Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) (9 page)

Kharkara Plains

S
houts
brought the Dhanani chieftain from his tent—shouts, jeers, taunts.  The sounds
of sporting and of wagering, two pastimes that were woefully ill-advised during
the Squirrel’s Moon when the tribe should be hunting and salting meat and
gathering their meager crops against the coming cold.  Instead of tending their
chores, his people were milling around the Meeting Ground, boosting their
children up on their shoulders and craning their necks to see.

His unbound hair shone silver over his black skin, but he
still moved with the sure speed and grace of a hunter in the prime of life. 
The richly carved ironwood staff he carried was the legendary Verge of Anado,
Dhanani god of the hunt, given by Him to the first chief of the Dhanani and
handed down by combat.  The man who carried it ruled all the tribes of the
Kharkara plains.  Chief Bakti Ka-Durga Ba-Vinda used that staff to gently move
aside those of his tribe who had not the sense to step out of his way on their
own, until he came to the Meeting Ground and saw what had gathered them here.

At the center of the great flat expanse of bare rock, two
men circled each other with their weapons raised, poised for
Golchok
,
the sacred fight to the death.  As he recognized their faces, the chieftain
wondered how these particular men had come to this.

The larger of the two and the clear favorite to win was
Vaccar Ka-Nira Ba-Dree, an honored warrior and hunter who was feared more than
he was respected within the tribe.  Vaccar’s chest was still bare from the
day’s hunt, but on his arm he wore the blackened storyskin of his victories in
battle.  While the storyskins of younger men were still empty and pale gold,
Vaccar’s was black with the embroidered tales of his many feats.  No one really
believed that Vaccar had killed his wife, Dree, for running out of hair to make
his thread, but this was just one of many nearly credible gossips whispered
about him, so it surprised no one that Vaccar held no place at the tribal
council.  Except Vaccar.

His opponent was Aidan Ka-Zoga, the tribe’s healer, a tall,
wiry man in a doeskin alb who disliked violence.  He was one of the tribe’s
spiritual leaders, a shaman of Anado of the Hunt, but he was also a master
surgeon, trained by the best in all Syon.  In his youth, Aidan had traveled
among the Invader tribes, the Bremondines, those who called themselves Syonese,
even the Anatayans, and against tribal tradition he had participated in their
war that he might study the beliefs and traditions surrounding the different
gods, knowing many, as he told the tribe, serving only their own.  But some of
the tribe’s older families held to more traditional ways.  Thus the same
knowledge that drew the respect of most of the tribe caused a few to shun him
and distrust his prayers even in the face of death.

Near the two men amid a fistful of scattered scrolls and
vials crouched a boy, nearly a man, shaking and silent, the front of his
leathers wet with his fear.  The chieftain recognized the boy as Chul
Ka-Dree,Vaccar’s son.

Around the boy he saw scrolls, vials marked in many hands
and salve-filled leaves bound into sacs with tree veins.  He began to
understand.  The items could only have come from Aidan.  Or from Aidan’s tent.

“The boy is
my
son,” seethed Vaccar.  “A boil on my
flank since his birth,” he shouted, casting a stabbing glare at the boy.  “And
he is mine to punish!”

“And I say,” returned Aidan quietly, calmly, with his
bludgeon, a stout tree branch he had found nearby, still raised, “he has
learned this lesson.”

“He is an animal.  He cannot learn.”  Vaccar spat on the
ground where his son sat cowering.  “By the gods, you should be the one
demanding justice!  He stole from you!”  Vaccar swung his ax.  Had Aidan not
blocked it, it would have hit the boy.  “He steals from everyone no matter how
well I treat him.  The boy is no good; he deserves to die!”

At this, the chieftain scowled and struck the ground twice
with his staff, and instantly the gathered tribesmen turned away, the women
lifting water pots to their shoulders, the men trimming the shafts of arrows
and sharpening knives as they walked.  They met each other’s eye as they walked
away.  They would see to their wagers later.

Watching each other carefully, the two men lowered their
weapons and faced their chief.  Chul turned, blinking like an animal in a trap,
to see the chieftain looking down at him, and crossed the backs of his hands
over his forehead in ritual greeting.  But the gesture had less an air of
greeting to it than one of cowering.  He was terrified.

