around in my arms. She squealed and leaned back, legs locked around my waist, hair fanning out like black cornsilk as we giddily spun to the wild beat of drums.
I backed into someone, stumbled, and Savga and I tum bled to the ground in a fit of giggles.
The whole arbiyesku was dancing beneath the twilight sky, save those who were pounding a furious celebratory rhythm upon upturned kettles and water barrels. The elder women of our clan clapped their hands in swift syncopated time, while the old men, grinning toothlessly, whooped a peculiar song that sounded very much like a triumphant battle chant. All across Xxamer Zu, similar revelry was tak ing place.
Now
I was bursting with fierce pride.
My
Clutch.
My
bull. I had done it.
The beat of the song changed, became slow, sensual, heavy. I looked up from where I held Savga pinned down and was tickling her. Tansan was walking into the center of the clan compound, and the others who’d been dancing fell back, giving her space.
A single woodwind pipe breathed plaintive notes into the twilight air as the smell of woodsmoke from the bon fires in the warehouse mingled with the wild, windswept smell of the savanna. Tansan started to dance.
Slowly her hips rolled one way, then the other. Her breasts were lifted high and proud, her neck tall. Her black, iconic eyes reflected the very same fierce pride that I felt, and as they fell upon me, my breath caught in my throat and a flush spread over my cheeks.
She didn’t move; she
flowed
. Straight shoulders, pow erful arms, smooth skin, voluptuous hips and thighs and chest . . . Her dance was arresting. Slowly she came toward me. Closer. Closer. Till I was looking up the length of her legs to where she stood above me. While still dancing, while the woodpipe plaintively cried into the wind and the drums beat like the heart of the savanna itself, she extended a hand down to me. I rose to my feet, entranced.
We moved, she and I, the heat of her body infusing my limbs with swarthy emotions, the grip of her dark eyes re lentless. One by one, she chose other women of our clan to join us, and we danced.
Then I turned and saw Longstride standing at the end of the arbiyesku, near the cocoon warehouse. Longstride, with the matriarch beside her. Surrounded by her tribe.
I came to an abrupt stop.
The woman on my left bumped into me, stumbled, stopped, causing the woman beside her to likewise falter. A domino effect followed as around the circle, women stum bled to a halt. I felt, rather than saw, everyone follow my gaze. The drums and the pipe music staggered to a halt.
Tansan spoke first. “Why have they come, Zarq?”
My face must have shown something for her to ask such of me. I swallowed, shook my head.
“Don’t know.” I had to force the words out.
Tansan’s eyes searched mine. “Is it them?”
For a moment I’d forgotten that I’d told her all about the rite enacted upon me in the jungle. I nodded.
“So. Let’s go greet them, yes?” She sounded so reason able, as if suggesting drinking bushtea with friends.
Savga’s hand slipped into mine.
Surrounded by my clan—Fwipi on one side of me, little Savga and her mother on the other side—I approached Longstride and the matriarch. I wouldn’t have liked to ap proach them alone. Longstride’s amber eyes were as fierce as a wounded wildcat’s. The matriarch stood beside her, swathed in a glittering, pearl-pink blanket. The blanket was covered in tiny shells, all stitched on by gold thread. Where she’d obtained such thread—or even the many gold neck laces around the matriarch’s proud, straight neck—was be yond me. Behind me, my clan murmured at the sight of the fine blanket, that cascade of necklaces.
The matriarch’s face was a slab of imperturbability. Be yond her stood her tribe, packs on their backs, loads borne upon travois dragged by the strongest men and women. It looked as if they’d dismantled their camp.
Some of the myazedo rebels who guarded the cocoon warehouse stood with swords unsheathed, watching tensely, keeping a distance . . . barely.
Longstride spoke, chin lifted. She was still wearing my lock of hair braided into her own.
“What did she say?” I asked. I glanced sideways at Fwipi.
Fwipi clucked. “You think there’s only one Djimbi lan guage in all this big-far land? Gah! There’s clawfuls. I know them as well as you do.”
“There must be someone on Xxamer Zu who speaks their language,” I said.
“
Must
be?” Fwipi shook her head. “Because you will it?”
On the other side of me, Tansan shifted. “Djekid speaks a little. In the hills, his path crossed this tribe’s occasionally. Piah will fetch him.”
Piah peeled away into the gloaming.
