The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (7 page)

What a strange question. “Yes, my Lady. You were…different.”

She smiled wryly. The expression was endearing and surprisingly human. “I often am. But you knew your quest
.
”

Umbral nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Good,” she said. “Whatever happens, Xerpen
must not
get his grimy paws on her. I’ve already snatched the White Lady’s son from him…” she laughed, delighted with herself, “…and how Xerpen would rage if he knew how I arranged that right under the nose of his spy! Now we must keep him from using the Vaedi. She doesn’t know it yet, but
she loves me
. Fa! Maybe not yet, but she
will
.”

An uncanny gleam burned in Mrigana’s dark eyes when she said those words…
she loves me
… and just for an eyeblink, her face shifted to something horrific…
a putrid, rotting face dripping off a naked skull
…. He shuddered, with terror, with love.
Because he knew she was right
. He didn’t know how or why it should be so. All he knew was that he loved her, too, more than his own life…more than Dindi’s life.
Yes, Dindi will love you, yes, she must, she will have no more choice than I
…. He shivered again, as if a part of him were screaming inside, trying to run from this love, but the rest of him ran toward it, even though it was an abyss with no bottom, and he knew he would fall into emptiness without end. Umbral’s last doubt that Mrigana was indeed Lady Death vanished. No matter how she demurred, she was powerful beyond his imagining.

He had to tell her about the Vaedi.

No, Umbral!
cried a voice inside. Was it Kavio? The tendril sounded thin and weak compared to the dark knot of love binding him to his Lady, compelling him to tell her the truth, but the small voice was persistent.
Umbral, you gave Dindi your word!

I love Lady Death more. So will Dindi. Like me, she would gladly give her life to Lady Death. She would
want
this…

After a struggle, Umbral formed a careful question. Each word felt like a rock pried out off his tongue.

“My Lady… If we kill Xerpen…then he cannot use the Vaedi… and our purpose will be accomplished?”

“Don’t underestimate Xerpen. You will have only one chance to kill him before the eclipse, which is in three days. He is most vulnerable when
he is surrounded by people because he must remain masked. He dares not reveal his true identity or true power too soon. But the same is true for me. If you fail, I won’t be able to help you.”

“I won’t disappoint you, my Lady.”

“That would not be possible, Umbral.”

Mrigana showed no sign of the decay now. She was all Aelfae: a moonless night, stars reflected on a black lake, a blossom of
nightshade, poison kisses.  Darkness and beauty personified. There was an odd, almost human vulnerability about her too, which made him ache to protect her.

She stood on her tiptoes to reach him—he was a head taller than she—and kissed him on the cheek. He felt a renewed wave of tenderness for her. Nothing romantic
; it was a larger love than that, instinctive and raw, as old as stone and bone and blood.

Below, footsteps clattered on the steps.

“The others are getting impatient,” warned Mrigana. “Go.”

Gripping the bow and the arrow, he dashed up the final steps to emerge at last into the open air just as the first rays of dawn warmed the east.

Finnadro had heard descriptions of the Orange Canyon tribehold, but never been there himself. He and Amdra rode on Hawk’s back. This meant Finnadro had the odd honor of circling down toward the tallest tribehold in Faearth from above. The immensity of the surrounding mountains made the settlement itself look tiny by comparison. The Song was extremely strong here, resounding from the sky, the sunrise glinting pink off the snowy slopes, the deep canyons that crisscrossed the peaks like ax cuts.

The mountain was sometimes described as a goat’s foot, and now he could see why. The top was split into a larger, western side and a smaller, eastern mount. Both western and eastern parts were flattened on top, though still stepped. The two sides were connected by a single rope, the infamous Bridge of One Thread.

As Hawk circled around the mountain, Finnadro saw something hanging from the overhang on the far western summit. Captives filled a dozen wooden cages that swung in the wind. These were no trapped birds but men and women whose tattered rags were green and brown. Fury filled him. These were his people, captured no doubt during the recent war and perhaps on other raids before that. He seethed with rage all over again and wished his Lady had done anything other than command him to forgive his enemies. How could he work with Orange Canyon when his own people were trapped like swallows in a hunter’s snare?

