Every day he went there were fewer slaves. The fields they’d begun to sow with such hope were turning back to swamp now. He’d heard muttering, and not just from Uin’s friends, that the land should be given back to those who could work it. He knew he’d have to do that, eventually. When all the slaves were dead.
The few remaining had congregated in the largest house. The air stank of their vomit and Krish gagged but forced himself to enter. There were only eleven left: five men and six women. There were no children, and no one old; they’d been the first to go. The rasping breath of those still clinging to life seemed to rise and fall in time with the shushing of the waves against a shore he’d meant for them to call their own. As he listened, one of the breaths faltered, rattled and then stopped. Ten left.
Dinesh was one of them. That had surprised Krish. The boy had seemed so weak and needy. He’d begged for bliss as if he couldn’t live without it, but alone among them it almost looked as if he might. His mother had died two days ago. Krish didn’t know if the man he was tending now was some other relative of his. It didn’t look likely – the former slave had the pale skin and strange yellow hair of the Moon Forest. It was stuck to his forehead with sweat and he moaned constantly as Dinesh smoothed a damp cloth over his face. The man turned his head painfully until he could see Krish. Astonishingly, he smiled.
‘I’m sorry,’ Krish whispered.
Though Dinesh didn’t speak, Krish understood his look. If you were truly sorry, you’d end this. But Ensee had explained why he couldn’t. These people suffered so others didn’t. It had sounded so right when she’d said it, sitting among her friends beside their automated quill. But she hadn’t said a word to him since, just kept her eyes as downcast and demure as they’d always been at her father’s table. And it was far harder to believe her here.
‘You freed us,’ the dying man said.
Krish nodded, knowing he should come closer but unable to make himself.
‘I’d forgotten what it feels like to be me,’ the man said. ‘I was twelve when they took me. I … I can hardly remember all the years. I don’t even know how old I am.’
‘I wish I could take the pain away,’ Krish said.
The man’s eyes closed wearily. ‘I remember my mother’s face now. I wonder if she remembers mine.’
It was too much. Krish turned his back on them and left.
Uin and his friends were sitting on the broad garden platform outside his house, maps spread out on the ground between them.
‘Come, Lord Krish,’ Uin said cheerfully. ‘We’re making plans. Your input would be valuable.’ He knew Krish had been visiting the dying slaves. His own good mood seemed a consequence of Krish’s despair.
‘Plans for what?’ Krish asked, kneeling beside the map.
‘For war, of course. The Four Together have gone unpunished too long, and our people are hungry for land. It’s time we took back what was ours. The men are being told to prepare themselves; weapons are being issued. Our cousin tribes like the cloth we make very much: so much better than any they can weave. They’ve bought from us for years and never thought that we’d use the coin to buy metal. When they meet us on the field of war this time, they won’t find us so easily defeated.’
‘Not with our god to lead us,’ another of them said, staring fiercely at Krish.
Unlike Uin’s gaze, his seemed filled with genuine dedication, not mere calculation. Krish found its fervency unnerving and dropped his eyes to the map. It showed all the lands of the tribes, the Rah huddled in this marshy seaside area. Theirs was by far the smallest territory. He could understand why they wanted to increase it.
‘The people will be glad of more fields to till,’ Krish said, running his fingers over the territory that Uin had marked in red: the territory to be won by force of arms. ‘How will you share out the land when you have it?’
Uin smiled. ‘Fairly, of course. Those who contributed the most – who bought the weapons, organised the war – will get the most. This is the Rah way.’
‘The Rah way. Yes, I understand.’ Krish nodded to them all and headed past them, into the house. He felt their eyes on him all the way, curious or angry or maybe even admiring. None of it felt comfortable or right.
He hadn’t asked the other question: what will you do with those you defeat? In the past they would have been taken for slaves. And if he let Uin win this battle now, they’d be made slaves again. It wouldn’t matter if he forbade it. If they saw him surrender in this, they’d know he could be made to surrender again. He couldn’t order the slaves to be given bliss. Ensee was right. They suffered so others wouldn’t.
