THE CILERSINEI WARS
She stood above the dead and dying.
Under her tensed a horse bred for battle, before this land had even known such a thing as war. But she had known. It had been her fate, told to her the night her wiseblood came, and she shivered in a tent hung with bleached baryet skulls, wicked teeth jutting forward and dancing in the red glow from the wisewoman's fire, waiting to devour her as she hugged her knees to her chest and breathed heavy incense through an open mouth as the smoke burned her eyes. She had known, and in the knowing forgotten such trivialities as loyalty and family. Where she stood now, dripping sweat and breathing blood, was the end to a path of treachery long laid out before her birth, and she bathed in it as she would bathe at sunrise, ridding herself of the stink of carnage and madman's howls.
Here, in this land, fighting came in darkness. Sunlight bore too heavy a brand to allow any war during the day when sand dunes glowed against the sharp cuts of their shadows. All the stars in heaven heard their cries, and every ancestor nestled among them wept at the rend she had created from centuries of tightly woven camaraderie.
Men died miles below her with her name on their lips, the tender skin of their mouths cracking and bleeding from overexposure to the sun, something ecstatic and fearful in their wails before a gust of wind tore them away completely. Above them all, untouched by glory, she smiled, and prayed, wishing her champions a swift departure.
Versaisna Hinthialsec, daughter of Versaisna Milxpuia, daughter of Versaisna Cauthapulumxva, closed her eyes, but she could still see the torch that burned no bigger than a pinprick in the darkness, declaring where her enemy, her sister, also watched.
Excerpt #2
“What is your name?”
“Where did you come from?”
“Are you my age?”
“What are your people like?”
“Do you sing?”
“Do you like pæsol?”
“Do they let you play?”
Eteri Lautni giggled under the barrage of questions, hiding her face with
a tip of her chin behind a dark blanket of hair that tickled her elbows.
Cheeks glowed pink below a gold tan, making her a spark surrounded by
a sea of darker arms and faces, giggling constantly without opening her
teeth or unclenching her twisting fingers. Her lips stretched back in
what could be a delighted or horrified grin, frozen in either instance
as strange fingers tugged at her clothes and petted her hair like a stray
camel recently arrived at camp.
“Lautni,” she managed, her voice higher and sweeter than those
of the children around her, and as one, they breathed in, startled she
had suddenly spoken, then exhaled in another round of curiosity.
“What did she say?”
“Her name.”
“What?”
“She said her name!”
“What is it?”
“Lautni.”
“Lot-nee?”
“Lautni!”
“Lautni,” she repeated, quietly, and lifted her chin.
At once the squirming bodies encircling her stopped. Dark eyes swiveled
and lips thinned. Lautni held her breath, fearing she had broken a rule
as yet unknown to her. The Versaisna had been expanding their camp, taking
in other tribes that wished to join, and her tribe was the newest to arrive.
Behave, her mother had said. The Versaisna are a touchy people. You do
wrong and we will have to leave.
Lautni almost sobbed, afraid she had done wrong.
But the stony faces glared not at her, but beyond, and she slowly turned,
looking through a space between shoulders and heads surrounding her.
Skirting around the bustle of the newly arrived Eteri tribe walked a boy,
no younger or older than the ones around her, or even herself, but he
looked heavy with age. His shoulders stooped and his head hung, unaware
or simply ignoring as each Eteri paused in their work to stare at his
passing.
“Who is that?” Lautni asked, her voice a soft breath.
“Ziva,” a girl hissed.
Lautni gasped. “Dead?” Despite the sand baking her bare feet
from beneath, Lautni shivered and stared at the boy.
Another boy—Thevru was his name, she remembered—chuckled and
kicked at the sand, sending a puff of dust drifting after the cowed boy.
“His name is Cala. The perfect grandson of Versaisna Naces,”
Thevru sneered. “But not so perfect now, eh?” He elbowed the
boy standing next to him, knocking him off balance, but the boy giggled
anyway, almost nervously.
“What happened?” Lautni asked.
“Naces has power,” Thevru said excitedly. “He can light
things on fire without even touching them! At first we wouldn’t
take him back, because his mother brought dishonor to our name.”
Thevru turned around to grin at Lautni, speaking with the knowledge of
one who had been alive during the events, but impossibly young to have
witnessed it “She killed her husband and ran away from his tribe.
But we decided Naces should not have dishonor simply by being her son,
but then he began to have...power.”
He heaved a breath, fairly panting in his excitement. “No one would
speak to Naces, but his power was so helpful. We could get the camping
grounds we wanted, with no fight with another tribe. He would just burn
their homes by looking at them!
“And all the women wanted to marry him. So he made his pick, had
a daughter and she had Cala.
“Cala,” Thevru continued, his black eyes feverish, “wanted
to be like Naces and did not want to learn the way Naces would teach.
So he tried to use the power he got from Naces and...and...burned
his whole body.”
“Thev!” A girl shoved him and Thevru blinked, the spell of
his story broken. He shrugged and smirked at Lautni. The girl looked at
Lautni with a smile, calm where Thevru had not been. “He only burned
half his body. His right arm and leg and face are all scarred, she said,
making a face of disgust.
Lautni, terrified by Thevru’s passion and his lingering stare, looked
beyond the ring of children around her at Cala.
He looks lonely, she thought.
She snapped her chin up and hardened her shoulders, then pushed out of
the ring between Thevru and the girl who had corrected him.
Thevru gripped her arm after she squeezed through.
“He is ziva,” he hissed at her.
Lautni frowned and then slapped his hand away.
“He looks alive to me.”
