“Silence!” shouted Polexima as she pulled herself up. She leaned on a cane of a cricket femur to attain her full height. “If you want to save our lives, you will listen to this man!”
Anand resumed. “Every willing Slopeite, male or female, is welcomed into this defensive effort. As well as a people’s army, the Slope will need the help of our neighbors. In order to win their alliance, you will return all mounds and territories you have misappropriated over the last hundred years.”
The kings and princes of recently annexed territories stood on their feet and glared.
“Just what is it you want, outlander?” shouted Maleps, rising to his feet. “What price do we pay you for saving our nation?”
The rest of the hall rose to their feet and barraged Anand with questions and accusations. Some walked out. Polexima glared at Dolgeeno until he stood and raised his golden scepter of mantis antennae. “Quiet!” Dolgeeno bellowed. “You will remain in this hall. If you leave, you and all at your mound will be excommunicated!”
Anand, still as stone, waited for silence before continuing. “All of you are right to question what I want in this.”
Anand paced a moment, then turned to his audience. “Wars are won by the will, and the will of your people must be inspired. The downtrodden of this land will not fight for the nobles and their cruel ways, but they will fight for themselves and the chance to create a place of their own.”
Whispers of outrage rolled through the hall then erupted into shouting. Some were walking out again. Neither Polexima nor Dolgeeno could quiet them. Only Batra could win silence when he stood atop his pew.
“Listen!” he shouted, then turned to Anand in the sudden stillness. “Where are your Dranverites now?”
“In their own country. Where they will stay.”
“If they are the invincible force you claim, why not recruit them for this war?”
“The Dranverites will not interfere in the conflicts of nations outside their collective. That remains my duty.”
“I will kill myself,” Batra thundered, “and so will my soldiers, sooner than allow this barbarian to carry out his agenda under the guise of defeating the Hulkrites!”
“Then take my dagger,” said Anand, and removed it from under his cassock. He threw it before Batra and it rattled over the tiles. “Kill yourself now, General, and fulfill your selfish notion. Or join with us to prevent the Hulkrites from murdering your wife, your concubines, and your hundred children.”
Batra picked up the dagger and raised it to disembowel himself—Anand was astonished and giving the general credit for his convictions when Dolgeeno rose from his seat.
“Do you defy Mantis?” bellowed Dolgeeno. “Will you go to Worm with a soiled soul and be judged a traitor and coward?”
Batra stiffened as the assembled stared at him. His garments clung to him from the sweat that had burst from his skin.
“If the gods have decreed this man as an authority,” Batra mumbled, “then I offer him my cooperation.” Batra bowed, then returned the dagger to Anand who immediately beckoned to a group at his right.
Dark-skinned women entered and unrolled a map of both accuracy and artistry in a blend of Dranverish and Britasyte styles. In the map’s east was the demarcation of a new land colored in the Dranverites’ red.
“The area shaded in red is the new free state. Its name will be revealed at a later time after I discuss the issue with its future inhabitants.”
Sahdrin looked at the map and clutched his heart. Maleps rose and shouted. “Perhaps your mapmakers have made a mistake, but it appears you have included Cajoria in your new ‘free state.’”
“It will be our capital.”
“And where will the Cajorites go?”
“Everyone will be allowed to leave or stay as they like.”
“Will you allow this, Queen?” Maleps shouted at Polexima. “Will you?” he shouted, looking at Dolgeeno.
“What I will not allow is the annihilation of the Slope by Hulkrites,” said the priest.
“And need I remind you,” shouted Polexima, “that your military caste is depleted due to someone’s idiotic notion that you war on two fronts.”
Silence. Maleps turned red through his sweat. The creak of his armor filled the quiet as he marched off. Anand did not wait for Maleps to exit the chamber before he revealed his next steps.
“We have very little time. Over the next ten days, I will make an appeal to the laboring peoples of the mounds to enlist them in our efforts. Kings, you will be informed by runners as to when your people should be assembled.” He turned to Dolgeeno. “That is all for now,” he said, with a nod of his head.
