“It does no good, cub, to try to help your dead in their journey,” the man said. “There is no journey.” He stopped a hand-span in front of Lakhoni. “Death is the end. So a good death, and a good life, is what matters.”
Lakhoni realized he was looking the man directly in the eyes and he tore his gaze away. He had no idea what to say. Why would a Living Dead have come here? Was it true that they ate the flesh of the dead?
Lakhoni would be able to do nothing to stop this man if he wanted to feast on Lakhoni’s friends and family.
“Don’t worry, cub. I’m not going to eat your people. I respect the clay that is left behind at death.”
Lakhoni glanced up, meeting the man’s gaze once more. Can he hear my thoughts? He looked away quickly, turning to face the bonfire. He cast his eyes over the inferno and took a small step backwards. Maybe if I run quickly, he’ll be taken by surprise. I might be able to make it to the river and hide in the water.
A heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. “And don’t run. I have no intention of hurting you.”
The hand on his shoulder felt like a burning coal. The touch made his skin crawl. He wanted to pull away, but he might anger the man if he drew back.
“I know you can speak, cub. I heard you saying their names in that silly ritual.” The tall man wore a glinting grin. “I won’t hurt you. Be at ease.”
Lakhoni had to get away. The Living Dead never left anybody alive. Stories said that they would even slit the throats of their own wounded if the injured warrior couldn’t move on by himself. They left nobody behind to tell tales.
“What’s your name?”
Lakhoni clamped his mouth shut, terrified of speaking.
“I am Gimno.”
The heavy hand left Lakhoni’s shoulder and Lakhoni burst into motion, flinging himself away from the fire and the specter of the devil in flesh. His head throbbed every time his feet pounded on the hard-packed dirt of the village center. Within seconds, he was gasping for breath. His heart slapped the inside of his chest. Air burned in and out of his throat. Blood drummed loudly in his head. He reached for the tree line, seeking a trunk to help him take a sharp turn toward the river.
Something slammed into his right side, flinging him to the ground. The tattooed man stood over him, his teeth flickering pale white from the bonfire. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you. Now I’ve had to break my word.”
Lakhoni sucked in air, the throbbing in his head making him feel suddenly drowsy. He found he was more angry than afraid. This loosed his tongue. “Why are you here? Who are you?”
“I told you,” the man said, offering a hand to help Lakhoni to his feet. “I am Gimno.”
Lakhoni ignored the offered hand, pushing himself to his feet. He gripped his side as a sharp pang tore through him. His hand came away warm and wet. “Why are you here?”
“To pillage.”
The man’s brutal honesty felt like a slap. Lakhoni blinked, taken aback. His anger flared. “Only two days dead? You came to steal my people’s things, the only thing left of them, and they are only two days gone?”
The fearsome man grinned again. “Eloquent, aren’t you?” He walked back toward the fire. “It’s not stealing if they’re dead. They don’t care anymore.”
Lakhoni stalked after the man. He knew his anger could do nothing but harm. He knew also that he would not try to fight this man. This . . . Gimno. “I care. I’m not dead. Not yet.”
“And so we will not claim right to this village and all in it. You survive so it is all yours now.” Gimno stopped near the lowering fire.
Lakhoni stepped next to him. “Who are you to say that it’s mine? You have no right to―”
“I don’t need to say it’s yours, cub,” Gimno snapped. “Natural law says it. The law of the forest dictates it. Just because you are too dense to understand this does not mean I will tolerate disrespect.”
The man’s anger radiated from him in a heat almost comparable to the now-dying funeral pyre.
Lakhoni stood silently, unsure of what he should say. Should he beg forgiveness? Would this man strike him down if he didn’t?
“I like you, cub.”
The sudden change in the man’s voice made Lakhoni glance up. A fierce smile adorned the man’s tattooed face, his eyes glinting. “You’ve got a spine. Most people would have turned to limp grass just at the sight of me.”
Once again, Lakhoni had no idea what he could say to this.
“But you’ve got to learn to speak when spoken to. This silence is insulting.”
