In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

The merchant coughed, for something in Eldest Uncle’s tone made everyone uncomfortable.

Zuangua frowned. “It is difficult for me to know which of those words I like least, and which I dislike most.” He still held up his hand, and now he raised the middle finger to stand beside little and next. “Three. Two of the twenty clans have vanished from among the exiles.”

“And ten of the remaining clans number less than five bundles in their lineage. Yes. We know how many we lost.”

“How can this be?” The merchant slapped his own chest three times. “I am born into Rabbit Clan. Here in the land I find no house to welcome me!”

“There are others of the Rabbit Clan among those who survived in the shadows,” said Eldest Uncle, “or so I am told.”

“How could you let the clans die?” the man roared.

Eldest Uncle smiled sadly. “How can you know how it felt to watch the people die of hunger and thirst as the land failed? To smell the stench of the sickness that afflicted us? To watch fathers sing the death rites over their only child, and then fall themselves as their strength failed? What do you know of bones left to bleach on the hillside? Hu-ah! What could you have done better than what we did!”

Age gave a man power. Eldest Uncle, as well, was known as a sorcerer. He was a seeker after the grains of truth hidden in the mantle thrown over the universe which most folk call the world, for what most folk call the world is really only the things we can touch and smell and taste and hear and see.

“My apologies,” said the merchant. He set hands on knees and inclined his head, just a pinch, toward the old man. “You must see how it appears to us, to wander in the shadows for so long, watching the Pale Dogs swarm over the Earth we love. To return at last to find our homeland …” He wiped away a tear, and this show of emotion seemed so unforced and genuine that Feather Cloak found her throat choked and her own eyes filling. “It is a land of bones.”

“So it became,” said Eldest Uncle. “So many died. We struggled to stay alive.”

“I am not finished.” Zuangua raised his forefinger, and showed the back of his hand to his brother, to all of them, open now except for the folded thumb. “Four. In the days I remember, the Feathered Cloak rose from the high lineages marked out by the gods from the heirs of Obsidian Snake, who led us over the seas.”

For the first time, he looked at Feather Cloak directly. His regard distracted Feather Cloak for a moment, as it always did. His features were attractive, his bronzed complexion a handsome shade. He wore his long black hair unbound so its glossy fall would dazzle women’s eyes. Yet one might admire in this same fashion Cat Mask and other warriors she had known all her life. There was this difference: Zuangua had the look of a well-made sword already whetted in battle. Compared to him, the others had no shine and no edge.

His smile was a challenge. She lifted a brow in response, refusing to be baited, not by his challenge and not by his sexuality. Still, it did her no harm to let him see she found him handsome. Some men, receiving women’s regard, puffed up until their vanity made them foolish. It would be interesting to see if Zuangua would succumb to that fault.

“He believes me unworthy of the Eagle Seat,” she said without dropping her gaze, yet the words were directed not at Zuangua but to Eldest Uncle and her faithful councillors.

In Zuangua, doubt held no purchase, but she recognized by the flicker of his eyes that he had not expected her to meet his challenge.

“Are you finished?” she asked him. The infant stirred, smacking and searching, and without breaking her gaze from his she helped it find the nipple. Its suck calmed her.

He said nothing.

“War will come soon,” she continued, still looking at Zuangua. “Today, it comes.”

“Have you seen this in a vision, Feather Cloak?” asked Eldest Uncle.

“I do not need sorcery to see what stands right before my eyes. Choose now, councillors. I can argue one way, but my voice will soon be drowned out.”

“Five,” said Zuangua.

Abruptly he broke the gaze, gestured to his followers, and vanished up the tunnel leading to the entrance.

“Five objections,” commented Green Skirt with the sardonic tone mastered only by women who have reached a certain age. “Did he speak ‘five’? And leave the words unsaid? Or were we meant to understand him by his actions?”

White Feather sighed as she rocked her baby in her arms, the child fussing, getting hungry. “I do not remember the days before, except in the stories told by the grandparents. Now it seems I am sick of hearing about them. The land in exile is the one I know. Yet I am glad we have come home.” She patted the child’s back, and it murmured baby syllables, content to be held. The older girl had opened her eyes, gaze fixed on the woman who was now her mother.

“Everything has changed,” said Feather Cloak. “It must, and it will. But the qualities and objects we valued in exile will not be valued here on Earth. As one strand straightens, so twists the other. That is the way of the world.”

They nodded. Eldest Uncle regarded her with a fond smile, Green Skirt with the savor of regret. White Feather wore an exasperated frown and Skull Earrings looked tired, jowls drooping in the fashion of men who have finally hit their decline. The others sighed and murmured soft words meant to cheer her, but no one sounded cheerful. Above, wind moaned through the hole, and roots stirred as dust danced in the changeable light.

“I have one more question,” she said as they looked at her. “What happened to the last of the blood knives?”

At first there was silence, a form of speaking measured only by gazes shifting between them, words left unspoken. At length White Feather’s lips twitched in that flutter smile that suggested a grim sort of laughter, or a laughing kind of anger, or maybe a joke.

“We were very hungry,” she said, “so we ate them.”

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