A Challenger

“A pretty young woman like you shouldn’t have to live out the rest of her life on her own,” Drass purred as he fingered the water rings in Rayan’s braid. “You’ve been alone far too long, Rayan.  

    She turned a steady glare on the man.  

“Maybe I prefer being alone, did that ever cross your mind?”

She had noticed him eyeing her and hinting at her becoming his wife for a long time now, as he made obvious passes at her almost every week.  

Rayan wasn’t interested.  

Drass had an ego the size of the Deep Desert and a tendency to overindulge in Spice beer.  He wouldn’t make a good husband for her or a father for her daughter.  He also already had a wife, and a jealous one at that.  And besides, Rayan already had other prospects.

    She tossed a careful glance over where she had left Sietch Sakhrar’s resident refugee from the Padishah Emperor’s army with Aida in the common area.  His back was straight, eyes that were already exhibiting that Spice blue of the Fremen narrowed under his brows.  The way he was looking at Drass was more venomous than the glower she had given her unwanted suitor.  Then she remembered: this was the first time he was there to witness this sort of behavior from Drass.  It made something flutter in her chest, knowing that Drass’s flirting was getting on his nerves.  Their relationship had shifted from captor and warden to something a little more familiar as she had gotten to know the former soldier, and he her.

    The time they had spent making suspicious remarks and accusations at each other had been replaced with finding unfrequented spaces in the sietch to steal a moment alone, often accompanied by a kiss or two.  Rayan was amused to find that Ganten was the shy, awkward one when it came to that sort of thing.  She had to gently guide him into what was rapidly unfolding into a courtship, though he caught on fast.

    The only thing was that no one else really knew about it.  Some of the tribe were still very wary of him as an outsider.  Others, like Uncle Abossim, would merely be entertained to see that Rayan was once again falling for a man from beyond the desert.  She wouldn’t know how to explain her reasoning to them if she had to; she only knew that the soldier had an admirable sense of honor and a soft side she was helping to tease out and delighted in seeing.

    She was snapped back to her predicament when Drass used his finger to tilt her chin his way.  A mouth full of square teeth and breath that smelled of Spice wafted in her face.

    “I think that this whole coy act is getting a little stale, don’t you?” he grinned.

No one saw the fist coming, not Rayan, and certainly not Drass.

    The latter’s head rocked backwards almost comically as he stumbled to keep from falling over, but ultimately failed and landed flat on his back.  Rayan whipped her head and saw Ganten alongside her, arm extended, the responsible fist opening to flex his fingers at his side as he stepped up to his victim.  Rayan saw blood smeared on his knuckles, then looked down to see Drass’s nose bleeding as he grunted, sitting up and wiping at it.

    “She said she’s not interested,” Ganten stated tersely. “Can’t you take a hint?”

Drass started to move to get to his feet when Ganten dropped his boot on the man’s chest, keeping him pinned.  Rayan moved to step up and try to stop the altercation before it started when Ganten seemed to notice.  Those in the common area had stopped what they were doing to gawk; she saw those of the Fedaykin edging closer, hands reluctantly by their knife hilts.  Ganten carefully took his boot off of Drass’s chest and moved back, his eyes locked on the Fedaykin.  Rayan placed a hand on his arm.

    “Just apologize,” she whispered. “You did attack him.”

“He had it coming,” he murmured darkly, then at Drass with a tone that was more of a sneer: “Sorry.”

    Drass was on his feet, smacking his wife away who had come to his aid and getting right in Ganten’s way.

    “You’re getting a little too comfortable with the tribe, Outsider,” he jeered. “If you think you can walk in and take one of our women just like that.”

    Rayan saw Ganten’s bloodied fingers twitch at his side.

“Get outta my face,” he said evenly. “I’m not interested in a fight.”

    “Afraid I’ll gut you?”

“No,” he replied, leaning his head closer. “I’m afraid I’ll make your wife upset by making her a widow.”

    Drass seemed to tremble with rage for a few seconds before drawing back.

“I invoke amtal!”

    A murmur erupted among the people in the common area.  Even Rayan felt herself straighten in surprise, but Ganten remained unchanged.  He didn’t know what it was that Drass was doing, or preparing to do.  Before she could warn him, he spat out a “Fine.”

