by Richard Nell
The four men seized Ruka's hands and bound them in the bronze chains, wrapping rope around his waist. As in the jungle he did not fight them, extending his arms to help them along.
"Shaman…" Zaya said in her native tongue. "You must fight. They're going to kill you. Even if Eka…even if he is coming…"
The godtongue shivered as if with acceptance as he met her eyes—the greatest living hero of a culture of warriors, his shoulders hunched, his gaze subdued. "Goodbye, Zaya," he said, almost absently, and the men dragged him onwards. He turned back at the gate, bringing the procession stumbling to a halt with even this mild resistance. "Promise me, daughter of Juchi…" he seemed suddenly worn, and exhausted. "If you see your father again, tell him," he smiled. "I'm glad I saved him. He has raised strong children."
With that, he vanished around the corner, heavy steps sounding off the painted stone long after he'd vanished from sight. Zaya stood listening, feeling helpless, and never in her life more alone.
Chapter 27
Chang's latest new-world lover helped him don the pilot's armor. The linked shirt of fine chain slipped over his head easily enough, but the vambraces and chest plate were difficult to manage alone. He showed her what to do, and she ran her fingers over the metal with wide, almost reverent eyes.
"Good, Teotel?"
Chang smiled and pat her hand on the fastened metal. The girl knew a few words and phrases in the island tongue now as he knew a few of hers. 'Teotel' meant something like 'spirit man', for many of the locals thought he and his crew were some kind of prophetic warriors from the rising sun. Chang did nothing to dispel this notion.
He slapped the girl's rump and with a final sigh stepped from his guest house. Basko and the others were already out and waiting at the edge of the town's clearing, many of their own women nearby and wishing them tearful farewells.
The few local men left in the same way—walking from houses with spears, bows, and wooden swords strapped to their bodies, parting with wives and children with a courage they likely didn't feel.
Chang found he had begun to like these tribesmen; they laughed loudly and easily; their women went to whatever men they liked unless they were married, any children raised and seen to by any member of the tribe as if each were their own. They had domesticated every kind of animal you pleased, from wild turkey to monkeys and dogs, all the way to the great and dangerous hunting cat they called 'Wanchoo'.
Chang almost smiled at the sound of a low growl and put a hand in his pocket. Without looking he removed one of his last chunks of salted pork as the huge cat emerged from the shadows behind the houses. He had been feeding it now for weeks—at least once a day as he settled into tribal life—helping prepare their feasts, patrol the edges of the town, or keep the lonely young women company. The tribesmen of 'the Northern mists' helped the sailors journey back to check on their ship, to make rope, fill water-barrels, and re-fill their stores with salted meats from their hunting or their own butchered animals.
"Good boy." Chang forced himself to be calm and unafraid as the dangerous creature approached. It licked its chops and rammed its head against Chang's arm before taking the meat directly from his hand, then produced what might be called a purr in a smaller creature, but what for him was really more like a rumble. Then it turned and disappeared into the trees.
"Waste of good meat," Basko said as he joined his watching men, a few others grunting. Chang ignored them and took his last, still-sealed drought of rum from his pocket, wiggling his brow at the men.
"Nevermind that." He shook the bottle and sniffed, closing his eyes.
"Dear gods in heaven." The Steerman's eyes followed as if he'd found an exposed woman's breasts, many of the others mouths hanging and no doubt salivating at the thought. Not a man had drunk a proper drop of anything so strong since landfall, nevermind a proper island rum. Chang pulled it back with a loud tsk.
"Captain says we march till the tribesman say stop. Men who keep up share the rum. Ka?"
"Ka. Aye, ka." The Steerman licked his lips. "Should we take a sip now, and the rest later, Chiefy?"
Chang stuffed the bottle in his bag, and turned to the jungle, the crew lining up behind.
Dozens of other tribes waited in the trees, or already marched towards 'Cope-a-noke', though with the dense foliage it was impossible to tell their numbers. In the many days since the meeting of the chiefs, Captain Eka said the new worlders had gathered thousands of warriors from many different peoples, some from far-away mountains or coasts, often speaking different languages entirely. They shared few gods and customs, often with different skin, hair and eyes as well as dress. But they were united with a single, communal fact: hatred of the three valley cities and their alliance.
