Aboa tapped her chest. “We are them.”
“The earth has become much more than our dwelling.” Aboa handed out large chunks of sizzling meat and placed a few of the small, round, brown things on each person’s square wood plate. “Take the jagamo for example.” She indicated the rock-looking things that were apparently food. She stabbed one with her two-pronged wood skewer and lifted it from the stone platter set above the fire. “We grow it in the earth, nourishing it and digging about it, then we harvest it and nourishes us in turn.” She popped the entire thing into her mouth and chewed.
Curious, Lakhoni took a bite from one of the jagamos on his plate. It was soft and unlike anything he had ever eaten. The outer skin was thick and had a nutty flavor, whereas the inside was soft and hot and mild. He added a bite of the salted meat and found the combination delicious. “You grow these here?” he said around his mouthful.
“That and many more,” Aboa said. She waved her hands, insisting everyone sit on the hill-house’s hard floor. “Eat. Khimamala is pleased when we feed our hunger with her plenty.”
Simra, her mouth full, had not stopped taking in the paintings. “Khimamala?”
Whatever the word meant, it was most of the chant the people outside still sang without any slowing. And it was what Yevun had muttered in his drunken stupor outside.
“She is the goddess of the harvest.” Aboa stomped with both feet, then lifted one hand, its fingers extended and spread wide. With her other hand, she grabbed her extended fingers, then clenched both hands together for a moment. “Khimamala sees all. When she is pleased, we prosper.”
Lamorun, seated near Lakhoni, leaned close to his brother. “A female Great Spirit?”
Lakhoni frowned and whispered back. “Why not?”
“Khimamala is not the Great Spirit.” Aboa strode around her home, tracing her fingers along the painted walls and stopping at a rough picture of a strange horned creature. “She is a servant god to Kul-Hanbu, the Great Creator.”
Lakhoni swallowed the last of his small meal. “I’ve never—” his gesture took in his brother, sister, Simra, and Hilana. “I don’t think any of us have ever heard these names.”
Aboa smiled and tapped her nose. “We have kept our knowledge through our stories and paintings.” She looked above and all around. “The names are preserved. Your people must have lost them as generations died.”
“So is there more than one servant god?” Simra finally sat, just to Aboa’s side. She finished her small meal as Aboa answered.
“As any queen or king has many servants, so does Kul-Hanbu.” Aboa took Lakhoni’s wood plate. “It is not for me to know all of them.” She collected all of the plates. “But Khimamala is the one we must please tonight. Before all is lost.”
Her last words sent a cold spray down Lakhoni’s neck and back. “Before all is lost? What does that mean?”
Aboa motioned for everyone to follow her as she made for the door. “This is why we dance. We must please Khimamala so we can once again harvest the plenty from this land.”
Hilana stuck next to Aboa as they left the hill house and approached the still-gyrating and playing crowd. The dancers, although that wasn’t a term Lakhoni would use at this point, staggered around the fire, exhaustion painted on every inch of skin and in their desperate gasping.
“Why do they yet dance?” Hilana’s face was a mask of distressed confusion. “They look like they are ready to drop.”
Aboa nodded the sadness of her expression warring with a strange gleam in her eyes. “This is the Rain Dance.” She gestured for the travelers to sit off to her side as she reclaimed her skin-covered stump. “We have seen no rain for three seasons. As Khimamala is the goddess of harvest and gathering, this is a sign of her displeasure in our pride and fatness.” She began to clap along to the beat, nodding in time.
Hilana, who had taken Yevun’s vacated stump, joined in, shrugging as she looked to the others. In that moment, a skinny man fell to the ground, obviously unconscious before he hit the hard-packed dirt.
“But they’re exhausted,” Simra said, having to pitch her voice loud to be heard over the pounding drums. “How long have you been doing this?”
“We begin at the first signs of dusk every night,” Aboa said. The dancers had all stopped and leaned on each other and crouched, gasping for air as two people rushed forward to check on the man who had fallen. The drummers and piper took the moment to rest as well, all of them reaching for a waterskin or clay cup with some kind of liquid. “And we stop only when none can continue.” One of the people checking on the fallen man looked up and shook her head. The dancers and players groaned, but the beat began again, faster than before. The fallen man was pulled out of the way of the dancers. “Or when one of our people has honored us by giving their whole soul to Khimamala.”
