“Birdsong”
Rance D.
Rain. So much of it. It was an unrelenting sheet made of a million spears that spilled from the sky and skewered the ground. One could not hear the thunder against the intensity of the downpour, for it was thunderous all on its own, and perhaps even more violent.
But at
least the rain washed away the blood. That, Broken Little Bird thought, was a
blessing. There would only be the bruises left, and the mud, and the pain of
his swinging fist. By the time he brought it down again, she had almost
forgotten that it was meant to hurt her, and the solid crash of fist against
flesh sent her splashing back down into the refuse.
"Get up," snarled
the shadow above her. Only his eyes, with the pupils lost in a core of gold,
could be seen through the night. "When I hit you, you fall." She had.
Her shoulders tightened. She hoped the splattered mud hid her tears, but
without a sound, she began to drag herself back up to her feet.
"When you fall, you stand
back up," he instructed, drawing back his mangled arm to await her stance.
"So that you may be hit again, and learn that even through pain, you will
stand once more. I will have no daughter of mine play the role of a
weakling."
Her dress -- a garment
stitched from mottled hides and scraped leather -- barely knew how to hold on
to her slick flesh. The girl, with her face shaded in sopping hair, stood
strong, and like an obedient daughter, she awaited the next blow.
"Your name suits you
well, Broken Little Bird. Might one day that I could mend your frailty,"
said the broad-shouldered man, unfurling his fingers from their fist so that
she could see their jagged, flesh-clawed tips. They could rip apart a man. That
meant they could do they same to her.
"Thank me for being
merciful to you," he implored her, and though the forest shadows were
thick, she could see his horrid smile. "Learn quickly your respect."
Her voice was quiet and
practiced, speaking not from heart, but from whispered recitation. "Thank
you, Father, for using only your fists."
He grunted. "You're not
yet good enough for my claws," said he, and without a pause, he brandished
that muscular fist and struck her one final time.
That time, she did not get up.
She could not. He had intended that, and with her mouth and nose gushing thick
and red, he left her lying in the clearing, staring up into the falling drops
and the
The thin, black-haired girl in
the leather hide-gowns thought this was the most peaceful moment of any day.
Once he broke her like this, she had a whole day to recover, to dream in the
mud in a pain-drunken stupor and relive the mistake of it all.
Broken Little Bird was not her
true name. That was the one he had given her. Likely, he had nearly beaten her
memory from her. All she could remember of her old name was that it began with
an 'A', and beyond that, it was as if someone had scraped away the remaining
letters and replaced them with blood and pain. This village -- this place of
dark-fleshed, obsidian-haired natives -- was not her true home. She had
forgotten her old one. All she knew was that she truly did not belong here.
He was her savage father,
loving her not with laughter and paternity, but with rough and animal cruelty.
He was convinced he would shape her into a strong woman in the shadow of his
firm mastery. Maybe he would.
Or maybe he would kill her.
Broken Little Bird had stopped
caring years ago.
This night had been like the
rest. She often tried to keep herself awake with songs and tiny lullabies,
laying in her woolen bedroll and listening to the sounds of the forest night.
Yet, like every evening, sleep swallowed her anyway as if the crickets sang a
slumber-song just for her. The next thing she always remembered was his stern
and vicious glare, his one hand throwing away the furs of her bed while the
other tangled in her hair and tore her from her rest. He ripped her from the
safety of the lodge and dragged her through the arteries of the village,
parading her weakness. Each night that she awakened with her leather garments
drenched in her own water, that was the process. It had become well-known
throughout the village that the late-night ruckus was this discipline, that the
Ar'ha kento -- 'blood chieftain', in their abrasive and vicious tongue
-- had found his foolish, sickly daughter yet again soiled like an infant.
In the wake of her beating,
she was left alone to recuperate, perhaps to ruminate over her mistake. But she
did not -- she paid it no attention, for in the rainy
She was the bad daughter, the
half-breed, ill-mannered abomination mothered by a demon of sandstone skin.
Even had she not dirtied herself, he would have found a reason to batter her
anyway, as if exorcising the settler-blood from her veins.
