Nuvao was looking at Trellana with something like bemused contempt as they entered the sled’s cabin. She could see in his face not just her mother’s fine features, but her weakness for worry. The two of them think too much, she thought. But I will not let him ruin this very beautiful morning.
“Ladies,” she said, addressing her maidservants with her first smile in a fortnight. “We will need to think about a post-anointment gown.”
The servants burst into smiles and happy gasps, and a lively discussion of options ensued. Occasionally Trellana looked at her brother, who was annoyed by the discussion of pleats, hemlines, and lace patterns that consumed the morning. The conversation finally ended when the procession was forced to halt and then pulled to the side. They heard the jeers of a rough-looking crowd from Mound Destroppo, which had gathered at the route’s edges. At first Trellana feared they were under attack, that rogue laborers had left their work to raid her procession. Nuvao pulled up the window flap and they saw guards mounted on hauling ants that dragged a prison cage on a sled. The laborers were hurling trash and sand grains at the cage, whose inhabitant was tightly bound to its bars with a thickness of ropes.
“Good gods in Ganilta! It’s Pleckoo!” said Nuvao.
“Pleckoo. Really,” said Trellana as she looked at his ropes. “I don’t imagine he’s terribly comfortable.”
“He is not,” said Nuvao. “We are witnessing an extraordinary moment!”
“At the moment he’s in our way,” said Trellana. “I’m perfectly willing to cut his feet off myself and have him bleed to death if that speeds things up. We would never have tolerated this on the Old Slope. A day or so is long enough to torture someone—inflict some pain, drain some blood, then make an example of his corpse.”
Pleckoo was suffering from thirst as the ant train slowed at yet another mound, where a fresh rabble gathered to torment him. Anand wants everyone to get their chance, so they can all tell their grandchildren about the day they got their licks in, he thought. He looked through the bars, then noticed a large Cajorite sled across from him with its faded banners flapping in the breeze. Its passengers were looking out their window at him, covering their noses to cut off the stink of the filth that had gathered on the sled. From behind him, he heard the growing crowd of haters as they poured out of the weeds to rattle his cage, climb on top of it, and rain down their piss. The guards ordered them back, and when they had order, they opened the cage’s door. Short ladders were set on both sides of him and he knew they would be climbing up to force liquids down his throat again.
No, not this time. I will not open my mouth, he determined. I will die of thirst before I reach Cajoria.
“Breakfast!” Goiter shouted at him. “Be a good boy and suck the titty.” Pleckoo gritted his teeth as Sewn Shut readied to jam the tube of a squeeze bag down his throat. Pleckoo shook his head as best as he could.
“He’s not happy today,” said Sewn Shut. “Come on, Pleckoo, open up. Or we’ll have to get this tube past your lips by knocking your teeth out.”
“And you don’t want to eat your own teeth,” Goiter said to him, “They’ll really hurt coming out your other end. So suck down your breakfast.”
Pleckoo only gripped his molars harder, grinding them.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Sewn Shut, who suddenly plunged the bag’s tube into Pleckoo’s nose cavity, then squeezed the contents. He choked, then drowned on the liquid as a panic exploded through him. He blacked out, and when he came to, he felt the tube deep and scraping into his throat and then his stomach quickly filled to bloating. He retched and spat up something deeply rancid before they yanked the tube from out of his mouth.
“That’s a good little Hulkrite,” said Sewn Shut. “Now go out and play.”
The guards left the cage and retied its door. “Have at him!” they shouted to the crowd, and Pleckoo felt the cage rattle as boys and young men climbed its bars.
This trial will end, thought Pleckoo as his ropes were soaked anew. And Hulkro will help me kill every last infidel of Bee-Jor.
Chapter 29
Durxict
Anand looked down from a locust at the wall that divided Bee-Jor from the Barley Lands as the squadron sighted Mound Shishto. As he had ordered, neglected acorns from Shishto’s trees had been rolled by the thousands to the border’s edge. “Veer her right, into a wide spiral for a smooth landing,” he said to his pilot. Terraclon nodded, ducked down his head, and splayed the locust’s right antenna in a slow bend to make a sweep around the mound before approaching the clearing marked with yellow rings. He raised up the left antenna to fly the locust low to the ground, then brought both together for a touchdown that allowed the locust to crawl as it made gentle contact with the sand. Anand had not experienced such a perfect end to a flight since flying with Jidla in Dranveria.
“Well done, Ter. I’m surprised,” Anand said as he jumped down.
“Were you expecting less?” said Terraclon, wrinkling his brow.
“Of course not.”
“Then why are you surprised? Because I’m a two spirit who can pilot a locust?”
“No! I’m surprised that you learned so quickly.”
“So quickly? Because I’m usually so slow?”
“Why are you giving me such a hard time? I was complimenting you.”
“When do I usually give you a hard time?” Terraclon said, then looked away to hide his glistening eyes.
“You know, you could just say something like, ‘Be careful, my friend. I’ll miss you.’”
“There you go, charming yourself again. Oh, I forgot . . . you’re a god. Or at least a demigod, I’m not sure.”
