‘Well,’ the giant observed as he shook the dark blood from his blade, ‘there’s nothing there now.’ He turned away. ‘Bring the body. The damned Thaumaturg might yet demand proof.’
At the cave entrance Skinner paused, raising a gauntleted hand to sign a halt. He regarded the wide cave floor, now as still as any placid pool. He then went to the body, which Shijel and Black had dragged all the way. Grunting with the effort, he gathered up the muscular corpse and heaved the carcass overhead and out on to the floor. As it flew Mara flinched to hear it give vent to one sudden despairing shriek, cut off as it disappeared beneath the surface. The pool of vermin foamed to life in a great boiling froth of maggots, beetles, writhing larvae and ghost-white centipedes.
Mara turned away, nauseated. Skinner watched for a time, motionless, then headed for the surface. Passing Mara, he observed, ‘You were right – stripped in an instant.’
* * *
Saeng woke up feeling worse than she had in a very long time. She was shivering cold and her clothes hung sodden and chilled. Her hair was a clinging damp mess, her nose was running and her back hurt. Early morning light shone down through the thick canopy in isolated shafts of gold. She stretched, grimacing, and felt at her back;
she’d
slept curled up on a nest of leaves and humus piled in a nook between the immense roots of a tualang tree. Her umbrella stood open over her, its handle jammed into a gap between the vines that choked the trunk. Hanu stood to one side, his back to her.
Standing, Saeng adjusted her shirt and skirts and brushed ineffectually at her matted hair. She pulled the umbrella free and closed it. Hanu turned to her.
‘Thanks,’ she said, indicating the umbrella. He nodded within his helm, which glittered with its inlaid jade and lapis lazuli mosaic. A suspicion struck her. ‘You stood there all through the night?’ Again he nodded. That struck her as inhuman, which made her rub her arms and look away, an ache clenching her chest. ‘Don’t you need to sleep … any more?’
‘
Little
,’ he signed.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘
Don’t
.’
Deciding not to pursue that any further, she scanned the jungle. ‘Hear anything in the night?’
‘
Many things come
.’
‘What’s that? Many things? What?’
‘
Night animals. Wild pigs. Monkeys. A fire cat hunting. Ghosts
.’
‘Ghosts? What did they look like?’
‘
Dancing balls white light
.’
‘Oh, them.’ Wanderers. Spirits doomed to search eternally for some lost or stolen thing. People greedy in life. Sometimes, though, she knew it could have been a sad affair with one hunting a lost love. ‘Any hint of the Thaumaturgs?’
‘
No. But close. Must move
.’
‘Yes. But first we must eat.’ She sat on a root and dug in her cloth shoulder bag. ‘We have rice for two or three days only. After that, fruit and anything we can catch, I suppose.’ She held up a ball of rice. He worked at his helm to open it. Saeng studied her brother as he popped the rice ball into his mouth and chewed, his gaze searching the woods. So much a figure from her youth. How she could still see the smiling child in his face.
Oh, Hanu … what have they done to you?
‘More?’ she asked.
‘
No
.’ He closed his helm.
No more? For such a large fellow it seemed to her that he ate like a mouse. She packed up the bags and wraps and they set off.
Pushing through the wet leaves she was sodden again almost immediately. She brushed at her skirts in irritation. Hanu, leading,
did
what he could to break trail. Towards midday the clouds began thickening as the evening rain gathered itself. They exited the tall old forest to enter a broad meadow of dense grass stands reaching higher than either of them.
‘An old rice field,’ Saeng said, wonder in her voice. ‘We must be close to Pra Thaeng, or Pra Dan.’
Hanu signed for silence, now tensed. He motioned Saeng back and drew his long broad blade. She at least knew enough not to say a thing, and backed away quickly. She then heard it: something large approaching, shouldering its way through the thick stands.
Great Demon-King! Not another yakshaka! I must help
. She summoned her power from within.
An immense monster suddenly crashed through the stand immediately before Hanu, who went down beneath its charging mass. Saeng had a glimpse of a dirty white juggernaut, beady fear-maddened rolling eyes and a curve of flashing horn, then it was gone.