Father left her. In her
throat, she gargled little songs and sang loosely to the trees swaying above
her. The rain cleansed her. The sun would rise soon enough, and Broken Little
Bird would awaken with it to stagger her way back to the village and shoulder
the shame that morning often brought. The other children of the tribe would
laugh and ridicule her -- they always did -- and perhaps even throw stones at
her. Even they did not appreciate the stigma of a weak chieftain-child. She had
learned well not to turn her head, not to snap at them, not to defend herself.
There was no need. It would do no good.
Until then, the time was hers,
and she could revel in the things that even Father did not know about her.
Broken Little Bird stared at the trees through her rain-soaked hair and managed
to lift one of her dirt-clumped hands. She looked at her palm, and through her
swollen lips and bruised face, she smiled.
"I m-... might have
forgotten a lot," said she, "but I haven't forgotten you."
You had better not, chimed
a voice in the back of her head, made up of children’s' laughter and motherly
comfort. Without us, I'm afraid you would have been dead long ago.
She clenched her hand around
something unseen. She rested her head back into the heavy mud.
There were still some secrets
her Father would never know.
* * * *
He left
her, because he knew that she would make her way back come morning.
The village was not far from
where he had reprimanded her. One could make the journey in but two-hundred
steps through a black copse of trees and almost a hundred more through tall,
summer-fed fields. The fires of the village lived throughout the night, casting
spirals of smoke into the sky. In a valley tucked between two forests, the land
over which he presided looked rather unremarkable, but he knew the power and
resilience of the people who thrived therein, and whenever he saw its expanse,
it made him proud.
These were the Moapa. These
were his people, with flesh like copper and hair like obsidian. They had lived
in this valley for a thousand years and more, almost as ancient as the shape of
the earth, and the Eternal had seen them through everything that had come
against them. Draught and war had whittled them thin, along with harsh winters
and horrible disease. Yet, throughout it all, they had prevailed, and though he
was their new blood-chieftain and the general of their tireless warriors, he
had no concern that the people of the Moapa would find him far more formidable
than the Wise One had ever been.
Oh, the Wise One -- the old,
wrinkled, withered shadow of a man who had been their blood-chieftain but a
moon prior. His downfall had been pitiful, but required, and none of the Moapa
had mourned his passing.
As he strode into the
threshold of the village -- a thing made of hundreds of separate lodges, some
made of oiled furs and tall poles, others of painted canvas and rigid, wooden
skeletons -- the clawed, golden-eyed blood-chieftain felt the stares of the
late-night guardians upon him. There were always guards patrolling the
outskirts of the village, protecting the women and children from night-attacks.
They toted spears and tortoise-shell shields and donned the scalps of those
they had slaughtered in glorious battle.
For every one of the visible
ones, there were at least two others hidden in the shadows, wielding not stone
weapons, but instead vicious claws much like the chieftain's own, hungry for
blood, ready to kill.
They said nothing to him as he
stepped between them and into the sleeping village. Fires burned in pits both
inside and outside of some of the lodges. Any of the still-awake Moapa -- and
there were very few, for cool mornings were the best time to tend to the crops
-- did not look at him. It was considered rude to directly converse with the
blood-chieftain unless he acknowledged first.
His own home was at the center
of the village, at the deepest possible location in the webwork of lodges. It
was a great and towering edifice, draped in stripped hides and painted canvas.
At the very top, its mouth billowed with cedar-smoke. The fire was still
burning within, and he would be pleased to bathe the dirt off of him with his
own sweat. There were totems standing tall before his lodge, each of them
seeming to reach up towards the sky as if they might be able to touch the
Eternal.
In other tribes, there was
spiritual power in these structures -- for the Moapa, there was none. They were
but bright, proudly-painted pillars of wood meant to draw the eye of one who
had never before seen them.
It was easier to slit an
intruder's throat if he was too busy admiring art.
Without ceremony, the
chieftain wiped his bloodied knuckles off on his loin-cloth before throwing the
canvas door-flap aside. Heat and smoke billowed out from within the lodge,
embracing him, drawing him in.
