Lakhoni (7 page)

Back
in Gimno’s fire circle, Lakhoni tried to order his thoughts. Confusion fought
with cold, clear horror. They had just sacrificed a person. The trembling
struck again. He sucked in a breath, feeling that if he didn’t hold himself
together he might fall into pieces or simply fade into nothingness.

The
trembling faded as Vena approached. “How are you feeling, Lakhoni?” The clear
concern in her eyes clashed harshly with the terrible thing she had just been a
part of.

He
opened his mouth to speak. Nothing.

“I
am sure Gimno told you, but the first time is always hard.” Her hand cupped
Lakhoni’s right cheek, her thumb softly running over his skin.

He
nodded. How could this be? How could Vena care about his feelings when she was
a part of spilling innocent blood? How many people had died at the hands of the
Living Dead in their sick sacrifices?

“You’ve
been through so much, Lakhoni,” Vena said. “Anybody would feel overcome. You
are strong for still being able to stand.”

He
nodded, still unable to speak. Vena guided him inside Corzon and Anor’s hut.

“You
would do best to sleep some more.”

He
nodded again, seeking his sleeping pad in the dimness of the hut’s interior.

“Tomorrow
will be a better day,” Vena said. “You will begin to learn the ways of your new
people.”

Lakhoni
could think of nothing to say to that. He wanted to learn to fight like them,
but he was sure he would lose his soul if he had to watch another human
sacrifice.

He
had to get away. But would they let him? Now that he knew where they lived and
what they did, they might not let him leave alive.

He
carefully lowered himself to his sleeping pad as exhaustion took hold of him.
The soft, woven mat under him squeaked gently as it accepted his weight.

He
had to leave the cave. He would wait for the right time, when they allowed him
outside. Then he would get away and find his way to Alronna.

He
could still feel the pressure of Gimno’s fingers on his forehead and cheeks. It
made him feel dirty, corrupt.

Lakhoni
got to his feet and grabbed a soft, worn knit cloth. He dipped it in a deep
bowl of water that sat on a table in the middle of the hut. Using the cloth, he
scrubbed his face and forehead as quickly as he could. Even though Gimno’s hand
had appeared clean, the sacrifice—no, the murder—made Lakhoni feel corrupted
just by being touched.

Lakhoni
crossed back to his bed. He lay down, careful to lower his left shoulder first.
As his head touched the pad, a twinge of hot pain flashed from the crown of his
head down into his jaw. He stiffened as the pain throbbed for a few moments and
let his breath out slowly as he forced his body to relax.
It won’t be long,
he
thought. And if he picked up some training and skills while he was with the
Living Dead, so be it.

* * *

Gasping,
Lakhoni fought free of a dream of angry, dead young men with his parents’ faces
on them, reaching for him. Cold air hit his face at the same time the smell of
old fires assaulted his nose. His heart hammered in his chest.

In
the hut, in the cave. The sleeping mat under his back.

Only
a dream.

But
Lakhoni knew that Salno had always said that dreams were more than just silly
things that happened during sleep. Dreams meant something—they were often the
way the First Fathers spoke to their children. It was for the people to
interpret the dreams correctly.

Lakhoni
understood the images he had seen: the altar and the young man, his parents’
faces. But what was he to do? Was the young man asking for justice too?

Lakhoni
lay on his mat for what felt like hours. Night must have fallen, for he heard
the soft breathing of Corzon and Anor nearby.

First
Fathers, help.
He sent his silent pleas heavenward, hoping they could find a way through the
layers of rock over him to the sky far above.
I know my duty. I will do it,
at least as well as I can.
Warm tears slid from his eyes and down his
cheeks. There were a lot of people around him in the huge cavern, families and
tribes. More people than even in his village. But he had never been so alone.
I
don’t know how, but I will do my duty. Just . . . please help
me.

Sleep
slowly overcame Lakhoni as the weight of the night and the events of the past
few days pressed down upon him.

Lakhoni
marveled at the sight before him. Blue—vast, pale, and glimmering in the dawn
light—stretched from horizon to horizon. Mist clung to the great mountains far
to the west. The tallest, Sinhael, had its tip completely obscured by the gauzy
clouds that never left the mountain—as if they were the breath of some mighty
being that inhabited the peak. Sinhael—Heaven’s Tower. Lakhoni wondered if it
was true what Lamorun had told him, that some of the First Fathers had climbed
the mountain and disappeared, supposedly taken up to the heavens.

He
tore his gaze from the mighty peak and drank in the sights of the surface
world, feeling like he could consume the trees with their deep green leaves and
needles, the taste of a fresh day, the feel of new air on the skin. He could
consume it and become one with it, leaving a world of bloody nightmares and
painful training behind.

He
sighed. He would never have thought that after only four weeks of being
underground, he would feel as if he were coming back to life on his first
journey to the surface.

“Cub!”
Gimno’s voice rasped, sounding like a porcupine’s quills against stone. “Wake
up!”

Lakhoni
rebuked himself for his reverie and cast about to find Gimno.

The
tall, tattooed man leaned on a nearby tree. “Will you be joining us today?”

