by B. Muze
“Where are we going?” she cried, but the wind whipped the words away so quickly she could hardly hear them herself.
When they were well away from the trader’s camp, the Gicok slowed and blocked the path for Jovai’s flying beast. Her horse stopped suddenly and, with a thud, Jovai landed on the ground. The Gicok laughed, a short grunt, and lightly dismounted himself.
“Walk now,” he said.
The path ahead was steep and narrow. One side was solid stone, the other a sheer drop to a river far below. He grabbed straps from the horse’s packs and led them behind him as he started to climb.
“Gicok,” Jovai called after him as she scrambled on shaky legs to follow.
He did not look back or slow his rapid stride.
She stopped, but he did not. She watched as he climbed the steep trail, leading the horses behind him. He was her enemy. Whatever the necklace meant to him, it had not been his life she had saved. He owed her nothing and, by freeing her, had already done much. He could be leading her into a trap or planning to murder her while she slept. The ancient history of her people, who had always been enemies of the Gicoks, warned her not to trust him, but the option was to turn back, which she could not, or to stay and watch the Gicok lead away the horses and supplies that she would desperately need.
The Gicok was far ahead. She made her mind and followed as quickly as she could. She found him waiting for her where the trail finally leveled again.
“We ride now,” he said. Once again, the horse knelt before her, and she scrambled up to his back.
“I tie you?” he offered, “Keep you on?”
“No,” she responded.
He grunted and, in one beautiful leap, was atop his own mount and off. Her horse bolted after them so quickly she had barely time to clutch at his neck.
From then on, she focused on her horse, on the movement of his body as he ran, then walked, then climbed, then ran again. Slowly she discovered his balance and matched her own to his, still clinging with her arms around his neck and her knees tightly pressed into his sides.
The trail flew by her. When at midday they stopped to let the horses rest, she found the mountains that sheltered her valley already behind them and a strange, new world all around.
Jovai washed herself and tended her cuts and bruises as best she could at a nearby stream, while the Gicok took care of his horses. When she had done everything she could, she all but collapsed under a tall spruce. She was exhausted, and although caution warned her not to sleep so near an enemy, she could not stay awake.
Her sleep was filled with violent dreams, dark wolves and a great, giant beast who stalked her, his snout still dripping with her blood. In her dream, she ran, wounded and battered, every part of her aching. Her throat had been torn open and her voice ripped away. She could not cry for her master to save her. There was no brown bear. There was no shaman. There was just a little girl and an evil, hungry spirit who hunted her through the endless darkness.
When she awoke, the sun was setting, sending one last blast of warmth to the gentle summer’s day. A figure of a man stood above her.
The man said nothing, but sheathed his knife and turned away. As the shadows shifted, she saw the man more clearly. It was the Gicok, pale and strange who lumbered awkwardly over the ground as if he were not meant to walk.
Jovai hastily stood, confused, and stared after him. Her body was bruised and stiff and ached in many more ways than she had felt before.
“We go soon,” he said in the language of the traders.
“Do we eat first?” she asked.
With a grunt, he pointed to a small pile of dried fruit and chopped meat that lay next to her foot.
“Where are you leading me?” she asked after her first few hungry swallows.
“You Dolkati Friend. I take you to Dolkati. We see if you lie.”
“How far are they?”
“Two days. Maybe five days, way Vohee ride.”
“My people have little experience with your horses,” she told him.
“Vohee too stupid.”
She looked up at him angrily. His eyes refused to meet hers but flickered around as though watching tumbling sparks from a dry wood fire. It made his face infuriatingly difficult to read, but a slight smile played on his lips. He knew he had gotten to her.
“If you do not like me, Gicok, why do you help me?”
“If you Dolkati Friend, Dolkati must help. If you lie…” his smile grew wide and clear, showing teeth that had been filed to sharp points, like a wolf.
“Then I accept your help, friend,” she said quickly, turning toward the horses.
