Speaking Bones, page 20
Rita gave a wan smile. “I heard enough of the wounded speak before they died…. I wish we could stop all the killing.”
The old man said nothing; theirs wasn’t a mission of peace.
“Enough of this,” said Rita determinedly. “Time to get to work.”
* * *
The garinafin pens were the spine of the Lyucu military. They formed the foundation of Tenryo’s empire, and the bulwark of Cudyu’s.
The exact construction of the garinafin corral had changed over time, but the basic principle remained the same: It was, above all, a prison.
A long fence made of ribs and thigh bones marked the perimeter, but the flimsy barrier was not the primary means of confining the powerful beasts. Psychological chains proved far more effective.
While Pékyu Nobo Aragoz of the Agon was the first to exploit the familial bonds of garinafins to enslave them, it was Pékyu Tenryo Roatan who elevated the process into an art. Following the basic pattern established by Tenryo, the area within the bone fence was divided into two regions. The first, not much bigger than the Great Tent itself, was reserved for the personal mounts of Cudyu and the most powerful garinafin-thanes. These beasts were bred from sires and dams selected for exceptional speed, strength, endurance, ferocity, and other qualities. From the time they were hatchlings, each had a team of slave grooms who pampered them for every need. Cudyu and the other powerful thanes even took time to build personal bonds with the elite war beasts, a vestige of the traditional scrubland approach.
The other region, far larger, stabled the vast bulk of the garinafins of the Lyucu army. Upon reaching sexual maturity, garinafins who showed promise in war were mated, and the hatchlings were allowed to stay with their families until about two years old. This wasn’t a concession to tender sentiment, however, but a period deliberately calculated to cement the bonds between the juveniles and their parents.
At that point, the young garinafins were taken away from the parents, and as the adult garinafins watched, the weakest calf in each brood was slaughtered. The resulting meat was considered a delicacy, and the immature skulls and bones were fashioned into helmets, signaling spears, and other items of utility. Garinafin calfskin, being more supple and easier to work with than adult skin, was prized as the raw material for blankets and garments for the great thanes.
The slaughter wasn’t needed to cull the herd, but to emphasize to the parents the absolute nature of their servitude and the consequences of disobedience.
From that point on, the juveniles were imprisoned in underground warrens apart from their parents, who underwent constant training for war. The adults had to learn to accept any pilot and to obey a series of simple commands that followed standardized formats. A disobedient garinafin was brought back to the corral, where his or her children were brought out to be tortured in front of them. The young garinafins were struck with teeth-studded clubs on the tender skin between their legs, burned with gash cactus juice, starved, or had their heads held under water as they flailed until they ceased moving. Sometimes young garinafins died during the torture sessions.
Most adult garinafins needed no more than one such reminder to stop rebelling and became extremely docile. The submission continued even when the garinafins were away at war, or even when all their children had been slaughtered—habits of mind, instilled in moments of vulnerability, shackled beasts as well as men. Occasionally, a few garinafins, overstressed by the relentless cruelty, went mad and stopped responding to all orders, heedless of the consequences. They and their children were put to death, the lineages deemed untrainable.
In dark, cramped subterranean cells, the young garinafins were staked to the walls and grew up in chains. Upon reaching maturity, and before they had hatchlings of their own, their parents would be tortured in front of them. The role reversal was the start of their own journey into submission.
Old garinafins no longer fit for war were usually slaughtered for meat, leather, and bones, though a few were kept around as beasts of burden. The killing and butchering typically occurred within hearing and sight of their children and grandchildren.
The diabolical cycles continued generation after generation, links in an unbreakable chain of bondage.
* * *
Rita demanded to be shown the garinafins not on regular patrol duty so that she could pick one to borrow.
