by J. S. Bangs
Apurta stuck his head into the tent. “Everyone safe here?”
“You woke a few of them up,” Vapathi said. “But everyone’s here.”
Apurta looked relieved. He was supposed to guard the slavers’ prey; if any of them escaped on his watch, it would mean his life.
“Do you know what happened?” Vapathi asked.
In the darkness Vapathi could not see Apurta’s expression, but she could hear the brightness in his voice. “Someone attacked them with a thikratta’s fire. He burned three men before someone stabbed him.” He paused. His tone turned toward dread. “They say the attacker is dead.”
“We’ll see,” Vapathi said.
A few minutes passed. The groans and screams of the injured man could be heard throughout the camp, alongside a copious amount of cursing.
Pagri let out a squeal in Vapathi’s arms. She twisted away and ran to the door of the tent, pointing at something in the sky.
“Pagri, come here—” Vapathi started.
She was cut off by more screams. Not of pain, but of terror. Vapathi scooped the little girl into her arms, then followed her gaze toward the sky. In the west the bright stars hung just above the peaks. The brilliant coils of the Serpent gleamed over the mountains.
They had all turned red. Red as blood, like pricks of ruby fire planted on the black silk of the night sky.
The men around them swore and made signs to ward off evil. Apurta watched the sky in dumb fascination, then shivered. Pagri hid her face in Vapathi’s shoulder.
But nothing else happened. The stars gleamed red and virulent on the horizon, but they didn’t move, and whatever doom they foretold did not seem forthcoming. Langur shouted at his men to get back to work or go to bed.
Apurta looked at Vapathi. “Do you understand?”
“No,” Vapathi said. But she didn’t return to the tent. She remained at the door, rocking Pagri gently, looking at the stars and stealing glances toward Apurta.
Pagri heard it first. She whimpered and dug her fingers into Vapathi’s shoulder. Apurta stiffened, then pointed to the south where the village lay.
They heard it again. Like a throat cut off before it could scream, then a quiet gurgle. Another. Others around them heard it and took up swords.
A figure advanced toward the firelight in the center of the camp.
“Stop!” Langur said.
The figure advanced. Its steps were slow but constant.
One of the men at the edge of the fire walked toward it and raised his sword. The shade did not alter its pace at all. The slaver got within three paces of the shape, then a strange gurgle sounded from his throat. Like he was being strangled or vomiting with violent urgency. He fell to his knees, put a hand to his throat, and collapsed to the ground. The figure stepped over his body without interrupting his stride.
He reached the edge of the fire’s light.
Merciful Powers, what had happened to him?
Kirshta’s clothes were in tatters, caked with grime. Vapathi could smell the stench of old blood and his unwashed body. And blood… blood covered him from his forehead to his toes. A great smear down his forehead and face, soaking the front of his shirt, dribbling down the remnants of his dhoti.
His cheeks were hollow, as if he hadn’t eaten in ages. His jaw was slack. But his eyes were bright and alive.
He glanced at the figures visible by the fire. He saw Vapathi and Apurta, and for a moment the ghost of a human expression crossed his face. But on the other side of the circle of firelight stood Langur, sword drawn. Five other slavers with weapons stood near him.
“Get him!” Langur screamed. He and the other slavers rushed toward Kirshta.
None of them got more than a step.
Every one of them fell to the ground, clutching their throats and making that awful retching noise. The nearest to Vapathi spasmed and kicked her with the heel of his foot. But they did not merely fall. Vapathi’s eyes grew wide, and a boil of nausea began in her stomach.
The fallen men began to rot. It was like watching the work of years go by in seconds. Their skin split and leaked, and a vile-smelling liquid seeped out of them, reeking of putrescence. Their flesh dried, tightened, and tore, giving them dreadful grins as their lips pulled taut over their skulls. Their clothes dissolved into dust. The fluid that had poured out of them hissed and sizzled, then dissipated into a foul vapor. The remnants of their skin flaked away and crumble.
What remained were skeletons in puddles of black, hissing bile, with scraps of skin and fabric draped across them.
