The night air was still and full of the sound of insects. Ayawa knelt at the edge of a bush at the top of a hill. She scanned the distant landscape staring into the darkness with searching eyes. They had made good time running across the wilds. Ayawa opted to forgo stealth and run as far and as fast as they could. She kept them off roads and took them across the back runs of farms and woodlands.
Now that night had settled, Tavis finally got the rest he needed. He slept soundly on his bedroll with his hat down over his face. Gedris had placed a ward around the camp to alert them if anyone came close, but Ayawa would rather spot them much farther out. Now she stood watch as thoughts of the day plagued her mind. In particular, the things they had discussed as they ran from the city.
The conversation of who killed the gate guards came up again and again. None of them had an answer, but they all suspected the assassins. Gedris put forth the idea that they might have known they were in the city and tried to trap them in the attack. Ayawa dismissed that idea outright. The attack was too well coordinated. Even the assassins couldn't have learned of their presence and managed such a thing so quickly.
Tavis's idea was more direct. They wanted a body count to sow fear and panic in the region. When Gedris asked why his only solution was so that the forces of Astikar could restore it, and in doing so, gain control of the temple of Ulustrah. If the Doan had taken it in the attack, the priests of Astikar would have no choice but to take it back. Then, of course, they would stay to protect it from any further incursions. To the local lords, the forces of Astikar would be heroes, and the Father Abbot would have the order of Ulustrah by the throat. He called it a political move. Gedris called it a cowardly betrayal.
Ayawa didn't like any of the ideas that had gone through her mind. She knew this was carefully calculated, but to her, it was all mindless slaughter. Something much larger was going on here. The Doan were delivered by a dragon and were clearly in control of the bandersooks. They moved to neutralize a target that was important to the Father Abbot. That could only mean they were working together, and the assassins were helping them both. Gersius's enemies grew by the day, and they were weeks away from warning him.
As Ayawa scanned the darkness, she heard a noise behind her and glanced back to see Gedris in a plain pant and shirt crawling up behind her.
“What are you doing?” Ayawa asked.
“I wanted to see how you did it?” Gedris replied.
“How I do what?” Ayawa asked with a raised brow.
“How do you see in the darkness?”
Ayawa smiled and looked back to the distant landscape. “It is dark tonight because the moon is behind the clouds. In darkness like this, you have to know what to look and listen for.”
“What do you look for?” Gedris asked.
Ayawa glanced back at her and patted a spot of ground beside herself. “Come sit here.”
Gedris crawled over and sat on her legs, looking out over the bush.
“You want to look out and take in the landscape. Make a note of how it looks in the dark. Watch it and let it form a picture in your mind then all you do is look for changes.”
“Changes?” Gedris asked.
Ayawa nodded. “It's too dark to see a man in black on the far edge of the clearing, but you will notice the shadows change. You won't see him. You will see his movement. When your eyes are sharp and well trained, you will see when the landscape changes.”
Gedris looked out and scanned the distant horizon. “I can’t even see the road.”
Ayawa nodded. “neither can I. But I know it is just beyond the dark patch at the edge of the clearing. I watch that dark patch to make sure it never moves. If it does, then I focus on it and wait.”
“What if they are coming from the other direction?” Gedris asked.
“That’s why I switch sides every few minutes,” Ayawa said. “I picked this hill because we can see a good ten minutes travel out in all directions. I can check all four sides and catch anybody moving on us before they reach us.”
Gedris sighed. “How do you know so much about all this?”
Ayawa glanced at her again with a tight-lipped smile. “My people train a woman to do things like this from the age of six. I could track by the age of eight. I could hide and move silently by ten. I was knife fighting by twelve. I can tell you which plants are safe to eat, and which are good for medicine.”
“We learn a little about that,” Gedris said. “We supplement our healing with balms and oils.”
“We saw Thayle use one,” Ayawa said. “She knew a bit about making medicines.”
“That paste the woman with Twocrows had. It healed my bruise in just over a day. I didn’t even feel the pain an hour after she put it on. What was that?”
Ayawa licked a lip and thought about it.
“My people once had a strong connection to the earth and the earth mother. She taught us how to do many things by working with the natural world. Our medicine is one of the few things that survived the collapse of our civilization long ago. Thought even it is a pale reflection of what it once was.”
“I know a little about your earth mother,” Gedris said. “She sounds a lot like Ulustrah in many ways. You didn't have priests, though. Your people had what you call shaman.”
Ayawa nodded. “They were gifted in the ability to commune with the earth mother and draw on her strength. It is said that there were several bloodlines in our people and each line could take the form of an animal.”
