Iron Axe (26 page)

Aisa stared wildly about the room, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. Kalessa regained her feet and stood with her sword at the ready until the last of Hamzu's yells disappeared. Only then did she sheathe her weapon and drop to one of the upright benches. Old Aunt poked calmly at the fire with her stout stick, as if watching children at play. Silence fell over the room. It lay thick and heavy. Outside, a bird called, and then another. At last, with a pang, Aisa noticed the blood running down Kalessa's arm.

“You are hurt!” she said.

“Scratches,” Kalessa said, but winced as Aisa gently probed them. Aisa felt Kalessa's pain in her own arm, and she got angry all over again at Hamzu, and then she felt confused. That couldn't possibly have been him, could it? He would never do such a thing, and he certainly could not have found this place.

“These must be cleaned and bandaged.” Aisa leaped to her feet, glad of something to take her mind off what she had just seen. “I'll get my—”

“Everything you need is in the cupboard over there.” Old Aunt pointed with her stick. “And get me some more smoke-leaf for my pipe, while you're at it. I'm nearly out.”

Aisa opened the cupboard and found jars and boxes of herbs and distillations, liquors and pastilles, all neatly labeled in both pictures and words. Many she had only heard of but never had the chance to use. A set of tiny knives and needles hung on the door, and a large basket contained ample supplies of thread, sinew, and bandages. She pulled down what she needed and took it back to Kalessa, who bore Aisa's ministrations stoically, though the liquor she used to clean the
wounds must have hurt like fire. Aisa felt awful about causing her new sister more pain, but there was no way around it.

“I'll be quick,” she promised, and set her jaw. “Old Aunt, who was that and how did he find this place?”

“You tell me, dear.” Old Aunt drew idle designs on the hearthstones with her stick. “You brought him here.”

“I did no such thing!”

“You are pressing that wound very hard, my sister,” Kalessa said. Her white tunic was a wreck.

“Sorry.” Aisa let up. “I did not bring Hamzu here. You know that.”

Old Aunt blew out more pipe smoke. “Child, do you know why you're here?”

“No.” Aisa continued to work. The wounds were clean. Kalessa was sitting in a puddle of blood and liquor, but at least the bleeding had slowed.

“You are here because if the Tree tips with you in your current condition, everything will go as wrong as a cat in a soap kettle. Hamzu there showed it.”

“I do not understand.” Aisa reached for bandages. “Why do people who have knowledge never speak plainly about it?”

“Hamzu did, and you found it unpleasant,” Old Aunt shot back.

“That was unfair.”

“Was it?” Old Aunt's voice was kind. “Tell me what happened, then.”

Aisa started to refuse, but then her brown eyes met Kalessa's golden ones. Kalessa touched Aisa's hand in a quiet gesture she hadn't felt since her mother died. “I would like to hear, too, sister.”

And so she talked while she wound bandages. Once she got started, it was easier to talk than she thought. She told the entire story, starting at Hamzu losing his splinters at the meeting
with the Three, and ending with his betrayal. Kalessa and Old Aunt merely made encouraging noises and listened. When Aisa finished, she felt wrung out, and her eyes were wet.

“Hmm,” said Old Aunt. “That was a difficult thing for you.”

“To say the least,” Aisa replied.

“Does he hate you that much, do you think?”

“Hate me?”

“Oh my, yes. To touch you with truth that way, he must despise you very much.”

Aisa cast about, confused. “No . . . I don't think he despises me.”

“Then why would he do such an awful thing?” Old Aunt said. “I'm not being sarcastic, child. That's an honest question. If he doesn't hate you, why would he hurt you so much?”

“I don't know,” Aisa said shortly. Lying. Who did this old woman think she was?

“Kalessa is here for a reason, you know,” Old Aunt said, abruptly changing the subject in the ruined kitchen.

“Am I?” Kalessa perked up a bit. Her bandage made a neat sleeve around her upper arm.

“You're Aisa's defender. I told you that in this place, illusions come to die. Aisa's half-troll love—”

“He's no such thing!” Aisa protested.

