A can-rak had leaped the protective fire barrier and had landed inside our circle. The drooves thrashed in a wild frenzy, bleating in fear but unable to detach themselves from the ropes and ground stakes linking and inhibiting them. The can-rak roared, screeched, and ignored the drooves as it headed straight for the two women huddled together. With one paw swipe it left them bleeding and dying. Then, it vanished into the darkness.
I had frozen and not reacted. If I had, those two women might still be alive. I could have said something, anything to get the can-rak’s attention. I could have shouted at it to leave. Instead, I did nothing, and the beast tore the life from those poor, frightened women. The two men who had screamed, and presumably died, were of no concern to me. If the can-rak had ripped all of Dwelve’s men to bloody shreds I would not have cared. However, I had the power to stop what happened to those women. I told myself there hadn't been enough time to react, that it was out of my hands—but was that the truth?
The can-rak did not return, and in the morning Dwelve instructed Skak to untie the two dead women, for rope was too valuable to waste. Guilt hung heavily upon me as I glanced over at the bodies. The can-rak had sliced both through the neck and their veins had bled, for they had been sitting side-by-side and one cut had gotten them both. I did not know the names of the two women, but I said a prayer to Ra-ta to ask for their souls’ admittance into his realm. Dwelve was leaving them to lie on the hill to rot in the sun. The animals would feast on them and scatter their bones. There would be no ceremony, no words, and that angered me. There was no decency in this man Dwelve, but that did not surprise.
The two men who had screamed in the night had disappeared, their bodies not found. Dwelve was in a foul mood, but not over losing two men. Having two fewer with whom to split the rewards was not a bad thing. No, I knew Dwelve was angry because of the two women. Losing them was like losing money, although the concept—recently explained to me by Izzy—was one I had yet to grasp in its entirety. In Sakitan society, there was no such thing; there were no pieces of metal assigned what seemed to be arbitrary values. I had no grasp of economics, as we had been a closed culture and did not trade with others. Others were the same as enemies to us, and all we valued was what made the tribe prosper—good hunters and plentiful herds. Of what use to a tribe were shining metal chips?
We traveled over grasslands and through forests, crossed streams and waded through marshlands, and the mood of our captors began to lighten as the tracker saw no sign of pursuit. With drooves to spare since the can-rak reduced our number, Izzy and I rode separate beasts.
After passing over a series of low hills, a flat plain opened up before us. In the distance loomed a forest of towering kakkata, bewhiskering the skyline. Drowsy from the heat and a sleepless night, I was jolted fully awake when I detected movement among the trees.
People. Lots of people. The rancers’ mood brightened. They were familiar and at ease with the inhabitants of this place. I would soon make their acquaintance as well.
The Spood.
In a place where only beasts once roamed and hunters merely passed through, the Spood were building what they called a “sperza," a collection of permanent dwellings where people would live and work and trade with other such communities. The wide-eyed girl informed me that these sperzas were springing up all over the country as the Spood expanded their control over an ever-widening realm. Spood families had been living exclusively within what the girl told me was a gigantic fortress and city that bordered a vast body of water, and now desired to partake of these bountiful lands outside that boundary. I have to say I could not follow half of what she told me, for I knew not what a city or a fortress was, and could not imagine water as she described it.
The Spood were constructing this sperza on the open grasslands near where a small creek spilled out of the forest. I marveled at the odd construction tools and the forms of the structures they were erecting. They were mixing water with what appeared to be sand and some other substance, and then pouring this mixture into square molds. When dry, these molds formed hard-as-stone blocks that the Spood then stacked upon others to shape the building. They transported these blocks around to the sites by a fascinating contraption, a square-shaped platform made of wood, with round, wooden attachments to either side that rolled the platform across the ground when pulled by a droove.
The Spood constructed another type of building from dried wood cut into measured pieces. They attached these units to others with small metal spikes. They also left square holes in the buildings’ walls in which they placed a sheet of what looked like the thin ice that sometimes forms on the water surface of pots left out on a cold night.
This was all fascinating and puzzling to me, for anyone from a nomadic tribe would not think of erecting anything like these buildings, structures that would be impossible to take down and move. How could they follow the herds if forever stuck in one place?
