Black Spice (Book 3) (5 page)

Kyric
turned to Mahai.  “Is that what the drumming is for?  Do your people celebrate
summer solstice?  I don’t suppose you tear up straw men at midnight.”

“All
the nations of Mokkala stay up dancing the night before,” Mahai said.  “Being
tired and worn out is supposed to help you break through to the spirit world.  At
dawn my people hunt shark for a feast after dark, once it has been cooked in
the sacred way.  During the day there are weddings and the big spirit singing
at sundown.  A lot of couples wait for this day to get married.  It’s supposed
to be lucky.”

Lerica
tapped Kyric on the shoulder.  “Did you get me a present?”

“I’m
sorry.  I didn’t even think of it.”

She
tried to make an exaggerated frown, but ended up giggling.  “I have one for
you.”  She dug in the pocket of her pack and pulled out a mass of wax with a
wick protruding from it.  It was different shades of brown.

“It’s
a candle.  I made it from scraps,” she said.  “It was supposed to be
multicolored, but they all melted together.”

“Thank
you.  We’ll light it together tonight,” Kyric said, his words sounding false
even as he spoke them.  Suddenly he was afraid that it would not come to pass.

The
far side of the hills lay covered with stunted trees, and they wove a path
through them, trying to stay concealed as they went.  No one spoke.  When the
ground leveled out, Aiyan said, “Ready weapons.”  He unslung his longbow and
nocked an arrow.  Kyric did the same.  Lerica hadn’t wanted to lug her crossbow
the length of the island.  She had brought a fancy dueling pistol that Kyric
didn’t know she had, and now she drew it from her sash.  Mahai shrugged.  All
he had was his war club, and it was always in his hands.

A
watery, gargling sound issued from Kyric’s abdomen, so loud that the others
stopped and looked at him. 
Great.  I’m going to get us all killed because
my stomach can’t take red pepper
.

Mahai
led them down a ravine that took them to within a mile of the town.  A thick
belt of palms and broadleaf shrubs lay directly ahead of them.  The drums grew
louder, the beat remaining steady.  As the ravine began to shallow and open
into the woods, Mahai ducked, backing away.

“A
dozen Hariji,” he whispered, “Guarding the main trail to the cassia grove, about
a hundred paces to the north.”

Aiyan
took a peek.  “We’ll crawl till we get into the trees, one at a time.”

They
crawled for a while, Kyric much more worried about these poisonous snakes he
hadn’t yet seen.  They stood when they reached an intersection of three narrow
game trails.  Aiyan held out an open hand in each direction, as if feeling for
a current.

“All
these trails lead to danger,” he said.  “Let’s take the middle one.”

They
walked carefully and quietly, Aiyan stopping every time they crossed an animal
path to reach out and feel the way to go.  At one point, he selected one that
curved behind them to the west, but then it doubled back.  He nodded to
himself, satisfied with the choice.  The drumming got louder, along with
distant voices, and they crept forward, one step at a time.  Aiyan halted,
dropping to one knee.  Kyric could see the sky through the trees ahead.

A
number of rocky outcroppings thrust through the soft forest floor like the
knuckles of a giant hand.  One large boulder stood near the edge of the trees. 
They crawled up its backside and lay on their bellies, peering over the shrubs.

Hundreds
and hundreds of men, at least a few thousand, filled a clearing more than a
furlong wide.  They had gathered in a huge circle, all facing a platform in the
center.  Soth Garo stood on the platform, mist curling from his bare arms as he
raised them in triumph.  He wore nothing more than a short chainmail skirt and
a gigantic sword strapped to his back.  His skin was white as bleached linen. 
Kyric had thought that his hair would be white too, but he had no hair at all.

Two
men holding large sacks flanked him.  They were Baskillians, with military
boots and sabres in their sashes, but they also wore sleeveless tunics with a
strange fringe at their hems, crisscrossed with belts of human bones.  At first
Kyric thought that some kind of small helmet sat on top of their heads, then
one of them turned and he saw that it was a skull.

