Lakhoni (2 page)

The
village drums played an unusual beat. It was pounding, steady, and
unaccompanied by chanting. No fire burned; no figures moved in the Fire Dance
or the Hunting Dance.

Just
blackness and a pulsating beat.

Hot
pain burned at the crown of his head with an epicenter of molten stone. Red
torches flashed behind Lakhoni’s eyelids.

Not
the village drums. Drums in his head.

Lakhoni
tried to open his eyes. They felt weighed down like his father’s fishing nets,
held down with heavy stones.

Minutes—or
perhaps hours or days—later, he moved back toward awareness. The drums in his
head were softer, but the molten pain throbbed steadily. His head expanded and
shrank with each throb.

His
teeth were locked together at the back of his mouth. He feared that if he did
succeed in moving his jaw, his whole head might fall apart. He gritted his
teeth tighter.

A
new sensation appeared; Lakhoni welcomed the chill. He began to feel rocks
under him. He could become one of them if he stayed here long enough. Stones
did not feel pain, did they?

Lakhoni
swam out of the blackness sometime later. It tried to hold him, pull him
deeper. He fought hard, knowing he must break free or finally succumb to the
nothingness that beckoned him. The pain would be gone if he stopped fighting.
Nothingness . . . peace. Nobody in the village could bother him.

The
village.

Lakhoni
mentally grabbed the agony in his head as well as the increasing pains all over
his body and held them tightly. These points of pain became his anchor, helping
him fight off the need to give in to the darkness. He felt he should be out of
breath when he finally cracked his eyes open. But why was all still dark? He
blinked once, then again.

His
eyes opening reminded Lakhoni of the presence of the rest of his body parts. He
was lying on his front, his face only inches from the dirt. His body was oddly
contorted: his torso hung down one side of a log and his legs hung down the
other. His arms were draped out, beyond his head.
Where am I?
What . . .
what happened to me?

He
closed his eyes, then forced them back open when the deep blackness beckoned
again.

He
had been running. The river, his side. As he remembered the branch on the river
bank tearing into the flesh below his ribs, the pain he had been feeling there
greeted him again. Sharp pains on his right shoulder ignited soon after. Soon
pain at every extremity was making itself known.

The
village. The raiding party. He had to warn them.

Was
it too late? How long had he been lying here?

He
remembered the pain in the back of his head before the blackness.
What hit
me?

Lakhoni
gingerly moved his head from side to side. It felt as if his head wanted to
continue rolling right off his neck to become a ball for the village children
to play with.

Lakhoni
slid his arms back and under his body, grunting in effort and pain. He eased
himself up. He forced his torso backwards until he was kneeling next to the
log, his hands resting on it.

His
tongue felt like dry, unscraped hide. He needed water. He forced his knees
under himself, then raised his head, searching for a tree he could hold onto
while pulling himself to his feet. Dizziness washed over him with each
movement, but it was diminishing steadily. He carefully looked heavenward. The
sun was dipping below the trees at the edge of the desolate waste far to the
west, with the mountains even farther to the west. He had maybe one hour of
light left.

The
thatched roofs of his village brought him back to earth. Too late. He’d failed.
Dark shapes littered the ground of the village center, obscured by the failing
light. The king’s raiders had come and gone, leaving death behind.

The
sight slammed into him with the force of a wild boar. Understanding of what had
happened to his home slashed like a lightning bolt.
They’re dead. My home.
Probably my family.
The thought made him sway; Lakhoni shoved it away. He
couldn’t think about it. Not right now. He would not think of the faces he
would see if he looked any closer at the dark shapes all around him. His
parents. Alronna.

Of
course my family.
I’m the last—

This
thought made him stop short of the well. Why was he alive?

Lakhoni
focused on the well at the middle of the village center. Water. He did not
think about the shapes he was stumbling over to get there. He did not think
about why he still lived. He would not hope that others had survived. For now,
he would get to the well and hope that the raiding party had not done something
horrible to the water, or thrown the rope down the hole.

He
knelt at the well, gently fingering his head. His fuzzy scalp was covered in
dried mud. His still-clumsy fingers brushed the hot center of pain up there,
causing a bright flash behind his eyes.

“Fool
,
” he whispered.
“Don’t do that again.”

