“You can’t possibly think that this is a good idea.”
Shadow’s statement made Valor grimace as the two of them trudged through the snow, heading back toward where they’d fought the adlet scouting party a short time ago. “I think eating their dead is a disgusting practice, but it’s their religion. They take it seriously, which means we have to take it seriously if we want there to be any chance of softening things over.”
“Smoothing things over,” corrected Shadow with a roll of her eyes. Although the sun cats had taught their adopted pony daughter how to speak properly, the fact that they didn’t seem to have idioms was either amusing or exasperating, depending on the circumstances. And lately, it had been the latter much more often than the former. “And I’m not talking about this corpse-retrieval errand Mysty somehow talked us into running; I’m talking about this hare-brained idea of trying to reach an accord with these ‘adlets’ in the first place.”
That got a surprised look from Valor. “You think we should be trying to wipe them out?”
“I think that any chance for peace went kaput when that power-mad unicorn killed one of their number in cold blood,” snorted Shadow.
Valor groaned. “C’mon, Shadow. That’s not fair and you know it. Those guys popped up out of nowhere and pointed spears at us, growling all sorts of threats. We all thought our lives were in danger; Lex just did something about it.”
Now that the sun had set, there was barely enough lingering light for Valor to see the disgusted look that her friend gave her then. “And when exactly did you join the Lex Legis Appreciation Society? I thought that you and I were on the same page here; that guy is bad news.”
“Mysty doesn’t think so. She said she had some sort of breakthrough after we sent her to talk to the guy, and I trust her judgment.” Valor stopped in place then, glancing around. The snow had been falling steadily for a little while, but there were still signs of their recent battle in the area. “Okay, I think this is the place. Help me look around for the body.”
“You look for the body,” retorted Shadow. “I’m going to start gathering up those spears they were throwing around.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m apparently the only one who hasn’t forgotten that the reason we came here in the first place was to score some quick cash.” Kicking at a snow drift in frustration, Shadow started searching for the adlets’ weapons. “There’s got to be some collector or antiquarian or some other sage back in Viljatown who’ll pay some decent coin for authentic barbarian weapons. And if we’re really lucky, some of them might be magical. If they are, and we can sell them, that might actually make this trip worthwhile.”
“You don’t think-”
“Saving a village full of innocent ponies is worthwhile, even if they did try to sell us out to Grisela and her merry band,” sighed Shadow, anticipating Valor’s objection as she traipsed over to a pair of spears that were still sticking up from the ground, yanking them free. “I mean, I know they had no choice, but they could have said ‘we’re being terrorized by monsters, and you look like a group of experienced adventurers, can you please help us?’ or something.”
“Actually, I was going to say that the adlets will probably want their weapons back too,” replied Valor glibly. “Insisting on keeping them probably won’t go over well, since we’re trying to make them realize that ponies aren’t their enemies and all.”
Shadow uttered several choice profanities at that. “They’re spoils of war. Even savages have to understand that.”
Valor shook her head. “You might think that killing one of their number means that there’s no chance for peace, so there’s no downside to taking their weapons, but different people have different traditions. Returning weapons, captives, and the bodies of the fallen could be taken as a gesture of respect between warriors.”
She paused then, and a glance from Shadow showed that Valor had found the body of the adlet Lex had killed. Panuk, recalled the masked mare. That poor bastard Lex cursed said his dead friend’s name was Panuk. The thought was an uncomfortable one, making her shiver for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold. “I don’t think that there’s any tradition that will change the fact that this guy probably had family and friends who’ll be heartbroken when they find out he’s dead, let alone get them to forgive his killer.”
Valor seemed to be having similar thoughts, silently regarding the corpse – still staring sightlessly upward with a twisted expression of shock on its face – for a long moment before reaching up to gently close its eyes. Then she began to brush the snow from Panuk’s body, her motions slow and reverent. “Long ago, before Iliana unified the pony tribes and founded the Empire, the various prides of sun cats would periodically raid each other. That led to blood feuds, as the kin of a slain cat would take revenge on his killer, only for the killer’s family to take revenge on them in turn, starting a vicious cycle.”
“Which is exactly my point,” groused Shadow, moving to pick up the Panuk’s spear, which had fallen next to his body. “This whole idea is going to get us killed.”
But before she could take the fallen adlet’s weapon, Valor put her hoof over it, giving Shadow a pointed look. “The sun cats don’t have blood feuds anymore. Now, when one cat kills another, they pay the blood price to the deceased’s family, and the issue is settled. All the prides enforce this, with every cat under their authority agreeing not to take revenge once the payment is made, under pain of being declared an outcast if they don’t. Maybe the adlets have something similar.”
Shadow grit her teeth. “I don’t believe this! You – who flies into a self-righteous rage every time you see a merchant bribe their way past a gate guard – are telling me that it’s okay to kill someone as long as you can pay for it?!”