But there was Dinesh. He looked as if he might survive, even without any help. If Dinesh did survive, just Dinesh, that wouldn’t really matter, would it? It wouldn’t mean Uin had won.
Krish had seen where Uin kept the bliss he fed to his slaves. Krish had watched the ritual each morning and evening, when the slaves came in turn to kneel at Uin’s feet and be given what they needed. He stored it in a box beneath his bed. In those early days, he’d seen no need to hide that fact from Krish.
Uin had replaced the lost slaves with servants. Ensee said the servants were cheaper: their labour cost less than the bliss used to feed the slaves. But Uin didn’t trust servants, who weren’t wholly his. They weren’t allowed inside the house in his absence, and there was no one to see as Krish crept into Uin’s room.
It was richly decorated: ivory from Ashanesland, silk hangings from the Eternal Empire, beadwork of the Four Together. Uin had taught Krish to recognise these things. Everything Uin owned was the best. The slaves had been the same. It occurred to Krish that they’d always been more decorative than useful. Uin valued them for what they said about his status, not for what they could do. And when Krish had taken them away from him, he hadn’t robbed Uin – he’d demeaned him.
It didn’t surprise Krish to find that the trunk under the bed was locked. Olufemi had told him that, given the chance, bliss addicts would dose themselves to death. Uin kept the key on a chain round his neck.
Krish’s da had had a locked box too. He’d kept their meagre store of coin inside, doling it out to Krish and his ma if he felt inclined. One time, when his ma was ill with a sickness they’d feared might be the carrion fever, his da had said it wasn’t worth the expense of medicine from the headman’s store. If it was the carrion fever, no herbs would cure her. His da had stalked out to hunt and Krish had been left to stare at his mother, writhing with pain in her furs. He’d stared at his mother and he’d stared at the lockbox and after a while he’d realised something: a box was only as strong as its hinges.
Uin could afford a better class of lock than his da, but the hinges were the same brass with the same small screws holding them on. Krish’s stomach jumped uncomfortably as he shut the wooden door, wedging one of Uin’s spare sandals beneath.
When the first screw fell out, he heard the outside door open: a distinctive creak and click. There were footsteps on the floor, too light to be Uin, but too heavy for Asook. They came towards the door and he froze, but they stopped just shy of it. To its left, he realised, where Uin kept the jars of candied fruit he’d paid some Ahn trader a small fortune for. There was a rustling and Krish guessed that someone was rooting in the jars. It must be one of the new servants and he smiled, glad that they’d proven as untrustworthy as Uin feared.
A moment later the servant had gone and Krish returned to his task, more surely this time. The last screw fell free and he levered the box open.
There must have been two hundred or more tablets inside, cherry red and smaller than he expected. The slaves were given one in the morning and one in the evening. If Krish took twenty, they wouldn’t last Dinesh much longer than a week. But if he took more Uin would certainly notice what was missing. He scooped out thirty and began hurriedly reattaching the hinges.
Later he sat on the riverbank, watching the sluggish water seep towards the sea and wondering if he should find Dae Hyo and leave
. Perhaps he’d bring Olufemi, perhaps not. Aside from healing his wounds, she hadn’t proven much use to him since they’d met. She’d only told him things it did him no good to know.
Just below the surface of the water, a school of fish hovered. He leaned forward to look more closely and as his shadow fell over them they darted away, all in formation. He watched them until the green of the water masked their jewel-like blue. It was strange how many things in this land were brightly coloured. He’d seen insects in virulent shades of green and red, the purple-and-yellow banded snakes he’d learned to avoid, and the multicoloured, raucous birds.
It had been so different in his home. When he remembered it now, he remembered shades of grey and brown. No one and nothing had wanted to stand out. In the mountains, the only attention you were likely to attract was unwelcome. But here everything wanted to be noticed. He supposed it was the same with Uin. He had gold, luxury, position. He had everything he could need, but he wanted more. This war he meant to use Krish to lead, he said it was to avenge old wrongs, but why should he care about them? The shame of his ancestors’ defeat wasn’t his shame. When Krish had spoken of taking revenge on his father, Uin had seemed to understand: he said it would be the next battle after the defeat of the Four Together. Maybe he even meant it. But if Uin conquered Ashanesland it would be for his own glory. He’d make a slave of all the Ashane, and there would be nothing Krish could do to stop him.
