"She wants peace with us, Uncle! I heard her say she wants peace."
"Peace, but not surrender," Adalginza said defiantly. "On terms both sides agree to. I tell you this because I want you to know that I will always speak the truth."
Kalos stopped then, and whirled to face her.
"You cannot possibly believe that you are in any position to bargain with me."
"I will only be in a position to bargain with you if I am alive."
"When you are dead, the savage tribes will fall into chaos. You said so yourself."
"Not while Calasta lives. She is Of The Blood. And the tribal leaders will support her, even if she is not yet of age."
"Lady Adalginza is telling the truth," Zartos said. "I saw it all. Calasta is only thirteen, but she is strong."
"Damn me!" Kalos looked infuriated. "I should have killed the child the instant I found out who she was."
"Uncle!" Zartos took several horrified steps away from the captain.
Now that Adalginza finally had a close look at the captain's face, she saw the changes etched there in the hollowness of both cheeks and eyes.
The humor she had remembered, which had been so much a part of his charm, was erased. Only bitterness remained. In fact, she barely recognized this wrathful thing pretending to be a man.
"Never mind then, captain," Adalginza said coldly. "You have more than made up for your oversight with the murders of the children you have exterminated in your attacks on our villages."
"Do not take that tone with me!"
Kalos covered the distance between them in only seconds, and lifted his hand as though to strike her. But he held himself back.
"Who are you to talk of morality?"
"Someone whose soul is stained with the blood of innocents, as yours is. You are suffering, too, Captain Kalos. I see it in your eyes."
Kalos backed away from her.
"No. I will listen to you no more. I will put you out of my heart, forever."
At that moment, several Crescent knights thundered up on their sturmons. One man held the reins of the Golden.
"We have driven the savages back, sir," said the knight. "They have disappeared into the wilderness."
Kalos grabbed the reins of his sturmon, and gestured behind him.
"You will find Benfaaro's body back there. Take it somewhere and bury it, so that it cannot be recovered and revered. And take this boy with you. I have grisly business to complete."
"Please, Uncle Kalos. Don't kill her," Zartos begged.
But Kalos grabbed the boy's arm, and half pushed him up on a sturmon behind one of the knights.
"Go. And do not come back for me. I will catch up to you later."
As the knights galloped away, Kalos swung onto the back of the Golden and dangled one hand that still clutched the rope. Then he urged the Golden forward, as Adalginza was pulled behind.
She stared straight ahead, watching the sturmon's tail moving back and forth in a rhythm that was almost mesmerizing.
It was strange the things that went through a person's mind, when one was condemned to die.
She thought of the times they had made love — really made love, in the wilderness and under the crescent moons that had grinned so brightly with delight. She watched the familiar shape of his back. And she felt the love still burning within her.
She forgave him, even before he did whatever it was he was going to do to her.
Then, she thought of Medosa.
Medosa had forgiven Benfaaro, even before he was murdered. Perhaps the holy man's way really was the key to salvation.
After much passage of time, Adalginza's feet were growing blistered and sore.
She fell a few times, and was dragged each time until finally she managed to pull herself back up to stumble forward.
She looked down in dismay at her ceremonial wedding dress, passed down through the generations. Worn by all those great women before her. All Of The Blood.
Now it was getting snared by the brush, and ripped and torn. After all the care of this symbol by so many of different generations, it was beyond repair now.
It was a symbol of her failure. She had been unable even to preserve a piece of precious cloth, much less an entire race of people.
It was no longer possible to work for peace. No longer possible to be redeemed. When she died, which would be soon, she would be forever damned.
It was this realization, finally, that caused her to groan aloud in torment.
It took a while for her to realize, though she was still swaying on her feet, that they were stopped. Kalos was still on the Golden, though he had not turned around as yet.
"I suppose we have gone far enough," he said hoarsely.
Kalos swung off the sturmon, and coiled the loose end of the rope attached to her as he approached.
She smiled at him stiffly. "Will you hang me? Or will you flay the skin from my back?"
"Damn you, woman! I loved you!"
"I love you, too, Kalos."
Her words served to infuriate rather than console him. He grabbed the rope and yanked her toward him, where an elongated shard of rock jutted from a sheer cliff.
"I will tie you here!"
"And then what?"
He forced her against the rock, and began to wrap the rope tightly. He used his heavier body to pin her against its rough face.
"I will leave you to burn in the sun until finally you die."
"You could kill me cleanly."
"I want you to suffer as you have made me suffer. As my sisters suffered. As my friend, Luzicos, suffered. And finally my own mother."
"Kalos," she whispered. "You cannot possibly know how much I have already suffered."
He then held up a flask, retrieved from the saddle pack.
"Do you know what this is? Do you?"
She shook her head "no" as she blinked back tears.
"This is the end of you. The end of all of you. The end of your very existence."
"The plague," Adalginza whispered.
