Tem’s central square was crowded to capacity for the Naming Day ceremony. The mines were shut down for the day; the fields were empty; the crafters shuttered their shops. Everyone came to Naming Day without exception. It was the most important holiday of the year, a remembrance of when the great Ak-lahat, One Above All, created the world and all the living things within it. It was the last day of the last week of the year, the final moon of the spring growing season. Tomorrow, a new year would start with the warm season of summer – and with the turning of the year, Amarl would be well away from Tem. At least, he hoped so; if he were still in the village, there’d be the spirits’ hells to pay after the morning he’d had.
Akio, the last day of each week, was the day set aside for Ak-lahat, and as such, it was supposed to be a day of rest and contemplation. Amarl – he’d already mentally added the fifth letter to his name even though he couldn’t officially claim it yet – had spent the morning quite differently. While the villagers gathered in the square, congratulating the parents whose children would be gaining a letter and those adults who’d be adding to their already lengthy names, he’d slipped from house to house, picking locks and helping himself to the supplies and coins he’d need to leave the village once and for all. Two large packs on his back bulged with his ill-gotten gains, and his hidden purse strained at the seams. The villagers thought themselves clever, hiding their aks and akas beneath floorboards and false bottoms of drawers, but he’d found most of them. Brezam the merchant kept his coins securely stored in a heavy steel safe beyond Amarl’s ability to open or carry, much to the boy’s discontent, but every other place he’d visited had yielded at least something useful.
He climbed up the trellis on the rear of Heldir the vintner’s house – sampling a few of the grapes that dangled from the vines shrouding that trellis on the way up – and scrambled onto the low-pitched roof. Heldir’s vintages were one of Tem’s few luxury exports, so the winemaker could afford a large house overlooking the central square, directly across from the Head Bureaucrat’s house. Amarl crawled up until his head and arms were above the peak, then lay flat on the roof. He’d chosen his vantage point well; he could see the main stage in front of Axanor’s house over the heads of the crowd, so he wouldn’t miss anything of note that might happen.
His eyes scanned the crowd. He spotted Helowa quickly enough, standing chatting with a pair of men who eyed her admiringly. He also found Kelwat standing toward the edge of the crowd. He held Elmra’s upper arm in his hand, and the girl’s face looked downcast. Churl, standing on the other side of her, looked triumphant, and Amarl felt a surge of anger as he looked at the green-skinned young man. He owed Churl for knocking him out and leaving him for dead, and he always paid back his debts. Besides, if he let the man attack him without retaliation, he’d be asking for every bully in the village to hunt him down. Amarl had no parents, no friends, no protections. Only fear of reprisal kept him safe.
He shook off thoughts of revenge and refocused on the stage. It was nothing but a series of sanded wooden planks laid atop a platform of matching wooden crates and lashed in place with rope. Two more planks made ramps allowing people to mount and dismount the stage at each end. A lectern in the middle had the Imperial Seal on it, a circle broken into a diamond-shaped grid, the symbol of Ak-lahat, with a hook-pointed spear overlaying it vertically up the center crossed at a right angle by a long stalk of wheat, the main staple crop of the Empire. A bronze, eight-pointed star covered the center of the seal, gleaming in the midday sun.
Seats had been set up behind the lectern, along the back of the stage. To the right to Amarl’s point of view sat Vernir the priest of Ak-lahat, the highest religious official in the village – which wasn’t saying much since there were only the priest and his two acolytes to perform the village’s religious duties. Heldir, the man whose house Amarl adorned, sat beside the old, gray-haired priest, chatting amiably. Axanor sat to the left of the lectern, talking animatedly at the short-haired woman who’d apparently saved Amarl’s life earlier. She, on the other hand, seemed to be saying little or nothing in return. Her eyes swept the crowd constantly, seeming to see everything at once. In fact, the moment Amarl popped his head up over the roof, her eyes pierced him, and her hand shifted toward one of her pistols. She seemed to recognize him quickly, though, and her body relaxed at once.
