“Are you crazy?” he hisses. The lines of his stacked tattoos, his kills, fill my vision as he yanks up the hood and arranges it around my face. “There are people here who know your face, child! I thought you understood the gravity of someone placing you here?”
“I’m sorry.” Oxygen slams into my body as I inhale, exhale, inhale. “I had to see…” I trail off, searching him out. Ryka. He’s standing on the opposite side of the pit at the very edge, burning a pathway straight for me, like he knows where I am in the crush. There isn’t a scratch on him, and he’s still wearing one of his standard black shirts. From his calm demeanour, it’s clear he hasn’t yet been called to the pit.
“Olivia said you would come,” Jack says, his voice incredibly tight. “I thought you had more sense.”
“Has she gone?”
Jack drags me forward. The crowd parts for their leader, and whispers of ‘Grandfather’ fall like hushed, respectful caresses on my ears as we move closer to the edge of the pit. Once we’re standing at the very edge, I can see what is taking place below. Olivia is leaning back against a priestess in an odd slump, and three other women move around her body, carefully feeding red material over and under, over and under. Her body is slowly being cocooned in swathes of the thin material. Her face is tilted up at the stars, but she lacks any expression. Those brown eyes, so similar to her brothers, are utterly blank.
“What’s wrong with her? What did they do?”
“The Haze,” he says simply.
“They…they drugged her?”
Jack nods, a sour look on his face. “Stops the girls from backing out, I imagine.”
“This isn’t right.” I’m suddenly all hot and bothered over how Jack actually let this happen. He should have forbidden her, done something to prevent all of this. I’m of a mind to get angry with him, but when I look at the old man, his cheeks are wet and I don’t have the heart. Feeling the pressure of a hot stare on the top of my head, I glance up and find Ryka pinning me with his gaze. Strange. He swallows, his throat bobbing, and I can tell he’s fighting tears, too. It’s maddening that between the three of us, we couldn’t talk her out of this.
The priestesses wrap the never-ending red veil around Olivia’s body once more, but this time the material is looped over her arms, pinning them to the sides of her body. My instant claustrophobia can’t be quashed, even as I breathe through the panic, reminding myself it’s not me being trussed up like I’m being prepared for a funeral pyre.
“Don’t watch, child,” Jack says, pressing his large, heavy hand into my back. It’s comforting, having it there. He shouldn’t be comforting me, though. He’s saying goodbye to his granddaughter. I have no idea how he’s going to ever fill up the void hollowing out his insides―the same void eating away at mine
As the red cloth moves up Olivia’s body, the priestesses start to wail. Their low keening is eerie as it vibrates out of the pit, individual voices undulating and harmonising one minute, rising in pitch into total discord the next. Women in the crowd start to cry. A heavy sadness fills the air, pouring into my lungs, and it’s hard to breathe around the weight of it. It’s not a few women standing around the tableau below shedding tears; it’s with surprise that I note every single woman is sobbing.
The men stand with hardened glares and clenched jaws, and I feel it deep in my bones: they’re humming. It starts low, a pressure building with increasing force, and soon it’s a tidal wave that causes the very molecules that make up my body to jitter. My teeth rattle together in my head. It’s unbearably sad that I can feel the bass timbre of Jack’s voice travelling down his arm and into my body. I’m sharing his grief this way. On top of my own, it’s overwhelming.
As soon as Olivia’s face is covered, the howling and the humming ceases. It’s like someone threw a switch somewhere, and every single member of Freetown just…stops. I’m locked onto the red cocoon of Olivia’s body when the pristine white petals start falling down onto the kicked up muddy floor of the pit. Handfuls of them flutter, listing on the breeze, and in the absolute quiet it is like their flights are plotted downwards on the very silence itself.
“It’s done,” Jack whispers. Certain things happen after that: Olivia’s body is lifted by strong arms out of the pit, and then the priestesses take her, a sea of shifting anonymous crimson bodies, accepting her into their fold. As they pass him by, Ryka reaches out his hand, a parting gesture, but the priestesses shy back from his touch. Keep him from making contact with his sister. The devastation on Ryka’s face makes my skin flame. I hate the priestesses so very much in that instant. Hate them.
