“Caleem must be allowed to complete his task. He will go with you.”
Aiyan began to protest again, but Ellec shot him a sharp look.
“So will I,” said Lerica.
They all looked at her.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Ellec said.
Lerica’s eyes flashed, and she made the sign of the feathered crest. King Tonah raised it at once, and so did Ilara and Mahai. Slowly, Kyric held up the sign as well, feeling that he was on the edge of a waking dream, and they sat there, breathing in the scent of cardamom, staring inward in their unnamed, inexpressible reverie.
CHAPTER 4: Princes and Pathways
After leaving King Tonah’s house, Ellec and Lerica argued all the way back to the ship. In the end, Ellec said, “You cannot ignore my captain’s authority just because you’re my niece. I order you to stay here.”
“Then I resign as your second mate,” Lerica said.
“And forfeit all your shares of the profit?” Ellec smirked a little. He had her on that one.
“If I must,” she returned easily. “But I am going with them.”
“You can’t protect him,” Ellec said, glancing at Kyric. “And he can’t protect you.”
“That’s not true, but it isn’t why I’m going.”
“Why then?”
She made her hands into claws. “I don’t have to explain myself!”
Ellec turned to Aiyan. “If you are my friend you will tell her that she cannot go.”
Lerica stepped between them. “That won’t stop me. He has no more say over what I do than you, uncle. If he will not take me, I’ll follow anyway.”
Aiyan shrugged at Ellec. “I could cut her leg off.”
Kyric fought to hold back a laugh. Ellec and Lerica weren’t smiling at all.
“Well,” Ellec said, still angry. “I guess you’re a grown-up now. It’s about time.” Then he stormed off to his cabin.
Aiyan followed him. Lerica had work to do. So Kyric slipped out of his armor and decided to go for a walk out on the headland. He wanted to see if Ubtarune was still sitting there staring out to sea. As the rocky ground rose before him, he was struck by the fullness of the ocean wind. It had to be even worse out there at the top of those poles.
Below him, on the shore of the inlet, an enormous flat-topped boulder jutted into the sea, and there stood Prince Mahai, swinging his war club through the air with his full strength. Kyric watched him for a while, then picked his way down to him, making sure to do so noisily.
Mahai looked up.
“I wouldn’t have thought you could be so graceful with a weapon like that,” Kyric said.
“You have to be strong. And even then it isn’t easy. I would prefer to use a spear — it’s a more elegant weapon — but when you belong to a noble Onakai family you must learn to use the war club. It is the symbol of our authority.”
“I’ve heard the spearmen of the various clans referred to as either hunters or warriors. What is the difference?”
Mahai laid his club on one shoulder. “Outside the Onakai nation, there is no difference. They all own spears and shields and know how to use them. But among the Onakai, resolving conflict is part of our religion. Training for war is our national pastime. That is why Soth Garo attacked us first, before his power or intentions were known, and it is why the attack was so vicious. Had we assembled our full force, they never could have defeated us.
“Many, many generations ago, we were part of the Hariji nation. My family trained the elite warriors of the clan. As they approached excellence, our fighting masters discovered a new martial spirit. They developed a code of honor. They sought to defeat themselves rather than others. The shark spirit befriended us because we are always moving, always seeking. And in any fight, we will go straight at our enemy.”
“You’re beginning to sound like Aiyan.”
Mahai thought for a moment. “I sense the master warrior in him. King Tonah affords him great respect considering how short a time you’ve been here.”
“I think the king knows more than he ever gives away.”
Mahai nodded. “You are correct. King Tonah often feigns ignorance. It’s too bad that it is real sometimes.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t mean as a king. I was just thinking of Caleem, that‘s all.”
“What happened?”
“Caleem wasn’t a good kid. I don’t mean that he was mischievous and often in trouble, the way I was. I mean that he was weak and shameful. He was afraid of rough play. He was afraid of doing new things. He would try to buy my friendship and then cheat when we played games together. When his family came to visit, he would always find a way to avoid going on the shark hunt. When he was older and learning to fight, he would only spar with those who were less skilled. Things like that. So his father’s solution was to make him act like a man when he was still a child.”