“What would votan like to do with her slaves?” asked the head groom. Once, he had been a good garinafin pilot and was charged with training new pilots for Tenryo. But he had incurred Cudyu’s wrath when the new pékyu overheard him enthusiastically praising Tanvanaki’s skills to a group of student pilots. Cudyu had accused him of disloyalty (“Excessive admiration of the past is no more than a coward’s way of denigrating the current leadership”)—a charge against which there could be no defense—and then demoted him to this post. There was little hope that he would ever be elevated beyond the rank of naro-votan.
“I brought them to do whatever needs to be done,” said Rita carelessly. Then her eyes lit up. “Ah, I know! They are good with animals, since they trained these dogs that my tribe has found very useful in the far north. They’d be perfect for you here in the stables!”
The head groom said nothing. There was no use in pointing out that dogs were nothing like garinafins. A lowly naro out of the pékyu’s favor didn’t object to the opinions—even worthless ones—of a young thane clearly esteemed by both Tovo and Cudyu (especially with that accent, a sign of her noble birth and powerful clan affiliation).
“Why don’t you take them and teach them what they need to know so they can be useful?” said Rita. It really wasn’t a request.
The head groom summoned a few grooms to take the ice flea captives away. Rita untied the rope binding their necks together.
“Kitos, from now on, obey him as if he were me,” Rita said to the old man at the head of the line.
The old ice flea nodded submissively.
The head groom could see how the ice fleas visibly relaxed as they were taken away from the wolf-thane, who had probably been terrorizing them nonstop since their capture. Even he felt a sense of revulsion, wondering just how horribly disfigured the woman was under that helmet-mask that she refused to take off. But if the ice fleas thought they would get some reprieve here, they were sorely mistaken. The garinafin pens were among the worst places a slave could be assigned to.
Well, no matter. Their fate wasn’t his problem. The head groom had enough troubles of his own.
He accompanied the young wolf-thane on a tour through the regular pens. The garinafins dozed in the afternoon sun, chewing the thornbush branches listlessly. The foul odor of garinafin dung hung in the air, along with clouds of buzzing slisli flies. Some of the beasts looked rather malnourished, and they showed little interest as the wolf-thane and the head groom walked past.
“Why are conditions here so poor?” asked Rita, frowning. “Don’t you care? Even cattle-guarding garinafins of the gutless Agon look much healthier.”
The head groom sighed inwardly. Thanes from outside Taten invariably made such comments when visiting the pens. But what did they know of his difficulties? Cudyu and the senior thanes lavished attention on their personal mounts, but they cared little for the rank-and-file war beasts. The head groom was never given enough resources, and in any event, obedience from the garinafins was valued far more than their vigor. He had no choice but to focus most of his attention on discipline. To be sure, he thought this posed a long-term danger to the Lyucu, but he knew better than to voice his real opinions to Cudyu or his close advisers.
“The pékyu is pleased with the state of the garinafin force,” he said, his voice devoid of any emotion. “The victory in Kiri Valley was complete.”
Rita was dismissive. “That was due entirely to surprise and advantage in numbers. Do you really think one of these poor specimens can win against an Agon garinafin in one-to-one combat?”
The head groom lowered his head, keeping his face expressionless.
Rita shook her head and walked on. After a moment, the head groom followed.
Teams of Agon slaves labored around the pens, replenishing the feeding troughs and taking away the dung on stretchers. They moved with little urgency or interest, only quickening their pace when Lyucu overseers walked by, whips at the ready. Many of the garinafins would soon be driven onto the city-ships for the grand invasion fleet to Dara.
The head groom hoped the wolf-thane would pick a mount quickly; he was running out of patience for her unsought opinions. But Rita was a picky pilot and kept on shaking her head at every choice the head groom offered. Always, she managed to find some fault: “The snout is too large…. I don’t like the shape of the antlers…. Why are his eyes so red? Do you know anything about garinafins?”
Of course the eyes look bloodshot, thought the seething head groom. The pékyu had been pushing the garinafins hard for weeks without upping their feed. The beasts were overworked and not getting enough sleep. They probably felt as exhausted as the Agon slaves who took care of them.
