songs and stories around a fire. Mam didn’t like to talk about the past, and Han had long ago learned not to ask too many questions, lest she slam her switch down on his fingers or send him to bed without supper.

The clans, they were all about stories. They told stories about things that had happened a thousand years ago. Han never tired of listening to them over and over. Hearing a familiar clan story was like sliding into your own bed on a cold night with a full belly and knowing you’d wake up safe in the same place.

Bird released his one hand and picked up the other. Her fingers were warm and soapy and slippery. “These symbols must mean something,” she said, tapping the cuff with her forefinger. “Maybe if you knew how to use them, you could—I don’t know—shoot flames from the palms of your hands.”

Han was thinking he was just as likely to shoot flames from his rear end. “They look clan-made to me, but Willo doesn’t know what the symbols mean,” Han said. “And if she doesn’t know, nobody does.”

Bird finally dropped the subject. She rinsed off his hands and wrists and used the hem of her skirt to dry them. Pulling a small jar from her pocket, she uncorked it and smeared something onto the silver with her fingers.

He tried to pull away, but she had a tight grip on his wrist. “What’s that?” he asked suspiciously.

“Polish,” she said, rubbing the silver with a dry rag until it shone. She rubbed polish onto the other cuff. Han submitted, though he didn’t really want to call attention to them these days.

“Are you coming to my renaming feast?” Bird asked abruptly, her eyes still focused on her work.

He was surprised by the question. “Well, I’d planned to. If I’m asked.” It had never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be. Bird’s family was prominent among the clans, since she was niece to the Marisa Pines matriarch. Bird’s coming-of-age would be celebrated with a huge party, and Han had been looking forward to it.

She nodded once, briskly. “Good.”

“It’s still a month away, right?” For Han, a month was an eternity. Anything could happen in a month. He never planned more than a day or two ahead.

She nodded again. “For my sixteenth name day.”

Finally letting go of his hands, Bird dropped her own into her lap. She extended her bare toes out from under her skirts, studying them. She wore a silver ring on her right small toe.

“Have you decided on your vocation?” Han asked.

Among the clans, boys and girls to the age of sixteen were expected to train in all skills, from hunting and tracking and herding and use of weapons to weaving and metalworking and healing and singing.

At sixteen they were reborn into their vocations and began apprenticeships. Everyone was required to have a trade, though clan notions of a trade were more flexible than in the city.

For instance, storytelling was a trade.

When Han realized Bird hadn’t answered, he repeated, “Have you decided on a trade?”

Bird looked up at him. “I’m going to be a warrior,” she said, giving him a steely eye as if daring him to object.

“A warrior!” He blinked at her, then blurted, “What does Willo say?”

“She doesn’t know,” Bird said, digging her toes into the rug. “Don’t tell her.”

Willo might be disappointed, Han thought. Having no daughter of her own, she probably hoped Bird would follow her as matriarch and healer. Even though Bird wasn’t exactly the nurturing type.

“How many warriors does Marisa Pines need?” he asked.

“I want to go to Demonai,” Bird said, hunching her shoulders.

“Really?” Bird was aiming high. The Demonai warriors were legendary fighters and hunters. It was said they could survive in the woods for weeks on wind and rain and sunlight. That one Demonai warrior was a match for a hundred soldiers.

Personally, Han thought they were an arrogant lot who kept to themselves and never cracked a smile and tried to make you think they were privy to secrets that you would never know.

“Who are you supposed to fight?” Han asked. “I mean, it’s been years since we’ve had a war in the uplands.”

Bird looked annoyed at his lack of enthusiasm. “They’re spilling enough blood down south,” she said. “Refugees have been flooding into the mountains. There’s always a chance the fighting will spread up here.” She sounded almost like she hoped it would.

In the chaos following the Breaking, Arden, Tamron, and Bruinswallow had broken away from the Fells. Now the flatlands to the south were embroiled in an incessant civil war. Han’s father had signed on as a mercenary soldier, gone south and died there. But there had been peace in the north for a millennium.

“Willo’s worried,” Bird went on when Han didn’t respond. “Some wizards are saying that they let go of power too easily, that it’s time to return to having wizard kings. They think wizard kings could help protect us against armies from the south.” She shook her head, looking disgusted. “People have such short memories.”

“It’s been a thousand years,” Han pointed out, and received a scowl in return. “Anyway, Queen Marianna wouldn’t let that happen,” he added. “Nor would the High Wizard.”

“Some people say she’s not a strong queen,” Bird said. “Not like the queens in the past. Some say the wizards are gaining too much power.”

Han wondered who “some people” were, who had all these opinions. “Anyway, aren’t you afraid of getting killed? Being a warrior, I mean?” He couldn’t help thinking of his father. How different his life would be if he were still alive.

Bird snorted in disgust. “Don’t tell me there’s not going to be any war, and then warn me I might get killed.”

The thing was, Han knew Bird would make a great warrior. Though she hadn’t Han’s muscle, she was better with a bow than he was. Better at woodcraft. Better at tracking. She could look over a broken landscape and know where the deer lay hidden. She was better at anticipating the moves of a possible enemy. She’d outfoxed him all his life.

And there was nothing she liked better than stalking things.

He looked up to find her watching him, as if eager for a response.

“You’ll make a great warrior, Digging Bird,” he told her, grinning. “It’s perfect. Good choice.” He took her hand and squeezed it.

She beamed at him, blinking back tears, and he was amazed that his approval meant so much to her. He was even more amazed when she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

She stood, picked up the basin, and ducked out between the hides.

“Bird!” he called after her, thinking that if she was in a kissing mood, he was happy to oblige. But by the time he got the word out, she was gone.

When Han returned to the common room, Bird was gone, and Willo and Dancer were sitting knee to knee on the floor, talking. If they weren’t arguing, they were close to it. Han faded back into the doorway, embarrassed, not wanting to interrupt. But he could hear everything they said.

“Did you expect me to just stand by while they burned up the mountain?” Dancer was saying, his voice trembling with anger. “I’m not a coward.”

Han was shocked. No one ever spoke that way to Willo.

“I expect you to remember that you are only sixteen years old,” Willo replied calmly. “I expect you to use common sense. There was no point in confronting them. What did it accomplish? Did your bravery put the fire out?”

Dancer said nothing, only looked furious.

She reached out and stroked his cheek. “Let it go, Dancer, as I have,” she said softly. “This isn’t like you. A grudge against wizards will only get you into trouble.”

“They weren’t much older than me and Han,” Dancer countered stubbornly. “Haven’t you said that wizards have to be sixteen to go to Oden’s Ford? And didn’t you say they aren’t allowed to use magic until they get some training?”

“What wizards are allowed to do and what they actually do are two different things,” Willo said. She stood and moved to the loom, fussing with the warp. “Who were they? Do you know?”