A large grip enveloped his own, yanked his knife hand upward and held Tokela nigh onto his bare toes. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
Meanwhile the first Chepiś was speaking again, in the awkward way that Tokela could somewhat decipher. “It but scratched me. Moreover, the tunic is old. I wondered what could escape a pack of shigala—and would dare to stand them down, it would seem. But the little one is damaged, and those beasts have been too patient for their meal. See to it, Vox, since we have taken their catch.”
The Chepiś standing before Tokela looked down at him with cool, flat eyes as another figure stepped into view. Broader, more muscular, a dusky shadow amidst the moon-pale Chepiś. Slowly, the Matwau drew a long knife.
What nerve normally ran obsidian along his veins thoroughly deserted Tokela, leaving nothing more than the names with which that Matwau would dismiss their kind: little grubby animal, primitive, sgralka, painted dwarfling. Savage.
Tokela’s eyes rolled up into his head, and the poisoned dark once more enveloped him, toppled him into its embrace.
Shards.
Bright-hot in darkness, flashes spreading, reaching; tendrils of light sparking within his skull, behind his eyes and down to his heart.
They are warmth. Breath. Life.
Connexion.
Power.
Awash in it, afloat, a deep-soft drone teasing, tickling, making promises with a tongue he does not understand, but knows.
Somehow.
Clicking within him, piece by piece, answer by answer, and he twitches beneath, whimpers purling in his throat merely to be swallowed by the vast surround of something he has no name for.
And names can sway Power, so he calls it: neverending.
As if with that, things begin to shift. The impossible, incomprehensible shards smooth into pinpricks of light—still unreachable and untouchable, still recognisable.
Stars. Some of them Ancestors lighting lamps brilliant and almost painful; many more of them Other, invaders, unfriendly. Why does he long for the contact, even should he burn fingers upon the impossible?
Small rustles, murmurs he cannot comprehend. Wind tossing the topmost leaves, breathing more gently near the woodLand floor, fingering damp hair over his brow, touching…
Ai, something touching him, holding to him, keeping him pinioned to ground when all he wants is to soar into that glittering dark. He squirms beneath the hold; it merely presses tighter. A presence hovering. Strange. Familiar.
Something within his vision… gives, and beneath the Dreaming a memory coalesces. It has to be memory, for this cannot be. It can never be again, for she is dead, part of those Stars, perhaps.
But still, he whispers: Aška?
Pressed to Earth and heavy-sodden, he tries to open his eyes, deny the Dreaming as she bends over him, answers. Peace. Be still, my son, and soon it will be over.
A drag of cloth over his face, cool and strange-smelling and cloying, and while something within him begs for it, something else screams and bolts upright…
Something impacted with his hand, went sailing in a dark, liquid arc. There was a sharp cry—dismay? anger?—and before he was even halfway up, Tokela grabbed for his knife.
No luck there, only white-hot trails spangling across his vision, tiny sparks like Stars.
Blinking, Tokela shook his head. Growled, low and menacing, as the sparks smeared into blurry figures, hovering. Too narrow, too tall, shrouded by tree shadows and dying spears of Sun’s light.
“Easy, now,” said one of the figures, its deep voice speaking… dawnLands Talk? Ai, if a poor, broken version. “Done be done. You be safe.”
And Tokela remembered.
He had been poisoned by Shaped creatures.
He was surrounded by Chepiś and Matwau.
He wasn’t safe.
His body wasn’t so quick as his thoughts. What should have been a sideways lurch ended up in a sprawl, limbs useless, against a wide pool of sticky-thick indigo sinking into Grandmother’s skin.
Indigo? But indigo was not hued so until it sat, stained.
Several voices, now, rising in unrecognisable, unmusical talk. One in particular penetrated; menace lay beneath it, thrilling Tokela’s muscles to action. Once again he tried to lurch upward.
Once again he went sprawling, facedown in the dirt.
Hands laid upon him and shoved him onto his back. The touch seared into nerve and bone, as if outLand eirn had been laid to skin; it brought Tokela further into his body. He lay stripped to clout, wet warmth puckering and cooling on his chest, arm and leg throbbing hot. Rain pattered all around. Damp moss pillowed his head, roots curving against his spine, giving off strange, white-dark sparks that tingled against his skin. As if the roots had been Shaped to cradle him…
Shaped. He was in Šilombiš’okpulo, with Chepiś Shapers.
Tokela twisted, snarled defiance and fear upward at the Chepiś holding him down.
The Chepiś rocked back, but it didn’t loosen its grip. Three others moved in, the failing light silhouetting them against the vast tree canopy. The tree beneath Tokela… moved. Too quick to be Wind, or anything natural, it curled and stretched outwards with tiny, oddling sparks and shifts, leaves moving, rustling, sheltering from Rain.
“Lie still.” The talk—too deliberate—came from the Moon-haired one that had cut him loose. “We’re trying to help you. The shigala poisoned you, and we’re helping. Can you understand?”
Another growl purling deep in his throat, Tokela hesitated. He wasn’t sure he did understand. He didn’t think the Chepiś lied, but then his own senses were sideways; poison, he remembered, bits and fragments beginning to piece together.
The Chepiś’s breathing was loud in the stillness—indeed, all of them seemed to be panting—but Tokela couldn’t fathom any scent save the sick-sweet. Like the Shaped creatures, he thought with a chill in his gut, and only one heart’s drum he could feel or hear.
Perhaps they didn’t have hearts.
Matwau did, however. The one standing amidst the Chepiś had a heartbeat that echoed deep as the talking drums, steady-sure and unconcerned. Its face was distinctive—familiar—darker than even dryLands people in summering’s midst, displaying lines of both life and living, with an expression that seemed… curious, no more or less. A hunter’s face, used to the