The Ultimate nodded back, eyes wide, and made what was for him the hastiest retreat possible. The nobles and generals followed, exiting amidst low murmurs. Anand, however, declined to exit the hall on the sedan chair and lingered. Standing with Polexima, he called the dark-skinned people to a corner of the hall. As usual, their heads were bent in submission and their eyes were fixed on the floor.
“Good laborers, I thank you for your service today,” Anand said in his old dialect. “Look upon my belly.”
Anand lifted his garment to show them his pure skin, as dark as any of theirs. “Now look upon my face and know that I am one of you. Tell all of what you have heard today, what you have seen. Those who fight with me against the Hulkrites will return to a life forever changed. You can become your own masters and need never fear the lash of an overseer again.”
The laborers looked at each other, still avoiding Anand’s eyes. He could see them make furtive glances at the nobles filtering out of the chamber. Anand was grated by their diffidence and swallowed his contempt—how easy it had been to forget that he had once been one of them. He looked at the chamber’s altar and saw the blue idol of Locust with his dark face, nearly hidden in the back, cloaked in a woven grass robe. Anand reached for his new tactic. He walked to the altar, lifted the idol of Locust and shook off its dust before setting it at the front.
“All your lives you have been told you are less than others. You are not,” Anand said. “All brown people are descended from their ancestor, Locust the Sky God. Locust grows strong again and wants his descendants to prevail, to be nobles in their own domain. Tell all Venarite laborers who wish to win a place in the new nation that they should assemble tomorrow at the great stadium when Sun begins His descent.”
The laborers were all too quiet when Anand walked off. Perhaps they love their suffering, he thought to himself, and they can suffer all the more at the hands of the Hulkrites. He cursed the Slope as he made his way out, convinced his plans were useless and that everyone would die.
CHAPTER 49
THE TYING OF SASHES
Among the first of his commands to the Slopeites, Anand ordered the delivery of two Cajorite outcastes to his camp at Venaris. He then requested the capture and caging of blue-mottled locusts from the local hunters’ caste. From the local priests he demanded the delivery of some rather odd potions he assumed were in their secret stores.
Arriving in the weeds of Venaris were the Britasyte clans who complied with Anand’s summons to gather as a tribe. Some of the Pleps had trickled back to the Slope on foot, but some had been hunted down in Hulkren while others were still lost in Dneep. The hapless clan was aided in the building of new sand-sleds by the Entreveans and in the breeding of new roaches by the Fallogeths.
The gathering was a joyless one as the Pleps counted the number of murdered or missing. Anand reflected this somber mood as he addressed the wanderers after the evening meal.
“Pleps, you have suffered much and are weary, but I must divide your clan and send you with messages to the Seed Eaters and Carpenter nations. You will carry the generous terms of the Slopeites’ surrender so that all who share this region may avoid future wars. You will then give testimony of the cruelty and power of the Hulkrites. You will relate the wishes of the Slope’s commanders to unite with their neighbors against the southern threat. And you will offer c
hests of real gold flakes from the treasury of the Slopeite’s Ultimate Holy, gold you must not pinch.”
“Pinch, no,” Zedral said. “But as the price for delivery we will take a tenth as our share.”
“Beloved elder,” Anand said with a scolding grin. “The Hulkrites are intent on destroying the Slope and will show no kindness to the Britasyte people. This mission is to protect both our tribes. No pinching, no commissions. Are we understood?”
“You wound me,” Zedral said.
“I know you,” Anand replied.
“We will carry out this mission,” Zedral said, looking smaller. “And deliver all that has been entrusted to us.”
“Swear it by Madricanth.”
“Who is chieftain here?” said Zedral, looking very much annoyed.
“You are. Now swear by Madricanth and on the eyes of your grandchildren.”
“My grandchildren have nothing to do with this!”
