The older girl asked, “Where is Tiblan? They moved him to another room yesterday.”
“He married a Hariji girl,” said Lerica without looking at her. She hauled the younger girl to her feet.
“They’re coming!” Aiyan called from the front door. “We have to leave this very second.”
Mahai took the older girl’s hand, and Kyric grabbed the boy by one arm, and they went out of the wedding house with the Silasese singers in tow. They trotted down the path they had come by, Aiyan bringing up the rear. He had recovered Kyric’s pistol, and he pointed it down the path to the big clearing and pulled the second trigger, with booming success this time, dropping the first hunter in line.
“That will give them something to think about,” he said.
“What’s your name,” Mahai asked the older girl.
“I’m Dinala. This is Meithu and Rillah,” she said pointing to the boy and girl.
As they approached the top of the ladder, Mahai yanked Dinala into the underbrush and they all followed his lead.
‘Death guards coming up the ladder,’ he said-signed. ‘Too many to fight.’
Aiyan pointed to the north, away from the big clearing. ‘Go that way.’
They pushed through thick shrubs with leaves the size of elephant ears, but they only went a hundred paces before they came to the edge of the cliff. It had made a sharp turn to the west once it passed the town. The drop to the forest floor was nearly a hundred feet.
They followed the cliff edge back toward the ocean, looking for a way down and finding none, and came to where it thrust out before bending around to the south. Behind them, Kyric could hear dozens of men beating the bushes. Out on the bay, a small flotilla of outrigger canoes were setting sail. To the north, scores of Silasese pulled double-hulled boats from their hidden sheds along the tree line and hauled them toward the shore. A long, sleek double outrigger waited on the beach, only fifty yards away if they could get down to it.
“Should have gone the other way,” Aiyan said. “Could have got them out overland.”
Lerica stood looking down on a tall palm tree growing close to the cliff. The top of it came to within thirty feet of where they stood.
She grinned at Kyric, kicking her boots off and tossing them over the cliff. “I’ll be back shortly,” she said.
“Lerica, what are you — “
She took a skipping step to the edge and leaped, arcing toward the palm tree, hitting its top dead center and somehow keeping her balance as she grasped at fronds for support. As soon as she was steady, she slid down the trunk in a controlled fall that left claw marks all the way to the bottom.
She ran toward the waiting boat, calling for help, stopping at a rack on the beach to gather something into a bundle. A minute later she stood below the cliff with five burly men. She spread a fishing net between them. They took hold and pulled it taut.
“We’re ready,” she called up to Kyric. “One at a time, please.”
“Youngest first,” Aiyan said, “and quickly. They’re very close now.”
The boy, Meithu, stepped to the edge, and leaped with a grin on his face. They caught him easily. Then it was Rillah’s turn, but she froze at the edge and started crying.
Dinala took her hand and said, “We have to be brave now. Here, I’ll jump with you. Alright?”
She counted three as Kyric bobbed with impatience, then over they went, and somehow they didn’t bump heads, but Rillah landed badly and twisted her ankle.
“Hey,” Lerica said. “I told you guys one at a time.”
Kyric looked at Mahai. “I’ll be twenty-one in three days.”
Mahai smiled triumphantly. “I turned twenty-one a few months ago. You’re next.”
Kyric kicked out as he jumped, landing in a seated position, and quickly rolled off the net. From the top of the cliff came shouts and the clash of steel. Then Mahai came sprinting off the cliff edge, plummeting down with his legs still churning.
“Toss me,” he called as he fell. “Toss me!”
Then they saw why. Aiyan was right behind him, sword in hand.
The Silasese knew what to do. They angled the net and threw him off as soon as he hit. He was flung to the side, going end over end, and landed flat on his back. He didn’t get up.
“Oh gods no,” said Lerica.
Kyric ran to his side. Mahai opened his eyes.
“Sand is harder than you might think,” he said, getting to his feet. “Knocked the wind out of me.”
Kyric laughed quietly behind a wide smile. He couldn’t help it — Mahai had said it so casually. A fall like that would have broken another man’s back.
