The Rage Read online

  Trib shook her head mutely.

  “No,” Aoifa continued. “Those men would take everything from us if we let them. And you dare to speak to me of right.”

  The crow above the fire gave an angry caw, and Trib had a brief, visceral awareness of the molten hatred boiling beneath the priestess’s glacial surface. It was hotter than any Rage she’d ever experienced. Then Aoifa regained control, and Trib felt as though she were being torn apart from the inside out. The priestess’s words had invoked a powerful connection to her people and to the Goddess. She could feel it all through her body, yet she could not release herself to it entirely. She had thought the tormenting confusion of the past few days would go away when she was among her people again, but it had only grown stronger.

  “I killed a boy,” she said slowly, her heart pounding. “He was with the Puritanics, but I don’t know if he was my enemy. I don’t know if he deserved to die.”

  “If he was with the Puritanics, he was your enemy,” Aoifa said flatly. “You should feel no remorse.”

  “I killed lots of men using the Rage and didn’t feel anything. I killed this boy without the Rage and his death will haunt me forever. Why?”

  “Your only mistake was your excessive pride in not using the Goddess’s gift of the Rage. Why did you do this?”

  “I thought I didn’t need it.”

  “Arrogance,” Aoifa said. “Pray to the Goddess to forgive you for it.”

  “But…”

  “My patience wears thin, Tribulation. Say what you need to say and be done with it.”

  “What’s wrong with the men of New Murias?” Trib blurted out. “Why are they so…empty?”

  “You know this. They were once Puritanics and capable of atrocity. They have sworn obedience to me and the Goddess, and they are doing penance.” Aoifa’s voice was calm, as if she were stating the most obvious fact. But her answer made Trib feel suddenly ill.

  “Native men ain’t like the Puritanics,” she said, her voice wavering. “Will you make them swear obedience and do penance?”

  The priestess narrowed her eyes at Trib. “So,” she said softly. “It comes full circle.”

  Trib had no idea what Aoifa was talking about, but fear suddenly thrilled through her body.

  “You are trying to tell me some men are not so bad,” Aoifa continued. “Your mother once said the same about the Puritanics, that there were good among them, just as there were bad among the New Murians. For this reason she refused to use the Rage, just as you have. She let other women fight for her freedom, and when she had it, she spat on it. She defied my laws, and let a Puritanic into her home without making him swear allegiance to me and the Goddess. She treated him as an equal and insisted that she loved him.”

  “No,” Trib croaked. “It ain’t true. My ma couldn’t do that.”

  “Do you even remember your mother?”

  Trib shook her head.

  “Then how do you know what she could and couldn’t do?” Aoifa asked. “That Puritanic was your father. Eventually your mother grew tired of slaving for him and saw the error of her ways. She told him to leave, as was her right under my law. Do you know what your father did then?”

  Trib couldn’t reply.

  “He went as she asked. But he came back. With many of his brethren…”

  “No!” Trib cried. She put her hands over her ears. Aoifa bent forward and pulled them away.

  “You will hear this!” she said. “That man, who tricked your mother into thinking he was good, killed his own children. You were the only survivor. You seem to have a special talent for that.”

  She released Trib and sat back with a cruel smile. “The Puritanics believe that all children are born sinful, but they also believe all children born to Puritanics are also Puritanics…”

  “I ain’t…” Trib whispered.

  “You were never told this, to spare you the shame of your mother’s treachery. I see now it may have been a wasted effort.”

  Trib couldn’t speak. Her blood surged. A Rage was coming.

  “Control yourself!” Aoifa cried, putting a cold hand on Trib’s forehead. “Save your Rage until the enemy is at hand.”

  Trib felt the power slowly drain, leaving her empty and exhausted.

  “Do you understand now what is right?” Aoifa said in a soothing voice. “Everything has been taken from you, from all of us. The Goddess brought us to this New World for a reason. Its resources will feed us and make us strong so that no Puritanic or any other man will ever harm us again. The right is ours.”