We had approached the settlement about twenty minutes earlier and were still sitting our drooves a short distance from the construction area. Dwelve was speaking to the man in charge of this endeavor, a fat man with curly red hair who wore a robe of pale blue. They were some distance away, so I could not hear the conversation. The attention our arrival had attracted was fading, though many continued to stare at Izzy’s unusual appearance. Dwelve finished his conversation and returned to our group. He directed us to an area near the small creek where it entered the woods. There, the rancers released the drooves to mingle with a vast herd of their kind.
Our captors unbound our legs and hands, and then brought food and drink. Spood women arrived with a change of clothes. These were rough, poor quality garments of dull gray. They were tunics, much like the ones the Spood wore, but not of the fine quality or rich coloring. These were slave attire.
To my surprise, no one bothered to retie our bindings after we had changed clothes. I surmised that the Spood were confident this well-manned encampment was enough to discourage escape attempts. That was a foolish notion, as I was already eyeing the drooves at the creek and had informed a willing Izzy of my intent to grab one and flee when the time was right. Even our rancer guards had relaxed their watch. Most of them were drifting over to watch the construction process.
As we rested on the ground beneath the ample shade of a kakkata, I had opportunity to study the workers building this sperza. At first, I had thought they were all Spood, but then realized the ones doing the actual work were slaves. These poor souls were in a miserable condition. Gaunt and without expression, they appeared listless, their motions showing no vigor, their eyes no fire.
The slaves wore gray rags and the exposed parts of their bodies seemed caked with layers of dirt. Among this group were men, women, and a few scattered children. In contrast, the supervising Spood appeared well dressed, clean, and adequately fed, and their demeanors showed that they saw all this as a stimulating adventure. Like the slaves, this Spood community also included men, women, and children, but I could see there were no similarities in mood or circumstance between the two groups.
Another faction among the Spood caught my attention. This was a rather large group of men wearing what appeared to be leather vests with red trimmings. They carried weapons—the only ones who did—and it was the same long blade and knife combination as my rancer captors. They also wielded a monstrous other weapon, a long length of braided leather that appeared to be a rope, but which had a gradually thinning circumference and a feathered tip. The red-vested ones would raise this above their heads and unfurl it in a hard forward stroke that caused it to sound with a loud crack.
The wide-eyed girl informed me it was a “swok,” and the ones handling them were “Creet," an elite soldier caste among the Spood. I thought about asking this girl how it was she seemed to know everything about the Spood, but let it pass for the moment. Later, I discovered she had learned these details from a member of her tribe. This member, a man captured by rance
rs last year, wound up as a slave in the Spood home city. A few months ago he had joined slaves building a sperza outside the fortress walls, and once out in the open country he had escaped.
The swok was a vicious tool wielded by vicious men. A male slave stumbled while carrying his end of one of the stone blocks. It fell to the ground, chipping off a corner. A swok cracked and the slave screamed as the biting edge sliced the flesh of his back. A red line appeared and began to ooze. The man with the swok raised it again in anger and another line appeared. The slave moaned with agony as a second guard, eager to participate, joined the first, with both raining down alternating blows on the hapless man as if this punishment had turned into a depraved contest. More strikes sent the slave to his knees. Still it did not end. The swoks rose and extended in repeated, matching strokes. The man fell—and the man died. The Creet guards stood over his lacerated body and laughed.
My fists clenched. What kind of perverted animal were these Spood? Not one of them had so much as blinked an eye over the callous murder, not even glancing over as slaves dragged the dead man away. I looked to Izzy and was grateful to see the same outrage in her expression that I was feeling.
As I sat nursing my anger, a chubby Spood boy of about eleven approached to look us over. He held a wooden mug by its curved handle, dangling it on his finger. His gaze settled on me and he spoke.
“Get me a drink of water from the creek,” he said with an imperious manner. He held out his mug for me to take.
I looked at him, found him unworthy of further appraisal and ignored him. That triggered the boy’s anger.
“Did you not hear me, slave? I told you to fetch me water.”