"All I need do is give the order at an appointed time, and it will be released everywhere at once throughout the frontier. This way, there will be no chance that any savage will live long enough to develop immunity. Or produce another child."
"Kalos. Please do not do this."
"Benfaaro has brought us to this."
"You saw what my brother had become. Did it make you proud to kill him?"
Against her willing, she began sobbing.
"Do not bother to weep again. Your tears cannot move me now."
"I do not weep for myself. I weep for you. For this slaughter you are about to commit, your soul will be damned for all Eternity."
"Please. You cannot possibly know what will happen to me or anyone else in Eternity."
"This plague you are about to release will destroy not only the savages. But your people, too. Everyone. It is foretold in The Prophecy."
"The same Prophecy that speaks of a woman with indigo eyes?"
"Yes!"
"Pure superstition."
Kalos ripped what was left of the dress from her back, leaving her bare skin exposed to the sun that already had climbed higher in the sky.
She thought she heard a muffled sob, but she was bound so tightly against the rock she could not turn to look at his face.
Then, she heard the galloping sounds of a sturmon. She traced the sound until it could no longer be heard.
***
Time passed.
She braved in silence the relentless passage of the sun across the sky. And then the day was done, to be reprieved by the coolness of night.
She even slept some. But the next day dawned. And with the morn came a realization that made her laugh hoarsely through parched lips.
The captain would be cheated. Death would come much sooner than he thought. For she sensed something that Kalos had not anticipated.
There was no mistaking the frigid consciousness of a snake, for it had little passion.
; Its very blood ran cold.
And only the prospect of food stirred it to a reaction that even remotely resembled excitement in its deliberate world.
It had tasted human flesh before.
Adalginza could tell by the way her scent stirred pleasant memories. By now, she could hear its cautious approach and smell its oily essence.
It slithered directly toward her, sounding like a heavy stick being dragged slowly through dirt.
16
Adalginza stretched her head around, and viewed the snake from the corner of her eye. Her first impression was of its skin, brightly beaded in triangular patterns of yellow sandstone and rusty red.
The creature stopped and lifted its reptilian head into the shape of a hook.
Its face now was so close to hers that she could have reached out had she not been bound and jabbed a fingernail through one of its cold, black eyes.
A giant forked tongue as long as her arm flicked out, tasting the air for her scent.
The snake hesitated, as though puzzled by her lack of movement, until Adalginza could stand it no longer.
"Go ahead, you monster!" she screeched. "Devour me, and let this be the end of it!"
The snake slithered sideways a short distance as though alarmed. It raised its head again, rocking back and forth in a natural rhythm, while it contemplated its next action.
Adalginza became acutely aware of her sun-blistered skin, the pain of chapped lips and hands. Her mouth felt like sand, and her stomach was twisted from lack of food.
But nothing of the physical pain could match the torment she felt inside.
"Kill me!" Adalginza screamed. "Kill me!"
The snake slithered forward again, and its chilly eyes seemed aware now that she was no threat. But something made it still hesitate.
She entered the predator's mind.
It didn't like the rock where she was attached. Indigestible. After injecting its venom, it would be unable to take her into its mouth and hold her there.
She grew quiet with the kind of horrible fascination that accompanied seeing her own impending death through the eyes of her killer.
The snake made a plan. It would eat her by tearing her flesh, a chunk at a time, away from the rock.
This meant she would die before she entered its stomach. A small favor. A terrible death still. But she would accept it, considering the alternative.
"Get it over with," she gasped. "Just do what you have to do. Please. Hurry!"
The sky then darkened. A thundercloud churned overhead. And, announced first by a crackle of lightning, rain began to drench her parched skin.
Even in the face of death, she turned her mouth upward and let the moisture trickle into her parched mouth.
She laughed in a kind of tortured way.
Another small favor. A meaningless one. But she would accept this, also.
She saw then that the snake had curved into a position to strike, its head held high.
Finally, the end was near. And this, too, was a favor she would accept.
"Thank you," she whispered to the moon gods.
She grew still, waiting.
She saw the blur of the snake's head as the fangs headed straight toward her. She dropped her head back, presenting her throat, with the idea that a clean strike might mean instant death.
But a harrowing cry that sounded half human and half beast rang out.
A man holding a Crescent sword inserted himself between her and the snake. With both hands gripped around the hilt, Kalos swung the blade and cut a deep gash into the side of the snake's head.
Furious, the snake vibrated with a deep, ominous rumbling.
Savage lore taught that, once the element of surprise had ended, the only remedy after a missed snake kill was to run for your life.
"Kalos!" Adalginza shouted, then lowered her voice to calm the snake. "Save yourself. You cannot win. The snake will overpower you."
Kalos did not move. He stared, eye to eye, with the much bigger creature.
Adalginza desperately struggled with the ropes, but they were as taut as ever.
"Run!" she screamed. "Run!"
The snake parried with Kalos, using its head almost like a sword to tease and taunt with pretend strikes.
