***
Jezhei was the daughter of Subandi the Fierce, and her birth has always been surrounded in uncertainty. Her mother did not survive it, and some say that it is because of that she lost her leg; others say that she never had it to begin with. My grandfather claimed that her father cut it off for taking her mother’s life to be born. My aunt said she lost her leg to a plague, and Subandi’s bandit days were begun as revenge against the world. What no one can argue is that he gathered together the Tribe from the nomads of the Roof, and made us one people from the scattered clans. A whole, the Tribe was an army, but one of many families. They took what they wished, and none of the lowlanders could face them, because the high places were too much for their thin blood. Lowlanders can’t handle the cold, or the pure air. They breathe soup and drink with their lungs, as we can when we must. But little grows on the Roof, so Subandi took and raided with Jezhei following in his wake. This was survival, and for many years they knew nothing better.
When the people came from on high, the lowlanders hid and scattered. We burnt their homes when they resisted us. Their tauzak became our tauzak. Their horses became our horses. Their goats became our goats. Their steel became our steel. We were the wind. We passed and they simply tried to weather our storms. Sometimes they died, sometimes part of the tribe did. Only their shrines were safe. Gods have a much longer reach then men, and none wished to have one of the hundred gods follow us with vengeance on its mind. This was the way of things, until Subandi decided to raid Folei.
Their horses were the thunder of a midnight storm, a flood of flesh and metal which fell upon the village of Folei with its stone-born houses and wide fields. This village had learned of Subandi and was prepared for his raid. They gathered their people onto their roofs and filled the flood of man and beast with their own rain of arrows from beyond the reach of our tribe’s blades. Many riders were struck by the hail of shafts, and the attack became a retreat as quickly as it has begun. There were many injuries, a few deaths, but only one living raider was left behind: Jezhei, whose horse was slain beneath her. The villagers took her, even as the last of our people fled, and approached her with ropes of thick tauzak hair.
Jezhei looked up at the approaching mob and reached for her sword, attempting to push herself up on her knees. Her scream broke the night and the young woman collapsed on her side. Her leg was bent at an unnatural angle just below the knee. The scream became sobs as Jezhei looked before her, seeing men and women armed with bows, with staves, with rope and scythe. The villagers, heartened, advanced upon the fallen warrior. “Broken, dear thief,” said a woman with hair of fresh snow and a deeply lined face. “The gods have given us mercy and justice, for soon we shall make your two legs match. You have none to stand on here. Take her! Let’s make an example the raiders will never forget.”
“Suki, no! Stop this at once!” Between the mob and Jezhei stood two from the crowd, a man and woman of middle years. Their clothes bore much wear and greater care. Elaborately embroidered sashes cloth hung over warm furs. Of the two, the woman spoke first. “Look at her. This girl, however a threat before, can no longer harm us. Remember the Way. Kiritru tells us to be merciful, to only harm when we need to. You might follow a different Way, but none of us follow a path of murder.”
“Are you so blind, Mei, as to ignore that which is before you? This is a killer of men, a taker of herds,” Suki scowled, much of the crowd still behind her. “Only one bandit lacks a leg, the daughter of Subandi. We all agreed to use whatever force we needed to protect this town. Are you and your husband without resolve?”
“And are you without heart?” retorted Kai, who stood as a small hill before the villagers with his wife. “We agreed to stop their attack, and it is stopped. Angry as this woman is, she is no threat anymore. She is ignorant, and poor, and full of ferocity. Yet, as you said, she has no leg to stand on. A child could defeat her in this state.”
“Death is a mercy to her then, for she will find no charity here, nor will we leave her to be taken back to the mountains, to heal and raid again.”
“Wrong again, elder Suki,” Mei’s voice rose, a firm alto which rang clearly. “You think that Subandi is violent now? How would he be if we were to make a visible example of the girl? He might accept his losses, but not if we taunt him. A father’s love is nothing to mock. If we are quiet, we can still give mercy where mercy can be given, and determine whether or not this girl truly is as dangerous as her family. The Way of Kiritru is the Way of Forgiveness. My husband and I will watch her, and if she is truly a danger, than the village can do what it must, but quietly. You speak for yourself, but I speak to everyone, will you let us do this?”
The crowd stared, in awe of Mei’s words, a silence unbroken save by the soft gasping sobs of Jezhei, barely conscious, and delirious with pain. Those cries touched the crowd as surely as had Mei and Kai’s words. One by one the villagers gave their assent until scowling, Suki said, “I see we are all fools tonight, drunk on our victory. Take your prisoner then. See if you buy us anything but sorrow.” The old woman turned her back on the couple and stalked off into the night, followed by the closest of her kin.
Carefully, Mei and Kai approached Jezhei, who grew quiet before them, finally succumbing to her wounds. They bound her leg tight in a splint, setting the bone as one might for an injured calf. The couple carried the unconscious warrior back to their home, a small house of wood and loam, and set her in their second bedroll. For a week they took turns watching over her, as Jezhei faded in and out of consciousness, fevered by the strain of her injury. They fed her thick, fresh tauzak milk when she was awake enough to swallow it without choking. On the seventh day, Jezhei’s fever broke and she mutely accepted coarse bread and broth in addition to her milk, the first food she had eaten in days. She did not speak however, though she had uttered broken sentences in her fever dreams. She just listened to Kai as he told her how she had come to them, how they had bound her leg and nursed her through the fever. Jezhei nodded, listening, plotting, and then closed her eyes as if to sleep again. Kai left her and returned to watch over their herd with Mei.
An hour later, Mei returned home to check on their charge, only to find the bedroll empty. She ran from the house, calling out to Kai. “She’s gone! Look around! Suki, or one of her children, might have taken her.” The two of them began to comb over the grounds around their small house, for they were not in the village center, but rather in the rolling plains near it, the better to tend their herds. As the two of them searched, a tauzak bleated loudly, and Mei quickly ran over, to tend to the beast. However, it was not the tauzak who needed her aid. Jezhei was crawling along the ground, dragging herself with her arms just below the height of the tall summer grass. Her splint was disheveled and her shirt was smudged with dirt, but the gleam in the young woman’s eyes was enough that Mei paused a moment before approaching.
“Stay back! Don’t come near. I won’t suffer a lowlander’s charity anymore.”
Mei laughed as the ringing of a bell. “Do you truly think that you can make it home with a broken leg? Come back, come back. We will help you heal. Then, if you must go to your tribe, you can.”
Jezhei stopped crawling, pushing herself up to her side. “You think my honor is so cheap that you can buy it with kindness?”
“Kindness is a gift we bring to the world. So many would suffer less if we all remembered that! Let me call for Kai, we will bring you back to the house, and let you rest. You are in no shape to leave, even if your leg was healed.”
The young woman stared at her host, looked at her leg, and finally returned her gaze to the herder. She gave a single nod and waited the long minutes before Kai arrived. The pair of them was able to carry Jezhei gently back to the house. They left her again and returned to tending the tauzak. “Next time,” Jezhei told herself, “I won’t try crawling. Their beasts might reveal me again. But I can ride. If I can get one of the herd to trust me, then I can make it home to Father. I will tell them that the vill
age could not hold me, and next time we will be more careful if we return.”