19 - Blooded

It was a straight thick longsword, cheaply-made, slightly wider towards the point in the Lakan style but tipped sharp for thrusting, a one-hander for him but for me a two. I wrapped my shield-hand around the pommel and shouldered it.

That was my first mistake: I should have struck immediately. I guess I wanted a moment to let the gravity of having picked it up sink into me. They both cried “Ahai!” and I lost the advantage of surprise. When they saw my size they broke into laughter, and the man on the bed made of his position an insult by staying in it, still thrusting with his head turned to watch his friend deal with me.

His friend grinned a sinewy grin, teeth yellow-white against brown skin, and picked up his sword from where it was leaning against the wall. He was estimating my worth in the slave-market, his round black eyes stripping away my name and freedom: Yeoli boy, healthy-looking, no deformations, spirited, so many gold pieces. He stepped towards me, blade centred.

The voice of All-Spirit wavered. It spurs you to do; it doesn’t always tell you how. I realized lamely I should have struck him before his sword was in his hand. ‘Now what?’, I wondered. I should do something, but every move I had ever learned in seven years of war-training had gone clean out of my head as if it had never been in it.

I felt as if all my will and strength were draining out of me like water down a hole. The Lakan was coming, his sword and hands bloody already, so much closer now, close enough to smell, still fresh like at the butcher’s. I wanted to throw up. There was no escape to the window, as he’d moved to get between it and me, nor to the door, with the rest of the raiding party that way. It seemed there was nothing I could do; presently this chestnut-brown man with wiry arms would strike me down, and where I went from there I didn’t dare imagine. I vainly remembered my orders, get as far away from danger as fast as I could; I’d pay for disobeying but so, to my horror, would all who loved me, and all Yeola-e. The urge suddenly seized me to throw myself into his embrace and bury my head in his neck; it was the child I was, I guess, who’d never before met an adult who didn’t wish him well. The other guffawed again, so all this must have showed on my face. He raised his sword.

It’s as the saying goes; you’re not fighting until you’re fighting. It happened so fast I didn’t know it, but aching slow, both at the same time. The world went still as a held breath and my thoughts were gone.

He began his stroke; I remember being astonished at its slowness. I didn’t plan what I did; it just happened. Instead of starting a parry I turned and cut the other Lakan, who was expecting nothing, aiming between his leather-clad shoulder and the tip of his beard, a bit of a reach. He did not move except his eyes’ widening, nor make any sound, since I’d severed his windpipe. The sword behind me was coming at my head from my shield-side, the flat of the blade angled to hit, so I began ducking and turning at once. From the neck I’d slashed, blood spurted, making a red crescent on the wall; a part of me absently marveled, ‘so that’s what it looks like when you do that.’ The sword flew over my head whistling, as I whip-turned just as I’d done a thousand times with Azaila, and cut side-height, which would be thigh-height on him; he’d sharpened his sword well, because I felt the edge bang into the bone. Remembering Azaila’s warning that a blade can get stuck, I wrenched it free fast. He kept his feet, but flatly, gaping with surprise, then moaning through clenched teeth as the pain hit him, for just long enough that I could thrust into the thigh-artery of his other leg without him countering. My wrists and fingers weren’t strong enough to make the correct finishing twist; the sword had a long narrow guard with curving ends in the Lakan style, so I grabbed them with both hands like levers and did it that way.

He fell, shooting up blood just as I’d been taught would happen if I did that, and lay staring amazed at me, trying to stanch the spurting with his hands. I saw him consider calling to his comrades in the hearth-room, but they were whooping it up too loudly for him to think it worth the effort, which suddenly would be very great for him. Remembering my training I looked all around me fast, though I didn’t have to for weapons. He was dying rapidly and already couldn’t move much; the other was dead, or at least unmoving, lying across Rigra, who stared at me stunned. She’d been preparing herself for death or slavery.