He settled in as Axanor rose from his seat and took the stage. The large, round-faced man wore his finest bureaucrat’s robe, a long affair of golden silk, the costly material that Amarl had heard was made by worms of some sort and shimmered with a telltale sheen. The robe was decorated with an Imperial Seal and had four crimson slashes at the collar that the hizeen assumed denoted the bald man’s rank as a bureaucrat, not that it meant anything to him. Amarl could read and write and knew the basic history of the Empire, but he hadn’t continued in the bureaucrat’s school after his fifth year the way most other children had.
“People of Tem,” Axanor spoke in a voice that carried loudly over the crowd, silencing them instantly. “We gather together today in the name of Ak-lahat, the One Above All, to bid farewell to another year of the great Empire of Umpratan. On this, the final Akio of the final week of the third moon of Spring in the year 1619, we look back on the joys of the past year and celebrate the new…”
Amarl tuned out the man’s speech. While Axanor had a good voice and used it pretty well, his speech each year was basically the same. He thanked Ak-lahat for the blessings the village received, and Vernir came up at that point to lead the crowd in a prayer to the One Above All that Amarl didn’t repeat with the others. He didn’t exactly get to share in whatever blessings the great god bestowed on Tem beyond not having it burn to the ground or be destroyed in an avalanche, so there was no real need to thank the god, as far as he was concerned. Besides, Amarl figured that if Ak-lahat really did create the entire universe, he had a lot more important things to concern himself with than a tiny village in a mostly unimportant province in the Umpratan Empire. Amarl barely noticed the place; surely the god of everything was watching something more interesting.
Instead, the hizeen kept his gaze on the woman he’d spoken to that morning. She didn’t repeat the ritual phrases either, he noticed. Her gaze swept the crowd continuously, stopping here and there to examine one person or another. It took him a few minutes to realize that she was picking out the people around his age, giving each of them a brief examination before moving to the next.
Axanor droned on as he began the official process of naming. He began by bringing up the new babies in the audience and recording the two-letter names their mothers gave them. Next came those who were about to start their fifth year, gaining a third letter to celebrate not dying in infancy, followed by those going into their tenth year who could officially begin working for their families.
“Next, let us greet those who are leaving their apprenticeships and becoming true citizens of the Empire,” the bureaucrat intoned. Amarl perked up instantly; the fat man should have gone on to introduce those like him entering adulthood next, but he’d skipped it. That was a serious breach of tradition, and Amarl had never seen the bureaucrat breach tradition before. The crowd seemed equally amazed; people muttered to one another and stared at the lectern in confusion. Lania, apprentice to the weaver Burnig, hesitated at the base of the ramp leading up to the stage as her name was called, but she eventually made her halting way to the top, her face worried as she announced the two-letter addition that made her new name Laniria to sparsely scattered applause.
After the apprentices, the couples who married in the past year mounted the stage, again seeming unsure and hesitant if they were doing the right thing as their names were called. Each husband renounced his maternal surname in favor of his wife’s, and both spouses added two more letters to their names. They wouldn’t use them, of course – full adult names were long and cumbersome, saved for formal occasions – but it would be the last time they got multiple letters until they reached their forty-fifth Naming Day, so most of them took care choosing those letters. Applause grew stronger with each name announced, but there was no cheering, and many people cast doubtful glances at the shocked faces of the fourteen-year-olds who, it seemed, might not be named adults this year after all – and the enraged faces of their families.
A handful of women mounted the stage to gain a letter for producing their first child, followed by the few people who got another letter for reaching the end of their forty-fourth year. Only one person, an old woman named Zherista, came up to receive the three letters she gained by completing her seventy-ninth year. Typically, that would have ended the Naming Day ceremony and began the feast to cheering and exultation, but an expectant hush fell over the crowd instead. Every eye fastened on the sweating Axanor, who gave them an apologetic smile in turn.
“You may have noticed a small change in our typical custom,” the bureaucrat said deprecatingly. A few laughs broke out among the crowd, but if Axanor expected to lessen the tension, he’d obviously failed, in Amarl’s opinion.
“We are honored – no, more than honored, we are blessed,” he went on hurriedly, “to have with us a guest of the highest honor and standing in the Empire. It is her presence that mandated such a change in our honored traditions, and her request that such a breach remain unexplained.” Amarl snorted at that; Axanor was making very sure that no one blamed him for the lapse in protocol and lack of warning about it.
