A Hollow Mountain (The Brightest Shadow Book 2), page 16
He found himself smiling. "The more I travel, the more questions I ask. I admit, I wanted to ask about you, but I didn't get a chance. Denugo implied that sending you would be a punishment."
Natala laughed freely, though too softly to penetrate the thin partition walls. "You have seen what kind of women our men prefer. I find that I cannot stop asking questions, no matter how many times they punish me for it. Soon they grew so tired of me that even hurting me grew dull, and now I am mostly left alone."
"Well, I don't mind questions. Please, ask freely."
"Why didn't you fuck Bihuna?"
The question came so quickly and directly that it took him off guard. Slaten stared back at Natala, though the woman was maddeningly difficult to read. He thought that her casual posture was slightly affected, hiding real concerns. Given how she had spoken... "That is difficult to explain."
"Where you come from, men do not act as the Bloodskins do?"
"Some do. Not most. Young men and women are given partners chosen by their families, though many disobey the customs and find one another in secret before then. They would all be just as surprised by your village as your people are surprised by me."
As he spoke, Natala leaned forward, her eyes alight. "I have never traveled further than the nearest trading point, but I had wondered if such was the case. From what we have seen of other clans, it seemed to me that some facts change while others are true for everyone."
"The more I travel, the smaller I feel the second category is."
"As much as I would like to ask you more questions, I am afraid others are rather more necessary." She settled back, again watching him, caution in her dark brown eyes. "Do you intend to make use of me?"
Such cold phrasing answered that question for him, so Slaten closed his eyes as he spoke. "Only if you want me, and I do not believe that you do. But I understand that you would be punished if you were thrown out, and the warriors will cause trouble for me if I do not play their games."
"You propose something else?"
"Stay the night and let them think what they want. Say whatever is needed for you to return again. Then I can avoid their gaze and you need not sleep with anyone if you do not wish it."
Natala tilted her head to the side, her hair partially over her face. The eye he could see watched him quietly for a time, then he saw a subtle smile play across her lips. "Then it is agreed, Slaten. My people seal agreements with food, drink, and women. I do not think that will work here."
"For mine, an agreement can be sealed simply by clasping wrists." Slaten extended a hand toward her and was glad that she did not flinch. She first tried to take his hand, but when he shifted to wrap his fingers around her wrist, she understood and mirrored the movement.
Her skin felt very smooth. All of him was aware of the slender curve of her arm. Slaten pulled his hand away as quickly as possible without seeming abrupt. Meanwhile, Natala didn't seem to notice his tension, instead leaning back against the wall with a relaxed smile.
"I will say little, but enough that you will be respected as a Bloodskin man. This is a better resolution than I had imagined when I came here tonight. The others had suspected that you might not be interested in women, which would not be good for your reputation here."
"Such men are hated?"
"A hatred born of fear, I think. I believe you have come to understand that our world is a cliff, with nothing between the ground above and the ground below. One side fights and the other side fears. On the furs, one side gives and the other receives. If a man enters another man, he threatens to cast him off the side of that cliff."
Slaten frowned at the unfamiliar thought. "Are you sure of this? I find it difficult to imagine Denugo speaking those words."
"It is a conclusion of my own, not something I was told." Natala gave him a sly smile. "We are not as ignorant as we might appear, Slaten. While the men are off raiding, the women and boys sometimes meet with other villages at trading points. We also trade stories. There are other tribes, like the Earthsmashers, where they freely acknowledge that some men prefer other men. Those they fuck are forever boys, of course, and that is something the Bloodskin clan would not accept."
"I see." Slaten sat back and examined her again, understanding why Natala had a bad reputation in the village.
"You said I was allowed to ask any question?"
"Of course."
"What do you want?" Natala leaned forward, eyes fixed on his. "I do not mean at this moment or this year. If you had all the power in the world, what would you possess?"
"That is... a difficult question."
"I don't believe that it is. Bloodskin women would want a gentle partner, many children, and a prosperous village. Bloodskin men want as much wealth and respect as they can get, assuming women come along with that. Do not all desires come to such things in the end?"
"I'm not sure that all of them do." Slaten sat back and stared toward the ceiling. "Tani - one of our traveling companions who took another path - has always wanted more. She seeks peace, between humans and with the Deathspawn. If she has a selfish desire, I think it is to be an example to others of the virtues she believes in."
"Do you agree with her?"
"I think they are beautiful ideals, and I admire that she can seek them so purely."
Natala smiled in wonderment, though something in her expression struck him as strange. "I have never considered such things, Slaten. I do not know if such ideals are possible, but I hope that they are. But you haven't answered my question... what is it that you want?"
"I don't know." He stared upward for a time, but Natala did not rush to fill the silence, so eventually he found himself speaking again. "I think I might be as simple as your warriors. In the end, I want companions I respect, a partner I love, and freedom to pursue what I desire. The trouble is that I could never be at peace while the world is under threat."
That was not even close to the true problem: the fact that his vision of the future didn't include him doing anything. He knew he would never be content to sit in a village hall, suck his gums, and gossip like many Oken elders. Yet he could not imagine himself becoming a potter, a smith, or a baker. An ever-widening gap yawned in the heart of his future.