Soth
Garo pulled handfuls of broken bones from the sacks and threw them to the eager
crowd like they were the wooden coins of midsummer.

“The
legacy of the Onakai,” he crowed as he tossed the bones.  “They are no more.  I
have eaten the soul of their king!”

He
gave his war shout, the cry of a nameless creature, and the crowd thrashed with
fervor, a visible wave moving over them as his voice echoed off the side of a
nearby cliff.

Lerica
had been watching with a narrow squint, and now she suddenly pulled back.

“Gods,”
she said, swallowing.  “The fringes on their clothes — they’re human fingers.”

“Elistar’s
breath,” Aiyan whispered.  “Where did Cauldin find him?”

Kyric
estimated the range to be a hundred and fifty paces, closer than the final
target had been at the Games of Aeva.  “Let me take the shot,” he said to
Aiyan.

“It
won’t work.  Remember what Mahai said about the power of his skin.”

“It
will work if I nail him right in his eye.  I did it once before.”

Aiyan
shook his head.  “You were only a few steps away from Vaust when you did that. 
Besides, he would feel your aim upon him.  It would give us away.  In fact,
don’t even look at him for too long.”

“Would
he feel it coming if I didn’t aim?”

Lerica
rolled her eyes.  “Now you’re being stupid.”

Soth
Garo had run out of bones, and his lieutenants now stood at one end of the
platform where a wide column of smoke rose from the ground below.  Kyric
strained to see the fire, but the crowd of hunters blocked his view.  All of
them wore some kind of headdress, most of them being a wide leather headband
with a set of tusks fixed to it, making it look like curved horns grew from
their foreheads.

“What’s
with the headpieces?” he asked Mahai.

“Everyone
on the island has one for ceremonial days.  The tusks are for Hariji hunters;
others wear the tail.  All the Hariji have purple stripes on their faces.  The
ones with the big seashells are Silasese.”  His face darkened.  “You see those three
men on the other side, with shark’s teeth on their headbands?  They are
Onakai.”

Soth
Garo turned full circle to the crowd.  “Now comes the wedding of the two
nations.  The Silasese to the Hariji.”

The
drumming stopped.  Someone blew a single long note from a conch shell.  Kyric
watched a procession come out of an opening in the woods to their left, the
north side of the clearing.  The crowd parted for them.

A
young couple dressed in long white gowns walked in front with measured steps. 
The girl wore a headband with the Hariji tail.  The boy’s headdress featured a
large seashell above each ear.  They stared solemnly ahead.  About twenty of Soth
Garo’s death-head soldiers followed them like attendant priests.  When they
reached the platform, the white warrior held out one hand and let them up the
steps.  At the other end of the platform, the smoke grew thick.

Soth
Garo had them face each other, a lieutenant behind each one, and had them take
each other’s hands.  The lieutenants untied the gowns and removed them with a
quick yank.  The boy and girl were naked underneath.

“God
and Goddess,” Lerica said.  “They’re just teenagers.”

“I
recognize the boy,” Mahai said.  “He’s one of the Silasese whale singers.”  He
shook his head.  “Only virgins may be whale singers.”

Lerica’s
mouth fell open.  “You don’t mean that they’re going to make them — why do they
seem so easy with it?  Are they drugged?”

Mahai
shook his head.  “The black spice doesn’t do this.”

“They’ve
taken his blood,” Aiyan said through clinched teeth.  “Like everyone else in
that field.”

Soth
Garo raised one hand.  “By the authority of my divine and immortal father, as
the son of a god, I pronounce you wed.”

He
lay the girl on her back and signaled to the boy to mount her.  The crowd of
hunters began to rap their spears against their boar-hide shields.  The rhythm
grew quicker, the tapping louder.  It didn’t take long, and as soon as the
couple lay still, the boy kissing the girl gently, one of his men handed Soth
Garo a long wooden stake.  He plunged it through both of their hearts with one
thrust, pinning them together in death.  The surrounding hunters erupted in a
frenzy of cries and shouts, leaping into the air.  The two lieutenants dragged
the bodies to the edge of the platform and rolled them off the far end, into
the fire.

