"Or that you are the cause of this conflict in the first place," Hopp said.
Dante tipped back his chin. "Would you rather go on as slaves to the king?"
Hopp smiled tightly, distorting the R branded on his cheek. He nodded downstream. The creek ran straight for hundreds of feet, gushing around boulders beneath the canopy of willows. Hopp pointed to a rue tree just before the stream bent and disappeared behind the willows.
"See that rue? Swim to it, and you can join the clan."
Blays began to unbutton his doublet. "Is that it?"
"Without taking a single breath of air." The beardless norren raised his shrubby brows. "Think your devotion to the clan will support you after your air runs out?"
"Well, that's just obstinate." Blays shrugged out of his doublet and set to work on his belt.
"What are you doing?" Lira said.
"Going for a dip. With my head underwater, I won't have to hear any more of this nonsense."
"That must be three hundred yards! No one can swim that in one breath."
"We'll see about that." He finished with his belt and plonked down in the grass to unlace his boots. Dried mud crusted the fraying laces. "Anyway, what's there to lose? If I can't do it, I pop up for a few deep breaths, we all share a good cry, and then we move on."
Lira turned to Hopp with a look that could slice a falling feather. "Your test is absurd. What will it prove?"
Hopp stretched his arms behind his back, shoulders bustling. "Whether he's got gills?"
Blays flung his boots at Dante and stood to shed his pants. "Keep those dry. There's nothing worse than walking around with squelchy boots." He glanced at Hopp. "Well, going to watch me? If this is on my honor, why don't you turn your back and I'll holler when I'm there?"
Hopp grinned, wolfish, and stood, knees popping. He gestured palm-up at the stream. "You've got spirit, don't you? I'm suddenly wishing I'd gone with a task that was remotely possible."
"Your loss. Or mine, if I bang my head on one of those rocks." Reduced to his underwear, Blays waded into the stream, grimacing as the hill-fed cataract washed over his calves. Another step plunged him to his thighs. He took three long breaths, swelling his muscled chest and bulging his belly. He sighed down at the swirling currents. "The balls are always the worst, aren't they?"
Before anyone could answer, he lunged forward, diving into the stream. Lira swore. Hopp strode along the banks. In confusion, Dante jogged after him, scanning the foaming water for a hint of Blays. For some seconds he saw nothing but the constant rush of water, opaqued by turbulence, rippling over half-hidden stones. Splashing pulled his gaze downstream. Thirty yards away, far past where Dante had been tracking, Blays burst from the surface, keeping his face below the water as his arms and legs churned. The current pulled him along, doubling his natural speed. Dante sped to a light run to keep pace. Hopp, Lira, and Mourn thumped beside him. Three warriors who had been listening from a distance sprinted to catch up.
A boulder cleaved the stream dead ahead. Somehow Blays spotted it through the roiling chaos of bubbles and water, cutting along its left flank. A quarter of the way to the rue's Y-shaped trunk, the stream narrowed and deepened, submerging any rocks. Blays cruised onward. Dante tore through the grass, splashing in the reeds. Halfway to the tree, Blays slowed, legs faltering; as if remembering where he was, he pushed ahead, thrashing at the hurtling water. Dante realized he'd been holding his own breath. He let it go in a whoosh, tasting sweet spring air.
The stream curved gently. Blays drifted toward the right bank, his bare back a splash of white atop the dark water. Fifty yards from the rue, he stopped moving.
"Arawn's mercy!" Lira shouted. She charged forward, angling toward the bank, stripping off her doublet. Blays floated on, borne on the current. Dante rushed after Lira and grabbed her arm.
"Stop! He's almost there!"
She whirled, mouth agape, and punched him in the jaw. He staggered into the damp grass. She rushed on, hopping as she yanked at her boots. Dizzy and nauseous, Dante lumbered to his feet and ran after her, overtaken by Mourn, Hopp, and the three warriors. Just before the rue, Lira slogged into the water, fully clothed except her bare feet. She dived into the stream and thrashed towards Blays. Beside him, she threw her arm over his chest and pulled his head from the torrent.