The man’s sudden glare stabbed into Lakhoni. How could a human go from smiling to angry then back to smiling—then back again so fast? “We will start with your name.” The man stared intently at Lakhoni.
If I give him my name, will he have power over me? Of course, if Lakhoni didn’t give his name, perhaps the man would use his obsidian dagger to cut him down at that very moment.
“Lakhoni.” He tried hard to keep his voice steady and clear.
“He has a tongue!” The man slapped Lakhoni on the shoulder. “Good to see that Zyron’s dogs didn’t cut that out of you when they cut everybody down.”
Then the rumors were true. The Living Dead had no loyalty to the king.
“No,” Lakhoni said. “They left me for dead.”
“Then you are truly one of the Living Dead. Welcome.”
“But . . .” Lakhoni glanced at the waning funeral pyre. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“A spine and honest. You’re a rare one. With a name like ‘Formidable Servant,’ it’s no surprise,” the man said.
“How—how’d you know that?” His mother had made a point of telling her children what their names meant in the old language.
“‘Lak’ means servant. ‘Honi’ means formidable.” The man glanced down at Lakhoni, then turned to face the mountains. “Not difficult if you get some learning in you.” He began to walk toward the eastern edge of the village. “Now come. Your village will be fine for now.”
“Come where?” Lakhoni asked.
“To your new people. We will return soon to collect your things, but for now, you need a healer.”
“I can’t leave here. This is my home.” Lakhoni cast his eyes about, the dark shapes of the huts dancing with shadows thrown by the dying pyre.
“No, this is a burial ground. Your home is elsewhere now.” The man threw a glance over his shoulder. “You must trust the Separated. You are Living Dead now, Lakhoni cub.”
Chapter 6
Living Dead
They left the light behind. As they walked, Lakhoni felt as if he were fading away into the trees, his soul dissipating into the deepening shadows under the wild boughs. He glanced over his shoulder, glimpsing the glowing embers interspersed with dark shapes that were all that remained of his family.
No, there is still Alronna. Lakhoni focused on moving his near-dead body forward, the distance between him and Gimno lengthening steadily. I’ll find her.
An idea flashed through his mind. Maybe he could slowly let Gimno get farther ahead of him and then he could just duck into the trees. The king’s raiders must have come from Zyronilxa, the capital city. He could follow them there and find Alronna. Lamorun had often talked about going to live in Zyronilxa or some other big city, going on about how different life was there. Of course, Lamorun would never go to a city now. Lakhoni wondered if things would have been different if Lamorun and the other older boys had been around to fight.
Bitterness filled Lakhoni. That’s the real thieving. Forcing every man and boy of fighting age to wage war on the Usurpers to try to get the Abundance back.
“Keep up, cub!” Gimno’s voice sliced through Lakhoni’s thoughts. “If you make me miss my evening meal, or even be late for it, perhaps I shall spit you and roast you as a tender appetizer!” A rich, rolling laugh filled the forest, echoing amongst the trees.
Lakhoni automatically lengthened his stride for a few steps, but then remembered that he was trying
to get far enough behind to escape. But the fierce man had caught him so fast the last time! True, Gimno was a terrifying-looking person. But the warrior’s laugh sounded so much like Salno’s, and he had seemed sincere when welcoming Lakhoni into the ranks of the Living Dead.
The decision made, Lakhoni stretched to catch up to Gimno. For now. But when my wounds are healed, I’ll go find Alronna. In another few minutes, he was able to walk abreast of the tall man. Lakhoni glanced at Gimno. People said the Living Dead lived in dark spaces, emerging like demons from shadows to murder and steal. But Gimno was a man. Or was he a demon in the flesh of a man?
Pain throbbed with each step. He couldn’t keep this pace up for much longer, but complaining to Gimno didn’t seem like a good idea. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to begin.
“Whatever it is, by the First Fathers just say it!” Gimno’s loud voice challenged the now fully dark night.
Lakhoni forced himself to be calm. He couldn’t live in fear. “When will we get to your people?”
