The Gilded Ones

by Namina Forna

  I nod. “I’m fine,” I say.

  I wish I could tell her about what I discovered, but I don’t want to involve her in my affairs anymore. It’s too dangerous. All those things White Hands said during our last conversation about rebellions and true monsters. I may not be the most intelligent person, but even I know that talk of rebellion leads swiftly to executions and final deaths. Even worse are all the changes happening to me—the leathering on my face, the way I can understand deathshrieks. One alone is frightening, but the two combined—that’s enough to condemn me.

  I don’t want my friends anywhere nearby. I’m not damning them along with me if something happens and I’m sentenced to the Death Mandate.

  “I’m worried about ye, Deka.” Britta’s softly whispered words pull me from my thoughts.

  I turn to her. “What do you mean?”

  “Ye keep changing,” she says. “Every day, it feels like you’re becoming more and more different….”

  She doesn’t finish her sentence, but she doesn’t have to. I know she’s talking about what happened at the temple today when I heard the deathshrieks speaking. “Isn’t change a good thing?” I whisper. A hopeful thought if there ever was one.

  Britta looks up at the ceiling. “Not if yer an alaki. Not if yer just about to go on campaign in a few days, where the emperor and everyone will be watchin’.”

  I don’t have to ask further to understand the warning behind her words. “I’ll be fine, Britta. I won’t draw attention to myself.”

  “Ye say that, but ye canna help yerself, Deka. Sometimes, it seems like something just takes over ye, like ye lose yer common sense when yer using yer abilities. It’s like ye can’t reason properly.”

  “That’s why I have you to protect me.”

  “But what if I’m not there?”

  “You’ll always be there, Britta. And I’ll always be there for you.”

  Britta sighs. “Just be safe, Deka. Be safe.”

  I nod silently as we both go to sleep.

  * * *

  It’s cold in the caverns when I enter, mist trailing clammy fingers down my spine. As usual, Rattle is standing near the bars of his cage, watching me as I walk down the line of cages housing the other deathshrieks. There’s that horribly familiar expression in his eyes, that look I’m only now starting to understand.

  Betrayal…

  “You can understand me, can’t you,” I whisper, approaching his cage.

  He doesn’t answer, doesn’t make a sound. He just watches me, that expression in his eyes.

  “Speak,” I urge. “Say something—anything, Rattle.”

  But he remains silent. After everything that’s just happened, this show of stubbornness infuriates me. “Speak!” I command, lacing my voice with power.

  Rattle flinches, his eyes widening, his mouth moving, but no sound comes out. No words. It’s almost like something is stopping them in his throat, preventing them from emerging. I walk closer—the closest I’ve ever been to him in all the months I’ve spent here in the Warthu Bera—and that’s when I smell it again: the sickly sweet smell wafting from his spikes, his skin, the one I never before recognized—until now. Blue-blossom, the tiny blue flower the matrons sometimes eat when they want to forget their sorrows.

  Understanding sweeps over me. Rattle is being drugged. All the deathshrieks in the Warthu Bera are.

  That’s why they seem so brutish, so unintelligent, compared with the ones in the wild. The karmokos, the assistants, keep them that way, and for once, I don’t have to ask why. Everyone employed at the Warthu Bera has a simple goal: keep us alive long enough to take part in the campaign. Deathshrieks in their wild state are much too difficult to control, especially for the naive, unschooled neophytes freshly condemned by the Ritual of Purity who come here.

  So they drug them into docility.

  Rattle is a tool, just like the rest of us—a pawn to help prepare for the campaign. It’s not that he won’t speak to me, it’s that he can’t.

  I nod, stepping back from his cage. “My apologies, Rattle,” I say as I walk toward the cavern’s exit. “I’m sorry for what we’re doing to you.”

  “And what exactly are we doing to him?”

  I nearly gasp, startled, when Keita steps out of the shadows. “Keita. What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you. You’ve been avoiding me.”

  It’s not strictly true. I’ve been avoiding everyone, too frightened by my discoveries at the last raid to burden anyone else with them.