Old Aunt shrugged. “Half-human love, then. That image of him, the image that you hold, comes here to die, and it will keep coming here until it has no reason to return.”

“I see. My sister is deceiving herself,” Kalessa said.

“Indeed.” Old Aunt sucked her pipe, and it made a dry sound. She set it aside. “You, my little orc, have an utter lack of self-deception. Refreshing, really. Since you have no illusions to fight, you can defend Aisa from hers. Until she stops calling them here.”

“I have no illusions about Hamzu!” Aisa said. “None!”

Loud footsteps tromped outside. They grew louder.

“Really? Because it sounds like
none
is coming closer by the moment, and your champion is wounded.”

Kalessa got to her feet and hid a wince. “I will defend you, sister. He will not hurt you.”

Aisa saw the pain Kalessa was trying to hide, and she cursed the fact that she knew nothing of blades and armor. The coming footsteps grew louder, each one a doom.

“Why would he hurt you if he doesn't hate you?” Old Aunt repeated softly.

Aisa licked dry lips. “He wouldn't. Not on purpose.”

Outside, the footsteps paused.

“Then why did he hurt you?”

“I don't know.”

The footsteps started again, louder. The cottage floor shook, and dishes rattled in the cupboards. Aisa wanted to curl up into a ball on the floor. Kalessa moved stiffly toward the door.

“Speak, girl,” Old Aunt said. “He's coming again.”

The words spilled out of her. “He . . . maybe it was a mistake. He didn't mean to do it, but he still did it, and it hurt me.”

The footsteps paused again, just outside the open door. A shadow fell across the threshold, big and black and heavy. Kalessa tensed, her sword ready. Sweat trickled around Aisa's hairline and ran down her cheek.

“It hurts most when someone you love betrays you, doesn't it?” Old Aunt said.

The shadow leaned forward.

“Yes,” Aisa whispered in a tiny voice. That one word pulled the secret out of her like a baby bloody from the womb and laid it on the table for all to see. She squinched her eyes closed, waiting for the inevitable blow to come—either a physical blow or a blow of painful words. But none came. She opened her
eyes and saw only Old Aunt nodding at the hearth and Kalessa reaching forward to embrace her, the sword in its sheath.

“I am glad my sister has a love,” she said into Aisa's ear. “Everyone should be in love. Warriors fight better when they love together, and lovers love better when they war together. I hope you find Olar and Grick's own happiness with him.”

The tension drained away, and Aisa felt strangely light. They hadn't judged her or said a single cruel word. She might float away, up the chimney and into the sky to Valorhame itself.

The shadow at the door paused, then slipped away without another sound. Kalessa let out a burst of breath.

“Well,” Old Aunt said, drawing on the hearth again. “He betrayed you, no question, and it was cruel. But he didn't intend to do it, and you still love him. Can you forgive him?”

Aisa blew her nose on a spare bandage. “I hope so. I think so. Is this enough?”

“For today, yes. And now it is time for daily work. You haven't brought me any smoke-leaf, my kitchen must be put aright, and the feather beds haven't been touched. Work, girl! Work, work,
work!”

A
isa spent days and days cleaning and cooking and sweeping and hauling. And when that daily work was done, she dragged each of a dozen heavy feather beds to the door and beat them until white feathers flew. Kalessa, meanwhile, rested her arm and sharpened metal and, once the bandages came off, helped lift what Aisa could not. Although the work was the same as the slave labor she had done for Frida and Farek, it was also nothing like it. Here, she woke up every morning in a room she could latch, she dressed in fresh clothes and scarves (though she still left her hands bare), she ate fine meals, and she enjoyed simple conversation with her sister and Old Aunt. Often, when she spoke, it was about Hamzu, of how they had met, and of his dreams, and how he had saved her life and of how she secretly hoped they could find a life together. It would be difficult—a human and a half-blood Stane, but when had life ever been easy for either of them?