The boy’s face was swollen, scratched and scraped, and great
handfuls of his hair had been yanked out and left on the ground beside him,
leaving his scalp to bleed.  Bruises stood out darker than his skin where it
showed under his overly small leathers, and through the split seams and rips,
the chieftain could see long smeary scars on his upper arms and thighs. 
Burns.  Bakti breathed in sharply.

He looked at Vaccar for a moment, barely able to contain his
disgust, then turned to Aidan.  “You,” he said quietly.  “Did this boy steal
from you?”

Aidan looked from the boy to Vaccar, then to the chieftain,
his jaw working.  The tribesmen had no fortresses like the Invaders, no great
stone houses with locks on the doors.  Their lives were spent in animal skin
tents within earshot of their neighbors.  Everyone watched the children,
everyone shared the work and the meals.  Honor and trust were central to the
tribe’s existence, and without them, the tribe would break down into warring
clans.  Thus the laws protecting basic virtues were harsh; thievery, even a
child’s thievery, was punishable by death.

“The…lost items have been recovered,” Aidan said finally,
casting a gentle smile toward Chul.  He stooped to gather the scattered
articles together not daring to look up into the chieftain’s eye.  “I have not
been wronged, Chief Bakti.”

“Coward,” spat Vaccar.  “This boy has stolen from everyone
in the tribe, my Chief, and he will again.  His cursed mother must have whored
herself to a Bremondine; no son of mine is he.”

“Vaccar.” Aidan’s voice was quiet, but behind it, a storm
raged.  “Dree was a good and faithful woman.  You dishonor her memory.”

Vaccar laughed bitterly.  “She bore me but a single idiot
son, and then she died.”  He picked up a handful of sand and threw it in his
son’s face with contempt.  “This boy reasons no better than a javelin dog. 
He’d be better off dead.”

Aidan scowled and continued picking up his belongings, but
Bakti could see in the healer’s eyes that it was good he did not hold a weapon
just now.  Otherwise Vaccar’s skull might well be bashed in.  Seeing that Chul
made no move to clean the dust from his face, Chief Bakti crouched beside him
and gently brushed it away, taking extra care where it lodged in open cuts. “Is
your father’s word true,” he asked quietly, “that you have stolen from the
tribe?”

Aidan looked up sharply, but Bakti met his eye, bidding him
to silence.

“Yes, my chief,” he said with an even voice.  “I have even
stolen from you.”

Bakti nodded solemnly, letting his hand fall away from the
boy.  “So you have been inside my tent, then.”

Chul glanced at his father and sighed.  Vaccar all but
beamed with a sick sense of vindication.  Beyond him, Aidan bound the last of
the sacs and scrolls into the folds of his alb with shaking hands.  Bakti heard
him muttering under his breath the Ten Mantras of Mercy.

“Tell me,” said the chieftain with an enigmatic smile, “what
did you take from my tent?”

“Two gold armlets in the shape of serpents.”  The boy
answered at once. He looked up to meet the chief’s eye with a level gaze.  “And
the ring with the blue r-ruby.”

“Diamond,” corrected Vaccar automatically, and he raised his
hand as if to slap Chul.  “Stupid boy.”

These were the most famous of the tribe’s treasures, his
ceremonial armlets and the sapphire ring, treaty gifts from the Anatayans and
the Bremondines—not the only treasures, surely, but the only ones the boy had
ever seen.  Bakti nodded thoughtfully, rocking back on his heels. 

“Chul.”  The chief took the boy’s chin in his hands and
turned him so they were looking into each other’s eyes.  “I hate thieves.”  The
boy nodded and again looked to his father, for what, wondered the chieftain. 
For approval?  Approval for condemning himself?  His eye wandered over the
burns again.  “I hate thieves,” he repeated, shutting his eyes, “but do you
know what I hate even more than thieves?”

Chul shook his head.

“Liars.”  The chief stood suddenly and enjoyed watching the
color drain from Vaccar’s face.  “I have found dead vipers at the door to my
tent.”  He paced away from the boy, closer to the father.  “Dead rats, dead
hawks.  Even dead javelin dogs,” he said, glaring at Vaccar.  Then he moved
back to crouch beside the boy again and smiled.  “Chul, none but those of my
blood may enter my tent, thanks to Aidan.”

Aidan shook his head humbly.  “Thanks to Anado of the Hunt.”

“And of Mercy,” the chieftain added softly, brushing his
fingers over the swelling beneath the boy’s eye.  “No.  My armlets and my ring
are safe in my tent.  If Aidan says he was not wronged,” he said, looking up at
the healer, “I am inclined to believe him.  Go on your way.”