“I’ll guess that it didn’t do him any good.”
“We all had problems as kids. We all worked them out sooner or later. Caleem just wasn’t allowed enough time. He’s better now, at last. He’s become a good fighter and he has a strong sense of duty. The king acknowledges this grudgingly, but he thinks the boy who was afraid is still hiding inside his son.”
They didn’t meet Prince Caleem until they were ready to set out the next morning. He stood taller than his father, his frame wiry, and his hair was short and bristly. His face ran black and purple with bruises, like he had taken a blow from a war club. If Ilara’s song had healed him, it had done so only on the inside.
His armor looked like something that the Baskillians would use for gladiatorial combat: a heavy leather skirt with iron studs, a breastplate of bamboo and cloth, and a set of bronze vambraces that went nearly to his elbow. He left his shield behind and carried a short, heavy spear like the Bantuans used. King Tonah made the introductions, and then off they went without much of a chance to get acquainted. But one thing had been clear. Caleem had shamed himself in his father’s eyes, and this expedition was his chance to regain some of his lost honor. Kyric wondered if Tonah would have been happier had his son died with the others.
Kyric and Lerica walked side by side as they passed the outskirts of Tiah, heading south. Prince Caleem was right behind them. The road felt smooth and firm beneath their feet. It was no more than a pair of tracks for oxcarts, but it looked well used. Horses were a legend on the island, and oxen were the only beasts of burden, so the Mokkalans usually walked when they went inland. Mantua, the central town of the Manutu, served as a natural hub for the roads that connected all the major villages of Mokkala, and they were going there first.
“Soth Garo will have planted spies there by now,” Aiyan said.
“How so?” said Mahai.
Aiyan glanced at Nakoa, Mahai’s companion, and he fell a few steps behind to join the others.
“They will be your own people — captured after the battle and tortured until they agreed to drink his black blood.”
Mahai walked in silence for a time, then said, “I know a path around the village.”
Aiyan shook his head. “We have to go there. I have to find out what the Manutu know about his movements.”
The coastal plain spread north and east from Tiah, and when they crossed the stream to the south they soon came to a rolling country of scattered shrubs and tall broadleaf trees, many of the trees branching to form almost perfect domes above their massive trunks. The grass grew short, even here at the end of their springtime. After Terrula, thought Kyric, it seemed rather tame.
He turned to Lerica. “Gods, it’s like a landlord’s park back home.”
“Thank you,” she said, “for not trying to make me stay back there.”
He smiled and squeezed her hand. He would have given anything for her not to come along. This was going to be dangerous and he didn’t need the distraction of looking out for her. But he wasn’t going to tell her that.
They stopped under a Ko tree for the midday showers
. The rains never lasted long. The ground would be dry by nightfall. Lerica passed around some dried mango, and Kyric took the biggest slice. He never thought he had a sweet tooth until he came to Mokkala.
Aiyan looked Prince Caleem right in the eyes and asked, “Did you ever see him, this Soth Garo?”
Caleem chewed for a moment. “I apologize. I thought that my father told you of the fight with the Hariji.”
“It was a very brief account. He was still grieving for his lost friends.”
Aiyan’s gaze didn’t waver. I hope you can see something, thought Kyric, because this isn’t drawing him out, it’s driving him deeper in.
“I saw him,” Mahai said, “but he was behind the battle line and I couldn’t get to him.”
“That’s probably fortunate,” Kyric said.
“Tell me about him,” Aiyan said.
Mahai took a swig from his water skin. “He was tall as me and looked stronger. He didn’t have armor, only straps for his weapons, and I could see his face and his skin. It was the same as the skin that walks, and he trailed the same mist as it did. Our best bowmen tried to kill him, but their arrows glanced off his demon skin. One arrow struck him square in the chest and simply snapped.”
