Phoenix Unbound
Page 61
“One,” Tamura breathed in a soft voice. Gilene spared her a puzzled glance before turning her attention back to the fight.
Karsas’s own swings were clumsy, his movements slowing. Exhaustion, mixed with fear, turned his features gaunt.
Azarion landed another cut, this one on Karsas’s leg. Like the first, it was shallow. Unlike it, blood welled above the slash in the fabric. “Who else did you ambush or murder to keep your secrets and hold your power?”
“Two,” Tamura said.
Others nearby turned to look at her. Realization dawned on Gilene, and her heart ached for the man who would likely find his justice but not his peace when this was over.
Another slash, this one across Karsas’s abdomen.
Gilene joined Tamura. “Three.”
A cut for every year Azarion had been enslaved because of his cousin’s ambitions and his cowardice.
“Four.”
Karsas cursed Azarion, calling him every filthy name in Savat as well as trader’s tongue, bloody spittle glossing his lips. His eyes were wide, his stare frenzied and hate-filled. He no longer seemed to notice when Azarion cut him, painting him a little redder each time.
“Five.” The crowd joined its collective voice to Tamura’s and Gilene’s.
A grueling, excruciating count that ground out in blood, sweat, and pain.
“Six.”
Gilene prayed it would end soon. She felt no pity for Karsas, but his children stood across the field, their faces buried in their stoic mother’s tunic. Justice and vengeance. The merciless speed of the first had become the prolonged savagery of the second.
At the seventh slash, she no longer counted out loud. By the eighth, she found herself praying, not to gods but to Azarion himself. “Finish it,” she said under her breath. “Please.”
As if he heard her plea, he altered his stance and struck with a sweeping arc of his blade.
“Nine,” the crowd said in chorus, their voices lowered to a grim murmur.
A gout of blood spilled through Karsas’s fingers, and he fell to his knees. Gilene closed her eyes against the sight of his entrails bulging from the gaping wound that split his gut. Azarion had nearly cut him in half.
She opened her eyes in time to witness Azarion end his cousin’s suffering with a hard, clean slash that severed the man’s head from his body. The head rolled in one direction as the body tipped to the side and hit the ground with a dull thud.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by Azarion’s clipped voice. “Ten.”
Keening cries of grief rose from the crowd but were soon drowned out by the triumphant roar of those who had sided with Azarion’s bid to reclaim the chieftainship.
Gilene turned to Saruke, who stared at her son with tear-filled eyes. Her mouth trembled. “He lives,” she said, as if still trying to convince herself that Azarion had come out the victor and the survivor of this bout.
Beside her, Tamura reacted in an entirely different way from Saruke, shouting her brother’s name and chanting “Ataman! Ataman!” along with the rest of the clan as Azarion took a victory walk along the circle’s perimeter, sword raised, his face gray. Blood coated his entire left side, but he paid it no heed as he recognized the clan’s acceptance of his leadership.
He paused briefly before the newly widowed Arita and the children pressed against her. Her expression was inscrutable when he leaned in and said something in her ear. Her features didn’t change, though her gaze flickered toward Tamura before she gave a quick nod.
By the time Azarion had completed his victory walk and stood before the three women of his household, the crowd had gone riotous with celebration, passing flasks of fermented mare’s milk between them and breaking into impromptu jigs, as if Karsas’s headless body didn’t sprawl before them in the bloodstained grass.
Gilene gathered around Azarion, along with Saruke and Tamura. Up close, he looked even more ghastly, and the serene facade he wore cracked under exhaustion. Pain darkened his eyes.
He grasped one of Tamura’s hands. “Get me to the qara before I collapse,” he said in a raspy voice.
His warning might have been a lightning strike at their feet. Gilene and Tamura each took up a place on either side of him and leaned close to offer support while Saruke cleaved a path through the gathering.
They made it to the qara without a moment to spare. Azarion took three steps past the threshold before dropping his sword and falling to his knees, bringing Gilene and his sister with him.
“Fetch a healer,” Saruke snapped once Tamura gained her feet, and the younger woman bolted out of the qara.
Saruke and Gilene managed to coax Azarion up long enough to stumble to his pallet, where he crumpled, facedown, into the bedding.
His mother used a knife to cut away his gore-soaked tunic. “Drying cloths, quick,” she commanded Gilene. “And there’s a small green box in that chest.” She pointed to one close to her pallet. “Bring it.” Gilene jumped to do her bidding, returning with the items requested.
