by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)
You and Gwenika exchange confidences in tones pitched low enough for just each other. For once, she doesn’t complain about all the exotic diseases she has suffered. She doesn’t whine at all. Her voice is dreamy as she describes pets she’s had over the years, a long string of frogs, gophers and sparrows. Creatures she found injured and nursed to health. She describes the sycamore trees around her clanhold, their pale trunks perfect for climbing, and the kinds of songbirds which nest there. You talk about the hills of your home, how trails wind by sudden vistas and cliffs overlook waterfalls which shower into a cloud of rainbow mist. You don’t admit to dancing with the fae because even here, even now, where the darkness spills secrets, you have secrets you don’t know how to share.
What you would do for a jug of cool water.
You ask if she’s ever killed or kissed anyone. No, she says. What about you? No. Would you ever? If he forced me to, you say, and she says, forced you to kiss? No, no, forced me to kill. You both giggle madly as if this is much funnier than it really is. You admit your greatest fear is to die by fire, and she says her greatest fear is to die alone, in the dark. She squeezes your hand tighter.
The darkness is like an animal now, panting hotly against your neck, squeezing your chest. The air tastes stale. Gulping it faster doesn’t help.
Discontent rumbles across the Initiates like a wave on a night sea. The air is running out. We will suffocate. We must free ourselves. Maybe this is the true test? Maybe this is what we must do to prove ourselves worthy of adulthood in the tribe? If we all push against the rock covering the entrance, we can lift the stone.
The stone cannot be lifted—it cannot even be found. Hundreds of hands trace the rock walls. Hundreds of fingers scratch frantically for a crevice or a crack. It is as though the entrance never existed, entombing you all in solid rock.
Others keep looking, but you decide it is a waste of breath, breath more precious now than bread or water. Gwenika will not let go of your hand. You don’t chide her even when you fear she might crush your knuckles into one shapeless lump. You whisper, We’ll be fine, but you are thinking about the legends of the children of Initiations past who didn’t survive. Your hand closes around the corncob doll you wear on a gut string around your neck.
Gwenika says, once she helped a fawn that had broken its leg. She kept a splint tied to its lame leg all through the summer. When winter came, the fawn had grown into a deer and could walk again. But I will never heal another deer, adds Gwenika. Why not? My mother slit its throat and we ate it, says Gwenika. I didn’t want to, but we were very hungry that winter.
Brena
By the time Brena realized the shadows rushing toward her were actually men, she had no time to escape. The warriors swarmed out from behind the megaliths, overrunning the Tavaedies and Zavaedies who were standing vigil.
Not since she’d been her daughters’ age had Brena fought in hand-to-hand combat, but she did her best to fend off the attackers. A barrel-chested thug pounded toward her, but she ducked into a roll under his feet, came up and hit him on the head from behind with her wooden mask, the only weapon she had. All around her, she could see the other Yellow Bear and Rainbow Labyrinth Tavaedies fighting overwhelming odds. Abiono killed one of his assailants, but two more bore him down and tied him up.
Thudding steps brought her attention back to her own plight. This time she threw the mask in the attacker’s face as he neared her, then turned to run…
…smack into another enemy warrior.
She had a quick impression of blue eyes, tattooed cheek, black hair, a chest that was nothing but wave after wave of muscle, also tattooed, and a terrifying masculine rumble. Then the barbarian with arms like tree trunks tossed her over his shoulder and loped away. Her short hair, no longer pinned under her mask, came free in a halo of damp curls.
He deposited her next to a megalith where the Blue Waters warriors were herding their captives. She tried to hit him, but her effort only placed her wrist in easy reach of his huge hands. He twisted her arm behind her back, snagged her other arm without problem, and trussed her up deftly. Then he grinned at her, like a boy at mischief.
