Gambit of the Gods

by Ashley, Angela

  She watched carefully for my reaction. I sensed her fear. She thought I’d recoil from her, and understandably so. It was strange and more than a little uncomfortable, hearing that someone had been watching me for so long, unseen and mostly unfelt. I’d sensed emotions I couldn’t identify from time to time, but told myself that I was imagining it. Now the ‘ghost of House Klia’ stared back at me, and I knew I held her heart in my hands.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. “You’ve lost so much already. You won’t lose me, too.”

  Her joy and relief were palpable.

  “Thank you, Kella,” she said, beaming in gratitude. “That means more to me than you could ever know.”

  The warmth in her eyes surprised me. I’m not used to being noticed by most people. My mother and sisters mostly ignore me. But Sera looked at me almost as if I were her own daughter. It warmed my heart. She needed me, but in a way, I needed her, too.

  So I smiled back at her, and we just stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Strangely, it didn’t feel awkward at all. I felt somehow as if I’d always known her, and I knew she knew me better than anyone. It was almost like coming home.

  At last she said, regretfully, “You will wake soon. Maren is coming to rouse you early, as you asked him to. I’ll meet you in your dreams tonight.”

  I felt the shock of someone shaking me awake, and she disappeared.

  Now the sun is at its zenith. I’m sweating, having been practicing since just after dawn. It’s time to take a short break for a bite of bread and a few sips of water — maybe eating will banish my headache.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of movement between the trunks of the trees in the forest bordering the field. Thinking that Karyl or one of the others has come to join me at last, I pull back on the reins and swivel in my seat to look. Nothing.

  Sighing, I urge Darkstar for the far end of the field where I left our lunches, standing in the stirrups as she breaks into a smooth canter. Suddenly, she lurches as if struck from behind; I barely manage to keep my seat. Whirling in surprise, I see something that can’t possibly exist.

  It appears at first glance to be a vaguely human-shaped creature, though it’s much wider and taller, with burning red eyes. It’s just standing there, as if daring me to take a good look. Its thick torso and disproportionately long arms and legs appear to have been originally fashioned from woven bundles of stripped, dead tree branches (I see a dead leaf clinging here and there) filled in with dark, dried mud the color of old blood.

  Yet the creature is alive with a strange, pulsing energy I can feel from several horse-lengths away, lifting the tiny hairs on my arms. The tree limbs and dried mud have fused to become skin and muscle somehow. Its neck sports a gaping human skull whose eye sockets house twin crimson flames suspended eerily within. Its toothy jaws make it appear to be grinning at me. But most terrifying of all, I sense a being within this simulacrum of humanity, and one clear, strong desire emanating from it: a deep, ancient, abiding hunger, directed at me.

  It speaks into my mind. It feels as if something is tearing at my thoughts, shredding them, making me cry out in pain and shock. The voice itself is cold and inhuman, reminding me of the sound of distant thunder:

  I am going to enjoy feasting on your emotions as you die, human.

  If we can reach the far end of the field, I might be able to save us. My bow and quiver of arrows are there, protection against the packs of wild dogs that sometimes venture from the woods to prey on a lone sheep…or a lone human. I dig my leg into Darkstar’s side while pulling on the rein on the same side and she pivots obediently, even though I feel her shivering in fear. Going low at her neck, I give her her head. She gallops as she has never galloped before. Neither of us glance behind us.

  When we’re close, I pull back on the reins and ready myself, knowing I’ll only have one chance. Dropping the reins and throwing my netstick behind me, I lean over in the saddle, scooping up the bow and quiver. The quiver goes securely under my thigh. I turn Darkstar slightly as I nock an arrow, sighting along it.

  The creature has followed us, though it’s a couple of lengths behind. It has fallen to all fours and moves in an odd, scuttling fashion reminding me of how a spider moves, its appendages bending the wrong way. I loose one arrow, then another, straight toward its burning eyes, as the towering creature reaches toward me, following them closely with a third arrow thrumming through the air toward where its heart should be. All three arrows hit their targets, but those flaming eyes continue to burn in their otherwise empty sockets as if mocking me, the arrows falling away. The third arrow lodges in its chest, but the creature brushes it away as if it were nothing.