“I heard a woman tell a story about this once,” Gedris said. “She said her people could become foxes.”
Ayawa smiled and let out a little laugh. “That was a Shoan Gorah woman.”
Gedris nodded. “So what did your people become?”
“Some kind of bird of prey,” Ayawa said. “My father always said it was an eagle, but the elders often called it a thunderbird.”
Gedris tilted her head to the side. “You mean like Astikar?”
Ayawa was silent a moment. “I don’t think it is the same.”
Gedris shrugged. “I hear he appears as a hawk that makes a thundering sound when he flies.”
“Gersius told us about that once,” Ayawa said. “I thought about it back then. I don't believe the two are connected. The earth mother was the source of our strength and power, not the divines.”
“I have always suspected the two are connected,” Gedris said. “If your legends are correct, she behaves very much like the divines do.”
“I suppose she does,” Ayawa said. “But then not a single one of my people know how to pray to her. Her power is lost to us all.”
Ayawa felt Gedris's hand wrap over hers, and she looked over at the woman beside her. Gedris smiled and squeezed a little.
“I would be happy to teach you how to pray to Ulustrah. She would be happy to give you blessings and power.”
“Ulustrah is not the goddess for me,” Ayawa said. “I have always believed that one day, my people would rediscover how to speak to the earth mother. I know in my heart that is who I will follow.” She looked at Gedris and smiled. “But I thank you for offering to teach me. It is a great gift in my people to freely teach.”
Gedris smiled back. “I had a hard time getting you to teach me.”
Ayawa went back to watching the distant darkness with another tight smile.
“I didn't think you were serious. You are headstrong and reckless. I assumed you wanted to be trained because you made a quick decision and charged headlong after it. To freely teach makes you a blessing to the people, but to teach one who is not ready to be taught makes you a fool.”
“I gave you plenty of reason to believe I was a fool,” Gedris said. “I think back on the things I did, and I can't tell you what I was thinking back then.”
“You were reacting on emotion,” Ayawa said. “Your anger and confusion were racing through your blood, clouding your judgment. You need to learn never to make decisions when you are emotional. Sometimes it can't be avoided, but many times it can.”
Gedris looked away, and Ayawa got up on her feet, pulling her hand free of Gedris's. She saw the woman's sigh and shook her head slightly as she reached her hand down.
“Come, we need to move to the other side.”
Gedris smiled slightly and took Ayawa's hand, and the two crept passed Tavis to the log on the far side of the hill. There they settled back down, and Ayawa took in the landscape.
“So there are no shaman left at all?” Gedris asked.
“Not a one. They all died in a war a long time ago.”
“I never learned much of your history,” Gedris said. “I learned a fair bit about your current culture, but your history is so long and convoluted.”
“That is because every tribe remembers it differently,” Ayawa said. “But they all agree on one thing.”
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“What is that?”
Ayawa looked at Gedris firmly. “The war was started by dragons.”
Gedris sat back and looked at the strength in Ayawa’s eyes.
“How was it started by dragons?”
Ayawa turned back to the night and sighed. “So much of the story is lost, and as I said, each tribe remembers it differently. But we all agree that at one time our people had a thriving civilization and built many wonders. Then a conflict arose between dragons. They fought among themselves and eventually dragged men into the fighting. Some of our legends speak of the Gods, killing one another and the land shattering around them. When the final battle came, there was nothing left of my people. I am told that out of every fifty, maybe five survived.”
Gedris gasped at the number and covered her mouth.
“We lost our way of governance, our connection to the earth mother, our order of shaman, everything,” Ayawa continued. “We used to be able to hunt a dream world. There was a way to travel to this world and speak to the spirits there.”
“I never heard about this,” Gedris said.
Ayawa shook her head. “Most of my people never have either. The knowledge is long lost.”
Gedris was silent a moment and then she looked up at Ayawa.
“What is so special about those knives Twocrows has?” she asked.
It was Ayawa's turn to be silent. When she spoke, her voice was sad and distant.
“They belonged to a hero from my tribe's line. She was a queen of warrior maidens who survived the shattering of the world. She attempted to rebuild our people and founded the first city after the collapse. There are many stories of her heroics, but the people from the south came. There was a great war, and they burned her city and threw it down. Some say she fought to the last, standing defiantly on the steps of a temple she was building to the earth mother. The legend says she slew a hundred of them before they brought her down, but when her blood hit the ground, the earth cracked open and swallowed them all up.”
“Your stories are fascinating,” Gedris said. “Are they true?”
Ayawa shrugged. “There is truth in all the stories, but often, it is hard to see it clearly.”
Gedris sat up and looked out over the dark fields. “Why would he have them?”
