Snake Heart (3 page)

“Searching for clues, I think,” Yanko said.

“Why does he need clues?” A dangerous edge came to Minark’s voice. “I thought he knew where the treasure is. It’s in one of six spots, he said, when he led us to the first island.”

Yanko was fairly certain Dak had said that to buy time, perhaps in the hope that he would find an answer on one of those islands.

“He’s trying to narrow it down so we don’t have to look on every island.”

“Or is it that he doesn’t
know
where this supposed treasure is? Is that it, kid?” Minark asked. “I’ve been thinking about how you showed up on my gangplank last week, and I think you would have said anything to escape that harbor before the police showed up.”

“It wasn’t the police I was worried about.” A warrior mage that wanted him dead, a mage hunter that wanted him dead, two nations that now considered him a criminal... those were things to worry about.

“Yanko is honest, Minark.” Arayevo laid her hand on her captain’s arm and smiled. “If he says there’s a treasure out here to find, you can trust him.”

The endorsement didn’t make Yanko feel that good, especially since Minark was close to the truth. Yanko
would
have said almost anything to escape that harbor before Sun Dragon came to kill him. Dak, however, had been the one to promise a treasure and negotiate a percentage with the smugglers. Yanko didn’t even know how much a bunch of artifacts stolen from a museum basement might be worth. His only interest was the lodestone.

“I’m not staying here after dark, not in a haunted, diseased village full of dead people,” Minark said, lowering his voice, his words for Arayevo.

He stared intently into her eyes as he spoke, and Yanko shifted uneasily. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that those two had a relationship that went beyond captain and sailor, but he also hadn’t looked hard for evidence to support that. He didn’t know where Arayevo’s cabin was on the ship, nor had he ever tried to find her after dark. The idea of her sleeping with the bald, sarcastic captain made him feel hurt and betrayed—and frustrated. What could she see in him? He had to be fifteen years older than she was, and he was a smuggler.

“It’s not diseased,” Yanko muttered, turning away from them and looking toward the sea. This was an inappropriate time to worry about who was sleeping with whom—or who wasn’t sleeping with him.

“You don’t know that. It’s—” Minark broke off as Dak approached.

Dak still carried his rifle, but from the way it drooped at his side, Yanko doubted he expected to find trouble.
Living
trouble.

“Everyone who was in the village when they came is dead,” Dak said. “Some of the men and women look to have been tortured before they were hanged. A few of the houses are empty. It’s possible some people escaped into the jungle or took boats to other islands, but none of the prints are fresh.”

“Tortured?” Yanko asked. “For what reason? And by whom?”

“I don’t know. This is all I found that I know didn’t originate on this island.” Dak held out a tobacco tin with a burly lumberjack painted on the front.

“That looks Turgonian.”

Dak nodded. “It’s a popular brand back home. It’s exported to Kendor, the desert city-states, and the Kyatt Islands, so its presence doesn’t necessarily mean my people were here.”

“I doubt the Kyattese did this.” Lakeo jerked a thumb toward the houses.

“Probably not,” Dak said. “Their methods of getting information are more subtle.” His lips thinned.

“Dak, can I ask you something?” Yanko tilted his head toward the beach to suggest he wanted privacy. Lakeo gave him an irritated look but did not follow. He thought about waving for her to join them—Minark was the only one he didn’t want to listen in—but she sniffed and turned her back first.

“I don’t think it was Turgonians,” Dak said as soon as they were alone.

“That’s not what I was going to ask, but why?”

“My people are willing to use torture to learn what they need to know, but not outside of a military context, and there are rules against torturing women.”

“Rules about who it’s all right to torture? How noble.” Yanko bit on his tongue to keep from voicing more sarcasm. He would be naive to believe his own people did not engage in such practices. He knew that mind mages who served in the Great Chief’s armies learned ways to forcefully take information from enemies. “Sorry. Who do you think it was if not Turgonians?”

“Someone who wanted information.”

“That’s vague. Can you tell how long ago this happened?”

“A week perhaps. Bodies decompose quickly in this heat.” Dak pinned Yanko with his gaze. “How many other people know what Prince Zirabo told you in that letter?”

