Listening to the order of nature, the scales balanced out, and it seemed though hers was a bond with a terrible force, that force was not predisposed to evil. Through her was its intent shaped and through her did it come into form.
From white eyes down to her hands did the gift travel until it hit her fingertips and climbed out into the world of Torrodil. The wild river that had ran unaltered since its creation quietened under the fountain of cold, and Anna guided the spray as she walked, setting a portion of the water to ice. She did not slip and the ice did not crack, for it was feet of solid frost. With the jungle by her side, she contained the Aether until the power could be returned, sensing a white purity slide from her eyes and brown irises come back. Sinking to the floor, momentarily drained, she was joined by her companions who ran over the river to help her up.
‘That was so cool!’ shouted Tommy.
Lysander winced. ‘Will you be alright? Do you need a moment to rest?’ Anna was leaning on him and streaks of strain had appeared on her face and neck.
‘We’ve wasted long enough.’
‘I’ll help her,’ said Tommy. Walking together, he spoke eagerly, ‘So tell me, what’s it like? Did you know what was going to happen? Did you feel it come out of your hands?’
Anna clutched at his arm. When no answers came Tommy let a comfortable silence settle over them. Together, with the easiness of old friendship, they walked into the towering green.
Though no serpents slither in the Kurashi Wilds, there are many things that pose a danger to intruders, least of them tribespeople. Sweet-smelling plants unfurl to offer their fruits and fold back up with silly creatures. The black panther prefers to stalk its prey. Yellow eyes track the seven as they journey through the humid jungle, careful of sticky vines that dangle down from the canopy to catch unsuspecting plump morsels. Silent paws tread, following them, staying still when they look around the undergrowth for signs of life. The seven are cautious and cutting through foliage to make a route. It lowers its body to the floor and creeps up, preparing to strike, crawling forward on its stomach, ready to take a bite out of Anna and Tommy, but before it can pounce it is called away by the Tongue and runs back to its masters, leaving the seven to hear, not see, its departure.
A glade lies ahead. In it the group see the bushes cut back and felled trees piled high. Black ash on the floor indicates people have been here recently and there are saws and axes stuck in the wood, as if left in a hurry. A stockpile of spears alludes to the nine year war that will not let up.
The first cadaver is an unwelcome surprise. Although the body is warm, flies have already made its mouth their home. An arrow through the heart took the man’s life in a clean kill.
The second and third cadavers, one with arrows sticking out, the other with spears, tell the seven that they have come upon a scene of battle and it would be wise to run as fast as possible, as far away as they can. Which they do. Through thickets and overabundant plant life, into other green glades, rattling with their packs as they run. In an open space where rays of light are coloured jade by the trees they jump to the floor behind bushes. Tribesmen. One set use bows to snipe the other, falling when they are forced into close combat. The other tribe hurl spears and thrust them up into their enemies when they get close.
Clad in rock armour, the spear-throwers unleash chained apes that run rampant and bask in the carnage, knocking the graceful bow-wielders to the floor with their oversized fists and pummelling them into the earth. Seldom do these chained apes counter merely the bow-wielders, charging into their captors head-first and often preferring to smack them into submission instead.
Bow-wielders also utilise the strength of an animal, but theirs comes willingly and does not attack its masters. Black panthers leap onto their foes, sinking teeth into throats and thighs, burying claws into unprotected flesh. From treetops their masters fire down a barrage of arrows and push the spearmen back. They speak to the felines with the Tongue, leading them to exposed men.
Rapidly the spearmen tribe’s forces decline, and those that do not breathe their last flee through the jungle, leaving their friends for dead. The apes are not permitted to run off into the wild. They are put down with arrows and melancholy eyes.
Watching the scene unfold are seven petrified youths, who half-pray the ground will open up and swallow them whole.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Lie very still and do not make a sound.’
After two minutes of silence, Tommy says, ‘We can’t just sit here. They’ll find us.’
