He could do this.

Iñaki awoke a married man, and wanted to prove himself. His muscles felt loose and slack. It had been a long time since he'd practiced with any sort of weaponry. Although Zeru had been speaking with him more and more, albeit grudgingly, about tactics and strategy in war, Iñaki always understood what lay behind his words. His father doubted he would last a day in battle. After all, a single skirmish had deprived him of his eye.

Iñaki kissed Esti, watching as she murmured and turned over in her sleep, and left a bit of hard bread by her bedside in case she felt nauseated when she woke up. It wasn't precisely what he had imagined, being married. Nothing had really changed, but everything had. Esti had gone from being his sister, annoyingly flirtatious and infuriatingly attractive, to being his lover, to being more than all of those, his wife and the future mother of his child. And that, Iñaki was convinced, was the only reason his father gave him more than a glance. The future of the Zerui tribe was Zeru's grandson, Iñaki's son. Definitely not Iñaki.

Well, he'd just have to prove himself. It was almost easier, now that he had only one eye. A definite handicap was at least better than an indefinite inproficiency in just about everything. Except archery. Luckily--thank Eguzki--he had lost his left eye and not his right. He shut that one anyway while he shot his bow, so his only enemy now was the distracting throb of the empty socket, and the weakness of his arms.

After his customary morning prayer to Eguzki, Iñaki hefted his bow and quiver and headed out toward the practice field set up on the edge of the gathered camp. The air had the cool breeziness of early-morning. The sun shone yellow-pink in the pallid, hazy sky; birds twittered somewhere. Iñaki sighed. It was pretty now, while he was alone, but after people starting to come out they would be watching him. Iñaki hated to be watched. Because everyone would measure him, and they always, always found him less than they expected.

But for now it was just him and the target, with a picture of a lion painted onto it. Iñaki stretched his arms, and breathed deeply of the dewy air, before drawing his boy a few times to limber it. He was surprised and a little appalled that it was so hard to draw. He must be weaker than he'd thought. But he refused to restring it. Gritting his teeth, he drew forth and arrow and nocked it. It was odd--he had to concentrate not to make a squinting motion with the muscles around his left socket, which merely caused pain. Well, of course. He was so used to shutting that eye when he shot.

Carefully, Iñaki pulled back his bowstring and let it go.

"Damn!" It'd hit the lion's hindquarters when his hands had shaken. He looked around, hoping no one had caught that error, and then smiled shamefacedly, his face blazing with heat. "Sorry." Humiliating! To be caught showing such frustration at archery practice. "I, uh--I don't think I know you."

Gergori guffawed when he heard the arrow thunk into the target, it's dull sound telling him that the shot had been significantly off center. The voice that apologized afterwards seemed whiny to the warrior, he sneered.

"Even a blind man can tell how poor your shot is." Gergori walked slowly as he spoke. He could feel his thick ropes of hair move around his neck, the first rays of sun warmed his skin, and he could feel dew as his bare feet skimmed the grass. "You are a shame to the Baskar, perhaps I have heard of you, Iñaki is it?"

Gergori moved until a change in air flow told him he stood before a person. Wordlessly, Gergori reached out to touch the young man, feeling the cool skin, the lack of any real muscle tone. It was the body of a boy just out of puberty. Gergori laughed again.

"Not even a man really, how is it that you call yourself a warrior?" Gergori spoke calmly, in a low voice, his dark eyes remained unfocused, aimed at where Gergori guessed the boy's face was. "You aren't strong enough to use that bow, boy, and your breathing says you're injured, you've had to change the way you shoot haven't you?"

After a moment the older warrior turned away, silently he began moving through his combat forms, thrusting out fists and legs with sharp motions. It felt good, exercising in the early morning, feeling the subtle writhing of his muscle below his skin. After a moment Gergori spoke again.

"I have heard your name before, Iñaki, but your person and deeds escape me, are you truly so unremarkable?"

"Iñaki sem'Zeru," Iñaki said through gritted teeth, spitting the patronymic like an oath. "Son of Warlord Zeru, husband of Esti alab'Zeru. I w-w-was injured in the skirmish at the interlopers' garrison where we lost Xanti." This warrior would've heard of Xanti, of course. Everyone had heard of Xanti, Xanti who was the only true sem'Zeru. Never Iñaki. Well, he was the eldest son of he Warlord now, and one day he'd rule this arrogant man. Assuming, that is, that he lived.

