M
Devlin wanted to ask her tribe to trade for the right to mine the malachite in their pass. The two walked the road through the plains and ignored the orcs who let them be. He all in yellow and black, she in hide the color of cliff and tree.
“He don’t care for me too much, the shaman,” she warned.
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because he were wrong about my birth, probably. Parents still joke with him.” She could have mentioned the time she and a few other children sewed his tent flap shut, but she decided to keep that to herself.
When they reached the camp, she nodded to the warriors standing at guard. The shaman approached them immediately, before she had time to think what she’d say.
“Eh, shaman, this is, er, Dev.”
“You bring a stranger to our camp?” He interrupted.
“He would have come on his own.”
“She is right, shaman,” Dev said. “I have come on my own terms, and I have come to speak to you.”
“We’ve hunted. He has kept me alive before,” Kestrel added, hoping to stir the shaman’s hospitality, but the shaman seemed to look through her with an expression she had only seen her father wear.
The shaman produced flint and tinder and made a small fire. “We will speak while this fire burns, no longer. Sit, speak.”
“So be it,” said Devlin.
Kestrel plopped down on a nearby rock to listen to the men.
“My name is Devlin, of the Northlander tribe. And I ‘ave come ta ask if ye would be interested in th’ idea o’trade.”
“Trade is always welcome, what do you offer and what do you seek?”
“I seek only a very small amount o’ malachite. An’ I offer anything ‘at ye would be needin’ in turn. Food, gold, medical supplies.”
Kestrel smirked at the suggestion they were in need of what any child could find in the woods.
“Oh, I thought you would want something important,” the shaman chuckled. “The ore is not something we use, and it is of the land. It is not ours to give or take. What you actually ask for is permission to be a guest. And as a guest you would be welcome to ‘wone’? Is that the wone? Mone…. Mane… mine!. Mine the ore”
Devlin smiled. Kestrel stilled a chuckle building in her throat.
“But do you understand the guesting ways? While you are our guest, we feed and shelter you, but while you are our guest, our defense is also yours. If something attacks us while you stay, you man the defense alongside the warriors.”
“I understand. An in such generosity of the Featherflights, in the eyes of Tempus, it is only right to in return offer such defense.”
“This is not a small thing. We have enemies. Why else do you think so many stand near the front?” The shaman gestured to the warriors milling around them. “While in our camp, you will respect our taboos and our ways of doing things. If at some time that becomes too much, you know the way out.”
“Then I would agree, upon learning these ways of your tribe.”
The shaman stared directly at Kestrel. “You know what I am going to say, don’t you?”
Kestrel nodded and gave a dramatic sigh.
“The wild child will have responsibility, and you know the depth of that responsibility. His actions will be on your head.”
“Right, right,” she mumbled. Why did he have to call her that?
The shaman frowned in the profound yet speechless way an elder can. Devlin smiled smugly a bit at watching their interaction.
“I mean, yes, shaman. I understand.”
“Better.”
”I’ll teach him over the next few days then.”
“Teach him the old ways, the ones he needs to know. Not the ones you might enjoy teaching him.” He glared at her and she cowered some, even now when she was his height and had stared orcs in the eye. The shaman turned back to Devlin. “You are a guest then with all that comes and goes with it. She is an adult. I will not make rules I cannot enforce, but her brothers might.”
“I know what you are implying, shaman. I will behave,” Devlin said, obviously conscious of the warriors forming a circle around them.
“You, I am not worried about,” the shaman said. “Her, on the other hand, I know all too well.”
Kestrel shot a glare at the warriors and any of her tribesmen who dared to grin at the comment.
With that, the shaman showed Devlin the way to the vein and day turned to night.