Yanko leaned back on his heels, resisting the urge to touch the letter nestled under his clothing and against his chest. “Are you implying that these people were tortured and killed by someone else looking for the lodestone?”

Dak spread a hand. “What else could villagers out here know? Besides, when I was picking out texts to borrow from the Polytechnic library, I noticed that a number of articles from the time period I was researching had already been removed. I had to go down to the basement to find other copies.”

Yanko’s stomach clenched. “Removed? Not checked out?”

“Stolen, yes.” Dak shrugged his big shoulders. “They could have been taken years ago, but I doubt it.”

Yanko rubbed his face. “I’m not sure how many people know. My brother was followed when he left the Great City with Prince Zirabo’s note, and he was attacked twice before he made it home to deliver it to me. The prince wrote that there were spies in the capital and that enemies might have found out about his research. Sun Dragon, the warrior mage who’s after me, implied he worked for the rebels, one of the factions that would like to see the Great Chief replaced.”

Yanko hadn’t even
known
that there were multiple factions among the rebels until Dak had told him as much when they had started traveling together. He’d been utterly unprepared when rebels had shown up to claim the salt mine. If someone had warned him earlier, maybe Yanko could have been ready, could have shored up the mine’s defenses and found mages to help fight. Instead, Uncle Mishnal and countless miners were dead. Yanko blinked his eyes, fighting back tears that wanted to form. He had gone eighteen years without seeing much death only to be inundated with it these last few weeks. Why had Prince Zirabo thought he was the person to handle all of this?

“I didn’t know the mage had spoken to you.” Dak frowned in censure, as if Yanko had chosen to chat with his enemy without telling his bodyguard.

“Sun Dragon likes to pop into my head and make threats.”

Dak glanced toward Arayevo and Minark, who were arguing while Lakeo looked on. The crew members Minark had brought were skipping stones in the cove, apparently unmoved by all the death in the village behind them.

“Our captain is superstitious,” Dak said, watching Minark fiddle with his charms.

“A village full of death could make anyone superstitious,” Yanko said, eyeing the trees in the distance.

Kei hadn’t returned yet. Yanko hoped it was because he had found a particularly fruitful nut tree, not because he had run into trouble.

“I’m going to check on something.” Dak turned toward the trees behind the village.

“Wait,” Yanko said. “What was on that paper? The one you put in your pocket?”

“A map. It was crumpled and in a waste bin.” Dak removed the paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

Yanko leaned close, noticing the light was fading, that shadows had grown long across the beach. He could understand why Minark wouldn’t want to spend the night here, among the spirits of the dead.

“Is that Kyattese?” Yanko asked, touching a name or a title in the center.

“Yes, it says Oracle Hill.”

“Were these people Kyattese?” Yanko thought of the woman, trying to gauge what her skin color had been before death and scavengers had marred it.

“I believe this was a colony that broke away a couple hundred years ago. I didn’t see a library. You’d expect one in a modern-day Kyattese settlement.” Dak waved the paper. “What you wouldn’t expect them to have is a religion that spoke of oracles. The Kyattese believe in a single god, and their belief doesn’t allow for others in the heavens.”

“Only one god? That’s so strange.”

Dak grunted, and Yanko recalled that Turgonians were atheists. Even stranger. Who answered their songs of prayer?

“There wasn’t a body in this house, but judging by a portrait on the wall, the owner was quite old. Perhaps old enough to remember when Tomokosis came through.” Dak folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. “I’m going to follow the map, see if he might have been visiting their oracle when this happened.”

Yanko started to follow him, but he paused when a parrot flew into view.

Kei?
He tried to get a sense of what the bird had seen.

“Puntak, puntak!” the parrot blurted, landing on Yanko’s shoulder and filling his mind with imagines of green pinecones that he had thoroughly de-seeded. Kei made a contented cooing sound, then shared an image of Yanko also eating seeds.

“Did he see anything?” Lakeo asked, walking over now that Yanko’s conversation with Dak had broken up.

“He saw a lot of seeds.”

“Well, that’s important, isn’t it?”

“I think he’s disappointed that I didn’t come inland to feast with him.”

“Because he thinks of you as his mate. Mates eat together.”