They banged into a rock, spinning crazily, disappearing under a white flush of water. Dante yelled. Their heads popped back up. Lira sputtered. Blays hung limp. She paddled for shore, sweeping downstream. A few feet from the bank, she found her footing and hauled Blays toward the thicket of reeds. Dante splashed into the stream. Her face was white, sopping, furious. She tensed as if to punch Dante again, then pivoted her hip to sling Blays' loose body forward. Dante ducked his shoulder under Blays' arm and dragged him onto dry land.
Lira flopped Blays on his back. His arms slapped into the grass. She bore down on his pale chest, pumping it repeatedly, hard enough to crack a rib.
"What the hell are you doing?" Dante said.
"What we do when men drowned in the islands." She pumped again, then sat back, heaving, hair straggled down her face. "Come on!"
Blays lay cold and still and white. In a panic, Dante called the nether from beneath the leaves and stones, but he had nowhere to send it: no wounds to knit, no blood to stanch. His ears roared. Two minutes ago, Blays had been joking, grinning. Lira gave his chest another series of compressions. His head rolled, mouth half-open, tongue pale as a cave fish. Lira yelled, a rising cry that could split the world. She hammered her fist against Blays' chest.
Water gouted from his mouth. He coughed, chest wracking, limbs flapping. Lira laughed through shocked tears. Dante's lip throbbed where she'd punched him.
Blays sat up and blinked at the rue tree upstream. "So do we get new names? I don't know why you'd join a new tribe if you don't get epic new names."
"Like the Man Who Thought He Was a Fish?" Dante said.
"I was thinking more along the lines of Warrior Whose Balls Were So Big They Scared Away the Sun."
"You cheated!" Hopp said. "You just floated the last bit."
"Bullshit. I didn't take a single breath of air." Blays tried to stand and staggered. Lira reached for one arm, Dante the other. His skin was as cold as shadow. He coughed again, spitting stream-water. "See?"
"I don't remember saying if it could be air
or
water."
Blays snorted, shivering, and turned to the three warriors who'd joined the chase. "Which was it?"
Two gazed away into the trees. The third glared at them, letting the silence draw out, then turned to Blays. "Just air."
"Roast your eyes," Hopp cursed. He clapped his hands and faced Dante. "Who's next to prove their devotion to the clan?"
Nether leapt to Dante's hands. "Do you listen to your own words?
One
of us had to swim for all the rest to join."
"You're right." Hopp grinned wolfishly, stretching his scar. "Can you blame me for wanting to drown a couple of you and save me the trouble?" He extended his hand, palm down in the norren way. "Welcome to the clan."
* * *
Cally was less than impressed with their triumph. "How do you know this isn't another of their games? Have you actually done anything clannish yet?"
"We just joined this morning," Dante said into his loon.
"It seems to me this is a perfect example of that particularly norren sense of humor where they're more than content to go on making fun of you for as long as it takes you to figure out that you're being made fun of."
"What?"
"They're playing you for a fool. They'll keep you safely tucked away in their camp while you delude yourself that once you earn their trust, they'll allow you into the inner circle of clan chiefs. What proof do you have this is worth a moment of your time?"
"None," Dante said. "But if we don't try it, we'll never reach these clans at all."
Cally grunted dubiously. "And what about the dozens of others who would gladly accept our loons right now if only you bothered to visit them?"
"If they'll take loons from any old idiot out of Narashtovik, then send any old idiot out of Narashtovik."
"That could make a certain amount of sense."
"Give it a try. Please. If it turns out you need us to distribute them after all, we can leave this place. But unless we give this a shot, half the clans will never give us the time of day."
"All right," Cally allowed. "But only because I don't think I've ever heard you say 'please' before."
Hopp had been circulating through the milling members of the clan for a couple hours, presumably to explain why their numbers had been suddenly bolstered by four new members, three of whom were humans. He returned as the sun peaked, beckoning his new charges in with a swirl of his hand.
"It's time to discover what you can do for your new family," he said. "You're all warriors, whatever that means to you?"
Dante nodded. "I can command the nether. Blays and Lira, they're handy with a—"
"Fine," Hopp said. "What nulla do you possess?"
"Fletching," Mourn said.
"That right? Bone, stone, or metal?"
"Bone and stone." Mourn gazed at the grass. "I'm waiting to work with metal until I perfect the fundamentals."