Aiyan was out of the net already. The Silasese dropped it and ran for the boat, one of them scooping up Rillah as he went. With Dinala and Meithu between them, Aiyan and Lerica made a dash for the beach, Kyric and Mahai right behind them. Kyric was still laughing.
A horde of Hariji poured out of the town, but they wouldn’t get to the beach in time. From the cliff top, a handful of arrows arced toward them but fell wide.
The boat was in the water, overloaded to be sure, but the bow floated free. The paddlers and sail handlers stood ready. As they reached it, Kyric began to laugh in earnest. He and Mahai were the last ones, and they pushed the stern of the giant canoe off a sandy lip, climbing aboard as the paddlers dug madly into the ocean and a sudden breeze filled the sail.
The boat raced out of the harbor, quickly closing with the fleet of canoes, all their little sails taut and full as the wind continued to rise. Jascenda sat behind the mast singing, her high soprano voice sounding like whistling wind. And there was no mistaking it — she directed her singing at the big triangular sail, as if her voice could fill it, and with every verse, the boat went a little faster.
A small island with a rocky shore lay off their starboard bow, and now they saw a three-mast carrack hove-to on its far side — the Baskillian ship. It mounted a canon on its bow, and three more on each side.
Its sails began to fill and it eased forward, heading directly at the Silasese flotilla. It fired its bow chaser, barely missing a large twin-hull with two masts. Kyric felt the vibration from the shot, even though it was half a mile away.
Jascenda said something to the skipper of the boat, a fellow younger than Kyric who manned the steering oar. She moved to stand at the bow, a metal object on a braided leather cord in her hands. It was then that Kyric noticed the figurehead at the prow of the boat, and on all the big ocean-going canoes. It was a seahorse, but more than that it was his seahorse, exactly as he had carved it on their voyage to Mokkala.
Jascenda began to whirl the leather cord, and the metal thing, a crisscross of copper needles trailing long strips of tin, whipped a circle above her head like a falconer’s lure. Out on the bay, a huge thunderhead dragged a black column of rain toward them. Jascenda screamed, and it suddenly shifted direction, picking up speed. She screamed again, a wailing cry from deep within her, and it bore down on the Baskillian ship, which was desperately trying to shorten sail now. The storm cloud struck the ship head-on with the force of a gale, bringing it to a dead stop, tearing its yardarms away, the remaining sails flapping wildly on only one or two sheets.
And then they were past it, making swiftly for the mouth of the bay, the town well beyond bowshot now.
They had done it. Kyric couldn’t believe it. They had actually done it. And not one scratch on any of them.
He saw a speck of white on the shoreline. It could have been anything, a canvas awning or the like, but he wondered. He let out his best whoop of triumph, and flipped the double finger at Soth Garo and his men. Laughing, he turned and waved his butt at them.
“Pucker up and kiss it, boys,” he shouted over his shoulder.
Aiyan glared at him. “Kyric. Sit down!” He seemed truly angry. Lerica just shook her head.
Kyric looked along the length of the boat. The Silasese sat unmoving, some looking back at their home, others simply staring out to sea, their eye
s wide and glazed over. The whale singers huddled together, Dinala wrapping Rillah’s ankle with a wet cloth. In the bow, Jascenda had collapsed. She struggled for a breath that would not come, but apparently they had all seen this before. One of them propped her head up and waited for her to get better.
“I know that everyone has suffered,” Mahai said gently. “There’s no reason to celebrate. But I don’t think a gesture would be wrong here. We won a victory. A small victory, yes, but a good one nonetheless, better than we could have hoped — we saved many lives and gave the enemy a fat lip on top of it. We won the day and got away clean. Clean, and with no regrets. Tell me, how often does that happen?”
CHAPTER 7: Conferences and Confidences
They made it to Niwendesh well before sundown, and landed there, having no fear that the Baskillian carrack could have pursued them. Niwendesh was a Silasese town on the wind-torn northeast coast, and it was strung thinly along the shore. These villagers were clearly fisher folk. Racks and racks of spearfish and tuna stood drying in the open spaces, and huge deep-sea sailfish hung from bamboo poles.
