What had woken him up? A shuttle landing, some subdued voices ...

  He threw his clothes on, made sure the furs were properly tucked around Lily and got his bow and ten arrows. Then he ran out.

  There were people in the sauna, but there was no fire in the middle. Someone had opened the doors to let the heat out, and it was now normal room temperature in there.

  He braced himself. That only happened if ...

  There were only a handful people standing up, and there were four human shapes lying on the benches. One had a cloth covering his face, and was clearly dead.

  Ravex'ton swore quietly. It was as he had feared. The young men who had been undergoing their Warrior Trials had come home from the Fire Planet.

  “How are they?” he asked Ugriek, who was tending to one of them.

  “One will make it fine,” his friend said tightly. “The other two are more doubtful. Burns and cuts. Seems they attracted a pack of hergs very close to the Fire, and they took a good bite out of two of them and forced the others to flee by skirting the flames. They then kept the two others alive until the shuttle landed.”

  “And only four came back?”

  “Only four. That candidate there died in transit,” Ugriek said and pointed to the one that was placed a little away from the others.

  “So at best we have three new warriors this year,” Ravex'ton stated calmly. “That is not enough.”

  Ugriek wiped his blonde hair from his forehead. He had obviously also been woken up from a deep sleep. “I would say that at best we have two. The one who was chewed on will not make much of a warrior with nothing underneath his left knee.”

  Ravex'ton looked over at the one he meant. The young warrior was still awake, but extremely pale and obviously in a deep shock.

  “Ah. The hergs took his foot.”

  “And most of the lower leg.”

  “It's an honorable injury for a warrior,” Ravex'ton said loudly to make sure the young newly minted warrior would hear it. Those little things meant so much to them, and Ravex'ton was aware of the status he had among the younger warriors. “What is his name?”

  “Gruiton,” Ugriek said.

  “Warrior Gruiton, you mean,” Ravex'ton said so everyone could hear it. “Did he not pass the Warrior Trials in great honor? I'd be glad to enter battle side by side with Warrior Gruiton. Any day. Truly he's an Ytter warrior. Look how well he bears it! Why, I haven't heard a sound from him since I came in!”

  The injured boy smiled weakly. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted.

  Beside the new warrior with the burns there was a woman weeping quietly, rubbing some useless ointment onto him. He was unconscious, and this had to be his mother. It was the same woman who had briefly talked to Lily after the demonstration two days earlier.

  “Your son is a warrior of the Ytter tribe,” Ravex'ton stated formally. “What is his name?”

  “Vorian,” the woman said through tears. “My only son.”

  The burns were bad, Ravex'ton saw, and it was unlikely that this young man would ever fight. If he survived, he would bear his scars with pride and do anything to help the war effort. Perhaps he could even be a pilot.

  “Warrior Vorian,” he said. “Yes, I know. You only had him before Warrior Juilon was killed on Fres. It was an immense loss to lose your husband and Mahan. But now Warrior Vorian will take up his father's mantle.”

  “If he can,” the woman sniffed. “These burns ... Spirits, I can't lose another one! I just can't.”

  He placed a hand clumsily on her shoulder. “The Spirits will only give you burdens they know you can bear. Or so it is said. I have to confess I'm not sure that's true for our tribe. All I know is that it will be an immense loss to us if Warrior Vorian goes to meet his ancestors this early in his life.”

  She tried to smile, appreciating his honesty. “Thank you. I will take him back to our tent now. I wonder, could you send your alien friend over to us? I like her demeanor and I'd like another woman to help me in this situation. I think she will probably also like to see how we care for our injured sons. She seems so interested in our lives.”

  Ravex'ton nodded, glad that there might be something he could do for her. “Of course. I will ask her. I can't guarantee that she'll agree, though. I can't command her.”

  The woman smiled weakly again. “Somehow I don't think anyone can command that woman. She is pleasant and quiet, but I see steel in her that I don't think even she knows is there. Thank you, Ravex'ton. You're a boon to our tribe.”