That day they marched in an almost eerie quiet, surrounded only by the constant shuffling and scraping of unseen feet and branches, or the occasional call of some curious bird. Chang wished early on he'd never heard of freedom, or ashmen, or armor—and that he'd never risked the dark sea or wondered what lay beyond. The sounds of feet crushing leaves or stumbling over fallen trees became the sounds of waves, and the creaking of wood buried deep in his own ship's hull. The sweat dripping down his face was a soft rain on a dark night, his watch almost over on the rail.
Then men were chirping and whistling and the tribesmen stopped to sit or lay where they'd stood, yet others moving off into the trees. They ate fruit-crusted meat, they drank good water from water-skins—and the few men of the mist tribes sat near them with Captain Eka and the shaman Pacal. They lit no campfires, but then none were needed in the sweaty heat of the jungle, and Chang just thanked all good spirits it didn't rain.
In the morning, they marched again. By afternoon the dense jungle faded, until lone patches of trees broke otherwise uniform layers of farmland. As the horizon opened, finally Chang could see the foreigner's numbers. A true army emerged from the trees.
In ragged waves, thousands of these new worlders left their camouflage armed as a motley militia of good spears and bows, wooden swords and flint knives. Their faces were painted, their bodies smeared with mud or covered in heavy cloth. He watched more and more leave the jungle before his neck had tired from craning, and he turned back to trudge behind the captain.
The few towns they met were seemingly abandoned. Here and there they'd find old men caring for a penned up herd of animals, and the tribal scouts would leave their corpses along the road. The city of Copanoch soon loomed in the distance—a huge capital of rust-colored walls, clay and brick stacked row upon row, houses and towers with windows open like ten thousand eyes.
"There lie the temples of Centnaz," Pacal pointed at a dozen pyramids in the center of the city. "There is where the House of Mar will have spilled the blood of my family, and the blood of your comrades."
That morning the shaman had gathered most of the crew and bathed them in smoke from his 'holy rock', and their voices hummed with the now familiar magic.
"Will it be protected?" asked the captain. "Many warriors?
"Oh yes. It is a holy place to them. A circle of stands will rest on a stone square beyond the steps. There will be warriors, and noble families, but our warriors will help you. We will kill everyone we find."
"Everyone," Chang agreed, "except the large, pale-skinned man and woman."
For a time the shaman said nothing, and Chang almost repeated himself until the old man spoke.
"If they live. When it is over, we will meet here at dawn.
"If we live," Chang answered, expecting a grin that never came.
With every word Chang had detected the pure venom in the man's voice, the hatred in his eyes. It seemed wrong on a shaman or priest, as surely a man of gods and spirits should be beyond such things. The look was echoed on every warrior around them, but only on the holy man did Chang find it disturbing. For the first time since they had landed on the coast, he felt the very real desire to turn back for his ship, leave Zaya and the pilot to their fate with a prayer and his apologies, an
d never touch this land again.
Instead, he marched. With the others he passed five more ghost towns and a dozen more corpses along the road. He marched over fields of the hated red root, then over rice, corn, and agave, knowing ten thousand feet trampled it behind him. For a surreal moment he wondered how it was possible so many people and so much land existed all his life without his knowledge. But here it was, and so was he, so he banished this thought along with his fears and the disturbing hatred in the other men's eyes. He would save Zaya, and the pilot. He would get his men from this place. And in the greatest ship in the world, his ship, he would take them all home.
"When we reach the city it will be nightfall," said Pacal, "the moon and stars will be bright tonight, as bright as any night of the year, or any year for a hundred or more. That is why the tyrants call it holy. Once we're inside, stay with the mist tribes, and they will guide you to the temple grounds. Most of this army has their business in the city with oil and fire. Hurry to your friends, and escape, or you will surely burn."
Chang's heart raced at the look in the man's eye, but Captain Eka only nodded.
"Do they have no sentries? Have they kept none of their armies from celebration?"
