The Mad Giant (Shioni of Sheba Book 3) (10 page)

S
hioni’s hand hovered over
the scroll lying on Annakiya’s desk like a kingfisher lining up a fat river tilapia for the fatal strike. This was it. Beyond this point, it was more than the theft of a few gourds of lamp oil and a hunk of thick anise bread. Nor would she be committing an act of mere disobedience; she would be kicking the General’s orders into a heap of dung and screeching in celebration as she did so. Much as the idea appealed… she was about to prove she was exactly the troublemaker the General accused of giving him a grey beard!

Poor Annakiya: she
had worked until she fell asleep over the scroll in the early hours. Around the tenth hour, Shioni helped her into bed. Now was the eleventh hour, one hour before dawn, and the Princess of West Sheba was snoring lightly and drooling a little on her pillow.

She had convictions, but were they
accurate? Or was the General right? It boiled down to whether or not she trusted Anbessa’s word. Desta and Selam were clearly lying–of that she was convinced beyond doubt. If she was right she might be able to warn the Elites in time, or at least foil Desta’s plans. But what if she were mistaken? She might never see the Princess or the castle or Zi or Mama again. A whipping might be the best she could expect. Resale was the worst. Who knew what kind of owner she might gain? Some of the slave-girls told terrible stories about their owners…

Her courage
resembled a shrivelled raisin.

Could she let the warriors be slaughtered? No. She could never live with that guilt.

Her hand wobbled like a moth in flight.

Abruptly
, she snatched up the scroll and stuffed it down her shirt. Please God let her instincts be right!

Shioni hobbled down the hallway, hindered by her foot, and surveyed the courtyard from the protective darkness of the doorway. All
seemed quiet. Keep to the shadows. Try to be nimble, despite the infection and the pain. Please let the gate guard be sleeping or looking at the stars outside!

Shioni slipped into the stables, just a darker shadow amongst many, and paused to let her eyes adjust. Thunder nickered
faintly. She whispered, “Yes. It’s time.”

The bolt of his stall withdrew without so much as a squeak. That would be because someone–she grinned–had oiled it recently. And the hinges too. Funny, that. Thunder nosed her pocket. She had promised him five cubes of sugar if he played his part perfectly.

Thunder, bless him, minced down to the keep’s entrance with the fluttering steps of a dancer. He was
such
a show off! Shioni stuffed her fist into her mouth. A fit of the giggles now would ruin everything. In a second, she heard a startled exclamation followed by a chorus of muffled oaths, and the clippety-clop of Thunder trotting down toward the main gateway. There–as best she could tell by the unruly, hopping, milling confusion–he had chomped a warrior’s backside, stepped on another’s toes, and now had the whole watch spread across the gardens, arms outstretched, trying to corral him. Thunder was leading them a merry chase.

With a heavy bag in each hand, Siltam strapped to her back, a long dagger and two throwing-knives at her waist, and her bow and quiver full of arrows
to top it all off, Shioni felt she must resemble an overloaded donkey as she hobbled grimly down the pathway. With every step she prayed that the warriors would be so preoccupied with Thunder that she could slip by unnoticed. Here was the gateway. Just a few steps through and she would be safe…

“Where you going?”

“Oh–Kifle! You nearly killed me.”

His sharp eyes darted over her load and back to her face.
His expression, at another time, might have been comical. “I’d better not ask. Go. I didn’t see you.” Turning, Kifle ran up into Mama’s garden to join the group of gesticulating, grumbling warriors! Shioni shook her head. Only a good friend would be that crazy.

O
utside! Outside the castle walls, for the first time in days. Strange how she felt as though she’d stepped out from beneath sheltering wings into a dangerous darkness…

The night sky
was a princess richly dressed for a banquet, with her pearl-sprinkled tresses cast across the great, deep void. The thought that someone had so far been watching over her hare-brained escapade came to Shioni’s mind, and comforted her. By the time she had hiked down to the river trail, she heard Thunder’s hoof beats rushing up from behind. She had never been so relieved by the idea that she would be off her feet soon. Her injured foot was one throbbing mess. She hated to think what she might be doing to her chances of healing up properly–but this was more important.

“The warriors are following!” he
neighed, skidding to a hoof-sparking stop next to her.

Shioni tossed the saddlebags over his back and mounted up. Talaku’s unwieldy axe nearly caused her to fall off again, but she managed to get everything arranged somehow.

As Thunder moved off downriver, a voice shrilled from the left saddlebag, “You clumsy oaf! I’m being squashed like a fruit in here!”

“Zi!” Laugh, or scream? Shioni could not decide. “You… you rotten little stowaway!”

Rumpled and looking much the worse for wear, Azurelle squeezed out from beneath the buckled-down flap. She shot Shioni a withering glare. “Fancy. Here I am looking after my friend, who is off on another fool’s errand, and this is the kind of welcome I get? Ha!”

