Two evenings later, the Sun-clan climbed the long path up the hill of Verkanta, to reach the front doors of Mednákalë. ResavÃra was there, and his grown sons Rótrena and Várdan, and Kráva to represent her branch of the chieftain’s family. Twenty more followed, warriors, shield-women, and vaitai, to make a show of Sun-clan strength and power; Dánia and MÃrsetha were among these. Four more warriors trailed behind, escorting and protecting Galadan, in case he should be called on during the assembly.
As with all the others, Kráva had taken care to dress well and prepare her gear. She was in her finest tunic and breeches, a new cloak streaming in the breeze behind her, all of it trimmed with gold thread and raven’s feathers. Her boots had been polished until they shone. Tarankláva rode at her hip, the new sword-belt and scabbard rich with knot-work incised into the leather. She wore a band of gold about her right arm, Múrvira’s gift, and a new silver torc rested around her neck. She bore her new shield, painted with a Raven on a green field.
The path leading up to the king’s mead-hall was lit by many torches, and the open ground before the great doors was ablaze with firelight. Already over a hundred others had come, and some of them still lingered outside to talk under the last light of the fading day. Kráva saw none of the Wolf-clan, and decided they must have already gone inside to find their seats. She did see men of the Black Boar clan, under their chieftain Betrósa, whom she and her father had met earlier that summer. Aside from the great clans – High Grove, Sun, Wolf, and Black Boar – she saw men and women she recognized from several of the lesser. Kesdan stood there, looking pugnacious and ill-at-ease as usual, with a single Red Deer warrior to guard him.
“Come,” commanded ResavÃra, and he forged ahead through the crowd, leading his people into the hall.
As soon as the Sun-clan entered, a squadron of slaves appeared, bowing to ResavÃra and offering to guide them around the outside of the hall. They soon found that the king had awarded them seats at the table immediately to his right, even displacing some of his own High Grove clansmen.
Kráva wasn’t sure how she felt about that honor. She worried that Múrvira might be about to make an announcement that she did not want made. Still, she sat down in her place to ResavÃra’s immediate left, which set her uncomfortably close to the king’s table. Dánia took Kráva’s shield and hung it on the wall behind her, before finding her own place much further down.
Once Kráva had a chance to look around the hall, she finally saw the Wolf-clan: old Dúvelka, Várkora just arrived from the eastern marches, Drúthan looking somber as always, Kúndan and Lóka in their white vaita’s robes, and a few others that she knew. They were all seated along the far side of the hall, to the king’s left and about halfway to the doors. Not a bad position if one wanted to see and hear what was going on, but not a place of honor for one of the great clans. She could see that Dúvelka was as calm and impassive as ever, but Várkora looked as if he wanted to be angry but didn’t quite dare. Kráva frowned to herself, wondering if Múrvira was sending a message.
The last of those lingering outside came into the hall and found their places. The roar of conversation peaked, then began to decline. Finally, Múrvira appeared from his private quarters in the back of the hall, striding over to his place at the foremost table.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Vevára had risen to his feet, and now pounded upon the floor with the full weight of his heavy staff. “All attend to the king!” he shouted, his voice loud enough to cut through the last of the company’s rumble. All fell silent at once.
“I welcome all of you to this feast,” Múrvira declaimed. “We have weighty matters to discuss this night, upon which all the future of our tribe must depend. Yet that can wait until after we eat and drink to our heart’s content. Therefore, I present to you the aremdavam, the hero’s portion!”
On cue, the king’s slaves began to emerge from the kitchens, bearing an astonishing array of food. First came four brawny male slaves, carrying a massive wooden platter on two sturdy poles, on which rested the roasted carcass of an entire wild boar. This was followed by two more slaves carrying a heavy bronze cauldron full of wine, and then still more bearing baked honey-cakes on wooden trays. All of this was piled up on a table in the center of the hall, while all the onlooking warriors stomped and bellowed their approval of the king’s generosity.
