Damian sighed as he turned and looked at the gathering Tribesmen who were looking toward him with eyes of caution and a mix of emotions.
Would they start treating him so differently now compared to before?
He had been a farmer this morning. One of them. Unremarkable except for the stories that followed Uncle Adam.
Now he was something else.
Something they did not understand.
As he thought this, an old woman in the back of the tribe came forward.
She moved with the careful steps of one who had seen too many seasons to rush anything. Her body was bent with age, her skin weathered like stone left too long in harsh wind. She wore rough cloth draped in layers around her thin frame, secured with cords of braided plant fiber that had been dyed in faded patterns of red and black.
But it was her ears that drew attention.
Large round rings of hammered copper hung from her lobes, stretching them down in the manner of the ancient wise ones. The rings caught the light as she moved, and smaller rings of bone and stone dangled from them, clicking together with each step.
In her hands, she carried a large stick.
It was gnarled and ancient, the wood dark with age and the oils of countless hands. Multiple stone rings had been bound to its end with sinew, and they rattled as she walked.
This was Grandmother Essun.
The Wisewoman of the Purple Stone Tribe.
She was the keeper of stories, the interpreter of signs, the one who spoke to the ancestors and read meaning in the movement of beasts and the color of the sky. When children were born, she named them. When Warriors died, she sang them to their rest. When the tribe faced decisions too heavy for the Chieftain alone, her counsel was sought.
Her word actually held a decent amount of power and weight in the tribe as far as he knew.
And now that word was directed at him.
Grandmother Essun looked at him with eyes that had seen more death than anyone present. Her gaze was neither warm nor cold, neither welcoming nor hostile. It simply was, ancient and measuring.
She raised her stick.
The stone rings rattled.
"The Tokoloshe has killed our enemies!"
Her voice rang out across the bloodied center of the tribe, stronger than her aged frame would suggest.
...!
The Tokoloshe?
Damian's face became sour.
They were calling him a ghost now?
He had just told The Butcher that he was not a Tokoloshe. That he had simply decided not to be dead. That whatever had happened to him was not the work of spirits refusing to pass on.
But Grandmother Essun had spoken.
And as her words echoed, others began to take them up.
"Tokoloshe!"
A young mother clutching her child to her chest.
"Tokoloshe!"
An old man whose son lay among the dead.
"Tokoloshe! Tokoloshe!"
More voices joined, until the word became a chant that filled the air.
Damian shook his head at this.
In the Lands of Stone, many had their heads filled with stories and legends. They had to when so many things could kill them on any given day. Stories gave meaning to the meaningless. Stories made the terrifying comprehensible. Stories let them believe that even in a place of endless cruelty, there were forces that might protect them.
But to be called a ghost?
Damian looked at all of them and raised his voice.
"I am not a ghost!"
The chanting faltered slightly.
"I am not a Tokoloshe!"
He said this vibrantly, putting as much conviction into the words as he could muster.
Everything became quiet for a moment.
The Tribesmen looked at him, looked at Grandmother Essun, looked at each other.
But an instant later, the old Wisewoman began to move her feet.
She stepped in a pattern that was older than the tribe itself, a rhythm passed down through countless generations. Her stick struck the ground in time with her steps, the stone rings providing percussion. Her voice rose in a wavering chant that held notes no other voice could reach.
"Tokoloshe! Tokoloshe! Tokoloshe!"
A ritual dance.
She had begun a ritual dance, and she absolutely did not listen to him.
...!
Others soon followed her.
First the old, then the young. First the women, then the men. They moved in patterns that their bodies remembered even when their minds did not, stepping and swaying and turning in ways that honored traditions stretching back to the first tribes that had walked the Lands of Stone.
The Dance of Crimson Departure.
This was what it was called.
It was performed when death had visited a tribe and taken too many. When blood had been spilled and bodies needed to be mourned. When the living needed to say goodbye to those who would never speak again.
Many Tribesmen hummed as others danced in mourning. The sound was deep and resonant, a vibration that seemed to come from the Land itself. They chanted the word Tokoloshe as they moved, but now the word had shifted meaning.
It was no longer just about Damian.
It was about all of them.
They danced with the corpses of those taken from them for the last time.
Mothers lifted fallen sons and swayed with them in their arms. Fathers held daughters who would never grow old. Lovers clasped the hands of the dead and moved in steps they had danced at celebrations, now given new and terrible meaning.
Because after this, they would not hear their voices.
They would not be able to see their smiles.
All glimmer of their memories would begin to fade.
So they gave them one last dance.
Damian watched this scene with heavy eyes.
He did not say anything.
He looked at the corpses of those who had died, and he remembered their faces. The elderly woman with silver hair who had worked the fields beside him. The broad-shouldered man who laughed too loudly. The boy barely into his 11th summer.
He had given a nod of greeting to them when he moved to the farming fields this morning.
Now their voices were forever taken by a Butcher who held no life himself anymore.
It was all so disheartening.
Damian found himself asking a question that had no answer.
Why did this have to happen?
It was a heavy question.
One that he had asked before, in the ashes of his father's rule.
One that he had never received an answer to.
He turned to look over the standing corpse of The Butcher. The monster remained upright only because of the weapons holding him in place, a grotesque monument to violence. The tendrils of Mana had left his body now, seeping back into the bloody stones below.
Returning to the Lands of Stone from whence they came.
Damian knew this day was far from over.
Because of this event, a lot of things had to be done. Decisions had to be made. Plans had to be formed.
Or the next few days would be even more difficult than today.
But for now, he sat with his back against Uncle Adam's.
And he let the tribe mourn its dead.