He released his grip, leaning back, his arms crossed over his chest again. “Now go.”
Eraeth rose with Aeren, the lord bowing toward the chief of the People of the Thousand Springs. A formal bow, one that would be given to another Lord of the Evant. Then they left, passing back through the entrance, around the curved arm of the tent and out into the night.
Darkness shrouded the entire camp, broken by the fires and the stars above. As he came out into the cool night air, Eraeth stumbled, a wave of dizziness sweeping over him, brought on by the heat of the tent and the dense smoke. He gasped, sucked in a cleansing breath, the cold shocking his lungs, heard the others doing the same.
The shaman stood to one side, watching them through narrowed eyes. But when the storm they had seen upon entering the tent flared to the east-closer now, enough that they could hear an answering rumble of thunder-he turned back to study it. The rest of the dwarren ignored them completely.
“That was… interesting,” Aeren said as they began to move through the circles of tents back to their own camp.
Eraeth didn’t hear any sarcasm in his voice. “I did not like his son, Shea.”
Aeren shrugged. “He is young. He does not trust us, and he has yet to learn how to be… diplomatic. You and he are much alike.”
Eraeth snorted. “I am not young.”
Aeren smiled. “No, you are not. And for that you are forgiven much.” They passed through the dwarren sentries and walked up the hillock in silence, turning near the top, where Eraeth gave the sentry on duty there a nod that all was well. The Phalanx guardsman relaxed.
Behind them, the dwarren camp lay among the black grass, the campfires burning in rounded glares of light, the tent where they had met with the chieftain glowing blue-green with the light of the braziers inside. The storm lit the sky to the east with flashes of blue and purple and set Eraeth’s skin tingling with its nearness.
“But we found what we came for,” Aeren said, and as Eraeth turned to look at him, his face was lit with the glow of purple lightning. Eraeth saw weariness there, and pain, along with satisfaction. “Now all we need to do is convince the Tamaell and the Evant.”
“You’re listening to them?” Shea barked as soon as the Alvritshai warriors left the tent. He jumped to his feet, paced the confines of the tent. “You trust them? Remember what was done to our People at the Cut!”
“I will take their words to the Gathering and the rest of the clan chiefs, yes,” Garius said, his voice coming out in a low growl. He watched his son pace, saw the pent up anger in each step, the frustration in his clenched hands. Garius nearly reached out to grab his son’s arm and force him to stop, but he crossed his arms over his chest instead.
He’d been young once himself.
The smoke from the braziers-representing the four gods of the Winds, with the fifth overhead representing Ilacqua, so that he could oversee all that transpired in the tent-hung thick and heavy, swirling around his son’s movements. Garius drew the cleansing yetope smoke deep into his lungs, held it, then exhaled slowly before continuing.
“I do not trust them, Shea. But a decision like this cannot be made by a single clan chief. It may affect all of the clans, so it must go to the Gathering.” He let his voice harden. “You know this. And you know why we must at least listen.”
“Because of the Cut,” Shea sneered.
Garius slammed one fist down on the table in the center of the tent, the bowl of untouched fruit jumping with a rattle. “Yes, because of the Cut! Over two thousand Riders were killed at the Cut, massacred by the Alvritshai and human forces, including your grandfather and three of your uncles-my father and brothers! I would have been there, would have died there, if I’d been old enough to wear my first band. None of the Riders who left the Lands to meet the Alvritshai and the humans survived, not clan chief nor first-banded. It decimated our ranks. Enough Riders remained to keep the human incursions at bay, but barely. If they had come in force within ten years of that day…”
“When they did come we fought them back-”
“ I fought them back,” Garius interrupted. “You were nothing but a kernel of grain in Ilacqua’s eye.”
“We should fight them now!”
Shea halted near one of the braziers, and they glared at each other. Garius’ anger flared in his blood, but staring at his son, at the tension in his shoulders, at the clench of his jaw, he faltered.
Shea looked too much like his older brother, Jasu.
“Jasu,” Garius said tightly, and saw Shea wince. “I don’t fight them because of Jasu.”
“What do you mean? What does my brother have to do with it?”
“Everything!” Garius snapped. He suddenly couldn’t sit anymore. He rose and began to pace, taking Shea’s place. “He has everything to do with it. When he received his first band and became a Rider, I was proud, as any father would be. He could join me, could help me protect the Lands, help drive off the humans and the Alvritshai in Ilacqua’s name. And he did, riding the plains, joined later by your older brothers, arriving back at the Thousand Springs warren victorious, welcomed by your mother and sisters, by the entire clan.” His pacing slowed and he looked toward Shea. “And then he died.”
Shea frowned, but he said nothing, his brow still creased in irritation.
“You weren’t there-you were barely waist-high! You don’t remember. The humans had built an outpost on Silver Grass Clan lands. Thousand Springs joined them in the attack, but the outpost had been fortified with the Legion. Your brother fell in the initial charge, and I brought his body home with me.
“I could barely enter the warren. I knew what this would do to your mother. But when we rode into the city through the tunnels and I saw her waiting at our cleft, I realized she already knew. I don’t know how, but she had already wept; her eyes were red but dry. But the pain on her face, pain that she hid for the sake of the clan, for my sake as clan chief-” Garius broke off, his voice cracking. He held his arms before him, as if he still carried Jasu’s body, as if he were crossing the threshold of the tunnel into the cavernous main room of the warren even now. For a moment, he could see the entrances of the cliffside clefts rising in tiers on all sides, could hear the roar of the river crashing into the central pool of the cavern, all of it lit with a thousand lanterns, decorated with garlands of straw and wheat to celebrate their return…
It threatened to overwhelm him, the grief crushing. He clenched his jaw, forced the emotion down, and glared at Shea, one hand squeezed into a tight fist. He could see that Shea didn’t understand, realized that he’d never understand until he had a wife and sons of his own.
He needed to give Shea a reason he could understand.
He swallowed, lowered his arms, and started again. “There are barely ten thousand dwarren left in the clan, when once there were twice that,” he said gruffly. “Four thousand of us are Riders. The other clans fare no better. All told there are maybe thirty thousand Riders left to protect the Lands, less than a hundred thousand of the People. Once we were a thriving race, but now we are dwindling. Already our numbers approach those of the Alvritshai, who guard their lives and the lives of their children with such reverence. That is why the Alvritshai have not attacked us recently, because their own survival is threatened. They’ve lost too many of their children to the fight. The humans have outnumbered us for years, and they are reckless with their lives, as we once were with our own.
“We cannot be reckless any longer. We cannot throw our lives away on the plains. Your need to fight-and that of your generation-will destroy the People completely.”
Shea regarded him for a long moment in silence, his jaw clenched tight. When he finally spoke, he said, “The need to fight-the urge to avenge those of us who have died, like Jasu-was trained into us by you.”
He left, ducking out through the cloth covering the western entrance.
Garius stood stunned. His gaze fell on his fists, knuckles white, and he forced them to open. The yepote smoke in the tent had dissipated, three of the braziers burned out. He breathed in deeply, then sighed heavily.
When he emerged from the tent, he saw no sign of Shea; the camp was mostly dark. The storm still rumbled off in the distance, and a few cook fires still burned, mostly dampened coals.
“The sky is troubled.”
Garius turned and picked out the figure of the shaman standing with his ceremonial spear, his back to the tent. He moved to the shaman’s side and stared out at the flickers of lightning far distant. “What do you see,
