The rains came as Jaya climbed the narrow jungle trails, but the foliage over her was so thick she felt only the drops that trickled through and dripped warm off the tips of leaves and spattered on her shoulders like blood. The air was heavy, and steam rose from the loamy soil underfoot. Each step and she sank in to her ankle, feeling the heat of the decay on her skin.
The trees became immense – slick gray trunks towering above her like pillars girded by vines and parasitic fungi that glowed in the darkness. Birds flitted high above, calling out their cannibal songs, and beneath that was the domain of older and more primal things. Dragonflies as long as her arm hummed between the branches, and moths with wings like cloaks hung from the bark, watching her with glowing eyes. Serpents thick as her thigh crawled slow in the undergrowth, and spiders as long as a man hung their webs between the tree-boles like fisherman’s nets.
Jaya made her way with care, watchful of where she stepped. Her people had dark legends of the terrors that dwelled in these forests, and she recalled more of them than she wished to. She knew the stories of spiders large enough to devour an elephant, of bats that stung with envenomed tails, and serpents that whispered in human voices. The Moon Forest, they called this place. The domain of the gods themselves. Not the Unnamed Gods, but older ones. The gods of wind and rain and the shaking of the earth.
She saw tracks now and again in the dimness beneath the trees. Water ran down the thick trunks in little rivers, and from these she could drink when she wanted, tasting the forest itself. Here the earth was wet and heavy with mud, and here she saw the prints of feet that were not human, but were near to it. The ape demons dwelled here in the ancient legends – neither beast nor quite man. They hungered for flesh, and would rend it from trespassers with terrible claws. Her most ancient ancestors had bred them from jungle apes to protect the pathways to their mountain home in the days before their conquest.
The way became stonier, and she picked out a path that wove between jagged black rocks among thorned vines, and she began to have glimpses of the heavy, cloud-covered sky. Rain came in the morning, and again in the afternoon. Thunder was her constant companion. Soon she would mount the edge of the stony hills and stand upon the central plateau, and then she would face other dangers she could not foretell.
She looked back, down the long, mist-shrouded slopes, and she saw dark forms on another rocky finger below her. Made small by distance, she knew they were not. The apes crouched upon the stone and looked up at her, black-furred and clutching the rock with long talons. They watched her, and she wondered if they followed, or simply marked her passing. If she returned this way, she would learn.
It was morning when she saw again the marks of human hands in this place. Some of the stone was cut into steps underfoot, and she saw worn faces watching from the rock walls around her, smoothed by rain over centuries until they were no more than the suggestions of human countenance. Her ancestors watched her pass while they slept.
At the high place in the trail, under the canopy of branching, twisted trees, she found the statue. Even covered in vines and mosses that clung, she knew the shape of Hamau, the Tigress. Her claws still shone in glassine rock, but her face had been chipped and dashed away, leaving her blinded, and unseen. The sight of it made Jaya angry.
This was what she had thought to find. The heretics below her in the town had named another god, and she had seen their revulsion at the name of Hamau. She was right to come here. There was a great shrine of the Claw Goddess high in the mountains, and some lesser cult had burrowed into it like a maggot, and she would cut and burn them away.
She moved closer, wishing to clear away some of the vines and leaves and see what had become of the face of the goddess. But when she reached up her hand, one of the vines moved, and she saw it flush and change color, turning a bright and luminous blue. Scales rasped on the stone, and a serpentine body as thick as her leg shifted around the ancient idol. Jaya saw a wide, spearhead-shaped skull come into sight, the neck coiling back and back on itself, and she saw the golden eyes of the nightmare viper.
It hissed, low and long and deep-voiced, and Jaya moved back slowly, her hand still raised, not taking her glance from the serpent as it moved, rearing up higher, tongue flicking out. It was a big one, as long as three or four people, the head wider than her own, eyes bigger than the palms of her hands. It swayed side to side, body heaving as it breathed.
Jaya bowed her head. “Gentle, great one. Gentle. I walk in the name of Ulau, the Serpent King. Your lord as well as one of mine. I heed you, Death-Speaker. I seek no harm to the idol of Hamau, I come walking in the footsteps of vengeance. The time has come for all to be made right.” She held up her empty hands and kept her eyes on the ground. “I come in service to the gods.”
She held still, hardly daring to breathe, and she heard then the whispering sound that was almost words. She smelled the sweet breath of the viper, that was said to be able to send men into endless dreams from which they would never awake, so they did not stir when they felt the sting of the fangs. The ghost flick-flick of the dark tongue touched her outstretched hands, and she closed her eyes and waited.
