'At least they're not crying, lamenting their fate,' Sunbright offered. 'They discuss how their lives should run, not be run.'
The thief shook her head. 'It must be the water here,' she mumbled. 'Or the thin air. It drives people insane.'
Sunbright chuckled in the dark as he crawled into his mother's hut. Knucklebones striped cold light on rocks and angrily prodded his wounds. Lying on dirt, his head pillowed on stone, Sunbright hissed at her touch, then sighed, 'Ah, it's good to be home.'
'Completely,' growled the part-elf, 'insane.'
Sunbright and Knucklebones used the next day to scout the camp, identify old faces and learn new ones, climb a low hill and scan the wasteland, and walk to the mountainside to check the local resources. In a narrow cleft, fresh water spilled into a shallow, pebbled pool where they swam and made love. They spotted a few small deer and rabbits, so set wire snares, but found little else. Rocks ruled this corner of the world. Sunbright concluded, 'This land can't sustain us. We must move out.'
'Where? And why do you keep saying 'we?' I'm not a member of your tribe, and never will be. A part-elven thief is as different from your yellow-haired northerners as a fox from a fish.'
'True.' The two sat on a rock and watched mountain shadows overtake the wasteland. He put his brawny arm around her small shoulders and said, 'But it's tradition in our tribe to steal wives and husbands, for we're forbidden to marry within the tribe. My own mother was stolen from the Angardt in a raid. Father said he picked the female who fought back the wildest, then just hung on. He showed me scars she gave him, bite marks that never went away. He lacked an earlobe that my mother spat out. Mostly we marry other barbarians, but some have dark hair. Note you Archloft has brown hair? He was kidnapped off a trail by a raiding party and married to Jambow.'
Knucklebones snuggled under his arm, waggled her bare feet in the air, but was not comforted. 'There are none of elven blood,' she said, 'and I am more of the old folk than human, I think. I wish I could talk to my mother for an hour…'
Sunbright leaned forward to peer at her face. This wistful heartsickness was new, but then Knucklebones's city-tough shell had been gradually eroding under his loving attention, and by traveling where she needn't battle for her life every minute. He kissed her forehead above the eye patch.
'I don't know much, but I know your mother was beautiful and gentle and sweet and bright, for so is her daughter.'
The thief surreptitiously wiped away a tear, and said, 'I shall be lonely too, when you're killed.'
Sunbright chuckled, 'No one will kill me.'
'You're a thorn in their side. You remind them of what they've lost, their homeland and dignity and traditions, and people hate to be reminded of loss.'
'What's lost can be reclaimed,' he said. 'Come, I must prepare to fight Thornwing.'
Knucklebones hopped down beside him. Her head barely reached his breastbone. She pointed at the raw wound on his thigh. Sunbright had used minor healing spells on his other cuts, but lacking traditional herbs and ointments, could not close the thigh wound, so it was bandaged, and red on both sides. Pain made him limp.
'You'll fight with that?'
'I've no choice,' he said.
Knucklebones suddenly squeezed his middle hard, making him grunt. 'We have a choice,' she insisted. 'We could leave! Take your mother and go. There's a whole wide world to live in…'
Sunbright kissed her curls. 'No,' he said. 'I belong among my people. Without them, I'm nothing.'
'Without you,' she murmured into his shirt, 'I'm nothing.'
He picked up her chin, kissed her small mouth, and said, 'You could be a queen if you chose. An empress. Or anything else. For you're brave and smart and kind, just like-'
He interrupted himself, but she caught his meaning. 'Like Greenwillow?'
'Like any strong woman of elven blood,' the man demurred. 'Come, we mustn't be late.'
'Late to your funeral,' she said, but then picked down the slope with the man she loved.
