Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series (9 page)

Chapter 14: Secret Agents

Tantos summoned Mahkawn to his chambers that night, only hours before dawn. Mahkawn had ridden the Death’s Head Train and was surprised that at two hours before dawn, Tantos did not sleep.

It was sometimes rumored that Tantos never slept, that his symbiote allowed him to stay awake for weeks on end.

Whatever the truth, Mahkawn waited in the chambers while Tantos informed him of strange attacks upon Blade Kin in the wilderness, of men and women found bled like cattle within the city.

“The attacks have been stepping up, becoming more common. We have found manlike creatures in the countryside, eaters of blood.

“We’ve even brought back the bodies of some. Our surgeons have examined the corpses, hoping to devise tests.

“The blood eaters can duplicate almost any human or Neanderthal form, but their faces are filled with bladders. If we lance them, they deflate. I have had the Secret Arm of the Brotherhood watching day and night, and we have found that we can usually discover the identity of the blood eaters quickly.

“Still, if we give them time, they will learn. Given enough time they could infiltrate every level of our society. Because of this, I have quarantined the city.

“We know the general direction of where the Creators lie, and I am gathering forces in preparation to attack. We should be able to leave within the next four weeks.”

“Very good,” Mahkawn said. “How can I serve you?”

Tantos inclined his head, turned to the general as if his thoughts had been disrupted. “As I said, I’ve had my spies working overtime, and we have found something. After defeating the Hukm, we took in numerous Okanjara prisoners north of the city, and some of them have been quite clever at remaining hidden, posing as slaves.

“Now it has come to my attention that a certain Blade Kin woman has been searching for Tull Genet, sending messengers to the mines. This is the same Tull Genet who fought in the arena today.”

“I see. Have you identified her?”

“Yes. One of my men followed her to the arena, where she cheered enthusiastically for the man.”

“Have you questioned her?”

“Not yet. She has accomplices supporting her, and we want to round them all up at once. Indeed, that is why I summoned you tonight.

“It is reported that you spoke with her today at the arena. What is your involvement with the woman?”

Mahkawn stepped backward, perplexed by the accusation. “I spoke to no one! I sat between two of my Dragon Captains during the entire display.”

“You spoke to her as you were leaving.”

Mahkawn suddenly remembered exchanging comments with some man and a couple of women. “Yes, I remember her now. She asked if Tull had mentioned any family, or offspring. I thought she hoped only that his battle prowess had bred true.”

“Could she be his family member, someone who escaped at Smilodon Bay?”

“His wife perhaps,” Mahkawn said. “He had a wife, and a small adopted son.”

“She shows unusual courage, trying to free him this way. But there is a more important element to the whole thing. It seems that with Phylomon dead, some of the Thralls believe that the time has come at last when the ‘undying blue sun is broken.’ They believe that Tull is fulfilling Pwichutwi’s ancient prophecies of the Okansharai. Even today, when Tull came out of the earth in the arena from between the legs of the Mother of Evil and splashed his audience with blood, some Thralls whispered that he fulfilled the prophecies.”

Mahkawn laughed.

“You laugh,” Tantos chided, “but the Thralls believe. You broke Tull’s thumbs before the duels, but that has not slowed him. Tull must die tonight.”

“I do not believe he can win tomorrow,” Mahkawn ventured. “His competition is too good, especially given Tull’s incapacity.”

“And I believe that this has gone too far,” Tantos growled. “You will kill him tonight. I want you to drive the sword into him
yourself
.”

“But he has freely given his ear! By all of the old laws, he is almost Blade Kin!”

“I will not have Tull glorified by these proceedings!” Tantos shouted, and Mahkawn stepped back. He had never seen the Lord show such wrath. “You will kill him by your own hand tonight! And you will take Atherkula to witness the deed! He has been clamoring for the slave’s blood—let him be gratified.

“As for the wife, I have already sent troops to round up her and her cronies. They have been taken to the dungeons. She too shall witness the murder. Let her see the end of her Okansharai! You will handle this matter. Handle it!”

Tantos stepped forward, pulled the golden scourge from Mahkawn’s belt. “Your softness has displeased me. I shall give my favor to Atherkula now. You are dismissed.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Mahkawn said. He bowed low, left the room. He stopped outside the door, felt at his belt where the scourge had been.

I have lost my lord’s favor. He has a right to be disappointed,
Mahkawn thought, yet he realized that, given time, he could win that favor back.
I should not have let my sympathies for this slave cloud my judgment. I should have never let him live so long.