"That is a lovely vision, but..." Natala's smile faded to a somber mask. "You cannot rest because you still seek something. You want to help the Hero take his place in the Legend."
"I..." For the first time, Slaten felt a gap between them as well. Natala watched him curiously before speaking again.
"We tell of the Legend here as well, though I wonder if it is the same story all over the world. In our village, the Hero is the greatest of Bloodskin warriors, defeating the greatest of enemies and claiming everything for himself. From what you have said, I imagine that distant lands tell different stories."
"Different, but no less terrible." The words escaped him before he could reconsider, but Natala merely absorbed his statement quietly. Slaten knew that he should say something to prevent the conversation from tumbling further, yet found he had no words.
"Are we going to talk every night?" Natala clapped her hands together as if to banish the previous conversations. "I don't mind, but I hoped that we might try something else. You may have seen the men play a game on a strange spiraling board, and I have always wanted to play."
"I don't believe I've seen it."
"Truly? I suppose many of them prefer to fight and drink. But I know that Patule and some of the other warriors do play on some nights. There is a wooden board with a number of pieces. Please try to bring a set back, if you can."
For the first time that night, Slaten truly smiled. "I'll see if I can do that."
Much later that night, they slept in the furs, not touching one another. Natala smiled at him one last time before she turned on her side and went to sleep. He soon followed her and slept like the dead.
Chapter 12
-
"We will leave questions of the raiding clans' military capacity to the concluding section, research conducted along with errants. For now, we will merely note matters of organization. Though it is dull to say that raiders have no respect, we can support that statement by confirming that they do not carry out any formal challenges and seem to have no compunctions about ambushes, unequal battles, or betrayals."
- Scholars of the Blue Mask
-
Despite her better judgment, Tani had come to know the Earthbreaker clan somewhat better as they traveled. Though it was true that they might not be as frustrating as the Bloodskins, that did not make them easy for her to stomach. They accepted Veron, who was happy to drink and squabble with them every night, but Tani had no place in their clan and thus was generally ignored.
At the head of the group, Veron and the leader of the Earthbreaker band mocked each other good-naturedly. Tani had reluctantly learned that the man was named Guyuru and that he was one of the foremost men in their clan. She far preferred Nelee villages, where many masters were esteemed for many different capacities, but it seemed the raider clans preferred to divide their warriors into ranks based on pure strength.
Though Tani retained constant awareness of the location of all the raiders around her, after several days she had accepted that the alliance was likely to hold. That awareness made her extremely conscious of the raider moving up behind her and she kept a knife in her palm.
"Ah, hello." His voice was surprisingly high-pitched, and when she turned to him she found a gangly young man with only wisps of a beard. Given his clear nervousness, Tani reeled in her hostile expression.
"What is it?"
"My name's Yebawo." He waited expectantly, eyes on her.
"I am Tani of the Nelee."
"Oh. I'm... of the Earthbreaker clan. But you already know that."
Since he had done nothing but furtively glance over her face, Tani decided that she might as well take a more friendly approach and gave him a smile. "Can I help you with something, Yebawo?"
"I wanted to ask you some questions. Is it true that outside the mountains, there are many women whose blood runs hot?"
"You could say that." Tani glanced toward Veron, wondering what tales she'd already spun. The assumptions in his question irritated her, but she didn't want to start a true confrontation, so she turned to a milder route. "You should know that elsewhere, we do not speak of power in the way you do. Our understanding of sein is rather different."
"Are hot-blooded women interested only in cold women? Or men as well?"
Tani looked more carefully and noticed how Yebawo stared at Veron as she walked ahead of them. So this had never been about her, or truly about questions. He was only interested in Veron, and Tani could understand why some men would be, though the bandit's constant irreverence turned aside Tani's interest. In any case, this actually made Yebawo less frustrating for her.
"That question," Tani said carefully, "is one better suited for Veron."
"But she's so... so strong, and..." Yebawo shook his head as if he couldn't understand it. "I've never seen anyone like her. She might be as strong as Guyuru. Probably not as strong as the Chief, but I'd like to see them fight. If she joined us, the Earthbreaker clan could grow so much..."
"Tell me, Yebawo, what exactly does your clan want?"
Over the course of the afternoon, Tani learned as much as she could from the young raider. It seemed that the clans had some agriculture and trade but were heavily dependent on stealing goods from merchants passing through the caravans. Each held a territory that was less exact ground than fragments of different passes.
Despite their bravado, she realized that the raiders lived in fear. If they camped at one pass and captured every merchant, they would incite retaliation that would overwhelm them, though Yebawo was unclear on the exact form. Yet if they did not take enough, their lives would slowly fall apart. At any moment they could be overrun by a more powerful clan, or encounter a merchant who had been able to hire a truly powerful warrior.
Perhaps their bluster was because of their fear, not despite it.