The torchlit arena beckoned, but tonight the air was different. The crowd didn't wait passively, but argued among themselves, jabbing fingers, recalling stories and precedents and songs, demanding to be heard. Sunbright saw his people, docile as cows at slaughter yesterday, animated as sparrows today. Winking at his mother, then his lover, he limped into the circle with Harvester in hand. The crowd stilled to watch. And listen.
Thornwing waited. The woman was tall and rail-thin, bony across the shoulders and breast, with arms and legs of wire and gristle. A fighter, she wore the traditional haircut, shaved temples, roach of hair tugged back in a horsetail. She saluted with her sword. 'Pray as yesterday,' she said, 'and we'll begin.'
Sunbright rubbed his nose to hide a grin. 'You've a fine sword,' he chided. 'You and Blinddrum share it?'
'Yes,' Thornwing answered simply, then made it swish in the air.
'A straight steel blade with a down-curved pommel ending in two lobes. Was that not forged in Remembrance, near Sunrest Mountain and the Glorifier? Yet in the past the Rengarth used only iron or bronze blades made at home. Is this some new tradition you introduced?'
Thornwing shrugged, and said, 'We needed a stronger blade to teach swordsmanship in Scourge, so traded our old swords for this new one. Some new things are good, though it is well to recall old traditions.'
'That's a shaman's job. To remind his people of who they are. To recount great deeds of the past, so we go forth into the future with sense, and without shame.'
'Yet you fight,' the woman snapped.
'Because I must. I'd rather talk and tell stories, but one must first cut a reindeer's throat to enjoy its haunch.'
'Then pray,' she said, 'and fight.'
Sunbright praised the Keeper of Law, and this time the crowd murmured with him, shouted 'Praise!' at the finish, then cheered on the fighters.
Thornwing had seen Sunbright's limp, so immediately exploited it. Moving so fast her sword was a blur, she slung it across and over her shoulder, stamped toward Sunbright's bad leg, and let fly.
The shaman barely got Harvester back in time to deflect the blow. The skipping blade skinned his knuckles so they stung fiercely. Hooking the blade fast backward made Thornwing jump clear. He followed with a short thrust, but she spanked the heavy nose down and flicked steel at his face. Sunbright jerked back, but his bad leg hampered the jump. Thornwing's edge skinned his neck, and it bled freely.
Blinddrum had been reluctant to fight, he thought, while Thornwing was eager. She'd show a cub that the lioness was still boss.
Worried, Sunbright forced his throbbing leg forward, leaned on it-like driving a knife through his muscle-and hacked a rough circle before him, using his longer blade to advantage, but Thornwing slashed a figure eight while watching closely. Her blade flickered like a snake's tongue, and tagged the elbow Blinddrum had wounded yesterday. White fire shot up Sunbright's arm, so painful he hissed aloud. His enemy heard.
Leaping far to the left, Thornwing forced the shaman to swivel on his hurt leg. Before he turned completely, her tip slithered in to pink him over the kidneys. Now he was really in trouble, for to let an opponent strike behind meant imminent death. Chest heaving, Sunbright stamped on his good leg, thrust straight out, made the blow a feint, and jabbed high to snag her armpit. Thornwing jumped like a scalded cat when tagged. Blood ran down her ribs. 'The cub remembers!' she said.
'Everything!' Sunbright hissed. Sweat in his eyes made him curse. That, and desperation.
Thornwing played a game of shuffling side to side. Sunbright had to weave like a snake before a hawk. Shuffling farther, again to his bad side, she ducked low, snapped up her blade tip, thumped his wounded elbow so steel cut to bone.
Pain lanced through Sunbright's frame, and made his muscles spasm and go limp, but fury and battle-lust flooded him too. Shouting 'Ra-vens!', he leaped.
Again, Thornwing skipped backward, counting on speed to get out of range, but Sunbright's fury energized his muscles and shut off the pain. The swordswoman raised her blade to bat Harvester aside. Rather than be brushed off, Sunbright flexed his wrists and mighty arm and locked her blade hilt to hilt. For a second Thornwing hesitated