We stood and waited. The bonfires in the warehouse crackled and snapped. Night settled over us. One of the arbiyesku women wondered aloud if we should offer the strange Djimbi food and drink. The notion didn’t seem logical; the mood was one of a standoff. None of the matri arch’s tribe had squatted onto their haunches to rest while waiting. Everyone stood, eyes upon me. None of us had sat down, either. No one seemed comfortable with the thought of sitting, let alone eating together.
In the distance we could hear the booming of kettle drums and the muted whoops of celebrants.
The waiting was interminable.
At last we heard two escoas overhead; they were barely discernible against the dark sky. They landed near the ware house; Knife-carver and Malaban Bri dismounted from one escoa, and a richly attired aristocrat and a myazedo rebel with two long braids dismounted from the other. Malaban Bri nodded at me and faced Longstride and the matriarch.
Longstride’s eyes swung to Knife-carver; she said some thing to the matriarch, who gave an imperceptible nod. Longstride demanded something; Knife-carver responded with a few words in Longstride’s language, but Longstride cut him off with a stream of vitriol. She held her spear steady and jerked her chin disdainfully in my direction. The rebel Two-braids shifted and glanced at the aristocrat beside him.
I acknowledged the fear that had begun to grow within me: The matriarch’s tribe had come to collect the debt they felt I owed them.
Knife-carver and Two-braids bent their heads together and exchanged words. They apparently both understood a little of Longstride’s language. I wondered which of them was Djekid.
Knife-carver spoke again to Longstride. Again she cut him off, her bearing and tone even more contemptuous and angry. Two-braids knelt and sketched two crude dragons in the dust, one with plumes jutting from its head. He halt ingly said a few words and pointed at me. Longstride scorn fully lifted her chin in agreement.
Knife-carver shot me a look that chilled my guts; then he turned to Malaban Bri, who had listened as impassively as had the matriarch opposite him. The aristocrat beside Malaban remained silent, his neatly groomed beard gleam ing with oil in the firelight.
“This one”—Knife-carver jerked his chin at me in un conscious imitation of Longstride—“promised the tribe a winged yearling and a neonate bull dragon, in exchange for the secret to breeding bulls in captivity. The tribe has come to collect the promised dragons.”
“Is that so, Zarq?” Malaban asked, glancing at me. His kohl-encircled eyes were somber.
I had difficulty finding my voice. “I don’t speak their lan guage. Maybe a promise was implied by my participation in their rite. . . . I don’t know.”
Malaban nodded slowly, thick neck barely moving. He knew all about the bitter sting of rites. His sister, after all, was Jotan Bri. His huge chest slowly inflated, slowly de flated. He looked at the matriarch again.
“So.” His resonant voice carried across the crowded ar biyesku compound. “We have a problem.” He glanced at Knife-carver. “This tribe goes by any name?”
“They call themselves the Kwembibi Shafwai,” Knifecarver said. “The Silent Slayers.”
“Strong name.”
“Strong people.”
“Honorable?”
“We don’t want them for enemies.”
“Have they come to join us in our fight against the Em peror?”
Knife-carver smiled thinly. “They care for nothing but what directly concerns them. They want the bull and a yearling.”
“And then?” This from the aristocrat who’d remained a silent observer up to that point.
“They’ll move on, return in a year or so to the jungle mountains near here. Maybe.” Knife-carver shrugged.
“But what happens to the dragons?” the aristocrat said irritably. “Do they intend on breeding them?”
Again Knife-carver smiled thinly. “They’d be hardpressed to prevent a young bull from mounting a yearling, hey-o.”
“Not acceptable.” The man glared at Longstride and the matriarch. “We can’t have Djimbi savages breeding drag ons whenever they please.”
The entire arbiyesku tensed.
“Djimbi savages?” I said.
“What I’d be interested in knowing,” Malaban Bri smoothly interjected, “is how they’re so certain we
have
a young bull to give them.”
Knife-carver looked at me accusingly.
“I never left this Clutch to tell them,” I said heatedly. “Every night I’ve been here, every day. I have witnesses. Hundreds.”
Knife-carver posed Malaban’s question to Longstride. The matriarch herself replied. Her answer was brief.
“She has dragonsight,” Knife-carver translated.
“Dragonsight,” Malaban Bri rumbled, and for a moment every flame in every bonfire froze, and the silence of the endless savanna swooped down on us and reduced all of us to the mere inconsequential wisps of bone and flesh that we were.
The eerie stillness was broken by the matriarch.