“Theligas,” she ordered her mount. He knelt obediently before her as the Gicok curiously watched. She dragged herself upon his back, ashamed of her own ungainliness, but she kept her face carefully still. The Gicok said nothing as he jumped upon his own horse and led them off.
Chapter 22
Camp of the Dead
They traveled south once they were over the mountains, then southeast for a day, eating little and stopping only when the horses needed rest. The mountains flattened under their hooves and became dense forests and open plains. Jovai could never identify any clear path, but the Gicok led them through even the thickest groves with uncanny skill, and the way was never rough. There was always water near where they stopped and a cave or hidden brush shelter waiting for them at the day’s end.
They fell into a silent pattern. Jovai would tend the horses and start a fire as the Gicok hunted. He always returned with more kill than was likely, which made her suspect live traps or well-kept stores hidden nearby. That would mean he or his people had passed through not long ago. He would silently give her the food to prepare while he saw to the horses again. She did not know whether he tended them from distrust of her ability, from habit, or from pure love. The man spoke only when necessary as he rode with Jovai. His face said little for him, his flickering eyes nothing at all, but his strokes as he groomed the horses were sure and tender and full of love as if they had been his own family. He would whisper to them softly, in words she could not understand, and sometimes sing to them, his deep voice husky and warm through the cool nights.
Jovai watched him sometimes, from a distance, in the same way that she sometimes watched the stars or fish in a stream or a lizard sunning on a rock or the beads of sweat on the back of the horse that carried her. Nothing was quite real. Everything was filled with the stillness of a dream. She tried not to think or question anything. The questions “why,” “what did I do,” “am I really a witch,” would break through from the ache in the pit of her stomach, but she ignored them as much as possible. She did not talk. She did not listen, except to the Gicok’s rare words. She did not reach for the spirits whom, she was sure, would not answer her if she did. She kept to the quiet place inside her where nothing “outside” could find her, empty and withdrawn.
For four days, they traveled so, moving finally toward the west. The air grew thicker, with fog that did not melt at dawn but took the angry heat of noon to chase it away. Jovai liked the fog. It wrapped her deeper in solitude. It didn’t ask her to do anything, only to be silent. Never in her life had she felt so alone and, for the first time she could remember, she did not feel lonely.
In a late morning of mist and drizzle, the forest terrain suddenly changed. The trees fell back from a site of many domed, little shapes floating in and out of the thick air. The Gicok signaled his horse to stop and quickly dismounted. Jovai followed more slowly. It seemed by the Gicok’s excitement that they had arrived at his destination. She was not sure what awaited her here. More disturbing, perhaps, she was not sure that she cared.
The Gicok rushed forward and disappeared into the fog. Jovai kept to the edges of the camp. Cautiously, she approached the nearest of the domed shapes. It was a tent made from hides lashed to wooden bent frames. There were patches of cloth covering the top — so smoke could escape, she guessed. If smoke seeped through the loosely woven cloth now, i
t blended with the mist so perfectly she could not detect it. She circled the tent at a distance until she had found the entrance. It was a hide flap, with straps to tie it closed, but now they dangled, and the flap hung open. Inside was dark — no fire. As far as she could tell, there was no movement inside.
In the distance, she could hear the Gicok raise his voice in a call of some unfamiliar kind. His shrill cry tore through the eerie stillness that weighed upon this place, but there was no answer. Nothing else stirred around her.
Nevertheless, Jovai kept quiet as she drew nearer the tent, her attention fixed upon the opening for any sign of life. So focused was she on the tent that she did not watch her feet, and suddenly they were stopped as the rest of her body plunged forward. She picked herself up quickly and turned to what had tripped her. It was a dog lying before her, cold and stiff, long dead. Its head had been half-way hacked from the rest of its body and lay crushed in the blood-stained dirt.
