A glint of metal sparked Tokela’s attention. Vox stood by the bow tree, leaning over the felled creature, drawing a slender, shining knife. Tokela couldn’t help a small recoil of distaste; outLanders seemed to take inordinate pride over their Shaping of the metal they raped from Grandmother’s womb and called eirn.
Surely if these Chepiś were hunters, they would know predators made tough eating… wait. This Vox looked as if he were about to break and parcel Tokela’s own kill. Tokela leaned forwards in protest, but Rann reached for him, startling him into another recoil.
“Perhaps they paint themselves not only blue, but brown?”
Sivan and Maloh exchanged patient looks. Tokela’s own trepidation was swiftly fading, running the length of huffy insult to—admit it—wry amusement. Did all Chepiś truly have that same sickly pallor to their hides? Could they not imagine a Skybow’s wealth of hue? He was of Forest and River, after all, not a Sun-blessed Horsetalker!
“Perhaps it hasn’t been thoroughly painted.” This time Rann actually touched Tokela, fingers rubbing at his cheek as if to wipe the faded Marks away. Those fingers were cool, feathery, not overly unpleasant. But the searching touch lingered, followed by an unnerving tingle. Tokela ducked out from beneath, and when Rann started forwards again, Tokela gave her a warning look.
“Stop trying to pet him, Rann,” the Matwau fem drawled, wry. “The sgralka’s little, but he might indeed bite, and I’m not sure I’d blame him.”
Tokela bristled. Sgralka was even more insulting than ghoteh! Over by the tree, Vox had looped some kind of rope about the—shee-galah?—tying it in a manner suggesting he was indeed about to butcher it.
This had all gone far enough.
“I’m no sgralka!” Tokela burst out. “Nor ghoteh! I’m a’Kowehoklaánutekasha, firstPeople. And I’ve never seen your kind, but I know what you are! And that”—he flung his unwounded arm towards where Vox was putting a knife to the creature Tokela had slain—“is my kill. Matwau are known to take what’s not theirs; are Chepiś also?”
A quartet of round eyes riveted to his. Tokela refused to totter back beneath them. He did, however, swallow hard as the silence pounded like his heartbeats, one into the other.
A sudden, clear peal of laughter rang and echoed beneath the thick canopy. Sivan began, joined softly by Rann, a snort from Maloh, and a roll of eyes from Vox. Sivan rocked from kneeling to sit beside Tokela, still chuckling.
“Well said, young… kho-way-oka!” At least Sivan was trying to pronounce it correctly. “’Twas rude of us to talk about you as though you were not present. And we would not rob you of your prize, though—”
“Though we have little time for primitive foolishness,” Vox snapped, still hovering over the dead creature. “Unless, little animal, you prefer dying to what scant life you do possess.”
Tokela’s lip quivered with the beginnings of a snarl. Sivan turned and snapped something in their flat talk. It seemed exasperation was exasperation in any Land as Vox rolled pale eyes in answer.
“We mean no disrespect.” This from Maloh in her good dawnLands talk. “The bite of a shigala is evil if left untended, and we had to use what means we could.”
Tokela frowned.
“When you struggled”—Sivan motioned to the upended bowl—“you spilt the blood we were using. We’ll have to draw more. If we can.” Sivan looked concerned. “Even with altered creatures, blood coagulates after death.”
“Ka-hagoo…?” Tokela mouthed the odd word. And the only altars he knew of were frowned upon in dawnLands, though his own sire had kept one in midLands tradition, with several spiritDancers balanced upon carven stone bases.
“Thickens,” Maloh put in.
Ai, that Tokela understood.
Sivan gave a small, curious smile and continued, “The creature does not look long dead, but better to move swiftly. If you will allow Vox, we can see to your leg. And your arm.” Again, pale brows furrowed. “We might need Rann’s services after all.”
Vox let out a torrent of the flat talk—clearly protest. Rann answered in kind, this time. Muttering, Vox bent back to the dead creature and Rann came forwards, threading something resembling a shiny, rectangular waterskin on a thong from over her head. “Are you thirsty?”
Tokela was, but eyed the skin-that-was-not warily. It looked to be made of eirn. Perhaps that explained the odd feelings as Rann had touched him. “I cannot drink that.”
“It’s merely water, little one.” Rann extended the water closer. Tokela angled backward.
Sivan was watching with a frown, then reached out and stayed Rann’s hand. “Take your burl bowl, go to the stream and fill it.”
“Sivan, but surely…” Rann peered at first Sivan, then Tokela, eyes widening. “Are the stories true after all? Is it possible forged iron truly burns these little folk?”
“It has a knife of copper,” Vox corrected from over by the shigala. Its belly opened, Vox was transferring greenish-blue meat—organs, likely—into a large bowl.
“Copper is not forged steel, and many things are possible,” Maloh said. “I’ll come with you. This forest can be treacherous to one who knows it not.”
Still big-eyed, Rann followed Maloh’s retreat into the forest.
“You are not the only one who has found themselves in an odd encounter,” Sivan explained. “Rann never quite believed my brother’s stories of meeting with Gho… firstPeople”—the correction was quick—“though she liked to hear them.”
She. “It… the young one… Rann. Rann is a she?” Tokela blurted before he could halt it.
“She is.” Sivan’s smile broadened. “Save Vox, all of us here choose that guise. We are not so unalike, your kind and mine.”
Guise? It made no sense. It implied a path beyond garb, moiety, or society; a Shaping beyond anything he’d imagined possible. Tokela’s gut gave a sharp twist: confusion, and dread.
What if they hadn’t sired