They landed in the center of the settlement on the western mount in a rectangular plaza, long and narrow, recessed in three deep steps, surrounded by buildings and walls made of small, gray stones. The roofs were thatched over gables graven with the leering beaks of predatory birds. Carved spiders and wooden webs decorated the corners. The paint, weary from wind, showed black, orange, and white wherever it remained unchipped.

Amdra and Finnadro slid off Hawk’s back. Hawk changed back to human form, knelt before Amdra, and let her tie a blindfold around his eyes and knot the leather ties between his gauntlets behind his back, so he stood as one bound and enslaved. Which he was, yet he was also of their own tribe, and Finnadro felt awkward standing free, with his dignity respected, while his enemy humiliated her own tribesman so casually. Again, he felt loathing for Orange Canyon rise in his gorge like acid.

“Come,” said Amdra. “You can drink and refresh yourself before the Offering.”

He followed her into the yard behind one of the stone buildings where he found a cistern. Amdra disappeared inside, but Hawk, still blindfolded, knelt in the yard. Finnadro washed his face. It was amazing how dusty one became from flying. He also drank. But it bothered him to see Hawk just kneeling there. He dipped the bowl into the cistern again and brought it to Hawk, holding it to his mouth.

“Thirsty?”

“Finnadro?” Hawk asked in surprise. Then he sounded suspicious. “What’s that?”

“Just water.”

Hawk accepted the drink. “Thank you.”

When the bowl was empty, Finnadro set down beside the clay cistern.

“I know you wonder why I didn’t take my freedom when you gave me the chance,” said Hawk.

“I don’t wonder.”

“Then you know about…?”

A baby wailed inside the house.

“Your son? Yes.”

“You really are like her,” Hawk said wonderingly. “You can taste thoughts.”

“I’m not like her. I taste emotions.”

“Not much difference.”

“It’s all the difference in the world. I can’t hurt people. I’d have to eat the same pain.”

“But you kill if you have to.”

“Exactly. If I
have
to.”

Amdra ducked through the small door into the yard. She had changed into formal Zavaedi finery, with a bird mask and long feather cape over a dozen wool skirts, amber and orange and white and pumpkin, that reached below her knees and swirled around her like a tree’s autumn canopy. She had
a ewe on a leash; it staggered after her, burdened by a swollen belly. In her arms, she carried a baby.

“Hawk,” she said.

“Please, Amdra. Don’t do it.”

“Hawk!”

Hawk slipped his wrists from the leather straps and removed his own blindfold. Finnadro raised his eyebrows. Now he felt foolish for offering the water.

Hawk frowned at the pregnant sheep. “What is this? The offering must be a lamb.”

“None of the ewes have dropped their lambs this year.”

“
None?
”

“A poor omen,” she agreed sourly. “Worse, we’ll have to tear the lamb out of her belly to make the offering, which will kill the mother too. Imagine all the families that must slay
a ewe to sacrifice a lamb, and you will see that the herds will be dangerously thinned. But the Great One says the Paxota cannot be delayed.” Amdra handed Hawk both the baby and the ewe’s leash. “It’s your spawn. You make the Offering.”

“You won’t even offer our son your blood as a shield?”

“My blood won’t shield him. Trust me, he’s better off being offered by a worthless slave.”

“Maybe.” But Hawk sounded angry.

“I don’t understand,” said Finnadro. “Is the child in danger?”

“It’s not your concern,” said Amdra. “Hawk knows his duty. You, Finnadro, will accompany me.”

Finnadro did not like any of it. Sore with distrust, he followed his hostess, her slave, her baby, and her sheep up and down over winding stone steps. At a turn, they reached a precipitous drop. The next turn led down another stone path to another yard surrounded by walls and houses, until they reached the largest space yet, the Plaza of Eagles, which was filled with onlookers.