Aiyan nodded as he listened, as if this were no great concern, but later he took Kyric aside and said, “Tell me that there is a tale of this walking skin in the Eddur.”
Kyric shook his head. “Not that I remember.”
Aiyan pulled on his lower lip. “I don’t like the way Caleem avoided my question. Keep an eye on him, talk to him, but don’t try to trick him into lying. Just ask him about the other nations and spices and things like that. Maybe something will slip through.”
“Alright,” Kyric said, “but he may have only ran and hid. He’s clearly the nervous type. Mahai told me that when they were kids Caleem was a coward, so he might not be guilty of anything more than that.”
They walked until the sun hung low in the west, Aiyan pushing the pace, trees and tall shrubs growing more dense as they went. According to Mahai, the nights were always clear and warm this time of year, and camping consisted of merely finding a soft piece of ground.
Kyric learned quite a bit from talking to Prince Caleem. The Manutu and the Bantuan lived in the interior of the island. The Bantuan shunned the ocean completely and didn’t build boats at all. The Silasese on the other hand lived on the coast, only going inland to collect cassia, a spice something like cinnamon. They were supposedly great sailors, building huge ocean-going outriggers. Their clan totem was the whale.
Kyric suddenly tingled with a weird feeling. The new figure he was carving had begun to take shape yesterday. He felt sure that it was going to be a whale.
Unlike the Onakai who sometimes hunt sharks, explained Caleem, the Silasese would never take a whale. When whales came into their bays, the Silasese befriended them, sending their older children, ones who were still innocent, out in canoes to sing the whale songs.
“If the Baskillians haven’t been here for so long,” Kyric said, “how is it that most of you speak their language?”
“We have had a couple of ships come in recent years, including one from your homeland last summer, but we learn Baskillian so that we can speak to each other. Each of our nations has its own tongue. To my ear, the Bantuans sound like they’re barking, and the Manutu only chatter. The Hariji grunt through their noses when they talk. And Silasese speech sounds like they’re talking through a conch shell.”
Kyric laughed. “That can’t be how they really sound. Those are just the sounds of their clan totems.”
Nakoa chuckled a little and Caleem looked at the ground with a big grin on his face.
“Okay, I get it,” Kyric said, “you’re having fun with the foreign guy.”
“Maybe so,” Caleem said. “But the truth of it is that the Onakai tongue is much like my own, yet their words are nonsense to me.”
When they found a good place to spend the night, Mahai drew a wide circle around a sandy patch of soil. “We have to keep the sleeping area small,” he said. “Don’t want to waste cloves.”
He and Caleem opened the spice pouches they always carried on their belts, and began sprinkling crushed cloves along the line he had drawn. The sharp scent spread through the camp.
“Keeps snakes away,” he said. “Otherwise they come and curl up with you.”
Of course,” Kyric said. “There had to be something. I suppose these snakes are poisonous.”
“Yes,” Caleem said, “very.”
So they all slept within the circle, close together, Kyric and Lerica back to back, their hips snugly fitted into a low spot. Sometime after midnight Mahai began to snore. It was a full lung, epic snore. We don’t need the cloves, Kyric thought — no snake would come near that sound.
Aiyan had them up and going at the first hint of light. The morning was cool, and loud with bird calls. They wolfed down some Tialuccan rice cakes and started out before the sun was up. Kyric walked with Caleem again at the end of line where he always placed himself.
“The weapons you Aessians carry are astounding,” said Caleem. “Bows twice as long as we can make. And your — what did you call it? — wheel-lock pistol? Will you be able to kill the white warrior with it?”
“After what Mahai told us, I don’t know. Perhaps not. But know that Aiyan is a master warrior. He carries an enchanted sword that can cut through iron like it was breadfruit. He will kill Soth Garo.”
Caleem didn’t seem impressed, but said, “That is good to know.”
