The two boys holding her reacted far more strongly. At the time, I had never seen a man fall in a seizure, so I did not realize until years later what I was witnessing. Their bodies contorted as their muscles spasmed wildly; Raven and Carky literally flung themselves away from her, landing several feet away and hitting the ground hard enough to raise dust from the street. One of the younger boys, Raven’s brother Darda from the resemblance, gave a howl of dismay and scampered off toward the canteen.
She stumbled as they dropped her, nearly going to her knees, but in an instant she was on her feet again. She tugged at her blouse, for they had dragged her sleeves down her arms to expose her shoulders and part of her bosom. Covered again, she took two swift strides forward. “Let him go!” she commanded the two young ruffians who held me, and her voice was low and threatening through her clenched white teeth.
“But…your iron collar!” Only the one boy objected. He gaped at her, dismayed and offended, as if she had broken the rules of a game. The other released my arm and fled, howling like a kicked dog, although I am almost certain nothing had been done to him. She made no reply to the boy’s protest. Her fingers began to weave, and the protesting boy did not wait for her to complete the charm. He knew as well as I did that a Plains charm had a limited range. He thrust me at her so suddenly that I dropped into the dust at her feet, and then he raced full tilt after his friend. Carky had already disappeared, scrabbling to his feet and darting around the corner of a building. As Raven got to his feet, she helped me to mine. Then she turned to him, and as if she were wishing him good day, said, “Black paint over bronze. Not iron. My father would never put iron on any of us. He does not even bring his iron into our home.”
Raven backed slowly away from us. His face was flushed with fury, and his black eyes gleamed with it. I knew exactly when he thought he was beyond the range of her magic. He stopped there, and cursed her with the foulest names I’d ever heard, names I did not know the meaning of, only that they were vile. He finished with, “Your father shamed himself when he dipped his rod in your mother. Better he had done it with a donkey and produced a true mule. That’s what you are, hinny. A mule. A crossbreed. A freak. You can do your dirty little magic on us, but one day one of us will ride you bloody. You’ll see.”
He grew braver as he spoke, and perhaps he thought my gaping mouth indicated shock at his words. Then the scout, who had walked up behind Raven in utter silence, seized the boy. In one fluid motion, he spun Raven around and backhanded him across the face. The scout held nothing back from that blow, did not temper it at all for the sake of it being a boy he was hitting instead of a man. I heard the crack as Raven went down, and knew he had mouthed his last foul words until his jaw healed. As if the sound were a charm to bring witnesses, men left the shaded porches of the barracks and canteen to gather in the street. Darda was there, pulling his father Vev along by the hand. My father was suddenly there, striding up angrily, spots of color on his cheeks.
It seemed that everyone spoke at once. The girl ran to her father. He put his arms around her shoulders and, bending his head, spoke quietly to her. “We’ll be leaving now, Sil. Right away.”