Anand rolled his eyes, gave with a quiet laugh. “Fly high when you’re scouting inland. Don’t let them sight you.”
“I will. Why are you sure they’re coming at all?”
“I am told that before they go to war, they dig pits before an idol of their moon god, Lumm Korol, whose mount is the Night Mantis. The pits are filled with the old or sickly or crippled who are shot or stabbed when they try and escape. When they’re all dead, barley seeds are rolled on top of the corpses. And when the pits are refilled . . . they go to war. They’ve prepared those at the feints and likely somewhere inland, where they’re really gathering.”
“And I thought it was shameful to be a Slopeite.”
“Don’t fly alone. Take a squadron. Locusts are less dependable as the days get shorter and cooler.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“And, Ter, I know I don’t need to ask, but—look after my dad when you can. And Polexima. I think . . . I know she gets lonely too.”
Terraclon was startled. “I suppose she does,” he said. “So do a lot of people.”
“We all get lonely.”
“Then why do we feel such shame to admit it?”
“I don’t. Be careful, my friend. I’ll miss you.”
“Right, Commander. All that.”
Anand walked away to a cluster of yellowing mallow plants.
“Anand!”
He turned and looked at Terraclon, who wore his most serious face. “What, Ter?”
“Don’t come back empty-handed.”
Terraclon smiled to reveal his oversized teeth before he coaxed his locust back into the sky. Anand took a sniff of the tart air and walked to the mallow cluster, where the Britasytes and their roaches were waiting for him. Punshu emerged from out of the mallow’s shadows with a scented roach cape to disguise Anand’s ant-scent. As he tied it under his chin, Anand took a deep whiff of its rich and complex aromas, then was plunged into early memories of his first visits to roach camps—those places where he felt happily at home among a homeless people. His happiness expanded as he entered the depth of the mallows’ shade and sighted Daveena on the riding ledge of their sled, where she was intensely at work on a garment. He ran to her, and as they plunged into each other’s warmth, he rubbed his palm over her belly and felt her swollen naval.
“I’m going to
have days with you,” he said between warm, wet kisses.
“Not easy days. I’ve got something for you, in an orange that will please the Seed Eaters,” she said after leaving his hungry arms. She held up a man’s traditional Britasyte tunic to wear under his roach-wing cape. The garment was as bright as a spring poppy, with a subtle pattern of roaches racing after each other in a darker shade of orange. Anand smiled as he admired its subtle qualities and the way the spiraling pattern continued without breaking over the seams. “It should be able to hide your under-armor,” Daveena said, showing him the tunic’s quilted padding on its insides.
“It’s very beautiful,” he said. “Like its maker.” He pulled it on over his armor and it felt slightly snug, something that would improve after a few days of wearing. Daveena’s eyes were running up and down her husband’s naked legs, which retained patches of scabs.
“My legs are good, don’t worry,” he said.
“You know I married you for your legs,” she said. “And I can’t bear seeing this kind of damage to my investment.” She went inside the cabin to retrieve some roach salve, and a moment later his legs were glistening, smoother, and soothed.
Once the caravan was assembled, Punshu and other Britasyte men unfolded the pole of an enormous banner with the embroidered image of an orange roach. When they reached the border wall, they raised the banner to full height. A Seed Eater sentry in their distant tower signaled recognition of the entering roach tribe by raising a banner of their own, one with a dark orange background and the bright green figure of Katydid the Barley Goddess.
“Break it down!” Anand shouted to the Shishtite guards, and a section of the wall was disassembled in a swathe large enough to allow for the caravan’s passing. Anand and Daveena rode at the head of the sand-sleds, behind grass shields on the riding ledge, with Punshu as their driver. The boy leaned in, fiercely, as if his chin were a dagger cutting its way through the wilderness. He had split his long curls into three separate tails on the back of his head, and thrown back his cape to reveal a new tunic of orange silk with flame patterns, something drawn from the memory of the war against the Hulkrites.
Anand looked behind him as the caravan completed its passage to see the wall being quickly rebuilt by the Shishtite guards. Ahead of them was the Seed Eaters’ low, rough wall before the grim little border village where he had crashed with Omal. Its inhabitants were shyly emerging from their shelters and perched atop their pebble mound to marvel at the sparkling sleds and their extravagant carvings. The woman with her baby in a sling appeared, followed by the rest of her children or siblings—Anand wasn’t sure. Anand thought all of them looked better, less haggard; but their eyes still seemed too big in their withered faces. The chieftain, wearing his rags of grass cloth, appeared from his dwelling at the top of the mound with two wives and at least ten ill-fed and poorly clothed children. Their low wall was disassembled by men who strained to remove its sand grains, then fell in exhaustion.
Daveena bowed to them all once they entered. “Thank you, glorious Barley people, beloved of Katydid, for kindly allowing us passage through your beautiful and gracious land.”
Anand knew what she had said from a few words—the customary greeting—but he was still stumped by Yatchmin, a language that bore no resemblance to any he knew. He was thrown by the word placements and what sounded like a complete lack of vowels. He cleared his throat.
“Daveena, tell them that Commander Quegdoth, the ruler of Bee-Jor, formerly known as the Slope, sends his warm greetings and a gift of food,” Anand said, and Daveena nodded towards him, then shouted out the translation.