  I draw and loose again, sending an arrow towards the creature’s neck in hopes of taking off its head, but one huge arm reaches up and swats it away like an errant fly while it continues to reach for us. In desperation, I reach for the breath of the Goddess, but just then, Darkstar screams in terror and bolts, with me clinging to her. She stretches out into a full gallop, vaulting the fence surrounding the field without slowing.

  Glancing back over my shoulder, I see that the creature is chasing us, though its great size slows it down. It crashes through the fence without slowing. I turn back around in time to see another creature step out of the trees to our right. Darkstar screams again and angles sharply to the left to avoid it. Just then, something hits me from behind, hard, and I lose my seat. The impact with the ground drives the breath from my lungs. I almost lose consciousness, gasping there like a fish thrown upon dry land, but my fear wins out, pushing back the blackness.

  Squinting up at the crazily spinning sky, still gasping for breath, I catch sight of what struck me. A giant bird-shaped creature circles in the air above me, its great wings spread wide. The large bird skull and beak resting between its wings has the same twin red flames in its empty eye sockets as the other two creatures.

  The bird-creature folds its wings and dives, landing near me. Still dazed, I try to focus on the feathers layered over its wings and body, the longest feathers lining the edges of its wings. It turns to look at me, its sharp, cruel beak darting down toward my head like a slashing sword. I twist away from it but cannot rise, my head throbbing. When I brush my hair out of my eyes, my hand comes away streaked with blood.

  Pulling my dagger, I slash at the stabbing beak. It appears to be the actual skull of a large bird, so I rise to my knees and attack it, hoping to shatter the skull and thus disable or kill the creature. It brings its massive wings forward to buffet my face but is clearly at a disadvantage on the ground. I press my attack, lopping off a wingtip. The creature’s mind-voice shrieks in agony. Burying my dagger in its other wing, I pull sharply downwards, driving my blade through it. It seems to be made of much lighter-weight branches than the other two creatures, allowing it to ride the winds like a real bird, so it’s much easier to hack into than the others would be. Again the creature mind-screams, the sound crashing in my mind like shattering glass.

  The other creatures arrive, moving to surround me. Desperately, I cry out to the Goddess for her breath to flow through me and push it out through the palms of my hands. The great winds bowl over the clumsy bird-creature, but the two towering, vaguely human-shaped creatures merely hunch against the wind and keep coming, albeit moving much more slowly. I open myself up to the full power of the Goddess, my whole body becoming a conduit for her breath, my hair flowing back from my face as I lift my hands and cry out in fear and need.

  I’ve practiced my new ability at night, alone in the outermost orchards, but have never channeled this much power before. It moves through me and out of me, a raging storm, heavy with lightning, leaving my hair standing on end. When it strikes the creatures, all three burst into flame. Their minds shriek as one, and I go to my knees with the agony of it in my mind.

  The storm sputters to a gale and then a breeze as the darkness reaches up to engulf me again. This time, I cannot push it back. As m
y head hits the ground and my eyes close, I wonder what my family will make of the three tall piles of burnt branches and mud around my body and how long it will take me to bleed to death out here, far from the well-travelled paths of my House. But my last thought is of Jaereth’s face.

  Chapter 28: Spark

  I wake to the soft sounds of activity outside my new hut. Falling asleep late the night before, sitting hunched over the table with my head in my hands, I’d been plagued by several nightmares. They were all of Little Squirrel. In one, she was dragged down in mid-flight by so many of Whisker’s dead birds they blackened the sky and torn apart by many more dead animals waiting below. In another, she was forced to watch her sister and brother die before having her throat slit. In the last one, still fresh in my mind though I try to push it away, she was hanged from the giant throwing machine they use to kill disobedient slaves in the Queensrealm, her face turning black but her eyes staring at me accusingly, even fixed in death.