He drew another arrow forth from his quiver, and was just starting to focus on taking another shot, when the other man's voice interrupted him again.

"I am," he said, with equanimity, but he could feel the flutter of his stutter starting in his throat. "I'm trying to l-l-live up to my parentage, and to the Zerui." He drew back the bow and let an arrow fly again. This time, however--his muscles tensed with anger--he hit the target just slightly above the lion's back. But this time he refrained from cursing, though even one whose senses weren't heightened by blindness could've heard his forcefully exasperated exhalation. "Hey, wait--"

He turned to the other warrior, suddenly putting together the pieces. "Are you blind? And, er--what's your--what's your name?" A blind warrior? That was... it was impossible, there was some other explanation or the man had just come out for exercise. And he was embittered at no long being able to fight, so he had to belittle Iñaki. Yes. That must be it.

Gergori laughed even louder than he had before. "The son of Zeru?! With such a bad shot perhaps your father would rather you had died in the battle!" Gergori knew he was treading dangerous ground, still, the young man amused him. He spit on the ground. "The Zerui would have been better off had Zeru spilled his seed across your mother's belly! The sem'Zerus died at Xanti."

Gergori continued his exercises, working through punch combos with ease. He listened to the boy line up his next shot, smiling when he heard it miss yet again. Iñaki's sigh would have been evidence enough even if Gergori weren't able to pick out the sound of the arrow sailing off course.

"So close, little one, and yet you still fail."

Gergori laughed at the young man's sudden epiphany. "Have you not heard of He Who Sees Without Seeing? My eyes are useless, but I have been blessed with sight beyond sight, vision of Eguzki."

He let the sentences hang for a minute, enjoying the feeling of the grass as he practiced his kicks. After a while he spoke. "Ask around, undoubtedly you will hear of Gergori sem'Unai, my prowess is legendary."

Gergori finished his practice, straightening up. Pockets of air burst between his vertebrae, releasing tension and creating a satisfying popping noise, Gergori sighed. He turned back to the younger man, though he didn't bother to aim his eyes this time.

"Give me the bow, Iñaki, and I will prove just how little you mean to the Tribe."

Iñaki bristled, so angry he actually couldn't speak. The obscene insults dug at a soft place inside of him, and he could feel his whole body, not only his mouth, shaking. Gergori sem'Unai. Famed as a warrior, sure, but more than that--as a braggart, an arrogant sem'Zakur* who--Iñaki shook his head vehemently. Sight without sight! He'd always thought that was a tale. Well, let him prove it.

"F-f-f-f-" He paused and cleared his throat, wrestling the creature of his anger back into his belly, where it coiled, bilious. "F-f-fine. Here." He held out his bow and an arrow to his antagonist. "I'm sure," he said, his voice stronger, "that you're a credit to the Tribe. I'd like to see how you do it, or hear how you do it if it isn't obvious."

Eguzki couldn't possibly favor such an evil, arrogant man. Eguzki's favor was with the Warlord's line, and--oh. Well, Zeru was a flawed man, but... He, Iñaki, appeared to have very little favor indeed. If it came to it--he fingered the patch over his eye--none. Was he meant to be Warlord? Could this be simply a test?

He couldn't know. In the meantime he strove to remain strong in the face of this man who appeared torn from the blackest depths of Iñaki's own insecurity.

"Here." He pressed the boy into Gergori's hands.


*son of a dog

Gergori sneered, the boy's stutter had gotten worse as he continued to talk to the older warrior. The boy was a coward, Gergori was sure of that, a forgotten second son who couldn't even shoot an arrow properly, it disgusted the older man.

"It should be obvious, fool, sight without sight, I'm blind and yet I see. Really I was hoping your mind would be sharper than your skills, but I see Zeru has fathered an idiot for a son." Gergori's lips curled as he felt the bow being pressed into his hand. He grasped the object firmly, along with the arrow that accompanied it.

"Now watch for the both of us, surely you can do at least that. Tell me what the arrow hits."

Gergori tilted his head, moving it from side to side as though he were looking for something, though his vision remained as nothing more than utter darkness. Finally he seemed to decide upon something and raised the bow, fitting an arrow against its string. With ease the older warrior pulled, taut muscle showing as he drew the string to his cheek. "It's easy..." Gergori muttered. He loosed the string, hearing a twang and a soft swishing, the bow string was dampened with horse hair. There was a full sounding thud nearby, Gergori nodded, confident he had guessed at the correct direction.