Lakhoni
forced a smile—it was becoming easier. He noticed that with each day that
passed since the young man had been murdered, the fake smile and enthusiasm
became easier to force. Nothing else horrible had happened and he grew more and
more able to conceal the emptiness that skulked in his soul.

“I
just wanted to give your old legs a head start,” Lakhoni said.

Gimno’s
eyes went wide. “My old—?” A moment passed and Gimno barked an appreciative
laugh before moving through the trees.

Lakhoni
joined the man and the rest of the warrior party, feeling nearly naked in the
chill air. He wore only leather breeches with a thick strap around his waist,
which held a short knife. But the chill of the day—it was nearly winter—made
him long for the tunics he had left at his village.

Gimno
set a fast pace, snaking between the trees and around or over brush like the
panther on his chest. The tall man and the other Living Dead didn’t make a
sound. Lakhoni, on the other hand, still had trouble running without pain in
his side. His head had healed, but his side was taking longer to recover. He
was sweating before the sun had moved more than a hand-span upwards in the
eastern sky.

After
another hour of running and gritting his teeth, Lakhoni knew where he was. A
stab of apprehension filled him. His jaw aching, he called out to Gimno. “To my
village?” Fear of what he might find and feel slowed his steps. Would the fire
have consumed everyone?

“Of
course,” Gimno said, slowing to a walk. “You must claim your property.”

My
property?

He
remembered. When Gimno had first appeared and led him away, the tall man had
said something about everything in the village being Lakhoni’s, since he was
the only survivor.

“Come
along, cub.” Gimno slapped Lakhoni’s healed shoulder. “If it were not difficult
to do this, there would be no point in it. You will be stronger afterward.”

The
sympathy in Gimno’s voice sounded real to Lakhoni. As he lengthened his stride,
Lakhoni tried to resolve the many different sides of the tall man. Gimno was
happy to see a young man murdered but then could express sympathy, love, and
even a sense of humor. He smiled with Vena and joked with Anor. He was stolidly
patient as Lakhoni practiced complex patterns of thrusts and feints with a
stone dagger.

Gimno
slowed, then stopped, turning toward Lakhoni. “We are here.”

Lakhoni
peered through the trees and realized he had not been paying attention to the
last few minutes of the journey. He and Gimno stood behind the hut that had
been Salno’s, distinctive for the intricate carvings on many of the stones
making up the walls. His eyes darted from hut to hut, something inside him
telling him that someone else might have survived, that at any moment he could
see movement.

Nothing.

Lakhoni
stepped out from the shelter of the trees. The sun was over his left shoulder,
so he had to take a few more steps to leave the forest’s shadow. A chill, not
from the autumn day, passed through him. He crossed the village grounds towards
the well. He passed the well and within moments stood before the dark jumble
that remained of the bonfire. The coals and embers must have stayed hot for a
long time, because he could only see black, gray, and white ash.

“You
must let the dead go,” Gimno said, his steps quiet as he crossed the village
center. “They know nothing of you now.”

Lakhoni
squeezed his eyes closed, seeking strength from somewhere inside.
I won’t
let them go. I will not betray them like that.

“But
never let your anger leave,” Gimno continued.

Again,
the tall man’s apparent ability to understand Lakhoni’s thoughts threw him off
guard.

“Your
anger,” Gimno said, “will carry you through the pain and discomfort of learning
to be one of the warriors for the Separated. Your anger will remind you in the
dark of night, when you want to cry yourself to sleep, when your body feels
like a skinned bear, why you fight.”

Lakhoni
mulled that over. “But you keep saying that I should never fight angry. That
when I am fighting, I must be completely without feeling or emotion.”

Nodding,
Gimno smiled. “Yes, you remember well. But this anger is the type of anger you put
in your soul, letting its heat fill you.” Gimno looked up into the blue sky and
surveyed the trees surrounding the dead village. “This is pure anger, not the
shallow kind you feel at a slight or offense.”

Lakhoni
stepped back and turned, making for his old home. Memories of conversations and
happy moments with his family glowed warmly, but now the house sat derelict,
the stones resting tiredly atop each other. “So pure anger is what you put
away, banking it like a coal for a time you will need it.”

Gimno’s
grunt confirmed to Lakhoni that his understanding had been correct. “Yes. Put
it away, but not too far. Where you can reach it. It will give you strength.”

Lakhoni
reached for the door to his family’s hut.

“What is that?” Gimno asked.

Lakhoni
turned back. “What?”

Gimno pointed above Lakhoni’s
head. “That shape.”

Lakhoni
took a step back. A memory stabbed painfully. His father had smiled
mischievously whenever Lakhoni asked about the strange shape carved in the
keystone of their home’s doorway. It was a circle with lines radiating out from
it and a longer, thicker line piercing it from one side to the other. It almost
looked like a sun setting or rising on the horizon. “I don’t know. My father
never told me.”

“It
has some special meaning?” Gimno glanced around the village. “None of the
others have a pattern such as this.”

“I
told you I don’t know.” Bitterness filled his throat. “My father liked
pictures. He never said if it meant something!”

“Cub.”
Gimno placed a hand on Lakhoni’s shoulder. “You must leave him in his peace.
You yet live.”