I met his irritated, insolent gaze and in an even voice said, “I am not a slave, fat boy, and I’d be careful how you speak to me.”
At that moment, the wide-eyed girl sensed trouble that might spill over onto her, and she volunteered to get the arrogant shrub his water. The boy's skin had flushed red, for my challenge had infuriated him, but he was still in control.
“No,” he said, coldly dismissing the girl’s offer. “The blond one will get my water. Or, she will wish she had.”
He smirked in a way I didn’t particularly care for. I jumped up with the quickness of a can-rak, causing the boy to flinch. With my first menacing step toward him his bravado melted away. He dropped his mug and turned to run. With an amused chuckle, I wondered if masters of the world ever soiled themselves.
There was arrogance and a sense of superiority about that boy that seemed reflected in the others in this encampment. They treated slaves, fellow human beings, as though they were of a different species, an inferior one, not the same feeling, thinking one as their own.
I was not ignorant of slavery, for the Raab we captured in battle were essentially the same, at least during their initial stages of captivity. However, we did not treat captives with cruelty, only restricted their movements and required them to earn their keep until they proved trustworthy. Slavery was not a permanent condition. We respected those who worked hard without complaint and offered them the chance to become productive, free members of our tribe if they earned that privilege. Kalor was one who had followed that path, as did my great grandfather. Yet to deny even basic human respect and dignity to a people not your own I could not fathom. The irony was that the Spood, according to the wide-eyed girl, saw themselves as the highest form of humanity, the pure and the chosen. In reality they appeared to be the lowest beasts I have ever seen crawl. If I got the chance, I would push any one of them down into the mud they reserved for others.
A commotion arose from a group standing near a half-completed dwelling. A man was yelling and I saw it was the redheaded leader. Dwelve appeared to be groveling before the man and that astonished me. I had thought Dwelve was a Spood, but by the looks of it he was a lesser creature to them. The wide-eyed girl informed me that the Spood hired rancers to find slaves for them, but did not consider them equals.
It may sound stupid, but I had no clue they were arguing about me. It seems the fat boy had a father and that father happened to be the redheaded man. I suppose I should have connected the two when I saw the boy’s fiery hair and rotund build, but I didn’t.
The angry man in charge strode over to us, his blue robe flapping. A couple of hard-eyed Creet accompanied him. Dwelve followed the three with a panic-stricken expression, and the man’s son tagged behind. When they reached us, the man pulled his son up front.
“Which one? Which one refused your command?”
“That one, the blond one.” The irritating smirk had returned.
“Take her,” the man ordered the two Creet.
The rancer leader Dwelve then made a foolish mistake. He put his hand on the redhead’s arm and demanded payment for me. Without warning, the blue-robed man grabbed a knife from one of the Creet, wheeled on the rancer and plunged the blade into the man’s heart. Dwelve stood for a moment looking confused, then his eyes glazed and he toppled to the ground, lifeless.
The two Creet grabbed my arms. Though instinct inclined me to resist, I felt it judicious to submit, at least for the time being, as there was no avenue for flight. My mood was foul, as I had been readying my escape when they came for me. I had planned to steal a droove and head out in no particular direction until I could get my bearings. I had told Izzy my plan and was going to inform the other captives, to let them choose if they wanted to chance this with me. Now, I wouldn’t get the opportunity.
“She will be offered as a sacrifice to Gor-jar on the grottis in the morning,” the redheaded man was telling the Creet guards. “We cannot have slaves disobeying orders. An example must be made.” He pointed to Dwelve. “And get rid of that filth.”
I saw the robed man grasp an amulet connected to a metal chain around his neck, raise it to his lips and then kiss it. The charm was a Y pattern and it must have been important to them, for I saw the same design stitched into the vests of the Creet soldiers. What it represented I didn’t care. What concerned me was the coming morning and trying to avoid becoming a “sacrifice to Gor-jar on the grottis,” whatever that meant.
That might have been my fate, except for what happened next. While being escorted to wherever they planned to hold me, I witnessed an act of staggering barbarism. A young child, a girl slave, was carrying water for the Creet guards when she accidentally spilled some on one of them. In a rage, the man grabbed a metal tool lying next to him and began striking the little girl repeatedly over the head.