Another whisper, and then silence. She held still for a very long time, but when she looked up at last she saw the serpent had gone, and she was alone with the faceless god. Slowly she brushed aside the vines and leaves until she could touch the chisel-marks on the stone where the face had been struck away, and she ground her teeth with anger. She would walk to the heart of darkness on a path of fire.
o0o
It was night when she heard them coming. She had grown accustomed to the sounds of the jungle, sleeping through the long nights in bowers she made from supple branches bent around her to shield her from hunting eyes. The calls and songs of the immense insects and the cries of the monkeys high in the branches became familiar, and so she noticed when they changed.
Silence woke her, and she held very still, pressed against the forked limb she had chosen for her night’s rest. The small verses of the night had ceased, nearby, and she heard the place of quiet coming closer, like a hole in the dark. She slipped her hand across her belly to where her sword lay, the smooth hilt ready in her grasp. A single flex of her legs and she would roll and drop to the forest floor, two man-heights below her. The night was deep and black, and only in places did a sliver of moon touch the earth.
The quiet came nearer, then moved to her left, and divided. There were two of them, and now she began to hear the tiny, betraying sounds of their footfalls on the heavy carpet of leaves upon the black soil. She held so still, even her breath scarcely moved, and she looked into the very deepest shadows beneath the trees, so that anything lighter would shine.
It moved just under her, and she shifted her eyes and only her eyes to look down. There was a form there, crouched close to the earth, the head a shape like a stalking tiger, the back striped with the claw-marks of the fire-sided. It held still, and she heard sniffing, saw the head move as it quested after her scent. She saw a mouth under the tiger jaws, and then she realized it was not a hunting cat, but a man with the skin of a tiger over his head and his back.
A hand reached out and touched the trunk of the tree, and she saw the skin was stained almost black with some dark dye, and the fingers were fitted through the knuckles of a weapon like steel claws that curled over the back of the hand.
She looked for the other one, moving only her eyes, but she could not see it. If she struck, she would have to strike clean and then face the other one in the blackness. She looked down and tightened her grip on her sword-hilt as the one below her sniffed again, and then it leaned in close and licked at the bark of the tree, face close against the wood. Next, it would look up, and then it would cry out and she would be found.
Jaya took a deep breath as silent as night and let it half out. Her foot pressed against the tree branch, and then she turned and pushed and her own weight carried her out of her perch, slapping through the branches of her meager shelter as she dropped. As she turned in the air she drew her sword and when she landed her feet sank hard into the soil and she struck out to her right, blind but sure, the blade of her father hissing through the air.
She felt the keen steel bite, and there was a wet sound as the edge sliced through the hunter’s throat so cleanly the blade came out almost bloodless. The lack of resistance overbalanced Jaya and she fell against the tree and rolled away as her enemy staggered back and gagged, blood pouring out as his head sagged back, half-severed. The sound of the crimson raining on the leaves and soil was loud in the night quiet, and nearby an unseen bird screamed and hurtled through the branches.
Jaya was on her feet and pressed back against the tree into shadow, forcing herself to the stillness of a stone, seeking to blend into the gray bark. She wanted to gasp for breath, but she willed herself to breathe slowly, mouth open so there would be no sigh to betray her. If the other hunter was a fool, he would come to see what had happened to his companion, and if he did that, she would slay him as well. She waited, hand firm on the grip of her sword.
The stricken man collapsed to the earth, hands clutching his ruined neck, blood pouring out of him until the soil was stained black beneath him. He twisted one last time, a hand reaching up with steel claws hooked, and then he slumped back and was still, blood rushing even after he was dead.
The night was quiet again, and Jaya waited, straining to listen for the smallest sound. The night insects were silent still, and that was what gave her hope. Truly great hunters would be able to move without disturbing the animals of the forest, without giving themselves away. These were serious, but they did not know their trade as well as they might, and that meant she could yet overcome them. She held herself in readiness, poised and still.
She waited a long time, and the sounds of the jungle began to come back. Jaya’s arms ached from holding herself motionless. Her hip was pressed hard against the tree so that it hurt, her eyes watered from blinking as little as possible, and she seemed to ache for air. The monkeys jabbered in the trees above, a snake crawled over her hand and down along her body, seeming to not realize she was alive. She waited, watching the corpse, determined not to lose this contest of patience.
When she saw it, it seemed to materialize out of the blackness as though it had been part of the dark that came alive. A shadow moved and took on form, and then another hunter was there, crouching over the fallen one, one hand reaching down to touch the death-wound. He was turned partly away from her, and she took this as the best moment she would have.
When she sprang, he turned quick as an adder and the claws lashed for her belly, and she realized she had been lured. She halted her rush and her blade met the iron talons with a scatter of sparks. The hunter leaped on her and she was off-balance, unable to evade the leap. The faint moonlight glinted on honed points, and she almost felt them on her skin already.
