The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (28 page)

Damnation!
Drawing his knife, Wanahomen sprinted toward the sound, from the corner of his eyes noticing several other warriors reacting in kind. Three of them reached the tent just as the scream finally ended, and Charris threw open the tent flap from within. All of them stopped, even Wanahomen drawing his breath in shock.

The woman sat amid the scattered cushions of her bed, clutching her head with her hands, her eyes wide and wild. One of her eyes, in any case; the other was already swollen nearly shut, that whole side of her face purpled and ugly. Her overskirts were torn, her underskirt slit and ruined, leaving her legs indecently bare from the thighs down. At her feet, sprawled and exposed and most definitely dead, lay the Dzikeh tribe’s hunt leader Azima. A Banbarra knife-hilt stood up from his chest.

“What—” In all his plans, Wanahomen had never expected this outcome. He faltered, tried again. “What in the names of the gods…”

Charris dropped to one knee before him. It was not the usual posture that a slave gave his master among the Banbarra, but Charris had always made it clear that he considered himself a slave only to Wanahomen. “My Prince, I entered the tent because I saw this man come in first,” he said in Gujaareen, “and I thought I heard a struggle when I came near. The woman is of the Hetawa; she would not have invited him.”

More feet pounded up behind them, and more voices rose in query, horror, anger. Abruptly they quieted as Unte arrived, pushing through the crowd. He stopped and stared at Azima, throwing Wanahomen a hard look.

Wanahomen shook his head minutely, praying Unte would see the shock in his own face.
I never intended this.
He’d expected to find the girl shaken but furious, and Azima defensive, caught in the act. To touch a woman against her will, any woman except a slave or an enemy of the tribe, was one of the highest dishonors a man could bring upon himself. To do it in the
an-sherrat
of an ally, violating guest-custom… It would have settled the contest between them more firmly than any challenge.

He heard Yanassa’s voice coming through the crowd, snapping at men until they moved out of her way. Reaching the front, she took
in the scene at a glance, then sighed and went to Hanani. The templewoman had never taken her eyes from Azima’s corpse. Even as Yanassa crouched beside her and touched her shoulder, Hanani jerked violently but did not look away.

“Shh, shh.” Yanassa pulled a blanket from the tangled pile behind the girl and draped it ’round her shoulders, then threw another over her legs. Turning to the watching men, she glared. “What’s wrong with you? Isn’t it obvious what’s happened here? Someone take that corpse from her sight before she goes mad.”

Unte took a deep breath. “Where is Tajedd?”

“Here—” Wrapped in a blanket and accompanied by one of the older Yusir women, the Dzikeh leader pushed through the crowd and stopped, gasping. “Azima! Oh gods, Azima…” He went to the corpse’s side, touching the slack face with a shaking hand. “Who? How?”

“I killed him,” said the templewoman. If the murmurs around the tent had not ceased when Tajedd arrived, no one would have heard her: her voice was barely above a whisper and toneless. “I killed him.”

“Hanani!” The other priest now. Wanahomen moved aside as Mni-inh shoved his way through the crowd with no attempt at politeness, then swore a string of the filthiest gutter Gujaareen. He went to the templewoman’s side, but Yanassa swatted his hands away.

“What’s wrong with you?” She switched to Gujaareen so he could understand her, though her protective body language and outraged tone were clear enough. “The last thing she needs right now is a man’s touch!”

Sharer Mni-inh had never looked so furious in all the time Wanahomen had known him. His voice actually trembled with rage. “She’s in shock, you barbarian cow, and she wouldn’t be if your people hadn’t hurt her—
now get out of my way!
”

Wanahomen might have laughed, under other and better circumstances, at the way Yanassa started and drew back in inadvertent obedience. The priest dropped to one knee and took the girl’s hands, then drew a deep breath and looked hard into her eyes. He had to move into her line of sight, blocking Azima’s corpse with his body, to do it. She looked up at him, her movements jerky and quick.

“I killed him, Brother. I
killed
him.” She began to shake all over, so violently that Yanassa grew alarmed and the priest could barely hold her hands. “I killed him!”

“Shh,” the priest said, and then closed his eyes. Abruptly the girl’s tremors ceased. She sagged backward, asleep. The priest lifted her legs to move them onto the pallet, and adjusted the blanket.

