Free The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee Page A

great house. I shivered. With both hands I snapped the arrow and threw it into the water where the current drew it slowly away.
    I crossed, and walked toward the tents. They came behind me, Kel running, for he had paused to get the target from the tree.
    The cook fires were alight. Meat sizzled, and a porridge I had seen before, made from nut kernels and honey. I stopped and ladled a little of the brown stuff into a bowl, and a man turned around on me from the hide he was flaying.
    â€œHere you—keep your hands off—”
    Maggur’s great fist shot out like a black python. It was only a glancing blow, but the man went over and lay groaning.
    I ate the porridge, standing, Maggur, Giltt and Kel standing around me, easier now that the thing was irrevocable, ignoring it, talking among themselves.
    A woman came, and bent over her man, and looked scared at Maggur.
    I would be safe now, and want for nothing.
    The pains began in my belly.
    * * *
    Kel, the small one, had, of course, called me “Imma” first. Now they all called me Imma, but it had a new ring to it. It was a concession, and they knew it. I was their mistress. They would defend me, even against Darak himself, although they would never have admitted so much. As it was they swaggered behind me, and I did my best never to push them beyond their instincts. If other men asked them what they were doing with me like bees around a honey jar, they said I was Darak’s woman, and something special besides, a healer and diviner, with holy blood—the Chief himself had told them to guard me. They had their own girls, it is true, who were jealous and curious, but Maggur took care of this, for no insult or trouble came near me from them. As for Darak, for the five days we were at the wood camp, he was busy with his captains in the great black tent, and I never saw him. A scrap of paper came with his scrawl on it, however. I was mildly surprised that he could write, but the words were uncouthly formed and misspelled in places. It said:
The goddess has taken without asking.
    I felt there was an understanding between us, or rather that he understood more of me than I did myself. I was still afraid of what I had done.
    But those days were full for the first time since I had come from the guts of the mountain. For I took my guard and made them teach me something of their skill with knives and bows, and on the backs of the wild brown horses they caught in the woods and then let go after an hour or so of bruising sport. This was a good time, I could push all doubt and alarm from my mind, and think only of my moving hands and feet, and if my eye could judge far enough. The three were very pleased with me, and proud. If they were in a woman’s power—and they were, though it was too early yet for them to own it to themselves—best it should be a woman who could fight and leap and run as well as they.
    I learned quickly, and I was sharp and good. The skills were there in me, in my dreams and recollections. Among the marble courts where the lizards lay now, women and men had not been separate races as they were in this world around me. Although I was far smaller and slighter even than little Kel, yet I could swing an iron long-knife as well as Maggur, and what he could break, I could bend. And I rode the wild horses long after Maggur, with his extra weight to hold him, was flung off. I was Darak then, and a crowd would come and cheer, and Maggur would walk by my side after it, grinning, and Kel would sing.
    Strange, strange, they called me Imma for their peace of mind, and for that same peace, they thought of me as a prince and a man.
    * * *
    And then came the night of the fifth day, and I lay in my own tent—a piece of hide Maggur had constructed for me—and heard an angry grunt and a shout of abuse outside. I opened the tent flap and saw Maggur and Darak glaring at each other in the starlight. I had not realized till now that Maggur and Kel and