She was shushed with hisses, and glances around.
Madoc was—blessings to him!—puffing up like poked serpentKin. Anahli put a staying hand upon his shoulder. She wanted to hear.
“The MedicineKeepers a’Šaákfo have Power!” one of them retorted. “They dare to walk with those possessed.”
A good thing, Anahli groused, silent, since you dawnLanders fear to so much as look upon the ones you cast aside.
Sure enough, more hisses, complete with warding gestures.
“I’ve little doubt of it. The one who was Alekšu before? A witch, no question.”
“Yet Mound-chieftain allows her here, to Council!”
“Her fangs have finally been pulled,” another murmured.
“So you say. Yet for many turnings of Hoop none could defeat her in that odd ritual they have, challenge and combat. A fem her age against hardened hunters! That is Power, nothing but.”
“A’io, and if Palatan a’Šaákfo has defeated her, then he has taken her Power. I’d not try to tell him anything.”
Silence fell beneath the chancy subject. But not for long.
“Eh, but none should trust a wyrhling at their back.” A growling return to the original subject—obviously wyrhling were safer to denigrate than MedicineKeepers.
Amusement floated up from the strand with laughter, then an arc through the air with boot fringe flying. Aylaniś was being greeted in much the same way as her spouse, her full, delightful giggle, weaving in and out of Palatan’s deep, husky chuckle and Našobok’s bark of laughter. Anahli remembered the latter; it encouraged others to join in.
“There’s few’ll cross that wyrhling.” The busy-talkers had wound up again. “Fewer still challenge him without blood spilt. He killed the chieftain before him, painted the deck in blood and hung his head on the masts as warning.”
Madoc clearly hadn’t heard this one; he shot another glance towards Ilhukaia. Disbelief slid into respect as he espied the skull hanging from the mainmast, a bony clatter when Wind touched it.
An oversized skull, not of firstPeople. Anahli knew that, like she knew a different truth from stories told long into wintering darks as a child: Ilhukaia had never known any master but the one she now carried, and it had been a Matwau slave trader whose head Našobok had taken.
“I think it shameful a chieftain’s son would choose such a path.”
“He’s never taken a proper path in his life, that one. Wild and treacherous as floodwater he’s been, from the Sun his dam birthed him. Hearken his name: River-mad Wolf.”
Just as Kulahiši meant Little Fox Fur, just as Hihlyanahli meant Graceful Dancer. But only with an outlier’s name would those busy-talkers scorn Commingling-talk with such familiarity—and disregard.
And it wasn’t River-mad, merely River Wolf.
“I’ve heard he’s a blood pact with River, in exchange for safe passages. That’s too close to Shaping for any comfort.”
“Your talk is nonsense. Outcasts are dangerous, but Shaping? Hunh! Stories to frighten ahlóssa. There are no more Shapers, except for the evil tall ones. Our people cast such things out long ago. Now there are only those who allow possession, who are too weak of Spirit to want healing.”
Well, and Anahli’d just about had enough of this.
“—refuses to espouse anyone. I’ve heard possessed ones don’t espouse—”
“Then how would they get their curse on, foolish mouth?”
“Nothing to do with witchery there, he’s outlier! What dam would let her own consider an outcast? What sire would not punish an outcast if he so much as raised eyes to a cherished daughter?”
A snort. “That’s not why the wyrhling’s not espoused. He’s more danger to a dam’s sons. Never showed any interest in females, even after outgrowing oških fancies. Not that such a one could earn any spouse!”
“If none will tell Alekšu, well, his chieftain should. She should know better.”
“Or at least not be so obvious.”
“Obvious about what?” Anahli shrugged the blanket from her shoulders and tucked her chin, eyeing them. “That they care for each other?”
The busy-talkers turned like sand in one’s hands, shifting and slipping away into stammered, forced mannerisms of apology. With their notice of the horseClans daughter came another: their own chieftains’ son, glaring across his broad nose at them.
Meanwhile, down on the strand and still wrapped about each other, Palatan, Aylaniś, and Našobok climbed the steep stair and disappeared into the gated tunnel into the Mound.
More from being deprived of a target than, Anahli was sure, any shame for their sharp tongues, the watchers also dispersed.
“I’m sorry. They were rude. Some were a’Naišwyrh, so I apologise to you on their behalf.”
It was very prettily done. Anahli tilted her chin in acceptance.
“You haven’t seen Tokela, then.”
“You,” Anahli retorted, a grin once more trying its way with her lip, “are a single-minded ahlóssa.”
Madoc’s grin slid impenitent as he recovered the shrugged-aside blanket, handing it over. “And if they ask me if I found you?”
“Are you offering to hide me under your blanket?”
“Mm. Looks as if you’ve one already.”
She snorted, taking the blanket.
Madoc’s grin widened. “Will you let me ride your horse?”
“Can you ride, dawnLander?” Anahli started down the stone-carved steps.
He followed. “Of course I can! So can Tokela. My dam still rides—she was of horseClans, you know.”
“I know. She’s my sire’s sister, remember?”
Madoc was peering at her braids, fascinated and a little bit disapproving. “We’ll have to find you a proper headwrap.” Then, before she could protest, furthered, “Ebon-streaked copper with a hint of gold. To match your eyes.”
Anahli halted, her foot midair above the second terrace’s downward slope. “How many Summerings have you, again?”
“Ten.” Another grin. A’io, he was going to be more than handsome when he was grown.
“Spawn,” she murmured, and kept going.
“I thought that wasn’t very nice.”
“Really? I’d no idea.”
Madoc blinked. Then grinned again. “I think you’re going to be ever so much more interesting than Kuli.”
Anahli snorted again, and kept on descending.
“ONCE, LONG ago—not so long ago that divingKin hadn’t found Grandmother beneath Sea’s expanse, but after that and long enough, ai, long enough—there was but one Moon. One Moon, and He was lonely.”
Other than the lone, sure voice