Once the slaves had finished setting down their burdens, the king rapped on the table before him with the hilt of a dagger, calling all attention to himself once more. He smirked maliciously as he scanned the eager ranks of his nobles and warriors.
“As to the name of the champion who has richly earned this honor? I give you Kráva, called the Swift, child of Derga and TÃvetha, whose clan is Sun!”
Kráva sat stock-still, taken by surprise, her mind working fast.
Even before the king finished speaking, the mood of the hall changed dramatically. Some shouted in approval: the Sun-clan folk near Kráva, the Wolf-clan across the hall, Red Deer clan from their place by the doors, a few of the young warriors she had spent time with in the past few days. Yet many were confused at best, actively outraged at worst, and among these none were more vocal than a knot of High Grove clansmen to the king’s left.
One of these rose and strode forward, a burly man with a shaven head and braids in his beard, wearing High Grove colors. Fists clenched, he shouted, “Múrkavrio’s balls, Múrvira! This is a disgrace!”
The king lost none of his smile. “Oh? Why is that, Kórlo?”
“To pass over your best champions, and give the hero’s portion to a woman?”
“I wasn’t aware, Kórlo, that custom forbade naming an aregbana as champion.” Múrvira turned to where Vevára sat to his left. “Master vaita, what say you?”
Vevára rose from his seat, an expression of placid calm on his face. “Shield-women are not normally named as champion, because they usually spend little time as warriors before marrying. There is nothing in law or custom to prevent it, however. Should an aregbana distinguish herself with mighty feats on the field of battle, there is no reason why she should not be so honored.”
“What mighty feats?” Kórlo demanded. “None of us have seen them! What battles has she won? What enemies of the tribe has she slain?”
The hall erupted in shouts and contention.
Kráva leaned over to murmur in ResavÃra’s ear. “Who is that? I don’t know him.”
“Kórlo,” her uncle answered. “A kinsman of the king’s, a tough warrior, known for his cattle-raids. Not one of the king’s supporters, indeed one of Múrvira’s rivals within High Grove. He made a half-hearted attempt to win election to the kingship, when Múrvira’s father passed on to the Otherworld.”
Kráva felt a sudden flash of anger. “I see. Múrvira is using me, Uncle.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Unfortunately, there is little you can do about it. Back down before a challenge over the hero’s portion, and no one will ever take you seriously again.”
She took a deep breath. All right, Kráva, time to brag for your life.
She rose, circling around to step into the empty space in the center of the hall, facing Kórlo, the table with the hero’s portion to her left. When the assembly saw her move, many of them quieted down, an air of eager anticipation filling the hall. Everyone knew there was about to be a rare piece of entertainment.
“I’ve slain fourteen skátoi since the solstice,” she shouted, her voice pitched to cut through the remaining noise. “All by my own hand, by bow or by blade, driving the foe from the field three times! How many skátoi have you slain, o brave molester of cattle?”
“Skátoi?” Kórlo sneered. “Skátoi are nothing. I have faced down fierce men of the AngvÃrai and the Sudávari, the Aldbári and Revethari, all our tribe’s fearsome foes. I fought Trenvelka, the champion of the AngvÃrai, in a battle that lasted all day and half the night, before I took his head! You have done nothing of the kind, little girl. Go home, where you belong, and open your legs for some pig-farmer’s slave!”
Kráva listened to the tenor of the noise around them, trying to sense whether the hall was leaning toward her or toward Kórlo. Thus far, the shouts, laughter, and groans seemed well-balanced.
“It’s good of you to tell us of all your daring deeds of long ago. Any aged man, dreaming of the days when he could still lift his spear, could do as well.” She paused a moment, and heard a ripple of laughter as the double entendre struck home among the audience. “In my last battle, I saved one of the tribe’s clans from utter destruction. Can you say the same?”
All at once, Tarankláva gave Kráva a warning, a surge of the man’s malice.
