CHAPTER EIGHT | Dalk
Somehow, I had gone from escorting Fiona and the others into Gahn Thaleo’s territory for a day trip to being their chaperone for a period of seven long days. And this would not be the only time, either. It would be seven days after that, and after that, and after that, alternating with stays in Gahn Errok’s mountain until, presumably, the three remaining new women were mated and settled.
Either that or I lost my patience, which was not abundant to begin with, and did something so violent that it put this new arrangement, or even the entire alliance, in jeopardy.
But even if I went rogue and ended up killing half of Gahn Thaleo’s stupid men, I doubted even that would put an end to this new back-and-forth agreement. Gahn Thaleo wanted access to the new women, and perhaps especially Nasrin, no matter the cost. I had no doubt he’d be willing to shed a little blood to do it. No, if I were foolish enough to sacrifice my good sense to the hot anger of my blades and launch some sort of attack, I would likely only get myself banished or even killed.
If I were forcibly removed from these lands or left to bleed out in some dark blue cave beneath the ground, then who would guard Fiona?
Who would make sure she pulled up the hood of her cloak and put on her eye-shells in the sun?
Who would stand beside her – stand right in front of her if he had to, so that no other male was in her line of sight – to help her fulfil the New Year’s Eve kiss the next time it came around?
Though she’d already made it clear such a thing would not happen again, so maybe the point was moot. Although, a human year was much longer than a Sea Sand age. It was 365 days to our 100. That meant I had more than 300 days left to somehow change her mind.
But either way, it was very clear to me now that I would have to hold back my tongues and my weapons. If I caused undue violence here, I would be separated from Fiona one way or another, and that had become a far worse prospect than the idea of stewing in sullen silence under Gahn Thaleo’s insufferable rule.
But the vaklok...
Oh, the vaklok sounded excellent indeed. Though we did not have this exact event in the Sea Sands, I had no doubt there would be some kind of sparring or wrestling involved. At the very least, I’d get to hit some Deep Sky men, or maybe even Oxriel if he participated, and it was with that buoyant thought of inflicting future pain that I forced my feet into step beside Fiona’s as we entered Gahn Thaleo’s mountain.
The first thing I noticed was the light.
This was not so unusual – Gahn Errok had also installed lanterns throughout his mountain – but these lights had not been in Gahn Thaleo’s mountain before, at least not back when I’d been taken prisoner. No doubt they’d been installed at some point after that for the new women’s comfort. The new women did not see well in the dark. Or the sunlight, now that I thought about it, watching Fiona as she removed her eye-shells, folded them up, and placed them in a pocket of her cloak. Something twanged inside me, maybe disbelief, maybe worry at the fact that any creature could be so very vulnerable that she could barely see in either day or night.
None of the new women seemed surprised by the lanterns in the vast, glittering space that greeted us upon immediate entry into Gahn Thaleo’s mountain. The lights must have been here for them last time. Last time, when I’d been too brash in my anger and had elected, or had really been commanded by Valeria, to remain behind at the caves below the Vrika’s peak. I wanted to reach through time and strangle my past self, not enough to kill him, but enough to starve his foolish brain of air just long enough to make him see what a dunce his vengeful rage had turned him into. Because I had threatened Gahn Thaleo and then I had stayed behind that night. And Fiona had gone on without me. Because of that, I was now several large strides behind the others when it came to knowledge of this mountain and everything that had passed since I had last been here.
The next thing I should have been prepared for but was not was the path we took through the mountain. Predictably, we were not led into a cave below ground to be held as prisoners as had been my experience before.
Instead, we followed Gahn Thaleo and his man Warrek up a winding set of stone steps that I’d once seen Priya get taken up. At the very least, this proved that Priya had been well taken care of during that hateful time, and that she had indeed been given comfortable guest quarters. She’d told me that very thing once, that she’d had a very nice cave up here. I had a feeling it was to lessen some of my anger around that whole event. Or maybe it had been try to assuage some guilt she sensed in me, guilt that the other men and I had not been able to protect her and to deliver her back into the Sea Sands as was our original mission. But it gave me satisfaction to see it now. To see that these steps did indeed lead upward into large sleeping caves very much like those occupied by the new women in Gahn Errok’s mountain.
I stayed very close to Fiona’s back as we moved up the steps. Even ahead of me as she was, on the steps above, she was not as tall as I was. She was not especially big as humans went, which meant that she was very small by Sea Sand standards.
“I think this is the same place we stayed last time!” Fiona said, excitement clear in her voice as we turned down a darkened tunnel and emerged into a cave with glittering blue walls. A fire in a pit beneath an opening in the stone crackled, sending warm light licking up the multi-faceted interior, but this was not the only source of light. One side of the cave was not as opaque as the rest. The clear stone allowed a view of the outside, and sunlight seeped in.