“I’m not saying it’s okay,” replied Valor, refusing to get angry in the face of Shadow’s outrage. “I’m saying that it’s a way to keep one tragedy from turning into the first in a series of tragedies.”
“By putting a price on people’s lives!” snarled Shadow, turning away from Valor as she stomped over to another spear, wrenching it out of the ground. “That’s no better than those orc slavers we fought in the hinterlands! If anything, it’s worse! At least their victims were still alive after the money was paid! This-”
“Three large wagons.”
Shadow blinked at the non sequitur, pausing as she sent a dark look Valor’s way. “Huh?”
“Three large wagons,” repeated Valor, picking up Panuk’s spear and laying it alongside him, slowly folding the adlet’s arms over it. “Covered and solidly-built. It took eight hearty cats to pull each one. They were all beautifully decorated, painted with scenes honoring the Sun King, his brother the Hunter, and the totem spirits who served them.”
Shadow looked around, wondering if there was some obvious reason for Valor’s sudden digression that she was missing, but if there was any change to the dark and snowy landscape around them, she couldn’t see it. “What are you talking about?”
“They weren’t empty either,” continued Valor, as though she hadn’t heard her friend’s question. “The first was filled with rare foods and spices. Two casks full of honey. A chest with twenty-five pounds of cinnamon. Five baskets of saffron. A crate of potatoes. The second one held textiles and furs. Ten ermine pelts. A hundred square yards of canvas. Five square yards of silk. The third was laden with weapons. Thirty javelins. Twelve steel daggers. A half-dozen shortbows. Five hundred arrows…”
She sighed as she finished, staring at nothing for a long moment before turning back to Panuk’s body, continuing to arrange it so that he looked like he was resting peacefully. “That was the blood price my pride received after my father was killed.”
The admission nearly caused Shadow to drop the spears she’d gathered. “Wait, what?!”
Ignoring the other mare’s shocked outburst, Valor made her way over to the evergreen shrubs nearby, examining several of them in silence before casually uprooting them. Breaking off several of the largest stalks, she unshouldered the rope that she’d brought with her and started lashing them together, making a crude sled. “When you gather up the last of those spears, help me with this, will you? It’s not very well made, but it should be enough to carry his body back to the cave.”
“…alright.” Not knowing what else to say, Shadow quietly finished picking up the fallen weapons. Once she was sure she’d gotten them all, she made her way over to Valor, and the two mares worked in silence until they had a passable transport arranged. “This should do it.”
Valor nodded once before placing Panuk’s body on the makeshift transport, making sure to disturb it as little as possible in the process.
It was only when she’d finished, moving in front of it to tie the ends of the rope around her middle, that Shadow spoke again. “Listen, I didn’t mean-”
“I know.”
The words were neither curt nor angry, but Shadow flinched all the same. “I wasn’t trying to-”
“I know you weren’t,” replied Valor evenly.
Not sure what else to say, Shadow held her tongue, and the two walked in silence for a while. Minutes passed as the two made their way back to the cave, the shoddy sled slowing their progress considerably. Eventually, Valor spoke up again. “When I received my totem from Makwa, my father called all of the nearby prides together for a banquet in my honor.”
Determined not to put her hoof in her mouth again, Shadow kept quiet as Valor continued. “He was always looking for a reason to celebrate something,” she chuckled softly, a wistful smile crossing her lips. “If there was good news of any sort, for us or someone else that he knew, he always insisted that it had to be commemorated. ‘Good fortune is the Sun King’s blessing,’ he’d say. ‘To overlook it is to take his generosity for granted.’ My mother and my aunt both said that he only ever wanted an excuse to sing and dance and drink, but they always ended up laughing right along with him whenever he got going. And the more people who showed up, the happier he was.”
She paused as the sled caught on something, with Shadow moving to untangle it. “So naturally, it didn’t go over very well when, at the feast he’d thrown in my honor, several of his guests objected to his pony daughter having received a totem from one of the Sun King’s servants.”
“He was upset?” asked Shadow cautiously as she uncoupled the sled from the root it had gotten stuck on.
“My father? No, he was confused at their anger. My aunt, however, was livid. She was the one who’d pronounced me blessed by Makwa, and she never suffered fools gladly. She started haranguing the cats who’d protested my totem, lecturing them in…let’s just say, the strongest possible terms, about their ignorance regarding the will of the gods.”
“And they didn’t appreciate that?”
Valor shook her head. “They struck her. Even if they were drunk and angry, raising a paw to your host is a severe violation of their hospitality, and that upset my father a great deal. That and he loved my aunt dearly. So when the offending party refused to apologize, saying that the entire reason for the banquet – me, in other words – was an offense to the Sun King, well…at that point, a fight was inevitable.”
“To the death?” murmured Shadow, a little surprised. Valor had spoken about sun cat customs on many occasions, and she’d taken pride in presenting them as the superior civilization compared to ponies, despite their rustic living conditions.