She ran to Hanu and threw herself down at his side. Her brother was climbing to his feet, rather unsteady, giving vent to a strange noise. She helped him stand and realized that the sound he was making was laughter distorted by his helm. She let go her own worry and laughed as well.
‘
More scared us
,’ he signed.
Saeng nodded, smiling.
Yes. A great white rhino – more scared than we
. She shook her head, almost silly with relief. ‘Just having lunch, then we come along.’ She invited Hanu on. ‘Some sort of a lesson there.’
They found a path through the fields and glimpsed in the distance the steep thatched roofs of the village houses, tendrils of white smoke rising. Hanu stopped here and motioned aside to the thick grasses. Saeng frowned for a moment, then comprehension dawned and she nodded her fierce agreement, waving him into hiding. She continued on alone. The quiet and stillness of the village struck her immediately. Where was everyone? Surely the Thaumaturgs hadn’t swept through already …
Someone stepped out of a hut ahead. He was dressed as a peasant: a colourful wrap over his head against the sun, a loose blue shirt of coarse material, short pants tight at the calves, and barefoot. But the broad curved blade thrust into his waist sash was most unpeasant-like. He froze, seemingly quite as startled as she. Then a very savage grin climbed his unshaven face and he advanced, swaggering.
‘Where have
you
been hiding, pretty bird?’ he called.
Saeng’s first reaction was to flee, and she did back away a few steps.
‘No running!’ he shouted. ‘We have everyone. Don’t want them to get hurt, do you?’
Saeng stilled and was surprised to find a calm resolve take hold of her. ‘No,’ she answered, firmly, ‘I do not.’
The fellow rested a hand on his sword grip. ‘Good. Come along then.’
As she walked next to him she asked, ‘You are bounty men collecting people for the army?’
He eyed her, his gaze evaluating. ‘That’s right. Coin for every hale man and woman.’
‘Labourers?’
The man shrugged his indifference. ‘Labourers, workers, haulers, spear-carriers, shovel-carriers, cooks, launderers, carpenters. Or …’ and he looked her up and down, ‘other services.’
He brought her to the temple, the main structure of any village. Here more armed men and women guarded the villagers who knelt in the dirt of the central square. He led her up to another armed fellow, this one quite young, in a long hauberk of overlapping leather scales set with blackened iron rivets that hung to his knees. With this presumed leader stood an old woman, possibly the head of the village.
The leader eyed Saeng then turned an angry glare on the old woman. ‘You gave me your word there was no one else!’ The old woman merely hung her head.
‘I’m not from here,’ Saeng called.
The leader turned his attention to her. ‘What is your name?’
‘Ahn.’
He snorted his disbelief. ‘Well …’ gave her a long lazy-eyed study, ‘the name doesn’t really matter, does it?’ Saeng saw how he eyed her long unbound hair. ‘You’re unmarried.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why so old yet unmarried? What’s wrong with you, Ahn?’
Stung, she raked a clawed hand at his face but he flinched aside, catching her wrist. ‘Now I see why,’ he laughed. ‘Too much of a temper. Well … we’ll see about that.’
She wrenched her hand free – or he allowed her to. ‘What are you going to do?’
He ignored her, gestured to one of his men. ‘Have them prepare a meal for us.’
‘Yes, Kenjak.’
Saeng stared anew at the fellow – hardly older than she. ‘Kenjak Ashevajak? The Bandit Lord?’
He smiled, clearly very pleased. ‘Ah! Heard of me, have you?’
Saeng looked away, damning herself for the outburst. ‘I have heard stories.’
He brushed errant strands of her hair from her shoulder. ‘You can tell me them all – tonight.’ She slapped his hand aside but he walked off, laughing.
Saeng caught a pitying look from the old woman. ‘I’m sorry, child,’ she murmured. ‘There is no succour here.’
‘I’m no child,’ Saeng growled, pulling at her tangled hair. She eyed the surrounding huts and fields.