  My stomach clenches as Keita walks closer, his eyes gleaming softly in the darkness. I haven’t spoken deeply to him in days, embraced him in what feels like longer. All I want is to feel his arms around me. But I can’t afford that, not now, when I’m in such a state. I’ll tell him everything if I do, and then there’s no going back. He’ll be drawn into White Hands’s web, and who knows the deadly paths that will lead to.

  “What happened when we were at the raid?” he asks. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  I look up at him, wondering how to answer. Finally, I sigh. “Let’s get some air,” I say, walking toward the entrance to the caverns.

  We end up, as we always do, at our nystria tree. It’s dark outside now, night rapidly falling around the Warthu Bera. The last few stragglers from the jog make their way indoors. Once we reach the tree, Keita takes a seat between two of the roots, then pats the space beside him.

  I reluctantly sit there, stiff until he pulls me closer. His arm is warm, comforting on my shoulder. He leans his forehead against mine, and I close my eyes, inhaling the musk of his scent. Let this go well, I beg inwardly.

  “You can tell me anything, Deka, you know that,” he whispers. His lips are so close, if I lean any nearer, they’ll brush mine.

  I pull back. “Some things are too dangerous to tell. You yourself always say that.”

  His body tenses and his eyes search mine, worry shining in them. “If it is a danger to you, then I want to share in it. We’re partners, remember?”

  I nod, hide my head in the crook of his neck. “What if I heard something that should not be possible?” I mumble. “What if I heard something that would upturn everything we thought we knew? Perhaps even destroy everything?”

  “You’re talking about deathshrieks, aren’t you?” Keita pulls back, tilts my chin up so I look in his eyes. “What did you hear, Deka?” he asks.

  I look away. “More like what I think I heard.”

  “And what do you think you heard?”

  “I think I heard a deathshriek speak,” I force myself to say. “Not in Oteran, or any human language, but I could understand it nonetheless. As easily as I understand you.”

  “What did it say?” Keita asks, his voice suddenly hoarse.

  I swallow. “Betrayer,” I whisper. “It called me Betrayer.”

  Keita becomes even tenser, if that’s possible. “Why would it say that?”

  “I don’t know.” The lie slides smoothly past my lips. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “Have you told anyone else of this?”

  I quickly shake my head.

  He nods, relieved, then stares at me, his eyes deadly serious now. “Never speak of this again. Not ever again, Deka. And don’t ever try to talk to them again.” When I open my mouth to protest, he sighs. “You can already command deathshrieks, Deka. To understand them as well—to have them speak to you…That is the type of power that can upend the natural order.

  “People kill over these things. People die over these things. You might die over this. Never forget, Deka, that you are an alaki first and foremost, because I guarantee you, no one else will.”

  A cold sweat shivers over me, and my heart pounds so fast, my entire body shakes. Keita’s echoing what White Hands said, the same thing I’ve thought over a thou
sand times before.

  I nod. “You’re right. I won’t speak of it again. I won’t ever speak to them again.”

  He reaches his arm around me, embraces me so tight, I can feel his heartbeat through his skin. It’s beating a loud, panicked beat. The same one as mine. “All you have to do is remain safe until the campaign is over, Deka,” he whispers into my hair. “All you have to do is remain safe for me.”

  “I promise,” I whisper, settling against him.

  We remain as we are, heartbeats pounding in unison, until the drums sound, beckoning everyone to dinner.

  Thank Oyomo for my armor.

  That’s all I can think as I stand at attention in the courtyard of the Warthu Bera the afternoon of the campaign, the midday sun blazing high above us. It’s once again the dry season, and the heat suffocates the hundred of us girls who have been chosen to march on the campaign. Everyone else is remaining behind, a reserve force to support us if further waves of attack are necessary. I hope this won’t be the case, but more alaki are brought to the Warthu Bera every day as a precaution. They stare at us from the corners of the courtyard, their newly bald heads shining wretchedly in the blistering sun. I wonder if they’re frightened or awed by what they see.