‘If you keep talking, it is likely.’
After another two minutes of silence, Tommy says, ‘I think they’ve gone. I’m going to go take a look,’ and gets six sets of hands helping him back down to the floor and a kick in the shin from Anna.
They wait for twenty minutes and hold their tongues. Thinking it safe, they agree to get up from the ground and go back the way they came. They struggle through the bush, unable to see past its leaves, and cause a commotion when they get trapped by thorns and branches. Tripping out onto undergrowth goes Tommy, straight into a bow-wielder, who reacts to his uneasy laughter with a grumble. Seconds later Anna and Cesar emerge, holding up their hands to what Anna counts as twenty men, hoping that the arrows aimed at their heads are not the last thing they see.
The Ilo make their home on the river banks of the Kurashi Wilds, building structures on stilts and interlinking them with bridges. Their use of the jungle for wood is sparing, and though their buildings are highly wrought they are not overstated. The seven admired the deep foundations that sustained the watchtowers and shrines to unknown gods. From shielding trees flew parrots and macaws, while panthers stretched into black stars to bleach their fur in the torrid heat. To all that saw, this was a haven where man and beast lived in perfect harmony.
Into a ceremonial hall of unshakeable wood the seven were brought. Cesar did not care to play second fiddle to the monk man any longer and his tongue was getting them into a bit of pickle.
‘We do not want anything from you jungle people but to be set free. And maybe some food if you have it. And a bed for the night. And a boat to get us downriver. You do have boats, yes?’
‘Do not patronise me as if I am a lower being.’ To the group, ‘If this man is to speak for you then our conversation will be short.’ Nilah gestured towards sentries who drew back their bows.
Anna pulled a reluctant Cesar back into the fold.
‘These people are very temperamental, eh?’
‘We beg for clemency, Your Highness,’ said Lysander. ‘We mean no harm and travel through the Wilds on a personal quest. Let us go and we will not interfere with your lands or its people.’
Nilah conferred with her co-ruler husband Jor, who did not know the languages of Carrigan or Venecia, and trusted in his mate to provide him with information. In the Wilds language of Reyen they spoke, with its clicks and taps. ‘My husband thinks that it would be best to kill you where you stand. I think him too hasty. Am I wrong?’
‘No no, absolutely right.’
Nilah deliberated over her next words. ‘I do not see spies from the Grelv in front of me; I see seven children with no idea of the war between our two tribes. What an ill-timed moment you have chosen to come into these lands. The Ilo have been pushed to the edge of our homeland by men who were once our brothers. A blood feud between two men separated our kin and we fight their war even though they are long in the ground. Today we win a small victory and are glad for it, but tomorrow may yet bring our fall.’
‘Your Highness I—’
‘I am not flattered by these epithets. I know your language and your ways. My mother has passed them onto me as they were passed onto her, but I do not value them and I do not care for anyone who trespasses into my homeland. Do you think us savages who hide in this jungle? We choose to be here and we fight to stay.’
Jor and Nilah deliberated over the fate of the seven. There were arrows trained at their heads and Anna was drain
ed from the recent conjuration, unable to do anything to prevent their untimely ends. They could take a few sentries – three or four maybe – but the hall was wide and open, with men standing at pillars in wait. Fleeing or fighting was out of the question.
‘My husband thinks me foolish for not wanting to fire arrows into the young. I have dissuaded him from this for the time being. We will take your weapons and you will spend a night on these waters. Our prison is full. You will eat with us and sleep in our beds. Raise a hand to any of our people and you will have an arrow in your back before the blow hits, am I understood?’
A symphony of yeses and nods.
‘For your own sake, do not stray. If the jungle does not claim you, the Grelv will, and they are not known for their mercy. Tomorrow we speak. I believe we may yet be of use to one another. Jor says I am an idealist. Do not commit folly and prove him right.’