“You are correct,” Gahn Thaleo said. He remained in the outer tunnel as our party moved into the cave.
“This was where the Sea Sand guys slept last time,” Fiona explained. She turned around to look at me as she said it, then started, appearing somewhat surprised by my proximity to her back.
“Holy... When did you get there?” she demanded, lurching away from me.
“I have been here the entire time,” I grunted back at her.
“You’re so quiet!” she retorted, an odd pinkness creeping into her cheeks. “Let a girl know you’re looming why don’t you!”
“I am not especially quiet,” I remarked. This was true. In my tribe I was known more for the relentless fury of my strength, for the bludgeoning force of my fighting arm, than I was for stealth.
“Maybe you just do not listen well enough.” I frowned as I studied her. “You should braid your hair,” I added. “Your ears are already small and not optimally-placed. It does not make sense to further hinder them with your own hair hanging over top of them.”
“Wow. Alright. Thank you for your thoughts on my small and non-optimally-placed ears.”
“You’re welcome.”
She gaped at me, then laughed, but it did not sound like one of her usual cheery laughs. It was oddly breathy and a little brittle. I was not sure why she was laughing at all. I was actually rather concerned now about the state of her hearing. She already could not see well under conditions that her human eyes deemed too dark or too bright. None of those things were laughing matters.
In the Sea Sands, good sight and hearing, a solid sense of one’s surroundings, often meant the difference between continuing to draw breath or submitting to a very painful death. One of Baldor’s men, Ark, who’d been blinded by Galok’s mate Kat, had come close to being killed several times since then. He’d regained some of his sight, but not all, and I found myself wondering how much better Fiona could see than him, if at all.
She certainly couldn’t hear any better. At least Ark had his other senses to rely upon, likely further sharpened by his reduced vision.
What did a small, soft new woman like Fiona have?
Me.
The word was so loud in my head it was like someone else had spoken it aloud. I nearly went for a blade to challenge that man even while I came to the understanding that it was only my own thought. A thought so forceful, thunderous with conviction, that it was more sound than mere imagining.
I was almost surprised Fiona did not hear it.
But I suppose I should not have been, given the small and poorly-placed ears still hidden by her long brown hair. She had not started braiding her hair. She had not even tucked the strands behind her ears to give those flat little shells a better chance. My claws twitched, one hand at my side, the other holding the shaft of my spear, as I fought the urge to do it for her.
And I really did have to fight it. Fight the fantasy of letting those shiny strands run over my claws like water before I exposed the curved shapes of her ears to the air. To me.
Fiona was not aware of my internal struggle against my own cursed hands, nor was she likely aware of the oddly tender sort of worry that always started to work its way through my guts when I thought too hard about how weak she really was. She’d turned her back on me and was moving with the other new women towards an opening at the back of this cave. Even with my eyes closed, I could have picked out her footsteps from among all the others. I knew her particular gait by heart, the rhythm of her flat feet in their shells as they hit the floor. Though I had to say, that rhythm seemed a little louder and quicker than usual, her footsteps falling harder than was customary. Like she was pretending they were hammers.
Or she was stomping.
I was not entirely sure why a new woman would stomp. It certainly was not a sign of good humour among Sea Sand men. Frankly, it was something I engaged in myself far too often, especially when I was younger. It was part of the reason I was not known for being particularly stealthy. When I got frustrated (and therefore sloppy) on hunts in my youth, my uncle Taraken used to tell me I’d frighten away an entire herd of dakrival just with the stomping sound of my feet.
I doubted Fiona could frighten away even something as small as a drizelfly.
But still. She stomped.
I followed.
Beyond the first smaller cave was a much larger one. Based on the chatter among the new women, it appeared this had been their sleeping cave during their last visit here. Two very large stone beds stood on either side of the fire, and there was a steaming pool of water that abutted the clear stone wall which allowed in yet more sunlight. Beyond this cave there were small tunnels that led to yet two more sleeping caves beyond, plenty of room for all the new women to spread out and for Grim and Valeria to have a cave to themselves. I stalked through the entire area, tracking along the edges of every wall. I was satisfied that the only way into any of these sleeping caves was through the smallest outer cave where we Sea Sand men would sleep.
Valeria and Grim had retreated to settle into their private cave. Nasrin had done the same thing, claiming the other smaller cave beyond the others, as if she wanted to burrow as far into this mountain, and as far away from Gahn Thaleo, as possible. Zoren and Oxriel returned to the outer cave we would occupy. Tilly went into a little nook that was presumably for pissing and washing up.
