The Blooding Read online

  Taking a running step forward, Falon pulled back her leg. No one drags me around by the hair, she thought fiercely, and swung her leg forward in an upward motion that had as much speed and power as she could manage—and aimed for the joint where his legs met, right up at the top.

  Watching the boy collapse, folded around the middle and holding himself while his inarticulate voice rose a few, pain-filled octaves, was satisfying—quite satisfying indeed.

  Standing triumphant over her enemy, she toed him with her foot and watched as he flinched and tried to roll away, still keeping himself covered and making a keening sound.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she spat down at him, “you’re nothing but a big bully!”

  Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned with her fists clenched in case it was another attack.

  Seeing Duncan she was momentarily taken aback, and then raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  Duncan gave her a semi-horrified look. “Ye can’t go around busting guys in the jewels, Falon,” he said, wavering from side to side even though he was still on his feet.

  “Why ever not?” she demanded, genuinely curious, looking from the fallen boy still clutching his nether region up to the nearly out of on his feel Duncan.

  Duncan gaped at her for a while and then slowly closed his mouth.

  “Why not?” he asked, apparently dumbfounded by the question, which wasn’t too surprising to the girl since he was nearly out on his feet, “because then he’ll go and start kicking ye in the very same place too!”

  Falon gave him an unimpressed look. “I don’t think that’ll be too much of a problem for me,” she said evenly before turning back to gloat at her defeated foe for just a little longer.

  A groan off to the side, as Ernest let them know he was starting to wake up, jogged her out of a mindless reverie and holding pressure on her jaw to keep it from hurting, she decided that gloating wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She would far rather still be uninvolved and on her horse than the victor of any kind of scramble or throw-down.

  So, with a sigh, she went on over to check on her friend, more certain than ever that boys had to be just about the stupidest creatures on this planet.

  Chapter 3: Tending Wounds

  The fight was over, and it was completely beyond Falon’s ability to understand or assimilate that the men from both villages were now just standing around—or sitting where they had fallen—laughing and joking with the very men they had just been fighting with.

  A few of the boys were still glaring at each other, but from looking at the various signs of injury, it was mostly just hard feelings from the losing side.

  Returning to the wagon for some water and a pair of cloth bandages—ones her sister Christie had thoughtfully packed for her—Falon shook her head.

  “That foot stomp was a good one,” one of the Old Blood men was saying to a New Blood counterpart, “must show it to me how thee keeps thy balance, with a stomp and a strike at the same time.”

  “Not that hard as that double haymaker o’ yers, ye devil dog,” laughed the West Wick man.

  Returning to Ernest with a disapproving expression on her face at the stupidity of males in general and full-grown men in particular, Falon knelt down by his side and offered him one of the wet bandages.

  “Thanks, Fal,” Ernest said gratefully applying it to his nose, before using it to carefully wipe off his face.

  “You keep missing a spot,” Falon sighed and thrust his hands aside so she could give a more vigorous scrub to a spot of blood on his chin. If it did not come off now, it would just be that much harder to get off later on.

  “Yeowww,” he cried leaning back and batting her hands aside, “that hurts like the dickens, Fal! What are ye, me mother now?” he demanded angrily, then held a hand in front of his face to ward her off.

  For split a second she wondered if she had been spotted out by acting too ‘womanish’ when she realized he was just being a big crybaby. As if I would keep trying to help out the ungrateful cur, she thought fiercely and turned away. Let him be the laughing stock of the militia with a patch of dried blood as big as a bent penny on his chin.

  Standing up, she gave him a distant look and turned. Getting too close to any of the boys is probably a mistake anyway, she decided. Too risky by half.

  “I know better than to stay where I’m not wanted,” she said stiffly.

  A hand around her wrist trapped her and she stared down with disapproval at Ernest’s hand. “Don’t be like that, Fal,” he exclaimed looking surprised and a little worried, “it just hurts is all. Stay.”

  Still feeling angry at him, every fiber of her being cried out to turn and just walk away. The guilty memory of how Ernest had come to her rescue when she had fallen rose up to pin her in place. Despite her anger, this boy had gotten knocked out cold protecting her when she was hurt.

  “Fine,” she said flatly and sat down beside him.

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment but she deliberately avoided meeting his gaze, choosing to stare off to the side instead.

  “Come on, Fal,” Ernest said rolling his eyes, “ye don’t have to be a drama lord.”

  “What?” she asked in disbelief that he even knew the word, let alone what it meant.

  “Still friends, right?” he demanded sticking his hand out and looking her hard in the eye.

  For a moment she was tempted to let him boil in his own juices. It wasn’t her job to clean up the mess he had made with his mouth, but when she glanced away to do just that, she saw all of the men and most of the boys already seemed to be over their anger and she didn’t want to stick out like the rest of those sour-faced churls who were acting the part of poor losers.

  Realizing she was being worse than a poor loser by getting mad at her only real friend in the entire militia group, she silently released a pent-up breath and swung back to take his hand before he could finish pulling it back.

