PULL ME UNDER - Warriors - Fifteen

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Warriors

Fifteen

They stole the village smiths, and their carpenters and craftsmen. That was the most valuable prize of their raids, those skills. The Stenya were just happy to be kept alive, swinging a hammer was a small price to pay, and if they spoke a passable pidgin it made it easier to boss them around. Tanner would walk by them and their eager apprentices (also stolen) to watch them build armour scale by scale, hammer out shield bosses, make spear shafts and warcarts and whatever other implements of destruction they were told to make with a high chance it was going to be used on their own people. He didn’t question how the system worked. If it were the other way around, the Stenya would do the same thing. That’s just how it was, here. So he would walk through the growing camp, watch them work, paid attention to their motions and wondered often how these stout, sturdy, illiterate villagers managed to figure all that out.

The clan grew large enough it was beginning to cause strain on the countryside from the animals and a logistical headache for the long-suffering Grandmothers. More and more came together under the red-and-gold banners with the swirls and the eagle head silhouetted, hastily stitched. The Black Eagle Banner, folks called it. He quite liked the name.

There was a change in the air, and it got thicker every time Tanner rode ahead to meet with the other clans, to arrange meetings with their warriors and hype the arrival of Ddun and Lauren (mostly Lauren, they wanted to see her to believe the stories, and the stories were more fantastical every time he was asked about their truth. It was all true, every word, he assured them with tenacity.) Every clan camp had at least one gorgeous girl in it, and that was very much a perk of being the messenger, especially if the clan supported Ddun’s cause, determined to leave an army of little Tanners in his wake.

“Soon we’ll all have to ride ahead of the train, to make it to the moot in this weather. We’ll go along the river, should take us about ten days from here.” Ddun traced a line on an ornately carved wooden map, three fingers thick as if originally intended as a butcher block. A very skilled Stenya carver did it up for them. Not even stolen, a genuine gift. As genuine as the other gifts they received in trade for the promise of not destroying their homes. The Stenya homeland far to the west was much richer in trees, and they often traded in lumber in lieu of gold, and that was perfect for the war effort against themselves, too.

Tanner had told the other warriors once, Ddun listening intently, knowing how the Stenya think as someone who grew up in a stationary dwelling, their permanence is their most valuable thing. The stones that make their homes and their walls represented themselves, their desire to be there forever. Unlike the Dvarri or the Peiransi, they couldn’t just pick up their homes and flee. That’s how you threaten the Stenya, not with death, but with erasure.

And it worked, more than Tanner wanted to think about.

Ddun was getting better at this leadership thing by the day; an efficient, hard motherfucker. Quick to learn, willing to listen. Easy to respect a man like that, and most men saw it fast, once their eyes moved over Lauren to the big man.

“Any riders from Kaddusk?” Ddun asked the men surrounding the map.

Broad shoulders and one eye, Borga (who had always left Tanner and Lauren alone until his wizened age and arms like tree trunks became an asset to Ddun, and by all measures was an unshakable tightass unless he was drunk) spoke up. His voice was gritty like a chain-smoker. “Yesterday. Rudda has the castle ready, but he says already the crowds gathered may overwhelm the place.”

Ddun took his finger further down the map, to the south, an intersection of roads and rivers. “Messages from Kisku confirm Grandfather is there. No sight of Meired, but she kept hidden in Kaddusk as well, so there’s no doubt in my mind she’s there.”

“There’s the matter of food distribution…” an old man said. Tanner was looking down at the map, not listening, the edges carved in idealized swirling animal imagery, the lacquer made from some rare beetle to make it so brilliant. Lamplight reflected off the wood as if the light came from within it.

Ddun and the other warriors had already been there for hours, and would continue on into the night, the large tent becoming hotter in the winter chill just from them all breathing in it. Lauren sat behind Ddun, a spindle in her hand, eyes dark with kohl and glazed in boredom. Threaded gold silk and beads through her hair, shearling vest over a billowing wool blouse, open down the front showing off a necklace of gold coins on a strand of amber beads. Shirts had come out of trunks after the recent full moon, there was a big party and all the women got to drunkenly darn moth holes or add new ribbons to edges.

