14. Carter

FOURTEEN

CARTER

I remained in bed for most of the next day, though not all of that time was spent in slumber. My lifemate showed me exactly how happy she was to be back home. I relished the time we had together, though I knew my presence would soon be required for the siege efforts.

I joined Pageus shortly before sunset, when red-gold beams of light pierced the effusive white clouds with the brilliance of their hues. Our shadows stretched long down the hill, covering a good portion of the village square.

He gestured to the half-assembled siege engines, a team of Engineers and Sages working together to make them come to fruition.

"The work goes well. I've never seen the castes work together with so much harmony before."

"As I said to Chief Zey, we're going to have to look at new ways of doing things if we want to survive. We need to stop discriminating against our own people based on their caste, or lack thereof for that matter."

We turned toward the west, where a group of Shunned worked with veteran warriors to learn fighting techniques.

"The Shunned pick up on the ways of the warrior well," Pageus agreed. We watched as Lo overextended his spear thrust and flopped onto his belly. "Some of them, anyway. Are you sure the boy would not be better amongst the Sages?"

"I am certain that he would be better off. However, I am also certain you'd be better off asking a mountain not to be tall than asking Lo to change his mind."

"You're right about that. The stripling is as stubborn as they come."

"He's determined to prove he can hold his own amongst the warriors. All we can do is let him try."

"What if he fails?" Pageus asks.

"What if he succeeds?'

Pageus laughed.

"Point taken. However, I just don't want the boy to be disappointed."

"Sympathy for a Shunned, Pageus?"

He arched a brow and shrugged.

"Sympathy for someone who intends to bleed, possibly die in defense of Starlost village."

Pageus strode away from me, his voice pitched low enough only I could hear.

"Just be certain that you do not drag us too quickly into the future, Gro. Many of us oldsters will be left behind."

I open my mouth, closed it, and then sighed. I wished that Masari culture could be a place where no one had to be left behind. Not the old, nor the infirm, or the casteless…or women, for that matter.

But Pageus was right. One thing at a time, starting with the defense of Starlost village.

As the days wore on, we saw our siege engines take shape. The catapults worked astonishingly well, especially when combined with load-lightening skybreaker harness technology.

My ballistae, however, suffered from a lack of good timber to form the bolts. We experimented with solid metal bolts, but these proved too heavy and snapped our rubber strands.

Eventually I had to admit we needed to abandon the ballistae and focus on things that actually worked.

The Sages and Engineers worked night and day, not just on our weapons but on other aspects of our defense. I sent groups into the ruins of the Precursor ship on a daily basis. Though they could glean precious little, every bit helped in the defense efforts.

Most of all, we wanted another flywheel. If we could disable the harnesses and weaponry of Jark's forces, we would have the same advantage we enjoyed during our rescue raid. I knew it was a feeble hope, however, because Ignio had only ever seen one of the flywheels in his long tenure as a Sage.

A week passed, then two, and the attack still had not come. This caused me more anxiety than one might expect.

As I lay in bed late one evening, Arael draped over my back, I brooded over the unexpected delay in Jark's retaliatory attack. Arael's tail wrapped around my leg as she kissed me on the shoulder.

"What's wrong, beloved? You seem as if you are trying to glare the stars right out of the sky."

"It's Jark. He hasn't attacked yet."

She laughed softly, vibrating my back with her voice.

"Is that not a good thing?"

"In some ways, yes, it is a good thing." I reached up and took her hand in my own, bringing it to my mouth for a kiss. "But the longer we wait, the more complacent our people grow. Already there are whispers that Jark won't attack us at all, that he is frightened after our raid proved so successful."

"You fear they will lose the edge of readiness?"

"Yes, exactly."

She grunted, then snuggled up closer to me.

"You will think of something. You know, earlier you referred to the Masari as ‘our people.'"

I cocked an eyebrow, though she couldn't see my face in her position.

"Yes? What of it?"

"You didn't think of yourself as a hoo-man, but as one of us. It's a sign that you are no longer trying to get back to your old life."

I flinched, realizing she spoke the truth.

"That life seems more and more effusive every day. Like a vision, or a dream."

She moved off of me so I could roll onto my back. Arael lay down with her head on my shoulder, her twilight purple gaze meeting my own.

"How do you know that it was not a dream, and this the real life?"

I laughed softly, caressing her long, silken mane.

"I do not, now that you mention it. It reminds me of an ancient Earth philosopher, something he said. How did that go?"

My brow scrunched up as I struggled to remember. I had not been speaking idly when I said my old life esteemed much like a dream.

"Oh yes, I remember now. A man dreamed he was a butterfly, but upon waking, he wasn't sure if he was really a butterfly dreaming he was a man."

"I think that you are thinking too much, when you could be making love to your lifemate instead."

I laughed and pulled her tightly against me.

"Again? Very well, sleep is overrated anyway…"

Shortly after dawn, I hiked up the hill to where our siege engines waited. Not far from the hill's crest, a shrill whistle pierced the air.

"Grhoma Jark! He comes!"

I raced the last dozen feet and skidded to a halt. What looked like a cloud of drifting smoke in the early morning sky was, in fact, the flying front line of an invading army.

"He has hundreds," Pageus whispered, his eyes wide with fear. "Perhaps even a thousand! Even with the Shunned soldiers joining us, we are vastly outnumbered."

"Take it easy, Pageus." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Remember the plan. We can win, because we have the defender's advantage."

