Tribe: The Red Hand (Tribe Series Book 1) (5 page)

“I fought with only a knife,” she reminded him.

“Is that a boast, or an excuse for almost getting yourself killed?” He went on, raising his voice over hers when she tried to protest. “Many Potentials have fought lions with knives. Others have fought wolves, and even bears.”

“And many have died in the attempt.”

“Those who died were weak. Losing the weak makes the tribe stronger.” Firelight played across Aiden’s angular features, danced in his flat stare. Most backed down from that expression. Only their father did not. If she had not grown up with Aiden, she might have backed down herself. Still, it took all of her courage to hold her ground.

“What if those who died weren’t weak or foolish, but just unlucky?”

Aiden leaned closer. “And what if you were just lucky?”

Kestrel felt her cheeks redden. How could she deny the question? She remembered all too well how she had stumbled the last time she and the lion clashed. If she had not, the beast would have ripped her head off with a powerful swipe of its claws. If that was not luck, then what was?

Aiden sat back, a smirk twisting his lips at the sight of her doubt and confusion. “Don’t worry, little sister, I won’t tell anyone what I saw in that meadow.”

Kestrel’s heart sped up a little. If he did not intend to tell what he had seen, then maybe he would not tell that he had helped her.

After a moment, she asked, “Why were you there at all?”

“I was your observer.”

“But why you? Why not One-Ear Tom, or another Red Hand?”

Aiden shrugged. “You know how Mother is. She didn’t want anything to happen to you. Neither did Father or One-Ear Tom. I volunteered because I guessed their worry was well founded. Turns out my suspicions were right. If you hadn’t stumbled there at the end, that lion would even now be crunching on your bones.”

A frown pinched Kestrel’s brow. “And why did you let those warriors chase me for so long?”

He laughed. “I actually found myself hoping you’d fight them off on your own, and prove yourself worthy to be a Red Hand—they were just a mangy pack of Stone Dogs, after all. But you didn’t fight them. You ran, as I thought you would. Lucky for you, I stayed around.”

“Why
did
you stay?” she asked, unable to say what she really thought, that she wished he had gone away. Or better yet, had never come at all. The only thing that tempered the idea was that if he had not shown up, she would be a captive, or dead.

He sneered at her. “Because in my heart I knew you didn’t have it in you to fight them off, and would need me to save you.”

Kestrel’s mouth fell open.

“Don’t look so surprised, little sister. You’ve always been weak, and I’ve always known it. Father sees it, but refuses to believe what his eyes tell him. And Mother … well, as much as I love her, I have no doubt you get your weakness from her.”

“Just because she chose to be a farmer, and not a Red Hand, does not make her weak,” Kestrel said in Tessa’s defense. “And I’m not weak.” She wished that were not so true at the moment. Just sitting up and talking had left her so exhausted that she wanted to lie back down. “I can carry as much as most men.”

“No, you cannot. But I don’t mean the strength of your arms. You are weak here and here,” Aiden said, tapping his chest, then the side of his head. “Instead of celebrating over your Kill, I saw you weep. Do you think one of those Stone Dogs up the ravine would have wept at cutting out your heart? Black Ears are even worse. They would have laughed as they chopped you to pieces, but only after they had their way with you for a few days—or
months
.”

Kestrel had no answer. She knew what Aiden said about Stone Dogs and Black Ears was true. She also knew he was judging her too harshly. He seemed to think that because he was the youngest Red Hand ever, and in turn the youngest ever warchief, that he could dole out wise criticism with the voice of an elder—no one doubted he would become a leader of the tribe one day, but so far, that day had not come.

As for the lion, she could admit that she had felt compassion for the beast, but was that so wrong, when it had fought for its life with all the strength and determination that she had? Her weeping had been her meager way to pay the creature the respect it had earned. Before she could figure out a way to explain what filled her heart, Aiden spoke up again.

“The day will come when your luck runs out, little sister, when no one is around to save you. When that day comes, one of our enemies will take your blood or your body. That’s when you will understand that it would’ve been better if I told the truth about how you
really
beat the lion.”

“If you think so,” Kestrel snapped, “then why not tell the Elders when we return?” If she were not so tired and hurt, she would have leaped across the fire and kicked her brother in the teeth. At least, that was what she wished she could do.

“If you really have honor enough to become Red Hand, then you will tell them yourself—but I know you won’t. As it stands, I can afford to let you fail on your own.”

Kestrel felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She blinked them away, and hoped it was not obvious. “I have honor and strength,” she said, just above a whisper.

“You don’t, Kes. Not even a little. But I don’t need to tell our people what they will learn soon enough.”

“What does that mean?”

He lifted a leather cord from the neck of his shirt. Four human teeth hung from it. His Kill had been a Black Ear, another living man, the most dangerous of prey. Aiden was the first in many generations to pit himself against such a Kill.

“Once you hang the bones of your Kill around your neck,” he said, “you’ll be counted as a Red Hand. And if there’s one thing all Red Hands are expected to do, it is to fight our enemies. When your first battle comes, and you begin weeping and shaking like you did over that lion, everyone will know you are not a true Red Hand, and never were—that’s if you even survive your first battle.” He looked at her, lips wrinkled in disgust, as if he did not care if she died or not. “On that day, you will remember this moment, and you’ll wish the lion had ended you.”

Does he really hate me so much?
The answer, it seemed, was self-evident. “You’re wrong,” she whispered.

Aiden dismissed her protest with a wave of his hand. “You need food for strength,” he said, flinging half of a roasted rabbit into her lap. “Friends of those men I killed might come looking for us. If so, I don’t want to have to fight them off
and
carry you at the same time.”