“We will arrive at our settlement in another hour.” Gimno threw a quick glance down at Lakhoni. “But my people?” The man snorted.
Lakhoni bristled. It was obvious the tall man was mocking him. “What?”
“You have much to learn, cub.”
“I’m not a child!” Lakhoni said. “Why do you call me cub?”
“There’s that spine!” Gimno slapped Lakhoni on his injured shoulder. Lakhoni tried not to hiss in pain, but couldn’t stop the sudden intake of breath.
“What?” Gimno stopped walking, placing a gentle hand on Lakhoni’s other shoulder and pressing down to make him stop too.
“Nothing.” Lakhoni tore his eyes away from Gimno’s fierce gaze.
“You are injured more than I thought.”
Fingers probed his shoulders, chest, sides, and back. Gimno muttered as he conducted his examination. When he was finished, Gimno trapped Lakhoni’s eyes again. “You must not hide serious injury. You weaken yourself and you weaken your cohort when you do this.”
Lakhoni had no idea what Gimno was talking about. What was a cohort?
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, you’ll be fine. But in the meantime, you will be weak and that could make things very much ‘not fine.’”
“Is there anything else?”
Lakhoni met Gimno’s eyes again. He searched for a reason to say there was nothing, but he surprised himself by being honest with the man. “My head. That’s why they thought I was dead, I think.”
Gimno’s hands, again strangely gentle, brushed over Lakhoni’s head. After a moment, Lakhoni felt the weight of Gimno’s stare again.
“You should be dead.”
“What do you mean?” Lakhoni asked.
Gimno turned and began walking, his left hand on the back of Lakhoni’s neck, firmly pulling the young man along. “That blow should have killed you. Your brains should be giving an unfortunate vulture gas right about now.”
“I have a thick head.”
That rich, rolling laugh that sounded like it came from a fat man echoed through the forest again. “Or perhaps you’re too stupid to know when to die.”
“Maybe my brains hid in my feet,” Lakhoni said. He was surprised to feel a smile beginning to stretch his lips. He fought it away—this was not a time for jokes.
“I think it more likely that you simply don’t have any brains at all.”
Lakhoni glanced up at the man. Gimno’s teeth glowed in a wide smile. Lakhoni had to fight his own smile away again.
“Back to your question,” Gimno said after many minutes had passed.
“What question?”
“About my people and when we would get to them.”
“You said an hour.”
“No, I said we would be at the settlement in an hour.”
Lakhoni bit his tongue to control his retort.
Gimno spread his arms wide to both sides. “But my people have been with us this entire time. Open your eyes.”
Lakhoni’s heart skipped as shadows suddenly slinked closer to him. As the shapes got closer, he realized that he and Gimno were surrounded by the Living Dead. Shiny heads and torsos glinted in the pale light of the rising moon. Somehow, a horde of Gimno’s people had been with them the entire journey, stalking through the forest completely undetected. This was more than the Dance with the Forest; this was unearthly ability.
At that moment, desire overcame his fear. Gimno had said Lakhoni was one of them now. That had to mean he could be trained. Watching the dangerous stealth in each movement of the people around him, Lakhoni decided he would learn to move like the Living Dead, how to fight like them. Then, when he could beat any man in combat and he knew he could not fail, he would go and find his sister.
Chapter 7
Cavern of the Dead
The painful walk through the trees lasted more than an hour, the silent, glinting wraiths gliding all around him and Gimno the whole way. They followed no path that Lakhoni could discern. At times they bore north, but the twists and turns that Gimno and his people took certainly had no pattern that Lakhoni could see. All he could tell was that they were going east. The dark shapes of the mountains far ahead had grown only a fraction by the time they stopped on a low hill. Gimno stood at the crest of the hill and shadows of the Living Dead flowed around him and—disappeared. Lakhoni blinked, peering into the deep darkness. Were these people more than mortals?
“Come, cub,” Gimno gestured for Lakhoni to approach. Unsure of what to expect, Lakhoni strode carefully up the hill. When he got to Gimno, he followed the tall man’s gesture with his eyes and saw a hole in the ground. It was just wider than the shoulders of a large man.