There was no denying she did look like royalty now, and no one spoke to her. Whether it was out of reverence or fear, of her or Ddun, Tanner couldn’t say.

Then the ale came, unrelenting, and Tanner decided it was time to usher his sister out of there before it got embarrassing, not taking a drop for himself.

They found a nice patch of frozen moss and laid back to look at the sky. Uncountable stars in constellations now familiar all glinting at them, the moon a coy sliver. They stayed like that for a long while, letting the wet cold of the ground seep up into their clothes, his head empty but for the stars. She sighed, breaking the silence.

“What’s wrong?”

It took her a moment to speak. “I’m just… Do you ever think about what’s happening to us?”

“Yeah. But it doesn’t bother me.”

“How?”

He scratched at his foot through his felt boots. “I’m not sure. It just, seems normal now. I guess.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what is it?”

She stayed silent, fingers fidgeting at the beads at her neck. “I’m afraid.”

His lips tightened, trying to think of how to lift her spirits. He couldn’t think of anything. A goat trotted over and nibbled some frozen shrub by his head, Lauren tried to pet the thing, only to spook it in the dark and it skipped away, bleating. Even the goats avoided her. His heart hurt to see her so low. So he sang for her a while, watching her as she watched the stars.

***

The girl in Tanner’s tent coiled his necklace in her fingers, each bone clicking musically against the others as she fiddled with it. She had lambent green eyes and always looked at him with borderline disgust, and that only made him grab at her more tenaciously, her nipple under his thumb. “Would you make one of these for me?” Her voice was like liquid gold and he kissed her throat at the sound.

“Of course I would.”

“Liar. You don’t even know my name.”

“I barely knew her name, either.”

She slapped him, giggling. “You’re a licentious toad.”

“Guilty.”

“It’s Irynna.” She twiddled a fingerbone, frustratingly unresponsive to his hands running over her curves.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

Irynna came in with the newest clan to join their ranks, a humble family unit of black-haired falconers with a herd of geese and ducks to add to their ever increasing need for meat and fat, and plump, domesticated versions of those lizard-birds that laid surprisingly delicious eggs (which were simply called chickens.) It all provided the clan feathers for fletching, too, which was becoming increasingly important. But that wasn’t what interested Tanner, that was all Ddun’s headache.

Of the entire clan she was the most ruthless of them, with her eyes alone. He couldn’t stand how she looked at him, even more how she didn’t look at him. It took a lot of persistent ogling and boastful flirting and playing the balaik at her before she finally relented and took her clothes off. She had a jagged scar above her right breast, a contrast of peach on her coppery, freckled skin, and he ran a finger along it. It looked like it had been there a long time.

“Aren’t you going to ask about it?”

He shook his head, smirking at the repulsed glare she sent him at his response.

“I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”

“Good, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“It happened when I was a girl—” he interrupted with a fierce kiss as he climbed on top of her, ready to burst with frustration if he didn’t take her right then and she squeaked adorably. Even as he rattled her brains she looked up at him with a look like she hated his guts, put her nails to his shoulders and that only made him rattle her more viciously until her squeaks turned to deep groans. That perfect pleasured face was like heaven, she was too lost in the moment to remember she was supposed to be looking at him like he offended her. It was a victory.

Then when he lay on top of her, both slick with sweat and shuddering, she rolled her head to the side, with a crooked, disinterested smile, and they both fell asleep.

She woke up first, fed the fire and brought in a platter of preserved fruit and cheese. “Come hunting with me,” she said, sitting cross-legged and her jet-black hair was loose and long over her shoulders.

“Hunting?” He didn’t expect that from a woman. She looked at him down her nose, dead serious.

“That’s what I said.”