Kirshta sat on one of the stones by the fire. He dropped his head into his hands.
Vapathi took a step toward him. She dropped Pagri to the ground.
“Go back in the tent,” she whispered to the girl. “You’ll be fine.”
Pagri nodded and disappeared. Vapathi turned and grabbed Apurta’s hand. He gave her a glance of terror. They walked forward.
“Kirshta,” she said.
He flinched and drew in a breath sharply, as if she had pressed a finger into an open wound. “Don’t call me that,” he said.
“What did you do?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“I was hungry. I am still hungry.” He raised his head and looked at her. A smile, an honest smile, though shot through with pain. “My sister. You’re safe. You’re alive.”
“I am alive. But you—Kirshta, what happened?”
He flinched again. His smile disappeared. “That name was eaten. Do not call me that.”
“What happened?”
He was quiet. He stared into the heart of the fire and did not move.
Vapathi let go of Apurta’s hand and knelt in front of Kirshta. He looked at her, and a faint copy of his earlier smile returned. He raised a hand to touch her face, then hesitated. His hand was black with half-dried blood from his fingertips to his elbow.
“You need to be washed,” Vapathi said. “Tell me what happened.”
His eyes took on a faraway gloss. “If I didn’t have the thikratta’s discipline She would have devoured me in a moment,” he said. “But my will has grown sharp and hard. Strong enough to carry Her from the Holy.”
“You went into the Holy?” A strange chill passed over Vapathi. A cold memory of icy wind and broken torches. Screaming and terror in the night.
Kirshta nodded. “I attacked the slavers. Burned some. They stabbed me. I would have died, but I found Her.” A black, mirthless laugh escaped his lips. “The priests of the Holy. Did they understand? Lulling Her to sleep, as if She would not devour them in the end.”
Kirshta stared into the fire, looking distant and lost. She doubted she would get more answer than that.
“Lie down,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder. “Apurta, bring us a blanket and some water? Kirshta needs—”
He twitched, and with an expression of rage raised his hand to strike her. He stopped himself with his hand an inch from her face.
“I told you not to call me that. That name was eaten. I am the Mouth of the Devourer. Do you understand?”
Vapathi looked at him. He was haggard and mad. She did not understand. But some things were not so easily dissolved.
“Are you still my brother?”
Kirshta breathed heavily. “I am still your brother. My name is gone, but not my mind.”
“Then lie down.”
Apurta returned carrying a blanket from one of the dead slavers’ tents. They spread it next to the fire, and Kirshta lay down atop it gingerly. Vapathi fetched a bowl of water.
“My stomach,” Kirshta said when she returned. “They stabbed me deeply. I will not die, not now that I am Her mouth, but it pains me. Can you see to it?”
“I’ll look for needle and thread,” Apurta said. “I think Langur had some.” He moved back again.
Kirshta breathed heavily. “Sister, are the children okay? The ones they took?”
“They’re sleeping, most of them,” she answered.
“They will be yours,” Kirs
hta said. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be on the edge of sleep. “The first ones we save.”
“Save?”
“No more slaves,” Kirshta said softly. “I won’t allow it. She gives me the power to stop it.”
“Shouldn’t we return them to their parents?”
A snarl distorted his lips. “Their parents are not worthy of them. They gave them up. Maybe… maybe I’ll allow the villagers to follow me. I’ll need more than just children.”
“For what, my brother?”
“For us. For the children. No more slaves,” he repeated.
Vapathi came close to him and began to daub at the drying blood around his wounds. He reached out a hand and closed it over hers.
“For you,” he said. “These are the last slaves that anyone will take in Amur. I’ll free them all.”
More From J.S. Bangs
Queen of Slaves: Book 4 of the Powers of Amur
Everything changed for Vapathi atop the mountain. Her brother now calls himself the Mouth of the Devourer, and Vapathi goes before him as the Queen of Slaves, his herald and harbinger. Her message? The Devourer comes to free slaves and deliver the peasants, and woe to every slaver, noble, and king who stands in his way. But she fights her own reluctance to fill the role that Kirshta has for her and worries that She Who Devours will devour her brother before he delivers anyone.
