Black Spice (Book 3)

by James R. Sanford

  Dozens of Bantuans broke through the circle from different directions. They didn’t carry shields or spears. They were tough old herdsmen, each backed by a couple of strong lads. They whirled bolas and lassos over their heads.

  “Now!” Aiyan called to them. Even as he did, Soth Garo slipped his blade past Aiyan’s guard with a reckless lunge that would have been suicide if his skin could be pierced. Aiyan twisted, to take it on the arm, but Soth Garo had all his weight behind it. The sword went through Aiyan’s arm, through his armor, and deep into his chest. He staggered backward and fell.

  The Bantuan herdsmen threw their bolas. Soth Garo nearly tripped as leather thongs wrapped around his knees. As he slashed through them, a lasso dropped over his shoulders. He managed to cut the rope, but already another had taken its place. Then came a torrent of bolas, wrapping his legs and pinning one arm to his torso. One struck him on his sword arm, entangling itself as he swung the sword, and the weights at the end of the thongs flailed wildly. He sawed at the thongs around his legs, but the lasso over his shoulders went taut and pulled him off balance. Then another lasso came over his head, followed by another one, both of them pinning his free arm and his greatsword as the lads pulled them tight. One more lasso fell around his neck. All together, they pulled him over as they would an enraged beast. The herdsmen quickly got a rope around his legs. Soth Garo struggled to burst his bonds, but the Bantuans held fast.

  With a wordless cry, Kyric forgot his wound and limped quickly to Aiyan’s side. Blood ran freely from the gash in his armor. He held his sword in one hand, and the flame still burned. Kyric tore his sleeve off and stuffed it through the rent in Aiyan’s leather vest.

  “I doubt that will do any good,” Aiyan said, spitting a little blood. “Help me up.”

  He could barely stand. With Kyric holding him, Aiyan stumbled to where Soth Garo lay writhing in a cocoon of ropes and leather. He knelt beside him and raised the flaming blade, threading it between the leather thongs to place the point against Soth Garo’s heart.

  He pressed down on the sword. Slowly, slowly, it burned through the icy skin, boring a path into the heart. Jets of black steam sprayed from each side of the flaming blade as it pushed deeper, then a fountain of slushy black blood. The white skin melted away, revealing a raw red hide beneath it. Soth Garo was dead.

  Aiyan let go, and collapsed on the ground beside him.

  CHAPTER 14: Ulendi Aku

  Lerica stayed down until her vision cleared. She had got her bell rung this time. One of the charging spearmen had knocked her over, and another had kicked her in the head. She checked the man she had nearly scalped. He was lying on his back, moaning softly — that was a good sign.

  Climbing to her feet, she tried to shake it off. Ahead of her, the two formations of spearmen jabbed at each other desperately while archers darted up and down the line looking for a place where they could loose an arrow. Out on their flank, a group of enemy bowmen had begun to form up.

  Lerica didn’t feel good. The shadow cat was no longer interested, or at least had a headache, and she had had enough. This was a Mokkalan war and she would leave it to them. When she had been down, she heard some gunshots from the middle of the battlefield, but she couldn’t see over the fight in front of her. She began to back away.

  Suddenly they all stopped. The two sides froze, weapons in hand, and looked at one another. It was over.

  One by one, the enemy dropped their spears, most of them sinking to their knees. Then Lerica heard a sound from her childhood, one she thought she would never hear again: the soft cry of a thousand people weeping together, the voice of loss and shame and horror. At first she thought it was only the Silasese who had served Soth Garo, then she realized that their cousins wept along with them.

  In the end, Mokkala was not so big a place. These people knew each other.

  A hundred men and women lay dead or dying here, and Lerica was sure that many times that number had been killed in the riverbed. A distant wailing came to her ears. This was happening all across the battlefield.

  She saw a man shaking his fallen friend, trying to bring him back to life. She saw a bowman kneeling over a woman who had been killed by an arrow. Some of the survivors went to the aid of the wounded. Others sat on the ground, their faces frozen in disbelief. She watched as Hastilla’s people walked among those who had been their enemy, offering them comfort.