  The crow on the fireplace cawed again. Trib slumped forward in her chair. “Aye,” she whispered. “The right is ours.”

  eyewik had lost all sense of time in the windowless room. He was dozing fitfully when a sudden spasm of cold pain in his chest brought him fully awake.

  “She is coming!” was the only warning he could manage before the plank door swung open and Crow Woman entered, followed closely by Flame Hair. Flame Hair was no longer wearing the clothing of the People. She was dressed as she had been when Peyewik first saw her, in stiff leather leggings and a vest over a linen shirt. Her hair had been combed and braided in the style of the Fighting Women. She didn’t look up when Kwineechka hissed at her.

  Crow Woman went straight for the storyteller, already singing her spirit-trapping song.

  “Do not listen,” Peyewik wheezed. The cold in his chest was stronger than it had ever been, and he couldn’t breathe. It felt as if his lungs were freezing solid.

  The storyteller didn’t stand a chance against Crow Woman. He sank to his knees after only a few notes. Crow Woman knelt behind him. She wrapped her arms around him and sang into his ear. She stroked his hair and face until his eyes went blank and his chin dropped to his chest.

  Peyewik fought the spirit-trapping song. He tried to remember the sounds of home to drown it out, but Crow Woman was too close. Her voice overpowered him and then lulled him, surrounding him in soft, warm feathers…he felt himself grow light and careless. He didn’t need to worry, the song told him. Crow Woman had great power. She would take care of everything. All he had to do was trust her, turn himself over to her body and spirit...

  When the singing stopped, Peyewik wanted to fill the ensuing silence with everything he had, to offer himself up to her completely…

  oifa stopped singing.

  “Your pretty young man broke my spell once,” she said. “I don’t know how he did it, but he won’t be able to do it again.”

  “You said you wanted to ask him some questions,” Trib said. “You didn’t tell me you would use the siren on him.”

  “It’s the only way. His will belongs to me and to the Goddess now. What shall I ask of him, Tribulation?”

  Aoifa slid her hands slowly up the storyteller’s bare arms.

  Kwineechka’s head was bowed, and he did not respond to the high priestess’s caress. Trib looked away. The boy, Peyewik, was hunched nearby, also caught in the siren-song.

  “You don’t need to touch him,” Trib said hoarsely.

  “But I want to touch him,” the priestess replied. “He is beautiful. You want to touch him too, don’t you? This man you think is not like other men, with his golden eyes and stories and laughter.”

  Trib looked up sharply. These were things she had barely admitted to herself. She had taken pains to keep them hidden.

  Aoifa laughed. “The siren works on everyone. I sang you a few notes earlier, in my cabin, while you were making yourself presentable. I asked you a few questions.”

  Trib suddenly felt sick. She had thought the siren was like the Rage, a gift from the Goddess, only to be used against enemies.

  “Why’d you do that?” she asked. “I’m loyal to you and the Goddess. You know that.”

  “Yes, I know that because I asked you while you were under the influence of my siren and could not lie. I also asked you what you desire most. Do you know what you told me?”

  Aoifa pushed the storyteller’s hair away from
his neck and stroked it lightly.

  “Stop,” Trib whispered. “I want you to stop.” She couldn’t understand why the high priestess was doing these things.

  “That is not what you want,” Aoifa laughed again. Her white hands were moving over the storyteller’s chest now. “You want this man. You told me so yourself. You have never had a man before, and this is the one you want. Here he is. Take him.”

  “No.” Trib wanted to shout but it came out as a whisper. She wanted to throw herself at the priestess, pull her away from Kwineechka and pound her with her fists. But she found that she couldn’t move.

  The head priestess narrowed her eyes. “I am offering you a gift. Why do you refuse it?”

  “You can’t do that,” Trib said. “He ain’t yours to give.”

  “You won’t get another chance,” Aoifa taunted her. “He will never choose you freely.”