The wanton brutality ignited my anger and I knew I could not just stand by and ignore this. I jerked my arm free from the relaxed grip of a guard escort and chopped my hand across his throat. As he gagged, I lifted his knife from its sheath and stabbed the other guard in the arm. He bellowed in startled pain, allowing me to pull away from his loosened grip. I kept the knife and ran, ran toward the animal striking the girl. I hefted the knife to hurl it but several slaves blocked its intended path. The Creet, about to lift up and strike again, heard a shout and saw me leaping blocks of stone. He turned in astonishment, grabbed for his long blade, but managed to slide it only half-way out of the scabbard before I was on him. The knife I carried came up fast and hard in the manner my father had taught me. I was in a barely controlled fury and could not check my actions. The blade point entered beneath his chin, slipped past his jawbone and penetrated into his brain. His shocked eyes emptied as he shuddered for an instant and then fell dead.
I gaped for a few seconds at what I had done, then shook free of the bloody sight to check on the girl. As I feared, I was too late. Her skull had caved in from the brutal blows. I stared at her dirt-encrusted face and then my eyes followed along her frail body, which was now a still and empty shell. I wanted to lift her, to carry her away from this filth and madness—but I had to go. I had just killed a man, and not just any, but a so-called master of the world.
Soldiers streamed f
rom everywhere as the redheaded man screamed orders. I grabbed the dead man’s blade and headed straight for the drooves and my companions. Izzy saw me coming. She immediately began rounding up drooves, and even as I ran, I marveled at how a girl with only one arm could be so adept in its use.
No one, apart from the Creet soldiers, interfered. The other rancers had seen what the Spood did to Dwelve and wanted no part of us. The wide-eyed girl seemed hesitant when I told her to follow me, but the two male captives had no qualms about seizing this opportunity. They grabbed two of the drooves, forcing them to their knees so they could mount. I pulled wide-eye along with me to where Izzy had two mounts already kneeling for us. I boosted the girl up and for the first time she told me her name, Brilna. We had no time for pleasantries, as the Creet soldiers were upon us, so I smacked the rear of the droove and it shot forward. Izzy had been unable to grab a fifth droove so we mounted the remaining one together.
The male captives did not get far. The man beaten back at the oasis could not control his droove and it went the wrong way, toward his pursuers. A dozen blades hacked him down. The plump captive was just unlucky. His droove stepped in a hole, cracked its leg, and the man tumbled. He tried to run but the Spood caught him with ease. His pursuers had wised up, it seemed, for they did not kill him, perhaps realizing a live slave was better than yet another dead one.
Izzy, Brilna, and I headed north across the plains, the direction from which we had recently come. We expected pursuit and rode our drooves hard. We had observed how to control the beasts from watching the rancers and quickly gained confidence in our ability to handle them. We ducked into a forest, zigzagged through the trees and rode down a small waterway, then went back the other direction, hoping the Spood had lousy trackers. After a couple of hours we let the drooves rest and drink from a stream. By nightfall we were hopeful, for there had been no sign of pursuit, so we risked an extended rest in the woods.
The drooves still carried their packs. One contained a discarded scabbard with a broken belt and a flint and metal kit we could use to start a fire. Encased in the other were a valuable, half-full water skin, and one of the brown, hooded garments used for desert travel. That was it. We had no food, but that did not concern us as we had eaten not long ago at the sperza. The uncomfortable droove ride had left us bone-rattled and tired, so we found a sheltered area thick with kakkata and settled in for a short stay.
We risked a small fire to counter a chill in the air, trusting the kakkata thicket to mask the glow and smoke. Izzy sat across from me, with Brilna to my left, and I took a moment to study the slender girl, who was currently stirring the fire. Brilna was an odd creature. I learned later that she was a year older than Izzy, but appeared to be younger, and she was certainly smaller. Everything about her seemed designed to emphasize the minimal. Her body was slim, her hands tiny, and her face sported a narrow bump for a nose. She had skinny legs and dainty feet. Even her straight, limp brown hair seemed thin.
