The Gilded Ones

by Namina Forna

  Within moments, we’re all near both deathshrieks. The one closest to me is scanning the area, eyes alert for threats. I frown, watching it. As with the ones that attacked our walls two months ago, it seems sharper, more alive somehow, than the deathshrieks in the Warthu Bera. It doesn’t seem to notice me skulking below it, however. I’ve learned how to be stealthy during White Hands’s many lessons.

  I’m the hunter now.

  “Don’t make a sound,” I command, my voice reverberating, that familiar power pushing out from my skin. “Come down here.”

  Both deathshrieks turn to me at the same time, their black eyes going wide with surprise before they just as quickly glaze over. Their hearts slow, the beats dulling to a trickle. When they slowly begin to descend, relief whooshes from my lungs. It’s actually working!

  Soon enough, they’re on the ground, and Keita makes quick work of them, slicing their heads off before they’re any the wiser. It’s all I can do not to vomit when a musky-sweet smell tinges the air and blue blood wells up where their heads were.

  Flashes. Gold on the floor. The look in Father’s eyes. The look in Katya’s…

  Britta taps me and I turn away from the hated memory. I’m no longer in that cellar, and no one is going to behead me here. As I regain my composure, Keita walks over to me, eyes searching for any sign of tiredness. I still haven’t conquered the exhaustion that rises whenever I use my voice to command. I can already feel it, that hazy feeling spreading over my limbs. I won’t be able to remain standing for much longer.

  “Excellent job,” he says. “They never even saw it com—”

  The sound of shaking branches alerts us to movement. I turn to find a pair of black deathshriek eyes peeking out from a nearby tree. The deathshriek stops, horrified, when it sees the bodies of its slaughtered comrades.

  It opens its mouth—only to make a horrible gurgling sound as a knife rips through its throat, pinning it to the tree. Belcalis lowers her hand, but her knife came too late. The deathshriek’s dying scream is now echoing through the trees. For a moment, Keita and I look at each other, hoping against hope that we’re safe—that the other deathshrieks haven’t been awakened.

  Then the shrieks begin, each more horrific than the next, so piercing, I can hear them through my helmet. I toss it aside, trying to hear the direction they’re coming from. I’m resistant to the worst effects of deathshriek screams, and my time in the caverns with Rattle and the other deathshrieks has made me even more so.

  The mist thickens, the enraged deathshrieks excreting it more and more, and Keita grabs me, running toward the rest of the group. “Infinity take it, there’s too many of them!” he hisses, feet pounding faster. I try to keep up, but every stride is a battle against the exhaustion now weighing down my limbs.

  “I’ve got her!” Britta says, swooping me up like I weigh nothing.

  “Keep her close!” Keita replies, readying his sword as we reach the others.

  Captain Kelechi is prepared for our arrival. “Swords outward!” he commands as the raiding party bands together.

  Britta places me in the middle of the circle, and then everyone else closes ranks, backs to each other, swords out toward the incoming threat. Around us, the mist is thickening even more and the treetops are rustling as shimmering figures lope across branches while others make their way through the underbrush. I watch it, my limbs so heavy now, I can barely remain standing. Exhaustion weights my every muscle.

  “Make sure you leave no openings!” Captain Kelechi calls out.

  “Yes, sir,” I rasp, my tongue slurred by tiredness. My body is getting heavier and heavier, my eyes struggle to remain open.

  It doesn’t matter, however, because the deathshrieks are here, their towering silhouettes moving silently in the darkness. There are at least thirty of them—more than I’ve ever seen before in my life, the heightened senses of the deep combat state allowing me to see their heartbeats flashing furious white against the silvery glow of their skin. When they see the bodies of their friends, they begin to shriek again, the sound both anguished and angry as it drills into my ears. But it doesn’t get worse, none of the red-hot agony that used to sear my brain.

