Exile's Children Read Free

curved horn-shaped about the great verdant bowl, fending the wind. There was grass for all the horses and sufficient timber to augment the dung fires with ample wood. The stream that wandered across the bowl turned and twisted serpentine, so that none need pitch their lodges far from water. It was as fine a place as any in Ket-Ta-Witko, and surely the only place where all the clans might gather.
    The lodges spread colorful below him, painted with the emblems of the five clans and those personal to the occupants. The horse head of the Commacht stood proud across the brook from the Tachyn buffalo; he saw the wolf of the Aparhaso and the turtle of the Naiche, the eagle of the Lakanti. Past the lodges the herds cropped the grass, watched by the older children, the younger scurrying agile and loud between the tents, their games joined by barking dogs. Streamers of smoke rose blue from the cookfires, swirled and lost where they met the wind. Folk wandered the avenues between the tents, pausing to hail friends, renew old acquaintances. Toward the center, warriors displayed horses for barter, women the blankets woven through the long moons of Breaking Trees and Frozen Grass. It was a sight that always stirred Morrhyn’s heart, of which he never tired. He hoped that when the Maker took him back, it might be here, where his bones could forever lie close to this wondrous symbol of unity.
    He knew he smiled as he watched it all; and then his smile froze at the sight of Rannach splashing through the brook.
    The warrior was dressed in his finest, no longer bare-chested but wearing a shirt of pale buckskin, bead-woven and painted with the horse head. His breeches were of the same hide, dyed blue and fringed in red and white, and his dark hair gleamed from recent washing. Over his left shoulder he carried a blanket. He went directly toward the lodge of Nemeth and Zeil, Arrhyna’s parents. At least, Morrhyn thought, he bears no weapons; and then: he gave Racharran his word.
    Even so, the wakanisha could not entirely quell his presentiment andlooked past the young warrior to Vachyr’s tent, pitched beside his father’s. He let out his relief in a long sigh as neither Tachyn appeared. Still, his heart beat fast as he returned his gaze to Rannach, for he knew the absence of Arrhyna’s other suitor was no more than temporary respite, the quiet preceding impending storm. What shape that storm should take he knew not, only that it surely came on.
    â€œYou who made us all,” he said, unaware he spoke aloud, “grant this goes smooth.”
    Then he held his breath, as if he stood close by Rannach’s shoulder and not far off and high, as the young man halted before the lodge. The flap stood open and Nemeth came out, speaking awhile with Rannach before turning to call inside. Arrhyna appeared, and on the instant Morrhyn saw she had awaited this visit: her hair shone a fiery red, falling loose over her shoulders, and she wore a gown of deerskin worked so soft it was almost white. Morrhyn imagined she had spent the winter moons shaping that garment, in anticipation of this moment.
    Rannach spoke and the maiden smiled, demurely lowering her head as she stepped toward him. He shrugged the blanket from his shoulder, raising his arm so that it fell in a swoop of red, blue, and white. Arrhyna stepped into its folds and Rannach settled his arm around her, lifting the blanket to hood them both. Then, moving as one, they walked away, first amongst the lodges of the Tachyn, then over the stream to wander the lines of the Commacht.
    Morrhyn drew his eyes away: the declaration was made, now only formalities remained. Formalities and Vachyr’s response, and Chakthi’s. The wakanisha craned his head around, staring up at the Maker’s Mountain. He sensed his dream thundering closer, but the pinnacle offered him no sign of what approached, and after a while he rose and began the descent.
    It was time to face the future.

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