"Look at my eyes, they focus on nothing, now tell me where my arrow landed, and be quick about it."

Iñaki had watched with skepticism but the growing pangs of honest awe as the blind man aimed his bow. It was impossible. But there was the evidence. The arrow stuck, quivering, where the lion's heart would've been. Eguzki's fire! For a moment he was too stunned to feel jealous, and then he felt the insidious suspicion of trickery arise. Maybe the man was just pretending to be blind.

Why would he do that? Well--it would be clever indeed, wouldn't it--if you gained only the normal acclaim for your prowess in war, only to supplement it by the profession of handicap. Still, his eyes hadn't moved. He hadn't squinted, hadn't focused... and Iñaki knew from his own experience only moments earlier how difficult it was to break the habit of squinting to bring the target into sharp relief.

So it was some sort of magic. And so? Maybe he was a sorgin*. Maybe he'd struck a bargain with some devil creature for the twisted and weird facsimile of his sight. But how did he do it? Iñaki couldn't quite shake his mind out of the simple mundane considerations. He spent a moment trying to imagine a sight that wasn't sight--maybe he just felt the air on the target? But the wind was constantly changing--and failed. At last he spoke, shaking his head to rid himself of the lingering remnants of envious disbelief.

"My bow, please," he said, trying to sculpt his tones into the strong shape of Zeru's imperial manner. What he got--as always--was merely a flaccid imitation of what he so wished to be. Nonetheless, he held out his hand pointedly for the bow, watching Gergori's face to see if he would focus on his hand while giving it to him. "That was, as you said, quite amazing." He kept his words clipped and managed not to stutter. "But then, I've just recovered from an infection. I'll soon be back at my full strength, and then we'll see if blind Gergori can best one-eyed Iñaki with a bow."

It shamed him to say it almost immediately after the words had left his mouth. After all, Gergori was still blind, and he still saw! How was that a fair contest? And he sounded like a hero in a bad story. Disgusted with himself, Iñaki pulled another arrow from his quiver and awaited the return of his weapon. He'd stick this out, and then go and practice alone in the woods. It just wasn't worth this sort of treatment.

That's right, run away again, Little One, said Mikel's voice in his head. And he couldn't quite shake it off.

*witch

Gergori listened closely, but the boy's only response was silence. Gergori nodded, unsurprised.

"You respond much the same way other people do, it's easy to tell what you're thinking. I don't fake my blindness, little one, nor is there an easy explanation for the way it works. I guess where my target is, I just happen to always guess right." Gergori flexed the bowstring a few times as he spoke. "It is the work of Eguzki, your father needed strong warriors, and I was provided."

Gergori fell silent, a smile playing across his lips as the boy attempted to fill his voice with authority. The older warrior reached with the bow blindly, waving it until he felt it contact Iñaki's fingers, he released his grip on the weapon.

"You attempt to roar like a lion, but you're still a cub." He listened to the boy's excuse. "It's apparent that you haven't seen much real combat in your life. Do you think your enemy will wait until you recover? Do you think you could fight me and say 'My finger has been removed from my hand! Let it heal, and we'll see if blind Gergori can best me'? I would kill you in a heartbeat, if you want to be a great warrior, you will forget your pains ."

Gergori stepped closer to the young man, lines forming on his face as he drew his mouth tightly. The older warrior spoke quietly.

"And if you seek to shame me with such words, remember that I could break you. Warlord's son or not, disrespect me, and I will tear your manhood from between your legs and shove it down your throat." Gergori hissed out his words. "You are heir to a Tribe, but you show it poorly, think of this as an important lesson."

"No." Iñaki's face twisted into a scowl, and for the first time, perhaps, in his life, he felt the way Zeru must feel when he berated his warriors. "You may not speak so to me. Since we've met you've shown me nothing but disrespect. Remember, blind one, that Eguzki didn't only bless you by giving you this mystical power--he also took away your sight in the first place. And your blindness seems to blind you to the fact that I could have your throat slit if I wished. Think of this as an important lesson, sem'Unai." The way he pronounced Gergori's patronymic--which meant 'shepherd'--was meant as a subtle insult and reminder of his lower status.

It amazed Iñaki what depths of rage and vituperation he could dredge from the waters of his soul. Like Zeru, who seemed calm, even stoic, he was capable of fantastic bursts of anger. Usually they were directed at himself. Now, however, as he grew into a role that fit him as uneasily as an overlarge tunic, he'd come to see the reason for his father's behavior.