In horror, Jovai backed away. She nearly tripped again over a broken stone blade. All around her were things crushed and torn and bodies — animals and people — abandoned by the living. Here, among the tents had been some battle with no one left to clean the mess, reclaim their homes, or put the dead to rest.
The misty air seemed to push against Jovai. Fear crowded her thoughts. She heard the Gicok call again, shriller than before, frantic.
An old woman stared down at Jovai with empty eye sockets and a grimace of agony. She was pinned to the trunk of a tree by fire-hardened spikes through her hands and throat. Her clothes had been torn off her withered body, and dried blood coated her thighs. Carrion birds had been picking at her corpse, letting patches of bone show through the torn flesh. It was more than Jovai could bear. She turned away, toward the safety of the forest, only to meet the strangely still eyes of a Gicok child. The little Gicok boy stared up at her directly and slowly smiled. Then he vanished in a swirl of mist. Jovai ran to where he had been. There were no footprints in the soft earth, no crushed blade of grass, no sign that anyone had ever stepped on that spot. Again, the Gicok cried, more frantic.
The air around Jovai seemed ice cold, but she shivered more from fear. She knelt where the child had stood, afraid to lift her eyes to horrors not yet known. In the distance, the Gicok raised his voice again, this time not a call but a scream, a wail that filled all the air with the sound of agony.
Jovai did not think but ran toward that sound. She sped through the camp, veering around toppled tents, leaping over corpses and debris. There were many horrors, but she closed her mind to them, refusing to see them except to avoid them.
At last, she found the Gicok just outside the camp. His back was to her, and if he heard her approach, he showed no sign. He was on his knees in the dirt, rocking and wailing. At first, she thought he hugged himself, as one who in great grief struggles to hold his body and spirit together while letting out the pain. As she drew nearer, she saw there was a young child in his arms — barely a person — whom he clutched to his body. In front of him lay a Gicok woman, her left wrist cut and bruised but otherwise unmarked. Her long, pale hair fell around her head like a circle of light against the dark earth. Dead eyes stared up to where the sun might have been shining had the fog not obscured it. For a moment, Jovai was caught by the delicate beauty of her face, even in death. It had never occurred to her that a Gicok woman might be beautiful. Beside her lay an infant boy, his head badly bruised and his neck broken. They were all dead, except her Gicok guide. There was nothing she could do here. Quietly she withdrew.
She was barely out of sight when she felt a sudden sting on the back of her neck. She reached back and pulled out a long, straight, slim quill. Then another one hit her hand and one pierced her tunic. Numbness spread quickly from each place the quills had pricked. She tried to run but found her movements slow, her body heavy. Another quill and then another, lodged in her. She fell, and darkness overcame her.
Chapter 23
Killing Games
Darkness. Jovai could not open her eyes. She could not feel her body. Not at first. Voices in a language she had never heard rustled in her head and slowly took form in a space outside of her, at a distance. She remembered the ghost boy and shivered.
Gradually, feeling in her body returned. She felt a stiffness as if every muscle and joint were carved from wood. She tried to open her eyes. The struggle was great, but she managed to lift her lids half way. Blurriness around her slowly took the form of the Gicok sitting in the last light of day against a tall pole that supported some kind of large tent. He was watching her, his eyes dull and unnaturally still. Jovai tried to speak, but it was a while before her tongue and jaw obeyed her enough to form words. Meanwhile, the Gicok watched.
“Wh… what’s… what’s hap…pen…ing?” she finally managed to ask.
The Gicok continued to stare at her, so stilly she wondered if he were dead. Then, stiffly, he jerked his head away. Whatever had been used on her had been used on him as well, she realized. She sat quietly and waited. The wait was so long she thought he would not answer the question, then slowly, he started to speak.
“I take you to the… my people. See if you liar… thief. They… they all… dead… or… Now we… Kolvas… Kolvas kill us… eat us.”
Jovai stared at him confused, not understanding.
