Chapter 1
After a summer of drought and cold winds and with the autumn following being long, rainy and cold, the five clans of the Dalmati had a hard time herding together the miserable remnants of goats and lamas, and gathering their usual winter store of wild herbs, berries and mushrooms that would sustain them through winter. Then winter itself had come and with it an even harsher environment.
The peaceful Dalmati were suddenly forced to defend themselves not only against raging weather and greedy hunger, but against enemy warrior clans seeking to plunder their stored food and take the Dalmati women for their own beds. The men of the clans fought with all their might and after many of them had died in the battles and ambushes of the past two months, they managed to elude the enemy and bring the clans safely to their winter camp.
But still it seemed the gods were against them. The enemy would have destroyed them all if not for the fact that all the five roaming Dalmati clans had chosen to come together for the winter, knowing there was security to be had in numbers, even though the food would have to be shared among more mouths.
What food there was. The game was scarce and soon stock began to run low, causing rifts between the clans. The two strongest clans began to quarrel and soon there was a common ill grudge held among them all. There were ill feelings as well as ill fortune for the Dalmati.
~*~
It seemed the gods took pleasure in tormenting their children; the winter bore on longer than even the eldest of the clans could remember and the hunting parties were forced out on longer and longer excursions. More often than not did they come back empty-handed and the women seldom caught any small preys in the outskirts of the forest or fish in the top-frozen streams near camp.
But one day a small party of hunters from the Green Vale Clan, heading back after four days away from camp, came across something most peculiar. Their young leader came upon unfamiliar tracks in the deep snow, tracks of some large animal that never roamed near the mountains where they now were. The large paw prints trailed in an almost leisurely manner through the trees and the young man's curiosity stirred.
Hefting one of the slender throwing spears, he followed the trail swiftly but cautiously. Pausing only a moment to signal to one of his men about the find, he then set about stalking his prey; any meat was welcome over their cooking fires. He was puzzled over the winding trail more than once; no animal walked in such a seemingly conscious and yet unconscious way to lure any hunter as this one did, winding around trees and bushes and gatherings of rocks, jumping between flat slabs of stone uncovered by a harsh breeze. Anything to leave as few imprints behind as possible.
But the young man was renowned for his skills as a hunter and not even this devious animal would fool him so easily. He rounded an outcrop of bush covered rock and stopped dead in his tracks. Never had he thought to see such a mirage, even dizzied from hunger and cold as he was.
In the snow, covered almost completely, was the naked body of a man. A pale shoulder peaked over the snow crust and long, black hair lay like a blanket along the slender form, a few tresses trailing down across the face. He was curled on his side, one arm wrapped around his drawn up knees and the other around his middle, like a child comforting itself in the night. The young hunter stared in silence, unaware of the men gathering close behind him.
Curious murmurs reached his ears and the man directly behind him nudged his side to make him go investigate this mysterious find. He was their leader, it was his responsibility to establish contact with any people they came across, it was only logical that he made the first introduction now as well.
He hesitantly made his way over to the man and walked around until he could see the face. Smooth, flawless skin stretched over high cheekbones and a straight, rather small nose, a pointed chin and slim black eyebrows. He knew the skin would be cold and lifeless when he touched it – the man could hardly be alive – but still he knelt down and reached out a gloved hand.
He smoothed his fingers down the shoulder to pull back the hair from the face and was startled beyond belief when the touched evoked a response from the naked man. A tremble and a quiet moan heard by them all and then nothing more.
The hunters made a simple stretcher out of the tent hides they carried, and shared the burned between them, four and four. It took them the rest of the day to get back to the winter camp, the extra burden made the otherwise swift men slow and ill at ease, becoming an easy target for enemies lying in wait for them.
Their young leader kept an eye on them all, ranging ahead as well as covering their tracks. But he mostly kept close to the main group and the still unconscious stranger. The man had been wrapped in a few of their blankets and the only part of him still visible was the black, trailing length of hair. It looked like the smooth cloth that the southern tribes always tried to barter with in exchange for their furs. He wondered if it felt just as smooth.
~*~
Their return to camp was greeted with smiles and spontaneous cheers – they had managed to catch two small dears two days past – as well as cautious and curious questions about the bundle they carried. The women of the council immediately took charge and saw to it that the man got a warm bed and a healer to look after him. Whoever he was, the Dalmati never rejected anyone in need.
~*~
But still two days after their return the strange man had still not woken up, or even given any sign that he would. His skin was smooth and warm to the touch, and his chest rose and fell in shallow, slow breaths, but that was it. The experienced old healer was puzzled as to what was keeping the stranger asleep.