Which left only Fiona and me in the largest centre cave.
She appeared to be ignoring me. Something in her silence felt rather pointed. Though I had not a cursed clue as to what it might be pointing at. Brooding on it, I left her there and returned to Oxriel and Zoren.
In this cave where we would sleep there was no steaming pool, but that was fine with all of us, of course. We had our own built in piss-nook with more of that sudsy moss that acted as talka gel out here. Like always, we ignored the structures of the beds, opting to spread the strange, fuzzy hides native to these mountains on the floor, claiming different parts of the cave.
Oxriel attempted to claim the spot that was closest to the crack that led into the short tunnel towards the new women. I snatched up the hides he’d put down, flung them clear across the space, then deposited my own down there instead.
“What are you doing with my hides?” Oxriel asked, retrieving them from where they’d landed precariously close to the fire.
“I am removing them from my sleeping place,” I grunted. To make it even clearer, I sat myself down in the spot on top of the hides. My ears twitched at the sound of Fiona’s voice in the cave beyond. Too muffled to hear the words, but there.
“It is not your sleeping place. It is mine. Hence the fact I put my hides there,” Oxriel countered.
I did not have a good reply to that.
“Well,” I began groping around for a better argument and coming up empty-clawed, “it is mine now.”
“Fine, then,” Oxriel said with false joviality. He approached and then tossed his hides down directly next to my own. “Then we shall share this place.”
“We will not.”
“There is room for both of us.”
“There is not!”
Oxriel leveled his gaze at me, his sight stars usually fairly relaxed and cheerful, but now tight with determination.
“I have just as much right to be close to the new women as you do.”
It was not the new women in general that concerned me. Just one.
Suddenly, I wondered if it was the same for Oxriel.
“Do you have a... a connection... to one of them?” I asked, my words very slow and my voice so controlled I rather thought I deserved some recognition for it.
I would not be so controlled if he told me he was attracted to Fiona.
Oxriel’s tight sight stars misted across his gaze, turning his expression into something so dreamy it looked more like it should belong on the face of a child than that of a man.
“No, no. Nothing like that. There is not one I like above the others. At least, not yet.” He gave a small laugh and settled himself more comfortably on his hides in a way that felt annoyingly permanent, like he was ignoring the fact that he was absolutely not sleeping here tonight. “I don’t know how a male could even choose between them. They’re all so kind. And lovely. And they all smell so good. Have you ever noticed that?”
When I did not answer, Zoren muttered in agreement that he had, indeed, noticed the nice smells wafting off of the new women.
“Nasrin smells very sweet. Actually, so does Tilly,” Oxriel said, as seriously as if he had devoted great study to the topic. “And Fiona-”
“Do not tell me how Fiona smells!” I snapped, leaping off my hides and turning on him with a glare. “If anything, you should be forced to sleep as far away from the new women as possible, if only to save them from your obsessive sniffing and cataloguing of their scents!”
Oxriel looked at me askance.
“Are you telling me,” he said, confusion thick in his reply, “that you have not made note of their scents? That you could not pick out one from the other merely by smell alone? You were the one sniffing your card!”
Of course I could. I’d be able to scent Fiona in the whipping winds of a sandstorm. Nasrin and Tilly, too, but theirs were not scents that haunted me.
“You are being very odd, Dalk,” Zoren piped up most unhelpfully. “It is only natural to notice their scents. I have also learned to identify the scents of Gahn Errok’s tribe. It is no different.”
“Of course it is different,” I hissed, rounding on him. “They are new women. And unless any of us are bonded to one of them, we should not be bemoaning the sweetness of their scents.”
“Easy for you to say,” Oxriel grumbled, still sitting in that stupid spot beside my hides. “You got to kiss one of them.”
“I...” I stared at him, unsure if I should deny it or gloat or smack him. Maybe all three. But instead, I simply mustered up a very undignified, “What?”
“I saw you,” Oxriel said, finally standing up once more and pointing a black claw at the centre of my chest. “At the event of the New Age Eve.”
“It was a New Year’s Eve party,” I said quietly, feeling suddenly awkward in a way I had not experienced since... since...
Maybe ever.
“I saw Fiona throw her arms around you,” Oxriel continued, accusatory, like he was laying out every bad deed of my life. “I saw you bend down to her. I saw her press her mouth to yours. And,” he said with a triumphant spasm of his sight stars, as if he’d somehow cornered me, “I saw how tight your loincloth looked afterwards.”
Never, in all my days in this world, had I ever let another male comment on my loincloth or what lay beneath.