  All the girls leaving today gleam from head to toe in golden armor. Mine has scales to mimic Ixa’s drakos form and jagged spikes all down the back. It’s strangely light and cool, considering that it covers every part of me but my eyes. It vibrates subtly whenever I near it, as does all the other infernal armor—especially Ixa’s, since it was also made from my blood. White Hands had Karmoko Calderis make Ixa a suit for his drakos form, because she wanted to ensure that the rest of the army sees the power of the Warthu Bera, that our prowess shines above that of all the other training grounds.

  She and the other karmokos are in front of the gathered girls, but only she will accompany us, as our ranking commander, which is why she’s riding a massive white stallion, Braima and Masaima standing guard on either side of her. Like us, they’re all covered from head to toe in armor, although White Hands’s is bone-white to match her gauntlets. The twins are also carrying assegai, long wooden spears tipped with sharp onyx blades. Apparently, they could be karmokos, they’ve so mastered them.

  “Today is the day you have been preparing for, for so long,” White Hands declares. “We begin our march to the N’Oyo desert, where we will meet and destroy the deathshriek scourge sweeping across our beloved Otera. That is where you, the honored defenders of Otera, will carve your names into the history of our empire! That is where you, the alaki of the Warthu Bera, will become legends!”

  White Hands’s speech is so rousing, the gathered girls clap, excitement building. Even I can’t control the sudden drumming of my heart. It’s finally happening. Our time is finally here.

  “Can ye imagine it, Deka?” Britta says. “We’re finally goin’ on campaign.”

  “And we’re going to kill every deathshriek we see,” Adwapa says excitedly. “Twenty heads for each of us per day. No—thirty!”

  Guilt sweeps over me, and I clench my fists to keep them from trembling. Tears pouring from the deathshriek’s eyes…I shudder at the memory.

  Beside me, Belcalis glances at Adwapa. “There is such a thing as too much enthusiasm, Adwapa,” she informs her.

  Adwapa sniffs, unimpressed. I return my attention to White Hands, who’s now holding her hand up in a fist. “Alaki of the Warthu Bera! Conquer or die!” she commands.

  “We who are dead salute you!” we reply, raising our fists and then beating them across our chests.

  “Wherever we attack, we will conquer or bury ourselves in its ruins!”

  “We who are dead salute you!” we repeat, beating our chests. “We who are dead salute you!”

  “Move out!” White Hands commands, leading her horse onward.

  We quickly do the same, pouring down the hill and out the gates, where the recruits fall seamlessly into place beside us. They’re riding horses as well, but their jatu commanders ride in small tents on top of gigantic gray-skinned mammuts, or in chariots pulled by orrillions, the massive silver-furred apes growling warningly at each other and any horses that get close.

  As we head toward Hemaira’s main square to meet with the rest of the army, the citizens clap and cheer. “May Oyomo protect you, Death Strikers!” a few call out.

  I can only shake my head, marveling at the inconstancy of humans, as we continue riding through the streets.

  * * *

  The journey through the Eastern desert is long and brutal, much more so than I expected. I’m used to going on raids in rough terrain, but the desert is another beast altogether. The emperor has commanded that we make a stand at the N’Oyo mountain range, which borders the far edges of the desert, so for two weeks now, we’ve been slogging through sand, gritting our teeth when it slips through the crevices in our armor to invade our delicate parts. Every day, coucals have been flying back and forth, passing information, not that there’s much of it. We know there are thousands of deathshrieks waiting for us in the mountains, but the scouts can never get close enough to get a full count. The mist is too thick to penetrate.

  Before, I never understood how far the capital stretched, but now I can’t help but count the days and hours, tracking the movement of the sun across the sands with heated irritation. It’s not only the apprehension, the fear of venturing out into the unknown. It’s the other soldiers—the common ones.