Then they’re gone. With them, they take something incredibly precious. It feels like they’re taking away the sun.
I’m numb as the noise floods back into the pit. Shouting and cheering, the sadness that reigned down with the silken white petals only minutes earlier turns into furious celebration. Bastards, all of them. It’s hard to understand how women can mourn one second and then be frantically happy the next. To have such easy control over their emotions makes them all liars. I kick my boot against the hard-pressed dirt and rub the pads of my thumbs into my dagger hilts, working my jaw. On the other side of the pit Ryka is a mirror of me. I tamp down my hostility only because the crowd starts pushing and shoving.
“The High Priestess is coming!” someone cheers.
“Stay here. Keep that hood pulled up and try not to make eye contact with anyone.” Jack drops down into the pit, leaving me with a cold impression on the base of my spine where the warmth of his hand used to be. “People of Freetown!” he yells. “Tonight is the first of three. Tonight we celebrate the tradition of our warriors’ sacrifice. The Gods smile down upon us as we honour our dead and send more to the Rest. Who will bear the blood of their brothers on their hands tonight?”
If I thought the humming was loud before, the ‘Haroo!’ that splits the air apart is truly deafening. Ryka’s voice is amongst them. How I think I can hear him over everyone else is ridiculous, but I swear I do. Bodies surge forward as a pathway is formed on my side of the pit, but I don’t waste time watching the frail figure of the High Priestess step down into Jack’s open arms. I’m watching Ryka. Even though his eyes are elsewhere, it seems like his body is tilted towards me, zoning in on my exact location in the crowd. I tap my foot nervously, wondering how this is going to play out. Will it be like the Colosseum matches? The pomp and ceremony held on a match day back in the Sanctuary seems positively sophisticated compared to the rushing and shouting and pounding here. I somehow doubt there will be an adjudicator to judge the fights fairly. It’s going to be a free-for-all, and I’m poised to watch the whole thing voluntarily. Leave, leave, leave, my heart pounds out, but I can’t. I’m too worried, my fear toxic, spreading like a river of poison through my veins.
Somewhere a dull drumbeat kicks up. It’s not long before feet join in the rhythm, trying to beat into submission earth that already yielded long ago. I remain motionless. I’m not becoming a part of this wild machine, baying for the blood of Freetown’s men. I just refuse. My body is jostled side to side by other bodies, pressed too close, and I fight to hold my place. Elbows, knees, hips, shoulders. Elbows to the ribs, knees to my legs, hip against hip, shoulder against shoulder. Half of me thinks the rough treatment is intentional, but when I cast a look around, no one is paying me any attention. All eyes are fixed on the High Priestess and Jack standing together down in the pit. Right now I am just another faceless person in a swell of surging bodies. At any other time this would feel good, but right now―right now I want to vault across the yawning gap between Ryka and I, grab his hand, and run.
That’s what I want to do. Run. With him.
I press my lips together and count the faces I can see, doing my best not to think about that. How on earth would that ever even work? Would he come with me? In the pit below, the High Priestess’ unwavering voice fills the night air.
“Raksha!” she screams.
A thousand other voices join hers, yelling the
word, pushing it upwards so it rises in one hot breath that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It sinks into my skin and drops through me like a stone. My heart beats louder than the drum, louder than the rushing water when I escaped the Sanctuary, louder than my guilt and fear and worry.
Raksha.
It symbolises the voices of all the men who have died before in the pit. It’s their death chant, calling for fresh blood to the other side. Right now it does feel like the dead are chanting. And they definitely want fresh blood. I try to find Ryka in the press opposite, but it looks as though the fighters are gathering, weaving through the maze to meet at a point to my left. Ryka has departed there, too, and I know instinctively that they’re getting ready to fight.