  The shrieks reach a fever pitch when the largest deathshriek, a silvery monstrosity with white, quill-like projections all down its back, steps forward. It looks almost like Rattle, its quills clattering as it motions to the other deathshrieks. But Rattle is much less frightening than this hulking, commanding monster that makes the other deathshrieks begin circling, their movements slow and deliberate. I watch it through eyes so heavy, it feels as if I’m fighting past water just to keep them open.

  Once they’ve completely surrounded us, the silver deathshriek turns to us, eyes gleaming with hate, and makes a deliberate slicing motion across its throat. The deathshrieks grunt low, rumbling noises in their throats, their message clear: they mean to kill us slowly and painfully.

  “Oyomo’s beard, did you see that?” Kweku rasps. “Did you see what it just did?”

  “They’re gonna kill us,” Britta whispers, terrified. “They’re gonna kill us all.”

  So much terror vibrates through her voice, it pierces the wave of exhaustion crushing me. There are too many deathshrieks about to hope for a victory if we have to use our swords. I have to do something, have to try. I inhale, struggling to sink deeper into the combat state, struggling to shake off the tentacles of fatigue now squeezing even tighter around me.

  “Can you control them, Deka?” Captain Kelechi whispers.

  I swallow, my tongue heavy with fear and exhaustion. “I can try.”

  Captain Kelechi’s hands tighten on his sword. “Don’t try—do.”

  I nod, closing my eyes, and allow myself to fall even deeper into the dark ocean of my subconscious. That voice is whispering there as always, a mixture of my own thoughts and the power swirling inside me. I reach out to it, reach out to the golden door that it offers me, and almost immediately, I feel it, power surging through my veins.

  I smile, allowing it to fill me up. Allowing it to give me strength. I won’t let my friends die—not here, not now.

  “Stop moving!” I command, power vibrating from my body. “Remain perfectly still.”

  Surprise fills me as the deathshrieks’ heartbeats dim, silver throbbing to a dull gray. Their eyes glaze over and they all still in place, no longer able to move. Silence fills the jungle as the others look at me, awed.

  “Oyomo’s tears!” one recruit gasps.

  It’s enough to rouse Captain Kelechi from his daze. “What are you waiting for? Hurry up and end them!”

  The words snap everyone into action. They begin attacking the motionless deathshrieks, who just remain there, eyes blinking frantically as they’re beheaded one by one. A dark, suffocating feeling surges inside me. This seems wrong, so very, very wrong. The deathshrieks are completely defenseless, none of them so much as twitching a finger as they’re cut down—massacred. I sag to the ground, no longer able to support my own body, watching as rivers of deathshriek blood soak the ground.

  Repulsion comes over me as the pile of headless bodies quickly grows into a small mountain. By the time the moon disappears over the hill, the odor completely stains the air, shudders of nausea rising inside me every time I take a whiff.

  Finally, it’s over, and the other bloodsisters and even their uruni are hugging and kissing me joyfully as I lie there on the ground, my body completely immobile.

  “Ye did it, ye did it!” Britta crows.

  “Oyomo’s breath, Deka, you saved us,” says Belcalis. Then her brows gather. “Deka, your eyes…”

  “I know,” I whisper, the easiest words I can manage, given the circumstances, the darkness rising up to claim me.

  As I finally allow myself to succumb to it, I notice something I didn’t before. A little brown girl, about eleven or so, w
hite shift fluttering as she runs away from us deeper into the forest.

  “A girl…,” I say.

  Then I surrender to the darkness.

  When I wake, it’s early morning, and we’re camped outside the deathshrieks’ now-abandoned nest. Part of the work of the raid is checking the nest to ensure that none of the creatures has managed to hide away, which is why we’re always expected to make our encampments next to the nests if we’re on an overnight raid. Like everything surrounding deathshrieks, the ground here is cold and damp, and I shiver against the temperature when my eyes blink open.

  “Yer awake!” Britta gasps as I sit up. She’s kneeling beside me, her eyes droopy and tired. She has no doubt been awake all night like the others, scouring the area for any remaining deathshrieks.