Lakhoni leaned toward Simra. “What does she mean by whole soul?” The dancers had begun gyrating again, chanting “Khimamala” and some other phrase over and over again.
“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t sound very good,” Simra said.
“You said something about having to please Khimamala before all is lost,” Lakhoni said, going to his knees and craning to be heard without having to shout. “What does that mean?”
“If we have no harvest, we will be swept from this land by her wrath.” Aboa raised her hands and clapped above her head in time to the drum beat. “We need rain, so we must cool the heat of her anger with our sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice?” Alronna had been looking from the dancers to Aboa, to the drummers, and back to Aboa. Now she looked less confused than worried. “Is this dance your sacrifice?”
Aboa shook her head, clapping loudly along. “Watch and you might see honor at its heaviest.”
Lakhoni sat back, unsure of what to feel or think. He’d heard of rain dances, although his village had never done them in his memory. There had never been a problem with lack of rain in that part of the land. But Aboa was correct. As Lakhoni thought back through the last few seasons, he could think of no time that rain had fallen. The last time he could remember anything falling from the sky was snow during the blizzard he’d barely survived before meeting Simra.
“It sounds like these people plant crops and depend on them for food,” Lamorun said. “And that they haven’t had rain—”
“So they’re dancing for it,” Alronna finished. “But they’ve been doing it for so long they’re going to die of exhaustion.” She snorted softly. “Why don’t they just rest?”
Aboa had joined in on the chanting and Lakhoni caught Simra and Hilana’s eyes, motioning for them to draw closer. “She said they’re the descendants of Lukoz. Did you all see that picture in her hill?”
“Of the man with the long stick or something in his hand?” Simra asked. She tossed a concerned glance at the faltering dancers. All of them were stumbling and gasping, but still chanting and the players didn’t slow. “Could that be Lukoz with the Rod?”
“It could be anything,” Hilana said. “It might simply be a man with a staff as a weapon, or for walking.”
Lakhoni drummed his fingers on the hard-packed dirt. “It could be anything? She said they’re Lukoz’s descendants. It has to be Lukoz. Why would they paint a picture of just anyone?”
Something in the sound around them, a break in the rhythm perhaps, made them all turn to the dancing figures. One of the female dancers had fallen to the ground, nearly collapsing on the hot rocks surrounding the fire.
The drums and piping stopped. The dancers staggered and some dropped to their knees, gasping for air. Nobody went to the collapsed woman. All of the hill dwellers simply stared for a long moment during which all that could be heard was heavy, desperate breathing.
Simra flinched forward, turning to Aboa, her mouth open. “Why isn’t anyone helping her?” Lakhoni grabbed for Simra, but she was already on her feet, dodging leaning and kneeling dancers. Lakhoni darted after Simra, seeing the reactions on the faces of the hill dwellers.
They looked surprised and unhappy to see Simra moving toward the fallen woman.
“Girl!” Aboa called after Simra. “Let Niza give herself. Do not steal her honor away!”
Simra dropped to her knees next to the fallen woman, who was on her face and didn’t move. She tried to turn the woman over. “Someone help me!”
“She will steal Niza’s honor!” A man’s voice broke through the dark night. “Stop her!”
Lakhoni spun, his dagger in his hand, his other hand out. “You will not lay a finger on her.” He glared at the gathered people. It had been one of the men clapping and chanting who had shouted. A man with a stout chest, but skinny legs and hair that fell in messy cascades past his shoulders. Lakhoni fixed his gaze on the man. “Keep back.”
The man stood and waved scrawny arms that looked completely out of place attached to his thick chest. “These outsiders will displease Khimamala.” His beardless chin pointed up as he shouted. “Stop them!”