  “Friends of course, Ernest,” she agreed, and then realizing from his still slightly guarded look that it was up to her to repair the damage his own stupid words had caused, she started to frown. “Owe,” she muttered, gingerly rubbing her jaw.

  “Still hurt?” Ernest asked and she nodded. The silence that followed wasn’t as comfortable as she was used to having when with the boy, she so shook her head reluctantly.

  “Sorry if I’m a bit prickly,” she said, suppressing irritation that it had to be her to fix the situation and get rid of the tension, “everything still hurts from where that boy hit me.” So saying, she held a hand across her side and stomach and the other with the wet to the side of her face. If she was hamming up the damage, it was only just a little.

  “No big deal,” he said, chucking her on the shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. After that, he grinned to let her know everything alright between them from now on.

  Rubbing her shoulder, she suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. The way boys went around slapping one another on the back or shoulder, even when they weren’t fighting or punching, was certainly different from the way she and her sisters interacted. There was less blood and bodily damage done when sisters fought—although definitely more shrieking, scratching and kicking. That said, boys didn’t seem to hold grudges the same way either; apparently they would fight and then everything would be ‘okay’—up until they fought again. It had its dubious charms, she eventually decided, but she still wasn’t sure if having your nose broken was better than a constant bit of lower-grade warfare.

  They were sitting there watching as both sets of villagers made an effort to help everyone up, led mainly by a number of older men like Vance the Blacksmith. The same man who had started the fight in the first place, she thought irritably, when Falon’s irritation with the whole frustrating situation boiled over into words.

  “I don’t get how everyone’s fighting one minute and then acting like best friends the next,” she finally exclaimed, unable to help hersel
f from remarking on this bit of male stupidity.

  “Huh?” Ernest said looking at her strangely.

  “And Vance, he’s the worst,” she continued hotly, more than a little irritated with the Blacksmith who she had originally taken for a reasoned individual, not someone easily led around by his temper. “He started the whole thing; over a stupid cart, to boot,” she rolled her eyes with disgust, “now he’s chumming around like we’re all such big friends, when anyone with two eyes can see plain as day that that’s not the case.”

  The light of understanding dawned on Ernest’s face and a smile started tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “You thought this fight was all about the cart?” he asked, clearly fighting to suppress a grin and Falon had to fight a similar urge—only hers was to reach over and throttle him around the neck.

  “No,” she retorted sharply and then sniffed off to the side in disgust, “it may have started with the cart, but this is clearly about rivalry between East and West. It just boiled over because the supposedly wiser heads were leading the charge, instead of keeping a lid on things.”

  This time when she looked over at him, Ernest was grinning outright and not even pretending to try not to smile. Behind her she could hear Duncan give a big guffaw, as he had clearly been eavesdropping.

  “I’m glad I can provide some amusement by being the butt of your jokes,” she said stiffly and started to rise.

  “Oh, don’t run off in a huff,” Ernest chuckled grabbing her arm and jerking her back down before she could get more than a few inches off the ground.

  “Prickly little sod, ain’t he?” Duncan laughed from behind her, making Falon stiffen even further and she could feel her eyes burning with a sudden fury. He probably hadn’t even known the word ‘prickly’ existed until she had used it to describe herself moments. And since she was the one to use it on herself first, he was now free to use it to describe her indefinitely.

  Not saying anything, her eyes silently promised revenge.

  “You’re just making things worse, Dun,” Ernest half scolded, half laughed. “You see, Fal,” he continued suddenly looking serious, “we’re laughing because you’re absolutely right.”

  Falon opened her mouth and then closed it, looking at the boys to make sure they weren’t just trying to make fun of her again.

  “I am?” she finally inquired.

  “Yep,” Duncan said so smugly that she twisted in her spot, and despite the pain it put on her middle, turned around and glared at him, “although the Cart was a surprise,” he added, his face darkening momentarily before clearing when he realized she was still looking at him, in favor of another smug grin. Clearly, Duncan liked it when she was made out to look like some kind of half-wit.

  “We all knew Vance or one of the other more experienced grown-ups was going to pick a fight with East Wick,” Ernest said quickly, clearly trying to stave off another fight.

  “So you guys planned to start a fight with East Wick,” she said shortly before her lip curled in disgust, “were you hoping to take them by surprise? If so, you pretty much failed.”

  The boys at first looked shocked, and then that shock turned to outrage.

  “We didn’t try to sneak up on ‘em, ye right tool,” declared an outraged Duncan.

  Ernest shot him a look to keep his brother from saying anything more, and to Falon’s amazement Duncan actually leaned back and let his little brother take the lead.

  “What me brother is trying to say, is that the Elders from both Wicks have been planning a right scramble for as soon as we be meeting up at the crossroads,” he said clearly pleased to be the ‘font of wisdom’ for once, and his pleasure gave him a kind of benign condescending air that set Falon’s teeth on edge. If he had known she wasn’t a brother, she would have ascribed his attitude to her gender, but as it was…she stared at him dourly, still trying to figure it out.