Instead of meeting the attack, she fell back, rolling to the soft earth and kicking out savagely. She felt her kick strike and the hunter grunted and fell to the side, missing the sweep of those claws. Jaya rolled toward rather than away and struck down. Her enemy tried to roll away and her cut caught his wrist and severed it.
He made no cry, and that was unnerving. He rolled and then tried to scramble up, but blood was hissing from his arm and he was off-balance. Jaya was after him, kicked his remaining hand out from under him and landed on him when he went facedown in the dirt. She put her knee on the small of his back and pinned him there, and she set her foot on his remaining arm to keep his claws under her control. Her free hand hooked into the tiger-skin hood and ripped it off, and she put her blade to the back of his neck.
“Now tell me where you come from,” she said, her voice low and angry. The tiger skins stoked her outrage, and yet she was aware there might be more than these two hunting her in the dark. Blood still poured from his severed wrist, and she knew there was not much time before he faded. “Speak!”
“I speak only the words of the Tiger God,” he grunted, twisting beneath her, trying to get leverage to writhe free. “Kshatra protects me! Kshatra guards my way to the overworld.”
“Tell me where you hide and I will stop the blood,” she hissed. “You do not have very long.”
“I fear not death,” he said, his voice weakening. “I fear not pain nor venoms. I am a Son of the Tiger. I am the Chosen of the Way. I will find my path to the Garden of Delights, and you cannot prevent me.” He laughed, a sound that was halfway to a cough. “You cannot.” He heaved as though he might throw her aside, but then he sagged and she felt the slackness of death.
Jaya grunted and cursed, and then, lest she be deceived, she rose up on one knee and hacked off his head. It would be an easy gambit to feign senslessness or death and wait for a moment to strike. She had met this one’s kindred in the city, killing by night. This was an order of assassins, who hunted and slew in the dark, and she was entering their domain.
Let them wonder who hunted them now. She left the body and took the head, carried it by the braided scalp locks. The other head was half-severed already, and all she had to do was chop through the spine. Then she hung both of them from a tree branch, and she took the tiger-skin hoods and put them on the jutting root-boles, not certain what else she could do. Had she time, she would burn them as befitted the remains of a royal beast, but she could not. She would avenge them, that much she could promise.
The night was full of the scent of blood, and already marching lines of ants had materialized to swarm the bodies. Other scavengers would come, drawn by the smell, and she would meet them if she remained. She cleaned her sword on a handful of leaves, and then she turned northward again and made her way into the jungle, seeking the pale gray before dawn.
o0o
Storms haunted the mountain forest by day, and the land became rockier, more open. The trees had to twist and knot themselves to cling to the stony hillsides, and the way grew steeper. Jaya had to climb more than she walked, and she had to be wary, for she knew she was in the country of apostate killers, and they would certainly be seeking her now. They could be behind her, or ahead of her, waiting in ambush, so she moved carefully, seeking to make no sound as she crossed the mist-shrouded terrain.
When the sun lowered in the west, it blazed beneath the clouds, and she saw the whole landscape lit with fire, the mist glowing as the light burned through it, each stone and ridge outlined in red. She looked northward, up into the mountains, and there she saw it for a moment – a glimpse of the great stone where the Fane of Hamau stood among the ruins of a lost age. Sigara – the palace of the old race, where they had been born. It shimmered there in the fire of the dying sun, and then the mists closed in and hid it from sight once more.
She smelled smoke, something afire, and then a sweet odor that she knew to be incense, and the hairs stood on the back of her neck. Slowly, she followed a narrow path, sword ready in her hand, and she passed through a veil of mist and faced a natural hollow in the hillside, and here there stood an idol of death and blood.
It had been an image of the Tiger Goddess, but now it had been defiled. The face had been chiseled away and the blank hollow painted black, the stone draped in tiger skins, and at the base of it were piled the yellow bones of countless animals and men. Before the pedestal was an ancient altar, and before the altar was a great bowl of smooth stone in which a fire was flickering, smoke rising from it toward the mist-lowered sky.
There was a shape on the altar, and as Jaya came into the hollow, it stirred and stood, revealing a human form covered in tiger skins, the arms and face painted black, the bare breasts spiraled with ritual scars. Jaya saw eyes that glittered all but fully black, and teeth filed to points. The warrior lifted a spear, and the head of it was a keen, single-edged blade made with proper artistry – the back edge worked with chisel and ivy work in the steel.
“So you come with the stench of death upon you,” the huntress said. “You slew my acolytes, and now it falls to me to punish you for your trespass.” She planted the haft of the spear in the earth and licked her sharklike teeth. “Who are you that comes in blood?”