  Tears of anger and shame ran down Trib’s face. She couldn’t speak.

  “Very well,” Aoifa said. “If you won’t take him, I will.”

  Trib gave a cry of anguish as the high priestess began to sing again. She heard the words, heard Aoifa demand that Kwineechka offer up that which was most essential and sacred to him. With a wrench of her heart, she heard the storyteller’s voice in reply. Aoifa fell silent as he began to sing his own song.

  Trib had heard the storyteller sing many times, but never like this. His voice was amplified and impossibly varied in tone and pitch. It was as if many voices sang with him, a melody and multiple harmonies that created a sound so full and rich that she felt it with all her senses. She could see and feel his song, as well as hear it. It was a whole world unto itself and listening to it made her part of it.

  Trib couldn’t understand the words of his song but she knew what Kwineechka was singing, and why it had been his response to Aoifa’s demand.

  “Aoifa!” she growled, straining against the spell that held her as well as the storyteller. “He’s telling you the story of his people. It’s what he came here to do. He would’ve given it to you freely…”

  The head priestess ignored her, enthralled by her own power, and the storyteller sang on because he had no choice. Trib felt heartsick for him as she remembered that the story was Kwineechka and his people’s way of connecting to others in peace and friendship. And she hated herself for not being able to stop what Aoifa was doing to him.

  Suddenly a sound like a thunderclap broke across the storyteller’s song and shook the cabin to its foundation. Aoifa was thrown away from the storyteller and he sank to the floor, silent, eyes closed. Trib found that she could move and took two steps towards Kwineechka before seeing Peyewik’s eyes on her, clear and free of Aoifa’s siren song. She stopped. The air in the prison cabin felt somehow fresher, as though a summer storm had just passed by.

  Aoifa’s face was drawn and pale. “The boy has powers of his own,” she gasped. Then she laughed. “Now I know how my spell was broken before. But it doesn’t matter. I already have all I need.”

  “What do you mean?” Trib asked.

  “The story,” Aoifa said, and laughed wickedly. “I made him give me that which is most sacred to him. He gave me this story and, now that I have it, he is mine. It is only a matter of time before his people are mine too.”

  “What will you do with them?” Trib asked, terror rising.

  Aoifa gave her a cold smile. “Nothing for now. I must rest. Help me back to my cabin.”

  Trib knew she couldn’t help the Natives. She went to the high priestess and offered her arm in support. At the door she glanced back. The boy was kneeling next to the storyteller, who was beginning to stir. Neither of them looked at her, and she knew it was too late. They would never forgive her. They were right not to. She had betrayed them.

  eyewik, what has happened?” The storyteller’s voice was groggy. “I heard thunder.”

  The air in the tiny room tingled and buzzed, and for once Peyewik’s chest felt warm.

  “Crow Woman,” Peyewik said hoarsely, his throat raw from the shout that had broken the spell-song. “She made you tell the Story of the People.”

  “You stopped her again?” Kwineechka asked.

  “Yes,” Peyewik replied. “At first she was too strong, and I was caught in her spell-song. I could see her touching you, and I heard her make you tell the Story of the People, but I couldn’t help you. The Story gave her power somehow, I could feel it growing. I became frightened for you and for the People. She had to be stopped. So I called for the thunder spirit to come and break her spell…and it did,” he added self-consciously.

  Peyewik didn’t like it when the spirits came to him of their own volition, but it was a whole new experience to have one come at his request and do his bidding. It was frightening, but no more frightening than feeling Crow Woman take control of the Story of the People.

  “She is gone?” Kwineechka asked.

  “Yes, but she will come back soon,” Peyewik said. “She wants more from us.”

  Kwineechka flinched at this, and Peyewik saw the haunted look in his eyes. The stories of the People, all of them, were a part of Kwineechka’s being and Crow Woman had reached in and taken that part of him without asking.