  “Yeah, been in the works for weeks it has,” Duncan smirked, then winced in pain. His right eye had swollen all the way shut at this point, and everything around it was a large purple mass. Despite herself, Falon felt more than a little sympathetic for the overgrown clod-head. Intellectually she knew he probably only stood up to that Old Blood boy because of his brother Ernest but even so, his arrival had been timely and the damage he had taken none too pretty to look at.

  “Weeks?” she said incredulously. “You guys have known for weeks and you didn’t even bother to tell me!”

  “We only just found about it last night, after we finished up with the wagons and went home,” Ernest explained, glaring at his older brother before turning back to her with an attempt at a positive smile, “the Elders kept it a secret until then. I meant to tell you before we got here but…” he sighed. “Sorry we forgot to mention it to you sooner, Falon.”

  “Earth and field,” she exclaimed, at a loss total for why the village elders would do something like that, “why in the name of the Lady would they plan to have a fight?”

  “Me papa says they always plan a fight the first day on the road,” Ernest confided so matter-of-factly that it was clear he completely failed to get her point.

  “But what if somebody got hurt and had to turn back,” Falon cried, suddenly more furious with the village elders than her actual attacker, “then we’d be out who knows how many men!”

  Ernest and Duncan were both looking at her like she was stupid. “That’s why we brought a Healing Wench,” Duncan snorted and then hawked up a wad of blood-tinged phlegm and spat it off to the side.

  Caught flat-footed, Falon felt her face flush when she realized that the Wench ought to be able to handle anything that resulted from a plain old fistfight, and still have plenty of time to get the injured, be he man or boy, back on the road before it was time to march.

  “It’s good practice for them,” Ernest continued when it was obvious Falon had nothing to say, “besides, I’m pretty sure it was all planned beforehand so’s we could spend longer sayin’ our goodbyes our families than was officially allowed, so that when we met up at the crossroads it would be closer to moonrise.”

  Duncan looked at his brother in surprise and noisily worked up another wad of phlegm before nodding his agreement.

  “A Healing Wench is no better than a common surgeon until the moon comes up and she can use her powers,” he muttered in agreement, “good catch, Ern.”

  “What are you saying? That they planned to overstay and leave late?” she asked Ernest, while deliberately attempting to ignore the disgusting Duncan as he leaned over to the side and screwed up his face before noisily breaking wind.

  It appeared to Falon that, when taken away from the familiar graces of hearth and home, a male in his native habitat was a crass and disgusting creature indeed. Or perhaps that was just Duncan, but either way if she never saw another hunk of bloody phlegm spat on the ground a couple feet away from her boots, or wave away his foul wind, it wouldn’t be soon enough.

  “Hey that there’s pretty smart,” Duncan said with admiration, “tell Mama and the girls we’re leavin’ a candle after the cock crows, and then don’t take off until just before noon. Lets them think we stayed just for them.”

  Falon had to suppress the feeling of outrage that sprang up at the knowledge of this little maneuver, and pretended to smile as if she agreed.

  “I’m sure Mama knowed, Dun,” Ernest sighed.

  “That’s ‘knew,’ not ‘knowed’, Ern,” Falon brow furrowed as she absentmindedly corrected him, “you’re saying your Mama was in on the whole thing?”

  “Papa said they plan a big scramble every time they set off, so yeah,” Ernest shrugged.

  “I still don’t understand why. Why the big fight?” she said plaintively.

  Both boys eyed her oddly, and for no reason she could understand she could feel her face flush.

  “It’s to get any grudge matches out of the way, before we march off,” Ernest explained patiently, “after today there’s to be no fighting allowed.”

 
“Just means we have to be more careful, is all,” Duncan said under his breath, causing Ernest to give him a long, steady look.

  “Don’t look at me that way spud,” Duncan glared with all the wrath of an older brother, and Ernest ducked his head before shrugging.

  After that they all sat silently, each caught up in his, or her, own private thoughts. Falon was still busy wiping the dirt off her face and redoing her battle braid when they were suddenly joined by a most unwanted newcomer.

  Plopping himself down beside them as if he owned the place, was none other than the unmitigated clod-head who had tried to pull her off the horse.

  Chapter 4: The Visitor

  “So this be where all the shiny ones hang out after the battle, is it?” said the Old Blood boy of seventeen years from East Wick—the one that Falon had kicked square between the legs.

  Falon turned to stare at him.

  “Go on, Glaisne,” Ernest grumbled, picking up a short stick and using it to poke the ground, tearing up earth and grass, “there’s not a thing for ye here that ye’ll find to yer liking.”

  “Now why wouldst I do that,” the older boy, Glaisne, shook his head the faintest of smiles on his face at the accusation. A memory of a much younger boy with that name flitted around the corners of her mind and then flew away before Falon could pin it down.

  “Ye’re just here to cause trouble, so go on and git,” Duncan scowled through his purple and puffy face.

  “Thou art a great disappointment, invader,” Glaisne shook his head, “I’m but here to foster goodwill and understanding betwixt thy people and mine, just as our elders command.”

  “Consider it fostered and move on, East Wick,” Ernest said his face a blank mask, hiding the pain he had been showing moments earlier.

  “But how am I to leave before even talking with the one I came to speak to?” Glaisne asked with thinly disguised iron running through his voice.