Yanassa sighed and got to her feet. “That’s a blessing.” She turned to Tajedd, her face hardening. “In this tribe, a man who violates a woman deserves death. I’m pleased our Gujaareen cousin saw fit to deliver the sentence herself.”

Tajedd started. “Are you mad? That slave killed my hunt leader!” He pointed at Hanani. “I want her life!”

Yanassa put her hands on her hips. “She was no slave! What slave has her own tent, and such wealth?” She gestured around at their surroundings. The tent was still sparsely decorated by Banbarra standards, but even to Wanahomen’s foreign eye it was obvious the tribe had accorded high value to her Hetawa jewelry.

“No slave?” Tajedd blinked in confusion.

“No slave,” said Hendet’s voice, and Wanahomen turned to see his mother behind him. She nodded to him as she moved past. “I gifted her with this tent myself. My son and I have claimed her as family in accordance with the guest-custom of our homeland.” She inclined her head to Tajedd—a small gesture of respect from one high-ranking person to another, tacitly reminding everyone present that she was his equal in status.

“She’s a priestess among her people,” Yanassa said. “I’ll grant that she has no knowledge of proper behavior, but I’m absolutely certain she had no intention of inviting this man into her tent.” She threw Azima’s corpse a scathing look. “She told me she’d never had any man, and was forbidden from doing so by the Goddess of Dreams. She’ll be a virgin all her life.”

“A virgin?” Tajedd stiffened, understanding and fury lighting his face. He turned and threw a look of purest hatred at Wanahomen.

Wanahomen set his jaw. Virginity meant nothing in Gujaareh—an inconvenience that most rid themselves of the moment they reached the age of choice—but it was a status that the Banbarra accorded great value. Raping a virgin broke half their laws in one blow: clans had gone to feud and tribes to war over less. Tajedd would never believe that Wanahomen had not planned Azima’s death now. He had no choice but to play this to the hilt.

“Customs differ indeed, Cousin,” he said to Tajedd, meeting Tajedd’s fury with coolness. “Perhaps Azima mistook the girl’s strange ways as a sign of her availability, or an invitation. Mistakes happen. Still…” He stepped into the tent and went over to peer down at the girl. The male Sharer had his fingers on her eyelids, including the blackened one; as Wanahomen watched, the swelling diminished. “It is odd that Azima struck her, isn’t it? A wonder she was still able to stab him, after a blow like that. She might’ve died of it.” He turned to Tajedd, whose anger was gone now, eclipsed by sick realization. “A slave wouldn’t have fought at all, yes? They know better. Indeed, a slave would not have been in a tent by herself, unless she had been commanded to wait there by its owner. Did Azima think this was someone else’s tent, perhaps?”

Unease tightened Tajedd’s jaw as Unte turned to look at him with narrow eyes. There were few things the Banbarra took more seriously than privacy. Each clan’s
an-sherrat
was its own small kingdom within the greater body of the tribe, ruled by its highest-status female mem
ber. Within an
an-sherrat
’s borders, men could feel safe in lowering their veils if its mistress approved; women could disrobe or indulge in any pleasure with dignity intact. No one could enter another clan’s
an-sherrat
uninvited, save in the event of an emergency.

“It must’ve been a mistake,” Tajedd murmured.

“Which?” Unte asked. He kept his voice mild, but only a fool would have mistaken his calm for a lack of anger. Wanahomen was grateful for his support—but then, the Yusir tribe was implicated in the death of a Dzikeh hunt leader. Unte too had to see this through. “Invading the tent of a proper woman, beating her, attempting to steal that which is hers and hers alone to bestow? Or invading the
an-sherrat
of Hendet Hinba’ii with the intent of damaging her clan’s property? Which was Azima’s mistake?”

Tajedd went silent for several damning breaths. Finally he lowered his eyes, accepting the dishonor. There had been no way out of it for him, really; it was simply a matter of which wrong did less damage to his tribe’s reputation.

“My hunt leader is dead, Unte,” he said at last, in a heavy voice. “He was my sister’s child, beloved to me. Let us discuss his error in private, so that I might make amends.”

