39

ARAK’JUR

Ruins of the Jintani Village

Jintani Land

Fire.

It had raged here, the sort of cleansing blaze that transformed the thickest forest into charred, twisted ruin. A gift his people had used since before they received the spirits’ magic, purifying flame to clear the forest so it could be born again. In the wake of fire’s terrible path, a man could not help but feel submission, awe, reverence for the power of the wild.

But one did not expect to see it strike a village.

The Jintani tents had been reduced to tattered scraps where they stood at all, blackened pillars slumping toward the ground, broken and charred, trailing smoke that promised heat still waiting in the embers. He bore the sight as stoically as could be managed, leading both their horses on rope lines as they walked around the edge of the ruin.

Corenna rose from where she’d doubled over beside him, wiping bile from her mouth. He offered a steadying hand, which she accepted without shame.

“How?” she managed, her voice as weak as her skin was pale.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps some ill fate befell the Jintani shaman. Perhaps they had no forewarning.”

Corenna tried a calming breath that caught in her throat. She turned again, retching. Taking a step forward, he saw the likely cause: blackened bones lying across the ground where one of the tents had stood, just ahead. Child-sized bones. He closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. Where sickness took Corenna, he felt instead a shuddering rage.

This did not happen to their people. The shamans had a sacred trust, to see the coming of threats in time for the guardians to protect them. Great beasts, yes, but also the disasters of the wild. Famines, droughts, quakes, fires. When a tribe faced the coming of such, they were granted visions in time to find safety. And yet here that trust had failed. An entire village caught without warning, reduced to ash. Unthinkable. A sign of the worst disfavor, the direst curse, as though the Jintani had somehow provoked the spirits and lost the guidance of their shaman.

And whatever the Jintani had done, the thought rose in his mind: Could it be worse than his and Ka’Vos’s plan, to ignore the whispers of the spirits? Standing now before their awesome power, he felt a fool. His people courted the same fate, while Arak’Jur, their guardian, was far to the north seeking allies to support their blasphemy.

He howled, letting loose the torrent of anger that boiled in his belly. Let Corenna grieve with tears and sickness, the way of a woman. He would grieve with the roar of a man.

When the first shock of it passed they resolved to enter the ruined village, stopping to tie their horses to a tree and stow their supplies. The dirt was still warm, mixed with ash and soot, but enough time had passed to safely traverse the grounds and see what they could find. Like as not some of the Jintani had fled into the woods to escape the onrush of the flames. If there was hope to be found it lay there. Yet from the first tents they passed, it was clear few of their number had been given warning before the fire struck. Charred bones lay curled within the scorch marks that outlined where each tent had stood.

“Nighttime,” Corenna said, her voice touched with hollow grief. “The fire must have come while they slept.”

He could see it was true. For so many to have been within their tents it would have had to be so.

“Could it have spread so quickly?” he asked. “It seems as though the men and women in these tents had no forewarning, even as the flames struck behind us.”

“Perhaps up ahead, it will be different.”

They pressed on, bearing hope like a mantle of heavy stone. But it was the same in tent after tent, even the communal steam tents, and the ritual grounds. Bones. The village had been a shelter for the Jintani people, a ward against the wilds, a place of happiness and life. And now their village had become their dying ground. It was the highest sign of honor, to leave the fallen where they died. A cruel twist of irony that the spirits had afforded such an honor to the Jintani, leaving them to rest in the open. Anger flared once more, almost enough to spur a desire to bury these bones within the earth, if only to spite the spirits’ gift. There was no honor here, only death.

When they reached the edge of the wood, he turned back to survey the village from the other side, still feeling a surging anger, tempered by an ever-growing knot of worry. He had ventured too far from his people. If he returned to find the same fate visited on the Sinari—

“Arak’Jur,” Corenna called to him, her voice unsteady.

“What is it? Have you found a trail?”

“No,” she said. “Only, why have we seen no sign of the fire around the village?”

He blinked, turning to see where she stood. It was true. There was no trace of the devastation in the trees and brush surrounding the village. “We’ve walked a path from east to west,” he began, speaking slowly. “The village is broad, surrounded by brush and trees on all sides. The fire must have come from the north, or the south.”

She nodded, though she wore a look of dread. “Can we walk around the village? I would know where this began.”

He gave her a long look, seeing the uncertainty behind her eyes. They had traveled together long enough for him to sense when she had more to say. “What is it, Corenna?”

