“No, it isn’t,” she agreed and swallowed a mouthful of the drink as sour as her mood.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Azarion led two horses toward the outskirts of the camp as the women and children dismantled the qaras and packed the felt coverings and frames into waiting wagons. Clan Kestrel prepared for its summer move east and deeper into the Sky Below where pastures untouched by sheep waited to be grazed. All the Savatar clans did the same, staking their claims to ancestral grazing lands and reviving the annual summer trade markets with the Goban people at the base of the Gamir Mountains.
He spotted his sister not far from the camp, astride a gray mare, talking to other riders. They had argued good-naturedly earlier in the day over who would help the drovers move the sheep herds and who would capture the wild mares and foals to replenish the camp’s milk supply before they decamped.
They had resorted to a child’s game of slap-knuckle to decide who got first choice of tasks, and Azarion won. Tamura had grumbled over her loss but set out to meet up with other riders and join the drovers bringing in the sheep. Azarion whistled sharply as he walked the pair of horses past their little group and gave Tamura a cheerful wave. She responded with a rude hand gesture and stuck her tongue out at him before tapping her heels into her mount’s sides to gallop away with her companions.
The ataman’s qara would be the last one dismantled and the first to go up when they arrived at the new camp spot. Karsas had announced the plan to move three days prior, and since then the camp had been a frenzy of activity and noise as wagons were lined up and qaras broken down into stacks of lattice, poles, and folded felt. Karsas had watched it all in indolent splendor from his seat on a rug in front of his qara’s door.
As if conjured by Azarion’s thoughts, the ataman suddenly stepped out from the shadow of a still-standing qara and blocked Azarion’s path. He wore a tunic in need of washing, and his eyes held the glassy sheen of inebriation. The strong fumes of fermentation drifting off his breath made Azarion turn his face away and cough.
What Karsas’s gaze lacked in sober clarity, it more than made up for in malice. “Did you really think that little trick you pulled with the Fire Council would actually work?”
Azarion didn’t try to pretend he didn’t understand his cousin’s question. This confrontation had been a fortnight in the making, ever since Gilene had failed to garner status of agacin from the Fire Council. Ever since Azarion had first passed through the Veil and returned to the Sky Below and the clan of his birth.
“Gilene walked through the Fire Veil and didn’t burn. She may have failed the test, but Agna has noted and blessed her.”
Karsas snorted. “Sorcerous trick from some renegade wizard taught to a Kraelian whore in exchange for her favors. Agna doesn’t bless those who don’t worship her.”
Azarion’s hand settled on his knife handle where it rose from its sheath. Gilene wasn’t a whore, and even if she were, she possessed more character and bravery in her little finger than this piece of filth did in his entire body.
He kept his expression neutral, recognizing Karsas’s insult for what it was: a calculated move meant to give maximum offense and incite the predictable response.
“As ataman, you speak for the clan, but you are still only ataman, or do you believe yourself more now and speak for the goddess as well?”
Karsas blanched at the question, couched in the vague accusation of blasphemy. He glanced skyward for a moment as if expecting a lightning bolt to crackle out of the blue and strike him. His lips drew back in a snarl. “You should have stayed dead. You no longer belong in the clan. Your place should be forfeit. The Sky Below is not your home, nor is it your concubine’s, even if she can set the steppe ablaze with her power. The Fire Council will never name her as an agacin, and the chieftainship will remain mine. You gave it up ten years ago.”
He spoke in a low voice so that only Azarion could hear him. They faced each other in the shadow of the qara, backed by its frame on one side and that of the two horses Azarion led through the camp on the other.
Azarion’s quiet tones matched Karsas’s, though he seethed inside with the urge to gut the man right there and pay the consequences for the impulse. “I gave away nothing. You had three men ambush me on a hunt, beat me until I was unconscious, and sell me to the Empire. You took the coward’s path, Cousin, by not killing me yourself.” His lip curled in a sneer. “You shame your sire; you shame your ancestors, and one day, everyone will know it.”
Karsas lunged for him, and Azarion met him halfway. They slammed together. Azarion pressed his blade’s edge against Karsas’s throat. A sharp sting in his side warned him that his cousin wielded a blade of his own and threatened to slide it between his ribs.
The two men gripped each other in a lethal embrace as the camp’s occupants eddied and flowed nearby, unaware of the confrontation between their current ataman and the man from whom he had stolen the title.
“Finally,” Azarion said, nearly nose to nose with his cousin. “You grow a spine and would fight me.” He didn’t flinch when the tip of Karsas’s knife pierced his tunic and flesh, sending a trickle of wet heat sliding down his side. His own blade pressed a little harder as well, leaving a shallow cut on Karsas’s throat that welled with blood.
Karsas jerked his head back and shoved Azarion away. “No one will believe you, and the men who sold you are dead.”
Azarion shrugged. If Gilene’s power returned and she passed the Fire Council’s tests in her second try, they didn’t have to believe his accusations. He would challenge Karsas to ritual combat, and his cousin would have no choice but to accept. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that. Reward for their misplaced loyalty. At least in that, you were thorough and saved me the trouble of killing them myself.”
Red-faced, Karsas glared at him before wiping the cut on his neck with his sleeve. A scarlet smear joined the numerous other stains on the garment. “The clan is mine,” he snapped before whirling away and disappearing around the qara from where he’d first appeared. Azarion stood there a moment longer, knife held at the ready in case one of Karsas’s lackeys suddenly made an appearance and challenged him. When none did, he checked the wound Karsas had left and pressed his tunic to it until the trickling of blood stopped, then gathered up the reins of his patient mares and led them toward his original goal, the patch of ground where his mother’s qara had stood.
He found her, Gilene, and two more women loading rugs, blankets, braziers, and cooking pots into one of two wagons parked nearby. The other wagon was already full with the dismantled qara.
Saruke saw him first and waved him nearer. “Where are you off to?”
He felt Gilene’s gaze on him, though she didn’t greet him. “To capture some of the wild mares for milking. There’s a herd not far from here with a lot of foals. Bornon and his sister are to meet me there.”
His mother nodded and passed Gilene a rolled rug to place in the wagon. “Why do you have two horses?”
“One for Gilene if you can spare her, and if she wishes to go.”
Gilene slowly pivoted away from the wagon to face him. The delighted smile blossoming on her face before she hid it behind a bland look surprised him and sent a pleasant warmth coursing under his skin. That smile hinted at a woman fashioned of more than strong will and sharp edges, and he resolved in that moment to coax another one out of her in the near future.