One day, Aisa asked Old Aunt, “Isn't everyone at the tribe worried about us?” Strange that it had never occurred to her to think of this before. And she had forgotten all about the Iron Axe.

“Worried?” Old Aunt poked at the fire with her stick. When Aisa looked closely at it, she saw intricate carvings on the smoke-blackened surface, and the carvings seemed to writhe. The stick fascinated her, and she wondered where Old Aunt had gotten it.

“We've been here for days and days,” Aisa reminded her. “They'll think we've disappeared.”

“I wouldn't concern myself over it, dear. You have other problems to think about.”

Aisa, who was scrubbing a tabletop, stopped. “Like what?”

The kitchen door slammed open. Farek stormed into the room. Aisa's blood chilled and her bowels ran with ice.

“I've found you, little slut!” He was taller than she remembered, and fatter. With every step, he grew bigger and fatter until the floor creaked beneath his bulk. Spittle drooled from his pudgy lips, and his sausage fingers reached forward, ready to press her under his body and suffocate her. Aisa's every muscle was paralyzed with fear. Suddenly she was back in the stable, with the smell of goat shit and the sound of cows lowing around her, and Farek was shoving her down and pushing aside her clothes and grunting in her ear and filling her with cold and ice. He was trapping her again, ready to take her to the floor.

And then Kalessa was there. She slammed into fat Farek from the side. He made an “oof”
sound and went down. Kalessa went with him. They rolled across the floor, crashing into tables and overturning benches. Kalessa flailed at Farek with a fury, kicking and punching in a whirlwind fury, but Farek's impossible bulk seemed only to absorb the blows. He laughed and pawed at Kalessa as they fought. Somehow he managed to roll on top of her, and his heavy weight pressed her down. Kalessa gasped for air. Aisa's own breath strangled in her throat, and still she couldn't move.

“You're mine,” Farek gasped into Kalessa's ear. “All mine.”

The awful words spoken to Kalessa shattered Aisa's paralysis. Her fear evaporated, replaced with hot anger and desperation. She snatched a butcher knife off the table and slid it across the floor toward Kalessa. Her hand closed over the handle. Kalessa swung, and the knife connected with a meaty
thunk.
Farek howled in pain and outrage. Blood gushed down his side. He rolled off Kalessa and scrambled to his feet while Kalessa coughed and gasped. Farek tried to swing at her with his fist, but Kalessa ducked and sliced him with the knife instead. More blood flowed.

Clutching at his bleeding forearm, Farek snarled, “You'll pay for that later, little slut!” Then he lumbered out the door and disappeared.

Aisa ran over to help Kalessa to her feet. “You call up some terrible illusions, sister,” she said. “Even for a human.”

Guilt washed over Aisa. Twice Kalessa had taken pain meant for Aisa herself. Twice Aisa had come close to losing her entirely. Now that the fight was over, the realization that Farek—or this image of him—could have killed Kalessa made her shake with unrealized panic.

“I'm so sorry,” Aisa whispered. “So sorry.”

“No, no.” Kalessa dismissed her apology. “It was foolish to let him close to me like that. My fault.”

“You must not take such risks on my behalf.” Aisa brought her to a bench while Old Aunt wordlessly relit her pipe at the hearth. “You must not—”

Kalessa flared. “What sister would deny me the honor of fighting for her?”

“I . . . I don't . . .”

“You, Aisa, must occasionally let people take care of you,” Kalessa said, “instead of always taking care of others. Oh yes, I know. Your sharp tongue disguises your need to do this, but even the healer sometimes needs—ow!” She gasped, cursed, and gasped again.

“A pig fell on you and hurt your ribs,” Aisa observed tartly. “You are to stay as still as possible while I make medicine.” Then her voice softened. “And I will make no more remarks about your risks if you make no more remarks about my sharp tongue.”

“Agreed. Sister.”

“It's not over yet, dear,” said Old Aunt as Aisa rummaged through the medicine cupboard. “Why did you bring Farek here?”

