The Warrior Rearmed

9

It was a glorious day, bright with sunshine and warmth and filled with the clean air that comes after the dawn-rain. I had stayed out of sight during chore assignments, and then had left the house and hurried out of town, eager to climb the hill-mountain and stand at its top again. On its side facing our town the hill was no more than any other hill, perhaps a bit steeper but certainly no higher; on its far side, though, the hill was a true mountain, sweeping down and away through empty air for what seemed like miles. I loved standing right at its top, high, high above the tiny valley so far below, feeling the wind blow my hair about and tug at my long wraparound skirt. Standing on top of the mountain was like suddenly being alive after spending endless time in the death of town-dwelling, and I couldn’t stay away from it for long without needing to go back. The feeling was pure compulsion, and I couldn’t have resisted even if I’d wanted to.

“So you’ve run away again,” a voice said from behind me, startling me. “Aren’t you tired of being punished for not doing your chores?”

“I don’t get punished,” I said without turning, knowing who it was. He was after me again, and after all I’d said and done trying to discourage him.

“You .should be punished,” he said, having heard my words despite the wind’s nearly blowing them away. “If you were punished you would learn not to try avoiding what has to be done, and there would be less resentment toward you from everyone else.”

“They don’t resent me, they’re awed by me and maybe even frightened a little,” I answered smugly, stretching my arms out toward the lovely, empty air. “I can fly and they can’t, but they wish they could; they wish they even had the nerve to try.”

“They resent you,” he said with that calm certainty that always set my temper aflame. “They resent the fact that you can and they can’t, and you don’t even try to make them like you. You sneer at them and laugh at their shortcomings, and always make sure they know how much you can do that they can’t. One day you’ll get them so angry they’ll hurt you.”

“Perhaps then I’ll need you to protect me,” I laughed, hugging myself, knowing myself so much better than he. “Do you think you will?”

“You know I’ll have to try,” he said, and for some reason he sounded angry. Without warning his hand came to my arm, and I was pulled away from the top of the mountain and down a foot or so to face him. “I’ll probably die right along with you, but that won’t stop me from trying. Don’t you care that we’ll both be dead?”

“I won’t be dead!” I spat, struggling to free myself from his grip. “They all know I’m special, and they won’t dare hurt me! You’re just saying that they will because you’re jealous of me, because you can’t fly! Why don’t you leave me alone!”

“If /leave you alone, you really will be alone,” he said, his light eyes sad. “There’s no one else in this whole world who feels the way I do about you. Why do you think I bother, when it would be so much easier just leaving you to your fate?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head against his nonsense. “I don’t know why you bother when I’ve made it so clear that I want nothing to do with you. What do you hope to gain?”

“Why must you insist that I want something?” he came back, his eyes now annoyed. “Do you think so little of yourself that everyone who shows interest in you has to be seeking some sort of gain? Isn’t it possible that all I want is you?”

“It may be possible, but it isn’t very likely,” I retorted with a snort. “Untalented people interested in talented people usually want to share a special standing among the rest of the untalented that they’d never achieve on their own. If you think you’re good enough to match me, try this.”

By moving suddenly I managed to pull away from him, and immediately ran toward the mountain top again. He was no more than a step behind me, but where the top of the mountain was as far as he could go, it was just the beginning of the journey for me. I plunged over the edge and let myself fail, my wings spreading out and quickly catching at the unbelievable mix of air currents. The fall became a lazy, circling soar, my arms back under my wings, my hair flaring out backward to the caress of the stream. Most of me aimed backward but ahead was where I was going, beyond anything those others had done, beyond anything they had even dreamed. I tipped away from the ladder of air and beat skyward, glorying in my strength, sending a laugh of victory down toward the tiny figure still standing on the mountain top. He could never match me, never be my equal in a million lifetimes, and I would prove it to him over and over until he had no choice but to believe it. He would learn how outrageously he overstepped himself by aspiring to me, and in learning he would finally go away. I didn’t need him or anyone, not when I could fly!

I spent hours playing alone in the skies, and when I finally returned to the top of the mountain, he was nowhere to be found. That gave me a good deal of satisfaction, and I strolled back to town and my house with a pleased smile on my lips. The others in the house knew I’d been out flying, and their awe kept them silent as I passed, giving them their voices back to whisper only after I was no longer near. I stole food from the kitchen without my aunts knowing it, ate it among the shade trees at the back of the house, then lay down in the grass for a nap. My sisters and cousins could take care of the chores around the house, even the ones that were supposed to be mine. I had better things to do with my time.

