He answered in kind. You’ve not had the privilege since Everwintering Mountain sent Fire across Sky. Nearly fifteen winters past.
A snort. Has it been so long, son of my brother’s daughter? Ai, but you’ve spent the time like a good horseClans dog, hunting game and siring whelps upon your mate. It seems she must squat every third Hoop to drop her litter, naked in the dust.
A'io! Harsh affirmation. I have something to fight for!
His chieftain Aylaniś, who with her own hands had girded her spouse in sacred oil and smoke. Their three children, standing with her. The clans, gathering, beginning to sway to the drums like Wind-brushed grass.
Palatan stepped forwards; into the Circuit where every member of his tribe—two- and four-legged—was blessed at birth, breaking, and bereavement. “It is time to Dance, Alekšu!” The honorific bore respect; its undertone purled demand. “A challenger waits.”
Come out, she-viper. I do not stand alone, this time.
And the door flap heaved open and fell against the taut sides of the tipo.
Grey hair, at the first, close-cropped save for the honour of numerous and tiny braids at one temple, with a flare of beaded quills further proving age and status. Dark eyes faded to milky amber squinted in the brilliance; more and more she found Sun an enemy rather than the ally Palatan accepted. Shoulders sagged soft beneath a capelet of stained horsehide, and her bowed legs, once thick with riding muscle, instead juddered soft. Sloth and corpulence had long held Chogah—daughter of Beloved Ones, Alekšu of duskLands—in their sway.
Longer yet had Chogah held sway over their tribe. Indeed, she sloughed a furious gaze back and forth, satisfied as many gave way with body and eyes. Respect, a’io. But more, apprehension. Fear.
None of the latter moved Palatan. The ones waiting sensed it, expectant.
“Have you waited long?” Chogah asked, almost courteous.
Beneath civility, the real battle was winding up.
You cannot win, cur. You wield the wildest, perhaps, of Grandmother’s sacred limbs, but it matters little. Wind shall choke you, Earth smother you. And should Rain decide to enter our exchange? A chuckle. Rain’s daughter, River, has ever been able to douse your enthusiasm.
This time Palatan let the anger come, feed the flames. Rain quenches but cannot quell; She brings steam to banish sickness. Earth and Fire, bunged together too long, too angry, erupt into the hot-blood torrent of melted rock to sear all They touch. Wind but kindles Fire to sweep across our plains in a swath of cleansing.
You know nothing, weakling! Chogah’s not-voice hissed, a darkling dart of poison. You fear. You fear your own Power, the destruction He carries—
Do I? Snarl. Shield. “We have,” Palatan curled his voice all too pleasant, “waited far too long for thisSun’s passage.”
Ai, it was not the first time Palatan a’Šaákfo had stood upon the Breaking Ground to challenge.
But it would be the last.
2 – Tokela
The talking drum fell silent, yet ša’s voice refused to die.
It was, after all, drumtalk that had coaxed him here, prompted the long, tendon-burning climb of the terraces. None stayed him—better, none saw him. Boots scuffing against wood and stone, lungs heaving, thighs quivering, Tokela gained the summit.
Alone.
The drum’s aftermath lingered, a second heartbeat behind his breastbone. Hanging in the dense trees like mist and breath, quivering through the massive cloudstone cliffs duskside of the Mound, pulsing outward and beyond the driftwood railing that seemed to sprout from the red rocks. Floating, across the wide, copper-ink expanse, and echoing against glimmers.
Always, River waited.
Tokela’s nostrils flared: Wind brought scents of silt and wet foliage upward, then tossed his forelock into his eyes, curtaining his sight, thick and dark. A toss of head, then a shove of fingers did no good. Tokela ended up tying it back as he leaned over the railing, leather and wood talismans tangling against his callused fingers.
Not enough. He could smell and hear but not yet see, so he gave the hair-tie one last yank before snaking through the gnarled railing. One hand making firm purchase, he angled outward and over the edge. River’s current was strong thisSun. It should be soon. Tokela tilted outward, sinewy knuckles straining pale, and looked downRiver, vigilant for an event foretold by the Grandfather drum.
Even outlier craft came for the festivals. And Tokela always watched them approach, like fishers perched with nets upon the coppery crags up from Naišwyrh’uq, the Great Mound-beside-River.
Shouts, first. Tokela leaned out even farther, the railing creaking in his hands. DownRiver, the mists roiled and curled—fore-drafts, it must be!—then parting. The craft heeled into view, reedweave sails set wing and wing. A big one—a true pehni chito!
Unfortunately, ša wasn’t the one Tokela sought.
But no matter, for Sun gave an abrupt spill from pewter clouds, setting the craft a-gleam like dryLands silver. The combination of light and wet and wood was startling. Perfect. Tokela’s breath caught and held. His fingertips itched. Twitched, longing for expression. He squirmed back through the railing, flitted a glance side to side, sighed, then smiled.
Still alone.
A quick rummage in the hide pouch slung over one shoulder produced a palmful of small bone barbs, a sheathed adze, a thin tangle of trawling gut and hooks… where was it? It should be…
There. With a satisfied huff, Tokela pulled a small roll of wabadeh hide from his pouch. Another glance—making sure—as he hunkered down by the cliff edge. A quick finger-comb through thick hair found the tiny braid that secured a hidden graphite stump, while his other hand flattened the hide scrap upon the rock between his knees.
A small piece from the inner haunch, this, scraped soft and stretched thin. Better still, it had been bleached pale as the trade grain the elders ground to make breads for Dancing Moons; the graphite needed only to define shadow and edge. Tokela’s long fingers, deft by nature and quick by necessity, sketched the sweeps and curves of the approaching craft.
He also kept watch upon the terrace stair.
Such vigilance, however, soon slipped its tether to drift. River’s tang of