  Lerica knew that as hard as it was for them now, it would be worse after the dead were buried. Weeks or months from now, some of them would find that they could no longer take care of their families, some would be angry, some would drive away their friends to punish themselves, and a few would take their own lives in the deep hours of the night. She had grown up with the civil war in Aleria. She had seen these faces before.

  She supposed that if she were a good person, she would stay and help. But she didn’t feel like a good person right then, and she wouldn’t watch this if she didn’t have to. She walked back to the landing place, where Calico’s jolly boat waited to return her to the ship. Down the shore, where the river spilled into the inlet next to Tiahnu Rock, the sun glinted off the tiny waterfall. It ran red with the blood of the Mokkalans.

  Kyric looked around for Naran, not seeing him anywhere. One of his dogs lay dead on the ground. “I need help here,” he called, throwing himself down at Aiyan’s side and feeling the bite of his own wound. “Somebody. Please.”

  He unlaced Aiyan’s vest and got him out of it. A ring of dog warriors formed around them. One of the master herdsmen stepped through and knelt down next to Aiyan, tying a green leaf over his chest wound and topping it with a handful of sticky mud that he had in a jar.

  Kyric heard shouts of surprise all around him. Everyone pointed to the sky. The Gavdi bird had come back, and now it shrieked and dived at them. The Bantuans didn’t know what to do. They got behind their shields and raised their spears. But the monster bird pulled up at the last second, lifting its wings and braking with a few downward strokes, settling on the grass not twenty paces away.

  Its presence was a force that Kyric could feel. The Bantuans lowered their spears. The creature turned its head and looked at them with one mad eye.

  And then it coughed. Or something like that, a retching sound coming out as it bent its huge head forward and gagged, opening its beak wide and vomiting something onto the ground.

  It was Ubtarune. He had a cut on his arm, and another under his eye, but he was whole and alive and in full ceremonial costume. He rose to his feet, wiping a clear fluid from his face and hands. He bowed to the Gavdi bird. It let out a short shriek and propelled itself into the air, flying away with long sweeping strokes of its wings.

  Kyric stood and pulled Ivestris from Soth Garo’s body. Ubtarune ran straight to him, nodding like he knew what had happened here. He laid his hand on Aiyan’s heart and turned a grim face to Kyric.

  “We must take him to Ilara at once, but I fear he will not live to hear her song.”

  They took him to Ilara’s house, a place with the features of both home and temple, and she sang over him until the rains came. At the end of the day he was still alive.

  Ellec came ashore with Lerica and patched Kyric’s wound himself. The ball had passed through his leg, leaving hole about as long as his little finger. Ellec squirted some water through it, saying that the ball had most likely carried the cloth from Kyric’s trouser away with it, and that with luck there would be no infection. He suggested that they simply pack it, wrap it, and see how it healed. That night, a Manutu priest served a medicinal drink of spices in coconut milk.

  Lerica brought him some rass wine and offered to stay while he kept watch over Aiyan. He declined both offers. Lerica would be happier alone. And even at the end of the most terrible day he had ever seen, Kyric would not run to the bottle. Not today. If their places were exchanged, Aiyan wouldn’t be drinking.

  After the evening meal, Caleem came to visit, bringing Kyric a forked stick for a crutch. He had cuts and
scrapes all over him, but he was alright.

  Kyric asked about Nakoa and Witaan. Caleem said that Witaan had been badly wounded in the counter-charge that saved the left flank, and that he had died a few hours later, but amazingly, Nakoa had come through untouched. He also said that Naran had got his knee smashed in the fight against the death guards. He wouldn’t lose his leg, but he would never run again. Sometime after midnight, Kyric heard howling from the grassy plain to the east, a chorus of dogs raising a long mournful cry.

  Aiyan woke at dawn the next day and was able to take some soup. When Kyric asked him how he felt, he only said that it was bad. Ilara and her girls fussed over him all morning. His chest wound still leaked a little, but Ilara said that bleeding was the least of his worries.