    Drass looked pleased.  Several of the women with children at their ankles started ushering them away into the tunnels, back to their quarters or the sietch school.  Some were a little too young to witness a fight like this; Abossim had Aida by the shoulder, steering her down a tunnel.  Rayan’s hand squeezed Ganten’s arm as Drass immediately began to prepare for the confrontation, removing his outer clothes and uncinching the hilt for his crysknife from his waist, testing the weight of it in his hand.

    “What did I just agree to do?” Ganten muttered in her ear.

“It’s a fight to the death,” she replied quickly, stepping in front of him to help with removing the clothes that would be unnecessary in the duel.  Every ounce of moisture would be essential for his survival, and it couldn’t be wasted on clinging to his garments that might slow him down. “It’s the only way that will satisfy Drass.”

    “He’ll have to be satisfied being dead.”

“Be careful,” she warned, folding his shirt over her arm. “He might not seem like it, but he’s very good in combat.”

    She handed him her own crysknife, handle first.  Most of the tribe were still wary of him carrying a weapon around, so he had to remain unarmed while within the sietch.  Outside and traveling with the Fedaykin and Abossim was another matter.  Ganten took the offered knife and hesitated as his fingers clasped on top of her own.  She knew he would have kissed her for luck or reassurance if no one was watching.  Instead, he brushed his fingers over hers to give them a little squeeze before stepping towards the area that had been cleared for the fight.

    Rayan joined the scattered throng, seeing Drass’s wife on the other side of it, her chin tilted up as she regarded everyone else with a haughty expression.  She had faith that her husband would emerge the victor.  Rayan wasn’t so sure as she sized up the combatants.  Ganten had at least another head on Drass, and he had retained a good deal of that muscle from at most two decades spent in service to the Imperium.  Drass was smaller and wirey though.  He could slip in and out to make a fast kill when pitted against a bigger opponent.  Rayan had seen him do it before.  Her hand closed tighter around Ganten’s outer garments she held.

    The two circled each other slowly, looking for weak spots before Ganten lunged.  Milky blades clashed but didn’t sink into skin.  They reversed their initial positions, looking for weak spots before coming together again.  This time, they didn’t split apart.  A cloud of dust started to spring up around the combatants, causing a few members of the throng to step back and wave at it.  Rayan could see their forms in the cloud, the fine points of the ends of their crysknives always visible.  Grunts could be heard as well, but not witty exchanges.  Maybe Drass was realizing that he might have walked into his death with this particular challenge, so he needed to put more of an effort into his fighting than his jibes.

    As the fighters shifted around, Rayan began to see droplets hit the dirt.  They were darker than sweat.  One or both had managed to inflict injuries, though nothing substantial.

    A sudden gasp from the dust cloud had the throng pulling closer, Rayan one of the few brave enough to venture a few steps into the undesignated fighting ring.  As the dust started to settle, she got a clearer image.  Ganten had an arm clamped around Drass’s throat, holding him too close for Drass to be able to stick his knife anywhere.  His other hand had his own–well, Rayan’s–knife embedded in Drass’s chest.  Rayan could tell by the angle that it had penetrated his heart.  A fast death.

    Ganten slid the knife out and released his grip on the body, letting Drass fall to the ground.  Several from the throng converged on the dead man with a tarp, shifting the fresh corpse onto it and spiriting him away to the deathstills.  Ganten wiped the bloodied knife along his forearm as a means of cleaning it up, spinning it around and holding it out to Rayan.  She could have sworn she saw the flash of a smirk that might have emerged as an “I told you so” if he’d voiced it aloud.

    The naib came between them to explain to the outsider what would happen next: Drass’s water would go to him to replenish that which he, Ganten, had lost in combat, along with everything else that had belonged to Drass.  Rayan saw Ganten’s eyes slide sideways to where Drass’s widow was coming forward before she even looked the woman’s way.

    “I am Shiffera,” she said coolly. “I was Drass’s wife, now I am yours.”

Ganten was looking at her the way he had looked at Aida playfully handling a small scorpion.

    “No,” he said.

Shiffera’s eyebrows slanted downwards, her mouth turning into a small line.

    “What?”

“No.”

    “It’s tradition here,” she bit out.

“Then I’ll flout that one.  No.  You’re a free woman.  Enjoy that.”

    He didn’t give her time to make a response, turning on his heel and departing for the tunnel that would take him to Rayan’s quarters.  The naib clicked his tongue.