The Silasese elders met briefly and made the decision to abandon their land for now and join with the Tialucca, as they could field no more than five or six hundred warriors, men and women together. They would not let what happened in the south happen here. But many of the canoes were too small to risk the treacherous north cape of the island, so the plan became that most of the Silasese would go to Tiah on foot, crossing Bantuan land with as much food as they could carry, while the elders would bring the spice reserves and the whale singers there by sea. Kyric and his group would sail with them.
They departed at sunrise in the same boat they had used to escape. By noon they were getting tossed and sprayed off the north cape, and they sighted the great bird-heads of the Tialucca at the very end of the day. As they passed the headland in the purple twilight, Kyric was sure he spotted Ubtarune, still sitting atop his watch pole, still waiting for his message.
Calico had a new foremast, fully rigged and ready to go. Lerica went aboard at once, looking for her uncle. Aiyan started toward King Tonah’s house, waving for Kyric to come with him.
“I have to tell him about Caleem.”
“I’d better join you,” Mahai said.
Tonah listened to them in silence. He didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t speak a word when Aiyan finished everything he had to say. He sat motionless as Mahai swore that it was all true.
At last he said, “Bring me my son.”
“You must understand that he is no longer your son,” Aiyan told him. “He is now the son of Soth Garo, and he will tell any lie, or commit any act, to serve him. He would even kill you.”
Tonah could have been made of stone. “Bring me my son.”
“I know the place where he is being held,” Mahai said. “It’s a day and a half away. I can leave in the morning and be back with Caleem on the third day.”
When Tonah dismissed them, Kyric left Aiyan and Mahai behind, pushing through the groups of confused Silasese and Tialuccans, suddenly not wanting to talk to anyone or even be near them. He went to the ship and straight to Lerica’s cabin. She was still with Ellec, and he didn’t mind. He let his weapons and clothing lay on the deck where he dropped them and fell face first into the bed.
Aiyan woke him at noon the next day, saying that there was going to be a council of war and that Kyric needed to come and translate. He was surprised to have slept so late; he couldn’t remember when he had last done it.
Lerica had been up for hours and was in the middle of a painting detail, so he breakfasted alone. He ate furiously, tearing through rice cakes one after the other, and only vaguely aware of what he was doing. As he made his way to King Tonah’s house, he realized that he was mad as hell, ready to push aside anyone who got in his way.
The meeting included all the Silasese and Tialucca elders, and lasted for hours, with everyone telling their version of what had happed since Soth Garo landed on Mokkala. It turned out that the Silasese headman at Whale Home had also been killed by the walking skin the night before the Hariji attacked. But nothing was decided that hadn’t been decided before with the Bantuan. The Silasese didn’t have a king. Every year they selected an older woman to be Mother of the Clan, a sort of temporary queen. Her name was Perrua, and when she announced that she would mix cassia with cardamom, there was bowing and whistling and the sign of the feathered crest.
Kyric almost ran to the ship when the council broke up. The Tialucca made a sweet wine called rass from fermented fruit, and Ellec had traded for jugs and jugs of it the first week they had been in Tiah. He took a jug without asking and went straight to a cluster of palms behind the beach and drank a fourth of the jug with one pull. There wasn’t much left by the time Aiyan found him.
He sat cross-legged in the sand and Kyric offered him the jug. He took a good swig.
“A little sweet for my taste, but not bad.”
They sat and watched a wave roll in. Aiyan took another drink and handed the jug back.
“This is a nice spot,” he said, looking out over the beach. “I wouldn’t mind spending a day or two just sitting here.”
Kyric had nothing to say. Aiyan fell into thought, grimacing with an unpleasant memory.