The young leader that had found him was summoned to the tent to be asked of more detail of his finding. He walked unhurriedly but steadily through the camp, passing the main tents of the Rippling Stream Clan on his way and causing their leader to rise to his feet in warning when he came too close to their main fire.
The young man only glanced at the leader of the Rippling Stream Clan and turned to take a safer route.
The warmth of the healer's tent was a welcome exchange from the cold outside. He had to bend his back to enter the low flap and then kneeled as was custom when stepping foot inside another's tent. He shook a light dusting of snow from his worn, fur-lined cloak and then waited for the healer to acknowledge him.
She did eventually, turning her wrinkled, weathered face to him and nodding once. He rose to his feet and came forward, settling cross-legged near the small fire and nodding his head in turn.
"You called for me, healer Ti?" he said in his low voice.
"Yes, Fael of the Green Vale. I want you to tell me how you found this man," she replied and gestured at the cot in the back of the tent.
Fael glanced past her shoulder and then gathered his memories. He told her how he had come across the tracks, the devious nature of them and his puzzlement when finding a man at the end of them instead of an animal as he had thought. The healer nodded when he retold their return to camp and made a cutting gesture with her hand – she had been there, she already knew what had happened next.
She sat silent for a while, staring at the red and gold flames between them, and then she sighed. "He puzzles me. Stubbornly refuses to wake from this sleep. He has not taken any food since you brought him here and hardly any water. And still he sleeps peacefully on. He is not deteriorating like a normal man would in this situation."
Fael looked carefully at the cot again, beginning to feel as bewildered as the healer was. Two days without food and water, without waking. And who knew how long the man had been lying in the snow before they found him?
"Come," the healer said and rose. "I want to show you something."
Fael made his way over to her by the cot and watched with a slight unease as she folded back a corner of the blanket covering the sleeping man. He never stirred. She wrapped her bony fingers around a smooth, pale wrist and turned up the palm for Fael to see. He knelt and looked closer, after a minute wondering what he was supposed to find curious about the hand. It was no different from any other hand he had seen; long fingers, smooth palm, graceful curve of the wrist.
He glanced at the woman and she shook her head. "Do you not see it?" she asked with a trace of impatience in her voice. He was forced to shake his head. She lifted the hand closer to his face and pulled back the fingers to expose the palm to him. "Do you see it now? No calluses on his palms." She twisted the wrist to show him the back of the hand and a smooth arm. "No scars or bruises on his skin." She dropped the arm and threw back the blanket without caring about neither Fael's nor the stranger's sensitivities, and gestured at the long expanse of chest and abs. Fael had to fight the urge to look lower, but still he caught a glimpse of long thighs and dark curls before he turned his head.
"There is no mark on this body that tells me this man has ever done a day's hard work in his life," the healer exclaimed. She stared at Fael with a frown on her face that made it even more wrinkled.
"If he was a city dweller, a noble," Fael began slowly, "then how did he get all the way out here without a horse or a wagon?" he frowned now too, for there had been no traces of anyone or anything else than the animal that had done the paw prints.
Ti sighed and pulled the blanket back up. "That is what I'd like to know." She put her hands in her lap and gave the stranger a brief glare. "But I will care for him as long as is needed." She then turned to look him in the eye. "But I want you to consider this," she said seriously. "If he is not a man, then what is he? And what is his purpose here?"
Fael looked at her with dawning apprehension. What indeed?
~*~
The healer Ti's words kept Fael awake most of the night. He lay tossing and turning in his blankets, trying to calm his mind and take some rest, but the implications of Ti's words were too great to ignore. And Fael was a leader; it was his responsibility to see to his people's safety and needs.
If not a man, then what? A shapeshifter? An elvyn? A god? He turned restlessly onto his side and stared at the closed tent flap, imagining the moonlit snow on the other side, the crust that covered it and the sound his leather boots would make when breaking it if he stepped out there. The breeze would touch his cheek and the dogs would raise there heads from beneath their thick tails and look at him, but judge him safe and go back to sleep. The camp would be silent when he walked through it, only the sentinels would move about and they hardly ever made a sound that could reveal their whereabouts. Only the soft snores of a sleeping old man would be heard and they would be muffled by tent hides and blankets. Fael's path would be undisturbed.
His thoughts stopped outside the healer's tent, and he felt a reluctance to continue his mental journey inside. Something kept him from reaching out to open the flap even in his thoughts. The hide would be stiff and cold beneath his fingers, he knew. But he didn't touch it.