    “You need to make him take me as his wife,” Shiffera snapped, her water rings jangling with her movements. “He can’t cut me loose like that!”

    “Why?” Rayan interrupted, finding Shiffera’s scowl fixated on her. “Humiliated to find that not even an outsider wants you, or are you still upset that Drass wasn’t even satisfied with you as his wife?”

    She took a leaf from Ganten’s book and strode out of the common area while Shiffera sputtered.  The man needed his clothes anyways, and they were still tucked over her arm.

—

She found him in her yali, already mopping up at the deeper cuts with a spare rag.  Abossim was there with Aida; the latter insisted that her tall friend tell her in detail about the duel.  She already knew the outcome, she simply wanted the grisly details.  Abossim and Ganten were conversing quietly while Aida continued to try to butt into the conversation, flitting around their legs like a desert mouse.

    As the thick spice fibre curtain fell back into place, all three ceased their talking to look at the person responsible for interrupting–Rayan.  She dropped Ganten’s boots by the door, holding his clothes out to him.

    “I assumed that you didn’t want to continue running around in your underclothes,” she said, pretending that she hadn’t just stepped in on what was presumably an exchange that she wasn’t meant to hear.

    Abossim gave Ganten a nod as he dismissed himself.  He flashed Rayan a little smile and was gone, boot heels thumping down the corridor tunnel.  Ganten took the clothes that Rayan extended to him.  She was finding it a little difficult to look at him at the moment with nothing but his undershorts on.  Ganten was behaving a bit strangely too as he took the clothes and thanked her, retreating to his small room.  Rayan had some salves and bandages ready when he emerged.  The cuts weren’t very deep or big, but she still insisted that they be treated.

    “I’m surprised you never snapped and killed him yourself,” he said as she wrapped his wrist.

    “He wasn’t worth my time,” Rayan replied, her hand lingering on the knot she finished tying. “Why did you do it?”

    Ganten’s fingers settled on hers, curling around them.

“I had a good reason.  Two, actually.”

    Rayan looked up to see him regarding her steadily.  It was an expression she hadn’t seen on his face before, but a welcome one.  The silence felt deafening around them, what with Aida asleep in her room.  The quiet was only penetrated by the blood rushing in Rayan’s ears.  She started to lean forward when he spoke again, arresting her motion.

    “I have to go take care of a few things,” he said quickly. “Abossim was giving me more details on what happens after these duels.”

    “Changed your mind about Shiffera, did you?”

Ganten smirked.  She thought that he might have kissed her then, but he instead gave her hand a brief squeeze and got to his feet.

    “I might be a while.  Don’t feel obligated to wait up.”

“Okay,” Rayan responded lightly, already planning on interrogating her uncle the next day.

    Ganten paused in the doorway to look over his shoulder, his visage soft before the curtain was swinging and he was gone.

—

Rayan didn’t see Ganten until the following afternoon at one of their secluded meeting spots.  She had checked out three of them and found him absent, lucking out with the fourth where he was pacing in a tight circle, rubbing at the numbers stamped above his brow.  He wasn’t nearly as at ease as he was when it was just the two of them.  Instead, he came across as fidgety and unable to look her full in the eyes for too long.  Rayan laid a hand on his arm, deciding not to prod him with a few little teasing remarks.

    “What is it?”

He met her gaze briefly before glancing to the side.

    “I, um, I collected what I wanted from Drass’s belongings last night,” he stammered out. “They gave me his water too, and, um–”

    There was a soft tinkling from his side as he pulled out a large collection of water rings that he had wrapped up and tucked away in the sash at his waist.  Rayan felt her heart shudder up to her throat as she watched the glittering, silver loops pressed into the palm of her hand.  She could feel her breast growing warm with euphoria before she tried to stamp it out.  She snapped her head up at him, smiling hesitantly.  Maybe he didn’t know.  Maybe he thought that the water rings would be beneficial for her and Aida.

    “You…do realize what it means when a man gives water rings to a woman, right?”

Ganten looked uncharacteristically bashful.

    “Abossim explained it to me last night.”

Rayan let the euphoria engulf her.  Her hand closed around the rings tight enough so that they didn’t jingle in her grip.  She stepped up to him, weaving her arms around his neck to pull him down low enough to kiss him on the corner of his mouth.  She felt his arms wrap around her, that hesitancy finally melting away.

    “Yes,” she whispered. “I accept.”