***

Chapter 15: Healer

Wertha had stayed late in the market, buying food for Fava and Darrissea. He was not used to feeding so many, and with little money to pay, he forced himself to shop just before nightfall, so that he could bargain cheap for scraps of meat or stale vegetables that might otherwise go to waste.

Disguised as a Blade Kin, he did not need to worry about curfews, and so when the bells tolled, he ran among the stalls, then tossed his cheap foodstuffs in a cloth bag and hurried home.

His path took him through the twisting heart of Thrall town, where the poorest of slaves lived aboveground in wooden boxes and makeshift tents.

These were the old and infirm—men and women whom the Lords were not yet ready to cull—people who worked hard every day in the fields or at the docks or at some new factory just to prove their worth to their Slave Lords.

A hard day of drudgery bought two feedings of stew, a crust of bread, some wood for the cooking stoves.

Some among Thralls were so sick that their masters no longer cared to give them the proper quarters or food. These lay on pallets in the open, waiting either to recover or to die. None here held any delusions about their own worth.

Wertha passed a pallet where a child lay, a young girl whose legs had been crushed in an accident, and they were poorly bandaged. She reached her dirty hands out to him, asked only for water. He stopped, gave her a drink and bread from his bag.

A cool wind blew, flapping the ragged tents, blowing smoke from the cooking fires wildly. No one was looking.

Wertha could feel the healing power in him strong today, surging like the wind, waiting to be un-leashed.

He grabbed the girl’s feet and pulled the leg bones out straight. The girl did not cry in pain, but clawed, grasping a handful of icy mud from the ground on each side of her pallet.

“Do not worry,” Wertha said. “Nothing that I do will hurt you.”

He touched her legs, felt the pus and swelling beneath the skin, felt the bruises down to the bones. He let the power flow from him then, a warmth that spread from his fingertips.

“Kwitcha, my ally, be near me,” Wertha begged the goddess of healing. “Make your power one with mine.” He closed his eyes and felt the cool touch as a spirit filled him, shaking him like a sheet in the wind, but the healing did not come from his hands. Instead, a voice sounded behind him.

“Hoard your powers tonight,” a man said. “Don’t be in a hurry to go home. You are being followed.”

The man was a Pwi with pale orange hair, blue eyes, a fresh brand on his hand.

“Who are you?” Wertha asked.

“I am Fava’s father, Chaa,” the Pwi whispered. “I will see you again soon. Follow your heart. Watch behind you!”

Wertha peered at the man’s feet, at his black moccasins sewn with silver thread. The image of a crow.

Chaa ducked quickly away, weaving through the crates and shacks of Thrall town, seeming almost to disappear.

Wertha’s spirit ally left him, like a cool breeze that whispered away, and Wertha studied the girl. He touched her only lightly, healing the fevered infection in her legs, leaving the broken bones to mend in their own time.

He fed the girl more from his stores and watered her again, then wandered through Thrall town aimlessly.

Do not be in a hurry to go home,
Chaa had said, and Wertha moved stealthily, wending his way north. Soon after nightfall, the streets came alive with Slave Lords on their way to parties.

Wertha skirted a procession where a woman on a hovercraft was dressed like a swan, all white feathers and pearls and silk and glittering.

Fifty elegantly clad Neanderthal body guards ran beside her bearing torches, naked swords, and guns. Their eyes glittered dangerously, as if they suspected any straggler on the street to be an assassin from some other family.

Best not to stand in their way, best not to become a target for trouble. Wertha ducked into an alley till the woman passed, then headed back out.

As he returned to the street, he glanced behind, noticed a man on the catwalk beside the road. The fellow slipped into a shadow, expertly blended into the night. The Invisible Arm of the Brotherhood.

Wertha crept through the streets and alleys. He fled his pursuer when the time was right.

When he felt sure he was alone, he headed for home, but stopped several blocks away and climbed to the roof of a building. From there he watched the streets in front of his house and witnessed the arrest of Fava and Darrissea.

Perhaps thirty Blade Kin in black armor stood in the streets around the house. They dragged the women out in silence. The women did not cry or scream or try to escape. Instead the just trembled, stood with pale faces, trying so hard to appear brave.

When the Blade Kin dragged them off, one man holding each of them by the arm, Wertha began to follow the group discreetly.

***

Chapter 16: A Decent Execution

Mahkawn walked out of Tantos’s palace into the night and peered skyward. All three moons were up; the night was bright in spite of the clouds.

