Dangerous Women

  She shifted the baby to the other breast and looked at Sara. “I don’t want you to watch. I understand why you do, but I don’t think it is healthy.”

  She looked at Brian and then Rebekah.

  “Do you have a better reason for her watching? There’s going to be no doubt that he’s dead.”

  Brian shook his head and hesitated. “You know, Lady. It says in the Bible, the wages of sin is death. But it’s been a long, long time since we really meant those words. We all focus on the living gift of God. How many people are going to try to live by sacred works, like you Mackenzies do … and what’s it going to mean to justice?”

  Chuck was standing by them and he shook his head. “If you think we had true, pure, unadulterated justice in the old world …”

  “No,” said Rebekah. “It was flawed, and people got off scot-free … and we nearly let this man get off scot-free. But that doesn’t mean that the old ways were any better. The law was cruel and harsh. Did it really need to be?”

  She shook her head and then looked at her daughter. “Is that it? You’re afraid we’ll let him get off, like they let that teacher go free after Melly complained about him?”

  Sara nodded, tears in her eyes. The four adults shook their heads. Rebekah turned her daughter to the group of children.

  “Go. He is going to die. And if he escapes, in that ratty tatty bathrobe of your uncle’s, I promise to tell you.”

  Sara resisted and then moved back towards the group of younger people. Rebekah was frowning and started when Brian placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “What is it, love?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “A thought. One we need to talk over, later.”

  The grave-diggers climbed out of the pit and pulled the ladder after themselves, wiping brows; one stopped and looked at the sweat on his palm, as if shocked that it was the same as any other work. The rest crowded together around the hole, far enough back that they didn’t break down the fragile walls. The escorts slapped Billy Bob awake and heaved him up. He struggled, but the four held him tightly.

  He was struggling too hard for them to get him down into the cool, loamy recess. Juniper walked forward to stand at the north end of the grave. When the escorts looked to her for ideas on what to do, she spread her hands.

  “This is the burden the Powers have chosen for you, my friends,” she said quietly, her voice cutting through the strangled grunts. “And it is yours.”

  They held him in the center and looked at each other. One gestured the ladder to be placed at the far end. The woman and one of the men let go and climbed down. With shocking suddenness the two men grabbed Peers by the arms and legs, swung him over the grave, and let his feet go. He dropped and the two down below grabbed him and shoved him down onto the ground; it was moist and brown-gray, with an earthworm crawling from a clod. The scent rose from the dark earth, loamy and rich. There was a sense of rightness to it.

  Ropes and stakes bound his feet and arms and shoulders to the ground.

  “Lady? Do we take off the gag?” asked one of them, just as Judy came bustling up with the soiled ground cloth, clothes, and rags.

  “Ask him. And ask yourselves. Do you care if he goes silenced to his death, or would you rather hear his last screams? What are you willing to live with?”

  They climbed out, all but one. “Well?” he asked. Juniper stood, her arms aching from holding the hefty weight of the nine-month-old … and refusing to give him back to Melissa. The Óenach murmured and shifted, whispered and rustled.

  Josh Heathrow stepped forward again, carefully on the verge. He looked down and asked.

  “What do you want? Gag out before you are killed or shall we leave it in?”

  Juniper heard a thump. The man on the ladder gave an impatient exclamation and jumped down. “He wants it out, but it’s clear he’s going to be ugly about it,” he called up.

  “No class,” said Chuck in a regretful sotto voice. “Nothing like the grand old tradition of English highwaymen proudly declaiming their prowess on the gibbets.”

  Juniper sighed and gently kicked him on the shin. Josh was consulting with the Óenach and Ollam again.

  Finally he leaned over. “We don’t need his curses, and we don’t need to give him any further opportunity to work harm. And we don’t need more fuel for nightmares. Leave the gag in.”

  Judy neatly dropped the bundle of dirty cloth in at the foot of the grave.