She stiffened, then spun about and cried out to her tribe, her voice as strident as a screaming falcon’s. She flung her arms wide . . . and her tribe went berserk.
Children shrieked and ran madly for the cocoon ware house, followed by men and women, all scattering like mad dened ants. Our warehouse guards tried to stop the swarm with shouts and raised swords, but they were overwhelmed. The Silent Slayers swarmed up the sides of the warehouse, spears strapped to their backs, clambering for the roof. Longstride hefted her spear into the air and began a keen ing that ripped up and down every nerve in my body.
“What are they doing?” Malaban shouted at Knifecarver.
“They’re screaming, ‘The roof, the roof.’ ” He shrugged, shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Tansan lifted an arm and pointed into the dark skies. “Something comes.”
We all stared and saw it. A shimmering blue star moving through ebon sky. Growing swiftly larger as it approached, swelling rapidly to the size of a luminescent moon. I was filled with dread presentiment. I recognized that phospho rescent blue. . . .
“No,” I whispered. “No.”
Above the cacophony of the tribe swarming up the sides of the cocoon warehouse, it seemed impossible that I’d been heard. But I had. Tansan’s fingers bit into my arm. “What is it, Zarq?”
“A Skykeeper,” I hoarsely replied.
The luminescent moon was no longer round but ellip tical in shape, with two great bluish white sails projecting from either side. Wings.
“Is it yours?” Malaban knew who I was supposed to be: the Skykeeper’s Daughter, the Dirwalan Babu.
I shook my head: no.
“Kratt’s,” he said grimly, and I marveled at the stoicism of the man, at his ability to accept the surreal even as it ap proached with preternatural speed.
The Skykeeper was now clearly identifiable as the mas sive otherworld creature that it was. My clan began running for cover, shrieking. Tansan shouted at her mother to take Savga and Agawan into the women’s barracks, but Fwipi was already running, Agawan in her sling, Savga’s hand in one of her own. Dragonmaster apprentices and myazedo rebels likewise ran for cover, and I wanted to join them; I did. But instead I stood and watched, because Tansan stood immobile beside me, and I wouldn’t run if she didn’t. No.
Those of the tribe of the Silent Slayers who’d gained the roof stood shaking their weapons defiantly at the creature about to descend upon us, their children standing on the shoulders of adults with reckless bravery, raising spears to the sky. Women, too, clambered atop the shoulders of men, who stood with legs braced and calves quivering, lifting them to the sky. The Skykeeper swooped nearer—I could see the fish-belly white of its brisket, where luminescent blue feathers parted under the speed of its descent—and the Kwembibi Shafwai shrieked asinine defiance and stretched spears up to the swooping monstrosity, ignoring its massive, outstretched talons.
Tansan and I dropped to the ground and covered our heads.
The Skykeeper was upon us.
Its skirl cracked the night sky asunder, and the ground trembled, and talons the length of saplings and blazing with spectral light raked across the cocoon warehouse roof. Bricks thudded into involucres and bonfires, splattering ribbons of rotting flesh and fiery logs and branches. Peo ple shrieked as talons ripped off the rooftops of domiciles. Timbers flew through the air like hurled spears; domicile thatch shuddered loose and rained to the ground. Insects showered down from their nests in the women’s barracks as timbers split and crashed into buckling reed-matting walls.
The smell of necrotic flesh was thrown over Xxamer Zu like a vast and reeking caul. The Skykeeper skirled again and continued its flight over the Clutch, its extended claws shred ding and cleaving and wreaking havoc and death in its path. The sound was horrific: wood screaming as it died.
No. Not my Clutch. No.
My hands clenched dust and I wept in fury, afraid to raise my head and watch.
Then the otherworld creature ascended into the dark sky, rattling timbers and cracking tile with its unearthly shrieks, and was gone.
People had been injured and trapped by the shower of de bris. Malaban Bri worked alongside Knife-carver and me through the night, always keeping me in sight, however sur reptitiously.
The Kwembibi Shafwai did not aid in uncovering the trapped and wounded. The Silent Slayers looked after their own injured; several of those who’d gained the roof had died during the Skykeeper’s assault. Come dawn, the Slay ers were flensing the corpses.
I did not like Knife-carver and I did not like Longstride and her people.Though really, when I think of it now, there’s not much difference between giving one’s dead to a gharial to consume and then consuming the gharial, and merely consuming one’s dead directly. It’s only other people’s cus toms that one finds repugnant, never one’s own.