Kestrel inhaled sharply. “There were others besides the seven you killed! Eight on the mountain, and another at the edge of the forest. I knocked him over.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “I never saw them. The first likely ran for his life, and the second was probably a bush you mistook for a man.”

Kestrel ground her teeth together. “I
saw
him!”

“What did he look like?”

Kestrel shook her head uncertainly. “I … I don’t know. Everything was happening so fast.”

“Like I said, you ran into a bush.”

“No!” Kestrel shouted, meaning to tell about the dart the man at the edge of the forest had shot her with, but Aiden cut her off.

“Believe me, Kes, if there were any others around, I would have killed them. Now, eat.”

“But—”

“
Eat!
”

The last of her resistance crumbled, and Kestrel began nibbling at her food. The meat was tough and charred, and she was too annoyed with herself, and too miserable about all that Aiden had said, to feel hungry. She was not sure she could feel worse than she already did, until her brother spoke up again.

“A true Red Hand,” he said flatly, “never loses their weapon.”

With a flick of his wrist, he hurled her long hunting knife into the ground beside her hip. When she was sleeping, he must have gone back up the ravine to find it.

As she stared at the quivering hilt, it reminded her that she could not let him help her anymore. By binding her wounds and feeding her, he might have already done too much in the minds of the Elders. Just in case, she flung aside the charred bit of rabbit as if it were a hot ember.

Aiden laughed at her.

CHAPTER NINE

Since a Potential carried little more than the clothes on their back and a single weapon of choice, Kestrel had to make do with the tattered, soaking wet clothes she wore, which did nothing to help against the fever-chills that had come rushing back soon after she got to her feet and began preparing for their long march home.

Aiden suffered no such restrictions, and carried a knapsack full of supplies, a bow, and a quiver of arrows. After he ran a short knife across his scalp, jaw, and chin, she watched jealously as he changed into dry doeskin trousers and a dark green roughspun shirt. Kestrel had a few of those shirts at home, but they did her no good here.

After settling the pack on his shoulders and cinching the straps tight, he gave her a disinterested look. “Ready?”

“I should go on alone,” she answered. He might have helped her, but she did not need to let him keep doing so.

A malicious, teasing light came into his eyes. “A little late for that, isn’t it? After all, I already saved you. If I have to again, what difference does it make?”

Kestrel clenched her jaw to keep from screaming, “
I don’t want your help!”

Again, as if reading her mind, he added, “If it makes you feel better, I promise I won’t help anymore … unless you ask.”

She had never been able to outmaneuver him, and she was too tired and too sick to try now. “Just go.”

He shrugged indifferently, and set out along a game trail running along the grassy bank of the stream. She could never hate Aiden, no matter what he did to her, no matter how little he thought of her, but right now, she very much disliked him.

Kestrel settled the waterlogged hide bundle under her arm, as Aiden moved away through the dripping brush.
I could turn and go some other way
, she told herself, but just the thought of climbing up to the ridgeline she had run along the day before made her legs flutter. She gusted a heavy sigh and, seeing no better choice, went after him.

Within a hundred strides, Kestrel knew this was going to be one of the hardest, longest days of her life. All the wobbliness that had been in her limbs the day before fell on her again, and soon her wounds grew hot to the touch, even through the bandages. She bowed her head, hoped the Ancestors’ blessings remained with her, and walked.

One step led to another, and another after that.

Hours passed.

The day grew bright and warm. The stream gurgling along beside the game trail became wider and wilder, until it tumbled over a drop and fell as a frothy veil to a wide, ferny glade surrounded by towering cedars a hundred feet below. A doe and her fawn drank at the edge of the water. At any other time, Kestrel would have counted it a charming place, but she was having a hard time concentrating on anything, save the desire to sit down and rest.

When Aiden began wading across the stream, she gazed at him with bewilderment. “Home is to the south. Why are you going north?”

“You probably shouldn’t come with me,” he called over his shoulder. “Just take your Kill, and go to the River. The way you’re fumbling around, I’ll catch up soon enough.”

Kestrel found enough defiance left to meet his challenge—she had no doubt that’s what it was—and plunged into the stream after him.

He shook his head and moved on.

Before she climbed onto the opposite bank, she took a long drink, the cold water soothing her dry throat. She wanted to throw herself in and cool her fever, but that would have to wait.

They walked perhaps another mile, climbing up and over a low ridgeline draped in stands of fir and pine. Squirrels chittered back and forth to one another from high branches, while birds swooped and turned, catching insects in midflight.

When a grouse exploded from a bush in a flurry of beating wings, Aiden snatched an arrow from the quiver at his hip, nocked it to the bowstring, and drew. Just before the bird vanished behind cover farther down the slope, he let fly.

Kestrel watched with a magical sense of awe as grouse and arrow became one. She had often seen the same stunning skill from her brother during the village’s Seedtime festivals, after the howling white storms of winter had fled the land, and the ground grew warm enough to plant. Most of the villagers were fair hands with bows, but Aiden had been winning archery contests since he was twelve. He was at his most deadly, however, when holding a pair of long knives, whether they were wooden ones used in mock battles, or the two of steel he had used on the Stone Dogs the night before.

Aiden left her standing on the trail to retrieve the grouse, then returned a few minutes later with the bird hanging from his belt. They set off again.

Over the next hour, Kestrel became aware that her fever had faded a little, and her head was clearing. The gashes the lion had given her still throbbed, but she expected that. Even if the poultices Aiden had placed over the wounds stopped the flesh-rot before it began, the lion’s claws had done a nasty job, and the injuries would remain tender for a long time. Kestrel knew, as well as Aiden did, that she owed her life to him. She was grateful, but also suspicious. Even if others never seemed to notice, she was well aware that Aiden never gave something unless he stood to gain more in return. She wondered if this side journey might be leading her to his price.