“I didn't bring—”

Heavy, fat footfalls fell outside the open cottage door. Aisa froze.

“Well?” Old Aunt asked. “You hated Hamzu, or you claimed to. Farek, another big man, is someone you fear. Why is that?”

Aisa stood paralyzed again in front of the cupboard. The words stuck in her throat. For some reason, the hunger for elves awoke and raged through her.

“He's an illusion,” Old Aunt said. “He's only big and powerful because you remember him that way. How much power do you want to give him?”

“Farek has power,” Aisa cried. “He hurt me.”

“In what way did he hurt you?” Old Aunt asked in her relentlessly gentle voice.

The footsteps grew louder again.

“He
raped
me,” Aisa shouted. “He took me into his stable two and three times a week and pushed me to the floor and he raped me.”

The footsteps paused.

“The bastard,” Kalessa spat. “I'll cut his balls off.”

“I'm so sorry,” Old Aunt said quietly. “That was a terrible thing he did to you. It was awful and unfair and horrible in the worst way. I can't think why anyone would do something so horrifying to someone so kind.”

The acknowledgment of the pain ran through Aisa like hot water through ice. It was the first time anyone had recognized her ordeal for what it was, and she hadn't realized how powerful that simple act could be. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes and choked her throat. The hunger prowled through her like a ravenous tiger. Words spilled out of her.

“I'm not kind,” she said. “I have a sharp tongue and Farek was punishing me for it. I deserved everything he did to me.”

Farek's heavy shadow appeared in the doorway, and his harsh whisper wafted through. “. . .
you're mine . . .
”

“No,” Old Aunt said. “No one deserves such things. Farek wasn't punishing you. He was a cruel man who only thought of his own pleasure.”

“But—”

Old Aunt quietly got to her feet, leaning on her stick, and the presence of the goddess Grick filled the cottage. Walls groaned and shadows fled. “Remember who I am, girl, and remember the authority behind my words.”

Aisa swallowed. It was true. Old Aunt was so down-to-earth and . . . grandmotherly, Aisa had forgotten who she really was. Resolve filled Aisa. Strength returned to her limbs, and she stormed over to the open door. Farek was just outside, leering and grasping with his sausage fingers. Blood ran down his face and side. The awful hunger raked at her, goaded her.

“You're
nothing
to me!” she spat. “You have no hold on me or mine. You are no man, and dog shit has more honor.”

With every word, Farek shrank. His fat melted away and he grew smaller and smaller, until he was the size of a man, a child, a dog. He looked up at her in fear. The hunger abruptly let up.

“Go fuck a goat!” she snapped, and slammed the door.

“That's my sister!” Kalessa said from her bench.

Old Aunt sank back to her stool by the fire. “Very nice. Good delivery, fine timing, excellent grasp of the vernacular. But I wonder . . .”

Aisa, who was leaning with her back against the door and feeling amazing, proud, and powerful, gave a heavy sigh. “What now?”

“You once told Talfi that you never wanted a man to touch you again.” Old Aunt blew out a cloud of aromatic smoke. “Is that really true?”

“I . . .” Aisa paused. She had been about to say it was indeed true, but suddenly she wasn't so sure. “I do not know.”

“Well, then, how about we get this mess cleaned up?” Old Aunt said. “And by
we
, I mean
you.
I have a pipe to smoke.”

Kalessa, it turned out, had a cracked rib. Aisa spent many more days—she lost count of the number—nursing her and keeping house for Old Aunt. Kalessa chafed at the time she had to spend immobile, but Aisa was firm with her.

“The more you move about, the longer it will take to heal,” she said.

“Orcs heal faster than humans,” she grumbled from the padded bench Aisa had set up for her in the kitchen opposite Old Aunt's spot at the hearth.

“Even so.” Aisa handed her a mug of ale. “I still know so little of orcs. How do you choose your wyrm?”

Kalessa's eyes lit up. “Slynd. I miss him. I hope he is not worrying over me.”

“Do wyrms worry?”

