I tugged on Blizzard’s reins and we turned east toward the trail that would lead to the road.  It was approaching noon, and we wouldn’t be moving at Blizzard’s speed any more.  We’d be lucky to make camp before dark.

I expected my son, Eric to ride up next to me, but he hung back with Nina of the Aschire.  It turned out that my daughter, Dagi, was the one who rode up next to me, that shield of hers over her back and her sword in a scabbard attached to her saddle.  She looked for all the world like an Andaron warrior in Volkhydran clothes.

We stayed silent for a while.  I think she might have been waiting either for Shela, my wife, to replace her or for me to send her back, but neither happened and Shela was actually pretty deep in discussion with our daughter, Lee.

“My mother married a Long Manes warrior,” Dagi said, finally.  “She has two sons.”

I nodded.  “Have you thought of adult names for them?”

She looked at me.  “So you know our traditions?”

“Hard not to,” I said.

She nodded and was quiet for a while.  We were coming up on the main road.

“Did she stay with Chesswaya’s mother after her tribe dissolved?” I asked.  Chesswaya was my daughter as well, by another Andaron woman.

“After you destroyed it, and formed your Wolf Riders, you mean?” Dagi accused me.

“Yes,” I said, looking straight at her.

She met my eyes.  Hers were every bit as cold as I knew mine could be.  She was going to feel me out and decide if I was worth staying with.  That’s what I would have done as a kid, too.

“No,” Dagi said.  “Chesswaya’s mother went to the Sure Foot, then the Hunters when they had no women.  I met Chesswaya at the Long Manes’ tribe last year, when she came to learn her craft.  We didn’t know that we were sisters until the demigod Steel told us.

Whoa – didn’t see that one coming.

“Steel?” I asked.  “The Savior.  Steel came to you?”

Dagi nodded.

“In a dream?”

She shook her head.  “While we were playing chunkee with Nanette and Thorna,” she said.

I looked back at Nantar’s daughters, riding side-by-side with spears in their hands, just ahead of Eric.  If there were a fight, they were positioned to come charging into it.

We turned onto the road.  The sun overhead gave me a little warmth, but not much.  I was going to need to go somewhere and buy furs.

“What did Steel have to say to you?” I asked.  “Can you tell me?”

Dagi was silent for a moment.  She looked up at me from her horse and she said, “He came to see the daughters of the Daff Kanaar.  I thought that He meant Nanette and Thorna, and He said, “No, the other daughters.  He meant Chesswaya and me.”

I nodded and stayed quiet.

“He told us that it was a new age, and that we needed to go north and to learn a song from a Druid in Volkhydro.  He warned us that nothing would be the same.”

That was news.

“We waited for the men to come back from Toor, and most of them did.  We went north on strong horses and we found our brother, Agtani Chewla, and then our other brother and his wife.

“We saw the war come to our land, and we heard Eric, whom we named Usdi Waya, tell us that if Chatoos fell, then our land would never be the same.”

Usdi Waya meant ‘Little Wolf’ in Andaron.  Eric had a lot of foresight.

“Then we met you, our father,” she said. She was looking straight forward now.  “We would have known you, if Steel had never met us.”

“Really?”

She nodded, still not looking at me.  “Chesswaya has your eyes,” she said.  “I have your lips and your nose.  Mother had described you without naming you – and Chesswaya felt your presence before she met you.”

“Chesswaya has great power,” I commented.

That got a look from Dagi.  “As does Lee,” she said.  “Vulpe can sing, and singing is important.  Lupennen speaks with animals – I can’t imagine a more powerful gift.”

“And Eric is Daff Kanaar,” I said, “and you wonder, ‘What of poor Waya Daganogeda?  What does she inherit from the Emperor?”

She looked up at me again, and this time I thought I could see some hurt in her eyes.

“Yes,” she said.  “What of Dagi, who has nothing but her mouth?”

An Andaron who ‘has nothing but her mouth,” is usually a woman who’s a gossip, or a complainer.  It’s a derogatory term for a spinster, or one who is going to be a spinster if she doesn’t change her ways, because no one wants a woman who’s always giving her opinion.

“Maybe you’re more my child than any of them?” I told her.

She regarded me but said nothing.

“I can’t speak to animals,” I said.  “I can’t cast spells.  I can’t stun a crowd with my song, and I had to go to Conflu to get the mark of the Daff Kanaar – no one clashed swords with me and put it there.

“I’ve never had anything but my mouth,” I said.  “It served me well.”

“You forget the horse you ride,” she said.  “The sword you carry.  You forget the stories about you, sung in every language.”

I nodded.  “But I got them without magic,” I said.  “Without song.”

She wasn’t looking at me, so I reached down and I stroked her long, brown hair.  She looked back up at me and I asked, “Do you want to learn these things?”

She frowned and looked forward.

Finally, when I thought I wasn’t going to get an answer, she said, “Yes. I want to know everything.”

Good enough, then!