He was no boy, however, but a warrior, probably a Zavaedi, in his prime. Scars inscribed a history of many battles across his otherwise impeccably fit physique. Like all Blue Waters warriors, his hair had been shaved close to his head everywhere except for a pony tail of braids down one side, next to his ear. The number of braids recorded the number of kills he’d made, and this man wore too many tiny, beaded braids for her to count. A tattoo of a salmon and three moons on his left cheek denoted his marital clan affiliation, which meant he had a wife and family back home.
More captives arrived, bound and surrounded by enemies. Counting, Brena realized that no one had escaped. Nor had she heard any ram’s horn sound from the watchtowers in the valley. Yet, for some reason, the Blue Waters warriors were keeping them alive.
It soon became clear why.
The leader of the war party, an ugly man with a seagull clan tattoo on his cheek paced before the captives.
“Tell us how to enter the kiva under this place,” Gull Face commanded.
Dread scraped over her nerves like physical pain. None of the Zavaedies or Tavaedies spoke, but Gull Face had expected their resistance. He gestured to Salmon Face, Brena’s own captor.
“You’ve earned first choice, Rthan. What about this one?” He grabbed one of the young female Tavaedies by the hair, jerking her head back.
Salmon Face—Rthan—walked right by the young woman, to loom over Brena. He pulled her to her feet. “This one.”
“Suit yourself,” shrugged Gull Face. He continued to distribute the captives while Rthan dragged Brena across the clearing to one of the stones in the circle. Her hands were tied in front of her body to a long rope. Rthan tossed the rope over the top of the megalith and staked it into the ground on the other side with his spear. The tension in the rope pulled her to her tip-toes, arms stretched above her head.
He displayed a shell knife. “Don’t make me do this.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, murdering innocent children!”
“Once they come out of that kiva, they won’t be children any longer. Besides, better to kill the cubs before they grow into full-fledged bears. Why not? Your people murder our children, down to the helpless babes. We only wish to wipe out those who are about to become dangerous.”
Rthan put the knife to her throat and stroked down. Brena squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating pain; instead, a cool breeze touched her breasts. He cut away her outer Tavaedi costume piece by piece. The tatters puddled at her feet. Beneath the outer mantle, she only wore a breechcloth and bands to support her breasts.
“You’re an animal!” she said.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I obey my War Chief,” Rthan said. “Look around you.”
She peeked to either side. There were twenty-one prisoners in all, seven Zavaedies and fourteen Tavaedies, to match the number of megaliths in the inner circle. In a grotesque perversion of the ritual they had come to perform, each captive had been hoisted naked against a stone. Some of the Blue Waters warriors commenced to whip the naked captives. Cries of human suffering despoiled the sacred space.
Gull Face strode from stone to stone, surveying his men’s grisly handiwork.
“We’re just getting started,” Gull Face said. “This will only end when you decide to tell us what we want to know. Whoever tells us first will be spared. The rest of you will have lost your opportunity to end this torment. We will continue this until you die.” When Gull Face passed Rthan, he asked in surprise, “What are you waiting for? This is our chance to avenge Lyass.”
Rthan flipped Brena face and belly to the stone. The cold seeped through her bare skin.
She heard the whip snap a moment before a snake of fire slithered over her back. She couldn’t swallow her shriek. The pause lasted just long enough for her to anticipate the next blow with mounting fear. Then another
agonizing sting bit her bare buttocks. Dread swelled in another long pause. By the third lash of the whip, she began to sob into her arm.
A hand brushed her hair back from her wet cheek. A soft, deep voice. “Tell me what we need to know, so I can stop. I hate hurting you.”
“You were eager enough to chose me to torture.” She tried to twist away from him, but only succeeded in wiggling her side to the rock.
“It was the only way I could keep some control over your fate.” He leaned closer, whispering, “Please. Help me end this.”
“I don’t care what you do to me, I’ll not let you take my daughters.” She twisted to glare at him, helpless in her rage and bile. Hate thawed the icy grip of terror. Gwenika was only fourteen.
A flash of something that almost looked like empathy crossed his face.