He
groped around until he found the end of the rope and gave it a test pull. There
was weight on the other end.
Water
. He pulled at the rope, the effort
flaring the pain in his head despite the notch in the short log that took some
of the weight for him. By the time he got the bucket to the top of the well, he
was out of breath, licking his rough, dry lips with each pull. His muscles
shook like a child’s after their first try at lifting the water bucket.
The
blow has made me ten years old again. Will I have to learn my people’s dances
again?

He
looped the rope around two wooden spikes, making sure the bucket of water would
not fall back into the well. Then he fell to his knees, spilling water on his
hands.

He
paused to sniff carefully above the bucket.
Smells fine.
He took an
experimental sip. Then he was swallowing huge gulps of the cool liquid. It tasted
like the sweetest fruit he had ever had—like the peaches and apples of the
fruit grove the village kept.

He
forced himself to stop drinking. Lamorun’s lessons about dehydration had been
too firmly ingrained for him to ignore them now. Lakhoni knew the heat in his
body came from at least a day without water. He would have to eat soon if he
wanted to avoid becoming seriously ill.

Yes,
food first. Then rest.

Or
perhaps rest first. His pains had faded while he focused on getting water, but
now that he simply knelt by the well, the throbbing aches had returned in full
force.

Here
was a bare spot of earth. He could sleep here and find food in the morning.

Lamorun’s
voice came to his mind. “Your body will use the water better if you give it
food to work with.”

With
a resigned grunt, Lakhoni forced himself to his feet to heed his brother’s
words. The cool feeling of the earth under his feet provided a stark contrast
to the hot pains covering his body. He stumbled toward the nearest hut. Pushing
through the cloth-draped doorway, he looked around the shadow-filled interior.
Sitting mats encircled the fire pit in the middle of the floor. Scattered on
the floor were dishes, some of which still held food. Lakhoni took one dish up,
smelling the food left behind. He dropped the rancid mess.

He
had to find something that would still be safe to eat. The family would keep
that in a stone box. He moved around the hut, searching, leaning on the wall at
times to take some weight off his foot. Finally, beneath a doll made of long
grass and strips of woven cloth, he found the stone box that held this family’s
stock of smoked meat and grain. Guilt flashed through him as he lifted the
heavy lid. Several pouches and a deep basket of grain filled the stone box.

Lakhoni
pulled the first pouch open. The aroma of cured meat wafted out; his stomach
leapt in eagerness. He tore off a bite and chewed, the deep, wild flavor
filling his mouth. He couldn’t chew fast enough! He needed more water. Clasping
the pouch of meat tightly against his stomach, he hobbled back out into the
darkening evening, head throbbing painfully.

He
limped to the bucket of water he had brought up earlier. Tearing another bite
off the dried meat, he took a large sip. This helped the process of eating
immensely. Next he cupped one hand into the bucket, pulling out a small handful
of water. He splashed it on his scalp. The cool water somewhat quenched the
fire in the still-throbbing spot on his head. He worked the water into what he
had thought was mud on his scalp. Pulling his hand away, he saw it had not been
mud.

Lakhoni
spent the next few minutes carefully cleaning his wounds, cleansing them from
the murderous attack.
They must have seen all this and thought I was dead—or
dying.
He washed his hands clean again, took another bite of meat and
another sip of cool water.

He
would have to find a sheep or goat gut so he could carry some water back to his
hut. He pushed to his feet, his many injuries screaming in protest and his
ankle threatening to give way.
I’m not dead.

Chewing
more slowly now, Lakhoni stumbled around the graveyard that was all that
remained of his people.
But why? Why am I still alive?

Ree
crept into the dimly lit room. The torches already had their hardened leather
caps on for the day. A charred scent hung in the air from the servants
extinguishing the torches. The sun had peeked over the ocean only moments
before and it illuminated the king’s throne room with a pale, cold light.

Looking
around, heart in her throat, Ree moved deeper into the room, pulling the animal
skin covered door closed behind her. The leather hinges squeaked slightly. She
had to move fast; anyone looking closely at the door from the outside would
quickly see that the handle was in the wrong position.

She
asked herself again why she was doing this. She wouldn’t be beaten, but her
father would be furious. He expected absolute obedience from his people and he
always told her that she was seen as an example.