  Even though they’re now fully aware of what we alaki are, as is most everyone in Otera, they’re used to seeing women only in the home. The idea of female soldiers does not sit well with them, and they’ve been treating us accordingly, hurling abusive words at us when the jatu aren’t watching. They’re especially hateful toward the bloodsisters of the Warthu Bera, since we’re the only ones who wear golden armor.

  The alaki from the other training houses are armored and painted fiercely according to their houses, but they’re not like us. Even though they number in the thousands, they’re not as swift, as fierce, and they don’t tolerate pain as well as we do. I’ve been observing them throughout our journey, and it seems the karmokos were right: we the alaki of the Warthu Bera are stronger than the rest, and it is because of our training. While all the other alaki were treated like regular soldiers—given healers when they were injured, rest when they were tired, and food when they were hungry—we were regarded as demons and trained accordingly. We were flayed, beaten, subjected to deathshriek screams. The unfairness of it would sting to my core, except I know that it has made me tougher. That’s why I don’t take too much offense when the foot soldiers grumble about me and my bloodsisters and pick at us. I know we can take them in a fight.

  I try to remind myself of this every time I ride Ixa. The common soldiers are even more hateful when they notice him, his reptilian scales gleaming blue against the scorching desert sun. Yes, mammuts are ten times larger and the orrillions perhaps more impressive in their armor, but only Ixa can make horses shy away and zerizards flee when he passes.

  Even now, as we near the midway point, an oasis deep in the desert, the animals still dart away, terrified. I ignore their panicked neighing and clucking as I hurry toward the lake at the oasis’s center. Ixa is so thirsty, his tongue is already flicking out.

  “It’s all right,” I whisper to him once we reach the water’s edge. “You’re here.”

  De…ka, Ixa whispers, diving into the water. He’s been parched these last few days.

  I take out my waterskin, about to kneel down to fill it, when a shadow falls over me. “What in the name of Oyomo are you doing, alaki?” an unpleasant voice snarls.

  My heart plummets. Baxo, a hefty Northern foot soldier, approaches from behind me, a scowl on his weathered face. Like many of the other foot soldiers, Baxo has made it his business to harass the bloodsisters of the Warthu Bera. I ignore him and cont
inue filling my waterskin. No point getting into a confrontation with someone who is supposed to be on the same side as you.

  When I don’t reply, he stomps closer. “Are you stupid, or do you not hear me? What in the name of Oyomo are you doing, alaki?”

  I sigh, rising and sealing my waterskin. “Getting some water,” I reply.

  “Getting some water?” he growls. “So you think you can bypass the rest of the line just ’cause you have that great beast of yours.”

  Now I see the other soldiers gathered behind Baxo. They’re certainly not in any line, but they’re there, and that’s enough for Baxo.

  “My apologies,” I reply. I try to exhale away my growing anger. These men are only human. They aren’t jatu; they aren’t trained. I could kill them with less effort than it would take to swat a fly. “I didn’t see you. I’ll go to the back of the line.”

  “Why? You’ve already gotten all the water you need.” Baxo points to my waterskin. “You don’t need to get back in line. What you need to do is get back on that great beast of yours and go to where the rest of your kind are.”

  He points to the far side of the lake, where the other alaki have gathered by themselves. Or, rather, where they’ve been herded to. The foot soldiers have crowded around the lake and made sure to push all the alaki to the muddiest side.

  “What are you waiting for?” Baxo snarls. “Go on.”

  He points again, but a low growl sounds. Ixa is out of the water and slowly advancing, his teeth on full display. Each one gleams, butcher-knife sharp. Baxo takes a step back, his face turning chalky white.

  Good boy, Ixa, I praise silently when he makes his way over to me, snarl deepening.

  A fearful sweat is dripping down Baxo’s forehead now. Nevertheless, he uses the moment to incite the other soldiers. “You see that?” he says. “You see what she’s making that creature do?”

  He returns his focus to me. “You bitches think you’re better than us, whispering among your kind, giving us the evil eye. You’re nothing but a group of malformed demon spawn, and I hope to Oyomo the deathshrieks finish your kind off well before we return from the desert.”