16. When he wanted, he radiated warmth. #3
“I do not know the name of the religion; I didn’t speak their language, and they spoke very little of mine.
When I was young, however, travelers came to our home and brought with them their holy objects.
They wished to expand their horizons, and they traded these bowls for some of our holy pieces.
We gave them idols, carved representation of our gods.
It turns out their bowls were a little more than met the eye.
For those with pure spirit, pouring water in the bowl will create sanctified fluid.
It is akin to holy water, I suppose. For those with an impure spirit, the bowl will turn on them.
You could pour water in the bowl and splash it onto Breckenan and seal his fate—or he could try to take the bowl from you and seal his fate that way.
But for him, a single touch would be death, be it from its waters or even from the bowl itself.
You could throw it at him, and it would be a most potent weapon in your arsenal. It will not break.”
I eyed the bowl with interest. “I could beat him to death with this?”
“Well, you could try. There would not be much left of him after the first blow.”
Pleased with what I heard, I smiled and gave the rim of the bowl a gentle kiss. “I’m going to take good care of you, sweetie.”
Emerick sighed. “Are you going to kiss every weapon you use?”
“Unless it is poisoned, yes. Don’t worry, I’ll save some kisses for you. You don’t have to be that jealous.”
My father snickered. “Leave him to his amusements, Pepper. Kissing your weaponry is not necessary, but if it makes you happy, kissing it, as long as it is not toxic to you, is fine.” My father pointed at one of the larger stakes in the pile.
“That one, for example, would be unwise to handle without gloves. I would definitely advise against kissing it.”
Outside of a few darker patches on the otherwise pale wood, it appeared to be a standard stake carved in the shape and length of a javelin. “What is it?”
“The heartwood of an African Padauk tree was soaked in curare, cured in fire and sunlight, and underwent several processes to turn it into a stake. Magic preserves the wood and the toxin. Exposure to the poison will result in the paralysis of the respiratory system. It is a nasty stake—spear, really. There is a charm that renders the wielder immune to the curare, and I’ve made some requests for the Europeans to bring enough to give everyone one.
I only have four of them with me. I plan on giving you and your husband one each, I will take the other, and Ben will take the last one.
That will let us all make use of the spear with limited risk. Kissing that one is not advised.”
“I will not be kissing that stake directly. Instead, I shall blow it little kisses and promise I love it just as much as the others.”
Heaving a pained sigh, my father dipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out a leather cord with a wooden coin pendant, and tossed it to me.
“Put that on before you handle it, but if you want that awful thing, you may have it. Do not remove that charm until we are done. The leather and wood are impervious to water and most forms of damage.”
The coin and cord landed in the bowl, which glowed with a golden light. As it was already tied and large enough to slip over my head with ease, I put it on before tucking the bowl under my arm with the opal stake and leaning over the pile to retrieve the poisoned stake. “Is it a spear or javelin?”
“It can be thrown quite well, so javelin is as good a term as any. Do not throw that at anyone you do not want dead. That one knows its job, and it does it well.”
I raised the weapon in salute. “Do you have a less toxic javelin I can practice with in the meantime?”
My father considered the pile and pointed at an opal stake in similar length and girth as mine. “That one is a little heavier, but it will be a good learning tool. Emerick can use it during our hunt after you have finished training with it.”
That worked for me. “Introduce yourself to it nicely, but make sure it knows I’ll be using it for learning, too,” I told my husband. “Do you have anything else worrisome in that pile, Dad?”
“Everything in that pile is worrisome, my daughter. I brought weapons of war, not peace offerings, after all.”
One day, I would sit down with my father and ask him the many questions rattling around in my head, from peace offerings to old traditions and beliefs lost to time. “How are we going to handle the girls?”
“We will have three teams dedicated to their defense while we go on the offense. That should be sufficient to protect them for this. The teams volunteered, and they will be armed with some of the nastier weapons in this pile. We will be going on the offense. Your nature is much like mine, and there is only so much waiting we are willing to do before it is time to act. I can promise this much, however: vengeance will be ours. Our prey will find out that choosing to be good is not a decision to be weak. No, if anything, we are even more dangerous because we have been pushed to the point we must do whatever it takes to see him eliminated.”
“Even evil,” I muttered.
“Especially evil—or evil as many perceive it. Our prey lacks honor, and as such, we will go in doing everything they do not expect of us.”
“Ambushes, stabs in the dark, and violence without warning?” I smiled at that. “That isn’t evil. That’s just prudent when faced with a capable target also willing to do those things. I don’t see the problem.”
My father shrugged. “Neither do I. And if we dirty our hands a little, that’s what penance is for. And we do little acts of evil for the greater good. It’ll be fine.”
“Those are famous last words, Dad.”
“Not today, Pepper. I’m just speaking the truth.”