  “Flame Hair was with Crow Woman,” Kwineechka said in a low, ragged voice. “She meant to do this all along, to steal the story from me even though I came here to share it freely. Now do you believe me that she belongs to Snakebrother?”

  “I do not know,” Peyewik said quietly. The buzzing warmth generated by the thunder spirit was fading, leaving him sad and tired. He couldn’t believe that Flame Hair had known what Crow Woman would do, but he couldn’t deny that she had stood by and watched while Crow Woman violated the storyteller’s body and spirit.

  “You look tired, little brother. Rest while I find a way out of here.” Kwineechka climbed unsteadily to his feet, still shaking off Crow Woman’s spell. “We must escape before Crow Woman and Flame Hair come back.”

  Peyewik had the terrible feeling that there was no way out. He was terrified of what Crow Woman might do when she came back, and he knew he didn’t have the strength to fight her off a third time. Summoning the thunder spirit had drained him. Eyelids heavy and body weary, he lay down on the straw pallet and surrendered to whatever nightmares would come.

  rib threw up in the slops jar.

  She was alone in the new, roughly built cabin where Aoifa had sent her to get some sleep.

  She guessed it was sometime around midnight. She had her sword, but the door to the cabin was locked from the outside. The cabin was empty except for the slops jar, a pallet, and a lantern.

  Trib was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. Her mind and stomach were churning over everything that had happened since passing through the gates of the fort at dusk. She continued to retch until her stomach was empty of the food Aoifa had fed her. She couldn’t bear to think about what Aoifa had told her about her mother. Even more difficult was the thought that Kwineechka would have sung for Aoifa freely, as a gesture of friendship, but Aoifa had taken the song by force. It was wrong, but Trib didn’t know what to do about it. She kept telling herself that it never would’ve happened if the Scath had been there and wondered when she would be allowed to see the old warrior.

  Eventually she drifted into a troubled sleep, only to be awakened by someone shaking her shoulder. She reached for her sword before she was fully conscious.

  “Tribulation, I am a friend.”

  It was the young priestess from Aoifa’s cabin, Morrigan, the only other survivor of the ambush in the marsh.

  “What are you doing here?” Trib sat up, her hand still on the hilt of her sword. “Did Aoifa send you?”

  Morrigan held up her hands to show that she carried no weapons or tricks. “Aoifa doesn’t know I’m here. I must speak with you.”

  “Then speak,” Trib said warily.

  The priestess removed her hood and knelt beside Trib’s pallet. She was a small woman with delicate features and large brow
n eyes. Trib wondered briefly if her smallness was the reason she had become a priestess instead of a warrior. She wore her blonde hair in the style of all apprentice priestesses, neatly braided and wrapped in coils around her ears.

  “I heard what you said to Aoifa about the Natives,” Morrigan began.

  “You were spying?”

  “I knew it was wrong,” Morrigan replied, “but I was so surprised to see another survivor of the ambush. I wanted to know what had happened to you. Now I think the Goddess willed it. I came here to tell you I agree with you. Aoifa’s intentions towards the Natives are wrong. Your friends are in danger.”

  “They ain’t my friends,” Trib said, her empty stomach twisting painfully. They had been friends for a day, but no longer, not after what she had allowed Aoifa to do to Kwineechka. “And what you’re saying is treason. You’d be hung if I told Aoifa.”

  “I don’t think you’ll tell her,” Morrigan said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you care about the Natives…”

  “I never said that,” Trib interrupted, feeling heat rush to her face.

  Morrigan studied Trib for a moment and then smiled gently. “Just because you didn’t say it doesn’t mean you don’t.”

  Trib started to protest, but Morrigan continued. “Even if you don’t care for them, you gave your word as a warrior to protect them, and you know something is wrong with Aoifa’s strategy.”

  “You’re just saying all this because you heard what Aoifa said about my mother,” Trib said, her voice hard. “You think I’m a traitor like her.”

  The priestess shook her head. “I don’t think your mother was a traitor. I think the only thing she was guilty of was loving her family.”