Sweat poured from his body like salty rivulets, streaming down his muscular frame and over his panting chest. His heart beat so hard one would of thought all the Zerui would have heard its feeble cries, he for one lay panting heavily. Tears brimming on the edge of his dark eyes, threatening to overflow and mingle with his other bodily fluids. His nightmares were back again, the same warped dreams he had roughly eight or nine years previous. Memories of that night with the three women, the trespassers on his fathers land, daring to touch him and use him. The scarlet blood as it flew through the atmos with every slash and parry of his mild attempts, he had caused but a few petty scratches on their hard skins. While he staggerd home, blood flowing freely from a wound that no longer hurt him.
Now however, even though the memory was fresh in his mind, as if it were still yesteday, the nightmares altered things. He dreamt he had never returned home, his brother had become the man he is now, but only better. Dark shadows engulfed our terrified young man when he slept, Xanti thought these nightmares had long ago left his mind. Breath escaped him in ragged heaps, he stared unseeing at the peek of his tent, for the last nine years he had slept alone. Fearful he would never feel the warmth of another by his side, after all he had ever only shared living quarters with his mother.
Hurridly he pulled on his simple cloth trouers, tying them at his waist with thin rope, over them he pulled his animal hide boots. Up to his knees they clung to his calves, somwhere concealed within them was a simple, but hopefully effective, dagger. Not caring about his seemingly forgotton short swords or bow he staggered from his tent. The warm dawn air engulfed him, wrapping him in its tender embrace, the sun was peaking over the horizon and for just a moment Xanti wanted to stay. Yet he had to leave now, while not many of his fathers people were awake.
Xanti never rode, not unless truely necissery, he had enough stamina and endurance to run miles, walk distances known only to a horse and seemingly never tire. He paced himself, he liked to think this was the greatest acheivement of his, to run and run like a wild animal. Never needing a horses back for a even a moment, unlike Inaki, he had never been talented atop an zaldi.
Backing away from the few beings already up Xanti silently made his way to where the horses grazed, confident he could loose himself among them. Running a hand through the short strip of hair that was his mowhawk Xanti felt himself take up a light jog. Soon enough he was away from where people could find him, the future Warlord stood in a remote stretch of green. He knew he could find his way back, but for now, he wanted to be alone, away from his people, away from the pressure. Away from the hatred, away from the accusations of his siblings.
To them he was dull and boring, stern and stubborn, perhaps they thought he thought he was perfect. He had to be, if he wasn't his people would not want him as their leader. Enti may have thought he wanted her as his wife, he wanted nothing less. Closing his eyes Xanti breathed in and out slowly, he was here, he was vulnerable and he was a standing target. If his siblings hated him, then he wouldn't put it past them to despise him, he couldn't blame them. He knew he was what he was.
Iņaki often rode through the land around the Central Camp to escape his father's harsh, unrelented judgment. Today he had brought his bow, slung over his shoulder. The recurved bow was smaller than the ones most of his kinsmen used, but he found it much more accurate and much easier to shoot from horseback.
He had heard that the heathen interlopers used a similar technique in their hunts. They shot from horse-back, at running deer or boar. But Iņaki was after more flighty quarry--wild oilasko*, who were not like the plump tame varieties they kept around the camp but could flutter away into the stands of trees where they were often lost forever. His head snapped up at a sound nearby, and he pulled up his horse, looking about, blinking rapidly, as he often did when startled or frightened.
"Anyone about?" he called, twisting from where he sat ahorse. He rode forward a few strides, then caught a glimpse of a bobbing mane of black hair against dark skin, and a glimpse of muscular, sweaty skin which he recognized as belonging to his brother even before he saw the older boy's face. "Oh--Xanti. You're lucky I didn't shoot you--I took you for a wild chicken!"
*chicken
A curt breeze cut short of drying Xanti's skin, the last few tendrils of the feeble wind ruffled the short dark strip of hair over his skull. Opening his dark eyes he could see the sun was now hauling back the shadows it had cast, swaying brightly in the blue sea they call sky. He could just about hear some loud childrens call from the Central Camp, people were awake now, beginning their day to day lives. Turning his head to the direction to which the Ekaini lands lay he looked on in mild dismay. His brother did not know how lucky he was, and for that, and other reasons Xanti was disliking him. Inaki could have the life any young warrior dreamed of, to become Warlord when and if Xanti decided to leave. But the more and more he thought about it, our young man was finding it harder and harder to want to actually leave these lands and their people.
The silence of nature engulfed him, only to be broken by the call of none othet than Inaki, Xanti knew the other lads voice, more than many others. Yet he did not reply, instead he continued to stand, letting his gaze sweep out over the lush grass. Turning his head to the sound of an aproaching horse Xanti couldn't help but envy those who could ride with talent. Unlike himself.
On hearing his brothers words he couldn't help but think words that would be treason if they escaped any others lips. If only luck was not on my side. Turning his body he didn't allow himself to let his brother onto what he was thinking, expressionless he watched Inaki. "Lucky for some. How have you been Inaki? We have not talked in...quite a few days. How is your sister, Enti?" Adopting the mature role he often wore Xanti kept the sadness from his gaze, they would never be close. And it was more than coincidence that he had said Enti was Inaki's sister rather than his. That was what it felt like often, that Enti was just another woman of the tribe, much less blood. And in some occasions Inaki felt more like a fellow warrior with no blood to relate to than actual kin.
The mention of Esti sent Iņaki's thoughts scurrying in all different directions, like rats running from a flame. Xanti couldn't know about what she had confessed the other day? But surely not. That had been youthful petulance on her part, nothing more. Only a whim, only a stubborn, silly, childish whim. She could not have told Xanti she preferred the other brother, nor could Xanti have any reason to guess.
Besides, Iņaki was certain she'd meant it no more than she meant half of her half-baked ideas of rebellion.
"She's fine," he said, stuttering a little and turning his head away from Xanti. Very smooth, there, Iņaki, he berated himself. "You know Esti. She went out to lie in the middle of the horse-field... I'm amazed she hasn't been trampled yet. And I'm fine. Only trying to avoid Father until he stops being so angry at me."
Iņaki leaned down from his horse to look at Xanti more closely. "But how are you, brother? I've heard Mikel boasting of some plan to attack the interlopers. I trust you to know what's true." Or to command the others. If Xanti spoke against such action, Mikel would listen to him. "Is it?" His gave turned considering. "That aside, you look--troubled." Not that Xanti's normally impassive face showed much of anything, but something in how he held himself...