The Unfinished Song: Taboo (26 page)

The old women clucked their tongues. “Mercy, mercy.
Such a shame, such a scandal.
Mercy, mercy.”

“Then he did
not
die in the floods.”

“He is dead, we don’t speak of it,” said a woman so old she had thin white hair and a bald spot like a man. She clucked her tongue.

“Did he die fighting Yellow Bear warriors?” Gremo asked. He shot a sidelong glance at Rthan. “In the New Moon Raid eight years ago, perhaps?”

“Mercy, no,” said Auntie Baldy. “If only he had.”

“Then how did he die? You must tell me!” shouted Gremo.

“Gremo!” Kavio snapped. “Enough! We are guests.”

Gremo scowled.

“For many years, Ezlo walked among us as an honorable warrior,” said Aunty Baldy. “He was a bright-eyed boy when he came here to marry my daughter, Nazza. He fought in the Battle of Lark Creek and killed many enemies.”

“That’s not all he did at Lark Creek,” Gremo muttered darkly.

But now that she had decided to talk, Aunty Baldy plowed ahead, insensible to interruptions. “He covered himself in glory. He earned a Shining Name. 
Ezlo the Fierce.
But, mercy.” Her raspy voice turned vicious. “It was all a lie. He was discovered for what he really was. He hid it all those years. He thought if he killed enough enemies, covered
himself
in glory, he would be spared from the law. But no one is spared from the law.”

Now Kavio was curious. “What do you mean, Aunty? Discovered as what?”

“Shunned!” cackled Auntie Baldy. “He boiled with spoiled magic. Should have been Shunned years and years ago, but he kept his secret from us all. That was the worst, his filthy lies. We killed him as soon as we discovered it. For seven days, we hung him from a post naked, made him drink as much as he could, and let him piss in a big clay jar. Then, on the last day, we boiled him alive in his own piss.” She spat. “It was after that the floods came. Even in death, he hexed us.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t murdered him for an accident of his birth, he would not have hexed you!” said Gremo.

“Enough, Gremo,” said Kavio.

“What is it to you?” demanded Aunt Baldy. “How did you hear of Ezlo
once
of Jumping Rock?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Gremo.  He shuddered visibly. “Whatever I thought I wanted from him, or whatever I thought he wanted from me, it wasn’t what I thought.”

On that uncomfortable note, they retired to sleep. The clanfolk of Jumping Rock had provided them with actual houses for the night, for since the floods, there were unused huts. Night along a river never fell silent. The river whispered in the dark.

Kavio blocked Gremo before he could enter the hut. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing,” muttered Gremo.

“You swore an oath of loyalty to me, henchman. Who was Ezlo to you?”

Gremo clenched his jaw. “My father.”

“Mercy….”

“I was searching for him to kill him,” said Gremo flatly. “But now, to find out he has already died, but for all the wrong reasons…. He came to me once, you know, in a Vision. It was the night before what would have been my Initiation. I realize now it was probably the night he died. He ordered me come to him, to
kill them all
. I thought he meant kill all the Yellow Bear clansfolk around me. Now I wonder if he really meant kill all his own people, the clansfolk of Blue Waters. He almost succeeded in destroying them himself, didn’t he? I must have inherited my magic from him. I inherited the monster too.”

“Maybe,” said Kavio. “But did it occur to you that maybe your father did not bring the flood to kill his own people in revenge at all? I noticed that this clanhold is at a fierce part of the river, where flooding must be especially common, if not redirected through deeper channels. If his magic was as powerful as yours, but he had to wield it in secret, for all we know he was protecting his clanhold from floods for many years. Maybe he knew his death would kill them all, whether they realized it or not. Maybe he was begging you to save lives, not take them.”

“Zavaedi.” Gremo’s lips twisted. “I know my father was an evil man, but I thank you for letting me hope he might not have been.”

“Many people say that
my
father is an evil man,” said Kavio. “I don’t know whether he is or not. But I do know that I am not my father.”

In the dead of night, Kavio, from full sleep jerked up on his cot to full wakefulness. He had no idea what small snick or shuffle had awaked him. He tasted smoke that was too gritty to be from a hearth fire, and then he heard shouting and the crackle of a huge fire.

An instant later, he leaped from his mat, bow already in hand.

Warriors poured through the open door of the gate, men painted in yellow and white, wearing bear masks and fur capes.
Yellow Bear warriors
!

They had not breeched the double wall; someone already in the compound must have opened the gates from the inside…
both
of them, which meant it had been no careless error.

“Kavio, you traitor!” bellowed Rthan. Four attacking warriors surrounded him, but he smacked them aside in short order, intent on barreling toward Kavio with his spear.

Kavio turned to face him, bow already drawn. Rthan’s spear was also already drawn back to fly.

“Those are Yellow Bear warriors! You planned this all along!” screamed Rthan. He was ready to throw the spear, but still had not. “Your peace offer was a farce, to allow you to travel deep into our territory! I guessed as much from the journey omen, you slippery eel!”

“I didn’t let them in!” Kavio kept his arrow back, though he was ready to release it the moment Rthan released the spear.