“She has come to us from the far distant realm of Askula,” the man declared, and the crowd’s silence dissolved into confused and uncertain muttering. “And she is here for a special reason, a very special reason indeed. Please, offer the greatest respect to Danmila, Malim of the Academy of Askula and a venerated Ithtara, one of the great defenders of our Empire!”
As the woman rose holding a large wooden box in her hands, no applause or cheering greeted her. The crowd stared at her in frozen silence, stunned into incredulity at what they’d heard. Amarl found himself paralyzed with shock. He didn’t know much about the ithtaru, the superhuman guardians of the Empire, beyond that they were gifted with abilities beyond anything mortals could match, and they lived in another world entirely, a place called Askula. They kept the Empire safe from the spirits who would eradicate all life and secured the Mistways leading from Umpratan to other worlds. They were something of a law unto themselves, not answerable to the bureaucracy that ran every other aspect of life in the Empire, and everyone spoke of them in hushed tones if at all, fearful of summoning one by speaking of them too loudly. As the saying went, “Where the ithtaru tread, death follows.”
“And I was flirting with her!” he reminded himself. “Stupid ass! I’m lucky to be alive!”
Danmila walked in utter and total silence to the lectern that the bureaucrat hastily vacated. If she were surprised or upset by the crowd’s reaction, it didn’t show on her face. Her expression was calm and neutral as she surveyed the crowd. Nothing about her suggested threat or anger, but the villagers drew back from her, nonetheless.
“People of Tem,” she spoke in her slightly raspy voice, “I’ve come to your village from Askula for a specific purpose. First, let me assure you that your village is in no danger. There’ve been no incursions nearby, and I’m not here to pass judgment.”
A relieved sigh swept over the crowd. Amarl had never seen an ithtara before, of course, but he’d heard stories of them. They were sent to deal with incursions, times when spirits entered the mortal world, and their presence usually heralded a time of violence and bloodshed. Tales abounded of ithtaru who burned entire villages to the ground to make sure that any spirit-touched within were destroyed, or ithtaru who hunted down entire family lines to make sure no one of them could spread a spirit’s taint. The ithtara’s presence could spell Tem’s destruction, and if the tales about ithtaru were even half-correct, if that was what Danmila wanted, there was nothing anyone could do to stop her.
“I’ve come to offer a gift to those who become adults today,” she continued. “A gift from Askula to celebrate their coming of age. Let those ending their fourteenth year and their parents come forth and join me on the stage.”
Her last line had been a command, not a request, and one thing that everyone knew was that an ithtara’s commands were always obeyed without argument or delay. Amarl watched as the four families whose children were about to enter adulthood slowly and with obvious reluctance mounted the stage, standing as far away from the woman as they possibly could. Danmila placed her box on the lectern and opened it. The lid lifted away and the front unfolded outward. As she raised the lid, the sides spread apart until the interior was fully revealed.
The inside of the box was dark green fabric of a kind that Amarl didn’t recognize. The lid, sides, and back of the box had what looked like small shelves built into them, a finger’s width wide and running the length of the box. Amarl gasped as the midday light shone into the box, revealing glittering, polished gemstones placed haphazardly on the shelves. Hexagonal and octagonal stones of every color and size dotted what he now recognized as a traveling merchant’s display box, from sapphire to ruby to emerald. The stones burned with a deep fire, and the entire crowd gasped in amazement as they saw the gems. That one box likely represented more wealth than the entire village of Tem possessed – and the ithtara was apparently planning to give some of it away!
Amarl, however, didn’t care about that. His gaze fastened almost against his will on the least opulent crystal on display, a pale lavender shard of misshapen quartz. Spikes grew randomly out of the cloudy hexagonal prism, and it neither sparkled nor gleamed in the sunlight. Still, Amarl stared at it, fascinated. Something about the crystal spoke to him, calling his name and beckoning him to come take it. It took all his willpower not to immediately slide down the roof and rush forward to snatch up the stone, claiming it as his own, but he managed to restrain himself. Danmila knew he was there and hadn’t summoned him to join the others; that meant that, like the rest of the village, she didn’t want him there.
“You,” Danmila pointed to Fora, one of the children gathered on the stage. The girl gulped audibly and stepped back, her eyes wide, but the ithtara beckoned her forward, and her mother behind her pushed her toward the ithtara. Fora’s eyes were wild as she neared the woman, and her entire body shook with fear.