As for her intellect, she was not brain dead, but I gathered Brilna was also not the brightest star in the sky, and like Barkor, she lacked a sense of humor. Yet to be completely dismissive of the girl would be unfair, for she was already proving to be of value to our little group—in particular with information. Brilna, it seemed, had absorbed every detail her fellow countryman had told her about the Spood, and she proved generous in sharing that information with us.
“They will not follow for long,” Brilna assured us. “Instead, they will spread the word by messenger to all the sperzas to be on the watch for us. They will not cease looking for you, Sanyel, for you have killed one of their own and attacked others. They are all about setting examples, and if they catch you they will make you suffer a slow and painful death.”
I did not doubt that for a moment. The Spood did not strike me as the forgiving kind. I had killed a man. I took a human life, and it was just now beginning to register what I had done. Yet any guilt I might have felt, any remorse, swiftly departed when weighed against the brutal act I had witnessed. The soldier had crushed a little girl's skull. And for what, spilling water? It reminded me of my run-in with Barkor, when I had sloshed the bowl of fermented wettle juice onto his robe. He struck me then, and I can still recall the anger I felt over that act. I went for my rik-ta before my father stopped me. Would I have attacked Barkor? No, that thought had never entered my mind. I merely planned to show the blade to the council chief, to let him know I was capable of defending myself, and to warn him not to do that again. It was a foolish act by a temperamental child.
Now, with the death of the Creet, I was a child no longer.
The Creet I had killed had died quickly and a quick death is normally a good death, but I couldn’t help wishing he had felt a little more pain in the process. He deserved to die, and I was beginning to think they all did. Brilna said the Spood were expanding their reach, attempting to become in reality what they now only claimed to be—the masters of the world. In the past, groups of rancers had kept them supplied with slaves, but now they were taking them themselves, conquering lands with their well-trained Creet soldiers.
Well, soon I would be out of their reach. Izzy had told me about her home beyond the mountains, and I planned to accompany her there after seeing Brilna back to her tribe in the far west.
I had learned Brilna's capture by the rancers occurred while she was gathering nuts and berries a fair distance from her village. The slave dealers’ method was to approach by stealth and observe communities while remaining hidden. When one or more careless individuals (like Brilna) got themselves too far away from the others, the rancers would swoop in to kidnap them and then flee the area before detection. If detected before they could grab someone, or if interrupted during the capture, they would attempt to outrun any pursuers. They had enjoyed a great degree of success in doing so, for they made sure they always possessed the swiftest drooves, though they were not averse to a fight if it came to that. Brilna said they were capable of holding their own in battle.
Brilna was soon fast asleep and I sat by the fire examining the weapon I had taken from the Creet. Izzy said the generic term for this blade was “sword,” an ancient word of unknown origin, and that her tribe called this particular type sword a “stirka.” It was a surprising weapon, sleek and of fine quality, much more so than what we Sakitans could manufacture. The metal was strong, lightweight, and flexible, and had a keen edge. It was my first close-up look at this sort of weapon and it impressed me.
“May I see that?” Izzy spoke. She was sitting across the fire from me, so with a careless flip I tossed the blade over to her, expecting her to let it drop to the ground and then pick it up. To my astonishment, as the stirka flew toward her she plucked it with ease out of mid-air by its handle, then gripped and admired it like a long lost treasure found.
“It is better than mine,” she said with appreciation. “Better balance.”
Then she twirled the blade, stood, and started performing the most beautiful movements I have ever seen anyone accomplish with a weapon. She was swirling and slicing the air, her feet moving as if she were weightless, with her large frame gracefully dancing over the ground, all the while the blade in her good right hand busy, quick and smooth, rendering tightly controlled movements that always had a purpose. When Izzy finally stopped, a satisfied grin creased her tattooed face.
“That was fun,” she said as she held the stirka out to me. “Can I keep it? I can probably fix and use that scabbard we found in the packs.”
I knew I had Semral’s face, that I was imitating his best open-mouthed expression. I was speechless. Izzy saw my look and laughed.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you that the Cartu are masters with the sword?” She laughed again, still holding out the blade. She pulled it back when I told her to keep it, as I had no familiarity with its proper use.