Of all the possible times I could freak out, this is probably the worst. There’s little I can do about it, though. My heart’s pounding. With the heavy cloak Jack draped over me dragging through the dirt, I shove against the crowd, meeting immediate resistance. I have to get there, though; I have to get to Ryka. What I’ll do when I reach him is a mystery, but I can’t help but worry that he’s going to be the first person called. The scene plays out on a loop, getting worse and worse with every rendition: James crying out Ryka’s name; James gripping onto the back of Ryka’s head, a fist full of blond hair as he drives his glinting quicksilver into his chest.
That faded out look, the one I’ve seen so many times before as the light well and truly goes out in someone’s eyes, that’s what will happen to Ryka if James gets him into the pit. I scramble uselessly against the body next to me, struggling to shift what turns out to be a mountain of a man. I look up at him and our eyes meet. It’s the fighter from the blood ceremonies who had his ear sliced in two. Lettin. That’s his name: Lettin Corr. He’s shirtless again, his huge chest tattoo slicked with sweat. He smiles at me and I arrange my face into what I suppose to be a polite response, when something happens. I’m shoved.
The smile on Lettin’s face slides off like water running down rock. I don’t have time to reach out for him, although Lettin does make a grab for me. He catches hold of the cloak, a great bunch of material wadded up in his massive hand, but it’s not enough. Suddenly, helplessly, I’m falling…
…into the pit.
SACRIFICE
Six feet isn’t so far to fall. When you land hard on your back, though, breathing can become a problem. Above me, Lettin and the small woman standing next to him both look horrified. The cloak that remained behind as I fell flaps in Lettin’s hand like a billowing flag, and his knuckles are white where he’s clenching onto it. It takes a while to shake the jarring impact from my head, and it’s when the stars clear from my vision that I notice everyone is quiet. Everyone.
Not a single person makes a sound as I lie flat out on my back on the pit floor. I go to get up and the woman next to Lettin, the little, petite one, finally gasps. Her hand flies to her mouth and her eyes appear as large as the silver disc of the moon hanging in the sky over her shoulder. Why does everyone look so terrified?
“Oh, Kit.” The sigh comes from Jack. He appears right next to me. “What have you done?”
“Done?” I lift my head and survey myself, confused. Toppling into the pit was hardly an intentional thing. The short tempered part of me wants to point that out but frankly I’m too concerned with the abject horror I’m witnessing. Raised eyebrows, open mouths, tensed muscle everywhere. It seems as though I just made a mistake. A big one.
“What’s going on?” I hiss to Jack. When I catch sight of the old man, my stomach back-flips. Words seem to fail him. He gives me a sharp glare and then looks down at his feet.
“It wasn’t her fault,” a voice calls out from the crowd.
I scan the people standing above me, trying to find the owner of the voice. My gaze falls on Jack again, though, and I stop. All I can see is the bottomless regret etched into the worn lines of his face. He won’t meet my eye.
“She was pushed,” the same voice repeats. “She cannot be held accountable.”
Jack’s jaw locks and he exhales through his nose. “This isn’t about accountability, James. You know that as well as anyone.”
James? Confusion swamps me as I look again, finding the dark-haired fighter standing above us. His strong arms are crossed over his chest, and thick veins of tension stand out in his neck. He stares at me, and the look in his eyes is fearsome.
“Then what is it about?” he says, addressing Jack. “The old ways? The Faith? These traditions are barbaric. It’s time for them to end.”
A rustle of shocked voices goes up through the throng. It reminds me of another sound from a long time ago: the dry leaf sound of the paper gown I wore the last time I was interviewed by one of the technicians. Except this is louder. And this time I am not the picture of placidity; I am terror personified. Jack steps closer to me but his presence doesn’t make me feel any better. The High Priestess moves around him, her red robed form looming over me.
“Our laws are not traditions, fighter. They are exactly that: laws, passed down to us by the Gods. This girl came to the pit floor uncalled for. This is sacred ground, and she has offered herself up as sacrifice. You know what must be done.”
As a furore leaps up around her words, my heart stops. Sacrifice? They’re going to kill me because I fell onto the pit floor? Suddenly it all makes sense. Well, it makes absolutely no sense at all, but at least now I know why Olivia was so thankful when I grabbed hold of her at the blood ceremonies. If she had fallen as I just did, she knew what would happen to her. They would offer her up as a sacrifice to the Gods.