Yebawo himself she struggled to classify due to his simplicity. By most standards, she might consider him a good man. He wanted respect from his people and to bring honor to his clan. Yes, he was preoccupied with finding sexual partners, but his desires seemed harmless and Tani would never judge someone for such.
Yet he was a raider. His stories brushed past untrained people as if they did not matter, yet she discerned that he had killed at least one unarmed merchant and thought nothing of it. Though he was not violent by nature, she worried that the other raiders would lead him to satisfy his desires by force. She found it easy to smile at this Yebawo, yet she wondered how she would feel about the Yebawo of ten years in the future.
If he had been born Nelee, he would have been no different from many other young men she knew. Yet he had not, and he would take a different path without being a different person. This led her to hesitate every time she thought of him as a brutish raider, true though it might be.
Though he seemed deeply incurious about the world beyond his own desires, and knew little that would be useful to her, Yebawo attached himself to her for many days. He tried to pry information about Veron from her and she resisted, leading him to believe that some sort of jealousy was at play. That frustrated her, yet she considered it an acceptable frustration, at least for the time.
One day he spent so much time ogling Veron that she couldn't take it anymore. Anything to shift his thinking elsewhere. "Yebawo, why is your clan called the Earthbreakers?"
"Oh, because of our Fist of Earthbreaking." He struck a fist into a palm and grinned. It was not the most creative name, but she could accept that discussion over many others.
"This is a sein art of your clan? Or... a skill that uses hot blood?"
"I'll not reveal the secrets to you, but yes. Chief and the others can shatter a boulder with a single blow. I cannot yet perform such feats, but I can strike with the Fist of Earthbreaking." Yebawo swelled up with pride. "I am one of the youngest men ever to gain the Fist."
"Then you must be important in your clan?"
"That is... not so. I was just a boy not so long ago and many of the men do not respect me. If we could raid the right caravans, I could prove my worth, but fate has turned itself against me."
"What d-" Tani cut off as she smelled mint. Though not as strong as many moments in her life, it clouded around her in a strange way. She'd only just drawn her sickle knife when several raiders rushed back along the line, panic clear in their eyes.
"Run! Stormpeaks!" Those were all the words she captured before Veron sprinted after them, her sword at her side.
"Stop panicking, idiots! They're herding us!" Veron stopped shouting, ignored, and instead hissed to Tani. "Stronger clan ambushing us. Only good way out is jumping northeast, but I don't know how many can. Get there, I'll bring whoever will listen."
Trusting Veron in this, Tani immediately rushed northeast. The ground was rough, but she easily leapt over the crags. Yebawo managed to keep up with her, though he seemed to leap with brute force alone and struggled with the more difficult jumps.
Behind her, she heard only shouting and panic, little combat. Until a scream of pain that went abruptly silent.
Despite the danger, she found herself thinking about how the raiders so regularly slipped into ambush positions. Given how the Earthbreakers themselves had been ambushed, it seemed they had no defense against the technique, so perhaps it was merely a result of their "hot blood" perspective of sein. She needed a better understanding of her tribe's sensory techniques, though those had long been neglected in favor of her combat skills.
Eventually they reached a sheer cliff wall. Tani did not know the capabilities of these Stormpeak raiders, but she would hope that reaching the top would provide some defense. She could jump, however...
"Do you need me to carry you up?" Yebawo asked. She was momentarily startled, then simply shook her head.
"Thank you, but I can jump. You should start climbing."
That made him frown, but after a worried look back, he did start the climb. Tani attempted to set the danger out of mind to make the leap.
For the most part, she had drawn the art of the Soaring Feet into herself. She leapt as naturally as she breathed, the complex flow of sein through her legs having long ago become second nature. This cliff, however, was much taller than she normally leapt and required a nearly vertical jump.
As she gathered up the sein, drawing the sky down to her, she found her flow faltering. For so long, her view of the sky had been fixed as the endless horizon of the Chorhan Expanse. Here in the mountains, the sky meant something different, and she had slowly absorbed that awareness into herself. She took a deep breath, trying to encompass both her old understanding and the sight of the sky from atop a mountain...
When she leapt, she was startled to find that she cleared the top by several paces and landed hard. Though she hadn't found a new sense for her sein, her understanding had deepened. That would be something to explore, when she was not in imminent danger.
"I'll keep watch," she called down to Yebawo, "but hurry."
"How did you..." He stared up the cliff at her, having only climbed about his own height and struggling with the sheer surface.
"Don't talk, hurry!" Her eyes moved past him, to the forest below, where she saw several movements but no clear battles.
Then two warriors burst from the trees toward the cliff. Instead of mint, Tani felt them as great weights, as if twin mountains rushed toward her. Their overwhelming power made her panic and she hurled three knives toward the first of them.
No, only two. The last slipped from her hand, falling past her absent smallest finger. Her old combat instincts returned in the moments when she most needed to remember what she had lost.
Both of her knives were deflected by one of the Stormpeak raiders. Since her surprise attack had failed, Tani could not help but analyze them more carefully. Both looked similar to the other clans, though they wore dark blue cloths. What struck her most was that one of them was a woman, running alongside her companion without any sign of being viewed as lesser.