Ayawa glanced at the woman and smiled. “A clever observation,” she said. “You might make a good scout someday.”
Gedris glanced back and smiled.
“Tavis asked me the same thing. He doesn't trust Twocrows, and he thinks it is strange a man on his way to collect horses would be carrying such a powerful relic of our peoples past with him.”
“It is strange,” Gedris agreed. “You would think he would have them under heavy guard someplace back in his homelands. Why risk bringing something so valuable with you on a simple horse trade?”
“Because that isn’t why he’s here,” Ayawa said.
Gedris glanced at her with a confused look. “I saw his aura. He was telling the truth about the horses.”
“I have no doubt he was on his way to get horses, but that isn’t the only reason he is out here,” Ayawa corrected. “I suspect he knows you can see the truth. He is leaving out what his true motives are. He demanded that trade as a means of getting you away from me. He doesn’t want you telling me what you see.”
“Why not?” Gedris asked.
Ayawa smiled. “I suspect he is looking for me.”
Gedris blinked a few times and had to look around as she tried to puzzle the thought out.
“Gedris, I am a princess,” Ayawa said.
Gedris snapped her eyes back to Ayawa, and her mouth fell open. “You are?”
Ayawa nodded. “I am descended from the very blood of the woman who once wielded those blades. If I had them, I could proclaim myself queen and unite all the tribes. I could end our conflicts and lead them to rebuild again.”
Gedriss’s eyes went wider with the shock. “So why does he want you then?”
“He has the weapons, but not the woman who can claim the title. Tavis and I suspect he leads these trading missions in the hopes of encountering me. We suspect he wants to gain my favor by offering me the weapons. I could then unite the women of my people, but I would need a king to unite the men. He would, of course, volunteer to be that king.”
“What about Tavis?” Gedris asked.
“My people won't see us as husband and wife, and they would never accept a cellic man as king. My family hates him. They blame him for taking me away, even though he left and I ran after him. If I could return the weapons to my people, I could almost certainly get them to stop hating him, and perhaps even allow us to return to my land as husband and wife. But if I wanted to take the throne myself, I would need another.”
“So he has a symbol that could make him a king if only he can find the woman who can claim the title,” Gedris surmised.
Ayawa nodded silently.
“But he offered to give them to you,” Gedris pointed out.
“He knows I would need him still,” Ayawa said.
“If you had the weapons you could pick any man you wanted,” Gedris said.
“Maybe,” Ayawa said. “I suspect Twocrows is not just a simple member of his tribe. He is probably of noble blood. He has the weapons and the right to rule. All he needs is a strong symbol to unite the tribes. The return of the queen of warrior maidens as his wife will give him that symbol. I suspect he has a method of ensuring I see him as my only option.”
“But there must be other women of your line?” Gedris said. “You can’t be the only woman who could claim such a title?”
“I suppose I could bring them back and chose another woman of my line to unite them. My people would recover, and I would have Tavis. But I am the closest in line, and I am known in my people as the greatest knife fighter we have had in hundreds of years. People will expect me to claim such a title if it is to be claimed. They may not accept another.”
“Why didn’t you trade me for them then?”
Ayawa was the one who reached down and put her hand over Gedris’s.
“Because keeping you with me was more important.”
“Why?” Gedris asked. “I am no use to you. I have set back your plans and nearly gotten you killed. The only value I have to offer is to buy those weapons and the loyalty of those tribesmen. You should have traded me away!”
Ayawa squeezed her hand a let out a sigh. “Do you know what you would be doing right now if I had traded you?”
Gedris looked away, and Ayawa squeezed her hand. “If you were just a fool girl with no heart, I might have considered it. But you proved your heart was strong; you simply lack training and discipline. I can give you both of these and help you become the woman you are meant to be.”
“I think you should have made the trade. I would go to his bed and do my duty.”
Ayawa jerked her hand away and grabbed the woman’s shoulder. She turned her about roughly and glared into her eyes.
“What duty?” Ayawa snapped. “Where did you ever learn that it was your duty to go to a man's bed?”
Gedris shook her head in panic as Ayawa’s firm eyes burned into her. “My, my mother told me that.”
Ayawa closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. She had seen it many times before. So many women of the northlands assumed all they could aspire to be was wed to a man. They would cook his meals and sweep his floors. They saw the bedroom as a chore and a duty that they needed to perform. She gritted her teeth at the image in her mind.
“Child, your mother was a fool,” Ayawa began. “I know very little about her, but she told you foolish things and then tried to trade you for position and power. You need to learn from Tavis and I. I go to his bed because I love him. I love him, and I desire to express that love to him. It isn't a chore or a duty, its a blessing. Never go to the arms of a man unless your heart wants to be there.”