Unte nodded. “Yes. This is a matter between tribe leaders.” He looked up at the entrance of the tent, where Yusir and Dzikeh-Banbarra crowded the opening for a glimpse of the goings-on. “This will be settled properly by dawn,” he said to them. “One man’s folly need not cast a shadow over the whole night. All of you return to your revelry, save those of you who would help us move Azima’s body.”

Several of the Dzikeh pushed through the crowd, but the rest of the gathered folk began to mill about and murmur at once, only a few of them drifting away as Unte had commanded. One woman stepped forward. “Unte, will there be a feud between us and the Dzikeh?”

A few people looked at Tajedd, who did not raise his eyes. “No,”
Unte said in a firm voice. “A wrong has been committed and Tajedd means to see justice done. The ties between Dzikeh and Yusir are too strong to be damaged by this.”

Wanahomen noted more than one relieved face among the onlookers as more of them began to leave the area of Hanani’s tent. He did not blame them; he too had heard tales of the Banbarra’s brutal, generations-long intertribal wars. There had once been half again as many Banbarra tribes as the six that remained now.

The Dzikeh men came in and gathered up the body of their hunt leader, wrapping one of the templewoman’s floor-rugs around it to keep more blood from spilling. There was less blood than he would have expected given that the knife had struck the heart. Even so, Wanahomen did not think the woman would mind the rug’s loss.

Unte left with Tajedd, though he threw one unreadable glance at Wanahomen beforehand that tied Wanahomen’s stomach in knots. But the scheme had worked, however wrong it had gone. The Yusir-Banbarra might even gain status thanks to this, though Wanahomen could not be sure of that; even after ten years there were things about the Banbarra he would never understand. Unte’s likely reaction was one of them.

Finally there were only five of them in the tent: Wanahomen, Charris, Yanassa, and the two Sharers. Yanassa hovered near Hanani, though she seemed to have finally yielded the contest to the male Sharer, who had finished healing the girl and now sat quietly beside her.

“My Prince.” Wanahomen focused on Charris with a guilty flicker; he had left the man kneeling all the while.

“Rise, Charris. What is it?”

Charris got to his feet and switched to Chakti, throwing a quick glance at the male Sharer as he did so. “The Dzikeh was already dead when I arrived. There was no mark on him. It was I who put the knife in his chest.”

Wanahomen stiffened. Yanassa frowned, uncomprehending. “How can that be?” she asked. “A man that age and healthy does not simply fall down dead.” Abruptly her eyes narrowed in thought. “But it’s true that she had no knife before, and I did not buy her one. I thought she’d only hurt herself with it, to be honest.”

Magic.
There was no other explanation. Wanahomen turned to stare at the male Sharer’s back. “Yanassa, please leave me with our clan’s guests. Charris, go with her.”

Charris snapped a bow, turned on his heel, and exited the tent. Yanassa scowled and looked as though she wanted to protest, but to his everlasting relief she sighed and left as well. In the silence that fell, Wanahomen pulled off his headcloth, rubbed a hand over his braids, and sighed.

“You want to know how he died.” The male Sharer.

Wanahomen blinked in surprise: did this one know Chakti? Or was it just a guess? “Yes,” he replied. “Considering the Law and Wisdom say nothing about Sharer-maidens who can strike down barbarians with a scream.”

“She screamed because of what she’d done,” the Sharer said, getting to his feet. When he turned, his face was the coldest Wanahomen had ever seen it. All along the journey from the foothills, this one had seemed the more good-natured of the pair, annoyed at their situation but still determined to make the best of it. There was nothing good-natured in him now.

“To heal a man, we touch his soul and teach it to crave wholeness. To hurt a man, one must teach the soul to crave its own torment.” The Sharer stepped closer and reached out to lay a hand on Wanahomen’s chest. Wanahomen started and drew back, abruptly uneasy, but the Sharer moved with him, keeping contact. “And to
kill
a man—”

Pain snapped jaws shut around Wanahomen’s chest with such sudden savagery that he could not draw breath enough to cry out. He
staggered back, scrabbling at his chest, at the Sharer’s hand that was now a claw hooked into his tunic and the flesh beneath. But even as his heart screamed in his chest, even as he struggled to escape this new Hetawa-spawned monster, the strength seemed to vanish from Wanahomen’s limbs. He sagged to his knees, gasping for breath.