Hanu, wherever you are, stay hidden! I’ll handle this
.
Under the watch of the bandits the villagers prepared a meal first for them, then for the roped gang of captives squatting in the square. Kenjak had Saeng sit next to him in the largest of the village huts. He offered her food pinched in his fingers, which she refused, much to his amusement.
As the evening darkened and the rains began, the young man turned to her again. He leaned back on an arm, saying, ‘So … tell me these stories,’ and he chewed on coconut meat, watching her steadily.
‘I could tell you what I have heard of your past …’ she began, slowly, ‘or I could tell you your future.’
The bandit leader stopped tossing pieces of dried coconut into his mouth. The talk around the low table among the man’s lieutenants died away. His gaze narrowed and Saeng was shaken to see for the first time true cruelty in someone’s eyes. ‘You are a witch?’ he asked, his voice flat.
She shrugged. ‘I have some small talents.’
Kenjak peered around the table, a mocking smile now on his lips. ‘This one claims to be a witch,’ he said, chuckling. ‘She is trying to scare us, I think.’ The gathered men and women eyed one another, laughing uneasily. ‘Go ahead. Read my future. Don’t you need a chicken? Or prayer sticks, perhaps?’
‘No. Nothing like that. I simply need to concentrate on the night.’
‘Be my guest, little witch.’
Saeng settled herself and stared out the door to the dark where the captives still squatted, hunched and wretched, in the now drumming rain. Peripherally, she saw the bandits’ hands sliding across their laps to the wood and bone grips of knives in their
sashes
. Kenjak, next to her, had not moved and she realized that they were now locked in a game neither could back away from: he displaying his fearlessness and she – to his mind – attempting to terrify everyone. She had no doubt he was not bluffing; he would kill her if he so chose. But what he did not understand was that she was not bluffing, either.
Saeng now attempted something she’d never dared before, and reached out to her brother. ‘
Hanu
,’ she called through the arts taught her by the shades. ‘
Do you hear me?
’
‘
Saeng? Is that you?
’ came his astonished reply.
‘
Yes. Do not show yourself! Leave this to me
.’
‘
I am watching. If anyone—
’
‘
No! They mustn’t see you
.’
‘Well?’ Kenjak urged. ‘We’re waiting.’
‘I see your death,’ she announced, proud of the steadiness of her voice.
‘I am grey-haired and between the legs of my favourite concubine, no doubt.’
Saeng tilted her head, squinting into the night. ‘No. You—’ She broke off then, her voice catching in surprise as an image did suddenly come to her. Kenjak in darkness, a cave, or underground, the mark of death upon him. ‘Fear the underground, Kenjak. You will die there.’
For an instant the man’s face drained of all blood. He leaped to his feet, drawing his knife. ‘Who told you this, whore?’
Screams sounded from the darkness and the hissing curtains of rain. Kenjak waved out two of his men then returned his attention to her.
Saeng knew what lay behind the screams. She had sensed them gathering: the Nak-ta. ‘
Go away!
’ she ordered.
‘
You summoned us …
’ came the cold reply.
‘
I did not!
’
‘
The violence of your thoughts did. We come to serve. Give them to us …
’
‘Look!’ one of the bandits called, pointing to her. Saeng looked down at herself. Blue ghost-flame flickered upon her lap and arms. ‘Kill her!’ the man shouted, terrified.
Kenjak thrust. But it seemed to Saeng that she merely touched his arm and he flew in an eruption of the ghost-flame to crash into a wall. The table, everyone else, all were flung backwards to strike the walls in a storm of writhing fire that lashed about her while she stared, dumbfounded, at her flaming hands.
Everyone scrambled for the door and windows, crying and screaming their terror.
‘
They are ours!
’ came the savage cry of bloodlust from the gathered Nak-ta.
‘
Touch them not!
’ Saeng demanded. ‘
Obey me!
’
She felt a slow reluctant acquiescence chill her. ‘
We … obey
.’ Beneath the admission she sensed the unspoken
for now
…