Thisdark, awareness blossomed into abundance. As if every groan and judder probed deep, scraping a just-this-side-of-raw pleasure along his nerves, making heated promises he wanted to see kept. Heat from their breath and bodies made vapour trails upward into the dark; it teased at Tokela’s nostrils, made him shift and quiver and tighten his grip on the limb until bark creaked.
There might not be anyone Tokela fancied as playmate, but his too-tight clout was no longer so fussy.
“What are you doing here, ehšehklan?”
The ugly midLands sneer—half-breed, not wholly of People—growled rough from behind him, and rougher hands shoved him, hard.
It would have been nice, Tokela considered as he ate dirt, if his hyperaware senses had warned him of this.
Mordeleg a’Hassun was a distant cousin from midLands. And he’d expressed an inexplicable hatred for Tokela since his arrival three Moons previous.
Lithe as stoatKin, Tokela rolled away as the other oških bent to grab him, nearly escaped.
Nearly. Mordeleg caught hold of the leggings over Tokela’s shoulder, yanked. Tokela winced, expecting pain—when there was nothing he twisted and grabbed belatedly for his leggings. It did little good. Mordeleg backed away, clutching his prize. For someone so stout and formidable, in truth he was a clumsy fighter. Nevertheless, he could pin Tokela to the ground for a sound beating. Had done, once.
“Give me my garb!” Tokela hissed. He didn’t want to be caught out again. He particularly didn’t want the entirety of the oških den to know he’d been gawping at a tangle, or nosing in their place.
“You want them”—Mordeleg hefted the leathers with a smile—“then take them.”
The smile wasn’t pleasant, and Tokela wasn’t fooled. Yet surely he could dart in, take his things, and twist away before Mordeleg could so much as blink.
Surely not. Mordeleg waited until Tokela came into range, then flung the leathers against his face. As Tokela recoiled from the slap, Mordeleg grabbed him, yanked him off balance then twisted his injured arm up behind him. Hard.
Again, it stung, but not as it should.
The oških rutting each other in the corner didn’t so much as look up.
“What are you doing here?” Mordeleg hissed in his ear. “You’ve no rights wandering here, ahlóssa.” And before Tokela could so much as try to struggle, Mordeleg was pushing him forwards.
Towards the oških den.
“Let me go!” Tokela growled, digging his heels in. “I’ll say nothing if you just—”
Mordeleg gave a derogatory snort, yanked Tokela’s arm farther between his shoulder blades and propelled him forwards. Mordeleg was twice Tokela’s size, so choices were presently limited.
Still, the tangling oških paid no heed.
Tokela envied them.
And ate dirt for the second time thisdark as Mordeleg yanked back the hide covering the door of the oških den and shoved Tokela through it.
“LOOK WHAT I found, sneaking about.”
Mordeleg sounded triumphant—and looked it too, Tokela considered, sloughing a dark glance towards his tormentor.
A heavy silence answered. Tokela rocked up to his hands and knees, curious despite himself. He’d never actually been in here. The den was little different from any other—larger and more cluttered, certainly, but with Fire stoked low in Ša’s pit at the central place of honour, gleaming-stones to light dark corners, rumpled blankets, woven mats, and rows of bedshelves carved into sandy stone towards the back cavern.
The inhabitants themselves made the difference—a threatening one, at that. In various states of undress, the small semicircuit stood, crouched, were seated. In the shadowy den they resembled more a pack of wolves than anything.
Yet Tokela had just faced down a pack of unnatural creatures in Šilombiš’okpulo. He’d the claws of one tucked in his pouch to prove it. Lowering his chin, Tokela glared beneath his forelock at those silent, Fire-flicked faces.
None of them would dare beat ahlóssa with impunity—despite Mordeleg’s tendencies. Though there were tales about what youthful trespassers had, in the past, been made to suffer for going where they shouldn’t.
“He was spying on us!” Mordeleg threw Tokela’s leggings and boots down beside him, then gnarled his fingers into Tokela’s forelock and yanked his face up. With that grip, and a harsher one on one of Tokela’s arms, Mordeleg hauled him roughly to his feet.
Almost as one, the surrounding oških lurched forwards. “That’s enough!” one oških barked, rising from the Fireside.
“You presume much with that ‘us’, midLander,” another growled the threat. “Leave him be. Or is ahlóssa all you can manage to challenge and best?”
Mordeleg’s glared at Tokela, who answered with a snarl and yank of arm, freeing himself from the harsh grip. Mordeleg gave a threatening lurch, and Tokela backed, reaching for his knife.
“No live edges in-den!” Another older oških smacked Tokela’s hand away from his weapon, not unkind but firm. Tokela peered up at him—ai, another towering a’Naišwyrh; he was surely tired of looking upward thisSun—and it was indeed a glare, one he couldn’t halt had he wanted to.
A smirk tugged at the oških’s lips. Keeping narrowed eyes on Tokela, the oških addressed Mordeleg with barely concealed scorn. “Hunh! This ahlóssa has more edge to his blade than you could ever wish for, midLander!”
Laughter all around.
An ugly flush flaring from neck to cheek, Mordeleg turned on one heel and stalked to the back of the room.
“Was he the one who blooded you?”
A small thrill of trepidation—they’d smelt it, after all—but a hand merely placed itself on Tokela’s shoulder, turned him further into the light of the gleaming-stones. Another set of disapproving hisses bounced off the curved den walls as the gathered oških viewed the scratches on bare arms and legs. Tokela shook his head, looked closer at his unlikely benefactor. The oških had a half-shaven head with twistlocks hanging unbound, bespeaking the pledge to achieve his own den, his own property and rights to full adulthood—including, likely, espousing a fem he’d set his sights upon. He was tall and muscular, motions economical and sure in himself—little wonder he seemed to be leader here.
“Or did you just tangle with a too-tall tree, little one?”
“Little one” had been difficult enough coming from Chepiś. Tokela nearly blurted out what exactly
