Everyone had their own place, but the oških dens were their own world.
The oških fems had their own den, of course—on the other side of the compound—but Madoc spared little more than a fleeting thought for them. They’d nothing to do with him, other than several who did their duties by the cookFires and liked to make his favourites: fish sides charred crisp, and fried sourberry cakes with thick cream. He’d plenty of ahlóssa companions who were fem, of course, but they turned into something else, somehow, when they went into the oških dens. Something powerful, and somewhat chancy. Fems didn’t have to hunt the fullness of their Changing; Grandmother had long ago bestowed life in them, to shed and gather in their own being. Whilst males had to track their Journey, chase and wrest the Changing into life.
Or so his dam always said.
Maybe Anahli would explain it to him. She didn’t seem so mysterious, after all. Less fem and more male, as if she were one of those who were of Changing Spirit. And much less the cipher than Tokela, who grew more puzzling with every Sun’s rising.
Madoc glared at the oških den, wishing with all his heart Tokela wouldn’t go there, not yet, just stay with Madoc for a while longer. Then maybe, just maybe, if Madoc gave avid chase, he could wrest his own Changing into being. Catch up, so he and Tokela could walk their path and enter, together, that hostile place of separation, of change.
Madoc rested his head against the curved sill, looked up to the crown of Talking Bluff. Perhaps he would see Tokela return.
If he returned by that path.
If he returned thisdark.
5 – Into outLands
“Go on!”
“Another, Tokela! Another!”
“There is nothing more to tell thisSun.”
A collective groan from the small clutch of ahlóssa.
“But, Tokela—stories never end!”
“Grandmother! Tell us of Grandmother!”
“Surely you all know who Grandmother is,” Tokela says, half tease and half chide.
“We want to hear it again!”
“Well. Grandmother. She is dam to all who traverse Sky and Sea, Earth and Flame and Spirit. We are her young, laid upon every beach. This is why we are, every tribe, every Clan, a’Khoweh’skaanumeki, Her firstPeople. ThisLand is Her, from her rump to her strong jaw; from one toe in marshLands to the opposite in iceLand mountains. Her bones and Spirit make us, body and blood…”
Blood.
His own, and that of something else… touching him, rank-smelling, and cold, and… large?
Consciousness took Tokela with a sickening crash of senses. Sick-sweet upon his nostrils. Bark abrading his cheek. A hum, and a shadow crouched on the tree limb above him, bent with knife in hand…
Tokela exploded into action. He twisted, kicked out. His foot impacted with something soft; he twisted again, clutched at tree bark, then air.
Dropped like a stone.
He hit, rolled, landed sprawled on his back and whacked his head against gnarled roots. It took a few attempts to breathe, let alone chase the sparks and shadows from his gaze.
It was then he saw the Chepiś, still perched in the bow tree. The Chepiś had, it seemed, climbed to cut him free.
Instinct demanded Tokela bolt up. Flee. His body, however, flat refused the order, limp and heavy as a weir full of water and sodden pulpwood. Even Wind denied his lungs full service, leaving only an emptiness thumping, painful, beneath his sternum.
The Chepiś swung down from the bow tree; the same distance that had flattened Tokela was, for it, a mere hop. Worse, the Chepiś was holding Tokela’s copper knife.
Tokela tried to lurch sideways. Tried to lever up to his elbows, to scoot backwards, anything.
Failed miserably, again.
Instead Wind filled his lungs in a sick-making, sudden rush. Tokela could finally move—and that merely to roll over just in time to vomit up everything not in his stomach.
For some time he lay there, heaving and shuddering and mostly not there, and long enough for anything to have killed him thrice over and perhaps skinned him as well. Once he stopped heaving, he once more felt those chill, oversize hands pawing at him, pulling…
Pulling him upright?
A coppery glint beckoned from the corner of blurry notice. He fixed on it: his knife, placed next to him, and the only security in a world gone suddenly maddened as the Chepiś tried to pick him up. Tokela couldn’t stop shaking. He managed to drag his feet beneath him as the Chepiś started to turn him about. It knelt as it held him, its small, round eyes tinged with what might have been concern but seemed more consideration. Tokela refused to wonder; instead he wrested sideways, nearly toppled but at the last saved it, and snatched up his knife, backing away.
Speaking its gibberish, the Chepiś reached for him. Tokela struck out, felt the knife make contact, didn’t wait to see if he’d done damage but turned to run.
Instead he went face-first into an immovable tower of cloth and something burning-hard.
Tokela hissed, shoved back to find his eyes level with a filigreed metal clasp and a hide belt cinched about a blood-coloured tunic. Swallowing hard, he followed the line of tunic downward, to knee-high boots big enough to swim in. With another, nauseated swallow, he ran his eyes back up that fancy tunic. And up.
It was one thing to know Chepiś were too tall. It was another entirely to be faced off against it.
The second Chepiś raised its hands, thin fingers splayed. It might have meant it was weaponless, or surprised. Either way, Tokela was not about to assume it meant him no harm. Hide pallid as the first one, this one’s hair was dark, tied into a tail of tight, crisp waves.