Saruke carefully peeled away the last strip of Azarion’s tunic and tossed it aside. He grunted but didn’t move. Both women gasped at the sight of the wound, a gaping slash with ragged edges that split a diagonal line across the shoulder blade and down his back. Blood welled from the wound to slide down his side and stain the bedding.
To Gilene, it looked life-threatening. “Is it very deep?”
“Deep enough that it’ll need sewing.” Saruke peered more closely at the injury. “I won’t know much more until we clean him up.”
She opened the box Gilene handed her and tilted its contents into her cupped palm. Gilene recognized the yellow powder. Her mother always kept a supply in her cupboard to help control fleas in the summer.
“How does the yarrow help?”
Saruke poured the powder directly into the wound. Azarion didn’t move. “It stops the bleeding.” She gestured for Gilene to pass her one of the cloths, which she folded and pressed to his flesh. Blood saturated the cloth, and she applied more until the compress lay thick and blood-spotted under her hand.
Gilene had set a pot of water to warm on the cooking brazier when Tamura returned with the healer, a tiny woman who looked more avian than human with her withered hands like bird feet, a nose that resembled a beak, and black eyes that saw everything. She crouched beside Saruke to inspect Azarion’s injury.
Tamura joined Gilene at the brazier. “How badly is he wounded?”
Gilene stoked the coals before testing the water’s temperature with her finger. Not warm enough yet. “Your mother managed to stop the worst of the bleeding, but she thinks he’ll need stitching.”
The idea of a needle puncturing his skin made her shudder. Her oldest brother had suffered through such a procedure when he was eleven. She’d never forgotten the sound of his screams. “I didn’t know a horse’s hoof could cut someone so badly.”
The maneuver he’d executed to unhorse Karsas had been a risky one, dependent on perfect timing and speed to keep from being trampled. It had been an impressive display of Azarion’s daring and prowess, but he hadn’t come away from the feat unscathed.
Tamura gave an indelicate snort. “A horse’s hoof can do a lot of damage, especially its edge. He’s lucky the mare took him in the shoulder instead of the head. He wouldn’t have survived otherwise.” She and Gilene stared at each other, recognizing their mutual fear of Azarion’s close call with death.
Karsas’s own swings were clumsy, his movements slowing. Exhaustion, mixed with fear, turned his features gaunt.
Azarion landed another cut, this one on Karsas’s leg. Like the first, it was shallow. Unlike it, blood welled above the slash in the fabric. “Who else did you ambush or murder to keep your secrets and hold your power?”
“Two,” Tamura said.
Others nearby turned to look at her. Realization dawned on Gilene, and her heart ached for the man who would likely find his justice but not his peace when this was over.
Another slash, this one across Karsas’s abdomen.
Gilene joined Tamura. “Three.”
A cut for every year Azarion had been enslaved because of his cousin’s ambitions and his cowardice.
“Four.”
Karsas cursed Azarion, calling him every filthy name in Savat as well as trader’s tongue, bloody spittle glossing his lips. His eyes were wide, his stare frenzied and hate-filled. He no longer seemed to notice when Azarion cut him, painting him a little redder each time.
“Five.” The crowd joined its collective voice to Tamura’s and Gilene’s.
A grueling, excruciating count that ground out in blood, sweat, and pain.
“Six.”
Gilene prayed it would end soon. She felt no pity for Karsas, but his children stood across the field, their faces buried in their stoic mother’s tunic. Justice and vengeance. The merciless speed of the first had become the prolonged savagery of the second.
At the seventh slash, she no longer counted out loud. By the eighth, she found herself praying, not to gods but to Azarion himself. “Finish it,” she said under her breath. “Please.”
As if he heard her plea, he altered his stance and struck with a sweeping arc of his blade.
“Nine,” the crowd said in chorus, their voices lowered to a grim murmur.
A gout of blood spilled through Karsas’s fingers, and he fell to his knees. Gilene closed her eyes against the sight of his entrails bulging from the gaping wound that split his gut. Azarion had nearly cut him in half.
She opened her eyes in time to witness Azarion end his cousin’s suffering with a hard, clean slash that severed the man’s head from his body. The head rolled in one direction as the body tipped to the side and hit the ground with a dull thud.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by Azarion’s clipped voice. “Ten.”