"There he is," said
a sultry, teasing voice as he shut out the night behind him. "Another late
night spent beating the daughter, trying to teach her strength where there will
never be any, trying to teach her the rites of the Moapa when she will never be
able to uphold them. I've been waiting for you," spoke the woman's voice
from the smoke. "I've been waiting for Fury-of-the-Winds."
Fury-of-the-Winds saw her
before he saw anything else, perhaps because he knew where she would be. She
always waited for him upon his bedroll, sneaking in while he left, seeking a
thrill that few other females of the tribe would ever experience. She wasted no
time, for amidst the pestles, mortars, gourds, and furs scattered all around
the floor of the blood-chieftain's lodge, there were also her clothes. She was
perched upon her belly, hiding view of her breasts as if trying to exhibit
dignity that Fury-of-the-Winds knew she did not have. Her flesh was wet with
perspiration and seemed to glimmer like gold, and she motioned him nearer with
her bladed fingers. They were claws like his, each nearly a foot in length,
like bony spurs covered in flesh.
She too was one of the blessed
Moapa, a warrior ascended through rituals of power and sacrifice. She was
Sings-in-the-Fall, a brutish and disgusting woman with a penchant for murder
and torture, as wild on the field of battle as she was in bed. She had always
been his partner, long before he usurped the role of blood-chieftain.
Sings-in-the-Fall was one of his closest confidants.
And he knew he could not trust
her worth a single hair of his life.
"Could that I have made
you wait longer," Fury grunted, "I would have bruised her face just
so that I did not need to return to yours."
"You and I both know it's
not my face you desire," she chuckled, pushing aside a few stands of
frazzled, black hair. He smiled at her. Her single eye shimmered with the
firepit. There was a deep, ever-seeping black hole where the other eye had once
been, moist and wet, surrounded by a star-shaped scar that spoke of a long-past
wound.
He did not acknowledge her
desire for lust, but instead turned to tie closed the lashes of the doorflap.
"I am not interested in being seduced tonight, Sings-in-the-Fall. I have
much to do, and only several hours before morning in which to do it."
"Oh, you could take time
out of your precious evening to pummel your whore-child, but intend not to
spend any with me?" She mocked offense. "I'm hurt."
"There will always be
time for my daughter," he said.
"Or that thing that you call
a daughter. Please, Fury," she laughed. Only because they had been
compatriots for so long was she allowed to speak to him so sharply. "She
is a weak and useless little thing. She reeks of the white flesh. She was not
born one of our tribe, and nothing you can do to her will ever make her
belong."
"She is my child,"
said Fury-of-the-Winds, crouching beside the firepit across from her. "For
simply that, she is Moapa."
"No,"
Sings-in-the-Fall countered, rolling her remaining eye. "You believe
that she is Moapa because you have taken her. She is of a white demon's
womb," the warrioress proclaimed as if she were speaking around venom,
"and she is sickly, broken, and frail! Can you truly expect any good to
come of her? She will be beaten by her peers, raped by the mindless ones, and
laughed at by the children. For her sake," she concluded, "and to redeem
the mistake you made by lusting with a white woman so long ago, you should kill
her. Put her out of her misery. Then," Sings-in-the-Fall said, licking her
lips, "we can feast upon her."
"Broken Little Bird is
not your meal," Fury reminded her, as he did nearly every night. He stood
and slipped out of his sash and loin-cloth, leaving himself bare. He stepped
aside the fire and bent his toes down into the warmth of the deer-hide spread
beneath Sings-in-the-Fall. "She will never be your meal. Respect her not
for her presence, but respect that she is my daughter, and that she will be
broken of these white-flesh residues. My misjudgments are none of her
burden."
As he kneeled beside
Sings-in-the-Fall, she turned, baring her chest and reaching upwards to wrap
her arms about his neck. Though the claws were vicious and had been stained by
the blood of a hundred murders, though there were rotten, disembodied ears
strung on sinew around her neck, she was a feminine beauty in that she was so
wretchedly unattractive. Her hair was thick and unwashed. Her flesh smelled
like smoke and blood. Her teeth were jagged, yellowed, razor-thin.
"You know I will always,
always try to break you from her," Sings-in-the-Fall breathed in his ear.