Halfway around the corral, they came upon a dozing old garinafin bull. Two grooms were giving him a bath with a moss brush and a skin-tub of dirty water.
The head groom stopped. “Why is this thing still here?” he asked.
The two grooms turned around. “He’s doing better today,” the woman said, bowing submissively. The man next to her nodded vigorously.
Surprisingly, the woman spoke in a Lyucu topolect, though both were dressed in the same dirty, ragged furs as the rest of the slave grooms.
“I don’t care if he’s doing better,” said the head groom. “His foot is broken.” He pointed at a clawed foot, gingerly curled under the beast. “I told you to send him to the slaughter grounds.”
“But he’ll heal if he’s properly taken care of,” said the man. “Radia and I have nursed many injured garinafins back to health.”
After the escape of the pékyus-taasa and the other children of Kiri Valley, Toof and Radia had lost Cudyu’s trust. Although he couldn’t prove that they had schemed the escape, the enraged pékyu had stripped them of their ranks and made them slaves in Taten’s garinafin pens.
“That isn’t necessary,” said the head groom. “There are plenty of healthy garinafins to take his place without wasting feed and time. Send him to the slaughter grounds now!”
“Please,” begged Toof. “He’s a veteran war mount, and he has plenty of wisdom to teach the others.”
“Not this again,” said the head groom with a groan. “You two sometimes act as if these beasts are more than mere brutes. I’ve already indulged you too far by letting you two keep that obstinate Agon garinafin alive—the traitor pretender’s useless mount. And now you’re saving cripples! Ridiculous! The only brain that matters on a garinafin belongs to the pilot, and the only thing these dumb animals comprehend is the value of obedience!”
“But they can understand us, really! Radia and I can tell that the heart of a warrior still beats within him—”
“ENOUGH! I WILL NOT DEBATE—”
Rita broke in. “This one. I want this one.”
The garinafin lifted his head to look in her direction. Scarred and battered, he had clearly been much abused. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air, as though trying to place a familiar scent.
The head groom looked at Rita in disbelief. “But votan, he’s injured! The useless thing can’t even stand up properly. Besides, you should know that he used to be—”
“My mind is made up,” said the wolf-thane. “I’ll be staying in Taten until the departure of the fleet, so there’s plenty of time for him to heal.”
Toof and Radia looked at her gratefully.
The head groom threw up his hands. “As you wish, votan.”
“You may return to your duties,” said Rita, her tone brooking no disagreement. “I wish to get acquainted with my new mount.”
The head groom nodded, turned around, and left, glad to finally be rid of the insufferably arrogant thane.
The wolf-thane extended a hand and gently caressed the nose of the bull garinafin.
“I’m sorry, Ga-al, my friend,” she muttered, “you’ve really suffered. Is Alkir here too?”
Toof and Radia stared at her, amazed.
“How… how do you…”
The wolf-thane shushed them as she drew closer. Glancing around to be sure that no one else in the corral was paying attention, she lifted her skull helmet just enough to reveal her face.
“Pékyu Théra sends you her greetings.”
Toof and Radia gaped. They were looking at someone they never thought they’d see again: Thoryo.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN BURIAL BOXES
TATEN: THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE TENTH YEAR AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCESS THÉRA FROM DARA FOR UKYU-GONDÉ (WHEN THE LYUCU MUST LAUNCH THEIR NEW INVASION FLEET TO DARA).
It took garinafin fire and teams of axe-wielding culeks chipping away nonstop for most of three days to excavate the burial boxes from the ice.
They now lay on the shore in a neat row.
Four of the boxes were smaller, about six feet in length and three in width. The other two were bigger, about ten feet in length and five in width. All were surprisingly heavy for their size. The boxes were fashioned from black seacow hide wrapped around some kind of rigid internal frame and then tied in place with loops of sinew. After baking in the sun for most of the morning, clouds of slisli flies swarmed around them, attracted by the faint odor of decay and rot.