I heard panting: my own. Suddenly I was so exhausted I felt as if I’d break. Esora-e had told me that you tired very fast in a real fight; yet it had been all of three strokes on my part. Breathe deep, long, slow. That helped. All-Spirit, I thought, I’ve just been in a real fight. I’m blooded.

Once I had pretended to know what to expect: the singing wind guiding my motions, or Azaila’s voice calling “Strike!” as in training, when I ought to. I saw now I had known nothing, that indeed I never could have known until I did it. The land of the training ground and the land of combat are as different as two continents, and before you’ve been to the strange one you can never know, but only trust, that what you learned at home will work there. It invariably does, of course, but you still can’t really know until you’ve done it.

What struck me most was how easy it had been. These two men were dead, by my hand, but all I had done was move hard and fast, for a vastly shorter time than I would even in the lightest war-class.

My hands were slippery. Without thinking, I wiped them and the sword-hilt off on the edge of my sleeping-tunic, then saw the color of what I wiped: scarlet. The iron taste in my mouth I knew from having bitten my lip in the past. There was more blood on the floor and walls and ceiling—the ceiling, how?—than I had believed could come out of two people.

Rigra had pushed the corpse off herself, naked thighs and member limp and grey now. The marks of blows on her face had come up red under the spattering of blood. “Month-mama, are you all right?” It came out a croaking like a frog’s, my mouth and throat gone dust-dry.

She didn’t answer me, just got down to kneeling beside the bed. A curled cloth bundle there uncurled and pulled itself up; Binchera, half her face a sheet of blood, her scalp laid open; I saw the white bone inside before Rigra covered it with her hand. “I was playing dead,” Binchera whispered. “Fourth Chevenga Shae…” I think she meant to ask why the garden orbicular was I still here, but by the sword in my hands, she saw.

“Mama, we’ve got to get you to the healer,” Rigra whispered, lifting her arm to help her up. The twinge of another straight Lakan blade came swinging down the short corridor from the hearth-room toward the door. Not trusting my voice I said nothing, just crept back beside the door-post. The wall left me room only for a half-swing, but that would be good enough; I was experienced in this now, and so knew what it took to cut a throat.

His face appeared a little lower than I expected, his thin black brows flying up at the sight before him, and I did it, a little too soon so that the door-frame and not his spine stopped the blade, but good enough that when his mouth worked, trying to draw air, no sound came out to warn the others. I pulled his shoulder to make him fall into the room so they’d just think he’d stepped in.

I said the words I’d been taught, “I’ll cover our retreat,” though I was already doing it. Rigra’s marya, crocheted in the Krisae turquoise, black, tan and red, was lying on top of her trunk where she’d left it neatly folded, planning to wear it tomorrow; now Binchera took it up and said “Put it on, love, there’s time.” Women who’ve been raped, I learned later, find comfort in such measures.

Seeing her marya reminded me of Nainano-e’s, which she wore often; I remembered its warmth, which I had so many times put my arms around, then under. The thought came, cutting: I could not expect the daughter not to have suffered the same as the mother. I didn’t hear the same sounds—mostly it was laughter and things being broken in the hearth-room—but maybe she was somehow keeping her silence.

I’d heard stories of what people feel when someone they have shared ecstasy with has been violated, and the one who did it is within reach. I’ve felt it again since, something as deep and primeval as a vein of rock in a mountain, beyond words, and involuntary. I wouldn’t have thought I was man enough then to feel it, but I’d been man enough to share ecstasy with her.

I was also thinking of Osilaha and Bukini, whom the Lakans had to have finished. Two of the faces that had shone around this hearth, sharing nourishment, hardship and love, two of the pairs of hands full of skill and strength acquired over so many years, gone so fast, turned to nothing like leaves in fire; and the two little ones, Kicharesa and Ini-lai, fatherless. All their lives they’d suffer from this one night. I knew. But my father’s killer had been dead when I learned, not in the next room, while I held a sword in my hand and knew I could use it.

