Chapter 26

 

Dej and Kir reached the clanless camp late the next afternoon. At the top of a wide defile cut by a tumbling stream, so steep they had to dismount, the path opened out into a shallow bowl surrounded by mountains. Huts clustered round the stream, built of rough-piled stone with ragged thatched roofs and no windows.

As Dej and Kir dismounted, three figures strode out from the biggest, central hut. Or rather two strode; the third, whom they flanked, moved in a tight, efficient hobble, leaning on a stick. Dej was shocked: an animus kept you healthy, even healing broken bones. But these were the clanless.

“Go meet her,” murmured Kir. Leaving Kir with the beast, Dej went forward. As she did so more people emerged, staring at her. She made herself walk tall and slow. The woman flanked by the guards was old. With no hair and skin that didn’t wrinkle it was hard to tell, but something about her jarred Dej’s new senses. The crèche taught that a bonded skykin lived life to the full, then passed on their animus and died, before the infirmities of old age set in. This woman could not have long to live.

Dej wondered if she was expected to make some gesture of respect, and settled on bowing her head, then waiting for the old woman to speak.

The elder hobbled right up to her. “I’m Mar. What can you do?” The woman’s breath was rancid, and she stank of sweat and age. This person was wrong, broken.

“Do, mam?”

“Yes. Did your animus give you anything of use?”

“I know what’s safe to eat.”

“Good. You’d die otherwise. Anything else?”

“I know where people are, and when I’m close up I get a feel for their mood.”

“Of course you do. Everyone gets that.”

“And I can sense direction.”

“Hmm. Another one. Well, come with me.” Mar turned and hobbled off. Dej followed, flanked by the two guards, neither of whom looked her way.

The old woman led her into the hut, which had to be ten times the size of any of the others. Smoke drifted into shadowed rafters. The only furniture in the central space was a backless seat behind the hearth. Dej jumped when she saw a man standing in the gloom beside the seat, younger but with an air of authority.

“Fetch a belt,” commanded Mar, and one of her guards disappeared into a curtained alcove at the back of the hut. Dej tried to relax. The way the man by the seat looked at her didn’t help.

The guard came back with a strip of leather. Dej let him tie the belt around her head, covering her eyes. They turned her around, several times one way, several the other.

“Where’s north?” asked Mar.

Dej panicked, because she’d become distracted and lost her connection to the world. She took a deep breath and cleared her mind as best she could. Then she raised a hand and pointed to one side.

“Again.”

The guard turned her, stopped, turned her the other way. Dej concentrated on not tripping over her own feet. This time she picked up the connection at once. Mar had her find north a third time before the guard removed the belt.

Mar had sat down on the carved wooden seat. “Sometimes an imperfectly bonded animus gives several talents. Have you anything else besides the navigation, and what you need to live? Has your memory sharpened, do you know a lie by its smell, can you sense what an animal wants? Anything like that?”

She’d known how Kir’s rhinobeast felt, but not what it wanted. And if Kir had lied to her she hadn’t spotted it. “I don’t think so, mam.”

The elder harrumphed. “It’d be good if the crèches taught useful skills like hunting or fighting. Never mind. You’ll learn.”

“Yes, mam. I will.” So she’d passed the test.

Mar waved a hand in dismissal. “You can stay with Lih and Vay. Cal’ll show you.”

The man, presumably Cal, led Dej out without a word.

Outside, darkness was falling. They crossed to one of the huts. The two young women loitering in the doorway exchanged glances as she and Cal approached. The shorter of the two said, “With us? Must we?”

“You must,” said Cal. “Her name is Dej. Be nice to her.”

“Well, we’ve no spare bedding.” The one who’d spoken had a sulky turn to her lip.

“I’ll manage,” said Dej.

“No one asked you.” The girl turned and went back into the hut.

The taller one shrugged and gestured as if to say come in then. Dej followed her inside.

Her new hut-mates were preparing a meal on the hut’s compact hearth. “Can I help?” she asked.

“Only by staying out of the way,” growled the shorter one.

Dej did so, sitting back against an uncluttered section of hut wall as night closed in outside. The hearth provided the only light. The two girls – or perhaps she should call them women, as they were both older than her – bickered over the stew, then divided it between themselves. After both had eaten the taller one came over with her bowl. “Finish that, then scrape the bowls into the pot and polish them clean.”

The bowl only held a couple of spoonfuls, but Dej ate without complaint, then scooted to the hearth to clear up. The other two had retreated to fur-strewn pallets by the wall. “Um, what should I use to polish the bowls?”

The grumpier one pointed to a rag hanging by the door. “That,” she said, then looked away.

Dej did the best she could, then curled up in the cloak Kir had given her. Between the hard floor, the cold and the urge to adjust position to match the world’s alignment, she found it hard to sleep. Whenever she started wondering how things were at the crèche or what Min was doing now she called up mental maps of where she’d been, or recalled the sights and sounds of the skyland she’d seen getting here.