“Your daughters are Initiates? But no, you’re too young to be a Zavaedi and have daughters that age.”
She had no intention of explaining her life story to this fish faced brute. She merely snarled at him.
“If you let me in first, before the others, I will claim your daughters as my slaves,” he said. “I’ll protect them.”
“Take them, you mean.”
“I have no desire for the green fruit when I can have the ripe one.” He stepped closer to her side, so that his body heat radiated off her breasts.
“Isn’t your own wife ripe enough for you?”
The mix of compassion and desire vanished from his face, replaced by hard, cold, old rage. “My wife and child were murdered in a sneak raid by Yellow Bear warriors, slain in their sleep while all the men were fishing at sea.” He pressed himself closer, skin to skin. Lust washed into his anger. “It’s only fair turn around that I should take back something from your people.”
He turned her face and smothered her lips with his mouth. The sensation shocked her, awakening a vivid memory of the night of her own Initiation: The sounds of keening, rustling bodies, the mold in the cave that had made her sneeze. And hands. Male hands, freed from their bindings though she herself remained tied up. The hands had stroked her without asking. She’d been too afraid to speak—they’d been told not to—she had been confused and terrified, wondering if this was part of the Initiation. And so the boy who would become her husband later that year had forced her back to the rock ground, parted her legs and wriggled himself onto her. She hadn’t protested. The whole time she was sure she would die. He took his pleasure quickly the first time, but the night dragged on many hours. He never untied her. He stayed by her side and played with her body, idly, and under his roaming, possessive fingers, she peaked. She had often dreamed of that night since, and awakened feeling aroused and guilty.
Rthan broke off the kiss and knocked his forehead against the slab of stone. “Let me protect you and your family.” He sounded hoarse with need, almost pleading. Pulling back, he looked her in the eyes and rubbed her kiss-bruised lips with his thumb. “You have no good choices. Your people will not discover us until after we’re gone. There will be a massacre. We are avenging years of raids of your people against our tribe. But some prisoners may be spared—your daughters can be among them.
“If any other warrior takes them, he will make them his slave girls, but I swear by the Blue Lady, I will ask only you to my bed. Your body can guarantee their safety. No one else will offer you that bargain. Take it. I beg you. Agree to surrender yourself to me.”
She knew something that he did not. The underground chamber was not a true kiva, but a natural cave with only one opening. Once the opening was covered, the air would run out if the Initiates were not released soon. Brena shut her eyes against the turmoil she felt. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“I won’t betray you.”
“All men betray women. I’ve learned that the hard way.”
He leaned closer, husky and hypnotic. “Then you haven’t met real men.”
A scream pierced the night, one of the other torture victims, followed by surprised shouts. He ignored the scream, but the shouts evidently disturbed him, for he turned around to identify their source.
Kavio
Kavio finally found the simplest way to encourage the Yellow Bear warriors to see for themselves the danger to the Tor of the Stone Hedge. He kicked his guards in the chins, shins and bellies, then raced toward the tor, with them stampeding after him. Now they blew their horns, rousing still more warriors, from the Tor of the Sun and the Tor of the Moon. A satisfactory mass of armed men followed him up the hill and burst over the rim.
The Yellow Bear warriors had been expecting to corner one man. When they stumbled into an armed camp of enemy warriors, they slid to a stop, croaking in surprise like startled frogs.
Fortunately, the Blue Waters tribesmen proved no more prepared. Engrossed in the task of torturing the captives they had already overwhelmed, they had no appetite for a battle between equals. The Yellow Bear warriors regained their advantage first, pushed into berserker rage by the sight of their honored Tavaedies suffering abuse. Howling in fury, they smashed the skulls of their foes with stone clubs. The grassy hilltop between the upright stones turned slick with splattered brains and spilled intestines. A critical part of Kavio’s mind noted lost opportunities that the Yellow Bear warriors might have exploited, had they better organization or strategy. Raw fury and blind slaughter, though less elegant, did begin to dent the ranks of their foes.
