They plucked the soldiers from the ground, tossing them high to fall with crunching thuds. They stood on them, trampling the hapless men like unwelcome bugs.
And their riders—they shouted a song of furious redemption. The elephants galloped and the riders leaned out, striking with long staffs tipped with spiked balls, swinging chains that caught the armor and tipped the men into the dirt.
I saw all of this, because the soldiers forgot me, their prize, in the pitch of battling these demons from the night. They cried to each other of monsters, of retreat. They didn’t know about elephants.
But then, neither had I. Only when I saw Violet, Ochieng on her neck, both of them in warrior frenzy, did I succumb to the exhaustion, the draining weakness. I sank to my knees, still holding my sword and dagger. If I died now, I’d die blade in hand, as Kaja had, as befitted a Warrior of Danu.
They’d come after me, elephants and D’tiembos alike. I blinked at the sight of Zalaika mounted on Bimyr, a machete cleaving through a Dasnarian’s armor as easily as she’d chop vegetables with the elephant’s momentum behind her.
A trunk wrapped around my waist, steadying me, an elephant sinking to her knees to lean against my back. The white scars on her ankles shone in the moonlight as the tip of her trunk snuffled anxiously over my bracelets.
“It’s all right, Efe,” I told her. “We’ll get them off.”
And I leaned back against her comforting bulk, Moranu’s moon smiling from above, pleased with Her favor to Her sister. I almost imagined I felt Kaja’s hand on my brow.
~ 26 ~
The sound of rain made me want to go back to sleep. Steadily drumming, with counterpoints of drips here and there, it soothed and lulled me. Cool, damp breezes touched my face, but I lay in a warm cocoon of blankets. Safe.
I went back to sleep.
* * * *
When I awoke again, nothing had changed. Still the drumming of rain, the occasional drips. Oh, and song in the background. A spinning and weaving song I knew. I opened my eyes to find my familiar ceiling above. Turning my head, I saw the curtain walls had been drawn and tied down. In between the ties at top, middle, and bottom, gaps showed a gray sky and falling rain, the fabric puffing and billowing wetly between.
An occasional spray of rain blew through a gap, caressing my cheek, reminding me of an elephant snout, snuffling wetly in affection. Desperately thirsty, I touched my tongue to my lips, trying to lick up some of the moisture.
“Priestess Ivariel?”
I turned my head the other direction, to see Ayela sitting on the floor beside my sleeping mat. She held out a low saucer. When I nodded, she carefully held it against my lips, allowing warm tea to run in, a balm to my parched throat. A memory returned of other hands, soft voices, and water like this.
Ayela fed me all of it, then set the cup down and sprang to her feet. She slipped out through the curtains, her voice singing out that I had awakened. I braced myself, thinking I should maybe sit up to greet the inevitable visitors—and likely their recriminations. But I found I couldn’t move. My body ached all over, so my nerves still worked, but I couldn’t seem to stir beyond turning my head.
Bemused, I realized that I must be alive. But I felt oddly empty, hollowed out. Something missing. Ah—that chill hatred no longer lay coiled deep in me. I’d loosed it, left it with its fangs in my late husband’s heart. In a way, perhaps the last of Jenna had died with him.
Ochieng burst in, his hair for once not in the long queue, but falling loose and wild around his shoulders. He took me in, a disbelieving look on his face, then fell to his knees beside me, dropping his forehead to my side. Behind him, Zalaika peeked in. She gave me a soft smile, letting the curtain drop again, tying it into place to give us privacy.
“Ochieng,” I said, when he didn’t move. “I’m so sorry.”
At last he lifted his head, eyes both bright and damp, tears on his cheeks. “I have so few words from you, that I hate to squander any,” he said. “But perhaps you should explain what you’re apologizing for.”
I wasn’t sure what thing he might most hold against me, so I paused there, considering. “I’ve wronged you and your family in so many ways that I don’t know where to start.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, then through his hair, seeming surprised to find it loose. “Start with how you left like a thief in the night, when you promised not to go without saying goodbye.”
“I never promised that,” I answered, feeling oddly fierce about it.
“Only because of your vow of silence, but it was understood.”
“No, you assumed. I never agreed to that.”
“Because you always knew you would leave, with some misguided idea that we could not protect you when I told you we could.”
“You didn’t know what you were up against! And I never saw you fight. I didn’t know the elephants could. Was that real? Did I see you all riding in on elephants and fighting the Dasnarians? Where are they—did any live?” I tried to sit up again. “Why can’t I move?”
Ochieng regarded me, an odd expression on his face. “Perhaps I liked you better when you couldn’t barrage me with ten thousand questions at once.”
I glared at him. “I’m sure you did. I don’t blame you for hating me. I’m not who I pretended to be and that’s unforgivable.” I tried to move. “Am I paralyzed?”
“No.” He laughed a little and shook his head. “Forgive me, Ivariel. I am not myself. So many days and nights, waiting for you to awake, wondering if you’d live.” He reached to the side of my pallet, fingers working. “We had to tie you down. You kept fighting, even in your sleep, breaking open the many wounds you sustained, losing still more blood.”
As he untied the straps and blankets holding me down, I found he spoke the truth, and I could move. I also wore nothing beneath except for the silver chain around my neck. Ah well, the time for hiding had truly passed. Realizing the ring and bracelets were gone, as well, I cast my gaze around the room and spotted the sullen glint of the diamond on a low table. I would have to find a suitable demise for it. Perhaps cast it in the ocean, as I should have from the beginning.