Keening cries of grief rose from the crowd but were soon drowned out by the triumphant roar of those who had sided with Azarion’s bid to reclaim the chieftainship.
Gilene turned to Saruke, who stared at her son with tear-filled eyes. Her mouth trembled. “He lives,” she said, as if still trying to convince herself that Azarion had come out the victor and the survivor of this bout.
Beside her, Tamura reacted in an entirely different way from Saruke, shouting her brother’s name and chanting “Ataman! Ataman!” along with the rest of the clan as Azarion took a victory walk along the circle’s perimeter, sword raised, his face gray. Blood coated his entire left side, but he paid it no heed as he recognized the clan’s acceptance of his leadership.
He paused briefly before the newly widowed Arita and the children pressed against her. Her expression was inscrutable when he leaned in and said something in her ear. Her features didn’t change, though her gaze flickered toward Tamura before she gave a quick nod.
By the time Azarion had completed his victory walk and stood before the three women of his household, the crowd had gone riotous with celebration, passing flasks of fermented mare’s milk between them and breaking into impromptu jigs, as if Karsas’s headless body didn’t sprawl before them in the bloodstained grass.
Gilene gathered around Azarion, along with Saruke and Tamura. Up close, he looked even more ghastly, and the serene facade he wore cracked under exhaustion. Pain darkened his eyes.
He grasped one of Tamura’s hands. “Get me to the qara before I collapse,” he said in a raspy voice.
His warning might have been a lightning strike at their feet. Gilene and Tamura each took up a place on either side of him and leaned close to offer support while Saruke cleaved a path through the gathering.
They made it to the qara without a moment to spare. Azarion took three steps past the threshold before dropping his sword and falling to his knees, bringing Gilene and his sister with him.
“Fetch a healer,” Saruke snapped once Tamura gained her feet, and the younger woman bolted out of the qara.
Saruke and Gilene managed to coax Azarion up long enough to stumble to his pallet, where he crumpled, facedown, into the bedding.
His mother used a knife to cut away his gore-soaked tunic. “Drying cloths, quick,” she commanded Gilene. “And there’s a small green box in that chest.” She pointed to one close to her pallet. “Bring it.” Gilene jumped to do her bidding, returning with the items requested.
Saruke carefully peeled away the last strip of Azarion’s tunic and tossed it aside. He grunted but didn’t move. Both women gasped at the sight of the wound, a gaping slash with ragged edges that split a diagonal line across the shoulder blade and down his back. Blood welled from the wound to slide down his side and stain the bedding.
To Gilene, it looked life-threatening. “Is it very deep?”
“Deep enough that it’ll need sewing.” Saruke peered more closely at the injury. “I won’t know much more until we clean him up.”
She opened the box Gilene handed her and tilted its contents into her cupped palm. Gilene recognized the yellow powder. Her mother always kept a supply in her cupboard to help control fleas in the summer.
“How does the yarrow help?”
Saruke poured the powder directly into the wound. Azarion didn’t move. “It stops the bleeding.” She gestured for Gilene to pass her one of the cloths, which she folded and pressed to his flesh. Blood saturated the cloth, and she applied more until the compress lay thick and blood-spotted under her hand.
Gilene had set a pot of water to warm on the cooking brazier when Tamura returned with the healer, a tiny woman who looked more avian than human with her withered hands like bird feet, a nose that resembled a beak, and black eyes that saw everything. She crouched beside Saruke to inspect Azarion’s injury.
Tamura joined Gilene at the brazier. “How badly is he wounded?”
Gilene stoked the coals before testing the water’s temperature with her finger. Not warm enough yet. “Your mother managed to stop the worst of the bleeding, but she thinks he’ll need stitching.”
The idea of a needle puncturing his skin made her shudder. Her oldest brother had suffered through such a procedure when he was eleven. She’d never forgotten the sound of his screams. “I didn’t know a horse’s hoof could cut someone so badly.”
The maneuver he’d executed to unhorse Karsas had been a risky one, dependent on perfect timing and speed to keep from being trampled. It had been an impressive display of Azarion’s daring and prowess, but he hadn’t come away from the feat unscathed.
Tamura gave an indelicate snort. “A horse’s hoof can do a lot of damage, especially its edge. He’s lucky the mare took him in the shoulder instead of the head. He wouldn’t have survived otherwise.” She and Gilene stared at each other, recognizing their mutual fear of Azarion’s close call with death.