“Relax, girl,” Danmila said reassuringly. “I simply want you to take one of these stones as your own.”
“Wh-which one?” Fora asked in a trembling, small voice that Amarl only heard because of the encompassing silence.
“Whichever one appeals to you the most, girl. There’s no wrong choice except to not choose. Take one.”
Fora hesitated, her hand twitching toward the display before falling at her side. “I – I couldn’t,” she protested. “I’m not worthy of…”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Damn it, girl, pick one!” Danmila snapped. Fora flinched, but she hurriedly reached out and grabbed a gleaming ruby the size of her pinky, pulling it off the display.
Danmila grunted. “Good. Now, go back to your parents, girl.” She pointed to a boy named Wirn. “You. You’re next.”
Wirn came forward and just as hesitantly took a small green emerald for himself. Danmila grunted once more and pointed to a girl named Pasa, who didn’t hesitate for a second before stepping up and grabbing a glittering sapphire. A boy named Char went last and hesitated longer than the others before taking a gleaming blue topaz.
Amarl watched it all happen in amazement. Why were they taking those worthless gemstones? They should have picked the lavender crystal; it was obviously the best one! Char even seemed to drag his finger across it without choosing it. There was obviously something wrong with him; with all of them, in fact!
Apparently, Danmila agreed. She looked over the children with hard eyes. “Are you sure of your choices?” she asked each of them. “Last chance. Does any other stone call out to you?” None of them moved, and the woman turned to glare at Axanor. “Are you sure there are no other children reaching adulthood today?”
“Well, there is one other, my Lady,” the bureaucrat stammered. “A hizeen boy, Marl…”
She shook her head, cutting him off. “We’ve met. It’s not him; it can only be a pure-blooded nalu. And it’s none of the ones you’ve shown me. I warn you, Bureaucrat, if you’re hiding something from me…”
“I would never, my Lady!” the man protested. “Those are all of the children reaching adulthood in Tem, I swear it upon Ak-lahat!”
She grunted, then closed the case, snapping it shut. “I know they’re here, Bureaucrat. I’ll be here for another day, in case you suddenly remember someone you haven’t shown me.” She leaned forward. “I suggest that you do. Otherwise, I’ll have to look myself, and that might be somewhat – damaging to this village.”
Axanor swallowed nervously, his face white, and Amarl didn’t blame him. The man told the truth; there weren’t any other children coming of age in the village. Amarl didn’t know what the woman was looking for, but whatever it was, it obviously wasn’t in Tem – and she just as obviously thought it was. If she didn’t find it, things might go badly for Axanor and Tem in general.
Amarl’s eyes followed the woman as she walked off the stage carrying her box – the box with the lavender crystal inside it. His mind yearned for that irregular gem. He longed to feel its cold facets in his hand, to stare at it once more. The wealth of a city lay in that box, but his memory recalled only the pale purple stone. Everything else faded into the background of his thoughts. He knew he had to have it; the question was, how could he get it?
He slid back down the roof and scrambled down the trellis. He listened absently as the ceremony concluded in the square. Each family announced their child’s new adult name, but no one cheered or applauded, and Amarl realized that the ithtara had been right. This year’s ceremony was entirely different. No one would be rushing forward to congratulate the newly minted adults. No one would be offering them an apprenticeship or words of advice. The ithtara’s presence robbed the proceedings of joy.
“I guess I could have participated after all,” he mused with a dark chuckle. “Everyone’s getting treated the same way I did last time.”
He stowed his packs and slipped into the edge of the crowd as Vernir spoke once again, the old priest blessing the new names in the name of Ak-lahat, sealing them in the registries of the Empire. The old man’s words were terse and formulaic, lacking the fervor and faith with which he normally spoke, and the crowd’s response of, “Bi’k-lahat”, an ancient phrase that supposedly invoked the great god’s favor, seemed decidedly flat and dispirited.