  “I am,” I rasp, glancing around.

  The smell of deathshriek blood assaults my nostrils. I gag, shuddering when I see the corpses piled nearby. The recruits surround them, Acalan and Kweku bent over the silver-quilled one, brows furrowed with concentration. Then I see their knives—moving…

  “What are they doing?” I ask Britta, horrified.

  She shrugs. “They’re takin’ trophies. Acalan says he wants the quills. To give as gifts.”

  The thought fills me with such disgust, I retch against the pallet Britta’s made for me. I’m suddenly reminded of the elders, buckets in hand as they bled me.

  Britta crouches above me, feeling my forehead. “Ye all right?” she asks. “Ye don’t feel warm…”

  I wipe my mouth, nodding. “I’m fine,” I croak. “Just a little bit tired still.”

  As she nods suspiciously, I suddenly remember something.

  “The girl,” I gasp. “Did anybody find her? The little girl in the forest.”

  Britta frowns. “Wha are ye goin’ on about? Wha little girl?”

  “The one running away after we killed the deathshrieks.”

  Britta feels my forehead. “Sure yer all right, Deka? There weren’t any humans in the forest but us.”

  “But—”

  “We would’ve seen a little girl.”

  I nod. “Perhaps I was hallucinating,” I say, uncertain now. “I was very tired last night. Perhaps it was the exhaustion.”

  Britta shoots me another suspicious look.

  I’m almost relieved when Keita walks over. Then I see he’s carrying what looks like a bloodied deathshriek pelt. I studiously avoid the sight of it as he smiles down at me. He seems at ease now, horribly so. He must be used to this, killing deathshrieks, taking trophies like the other recruits. Is this what he’s done since he was a child? The thought sends my stomach turning on itself.

  “You’re awake,” he says. “Good to see you’re recovering.” He notices me watching the pelt. “The first one I killed last night,” he explains, his expression almost shy. “I was going to go bury it. It’s a strange habit, I know, but it feels right, so—”

  “Deka! We slaughtered them all, thanks to you.” Acalan walks up, a cheerful expression on his face. It takes me some moments before I realize what it is: bloodlust. “You’re truly the commander of deathshrieks,” he says with that awful look in his eyes.

  “And we’re the Death Strikers,” Adwapa adds cheerfully, walking over. “Deka sends them like lambs to the slaughter—”

  “And then we annihilate them!” Li finishes, grinning as he walks over, Kweku beside him. They’re all smiling down at me. It almost frightens me how happy they are. How at ease they seem.

  And I made all this possible…

  What have I done?

  I bolt up, unable to bear any more of this conversation. “What’s happening now?” I say, nodding toward the cave.

  “There are zerizards in there,” Adwapa answers. “They’re all corralled and everything.”

  I frown. “Why would deathshrieks want zerizards?”

  “They wouldn’t. Deathshrieks don’t corral animals.” This firm reply comes from Keita. He puts the deathshriek pelt down, turns toward the cave, then looks back down at me, a strange, hesitant look in his eye.

  “What is it?” I ask, moving closer.

  He clears his throat. “There are…people in there,” he finally says. As my heart clenches with thoughts of that little girl, he adds, “Their corpses, I mean. They’re only at the entrance, though.”

  I nod, nausea rising as I understand what he’s trying to say. The deathshrieks had to find a place to put all those people they killed, after all. “I’ll be fine,” I rasp, striding ahead. “I’ve seen worse.” My own body parts, strewn across the floor…

  Keita nods, following behind me.

  It’s at least twenty degrees colder in the cave than it is outside, and a horrifyingly familiar smell muddles the air, metallic and raw. It comes from the corner of the entrance, where dark red splashes the ground and odd brown shapes are scattered haphazardly in the dirt.

  Human body parts, just as Keita said.