On such nights Mahkawn often had trouble sleeping. A great-horned owl hooted, hunting over the fields.
Let the mice take care,
Mahkawn thought, recalling lines to an old children’s poem.

Mahkawn leaned his head back, breathed deeply the fresh night air. It was just below freezing. Cool, but still comfortable.

He spread his arms and imagined that they were wings.
The thing that I do tonight it is not evil,
he told himself.
It simply is. The owl and the hawk should not befriend the mouse. Just as I should not have befriended Tull.

Friend. Mahkawn thought about the word for a long time. It had been many years since he had thought of someone as a friend. The Blade Kin were allies, but he did not enjoy their company. Pirazha, now, she was a friend, though he hardly dared admit it.

Still, if I were held captive in some prison in Craal, would Pirazha travel through the wilderness to rescue me?

The idea seemed laughable, but for some reason Mahkawn could not put it back on the shelf of his mind. He considered for a long time as he walked to the Death’s Head Train, climbed aboard.

I doubt that she would come,
he told himself.
She would resist the impulse, if the idea occurred to her at all. She is, perhaps, more of a Blade Kin than she realizes.

Once inside, he sat in his dark metal capsule on a plush couch and let the train take him home to Bashevgo.

The single lantern in his compartment swung on its rung in the ceiling, and Mahkawn thought carefully about how he would carry out the murder, planned it in his mind.

It would be important to please Tantos and Atherkula, but Mahkawn found that he also wanted to please Tull, serve the man his death with some dignity.

No gory mutilations, no sadistic torture. As for Tull’s wife, though she was obviously a Thrall, she deserved some courtesy, too. People with so much courage deserved honor.

When Mahkawn reached the depot, he disembarked, went to the Temple of the Carnadine Sorcerers and woke Atherkula.

It was nearly dawn by the time the sorcerer dressed and accompanied him to the arena’s dungeon.

A squadron of four rough guards accompanied them down.

In one antechamber that they had to pass on their way to the cells, Mahkawn and Atherkula found two pasty-faced women that he recognized.

They had been locked into this outer cell. One of them was a dark-haired human, while the other was a Pwi with a missing ear. Their faces were pale, and they trembled at the very sight of him.

Mahkawn almost laughed, for no Blade Kin would have shown such fear. He wondered how they could have fooled anyone.

“You,” Mahkawn said nodding at the two, “are Thralls. You shall be branded and put into service.” Mahkawn motioned. “Fava, come with me.”

He opened the cell door with his master key, and it groaned on its hinges.

She rose from the floor, woodenly, and he took her hand, trying to comfort her. It was a technique that often worked with Thralls. They believed that if you were nice to them, then you would not hurt them later.

“I am honored to meet you,” Mahkawn told Fava, and Atherkula walked along behind, plodding silently, his black robes swishing, while the guards tromped behind. “I admire your courage in coming here, seeking to free Tull. Few women would show such devotion. Still …” he mused, “I suppose that it was reckless.”

Mahkawn waited for her to speak, and she muttered something that he could not make out, then said, “I … fear I do not know what you are talking about.”

“You have nothing to fear from me,” Mahkawn assured her. “Tull and I have become quite good friends. Close friends. You saw him throw his ear to me in the arena? If he were to win his battles this morning, then I would become his commander. Do you understand this tradition among Blade Kin? So you see, you are the wife of a friend.”

Fava nodded dumbly, and her jaw trembled.

“Good,” Mahkawn said. “I am taking you to see him now. And I will put you under my own special care. You can be a slave in my personal household, if you like. I promise you that. You will be cared for.”

Atherkula laughed abruptly, and Mahkawn shot a warning glance back at the sorcerer.

“I understand that Tull has a smaller brother that escaped into the forest with you. I trust that the child is well? You have provided for him?” Fava nodded again, her pale green eyes pleading for him to ask no more about the child.

“Hmmm. We must retrieve the child then, and bring the boy here where he can be properly raised. I know that you Pwi, living out in the Rough, think that you have something—freedom.

“But your lives there really are so primitive,” he continued. “There are great benefits to our society. Here you will find that our medical facilities, our schools, are much better than anything that you have. If you want to give the child a future, you will help us bring him back here to Bashevgo.”

“I have heard of your slave pens and your rapes and your mass graves,” Fava said, “but not of your schools or doctors.”

Atherkula chuckled openly.