Amarl was halfway to the food tables by the time Axanor dismissed the crowd and officially declared the beginning of the feast. He was glad of his head start as the villagers left the square and moved down the street in a nearly silent but determined mass. He grabbed a glazed ceramic plate and loaded it with dripping meat, steaming vegetables, and smoking bread as quickly as possible, then moved into an alley between two mine owners’ homes as the villagers reached the banquet. To his complete lack of surprise, many of them bypassed the food entirely and went straight for the casks of beer and wine. Axanor was one of these; the round bureaucrat poured himself a clay mug of wine and drained it in a single pull, then refilled it and repeated the process. The man had the look of someone who wanted to get drunk as quickly as possible, and he wasn’t alone.
Amarl eyed their foaming tankards a bit enviously; now that he was officially an adult, he could openly drink regular alcohol instead of the half-fermented versions meant for children. He’d drank both beer and wine before, of course – he preferred beer, but he wasn’t picky – but he’d always had to do it secretly, stealing mugs that adults set down or tapping a cask himself when no one was watching. Drinking openly was supposed to be one of the great privileges of a fifteenth Naming Day, and typically, the new adults drank their first official alcohol to shouts of encouragement. They also typically got very drunk and spent the first day of the new year extremely hungover, but that was to be expected.
That last part was why Amarl reluctantly sipped a mug of water. He wanted to be gone just after first light, and he’d already woken up this morning with a blinding headache. He didn’t need to go through that again. Plus, if he overslept, he’d likely find himself waking up in the basement of Axanor’s house, the closest thing the village had to a jail, and the bureaucrat would likely sentence him to servitude to pay off what he’d stolen from the village. That was unacceptable, and he kept the idea of being trapped in the village for another five years firmly in mind as he swallowed the tasteless water.
Besides, it wasn’t like the others were really getting to enjoy their first night as adults, anyway. He watched as Wirn – now Wirin – drank several swallows of a mug of beer, then looked around expectantly for some sort of praise or encouragement. The young man’s face fell as he realized that no one was watching, not even his parents, and he settled in with the beer with a sullen air. Fora, who’d changed her name to Flora, sipped her wine dispiritedly, making an occasional face as she stood utterly ignored. Pasa and Char – now Pasat and Ochar – talked quietly together, each holding a mug and wearing dissatisfied expressions as the praise, apprenticeship offers, and general revelry they’d been expecting refused to materialize. Amarl almost felt bad for the group. He knew they’d looked forward to this night for the past couple of years, at least. Pasa was convinced that she was going to get an apprenticeship with Heldir the moment the ceremony concluded, and Wirn was looking forward to entering the mines as a full adult, receiving an adult wage instead of a child’s half-pay. Fora was going to follow her mother’s trade as a potter, of course, but Char was hoping to join Brezam’s guards and get out of the village. This night was supposed to be the start of their new lives, the one time that they’d be the absolute center of attention, but the ithtara took that away from them.
At the same time, he couldn’t quite bring himself to pity them. It was just one night, after all, out of the rest of their lives. They’d still get their apprenticeships and accolades, just not exactly when they expected it. They’d live out the lives they wanted, and years from now, today would just be an odd memory and maybe a story they shared every time they got too deep into their cups. It wouldn’t matter in a year, which meant it really didn’t matter.
He finished his food and passed through the crowd, not speaking but simply listening. There was only one topic on everyone’s tongue, of course. Speculation ran rampant about what Danmila wanted – and what she’d do to get it. Would she execute Axanor? Punish the newly raised adults or their families? Would she raze the entire village to the ground? No one knew, but everyone had an opinion, and they all seemed to have a story to back it up, a tale of an ithtar doing exactly what they predicted in some other village. Of course, all these stories came from a friend of a distant relative on the husband’s side of the family or some such – meaning they were utterly fabricated – but the people who listened nodded their heads sagely as if hearing utter truth.
As the feast continued, the mood grew darker and more frantic. The sun sank slowly in the west, and the shadow of the Silverbands spread across the village, the jagged peaks spreading cold fingers of darkness across the proceedings. With the approach of nightfall, musicians gathered and began to play, their cheerful airs almost gruesomely laid over the heavy atmosphere. A space was cleared in the center of the street, and couples took to dancing, their bodies skipping and cavorting in a frenzy as if they could push back the pall of trouble with the exertion of their muscles.