“One night in Kandin,” he said, “when I wasn’t much older than you, Bortolamae and I were ambushed in an alley. It was a bad fight. One of the assassins tried to garrote me from behind, but I had turned my head in time and he was mostly cutting into muscle. I knew he was too close to use my sword, so I drew a knife. When I reached back and stabbed him, he only pulled harder. I stabbed him over and over in the ribs and in the leg — I stabbed him at least a dozen times before he let go. I’d never seen a killer so determined.
“In the end we fought them off. My master had been shot and could barely walk — that scared me more than the fight. I still have a couple of scars from that night.”
“I know that it could have gone badly,” Kyric said through the haze of wine. “I should be happy about how it came out. I am happy about it, only . . . ”
“No, not after what we witnessed in that clearing,” Aiyan said, watching a tiny crab skitter across the sand. “After the fight that night, I helped Bortolamae out to the main avenue. While we stood on the corner waiting for a cab, this woman, more of a girl really, started to cross the street. What she was doing alone at night I don’t know, but she must have been deaf, or drunk, or very distracted because she didn’t hear the carriage coming down the road at a trot. I shouted a warning to her, and she was looking right at me as she stepped into its path. It knocked her down and ran over her chest, killing her right there. That was the worst part of that whole night.
“So be grateful it went as well as it did, but don’t think that you should be happy. You should not be happy. As soon as you realize that, you’ll be alright.”
The next day was Kyric’s birthday. Lerica woke him with kisses, breadfruit, and a cup of wine. He sat up groggily and drank the wine down in one gulp.
“That’s better,” he said.
“I thought you might need that. You drank an awful lot last night.”
“I don’t even remember going to bed.” He started to shake his head but that was a mistake. “I can’t do that again as long as we’re here. There could have been trouble in the night.”
“I suppose I should say happy birthday — again.”
“Thanks,” he said, reaching for a slice of breadfruit. “I’m now a full citizen of Aeva with all rights thereof. ‘Old enough to own land’ is what they say.”
“In Aleria the expression is ‘old enough to marry for money.’”
“Do you get a cake?”
She cocked her head at him. “What?”
“Where I come from you get a cake on your birthday.”
“A cake? A whole cake? I’ll ask the cook, but I don’t think they have eggs here. In fact, I haven’t seen one chicken in this place.”
They sat
quietly for a time while he finished his breakfast. “I’ve thought about this day ever since . . . ever since I went to live in the rune convent. I couldn’t wait for it. I knew I would be strong and fearless. And I would be my own man. I would eat steak every night, and never do anything I didn’t want to do.”
Lerica laughed. “Well, there’s one consolation. If we make it back with a load of spice, you’ll be able to have steak as often as you like.”
Aiyan spent most of the day with King Tonah. Kyric lounged by the stream beneath Tiahnu Rock and finished carving his latest figurine. As he had thought, it turned out to be a whale, but the tail was wrong. The wood there ran dark and grainy, and the tail was vertical, as with a fish.
He returned to the ship late in the day, nearly laughing aloud as Lerica tried to hide a knowing grin. He could smell something like cake baking in the ship’s oven, and he loved her just a little bit more right then. In the convent they never did anything special on his birthday. Mother Nistra had always told him that Winter’s Eve counted as his birthday celebration, since it was only three days away. Winter solstice was always festive in the convent and in the town. They had nut pies and peppermint candy, and everyone burned candles in the windows at night. But none of it was for him, and when his real birthday came no one noticed.
He went for a swim before supper, asking Lerica to come with him, but as always she declined. He loved swimming in the ocean, and the waters of Mokkala were the bluest he had ever seen outside the dream world. Schools of rainbow fish passed beneath him. He swam face down and opened his eyes against the stinging saltwater, seeing coral that looked like pink lace fans standing on the floor of the shallows. He rolled to float on his back and watched beams of sunlight change color against the sky.
As he climbed back aboard, Lerica stood on the quarterdeck, spyglass to her eye. “Come here, Kyric. Hurry, you have to see this.”
He rushed to join her at the rail, and she handed him the telescope. Out on the headland where the poles stood, birds had begun to gather, circling and forming a ring around Ubtarune.
Black Spice (Book 3) Page 7
