Chapter 4: Axes In The Dark

The moon shed little light; as Qemik had foreseen, its face was ruddy, the reddish-brown of drying blood, as a result of the dust that hung still in the air. But Yîgeke and Kargöz could find their way through the horse-market and back to the work-yard with their eyes closed, and silently besides. If Yîgeke were making her way for her sleeping niche, she would have needed no light at all, but she feared the punishment that would follow if she didn't get a few more hides tanned, so, with Kargöz still close by, she found and lit a candle on the bench where she worked. There, her tools still waited where she'd left them.

Well, not exactly. As Kargöz was turning to leave, she found herself staring at her workbench. "What is all this?" Kargöz paused, then took a few steps back as Yîgeke circled the table. "These tools aren't mine, and I don't know their purpose."

It seemed someone had added a number of item to the table. There were small clay pots filled with muddy paints in shades of dark brown, horsehair brushes as might be used in painting, and rough stones, all mingled amongst the scraping-stones, knives, and stretching-racks she used in preparing hides. Not just haphazardly, but placed just so, as if one hand used all of these tools and arrayed them for the work.

Kargöz leaned over the table in the flickering candlelight and twirled that one lock of hair that always hung loose on his forehead. "Are you sure they're not yours? Perhaps you forgot what you were working on earlier. It has been a day filled with distractions."

"Certainly not," Yîgeke insisted with surprising certainty. "I've no use for brushes; I only prepare the hides, I do not adorn them. Nor for these… what are they, dyes? What would be the value of dye that's the same color as the natural grains in the…" She trailed off, realization slowly creeping into her eyes.

Kargöz took another moment to come to the same conclusion. "Someone wishes it to look like you've falsified the First Spear," he said breathlessly. Then, a moment later, "Unless... you didn't, did you? No, of course not," he hastily added, before she could object. "But who would do such a thing? No one even knows of the prophecy but the Haehînbór, nor did any Ortheri see the First Spear, so it must be one of the Haehînbór, but who would stand in the way of the prophecy itself? It is our only hope!"

He might have gone on longer, as was his way when he was puzzling something out, had it not been for Yîgeke's silence. She had turned around, and was now staring, dumbstruck. He turned and stepped closer to make out what she was gaping at in the dim candlelight.

There was a noose hanging from the rafter beams. An empty noose.

And then, looming out of the shadows, four men, hooded and cloaked, moving to step around them. There were no identifying marks about them, nothing to say who they were. They could have stepped out into the street and vanished, and no one would know who had been there, or indeed that anyone had. But when one spoke, Kargöz felt almost sure that it was an Ortheri voice. No one he could place. No one he'd ever heard before. But there was something in the intonation that suggested the kind of assurance, knowing his place in the world and relishing it, that no Haehînbór, not even Qemik, quite matched.

"Your friends need not be harmed, if you'll make this easy," the hooded figure said directly to Yîgeke, gesturing with the blade of a war-axe towards the noose. "It will be quick and the pain, I'm told, is brief. And then all this will be over. No one else will need to suffer, and nothing else will be asked of you."

The man hadn't yet seen Kargöz, he realized, so he silently moved back a step to keep it that way. He could see Yîgeke staring at the man as she slowly realized what he was suggesting. They'd staged the room so it would look like she'd falsified the First Spear. Then, if the Haehînbór found her the next morning, having hung herself, everyone would be sure she'd taken her own life out of guilt or regret over what she'd done. Perhaps she had done it on a whim, then been taken aback by how much pressure was suddenly on her. People would wonder why, wonder what had been in her thoughts, but no one would doubt it.

And then they'd go back to meekly obeying their masters and waiting for the First Spear. And the Ortheri would have peace again.

