The green-eyed woman who had tried to help Sadira during the escape from the Elven Market stepped to the sorceress’s side. Sadira now knew the woman’s name to be Meredyd, for one of the first things the sorceress had done after rejoining the tribe had been to thank her for her efforts.
Meredyd’s lips were spread wide in an affected smile. She had a deep cleft in her long chin and a tangle of brown hair that just concealed the tips of her pointed ears. Her hips and abdomen were so swollen with pregnancy that Sadira wondered how she had found the strength to make the long run from Nibenay.
“I’ve noticed you have no knife,” said Meredyd. She reached beneath her burnoose and withdrew a long dagger with a blade of sharpened bone. Its ivory handle had been carved in the shape of intertwined serpents, with their heads forming the pommel. “I came across this one in Nibenay,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like it?”
The offer was not as generous as it seemed. At the beginning of the wrestling tournament, Faenaeyon had announced Sadira’s true identity and declared her one of the Sun Runners. Everyone had acted as though he were bestowing a great honor on her, but the chief’s true intentions had not been lost on the sorceress. By naming her a tribe member, he was trying to instill a sense of obligation in her that would make it easier for him to assert his authority.
Since then, Sadira had been presented with many gifts, including the new cape covering her shoulders and the soft leather boots on her feet. As the sorceress had quickly discovered, each present carried with it the obligation to voice her support of a request about to be made of Faenaeyon.
“I could use a dagger,” agreed Sadira. “What do you want in return?”
Meredyd’s smile grew more sincere. “You know of Esylk’s daeg, Crekun?”
The sorceress nodded. Crekun was a handsome man from another tribe who had been severely injured during a battle with the Sun Runners. Esylk had put him on a litter and nursed him back to health, and he had been her slave ever since. “What do you want with Crekun?”
Meredyd’s hand dropped to her swollen belly. “It would be better for this child if Crekun was a Sun Runner.” With a murderous scowl on her face, she glanced toward a russet-haired woman with a brazen figure and plump lips. The target of Meredyd’s animosity stood near Huyar, shaving the head of the young warrior about to challenge Grissi. “Otherwise, if it happens to resemble its father, Esylk will claim the child as her property-probably when we are near some city’s slave market.”
“There will be no children sold into slavery if I can help it,” Sadira said, accepting the gift from Meredyd’s hand.
As she sheathed the weapon, Katza’s oldest son, Cyne, returned from his mother’s camp bearing a skin of broy. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, then stepped past Magnus’s litter and offered the fermented kank-nectar to Faenaeyon. “My mother’s arm has been broken. Therefore, I ask that Grissi wrestle her next match with one arm bound to her side.” He did not even go through the customary ruse of pretending his gift was intended as anything but a bribe.
Faenaeyon hardly glanced at the youth as he took the broy. Setting the skin down at his side, the chief looked over the boy’s head to the rest of the crowd.
As Sadira expected, Huyar’s followers voiced their agreement with the youth’s suggestion, and Rhayn’s supporters opposed it. But Cyne’s impatience cost him dearly with the majority of elves, who were still neutral in the conflict between Huyar and Rhayn. Irritated at his rudeness in not buying their support with gifts or promises, they also raised their voices against this proposal. Some of them even went so far as to suggest that Grissi’s opponent be the one whose arm was bound.
After gauging his tribe’s reaction, Faenaeyon looked back to the boy. “You heard the tribe,” he said. Though his words were already slurred, he refilled his flask from the skin the youth had given him. “My thanks for the broy.”
Cyne flicked his wrist and a silver coin slipped from his burnoose sleeve. Holding the disk before Faenaeyon’s eyes, he said, “It’s not the tribe I ask.”
The chief’s eyes darted to the silver and he stuck his palm beneath the boy’s nose. “Is that my coin?”
“It is now,” the youth said, dropping the silver into the outstretched hand. He remained standing before Faenaeyon while the chief massaged the coin’s surface with his fingertips.
Finally, Faenaeyon said, “Grissi will fight with one arm bound to her side.”
A disapproving murmur rustled through the camp, which Faenaeyon quickly silenced with a stern glower. From what Sadira had gathered about tribal politics, most chiefs took bribes-but only under a suitable pretext. Her father ignored even this minor convention, however, trusting his strong arm to keep warriors from protesting too loudly.
Cyne stepped away from the chief, sneering at Grissi triumphantly. The black-eyed woman met his gaze with a confident chuckle, then looked back to the man who had challenged her. “I’ll be ready in a moment,” she said, stepping over to have her arm bound. “How about you, Nefen?”
Nefen strode forward, rubbing a last handful of yara buds over his skin. “I’m waiting now.”
Noticing that her father still had not taken his eyes off his new coin, Sadira whispered to Meredyd, “I hope you have a few silver up your sleeve.”
The pregnant elf shook her head. “I can only hope that Esylk does not have any, either.”
Grissi stepped into the ring, one arm bound to her waist, and Nefen entered form the other side. There was no formal challenge, nor any kind of declaration that the match had begun. The crowd simply quieted and the two wrestlers moved toward each other with hatred in their eyes.
Confident he could easily overpower his handicapped opponent, Nefen rushed forward. It was a bad mistake. Grissi stopped his charge with a powerful thrust kick to the stomach. As her opponent bellowed out in shock and pain, she whirled around and used her other leg to kick him again. With the momentum of the spin, this blow lifted Nefen off his feet and sent him flying out of the circle. He crashed into Esylk and they both dropped to the ground.
“That’s not wrestling!” objected Huyar.
“Maybe, maybe not-but she won. That’s what counts,” answered Rhayn, stepping forward to unbind her champion’s arm before someone suggested that it remain tied for the rest of the tournament. “Who’s next?”
When no one volunteered immediately, Meredyd took advantage of the lull to step over to the boulder where Faenaeyon sat. She took a beautiful belt-purse of lacquered lizard scales from beneath her cape and held it out to the chief. He continued to stare at the coin Katza’s son had given him, apparently noticing neither the pregnant elf nor her gift.
“Faenaeyon, I have something here for you to keep your coin in,” she said.
The chief looked up, his eyes burning with avarice, and snatched the purse away.
Meredyd waited a moment for him to thank her, but he did not. Finally, she pressed on with her request. “It seems to me that Crekun has been Esylk’s daeg long enough,” she said. “Crekun should be a Sun Runner by now.”
Unlike Katza’s son, Meredyd had carefully prepared her case with the rest of the tribe. Close to half of the warriors present raised their voices in agreement, and many more nodded their heads. Only Huyar and a handful of Esylk’s friends opposed the suggestion.
Faenaeyon responded to the chorus by lifting Meredyd’s purse to his ear and shaking it. When he heard nothing inside, the chief frowned and looked at the woman who had given it to him. “It’s empty.”
The smile on Meredyd’s lips faded. “I had intended to fill the purse with silver,” she said, barely controlling her anger. “But our sudden departure from Nibenay prevented that.”