We would go west, eventually, but first I had to make a small detour. Izzy and Brilna adamantly opposed what I planned to do, even while admiring the intent. They deemed a return to the territory of the can-rak foolhardy. Still, I was going. I had to do right by those two women. They deserved a proper ceremony.
Izzy was aware of my shamanic training, as I had shared that information with her when telling of my banishment. I would now put that knowledge to its most exalted purpose and make sure the ill-fated women got a proper send off into the afterlife. We found the hill the next morning and there was little to see. A few well-gnawed bones were all that remained of the two whose names I did not know. Scavengers had done their work swiftly and well.
I gathered the bones, found a handful of sargrass, and began chanting the sounds and words to draw my spirit animal. As the sargrass smoked, I waved it over the bones and inhaled its pungent sweetness. I danced with careful movements so that each step was in its proper sequence. Izzy and Brilna watched in silence, but with intense interest.
Then, it happened. A strong push in my back jolted me. I turned to find the young can-rak with the blazing mane and intense eyes had appeared. Izzy and Brilna could see nothing, of course, but told me later that I seemed to be conversing with an invisible presence.
In fact, I was speaking to the can-rak, asking it to see to the safe passage of the two women to Ra-ta’s domain. The can-rak nodded, and intuition told me it would honor my request. I came out of trance and Izzy and Brilna rushed over to assist me when they saw me waver. I felt a brief disorientation, but soon was fully back into this world. With my mission accomplished, I felt a great sense of relief and informed my companions we could continue on our way.
As we rode our drooves west, Brilna disclosed that she had changed her mind and no longer wished to return to her people. Instead, she wanted to join us in journeying to the other side of the mountains to find Izzy’s tribe. Her change of heart perturbed me, to say the least, as she could have warned us of her intentions long before we had traveled over a three-day’s ride toward her homeland.
Brilna explained that her people did not like her much, and I certainly did not find that hard to believe. She said even her family hadn’t favored her. Izzy and I were her only friends, she claimed, though I thought her assumption a bit of a leap. I had not considered Brilna a friend. I saw her more as an accidental acquaintance foisted on me by circumstance—and an annoying one at that.
Still, what can you do? I felt an obligation to look after the girl. I felt Brilna, fending for herself, was not a condition likely to turn out well. I couldn’t just . . . Oh, all right, that’s not the whole truth either. I admit it. I admit that as much as I had teased the poor girl and made fun at her expense, I was getting used to having her around. She had offered valuable information about the Spood, and simply having companionship after my long isolation at the oasis was reason enough to welcome her presence. She was, like it or not, a member of our team. It was Izzy, Brilna, and Sanyel taking on the world. I felt that perhaps, in time, we might become the closest of friends and have the makings of a formidable little group.
So we turned and headed in a northerly direction, back toward the mountains, which we would follow eastward, searching for the mysterious cave entrance that had led Izzy into this fair land of the Spood. Brilna and I rode double. As we traveled, Brilna enlightened me with further insights into the charming Spood culture.
Brilna informed me that the fat, red-haired man who had killed Dwelve back at the sperza was a priest. The amulet symbol (Y) he wore represented a grottis, which was a depiction of the Spood god, Gor-jar. Gor-jar, roughly translated, meant “the hungry one,” and the spread-open top portion of the grottis mimicked Gor-jar’s mouth, ready to accept and feed on the people’s sacrifices.
Brilna claimed sacrifices to Gor-jar were usually slaves or ones who had displeased the ruling priesthood. Each sacrifice required the building of a grottis. This grottis was a larger-scale, wooden version of the amulet. With the grottis laid flat upon the ground, the Spood placed the intended victim with his back resting on the straight lower beam. With his arms pressed tightly to his sides and his legs together, the priests then lifted the grottis slightly from the ground to enable them to secure the intended sacrifice to the beam with ropes or chains. They would arrange the victim so that his head showed just above the crook where the two upper grottis arms met. The Spood would then lift the grottis upright and plant the straight support into the ground. The open, upper arms of this structure symbolized the “jaws” of Gor-jar while the straight lower arm represented the “throat” of the god. Its designers intended it to depict Gor-jar “swallowing” the sacrifice, with the victim’s head showing in the god’s open mouth.
However, suspension on a grottis was just the beginning of this unpleasant ritual. As the condemned hung there, the people would gather, with those who had won a lottery drawing allowed up front. At a signal from the high priest, those lottery winners—men, women and children—would gather up the rocks, spears, and knives the priests had provided for them, and they would commence hurling them at the victim on the grottis. The rocks would bruise the skin and shatter bones. The knives and spears would cut and pierce, opening bloody wounds. The helpless object of sacrifice could only cry out in anguish and pain until merciful death came to lift him from this world. When his spirit at last departed, the people would rejoice, for mighty Gor-jar had accepted their offering.