Or could it be the Haehînbór doing this? Perhaps there were some who did not wish for freedom. Or more simply, that did not wish for the strife that would come of rebellion. Many of the Haehînbór would suffer and die, before the Sixth Spear was raised and the battle won. Could some of them prefer to remain in comfortable slavery? The idea seemed abhorrent to him, and yet, he wondered. What if he had a safe life in the house of a wealthy master, warm food and a soft bed, easy chores? He'd heard of some who had such lives. What if he had a mate – he would not say a wife, for the Haehînbór had no rights to engage in such a ceremony, but the Ortheri typically allowed them to stay together when they chose one another (perhaps simply because it led to a new generation of slaves) – and she were with child; might he favor putting off the prophecy rather than risking his child's life in the coming struggles? Betrayal was always a possibility; history was clear on that point. And, after all, the only ones who knew of the sighting of the First Spear, or indeed, who knew the prophecy at all, were the Haehînbór. Mayhap that assurance Kargöz thought he'd heard was a sign not of being Ortheri, but of being one of those Haehînbór who had accepted their lot in life, even relished it.

While he was puzzling this out, Yîgeke was focusing on a different question. He could see in her posture, slumped, frightened, defeated, that she was seriously considering their threat. Not even Kumzu realized how closely he'd been watching her for years; he knew the way the sunlight kissed her olive skin, every curl in her dark hair, every wrinkle on her slender fingers; and more than these, he knew how the cast of her eyes and slant of her shoulders spoke volumes she would never say aloud about the shifting of her moods. He saw how quick she was to hide from responsibility or conflict, but he also suspected inside her a simmering anger that she was suppressing with her conciliatory tone. And the way she stood now, the half-step she took, the shake in her hands, told him that she was losing this battle of wills. She would give her life to protect her friends, but more, to avoid the terrible burden of prophecy that had placed itself on her shoulders. If she put her neck in the noose, it would fall to someone else to save her people.

There were four of them, but Kargöz had the element of surprise. They hadn't expected anyone to come back with her, and they didn't know he was there. From the way they moved, it seemed they were less familiar with this particular courtyard than he was; they chose their steps carefully to avoid stumbling over loose cobblestones that he could find with his eyes closed. In one motion, before they could react, he'd snatched a length of timber from one of the tables and run headlong to clip one of the men on his side, causing him to spin into another, bringing them both down in a jumble of cloaks and flailing arms. Another cowled figure took a blow from the timber to the back of his head, and staggered forward, his axe clanging noisily to the stones. The fourth swung his axe skillfully; had Kargöz not been holding the timber, the axe would have caught him in the gut and likely split him wide open. As it was, it bit deep into the wood, shoving the timber from his hands and into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him; Kargöz went down in a silent crumple, but the man lost his axe in the process.

In the moment of stillness that followed, Kargöz could only wait for the inevitable axe-blow as he wondered what he'd been thinking. He couldn't keep Yîgeke safe even while his head was still attached, let alone after it was struck off; and what she had to do now would be even harder for her after having to watch him be slain. Perhaps he should have withdrawn to warn the others, or at least to make sure that, when the grisly scene was discovered in the first light of morning, there would be someone who could speak the truth of Yîgeke's innocence. Now, they'd find her body hanging from a noose, and his would likely be dumped in parts out in the bog, and no one would know what had happened.

But when the axe came, it didn't find his neck, but instead, his hands. The weapon that had fallen a moment earlier landed at Yîgeke's feet, and she'd kicked it to skitter across the cobblestones towards him. He gripped it with shaking hands and used it to push his way to his feet. The fourth cowled figure now found himself unarmed and facing a man with an axe; whatever had brought him here was not something he was willing to die for, and he turned and vanished into the night. Which was lucky; while Kargöz had managed to get to his feet, he didn't have enough breath back to actually swing the axe, but his foe hadn't known that.

"We need to run," he said, letting the axe sink to the stones once more. Of the three remaining men, two were starting to stir. He took Yîgeke's hand and pulled, and as he expected, she followed because it was easier than arguing with him.

At least for a moment. As they came to the place where the courtyard opened onto a narrow street, she paused. "But this makes me a runaway. I will never be able to return."

"Those men were prepared to see you dead, by your hand or their own. That spring is already dry, Yîgeke. Come, we must find the others and get them to safety before more like these," he gestured towards the men behind him starting to rise, "find them." He tightened his grip on her hand and led her into an uncertain future.