The Unfinished Song: Taboo (37 page)

“I knew it!” he cried, watching her face. “You know
exactly
what I’m talking about. If you give me the Looking Bowl, I will save Kavio’s miserable, unworthy life.”

She
did
know exactly what he was talking about. “But I don’t
have
it.”

“Then get out of here. Get out!” He shouted it.

She cringed and stumbled toward the door, but he grabbed her arm, yanked her to his chest and kissed her. Squirming to escape and pounding his chest did not hurry him; he released her when he was ready. Her whole body prickled as if she had been dipped in the cold sea then dumped naked on a beach.

“You are not his lover,” Zumo said thoughtfully. “I would have tasted his aura in yours. So why would you risk yourself trying to bargain for his life?”

“He is my…our… Zavaedi.” She hated that she blushed and stuttered, and she didn’t think she sounded convincing, but Zumo nodded and released her.

“Get out of here.”

“You won’t save him.”

“Get out.”

“He’s your own cousin!”

“Get out.”

“What else can I offer you?” she asked. She shut her eyes and put her hand to the loosened drawstrings of her top. “You thought I was going to suggest something else. Would you….”

“Don’t.” He closed his hand over hers. “Because he would never accept that trade, and I will honor his wishes. But let me also do you a favor, because I hate for you to go back to your people thinking I was the villain who stood in the way of your long happy life with my cousin. You are not the first little serving maiden to fall helplessly in love with him. There have been many. He was as chivalrous yet oblivious to them as I’m sure he was to you. They meant nothing to him, and you meant nothing to him. Do you understand? He goes eagerly to die for his tribe, but he would never go to die for a woman. He’s too fae. They don’t really love like we do, you know.”

“I’m not in love with him.”

Zumo lips twisted. “Then stay here with me tonight, not as part of a trade, but just to enjoy the most pleasurable night of your life.”

She pushed through the leather door, his mocking laughter at her back.

Brena felt numb. She had been glowing inside when she and Rthan had meandered side by side up the secret wooden staircase below the surface of the tribehold, but her joy at their fragile detente had not lasted long. They arrived back in the plaza just in time to witness Kavio refuse to sacrifice the Shunned, and be in turn forced to crawl in the dust as a captive himself.

The peace feast had dissolved into disaster so apocalyptically, it was as if for the second time that evening the floor had been pulled out form under her and left her falling. Worst of all, when she searched Rthan’s face, he refused to meet her eyes. He did not look surprised, only grim.

“You bastard!” she hissed. “You knew this would happen. You knew it all along.”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her from the plaza, walking quickly.

“Let me go!” She slapped him across the face.

Without a word, he picked her up and slung her upside down over his shoulder. No matter how she struggled or pounded his back, she could not escape his grip. He carried her to one of the stinking fish-catchers’ huts. Inside, the only illumination came from the coals of a fire almost dead. He tossed her down on the furs beside the hearth.

She recognized her travel pack, her bag of medicines and her tools. He had not brought her to this den on a whim.

“How long have you been planning this, Rthan?” she cried. “The entire journey? How long have you dreamed of this day when you would switch the spear’s point around and take your revenge for being a slave? How long have you wanted to take by force what I tried to freely give you?”

As she spoke, she groped behind her in her rucksack. She hoped in the dim light he would not notice, so she dared not give away the game by looking for what she wanted. Not that she needed to look; she knew every cranny of her pack by heart, and her hand found the slender tool, well wrapped in rabbit skins.

The black arrow.

“If I asked Nargano, he would give you to me as a slave,” growled Rthan. “He would deem it fitting revenge for what your people did to me. And the rest of your people would have no choice but to leave you here when they left, any more than they have a choice about abandoning Zavaedi Kavio.”

“Stay away from me,” she said.
I don’t want to kill you, Rthan
.

He prowled closer to her, covering her body with his, pressing her breasts under his chest. “I will have you this night, Brena.”

But if you try to take me by force, I will.
Her fingers flicked the rabbit skins away and curled around the shaft of the black arrow.

“One last night,” he whispered into her ear. “Let me love you as your husband.”

She still clutched the arrow, but froze, shocked by the tenderness in his voice.

“Tomorrow you will go home to your people.” He caressed her face. “I will stay here, and if we ever meet again, it will be in war. Tomorrow is soon enough to be enemies again. Tomorrow is soon enough to pick up the debts of vengeance we have both inherited from the generation before us, and the generation before that. Tomorrow is soon enough for hate. Tonight, let me give you love, sweet Brena. One last night.”

She released the arrow to wrap her arms around his broad back.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Rthan.”

His night with Brena was an island. Too soon, well before dawn, the tide of war returned to pull him from her side. Nargano himself came to Rthan’s house. When Nargano popped his ugly head through the leather door flaps, Brena squealed and ducked to hide her nakedness under the furs.

“Keep the bedwarmer permanently, if you want to dally with her,” Nargano said.

Aware of Brena’s tension, Rthan grunted. “No, she’ll go back with the others.”

“Then send her back now. I need you.”