He still wasn't sure he liked it. And he felt a coward, because Gergori was likely right: in one-on-one combat, he would beat Iñaki easily. Words were unworthy, but he couldn't stop the flow of recriminations.

"How often have you fought, anyway?" he asked, narrowing his eye. It looked like Gergori was too young to have been in the first Interloper Wars, and though they'd have skirmishes with the Endikai since then, the Spirit-Worshippers were nothing next to the armored, steel-wielding interlopers. "Or do you just like to get your self-regard by making fun of younger men?"

Rage welled up in his throat and swelled inside his brain, and Iñaki couldn't help himself. He stepped forward and shoved Gergori backwards, hard.

Gergori grinned wildly. "My blindness is a gift, you must rely on your eyes, but I let my other sense guide me. I can smell sweat and earth on you, feel how the wind moves around your body. I can taste the smoke of cook fires miles away. Most importantly, I can hear the frantic beating of your heart, you fear me, Iñaki, I would demolish you." Gergori snorted. "Your threats are empty, I've done more for this Tribe then you could ever hope to do, and no doubt your father would echo my sentiments."

The older warrior began to circle the young one, he could feel the tension in the air, the young man was angry, it was like nectar for Gergori, and so he goaded.

"I've fought the Enkaini countless times, I've fought the Interlopers at the borders, I've killed the plains predators with bare hands." Gergori flexed, feeling scar tissue strain itself over muscle. "How do you think I've come to be marred? Society is not kind to the blind, since I was old enough to strike I've fought those that disrespected me. I've smashed circles full of combatants twice my size." The older warrior could feel himself growing tense as well. "I don't need-"

And suddenly the words were cut off. There was a shift in energy, Gergori could practically smell the hatred coming from the boy. The grass rustled at Iñaki's sudden attack, Gergori felt smaller hands on his pecs, and he was thrown backwards. The warrior responded with instinct, sprawling his legs out behind him. Gergori caught himself in a low, predatory pose.

"You've made the biggest mistake of your life Iñaki sem'Zeru! You are of age, by all rights I am allowed to defend myself."

Gergori snarled then lunged forward. He felt his arms grip the boy firmly around the waist. Feeling the scrabble of fingers on his back. Gergori howled and lifted Iñaki from the ground. He laughed and smashed the boy's narrow frame into the ground. He could hear the boy groan.

"An important lesson!" Gergori snarled, falling to one knee. He groped around briefly until he felt Iñaki's body. He drew himself to the boy and threw a knee into the young man's ribs. Relentlessly, Gergori found Iñaki's face, he cocked a fist back and smashed it into the boy's good eye. All reason gave way to primal instinct and martial training. Gergori rained blows upon the boy, striking with knees, fists, elbows and forearms into Iñaki's tender flesh. Finally Gergori began to slow his assault, allowing one final forearm near the boy's jaw before he pushed himself off the ground.

Breathing heavier than normal, Gergori spat onto Iñaki's chest. He wasn't sure if the boy was awake or not, and blood that was not his own ran between his knuckles. "Tell your father that you sought to topple a legend and failed."

Bad idea. Carried away by his impetuousness, Iñaki tried to guard against the raining blows, but the bigger man knocked him back easily. As he lay gasping on the ground, his breath knocked out of him, his ribs aching, cracked by Gergori's blow, his body writhed like a landed fish. He felt that peculiar panic that only seizes hold of you when you can't breathe--drowning in his own, he kicked out spasmodically.

To neither of their evident surprise, least of all his own, his feeble attempts at fighting back were ineffectual. He tried to raise his arms to ward off punches, but almost immediately found them knocked out of the way by Gergori's thunderous punches.

Eguzki-- Iñaki had learned the art of curling up inside his pain, inside himself, over the long month he had spent recuperating from his injury. Sometimes, when the fever in his ruined eye had burned too hot, he had sent himself elsewhere, out of his body. Out of it, or deep into the black well of semiconsciousness, where he lingered amidst depthless echoes of pain that seemed half-imagined. Under these hammer-blows, though, it was hard to escape. Each new shocking jolt--there was a crunch, and his nose broke under Gergori's fist--each new jolt brought with it the bile of fear. What if he lost his other eye? He couldn't, surely--

At last the rain of blows stopped, and Iñaki lay back. His face felt hot, burning with internal fire and scalded by blood. Cautiously, he opened his eye. It blurred, and panic stuck in his throat yet again, his breathing speeding up--but then the world snapped into focus. Thank Eguzki. Iñaki offered up his most fervent prayers, and then he looked up at his assailant.