  Brian stepped forward with Ray by his side, white, and shuddering, but gulping in a big breath of air as his uncle spoke.

  “Óenach and Ollam have agreed that this man did”—he looked over at Juniper for a second—“profane the Great Rite and the precious mysteries of love by raping a woman of the Dun, yesterday. His offense against the Powers is his, but it is our right to judge him for his offense against our sister. We have since learned that he also attempted to corrupt some of our children. Mad dogs must die. There is no cure that is worth the price we’d pay.

  “Mairead, are you ready?”

  The woman who’d taken the black marble stepped forward. Like many, her face was white as she realized just what she was going to do.

  This is not the heat of battle, when you strike out blindly in fury and in fear, Juniper thought. This is not the hot blood of a quarrel. This we do with deliberation and with ceremony. We have our doubts, but we hide them. We call upon the Powers; we say, the Law; we say, we the People; we say, the State. But what we do, we still do as human souls.

  The Chief stepped forward; Chuck and she grasped the spear to hand it to the chosen one. Juniper gasped, and felt the High Priest’s hand stiffen on the rowan wood beside hers. Eilir’s head came around too, and more than one among the onlookers. The jolt she felt was still hot and angry, but it was the wound tension before the lightning strikes, and there was something else in it, a calling—

  “This man was a child once,” she said, as if the words welled up from the innermost part of her mind. “The Mother gave him being, and his mother loved him. He was given great gifts—a strong healthy body, a cunning mind, a nimble tongue, a great will to live, or he would not have survived this long. He was given a life, and such a sorry botch he has made of it for himself and for others.”

  All of them were looking at her, wire-tense and focused. Her voice rose:

  “Can you not feel the anger of the Powers at what he has done, and what he has profaned? The slighting of the Mystery that They give us, for our joy and that we might join Them in bringing forth life?”

  A sound like wind through trees as the people nodded.

  “Yet now we help him make atonement; and so also we appease Them with this sacrifice. But even in the anger of the Dark Mother, there is love. The Keeper of Laws is stern, but just. Beyond the Gate in the Land of Summer, Truth stands naked and he will know himself. He himself will choose how to make himself whole, and be reborn through the cauldron of Her who is Mother-of-All into the life he chooses. So mote it be!”

  “So mote it be!”

  Mairead shook as the High Priestess and High Priest solemnly handed her the spear.

  “This spear was made for this purpose alone,” Juniper said. “It is blessed and consecrated for it.”

  The shaft wobbled dangerously and Sam jumped to the rescue.

  “’Ere,” said Sam. “Hold on, lass. Let me reverse it. Now, poke it over the edge. You, Danny, put it where Oi told you to. There. Now, both ’ands on the shaft … see, where I wrapped deer-hide around it so it won’t slip. One hard shove. Don’t let ’im suffer. It’s at the right angle now. It’ll go into his heart, neat and quick. Now.”

  Juniper kept her face calm by main force of effort. Have I asked too much? Should I start a tradition of black-masked executioners? No! This is our justice and we need to own it.

  Mairead trembled and Brian stepped to her left and Josh to her right. They set their hands on the shaft, above and below hers.

  “Come,” said Josh. “You must do it. But we’ll add ou
r strength to yours. It’ll be quick.”

  Even as Mairead gulped and tightened her hands, Sharon and Rebekah stepped forward and put hands on her shoulders. Juniper watched her close her eyes … not to block out the sight, but to feel the position of the shaft, and then she pushed, sudden and hard.

  The razor-sharp head sliced into Billy Bob’s chest cavity and through his heart and the body bucked once more and was still. The man down in the grave, Sam, and Brian all thrust a little harder, getting the head fixed into the soil beneath.

  And something snapped. The hot anger that had risen up from her feet was gone, with only a brief cool wind of sorrow. Then the day was merely a day once more, and there was work to be done.

  Juniper thrust Rudy into Eilir’s arms and turned, took up a shovel and filled it with the grave dirt.

