The Unfinished Song: Taboo (35 page)

“Which beasts would you slaughter?” He still felt queasy.

“Human blood must spill for human blood split, Kavio.  And I will not slaughter them. You will. Slit their throats, and end their lives quickly, cleanly. They are Blue Waters, so their deaths will appease your dead; they are Imorvae, Shunned, and so it will appease ours. Their corpses will be staked to posts in the tide pools before dawn. The crabs will come and devour them, and both our war debts will be cancelled when the sea washes their blood off the rocks.”

“Human sacrifice has been banned in the Rainbow Labyrinth since the downfall of the Bone Whistler.”

“And Imorvae have been Shunned among us since we slaughtered the last Aelfae on Sharkshead,” retorted Nargano. “We are not in the Rainbow Labyrinth, so do not speak of your rules here, unless you want us to impose our rules there. This is your chance to prove you can put peace above your kinship with other Imorvae. If you cannot kill these Imorvae, then how can I believe you would punish your own kind for breaking the peace?”

Nargano held out a stone blade. “Take it.”

“There must be another way.”

“This is the only way. Take the blade”

Kavio closed his fingers around the cold hilt.
No matter
how he dragged his feet, it was too few steps before he reached the line of
mariahs
. He forced himself to look them in the eye, one by one: a woman with cheeks that swept back like wings; beside her, clutching her hand,
blinking frightened eyes as big as eggs, a boy child of four or five—many of the Shunned were identified at birth, others not until Initiation; a older man with skin of polished suede, gently pleated around his jowls and neck; a girl whose round moon face shone with terror. Their feet were bare and dirty, their clothes still ragged despite their healed bodies.

How long would the healing last? He could see whips of wild magic snapping out of the crowd, slapping the Shunned. Not Tavaedi magic, but the unconscious hexcraft of a hundred minds loathing in unison. Even as he watched, a beautiful boy’s cheeks began to pucker and welt, blister and boil, buckling under the weight of the magic battering, the waves of hate.

These wretches were doomed no matter what he did, he told himself. He would be doing them a mercy to kill them quickly, end their suffering. He had worked too hard for this peace treaty to lose everything now. He could not fail. He
must
not.

He arrived at Svego, the first captive in line. Feeling numb, he raised the knife to Svego’s jugular. Behind him, Kavio heard an animal keen in pain, and realized a second later it was not a beast but Gremo, held back somewhere by Blue Waters warriors.

“Make it one stroke, sweetling.” Svego’s lip trembled. “You can do it.”

Yes, I can do it
.

But he couldn’t. No matter how he knew he must cut the bobbing Adam’s apple, he could not will his hand to strike. He dropped the knife, which struck the hard earth like a drum.

“I cannot accept your peace terms, Chief Nargano.”

Nargano’s lip curled. “Your people journeyed here under a staff of peace, secured by my own word of honor, and your people will leave under the same security until they reach Yellow Bear tribesland. But as leader of the party, since you choose to spit on my terms for peace, your own life is forfeit.”

“I know.”

Kavio remembered how Rthan had been tied to a pole and tortured by men and fae during the victory banquet in Yellow Bear. He wondered if he could endure torture as well as Rthan had and feared he could not. They had no right to torture him; he had not come as an enemy to their land, and, even if by his failure to secure the peace, he had forfeited his life, he deserved a simple, respectful death. He had to cling to that hope, for he had no other left. He feared dying, but he feared dying badly even more.

While the archers held their aim at all the members of the Yellow Bear party,
more  Blue
Waters warriors, spear men, moved in and took away their weapons. Two burly guards grabbed Kavio’s obsidian dagger from his belt, the spear strapped to his back, the small
flint throwing
dagger in his sandal strap, and a sling and a pouch of rocks hidden in his chest harness. Just in case they had missed anything, or perhaps merely to dishonor him, they stripped off all his clothes except his loincloth. Shame burned his cheeks. He struggled against the men who held him, determined to fight for his dignity.

Quick as a shark, Nargano’s fist bit Kavio’s jaw. The guards caught him by the arms so he had no way to duck or fight back. Not to mention three archers aimed their arrows in his direction, obviously itching for an excuse to let them fly. Nargano himself tied a tough gut-wire cord, thinner than a finger and sharp as a thorn, around Kavio’s neck. Nargano yanked the cord to tug Kavio’s face closer, and, incidentally, squeeze his windpipe.

“You should have taken my offer,” said Nargano. An ugly, bald man to begin with, when Nargano smirked, showing off his brown teeth, it did nothing to endear him to Kavio. “But in the end, maybe it’s more appropriate that you will die Shunned.”

“Wait, Uncle,” said Zumo. “Before you kill him, I ask that you let me entertain him for the night.”

No!
a
voice inside Kavio screamed.
Do not let him play with me
.

“Certainly,” said Nargano. “I did not plan to kill him until dawn regardless. Enjoy your cousin’s hospitality, Kavio.”

He shoved Kavio to the ground, and then handed the cord to Zumo.

Zumo began to walk. “Come with me, Kavio.”

