The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (13 page)

“Good morning, Umbral.” She smiled. She had perfect teeth. “Welcome to Obsidian Mountain. My name is Ash. I’ll be your warder until after your Initiation into the Deathsworn.”

“My name is not
Umbral,” I said.

“What is your name then?” Amusement played at the corner of her mouth.

I could not answer. I remembered no name. I remembered nothing.

She held a leather switch in her hand, and now she struck me with it, raising a red welt across my cheek.

“Soon you will look even worse than I,” hissed Ash.

“Or I could help you look better,” I offered.

She was taken aback by my response. “What do you mean?”

“I could set fire to the unburnt side of your body,” I said cockily. “Trust me, it would be an improvement.”

Ash clenched her fist and punched me hard in the gut. Before I could recover, she whipped me with the switch, this time giving me a handful of blows across the chest that kept my breathing jagged with pain. Each lash raised an angry mark. She paused, smiling, while she toyed with her switch and contemplated where to whip me next. She knew how to hurt a man; I suspected she’d had quite a bit of practice.

“Ash!” A group of elders came up behind Ash, startling her out of her trance of sadism. Their full black wool mantas rustled loudly against the stone ground.

“Fa-la, Ash, must we keep you on a leash?” chided one of the old women.

“He’s a big boy,” Ash said tartly. “He isn’t broken. Yet.”

The leader of the elders was a man dressed in black snakeskin. He wore an elaborate headdress, and his cape, black embroidered on black, was rich despite its subtlety.

“I asked you not to play with the Dark Initiates.”

He did not raise his voice, but his firm tone did not brook defiance. Ash slunk behind the elders. Other Deathsworn were creeping up to form a curious semi-circle around the Elders, to hear what my fate would be.

“This is Snake Bites Twice,” the female elder told me. “And I am Dame Vulture. I am the Matriarch and he is the War Chief of the Deathsworn. What is your name, Dark Initiate?”

“I have no name, and I am not your Initiate,” I said.

Snake Bites Twice placed a hand on my shoulder.

Excruciating pain shot through me. Ash’s switch seemed like a child’s toy compared to the agony this man created with the brush of his fingers. It ended almost as soon as it began, but the echo of it kept crawling over me like insects. 

“You are dead,” Snake Bites Twice said. “Understand that first. You are dead, and you will never leave Obsidian Mountain except as a man who has embraced Death.”

“As you have done.”

“Yes. We are servants of Lady Death, upholding her dominion, because each of us has given up whatever Chromas we possessed. This path is only open to those with Chromas. Those without magic would not survive the Dark Initiation. Those with magic do not always survive either. Unless you join us and embrace the Shadow, you will never leave this place.

“Consider this also: You came to us for a reason. Perhaps you violated the law of light and shadow, and this was your punishment. Perhaps you were a captive in a war and were offered this as an alternative to being humiliated and tortured to death by your victorious foes. You are not here by accident. You are here because you belong here. It is your duty to serve us. It is your destiny.

“Now, we will ask you again. What is your name?”

“Umbral.”

“Very wise.”

I accepted the name because at least it
was
a name. Something to hold onto. I could be Umbral. For now. A name was just a sound. For now, there was nothing I could do but be who these people wanted me to be. For now,
they
had the power, and
they
had the knowledge and so
they
had the control. But not for long, I promised myself.

“If I did join you…what would it mean, besides the loss of all my magic?”

“We need you for a task,” Snake Bites Twice said bluntly. “No one else can help us track down those with six Chromas. There are only two left. Kavio and one more, who dwells somewhere in secret. The last Vaedi.”

“Why do you want me to find them? To make them Deathsworn?”

“To kill them.”

“Kill me,” I said flatly. “I won’t help you.”

“You do not know the greatness of our purpose.”

“I know your purpose by your methods.”

“No. Our methods only reflect the dire need of the cause we serve. This is not something an outsider can be expected to understand.”

I spat at Snake Bites Twice. Infuriated, Ash darted forward and smashed her fist into my jaw.

But Snake Bites Twice remained cool and thoughtful. The old man mused aloud, “Strange as it may seem, your initial resistance to us speaks well of you. You are brave and loyal, if misguided. I find I cannot sanction your utter destruction until you have been given a chance to learn more truly of us. We will induct you into the Shadow of Death, whether you fight us or not.  But, for your own sake, I warn you not to fight. Defiance increases the chance that you may perish during the ritual.”

“All the more reason to fight,” I snarled. A dribble of blood beaded my lip where Ash had punched me.

“Ash, it seems your primal approach may be the only one that will work,” Snake Bites Twice remarked with a tinge of regret. “His aura is too vital and strong to surrender his Chromas to us during the ritual as he is. His physical resistance must be weakened. Only by bringing him close to physical death can we hope to spare him the true death that will result if he fights us too hard to keep his Chromas.”

Ash grinned widely. “I will assemble everyone for the Dark Initiation.”

Snake Bites Twice touched my shoulder again. I winced, but there was no pain this time, just an avuncular gesture.

“You will learn to accept your destiny, Umbral,” said Snake Bites Twice. “Greatness is already buried inside you, but the unneeded flakes must be knapped away to reveal the blade.”

The colors of my aura were more important than a mere name; they wove the pattern of my very soul. The thought of losing my Chromas sickened me almost as much as being turned into a tool for assassination. Perhaps the man and woman the Deathsworn wanted to kill deserved their deaths, but I did not want to be the deliverance of their fate.

The Deathsworn wanted to make me into a blade? I would make them regret it. I swore to myself that, if they stole my Chromas, I would not rest until I had avenged myself on Lady Death herself.