“Who killed Gicoks?” she asked, her words still a struggle, but clearer now.
“Kolvas not kill like that before,” he answered slowly. “Not hunt people like that before.” Then he fell silent and would speak no more. She heard his stifled sobs when night’s shadows had hidden his face from her. He had a family to grieve for, a whole people even. She did not intrude.
Through the night they waited. The Gicok finally slept. Jovai listened, her senses keen enough to hear the murmuring of voices, the sighing of sleepers and sometimes even the crying of a child at a distance and the soft shuffling of bare human feet outside the tent, nearby, on guard. In the corner of her eye, she saw movement, like flickering shadows, soundless. She could not move quickly enough to see them straight.
Sometime late at night, the guard fell asleep. It didn’t matter. The prisoners were still partially paralyzed and tightly bound. There was no escape.
Early the next morning five very tall men appeared, of bronze skin and long brown-red hair, some with eyes of green, others blue and others tan. They untied the prisoners from the posts but kept their wrists and ankles bound as they carried them from the tent and through the forest, past the whispering, ghost-filled Gicok camp and into a nearby clearing.
The prisoners were dropped at the feet of a man who, in dress and bearing seemed their leader. He was a well-fleshed but muscular man of middle years, draped in hides of the cunning, killer cats and patched with long braids of hair strung with beads and carved bones. His headpiece was enormous, forcing him to balance carefully each step. It was the wood-carved face of a grinning god with real human teeth and green feathers where his hair would have grown. He had four eyes, two on each side, all carved from bone. The man who wore this headdress had painted his face with two more eyes in imitation, but these were modestly darkened. He was seated on a wooden stool with a painted hide draped over it. Slowly he stood as the prisoners were set before him, and addressed the surrounding crowd of his people in a language Jovai had never heard before.
Jovai glanced at the Gicok, to see if he could translate or explain a little. He knelt where they had thrown him, even though the poison they had been subdued with had now worn off. His head was bowed in an attitude of defeat, accepting of his doom.
The crowd screamed wildly as their leader finished his speech. At his direction, the five men who had carried them before now picked them up again and dragged them to the center of the clearing where a tall pole had been erected. Around the pole swung a thick piece of wood that made two arms, opposite each other, holding two wooden collars, one at each end. They were fashioned to move but only in a very limited way. As one arm circled forward, the oth
er was forced to circle backward to the same degree, and neither arm could move more than half a circle. Into these, Jovai and the Gicok were bound, backs to the pole and the collar fitting tightly around their chests. The collar piece came apart easily without anything inside it, but once the pieces had been put back to hold someone, the only way they could again be opened was by tearing the body of the person it held apart.
Once the collar was in place, the binding ropes were removed, and a sharp, stone long-blade was given to each of them. The Gicok immediately swung it toward the man who had armed him but the man, expecting that, jumped back out of reach quickly enough to avoid the blow. Jovai, on the other hand, immediately set her blade to work on the harness that held her, slowly dulling its edge as she awkwardly tried to saw through the wood. The Gicok’s angry attacks moved the arm dangerously, causing her blade to bounce and barely miss slicing her face.
“They give us honorable death,” shouted the Gicok to her.
Jovai looked up and saw a man approaching her, a blade of his own in his hands. She readied her weapon and calmed her mind and body as the weapon’s master had taught her.
The man swung at her, a blow to decapitate. She tried to duck away, but the Gicok behind her was fighting his own battle and, being the taller of the two, had greater control over the arm. She found herself swinging toward the man’s sword instead. The arm ducked just in time, the Gicok having jumped as high as his limited movement allowed, and this alone saved Jovai.
The arm suddenly swung her back toward her enemy. She quickly thrust with her own blade, but the man easily jumped out of her reach.
“That’s enough!” she decided. Honorable death or not, she was not ready yet to die. She was not a shaman. She could not call on the spirits and trust that they would come, but her master’s training had not left her completely defenseless.