Chapter 4: The Things That Can’t Be Said

Tarek barely got a hand in to deflect the blow and Kanga crashed into him. They nearly fell into the fire underneath the hanging mist-hart carcass. Back and forth they grappled desperately, but Kanga was taller and heavier than Tarek. He flipped Tarek onto his stomach and knelt on either side of his back, putting an arm under his throat to pull his face up out of the dirt. The sharp point of a knife pricked between his shoulder blades. “I could kill you right now,” Kanga breathed, his face close, breath heavy with tuber beer fumes.

Tarek went rigid and latched onto his rival’s arm. “Let me go, Kanga. If you want Yaretzi, there’s a thousand things you could do to court her. This can’t be the most effective one.”

“Shut up!” the drunken hunter hissed. “You don’t deserve her! You don’t deserve any of it!”

“And here I was thinking she doesn’t deserve you.”

The blade jabbed at him hard enough to draw a gasp. “Do you want to die? Keep mocking me.”

“You’re the first person they’d look to if I died.”

“They’d thank me. They’re all sick of you.”

“Yes, Kanga, that’s why there’s a celebration tonight: the tribe wants to show how sick of me they are.”

With a quiet snarl Kanga threw his face into the ground and hit him hard in the back of the skull. Bright lights flashed in Tarek’s head. Kanga pulled him up by the hair this time and put his blade to Tarek’s throat. Their harsh breaths warred and mingled in the silence after the exertion.

“You shouldn’t have broken my bow,” Tarek muttered through dirty lips.

“I was trying to do you a favor,” Kanga said with surprising mildness.

Tarek was so baffled by that statement that it stole his words for a moment. It sounded as if Kanga believed it – as if he were making a reasonable argument. “How is that a favor?” he asked, incredulous.

“You have to leave the tribe, woodgrub. Surely you see that. Otherwise I’m going to end up killing you, and I don’t want to.”

Tarek couldn’t hold back a helpless little laugh. “Look at us right now.”

“I really don’t,” Kanga insisted even as he pressed the knife against Tarek’s neck. “But I won’t let you have her. I was trying to give you a way out. To save your life.”

Tarek lay still and spoke with all the fervor and force he could muster. “I am a man of the Catori, recognized by all even after you sabotaged me. I will be Yaretzi’s husband as soon as she says the word, and now there’s nothing stopping us. Go ahead and kill me, and let’s see how she looks at you once the screaming starts.”

Kanga’s hand tightened on his hair and he breathed heavily as he thought it through. “I’m going to tie you up and piss on your kill.”

“You’ll have a hard time if I cut off your man parts,” said a cool feminine voice close at hand. Tarek couldn’t move, but he recognized Yaretzi’s voice instantly. Kanga went rigid in much the same way Tarek was, and it didn’t take much imagination to know where Yaretzi had positioned her knife.

“You’d never harm something that could bring you such joy, would you?” said Kanga with forced lightness.

“I’ve seen you bathing alongside all the others, and there’s nothing in your loincloth that has ever caught my attention,” Yaretzi replied, perfectly calm. “Now, either I cut here –”

Kanga stiffened even further and made a little eep sound.

“– or I move two thumbwidths to one side and cut the big vein in your leg. You’ll bleed to death in seconds. I’m the healer’s apprentice; a little blood doesn’t bother me. Neither does a lot.”

“You wouldn’t,” Kanga said.

“You’d know for sure if you’d ever held more than two breaths’ worth of conversation with me, wouldn’t you? For someone so upset I want to marry another man, you don’t bother talking to me very much.”

“I’ve tried,” he complained.

Tarek, a knife still at his throat, thought it best to stay silent.

“In fairness,” Yaretzi admitted, “our talks are always short because I find you uninteresting. Unlike the man you’re currently strangling, whom you’re going to get off of right now, please.”

Tarek felt the arm unwind itself from his throat and the knife retreat. Kanga stepped back, and Tarek rolled over. Yaretzi gave him a subtle wink as she sheathed her knife, and he hauled himself to his feet, rubbing his throat. Kanga watched him warily, fists still balled. Just looking him made Tarek feel tired.

“We don’t have to do this,” he said to his rival. “I don’t even understand why you hate me.”

Kanga shook his head and looked past him out into the afternoon stillness of the jungle. “Hate isn’t in it, grub. I just… you’re like a cloud of mosquitos or a plague. Everything about you makes me want you gone. The way you touch people, the way they smile, this…” he gestured at the roasting carcass, “All of it gets inside my skin, makes me crazy.” He stopped, an epiphany visible in his eyes. “I don’t think I can be happy unless I ruin you.”