“Bah! There was once a time when none of our clans needed to be saved, when the Ravatheni were feared throughout the Tremára lands.” Kórlo didn’t glance over at the king, whose smile had suddenly vanished, to be replaced by a look of repressed fury. “In the days of Kórsetha King, grandsire of our heroic ruler, we rode across the plains and raided as far as the Cold Lands of the north. There I defeated three champions in a day, and took their wives and daughters to be my slaves! I gave one of them to Derga the Miniscule, Derga the Mouse, since he could not otherwise find a woman willing to lie down with him.”
For a moment, Kráva felt a blinding rage, but the sword’s warning saved her. She maintained control of her face and stance by sheer force of will, and even gave Kórlo a sharp-edged smile. It helped that the hall had fallen suddenly silent, sensing that the game had just crossed a line. Perhaps Kórlo had forgotten about Kráva’s ancestry, perhaps he had never known, or perhaps he simply did not believe. In any case, it was never safe to impugn the honor of a god’s child.
“Such a valiant warrior you are, fleet-footed one, first to fly from the line of battle.” Kráva’s voice had gone quiet, but very cold. “Fearless foe of women and children! Could you have fought the nórden that came against the Red Deer, that no man could face, against which none but I could stand? Half again as tall as any in this hall, its bulk greater than three grown men, and only one aregbana to stand between it and the women and children. I overthrew it with my bare hands, and took its head while it crouched upon the ground. Could you have done the same?”
Kórlo paused, looking for a response, and in that moment Kráva struck.
“Meanwhile, if we are discussing mothers and fathers, base-born one, at least it must not be said that your mother was a whore. I’m sure she never lay down with a man that she did not first pay for.”
The hall roared, even a few of Kórlo’s supporters breaking into a moment of laughter at his expense. Through the sudden rush of sound, Kráva could see Kórlo’s face turn dark with fury, could hear him growl, “Bring me my axe.”
Very good, she thought silently. So much for the preliminaries.
Kráva waited, standing tall and straight, staring at Kórlo, while one of the High Grove men brought a long-hafted, bearded axe and a shield over to him. A murmured word at her side, and she turned slightly to accept her own shield from Dánia without breaking her stare at her opponent. She slung the shield on her arm, adjusting it slightly, and then drew Tarankláva. Distantly, she was aware of a low roar of talk all around them, but she heard none of it.
Before long, the two of them had squared off across the center of the hall.
“Stand down, Kórlo,” she told him. He only snarled.
“Fight!” called the king.
Kórlo swept forward, chopping with his axe, trying to get the beard of his weapon over the edge of Kráva’s shield so he could pry it away from her. She dodged back and to the right, raising the shield high enough for his maneuver to fail, deflecting the blow. Tarankláva stabbed outward, but that blow too was turned aside.
They circled, each to their right, unconsciously trying to get behind the other’s shield. Another exchange of blows, then another. Kórlo was beginning to look less confident, as he felt the strength behind Kráva’s blows. Then the tip of the sword licked out, almost too fast to see, not quite opening a cut across his face.
“It’s not too late,” Kráva murmured. “Stand down.”
He responded with a flurry of blows, the axe slamming at her shield once, twice, three times. He was strong enough; he might have broken her shield if any of those strokes had met it directly. She was too quick, always turning the shield just enough to deflect the force of each blow to the side. Tarankláva responded each time, preventing him from pressing too close. The power of his attack still forced her to step back, then again. Or so it seemed.
Calmly, clearly, Kráva formed a thought. Something answered her, there in the silence of her mind. Whether it was the sword, or whether it was some other power, she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was what to do next.
While she continued to fend Kórlo off, she lifted her face and cried aloud, “Sky Father! Grandsire! For your honor, and the honor of your child!”
Then she stepped back once more, a long step this time, pulling Kórlo after her. Just enough for him to be off-balance for an instant. In that moment, she abandoned the subtle play of shield and point and edge. Instead, she swept the Thunder Blade around in a great overhand blow.
