"I protect myself."
Juniper stood back. Mairead was still trembling. People came to hug her, but the mood remained somber. Juniper nodded to herself as she took back Rudy. Her hands moved in sign, small ones, restrained by the child.
Yes. This is how we own our lives.
The grave filled quickly, the long shaft poking out above the ground. Red and black ribbons were tied around it and Juniper turned north again, the hot afternoon sunshine on her left, now. Eilir reached for Rudy and she let him go.
Sharon moved to stand at her left hand, and to her surprise, not Cynthia, but Rebekah, moved over to her right.
She lifted her arms: "Manawyddan-Restless Sea, cleanse and purify us! We have taken our actions in defense of our people. They are not actions to take lightly. Restless Sea, cleanse us!
"Rhiannon-White Mare, hold him deep in the earth, that he may have time to learn and be reborn to try again."
"Arianrhod-Star-tressed Lady; bring Your light to us, light of reason. Protect us from the night fears; give us eyes that we may see protect those we love before harm befalls them."
"This gathering of the Dun for justice is done. We have met in sorrow, debated in pain, and leave with resolution. So mote it be!"
"So mote it be!" called the oenach as they picked up their boxes and baskets, pulled down the tarps, and offered hospitality to the neighbors.
Juniper nodded in approval when the witnesses all made namaste, and refused quiet words of support and offers of help shared forth before they left to seek their own homes and the labor that would not, could not, wait.
"Lady, what should we do now?" asked Cynthia Carson.
"Keep a wake, I think," said Juniper. "You"ll have to play this by ear. But I think the next day or two should be focusing on doing all the small tasks. You are all upset, and it"s easier for you to make mistakes."
Brian and Ray and Sharon nodded. They picked up the bundles of tarps the others had left behind and trudged back to the Dun.
Juniper sighed. "And it"s home for us, too, now. We may reach there before the sunset, we may indeed."
She rubbed her forehead fretfully. "I wish we hadn"t needed to deal with something this grotesque for our first foray into a capital crime."
Sam shrugged, holding Melissa close. "If not this, then something else, Lady. Whatever it was, it would have felt loik the worst thing to us."
Juniper sighed and shrugged. I want to be home and with my loved ones. I think we"ll be waking the night too.
Samuel Sykes Sometimes you"d better listen, as hard as you can, if you want to survive ...
Samuel Sykes is a relatively new author. His novels to date include Tome of the Undergates, Black Halo, and The Skybound Sea, which together make up the Aeons" Gate series. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, he now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
NAME THE BEAST.
When the fires of the camp had died and the crows settled in the boughs of the forest, she could hear everything her husband said.
"And the child?" Rokuda had asked her. He spoke in the moment the water struck the flame. His words were in the steam: as airy, as empty.
They only spoke at night. They only spoke when the fires were doused.
"She"s asleep," Kalindris had replied. Her words were heavier in the darkness.
"Good. She will need her rest." There had never been a darkness deep enough to smother the glimmer of his green eyes. "You should, too. I want you bright and attentive."
She had not looked up from sharpening her knife. Just as she had decided not to stab him with it for talking to her in such a way. Fair trade, she had reasoned. She ran her finger along the edge, felt it bite cleanly. She slid it into a scabbard before reaching for her boots, just where she had always left them.
"She can rest. She can stay resting. I"ll leave before dawn. I"ll be back before dusk. She never has to know."
"No."
For want of hackles, her ears rose up, sharp and pointed like her knife. They folded flat against her head. Rokuda had not seen it. Even if he had, she had reasoned, he wouldn"t care. He was like that.
"I asked no question," she had replied.
"What am I to tell her, then?" Rokuda had asked.
"Whatever you wish. I left without her. The beast was too close. The tribe was in danger. I could not to wait for her." She had pulled on her boots. "I don"t need your words. You can give them to her."
"No."
"Do not say that word to me."
"She has to learn. She has to learn to hunt the beast, to hate the beast, to kill it."
"Why?"
"Because we are shicts. Our tribes came to this world from the Dark Forest. Before humans, before tulwars, before any monkey learned to walk on two legs, we were here. And we will be here long after them. Because to protect this land, they all must die."
His speeches no longer inflamed her. She felt only chill in his words now.
"She has to learn to be like a shict," Rokuda had said. "She has to learn our legacy."
"Yours."
Kalindris felt him in the darkness as he settled beside her. She felt his hand even before he had touched her. In the p.r.i.c.kle of gooseflesh upon her skin, in the cold weight in the pit of her belly. Her body froze, tensing for a tender blow. She felt each knucklebone of each finger as he pressed his hand against the skin of her flank.
Like it belonged there.
"Be reasonable about this ..." Honey sliding down bark, his voice had come.
"Don"t touch me."
"The other tribesmen won"t look at her. They won"t listen to her. They look at her and wonder what kind of creatures she came from. What her parents were to raise ... her. You must take her to the forest. You will show her how it"s done."
"I must do nothing. And you can"t change everything you don"t like."
"Yes I can."
Bark peeling off in strips, his voice came. He tightened his fingers. She felt every hair of every trace of skin rising up. She felt the knife at her belt. She heard it in its sheath. She heard her own voice.
Steam in darkness. Airy. Empty.
"Don"t touch me."