  He bowed slightly and went over to the one warrior who had returned somewhat intact.

  “What is your name, warrior?”

  “I'm Lorenox, sir.”

  “Warrior Lorenox from now on,” Ravex'ton stated with a tight smile. “Well done, Ytter warrior. I can see it was a hard Trial.” He nodded to the young man's hand, which was bandaged up to the wrist. “A herg?”

  “No, sir. It was only a jilut. I was too slow to get out of the way. Only six days in, too. I'm afraid the injury made me a burden to the others.”

  “The Trials work in many ways,” Ravex'ton said and put his hand on the young man's shoulders. “You have passed them. You need never again go to Bosh. Everything that happened on the Fire Planet you can forget as you please. No one has the right to ask you about it. The Trials are behind you. Forever.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The young man sat straighter, but he was obviously so exhausted he could fall over at any moment.

  “I will leave you in the capable hands of your fellow warriors,” Ravex'ton said and indicated the younger warriors of the tribe, who usually performed what little medical care was offered to warriors.

  He nodded once to the parents and siblings of the dead candidate, whose name he didn't know and now would never learn. He had arrived in his village dead and had therefore not passed the Trials. He would remain nameless and forgotten to most of the tribe.

  Lily was awake and sipping a cup of lae when he entered the tent. “Something up?”

  “The new warriors have arrived from their Trials,” he said and poured a cup for himself. His hands trembled. Seeing the bad injuries and smelling the Fire Planet on the young warriors had put him in a fragile state of mind.

  “Bad?”

  “Three are alive, two of them might not remain so for long. One was dead on arrival. So yes, bad.”

  She peered at him over the rim of her cup. “Not enough warriors to complete your army. Which means not enough resources to pay for food.”

  He nodded. “That's the short version.”

  Lily shook her head. “Stars, Ravex'ton, you have to put a stop to this nonsense! You're killing off some of your most valuable citizens before they can even start showing what they can offer. It's totally unethical. And seriously, it's stupid.”

  Seeing the injured young men had distressed him, and her words set his blood boiling. “It seems to me that what is unethical is aliens always invading. We must stay strong. One day I'll show you just how close our enemies are. We are currently at war with eight other species. We didn't pick any of those fights. They did.”

  “Yes, fine. And to make sure you never win those wars, you kill off half your warriors before they ever see battle.”

  He had to fight to keep himself under control. “A warrior must be able to trust that every other warrior is competent and honorable. The Trials are a common experience that welds everyone together into a cohesive unit. The effect is immensely powerful. We would have lost most of our wars without the Trials to harden and temper our warriors. I'm afraid alien females who have never been at a battlefield themselves will not have their opinions taken seriously, no matter how user-friendly their housekeeping machines are. And it also seems to me that those aliens should keep their mouths shut about Acerex affairs that they plainly don't understand.”

  Lily stayed calm, and that infuriated him more than anything else. She just looked at him over the rim of the cup. “That's a great speech that I don't hear any of you in. That's all from elsewhere, from others. There's nothing to understand. It's just numbers and common sense. And basic ethics. Let's not forget about that.”

  He fixed her with his stare. “We have had the Trials for a thousand years. The first time we were invaded by aliens, they succeeded. Did you know? They invaded our planet. We spent two hundred years getting rid of them again. Only when we sent our young warriors to the Trials before they went to battle did we turn the tide. We became so tough, a hundred thousand aliens will sometimes be defeated by one twentieth as many warriors. That can only happen when they have all been through the Trials. Nothing else they ever experience compares with the Trials. They have already had the worst days of their lives on the Fire Planet. The terror there is unbelievable. Your half hour of lounging there safely inside a shuttle doesn't quite qualify you to have an opinion that any Acerex will listen to. And frankly it's an insult when you try to lecture me on this.”

  She had gone pale, and he half regretted his harsh tone. But this was important to him. And her opinion mattered more to him than he wanted to admit.