Aiyan
was the only one to make a sound.  “Elistar’s holy breath,” he whispered.

Soth
Garo held up his hands to quiet the crowd.  “It is done,” he announced.  “And
tonight when we feast, this union will be consummated by all.  Now the
remaining Silasese will join us by blood.”

Kyric
felt sick, and not from the red pepper.  “Is he saying what I think?”

No
one answered him.

Soth
Garo jumped down, the Baskillians forming a guard around him, and they pushed
through the crowd toward a point where two cliff faces came together at a sharp
angle on the south side of the clearing.  Some of the hunters broke away from
the crowd, but most of them stayed.  Slowly, they began to move, circling the
fire pit in one solid mass, the men at the outer edge having to trot to keep
up.

“What
are they doing?” Aiyan asked Mahai.

“I’ve
never seen this before.  But after you stay up all night dancing you get a
little dazed.  You can find yourself doing strange things.”

Aiyan
shook his head.  “If we had an army with us we could take them right now.”

Soth
Garo and his skull-crowned guards climbed to the top of the cliff on steps cut
from the stone.  Several hundred Hariji gathered to watch them from below.

The
far edge of the clearing seemed to drop away, and beyond it they could see only
the ocean and a few treetops.  Kyric figured that the clearing was on a low
tableland above the town, and that the way down to it could be difficult, but
then a column of men came over the edge.  A company of Hariji hunters led a
line of about fifty men right to the steps at the foot of the cliff.  The
captives didn’t have headpieces, but Kyric could tell they were Silasese.

One
of the Baskillian lieutenants pushed the first man up the steps at sword’s point,
forcing him kneel before his master at the apex of the cliffs where all could
see.  Soth Garo jabbed his own wrist with a dagger and offered it to the man. 
He lowered his head and licked at the wound.

Mahai
let out a breath.  “I do not believe it.”

Another
man was brought, a young warrior by the looks of him.  Pushed to his knees, he
raised his head and refused to take the blood.  Soth Garo looked to his
lieutenant.  He held two fingers above the man’s head.

Soth
Garo nodded, and the lieutenant drew back his sabre, beheading the man with one
clean stroke.  He kicked the body over the edge to the hunters waiting below. 
Kyric didn’t want to know what they were going to do with it.

He
looked at Lerica.  Her expression had gone from surprise and outrage to the mask
she had worn in the slave camp — an angry resignation, quietly furious that
they were surrounded by imminent death, and nothing could be done about it.  He
should thank Colonel Thurlun, he supposed, for his week in the slave camp.  He
couldn’t say it had inured him to this — nothing could do that — but that
experience had given him a kind of insulation against the shock, a way of
putting it aside for later.

Another
was brought, and he took the blood.  And another.

Then
one came who knelt before Soth Garo and hesitated, looking at the bloody head
that lay there.  He would not drink.  The lieutenant held one finger over his
head, and Soth Garo waved him away.  He was taken back down the steps and out
of sight.

The
next one took the blood.  And the next.  And the next.

“Why
do so few refuse him?” Mahai said.  “I would rather die than become his slave.”

“The
only ones who refuse are the young warriors — no wife, no children,” Aiyan
said.  Then he seemed to have a thought.

“Mahai,
is there any way up the back side of that escarpment?”

“Yes,
but it would take some time to get there.”

Aiyan
lay quiet for a moment.

“Belay
that talk,” Lerica whispered sharply.  “There’s two dozen trained Baskillian
killers up there with him.  You’ll never get close to him while he’s with his
army.  We have done all that we can.”

She
looked to Kyric for support and continued.  “We know the strength and the
location of his troops, and we know they won’t be marching right away.  We
should go back to King Tonah and report what we’ve seen.”

“Maybe
the three of you should do exactly that,” Aiyan said.  “Anyone on watch tonight
will be near exhaustion.  I’ll stay and look for an opportunity.”