The Last Daughter of Hyphae

Chapter 1

"It's frozen moon," said Atta. She adjusted the wooden bow and arrows attached to her belt and crouched over the dead foal. Her finger traced the cold, pearly substance resting on the outer edge of his small mouth. His velvety, once-tender lips now stiff with death. A bluish hue crept over his face and nostrils. Atta's own nose began to run. She sniffed and dragged the cuff of her bulky wool tunic across her upper lip. Nose tears, her mother used to say.

Atta realized what she had said. "Frozen milk, I mean." Dammit. She hated when she mixed her words like that. So stupid. Atta sniffed again and looked up at her friend, Ivet, who sat quietly on her light brown horse, still as a statue. Her long, dark fishtail braid rested over her shoulder as she surveyed the edges of the valley. She stayed silent. This unnerved Atta. Her friend is usually chatty and quick to make a friendly joke out of Atta's jumbled words. But now she kept watch for hungry spring bears or wolves. There were also rumours of slave traders from the Great City making their way east and north, around the shores of the frozen lakes and creeping through the forested edge of their Territory. And these traders allegedly paid twice the gold for girls their age—15 summers.

Ivet's thick, winter wool tunic and the small dagger on her leather belt made her look like a decent fighter, but she wasn't. Defending them was Atta's job. And she wasn't even very good. 

"Huh," Ivet responded after a moment. Her singular word turned to vapour in the cold air and rose above her head like a spirit. She kept her eyes on the horizon as her horse shifted his weight underneath her still body.

Still crouched over the foal Atta rested her elbows on her knees and rubbed her cold hands together. She scanned his body once more. What took this little baby? There wasn't froth at his mouth from a poison-tipped arrow. Just his last meal, his mother's milk, which he had slurped up messy like any baby. He had no visible wounds. His limbs and muscle tone looked good. His tummy was round and full. His bronze-coloured body was just like his mother's, a muscular mare who chomped and ripped at early spring shoots nearby as her ears rotated back and forth, searching the hills for danger. Her glossy eye fixed on Atta. The mare had stayed with her foal all night, even after the herd moved on. No wonder she's Vasilka's favourite. 

Atta's teeth set on edge. She searched her mind for something to tell her grandmother, Vasilka, their village's leader who will want an explanation when they returned. Vasilka had sent her out here in the first place; "Earn your privilege as my granddaughter!" she'd hissed at Atta just before the girls set off. "So I don't get another earful from the council!" Atta said she'd lead this missing foal and her mother back herself. "No problem. You'll see." 

But now there's an even bigger problem than just a couple of missing horses.

Atta rubbed the squishy parts of her temple. Her head hurt. The Territory Spring Gathering is tomorrow with their village hosting for the first time in a decade. This was no time for a crisis. A poisoning. A threat. Vasilka was one of the last women leaders—maybe by now the very last. Nearly all the other villages had switched to customs that closely resembled the Great City, not just with men at their helm but also in their clothing, jewellery, and the way they handled their herds. Vasilka wants nothing to go wrong at the ceremony so that no one questions her leadership. Besides, there's a months-dead frozen king to bury, and another Territory ruler to name among the village leaders.

But the last thing Atta wants is her grandmother's ascent to the Territory throne.   

She stroked the foal's neck one last time, rose to her feet with a heavy sigh and pulled her belt back down the waist of her heavy wool tunic. Even though her arrows and bow weighed the belt down it always crept up; never felt right. She pulled sheepskin mittens over her hands as a frigid wind swept across the open valley. Any icy breeze found the back of her neck, the one small section her leather hat didn't cover and dragged over her skin like a frozen claw. She shivered. She'd had enough of this shitty winter, and now her grandmother's prized foal was dead.

"Do you think we can hoist this body onto Snort? It looks lighter than a deer," Atta called up to Ivet, who nodded and dismounted her horse, Feather. Her friend's silence and downturned mouth weighed on Atta. She relied on Ivet's cheerfulness to offset her own quiet intensity. Then again, Ivet had a hard time with the death of horses. 

At least they weren't going to eat this one, just in case he was poisoned. 

 "Let's go sit to the vapour tent after we get back, okay?" Atta said. "It'll help my headache."

Ivet smiled. Atta smiled back. They both giggled and moved faster and lighter. The girls pulled a large blanket out of Ivet's saddle bag and set it on the ground.

Atta whistled for her horse, Snort, an old, mud-brown gelding who was hers since she was a girl. He had wandered away from her without a sound—just far enough to make Atta work to get him back. She whistled again, then removed her mitten to pull out a handful of dried moss from her pocket. He lifted his head and perked his ears at the second whistle, as if surprised. Atta raised her eyebrows and tilted her head—they've had this same routine for about as long as she's been old enough to whistle. "C'mon!" she called, hearing an echo of her mother's irritation in her own voice. He ambled toward her, his head bobbing with every step with the knowledge that his treat was waiting. When his lips finally reached her outstretched hand he blew a soft, contented snort. "Smartass," she muttered as she scratched his cheek and he leaned into her hand. "Help me get this baby home." 

Atta and Ivet grabbed the foal by his four hooves, lifted him slightly and placed him on the blanket. The mare stopped grazing and watched. Each girl at one end, they folded the blanket over the body then gripped the corners. "Three, two, one—" they called in unison before hoisting the body onto Snort's backside. The mare walked quickly in their direction as the girls mounted their horses. Atta's stomach muscles tensed, unsure of the mare's next move. Mothers could be more aggressive than any predator. But the horse fell in line behind Snort, behind her baby. Atta exhaled. Snort snorted. Another gust of wind pushed a collection of twigs and dead grasses across the open valley, as if trying to move the last remnants of winter out to the faraway lake.  

As the girls made their way out of the valley and into the nearby cedar forest a familiar voice yelled out from behind them. "What are you two doing?" Atta stopped and turned to see her former friend on her glossy dark horse, walking in their direction through the trees.

Eser. She looked like the war goddess herself—a vest of dark brown leather scales over black woollen sleeves and a thick gold necklace that shone brightly at her collarbone. Showing off her trophy. The jewellery was a gift from a wealthy family across the Territory after Eser saved their son from a drove of wild boars. A heavy sword at Eser's right hip sat in a scabbard intricately designed with deer and wolves twisting around each other in a never-ending dance from bottom to top, while another sword on her back stayed secure with a leather baldric that criss-crossed her chest, rich-looking from a fresh polish with animal fat.

Atta felt the weight of her itchy, thick clothing and wooden weapons on her ill-fitting belt. 

"Don't fall off your horse, eh Atta?" Eser clicked her tongue and grinned. Atta sat even taller on Snort's back. She hadn't fallen off him in days. 

"Leave her alone, Eser," said Ivet, smoothing her long braid with her hand. "You two need to stop this. Let's go and I'll make you both some goose stew. We're all friends, remember?" 

Atta's cheeks burned. Not really. 

Eser clicked her tongue again. "Atta, just stop stop falling off your ugly old horse and then we can properly train together, okay?" Atta's entire face burned hotter. She squeezed her legs around Snort's belly to encourage him forward but dug her heel in too hard. Snort jumped and threw her off balance.