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” sighed the muscled mare, shaking her head. “But as I said, the offending party – a sun cat named Echoing Roar, who leads one of the largest prides – was drunk and angry. He grew even angrier when my father started winning the fight, at which point Echo reached for his hammer and…and…”
She couldn’t finish, letting out a shaky breath, and Shadow said nothing, giving Valor as much time as she needed.
“The funny thing is, I know how much that makes Echoing Roar sound like a monster, but he really wasn’t,” continued Valor at last. “When we held my father’s funeral a few days later, he wept openly when he presented us with my father’s blood price, and publicly begged my mother to forgive him for what he’d done.”
“And did she?”
Valor shrugged. “She told him she did, which was more than I could bring myself to do. I had already made plans to kill him, blood price or no.”
Shadow cocked her head. “But you were just saying-”
“I know, but at the time I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about was that I’d lost my father. Nothing else mattered except revenge, although in hindsight I doubt I would have succeeded anyway. I might have killed a wyvern and gained a bear totem, but Echoing Roar already had a long list of mighty deeds to his name. It’s probably an even longer list now.”
Hearing the shift in tense, Shadow frowned. “So you didn’t make the attempt?”
Valor shook her head. “My aunt stopped me before I could. She talked me down, not because she told me that I wouldn’t win if I challenged Echo – I think she knew that would have only spurred me on – but because she said that if I won, our pride would never be able to pay the blood price for him.”
Shadow cocked a brow. “And that’s what got you to give up on taking revenge?”
Valor hesitated for a moment before answering. “Here’s the thing about paying a blood price: responsibility for doing so falls not just on the one responsible, but on their entire pride. I was ready to be declared an outcast for taking vengeance on Echoing Roar despite his having made amends for killing my father. But my mother, my aunt, my siblings…they all would have become outcasts if I’d killed Echo and we weren’t able to pay for it, and after my aunt pointed that out to me, I knew I couldn’t do that to them…so I left.”
“Wait, I thought you left your pride because you wanted to try and find out about your pony parents?” frowned Shadow.
“That’s part of the reason. Or at least, it’s part of the reason I came here instead of going somewhere else,” admitted Valor. “But the reason I left was because…”
She stopped walking then, putting a hoof to her face. “Because I wanted to earn enough money to afford being able to kill Echoing Roar.”
“I’m guessing that’s not the case anymore,” ventured Shadow cautiously, “since I don’t remember you ever being concerned about money.”
Valor managed a wan smile. “It’s not, and I don’t. You see, after a little while I realized how hard it is to earn a lot of money here, and I started…” She bit her lip for a moment, then plunged ahead. “I started wondering if I could earn a lesser amount and just kill someone Echo cared about. One of his wives. A brother or sister. One of his children…”
“Valor!”
The mare in question cringed. “I know. When I caught myself thinking that, I was beyond horrified. Makwa gave me this totem because I protected someone younger and weaker than me, not because I hurt them. That was when I made the single most difficult decision of my life…”
She started walking again, and Shadow fell in beside her. “And that was?”
“To let what had happened to my father go.”
Despite herself, Shadow couldn’t help but scoff. “Just like that?”
“No, not ‘just like that,’” snapped Valor, before catching herself. “Like I said, it was the hardest decision I ever made, but I also know it was the right decision. And the only reason I had enough time and gained enough distance to realize that was because the blood price system kept me from doing something I would have regretted.”
“And you really think that will be the same for the adlets?” asked Shadow, glancing back at Panuk’s body.
“We don’t even know if they have something like that,” admitted Valor. “Not to mention that I doubt Lex will fall down weeping and apologizing the way Echoing Roar did. But there might be some way we can earn their respect enough for them to not punish the pony villages in the area for Panuk’s death. I doubt they’ll want to help us the way Mysty thinks, but we can at least keep from making things worse.”
“That’ll be easier if Lex removes that curse from that other adlet we captured,” muttered Shadow, her tone of voice making it clear what she thought about that particular possibility.
“Toklo,” answered Valor. “His name is Toklo; one of his friends said it during the fight. And I agree, we should tell Lex that we’ll have a better chance of earning their respect if we show it to them in turn.”
“Or, you know, if he hadn’t decided to kill first and ask questions later.”
Giving a rueful shake of her head at Shadow bringing that up again, Valor decided against pointing out what she’d mentioned before about the circumstances making his actions understandable. Instead, as the cave entrance came into view, she tried a different tact. “Well, that makes him a perfect fit for our group, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me?” sneered Shadow. “How exactly do you figure that?”
“Because now we’re going to talk to the adlets, who from the sound of it are the yetis’ natural enemies. We wouldn’t be doing that if we’d just chased them off.”
“And your point is?”
“That in terms of diplomacy, he might have failed,” answered Valor with a smile. “But as a result of that, we’re failing forward.”