Kavio wove his own patterns of mayhem. The last time he had been to the Tor of the Stone Hedge, he had been on his knees with a knife to his throat, hostage to a broken treaty, helpless human sacrifice. His father had given Hertio permission to kill him to pay the deathdebt between Rainbow Labyrinth and Yellow Bear. Kavio remembered the sweet onions he’d been given for his last meal, the coldness of the obsidian pressed to his jugular. The turf had been muddy, and his knees sank when he kneeled. A beetle had crawled up his leg while Hertio intoned the ritual farewell; he remembered thinking it would reach his thigh by the time his throat was slit. He’d desired then to do what he had no choice but to do now, slaughter every man who dared come at him with a weapon.
The same flips and spins that aided his dancing found lethal application in the chaos of combat. Though many of the Blue Waters warriors were themselves Tavaedies, no strangers to martial acrobatics, none could match Kavio for speed and precision. The tall stone slabs created the perfect foil for him to run up and leap backwards over the heads of his opponents. He dispensed foe after foe in a few brief moves. The mud that had once caked his near naked body could no longer be seen beneath a new patina, the gore of battle.
As he fought, he also strove to free the captives tied to the menhirs, whenever possible. Borrowing an ax from a Blue Waters warrior no longer capable of wielding it, considering his missing arm, Kavio was about to cut free a handsome, naked woman bound to a stone, when he chanced to recognize her. He missed a step. Though they’d not been formally introduced, he knew she was the Zavaedi who had told Dindi he was an exile and not to be trusted. Zavaedi Brena, he had heard her called.
Apparently her opinion of him had not improved. Her eyes widened when she saw him, then narrowed in outrage.
“Traitor!” she cried. “Exile! Were you working to lead our enemies here all along?”
The absurd accusation helped clear his head. He lifted his ax, ignored her wince – did she really think he intended her harm? – and cut the cords binding her wrists.
Brena fell into the churned up grass. She looked more confused than grateful. Yet she must have re-evaluated which side he was on, for just as Kavio bent to help her up, she pointed behind him. “Watch out!”
He rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the blow from a huge warrior.
Rthan.
Not bothering to bandy words, Kavio aimed a kick for the man’s jugular. Belying his bulk, Rthan moved swiftly, without wasted movement. He grappled Kavio by the ankle, twisting his face into the mud. Kavio performed a bouncing push-up and donkey kick that sent Rth
an reeling, but he recovered with a back roll, and came back up punching the air where Kavio would have been if he hadn’t spun away. Then the fight picked up pace.
Hot, hard, and fast, blow after blow, spin and kick they exchanged, neither able to smack the other down for long before he rebounded for more action. By now they were the last two still fighting. The rest of the Blue Waters warriors were either face down in the mud, prisoners, or face up in their blood, corpses. A circle of Yellow Bear warriors surrounded the two combatants. Rthan noticed his predicament, but instead of surrendering to the inevitable, he hunkered down into the fight, faster and harder and meaner than ever. Kavio gestured to the rest to leave him his kill, which they respected.
The tiniest bit of ill luck decided the outcome for Rthan when his ankle caught on a disconnected arm. On a roll, Kavio picked up a fallen spear and dove toward that massive chest in the final, mortal blow. Seeing his doom, Rthan spread his arms and roared a welcome to Lady Death.
From behind, a wooden mask clubbed the Blue Waters warrior on the head, dropping him like an axed tree. The spear whizzed harmlessly overhead. Rthan was already unconscious in the mud.
Zavaedi Brena held the mask. Kavio glanced at her curiously. “I think you saved his life.”
“Did I?” she asked coolly.
“Though I suspect he would have preferred death in combat to the slavery and torture that surely await him.”
“Enough blood has been spilled,” she said in disgust. She threw down the mask. Grime streaked her cheeks like tears. “This sacred place has been defiled, and the very children we fought to protect will die because of it.”