He worked his way around the dance floor, toward a pair of familiar-looking figures half-hidden in the darkness at the edge of the lamplight ringing the feast. The corpulent Axanor and the slim, almost emaciated form of Vernir huddled together at the edge of an alley, well out of view of most of the revelers and definitely out of earshot. Amarl slipped through the crowd without drawing much attention – no one bothered to congratulate him on reaching adulthood, and he wasn’t expecting them to – heading toward the pair. Before he reached them, though, a familiar voice pulled him up short.
“Marl,” a deep, flat voice spoke, and the young man turned to see the hulking figure of Churl standing behind him. The big farmhand stood with his arms crossed, glaring at the smaller hizeen, and Elmra stood at his side, her eyes flat and angry.
“Churl,” Amarl said curtly. “It’s Amarl now, by the way.”
“Not until you register it with the Head Bureaucrat,” Elmra replied with a smile. “Until then, you’re still just a child, Marl.” Her eyes flattened. “A child who got me in a lot of trouble, I might add.”
He barked a short laugh. “I think you got yourself in that trouble, Elmra,” he pointed out. “If you’d just kept your skirt down and your knees together, you’d have been fine.”
Churl took a threatening step forward, but Elmra tightened her grip on his arm, and the farmhand paused.
“This isn’t the end of this, Marl,” she said flatly.
“I’m not sure why you’re blaming me,” he shrugged. “Half the village knows what you get up to. It was only a matter of time before your father found out. In fact, I’m surprised it took him this long.” He looked at Churl. “Is that why you’re helping her, Churl? Did she promise you her favors in return? You could probably get them just by asking, you know. Everyone else has.”
“Shut up, half-breed,” the big farmhand growled.
“Yes, because that green skin of yours is pure naluni blood, no question,” Amarl rolled his eyes. He looked back at Elmra. “Look, we had some fun together. It was nice, and I’d happily do it again if you want to ditch the idiot, here. But blaming me because you can’t keep your knickers on isn’t exactly…”
He caught the movement in the corner of his vision as Churl lunged for him. The big farmhand was strong but clumsy, and Amarl ducked under his blow. He kicked out as the man’s rush carried him past Amarl, landing his foot directly on the seat of the farmhand’s ass and making Churl stumble into a group of adults. They turned irritably, then saw the trio of young people, shared a look, and slowly stepped back.
Amarl almost snorted in disgust. Granted, he hadn’t really expected anyone to help him, but there was a strong tradition that all grievances were settled on Naming Day. It was an important custom; as people got deeper into their drinks, old slights and past insults tended to bubble to the surface, and in a tiny place like Tem, there were a lot of old slights lurking. Fighting was prohibited, and anyone starting a row was sent home in disgrace. At least, that was the usual standard. This time, the villagers spread out, opening a space for the pair to battle it out. He didn’t know if that was because they didn’t care what happened to an orphan or because of the stress of the day’s events, but it didn’t matter. He’d tried to goad Churl into attacking him to get the man kicked out of the feast, but that plan backfired, and now he had to deal with the lout.
His first thought was to run. After all, no one in the village really thought much of him anyway, so losing their respect wasn’t much of a concern, and he could visit retribution on the bigger boy later. A glance around at the dark mood of the villagers, though, suggested that might not be an option. An undercurrent of anger ran through the crowd. They wanted to see blood, and as the least-liked and lowest-caste member of the village, Amarl’s was the blood that could spill with the least consequence.
“I’m going to make you pay for what you did to Elmra, half-breed,” the farmhand growled, clenching his fists and raising them to his face. He lunged forward once more, and Amarl again slipped out of the way of the clumsy attack. Churl spun quickly, swinging a wild punch. Amarl ducked and kicked upward, his foot slamming into Churl’s crotch. The bigger man groaned and staggered, but he seemed to push through the pain and charged forward. Amarl, shocked by how easily the farmhand ignored a kick to the stones, moved too slowly to dodge, and Churl’s arms wrapped around him as the bigger man’s weight bore them both to the ground.