At the back of the hall, a group of Ilo men carried the fallen through to a chamber and their womenfolk, who were charged with cleaning the dead and preparing them for burial. When Nilah saw that familiar body, face covered in cloth, a piercing howl cut the seven to shreds. Her husband was trying to chasten her, pulling on her arms to let the boy be taken into the chamber, but she threw herself on the body and brought it down to the floor, where she caressed his face and hair with the same tender touches that he had shrugged off since childhood. Waylaid by grief, the young man’s mother sobbed into the sickly day’s air, the meaning in her words lost on all. Carried by her, fed by her, nurtured by her, dead before her. She will not care about her bed’s covers when she lies in them for days or her knotted hair as the comb lies unused on the dresser, for his appearance is what matters, and it cannot brighten again.
On the day of his crossing, Yae was returned to the earth, anointed with the ground, red powder of his birth plant and carrying the bow he had used in life. The tribe leaders, who had for years stood tall and unaffected as beacons of dispassion, let the waters run beside an outpouring of joy and reverence. Joy for his life and for the years. The father is stripped of his experience and made callow, hardness evaporated.
In a clearing a healer gathered crowds around his altar, swinging incense and sprinkling water on twelve fresh graves, asking for forgiveness from the bodies therein, their burial bringing tears to women dressed in white. A song of safe passage sent the twelve to the afterlife and the creatures they had been devoted to sat calm and subdued.
Nilah leads the procession through desolate paths, as is her duty as Chief Healer. She brings together her tribe in the rite that has become commonplace. The walk to the shrines to give offerings of flowers. The touching of the talismans of the watchtowers that preside over and keep safe this last bastion of her people. She has given her boy back to the ground, but the Ilo look to her for strength and strength is what she gives them, guiding with slow steps and pausing at each home of the fallen to lay wreaths at the doors.
Opening their hands to the river, the healers liberate precious stones that had been woven into clothes, animal teeth that had been worn as trophies, wooden trinkets that had adorned necks and wrists. The waters will bear them through the Wilds, onto riverbeds, down waterfalls and out to sea, and each will find a station of their own, be it stomach, rock or silt.
The jungle edge is the Ilo’s final point of call. With the wisdom of old life over them, they speak in the soothing melody of the Tongue. The birds and panthers of the lost resist and fight the words, they chirrup and growl, they demand to stay. The Tongue relieves the creatures and they know that it must be, flying and running from their human keepers back into the wild.
Twelve – Twists and Turns
Night came and the Ilo staged a wake to celebrate the lives of the fallen. Drums beat away their troubles, combined with plenty of what the seven called “jungle juice” – a green, syrupy-sweet alcohol that tasted like limes and mint. Mateo and Andres had successfully smuggled it out from the tents. Kara refused to have any of course. ‘No, thank you, I do not wish to debase myself.’ Then when a cup was left on the side she necked it down and proceeded to offer up her life story. The six willingly listened, but by the third cup of the jungle juice no-one could think straight and Lysander, who had sworn that the first cup would be his last, found his crystalline judgement dulled. That street kid of thirteen came to the fore and out came moves none of the others could have envisioned a monk performing.
Tommy was going to be very ill the next morning. A wicked Kara and Cesar had set up a pipeline from the jungle juice bowl to his mouth and the lone saving grace was that most of the concoction was missing it, running down his chin and coating his linen top in the sticky brew. Anna tried to stop them. Really. But the oddest things had suddenly become funny. The wishbone-shaped birth brand on Tommy’s neck. Her dirty shoes. When a stutter-free Mateo said that the moon can only ever be as big as your thumbnail, the two of them went round searching for the thing, holding up their thumb as they went.
‘Where is it?’
‘I do not know. I think it mocks us. I demand that you come out of hiding this instant.’
‘Louder, it can’t hear you!’
‘Mateo Vantos demands that you come out of hiding, craterous swine!’
‘Swine?’
‘I cannot say this word sober. Swine swine swine.’