“No!” Another shout punctures up above the rumble of excited voices―Callum’s. I know him well enough to recognise his voice. Sure enough, he fights his way forward and rushes to stand beside James. I shakily get to my feet. My legs feel like they’re likely to give out on me any second, but I don’t let them. There’s no time for that. I’m too busy inching away from the High Priestess like the frail little woman is going to take me on herself. Where the hell is Ryka? Every single part of me is screaming that I need to find him.
“We must depart,” the High Priestess says, offering out her hand to Jack. He looks at me with too much sorrow on his face for me to think he’s going to do anything about this. Which is why I’m surprised when he doesn’t accept the small, gnarled hand and he clambers out of the pit to stand beside James.
“I know what must be done, and yet I cannot agree with it. I reject the sacrifice,” he cries.
More shocked voices. More rustling and awkward shifting from the masses.
“I also reject the sacrifice,” James shouts.
Callum follows suit. “I, too, reject.”
Am I allowed to reject myself as sacrifice? I definitely reject myself as sacrifice. Surprisingly there are a few more voices offered up, close to the pit and further away, who call out on my behalf. I can only imagine if they are people I know. Maybe Melody and August. Maybe Max is still here somewhere, too. A thick silence follows. A well of fear is building in the back of my throat when finally another voice echoes out into the night air.
“I reject the sacrifice!”
Ryka.
Even though his voice was impossibly close, it takes a long time to pinpoint him in the crowd. My mistake is that I am looking for him at head height. And he is on his knees. In the hammered down, sticky mud, Ryka is on his knees. “I reject the sacrifice!” he all but screams.
“Not enough.” The High Priestess moves effortlessly to the side of the pit, where a handful of men reach down and pluck her out. Her stooped form turns and faces me.
“The consequences of tainting sacred ground are too much for this town to bear. The people know it is unwise to incur wrath where offering is required. The offering of one for the good of the many. Who will claim this honour?”
I’m stunned. This is really happening. Two days ago, Olivia sobbed into my shirt and asked me if this was really her life. Now I’m left wondering the same question. Am
I really going to get killed by a member of Freetown? Ryka rocks back and gets to his feet, although the effort looks like it kills him.
“No one dare,” he says, his voice low and menacing.
“This is not your place, boy,” the High Priestess says calmly. “If you do not stand down, you will be nominated to commit the act yourself. Would this please you?”
“Put me in that pit and I won’t be going after her with a knife.” The threat in his voice is clear, and everyone hears it. A loud shout goes up and the fighters gathered around Ryka flinch away from him like his brand of idiocy is contagious. I will him not to do anything stupid, but it might already be too late for that. He glares up at the High Priestess from underneath drawn brows and I can tell he means it. Good Gods, he means it.
A soft clicking sound comes from underneath the woman’s veils. Unfazed by Ryka’s insinuation, she point-blank ignores him. “I ask again. Who will claim this honour?”
The spit of the burning fires is all I hear for a moment, but then a buzz explodes further back in the crowds. A pathway clears and a tall, broad man stalks his way forward. A jagged scar runs down the right hand side of his face, and it’s too neat and tidy to be a defensive scar. Self-imposed, more likely. He falters when he catches sight of me.
“I didn’t know it was a girl,” he says. His knife is still in his hand, though.
“It matters not whether the sacrifice is male or female. She volunteered herself. It must be done.”
“I fell!” Finally I find my voice, and with it my anger. It rushes over me so forcefully that I can’t keep my hands from shaking. My whole body, in fact. “I didn’t volunteer for anything. I’m not fighting.”
“You’re right in that, child. You are not supposed to fight. You are supposed to die,” the High Priestess tells me.
Like hell I am.
I lock onto Ryka―see the horror on his face. He looks from me to the fighter now dropping down into the pit, and I watch it happen: he explodes. He goes to jump into the pit after the fighter, but the men around him catch him by his arms. It takes six of them to hold him back and in the end there’s nothing he can do. They pin him to the floor while he strains and kicks. “Don’t you dare, Sam! Don’t you dare!”
Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) Page 23