His countless braids spilled down onto her face. "It is a challenge I
appreciate. I will always be hungry for the blood of a white one, and she is
the closest one I know."
"You will have a treat
soon enough," he uttered against her. "Do you remember our
plan?"
"I do, but tell me again
-- tell me, and then I am yours."
"You are always
mine."
"Or perhaps it is
you," she said, and she winked her single eye, "that belongs to
me."
A plan. Always a plan. Always
some way to control the way the bones would fall, dominating from the outside
the process of other lives and other people. This was the pleasure that
Fury-of-the-Winds and Sings-in-the-Fall had always taken, even before he had
become the blood-chieftain. Subterfuge and confusion was their passion just as
was bloodshed and war. There had been a plan when the Wise One had perished.
There had been others.
And there was one for Broken
Little Bird that they had discussed time and time again. There was a desire to
break her girlish ways, to turn her from a child into a woman and turn her mind
to granite. If she was going to be Moapa, then she would be a warrior.
The fastest way to make
someone a warrior was to make them hate.
Sings-in-the-Fall surrendered
herself to Fury-of-the-Winds as she did every night, and though there were
prayers to be said and poultices to be mixed, these were things that Fury would
make time for later. There was nothing more exhilarating than feeling her claws
dig into his spine and feeling the blood trickle between his ribs. He kissed
her curves and reveled in her sweat, while throughout it all, he spoke to her,
telling her their plan again, for even her lust was driven from her desire to
kill.
"Broken Little Bird
continues to live with the woman Umarth, a governess and mother of war-orphaned
children. When I punish the girl, she has arms to hold her and kisses to soften
the bruises. It was important for her to receive that care, for it will be a
greater loss to her when it is suddenly gone, and there will be nothing left to
replace it but anger.
"In several days time,
when the moon is gone and there is rain to wash away the blood,"
Fury-of-the-Winds whispered in the warrioress' ear, "The den-woman Umarth
is to die, and let it be Broken Little Bird that finds her body."
"You wish for it to be
... violent," Sings-in-the-Fall gasped, almost joyously.
"As awful as you can make
it."
"I will see what can be
done," giggled Sings-in-the-Fall.
Making a warrior was the easy
part, Fury-of-the-Winds mused. He and Sings-in-the-Fall entwined themselves
long into the morning, past even their daylight prayers to the Eternal and
their morning cleansing.
It was setting all the pieces
into motion that was hard.
* * * *
It's
quite time to wake up.
The sunlight was a burning
brand, searing violently through her closed eyelids, trying to pry them apart.
There was no gentle separation between being asleep and being awake; there was
only that sudden jolt, the return of worldly sensations, and the spinning
hurricane inside of her head. Broken Little Bird did not open her eyes. The
sounds came before that.
Songs of the morning birds
chittered throughout the damp forest, their cheery soliloquy mocking the pain
throbbing in the bruises on her face. Events of the night gradually came back
to her. Father had dragged her here, had tried to teach her a lesson with fists
and power, and the rest of the night had been spent unconscious in a muddied
vale.
Someone who found her would
have thought she was alone. They would have been wrong.
You are always so difficult
to stir, murmured a voice that only she could hear. Or were they a thousand
voices? I left you alone as long as I could, but the day will soon grow hot
and unhealthy.
Broken Little Bird did not
respond to it as she clenched her bloody fists around clumps of mashed earth.
She managed to roll herself over to her side, gritting her teeth against the
memory of pain still hammering in her ribs. Her black hair was a seaweed
tangle, and as she lifted up out of the ditch, it left spidery little lines in
the wet peat. Her toes squelched below her. She staggered for a moment, and
though she wanted only to stay lying down, the voice had told her to move, and
she knew always to trust it. Then she opened her eyes.
Too fast, it warned
her.