Rthan had not followed Nargano more than a dozen steps when the older man pivoted on his heel and punched Rthan in the jaw. Despite his age, Nargano still wielded a fist of stone. The sucker punch caught him off guard, but he barreled back to his feet, fist clenched to return blow for blow. He held himself back at the last minute only because this was Nargano, his War Chief, to whom he had pledged his life.

“What’s the matter, Rthan?” taunted Nargano. “Have the Yellow Bear aunties tamed you so much you can’t even fight like a man?”

“You are my chief.” Rthan lowered his fist without unclenching it.

Nargano punched him again. This time Rthan sidestepped the blow and avoided another bruise, but a growl started deep in his throat.

“Am I?” demanded Nargano. “Your new
wife
seemed quite certain of your loyalties, and your affections. Have you forgotten my daughter so quickly Rthan? The child she bore you?” He stepped chest to chest with Rthan and shouted a finger’s breadth from his face. “
Do they mean nothing to you? Why do you treat them like dirt? Who is your tribe, Rthan?
Them or us
?
Them. Or. Us
?!
”

“I am Blue Waters!” shouted Rthan. “I will never forget them! Damn you for even asking me!”

He shoved Nargano out of his face. Nargano slugged him again, too
quick
to duck, but Rthan didn’t hold back this time. He returned an upper cut that landed with a satisfying smack.

Nargano stumbled back and rubbed his jowl. He started to laugh.

“Maybe they didn’t break you after all.”

“I’ve not forgotten who I am,” swore Rthan. He smelled the charred bodies of his wife and daughter; felt the soft pressure of Meira’s tiny hand holding his as he showed her how to tie fishing nets; heard Vultho’s laughter as he admitted to lighting their hut on fire. “I’ve not forgotten
anything
.”

“Then prove it.”

Nargano led him down the Underboard, the wooden path that led from the tribehold to the tidal pools under the overhang. It was still black outside and the tide was on the rise. A knot of warriors surrounded someone who was giving them hell. He wasn’t surprised to find Kavio at the center of the storm. His aura blazed with such power that at first Rthan didn’t even see the net. The only Chroma Rthan could see there was Blue, but he guessed the other five were present in full force, invisible to him. The warriors finally succeeded in their aim, fastening Kavio’s wrists to a rope thrown over a protruding jag of rock, so that he dangled by his arms over the tide pools.

“He’s still got too much fight in him,” Nargano said, unnecessarily. “I want to watch him die, come sunrise, and I don’t want any unexpected surprises. Drain his aura.”

“You know it won’t last.”

“It only has to last as long as it takes crustaceans to eat breakfast.”

Rthan crossed his arms. “Get the rest of the men out of here.”

“Careful. He’s still strong, and I don’t like his smirk.”

“I can handle the boy.”

“He’s not a boy, he’s a Zavaedi, and as wily as his father. Don’t underestimate him.”

“Rthan,” Kavio called out. “Are you too much a coward to fight me with my hands untied? Did you tell your chief how I defeated you in hand to hand combat on the Tor of the Stone Hedge?”

“You should have gagged him,” Rthan told Nargano. “His most dangerous weapon is his tongue.”

Nargano held out his open hand. “For Lyass and Blue Waters.”

Rthan clasped it. “For Lyass and Blue Waters.”

As soon as Nargano and the others left Rthan alone with the captive, Kavio called out again. “Rthan…”

“Shut up, Kavio.” He found the other end of the rope from which Kavio was suspended. The rope had been looped over a jagged edge in the cliff face, and Rthan, by bracing his weight against the wall, could raise or lower the prisoner toward the water. The tide was rising, and the water level was moderately high.

Rthan loosened the rope and dunked Kavio into the sea just as the wave submerged the rocks. He disappeared under the water. Then Rthan jerked the rope back up, and the boy came back up sputtering and twisting with his arms still pinned painfully over his head.

“Coward,” spat Kavio.

“Even after all this time, you still think I’m stupid?” Rthan asked. “You think I would untie you and let you fight?”

Another wave. He dunked him again.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Kavio changed tack quickly when Rthan pulled him back up. “I think you’re smart enough to see that this war is going to be endless unless someone does something to change it. Nargano can’t see that, but you can. You and Brena…”

Another dunk. Rthan left Kavio under long enough to feel the rip tide before he pulled him back.

“You think I don’t know how you tried to manipulate me by giving me to her?” Rthan demanded. “Did it even matter one whit to you the terrible danger you put her in?”

Kavio tried to answer but Rthan dunked him into the next wave.

He jerked the rope up and then lowered again, several times in a row, not giving Kavio any chance to speak.

“Wait, Rthan!” Kavio coughed. “Let me just ask you one thing.”

Against his better judgment, Rthan paused.

“Nargano believes this whole peace journey was a trick, that I planned the war from the start. Do you believe that?”

“I believe you’re capable of it, yes.”

“Do you believe I did that? You’ve traveled with me a month.
Do you believe that?
”

“Yes!
” shouted
Rthan. “Nothing else makes sense!
Hundreds
of your
kind were
murdered by the Bone Whistler, and Blue Waters was his ally. Of course you want revenge!”