The old shaman snorted. "Are we not whipped, spineless dogs? They have no fear of the tribes. But tonight, my friends, they will learn. Oh yes, they will learn."
Later, with the sun falling and the city's walls rising before them, Eka moved to Chang's side. He pointed at the temples, his eyes gaining the same look they'd had when The Prince left her first shore, or sailed into a storm—as if only in that moment of chaos and danger was the man truly alive.
"We'd best hurry," his usually monotone voice held a tinge of excitement, and he slipped his black mask over his face. "Whatever the shaman says, there will be guards on the wall who've seen the army and run to tell their masters. These people have no rams, no siege weapons. And you heard them at the meeting—the walls frighten them."
Chang blinked, and glanced at the high stone, no concept of how the men would even get inside.
Eka had removed a pouch from his hip, and now rubbed his fingers with white powder from inside before handing it to Chang. "If I were you, I'd take off that armor until we've dealt with this."
For a moment Chang stared, not understanding. He had marched for a day and a half, and he was tired and hot. Before he asked why he should do that or anything he began to understand, and the captain's frozen face cracked with a smile.
"We are sailors, not monkeys," Chang hissed.
The captain inspected the walls, then started walking. "Today you are both, Master Chief. The tribesmen are not capable. None of their people have ever climbed such a thing. Straighten your spine, Chang, few are as able climbers as sailors, and the stone is pitted and old. I assure you, I have climbed much worse."
* * *
Chang swore a sacred oath not to look down. He heard Basko grunt and almost slip but he had no attention to give his men, his every trembling effort focused on handholds barely observable in the moonlight. Then he was at the top, and the shadow who called himself a captain was pulling the crew to the lip of the wall. Chang mumbled a thanks as he breathed away the fear, then flinched as he noticed two corpses lay near his feet.
"There are more coming," Eka whispered, gesturing down the wall. "I think there's a barracks just North of us. We must hurry."
The night split with a man's dying scream, and the sailors all turned as more of the city's defenders rushed from the main street with spears and bows, loosing missiles at the climbers as they reached the top. "Quickly," Eka growled, turning for the gate.
Chang grit his teeth and clutched his knife, desperately wishing for the first time since he entered the jungle he wore the pilot's armor. His men behind him, he followed along the thin rampart, lifting a rock from one of the many piles clearly left out for a defence of the walls that hadn't happened. But whether he was caught and killed during his climb, or inside the damn city, made little difference to Chang.
"There's the winches." Eka pointed at the interior of the gate, which were guarded by at least five men huddled against it and scanning the dark. "No time to wait for the tribesmen. Charge them."
Without waiting to hear what his men thought of that, the captain leapt the last few steps from the wall and sprinted with his head down and knives readied like claws.
"To hell with all kingsmen," Chang spit and followed, making sure Basko was at his side. They descended the ramparts with nothing but knives and a few rocks, breaking into a sprint behind Eka. The gate guard saw them coming and shouted a warning, some looking down the street for relief that hadn't yet come. Then Eka was on them, a wolf in a chicken coop. A spear sailed past him and sprays of blood followed his knives.
Chang roared and faked a lunge at another man, then sidestepped the spear thrust and seized the shaft before leaning in to stab the warrior's throat. The Steerman bounced a rock off the closest guard's cheek, and Basko grappled him to the ground. An Oarsman seized another, and the crew swarmed them stabbing. For the first time since they'd landed, at least things felt a little familiar.
"Grab that winch." Eka pointed at a huge, spoked wheel wrapped with rope. There were four to move the gate, catches wrapped in layers of rope and tied in knots. The crew of The Prince could hear shouting now from down the road and towards the Northern barracks—men gathering in angry confusion as they rushed towards the gates. They had little time. But then, they didn't need much.
With the almost inhuman competence of a lifetime at sea, the sailors pulled apart the knots and loops and freed the winches in moments, heaving in unison without pause as the heavy gate groaned.
Guards were coming now in half-formed clusters, a few dozen and then a hundred racing towards the wall. They were too late.