In the city of Tulakhanda, an old dhorsha named Daladham has his life changed when two thikratta come knocking on his door. They bear an ancient secret, saved from the fires of Ruyam, which may change the fate of Amur. But the Mouth of the Devourer comes right behind them, and Daladham must escape and protect the fateful secret that the thikratta have given him.
Meanwhile, Mandhi arrives in Kalignas, eager to recover her son and never speak to the Kaleksha again. But old ties are not so easily broken. The decisions she made years ago with Taleg entwine her in the lives of the Kaleksha in ways she could never have foreseen.
Read the first chapter of Queen of Slaves for a sneak peek at what’s coming up, and be sure to sign up for my mailing list in order to get updates about this and other future releases.
Chapter 1
Land at last.
A shore of mottled gray stone, splashed with white by the waves breaking against the rocks. Above the shore stood a wall of black pines, the tips of their heads waving in the wind. A gentle slope rose from the shoreline, the long train of a mountain’s cloak, climbing from the sea towards a rounded gray pinnacle, white medallions of snow in its valleys, exhaling a plume of steam from its peak. In the west huddled a naked, moss-covered headland and a little sod house with a black curl of smoke rising from the vent in its roof. A tall, pale man in a shaggy cloak raised his hand to salute them.
Kalignas.
Aryaji’s hands curled around Mandhi’s. She pressed herself into her, nearly hiding her face in Mandhi’s chest, and whispered, “We’re finally here. The stars upon the shore.”
A cold, foreign shore, Mandhi thought. Her gut twisted into strange shapes, fear and premonition and promise fighting each other in her belly. Somewhere beyond this shore was her child. She would not leave this land without him.
The sailors ran forward into the prow and signalled to the man on the point. A series of hand signs passed between them which ended with a shout towards the captain that they should continue around the point and into the harbor. Great hollers of rejoicing went up from the sailors.
Aryaji shivered. “Will it always be this cold?” she asked. She was wrapped in a heavy woolen cloak, the warmest garment on the ship, which Nakhur had given to her when they sailed past the last of the islands and the waters turned gray and cold.
“This is the end of spring,” Mandhi said. “It should get warmer in the summer. But if we stay until winter….”
Aryaji shuddered. “We couldn’t possibly stay in Kalignas until winter,” she whispered. “We’ll find Jhumitu before that.”
Mandhi nodded with more confidence than she actually felt.
They rounded the point, passed the lonely house on the headland, and came in view of the harbor itself. The name of the port sounded on the lips of the sailors: Mabeg! Mabeg!
Jauda, the captain of the ship and commander of the mercenaries, stood at the stern with his fists at his waist. He was tall with long hair tied in a glossy black braid, with a deep chest that resounded with his shouted orders. The mercenary sailors scurried to handle his commands, clambering over sails, masts, and ropes, a great mess of movement which Mandhi didn’t attempt to understand.
The harbor of Mabeg appeared: a jumble of wooden buildings crowded along the shallow slope rising from the shore, unpainted boards stained white and gray by sea-spray, roofs of long, shaggy pine planks, tiny windows looking out over the choppy gray water of the harbor. Further away from the shore the wooden buildings grew sparse, and the space between them was filled with sod houses like the one they had seen on the point. Here and there were great, long buildings of stone with peaks two and three stories high. The colors were all gray and green, though here and there a red-dyed flag hung from a window. Three long wooden piers extended into the water, with a number of dhows tied at their cleats. A handful of people wandering up and down the planks. Mandhi felt a strange jolt of recognition at the few brown Amuran faces among them.
At the end of one of the piers stood a man who gestured to them with the sailors’ hand-signs. He pointed them towards an open berth. The process of bringing the boat in was long and tedious, especially as Mandhi waited holding Aryaji’s hand on the bench by the rail. But at last the ropes reached the pier and were wound on the copper cleats on the dock, and a little wooden ladder bridged the gap between the dhow and the pier.
