21. A Hunt and a Challenge #2
The sound from my throat was strangled. “That is what they want. They want blood on my knife, they want more lives taken, but what if I can’t?
What if I broke myself and I’m broken, and I can never fight again?
What if I’m ruined by his awful, blubbering face?
Like he broke me while he was alive and then he broke me by dying?
” Vrathgar had my shoulder, and I needed to stop, but I couldn’t.
“My mother couldn’t kill my father. She had the chance and she didn’t, and that’s why I’m here.
How many times do we have to kill before we’re allowed to live? ”
His hands closed over mine, and his voice was fierce.
“You don't have to do it again. You don't have to do any of this ever again, do you ken?” He swallowed, like he fought something back.
“You can have a garden and go out and gather leaves and flowers.
You can work with Grezha and bake bread and rest and sing.
The enclave doesn't need another fighter.
I'll fight. You just heal.” There was blood sticky on his skin, but his hands were hot on mine.
“I kill enough for both of us, do you ken?”
Krashak appeared behind him, looking pale, said something in Orcish. Vrathgar nodded at him, turned back to me. “Annora, our friend is hurt. I need you to help.”
I was still shaking like a leaf, stupid with terror.
“Can you help him? Can you help me?”
I pushed to my feet.
Bogdanna had barely had the chance to talk to me about snake bites. Hagnar didn’t appear to be envenomated, but the puncture wounds were deep. One of the fangs had torn down his face to skewer him above the collar bone, the other scoring across his ribs.
They had been applying pressure at the shoulder puncture, because stopping the blood was the first concern.
It was clear he wouldn’t keep the eye, but stitches would help the torn lip, if we could get the rest of the bleeding to stop.
I packed his shoulder with moss and tied the bandages tight.
Larrakh and Tyralk held his hands while I sewed his face back together, already messy because of the swelling.
It was odd that the action calmed me down, like I became a different person, detached.
And even though my throat was tight from crying I managed to sing something stilted, and when I stopped the bleeding had been staunched, and he was unconscious.
Vrathgar crouched next to me in the leaves. “We’ll need to get him back.”
I didn’t answer, still swimming in all the decisions that weren’t mine to make. The love that wasn’t mine to keep.
“We’re allotting out the creature as quickly as we can. There aren’t many of us, and dragging Hagnar will take a lot of our force. But the glory of bringing back an aberration will be good for Tyralk. For all of us.”
“He’ll need Grezha, at the enclave,” I said.
Vrathgar’s lips pressed together. “We’re not going to the enclave,” he said. “We’ll meet them at the Kael, at the Great Stones.” For the trial was what hung in the air, unsaid. Unsayable.
So I’d never see our barren little house again. Not ever again. I nodded, swallowed. “Oh. Good.”
One of them yelled for his help, and he pulled away.
They dragged sledges, one for Hagnar and three for the beast's pieces. I stayed with our wounded as much as I could, foraged medicine and gathered kindling. I was grateful to the cooler weather for keeping the creature’s remains from stinking, and for being the reason that Vrathgar, who between the sledges and patrols was so buried we barely spoke, still lay beside me those nights, with so little said, keeping me warm.
I didn’t sing again, over anyone’s wounds. We couldn’t afford it if more monsters came. No one asked me to sing, and no one talked to me about my weakness in battle. I imagined I had always been bound to mess up badly enough, to become enough of a lost cause that eventually people gave up.
The stones of his people, their “kael,” rose above us on the fourth day. A central obelisk, wrapped in vines, surrounded by other stones flung out wide, a flurry of woven and hide tents splayed in all directions like a festival, bright colors, joyous voices calling the warriors back.
Vrathgar disentangled his arm from mine and went to speak with a tall woman with a severe face, who pointed to another tent. He craned his neck, nodded.
Rowena’s hands fastened on my own, her hair wild, and her cheek flushed.
“How was it?” she asked, and her voice had traces of their accent; she’d spent so much time here that even her speech was affected.
And that made sense; she was the kind of bride they wanted.
She was the one who’d get to stay, who’d get to belong.
“I heard they killed a monster. Grezha is with Hagnar. The water helped you? You’re walking! ”
I just nodded. There wasn’t anything else in me, besides. The tall woman said something sharp, and I made out a name, “Fenha.”
