Olivia (94 page)

“You’re acting very strange.  Almost as if you expect me to…I don’t know…order you to put up your skirt and lie down.”

She swallowed hard.  It made a dry, guilty click.  “The thought had crossed my mind,” she admitted.

She could sense his disappointment in her.  It only made her feel worse.  She cradled Somurg for comfort, which only made the baby start fussing.  “What was I supposed to think?” she blurted unhappily.  “I thought you’d bash each other around like goats or something!  I wasn’t ready to see blood!  I wasn’t ready to hear your wing snap or…Vorung’s wrists…”  She could still hear the sound of bones grinding themselves into splinters. 

“That,” Sudjummar said, “was not a typical challenge.  That was what we know as a blood challenge, and it’s extremely rare.  I expected him to concede after I kicked him in the stones.  I thought that was what he was trying to tell me or I never would have gotten so close to him.”

“If he’d killed you, was I supposed to walk off into that goddamn tunnel with him while you lay there dead?  How can you
think
that’s not wrong?”

He was silent a little while, then abruptly said, “Do you know what a wolf is, Olivia?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Noble creatures,” he remarked.  “Very civilized.  Social animals, for the most part.  The leader of the pack is a female, and she takes a powerful mate.  She must, because every male in the pack wants her badly, and if she’s to get anything accomplished in her busy night, she needs a strong mate to keep the others off her back.  So to speak.”

Olivia managed a shaky laugh.

“Wolves challenge each other occasionally.  Usually, their fights are settled swiftly and relatively painlessly.  Very rarely, blood is drawn.  Once in a great while, a wolf is killed, do you see?”

“I think so.”

“You don’t yet, but I’m trying.”  He touched her arm again in the dark, a comforting gesture.  “The first time the leader’s mate is challenged is almost always the bloodiest, but is almost never fatal.  If the mate is sufficiently formidable, any other challenges are quick ones, almost formalities.  But if the mate shows weakness or lack of resolve, then even if he is successful in defending her, he is likely to be challenged again and again.  He is also much more apt to be seriously injured or killed.

“Tonight, in a way,” he said slowly, “I was fighting not only Vorung, but all of them.  Did you see the way they watched me?  There hasn’t been a real challenge in this tribe in better than a hundred years.  No one knew what to expect and I gave them one hell of a show.  There were a great many in that cave that put themselves in Vorung’s place and grappled with me in their minds.”

“And got their wrists crushed,” Olivia reminded him.

“That, too.  With luck, it will prevent further fighting, at least until my wing is healed enough that I could meet another blood challenge.”

“What about Vorung?”

“I’m sure he’ll heal,” he said absently.  “But in the meantime, he’ll have to depend on others to provide for him.  And he’s forbidden to challenge for you again in any case.”

They reached the forge and in the light of its ever-burning fires, Olivia got her first good look at him and felt slightly encouraged.  In spite of the break, the dry flesh at the wing’s extremity was warm and living.

“There is something that worried me,” she said hesitantly, reaching down the glass jar containing one of Murgull’s most potent painkillers.

“Yes?”

“It was inexcusable of me to think that you would take advantage of me after this…blood challenge.  I know you better than that and I’m sorry.  But would Vorung have shared your opinion?”  She met his eyes over her equipment.  “Would he have fought you and won and then…been content to just sit in the dark in that stupid room and not do anything?”

She couldn’t help the slight, squeezing anxiety that pressed into her guts when he only stood and considered the question instead of hastening to reassure her.  His answer, when he finally ventured it, did little to soothe her.

“Vorung?  Probably.”  Sudjummar watched as her hands began to shake just the tiniest bit.  “Even a blood challenge does not give a man the right to force an unwilling woman.”  He threw her a quick, quirky smile.  “That’s why the Great Spirit gave us hands.”

She laughed without meaning to, without much wanting to, but that was funny.  “Is that so?”

He started to shrug and winced.  “May I have that now?”

“Only a swallow.”  She watched closely while he drank, then took it back.  “I don’t know if this stuff is habit-forming, but from all Murgull’s cautions, I’d have to guess so.” 

She had just finished capping the jar and returning it to her place on the forge’s worktable when Sudjummar sleepily said, “Oh, say, that’s nice.”  She glanced up and he smiled at her dopily.