“They are very intelligent, much more so than simple serpents. You have to be strong to command one from the line of the Scarlet Wyrm.” She drank from the mug. “When I was ten and a woman, our nest went to the hatching ground where the wyrms buried their eggs. It takes a week or more for them all to hatch, and we all wait for them to crawl out of the ground so we can claim them.”

“Do you form a lifelong bond by looking into their eyes?” Aisa asked.

Kalessa laughed. “Nothing so simple. When Slynd came
out of the ground, I wrestled him. We rolled across the ground with the rest of the nest cheering for me and the other children who wrestled with the other wyrms. It was like fighting an iron band, and more than once I wanted to give up. Slynd tried to bite me several times, but his teeth hadn't come in completely, and he only scraped me. It still left scars.” Kalessa held up her arms to show the marks. “But in the end, I wrestled him to submission. The contest made him hungry, so I fed him a baby sheep, and that made him mine.”

“I fed a stray cat once,” Aisa said wistfully. “He followed me home, and Mother let me keep him. I named him Sand because that was his color.”

“But then something dreadful happened to him?” Kalessa said. “One of your brothers set him on fire, I suppose, or cut his tail off.”

“No.” Aisa shook her head with a smile. “He was my cat for years. He grew old and died, not long before my mother took sick. I still miss him sometimes.” She paused a moment, and realized that her scarf had fallen away from the front of her face. She hadn't noticed. How long had it been like that? Kalessa and Old Aunt hadn't remarked on it. Nothing bad had happened, though the elven hunger still nagged at her. She offered a shy smile to Kalessa. For a moment, she felt completely naked, but Kalessa only smiled back with straight white teeth against faintly green lips, and Aisa relaxed.

“What happened with your wyrm?” she asked, pretending nothing momentous had happened.

Kalessa played along. “A few months later, he was big enough to ride, and I broke him to saddle with reins made from one of his own shed skins. My brother Hoxin helped me make them. That was a good day. My parents were proud of the status their only daughter brought the nest.”

“That's an important thing, is it?” Old Aunt asked.

“It is the only thing,” Kalessa said seriously. “When I die, my status will decide whether I go to Halza and Vik's realm or to Valorhame itself.”

“Will it?” Old Aunt said mildly, poking at the fire with her stick.

Kalessa started. Like Aisa, she had forgotten whose house they were in. It was easy to do. Old Aunt didn't look like someone who was married to the King of Birds himself. Kalessa turned to her and winced as her ribs twinged.

“Is it not so, great lady?” she asked. “Your tone makes me doubt.”

“She won't tell,” Aisa said. “They never do.”

Old Aunt puffed her pipe. “The Nine are more fair than you think. Status matters, little one, but only
your
status, not your family's or your ancestors.”

Kalessa looked shocked. “But . . . everything my parents and grandparents have worked for . . .”

“Means nothing for you,” Old Aunt finished affably. “On the other hand, it also means that people who commit dreadful crimes do not also seal their children's fates. Every slave, every thrall, farmer, merchant, soldier, earl, and king has the same chance for Valorhame. And now I should like a nice horn of ale.”

Aisa, feeling more than a little awed, set one on the hearthstones next to her like an acolyte leaving an offering on an altar. Old Aunt accepted it and drank deeply, then relit her pipe and fell into a heavy silence. Kalessa pressed her with more questions, but she gave as many answers as a stone.

While Kalessa's ribs healed, Aisa continued the work about the house. It was harder without Kalessa to help, but Aisa managed. At night, Old Aunt's haunting melody sent her to sleep, and in the morning, she woke sweet and refreshed. She stopped wearing a scarf over her face entirely, though she
still covered her hair. And every evening after the work was finished and the supper dishes put away, Aisa talked while Old Aunt listened. She talked about whatever came to mind, though often the conversation came around to her mistreatment at the hands of Farek and her remaining anger at Hamzu. Despite the latter, she missed him with an intensity that surprised her. He had done something wrong, but so had she, and it was time they made good again, like grown people.