Was that the price Krish must pay for revenge?
Another school of fish had settled into the hollow that had been occupied by the first. These were orange, like tiny flames in the water. He was thinking of the burning lake and his own helplessness when another shadow fell on the water and these fish fled just like the first.
‘You look unhappy,’ Ensee said.
‘I’ve not got much to be happy about,’ he admitted, turning to face her. She barely seemed to have heard him. Her round face was flushed and her lower lip raw where she’d gnawed it between her teeth. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.
‘No. No, everything’s all right. We’re ready.’
‘With the sheets you were printing, the message?’
‘More than that. Will you come with me?’
Dae Hyo was drunk, Olufemi distant and his own thoughts painful. Ensee at least seemed to take some pleasure in his company. She thought the best of him and he needed that. She smiled when he rose and gestured him towards the pens where the lizard mounts were kept.
Riding beside her, he thought about Dinesh. Krish had feared the boy might be reluctant to take a cure that was only for him, but he hadn’t understood what bliss meant, what it did to a person. Dinesh had looked at the pill the way a baby looked at its mother. He would have done anything to be given it. Leaving the other slaves to a death he’d no longer share was nothing compared to his desire for the drug. Krish felt soiled by both what he’d done and what he hadn’t, for saving Dinesh and condemning the rest.
Ensee didn’t seem to notice his distraction. Her body was almost vibrating with tension and she kept snatching quick glances at him, her eyes as darting and nervous as the fish. It was very different from how she’d been when she’d shown him the writing device. She’d been sunny and confident then.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he finally asked her.
She scanned the country all around instead of replying, as if she thought listeners might be hiding among the green stalks of rice. Perhaps they were. Uin had no trust left for Krish and it wouldn’t surprise him to learn he was being followed. But it seemed unlikely he’d doubt his own daughter: it would be an admission of weakness, that he couldn’t control his own family.
‘There’s a meeting,’ Ensee said. ‘Everyone from all over Rah lands. We sent out the notice the day after you came to the scribing house, when I knew you’d stand against my father. I haven’t even met a tenth of the people coming, but they’re all yours. They’re your followers – your true followers. You’ll see.’
He realised they weren’t travelling alone. Most of those they passed ignored them, absorbed in their labour. Others paused to watch and mutter among themselves. But some put down their tools and followed on the wooden walkways, or in boats, or with ropes across their shoulders, towing their own hovels behind them.
Soon they were at the centre of a crowd: hundreds at first and then thousands. The people watched him and walked and some smiled at each other, but few spoke. The loudest sound was the high laughing calls of the birds.
‘They’re very serious,’ he said to Ensee.
‘They’ve been waiting for this day a long time.’
By the time they halted, the crowd was so large he couldn’t see an edge to it. They stood, waist-deep in the water, their faces turned towards the low platform Ensee was leading him to. Others waited there: Rah men and a few women, all older than himself and Ensee, most stooped or scarred by age and work. Their eyes brightened when they saw him and one stepped forward, a silver-haired, bushy-browed man.
‘You came,’ he said to Krish. His smile was full of rotten teeth.
‘Ensee asked me,’ Krish replied.
But the man didn’t seem to be listening. He turned to the crowd and shouted, ‘Lord Krish has come to us,’ and they roared in reply, a sudden shocking outpouring of sound.
The speeches began, the young man he’d met in the scribing room going first. They were in the tribe’s tongue, which he still spoke only haltingly, but he understood the sense of them. A time for change had come. Krish had shown them the way. He would lead them. The eyes of the crowd moved between him and the speakers and he tried to stand tall and look resolute.
