“What is your older brother like?” Wraith Arrow asked.
Wolf had recruited most of Howling’s household after he turned a hundred. The sekasha had all withdrawn from society after his grandfather had been assassinated — centuries before he or Jay Bird had been born. Wolf had to trek to High Meadow Temple to lay out his plans and ask for their backing. By the time Wolf brought the sekasha back to Summer Court, Jay Bird was half a century into avoiding Wolf. His people knew his older brother by name alone. Considering his name was Jay Bird Screaming in Wind — that was probably not a good thing.
The jays of the Easternlands were smaller and drab compared to the brightly colored blue jays of the Westernland but they had the same annoyingly harsh call. A flock of blue jays had made themselves pests at Aum Renau. The birds nested in areas made safe from predators by Wolf’s household — in fruit orchards, under the eaves of outbuildings, and even on laundry poles. Their numbers grew because of the elves’ protection. The birds, though, would scream at anything that came too close to their badly placed nests: elves, hounds, cats, and even indi. The birds liked no one and nothing.
Jay Bird might be unfairly judged by his name.
“I’m not sure,” Wolf admitted. “We were both young children when I last saw him. At the time, I thought him better than me in all things. After Little Horse was born, I saw what a difference two decades could make in a child. Jay Bird always had the advantage of me.”
“Competition is good for growth,” Wraith Arrow said.
Wolf nodded at the truth of this wisdom. “I pushed myself to be his equal. It makes it difficult, though, to judge him as the age difference made him larger than life. Nor can I be sure that he is now as he was then. I know I was just a seedling of what I am now. I have grown much since I left the Easternlands. Jay Bird most likely has changed since I’ve last seen him.”
Wolf certainly hoped that Jay was wiser and less prone to temper flares.
“I know that he has two Hands,” Wraith Arrow said. “You could not call them Vanity Hands but his sekasha are all just out of their doubles, like him. What of the rest of his people? How many laedin does he hold? Does he have Beholden?”
Most young domana had no clue how to build a successful household. Elfhome had been vastly changed from the world that their parents were born into, either by the Rebellion or the Clan Wars. They came to Court at their majority with ambitions but no useful guidance. Whatever plans they had made in their youth were drowned as they floundered in the unfamiliar waters of Court. Normally what ended up happening was that they would meet equally young and ambitious sekasha who had been raised in private households instead of temples.
Such warriors often had subpar training. The smaller the household, the more their parents were distracted by their day-to-day duties. There were no other sekasha children to team-build with or compete against. Interacting only with laedin-caste children, even those older than themselves, often gave young warriors a false sense of superiority. Sekasha born during the Rebellion had learned their skills in combat and knew nothing by rote to pass on. Parents born during the Clan War sometimes forgot how they were taught certain skills. If there had been only one Hand in the household, then there was no way for the young warriors to learn how multiple Hands should work together.
The biggest drawback of a young sekasha raised in a small household was that the warriors had no desire to be anything but First Hand. It’s why they left their homes. Some refused to be anything but First.
When a domana attracted young, inexperienced sekasha to their First Hand, it normally started a cascade of failures. They rarely could gather a Second Hand or a following of laedin. Without the large number of warriors, the domana couldn’t offer protection to the Beholden households necessary to feed, house, and maintain the warriors. Keeping everyone fed and housed became a difficult juggling act that many, like Jewel Tear, failed. His father’s court as head of the Wind Clan had been an education on how important revenue streams were to protecting a household.
Wolf had gotten around the problem by recruiting his grandfather Howling’s orphaned household. It gave him experienced, respected sekasha that attracted people who didn’t want to risk everything on “a child’s” unproven judgement. It had been a tactic open to any of his elder Wind Clan siblings like Ibis and Dove and Jay Bird but not one they pursued (though some would say that Wolf’s ambition made him a good fit with his grandfather’s household).
Jay attacked the problem in typical Jay-style: he’d traveled to the four Wind Clan temples and dueled with the warrior monks, using his sword skills to impress them. It was not as dangerous as it sounded as duels were carefully designed to avoid death. He risked only embarrassing himself, and even that was minimal as he and Wolf were both trained by Otter Dance, daughter of Perfection and Tempered Steel. She had spent her childhood bouncing between the two temples that her parents had founded, learning both of their polar-opposite fighting styles. The young warrior monks most likely had no idea how to counter the combination of the two.
“I don’t know if he built the rest of his household.” Wolf felt sad admitting this. When they were small, he and Jay shared a room and spent all of their time together. They had been friends, had they not? “He only started to gather his two Hands after I was made Viceroy. I’m not sure why he waited nearly a century.”
“Perhaps the one he wanted as his First had not won their sword yet,” Wraith Arrow said. “Your father waited for Otter Dance.”
Wolf considered. He had wanted Discord as his First, but she insisted that if their dreams would come true, he needed to take Wraith Arrow and the others as his First Hand and Second Hand. Knowing that she had her parents’ ruthless determination, he’d bowed to her wishes. He found comfort in the knowledge that it gave her time to consider what Pittsburgh could offer her personally. It also meant that she had been able to freely offer to Tinker.
Had Jay Bird found someone worth waiting for?
The rattle of drums reminded Wolf that he had a war to focus on. The royal marines had debarked from the train. With a deep rumble, the locomotive headed out, pushing its carriages back toward Pittsburgh. In a matter of minutes, everyone would start out for the nearest oni encampment.
“The others do not need to know of the children yet,” Wolf said. “It would only distract us from the upcoming fight.”
Wraith Arrow nodded in agreement. “The oni are our priority.”
Wolf casted a fire scry. The spell tracings on the egglike trap reflected back with the same intensity as the inactive shields traced on the sekasha’s arms and a handful of magic items scattered through the camp. The potential of some sort of magical field was there but not active. It was going to be difficult to detect the traps with the fire esva, especially in the heat of battle.