Oh. This must be the aunt he’d talked about. He was checking on his mother.
“Sephar’s grandmother tries to push for the trials to occur with the favorable moon. Her faction is best served if tensions are high moving into the waning crescent.” This felt like gibberish to me. “Are you prepared?” she said. “You’ve made your decisions?”
And what was I supposed to say? No? There would never be a ready. There would never be a time when this was better. She was waiting for an answer. “...sure.”
People were shouting, crowds moving toward the circle, a crush. Above the trees, the moon rose.
Vrathgar was jogging back, caught my arm.
He nodded respect to Rowena, and she withdrew.
Why were they better at talking to each other than I could hope to be?
He pulled me to the side, still in eyesight of the wide circle, and looked down into my eyes.
“I thought we’d have time,” he said. “To talk.”
I stared up at him, the tired lines of his face. We had been traveling through the woods for days with wounded and a dead monster, and we’d barely spoken at all.
“Annora, what do you want?”
Either I was going mad, or he was. “What?”
“The ones who attacked you. Do you want them dead? You’d said you didn’t, once. I…will honor your judgement.”
Oh. That’s what he’d meant. I shook my head. “I don’t care. …no. No, not dead.”
He nodded. “As for being married to me—"
This was how we were going to discuss this. Barely to the side, beside a tent. “Would you like me to kill someone? No? Just checking. About marrying me…”
“—did you want to stay? With the Drashik? We have…we have made a poor showing. I’d meant to…
” He swallowed. Several times. “You have expressed a willingness. To stay physically connected to me. I can offer you some degree of autonomy…” He was pitching a marriage of convenience, sketching a temporary agreement.
He was still talking, and bile rose in my throat.
“This keeps you with your people? With the Drashik?” I stared up, brazen, because I’d already hurt myself too much for it to matter. “If they let you marry me by your laws, it saves you trouble, does it not?”
He hesitated, nodded. “...yes.”
“Then yes. It’s settled. I already married you once. Why would I have objections?” The words were a rock in my stomach.
He frowned, touched my brow. I pulled back, but he didn’t react. “You don’t have a fever,” he said. “The journey has been difficult. You’re tired. You get angry when you’re tired, yes?”
I got angry when a lot of things happened, and very few were connected to being tired.
He paused, still frowning at me, started to speak.
A voice rose above the rest, chanting, a call.
He shook his head, drew me back. “I will talk to you later, if all goes well.”
My stomach clenched. If.
People parted for us, letting us through to the circle’s edge. Some faces were appraising, some hostile. One child made a feral expression, lolling her tongue out. I didn’t want to look at the adults. I didn’t want to think about being weighed by them, about how sorely I’d be found wanting.
The chieftains were already inside that wide circle, speaking.
There were more of them than the last time, a broad man joining, a woman with beads in her hair.
Rowena came up beside me to offer me her power, and I pulled away from her hand, shook my head.
She looked worried, like she was going to argue, but she drew back.
Why understand when I couldn’t speak?
Drazha raised her arms, announcing whatever business. Tyralk produced the trophies from the creature that our party had dragged back along with our wounded, discussions I didn’t need to follow. I had almost managed to take my mind away, when Vrathgar stepped into the circle to speak.
I didn’t need to understand. I shouldn’t want to.
When Sareet charged in to challenge, Larrakh stepped into the middle, the young woman who’d helped drag me into a pit and then spent weeks at my side. Now she shouted, pointed. Pointed at me. I was a thing that could be pointed to. She turned to the chieftains, and went down onto her knees.
There was a murmur, and a silence, and then another of Sareet’s band joined her, then another.
Not all of their number, it seemed, maybe half.
Drazha and the other leaders were arguing among themselves, and then spoke.
Sareet bowed, fury in her face, and stormed out of that ring.
Larrakh slumped forward, planted on the earth.
Vrathgar reached out a hand, to help her up.
I knew when the trial was for me because everyone was staring.
That wasn’t new. The only nice thing now was that when they murmured, it didn’t matter, because I wouldn’t understand.
Balnoc, his promised supporter from the Droth, was absent. Vrathgar held out his hands, supplicating.
There was no Sephar.