With those disturbing images rattling around in our minds, we rode in silence through the shallow waters of a marshland. Frogs croaked and insects buzzed. On occasion, we would scare up a marsh bird that would splash and rise out of the rushes to soar off into the distance, dripping water off its body and wings. The calm beauty of this natural world, in contrast to the brutal unnaturalness of the Spood one, had me wondering what game Ra-ta was playing. Why had he taken me away from the relative peace of my existence as a Sakita and dumped me into this land of eternal turmoil? My father believed I had a destiny involving my people. Yet my people had discarded me, and here I was in a foreign land in no position to help anyone, least of all myself.
Well, I would go with Izzy. Maybe the Cartu would welcome me as they had welcomed her and—
“Huta-hut!”
A command, crisp and direct, rang out from across the marsh. My startled droove raised its head and seemed ready to bolt. I tugged hard on the reins to force the beast into the tall rushes to my right, and Izzy followed close behind on her mount. I prayed the drooves would stay silent as clear voices carried to us from across the swamp. Several files of drooves were pushing through the shallow water about two hundred paces from our hiding place. Splashing noises carried to us as the convoy navigated through the marsh grasses.
They were Creet soldiers. Hundreds of them. And they were escorting a considerable number of captives. The well-armed soldiers had stirkas and short knives, and a weapon I had not known they possessed—spears! These lances were long and thin with finely burnished stalks and gleaming tips. Oh how I desired to obtain one of those. It had been too long, not since my banishment, that I had hefted a spear worthy of my grip.
Another shout rose above the company. It was a command from a soldier trying to steady a balky droove that was averse to the water. The soldiers were riding three abreast as they crossed the marsh and leading them was a husky man with a full, grizzled beard. He sat his mount with a straight-backed rigidity, with his head and shoulders fixed as his droove swayed beneath him. The Creet moved with a brisk resolve, no doubt in a hurry to get home with their bounty.
They passed a bit closer to us now, heading in the direction from which we had come. We could hear the bleats and snorts of the drooves, combined with the clinking of the metal pots and utensils strung together across the beasts’ backs. I had a clearer sight to make out features of the prisoners and soon determined the lot to be an even blend of male and fe
male, with several mixed-age children among them.
The captives’ dress was not familiar to me, but Brilna recognized a small group of the prisoners as hailing from a tribe of her acquaintance, the Korta. The entire assemblage had their hands bound and many were riding double.
The soldiers looked smart in their red-trimmed vests, and they rode their mounts with an air of authority. Their menacing spears pointed to the sky, with shafts lodged in leather holders and metal tips flashing in the sun. I had not witnessed a military force such as this in all my years, and the precise order of their ranks impressed, unlike the ragtag sloppiness of the rancers. It was all very troubling. It seemed the Spood were stepping up their efforts to gain control of the vast lands outside their base city. After witnessing the strength and discipline of this force, I was not eager to spend more time in this afflicted land. I wanted to slip away when feasible and escape through Izzy’s magical cave.
That was not to be. Every time we pushed north to the mountains, we ran across another Creet patrol and had to slide eastward and south. Our luck in avoiding discovery I attributed to Ra-ta, for we had no business escaping detection the way we did. The patrols varied in size and purpose. Some consisted of about ten men, who seemed to be simply scouting the country. Others were of the size of the company we met in the marsh and often carried heavy loads of prisoners. The Spood were on the march, and I could only imagine the chaos they were creating.
“We’ve gone too far,” Izzy informed us one late afternoon. We had evaded the patrols for over a week. During that time, we had eaten whatever we could find, which was usually wettle fruit, for which I still had not reacquired a taste. There had been plenty of streams from which to drink and from which to indulge in an occasional quick bath, but now we were looking at sand. We were on the edge of the Desert of Bones, which meant we had gone past by several days the point where we should have cut straight north to the mountains and the cave.
Exhaustion dogged us as much as the patrols, and with the lack of sleep and spotty food availability, our energy and optimism had deteriorated. I was wishing I had one of those Creet spears so I could go hunting. In truth, I wished I could go back to my homeland and forget I’d ever seen or heard of this wretched country. My slave togs were itchy and my sandals were wearing out. I was grouchy and snappy and my companions were well aware of my mood. Well, at least Izzy was.
“What do we do now?” Brilna whined for the third time. I wanted to shut my ears and close my eyes and blank Brilna out of my mind. Izzy knelt down, sifting sand through her fingers, and I wondered what she was thinking. She never seemed to get rattled, and even now I observed no sign of distress in her.
“We’ll have to double back,” she said.
It was a simple statement, direct and true. We would have to double back.
“Let’s find some cover and stay the night,” I suggested, for Ra-ta was hurrying down the sky and had little light left to spare. We traveled for a while south, a direction I didn’t want to go, but it was too open and exposed to linger near the desert sands. Soon we found a forest with a tight enclosure of kanser trees and there we set up camp.
We lit no fire, fearing the ever-present eyes of the Creet. Brilna was soon snoring away as Izzy and I took in the spectacle that was the glittering night sky.