A murmur reached his ears from inside. A low, cooing voice. Smooth and warm like the honey his mother used to put in his tea when he was sick as a child. Soothing, beckoning, sweet.
Sweet…
Fael bolted upright in his cot. His heart was beating against his ribs and his hands were trembling. He hissed out a breath and realized he had held it.
~*~
Morning came without Fael hardly having slept at all. He rubbed his eyes and rinsed his mouth with water from his flask before he bundled up against the cold and stepped outside. He knew his brother and sister would wonder why he didn't come for breakfast this morning, but he couldn't be bothered to tell them he didn't want it. He was preoccupied and uneasy because of the dream he'd had last night, and walked absentmindedly on his path through camp.
"Halt your step!" a commanding voice said and Fael realized belatedly that he had ventured too close to the main tents of the Rippling Stream Clan. Again.
He stopped and turned just enough to lock eyes with the man walking slowly, confidently towards him, the snow crunching under the leather soles of his boots. The clan's leader; a man slightly taller than himself and wider across the shoulders. He was a number of years older than Fael and had more experience in being a leader, though he had come to the positions when he was as young as Fael had been. The age difference alone was reason for Fael to show deference, but they were both leaders of equally strong clans and so the status in relation to each other was a bit uncertain.
"Rolan," Fael greeted the man but without the customary nod. Rolan's teeth clenched and muscles played in his angled jaw. His eyes were grey almost to the point of blue and told of the anger he felt at the younger man's disrespect. A strand of his bronze colored hair had escaped from the leather string holding the long bangs back from his face, and Fael watched the breeze play with it.
"You come too close to my tents, Fael. It worries my men and I don't wish to see you run through by a spear because of a misunderstanding."
Fael glanced around, seeing a few of said men sitting by their wives' and sisters' cooking fires. All of them had their spears within easy reach. "I do not wish animosity between us, Rolan. But you can hardly believe I am here to spy on your clan?" he asked and arched an eyebrow.
Roland let out a bark of laughter. "I do no think you are capable of the stealth that is required of a spy, young leader, nor the wit. I am simply concerned for your health."
"Indeed." Fael smiled just a bit, refusing to rise to the bait, and turned to leave.
A strong hand caught his arm and he spun instinctively to dislodge it. Rolan let go just in time for the blow directed at his wrist to miss. They stared at each other, judging the other as they always did. There had been a few fights between them because of the tension in the camp, but they had always been broken apart by their men. But this time Rolan lowered his head, almost imperceptibly, and Fael saw the tension leave his shoulders.
Rolan stepped closer and locked eyes with him. "If the man you brought back can save the Dalmati, I hope you are leader enough to see it. We will not survive the winter if the hunters don't begin to bring back more game."
Fael stared at him. What did Rolan know? "You believe he can help us?" he asked quietly.
Rolan didn't answer; he only looked at Fael with his intense eyes. Fael began to feel a bit uneasy under the scrutiny and turned to leave. This time he went unhindered.
~*~
The healer Ti looked up when Fael entered her tent and kneeled inside the flap. There was a small wrinkle between her eyebrows and an annoyed twist to her lips. She gestured for Fael to join her by the fire after carefully studying him for a moment, and he scooted over to warm his hands over the flames.
"What brings you here so early, Fael?" she asked, obviously not in the mood to speak in healer's riddles at the moment.
Fael shook his head, distracted by the undulating colors of the fire. "Your words kept me awake last night," he began. "The implications… if it were to be true, that he is not a normal man…"
Ti watched him from under a few graying hairs that had come loose of the fastenings of her long bangs. "If he is not a normal man," she continued when Fael did not, "he could be the answer to our peoples' needs."
"But he won't wake," Fael finished.
"No." Healer Ti sighed slowly and poked the fire with a short iron rod, twisted at the end for lifting pots out of the heat. "But he did stir last night, as if disturbed by a dream."
Fael jerked, his head snapping up to look at her in disbelief and a little amount of distress. "He did not," he mumbled absently. It had been a waking dream, a fantasy, nothing more. One couldn't speak to another through his thoughts!
Ti tilted her head slightly to the side and studied Fael's face, his wide blue eyes surrounded by lashes as golden as his thick, curly hair. "He did; shifting under the blankets and murmuring – though I could hardly hear what he said – and then nothing more."