“Down,” Gimno said.
Lakhoni crouched to get a better look. There, perhaps three or four hand lengths below the hole’s rim, was a thick length of wood, sticking out of the earth. Below that length was another. This was some kind of ladder. He looked up at Gimno again.
“I would still like to have my evening meal, cub.”
Lakhoni lowered his legs into the hole and probed with a foot for the branch. Finding it, he began to lower himself slowly, feet questing for each foothold and gasping at the stabbing pain that awoke all over him.
“A warm meal, cub.” Gimno’s voice floated down.
Lakhoni tried to move faster. There was a pattern to the placing of the branches; they were spaced at intervals of around five hand lengths and they were very nearly in a straight line, descending into the darkness that yawned below.
He silently thanked the Great Spirit that he had not inherited his father’s fear of tight spaces. Several years previous, before Lamorun had gone off to fight, the three of them had gone on one of their eight-day hunts. They had followed the spoor of some deer to the foothills of the mountains to the east and happened upon a cave in the dark gray rocks of the hills. After throwing many rocks deep into the cave to be certain an animal hadn’t adopted it as a home, Lamorun had led the way in. They had come to a bend where the cave narrowed severely. Lamorun had volunteered to forge ahead somewhat to see if the cave widened.
After a few quiet minutes, Lakhoni and his father had heard Lamorun’s voice calling to them that there was a cavern full of crystals. Lakhoni had immediately darted forward to join his brother. Their father had called out for them to be careful with a strange sound in his voice. When he had joined his brother, the two of them called for their father.
“Father, the crystals!” Lamorun had insisted. “They’re wonderful and I think we could sell them.”
Their father’s voice had come back, “Not today, boys.” After a few moments of silence, he had said quietly, “If you were in danger, yes. But I’m not fond of tight quarters.”
Lamorun and Lakhoni had exchanged incredulous looks. They could hear the fear in their father’s voice. “You mean,” Lamorun had said, his voice taunting, “that you’re afraid of ‘tight quarters.’”
“I find them unpleasant,” had
come the dry response.
Lamorun had laughed. “You mean you don’t panic or anything, you just avoid them at all costs.”
“Watch it, boy,” his father had said. “I have my reasons.”
Lakhoni felt a smile on his face at the good memory. He and Lamorun had ribbed their father mercilessly for weeks afterward until he finally revealed the experience that had led to his fear of tight places. As a teenager, it turned out, Zeozer had been exploring with his own father in a system of caves in the western mountains and had gotten stuck, spending most of a day in the darkness until his father had been able to pull him out.
He would never have come down here, Lakhoni thought. But Lamorun would have.
After long minutes—long enough for his arms to become quivery with fatigue—Lakhoni’s left foot touched solid ground. As he stepped away from the wall and turned to look at where he had arrived, he heard Gimno’s voice waft down from above.
“Cub! Stand back.”
Lakhoni looked up, stepping farther away from the ladder in order to give Gimno more room. He could just barely make out Gimno’s shape against the backdrop of the star- and moon-lit sky. Suddenly the man dropped, moving far too quickly to be using the rough ladder of tree branches. Lakhoni looked closer and saw that Gimno was in a controlled free fall, bouncing lightly from side to side of the shaft. The warrior landed lightly on the hard stone.
Lakhoni stared in open-mouthed stupefaction. How could a man possess such strength and speed? Was it possible that the Living Dead truly did have devils inhabiting their flesh? Suddenly Lakhoni questioned the wisdom of trapping himself so far inside the earth.
“You look like a dying fish.”
Lakhoni forced his mouth closed, but could not tear his eyes away from Gimno. The tall man wasn’t even breathing hard!
“You liked that, didn’t you?”
Lakhoni had to admit to himself that a large part of him would love to learn how to move the way Gimno did. He found himself nodding. The idea of a devil in this man, or any man, seemed too outlandish for him to hold on to.
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