He watched her for a moment, a swirl in his stomach. “I’ll have to see if there’s time.”

“Leaving for the moot?”

“Mmhm,” he said through a bite of fruit on cheese.

“Is your sister going?”

“Ddun doesn’t go anywhere without her.”

“Because she’s a witch?”

“Are you?”

Her eyes narrowed at him, steam rising from them if he imagined the fire. “No,” she shook her head with a jut of her chin. “But I’ll curse you just the same.”

“For what?”

“Being so insufferable. And not going hunting with me.”

That damn look. He kicked the tray out from between them and ravished her mercilessly again.

She helped him dress, deft fingers at the leather ties and bronze fittings. When she pulled up his jacket over the wool tunic, she eyed the filthy band patches as if trying to decipher them. “What would we be hunting?” he asked, secretly begging for her to lift her face to him again.

An eyebrow went up in a succulent arch. “Whatever my falcons can catch.” She didn’t look up at him.

Ddun and the others were all finishing up with the horses, a slave carried Tanner’s things and his horse was readied. Lauren sat on a stack of felt and canvas all rolled up and ready to be loaded onto carts, staring off into the foggy distance with a blanket pinned around her shoulders, a section pulled up over her head to keep her cozy. He sat next to her, though neither of them spoke, the frost on the grass melting as the sun went higher.

Tanner led the group, a tall banner attached to his saddle barely flapping at his modest pace. They were far enough out that the giggling children stopped trying to run alongside them and the sounds of the camp were gone. The sky cleared and the air was clean and quiet. He closed his eyes, lifting the mask up to get his cheeks some sunlight, the horse meandered from lack of input as Tanner indulged in his enjoyment.

The cry of a bird shocked him back to reality, circling over his head. A falcon ready to kill something. Then a whistle at a distance, and he looked over his shoulder to the source of the sound, steadying his horse to keep on forward. A hunter.

Irynna, he realized with a spark in his cranium, seeing her hair twist in the breeze from under the shearling cap. Leather breeches darkened with wear and a man’s long quilted coat, bow and arrows at the saddle and a thick red glove on one hand extended out as a perch. The falcon landed with a satisfied flutter, and she gave him a little morsel for his trouble. She didn’t follow after Tanner as he kept his pace, she didn’t wave him on. He wished he was close enough to see her eyes so he could discern the look on her face as she watched him ride, that cloyed, infuriatingly pretty mock-hatred still fresh in his head.

***

Kaddusk was bloated, bursting at the edges. Loud, alive, and stinking. Not at all how Tanner remembered it, and the energy was refreshing. He took a deep chesty breath of the rank smoke and fish and open sewered streets with a smile. Rudda had already met them with warm embraces and laughed insults, congratulating Tanner genuinely for earning his mask, while they all waited in their camp at the outskirts surrounded by painted stones of an arena. Wares on display, a choice of performances. Everyone looking to make money off this moot was there, musicians and artists and whores, the place was a circus.

Lauren loved the plays. She lit right up at the costumes and outrageous exaggerated speech, the fluidity of the poetic language. Ddun was busy with Rudda and Borga and all the rest so it was just the siblings dragging their heels and stretching their necks. “It feels like I’m hiding in plain sight,” she admitted, since the crowds of strangers didn’t give her any feared glances. He noticed a couple tilted stares at them, but that was all.

“That’s alright with you?”

“That’s perfectly fine with me.”

They walked on and got some food, fried dumplings stuffed with goat meat and a peppery sauce. They walked down to the lake, to take in the view of the mountains, eating as they went. Admiring everything and nothing.

An oddly familiar voice psst at them from the shadows of a lean-to.

The beggar.

“I know you,” Lauren said, breathy. “You were there that night.” She stepped toward the man.

“Yes, I was.”

“I have to thank you,” Tanner said, a hand outstretched. “It would have taken us a lot longer to find her if it weren’t for you.”

He was skinnier than before, but his eyes were still bright with mischief. “Where are you both from?”