Between the sunlight seeping through the branches overhead, she could hear the forest.
A deer"s hoof scratching at the moss of a fallen log. A tree branch shaking as a bird took off into the sky. A line of ants so thick as to forget they were ever individuals marching across a dead root.
Sounds of life. Too far. Her ears rose. Kalindris listened closer.
A moth trying hard to remain motionless as a badger snuffed around the fallen branch it sat upon. A tree groaning as it waited for the rot creeping down its trunk to reach its roots. The crunch of dead leaves beneath a body as a boar, snout thick with disease and phlegm, settled down to die.
Closer. She drew in a breath, let it fill her, exhaled.
Air leaving dry mouths. Drops of salt falling on hard earth. A whining, noisy plea without words.
And she heard it.
The Howling told Kalindris who needed to die.
"This is taking forever."
Her ears lowered. Her brows furrowed. Her frown deepened.
The child.
Talking.
Again.
"You already found the tracks," the child complained. "Two hours ago. We could have found the beast by now. Instead I"ve spent half an hour waiting, half an hour searching for more tracks, half an hour shooting arrows through the gap between those branches over there and half an hour wondering how best to shoot myself with my own bow so I can deny boredom the pleasure of killing me."
The Howling left her, swift and easy as it had come. The shicts asked for nothing for their G.o.ddess, Riffid. To invite her attention was to invite her ire. She had given them nothing but life and the Howling and then left to the Dark Forest. They had spent generations honing it, the sense above all others, the voice of life and of death.
And somehow, the child"s whining could send it away in an instant.
"When do we get to the hunt?"
It didn"t matter. The Howling had shown Kalindris enough. The other noises of life and death weren"t important. She held on only to that final one, that which teetered between the two. The sound of uncertainty. The sound that waited for her to tip the balance toward darkness.
Kalindris rose. The leaves fell from her hunting leathers as she slung the bow and quiver over her shoulder. The leather settled into a familiar furrow upon the bare skin of her neck"s crook, the only other presence she had ever allowed that close to her throat. And the only one she ever would again, she thought as she rubbed a scar across her collarbone. She could still feel as she ran her hands across the scarred flesh. Every knucklebone of every finger, sinking into her skin.
Without a glance behind her, Kalindris hopped off the rock and set off after the noise. The forest rose up around her in aloof pillars, not like the familial closeness of the inner woods that left no room for sunlight. Too much light here on the border of the sea of trees; too much seeing, not enough listening. The Howling didn"t speak clearly here. She had to keep her ears up and open.
They rose up like spears and she listened. Leaves crunching, an offended cry, hurried breath.
The child.
Following.
Still.
"Hey! Don"t treat me like I"m an idiot!" the child protested, hurrying after her. "If you"re going to try to abandon me, at least be a little less obvious about it. It might give me the opportunity to track you and get something done today."
Abandonment needed more than she had to give. That needed malice, anger, and she could spare none for the child. That was for someone else, along with her arrows, her knife and this day.
"Why won"t you talk to me?" the child asked. "I did everything right. I followed the tracks like you showed me. I"ve done everything you told me to. What did I do wrong?"
The child spoke too much. That was why Kalindris didn"t speak; the child used all the words. That was what she did wrong. She shouldn"t need nearly as much as she used. She shouldn"t need any. The Howling was the shict language, that which came with breath and wailing as they were born.
And the child couldn"t hear it. The child couldn"t use it. She could only breathe. She could only wail.
It hurt Kalindris" ears.
"Are we at least going the right way?" the child asked. "I can"t come back until the beast is dead. If I do, I don"t get my feathers. I won"t be accepted." The child"s voice dropped. "Father said."
She stopped and cringed.
Rokuda said. Rokuda said lots of things. Rokuda said things like they were fact, like his word was all that mattered. Anyone that disagreed saw those bright green eyes and wide, sharp smile and heard his honey when he told them they were wrong.
Before Kalindris knew it, her back hurt. Her spine was rigid like a spear and visible beneath her skin. She turned around, ears flat against the side of her head, teeth bared.
The child stood there. Her hair was too bright, cut like some golden shrubbery and the feathers in her locks stuck out at all strange angles. The bow around skinny shoulders was strung and strung wrong, the skinny arms were too small to pull back the arrow. And her ears stuck out awkwardly, one up and one down, long and smooth and without notches in them. They were always trying to listen for something they couldn"t hear.
Her eyes were far too green.
"Your father," she said, "is not always right."
"If that were true, everyone wouldn"t listen to him when he speaks," the child protested. She swelled with a rehea.r.s.ed kind of pride, the kind she clearly felt she should have, rather than actually possessed. "When Father speaks, people listen. When he tells them to do something, they do it."
Words. Heavy words coming from the child. Like she believed them.
An agonizing moment of concentration was needed for Kalindris to unclench every knucklebone of every finger from her fist. She had to turn away and tear her eyes and shut her ears to the child. She hefted her quiver, continued to follow the noise through the trees.
"We shouldn"t have come here. We should have listened to it."
"We had no choice. Just keep moving. Keep moving."
Mother and Father were fighting again.
"It got Eadne. That thing got my Eadne. And we left her. And we ran. From our own land!"
"G.o.ds, will you just shut up and let me think?"