“You should have taken the knife, too,” Izzy spoke.
“Knife? What do you mean? What knife?”
“The one you stuck in the brain of that Creet you killed. We might need something like that before long.”
She was right. I should have taken the knife. I got the man’s stirka but that was the only weapon we had, and that sword was now residing in the repaired scabbard at Izzy’s side. I needed a weapon for myself. We were in dangerous country and it was growing more perilous by the day. I could certainly use a spear, and even my bracelet of bones might be helpful. The one I had carried around my wrist into the desert no longer existed. Back at the oasis, I had dismantled it to get the sharp bone I needed to cut and shave my crude spear, and I had never put it back together. I imagined the remains were still there, along with my leather pouch and blanket.
Izzy had fallen asleep, but I stayed awake to ponder our situation. I would have to assemble another bracelet when I could. Having control over animals would be very helpful, especially since we had just the one conventional weapon. Still, where would I get the bone fragments I would need? In our tribe, they were easy to come by, since we hunted every kind of animal and made use of every part. Out here, you would have to stumble upon the bones, making acquiring a decent variety of them much more difficult.
I knew one thing. I would have to get a droove bone. The animal was as common as grass, and having control of just one or an entire herd would be most advantageous.
I drifted off to sleep and was dreaming of stalking a porse when a faint clinking noise snapped me awake. Izzy was already on her feet and had parted an opening in the thick brush surrounding our forest pocket. She had her focus fixed on whatever had made the noise, and I joined her as Brilna slept, no longer snoring, thank Ra-ta. It was early dawn and a light fog had drifted in overnight. The cool nip to the air shook the sleep from me as I peered into the mists, searching out the source of the disturbance.
Creet riders were coming. Droove after droove appeared at the vaporous edge of the wood. One by one, they strode past, less than a hundred paces from our hidden enclave and then disappeared into the haze. I shook Brilna awake, put a hand to her mouth to prevent any sudden utterance, and then put a finger to my lips to ensure her silence. Our drooves busily munched kanser leaves and did not seem inclined to sound any alarm.
The riders must have come off the desert, as they wore the conventional garment of desert travel, flowing robes with attached hoods. There were prisoners among the company and they included male and female, young and aged.
As I examined the captives passing by in their morose procession, a face turned my way. The familiar features jolted me. I knew that face. It belonged to a hunter from our tribe, a man named Oster. What was he doing here? Another I knew! Miras, wife of Jalak.
I inhaled sharply. Oh my god! No, no, not her.
Yet it was. There was no mistaking the figure seated upon that droove.
It was Lillatta.
I rose and in a daze started to step toward the caravan. Izzy grabbed my arm.
“What are you doing?” Her grip halted my motion but I was barely conscious of the fact.
Lillatta. She was here. But how? Why? My brain felt jammed. Too many thoughts were occupying too little space. Questions hurtled through my mind, with every answer discarded when proven inadequate to explain her presence here. My body was telling me to act, to move, to go get her away from those monsters, those animals disguised as humans. But Izzy held me back.
I had to clear my cobwebs and regain my senses. My breathing was rapid, my heart pounded, and now I slowed them both down, with my shamanic training again taking over, calming me, bringing me back to my center.
Izzy and Brilna stared at me as if I had gone mad.
With my composure at last retrieved, I told them the reason for my odd actions.
“That girl who just passed by was Lillatta.”
Izzy knew the name, as I had recounted to her the circumstances of my banishment. Brilna had a blank look, comprehending not a word.
“It is the one who betrayed you?” Izzy said in astonishment.
“Yes, but she had no choice,” I reminded her. “She was in love and her man was in trouble. I might have done the same if . . . She can’t be blamed.”
I would not leave my friend to these cutthroats. I knew where they were taking her, the same destination fate had determined for the three of us before our escape—the home country of the Spood. I knew how those animals treated slaves, and by Ra-ta that would not be Lillatta’s fate if I could help it.
The last of the
drooves passed out of sight and again I turned to my expectant companions.
“I will not be going with you to seek the Cartu,” I stated. “My friend is in danger and I will try my best to free her from the Spood. If I succeed, I will come find the cave in the mountains and meet up with you there.”
Brilna’s eyes betrayed a still unresolved confusion, but Izzy’s brimmed with that mischievous humor I had come to appreciate.
She grinned and said, “What need is there for you to find us if we are already with you?”
Izzy had to know the dangers. She had to be aware that the perils of this attempted rescue would be immense, the task impractical to an extreme. Yet she was making it clear that she was with me no matter the outcome. Her courage inspired, and her self-assurance bolstered my own.
Meanwhile, Brilna nodded in hesitant agreement, though I was confident my words had clarified nothing for her. It appeared, though, that she had no intention of going anywhere without both of us. So, the three of us would take on the challenge together. We would attempt to free Lillatta from the clutches of the Spood—and try to avoid capture or death in the bargain.
**
~~FOURTEEN~~