“Arak’Jur, I …” She swallowed and began again. “I fear this fire was no natural blaze. I fear this was the women’s gift.”

Even standing among the heat of the ashes and smoke, the thought struck him like the breath of a winter storm.

He did not let himself believe until they crested the last hill, circled the last bend of wilderness surrounding the remains of the village. Everywhere they walked it was the same: brush, grass, trees all untouched by the inferno that had raged mere paces away. Wherever there had been village, now was smoking ash. The wilds remained untouched.

“Who?” he asked. “Which tribe’s women could do this?” The voice within decrying the question as forbidden was muted to a distant echo.

“I do not know for certain,” Corenna said. “There are whispers of peoples far to the west, living among mountains of fire. Perhaps some among their number, or a woman who has made that journey.”

“You are certain it is the women’s gift?”

She shook her head. “No. I am no Ka, to see and speak with surety. But to control a flame, to direct it like this—I have seen no other power that would serve to explain it.”

A silence settled between them as they each regarded the ruin, alone with their thoughts.

“Could it be the new magic?” Corenna asked at once. “The fair-skins’ gift?”

A comforting thought, to lay such barbarity at the feet of the fair-skins instead of their own people. Still, he found it unlikely they would strike at the Jintani, so far to the north. He shook his head. “No. I have seen no sign they wield such power. And I believe if they were to attack us, it would come to the Sinari first, or one of the other tribes living along their barrier.”

Corenna nodded, accepting his reasoning.

“Did you find any sign of tracks leading away from the village?” she asked. “Of survivors?”

“None.”

The wind changed direction, turning the smoke toward where they stood. They ducked low to avoid it, though they could not escape the smell. Charred wood, burnt hide, and the sickly sweet aroma of meat on a cookfire. Enough to unsettle even him, and it sent Corenna doubled over once more, retching into the dirt, her stomach long since empty. He went to her, taking her by the arm when she finished.

“Time for us to go,” he said.

She offered no protest.

They retrieved their mounts, walking and riding in silence for the better part of the day, once again making their way north, toward the base of the great mountains that marked the edge of Nanerat land. Their worry went unspoken, though he knew it dominated Corenna’s thoughts as well as his own. War. What else could bring the ruin of the Jintani? And what would they find among the Nanerat, a people Corenna had described as peaceful, meditative in nature? He tried to shut out the images his mind tried to paint for him, re-creations of the grisly scene they had left behind.

What little he had known of war and its horrors came from stories, cautionary tales passed down by the elders to temper the ardor of young men. There had been no war in living memory, and even then, what little violence was spoken of in the stories was confined to the men of the tribes. Hunters took up the war-names, and with them the long-hafted spears of battle, and the muskets of the fair-skins since their coming. It was vulgar for a guardian to use his gifts to fight men, though the worst stories told of such: raging man-beasts channeling the gifts of the spirits into a twisted mockery of their intended use.

Not even the most vulgar, violent stories spoke of women following the men into battle.

He found it hard to countenance the thought, yet he could not dismiss it. Bearing gifts like Corenna’s, before the threat of a rival tribe bent on their extinction, how could the women refuse to fight? The question gnawed at what little reservation remained to him, after a journey spent shattering taboos at Corenna’s side. Finally, he asked it, turning back to her mid-stride as they pressed through the foothills.

“Corenna, do the women tell stories of war?”

She winced, revealing a lingering sense of the forbidden, even for her. “I trust you don’t mean the leaders’ tales, of young men’s tempers.”

“No,” he said, waiting.

She looked him in the eye, her gaze steady. “There are wars fought for aggression, for tempers flared hot, for wounds that can be quenched only by blood. In these, women do not involve themselves.”

Still he waited.

“And there are other kinds,” Corenna continued. “Wars that burn cold, conflicts that can be settled only by the extinction of a people, one side or the other. The women pass down these rituals. When such a war is pronounced, the spirit-touched among the women take up arms, under the guidance of the most favored among them.”

He looked at her, straining to keep the horror he felt from showing in his eyes. Women fighting alongside the hunters, the warriors … unthinkable.

She looked down as they walked. “Have you never wondered why women possess the gifts we do? Guardians protect us from the great beasts; shamans see their coming, and ensure we prosper from the land. Women protect us from our enemies, and from each other.”

Stunned silence fell between them.

“It will be my calling,” she said before he could form a reply, in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can feel it in my bones. I’ve felt it since I was a girl.”

“You believe our course leads to war,” he said.