“But you could unite your people,” Gedris began.
“Stop!” Ayawa whispered harshly. “Promise me you will never trade your blessing for gain.”
Gedris leaned back, and Ayawa squeezed her hand firmly. “Promise me.”
“I. I promise, I will not trade the blessing of my body for gain,” Gedris said.
Ayawa let out a sigh and released Gedris’s hand. She turned back to the landscape and studied the distant trees.
“You need a mother,” Ayawa said. “You need somebody to teach you everything about being a woman.”
“I have a mother,” Gedris replied.
“That fool gave you away,” Ayawa began. “She never deserved you and has no claim to you now.”
“Then who is my mother?”
“I will be your mother,” Ayawa said. “I will show you how to carry yourself with greater honor and dignity than that fool ever did.”
“I am your rokki,” Gedris began.
“You are familiar with my people's ways,” Ayawa said. “You know we can induct a child into a tribe, and that a family will take it in as their own. I will take you in and name you daughter.”
Gedris shook her head and nearly fell back.
“What is wrong with you?” Ayawa asked.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” Gedris said.
Ayawa glared at her with cold eyes. “What do you mean this isn’t what you wanted?”
Gedris started to tear up, and she covered her face.
“I wanted to marry into you as a hunt wife. I wanted to stay with you and share in you, not be your child.”
Ayawa struggled to contain her smile and laughter as Gedris twisted in anguish.
“Why are you laughing at me?”
“Do you honestly think I didn’t know that?” Ayawa asked. “Why else would you be undressing for my husband? Why else would you be doing anything you could to stay with me?”
Gedris looked at her with a shocked expression, and Ayawa went on.
“I could never take a woman like you as a wife. You would need to be able to stand at my side as an equal, but you are a child in comparison. You have a heart that beats fiercely, and I admire that, but you are years away from being worthy of such a thing.”
“Why do I have to be just like you? You can’t love somebody who is softer?”
Ayawa tossed her head and sighed. “I walk a road that requires strength. If I took you as you are, you would stumble our path. I have agreed to train you and make you ready. Maybe in a few years, if you truly dedicate yourself, we could have this conversation again.”
“I don’t want to wait a few years,” Gedris said. “I promise I will grow to be as strong as you if that is what you want, but please don’t make me wait so long.”
“Woman you are being impulsive again,” Ayawa scolded. “This is what needs to go before you can stand at my side.”
Gedris folded her arms and hunched over.
“You're going to sulk now?” Ayawa asked. “I should just order you to bed like a child.”
“I wanted something more,” Gedris sighed.
“I know what you want, but ask yourself honestly, can you stand at my side as an equal?”
Gedris didn’t look up to respond. “No, not in combat or ability, but I can love you both every bit as strongly as you love each other.”
“On the path we walk? What good will that do?” Ayawa asked.
Gedris did look up at her now. “But you want to settle down. You want to have a life that would more than suite me.”
Ayawa saw her logic and understood what she was thinking. Gedris wanted to be a wife with a loving family. Ayawa knew Gedris had no idea how to make a loving family. She had her mothers example, which was anything but loving. She wanted Ayawa and Tavis to set the terms of the relationship, and she would ride along with it.
“Gedris,” Ayawa started. “I honestly think you would be better served by becoming a daughter. I can teach you how to be independent and stand on your own feet. You won't need a man or woman to take care of you so that when you join a relationship, it will be stronger for it. You will be able to love them freely because you want to, not because you need them.”
“Some beautiful relationships have formed out of need,” Gedris said.
“I know they have,” Ayawa agreed. “In many ways, the relationship Gersius and Lilly have formed out of need. But it was a rocky road, and they would have failed if not for Thayle.”
There was a long moment of silence, and Gedris nodded.
“Now go to bed,” Ayawa ordered. “We will talk more in the morning.”
“So what am I to you now?” Gedris asked.
“You are still my rokki,” Ayawa said. “Behave as such and honor your promise to me. I will reevaluate your position after we arrive at the place where we will wait for Gersius. If you have honored me and your promise I will elevate you to daughter. Now, go to bed!”
Gedris sighed and turned away to crawl into the shadows of the camp.
Ayawa watched her go with concern in her eyes. Gedris had a strong heart but a desire to be led. She lacked the training and understanding to turn that heart loose and be the woman she could be. Ayawa knew that was her mother's fault, but that was all about to end. Ayawa would correct those poor understandings and help Gedris grow. With a sigh, she turned her head and looked north, wondering how her other daughter fared.