  “I don't mean to lecture you,” she said quietly, “and I think you know that. It's true that I only spent a couple of days on the Fire Planet. I got pretty close to the Fire during an Inferno Year, and I did see the hergs and other predators there. But I know it was nothing like the Trials. Even so, I saw what that Fire Planet is and what the boys go through. It just makes no sense. Hey, I want the best for this planet and for your tribe. And the most obvious way to make things better is to get rid of the Warrior Trials. I know it's controversial. But it's too obvious to ignore. That's all.”

  “Stupid. Unethical. Controversial. Obvious,” he seethed. “It's something that has served us well for centuries. Us warriors. Of the boys I grew up with, there is one left. The others died on the Fire Planet. Were they stupid? Were they unethical? Were they obviously wrong? But perhaps this is impossible for an alien to understand. I will not defend our sacred tradition to an alien. If it's a female pursuit you want, then Warrior Vorian's mother wants to see you in her tent. I think you should go. You can see how proud she is of her son's accomplishment, even if he is suffering greatly. It made a man out of him.”

  Lily was on her feet and pulled her own coat on. “Which tent?”

  He turned his back to her and stoked the fire. “Straight ahead, then fifth on the right. It has a yellow flap.”

  She left without another word and he stood quivering in suppressed rage. So he had seen her real personality at last. He'd been right the first time. She was too soft, too used to a life of luxury and a life with no traditions and nothing that was sacred. She had no business being here with his tribe. She could go back to her spaceship and her machines and her royals and leave him to fight desperate wars for the life of the tribe and the kingdom, like he had always done. They were too different.

  He sat down to continue his wood project with hands that were still shaking. Ethics. What good were theories when you had seven blind and hysterically wailing Ubiu monsters coming at you from all directions? Then you needed warriors you could trust with your life. Men who had been through hell and come out scarred and damaged, but alive. Survivors.

  Well, he could survive without her. Perhaps the older warriors were right. Perhaps her influence was harmful.

  Perhaps she would be better off among her own kind.

  24

  - Lily -

  She stomped through the snow. Stupid warrior nonsense!

  If there was one thing she didn't like, it was plain stupidity that made no sense. Fine, they had their Trials. Fine, they pretty much downright murdered half of their young men, when they didn't have that many to start with. It wasn't her planet. They could do whatever they wanted. But she would have liked someone as seemingly bright as Ravex'ton to at least acknowledge that maybe that particular tradition wasn't totally perfect in every way.

  She was still seething when she found the tent with the yellow flap. “Hello? Anyone home?”

  Her translator spoke the words in the Acerex language, and the flap was opened from the inside and a woman stuck her head out. It was the same one who had asked her about how to heal burns and how long she intended to stay.

  “Oh!” she said. “I'm so glad you're here! Please come in.”

  The tent was a lot like Ravex'ton's, with a fire in the middle and lots of furs and hangings on the walls. But the sickening smell of charred flesh filled the air.

  Lily saw the injured young man right away. He was lying quietly by one wall, with leather bindings on his arms and parts of his face. She winced in sympathy. Leather bandages?

  “Your son?”

  “Yes. His name is Vorian. I'm Limana. He was badly burned by the Fire.”

  “That was what you were worried about when you spoke to me earlier.”

  “It was my worst fear. Someone always gets burned by that damned Fire. And I just knew it would be Vorian. I woke up last night and felt that my tent was much warmer than usual. I was bathed in sweat. Then I knew. He was burned. And he arrived like this an hour later.”

  Lily knelt beside the young man. He was unconscious, and she was pretty sure that was a bad sign. “What kind of treatment has he received?”

  Limana stared blankly. “Well, he has those bindings ... and I did apply some of this ...” She held up an open tin that Lily could see contained nothing but soft animal fat.

  She felt the blood draining from her face. “He's received practically no treatment?”