"Topple a legend," he gasped out, and brought up one hand to wipe Gergori's spittle from his chest. Then, suddenly, anger flaring up within him once again, he swept out a leg behind the other man's knees, putting all his force into it. The movement sent a tearing ache through his ribs and shoulder, but there. Gergori--obviously surprised at the sudden attack--fell forward. "And what'll you say," Inaki said. "What'll you say, that you beat up a sickly sixteen-year-old?"

Gergori let his breathing return to normal. At his feet he could hear grass swish as Iñaki pushed his feet weakly into the ground. The boy's breathing was ragged and interspersed with gurgling as blood flowed freely into his airways. Gergori laughed. "Spit, boy, before you drown in your own fluids."

The older warrior stretched out his forearms, they felt tight, he hadn't had a chance to warm up before the fight, if it could really be called a fight. He lifted his arms over his head when he felt a foot slam into the back of his knee. Gergori couldn't help but crumble, and his shoulder slammed into the ground hard, Gergori grunted, feeling rage rise in his throat like bile. He struck out with a hand, punching the boy in the arm. Gergori felt a rush of victory, but it was over quickly, Gergori had won this already. He laughed when the joke hit him.

"I take that back, Iñaki," He said mirthfully, "you've toppled me for sure!"

The boy's question only made Gergori snort.

"Does a snake need an excuse when it pumps an intruder with venom? I've done nothing wrong here, you assaulted me, and I taught you not to." He rolled to his back, stretching out comfortably with his hands beneath his head. "This is called the law of the wild. You grasp a plant stem with thorns, you learn not to, you grab the tail of an ass, you learn not to. Nature is brutal, but we must emulate it, it is why your father is so great, and you are not"

Gergori rolled back to his stomach and pushed himself up to his knees. "Don't try to rationalize what happened here, you are angry but you will take something valuable away from it if you think about what I said."

Iñaki turned his head to one side and shut his eye, wheezing for breath. His ribs ached, his face felt pulpy with pain, and anger was dull lead in his gut.

"Nature is brutal, and that's why my father will die by its laws, and I will not," he said at last, keeping his face turned away from Gergori--not that it mattered, anyway. He swallowed, tasting blood, and felt a tooth move slightly in his mouth. Damn it. Iñaki did not want to be one of those toothless old warriors, face sunken inward toward a deep pit of a mouth. He didn't want Esti to feel disgusted when she kissed him.

"I never wanted any of this," he said at last, a little plaintively. "Can't you see--I never asked for Xanti to die. I never asked to be born a sem'Zeru. But because I am one now, it is His will. And now it is not Zeru or Xanti who is His instrument. It's Iñaki." He pushed himself up to his elbows, wheezing with pain. His lips, thick, split, and swollen, stretched uncomfortably over gums made soggy with bloody.

"So maybe the old laws aren't the best. Maybe you should try less to be a snake and more to be a man."

He paused, not so much for effect as because he couldn't quite get his breath back. The number of steps between the archery range and the tent he shared with Esti seemed innumerable.

Gergori's tone was sarcastic and cruel. "Yes, even I can see how that's worked out for you so far." He spat again. "We all follow nature's laws, whether we acknowledge it or not."

Gergori stood up, dusting his knees off. He could feel some liquid run down his chest, but he wasn't sure if it was sweat or Iñaki's blood, he wiped it off his pectorals and tasted it. Salt. It was just sweat.

"Get up, little one, I haven't flayed you nearly so bad as I could have." He rubbed at the soil beneath the grass with a toe, the ground was still cool, despite the rising sun's rays on his back. "None of us asked for Xanti to die, he had potential, it was a dark hour when we had to leave that place without him."

Gergori fell silent, remembering that terrible melee, how they had looked desperately for Xanti. "Gergori." Zeru had asked, "Have you seen my son?" Even Gergori had ignored the irony, the son had not been found, most likely, the heir to Zeru's title was dead. Finally they had fled the battle, thoroughly drenched in the blood of friend and foe alike.

"Eguzki does not ask us how our fates should be, do you think I asked to be blind? Do you think your father asked for a son like you? You insult Him with your bitterness"

Gergori began to walk away. "Then here I will be a man, if you want help back to your tent you will ask now. If not, I am gone, you are pathetic."