“Yes. If not today, then soon. It will be my charge, before I die, to lead the women of the Ranasi against our enemies.”

They walked for a few paces in silence before he spoke again.

“If it is so, then much depends on this journey. We must secure allies. If war comes, we will face it together.”

Once more she looked up at him, this time with tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you, Arak’Jur.”

He stopped, reaching for her to draw her close into a comforting embrace. The horrors they had witnessed washed over them both as she stood in his arms, holding her as she clung to his chest.

When they reached the first slopes, they turned their horses loose, the uneven ground proving too difficult for the beasts to traverse. Corenna withdrew what supplies they needed from the animals’ packs, not least of which was a coat of thick furs she had brought along, knowing they journeyed into the northlands on the cusp of the seasons of biting cold. He made do with the blessing of the guardians for warmth, bare-chested even as the air grew thin. Hardiness was part of the spirits’ gift, and it served him well here.

On the fourth day since they left the ruin of the Jintani village behind, they reached the pass.

Neither had known of a route through the mountains, and both had been prepared to scale the heights to reach the Nanerat lands beyond, if it came to that. As it was, the sloping valley winding its way between two of the larger peaks was a clear sign from the spirits, well tracked by herds of bison and elk grazing their way west before the cold set in. They slew one such, an elk that had fallen behind its brothers and sisters, and made a feast of it to celebrate. Over the fire they exchanged plans for how to deal with the Nanerat, and speculation over the state of affairs here in the North. Neither the Ranasi nor the Sinari had dealt with the Jintani, the Nanerat, or their other northerly neighbors in some time, not since Corenna’s journey into Yanarat lands.

“It could not be the Yanarat,” Corenna said. “Their gift is frost, fitting for their frozen shores and wary temperament. I could believe they had gone to war—they are an unfriendly, suspicious people—but the Jintani village was no doing of theirs.”

“Perhaps one of the tribes to the west?” he asked.

“It would have to be, though I know little of them. The Eranat along the northern coast, and the Hurusi inland. Farther west, I have heard only tales of great rolling plains, lakes as deep as the sea. I do not know their people.”

He rubbed his chin. “I have met the guardian of the Hurusi, Arak’Dal. He had an easy nature, and a great many gifts of the spirits, as such things are reckoned.”

“Could you believe his people capable of …?” She let the question taper off, though he took her meaning.

“I could hardly believe any of the tribes capable of committing such an act.” He sighed. “Though I did not know Arak’Dal well enough to say it was not possible.”

The fire crackled to fill the silence between them, each contemplating the course ahead, and the horrors behind.

His instincts gave only a moment’s warning.

Enough time for lakiri’in to grant his blessing, a blinding rush of speed hurling him away, rolling into the dirt. A heartbeat later, a great gout of flame seared the ground where he had been, accompanied by a deafening roar as the air itself caught fire. He sprang to his feet, whirling toward the shadows from whence the fire had been thrown, still surging with lakiri’in’s blessing. Corenna shot to her feet, her eyes misted over a pale blue.

“Show yourself!” Corenna cried out, even as his sharpened senses made out a trio of figures standing in the darkness twenty paces ahead.

The one in the center raised an arm, and the figures at her side lowered muskets they had leveled in a firing position.

“Stay where you are,” the one at the center commanded. A woman’s voice.

“Who are you?” Arak’Jur shouted back, staying low, ready to spring away at the first sign of her flame. “How dare you attack us, when we have done you no wrong!”

“I am Asseena, daughter of the Nanerat,” the figure in the center said. “Our shaman warned us we would find a guardian here, but said nothing of a woman in your company.”

The wind shifted, and his senses revealed a dozen more warriors, approaching from all sides.

“I am Corenna, daughter of the Ranasi,” Corenna said. “I am known to Ka’Ruwan, who gave me his blessing, some seasons past. We come as envoys of peace.”

The first three shapes leaned toward each other, conferring.

“Speak,” the woman, Asseena, said. “Convince us you mean no harm to our people, or we leave your bodies here, as an offering to the spirits.”

Mareh’et beckoned at the edge of his vision, but Corenna stepped forward before he could call on its gift.

“We will speak,” Corenna said. “If you will listen. We have traveled far, and we are only two, though we carry the spirits’ blessings, and the strength of our tribes.”

The implied threat hung in the air in spite of Corenna’s offer of peace. Asseena stood her ground, and her men held their guns in place.

“We will listen, honored sister,” Asseena said. “But we make no promises for what follows, should we mislike what you have come to say.”