Soon after Anand had procured Zedral’s best promise, Slopeish hunters arrived at the camp with cages of locusts. While the rest of the tribe slept, Anand sat in a sand-sled with Daveena, where he re-created reins and flying prods as well as the Dranverites’ steering gloves. He hesitated, as he was unsure which of the scents he should apply to the gloves’ fingers. He was even more uncertain as to the scents’ potencies since they were from the stores of Slopeish priests. Hopefully this is going to work, Anand thought before he succumbed to sleep in Daveena’s arms. However, he just as soon woke from a dream of Pleckoo chopping off his head and leaving it to bleed in her lap.
What if no one joins me tomorrow? he asked himself while looking out the window at the half moon. The Hulkrites will attack at night under a full moon, he reckoned, when their ants are at their most powerful and the leaf-cutters are at their weakest. Unless the Hulkrites were delayed by rain, he guessed he might have as few as forty-two days to ready an army. Dolgeeno had confirmed that the leaf-cutters were gorging their larvae to breed soldier ants even at the northernmost mounds of the Slope which meant that the Hulkrites had begun moving north and were force-breeding their own ants to swarm by the millions.
The following morning, Yormu and Terraclon arrived at the Britasytes’ camp atop fleet ants driven by Slopeish escorts. When Anand saw them, they looked both scared and invigorated by their first insect ride.
“Would you mind telling us why we have been summoned?” said Terraclon, affecting a priestly voice. Anand ushered them to his sand-sled where he had laid out Britasyte finery.
“The best friend and the father of the groom must be suitably dressed for a wedding,” Anand said.
“Wedding!” Terraclon repeated and slapped his hand over his heart. Yormu got teary and hugged his son. It took much convincing from Anand before Yormu dressed in a tunic of lavender moth felt, then donned a conical headpiece of damselfly chitin. Terraclon rejected Anand’s choice and picked his own outfit, a gauzy cobweb caftan and a turban made from the wings of a lace fly. Anand laughed to himself and did not tell his friend that he was wearing a woman’s clothes. For himself, Anand greased his hair with a fragrant seed oil before tying it off into the twin tails of a mayfly. After, that he used a fine brush to give his face a thick dusting of pink sugar-powder. He donned the clan’s wedding poncho, which was studded with the rarest jewels. Once all three were ready, they left for the center of the camp where the Britasytes gathered before the sand-sled of the Two Spirit.
Daveena, her beauty restored, wore a multicolored wig from hair donated by her clanswomen. Only Eturra refused to contribute some of her own rose-dyed locks. Over Daveena’s face was a veil that was a cunning miniature of a spider-web. She sat on a baby roach and circled Anand three times, her father baiting the roach, before she dismounted to join the groom. The layers of her forty gossamer gowns began with that of a distant ancestor. The final one was of her mother’s embroidery, which depicted the foamy ripples of the Freshwater Lake.
Daveena trembled with clashing emotions as she walked towards her groom before Da-Ma at the altar to Madricanth. The sweet pain that jolted through her was an almost unbearable love for a boy whose fame and heroics increased each day. The fear that made her tremble was that she might lose him to any number of enemies. As she looked at him, she decided in that moment that he must do something for his own survival—even though it would compromise their marriage and her own happiness. I would do anything to keep my love safe, she thought, even if it means sharing him.
As she considered her plan, one she knew he would resist, she was overcome with a terrible ache that crippled every muscle. Anand saw she was struggling and walked to help her, assuming the weight of her garments held her back. When he looked in her eyes, she knew he could see her inner turmoil.
“Whatever it is, it’s all right,” he whispered. Looking into his face, she saw certainty and strength. They joined hands and reached the altar.
As the two stared into each other’s eyes and Da-Ma sang the wedding prayer, the tribe’s presence faded into mist. Anand’s hand burned in Daveena’s, and when he blinked, tears escaped and slid down the sugar powder. Daveena caught his tears in their tracks and licked them from her fingers. The taste was bitter . . . bitter and then sweet.
After Da-Ma tied their waist sashes together, Anand lifted her veil and kissed her in a way so intimate that the tribe’s women swooned. Forced to acknowledge the crowd, he turned to them and spoke. “Wanderers, my bride and I apologize that we have neither the time nor the means to offer you a wedding feast. Know that in the future, in an unexpected place, you will all be treated to a matchless celebration.” The crowd applauded and threw shredded chrysanthemums.