But
Ree had to see what the raiding party had brought back. It seemed like Shelu’s
raiding parties always brought back the greatest treasures from the land of the
Usurpers. When Shelu himself had strode into the throne room, carrying a
heavy-looking bundle in his arms, Ree had become obsessed. When Shelu had
placed the bundle at King Zyron’s feet, the cloth wrapped around it had slipped
and the object beneath the cloth had glowed with a splendor Ree had never seen
before.

She
peered through the slowly brightening light, her gaze flitting over shadows
that she could quickly identify. Where was it?

The
guards would be back from their short patrol of this wing and she had to be out
of the throne room before they did so. She had made up a story if she got
caught, but they would know she had no good reason to be in here. She should
leave now. But she had to see what it was.

She
scampered across the granite stones of the floor toward the throne, her ears
tuned to the hallway outside. Hurrying behind the raised dais, she saw the
heavy stone box that her father used to store his most precious treasures. She
bent low to get a better look at the clasp that was still hidden by the shadows
of the early morning.

It
was locked.

Ree
slumped in defeat. Her father’s engineers had created this lock specially for
his treasure box. A metal rod went through the lid of the stone box and the box
itself. In the middle of the metal rod was a small wood compartment containing
the lock. The locking mechanism had several moving parts, each of which had to
be moved in a certain direction and left in a specific position—all in an exact
order. All of this had to be done perfectly for the lock to release.

Ree
had no idea what the sequence and positions were. And she had no time to try to
puzzle the mechanism out. The guards would be coming back soon and she couldn’t
very well leave the room with them standing outside. There would be questions.

She
would make time another day. The gleaming image of the cloth-covered object
wouldn’t leave her until she discovered what it was. Shelu and her father had
spoken in such hushed tones, their heads close, that Ree knew her curiosity
wouldn’t let go until she knew what the secret was. And Father would refuse to
tell her about it, like usual, proving he didn’t trust her. If you couldn’t
trust your daughter, who could you trust?

Ree
hurried toward the door of the throne room. She paused for a moment to run her
hand over the beautiful jewels encrusting the left armrest of the throne. In
the pale light of the autumn morning, the reds, blues, and greens of the gems
glowed with cold fire. What a waste to put them on a chair; precious stones
deserved to be worn. She had to tear herself away; she could get caught at any
moment.

Ree
listened at the door, peering through the crack between the door and the wall.
She saw no guards and heard no footsteps. Holding her breath, she slipped the
handle off its rod, opened the door just enough to squeeze out, and hooked the
handle in the rod in the hallway wall.

“Princess?”

The
loud voice made her jump. Her heart stopped, then fluttered somewhere deep in
her stomach. She turned to face the two guards. They looked like they could be
twins. Each wore the decorative sash of brown bear skin, her father’s house
animal, with the insignia of the temple guard branded into the bear skin. They
both had shaved heads with dark tattoos—starting at the very top of the head
and moving out in a spiral from there. Both guards wore a simple loincloth with
a dark leather belt that held an obsidian-bladed dagger and in their right
hands they held spears with obsidian tips.

“Princess
Ree,” one of them said. “Your father has told you not to enter his throne room
without his permission. We are commanded to tell him if we see you disobeying.”

The
two guards lengthened their stride, coming to a halt only a few feet in front
of Ree.

She
prayed her voice wouldn’t give her thumping heart away. “Oh, I know.” She kept
her voice casual. “Isn’t he in there already? I just wanted to ask him if I
could take Titan out this morning after breakfast.” She thanked the First
Fathers that she had taken a moment to come up with a story.

The
guards looked at each other, then back at her, their eyes narrowed and
suspicious.

Ree
kept her eyes on their faces. She had to show no sign of worry or concern.

The
guards exchanged another look. “No, the king is not in there. He has not
finished his breakfast yet,” the guard on the left said.

“Oh,”
said Ree. “I’ll go find him!” She tried to make her voice sound excited, but it
came out as almost a squeak. Before the guards could decide whether to believe
her, Ree turned around and walked away.
They’ll tell him about what I said
.
Now I really do have to ask him if I can take Titan out today.
She
strode as confidently as she could, turning right at the next hallway, making
her way to her father’s quarters.

Soon
, she thought.
Soon I’ll be
thirteen and they’ll have to be nicer to me. They won’t be able to order me
around.
She continued walking down the shadowed hallways, making her way
toward her father’s quarters.