How’s this for greatness, Snake? How’s this for murder?

I will kill that bitch Death
.

One by one, Umbral completed the cuts. Not physical cuts, but slices of magic, which severed a person’s Chromas and left a hole, the Penumbra, behind. He expected them to fight, but they were in such ample hurt already that his work came as a balm to them, once the tearing ended. The most adroit realized what he was doing and began to help him, silently. They helped choose his next patients  and light more torches. It was the first stir of independence any of the captives had shown.

For the most part, he wasn’t even conscious of their flesh, their faces. He looked straight into their auras, judging the tangle of torn threads, trying to find the least painful way to snap the cords.

Then they brought him a young woman of the same coloring and stature as Dindi, though this woman was not as beautiful. She was a Tavaedi with one Chroma, so she had a fighting chance, but her aura had been bleeding light too long. She died despite everything he did for her. He draped his own cape over her. Because she reminded him of Dindi, that loss hit him particularly hard, but he did not have the choice to pause, to mourn. He had to go on to the next man.

The power he had drained at the start of his work sustained him, but what he was doing burned through his magic as a forest fire devoured trees. He teetered on exhaustion already. There was no place to draw more power, however, unless he wanted to kill the remainder, the very souls he was trying to save. He would not do that. Instead, he pushed himself on even when he had to start burning through his own private reserves of strength, forcing himself to fight the dopey fog that accompanied extreme exhaustion.

Just a few more. Just a few more to save
.

Stealthy sounds, not quite stealthy enough, alerted him to the intruders. He slid backwards into the shadow of a formation in the cave floor.

Warriors with bows drawn advanced on the unarmed captives in the cavern. The wretches were better off than they had been before Umbral had made them Deathsworn, but they still cowered. Their palpable despair made him ache. He’d let them down; he hadn’t been fast enough or strong enough to save them. They were right back in enemy hands.

“Umbral!” cried a familiar voice. “Are you here?”

Mercy, he was so tired, he hadn’t even recognized her. Umbral stepped out into the torchlight.

Ash and other Deathsworn had found him by following the shadow raven. Ash explained they had actually been in the vicinity of the mountain for days but hadn’t known about the caves. Umbral told her about Xerpen, the failed assassination, the eclipse, and the captives.

“These people are our shadow brothers and sisters now,” Umbral said. “Get them to safety. Take them to Obsidian Mountain.”

“What about you? You look like muck. What’s wrong with you?”

He was utterly depleted. “I’ll be fine. I need you to get these new Deathsworn to safety while I finish helping the others. I’ll join you as soon as I can with the rest.”

“You’re
fine
? Fine as a lizard in a cougar’s mouth! Let’s take
all
of them to Obsidian Mountain. They can be turned there.”

“No, if they are moved, they will die before I can help them. I must do this here. Now.”

“You’re insane, Umbral! So what if a few strangers die—have you noticed most of them are Green Woods tribesfolk? Look at you! You need rest and power, and you can’t get either here in this cave, right under the nose of our worst enemy!”

“Go!”

Reluctantly, she went, leading the new Deathsworn away.

He went back to work.

The Runners Vio had sent with the Blooded Spears had told those clans who supported him to meet here, at a ford in the foothills of the mountains, a spot which was sheltered yet broad enough for a large assemblage of men.

Vio did not intend to dally long. All the clans who would answer his summons would need to have arrived already if they were to be any help to him. As he guided his horse, with deft twists of his hoop, down the mountain trail into the valley, he concealed his nervousness behind a stoic face. He knew, however, that the number of warriors he found here would doom or hallow his victory.

Campfires filled the arroyo on both sides of the river. He counted those on the near side and noted the totems that had been lofted on high poles before each cluster of tents. Altogether, about 50 great-septs had answered his call—two thousand five hundred men, of whom about two hundred were Tavaedies. He had ridden out with four great-septs of his own, another two hundred men, all Tavaedies: a total of 400 Tavaedies and 2,750 spear-holders from Rainbow Labyrinth. Only a handful of his septs had horses of their own, however.

On the far side of the ford were another four great-septs of men, each riding one horse and leading another. Relief swept through Vio. Good: his ally and kin by rain, Hegaro, the brash young War Chief of Purple Thunder, had come. The horses would be welcome. Less welcome was Hegaro’s companion, though the two were never separated. As always, his younger brother, Svarr the Legless, rode by his side, a taciturn, menacing presence. On horseback, Svarr appeared to be an ordinary handsome youth, until one realized that the legwals dangling from below his thighs were empty leathers.

Hegaro and Svarr splashed across the ford to greet Vio.
They were a generation younger, closer in age to Zumo than to Vio, so they dipped their spears first. Svarr bared his teeth at Zumo.

“You look pale, brother. Haven’t you been getting enough sunlight?”

Zumo swatted at the flies which droned in a cloud around the horses. He did not acknowledge Svarr.

The War Chiefs exchanged the usual friendly lies, and then Hegaro said, “Let us water your horses for you. There’s no need to build a separate kraal. We can circle them together.”

“If we mingle beasts, how will we know whose is whose?” asked Vio.

Vio, Vumo, and Hegaro
were connected by tangled webs of kinship and marriage through the paternal line—the rain side—which made them closer than outtribers would normally be. On the other hand, Svarr was Vumo’s bastard son and Zumo’s rain side brother, but that did not mean he and Zumo were close. At the end of a feast, Hegaro and Svarr were still outtribers. Rain was not as sure as blood.

“The horses are painted with our tribe’s totems, Vio.”

“Paint washes with water,” Vio said sourly.

Hegaro grinned at him. “I am here to fight by your side, yet you do not trust me?”