Barb Hendee: Child of a Dead God

"Sgailsheilleache," she whispered.

Osha's arms wrapped around her, pulling her away. She felt his tight, rigid body against her back as she watched Sgaile's face for any flutter of eyelid.

Leesil jerked the stiletto out, casting it blindly into the marsh. The gash on his face dripped blood off his chin. Like red tears, they struck the dank ground and vanished.

Wynn wished Sgaile would berate her for foolishness-just once more.

Leesil sat numbly within the shack, ignoring Wynn dabbing the blood from his face.

Sgaile was gone. So superstitious and stubborn, with all his blind faith in spirits and codes and customs… he was worth so much more than his oath of guardianship.

Leesil's wound wasn't deep, but with nothing to fully close it, Wynn could only wrap his head in a bandage from another shredded shirt. The wound would leave a marked scar, but she said he would suffer no permanent damage.

At least not in flesh, and he cared little about scars.

One more meant nothing, though this one would be prominent compared to the faded marks that Ratboy's fingernails had left on his jaw. By the time Wynn finished, Leesil heard someone hacking at wood outside of the shack.

He pushed Wynn's hands away and stepped out beneath a clouded sky.

Chap sat out front, still watching where the elven woman had run off. The dog turned as Leesil emerged and headed silently toward the shack's rear. Leesil followed and found Magiere and Osha there.

They had slashed away at the underbrush until both were soaked to their elbows and knees from the wet vegetation. In the cleared space's center, near the old man's fresh grave, lay Sgaile's body and that of the other anmaglahk. The two rested upon a pallet of the firewood taken from behind the shack.

"You don't wish to bury them?" Leesil asked.

Magiere began covering the bodies with brush. Osha halted but didn't look at Leesil.

"We bring body home when can," he said in broken Belaskian. "If cannot, then ashes… and if not ashes, then leave behind in hiding. But not bury."

Osha had cleaned their weapons and set these aside. Magiere halted suddenly, looking about with weary eyes.

"Not enough wood," she sighed. "Even green wood might help once the blaze gets going."

She headed for the shack's far rear corner and the willow rising above the structure. Before she could take a swing with the falchion, Osha seized her raised arm.

"No," he whispered and looked into the tree's branches. "Find other… not this one."

Magiere nodded, though she frowned in puzzlement and glanced to Leesil.

He had no idea what had spurred Osha's strange request.

"I will find some lamp oil," Wynn said, startling Leesil.

He hadn't even heard her approach, and turned as she headed away around the shack. Leesil pulled one winged blade, trying to find the driest reeds and brush.

When they'd made the best pyre they could, Wynn returned and poured oil from an old jar. She held out a burning brand taken from the stone hearth.

Osha shook his head. "Not yet."

Without knowing what to do, Leesil just stood with Magiere and Wynn as Chap settled beside them. Osha closed his eyes, speaking softly in Elvish.

"Hkuan'duv gan'Trai'earnneach, Greimasg'ah, d'me ag aharean eolhasas'na…"

Wynn began whispering in translation.

"Blackened Sea of the Iron Shore clan, Shadow-Gripper, whose parents I do not know…"

"…ag'us Sgailsheilleache a Oshagairea gan'Coilehkrotall… "

"…and Willow's Shade born out of Sudden-Breeze's Laugh of the Lichen Woods clan…"

Leesil lifted his eyes and looked to the sagging willow tree as Wynn continued.

"Mothers and Fathers of our people, seek them, siblings of the Anmaglahk and protectors of your descendants, the an'Croan-Those of the Blood…"

Leesil's mind filled with memories as Wynn went on.

"…Find their spirits and honor them, as they have honored you in a life of a service."

It seemed so long ago. Leesil had stood with Sgaile in the dark woods as they headed for the burial ground of the ancestors. He'd asked about the strange an'Croan obsession with seeking a second name in that place. He was only passing time in their brief pause to eat. And when he'd questioned Sgaile, concerning his name supposedly given by these ghosts, Sgaile had never answered completely. But the conversation now stuck in Leesil's mind.

"So you had some other name before Sgaile?" Leesil had asked.

"Sgailsheilleache," he'd corrected. "It means 'In Willow Shade or Shadow."

When Leesil had pressed for more information concerning Sgaile's vision before his ancestors, all the man had said was…

"Something far off, far from this land… in the shade of a willow."

At the crackle of fire, Leesil lowered his eyes from the willow tree.

Smoke billowed as oil-sparked flames fought to catch on wet wood. Osha tossed the brand he'd used to light them atop the pyre and continued whispering the same words over and over.

"I call, my voice for theirs," Wynn softly translated. "Ancestors… take them home."

Leesil tried not to think of…

Sgaile's own name-taking vision, hinting of when and where he would die…

Or a ghostly image of some other Leesil, standing in the ancestors' clearing, cowled in the gray-green of the Anmaglahk.

Leesil… Leshil… whose taken name was Leshiarelaohk-Sorrow-Tear's Champion.

Visions were lies, nothing more. Not fate. Not ever.

Magiere watched the flames fighting to consume their fuel. They needed to move on, and soon. She didn't trust that the one fleeing anmaglahk would simply give up. As much as she hated to ask, she did.

"How long?"

Osha breathed deeply and exhaled with an effort. "Until ashes."

Magiere nodded and kept quiet. When Wynn looked at her sadly, she regretted saying anything at all.

Leesil gazed into the flames.

His brow wrinkled. His eyes narrowed and turned hard, like stones baked in the fire's heat. The muscles at the back of his jaw bulged, and she heard the creak of leather. His gloved hand closed in a tight fist and wouldn't release.

Magiere stepped behind him. She slipped her hands under his arms and around his chest, and rested her chin upon his shoulder.

"In Willow's Shade," Leesil murmured. "That's what Sgaile's name meant."

One of his hands closed down hard on Magiere's against his chest- until her fingers ached-but she didn't pull away.

"We won't forget him," she whispered.

Days of rowing carried them north through the worst of the Everfen. Although Magiere wasn't sure, she believed they were inside Droevinka's southern edge. Chemestuk, her home village, was many leagues away. But for much of the trip, her thoughts drifted to Apudalsat as well.

Her mother's bones lay unattended in Ubad's cave near that abandoned village. Coming so close, and not returning to retrieve Magelia's remains, weighed on Magiere. Even more so when she looked at the two small jars Wynn had cleaned for Osha to bring home the ashes of Sgaile and the Greimasg'ah.

But Magiere kept all this to herself.

They couldn't linger in her homeland. Not when they carried the artifact from ancient times hidden away beneath canvas.

They spoke little along the way, especially Osha. His thoughts were on Sgaile, his lost teacher, or jeoin . Or was there more behind the new coldness in his eyes?

The marshes grew shallow and small islands denser, and it was time to travel on foot once more.

"Everyone keep your wits," Leesil cautioned, dragging the emptied boat up a bank. "We don't want to run into conscription squads, let alone a military detachment."

Osha looked warily about. "I know some… of political here."

Magiere glanced at him. His grammar hadn't improved, but his vocabulary must have expanded, if he grasped the word "political." Living day in and day out among humans had rubbed off on him, that and Wynn's badgering that he keep practicing his Belaskian.