Tribesmen charged through the crack of the opening gate, loosing arrows and javelins and racing North and South along the wall. The city guard tried to stop them, to charge the gate and make their way to Eka and the crew. But the invaders didn't stop coming. The tribesmen poured through screaming with wild hate, throwing themselves without caution at their enemy and overwhelming the insufficient guard. The crack of the gate became an open wound, then the door slammed into the stone as they fully opened. The 'siege' of Copanoch was over in minutes. The sacking was about to begin.
* * *
Zaya walked with the other slaves to the ceremony of stars. She heard drums, dancing and singing, with high pitched screams ranging from horror to ecstasy. As she came closer to the temple grounds, the sound pulsed from windows and doors, lights flashing in the distance from many fires. Her feet seemed to fight leaving the palace, and she had the strongest urge to flee.
"This way, mistress," Temolata said with a face that implied this was obvious, not understanding Zaya's hesitation.
Still, Zaya resisted. Already she could smell the sweat and perfume, incense and cooking meat. But none of it hid the scent of blood.
Soon the others swept her along in a flowing procession of bodies. She walked out into the cooler night air, looking up to the night sky only to realize the stars were all but shrouded in smoke. People stood everywhere. Wooden stands had been built all around the temple grounds, row upon row of rising seats leading to the pyramids, a patterned criss-crossing of wood and stone.
The large column of palace servants moved out into the celebrations, clustering together as if for protection. The elite of Copanoch drank a dozen kinds of alcohol and smoked a heady weed that blurred Zaya's vision even from a distance. Some already lay all but comatose, others leaping in frantic mania, yet others making love in the open for all to see. Zaya found she couldn't tear her eyes away from these, her mouth hanging in the baffled shock of cultural anathema.
"They sacrifice their shame, their privacy," said Temolata, on seeing Zaya's expression. "It is a holy thing, mistress."
They walked on, every step still growing Zaya's feeling of anxiousness. Somewhere ahead, Yacat would be with
his family, speaking for the last time with his son. The shaman had almost mocked him for his part in this, for his helplessness, which seemed to Zaya both cruel and unfair, for what could the man do? And for all his talk, the shaman was now also somewhere in the temples ahead, trapped in a cage, perhaps to die with the hundreds or maybe even thousands of other sacrifices. Zaya wasn't sure which fact brought her more sadness.
Yet the song of Haki the Brave played in her mind—the words of a great hero, sung so many times by her father, echoed in her mind.
"A man fails in two ways," went the legend's words to his men as their ending loomed. "He quits, or he dies. Are you dead?"
Zaya knew a thing wasn't over until the very end—that life might change in a moment's work, that the tales that lasted generations could come from a single act of courage and fortune. Zaya was not resigned to any fate but the one she had yet to choose; Yacat was a good man, a prince and warrior, and no matter how things seemed, the shaman was still the greatest hero of ash.
As they came closer to the platform square of a temple landing, the people were covered in more paint than cloth. The same wooden stands had been raised all around it, in the center a huge bonfire and tables surrounded by priests and royals. It was all arranged to be seen from many directions, with gaps in the stands for crowds to see past to the center. Beneath the stands, their wooden bars flickering in the firelight, endless cages filled with slaves.
"Our place is there, mistress," Temolata pointed to a spot in the stands. "All have their places assigned."
In the center of the temple grounds, beside the fire and the priests, there was also an altar, and a cauldron. Already old men stood with their arms wide, speaking to the crowd. All the faces Zaya could see flickered strangely with fire and moonlight, and she realized half their faces were painted dark with color. She climbed up to her seat feeling suffocated with sweaty, sweltering life. The impending misery of her future returned, drowning the words of heroic tales as quickly as the drums and shouts silenced the music almost always in her mind. She found she couldn't sit still, and scanned the cages for the shaman, unable to see much in the gloom beyond the fire. When a man was brought to the cauldron and dumped in to boil alive, and the other servants were distracted, Zaya went down to the cages. She walked along peering in at the mix of men and women, from elders to children, until she found the gap of bodies—the wide berth given to the pale skinned giant sitting alone on a bench, staring into the night.