It was as though the beast were attempting to lure the man into movement, to lose the slightest bit of balance that would enable a quick and deadly strike.
But Kalos just stood, as still as a rock statue. Waiting.
The snake then slithered around the back of the rock, toward Adalginza.
Still, Kalos did not move.
The snake paused and curved its head upwards again, rocking back and forth between the two humans. Then it started to slowly slide toward Adalginza.
"Do not be deceived by its actions," she said with icy calm. "The snake is attempting to trap you. It seems to know you will move when it strikes in my direction. It has learned this from your previous behavior. Only this time, when it strikes at me, it will immediately turn in your direction — thinking to intercept you. If you can anticipate this move, you might have a chance."
"Is this one of the talents you never happened to mention?"
"Mindlink with beasts and birds."
"That explains a lot."
The snake made its move to strike at her.
Anticipating that it would turn in his direction, Kalos leaped forward with the sword positioned at a precise angle that enabled him to jam the blade into the beast's mouth and through the throat.
The blade protruded from the back side of the snake's head. The monster coiled and writhed high in the air, as it gagged on metal and its own blood.
Adalginza sank forward against the rock, all tension drained from her body.
"He will die now, though it will take time. Kalos! What are you doing? That is not necessary!"
Kalos had leaped onto the writhing snake's back, riding it like an unbroken sturmon.
He used his muscled arms and bare hands to yank open the creature's mouth. Then he reached down into the throat, barely escaping a scrape on a fang holding deadly venom.
He pulled out the Crescent sword, blade first, with the hilt following. Still astride the snake, he reversed the sword and with both hands violently hacked the blade against the snake's head.
Again. And again. And again.
"Kalos!" Adalginza screamed. "Stop it! You'll be hurt! Are you insane?"
Kalos rode the snake for as long as it continued its death struggle. At one point, toward the end, he threw back his head and howled out a savage war cry.
Even when the snake no longer moved, Kalos stood and continued to hack away at the corpse until he was soaked with the beast's blood.
It was only until the last of the captain's fury was spent that he stopped. His chest heaved with exertion.
The sky opened up again, and a deluge washed away the gore that covered his body. Adalginza squeezed her eyes shut, and threw back her head to drink.
The rain smelled sweet. She, too, felt cleansed.
Kalos then sloshed over to her and raised the sword above her, aiming it cleanly to sever the bonds.
He threw the weapon aside and caught her as she collapsed into his arms. He then lifted her and carried her into the shelter of a grove of trees, where the Golden stood waiting.
He lowered Adalginza to the ground, and took out a blanket from the saddle pack. He tucked it gently around her. Then he sat beside her, lifted her head, and cradled it in his lap.
As his hand stroked her hair, he propped his head wearily back against the trunk of a tree.
"I lied about the flasks," he said finally. "I said what I said only because I wanted to hurt you more. There was only one, and I buried it so deeply last night that not even a clawed molemouse could reach it."
"Oh. Praise be to the moon gods," she whispered.
"I had much time alone with my thoughts after I left you here. When I dwell upon what could have been and what I already have done, it sickens me."
"Redeemed?" He closed his eyes, not meeting her gaze. "By all the gods, I almost killed you. That which I love most in the world."
Epilogue
As always, the night was a friend to Adalginza.
She rode the Pinto in the cover of darkness, and looked up to count the number of crescent moons above — four, five, six.
The rest were hiding. But their turn to shine would come, on another night.
The trail was dim in the shadows of foliage, but the sturmon's eyes were keen as he picked his way through the brush.
In the distance, a few faint orange glows of oil lamps could be seen burning through the windows of the houses of Sola Re.
Adalginza pulled her sturmon to a stop, and slipped off his back. Then she walked a few steps down the brushy path before impatiently parting the stubborn branches that blocked her passage into the cave's entrance.
Kalos stood at the opening, holding up a lantern.
She rushed over to him, and threw her arms around his neck. They kissed hungrily for many long, passionate minutes.
Finally, Kalos stepped back to look her up and down.
"Three passings of the full moons is far too long for us to be apart," he said softly.
"You know I had to visit the homeland of each tribe. I had to show myself in person to seal their loyalty, and reaffirm the promise of The Prophecy."
"Adalginza," Kalos said, reaching out to cup her chin. "The attack on the Village of Shells. You know that wasn't me. It was a rogue officer."
"I know. Nor can I keep control of all my people, when I am not with them. The lust for revenge is great, and blood will continue to be shed. Probably for quite some time."
"Then what we do here tonight could help lead to a permanent solution."
Kalos held up the lamp, illuminating a trail that wound deeper into the blackness of the cave.
"Come with me," he said. "The others are waiting."
As she stepped forward into the light, Adalginza was keenly aware of the captain's scrutiny.
Benfaaro's head band now was fit snugly around her head. She wore her snakeskin breeches and tight-fitting tunic with ornate etchings, symbolizing her new status as Leader Of The Blood.
Ten Crescent Moons (Moonquest) Page 32