Amarl fought viciously, punching, kneeing, and even biting as his back crashed to the dirt road. His fingernails tore long lines in Churl’s cheek, and one of his fists clipped the man’s jaw, knocking his head backward. His knuckles screamed in pain at the contact, but he ignored it as he bucked and thrashed, trying to get out from under the bigger man. His knee came up, catching Churl in the stones again, and the farmhand swore loudly before sweeping a backhanded punch that crashed against the side of Amarl’s head. Stars flared in the hizeen’s vision, and he fell limp for a moment, allowing the farmhand to jam a forearm into his throat, pinning him down. Amarl’s eyes widened as a long knife suddenly appeared in the man’s other hand, raised high above his head.
“I’ll show you!” Churl shouted. “This is for…urk!”
Amarl blinked as Churl literally disappeared from atop him, his weight vanishing at the same instant. The hizeen rolled sideways and scrambled to his feet, his hands raised defensively as his eyes darted around, looking for something that might be a weapon. He dropped his hands and straightened as he saw Churl two reaches away and realized that the young man wasn’t much of a threat to anyone anymore. Churl moaned in pain, his face pressed into the dirt of the road and his arm twisted painfully up and to the side. A black leather boot rested on the back of his neck, pushing his head down, while a hand wearing a gauntlet of the same material gripped his extended arm. Danmila gazed around at the suddenly silent crowd as her free hand toyed with the knife she’d obviously taken from Churl’s hand, her glare openly disapproving.
“In every city, town, and village in the Empire I’ve ever visited,” she said, her raspy voice carrying clearly across the villagers, “there’s a tradition that anyone fighting on Naming Day is expelled from the feast and sent home in disgrace.” She glanced over her shoulder, and Amarl looked that direction to see the cringing form of Axanor standing at the edge of the crowd. The damn bureaucrat had been watching as well! While the villagers didn’t really have a duty to intervene in a Naming Day brawl, Axanor certainly did, and he’d been standing there, watching!
“Is that custom part of Tem, as well, Head Bureaucrat?”
“O-of course, it is, Ithtara,” Axanor stammered.
“Ah,” she nodded. “Then perhaps you don’t apply it to those of mixed blood?” She looked at the crowd. “That would be a shame, since I can tell that at least half of you have a trace of non-naluni blood in you.”
“I – we certainly don’t have different rules for half…” Axanor swallowed as the woman’s gaze snapped to him, her eyes flat. “I mean, those of mixed blood, my Lady.”
“Good to hear,” she grunted. “And I suppose it was just a mistake that no one moved to stop this, then?”
“Of course! A simple mistake, my Lady. It’s been a long day for us all, and…”
“What about this, then?” she cut him off, holding up the knife. She looked around at the crowd. “A brawl is one thing, but what about when someone draws steel? No one thought to intervene, even when this boy’s life was at stake?”
Amarl’s gaze swept the crowd, but no one met his eyes. He read shame and sullen anger on every face, and he matched that anger with his own. He was fine with them standing back to let him get a beating, but no one had moved when Churl drew his knife? Not one villager, the people he’d grown up with, had thought to do something to save his life. He sucked on his swelling bottom lip and tasted blood that he spat on the ground, willing a curse on the village as he did. He’d planned to leave; now, he only wished he’d taken more from them when he had the chance.
“Head Bureaucrat, what’s the penalty in the Imperial Code for drawing steel in a brawl?” the ithtara asked, her tone suggesting she already knew the answer.
“It…” Axanor swallowed hard again. “Ten days confinement for a first infraction, my Lady.”
She stepped back and hauled Churl to his feet, releasing his arm and shoving him none-too-gently at the bureaucrat. “I judge this man guilty of breaking the peace and violating the Imperial Code. Begin his sentence at once.”
Axanor stared at the woman, then bowed his head. “Y-your will, my Lady.” He pointed to a pair of large miners standing nearby. “You and you, take this criminal into custody, and…”
“Fuck you!” Churl shouted, spinning suddenly and flinging himself at Amarl. “I’ll…”
Churl’s cry cut off as Danmila suddenly appeared in front of him. Amarl blinked; the woman hadn’t seemed to move. One second, she stood a couple reaches away, twice the height of a tall nalu; the next, she was in front of Churl. The farmhand choked and gasped, his hands grasping weakly at the slim blade protruding from the front of his chest, the blade that jutted from his back and gleamed scarlet in the lamplight. Blood gushed from his open mouth as panic filled his face. He shuddered, then went limp, falling to the hard packed dirt of the road as his final breath rattled in his throat.