  She looked at me the same way at her trial last night, when Whisker judged the Elders guilty and sentenced them to death. I couldn’t look at her, but I felt her condemning stare all the same, like a smothering weight on my chest.

  Shaking my head to try to clear it of her eyes, I rise and stretch to dispel the ache in my muscles from sleeping in such an unnatural position. It helps, but my head continues to ache as if I’ve been hit over the head with a club. Wincing, I change into the new clothes laid out on the bed. I’ll go to the river to rinse my mouth out and wash my face. Perhaps then, my throbbing headache will ease.

  As I push back the door flap and peer outside, I notice gifts piled up outside my door. Lifting a richly sewn and painted tunic, I sigh. The motif is of red and black flames, dancing around each cuff, and also around the hem and collar of the shirt. I let it fall to the ground. My ability to control fire has become common knowledge, apparently. Why is my ability praised, while Little Squirrel’s and Artan’s are feared and condemned as Outsider witchery? Theirs is of life—living animals and green, growing things—while mine is of nothing but destruction.

  It’s mid-morning. I pass within greeting distance of several people I know, both from my own Clan and others, but only the ones wearing the black and red ribbons and face paint of The Higher Path wish me a good morning. The others look away as if pretending not to see me, and those few who pass close to me cower, bowing low as if they think I’ll call flames from the sky and incinerate them. When I reach the main firepit, I begin to understand why.

  Seven tall spikes have been driven into the ground in the gaps between each of the eight Clan carvings. On each dangles the mutilated bodies of the Elders caught and killed last night, including the one from my own Clan, his face disfigured by slashing fangs. He was always so kind to me…

  The horror of what I’ve allowed to happen overwhelms me. I just stand there staring up at them, holding my chest as if I am the one spitted there, my heart aching. Is this what will happen to Little Squirrel and her siblings? Little Squirrel’s face replaces the Elder’s on the spike, eyeless and bloody.

  The laughter of children playing not far away shakes me from my thoughts. I hurry away, head down. But my shame and horror chase me down the path. Those Elders had children and children’s children—how would it feel to come face to face with the corpse of your father or great-father every day when you go to the main firepit to share in the evening meal?But there’s nothing I can do about it, now…

  Skirting by the Learning Meadow on the way to the river, I’m struck with the memory of one of the best pranks Little Squirrel and I ever pulled there. We liked to steal clothing washed in the river and left out to dry on the sun-warmed rocks. We’d leave them in random places for people to find and wonder about. One time, we came across the drying clothes of our teacher, Old Bramble. He had a favorite tunic decorated all over with beads made from the horns of stags, which he claimed was lucky, and his best ceremonial deerskin leggings were well-known to all because of the ratty raven feathers sewn at the knees that flew whenever he danced. We took them and made a scarecrow like the ones the women use in the fields to scare crows away from the corn, stuffing it with dry grass. We propped the scarecrow up against the lone tree growing in the center of the meadow. Old Bramble was the last to arrive that day, so we all got to watch his face turn purple when he saw his likeness waiting for him under the tree, clothed in his stolen finery. Everyone suspected that Little Squirrel and I were the culprits since we were known as the Village pranksters, but no one could prove it, and we were practiced at looking innocent and surprised when these kinds of things occurred.

  Arriving at the river, the first thing I see is a buckskin dress drying on the rocks. Before I can stop it, another memory comes to mind. Little Squirrel stole a dress from the riverbank, and we pretended to get married out by our fort. She was just beginning to grow into her previously skinny, coltish limbs and over-large teeth then. When she plaited her hair with a halo of tiny white flowers and walked toward me in that flowing dress, smiling, I found myself amazed at how beautiful she looked.

  The icy water feels good on my face, but it does nothing for my headache. Without thinking, I turn upstream, thinking to visit the spirit healer, Prairie Blossom. Then I realize that Prairie Blossom is gone, as is Miklos. Both had cared for Little Squirrel as if she were their own daughter. Meanwhile, I had betrayed her.

