The Shaman Read Online Free PDF Page B

understand words—or, at least,
for as long as he could remember. “Half-elf!” “Point-ear!” “Jackass!” “Monster!”
“Halfling!” and half a dozen others, always greeted with roars of laughter by
the rest of his crowd of tormentors, as if they were bright, new, fresh—and
funny.
    Lucoyo
knew just how humorless they were, those insults— and those tribesmen—so he had
bent his mind to thinking up really amusing insults to answer theirs.
Unfortunately, that had brought beatings—but he had fought back, and watched
and studied the big boys as they fought, and bit by bit began to win now and
then. To win, when he was always smaller and lighter than the others! But they
had an answer for that—they came at him in threes and fours, and never gave him
an honest chance at a fair fight. So he had learned to fight back with pranks
that made others laugh until they realized who had done them—he learned to set
the burr in the saddlecloth, to drop the sharpened peg in the boot, to
substitute the sandstone arrowhead for the flinten one and the green shaft for
the seasoned bow. He had learned to answer their clumsy japes with true wit.
    “A
rabbit’s ears, and a rabbit’s heart!” Borek had sneered.
    “But
a man’s brain between them,” adolescent Lucoyo had answered, “whereas you have
a man’s ears and a rabbit’s brain!”
    Borek
turned on him, looming over him. “We shall see a rabbit skinned for that!”
    “Skin?”
Lucoyo stared at the hairy chest in front of him. “Have you really a skin under
all that fur?”
    “Lucoyo,
you go too far!”
    “No,
it is you who go to fur ... No, no, I am sorry, Borek!”
    Lucoyo
held up both hands in a parody of pleading. “Have it as you will, suit your
pelt—I mean, your self.”
    “I
shall see your pelt stretched to dry!” And Borek waded in with a
roundhouse punch.
    Lucoyo
leaped back adroitly, then ducked under the next punch and came up fist first
and hard. The blow cracked under Borek’s jaw, jarring his teeth; he staggered
back, and Lucoyo followed close—face, belly, face—punching hard.
    Borek’s
friends roared anger and leaped in.
    Lucoyo
jumped aside just before they landed—so they landed on Borek, who howled with
anger, and Lucoyo leaped away, running. Borek and his friends shouted in rage
and came pelting after.
    Lucoyo
ran like a river in flood, with quick glances back over his shoulder. Borek
lumbered along, farther behind every minute, with most of his friends a dozen
yards ahead, almost keeping pace with the sprinting half-elf—but Nagir was
catching up, coming faster and faster, closer and closer . . .
    Lucoyo
slowed down, just a little bit, just as much as might come from tiring ...
    Nagir
shouted and kicked into a wild dash.
    At
the last second, Lucoyo pivoted and slammed a fist into Nagir’s belly. The
bigger boy doubled over, eyes bulging, and Lucoyo hooked the fist into his jaw.
Nagir straightened up, and Lucoyo hit him with three more punches before he
fell. Then he had to turn and run, for the other boys were catching up.
    “Run,
rabbit, run!” Borek bellowed in fury as he plowed to a halt, shaking his fist. “Run,
rabbit-heart! You cannot outrun the council!”
    That
didn’t worry Lucoyo. He came home at dusk, confident the men of the tribe would
realize that when it was five against one, the one was rarely at fault.
    He
was wrong.
    As
the men beat him with sticks for having beaten one of their sons, the
fatherless half-elf learned not to trust in authority, not to rely on the law.
    But
quick fists and fleet feet were only one way. Lucoyo learned also to wield
truth as a weapon. He learned to answer scorn with the loud announcement of
things his tormentors thought secret, learned to ferret out each person’s
covert shame and charge them with it aloud, in answer to their sneers. It
earned him beatings, yes, but the insults did slacken a bit. More importantly,
he felt the fierce elation of revenge.
    Thus
had Lucoyo learned