"Let's hope it's enough to defeat that unholy host."

The flying island our village rested upon did not scorch across the skies alone. Many other islands, most of them much smaller, zipped through the air as well. Jark's forces diverted to one such island, roughly a half mile from our own.

"That rock is moving just a little faster than we are," Pageus growled. "I estimate it will overtake us in less than six hours."

"They'll still be vulnerable to our siege weaponry when they finally do attack."

"Indeed. But I'm not sure there will be an attack."

Such a declaration should have sounded jubilant, or at least relieved. Instead, Pageus' voice held the knell of doom.

I glanced sharply at him, and found his eyes haunted by unnamed fear.

"You don't think they will attack us? Why not?"

"Because they are sending a single envoy in our direction."

He pointed at the sky. I squinted--Gro's body was slightly nearsighted--and discovered a small blot growing steadily larger as it approached the village. A long banner snapped in the wind behind the envoy, bearing the blood red skull of Jark's tribe.

"What do they want? Parley?"

"Jank does not know the meaning of the word Parley. I fear he will bring a Chieftain's Challenge."

I could hear the capital letters on the phrase.

"What is that, and why have I never heard of it?"

"A Chieftain's Challenge is just what it sounds like--a contest between two chiefs."

"And you think that Jank is going to challenge you to some kind of duel?" I minced my words mentally before I uttered them. "Are you capable of defeating him?"

"I do not know." His lips twitched a snarl as the envoy drew nearer in the sky. "But Jank is unlikely to challenge me. He will likely challenge Chief Zey."

"The Peace Chief? Is that even allowed?"

"Yes."

I ran a hand down my face and cursed.

"This is ludicrous. And the fate of both armies will be determined by this contest? I don't suppose that Zey can refuse, can he?"

"Not without disgracing himself and the entire tribe. The warriors won't follow. They might even defect to Jank's side."

"Then what you're saying is there's no hope?"

His silence was all the answer I needed. Jank's envoy grew close enough I could make out details. The envoy's body was a roadmap of criss crossing scars. One of his arms terminated in an ugly stump just past the elbow. I supposed it made sense. In case someone wanted to kill the messenger, Jank wouldn't be out one of his warriors.

The envoy landed near the central square. He didn't stand like someone missing an arm and at a venerable age. He stood as imperious as a King, and his gaze did not waver as he ran it over the gathered villagers.

"Grhoma Jark, his terrible eminence, has graciously decided to avoid needless bloodshed by challenging the Peace Chief of Starlost Village, Zey, to honorable combat."

I opened my mouth, but Zey unexpectedly pushed forward to the center of the ring.

"You can tell Jank that Chief Zey accepts his challenge," the frail old Masari said with surprising strength.

The envoy's grin of spiteful pleasure made me want to run him through, handicap or no handicap.

"Then I will bring the news back to his eminence. Jank will return at Sundown. Make peace with the Architects. You will be with them soon."

He launched himself into the air with a sudden burst of speed that had half the gathered warriors on the verge of attacking. I supposed he didn't have to conserve his innate power for combat.

I turned to Zey and spread my hands out wide.

"Chief Zey, why did you accept his challenge?"

"Because, I am the Peace Chief, and I had to accept." He shrugged, not seeming the least bit concerned. "It is the way of things."

I hated that phrase, which was often justified--according to Masari logic--something that should have been unjustifiable.

"Forgive me, Chief Zey," I said, striving to keep my voice as diplomatic as possible "but I believe that you might struggle to achieve victory over Jank."

"Struggle to achieve victory?" Zey chuckled. "I believe that I would struggle to last more than a few seconds against as skilled a warrior as Jank."

I wanted to scream in frustration, but I held myself in check.

"If that's the case, don't you think that you should, ah, be more worried?"

"Why should I be worried? I'm not going to face Jank."

I tilted my head to the side.

"You're not? But, you accepted his challenge."

"Indeed," Zey said with a smile.

"And you just admitted that you can't defeat him."

"That is a fact," Zey replied with a nod.

"Then why are you acting so calm?"

"Because, the challenge was to the Peace Chief of the Starlost tribe. Whoever that may be."

I glanced around, because the gathered villagers had hemmed in much closer to us. All of them, from the eldest to the youngest, held a gleam in their eyes I could not comprehend.

"What's going on?"

Chief Zey drew a knife and I took a reflexive step back.

"What are you doing? Stop it," I cried as he lifted the knife toward his own throat. I feared he would commit suicide in order to stop a duel he could not hope to win.

"I'm only doing what I must."

The knife flashed. The villagers gasped. I looked on in puzzlement as Zey's topknot flopped to the ground at his feet.

Why did he give himself a haircut?

Zey extracted a metal band from the shortened strands of his new hairdo. He approached me, holding it with both hands.

"Turn around, Gro."

Then it hit me, and I understood what transpired.

The topknot, it must be to a chieftain as a crown is to a king. A symbol of their authority, and servitude.

I turned around and he pulled my hair into a topknot. The villagers looked on with what I took to be approval, though their silence was a bit unnerving.

"I never wanted to be chief," I muttered.

"And that is what makes you ideal for the role. Great men don't seek power, Gro. Others thrust it upon them, often against their will."

I sighed as he fixed the ring in place.

"You've got the wrong man for the job," I grumbled.

"That's what everyone says, including me. Now, turn, and face the people of Starlost Village as their new chieftain."