This is my life now. I need to get used to it.

 

The next day her hut-mates had her fetch water from the pool behind the settlement, then take a day’s worth of rubbish to the communal midden. Dej didn’t complain. Being a skivvy beat being ignored, and if she put up and shut up they’d eventually come to accept her.

Somewhat to her surprise Mar herself intercepted her on the way back from the midden. She introduced Dej to a sinewy woman called Jeg. “You need to learn combat skills,” said Mar, and left her to it.

Jeg led her to the open area in front of the big hut, where she got Dej to perform the “moving meditation” taught by the crèche to encourage body and mind co-ordination. Step and hold and stand on one leg; pause, twist, and sweep down. All the variations, at different speeds. Over and over again. Dej had no idea what that achieved, aside from providing a spectacle for passing clanless.

In the afternoon Jeg gave her a softwood practice knife, and showed her how to grip it. Then she attacked her. Dej half raised the knife, and backed off. Jeg repeated the procedure with a short staff. Jeg pulled her blows, but Dej still ended up with bruises. Jeg then took Dej through a few basic blocks, moving excruciatingly slowly.

That evening her hut-mates sent her to the pool again. As she unhooked the waterskin Vay, the taller and slightly less unpleasant girl, looked up from the herbs she was sorting and said, “And if you can manage to not bring back any gravel this time that would be lovely.”

At the pool, Dej kept the lip of the waterskin above the rough pool bottom. It took longer to fill that way, but that was fine, there was something she wanted to try now she was alone. The pool was a few dozen steps upslope of the settlement, and the stream tumbled over rocks above it; between distance and falling water, no one could overhear her here.

Dej hummed. Although she couldn’t hear herself over the stream, she felt the sound in her head. The tone, the underlying music, was still there! As she filled the waterskin, her heart lifted and she added a nasal drone, biting back the unheard sound into staccato pops, feeling the noise vibrate through her head and in her throat. She could no longer sing, but music wasn’t entirely lost to her.

While she was walking back through the village, Kir stepped out from one of the huts, started, then looked at Dej and said, “You look better than you did when we got here.”

Dej smiled, the first real smile she had made with her new face. “Thanks.”

Kir smiled back, but while Dej was thinking what to say next, walked off.

 

On the second day of Dej’s combat training, Jeg was joined by a man named Tew. The tutors would show her how to stand or hold the staff or knife, then one would come in to make a slow, easy-to-deal-with attack, while the other stood back and watched, telling Dej what she was doing wrong.

On the third day Tew told her to try the weapon moves she’d learnt so far with her other hand.

Dej stared at him. “You sure? I mean, I can only just do them with my good hand.”

Jeg said, “You don’t have a good and bad hand anymore. Your animus should’ve burnt out those reflexes.”

Not entirely, as it turned out. She found fight practice harder with her left hand. Harder still when they had her use a weapon in each hand.

Despite the unfamiliar and sometimes painful lessons, the fight tutors’ disparaging remarks and the interest Dej’s antics provided for the other clanless, she began to enjoy herself. She was so much faster and stronger than she had been – though not as fast and strong as her tutors. And these two were willing to put in the effort to train her. In return, she’d do her best to learn.

When they paused at midday on the third day Jeg went to fetch food while Tew walked over to the stream and bent down to drink. Dej mirrored him, and as they straightened asked, “Where are you from?”

“What?”

“Your accent sounds like mine, so I wondered if you were raised in Shen.” Despite their changed voices the clanless had faint accents; some of them sounded flat or used odd clipped vowels. Kir’s accent was familiar too, and Dej wondered if they’d been at the same crèche.

“I was.” Tew scooped up another mouthful of water. “But you know that doesn’t matter any more, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do.”

 

Mornings and evenings, she did the chores. Vay cooked, but everything else that needed doing round the hut had become Dej’s job.

Lih did as little as possible. She was lazy and vain and loved being right; Dej knew the type from the crèche. Still peeved at having Dej foisted on her, she was also spoiling for a fight. Dej didn’t plan to give her the excuse.

At least Vay stuck to gentle sarcasm, and made some concessions.

Dej had come to accept that the hollow left by Min’s absence – by her betrayal – would never be filled. She would keep herself curled tight around it, and not let it consume her.

In some ways this place was a bit like the crèche, although there was one difference she must never lose sight of: in the crèche it was Us and Them; the children, future skykin, chafing against the shadowkin staff. Here, it was all Us – or, rather, until she was accepted, all Them.

 

By the sixth day of training Dej was exhausted and battered, but also getting stronger, faster and more co-ordinated. When Jeg said, “Day off tomorrow,” Dej asked if this was because she’d earnt it.

Jeg laughed. “No, just restday. But we’ll find out whether you’ve learnt anything the day after that.”

“What happens then?”

“Your first hunt.”