  It all comes crashing in on me. My knees buckle, there all alone in the forest with the river murmuring behind me. Falling to the ground, I sob in shame for what I’ve done and in fear for my best friend. Why did I not fight for her? Am I such a coward that I would rather remain not only safe, but nearly worshipped, while she goes to her death? Has the Lady cast some kind of spell over me, to make me betray the woman I love?

  Love? My mind echoes, and I realize it’s true. I’ve loved her since that day in the forest when I first glimpsed the beauty she would become, with flowers woven in her hair and her skirts trailing behind her. The day we kissed was some time after that, but it cemented my feelings for her, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Now, looking back—now that it’s too late—I see that it’s always been there between us, a treasure hidden in plain sight.

  “I have to try to save her,” I moan into the crushed ferns beneath my cheek, tears still leaking from my closed eyes.

  Something cold and hard kisses my throat. I startle, fighting to sit up, but someone’s knee immediately drives into the small of my back, forcing me back down. The knife-edge scrapes against my skin as whoever is above me knots their fingers in my hair and pulls my head slowly to the side. It’s Thunder Echo, I see with chagrin.

  “I followed you here to kill you,” he grates, his voice coldly matter-of-fact. “But then I saw your tears and heard what you said. Give me one good reason why I should let you live after you betrayed my daughter and the People last night.”

  “You should kill me,” I answer, my tears still falling. “You’re right. I’ve betrayed the woman I love. I would welcome the relief of death.”

  “I would rather see you live to suffer for what you’ve done,” he replies.

  The knife leaves my throat. Pushing away from me, he stands, waiting with folded arms, disdain clear on his face, while I wipe my cheeks and stagger to my feet, my head pounding. We just stare at one another. He looks as if he wants to reconsider his decision.

  Something streaks past my ear and thunks into the tree behind me. Song at Sunrise, with hunting bow in hand and another arrow nocked on the string, steps out from behind a tree. She joins her mate, her eyes full of loathing. When I put up my hand to my ear, it comes away red.

  “Why haven’t you killed him, nuttah?” she demands, scowling at Thunder Echo. ‘Nuttah’ means ‘my heart’ in our language.

  Thunder Echo never takes his eyes from me, as if weighing the value of my life versus my death. He squints for a long time, then at last turns and spits as if dispelling something distasteful.

  “I was about to kill him wh
en he fell down on the ground and started crying, babbling about needing to go and save her,” he explains, raising his eyebrows. “I think he could be useful to us.”

  Song at Sunrise gapes at him in open-mouthed disbelief. Then her eyes harden and she turns from him, pulling back the bowstring and aiming her arrow at my face. I just stand, waiting for it to come. Part of me prays she will kill me because my shame is so great. Thunder Echo says nothing.

  Her hand quivers ever so slightly on the bowstring, her eyes finding mine and seeing the mute acceptance there. The sounds of the forest dwindle away, as if the Spirit Over All himself pauses to decide my fate. Song at Sunrise’s eyes are red and swollen from crying and lack of sleep, her braid disheveled, as if she hasn’t tended to herself in a while. Shy Mouse was her only child and the joy of her life, as everyone, even those of us outside of the Hunting Cat Clan, knew well. Now Shy Mouse has been taken by knifepoint to an unknown and vulgar people by violent men, likely never to be seen alive again. And it’s my fault.

  I see it in her eyes when she reaches a decision, and close my eyes. Nothing happens.

  “Open your eyes, Dancing Cloud,” Thunder Echo says drily. When I do, I see that the bow and arrow are on the ground and Song at Sunrise is in Thunder Echo’s arms, sobbing silently. It’s considered an insult to use a childhood nickname after a person completes their Quest and receives a new name. It implies that the individual in question is immature, foolish, cowardly, or even reckless, but I know I deserve far worse.

  “We’re going after my daughters,” he announces, his voice cracking like the thunder he’s named for, “and you are coming with us. But know this. If you slow us down or impede us in any way, I will not hesitate to plant my knife in your throat.”