When I awoke from my nap and returned to the house, I was furious to discover that there was one chore I couldn’t avoid. It was time for my family to bring its share of the growing to the central depot, and afterward draw its share of the made things. Everyone in the family went but my mother and aunts, and even my mother’s protests would have been useless against my father. My mother knew I was much too good for menial chores, but my father had never agreed with her. He called her treatment of me pampering, and saw to it that I did my chores when he was about. Happily he wasn’t about much, but even his occasional appearance was more than I cared for.

The sacks containing our growing were already in the carts, but the carts had to be pushed to the center of town, and then they had to be unloaded. I sweated in the hot afternoon sun, straining at a cart that I almost seemed to be pushing alone, annoyed by the laughter and foolishness of my cousins and sisters and brothers. They considered going to the depot a holiday rather than the drudgery it was, one where they got to meet the flirt with the young members of the other families. I had no interest in meeting those others and even less in pushing the cart, but I couldn’t afford to turn and walk off, or even to shirk. Although my father and uncles had stayed at the house as always, my brothers would be sure to notice what I did and report back later. My brothers were jealous of what I could do, and always made as much trouble for me as possible with our father. One day I would leave that place, and never have to be bothered by any of them again.

It took long enough to get to the depot, but once we were there the boys took over unloading the carts. My sisters and girl cousins stood around watching them and sending covert glances toward the males of other families, and I was able to melt back into the rest of the female crowd and then hurry away. I’d taken an uninterested look around When we’d stopped our carts, and had seen him busy unloading with his brothers. As soon as he was through he would come looking for me, and I didn’t want to be where he would find me. He had nothing to offer but a place in his family, a place that would mean work and more work, a drudgery I had no intentions of becoming a part of. I could do something no one else in the whole world could do, and somehow I would see to it that my position in life was just as special.

Once I was past the edges of the crowd, it was easier to move faster. My bare feet added dust to the air that had only just been cleared from all the carts going by, and I hurried toward the circle of shops in the market area around the depot, glad the shops were always closed on depot day. No one would need very much for a couple of days after evening out, and the shop people knew it and took the time as a holiday. That meant I could circle the depot area behind the shops, and that way get back to the hill-mountain. Since the work was all done, no one would miss me except for him; missing me he might try to follow, but by then I’d be beyond the top of the mountain. Let him try following me there!

The first of the shops was no more than twenty feet away when I dragged my thoughts out of the waiting skies to notice that the area wasn’t as deserted as it should have been. Three men holding thick branch-cuts stood ahead of me in front of one of the shops, and I didn’t recognize any of them. By their short wraparounds and metal jewelry they certainly weren’t town men, not even from the other towns that lay one or two days travel away from ours. Those town men wore long wraparounds the way our men did, and wouldn’t have strung themselves with useless trinkets any more than ours would have. I didn’t know why they had come to our town, but they had certainly picked a good time. The only ones around to stand against them were boys, and if their intentions were to do mischief, I pitied the town. It was, however, none of my concern, and I immediately began to turn to my left to avoid the three, but there were three others of the same sort standing there. Quickly turning my head to the right showed another four, and it suddenly came to me that they were more interested in me than in the town. The thought was somewhat unsettling, but not unduly worrying; I didn’t have to go around them to get away from them.

“A good day to you, girl,” one of the three directly ahead called, stepping out in front of the other two. “It’s clear you’re the one we’ve come after, and you’d be wise not trying to struggle. If you’ll keep silent we’ll be gone with none the wiser; if you scream and alert the others, you’ll be beaten once we’ve got you away.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, beginning to feel angry and annoyed. “Not only don’t I know you, I’m certainly not going anywhere with you.”

“Ah, but we know you,” the man said, a grin spreading on his face. “The word about a flying girl has spread for miles around, bringing disbelief to most—and interest to some. There are those willing to pay to own you, you see, and we are the ones who will sell you to them. Now come along, for we want to be well away from here by dark. ”

“You’re crazy!” I sneered, knowing he was simple-minded as well. “I’m not going to let you take me, and I’m not certainly not going to let you sell me. I’m not even going to stay here and talk to you any longer.”