Anand and Punshu unfolded the roach banner’s pole again to bring it to full height, then waved it atop their sand-sled. The Barley people and Britasytes heard a gentle rumbling and turned to see Bee-Jorite guards all along the border walls pushing acorns over it that rolled to the villagers. One of the acorns, older and darker, came closest to the village and the youths ran out to it and squealed with delight to find holes in its shell. They set to work with their ant-pincer daggers and yanked out the white weevil maggots inside the acorn, then ran back to the mound while licking and nibbling on them as they squirmed in their arms. The woman with the baby gasped when she recognized Anand. She smiled and waved at him with her free hand, shouting, “Shpeebo crasshpy shirca!”
“What’s she saying?” he asked.
“You have an admirer,” said Daveena. “She says, ‘Thank you, handsome sir.’”
“Tell the village chieftain that Bee-Jorite acorns have been rolled to the border villages all along Shishto as an offering in peace. Ask him to pass this news through their . . . um, beautiful empire. Tell him the new nation of Bee-Jor respects the nation of the Barley people and wants to be their peaceful neighbor.”
Daveena shouted Anand’s message to the villagers as a scattering of harvester ants came through the weeds, raised their antennae, then quickly turned and sped away after detecting roach-scent. Anand ordered the procession to resume. He felt strangely unsure of himself as he looked out at this foreign nation from the lower perspective of a sand-sled. At this intimate level, the Barley Lands looked harsh and primitive and evoked an eerie sadness. When they reached a mass of scrub trees where the sand route split, Punshu veered them right.
“This is the way?” Anand asked as they traveled through almost identical villages, all of them densely spaced. “This is the usual route?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s the route we’ve traveled for centuries if we’re going to Durxict first.” He looked up at the pebble tower of the passing village, which was like a thin pyramid with a rope wrapped around its top that connected it to the tower of the next village. He noticed men at the top of these structures looking down from platforms with bows at the ready and quivers full of arrows.
“Are those religious structures or watchtowers?” he asked.
“They are both,” she answered.
“And are those soldiers or sheriffs on top?”
“Both,” she said. “They don’t distinguish between the two. The closest word we have is sentry.”
As the caravan continued east, Anand was uncomfortable to see masses of villagers leaving their dwellings to gather at the edges of the sand route. They looked at the Britasytes from behind pebbles or tufts of weeds or with a shy, sideways stare. It was all the more eerie that they did so in complete quiet, shushing their children if they tried to speak.
“Do they always gather like this?” he asked Daveena.
“Always.”
“I don’t like it. A predator is silent before it strikes.”
“We are all quite safe.”
As Anand looked at this long wall of gaunt, raggedy villagers, he tried to ponder their existence. If this was their future, it was no wonder Tahn was able to lure so many Seed Eaters into Hulkren.
“When do we stop and trade?” he asked.
“Not for two, maybe three days. Until we reach Durxict.”
“Why not before?”
“Do these people look like they have anything to trade?”
“That’s what worries me. We have plenty they might like to take.”
“They wouldn’t dare. They are more obedient than you know.” Daveena tilted her head up to the men in the watchtowers. “They know very well not to molest roach trains bearing goods to the mounds.”
Anand looked over the people’s heads to see a few scattering harvester ants as they sniffed, then retreated up to barley stalks to wave their antennae. Some were shaking their abdomens, and a whiff of their poison reached the caravans. “Breathing masks,” said Daveena when the smell thickened and began to irritate their lungs. “They’ve sensed some leaf-cutter-scent.” She went to a seed chest and retrieved masks with filters and their connected quartz goggles, and passed them to Punshu and Anand as others in the sleds behind them did the same. When they reached the top of a grade by late afternoon, Anand saw the first human-inhabited ant mound and what looked like a larger, secondar
y city next to it.
“Durxict?” Anand asked.
“Yes,” said Daveena.
Sometime after the sun grew larger and softer, Daveena gave an order. “Pull over, Punshu. We’ll spend the night here.”
“Why spend the night?” Anand asked “Let’s keep going.”
“Night travel is not permitted.”
“Why not?”
“Because they say so. We’ll camp here.”
“Here? On the sand route?”
“There are no clearings large enough to accommodate us until we reach the city,” Daveena said. “We will camp here, leaving enough room for any Seed Eaters to pass on foot if they need.”
“And we’ll be safe? Surrounded by all these starving Seed Eaters?”
“Anand, you are new to the Barley Lands. But it has always been this way. You did put me in charge, didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did,” said Anand as he looked out at masses of people coming out of the barley stalks to stand or sit and stare at them in the falling darkness. “So are all these people going to just watch us and our sleds while we’re sleeping? Just what are they expecting?”
“A little entertainment,” she said. “That is what we do.”
“But we haven’t brought anything—no stage or costumes or fungus lights.”
“They are very entertained at the moment. All we have to do is stand here and be ourselves and they will find it fascinating. They can’t wait to see us eat. And later, if we bring out our drums and sing a little in the dark, it will be their best night in moons.”
The Prophet of the Termite God Page 25