“Ha ha.” Yanko jogged after Dak, debating if the parrot felt heavier on his shoulder. “Any chance you saw any humans while you were gorging yourself, Kei?”

“Sea monkeys,” Kei announced.

Yanko’s step faltered. “That’s Kyattese slang for a sailor, isn’t it?”

“By slang, you mean an offensive term that land lovers use to describe those who scurry about in rigging, right?” Lakeo asked.

“Yes, most of what comes out of Kei’s mouth is offensive.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say about your mate.”

Yanko sighed at her.

Lakeo lifted her hands. “Sorry, I’m just jealous because I don’t have anyone, furred, feathered, or skinned to share my hammock at night. I didn’t get much of a chance to look for company on Kyatt, and most of these smugglers have missing teeth.”

“Missing teeth aren’t acceptable, but fur and feathers would be?” Yanko picked up his pace so he could catch up with Dak, who had started up a trail through the trees, heading toward a rocky rise that overlooked the village and the sea.

“It’s not an ideal world that we live in. You can’t be too choosy if you want love to find you.”

Yanko glanced toward the pier as they started up the trail. One of boats was being rowed back toward the ship while the rest of Minark’s men prepared the second boat. He thought he spotted people scurrying about on the deck of the
Falcon’s Flight
too. Making ready to sail?

“Lakeo?” Yanko held out a hand to stop her. “I’m going to follow Dak, but would you do me a favor?”

“Make sure they don’t leave without us?” She frowned down the hill toward the end of the pier.

“Yes.” Yanko shuddered at the notion of being left on this island and having to spend the night near the village.

Lakeo thumped a fist into her open palm. “They had better not be.” She nodded curtly and jogged toward the pier.

Yanko hurried after Dak. He doubted anyone would be lingering on this Oracle Hill if the villagers had been killed a week ago, but he, too, longed for clues and hoped against logic that they might find some.

The slope grew steeper, the trail turning to switchbacks. As he gained elevation, Yanko could see the beach, village, and cove spread out below, as well as the sea to either side of the island. Lakeo had reached the end of the pier and looked to be arguing with the men there. Arayevo and Minark stood on the beach near the head of the pier. She had her hands planted on his chest and her feet spread. Trying to keep him from leaving?

Yanko picked up his pace. “Dak?”

They might have to forgo this side trip.

Down on the beach, Arayevo appeared to switch tactics. She stopped Minark by clasping his hand and pulling him away from the pier. Yanko couldn’t hear their words, but the captain went with her. They headed toward palm trees rising from a hillock at the end of the beach. Arayevo pulled Minark between two of them, leaned her back against a trunk, and rested her hands on his waist. She said something, then pulled him close, and they kissed.

Yanko tripped over a root and fell face-first to the ground. Kei squawked and flew off his shoulder.

Yanko groaned and climbed to his feet quickly, his face hot as he wondered if anyone had seen. He had missed the switchback, walked off the trail, and was lucky he hadn’t tumbled down the slope. He brushed dirt off his hands. Arayevo and Minark were too busy kissing to have noticed his fall.

He turned up the trail, putting his back to them, and ran faster than he had been before. Maybe Arayevo was just trying to help him, distracting Minark so he wouldn’t leave, but even if that was her motivation, Yanko could not bear to watch. By the time he crested the ridge, he was sprinting. He leaped over roots and fronds stretching across the trail, his only thought that he wanted to get away, so far away that he couldn’t look back and see Arayevo kissing someone else.

Chapter 3

W
hen Yanko reached the top of the hill, he rounded a bend and would have crashed into his bodyguard if Dak hadn’t turned and caught him.

“What is it?” Dak took in Yanko’s sweaty face and heavy breathing. “Trouble?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know yet.” Yanko did not want to admit that the reason he had been running was because the love of his life was kissing another man. “The captain is sending his people back and looks like he’s ready to go.”

Ready to go... or ready to lie down in the tall grass and make love to Arayevo...

Yanko snarled at himself, annoyed that he couldn’t push the image out of his mind or stop thinking about it.

Dak jogged over to a large square rock on the crown of the hill. It probably gave him an excellent view of the cove and everything around it.
Everything.