The fool’s eyes widened when I spread my wings, and his arm came up to guard his face and eyes when I began beating hard to rise up and away from them. The two behind him did the same, and I laughed as I began rising into the air—until the net flew over me. It came from my right where the four men had been, rose in an arc above me, and was caught by the three men to my left. I flew right into it and was dragged back down to the ground, my laughter immediately turning into screams of shock. They were using a net to catch me, and it wasn’t fair!

I struggled in the dust of the street as the weight of the men held the net down, screaming above the snarling of the spokesman directing the others not to break anything on me. Hands tried to silence my screams through the mesh of the heavy net, but even I was beyond silencing them. I struggled insanely as the net was wrapped around me and I was dragged to my feet, and then my screams cut off as I saw the figures racing toward us. My brothers and male cousins pelted along without any of the others, led by none other than him. They slowed as they came within ten feet of the men who held me, and then stopped to glare at them with chins thrust out.

“Release her at once!” my eldest brother demanded, outrage and fear mixed plainly on his face. “Release her and we’ll allow you to leave in place.”

“You’ll allow us to leave in peace?” the spokesman of the raiders laughed, looking around at them. “There aren’t enough of you to do anything else. We’d heard that there weren’t as many as a handful of people in this town who would lift a finger to help this little bird, and it looks like the rumor was true. You don’t look very eager to start anything yourself, boy, so why don’t you take your handful and go back to the others? If you’re smart, there’s no reason for anyone to get hurt.”

“Except her,” he said, stepping out in front of my brothers and cousins. “Even if everyone in this town says you can have her, I won’t allow it. Let her go.”

“You’re older than the others,” the leader of the raiders mused, staring at him. “You don’t look like a relative, so you trust be a suitor. Take my advice and find a different girl to court. This one has already been claimed.”

He started to turn away, as though done with the conversation, but he was only pretending. When he sprang forward in attack the leader was ready and waiting, and he whirled back to strike hard with the branch-cut he carried, over and over with all his strength. Two others of the raiders joined him, and when they stepped away there was nothing but motionlessness and blood on the dust of the ground. My brothers and cousins backed away in horror, their faces pale and shocked, and after a single glance at them, the leader of the raiders gestured to his men. The net was pulled down from my face and head, a terrible metal collar almost as wide as my hand was closed around my throat, and then the net was pulled away from me completely. Two heavy chains were attached to the metal collar, and by those chains I was pulled along the street in the direction leading out of town. I held to one of the chains to keep from sprawling in the dust and tried to look back at the still, red-covered body on the ground, but all I could see behind me, too horribly close, was the bulk of the leader of the raiders.

“Once we have you far enough away, you’ll be beaten for starting that,” the man said, his voice low and his eyes angry. “If any of the others had decided to join that first bunch, it could have gotten ugly for us. A good thing only that one decided to jump in, and I can’t say I blame him. I’m looking forward to tasting you before the others get their turns, and I probably won’t stop with once. You’re a good-looking piece even with those wings. ”

His free hand came to my wraparound, sliding in through the side slit to grope at my flesh, but the action did no more than cause a small shudder in me. I was numb through and through, so deep in shock that I didn’t think I would ever climb out again. A terrible thing had happened to me and worse things were going to happen, but none of that seemed to matter. I was wrapped in so overwhelming a sense of loss that nothing else in the world mattered. I’d thought I wanted nothing to do with him, thought I’d be happiest if I never saw him again, but he’d given his life for me as he’d said he would, and I couldn’t bear the thought. More than his life had been taken and more than mine, and although I didn’t understand what I felt, I wanted to lie down and die because of it. He’d tried so hard and I hadn’t tried at all, not even to understand the way he looked at things, and now it was too late to do anything at all. I’d never see him again even if I were freed, never see his smile or his arms opening in invitation, offering me a safe place to rest and be loved. He was gone forever, gone beyond apology or any other effort, and life was no longer worth living. The dust of the road rose up to swirl about me in clouds, causing me to cough in the collar about my throat, causing me to pull harder at the chain I held to. Hands came to pull my arms behind me and tie my wrists, but all that did was make me fall. I fell down and down into the dust of the ground, not caring that tears streamed down my cheeks; I cried as I fell through the dust of forever, and that was the way it should have been.