Hopp nodded without any sense of approval. "How about the rest of you?"
"Healing," Dante said.
"I don't have one besides fighting," Blays said. "Unless looking good counts."
"Then I have an idea for you." Hopp smiled, eyeteeth white in the late morning sun. "Perhaps it's catching fish?"
"I don't think so. My appeal transcends most species, but I think fish are too dumb."
"Let me put it this way: go catch your clan some fish. In fact, perhaps
all
your nulla is to catch fish."
"Are you sure this is how we can best be put to use?" Dante said.
Hopp drew back his head, affronted. "Do you want your clan to starve? What could be more important than keeping them fed and ready to swing their swords? In Narashtovik, does food simply drift in through the windows every night?"
"No, but it is delivered to the kitchen every morning, because we buy it. Why don't we just go into town and lay down some silver?"
"Because." Hopp closed on Dante, leaning down until their eyes were nearly level. Dante flinched; it was like standing in the path of a toppling tree. He smelled fresh sweat and crushed grass. Hopp tapped him on the side of the head. "What do you do when there are no towns? Where do you buy your fish from then? If you fling your coins in the stream, do you think it will belch forth trout?"
Dante sighed and stuck out his hand. "Then give us our poles and let's be done with this."
"Poles?" The norren chief cocked his head. "You will use spears. Bad news: we are out of spears."
"What are you talking about?" Blays gestured at two warriors sparring down the stream. Long staffs spun and clacked, metal tips glinting in the sun. "I suppose those are just very long pole-mounted knives?"
"Those are fighting spears. You do not use fighting spears for fishing. Would you use your father's battle-sword to gut a hog?"
"Depends. Is the hog armed?"
Mourn grabbed Blays' shoulder, bunching the doublet's fabric in his fist. "We'll make our own spears. I'll show you if you don't know how."
"It's easy enough, isn't it?" Blays said. "We just have to find a spear-tree."
Hopp smiled to himself as they tramped downstream in search of suitably straight branches among the willows and walnuts.
Dante trampled after Blays through the thigh-high grass. "This whittling will surely help us win the war."
Blays grinned. "You never know. What if Moddegan attacks with a deadly force of twig-men? We'll pare him to ribbons."
"I assume this is one of their tests. We're going to have to fish our hearts out. Fish like we're at war with the fish."
"If trout don't want to be slaughtered in their streambeds, they shouldn't be so delicious when buttered and fried in a pan."
Blays jumped to catch hold of a walnut's lowest branches. He scrabbled into the tree, showering Dante with bark. Dante glanced upstream. Mourn and Lira were dozens of yards away. A branch cracked, but any other noises they made were drowned out by the babble of the stream and the mindless drone of insects whirring through the slumping willows.
"When did you and Lira become a pair?" Dante said.
"What?" Blays glanced down, hands gripping a long branch half as thin as his wrist. "What did she say to you?"
"It was more of a nonverbal cue. In the form of a punch to the face."
"When did that happen?" Blays laughed. "Did you make a pass at her?"
"Earlier this morning when I tried to let you continue drowning for the good of the land." Dante touched his swollen lip. "Haven't you noticed the bruising?"
"I try not to look directly at your face." Blays tensed, pulling the branch down with a sharp crack. Bark and leaves showered Dante's upturned face. Blays tossed the limb to the ground. "You're not mad, are you?"
Dante set to the fallen branch with a knife, trimming twigs and skinning bark to shape it into a spear. "Why would I be mad?"
"Because you always are? I don't know. Sometimes people get mad."
"Well, I'm not."
"Good. Guess I thought you might think it would distract us from our duty or something."
Dante grinned up into the branches. "How dare you two be making moon-eyes at each other? The fate of norren freedom depends on us stabbing these fish!"
Blays pulled down a few more branches, then climbed down to help carve them into killing points. Lira and Mourn caught up with them, spears in hand. They splashed along the cold stream until it widened to a gentle flow among the rocks. Sunlight cleaved through the clear water. Current-drawn weeds pointed downstream, dragonfly nymphs clinging to their stems. Flies circled, buzzing in Dante's ears. He waded into a sluggish eddy beside the bank. Dark missiles of trout lurked in the willow-dappled shadows.