Too late. The blaring sun
stabbed itself right into her eyes. The brightness of the day set her mind on
fire. This was the unforgiving curse of the morning sun, clean and clear and
cleansing, but it seemed too hot and too direct. There were trees in a tall and
circular halo standing around her, but the sun was right above, blaring down on
her. The light made her stomach twist. The agony of her injuries and the
lightness in her battered skull crashed together without remorse. There in the
clearing, Broken Little Bird vomited into the crushed leaves. She stumbled away
from the refuse as quick as it had come, wiping her mouth and tightening her
eyelids against the dizziness swimming in her brain.
Your stomach doesn't agree
with the pain in your head.
When she opened her eyes
again, she squinted at first, getting herself used to the day's glare and heat.
She scuttled into a cove of leafy shadows, and while she leaned against a tree
to catch her breath, she muttered a retort below her breath, not in the Moapa
tongue, but in her own.
"He ... taught me
again."
I am aware of that, the
presence in her conscience replied. You would not have awakened here were it
not for his brutality. This is a morning like many others. I will assume that
this means, it continued, that you polluted your bedroll once again.
It was not a question. It seemed to already know the answer.
She did not need to speak to
respond to the voice, she knew -- she could have thought her response and it
would have heard it just as readily, but it felt right to speak in this
language. It felt like home. "I ... cannot help these things! But if I am
to be taught--"
Beaten--
"If I am to be taught
not to do such awful things," repeated Broken Little Bird, euphemizing as
children often did, refusing the truth, "then perhaps I should be bruised
to show my progress."
Harming you will not fix
this in you.
"He ... does not
care."
But you are special, child
-- you have not shown him, that despite these infantile mistakes, you are ... powerful.
"No," Broken Little
Bird snapped, forcing herself away from the tree, kicking through the muddied,
rain-damp leather of her tattered skirts. There was nowhere to look to face
this voice speaking to her, but could she, her glare would have been
unavoidable, the girl's sneer piercing. "Let him do what he wants. You are
my secret."
But I am what causes you
this sickness; I am what causes the weakness in your body and the deterioration
in your muscles. You are Broken Little Bird because of my presence. You are
pathetic and sickly and ever-soiled, the voice jeered, as if it too desired
to insult her, but if you display what
you are capable of ... then perhaps these beatings will cease. Humans have
scarcely an understanding of anything unless it displays power, clout, or
domination...
"Stop it," Broken
Little Bird finally said, her voice a shout against the trees and fauna, and
she crushed the palm of a hand against the creases of her forebrow. "Let
Father b-... believe what he wants to believe. I will not listen to you."
And that was that -- it tried
to stutter some kind of return comment, sensations that became the likeness of
words and logic in her mind, but she cut it off. However frail the tiny native
girl was, she had learned quickly how to force that malignant other-voice into
silence. She refused its entry and turned her mind to other thoughts, such as
which direction she would need to go to return to the village. She dreaded
sauntering back into its perimeter, knowing full well that the children would
be there, waiting for her with their teasing smiles and their impish laughter,
calling her all sorts of names. Umarth would be waiting for her when she
staggered back to the lodge, with fresh washing-hides and warm water, and
kisses -- kisses that made her feel safe -- to invite her home. The caring
governess would ask nothing of the night before, Broken Little Bird knew, but
she would have already known. That was her way. Umarth did not question her,
did not blame her, but embraced her the way she embraced other children of the
tribe, teaching them the tenderness that spear and shield or blood and war
could never convey.
The morning would be recovery.
Father would show himself come early evening, prepared to take her away from
that cradle of comfort and thrust her back into the teachings of a young
warrioress. These were her days, just as the beatings were her nights.
Broken Little Bird hid her
face beneath her long, obsidian hair as she turned her shoulders against the
sun and began to tread through the woods, following the scent of morning
campfires with an upturned nose. Burning oak called to her, and the meat of
morning meals had a smoke all its own, salty and warm. The dampness of the
stormy night was being forced away by an unrelenting sky. Like a drunkard
withdrawn from his precious elixirs, Broken Little Bird fumbled mindlessly through
the wood, her breath searing and her skull pounding.
Somewhere in the woods far
behind her, as if screaming out against the morning, a wolf-like howl, shrill
and ever-hungry, mourned the death of night and dreaded the dawn. Though the
dauervohr did not hunt during the daylight hours, she scampered faster, putting
the sound as far behind her as she could. They were retreating back to their
dark caves to feast upon their findings and squabble amidst themselves.