Mandhi rose to descend. Captain Jauda waved her down.
“Is something the matter?” Mandhi asked. “I want down, before the rest of you unload—”
“Let the harbor-master talk first,” Jauda said. He pointed to the ladder, where a head of straw-colored hair appeared over the top of the rail.
The Kaleksha man climbed over the rail and stood in the prow. Like all Kaleksha he was enormously tall, a head bigger than most of the Amurans, with long hair that reached halfway down his back and a beard like an unshorn goat. His gaze lingered for several long moments on Mandhi and Aryaji sitting near the rail, then he looked at Jauda, the only Amuran who approached him in size.
“You seek safe landing, black friend?” the Kaleksha men asked, in a voice heavy with the thick vowels and rumbling consonants of the Kaleksha accent.
Mandhi wondered for a heartbeat whether ‘black friend’ was an insult. But Jauda was unaffected. He bowed and said, “Safe landing, safe seas, yellow friend.”
“And what brings you?” The man glanced again at Mandhi and Aryaji again.
“What brings all boats to the gray shore,” Jauda answered. “Trade and courage.”
The Kaleksha man rumbled in consternation. He stepped down into their hold and pulled open the lid of one of their baskets. It contained dried roti, now soggy and salty after the long journey. The man’s face curled up in disgust, and he glanced over the other, unopened baskets in the hold.
“You have no trade cargo.”
“We have business to conduct,” Jauda said firmly.
The man pulled himself out of the hold, then crossed his arms and glowered at Jauda. “I see two women, no trade goods, and no Kaleksha. A ship full of men, not all of them sailors. I see spears and swords. You cannot land in Mabeg if you have no Kaleksha sailor in your crew.”
“Am I not Kaleksha?” Captain Jauda said.
The harbor-master looked at his dark skin and black hair and laughed.
“My father was one of yours,” Jauda said. He slapped his thick chest and stepped up eye-to-eye with the harbor-master. “Now you let me through to your harbor.”
Mandhi felt a twinge of curiosity. Mandhi hadn’t known that Jauda was a half-breed until now. A vision of her son’s future—though she hoped th
at the Heir of Manjur would be more cultured than a mercenary captain.
“The son of an Amuran whore is not a Kaleksha,” the harbor-master answered firmly. He hesitated. “But I might let you unload in my harbor if you answer me straight. What are you doing here?”
Mandhi spoke up. “We’re looking for someone.”
Jauda shot her a furious glare, but it was too late. The harbor-master gazed at Mandhi with deep suspicion. He studied the women for several moments, then turned back to Jauda.
“What does the woman want?”
Jauda sighed. “She spoke truly. We’re looking for someone.”
“With spears and swords?”
“It might be a difficult search.”
The man glanced over the Amurans again. “This is a hleg,” he said. “I will not have men bringing hleg into my harbor.”
Mandhi looked up at Jauda, hoping he might give her some clue as to what the man meant, but Jauda seemed just as confused as Mandhi.
“Yellow friend—” Jauda began again, but the harbor-master cut him off.
“Swords, spears, and men to carry them. That is not a cargo you’ll unload here.” He stepped onto the top rail of the ladder to descend.
“Friend!” Jauda shouted. “We’ll do no violence in Mabeg! No swords, no spears. Not in the city.”
Mandhi bit her lip at the false promise. If Jhumitu was here in Mabeg, then Mandhi was quite determined to bring swords and spears into the city.
It didn’t matter. The harbor-master shook his head firmly, and made a sailors’ sign at Jauda. “Not in my harbor, and not in the city. I’ll be letting the guild know of your approach. If I see you or any of your crew in Mabeg, we’ll cut your throats and throw you into the sea. Now untie your ropes and sail out before I send the strong men to do it for you.”
He descended the ladder.
Jauda watched him go, a mask of impassivity on his face. As soon as the harbor-master was down, he growled to his men, “Alright, pull up those ties.”
“Wait,” Mandhi said softly. “So what if he sends the strong men? We have an entire boat full of mercenaries.”