The brutal winds of Darkness continued to shriek through the hills. In the mud in front of the girl, pellets of rain splashed on steel. Her Ovì’s spear, a weapon stolen long ago during a raid on Travelers, was still on the ground behind the two men. As soon as her hands clenched the shaft, the strength of vengeance shot through her limbs.
While the beasts slurped her Ovì’s blood, she crept towards the creatures and cocked the spear over her shoulder. With all the power her young body could muster, she spiked the weapon straight into one of the Murkovin’s skulls. When she drove his head to the ground, the other brute jerked his face to her.
Before he could make another move, she kicked a bare foot to his throat. Gurgling sounds spewed from his mouth as he clutched his neck. She tore the spear out of the dead body at her feet and screamed her wrath. Powering forward, she rammed the point straight into one of the second beast’s eyes.
After his head hit the ground, over and over, she pummeled his face with the tip of the spear. The crackling of bone ricocheted from the ground each time the weapon found its mark. Only when his entire skull had been shattered, an unrecognizable muddle of flesh, bone, and blood, did the girl’s rage subside.
She dropped the spear, turned to the corpse of her Ovì, and fell on top of her body. The girl’s chest heaved with sorrow while the pain of a loss that could never be replaced twisted her insides. Mixed with the falling rain, her tears dripped to her Ovì’s face.
Can I now inflict that same fate on another child? the woman silently asks herself.
She examines the female Murkovin’s eyes. The creature’s plea was not for her own life. It was for that of her child. The woman decides that these two lives may be worth sparing.
“If I let you live,” the woman says, “you and your child owe your lives to me. You can stay with me and have all the sap you need.”
“Our loyalty will be to you,” the female Murkovin whimpers.
“Make no mistake. If you ever betray me, I’ll kill your child in front of your eyes and then end your life as well. But if you prove that I can trust you, no harm will ever come to either of you.”
The female Murkovin looks at her child and then returns her eyes to the woman. “We’re at your service. We’ll earn your trust.”
“You bear no grudge that I killed that man?”
“He was . . .” The female Murkovin pauses. “He was not the kind of man whose death you mourn.”
The female Murkovin’s words confirm what the woman had already guessed from the actions of the man. Like many of the men in the Barrens, he was despicable. He probably drank his fill of sap before allowing a single drop to go down the throats of his woman and child. When physical desires overcame him, he took what he wanted from the woman. If she ever voiced her displeasure or tried to leave, he beat her until her tongue was silenced, and then beat the child to further destroy their will.
The only reason the creature at her feet would stay with the man was out off fear. Fear that survival would be more difficult without him than it was with him. Fear that an already dreadful existence could become even worse. And fear that he might find her if she left him and end her pitiful life.
There were good men in the Barrens, loyal men who cared for the women they spent their lives with and the children they created together. Her Mür had been one of those, so her Ovì had told her.
And many Murkovin women needed no man, creatures with the strength and will of mind to survive on their own. Like her Ovì before her, the woman was of that ilk. There was no doubt that her life had become easier after she’d met the former Watcher of the Delta, but she’d never needed him.
“I’ll teach you and your child to defend yourselves,” the woman says. “You’ll meet others you can trust.”
“Is it true that our kind our gathering?” the female Murkovin asks.
“It’s true,” the woman answers.
“And there’s an endless supply of sap?”
“Nothing is endless,” the woman says. “But with me, you’ll have more than you need.”
After pulling her spear away from the creature’s head, the woman reaches a hand down. She pulls the female Murkovin to her feet and then turns to the hill. The girl still stands in the same spot as before with her eyes focused on the dirt at her feet, her hands folded in front of her, and her bottom lip clenched between her teeth.
“Come down here, child,” the woman calls to her.
As the girl timidly walks down the slope, she stumbles on the loose stones. The female Murkovin dashes up the hill to her child’s side. With the girl’s arm in the gentle grasp of one hand, she helps her child make her way down the hill to the woman.
I made the right decision to spare their lives, the woman thinks. She’s protective of her child. She’s loyal—exactly what I need.
When the two stop in front of her, the woman kneels in front of the girl.
“You’re safe now, child,” the woman says. “As long as you’re with me, no harm will come to you.”
The girl doesn’t reply, but the woman sees trust in her eyes. The woman rises from the ground.
“I have a large cavern,” the woman says to the girl’s Ovì. “You can both stay with me.”
“Thank you for your mercy,” the female Murkovin replies.
“We’ll soon be moving to a different part of