“It’s too late.” Simra flung herself to her feet as Alronna appeared at Lakhoni’s left side, the Sword of Nubal pointing at the crowd. Lamorun and Hilana also held their weapons at the ready. In Lamorun’s case, he held his heavy cudgel in one hand and his katte in the other.
But none of these people looked like a threat. None carried weapons, save for the drummers, if their sticks could be called weapons. And the dancers were exhausted beyond the ability to do any harm. “What?” Lakhoni threw a glance at Simra.
Her face was tight with fury. Her eyes blazed with reflected light from the fire. “Is that the heaviest honor you talked about?” She addressed Aboa, who had placed herself between her people and Lakhoni’s naked blade. “Dancing herself to death?”
Aboa’s lips turned downward and she nodded solemnly. “Niza gave of herself to please Khimamala.” She extended her hands and waved her people back. “We honor her and beg for mercy and rain.” She looked to the dark, star-speckled sky. “Even as Niza gave her sweat and life to the earth, great Khimamala, we plead for your mercy. Stay your wrath and send rain!” Aboa lifted both hands high above her head, her mouth open, as if she thought rain would start falling at that very second.
“This is barbaric.” Simra stalked forward. Lakhoni kept pace with her, fighting disgust from the memories of what he’d seen in the cavern of the Separated. “How does a young woman dancing herself to death please a god? Why would you want to please a god like that anyway?”
Lakhoni nodded at Simra’s questions.
Aboa turned a confused expression on Simra, then smiled at her own people. “Outsiders will not understand. We can forgive their innocent ignorance.”
“It is not a god that would ask his followers to kill themselves in his name.” Lamorun spat into the dirt.
Aboa’s face hardened. The expressions of the other hill-dwellers had turned from exhaustion to anger. While no single one of them looked like a threat, they definitely outnumbered Lakhoni and his group. Lakhoni shook his head at Lamorun, trying to catch his eye.
“You do not understand.” Aboa’s voice rose. “I have done my duty and fed you. You will not dishonor Niza’s sacred night by staying here.”
Alronna lowered her sword and stepped forward. The gathered group shifted inward, as if Alronna was attacking. She lifted an empty hand. “No, please. You’re right, we don’t understand. We don’t want to hurt anyone.” She glanced over her shoulder at Lakhoni, her eyebrows raised.
He quickly sheathed his dagger and took Simra’s arm. “Come on.”
“They just let her die.” Simra resisted Lakhoni’s pull. “Some of these people look so tired they might not last the night.”
“Simra, this is not our fight.”
“We can’t let people just kill themselves for something so stupid!”
Lakhoni turned and faced Simra. Her eyes blazed and she jerked her arm from Lakhoni’s grip. “I know. It makes no sense. But if you try to help them, they will think you’re making things worse. And that will make things worse.”
“What is wrong with people?” Simra’s body shook, tears falling from her eyes. She wrapped her arms around stomach. “This makes no sense.”
“You’re right.” Lakhoni gently took her by the shoulder and followed Alronna toward Aboa. “But we just need to—” He cut himself off. How could he be so stupid? “Wait.”
Aboa had stepped closer to the drummers to let Alronna by. “You must leave before you dishonor this night. Khimamala will not be pleased!”
Lakhoni faced Aboa, but addressed all the gathered hill people. “You are the descendants of Lukoz?”
Aboa glared at Lakhoni. “I have already said this. You will depart now or blood will water this ground to sanctify it!”
Simra leapt forward, arms extended toward Aboa. Lakhoni reached for her to hold her back, but stopped as Simra pointed a finger in Aboa’s face, but did not touch her. “You will answer his questions.” Simra’s voice was a tight, furious hiss. “And we will leave you and your people to your perverse ritual.” She took a fast breath and glared at Aboa and the people arrayed behind her. “Or we will take Niza’s body from here and you will spill your own blood on our blades.”
“We seek the staff!” Lakhoni lifted his voice to be heard by everyone. Exhausted, angry, and confused faces greeted his question. Firelight glimmered off sweaty foreheads and squinting eyes. “Lukoz had a staff. We seek it.”
“You mean the Rod of Lukoz?” This was the barrel-chested man with scrawny legs and arms. He cackled. “You will not find it here!”