“I thought I would die,” I told Ochieng, his face so serious as he freed me from the bonds.
“You tried hard enough,” he agreed. He refilled the cup with water, then slid behind me, lifting me up and propping me against him. “Here, can you hold this? You need more water. I can hold it for you, if not.”
I tried lifting my arms. So weak. And wrapped in bandages, a finer, undyed version of the cloth they used for everything. But I managed to hold the cup in my palms, though his hand stayed beneath mine, in steady support.
“Is it all right if I hold you thus?” he asked.
“Yes.” In fact, it felt good. Right and comforting. I drank the water, and he smoothed the hair off my brow.
“Long ago,” he told me, falling into the rhythm of storytelling, “far to the east, lived many many people in a vast land that made them fat and rich. They cultivated the elephants to help them farm the fields, harvest timber—and to fight in battles against the other tribes. For the plenty turned their heads and hearts, making them ever greedy for more. My ancestor turned his back on them, weary of never-ending conflict, brokenhearted one too many times to see his beloved elephants die in battle. So he took his tribe of elephants and came here, where he built a place for them to live in peace.”
“I love the peace here,” I whispered. “That’s why I left, rather than risk bringing conflict down on you.”
He sighed a little, refilling my cup. “We live in peace, but we also continue to train—the elephants and ourselves—for sometimes the lions come looking. Sometimes the wolves chase their prey to our doorstep. I spoke true when I said we could and would protect you, Ivariel.”
“That’s not truly my name,” I told him softly. “That was a lie. And I’m not
a Warrior Priestess of Danu. My friend Kaja, who died, she taught me enough to pretend, to fool people, so I could hide.”
“Do you like the name?” he asked, not at all what I expected.
“Yes. But it’s not real. Kaja helped me make it up.”
He was quiet a moment. “I told you once that I believe in you and that all that remained was for you to believe, too. Who is to say the name your parents gave you is more real than the one you and your friend created together?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. “I took those vows, of silence and chastity, to protect myself, not out of true devotion to the goddess. I’m not sure Danu exists—or, if She does, that She knows I do. Every time I pretended to give Her blessing, that was a lie. I’m not even of the Twelve Kingdoms. I come from Dasnaria.”
“Ah. But who of us can be sure of the gods and goddesses? Perhaps they exist, perhaps they know of us. Perhaps not.” He refilled my cup, guiding it to my mouth. “Drink more. I’ve heard of your empire, mostly in stories. As for your question, those men are all dead. None are left to carry tales.”
All dead. Gone into the bloodred mists and darkness. “Ochieng…” I hesitated. “I lost myself. I don’t remember what happened.”
He was quiet a moment. “I think you are right here. Perhaps you have been lost and just began to find yourself again.”
I would have to think about that. Though I did remember one thing.
“They had a ship at Bandari. There will be some aboard it, awaiting the battalion’s return.”
“Just so. Awaiting men who set out on a journey weighted down in armor at the start of the rains. Perhaps we will send some artifacts to the ship, expressing our sorrow for the doomed expedition and all their people who died, stranded at an oasis.” The utter lack of remorse in his voice surprised me a little. A side of Ochieng I’d never glimpsed beneath his easy, laughing nature.
“I thought I wouldn’t get to see the rains,” I confessed.
“Would you like to see them now?”
When I nodded, he eased out from behind me and drew back the curtain on the side that looked fully over the river. Rain blew in on a light breeze, but mostly poured down, torrents of water unlike anything I’d seen. Ochieng slid in behind me again, easing me more fully to lie against him.
“It’s beautiful. And extraordinary.”
“Yes. Like you, my Ivariel.” He kissed the top of my head. “A good season for healing. You will sleep, and eat the broth my mother is making for you. And when you are better, you can dance and build your strength again. The children have been practicing and are eager to learn more. At the end of the rains, we will have the festival of kuachamvua.”
“Which you thought I would enjoy.”
“Yes, if you stayed with us that long,” he acknowledged.
“Is that…invitation still open?” I asked, unsure.
“Every one,” Ochieng said. He tipped my chin up with a finger, leaning over me to study my face. “Stay with us, Ivariel. Stay with me.”
“I would like that,” I answered, and he smiled, weary still, but something of that joy returning to his face. “I am a widow now, you know.”
He studied me, uncertain. “There is time to consider such things later. You have a great deal of healing yet to do.”
From the way he said it, I understood he meant in my heart as well. Still, there was something I could give him, a promise of sorts. I tugged at the chain, pulled it off over my head, and held it out. He cupped his palm and received my vow of chastity, folding his fingers around it. Out in the rain, an elephant trumpeted, and I fancied it must be Efe.
“A beginning,” I said to Ochieng, tipping my head back to smile at him.
“A good beginning,” he replied, which sounded like his own sort of vow. And he bent over me, kissing me with infinite tenderness. “Would you like to sleep now?” he asked. “Or perhaps it’s your turn to tell me a story.”
“I’d like to tell you about a young girl who grew up in paradise,” I said. “She had everything she wanted and nothing demanded of her—until everything was taken.”
Gazing out at the rains shrouding the winding coil of the river, I leaned against Ochieng and told him my story. He made a good listener, too.
Don’t miss the next book in
Jeffe Kennedy’s
CHRONICLES OF DASNARIA:
WARRIOR OF THE WORLD
Coming to you
From Lyrical Rebel Base in
January 2019
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About the Author
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. She lives in Santa Fe, with two Maine coon cats, a border collie, plentiful free-range lizards and a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Jeffe can be found online at JeffeKennedy.com, or every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog.
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