“My stirka was taken by the rancers when they captured me,” Izzy ex
plained after resuming her seat by the fire. “We Cartu train from an early age, and on our side of the mountains we have a reputation for our skill with the blade. The slavers caught me by surprise as I slept, and they had my stirka before I could grab it and put up a fight. But if I had gotten to it first, they certainly would have gotten a battle.”
Izzy went on to say that although the Cartu were hunters like the Sakita, they often hired out as mercenaries to anyone needing their services with the blade. It could be an individual or a tribe, that didn’t matter. People sought them out as ideal allies to have in a fight. Izzy also said that she could handle a spear or rik-ta if necessary, but the stirka was her weapon of choice.
Izzy never ceased to astound me, and something she had said caught my attention. Her mention of the other side of the mountain made me realize that she had not told me the full story of how she was able to cross those impassable peaks.
My question on the matter drew a long pause, and she seemed hesitant to answer.
“I did come through the mountains,” she said at last, but did not elaborate further.
“But how?” I persisted. “Are they not too high and too steep to climb?”
Izzy paused again, gave me a long look and then reluctantly began to tell a very unusual story.
“No, I came through the mountains. I found the way by accident. I was just traveling along, high in the foothills and looking for an opening, when I noticed this dark splotch a short distance up the slope ahead of me. The slope was somewhat steep, but I managed to climb my way up. The splotch turned out to be the opening to a cave. It was pretty small, but someone had once used it because there were ashes from old campfires and pieces of dry wood scattered around. I used my flint kit to start a fire and noticed the back cave wall looked different from the rest of it. I started exploring, feeling along it when—well, something happened.”
Izzy stopped. Her expression again indicated she was unsure if she wanted to continue.
“Come on, what was it?” I urged. “What happened? You can’t stop a story just when it’s getting interesting.”
Izzy took a deep breath and I wondered what could be so intimidating that she was having this much trouble talking about it.
“Promise me you won’t think I’m crazy or making this up,” she said.
I could see she was deadly serious.
“I promise!” I replied. “Now please tell me what happened.”
“As I touched a portion of the back cave wall,” Izzy continued, “it—well, it moved.”
“Moved? What do you mean?”
“The whole back wall of the cave moved and then there were these—ah—lights.”
“Lights? Wait a minute. The cave opened up in the back and you saw lights? I don’t understand.”
“The cave continued beyond the wall,” Izzy explained. “Only it wasn’t a cave anymore. It’s hard to describe this but the walls were no longer rock. They looked like the blade of this sword, shiny and smooth. The cave shape was a perfect circle, like the hollow of a reed, and the cavern ran straight through the mountain. Running all along the top of the cave were these—well, they were lights. They went on forever, and—I know this will sound strange, but it’s the truth—these lights were not made of fire! They were not even warm to the touch, yet they gave off a glow that allowed me to see everything.”
Though I had promised not to think Izzy crazy, I wondered if I had given that promise in haste. Lights with no fire? Smooth cave walls that gleam like metal? It was a little much.
“I followed the cave and it was lit all the way, though many of the lights no longer glowed,” Izzy continued. “The cave went on and on and I became frightened. I wondered who could make such a thing—and what if they were still in here? There was nothing else, however; it was just a very long passageway through the mountains. I came to the other end and found another wall. I felt around like I did with the other one, and again the wall slid open. It opened into another rock cave and then—well, then I was on this side of the mountains.”
That was Izzy's tale. I did not know what to say. It sounded outlandish, for sure, but her story made me think of something I had heard from Sakita legends. There was a tale of a great civilization that had existed long before the Sakita came into being. It spoke of vessels that flew through the air and swam beneath the waters, perhaps that great body of water Brilna mentioned. The story went on to claim that this society had been worldwide. I wondered if that explained why we all spoke a similar language. Could we be descendants of that vanished civilization? If such a people existed, could the shining cave be a remnant of their time? It was all very fascinating.
Izzy and I settled in to get a few hours’ sleep. I woke after midnight, roused the others and we readied to travel. It was time to put some distance between the Spood and ourselves. It was time to go west.
**
~~THIRTEEN~~