After the young man there was an old woman, and then an old man. Finally, the silver-haired man moved to the front. The crowd was in tumult, riled by the other speakers and, Krish thought, by their own existence. He’d begun to see how people found strength and purpose in numbers. Maybe that’s why the villagers of his home had been so weak. They’d been too few.
When the crowd was silent, the man smiled his rotten smile and turned to Krish, beckoning him forward. ‘Will you speak to them, my lord?’ the man asked him.
‘I can only speak Ashane,’ Krish said. He tried to step away, but the man flung his arm round Krish’s shoulders, holding him in place.
‘Enough of them will understand. And even for those who don’t, they’ll hear the voice of their god. The great families thought to keep it for themselves, but they couldn’t. Show them, great lord!’
Krish looked over the crowd, thousands and thousands of faces, almond-eyed and pale and foreign, all fixed on him. He could see the legs of those nearest, submerged in the dirty water of the fields, strong-muscled. They had the bodies of those who made a hard living from the land, just like the men and women he’d grown up among.
‘What shall I say?’ he asked. Uin had never suggested that he talk to such a multitude. And because Uin hadn’t, he would do it.
‘It’s not for me to choose your words, Lord Krish. Tell them what seems right to you.’
He almost laughed because he’d never been less sure. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘and sisters.’
The crowd let out a ragged cheer. He let it build and die, glad of the chance to figure out what came next. ‘Brothers and sisters,’ he said again when they were quiet. ‘I’ve come a long way to be with you – halfway across the world.’
His voice wasn’t as strong as the other speakers’. He’d never had enough breath in his chest and he could hear his words echoing and re-echoing as those at the front of the crowd repeated them to those further back, those who understood translating for those who didn’t.
‘I’ve been beaten down all my life,’ he shouted. ‘My da – he told me that I’m nothing. I think people tell you that too. But you aren’t. No one’s nothing. The slaves I freed weren’t nothing. You can be what you want, if you want. You can be anything. That’s … I think that’s all.’
The crowd roared. It was a frightening sound, the sound of a b
east about to charge. He didn’t think his words had earned it, but the old man smiled at him and let him retreat so he could hold the stage himself.
‘You see – the god the rich brought us tells us we’re as good as them,’ he said, still in Ashane, as if he wanted to be sure Krish understood. ‘And we can be as free as them. We can be as free as the slaves. If we have to pay the same price as them, we’ll pay it. That’s what Lord Krish has shown us: death before surrender!’
He looked at Krish for confirmation and Krish could only nod, numbly. Was that really the lesson he’d taught? The slaves hadn’t chosen death; he’d picked it for them.
‘We won’t work in their fields any longer,’ the old man said. ‘We won’t be second in every line, last at every table. Their crops will rot in the ground and our blood will water them. Uin said that Lord Krish would bring change. He has! The old Rah are no more. The new Rah are born today!’
The roar was continuous now, the thousands of faces in front of Krish ecstatic. This wasn’t what he’d meant when he told them to be free, but he knew it didn’t matter. And if their deaths helped defeat Uin he should be glad of it. He tried to be, looking out over the men and women and children preparing to tear apart their land and their own lives in his name.
17
Sang Ki was exhausted. The sun had set and risen again while Laali flew and still he’d kept on, pulling up on her reins every time she set her head downward. He was bleary-eyed and foggy-headed, but the journey had taken its greatest toll on her. Her feathers had never been glossy, but now they were falling out. When he reached to pat her shoulder in comfort a great clump of them came loose, fluttering downward on the freezing wind towards the ground she longed for. The skin beneath was pink and delicate, absurdly vulnerable-looking.
‘Good girl,’ he crooned. ‘You’re doing so well.’
At the start of the journey her head would swivel to watch him at those words, but now she just looked forward. Her massive wings had pushed them on, until at last he’d seen the border of the Moon Forest beneath them and the Salt Road cutting a straight line to its heart. His maps had led him true, but the journey wasn’t over. Aethelgas and Ivarholme lay in the trees. And so he’d led her on, for mile after wearying mile of unending green below and blue above.
The Hunter's Kind: Book II of The Hollow Gods Page 17