The newlyweds went to a new sand-sled, where piles of wedding presents waited to be unwrapped. Pressed to depart, Anand would leave Daveena to open them on her own as she traveled to the Seed Eaters’ country. The one gift both took some time to enjoy was a new mattress of a stuffed and polished silk cocoon. Afterwards, with her arms wrapped around him, they lay on their sides as sunlight spread a honeyed warmth over their naked skins. Anand left himself to throb inside her, his hands cupping the softness of her breasts. “I know now that before we met, I was never truly alive,” he said. One of Anand’s men whistled for him a third time.
“You must go,” she said.
“I can’t tear myself away.”
When he finally rose and left Daveena’s side to dress, she remained on the mattress and tried not to cry.
“My sadness is small, my heart is brave,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “for I know I return with new tales of roaming.” She saw his eyes were watering.
“Bitter tears do not commence a sweet journey,” she faintly scolded. He was almost out the door when she called him back. She had to reveal her plan before he left.
“Anand . . .”
“Yes?”
As she reached for her words, each one felt like a heavy rock. “Anand . . . how . . . many . . . wives . . . can a Slopeite take?”
“One. He can turn her out only if she is infertile. Why do you ask?”
She grimaced, spoke through gritted teeth, determined to get her message out.
“The Slopeites will use you to defend themselves, and just as soon destroy you once your usefulness has passed. You will have to do more than raise an army and make an alliance. You will have to mix your blood with theirs and seed women of their highest rank. You must be the father of their princes and princesses.”
Anand looked as her as if he was trying to swallow a boulder. “The idea of your coupling with another man is . . . unbearable to me. Don’t you feel the same? I want no other woman than you. Not from our tribe, and certainly not from theirs.”
“You may not want another woman, but you need one. I know where your heart lies. No marriage with a Slopeite can dissolve our union.”
Daveena jumped up and clutched Anand to her. “I won’t lose you again,” she said, “and that is why you will do this . . . once we have won this war.”
His men
whistled for the fourth time and one even poked in his head. The young couple tried to pull away, but could not. It was only when she suddenly turned her back to him did he even think to move. She kept her eyes firmly on the wall and waited to hear his steps.
Once he was gone, Daveena allowed herself some muffled crying on the mattress. She buried her face in all the places where his body had left its scent. A short time later, though, she had recovered. Her fear warred with her love and pride but she knew her husband expected her to fulfill her duty. She began her preparations to join the other Pleps. They would travel east to relay her husband’s message to the people of the harvester ants.
I will never fail you, my love, as you have never failed me.
Anand walked with some young Britasyte men to the cages of locusts that had been set in a clearing. He noticed his tribesmen gave him complete deference now. Though it was not in their tradition, they walked behind him, as if he were a king. “Come along now,” Anand said, and waited until they were all abreast of each other.
Each cage was small and housed a single locust. Anand examined several, and then selected one that looked younger, its wings glistening. Slipping into the cage, he climbed up the locust’s leg and patted its head to still it. Another man helped him fit the mandibles with twin bits and attach the reins to Anand’s wrists. Kneeling on the locust’s natural saddle, Anand thrust the prod in his mouth, pulled on his gloves, and took hold of the short antennae. The locust bucked. “Open the cage!” he shouted from the side of his mouth, and the others yanked down the gate.
The locust sprang out and up on its powerful legs and buzzed its azure wings. Its chitin disappeared into a sky just as blue. Anand was surprised by the speed of the locust and tightened his grip on the antennae to slow it. He swung west and flew until he reached the stands of red-barked pines in the Carpenters’ country.
Veering upwards, he turned east and flew parallel over the Insurmountable Boulders of the Great Jag. Leaf-cutter ants of the westernmost mound of Gagumji were returning with leaf shards from weeds south of the boulders. Their parade disappeared as they entered into the natural tunnel that cut under the Boulders and led to their mound. The Hulkrites might attack through this tunnel, Anand thought, and continued his flight, but not before drawing out and defeating the enemy first.
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