I showed him the book, turning the pages and pointing out the words. There were only a few on each page. Moon. Night. Stars. He was fascinated, repeating the words as I said them, and he set his knife down beside him. He touched the colorful pages rippled with time, his fingertips barely skimming them.
“This is a book of the Ancients,” he said.
“Ancients? Is that that what your kind call them?”
He looked at me uncertainly, then stood. “Why do you question everything I say?” He stormed down the steps, and strangely, I was sad to see him go.
“Come back tomorrow,” I called. “I’ll read more to you.”
“I will not be back!” he yelled over his shoulder.
I watched him stomp through the brush, only his wild blond hair shimmering above the weeds until both he and his grumbling threats disappeared.
Yes, Jafir, I thought, you will be back, though I’m not sure why.
Chapter Six
Jafir
I separated the last of the meat from the skin—a nice plump hare that had made Laurida purr when I arrived back at camp. I hung the gutted animal from the tree. We’d had no fresh meat for our stew in four days now, and Fergus grew more sour each day at the few roots and marrow bones that flavored the water.
“Where did you get it?” Laurida asked.
I had cornered it in a gully not far from where I found the girl Morrighan, but Laurida didn’t need to know that. She might tell Steffan, and he would take over my hunting ground like he took over everything else.
“In the basin past the mudflats,” I answered.
“Hmm,” she said suspiciously.
“I didn’t steal it,” I added. “I hunted it.” Though in the end, it made no difference—food was food—Laurida seemed to enjoy the hunted kind more. “I’ll go rinse these.” I grabbed the intestines to wash in the creek.
“Walk wide around Steffan this day,” she called after me. “He’s in a surly temper.”
I shrugged as I walked away. When was Steffan not in a surly temper? At least tonight he couldn’t box my ears or punch my ribs. He’d be shamed by Piers and Fergus for my catch. They both loved hare, and all Steffan had brought home lately were bony hole weasels.
It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized I had forgotten to ask Morrighan why Harik knew her name. It was the first thing I was going to say, but then she threw me off with all of her talk. Do I bathe? I swished the intestines beneath the water. What difference did it make? But then I thought about her skin, how it seemed to glow with the color of a smoky sunset. I had wanted to touch it and see what it felt like. Was it that color because she bathed? We had no girls in our camp—only boys, men, and three women like Laurida—their faces tough and lined with years. Morrighan’s cheeks were as smooth as a spring leaf.
I heard commotion and the whickering of horses. And then Steffan’s loud call that the others were back, as if it weren’t obvious. I shook out the intestines and trudged back up the slope to camp. My steps faltered when I saw Harik with the elders of the clan. He didn’t come by our camp as often these days, instead staying in his massive fortress on the other side of the river—the one he had named Vend
a after his bride, the Siarrah. But the water was rising and the bridge was leaning. It might not be long before his fortress was cut off from the rest of us, and he couldn’t come at all. Fergus said the river would swallow the bridge soon. Harik balked and said he would build another, which seemed an impossible task, but he was larger in power and hunger than most, and it was rumored that his father had been one of the mightiest Ancients. Maybe he had ways we didn’t know of.
“You remember the boy, don’t you?” Fergus said pointing at me.
“Steffan,” Harik said, clamping his massive hand down on my shoulder.
“That’s my brother. I’m Jafir,” I said, but he had already turned away and was settling near the fire with Piers.
The evening went as others—food, squabbles, and news of far-off kin. Fergus said our kin in the north mused again about what lay beyond the western mountains. They were considering venturing forth to search for better fortune than what the scrabble offered here and had asked Fergus to join them. I rolled my eyes. They were always “considering,” but nothing came of it. The mountains held the sickness. Nothing grew there. To go through them was to die. Even the mighty clans kept fear close to their hearts. There were still a few among us, like Piers, who had been around when the cloud of death rolled across the land. He was only six at the time, but he recalled the terror.
After dinner Harik passed around a bottle he had brought with him. While food might be scarce, on his side of the river, they still managed to brew the foul liquid. Even though I sat at the ring with everyone else, none was offered to me. Piers reached past me to hand the bottle to Reeve, who sat on my other side. I tried to act like I hadn’t noticed when Harik passed the bottle on to Steffan. He drank and choked on the spirits, and everyone laughed. I did too, but Steffan plucked my laughter out from the rest. He turned and glared at me, the kind of glare that said I would pay later.
Then the talk turned to the tribes. Harik wondered, as he had on past visits, where one tribe in particular had gone. They hadn’t been seen in four years. The tribe of Gaudrel. When he said her name, I heard anger in his voice. “And that brat she drags with her,” he added. “Morrighan.”
I saw the hunger in his eyes. He wanted her. The most powerful man in the land—more powerful than Fergus—wanted Morrighan.
And I was the only one who knew where she was.
Chapter Seven