Anna and Mateo fell about laughing. Unfortunately they chose to do so near a river and Anna’s foot slipped on wet grass, leaving her dangling precariously over the flowing waters. Her screams stirred Mateo into action and after searching for her in the jet-black he noticed a small hand, pulling on it with all his might, sending her soaring upwards and crashing down onto him.
Her chest pushed against his, the stubble of his face drawing her curiosity. Trailing a fingertip she joined up the moles, stepping from the stubble to the arches of his lips, and from the lips to the long eyelashes, gleaning the taunts he had suffered. The acceptance. He was not the imitation of a man – those that exalt with a three-word song while hands trespass – but content to lie with her in the lull.
The kiss was unexpected, warm and pleasant on his lips. He returned it and the two rested there, eyes sealing shut to savour. Silence kept them for as long as it could, but the screams had been heard by Andres and Cesar, who came running to find the two in an embrace. Andres comforted Cesar with a hand on his shoulder, but the Venecian leader stood too long watching them and Anna saw, getting up and running after him as he paced away.
‘Do not stop on my account.’
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Seems clear to me. And nothing wrong with it either. Go on, he’s waiting.’
They were walking past the others, Anna trying to keep pace, Andres avoiding her gaze, Tommy looking at her, bewildered by what was going on and the green goop down his front.
‘Would you stop so I can explain? You’re acting like a child.’ Anna caught him near a shrine. Regret weighed on his face. ‘I tripped, he caught me, we kissed. It happened in the moment and I shouldn’t have to explain it to you.’
‘Then why are you?’
‘Because we’re friends, aren’t we? I care for you, idiot. I don’t want you to hate me.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You ran away.’
‘I walked.’
‘You look like you’ve been hit by a horse.’
‘My mother. Wonderful woman. Face like a mare’s backside.’
‘Don’t, you’re making me smile.’
‘Look,’ he said firmly. ‘You and me: we have no ties. I travel with you out of convenience and nothing more.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Why else do you think I’m here? So that I can follow you in your search for answers? I do not care. I have family and friends, Anna. People I have known my entire life. I am not going to give them up as easily as you.’
‘Just because you’re hurting that’s no excuse to be cruel.’
‘I tell you the truth; you do not like it. Tha
t is not my problem.’
‘You know what: stuff you,’ spat Anna. ‘I’ve lost count of the times I’ve saved your life. You’d be dead if it weren’t for me.’
‘Is that so?’
‘And another thing: no, I don’t like the way you dress. No-one wants to see your chest, so please, for everyone’s sake, put on some clothes and cover it up.’
Anna didn’t know whether it was exhilaration or exertion, but she felt breathless.
‘You done?’ he said.
‘Until I can think of something else…yes.’
Cesar walked back to the others, pondering a full cup of jungle juice.
‘No ties, right?’ Anna yelled to him.
‘None!’
The morning after the night before and the seven discovered that thirty cups of jungle juice can be thirty cups too many. Nursing headaches with their insides turned out, a breakfast of plantains was politely declined. Each discovered some bruise or cut that had been added to the collection and tongues wagged about the love triangle until Cesar, Mateo and Anna arrived at the table, one after another, each quieter than the last.
The Ilo bore no ill effects of the wake. Men fired arrows into targets; women took to cleaning up their beloved home; and the young ran and screamed round the breakfast table, the seven covering their ears as they passed them tirelessly, again and again, treating the table like a track and doing lap after lap while the companions lamented their sorry selves.
Lysander did not partake in gossip and could hear it starting up despite the three’s presence. He rounded up the group, starting with the offenders Kara and Tommy, and they made for the ceremonial hall where the meeting with the Ilo co-rulers was to take place. At the doors they found their way blocked by two sentries who had not taken part in the festivities and hadn’t had the opportunity to forget the fallen. A tall woman of long leg spoke to the men and they parted, letting the seven inside. Steering the group past the pillars, she took a seat on the throne beside Jor.
Torrodil Page 11