The
taste of bile coated his tongue. “I know.”

Stepping
into the dimness of his home, Lakhoni thought about what Gimno had said about
using anger like a burning ember. He remembered the day he had spent gathering his
family’s and friends’ bodies. He remembered the hot, yet . . .
stone-hard feeling that had filled his muscles. The memory tasted purer than
bitterness. He knew this pure anger that Gimno spoke of.
I have already felt
that strength.
He looked around the hut, seeing nothing that he cared to
claim.
And you, Gimno, have added to it. You and your people.

An
image of a glinting dagger point plunging downward flashed through his mind.
The revulsion had faded over the weeks since the sacrifice ritual, but fury at
his own inaction still blazed in Lakhoni’s stomach.

A
shiver ran through him. He had tunics somewhere. And his warm bear skin that he
wore in the winter. Surely it would get cold even in the caverns of the
Separated.

If
he was still there when winter had fully arrived.

Lakhoni
searched the hut, quickly finding his tunics. He had to get away from the
Separated soon, but it was still too early. The Separated would not let him go
easily. Their hidden home under the ground was far too valuable of a secret. It
was possible that they might hunt him once he got away in order to keep him
from telling others about the cavern. He knew that Gimno was watching him
closely. And Corzon, though friendly, constantly glanced at him during meals
and gatherings.

No,
 Lakhoni thought,
I
can’t leave any time soon. I’m still too new, still untested. I have to become
nothing unusual, something commonplace.
If he could get to a point where
his comings and goings were unsupervised and unquestioned, he would be ready.

It
occurred to Lakhoni that he had been absentmindedly searching for his bear skin
for quite a while. He checked under sleeping mats and in every nook in the
small hut. He couldn’t remember wearing it any time recently, and he was sure
nobody else had used it.

“The
raiding party,” he murmured. Thieves and murderers. They had taken the bear
skin, of course.

He
realized suddenly that he lived with thieves and murderers, that he was trying
to be counted as one of them. He had to get away soon, even if it meant leaving
in the dead of winter. Every moment he stayed with the Separated was one step
closer to the death of his soul.

“Cub!”
Gimno’s voice easily carried through into the hut. “We cannot tarry long. The
daylight is not our friend.”

“Coming,”
Lakhoni said. He dropped his mother’s sleeping mat back to the ground. Dark
flecks scattered in the wind raised by the falling mat. Lakhoni turned to the
door, then stopped. The floor of the hut was pale, packed dirt. Where had the
dark specks come from?

“Cub,”
Gimno said again. “You need to see this.”

The
serious tone made Lakhoni look toward the door.

“Okay.”

Lakhoni
lifted his mother’s sleeping mat again. He saw the normal pale, hard-packed
dirt. But at the center of where the mat usually sat some darker dirt gathered.
Lakhoni quickly folded the mat back on itself and knelt, his hands in the dark
dirt. He ran his fingers through it, then felt something hard and straight.
Bending closer, he brushed dirt away from the hard thing. He blew on it and
revealed an outline, a straight edge and a corner. Knowing Gimno could walk in
at any second, Lakhoni quickly blew again, using his fingers to completely
uncover a pale stone that matched the color of the dirt perfectly. It was
completely square. Jabbing a finger under one corner, Lakhoni lifted.

The
stone was heavy, but Lakhoni was able to get more fingers under it, then his
other hand. A hole, as deep as the length of his arm, gaped at him. It reached
down deep enough to reach the moist, dark soil underneath. Whatever had been inside
had recently been taken out.

What
was in here? Did the raiding party take it?

Lakhoni
felt movement outside the door to the hut. He dropped the stone, replaced the
mat and moved to stand up.

Too
late. Gimno stood in the doorway.

“What
is taking so long?”

“I
can’t find my bear skin.”

“And
you think it might be on that bed? Were you planning on taking a nap?”

Lakhoni
stood. “I thought it might be under a bed, or around one somewhere.”

“Obviously
the king’s dogs took it.”

“Probably.”

Gimno
fixed Lakhoni with a hard look. “They are thieves, almost as bad as the
Usurpers. The Usurpers took the birthright from their elder brothers—the
greatest sin committed by any of our people. But Zyron’s dogs kill and steal
with the sole purpose of getting gain for their master.” Gimno gestured for
Lakhoni to follow him. “Not probably, cub. They took it.”

Lakhoni
followed Gimno out of the hut, his mind racing. What had his mother been
keeping under her bed? Who else had known about whatever it was?

The
possibility that the king’s raiding party had slaughtered the entire village
for the sole purpose of finding what his mother had been hiding struck him. It
was clear that somebody had been forced to search at length, with some
deliberation, before finding the mysterious thing.

“Look
here.”

Lakhoni
glanced down at the ground Gimno indicated. Around him, the other members of
the group gathered items to carry back to the cavern. Forcing down his anger at
the looting, Lakhoni crouched and looked closer. A footprint, the toes pointing
toward his family’s hut.

“So?”

Gimno
smiled fiercely. “Overcome the limited teaching of your previous life and use
your brain. Unless it is scrambled permanently from that blow you took.”