Bones of the Past (Arhel) by Lisle Holly

Author:Lisle, Holly [Lisle, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Holly Lisle, fantasy, magic, Arhel, trilogy, high fantasy, archeology, jungle, First Folk
ISBN: 9781937533151
Publisher: Holly Lisle
Published: 2013-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

Seven-Fingered Fat Girl twisted an end of the heavy braided belt she’d tied around her waist. She knelt inside Medwind Song’s b’dabba beside Dog Nose and Runs Slow and Kirtha. Dog Nose was tense and unhappy.

“They’re going to take our city away from us. It won’t be our place anymore—it will be their place, and when they get tired of us, they’ll make us leave.”

“No,” Fat Girl said. “We told them it was our city—that we would let them come to the book place, but they could not stay. They agreed.” She leaned closer to Dog Nose, her body taut with the uncertainty she felt. “They promised.”

“And what is that worth?—the promise of peknu. As much as the promises of the Silk People, who say they will trade us good silks for the meat we bring, and then trade us dyed ragcloth?”

Fat Girl made a rude noise. “These are not the Silk People.”

Dog Nose sat straighter. His face was angry, his lips tight. “You are our fat. Your word is our word—the word of Four Winds Band. But, Seven-Fingered Fat Girl, remember that your life rests with us as ours does with you.” He stared pointedly at her maimed left hand, and forced her to recall the debt she owed him. “Remember who your band is.”

He stood and stalked out of the b’dabba.

Kirtha looked at Seven-Fingered Fat Girl and Runs Slow with concern. “Dog Nose mad at?” she asked in Arissonese.

Fat Girl bit her lip and nodded to the little girl. In the peknu tongue, she said, “Dog Nose mad at. It not matter. His mad go away.”

“Kyadda,” Kirtha said, crossing her tiny arms over her chest.

Fat Girl winked at the little girl and forced herself to smile. “Kyadda,” she agreed. That was a Hoos word, one that Fat Girl had picked up quickly. It meant “everything is as it should be.” With Dog Nose angry at her, she didn’t see how everything could be fine—but Kirtha looked happier thinking it was.

Runs Slow and Kirtha raced out of the b’dabba to play in the garden—Fat Girl sat in the lonely goat-felt tent after they were gone and drummed softly. Maybe she had been wrong to lead her tagnu away from the Paths. Maybe their villages would have started giving them better trades. Perhaps, if she had stayed, the rest of her tagnu would still be alive.

Were these new people, these peknu, her friends?—or were they, like all the people she’d ever known (except her tagnu, she thought), just waiting for a chance to take away from her whatever little bit of goodness she got for herself?

She quit drumming and rested her face in her hands. How could she know what was right? How could she be sure she made the right choices? She had no answers.

* * *

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