  “I cast you out,” she said clearly, and carefully threw the dirt into the grave.

  The last man climbed out, pulled by his friends. Willing hands grabbed the shovels and began to rain the dirt back into the grave.

  “I cast you out.”

  “I protect the children.”

  “I reject your blasphemy.”

  “I protect myself.”

  Juniper stood back. Mairead was still trembling. People came to hug her, but the mood remained somber. Juniper nodded to herself as she took back Rudy. Her hands moved in sign, small ones, restrained by the child.

  Yes. This is how we own our lives.

  The grave filled quickly, the long shaft poking out above the ground. Red and black ribbons were tied around it and Juniper turned north again, the hot afternoon sunshine on her left, now. Eilir reached for Rudy and she let him go.

  Sharon moved to stand at her left hand, and to her surprise, not Cynthia, but Rebekah, moved over to her right.

  She lifted her arms:

  “Manawyddan—Restless Sea, cleanse and purify us! We have taken our actions in defense of our people. They are not actions to take lightly. Restless Sea, cleanse us!

  “Rhiannon—White Mare, hold him deep in the earth, that he may have time to learn and be reborn to try again.”

  “Arianrhod—Star-tressed Lady; bring Your light to us, light of reason. Protect us from the night fears; give us eyes that we may see protect those we love before harm befalls them.”

  “This gathering of the Dun for justice is done. We have met in sorrow, debated in pain, and leave with resolution. So mote it be!”

  “So mote it be!” called the Óenach as they picked up their boxes and baskets, pulled down the tarps, and offered hospitality to the neighbors.

  Juniper nodded in approval when the witnesses all made namaste, and refused quiet words of support and offers of help shared forth before they left to seek their own homes and the labor that would not, could not, wait.

  “Lady, what should we do now?” asked Cynthia Carson.

  “Keep a wake, I think,” said Juniper. “You’ll have to play this by ear. But I think the next day or two should be focusing on doing all the small tasks. You are all upset, and it’s easier for you to make mistakes.”

  Brian and Ray and Sharon nodded. They picked up the bundles of tarps the others had left behind and trudged back to the Dun.

  Juniper sighed. “And it’s home for us, too, now. We may reach there before the sunset, we may indeed.”

  She rubbed her forehead fretfully. “I wish we hadn’t needed to deal with something this grotesque for our first foray into a capital crime.”

  Sam shrugged, holding Melissa close. “If not this, then something else, Lady. Whatever it was, it would have felt loik the worst thing to us.”

  Juniper sighed and shrugged. I want to be home and with my loved ones. I think we’ll be waking the night too.

  Samuel Sykes

  Sometimes you’d better listen, as hard as you can, if you want to survive …

  Samuel Sykes is a relatively new author. His novels to date include Tome of the Undergates, Black Halo, and The Skybound Sea, which together make up the Aeons’ Gate series. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, he now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

  NAME THE BEAST

  When the fires of the camp had died and the crows settled in the boughs of the forest, she could hear everything her husband said.

  “And the child?” Rokuda had asked her. He spoke in the moment the water struck the flame. His words were in the steam: as airy, as empty.

  They only spoke at night. They only spoke when the fires were doused.

  “She’s asleep,” Kalindris had replied. Her words were heavier in the darkness.

  “Good. She will need her rest.” There had never been a darkness deep enough to smother the glimmer of his green eyes. “You should, too. I want you bright and attentive.”

  She had not looked up from sharpening her knife. Just as she had decided not to stab him with it for talking to her in such a way. Fair trade, she had reasoned. She ran her finger along the edge, felt it bite cleanly. She slid it into a scabbard before reaching for her boots, just where she had always left them.

  “She can rest. She can stay resting. I’ll leave before dawn. I’ll be back before dusk. She never has to know.”

  “No.”

  For want of hackles, her ears rose up, sharp and pointed like her knife. They folded flat against her head. Rokuda had not seen it. Even if he had, she had reasoned, he wouldn’t care. He was like that.

