Chapter 3: Axes At First Light…

Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Axes At First Light...

Dawn came pale and cold over the Tribunal Kingdom.

Mist clung to the high ridges and drifted down into the arena like the breath of old spirits.

The tribe gathered early, painted faces solemn, bone rattles quiet for once.

Today the Tribunal would speak before the blood.

Korr stood behind Matron Vara’s carved stone seat on the high ledge, bare-chested, fresh ochre stripes drawn across the bite marks she had left on him in the night.

His flint axe rested against his shoulder.

He kept his face still, the way she had ordered.

Silent.

Watchful.

Claimed.

Vara sat between Elder Gron and Elka, spine straight, the open leather vest once again barely containing her heavy breasts.

The finger-bone necklace rested in its familiar place.

She looked rested. Powerful.

As if the night’s claiming had only fed her strength instead of spending it.

Gron’s cracked voice opened the meeting. "The River Tribe sends a champion.

They claim the eastern hunting grounds by right of blood.

Their man arrives with the sun."

Elka leaned forward, sharp eyes glittering. "They send more than one man when they mean to test a border.

Scouts saw three canoes at the bend yesterday.

This ’champion’ is a blade.

The rest are the hand holding it."

Vara’s voice cut clean through the murmurs. "Then we answer with our own blade."

She did not look back at Korr, but every soul on the ledge understood who she meant.

"If their champion falls, the eastern grounds remain ours until the next moon.

If he stands..."

She let the threat hang.

"We will discuss tribute in blood."

A low rumble of approval moved through the watching tribe.

The challenger arrived as the mist began to burn away.

He was tall, broader than Tharn had been, with a thick scar that ran from the bottom of his left ribs down across his belly like a second mouth.

River Tribe paint blue clay and fish-bone white covered his face and chest. He carried a heavy stone-headed club in one hand and a shorter flint knife in the other.

His eyes found Korr immediately and stayed there, measuring.

Elka’s lip curled.

"Ugly brute. I hope he dies loud."

Vara rose.

The crowd parted as she descended the steps into the pit once more, Korr a half-pace behind her right shoulder.

The River champion watched them come, nostrils flaring as if he could smell the night still on their skin.

Vara stopped at a respectful killing distance.

"You are far from your canoes, River man."

"I am Ragar," the scarred fighter answered. His voice was deep, accented with the thicker tongue of the water people.

"I come for the eastern grounds.

And for the head of the boy who thinks he is a Matron’s dog."

Korr’s fingers tightened on the axe haft.

He said nothing.

Vara’s slight shift of weight told him she approved of the silence.

"You will fight my claimed gladiator," Vara said.

"Win, and the grounds are yours until the moon turns.

Lose..." Her smile was slow and full of teeth.

"Lose, and your body feeds the fire pits.

Your seed will never again thicken a River woman."

Ragar spat into the sand.

"I accept."

The tribe formed the circle.

Drums began, low and steady.

Vara returned to the ledge.

Korr stepped into the center of the pit and rolled his shoulders, feeling the pleasant ache of the night before in his muscles. Across from him, Ragar spun the stone club once and settled into a wide stance.

They circled.

Ragar struck first fast for a man his size. The club whistled.

Korr ducked under it and slashed for the scarred belly.

Flint scored paint and skin.

Blood welled bright.

The crowd roared.

Ragar only grinned and came on harder, club and knife working together, forcing Korr back toward the stone wall.

Korr took a glancing blow to the ribs that stole his breath.

Pain flared white.

He dropped low, swept Ragar’s ankle, and when the bigger man staggered he drove the axe upward.

The flint edge caught the underside of Ragar’s arm, biting deep.

The stone club fell.

Ragar snarled and lunged with the knife instead.

They crashed together, locked, straining. Ragar’s greater weight drove Korr down into the sand.

The knife hovered an inch from Korr’s throat. Spittle and paint flecked Korr’s face.

He smelled fish oil and river mud and the hot copper of the other man’s blood.

Korr head-butted him.

Cartilage crunched. In the half-second of blindness he twisted, jammed his knee into the open belly scar, and rolled.

The knife scored a shallow line across his shoulder as they reversed. Now Korr was on top.

He raised the axe.

Ragar’s free hand clamped around Korr’s wrist with crushing strength.

For a moment they strained, muscles shaking, faces inches apart.

"She will tire of you," Ragar hissed through bloody teeth.

"Matrons always do.

Then you will be meat like the rest."

Korr drove his forehead into the ruined nose again.

The grip loosened.

The axe came down.

Not to the skull this time.

He buried the flint in the thick muscle where neck met shoulder.

Ragar convulsed.

Korr ripped the blade free and struck once more, lower, opening the big vessels of the throat. Blood sprayed hot across Korr’s chest and face.

Ragar’s eyes went wide, then empty.

The body sagged.

Silence held for three heartbeats.

Then the tribe exploded into sound stamping, rattling, howling Korr’s name into the morning sky.

Korr stood, dripping, lungs burning.

He looked up at the ledge.

Vara was already on her feet.

Her dark eyes shone.

One hand rested high on her own thigh, fingers pressing into the soft flesh in a private, hungry gesture only those closest could see.

Elka was laughing, sharp and delighted. Gron simply nodded once, the old man’s version of praise.

Vara descended again.

This time she did not stop at a respectful distance.

She walked straight to Korr, reached up, and dragged her fingers through the fresh blood on his chest.

She brought them to her mouth and tasted, slow, while the entire tribe watched.

"The eastern grounds remain ours," she declared, voice carrying.

"The River Tribe’s champion is meat.

Let their canoes see the smoke of his burning and remember."

She turned her head just enough that her next words were for Korr alone.

"You fight like a man who wants to keep what he has been given."

Her blood-slick fingers trailed lower, openly tracing the line of his stomach toward the loincloth.

"Come. The Tribunal has spoken.

Now the Matron claims her due while the blood is still warm."

Korr followed her out of the pit for the second time in two days, the cheers of the tribe rising behind them like a living thing.

In the cool shadow of the cave mouth Vara stopped and looked back at him, eyes heavy-lidded, lips parted.

"This time," she said, voice rough with open want, "you will put me on my hands and knees.

I want to feel the strength that just ended a River man.

I want the blood on your skin rubbing into mine while you take me."

She disappeared into the darkness of her chamber.