The highlands to the east pushed closer that afternoon, and the road curved over the sloping ground, crossing narrow rushing streamlets on little bridges that were only a few paces long. At the first one, Mahai had everyone dump their remaining water and refill the skins.
“This is some of the best water on Mokkala,” he said. “It comes down from springs in the highlands.”
At the end of the day, they entered a forest of tall trees, but it wasn’t like the rainforest. These trees didn’t spread a canopy that blocked out sun and sky. Smaller trees bearing fruit and nuts grew among them. Kyric’s feet were sore. He figured they had walked close to forty miles in two days.
The following morning, Mahai said to Aiyan, “We’re not so far from Mantua. If there are spies like you say, then you foreigners should not be seen. I am friends with one of the headmen. I can slip in unnoticed, speak with him, and be back tomorrow.”
Aiyan agreed, and they spent the morning resting and eating from the trees. Nakoa showed them how to pick a delicate nut that Kyric had thought was an insect cocoon. He taught them how to determine ripeness and what to avoid. “Alright,” Kyric said to Lerica, “despite the snakes, it is paradise.”
They picked a small sack of nuts and fruit for the trail, then Aiyan had Kyric get into his hardened vest. He had been surprised at how hot and heavy the vest became when they were on the trail, and he took it off when they camped. The nut helmet was worse. He had tied it to his knapsack within hours of leaving Tiah. Aiyan wore his helmet all day long, and he didn’t take his vest off until he laid down to sleep.
Today they would again practice knowing the moment of attack, using naked swords for the first time. “Leave off the blindfold,” Aiyan said.
Caleem and Nakoa sat down to watch them. The audience proved to be a distraction for Kyric, and Aiyan took full advantage of that and the lack of a blindfold. He would make a joke and draw his sword while everyone was laughing, or he would reach for his sword with a violent feint that started Kyric going for his, only to stop short. Of course as soon as Kyric saw it was a feint and decided not to draw, Aiyan would attack in the blink of an eye.
“Wait,” Kyric said, turning his back. “Try it now.”
When the moment came he pivoted on both feet and the flat of his blade slapped against Aiyan’s vest only a fraction of second late.
“You weren’t really trying your hardest,” Kyric said.
“I was,” Aiyan said. �
�And that was close enough to be called a tie. That time, you started moving before my intention to attack was even fully formed. That’s how it’s done. Once you learn to draw your weapon quickly, you will be able to land the first cut.”
“You’ve always said it’s not about speed.”
“Well,” said Aiyan, “ah, it’s not. But you still have to be fast.”
“I’ve practiced the draw with this sword a thousand times. I’m trying to get faster but I’ve hit a wall.”
“Practice another thousand. And don’t try to do it quicker, try to do it more calmly. Remember to invoke stillness with every movement.”
Aiyan glanced at the others. Caleem sat motionless and Nakoa’s eyes were wide.
“I think that’s enough practice for today.”
Kyric had known that he was getting better with the sword and the weird. He had in fact made some long strides the last couple of weeks. He could feel it. And even though he didn’t spar with Lerica any longer, he knew that he could handle her. Well, at least when it came to swordplay.
Mahai returned at noon the next day. He brought a short, stocky Manutu with a four-foot blowgun.
“This is Chief Witaan, the friend I told you about. He, uh, really wanted to come along.”
Witaan looked young for a chief, barely older than Mahai. He told them that the Manutu had scouted far to the south, into Onakai territory, and had found no sign of Soth Garo’s army. A group of refugees had told them that there was only a small garrison of Hariji at Kai’no.
“Maybe they went back to Hariji land to regroup,” Mahai said.
“Perhaps,” said Aiyan. His Baskillian was getting better by the day. He paced up and down for a moment.
“I understand that this road runs all the way to the biggest Silasese village, the southern one. Does it go over the divide?” They all knew that a long, mountainous ridge ran down the east side of the island. From a distance it seemed to rise into the vertical as it came to a crest.
“No,” Mahai said, “there’s a low place where the mountain splits.”
Black Spice (Book 3) Page 3