Jaya saw no purpose in a lie. “I am Jaya of the Tau’ta. I was born of Undun, who was son of Amida, back and back the many years to Kashyan the Three-Hearted and his sister-bride Shagati.” She lifted her sword before her and held it between her eyes so it became a shard of darkness dividing her sight. “I have come to seek the shrine of Hamau. The gods have sent me to do their will, and I shall see it done.”
The priestess’s face twisted in hatred. “You will not speak the name of the false one here. This is the land of the Tiger! We are the Sons and Daughters of Kshatra! He is the reaper of life! The devourer in darkness! You will not set foot in his sacred shrine. You will go no further than this!”
She leaped over the brazier and struck the heaped wood with her spear so that the fire blazed up bright. She whirled her weapon through the air, the blade a web of silver trails in the half-light, reflecting the crimson of the long sunset. She moved with speed and sureness, and Jaya gathered herself. She could not await the attack of a weapon with superior reach, she would have to close with her enemy and strike her dead.
The priestess came toward her, dancing side to side like a serpent before the strike, and then she lunged with her spear extended to impale. Jaya deflected it and leaped in, but her enemy was prepared and snapped the spear back and sidestepped, hooking Jaya’s ankle with the haft and trying to sweep her leg from under her. Jaya lifted her leg and kicked the woman in the middle, sending her back with a grunt. She slashed with the spearpoint and Jaya leaped back out of reach.
Grim now, they each measured their opponent. Jaya saw the woman was a deadlier fighter than the others, and well-trained with her weapon of choice. Yet there was a clean sharpness to her movements that told of more practice than experience. She had fought shadows far more than flesh.
The priestess feinted left, then again, high, and when Jaya did not respond, she struck with the haft and then whirled to cut low with the blade. Jaya took the blow of the wooden haft on her vambrace, and then she stepped inside the other woman’s stroke so she was too near for the spear to bite her calf. Rather than slash, she hooked her free arm around her enemy’s neck and waited for her to pull away.
She pulled, and Jaya stepped in and tripped her, pushed and followed as she stumbled back and went down. The were close to the brazier, and the heat of the fire baked across Jaya’s skin. Her sword arm was free and she cut down, furiously, her blade met by the iron-hard haft of the spear. Three times they clashed, and then the priestess slammed the wooden shaft crosswise into her belly and knocked the breath from her.
Jaya gasped for air and the other woman got her leg up and levered her away, sending them both onto their backs. Jaya was up as fast as she could move and pounced before her opponent could get to her feet. She caught the haft of the spear and tried to wrestle it away, let her sword fall and used both hands.
They fought there in the growing darkness, straining against each other to try and wrest the weapon free. Jaya was smaller, but she found she was just as strong. The priestess braced one foot on the earth and gained leverage, began to force Jaya back toward the brazier, the heat growing fiercer. Firelight blazed in the eyes of her adversary, reflecting in the black, almost featureless gaze.
Jaya twisted and pulled her enemy off-balance, forced her arm against the hot stone of the brazier, and she heard the flesh hiss as it seared through. The priestess snarled and tore her hand away, and Jaya wrenched the spear up and over just as she drove a knee into her opponent’s midsection.
The black hand came away from the haft, and Jaya had the spear in her grip, free and light as a bolt of storm-fire. She whirled it, feeling the beautiful balance of a fighting weapon, and then she was on her feet, turning. Even as her enemy struggled up, Jaya drove the bright steel blade through her chest so that it stood out red between her shoulders.
The black priestess gave a coughing sound, a wet hitch of breath, and then she clutched the haft as though she would tear it loose. Her teeth bared, blood pouring through them, and then she sagged back and fell against the brazier, slumped to the earth with her tiger skins smoldering, her hood coming free to reveal her shaved and tattooed skull. She made a last, wheezing gasp with fingers clawing the earth, and then she was still.
Jaya set her foot on the corpse and tore the spear free. The steel was dark with blood, and she took a handful of leaves and cleaned it carefully, seeing the watery pattern of the forging. This was an old blade, perhaps even sword-steel remade to be used as a spear. It felt good in her hand, and she decided she would keep it.
She took her sword from the earth and sheathed it, and then she took the tiger-pelt from the dead woman and cast it into the fire so that it might burn. The hunting cat deserved the funeral dignities of the flame, the dead priestess would serve to feed the worms. She looked up at the desecrated statue and bowed her head. Let this be a sacrifice to the Hunting Goddess, the Claw Keeper. Let this be the first blood to begin to purify her shrine. Jaya firmed her grip on her new weapon, and then she began to climb once again. The sky was clearing, and the night blazed with stars to light her way.
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