But the boy did not move.  He only gazed down at his own
bruised knees and sighed, as if Chief Bakti had just given him a sentence worse
than death.

Vaccar’s jaw dropped.  He looked back and forth between
Aidan and Chief Bakti before his gaze settled on the staff.  “But he
has
stolen, my chief.  Either kill him or, if you won’t, at least let me—”

The chief shook his head and turned to walk away.  “You have
done enough, Vaccar.” 

A faint gust of wind touched the chief’s back.

Even before Aidan could shout to warn him, Bakti was already
turning, his staff catching Vaccar’s ax coming down where his head had been a moment
before.  He turned again and twisted the staff between them to send the hunter
flying gracelessly over his ax to sprawl across the ground. By the time Vaccar
was back on his feet, Bakti was facing him with the staff readied.

“You would challenge me?” Bakti asked in amazement.  “Why?”

“I would be chief.” Vaccar attacked again and snarled with
the effort to battle the staff away, to put himself behind it, but the chief
calmly nudged aside each blow and threw him back again.  And again.

“You waste your time.  You cannot win, Vaccar,” said the
chief.

Vaccar swung his ax overhead with a grunt and brought it
straight down over the chief.

Bakti stepped aside gracefully and snapped the staff against
the handle of the ax to knock it out of Vaccar’s hand.  An inch closer, and he
would have crushed Vaccar’s hand.  “Stop this at once.”

But Vaccar did not stop.  Once he recovered his ax, he
unsheathed his hunting knife, turned and swung both of his weapons at the chief
again and again, not caring that the chief was flinging them off both sides of
his staff.  “If I win,” the warrior panted, “I become Chief of the Dhanani. 
The boy dies.”

Bakti spat on the ground.  “Even if you could win, no man of
the tribes would follow you.  You’d be dead before the sun fell.”

The hunter snarled over him.  “And if I lose—”

“—your bloodline must be destroyed,” gasped Aidan.

Vaccar grinned wickedly.  “The boy dies.”  He feinted his ax
upward to draw Bakti’s strike and brought his knife up across the chief’s
silvered chest to leave a stripe of blood.  The cut was not deep, but Bakti’s
muscles rippled against the pain.  Instantly, the Verge of Anado crashed down
against Vaccar’s shoulder, sending the satisfying crack of breaking bone
rippling through the wood to Bakti’s hand. 

The warrior’s shoulder was broken, and he dropped the knife
to the ground with a gasp of pain. He turned his stronger shoulder toward the
chief to protect himself.  Then he slashed awkwardly with his ax, leaving a
thin scratch in the staff.  He turned, tossed the ax in the air to change his
grip and brought it down with all his power toward Bakti’s neck.

The chief shook his head sadly as he looked into Vaccar’s
eyes for the last time.  Then with a fluid blur of motion followed by two quick
snaps of the staff, Vaccar lay dead at the chief’s feet, his neck broken and
his ax embedded in the ground several feet away.

Bakti collapsed to the ground beside Vaccar’s body.  “Aidan,
when I have recovered my breath,” he coughed, taking a tiny leaf full of salve
from Aidan’s hand and smearing it over the cut on his chest, “it will be my
duty to see that no one of Vaccar’s blood remains in the tribe.”  He looked up
at the healer, then glanced at the blank face of the boy.  Chul was staring
into the astonished eyes of his father’s corpse.  “See that I find no one.”

*          *          *

“But Aidan,” whispered the boy as the healer cinched the
belt around his waist for him.  “I don’t understand.  The chief should kill
me.  It’s the law.” 

They stood just outside the edge of the Kharkara plains,
beyond the last Dhanani camp to the southeast.  The sun was still well above
the horizon.  Good, thought Aidan, plenty of time.  Chul should reach the edge
of the Bremondine forests by nightfall.  From there, it should be no more than
a few days’ run with water from the forest streams and plenty of good hunting
along the way, not to mention the late berries.  He would be fine.

“My father was right,” the boy went on.  “I stole, I deserve
to die.”

“No, Chul, you don’t understand. Chief Bakti made a wise
decision.  Don’t waste this chance he has given you.”  The healer smiled into
the boy’s frightened black eyes.  He held up a scroll case bound in a green
ribbon.  “Now remember what I told you.  This is the letter of introduction
that you will give, to whom?”