Up close, the Lyucu could see that the boxes were decorated in a strange manner. Bits of shell embedded in the top of each box formed the vague outline of a human figure. Polished turtle shells, etched with face portraits, looked up from where the heads would be, like masks.
“This is a barbaric custom from Dara,” whispered Cudyu to Tovo. “They seal the dead within and then bury them, a manifestation of their everlasting shame in their evil ways.”
Years ago, he and his sister had, in fact, supervised the construction of a simulated Dara graveyard as part of the deception of Luan Zya. Though there were no bodies in the counterfeit graves, he understood the principle behind coffins.
Tovo stared at the black boxes with a mixture of fascination and horror. The idea of being placed inside such a thing, to be deprived forever of the gaze of Cudyufin and the gaze of Nalyufin, to be held back from pédiato savaga through the strength of horrid wolves, tusked tigers, eagles, and vultures—the idea was too horrible to endure.
Cudyu walked among the body boxes, examining the shell-portraits thoughtfully. The crowd of thanes and warriors pressed forward, drawn by curiosity, but stopped some paces away, fearful of contamination.
The pékyu stopped by the pair of large boxes and waved away the swarming flies. Two faces, a man and a woman, lay under his gaze serenely, as though asleep. A Dara captive from Kiri Valley was summoned. She confirmed what Cudyu already knew: The portraits depicted the faces of Takval Aragoz, the self-proclaimed Pékyu of the Agon, and Princess Théra Garu of Dara.
Cudyu returned to Tovo’s side.
“What do you think happened?” he asked. “I thought you said you saw them all fall to their deaths in a crevasse in Nalyufin’s Pasture? But some must have survived to construct these.”
Tovo cursed Takval and Théra silently. Even in death the pair continued to embarrass him. “My initial report… simplified things somewhat.”
Cudyu lifted his eyebrows. “Perhaps it’s time to re-remember?”
Tovo swallowed. “Before reaching Spotted Heifer, Takval and I both fell… into a hole in the thin ice. We fought for hours in the bone-numbing water, and I wounded him grievously before his warriors managed to rescue him. They were able to slip away due to their advantage in numbers. But I knew he was not long for the world. We had to tend to the wounded and regroup before resuming the chase.”
He squared his shoulders, deliberately presenting the stump of his left arm to the pékyu, reminding him of his sacrifices. Cudyu’s face showed no reaction.
“And then,” Tovo continued, “after fasting for a few days to pray for Nalyufin’s aid, we set out for Spotted Heifer again. It must have been during that time when Takval and Théra died, and the remaining rebels desecrated their bodies in this manner. By the time my warriors and I caught up to the fugitives and watched them tumble into the crevasse, they must have been…” His eyes brightened, as though coming to a sudden realization. “They must have been leaderless! That explains why they panicked as soon as they saw us and scampered, heedless of the death trap they were heading into.”
Cudyu looked at him skeptically.
Tovo plunged on. Once a lie had been told, there was no choice but to shore it up with more lies. “Clearly, the Agon pretender had converted to the false religion of his barbarian bride. That’s why his followers would resort to such barbaric funeral rites. The other four burial boxes must contain the bodies of their most loyal attendants, willing to give up the chance to ascend on cloud-garinafins in order to accompany the lost pair into eternal perdition.”
Cudyu pondered Tovo’s account. A pékyu must be able to tell true stories apart from false ones, his father had always said. He expected Tovo’s story to be embellished—such was the nature of all battle reports—but did it contain a kernel of truth?
He closed his eyes and imagined the scene: the rebels’ mad scramble across the ice-covered sea; the desperate seeking of shelter in the snowy realm; the realization that they had not found a refuge but only an extended death; the despair that settled in as their lord expired in front of their eyes.
Yes, it seemed plausible. But could he be sure? Though Tovo had followed him all these years, did he know the color of the man’s heart?
“We must open the boxes,” said Cudyu.
“Why?” asked Tovo. The thought of opening these abominations made the hairs on his back stand up straight. “If they wished to desecrate their own bodies, then let them.”