“Feel better?” she asked.

“Much better.  Olivia?”

“Yes, Sudjummar.”

“I am very sorry that you had to see me do that.”  The metal smith reached out to touch her cheek, her chin, the curve of her throat.  “And I am sorry, but you’ll have to see it again.  Do you hate me?”

His resemblance to Vorgullum was now complete.  “No,” she said with unhappy honesty.  “No, I don’t hate you.”

“Are we still friends?”

“Still friends.”

He nodded slowly.  “Can you bring me some bedding?  I don’t think I can climb up to my lair.”

Olivia retreated to the smith’s private chambers to gather up the two thickest sleeping bags, but when she returned, Sudjummar was lying on his stomach on the bearskin in the corner, fast asleep.  She covered him up, lay down beside him with Somurg, and quietly cried herself into oblivion.

8

Sudjummar was back in the forge before Olivia even woke up the next morning, which irritated her.  She could hear him hammering the entire time it took to change, feed, and clean Somurg, and by the time she finished wiping the baby-spit off her shoulder, she had the beginnings of what she suspected was going to be a damned good headache.  When she confronted him in an attempt to make him take it easy for a few days, he listened to her politely, then went right back to banging on a new mining pick.

“Good grief, man, doesn’t that hurt?” she finally exploded.

He paused, glancing at her coyly over one shoulder.  “Not at all,” he said.  “Because if it did hurt, if it hurt enough to keep me from my work, why then, that may impede my ability to feed and defend my mate and her child.”

Disgusted, she punched her hands onto her hips and glared at him.  “You’re acting like a goat.  Do you think Vorung is going to get up and go off hunting?”

He laughed.  “Of course not!  Vorung lost!”

“You—!  Fine.”  She untied the carrier sling in which Somurg had been riding and set the baby down.  “Watch him for me.  I’ve got better things to do than try and talk sense into a goat-head like you.”

“As you will, Olivia.”  He had turned back to his work, but she was convinced he was smirking at her.

So Olivia went to the women’s tunnels to look in on Liz.  Rumm, Crugunn and Thurga were there in a tight circle around the human, engaging in a group massage.  Liz looked positively transcendent with pleasure while her attendees chatted and gossiped over her.

“How are you feeling?” Olivia asked, coming over with a smile.

Talk ceased.  Heads turned.

“Fine,” Liz replied blissfully.  “I hear you made quite a speech last night at the gathering.  Good for you.”

“Thanks, I was pretty impressed with it myself.”  Olivia ran her eyes over the awed and envious expressions on the gullan, feeling weirdly smug.  “And did you also hear about the great challenge?”

“Several times,” Liz acknowledged, and opened her eyes.  They were sparkling with mirth and not a little cynicism.  “I’d wager you were thrilled to death to be the bone in their dogfight.”

“Blood challenge,” one of the others murmured, savoring the sound of it.  “Who would have thought Sudjummar to be so fierce?”

“Honestly,” sighed Liz.  “Why don’t they just hold pissing contests and be done with it?  But no, they’ve got to roar and beat their chests and fling each other around until they’re bleeding all over.  Like you’re going to think that’s so attractive.”

“Apparently, there’s a room just off the commons where the victor gets to claim his prize.”

“Get out of town!” Liz exclaimed, and then shook her head in bemused contempt.  “Forget pissing contests, they should have dick-fights.”

“Whoever can break a brick first, wins,” Olivia agreed.

Liz started laughing, then stopped, hissing.  “Basin, basin!”

Crugunn leapt up, seized the shallow metal basin that was used as a bed pan, and slid it expertly underneath the human’s hips.  After a second, she nonchalantly withdrew the pan and took it away to be emptied.

“Sorry,” Liz said uncomfortably.  “Little guy tends to object to being jiggled by stomping on my bladder.”  She was silent for some time, then added in a low voice, “I guess Cheyenne’s going to be using one for a while, huh?”

“Probably.”

“Did Vorgullum really cut her legs off?”

The question took her aback.  “No, but he came pretty close.  He…do you know what hamstringing is?”