A Yellow Bear warrior rushed Rthan from behind, and Kavio released his arrow. Rthan responded by throwing the spear, which missed Kavio by a hairsbreadth when he threw himself into a duck and roll. The Yellow Bear warrior Kavio had killed slumped forward onto Rthan.

He punched the man, but he was already dead. Rthan yanked the arrow out of his chest, recognized the fletching and tossed it at Kavio’s feet.

“You saved my life?”

“I told you, I knew nothing of this attack,” Kavio said. “We have
both
been betrayed.”

The four warriors Rthan had previously pushed aside came back for more. Rthan smashed one in the face with the butt of his spear and on the return stroke, stabbed the other with the tip. Meanwhile, Kavio flipped one man over his back and tossed him so hard that he did not wake, and kicked the other three times in a row, until the Yellow Bear warrior reached the edge of a piss pit and fell backwards into the stinking ditch.

“If you didn’t plan this treachery, then who did?” demanded Rthan.

Gremo ran out of the hut he had shared with Svego for the night. Nothing burned in Gremo’s aura however; he had not started this inferno.

In the firelight of burning rooftops, they both saw the answer at the same time. Vultho barked orders at the newly arriving Yellow Bear warriors.

“Kill the half-fae and the Blue Waters Zavaedi first!” shouted Vultho. “Once they are dead, we can pick off the rest like lice from a cur!”

Bear-masked men rushed Kavio and Rthan. Outnumbered, they had no choice but to press back to back to counter the attackers. Kavio lobbed a few more arrows before the attackers closed in too close, and he had to draw his obsidian dagger. Since the enemy had spears, he was at a disadvantage.

Kavio spotted Brena. She would have come to their aide, but he cried to her, “Get the women and children out of here!”

Brena nodded and turned around. She started organizing the shrieking denizens of Jumping Rock into orderly bunches who clambered across the docks toward the boats. Between them and the canoes, however, a wall of fire flared up.

“We cannot pass!” cried Brena.

Rthan shouted terrible, incomprehensible words up at the sky, making motions with his hands. From the river, Blue fae leaped up, dragging sheets of water over the fire on the docks and the houses. The wave doused the fleeing women and children too, but as soon as it passed, they cheered. Then Brena hustled them into the boats.

Smoke confused everything. Dindi awaked to the cries of panic. She heard Brena shouting to the women of Blue Waters that they were under attack and should grab whatever weapons they could find. It seemed like good advice, so when Dindi ran outside and found a bow and quiver on a groaning warrior in a bear-mask, she snatched it away from him. It took her a while to find Brena, by the docks. Gwenika was already there, and so were Gremo and Svego, but there was no sign of Kavio or Rthan. Dindi could hear the sounds of fighting from deeper in the
clanhold,
hidden by smoking buildings, and assumed they were in the thick of battle.

Brena divided the clansfolk into two groups: women who could use a bow, and those who were too old, too young or too injured to fight. Pregnant women and the Shunned were also to be sent away in the boats. She kept the able-bodied women with her, but instructed Gremo and Svego to hide the others.

“I should stay and fight,” Gremo said.

“No, there should be at least one warrior with the weak,” Brena said. She handed Svego the Staff of Peace, which she had rescued from a burning building. “Besides, you must protect the envoy. If he dies, the Blue Waters tribe will blame us, and all our people will be cursed for breaking our pledged word of peaceful passage.”

“I can go with you,” Gwenika said.

“No, these people need a healer.”

“But…”

“Gwenika, you
will
obey me. Go!”

Brena ran back toward the battle, with the other women in tow. It was true that a number of people had already suffered burns and other wounds from the initial attack, but Gwenika still grumbled as they rowed away.

They did not row far, just to a cove in the river, where temporary huts for drying fish had been set up a few weeks ago. They did their best to tidy this place up.

“What do you need me to do?” Dindi asked. She wasn’t sure who was in charge.
Gwenika, as the only Tavaedi?
Gremo, as Kavio’s henchman, or protector of the peace guide?
Svego, the peace envoy himself?

When Gremo hesitated, Gwenika took charge.

“We should start healing the injured, obviously. Those who have been badly burned need healing first.
Then those with arrow wounds or broken limbs.
The ones who breathed the smoke should be given a special tea. Dindi, start boiling water, and lay out my healing herbs.” She hesitated. “I can dance healing, but by myself, the
tama
won’t have much power. If I had someone to dance with…”

Gremo said, subdued, “I can dance Yellow, though I have had little practice. Once, long ago, my mother taught me some
tama
in preparation for my Initiation.”

“But… are you allowed?” asked Gwenika. “You aren’t a Tavaedi…”

Svego spoke up. “Kavio told me that all Olani are considered Tavaedi in your tribe.”

Gwenika brightened. “Yes, that’s right. Then let us choose one of the huts to use as our kiva. No non-Tavaedies may see our dances. Dindi, I’m sorry, that includes you.”

“I know,” said Dindi. “But I can clean the space for you. And I will keep watch outside while you dance.” She displayed her bow.

“Do you know how to use that?” Gwenika asked dubiously.

“Of course. Once I hit three quails with one arrow. Of course, that particular shot was an accident, because they were tied to my uncle’s rump at the time, but he forgave me. Eventually.”