I can argue, I guess, that it wasn’t even purely in vengeance that I acted, but thought for the future too. The worse the raid cost the Lakans, the more cowed they’d be about trying it again. It was in my mind; but mostly there was just the utter-blackness-turning-to-fire feeling. I just wanted them dead, destroyed. I wanted more of their blood spilled, more agony in their bodies and more regret in their minds, their last fading thoughts of their own wives and children grieving forever more.

What I could most be called down for, I guess, was recklessness. Judge as you will.

I peeked my head out. They were milling around, ready to go, more brigands with crumbs of Rigra’s bread in their black beards, laughing, clapping each other on the back for their brave victory, the leader carrying our money box tucked under his arm, the two wounded they were carrying moaning. The leader called three words that sounded like names, looking up the corridor. Our eyes met. Vaguely hearing Rigra and Binchera both yell, “No, Chevenga, no, aiiiighhh!” I charged.

Expecting no more fighting, at least inside, the Lakans who’d used swords had wiped and sheathed them. I caught them flat-footed, taking the first one in the throat before he had his sword out of the scabbard; he fell into the arms of two others, who dropped him to seize their own sword-hilts, crying “Ahai!” The leader yelled something in Lakan, and even so none of them seemed quite sure what to do, beyond drawing. Then one with a short-trimmed beard, a red ribbon around his head and a short spear and torch in his hands let out a whistle and said something that made the others stand back. He gave his torch away to take the spear in two hands, set a grinning gaze on me, and went into stance. I was in a duel.

I got the feeling he was their best fighter. He was built whip-cord, had a face like rock and looked over thirty, which of course did not endear him to me. I might have done better to charge others who were less ready and less skilled, but his motion had taken me back to the sparring-ground.

I noticed he held the spear, which was maybe as tall as his shoulder, and had a red ribbon tied just under the leaf-shaped steel head, too close to his body. “Very well,” I remember thinking, “I’ll come in,” and did, like the stupidest of beginners.

Just as he’d planned, he turned my thrust on the spear-shaft and brought one long dark shin up fast as thought between my legs. I managed to twist just enough that it did not hurt as badly as it should have, but still, I went blind to all things but the spear. They all guffawed from above; I was on the floor, the sword out of my reach. A great weight pressed on my chest, pinning me—his knee—and wiry hard fingers closed on my shield-wrist; opening my eyes I saw him reaching for the other wrist. Another Lakan had a coil of rope.

So I formed the steel fork with my fingers, and drove it with all my might into the eyes of the man pinning me. Country Lakans don’t learn much unarmed fighting, except perhaps in taverns, so don’t know to expect that sort of thing. He screamed and threw his hands over his face, freeing my other wrist. The only weapon in reach was a dagger on his belt, so I snatched that out of its sheath, stabbed it into the artery in his thigh for all I was worth and worked it to make sure the artery was cut right across. If you do that, it pulls back inside, and so can’t be stanched. In a moment he was down, yelling what sounded like curses as his life pumped out of his leg, and I was up with a blade in my hand.

For certain he had been their best fighter, for now I saw not only amazement in all their faces, but fear; I saw several pairs of black eyes flick to the corridor, and realization come as to what must have become of the three who were missing. Their faces all showed the truth of what they were, farmers’ sons who’d expected easy hunting. Just as I was drawing back the dagger to fling it at the leader, my next move to snatch up the sword and go after whoever was closest—I wanted all of them—the one man whose eyes hadn’t changed that much, the leader, barked an order, making a gesture towards the door.

I understood his thinking later, when I took an accounting of their losses. Everything valuable they had, since I was likely too spirited to be worth anything as a slave. Osilaha, Naina and Bukini had all fought well; of sixteen, the Lakans had lost eight in total, plus two wounded, for not a lot of gain, since the Shae-Tyucheral were not rich. Even if they defeated me, I might take more of them with me, I’d proved that. They must have felt some shame to flee from a child, but this had not been a mission of honour. And the warriors of Krisae would come soon, at least a hundred.

Seeing the wisdom of his order, they all turned and filed out fast, the last one stepping backwards in stance to keep an eye on me, threw a few more torches onto the roof and ran away towards the border.