Those were beasts Broken
Little Bird never wanted to meet. Her father was pain enough.
She walked, and though she had
willed it away, her jaw began to ache and her teeth constantly echoed with
small rumbles of pain. The chimera -- the voice, her cancer -- was finding any
way that it could to talk to her, but like she did every morning, Broken Little
Bird chose not to listen.
An hour later, she resolved,
though her fellow children would be loud and their insults jagged, she would be
safe. She could look forward to that.
* * * *
In the brush,
there stirred a shine of eyes and a flash of tiny teeth. Little hisses of
breath told the others to be still and quiet, and all throughout the smallish
crowd huddled there, hidden well behind a thick bogwood tuft, anticipation
fluttered and excitement grew.
"There -- I see
her," said one of the boys. He was the largest one, and on his cheeks he
bore the blood of a rabbit splattered in a likeness like warpaint. "I told
you she would come this way."
"I want to throw a rock
at her," said the boy to his right.
"When I grow up, her
scalp is going to hang right in front of my ear," muttered another one,
tapping at his temple with a pudgy finger.
There was a fourth child
crouched somewhat behind the others, but he stared just as sharply through the
underbrush. He had foregone the playful antics of the warpaint or the
ceremonial battle feathers -- things that they saw their fathers wear (or what
they saw coated in blood when their fathers came back in pieces) but did not
understand the meaning of. His compatriots had two hands and ten fingers, but
this boy had but one hand, and just one arm to be exact. The other was a stump,
a nub long-ago healed and hidden shamefully away beneath a drape of leather.
The muddied girl named Broken
Little Bird swept through the woods in front of them without knowing that she
was being watched, and the one-armed boy named Ishaw clenched his miniscule
fist with a hatred that few children could ever hope to understand.
"Her scalp won't be
yours, Ghishu. Forget your rocks, Dazno," he quickly said, and they nodded
their heads like little soldiers following the graces of a commander. "Potak?"
"Yes, Ishaw?" said
the first boy, who had led them here.
"Give me your
knife," he demanded, and Potak quickly slid out his stone-bladed knife --
a thing meant for carving and flaying plants -- from his hip-sheath. He passed
it handle-first to Ishaw, who took it in his remaining hand and tightened his
fingers around it.
Ishaw was the youngest, but
his face was tightened and his stare the most severe.
"You three hold her down
for me. I will do the rest."
* * * *
Home was not so far away, she
remembered. She had to cross a small creek with sharp stones hidden beneath its
waters, but with proper footing, they would not cut her. It was there that she
planned to strip her tattered hides and wash them, for the sun would dry them
quickly enough and the stains of blood would not be so easy to see. Father
would expect that much of her, at least, that she would return having had
enough care for her appearance to cleanse away the blood, and she had no desire
to disappoint him when she could choose otherwise.
These were the lonely times
when she struggled to recall all of the foggy, fading memories tucked away
somewhere in her past. What she would not give for a book, a story, or some
other conduit out of this barbaric and rancid place, where war was the sport of
choice and violence was the art of relaxation! She could scarcely remember her
old life anymore, though, for it had been so long ago.
Long ago, as if it belonged to
someone else.
She almost believed that it
did. Broken Little Bird was not a name she was used to; it did not translate
well into her natural tongue and seemed more like an insult than an identity.
The names of the Moapa were things that they earned through deeds of supposed
valor, but hers... hers was a shame, an encouragement to adhere to their laws,
their lifestyle, their rule, so that she could one day be rid of the weak
epithet. The children of the tribe were often given what were considered
useless and sub-satisfactory names, things of one or two syllables that spoke
of immaturity until such a time could come that they could earn their names.
Alli was her real name. Alli
was a name that they would have hated here. Alli was a name that they refused
to let her keep. Instead, they gave her this Broken Little Bird to bear,
reminding her that she had nothing to be proud of and nothing to speak of her
talents. Children smirked at her when she stepped past them in the village and
adults shook their head with careless abandon, blaming the name not on her
Father's inscrutable cruelty, but instead on her inability to prove herself
worthy of any other namesake.