“Fool’s errand?”

“That was just for effect,” said Azurelle, “so you can shut your gaping trap. I happen to agree a lot more with you than the General or the Princess. Although you are neck-deep in poo and getting deeper all the time–”

“Zi!”

“You stole the scroll, didn’t you?” The Fiuri made a cutting motion across her neck. Dramatic, Shioni thought with an inward gulp, and hopefully not too accurate! “I hope you’re right–as I’m helping you, that means I’ll be right next to you, literally swimming in the brown smelly stuff, if you’re wrong. By my wings, that’s a madcap grin. Are you feeling quite alright?”

Shioni kept right on grinning. It
felt so good to have Zi aboard. She had been secretly dreading heading into the mountains on her own. Under the mountains, even. She hated confined spaces. But wasn’t it worth the discomfort if travelling through the caves could save her enough time to catch up with the Sheban warriors, before they walked straight into Kalcha’s trap? Maybe she was a bit mad. Sun-touched. But Zi seemed to be willing to share the madness with her. That was reason enough to curve her smile upward.

Even the thought of Annakiya waking up in the morning to find her precious scroll stolen did not straighten her lips one iota. She would know at once… she would be
frantic. The Princess of West Sheba would know the meaning of helplessness when she discovered Shioni was gone. The metal of the necklet was cool to her fingertip touch. Just once, this slave-girl was going to rebel. Her smile widened. Oh yes, a truly elephant-sized rebellion was just the medicine she needed to taste on her tongue.

She also tasted apprehension, and the thrill of adventure.

Wrapped in the chill pre-dawn dark, hearing the river gurgling cheerfully to her left hand, sensing the heft of Azurelle in her tunic pocket and rocking to the rhythm of Thunder’s tireless canter speeding her down-valley, Shioni had never felt so alive.

“So… what are you going to tell the soldiers at the cave?”

“Watch and learn,” she grinned.

But even to herself, Shioni did not sound confident. Not at all.

“H
yenas?”

“In the valley!” Shioni cried.
“The others went that way.”

And she watched in mild amazement as the last of the warriors melted away into the
pungent juniper thicket.

“You’re a genius,” Zi said dryly.
“And they are fools.”

“How encouraging
–”

“
Hurry. Before they work out there’s something wrong. And don’t worry–they’ve found the first few traps. It’s deeper in we’ll need to worry about.”

Shioni swallowed.
“You’re reading the scroll, alright?”

“Sure, and your name’s ‘graceful fluffiness of the baby bird’,” Zi snickered,
but without a trace of meanness in her voice. “You weren’t afraid of the lion, nor the mad giant…”

The cave
mouth yawned before her, blacker even than the night. It smelled faintly of rancid meat, making Shioni think that she might as well be staring down a lion’s throat, and taking her first steps toward a messy end. Who knew what other traps the Wasabi might have set in there? Traps not recorded on any scroll…

“
I’m not that brave, Zi. Look at my hands, they’re shaking…”

“
Being brave and being reckless are two different things,” said Thunder, moving beneath the overhang. “The difference is that a brave person knows
when
to be scared. Now, take care you don’t bump your head.”

“Ouch!
My knee, you mean.”

But once Thunder had squeezed through the entrance, the tunnel widened and Shioni’s knees were no longer in danger of being scraped off.
She fumbled a while with the lamp before getting it lit.

“
The scroll,” whispered Zi.

“Did they ever find
the warrior who was lost in here?”

“No.”

“Here. Why are we whispering?”

“Because I’m
nervous. Aren’t you? Right. It says to keep against the left wall.” She prodded Shioni with her pinprick of a finger. “Tell that lump of a horse you’re sitting on! Then take the right tunnel when it forks, and–hold the light steady, will you–we will need to step over a trap twenty paces down. It’s marked with an arrow on the wall. Got that?”

“I’ll handle Thunder.
Are you sure you want to go through these caves, Thunder?”

“Ask me again and
I’ll prove to you I don’t just eat grass.”

And that was no joke.
Shioni gulped down a chuckle.

It soon became clear that the caves were no highway for troops.
While the tunnels showed many signs of having been widened or smoothed for easier passage, there was nothing easy or straightforward about the route they were forced to take. Rather, it seemed designed to confuse. There was no pattern to the lefts and rights, ups and downs, nor was there any shortage of dead ends, hidden turns, subtle bends, and drop offs–and that was assuming one avoided the deadly traps, having decoded the meandering, oftentimes unclear text.

The bobbing lantern was their ever-present helpe
r, their guide, and numerous times their saviour. It kept the yawning darkness at bay–a darkness that preyed on Shioni’s nerves, and had Zi patting her arm murmuring ‘calm down’ and ‘your heart’s going to explode if you don’t relax’. Their progress was measured by that bobbing pool of light. But after four hours, according to Zi, who always knew exactly where the sun was, even deep underground, the path seemed to abandon its torturous ways.