Liz nodded and closed her eyes.  “Both legs?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.”  She had too many gullan hands massaging her to tense up, but Liz shuddered.  “You know,” she said uncomfortably.  “Gormuck and I got off to such a rocky start…I used to hit him and rip his fur out whenever he came at me when I was in season.  Not that it stopped him; I don’t think anything short of bolt of lightning can affect them much when you’re in season, and even
that
would probably only slow them down.  But we used to fight.  Or rather, I used to fight, and he used to stand there and take it.”

Rubbing her leathery hands expertly against Liz’s thighs, Rumm remarked, “He’s never mentioned this.”

Since it had been made very clear that males generally did not have lengthy discussions with unmated females, certainly not those of an intimate nature, Olivia and Liz both turned as one to stare at Rumm.

The female continued massaging, looked up only after the silence had time to sink in, then uttered a gulla’s deep laugh.  “My brother,” she explained.  “I am thirty years his junior, but we are close.  He speaks often of you, his mate.”

“Happily?” Liz asked suspiciously.

“With resignation.”  Rumm shrugged.  “He wishes you would be more…”  The gulla lifted one hand and moved it in suggestive circles.

Liz dropped her head back onto her arms, grumbling, “We can’t all be Olivia.”

“Hey!”  But she was laughing, not really offended.  To Rumm, she said, “Your brother actually talks to you about sex with humans?”

“He was curious.”  Rumm shrugged her wings.  “I am curious, for all that this matters.  I know I will never have a mate.  Vorgullum would not be so foolish as to bring human males among us.”

“Okay,” Liz said in a clipped voice.  “Tell me what he says about me.”

Rumm regarded her curiously.  “Are you angry?”

“Not yet.”

Rumm reached for a ladle and poured a dipperful of some kind of mildly soap-scented oil over Liz’s back in trickles.  She began to rub again.  “He says you were virgin when he took you,” she said after a moment.  “And it made him feel monstrous.”

The other females working Liz over murmured in low sympathy.

Rumm said, “And one day—forgive me, Olivia—one day Vorgullum was telling the hunters of human pleasures, and how a human screams and thrashes with her mate in passion.  And Kurlun agreed and told of the postures in which humans like to couple—”

“Postures?” Liz interrupted, startled.

“She puts her ankles on his shoulders,” Crugunn explained.

“Oh my God,” the humans said together.

“That is not customary?” Rumm asked, pausing in her ministrations.

“Does it sound customary?” Liz gasped.

“Not for me, but Kurlun seemed not to think it extraordinary.”

Crugunn added pensively, “Which rather makes me wonder what he
would
find extraordinary.”

“Okay, we’re all very impressed with Amy.  Get back to Gormuck,” Liz commanded.

“Well,” Rumm said.  “Wurlgunn said that his Beth comes freely to his pit and loves him, holds him.  Gormuck began to see that you did not.  And when he came to you that night and put his hand upon you, when you lay still as death beneath him, he began to understand that he was despised by you.”

“I didn’t despise him,” Liz whispered.

“But after some moons had come and gone, he returned from the hunt and you praised him, and he was so pleased that he called you to his pit and you went with him.  He tried to give you pleasure.  And then you held him.”  Rumm shrugged her wings.  “That is what my brother speaks of, when we speak of you.  He knows he is not the mate you wanted, but you hold him.  He cares for you.  It… It saddens him that you do not want to bear his child.”

Liz winced.  “I regret those words,” she said softly.  “I could tell you that humans are emotional and not terribly reasonable when they’re pregnant—”

“It would even be the truth,” Olivia put in.

“—but it doesn’t excuse my behavior.  God, I wish he was here right now.  I wish I could tell him I was sorry.  I hate to think I might actually have this baby while he’s away.”  She was quiet for a little while.  “But I probably will.  Olivia?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think…Oh, this is going to sound so stupid.  Do you think anyone out there is going to want me when I leave the women’s tunnels?”

It was Crugunn who answered, first with laughter, and then with, “I think, with a new life in your arms, there will be several suitors to pick among.  That is what I think.  Especially this child, which might so easily have been lost.”

“That’s…actually a little comforting.”  Liz hesitated.  “I just don’t particularly relish the idea of a pack of them beating each other up over me.”

The three gullan sighed.  “Blood challenge,” Rumm murmured.

“Who do you suppose will be next to challenge the metal-maker?” Crugunn asked in her light, gossip-is-good voice.  “There were eyes on Olivia like stars in the sky at this gathering.”