  Limana's eyes were full of tears. “We don't usually give warriors any treatment for their Trials injuries. It's the honor... it's not allowed. Especially for burns.”

  The boy's breathing was shallow and rapid, and he didn't look like he'd make it. Something clicked inside Lily, and she felt defiance and anger well up in her. The stupidity of it!

  “That's no good,” she said and stood up. “He can be saved easily. But leather and grease isn't going to do it. I'll be back.”

  She walked fast out of the tent and over to her shuttle, which was still full of the tech she had wanted to give to the tribe. Including enough medical equipment to fill a decent sized hospital. But this wouldn't require much.

  She rummaged through the boxes until she found what she was looking for, then sat in the pilot's seat and contacted the medical section on the Friendship, just to be sure.

  “Ah,” Dr. Berenson said over the comms after she had explained. “Burns are trivial. But you knew that already, right?”

  “That's what I've been telling everyone.”

  “Okay. So you need Class F nanogel and a little bit of Class T. Spread the F liberally on the burns, then wait until it turns green, then add Class T on the worst places. Keep a patch of Xeridol ready in case he wakes up.”

  “Against the pain, sure. Is that it?”

  “Should be. You want me to do it? I'll be there in a heartbeat. A twenty-minute heartbeat. I see from the display that we're currently right above you, almost.”

  Lily considered the offer. “You know, it's probably better if I'm the only one responsible for this. First of all, they only want one of us here. Second, if something goes wrong, only I can be blamed. You guys can always claim that I acted on my own. We don't want a major diplomatic incident right now.”

  “Very well. I'll be on standby, just in case.”

  “I appreciate it. Lily out.”

  She closed down the shuttle again and walked fast back to Limana's tent.

  “This will fix him right up,” she said and showed the tubes of nanogel. “In a few months he'll be just fine. Please expose his burns.”

  She'd had enough medic training to not be embarrassed by patients being undressed in front of her, but his burns made her wince. That had to hurt like hell. Being unconscious was probably the best thing for him right now. And if he woke up, she had a strong painkiller ready as recommended by Dr. Berenson.

  She paused for a moment. Was this the right thing to do? They really didn't like having their injuries treated here. This might make them seriously mad, especially since this guy had just completed his Trials. But she couldn't be expected to just let the young man die. She had her own conscience, and that had to weigh heavier for her than anything else. Harper would understand. King Vrax'ton? Maybe. Ravex'ton? Her heart sank at the thought of him. No, he'd definitely not understand.

  “I was never much of an ambassador anyway,” she mumbled and unscrewed the tubes of nanogel.

  They were strongly antiseptic on their own, so she followed the instructions and applied the two gels. It took a while, and she had to return once to the shuttle to get more Class F, but in the end she was pretty happy with her work. The painkiller was not needed anymore, because the gels would numb the areas where they were working.

  “He's breathing easier,” Limana whispered and wiped new tears. “The Spirits bless you, Lily.”

  Lily smiled. She hadn't had much opportunity to use her medic training before, so actually doing something felt pretty great. “My pleasure. Totally. Limana, wasn't there another man injured, too?”

  Limana nodded. “Gruiton. His leg. It was bitten off by a herg.”

  Lily collected the nanogel tubes and got to her feet. “Which tent?”

  Limana looked up at her. “The sauna still. But he won't need you.”

  Lily pulled her coat closed. “You know, I'll let him decide that for himself. Or maybe he too has a mother who doesn't want her son to die for no good reason.”

  Limana put her hand gently on Lily's arm. “No, I mean he really won't need you. He died.”

  - - -

  Limana brewed a pot of lae, and they sat beside Vorian, checking on his progress from time to time. It was true – he was breathing easier, and while his burns still looked terrible, at least there was a tinge of lighter red here and there among the purple and black and brown.

  Lily took a sip of lae. “You know, I really like your planet. And I like the Ytter tribe a lot. You're all hard working and decent and nice, and you share everything you have. But the Warrior Trials don't make much sense to me.”

 

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