Oathblood Read Free

days and nights she lay silent, never moving, eyes either closed or staring fixedly into space. The Healers feared for her life and sanity, for a Shin‘a’in Clanless was one without purpose.
    But on the morning of the eighth day, when the Healer entered the tent in which she lay, her head turned and the eyes that met his were once again bright with intelligence.
    Her lips parted. “Where—?” she croaked, her voice uglier than a raven’s cry.
    â€œLiha‘irden,” he said, setting down his burden of broth and medicine. “Your name? We could not recognize you, only the banner—” he hesitated, unsure of what to tell her.
    â€œTarma,” she replied. “What of—my Clan—Deer’s Son?”
    â€œGone.” It would be best to tell it shortly. “We gave them the rites as soon as we found them, and brought the herds and goods back here. You are the last of the Hawk’s Children.”
    So her memory was correct. She stared at him wordlessly.
    At this time of year the entire Clan traveled together, leaving none at the grazing-grounds. There was no doubt she was the sole survivor.
    She was taking the news calmly—too calmly. He did not like it that she did not weep. There was madness lurking within her; he could feel it with his Healer’s senses. She walked a thin thread of sanity, and it would take very little to cause the thread to break. He dreaded her next question.
    It was not the one he had expected. “My voice—what ails it?”
    â€œSomething broken past mending,” he replied regretfully—for he had heard her sing less than a month ago.
    â€œSo.” She turned her head to stare again at the ceiling. For a moment he feared she had retreated into madness, but after a pause she spoke again.
    â€œI cry blood-feud,” she said tonelessly.
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    When the Healer’s attempts at dissuading her failed, he brought the Clan Elders. They reiterated all his arguments, but she remained silent and seemingly deaf to their words.
    â€œYou are only one—how can you hope to accomplish anything?” the Clanmother said finally. “They are many, seasoned fighters, and crafty. What you wish to do is hopeless before it begins.”
    Tarma stared at them with stony eyes, eyes that did not quite conceal the fact that her sanity was questionable.
    â€œMost importantly,” said a voice from the tent door, “You have called what you have no right to call.”
    The shaman of the Clan, a vigorous woman of late middle age, stepped into the healer’s tent and dropped gracefully beside Tarma’s pallet to sit cross-legged.
    â€œYou know well only one Sword Sworn to the Warrior can cry blood-feud,” she said calmly and evenly.
    â€œI know,” Tarma replied, breaking her silence. “And I wish to take Oath.”
    It was a Shin‘a’in tenet that no person was any holier than any other, that each was a priest in his own right. The shaman might have the power of magic, might also be more learned than the average Clansman had time to be, but when the time came that a Shin‘a’in wished to petition the God or Goddess, he simply entered the appropriate tent-shrine and did so, with or without consulting the shaman beforehand.
    So it happened that Tarma was standing within the shrine on legs that trembled with weakness.
    The Wise One had not seemed at all surprised at Tarma’s desire to be Sworn to the Warrior, and had supported her in her demand over the protests of the Elders. “If the Warrior accepts her,” she had said reasonably, “who are we to argue with the will of the Goddess? And if she does not, then blood-feud cannot be called.”
    The tent-shrines of the Clans were always absolutely identical in their spartan simplicity. There were four tiny wooden altars, one against each wall of the tent. In the East was that of the Maiden; on it was her symbol, a single fresh