Lakhoni Read Free Page A

the raiding party take his family’s blankets? It wasn’t as if the
blankets his mother made were special. Confusion combined with the heaviness
already in his head. They steal our food, our valuables—and now our
blankets. How were these acts any better than the Usurpers? Stories of the
Usurpers stealing and murdering came to the village all the time. This is no
better.
    Lakhoni
stood again and stepped to the doorway, one hand going to the animal skin that
hung there.
    Blankets.
Stupid . He
was avoiding thinking about what would greet him when he went outside.
    He
had a duty. He could not leave his people, his family, outside any longer.
Scavengers would no doubt appear soon. He hesitated at the task he knew was
before him. Lakhoni searched for his courage. He was fourteen. Nearly a full-grown
man.
    Murderous
raiding party .
    There.
His courage sparked in the heat of sudden anger. His body trembling at what
would greet him, he stepped outside.
    Bright
morning sun stabbed his eyes. He closed them, gasping. He blinked and stared at
the ground until his eyes became accustomed to the blinding light. He saw
movement. Scavenging birds flapped and pecked. A sick groan escaped his lips,
long and low. But fury took over and the groan became a shout. A scream. His
pains were forgotten as he hurtled forward, waving his arms in wild gyrations,
curses flying from his lips.
    The
vultures squawked loudly and lifted off, their ungainly wings flapping heavily,
frantically trying to reach safety. Lakhoni wanted to snatch the birds and tear
them to pieces, vent his fury and revulsion on them, but he was too slow. They
flapped up and flew to the west. Lakhoni scanned the ground for a rock.
Snatching one, he hurled it at the departing birds, praying he might hit one.
    The
rock fell into the trees. The vultures, untouched, flapped in wide circles,
moving farther off, probably back to their homes near the waste.
    Lakhoni
screamed a final curse upon the birds, the words tearing through his throat. He
felt as if he had swallowed a handful of sharp obsidian arrowheads. His throat
was raw, his chest on fire. Lowering his head, he focused on the form on the
ground in front of him.
    His
father, Zeozer.
    Lakhoni
fell to his knees, his battered body protesting. “Father.”
    His
father’s death gaze transfixed him. Lakhoni tried to close his own eyes,
knowing he should reach out to close his father’s. He could do neither. The
stick his father had been using to get around on his injured leg lay some ways
away.
    It
looked as if his father had abandoned the stick in a hurry to get somewhere.
    Lakhoni
found his paralysis had dissolved. He reached out and touched his father’s
forehead, then gently closed his eyes. A sudden tremble wracked Lakhoni. His
thoughts moved with the speed of an oldster telling a favorite story. His
father. Where was his mother? And Alronna, his sister?
    He
had a duty. He must care for the dead—the dead that surrounded him on all
sides, searing his eyes. Perhaps not being able to see Lamorun’s body after he
fell in the last war with the Usurpers had been better than this.
    A
sound somewhere between a grunt and a scream exploded from his mouth, his chest
feeling as if it would cave in. Lakhoni tried to hold the next scream back. He feared
the weakness that threatened to spill from him. He didn’t know if he could pull
himself out of the torrent if he let it flow.
    He
imagined that he was inserting a rod of hardened iron into his spine. He
gritted his teeth. He had a duty.
    He
passed a cursory look around the village center. Too many to bury. He would
have to burn them and do both dances: death and fire.
    Lakhoni
pushed himself to his feet. Wood first. He moved toward the forest. With
two hours’ slow work, Lakhoni was able to build a large pile of dry branches
and logs scavenged from near the huts of the villagers.
    As
he turned from the pile of wood, he shook with exhaustion and grief. He knew
what he must do, but he