“Yes, the Rod!” Lakhoni stared the man down. “If it’s not here, where is it?”
“Silence, Jopesh!” Aboa sliced her hand through the air. “These are not worthy to wield the Rod of our Forefather.”
“We do not seek to wield it, woman,” Alronna snarled. “A greater evil than you know is searching for it and we will stop him even if we have to go through each one of you.” Her last words were punctuated by Alronna’s hot stare moving from Aboa to the man, Jopesh, to others of the hill people.
“Enough,” Jopesh yelled, his voice cracking. He swung his body left and right, trying to capture the attention of his people. “Their ignorance dishonors Niza’s sacrifice. Perhaps Khimamala will be pleased by their blood!” He surged forward, many of his people on his heels.
Lakhoni planted his feet firmly on the ground and centered himself. “Tell us where the Rod is.”
Simra closed with Aboa, their noses almost touching. “You do not want to test their blades. Blood more evil and powerful than you can imagine has been spilled by them.”
Aboa’s chest rose and fell in angry gulps of air. She chewed on nothing, her lips working, then finally snorted loudly and scrubbed her hand across her mouth. “The Rod was taken by the Betrayers when they left three generations ago.” She waved her hand over her head. “Go west and you will find them. If they have survived the wrath of the gods.”
“Is that all?” Simra looked ready to throttle Aboa. Lakhoni held still, wanting to make sure he did not break the spell Simra’s fury had cast on the hill people.
“That is all, outsider.” Aboa swallowed. “Now leave.”
Simra didn’t move. “You dishonor everything good with your perverse sacrifice.” Lakhoni put a hand to Simra’s shoulder. She spun and glared at Lakhoni, looking ready to chew rocks. “Yes, I’m coming.”
Lamorun led the way out of the half circle of angry hill people, Lakhoni and Simra in the middle, and Alronna and Hilana taking up the rear. As they left the light of the hill people’s waning fire and turned west, Hilana spat noisily into the dirt. “I hope it rains soon.” She made a foul gesture back toward the red and orange light that still reflected off nearby hills. “And washes the stain of those people completely away.”
They walked fast for a mile, each lost in their thoughts. Simra stuck close to Lakhoni as the group skirted rocky hills and waded through tall, soft grass. He wanted to talk to her, try to get her to let her fury out, but decided she neede
d time.
Finally, she spoke softly. “What is wrong with people?”
“In their minds, they’re doing the right thing,” Alronna said. “They need rain and so they talk to their gods.”
“But people are dying from dancing.” Simra looked at Alronna, but clearly was still seeing the woman, Niza, collapsing and dying in the dirt. “That’s awful.”
Alronna nodded. “I think so too.”
“We need rest,” Lamorun said. He led the group to a flat space and motioned at the ground. “We can make camp here.”
“They might have been lying,” Hilana said as each person laid out their sleeping mat. “Trying to be rid of us.”
“Maybe,” Lakhoni said. “But what other option do we have? The way Aboa talked about the Betrayers, they sound like real people.” He wished they could continue through the night. He didn’t relish the dreams that would come so soon after being forcefully reminded of the sacrifice in the cavern of the Living Dead.
“I believe they told the truth,” Alronna said.
“It matters not,” Lamorun said. He was already on his back, staring at the stars with his hands cupped under his head. “We have no better plan.”
“And we don’t know where Gadnar is,” Lakhoni added, turning his eyes to the thick blanket of stars far overhead. “We don’t even know what he’s doing, for certain.”
“We could talk or we could sleep,” Alronna said. “Then we will find this Rod. And Gadnar. And we will end all of this.”
The group lapsed into silence as a warm breeze blew across the hilly plain. A gentle whisper filled the air from the wind brushing across the grass.
Hilana chuckled quietly. “At least we got a meal out of it.”
Dripping red faces and hands closed in all sides. Panic soured his tongue and squeezed his chest. Lakhoni desperately sought a way out, but all was blood and terror and the certainty that he should have stopped the falling of the deadly blade—
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