A roar lifted from the other side of Circuit; some other dancer, no doubt. Sarinak peered across, and the most extraordinary expression claimed his face. Hare took the opportunity to lunge at his tormentor; Sarinak snatched his arm, gave him a shake. His next gesture was just as plain: ordering the treacherous Bear from Circuit.
Bear shot a dark look towards his opponent—no less than a promise of revenge. Hare looked to be saying Bring it, k’šo—fists gripped tight to his spear, mouth quivering with a snarl as Sarinak repeated his command. Bear stomped off.
Sarinak’s attention was still divided; with another shake of Hare’s arm, he released him and strode from the field, dodging dancers as he went. Hare watched him go. A quartet of older oških moved past him as he spun his spear and disappeared from view. Našobok gave a small huff.
Another roar filled the far end of the grounds. People were standing up, trying to see. Again, chance parted the dancers, and Našobok beheld the cause.
Anahli, who’d somehow managed to obtain a spear, pacing an astonished Otter, who kept backing away.
The poor oških didn’t stand a chance. He likely more expected Anahli to bite him on the leg than enter Spear Dance and come at him. Instinct alone helped him field off the first two blows, but by the time he’d recovered, it was too late. His spear flew into the air, end over end, and landed point-down just inside the bounds.
The oških males clotted together again, intent upon the drum and their own Dances.
“Ai, Anahli,” Našobok groaned, and flopped back on Palatan’s blanket.
Aylaniś was going to have a conniption.
THE OTTER oških didn’t even try to dance. Not really, and it was over too quick, his spear flying, and the eyes behind the Otter mask clouded with puzzlement.
Only then did Anahli notice the lull, small and tight about them, as if the drums had muted into distance. Caught her sire’s scent just before he grabbed her arms, swung her about, and growled into her face:
“What is wrong with you?”
Over his shoulder, she saw Aylaniś. And Inhya.
And realised, frustration eking into dread, that she had, once again, landed herself in a basket of boiling water.
“You’re a guest here! You owe a guest’s courtesies to ways not your own!” Each gritted phrase accompanied by a shake, Palatan whirled and started to drag her from the Circuit—like a ahlóssa, like a… a babe in a cradleboard! His talk stung even more, like clay-spitting wasps, and all the more because they carried wide within that tiny, sudden mote of stillness. “Here, of all places. You’ve only had your indigo four summerings! You well know you’ve not earned the rights to openly court opposites!”
Surely humiliation urged her to snap back, more venom-and-clay. “Some would say I follow my sire’s footsteps, choosing to lie where I shouldn’t!”
Palatan shoved her out of the Circuit and nearly into her dam’s arms… had Aylaniś’s arms been open and welcoming.
They most definitely were not. Aylaniś held herself tight as stone, delivering her own barrage like a stinging slap. “Hihlyanahli. You are insolent. You humiliated that oških for no purpose.”
Cornered, Anahli did the only thing she ever had: lash out. “Humiliated? If he can’t best me then he can’t. I am oških, trained by you, horse-chieftain, and by you, tyah a’Šaákfon! I am horsetalker, from duskLands where any proper Spear Dance is open to all who can defend their spear!”
Aylaniś smacked her hands together between them, stoppering the torrent. “You are not in your place! You’re here, in dawnLands, by the grace of hearth-chieftain a’Naišwyrh. To learn new ways, not insult them.”
“Chogah says any ways that would keep a fem in scarves and skirts—”
“That is a lie from one whose tongue curls and spits, and a’io, part of why you’re here.”
“I’m here because you’ve brought me to be ‘tamed’ by Aunt Inhya! You’re hoping to drown my ‘insolence’ in River!”
Anger had prompted it; disappointment and, she suddenly knew, the subtle poison Chogah had given her to sip. But it was too late to take them back.
“That isn’t true,” Palatan whispered.
Aylaniś stared at Anahli for a long, inheld breath, then let it out. Turned her back.
“There is no danger of such insolence drowning,” Inhya growled, quiet, then also turned her back and walked away.
The drums, once seeming-soft, now filled the Bowl. Behind them, Spear Dance continued as if nothing had disturbed it. Palatan’s fury showed in the trembling of his fingers, in the glimmers behind his eyes. Nevertheless, he hesitated, started to speak to Anahli—in the sudden clarity of her own broken temper, she could see that.
But her dam slid him The Eye and, jaw tightening, Palatan turned away. Walked away, slow in his sister’s wake.
Aylaniś followed, her back muscles roped even further with tension.
The other oških fems were still seated in their tidy rows. They hadn’t so much as met her eyes, or smiled encouragement. Not even Čayku. They, too, turned away and began talking amongst themselves, as if Anahli weren’t there.
PALATAN RETURNED, shaking his head when Našobok thought to question. His fingers signed Later, his talk soft and heavy as the tilt of his shoulders. She’s had her tail trimmed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Mm. She’s too much like me. Thankfully she feels the sting of public shame more than I did. Or”—a cheeky smile—“than your vicious hareKin dancer clearly does.”
This made Našobok’s desire to root for the slight oških all the stronger. Yet Hare had disappeared. The treacherous Bear oških also had vanished, and Sarinak, retreated to the sidelines.
The drums were building even stronger, a fierce, body-pounding rhythm. The dancers were starting to pair off, no longer using their spears solely for combat, but for choice. Several older oških were still flirting with fems, but in the end all would follow the customs of Spear Dance and choose partners amongst their own. Našobok remembered his own Spear Dances with vivid affection: the indisputable conflict and resolution—both in circuit and, if lucky, off.
The skinny silver-masked