At one end of the plaza was a large, flat stone, like a Deathsworn altar, but streaked orange and white, as if the rock had wept rust. The War Chief and his retinue of Eagle Lords, in feathered warbonnets, plus near a hundred foot warriors in ram’s horn helms, stood upon a wooden platform behind the altar. Seeing so many of his enemies assembled formally, Finnadro felt unease layered over the deeper strata of anger. These were the brutes
who had reduced his own tribehold to rubble and set his beloved forests ablaze. Perhaps it had been instigated by the Deathsworn—indeed he did not doubt that—but Orange Canyon had supplied the hands and wings who fanned the flames. Even if he was commanded to forgive them, how could he
trust
them?

The War Chief, known to Finnadro only by his bland Shining Name, the Great One, sat recessed from the plaza in a booth on an elevated dais, decorated in Raptor feathers as long as legs, which obscured him from casual stares. He kept one companion, a wisp of a woman. She was not masked, as far as Finnadro could tell, but it was impossible to discern her features, as her silhouette was eclipsed by the Great One’s massive robe and headdress.

The Great One’s War Leader and strongest Zavaedi fighter, Harcho the Bone Breaker (who wielded a wicked knife to prove it) conducted the ritual. He wore the stoutest feathered war bonnet Finnadro had ever seen, so long that it trailed to the ground along with his feathered robe. His muscular chest and clean-shaven square jaw were bare.

The rest of the Eagle Lords and Raptor Riders stood or sat in a long row to either side of the Great One’s tabernacle. Amdra went to stand with the other Eagle Lords, all of whom were Orange Tavaedies and not likely to let anyone forget it. Finnadro stood with her, ignoring their haughty sniffs of contempt in his direction.

A dozen men sounded their ram’s horns. The eerie, mournful sound curdled Finnadro’s blood. Drums sounded.

Some Orange Canyon tribesfolk, most of them women, formed a long line. Each woman or man in the line carried an infant or toddler, or, in some cases, a young child. They also carried, or drew on a leash, a pregnant ewe. The better dressed stood at the front of the line, the poorer and more ragged toward the end, and some finely dressed slaves, including Hawk, stood behind those. One by one, as dawn spread her white wings behind the eastern peaks, illuminating the whole tableau more luridly with the passing moments, the mothers (or fathers) set their babes on the orange stone. Then each mother in her turn knelt and pressed her head into the dirt and waited, trembling.

After a moment, at some signal from the Great One, the mother would reclaim the babe and leave a sheep in its place, which, tradition commanded, must be a newborn lamb. Since none of the ewes had dropped their lambs, many families found themselves in a quandary. They had to kill their pregnant ewes. Those who owned but a few sheep wept and begged to be allowed to wait until the dropping of the lambs. Harcho the Bone Breaker refused.

With his stone knife, Harcho cut free the unborn lambs. Slave women slaughtered them and drained their blood into bowls, then began to dice the meat on cooking rocks in open-air kitchens behind the onlookers. Amdra explained that
the meat would be shared by all at the evening feast.

This happened most of the time.

But not always.

Several times, Harcho the Bone Breaker seized the baby from the altar and handed it off to another Eagle Lord. The mother might wail and tear her hair, but she was powerless to do anything else. If she tried to throw herself after her child, her kin hurried forward from the onlookers and dragged her away.

“What happens to the infants?” Finnadro asked Amdra.

He thought he hid his outrage, but from her sharp look, perhaps not.

“The lucky ones will be raised as slaves,” she said.

“And the
unlucky
ones?”

Surely they don’t… they couldn’t…they wouldn’t dare
…

She jerked her head like a bird as her attention fixated on the altar. Hawk’s turn had come to set his son on the orange rock. Hawk prostrated himself before the stone. The baby wailed
, a thin sound almost lost in the wind.