All of this, she thought,
because she simply had not been born one of them.
Other young girls would have
strolled along the path she walked giggling and pointing at the remnants of
forgotten blossoms, running their hands along the leaves or singing harmonies
to the warbling birds perched far overhead. Broken Little Bird had quickly
learned that that was not her place, though, for girls of the Moapa were not
meant to have these pleasures. Those were left to the men, to the ones that mattered.
As she walked, she yearned to
turn the other way and leave this place behind, but going in any other
direction would have left her little hope. She knew not of direction or
location, and the Moapa village seemed as if it existed in its own time and
world, devoid of little else but the wretched, painted faces of the savages
with whom they warred. They likely would have found her, or she would have
discovered herself stumbling carelessly into the arms of other tribes who would
have likely gutted her and left her flayed corpse to bleach in the sun. If the
tribes did not find her, though, then likely Father would, and he would not
take kindly to disloyalty.
And if not Father, then the
dauervohr... and they, they would have had no mercy. She had heard tales
of them in whispers and murmurs and had heard frightened children stuttering
about them through the walls of their lodges late at night. She had never seen
one, for few were those who had met the dauervohr and had lived. She once heard
Fury-of-the-Winds speak of them as the Eternal's greatest mistake, and what
exactly they were, she had never discovered. They heralded the night with
screams like tortured woman-wolves and stalked about the shadows with bloodied
jaws, waiting for prey or anything else that they could feast upon--
Broken Little Bird's head
snapped forward as something fast and heavy struck her in the back of her head.
The pain was not so much as the surprise. The black-haired girl staggered
forward but did not fall, thrusting her arms out to catch onto anything she
could. Through the trees and dank forest above her, she caught the
silver-diamond glitter of a jagged stream, and though she yearned to run for
it, something else very suddenly demanded her attention.
“What's the meaning of this?”
She sputtered in her natural tongue, spinning around and instinctively bearing
her teeth.
Behind her, standing amidst
the ruffled branches of a stout bush, four pairs of young eyes leered out at
her, but when they spoke, they used the harsh tongue that had been beaten into
her head through many unforgiving hours.
“Don't you snarl at me like
you're a beast,” said one of the boys. She recognized the voice in an instant.
“You shouldn't have been allowed to have that gift.”
Ishaw was his name, for how
could she have forgotten his name when it was he who lambasted her so, more
than any of the other children in the village? He had no fear in showing who he
was, and with a wiry leg, he extracted himself from the shuddering branches.
She had to force herself not to stare at the deformity that made him so
recognizable: in one hand, he held a toothy knife carved out of rough stone and
pushed aside the branches with that same fist. There was but an inarticulate
stump where the other arm should have been, and no matter the salves and
potions that he had been given to ease the healing, the skin was loose and
stretched, speaking of its agonizing loss some time past.
“I told Dazno not to throw any
rocks, but he chose to anyway,” the child said conversationally, peering at
Broken Little Bird over the knife he held.
“Wh-... Why are you here,
Ishaw?” The girl asked, staring too at the weapon in his remaining hand. “Isn't
this the time for morning prayers?”
“We skipped them today,” he
said, “because we had something more important to do.”
“Your mother won't be very
happy with that.”
“My father taught me that my
mother is a mindless wench, and I think I agree with him.” He spoke so boldly
for such a little boy, at least four years younger than she was. Ishaw, whose
copper-colored skin seemed to absorb the morning sun, motioned for his other
friends to follow him out of the bush. She knew every one of them, and they
looked more prepared for a hunt than they did a simple game. Potak had smeared
an animal's blood all over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, and Dazno – a
wider boy who was less lean than the others – grinned in pride over his
perfectly aimed throw. Ghishu was the third to reveal himself, and though he
was the oldest and tallest, he did not seem as interest in their antics as the
others. They gathered behind Ishaw and crossed their arms like highwaymen
awaiting a carriage.
“I ... I don't doubt your
father,” Broken Little Bird said. She knew immediately that these boys were not
here to play. “But your mother is a very gentle woman, and--”
“Don't try to placate me,
dog,” Ishaw snapped. “I didn't come here to talk. The knife should tell you
that.”