The young leader's gaze slid past her shoulder and to the figure occupying the cot in the back of the tent. It didn't move now, not more than the rising and falling of the chest as the stranger breathed. Fael refused to believe it.
And then Ti shocked him further. "Rolan of the Rippling Stream Clan came to visit me yesterday after you had left."
Fael's eyes snapped back to her. "He dare intrude on my territory?!"
Ti snorted, disgusted by the ever urgent male need to set and uphold boundaries. It would be so much easier in this world if they could stop fussing over such petty things. "It is not your territory, Fael of the Green Vale, but mine. This is my tent and anyone who wants to may enter." She gave him a scolding look and he had the decency to lower his head. Easier to manage than Rolan had been, gods damn the stubborn man.
"What did he want?" Fael dared to ask, though in a suitably lowered voice.
"He asked about the stranger and I told him much of what I've told you. He may have come to his own conclusions, but I doubt they are much different than yours." She gave him a knowing look. "That is why you've come here this early, is it not, Fael?"
He nodded. "Whoever he is – whatever… – he can help us. He must," he added vehemently.
Ti nodded. "Rolan said that as well. But he leaves it up to you to decide on the course of action."
Fael nodded and glanced past her again. He had spoken to strangers before, made introductions and formed alliances, but this was something else. What if he said something wrong? He could draw the wrath of the gods down on the entire camp for treating this strange man wrongly, and that would be the end of the Dalmati.
But still he had to try. Fael slowly rose to his feet and padded over to the cot. He stood there for a long moment, just staring at the stranger, taking in the pale, smooth skin and straight eyebrows, the pointed chin and the flowing black hair. As he kneeled he reached out to touch it, it did feel like silk under his fingers, and even though Ti had taken care of the man for three days now, Fael doubted she had had to untangle any knots from the fine strands.
Ti came up behind him, quiet and just studying them. Fael felt her eyes on his back, but didn't turn around, at the moment he was too absorbed by what his fingers told him. His hand trailed down along the shoulder and arm, indeed feeling for himself that there were no scars or scratches to mar the skin. Fascinating, how smooth it was to touch, disconcerting how lying unprotected out in the snow for who knew how long, had done nothing to this body.
Fael pulled back his hand and swallowed. His gaze strayed upwards, taking in jawline and cheekbones and pale pink lips. Kissable lips, he though and started at how it made him feel.
Ti knelt down beside him, tilting her head as if she had somehow sensed his emotions. "Continue what you were doing, Fael. Even if my touch cannot wake him, perhaps yours can."
He turned to her. "How so?" He had no healing powers, no special abilities that could help in this situation.
Ti urged him on, placing her wrinkled hand over his in his lap. "Do as I tell you, Fael."
He frowned at her unwillingness to respond, but lifted his hand again none the less. He would wonder later if it was Ti who had guided his hand, or if he had put it there himself; regardless of who's the action, it garnered a response far greater than he had hoped for.
Fael's finger touched again the stranger's arm, slowly trailing up the biceps to the shoulder and following the curve of the collarbone towards the neck. He felt the steady, slow beat of the pulse under his fingertips, pausing there for a moment to appreciate the sign of life in the lifeless body. Then he continued, Ti's hand now sliding back to Fael's wrist as his reach was farther than hers. He touched the jaw and cheek, caressing his knuckles over the prominent bones and ended up near the mouth.
Kissable lips. But he dared not. Ti was watching, what might she think if he followed that thought? Still, he touched them and they parted a little under the pressure, letting him glimpse white teeth underneath.
And then the stranger moaned. Fael jerked his hand back, startled beyond belief at the reaction, and stared wide eyed as a shiver traveled through the stranger's body. A hissing breath was pulled in between the teeth, the back arched off the cot and then a smile was spreading across the mouth. A hungry smile. It widened the lips and let Fael see how luscious they really were.
He was hardly aware of healer Ti getting to her feet next to him, less aware of her stepping back from the cot. His attention was completely captured by the stranger and the smoldering, heavy lidded grey gaze that was turned on him. Fael could only stare.
The stranger smiled again as he took in the young man kneeling next to him. Fael thought he saw amusement and approval in the eyes, but he could have imagined it. He was startled once more, jerking back out of reach, when a hand lifted from under the blankets towards him.
"Do not be afraid of me," the stranger said slowly, his voice washing over Fael like water from the hot springs; soothing, beckoning, sweet. "We will have many dealings with each other, I can tell." The long-fingered hand turned with the palm up, inviting him closer again, but Fael couldn't move. "You will be my reward."
TBC
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