When Kavio started to stand up, Nargano kicked him to the dust. “Crawl, Shunned.”

“Really, Zumo?” Kavio asked.  “A little excessive, don’t you think?”

“Shut up, or I’ll just slit your throat,” said Nargano.

Icy rage gathered quietly inside him. “You mean you will try.”

“Kavio, just do as he says,” Zumo said. “I know you don’t want your Tavaedies to be harmed. Have you forgotten their lives hang over the pit as well? Literally. There are sharks in the lagoon. All Nargano has to do is give the signal to cut the nets.”

All of this conversation played out in front of the tribesfolk gathered for the feast.

Like puppets on strings in a child’s game, they had played whatever role was called of them. Earlier in the evening they had been, eating, laughing and singing. When Svego pleaded on behalf of the Shunned, they acted the part of the outraged mob. Yet unlike a real mob, which Kavio had seen, this bunch had returned to docility after just one gesture from their leader. Now they were silent, and a number of them had bowed their heads to Nargano as soon as the archers appeared. They looked as frightened as the guests from Yellow Bear. Kavio suspected that archers were not uncommon additions to Nargano’s feasts, and the Blue Waters folk were used to a war chief with a heavy hand. He had always wondered what it would have been like to live during the Bone Whistler’s time, when not only Imorvae lived in terror, but even Morvae and ordinary people danced to the tune of the evil bone flute.

“If you intend to kill me, then do so,” said Kavio. “I will not play your games.”

“You’ll crawl because I
said
you would crawl,” said Nargano. “And so you will know who mastered you.
Now
.
On.
Your.
Knees
.”

Kavio thought of his father, and how he had made Kavio go back to Yellow Bear even after they had sworn to execute him.

Don’t make me go
, Kavio had pleaded.

It’s easy to ride the river when the water is calm
, said his father.
It’s when we reach the white water that it takes strength to hold the course.

But what does that mean, Father?

It means I have to do what’s right for the tribe
, said his father.
Not just what’s right for
me.

But it’s my life that will be taken
,
protested Kavio.

Your life is my life
.

How Kavio had hated his father in that moment. He had wanted to sob,
My
life is mine, not yours. I’m not a scrap for you to throw to dogs
. But even then, when he despaired that his father held his life in such contempt, he hadn’t wanted to disappoint him. As if Kavio could have still proven, even at the last minute, that he deserved his father’s love. So he had gone back to Yellow Bear to face Hertio.

He had come to Sharkshead for the same reason, he realized. Even now, he was still trying desperately to impress his father.

Do you know what a fool is?
Nargano had mocked.

Bile rose in Kavio’s throat but he swallowed it and lowered himself to his hands and knees. Zumo led him on a leash past the tribesfolk.

“Behold the humbling of our foe!” cried Nargano.

That was the signal to all of the tribesfolk to break their silence. They roared and cheered. Some of them threw food at Kavio as he crawled past them like a bull to slaughter.

Puppets
. He hurled his contempt back at them.

Kavio saw the Yellow Bear warriors from the peace party trussed up and forced to kneel beside a hide shack. Several faces were missing, however. Where was Gremo, or Brena’s daughter?

Where was Dindi?

Tears streaked Dindi’s face as she watched Kavio being humiliated. The pettiness and fickleness of the crowd repulsed her.
Look at them spit on him
, she thought furiously,
when they broke bread with him just
a
hour past! Do they lack all
honor
? Does the sanctity of shared corn mean nothing to them?

She stood under guard next to Gwenika, with her hands tied in front of her, but the warriors did not pay the girls much attention. As Zumo paraded his captive past, the warriors joined in taunting and hissing at Kavio, but Zumo glanced up briefly and chanced to meet her eyes. He looked shocked and almost stopped. Horrified that he recognized her, Dindi shrank back behind one of her guards, and Zumo moved on, dragging Kavio behind on hands and knees.

Her heart kept pounding after he was out of sight.

Zumo still remembered her, and he still wanted something from her.

Kavio crawled in the dirt on the leash of his cousin. How far would Zumo go humiliate and hurt him? He had badly miscalculated the depths of Zumo’s treachery once already. Ages ago, as small boys, they had been friends. Now anything seemed possible.

Zumo tugged him to a hut outwardly no different from the rest except for the markings on the totem pole out front, a motley shack built from oversized rib bones covered with many oiled skins patched together. Inside, the fire at the center of the hut filled the air with smoke. Furs lined the area around the hearth. Zumo wordlessly tossed the end of the leash at Kavio.

“Sorry for the show,” Zumo grunted. “Nargano is a tough piece of meat, and pretty bull-headed. I could have told him you’d refuse his offer, but he didn’t ask me first. I had no idea he was going to suggest human sacrifices.”

Kavio worked free the painful gut wire around his neck.

“Now,” Zumo said, leaning back against a rib post, “We must—”

Without warning, Kavio leaped and rolled across the rugs, slamming his arm against Zumo’s throat, pinning him to the post.

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you now!” growled Kavio.