Yaretzi stepped up to him, sternness making her somehow even more beautiful. “This man is going to marry me tomorrow, and I’m going to tell the tribe tonight at the feast.”

Tarek’s heart leapt.

“If you so much as spit in his direction, I’ll poison you so you die shitting through your loincloth. I’ll make sad faces and stay by your bedside and ensure you die in pain. Nobody but Mahela would even suspect me, and she doesn’t like you, either.” She sighed. “Go pay attention to Fasha, or maybe Indaya. She’d fall on her back if you so much as smiled at her.”

Kanga looked at her, anger warring with distrust and maybe even sadness. “I don’t understand you at all.”

“Leave us alone, Kanga. I said it, and I meant it, every word.”

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Smiling bitterly, Kanga made a flippant gesture as if dismissing them both as unimportant and turned back toward the village. Tarek and Yaretzi watched until he was out of sight, and then Tarek pulled her into a tight embrace.

When she looked at him closely, she pulled back, a faint mask of disgust marring her features. “You have blood on your face.”

Tarek remembered the patter of otter’s blood painting his skin, and he flushed in horror. He pulled a plate leaf from a nearby tree and scrubbed at his face, wiping off the dried bits of blood and a fair amount of dirt. Scrambling for something to say, he stuttered for a moment before settling on a safe topic. “You picked a good time to come see me.”

“A girl’s got to protect her interests, doesn’t she?” She sidled up to him, pointing out a spot he’d missed.

Tarek grinned at her. “You’re amazing. Would you really poison him?”

She snorted. “Mahela won’t even let me watch her mix the poisons. Next year, she says, but that’s what she said last year too.” She looked thoughtful. “I might have nicked his manhood, though. I should have done that.”

Tarek laughed and kissed her. Then he had to kiss her again, and then several dozen heartbeats passed with them pressed together, their breath mingling, their thoughts scattered.

“Did you mean it?” Tarek said softly.

She looked at him questioningly.

“Will you tell the tribe tonight that we will marry?” The words were so beautiful they nearly pained him.

“Why do you think I came out here? It wasn’t the way I hoped to tell you, but yes, of course. You’ve passed your trial; it’s all I’ve been waiting for! I have to snatch up the newest man of the Catori before some other girl gets wise.”

Tarek smiled, his heart full. “I can’t wait to show you your veil.” He laughed. “I thought you just wanted to come out here to trip me behind the trees.”

“I may have considered it. But first things first.” She kissed his neck, sending delicious shivers down his spine. “You marry me tomorrow, Tarek of the Catori. I demand it.”

He cupped her face in his hands, looking into the sky-blue depths of her eyes. “Tomorrow? You mean it?”

“I won’t wait,” she said. “Mid-day tomorrow, and you’re mine.”

Tarek put his fingers to heart, lips, and brow. “I am.”

She kissed him deeply again, but this time it was he that eventually pulled away. “I almost forgot!” He plunged a hand into his loincloth.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Not the most graceful invitation I’ve ever seen.”

“No,” he said, flushing. “It was the only place I had to put it.”

She blinked at him. “That is the usual spot, isn’t it? I would have noticed otherwise.”

He chuckled and shook his head at her. “One of these days you’ll slip up and everyone will find out what a wicked sense of humor you’ve got.”

“It’s not a question of slipping,” she said softly. “You’re just the only one who ever noticed. That’s why I’m standing here.”

“Here,” Tarek said, finally pulling the ring from his breechcloth. “I wanted to give you something from the hunt that made me yours.”

Yaretzi smiled – a real, full smile, something she never did – and slid it onto her middle finger. It fit. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen stone like this before.”

“It’s not stone.”

“What, then?”

“You’ve heard the hunters talk about heart-knuckle?”

She twisted the ring on her finger with her thumb, looking at it carefully. “You made this ring out of heart-knuckle?”

He nodded. “It’s the best part of the beast that made me a man, and I wanted you to have it. Some of Ryki’s old stories say that people gave each other rings when they married.”

She put the ringed hand to her heart and put her other over the top. “I’ll treasure it.”

“You were the only one I could give it to. It came from the center of a heart, and you are at the center of mine.”

Her eyes shimmered, and she pulled him in for another kiss. Tarek was content without words – he’d said everything he meant to.

Soon the mist-hart would be finished roasting and they would head back to the village to prepare for the feast. They would sing and dance with their people and tell them they would marry on the morrow. Zuma would get drunk and give a speech, and Ryki the loremaster would scold him. The fires would burn until late into the dark, and the tribe would go to bed happy. But for now, the sun was still high and only the two of them were present, so they let their lips and hands say the things for which they had no words.

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