  Tonah came at noon, and that was when Kyric went cold inside. The king would not be paying a visit if Ilara expected Aiyan to live. When he asked Aiyan if there was anything he could do for him, Aiyan answered that he would like to have a tent pitched in the trees behind the beach, where he could lie with a view of the ocean. Tonah said it would be done, and in less than an hour they came with a litter and moved him. Kyric’s whole leg was stiff. Even with his crutch, it throbbed painfully as he hobbled along with them, but at a time like this he wasn’t going to let it show.

  The wind blew lightly on the beach, the roll of the waves breaking with a gentle sigh. Kyric had Lerica bring him his woodcarving knives, and he began a new piece while Aiyan slept. He didn’t want this to become a weird thing — his first two carvings had been a little too prophetic. He had taken up carving so he could spend some time away from himself. But as soon as he started he knew what it would become. It would be a sword.

  The other clans started the march back to their homelands on the following day. They took their dead with them. As they departed, each one sent their highest priest to Aiyan’s tent. They presented him with small chests of spice. Nutmeg from the Manutu, fennel from the Bantuan, and cassia from the Silasese. Even the Onakai, who had seen their nation shattered, left him a box of cloves. Kyric had hoped that he would see Nakoa, so that he could ask forgiveness, but his leg was too weak to search for him. When he asked the Onakai priest about him, he said that Nakoa had started home with Prince Mahai’s body. It would be covered in cloth and spice, and buried in the hill of kings.

  Caleem came at midday, and they sat in the tent talking as a long steady rain set in.

  “What did you do with his body?” Kyric asked.

  “Soth Garo? Birjen and some of the other sorcerers took it to the north cape island. They cut off his head and Wyrau the Hariji turned it to dust, then they buried the dust. They did the same with the body and buried it far from the head.”

  Caleem wanted to know more about the men of the dragon’s blood, who they were and where they came from. Even though he answered weakly, it seemed to do Aiyan some good to hear Caleem’s questions. He wanted to know about Baskillia as well, and if the knights of the black blood wielded power there.

  “They pull many strings within the empire,” Aiyan said, his voice little more than a rasping whisper. “We believe that Master Cauldin controls the Shi’Zalin, the military clan, and we are sure that someone close to the emperor has been given the black blood. If the Baskillian military seizes the wealth of Mokkala, they will use it to conquer the civilized world, but without an enemy here to fight, an invasion will not be allowed by the imperial family or the other clans.

  “Politics moves strangely in any nation, so I cannot say what will happen. But this is my advice: You will have to trade with Aeva and the other states of the West. If you do not, they will send an army and force you to trade, and this in turn will bring the Baskillian army. If Mokkala becomes a battleground for two giants, your people will not survive So do not allow the Westerners to establish any kind station or settlement here. Do not allow them to come ashore at all. Trade with them in secret.

  “With any luck, the imperial spice clan will obtain the rudders to these islands before the military can try anything. But you should know it is inevitable that the Baskillians will come here and build trade stations. You cannot resist the empire, so you should not try. But remember that the spice is valuable beyond reckoning, and you can use it to get favorable terms. You can demand they supply you with metals and precision tools. You can get them to teach you engineering. You can insist they quarter no soldiers here — tell them that you side with the empire and will defend Mokkala for them if they provide muskets and train your warriors to use them. They might even give you a few guns. As long as there is no trouble and they get the spice, they will agree.

  “These are only ideas, of course. It might not go the way I think.”

  Caleem considered it. “Let me ask you this: If we trade with the Westerlings in secret, will they be able to keep it a secret?”

  Aiyan almost smiled. “Not for long. But it may give you the time you need. In the larger world, Mokkala is a small island. It is possible that a spice war between the East and the West could be fought on the high seas alone. Whatever happens, you must use the spice to influence those who want it. If you allow yourselves to be caught in the sweep of the northern nations, your people will be swept away.”