Responding on instinct, Kórlo raised his own shield to meet the sword in mid-arc.
There was a bright flash of light, and Mednákalë rang with a peal of sudden thunder.
The shock didn’t quite knock Kórlo to the ground, but it pushed him back two steps, gasping in sudden pain. His shield split in half and fell away from the grip, his shield-arm broken in two places.
Before he could recover, Kráva took two quick steps forward and lunged, the point of Tarankláva vanishing inside his open mouth, only to emerge bloody out the back of his neck. In her wrist, she felt the crunch of his neck-bones shattering. His axe fell from his dead fingers, to clatter on the floor.
There was stunned silence for a moment. Then Kráva withdrew the blade, and Kórlo’s body crumpled to the floor of the hall. She turned, Tarankláva still out and dripping blood on the floor, and glared fiercely at all the warriors sitting to either side.
“Well?” she demanded. “Is there anyone else?”
Drúthan was the first to begin pounding on the table. Then more of the Sun and Wolf clans, then some of her young-warrior friends, then most of those in the hall were pounding and roaring their approval. “Kráva! Kráva! Krava!”
Raven. Raven. Raven.
For a long moment, Kráva stood there, the focus of all eyes, surrounded by shouts of praise.
Thank you, Sky Father.
Then she bent to slice a strip of Kórlo’s expensive tunic away. She used the cloth to wipe Tarankláva clean, slowly, deliberately, staring up the hall the entire time. Staring at Múrvira, who suddenly looked a great deal less satisfied than he had a few moments before. Perhaps he was reading her heart, even without the benefit of a magical sword to help him do it. Certainly, she was concealing nothing of what she felt from her face.
She had been angry at him before. She had been disgusted with him before. Now, for the first time, she realized that she hated Múrvira. Hated him with the clearest passion she had ever known in her life.
You will never use me thus again. I will see you dead first.
Then she put the sword away, and handed her shield back to a glowing Dánia for return to its place on the wall. She took three deep breaths to calm herself, and then moved to the table where the hero’s portion stood. There, she ceremoniously made the first cuts of meat, directing slices to the king’s table and her own. Then she stood back and supervised the slaves, as they finished the job of carving up the beast and distributing the food to all. Others came and carried Kórlo’s body away, leaving behind only the blood-stains on the floor.
Even then, she was not done.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Vevára had risen to his feet once more, calling everyone’s attention before they could get too far into the food and drink before them. The hall soon fell into a rather puzzled silence.
“It is clear that we of the Ravatheni tribe have a new god-touched hero among us,” said the senior vaita in his clear tenor. “We are here tonight to discuss war, and it may be that we will call the muster of all the clans before tomorrow’s sunset. It is important that we have the Raven among us, to serve as a fierce war-captain against our foes. She must be permitted to act as fate demands, without distraction. Do all here present agree?”
There was a low rumble of confused talk, but Kráva could see heads nodding here and there around the hall. At least no one openly disagreed with the vaita. Perhaps no one understood enough to object.
Wait. Múrvira is looking even less pleased than a moment ago. He knows what Vevára is up to, I’ll wager.
“Very well,” said Vevára, his voice gone solemn and formal. “Kráva the Swift, child of Derga and TÃvetha, whose clan is Sun, whose tribe is of those who dwell by the Sacred Grove. I lay a geas upon you. From now until the day of the winter solstice, you shall lie down with no man, you shall wed no man, and you shall give no answer at all to any man’s proposal of marriage. Aregbana you are sworn, aregbana you shall remain, and no vaita shall release you from your oath until that day shall come. Do you understand?”
There it is, she realized. Many months of freedom, and I won’t have to give Múrvira any answer until then. I won’t be able to settle down with Drúthan or any other man either . . . but that’s a price I can pay, for the sake of the tribe.
“I understand, arai,” she said calmly, and tried not to look gleeful at the expression of frustrated rage on Múrvira’s face.