  I shiver, suddenly freezing cold. Try not to look any further. Try not to see anything that might look like a little girl’s head. These must be the remains of some of the nobles who were attacked. I try not to check whether there are bite marks on them. It’s said deathshrieks like to gnaw on the bones afterward.

  “You all right?” Keita asks.

  I nod, try to keep my expression from collapsing into horror. “It seems I’m no longer used to the cold,” I say.

  “You’ll get used to it soon,” he says. “And…the corpses too.” When I glance up at him, startled, he nods. “I couldn’t look at them either when I first started. Still can’t. Some sights are just never easy, no matter how many years you spend on the battlefield.”

  I nod, oddly comforted by his words. “Let’s see the nest,” I say.

  The interior of the cave is much larger than I expected. Instead of a cramped, dark little structure, I’m surprised to find a massive open space with colossal walls that curve into a soaring ceiling. A small hole in the middle allows weak light to filter onto the herd of zerizards milling in the center of the cave, eating from what looks like a trough of assorted fruits. They cluck excitedly when they see us. Keita goes over to examine them, but I keep looking around.

  The dirt closest to the walls is scattered loosely, as if it was raked. This must be where the deathshrieks slept. I can see their tracks now, distinct impressions of arching, four-toed feet worn into the soil. As I glance around, unnerved, I sense a subtle tingling racing through my body, awareness rising deep within me. It’s different from the foreboding I get sometimes.

  This time, it doesn’t feel like something is approaching. It feels like something is already here.

  I turn toward the corner of the cave, where a small, dark passage leads deeper down. The feeling is coming from there, so strong, it’s almost like I’m slipping into the deep combat state, even though I know I’m still wide awake. My vision hasn’t changed, no shimmering yet. Even so, I can feel the dark ocean stretching inside me, the golden door opening, its secrets rustling behind it.

  I reach for it as I slip down the rough, vine-covered path into an even smaller one that curves deeper, hurrying along to make sure I’m not followed. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I have to go, have to follow this strange, urgent feeling where it leads. By now, the ocean is surging up, rising inside me. I’m no longer sure I’m fully awake, but for some reason, this isn’t like when I use the combat state to train my voice. This is a different sort of state.

  A knowing one.

  Soon enough, I reach the end of the passage, where I see what looks to be a carved doorway. I walk toward it, frowning. What’s this?

  “Deka?” Britta’s voice is as unexpected as it is loud. “Deka, are you there?”

  When her familiar form appears around the bend, I shush her. “Lower your voice,” I say, alarmed by its volum
e.

  I have a feeling that this is a sacred space—a space we shouldn’t disturb. Then Belcalis appears as well, Adwapa just behind her.

  I sigh. I guess I’m not as stealthy as I thought.

  “What is this place?” Belcalis asks, glancing around.

  “I don’t know, ask Deka,” Britta says, turning to me, but I don’t have time to answer.

  The knowing is urging me forward. “Shush, you have to be quiet,” I warn them, walking through the doorway. The breath immediately catches in my throat.

  This new part of the cave has been shaped by human hands—that’s immediately apparent from the grandly carved pillars and ceiling, the blue stone on the floor. That’s not what shocks me, however. The colossal statues do. There’s one at each of this chamber’s four corners, and they’re all women, from a different Oteran province. Their features are distinct, as are the clothes they wear.

  There’s a wise-looking Southerner in flowing robes, her face angular and shrewd; a gentle Northerner in her furs, body as round as her smiling face; a warlike Easterner, scaled armor covering her from head to toe and wings on her back; and a motherly Westerner, belly round and fertile, a welcoming look in her eyes.

  The women in the statues appear ageless—somehow old and young at the same time—and they soar high to the ceiling, giants to our ants. I approach the closest one, the wise-looking Southerner, and that’s when I notice something else. Something that stops me midstep.

  Golden veins.

  They shimmer almost ethereally over the statue’s skin, identical to the ones that shimmer under mine. The closer I get to them, the more my skin prickles, realization quickly dawning.