  Caleem gave him a seated bow. “You have given me much to think about, Ulendi Aku.”

  “Please translate,” Kyric said.

  “It is a title of honor. The closest words in Baskillian would be ‘Great Hero.’”

  After Caleem had gone, Aiyan said, “What concerns me more than the empire having the wealth of spice, is the way Soth Garo spread his blood to so many here. Usually they only force the black blood upon those in power. They have always been careful about leaving proof — Cauldin has never wanted the existence of his order to be known. He has always wanted his own history to be dismissed as a fanciful legend should it be discovered.

  “Converting the Hariji king and his sons, priests, and sorcerers would have given him control of the whole clan. He could have attacked the Onakai with no more than that. Giving his blood to every fighting man did give him an edge in battle. His army was motivated, determined and nearly fearless. But much more than that — and this is my point — it allowed him to conduct a war so immoral as to cause a mutiny had they not been under his power.

  “In a place like Baskillia, where the military is formalized under a single clan, I wonder if the same thing could take place and remain unknown. To have an army of a quarter million all marching to a single will. . . . “

  “Soth Garo alone converted five thousand men in a couple of months,” Kyric said.

  Aiyan looked at him. “Yes. In one pint of blood there are hundreds of drops.”

  Aiyan looked worse the next day. He hardly said anything. When he wasn’t sleeping, he lay with his head propped and eyes slit, gazing out to sea. Thankfully, his pain was less than it had been the last two days. Lerica sat with Kyric when he wanted her there and stayed away when he didn’t. They went down to the water’s edge at sunset, and sat quietly for a time.

  Lerica picked at a shell in the sand. “You haven’t said much all day. Is there more to it than worry about Aiyan?” Then she looked at him in that way she had, and he couldn’t help but say it.

  “He was beaten,” Kyric said, blinking back tears. “He was beaten. Soth Garo was a better swordsman, and Aiyan simply got beat. He wasn’t good enough.”

  “Soth Garo had some advantages.”

  “But all Aiyan had to do was defend himself for a few seconds.”

  “He had to give the signal to the Bantuans,” Lerica said. “Maybe that distracted him.”

  “Nothing so small would have distracted Aiyan.”

  “So now you’re angry with him for getting himself stabbed? Sweetie, he couldn’t help it.”

  “I know,” Kyric said, “that’s why I’m so mad.” He made claws of his hands and dug them into the sand, squeezing hard, trying to strangle the whole world.

  The evening was mild, but Kyric was hot in the dep
ths of the night. He rolled back and forth, a burning sensation in his leg keeping him awake. Aiyan mumbled on and off deliriously, at one point crying out in the Essian Tongue. When the wind died after midnight, the silence echoed loudly in Kyric’s head.

  His eyes flew open at first light. Aiyan was staring at him.

  “I’m ready to go,” he said with a tone of finality. “I thought maybe Ilara’s song had done enough, but I think all it did was stop the bleeding.”

  “What do you mean?” Kyric said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

  “Believe me, I want to live. But I’m not getting better. I’m getting worse. I can feel my life and my spirit ebbing away. As a warrior, I would rather have died in my moment of victory. But I will not die in bed if I’m allowed a choice. Tonight I will let my spirit go.”

  Kyric suddenly felt weak. “Can’t you . . . can’t you hang on a little longer? Isn’t there a chance you could still mend?”

  Aiyan’s eyes flashed with some of his old fire. “That cannot be. I would know it. I would know it.” He took a sip of water. It was hard for him to swallow.

  “I have a couple of errands for you,” he continued, trying not to cough. “Please invite all the friends I have made here to join me on the beach this evening and hear my final words. When you have done that, bring my sea chest from the ship. Then we will talk.”

  When Kyric returned, two young priestesses were there, offering Aiyan a bowl of mashed breadfruit and washing his face and hands. They combed and oiled his hair, then braided it in the style he always wore. He had them remove all the bedding then shooed them away.

  He sat up, removing a few things from his sea chest. “Take my sword and clean it while you listen.”