“We’re from the westlands—”

“No, I mean, where are you from.”

Tanner retracted his hand in a flinch. It took a moment to convince himself he did understand the question. “C-canada.”

The beggar began to shake, eyes clenched shut and teeth bared in a hideous cry, he fell to his knees and Lauren fell with him to let the old man sob into the blanket. Tanner couldn’t shake the strange, electric feeling in his bones to watch. He didn’t notice it before. There was something in the air, a shimmer, it felt unnatural, like the beggar wasn’t supposed to be there. But neither were they. “And what about you?” Tanner asked, to interrupt the crying.

The beggar sniffed back his sobs, held himself at arm’s length from Lauren and apologized for the smear of dirt he left on her. “You two have really made it, huh?” He nodded, though Tanner didn’t know at what. “I’m from Arizona. Little town north of Phoenix. What year was it, when you came through?”

“1999,” Lauren answered him, voice distant, “May long—the 24th.” She cleared her throat, blinking back tears. Tanner felt increasingly uncomfortable at this conversation. “Why don’t we get you a place to stay, somewhere. Some fresh clothes. We can talk inside where it’s warm. What’s your name?”

“Wyatt. I haven’t seen my wife and kids since ‘83.”

Tanner was cold all through, hairs standing on end to see the man crying, desperately clinging to the shreds of his former life that he saw in the two of them.

The scene brought up the thought Tanner always avoided, denied, it crept in and really soured his mood: I’m going to grow old here.

Lauren walked with Wyatt, hand in the crook of his arm, and they took him to get a beer and soup and just let him eat. Tanner couldn’t pin down why exactly it made him so uncomfortable, but it did.

When he first slipped the copper coins into a hand that belonged to some old Peiransi “you knew what I was carrying, and you were the only one who knew about Meired.”

“Yup, I did. Just about shit when I saw it. And I knew as soon as I saw this young lady pop into existence at the dock,” he waved the wooden spoon at Lauren with a wink, “she wasn’t local. And not just because of her clothes. That’s why Meired had her. We give off a sort of vibe, see. We don’t notice it unless we’ve been here a while, but every one of them can see it. Like an aura. It’s, uh, sort of a feeling they get. Like you just don’t belong. I bet you’ve both felt how they look at us.” He sipped from the bowl.

Tanner didn’t feel it from the others, but he knew Lauren did. If it were true, she got it double, or she had Tanner’s share. Or, maybe he was too dense to notice. But the way Wyatt kept referring to the people here, as if they were separate from himself, threw doubt in Tanner’s head. Maybe that was the real reason Wyatt could never become part of things, and all this bullshit about vibes was just him being a nutjob.

Then again, Tanner himself felt it when he looked at the old man. He didn’t know what to believe. Lauren looked as if she was buying it.

“See, I keep to the shadows here. Meired—if that’s the ‘witch’—never noticed me. I’ve travelled all over. I keep looking for those towers—see it? In the castle. Reminds me of radio towers. But they aren’t.

“I always wanted to travel, and so, since I came through and realized I was untethered from any responsibilities I thought, well, fuck it, that’s what I did. Like a genuine hobo. When I got here to Kaddusk, things felt different. Something made me stick around. Plus, I’m getting old. I figure, there are worse places to die. When it’s my time I’ll walk straight into Lake Kadd and take a lungful. Won’t be long now.”

“You don’t have any hopes to return home?” Lauren asked.

“After fifteen years? No. Let them think I got abducted by aliens or something.” He laughed and coughed. “I’m sixty-two, getting old for a wanderer around here. Why go home? I sure as hell miss television though. Maybe that’s why I like that tower so much.”

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Hey everyone! I don't normally postscript these chapters, but I just wanted to give a reminder: Pallas ebook pre-orders are up and the paperbacks are all set to go live on July 18th! That’s only 2.5 weeks away! Take a peek at the first chapter and find all the relevant links:

Also, Happy Canada Day!

Cheers!