“Then I'll keep walking and
leave you to your morning,” she apologized, backpedaling several steps and
snapping a fallen branch.
“Stop playing the peacemaker,
Broken Little Bird. You're included in my morning, you know, and without the
adults here--” he smiled, but little boys did not often grin with such vicious
sarcasm, “--I can have a little more fun than usual.
“Dazno, Potak,” the one-armed
boy hissed. “Bring her to me.”
Without an instant's hesitation,
the portly native boy and his associate sprang forward from their muddy
footholds on either side of Ishaw, their leggings and loin-cloths snapping in
the breeze. Dirt sprayed up from their feet, and within seconds, they would
have had her. With a gasp, Broken Little Bird whipped her head around and
launched into a sprint, smacking away a series of claw-like branches with her
palms. Though her feet were bare and the ground harbored hidden rocks, the only
thing she could do was run, because letting the boys get a hold on her did not
seem a viable option.
She heard the pounding feet of
all four of the boys right behind her as she wove around tree-trunks and darted
through bowing ferns. Her bones and limbs ached with the memories of the prior
night's pain, but she did not listen to it and instead used its reminder to
fuel her flight. She knew the physical capabilities of those with the black
blood; she had seen Fury-of-the-Winds run like a wild beast, had seen him
pounce upon his enemies with ill-abandon. She had seen the prowess of the
cursed ones in both battle and hunt, calling upon their blood for their
ability, becoming listless creatures as opposed to violent humans. She had seen
them bound from branch to branch, unraveling almost frightening alacrity,
balance, and precision. She knew not how to tap that capability; she could only
wish for it and run, ducking beneath fallen branches and tearing through
brambles all the way. If she could find some way to lose then or put them
further behind her, then she could get back to the village...
... and there, though they
would surely catch up to her, the adults would keep them from attacking her for
whatever foolish reasons they desired.
“Ghishu, catch up,”
screamed Ishaw not far behind her. “She is not to get away from us!”
Occasionally, Broken Little
Bird stumbled, but before she fell, she would catch herself with the palms of
her hands and bound off of them and manage to thrust back to her feet. The
creek glimmered some hundred yards in front of her through the trees. Its
meandering course cut a watery wound through the tall and foreboding towers of
the forest.
If only she could get there,
she thought, then maybe she could get some reprieve from their chase – she knew
the stepping-stones better than anyone else, she was sure, having spent so many
mornings crossing them. While she jumped across them, maybe the boys behind her
would teeter and slow.
That was all she could hope
for.
Although the adrenaline ran
like a virus through her and the remnants of her ragged, sickly lungs rattled
like withered snakes in her chest, she pressed on, even when she felt the
squelch of creek-bank mud squeezing between her toes.
Then, having forgotten about
pushing it away, the voices came back to her – the chimera, taking a single
moment's advantage of her distraction, chose then to laugh inside of her head.
I don't think you should be
running, Seamstress, the chimera whispered to her. Her hands shot upwards
to her head as if she could grind the voice away. I think that's an awful
choice.
Seamstress – of all times for
it to call her that ... it had to choose now.
What a perfect time to
remember who you are, Alligail Gloria Johnford. You're a Seamstress, aren't
you? Powerful ... undermined ... forgotten.
Water splashed up into her
face and felt like ice around her ankles. She leaped for one of the stones, but
her balance was off, her direction was poor.
There are no adults here,
child. The atmosphere is just right.
She spilled into the water,
graceless and distracted, and the laughter of violently playful little boys
rang in her ears. Her knee smashed against an exposed rock. One of them grabbed
at her hair, and another one clambered onto her back, and any moment, she
expected to feel the burning, lava-like pain of a stabbing knife.
A Seamstress is meant to
create, the chimera urged her, and her mind broiled with protest. Meant
to create... and meant to kill.
Kill them, the chimera
hissed in her brain. It always spoke so sweetly until moments like this, when
it knew it could manipulate her the most.
A tiny fist crashed against
the back of her head.
Show them that you're not
what they think you are.