I was so shocked, the feeling shooting straight down to my bones, that for a moment I could not even be angry.
“Zoren,” I said, disbelief slowing my words, “am I mistaken, or did another man just try to tell me about the state of my own loincloth?”
“You are not mistaken,” Zoren replied on a growl, “but do not take that as a reason to drag me into this. You and Oxriel can discuss kisses and loincloths all you want. Leave me out of it.”
“I am not judging you,” Oxriel said quickly, seemingly oblivious to the rage blackening at the edges of my vision. “A man would have to be made of ablik to not respond to such a soft, nice-smelling little creature all pressed up against him with her mouth on his like that. If you had been any other man, and not one prone to such excessive fits of fury, I would have even asked you what it was like.” He sighed, casting a wistful glance towards the new women’s cave, and that alone nearly sent me into one of the aforementioned fits. “I wonder if I’ll get to find out for myself one day.”
“Do not get your hopes up,” I hissed savagely. “Fiona has already told me that such a thing will not happen again.”
“Well, maybe not with you.”
Any other man watching this encounter would have lauded my control up until that point. Would have told me that I was well within my rights to cock my fist and hurl it at Oxriel’s head as fast and as hard as I could, which I did. In fact, there was another man there – Zoren – and he knew better than to even try to stop me.
But Oxriel, insufferably dopey male that he was, was also cursedly quick. He ducked the blow and skidded out of reach, drawing a blade before I’d even turned back around to face him.
I’d fought both against and alongside Oxriel. I’d seen him slice through my tribesmen when Gahn Irokai and Gahn Buroudei’s forces had attacked us in Gahn Fallo’s lands, looking for the new women. I’d watched him shove his blades into the guts of Gahn Baldor’s warriors when that silver-sight-starred Gahn attacked the new settlement in search of Thereeza. And again, more recently, I’d seen his strength when we fought to get Priya back, first from Lerokan, then from Gahn Thaleo’s forces.
All of these experiences, not to mention the look of intense focus in his sight stars now, reminded me that beneath his vapid grins and goofy good moods there was a hardened warrior who would not go down easy.
Ah, well. I did not care if it was easy.
I reached behind my back for a blade.
And promptly froze, claws midway to the weapon. Oxriel stilled as well, his ears pricking back towards the crack that led into the other cave. Fiona was saying something and laughing.
Sea Sands help me. She’d already seen me with my blade aimed at Bariok today and she had not been impressed. What would she think if she came out here now and saw me hacking my way towards the silliest but easily the most well-liked male among us (I could neither account for it nor understand it, but all the new women seemed to enjoy Oxriel’s affable nature, mirroring his constant smiles with their own.)
She would not be happy if I hurt him. She might even start to hate me, if she did not already.
And if she did decide to kiss a Sea Sand male again...
She really might make it Oxriel instead of me.
That thought almost had me abandoning all logic and ripping the blade from my back. Oxriel wouldn’t be able to kiss her if I sliced the lower half of his face off, now would he? But then Fiona spoke again, and it sounded louder this time. Closer. Rage flowing through me like a second, poisoned bloodstream, I clenched my empty fist and let it fall. Oxriel watched me for another moment, then finally relaxed and lowered his blade.
Fiona and Tilly emerged from their cave at that moment. Both of them stopped short at the sight of Oxriel with a weapon in his hands.
“Whoa. What are you doing, Ox?” Fiona asked.
Ox?
“Ah,” Oxriel said, looking down at his blade, almost surprised, as if it had just appeared there while he’d been looking somewhere else. “I thought it needed... sharpening.”
The fact that he would have used the top of my skull instead of a sharpening stone was not specifically mentioned.
“Oh. Right,” Fiona said, accepting that explanation easily. “That makes sense. Guess you have to make sure you’re ready for the vaklok thing. Are all three of you going to participate? Or just Dalk?”
Look at me when you say my name.
She didn’t.
“Yes, I will,” Oxriel said, putting away his blade. “I’m very curious to see what kind of tasks there will be. Displays of strength. Maybe even games.”
“How about you, Zoren?” Tilly asked.
Male of few words, as I’d found most Death Plains warriors to be, Zoren grunted something that sounded like yes but offered nothing more.
“So the whole Sea Sand gang will compete. That’s fun!” Tilly said.
Fiona’s eyes met mine, and before she looked away I thought I saw a little bit of warmth come into the expression. Relief poured into me, and I was suddenly very, very grateful that I had not taken out my weapon as I’d been about to.
“Well,” Fiona said brightly, hands on the small, delirious curve of her hips, “We’ll be cheering you all on!”