A
s they paused over a few bites of bread for Shioni, honey for Zi, and nothing at all for Thunder, the Fiuri threw up her hands and complained, “This is ridiculous! I’d rather fly headlong into a spider’s web!”

“What is?” asked Shioni,
leaning over the offending scroll.

“
Hold the light steady. No, put it on that rock. Thanks!”

Shioni complained, “Don’t you ever cut those claws of yours? They’re so sharp!”

“Baby!” The Fiuri’s feet danced across the open scroll. “Listen, ‘Of the three take thee the path that leadeth pleasantly, not the high and rocky road, nor the tunnel shaped like a toad’.” Zi stamped her foot. Even that was not enough to dent the parchment. “What sadistic madman writes such obscure instructions? Or, ‘Beside the four a rocky door, rest for the footsore, a gallery of beauty before thee’. At least we haven’t come to the part where the stele was damaged... yet.”

“There’s a part missing?”
Shioni realised she had just squeaked like a field mouse frightened by a hunting owl, and lowered her voice self-consciously. “Which part?”

Zi stepped delicately over the parchment and put her hand on Shioni’s knee.
“Don’t you worry about nothing, girl.”

“Don’t you be imitating Mama Nomuula,
Fiuri.” Shioni raised an eyebrow, making Azurelle laugh. “I’ll tan your hide till you’s black and blue, I will!”

“We made it past three breaks in the text already,” said Zi, raising her finger to her lips. “
Small ones. The big break comes just after the toad.”

“There’s a toad?”

“For heaven’s sake, girl!” said Zi, lapsing into Mama-Nomuula-imitation again. “Just you be still.”

“I can’t help it, Zi.
I feels as though the walls are crushing down–”

Zi interrupted quickly,
“Did I ever tell you about Fiuriel–my world? Let’s move on, and I’ll describe it to you.”

Shioni threw her a nod, grateful at the prospect of distraction.

“Fiuriel is made up of caves, much like these,” said Azurelle, striking a dramatic pose upon Thunder’s back. Her jade eyes gleamed like mysterious jewels in the lamplight. “A whole world of caves, interconnected with each other, slowly growing and changing as the years pass by.”

“No wonder you’re so at home here.”

They were walking along a long, fairly straight tunnel, with a sandy floor and water-smoothed walls. Perhaps it had once been an underground river. “I’m not,” said Zi. “Fiuriel–well, how can I best describe it to you? Everything is light. Everything gives off light. Every plant, every wall and floor, even the Fiuri and the cave animals themselves: everything glows in a million hues and subtle colours that delight the senses. Everything is crystal. Even my blood is dissimilar to yours, Shioni. Here my flesh is warm, but in the realms of the butterfly-people–well, no, I was warm too. But not flesh like you. Crystal flesh.”

“Ooh!” she cried crossly, throwing up her hands in disgust. Shioni quickly grabbed her before she
toppled off Thunder’s back. “Words are not my strength. I’m doing a rotten job!”

“Don’t stop.”

“Well… it’s beautiful, as I was saying. Your world has its splendours too–like the mountains and rivers, and the great vistas that open before your eyes–I mean, imagine being able to see to a horizon? You couldn’t do that in the Fiuri world. Only on the surface, and that’s far too dangerous. You’d be killed. On the surface there is wild magic, and creatures of wild magic, that would tear a Fiuri apart in the blink of an eye. Not that the caves are much safer. That’s why the Fiuri had to band together in clans and build their castles and fortresses, sealing off whole areas, protecting them with magical wards and powerful spells created by hundreds of Fiuri magicians working in concert.”

“There are carnivorous plants
with names like Pitchers and Sticky-Eyes and Bolt-Tongues that, having snared a Fiuri, would eat them or worse, digest them slowly.” Zi shuddered. “And animals, slow and fast, flying and crawling and burrowing, strong of tooth and claw, many times the size of a Fiuri; animals that hunt in packs or alone; animals that sneak and ambush the unwary. Oh, the curse of being so small! It is a dangerous, dangerous world, Shioni. But oh! The wonders it holds! Exquisite mysteries beyond imagination! I miss it so…”

“I’m sorry, Zi.”

“Nothing for it,” she said, bravely dashing away a tear. “Now, here comes the problem. Hold that lantern high, would you?”

“Well,
this must be the ‘high and rocky road’.”

“So which is the toad?”

After some disagreement they tried the middle of three tunnels that split off at that point. But they quickly came up against a rock fall which had sealed the route. They were forced to return to the fork.

“This is the fat tunnel,” Shioni realised. “Lo
ok, and the entrance is zigzag; a toad’s hind leg.”

“We should have taken the right.”

“Right.”