“Rainlily had a late growth spurt after she came to the Westernlands.” Pony patted his hands to his chest to indicate Rainlily’s ample breasts were the result. “She outgrew her armor. We brought both of her old sets with us from Aum Renau to alter for domi. I’m afraid we already cut the other one down to fit domi’s smaller frame. This is all we have at the moment. Forgiveness. You are one of us, now. We should provide—”
“It is fine.” Thorne Scratch tugged off her black-dyed armor. “We are in a war zone.”
It did odd things to Oilcan’s heart to see that she was wearing his Team Tinker T-shirt underneath. His kids had done his laundry and left it stacked on his bedroom chair for him to put away. The shirt had been on the top of the clean clothes pile. Had she borrowed it to keep him close or as a secret show of solidarity or just simply grabbed the first thing at hand when Tinker’s messenger showed up at Sacred Heart in the middle of the night?
Thorne Scratch shimmied into the new chest piece. She wasn’t as endowed as Rainlily but judging by the minute adjustments that she made, the younger female had started out smaller than Thorne Scratch in the chest. “It is tight but does not bind. It will work for now.”
“Darkness provided transportation for three Hands from Cold Mountain Temple.” Pony handed Thorne Scratch a piece of paper. “I recognize most of the names from visiting my grandfather when I was young. I do not know their true temperament.”
Thorne’s hastily tied braid had come undone while she had pulled the different-colored armor pieces off and on. Her dark brown hair spilled over her shoulders, making her growl in frustration.
“Let me.” Oilcan held out his hand for the blue ribbon. He hadn’t known how to braid hair at the start of summer. Elves, though, had a thing about long hair. It seemed to be a quiet status symbol to them. The oni had shorn Barley of his hair to humiliate him and it worked. The poor male wore a headscarf in a vain attempt to hide the fact he’d been shaved. The others hadn’t suffered that particular torture at the hands of their oni captors. Their scars were less visible.
Merry felt guilty asking for help from her battered housemates when she had been spared the abuse. Rustle with his shattered left hand needed help to tend to his waist-long hair. Cattail Reeds wanted the comfort of Oilcan’s protection. Baby Duck liked to try different styles as if she was trying to find her lost identity. What did the “true her” really love beyond baby animals? Thorne Scratch was hungry for intimate contact after the rest of her Hand had shunned her.
Thorne studied the list as Oilcan braided the Wind Clan color back into her hair. “I recognize all these names. I think I know them well enough to know their intent. Most are true warrior monks; they have no desire to be Beholden. There will be no moral gray in this war; the Skin Clan are cut off from their resources on Earth. They will do whatever it takes to seize and hold the Westernlands, no matter how barbaric it may be. It is how they have always been. The warrior monks from Cold Mountain Temple will see it as the chance of a lifetime for glorious battle without any stain on their honor. There are only one or two of the younger ones who might be considering leaving the narrow path of moral combat.”
“Warrior monks,” Oilcan repeated the phrase. He’d heard the term all his life but he thought it was just a fancy way of referring to the sekasha-caste. “How are they different from you?”
“Warrior monks are sekasha who have taken certain vows to limit when and where they enter into combat,” Thorne Scratch said. “They are considered the holiest of the holy.”
Pony nodded but added nothing. Oilcan was learning that now that he was domana, the rules of engagement had changed. Tinker’s Hand had taken a step back, letting Thorne Scratch stay center stage in conversations with him. It was an invisible filtering device that the sekasha employed, one Oilcan never noticed until it was applied to him. Had Tinker noticed yet? She usually ignored social constructs, maybe because she was so isolated while growing up.
Another odd change was that Thorne Scratch stopped wearing the cold, unemotional warrior mask while dealing with Tinker’s Hand.
She let uncertainty show as she considered the list. “I think the younger ones will vie to be Jewel Tear’s First Hand. They will reason that the attack came while she was asleep. It had been up to Tiger Eyes to see her Hand safe; it was not her failing that led to their deaths.”
Oh, they were having that conversation: Oilcan’s First Hand. Here, he was thinking Tinker oblivious.
“There are warrior monks coming from High Meadow Temple,” Pony said. “They are not familiar to me. I do not know their hearts’ desire but I suspect some hoped to be Beholden to Wolf. They might be tempted by the promise of First Hand.”
Oilcan cringed. He really didn’t want more entanglements than he already had. He’d been a loner most of his adult life. His tangled knots of responsibility — with six babies looming on the horizon — felt suddenly claustrophobic. He didn’t want to add to his household but Thorne Scratch had already changed her clan alliance for him. He didn’t have the right to deny her support — strategically or emotionally — from other sekasha. Yes, they were ears deep in the holy warriors at Sacred Heart but none would put his desires above others. The fact Oilcan was now an elf was proof that he couldn’t depend on Forge’s Hand to protect him.
Thorne Scratch made a rude noise. “They will not want to serve under a First that abandoned her clan.”
“If they are so blinded by clan loyalty from the obvious truth that we’re all one people, then they are not for you,” Pony said. “There were those that thought that Otter Dance should seek out her father’s clan since she was short and dark. They were not the ones that make up Longwind’s First Hand.”
“What a mongrel group are we at Sacred Heart.” Thorne Scratch tucked away the list. “Elf. Human. Stone Clan. Wind Clan. But verily, is that not what the sekasha are at their core? A mongrel of elf and dragon genetics.”
Pony nodded. “Proceed with caution. Those who will decide the fate of domi’s siblings will be swayed by the presence of a strong Hand — but a Hand can only be strong if they fit.”
There was a heavy transport gossamer delivering stones when Oilcan returned to his enclave. It was a stunning sight. The huge living airship shimmered in the sky over Sacred Heart, nearly transparent, its fins fanning the air has it hovered. The hull slung under its belly was painted black with accents of gold — Forge’s color. A cargo elevator loaded with large rectangular foundation stones was slowly descending.
Tinker’s experiments with trebuchets had been a lesson in what heavy stones could do if dropped from a great height. Oilcan slowed, torn between rushing forward to stop what was happening and the healthy desire to stay out from under any possible falling rock. He came to a halt as he realized that this wasn’t the first delivery; the walls around Sacred Heart were nearly done.
Had life been so insane that he never questioned the appearance of a hundred tons of rock?
So far this summer, he’d become the “pet” of a hyperactive dragon, adopted five elf kids by accident, was transformed into a different race against his will, killed his great-great-great-great-granduncle with magic, taken on the entire half-oni tribe as his Beholden, and — for all intents and purposes — gotten married to Thorne Scratch. (Their relationship came with sex, children, and a “till death do us part” clause that included the fact that she might kill him if he screwed up as badly as Earth Son.) Just this morning, he’d had a conversation with talking mice that might be unborn cousins.