“Well said,” Mahkawn answered. “Some people are garbage, no matter what society they are born into. We do not tolerate human garbage. Still, we have our benefits here. We will civilize you.”

They reached the corner that rounded to Tull’s cell and were assaulted by the unholy reek of Phylomon’s rotting corpse.

Mahkawn, unprepared for it, could hardly make his way forward. Both Fava and Atherkula covered their faces with their robes and walked as if pressing through a storm.

They found Tull sitting, smiling, but his smile faltered when he saw Fava. The big Tcho-Pwi suddenly struggled at his chains.

“Fava,” Tull shouted, and she broke then and ran to Tull’s cell. She stood outside it, reaching for him, trying to touch his hand.

Mahkawn turned the key in its lock, opened Tull’s door, and Fava ran to him, then crouched down and hugged him. They were both weeping for joy.

Atherkula bent close to Mahkawn’s ear and whispered, “You see how he cuddles with her! He could never have become Blade Kin.”

Mahkawn found himself shaking, and he pulled his robe closer around his shoulder. He felt a strong desire to pull his sword and gut Atherkula, the smug bastard.

Instead, he turned and gazed at the cell opposite from Tull’s, at the corpse of Phylomon. The right hand, which had been almost pointing into the air, had shriveled, so that bony fingers curled up from it hideously.

The stomach was a hole where flies traipsed and maggots wandered. Mahkawn felt thankful that he could not see the face.

After several minutes Mahkawn entered the cell, pushed Fava outside, and closed the door so that he stood alone with Tull.

“I’m sorry, Tull,” Mahkawn said. “I’ve been ordered by Lord Tantos to kill you. I had looked forward to …”

He found his hands shaking, and behind him Fava shrieked and grabbed at the bars. Atherkula caught her and pinned her arms back.

Tull was chained so that he could move neither left nor right. Mahkawn drew his long blade, then plunged it under Tull’s rib cage.

Tull’s eyes bulged and his mouth flew open. “Mahkawn …” he shouted, with so much hurt and disbelief in his voice. Blood spurted from his side. “I never dreamed!”

Mahkawn held the sword in place for a moment, then stepped in and shoved it up quickly, letting the natural curve of the blade guide it up under the rib cage, piercing the left lung.

Blood poured down the runnels of the blade like water from a spout, messing Mahkawn’s hand. He withdrew the blade and dropped it aside.

Tull was struggling to his feet, his face white with terror, panting, and Mahkawn wrapped his arms around him, trying to hold him up.

Behind them Fava screamed and beat against the bars like a bird in its cage, and Atherkula held her. Fava’s cape ripped free, and Atherkula shouted, “Guards! Guards! Hold the bitch!” spittle flying from his throat.

The guards rushed from their posts and grabbed Fava. She spit and bit like a bobcat.

It suddenly seemed strange to hear Atherkula’s human words, so thick and nasal in accent, coming from the throat of a Neanderthal.

Mahkawn put his arms around Tull’s shoulders, found tears coursing from his eyes. “Forgive me!” Mahkawn whispered. “Tell me you forgive me! I will promise you anything! I will take Fava and your son and raise them as slaves in my own home! They will be like children to me! I … I … my, my—!”

Mahkawn jerked back in surprise. He had almost called Tull his
son.

Tull had been staring at the hole in his ribs, at the blood gushing from it, taking tiny panting breaths.

The room shook with Fava’s cries, the sound of a madhouse, and Tull raised his eyes. Sweat was glistening on his forehead, and his eyes narrowed, as if he were peering at Mahkawn from a distance.

He coughed, and blood came from his mouth .

“Okanjara!” Tull said, I am free! “By God’s rotting teeth, it’s so beautiful!”

Then he trembled and sagged, and he was dead.

Mahkawn unlocked Tull from his shackles and laid him down gently. He held Tull as he died. To Mahkawn, the sound of Fava’s shrieking seemed distant.

Tull’s breathing stopped and his bladder loosed. His flaming yellow-green eyes stared open accusingly, so Mahkawn turned Tull’s head to the wall and laid him down.

Mahkawn took off his cape and used it to clean the blood from his sword. He sheathed the blade, and then placed the cape over Tull, covering the body.

The guards held Fava, and Mahkawn opened the door to the cell. “Let her in. Let her grieve.”

Fava rushed to Tull and grabbed his head, holding it and rocking back and forth. Her wails echoed down the stone corridors.

“A decent execution, that was,” Atherkula said. “Well handled, I thought.”

***