  “I asked no question,” she had replied.

  “What am I to tell her, then?” Rokuda had asked.

  “Whatever you wish. I left without her. The beast was too close. The tribe was in danger. I could not to wait for her.” She had pulled on her boots. “I don’t need your words. You can give them to her.”

  “No.”

  “Do not say that word to me.”

  “She has to learn. She has to learn to hunt the beast, to hate the beast, to kill it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we are shicts. Our tribes came to this world from the Dark Forest. Before humans, before tulwars, before any monkey learned to walk on two legs, we were here. And we will be here long after them. Because to protect this land, they all must die.”

  His speeches no longer inflamed her. She felt only chill in his words now.

  “She has to learn to be like a shict,” Rokuda had said. “She has to learn our legacy.”

  “Yours.”

  Kalindris felt him in the darkness as he settled beside her. She felt his hand even before he had touched her. In the prickle of gooseflesh upon her skin, in the cold weight in the pit of her belly. Her body froze, tensing for a tender blow. She felt each knucklebone of each finger as he pressed his hand against the skin of her flank.

  Like it belonged there.

  “Be reasonable about this …” Honey sliding down bark, his voice had come.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “The other tribesmen won’t look at her. They won’t listen to her. They look at her and wonder what kind of creatures she came from. What her parents were to raise … her. You must take her to the forest. You will show her how it’s done.”

  “I must do nothing. And you can’t change everything you don’t like.”

  “Yes I can.”

  Bark peeling off in strips, his voice came. He tightened his fingers. She felt every hair of every trace of skin rising up. She felt the knife at her belt. She heard it in its sheath. She heard her own voice.

  Steam in darkness. Airy. Empty.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Between the sunlight seeping through the branches overhead, she could hear the forest.

  A deer’s hoof scratching at the moss of a fallen log. A tree branch shaking as a bird took off into the sky. A line of ants so thick as to forget they were ever individuals marching across a dead root.

  Sounds of life. Too far. Her ears rose. Kalindris listened closer.

  A moth trying hard to remain motionless as a badger snuffed around the fallen branch it sat upon. A tree groaning as it waited for the rot creepin
g down its trunk to reach its roots. The crunch of dead leaves beneath a body as a boar, snout thick with disease and phlegm, settled down to die.

  Closer. She drew in a breath, let it fill her, exhaled.

  Air leaving dry mouths. Drops of salt falling on hard earth. A whining, noisy plea without words.

  And she heard it.

  The Howling told Kalindris who needed to die.

  “This is taking forever.”

  Her ears lowered. Her brows furrowed. Her frown deepened.

  The child.

  Talking.

  Again.

  “You already found the tracks,” the child complained. “Two hours ago. We could have found the beast by now. Instead I’ve spent half an hour waiting, half an hour searching for more tracks, half an hour shooting arrows through the gap between those branches over there and half an hour wondering how best to shoot myself with my own bow so I can deny boredom the pleasure of killing me.”

  The Howling left her, swift and easy as it had come. The shicts asked for nothing for their goddess, Riffid. To invite her attention was to invite her ire. She had given them nothing but life and the Howling and then left to the Dark Forest. They had spent generations honing it, the sense above all others, the voice of life and of death.

  And somehow, the child’s whining could send it away in an instant.

  “When do we get to the hunt?”

  It didn’t matter. The Howling had shown Kalindris enough. The other noises of life and death weren’t important. She held on only to that final one, that which teetered between the two. The sound of uncertainty. The sound that waited for her to tip the balance toward darkness.

  Kalindris rose. The leaves fell from her hunting leathers as she slung the bow and quiver over her shoulder. The leather settled into a familiar furrow upon the bare skin of her neck’s crook, the only other presence she had ever allowed that close to her throat. And the only one she ever would again, she thought as she rubbed a scar across her collarbone. She could still feel as she ran her hands across the scarred flesh. Every knucklebone of every finger, sinking into her skin.