Blood Oaths

 

The dawn revealed a desolate shore, and Jaya stood on a jagged grip of rock and looked out over the horizons now closed to her.  The storm had passed and left the seas slow and uneasy, waves crossing and shifting with the uncertain winds, and nowhere was there the sign of any other living human form.  The strands was littered with the tide-mark of the sea-weeds, and there were scraps of driftwood as well as pieces of her shattered ship, the wracked boards jutting from the sand like ribs.

Here and there she saw the wash of the waters disturbed by lumps that did not stir, and she knew them to be corpses.  She had walked one to the other, seeing the faces of her Ekwa, and one of the former slaves, but no sign of Dhatun, nor of Bastar.  She was not certain which one she had most hoped to find alive, and that troubled her.

To the far south the sky was a wall of smoke, billowing high into the blue, a dark shadow across the limits of her sight.  Here and there she saw the flickers of the lightning that reached between the pillar of smoke and the mountain, but the island itself was far beyond her vision.  Streaks of darkness painted the air above her, but she had come a long way from the reach of the volcano.

She found her sword among the tide-pools and took it up, washed by the sea.  She carried it above the tide-mark and scrubbed it with sand to dry it.  The sheath was still on its cord about her waist, but she would have to let it dry before she used it.  She found a hard piece of black stone and sharpened the bright steel, glad of the craft that had made it in another age.

Now she found herself returned to the islands where her ancestors had ruled, and she looked inland, seeking some sign.  This was no small island, for north of her the land rose up in green folds higher and higher, and at the limits of her sight were the snow-touched peaks of mountains like she had never seen.  All was hazy with distance, lit by the golden rising sun, and she hungered for the name of this place, for the piece of her history she now stood upon with bare feet.

First she must find fresh water, and so she set out to the west.  To the east the land was rocky and forbidding, so she took the easier path.  The shore was wide and white, and crabs scuttled from her shadow as she set the sun behind her and followed it.  Along the shore until she could find a stream, and then she would start inland.  Along a waterway she would find what people there were, and they might tell her where she had landed.

She carried her sword ready, thinking on her lost ship, and on the dagger face of Lozonarre, so close to her, so near to her final stroke, and yet he had escaped her.  She had drawn blood from his leg, and now his face, next time, she would let out his life entire.

The sun felt good on her back, and she lifted her hair off her neck, salt drying on her skin and making her braids stiff.  Her lips were dry and cracking, and she resisted the urge to lick them.  She would find a stream, or this afternoon there would be rain.  She would have to last until then.

Out to sea she thought she saw small boats, canoes going this way or that, and that reassured her.  People must dwell in this place, it could not be a land only for ghosts and the beasts of the wild.  Somewhere people must go about their small lives, fishing and hunting and gathering roots and berries.  She smiled to think of it.

She smelled it before she came upon the stream, the clean thread of fresh water like music.  She climbed a rise and looked down and there was a freshet flowing down into the shore, narrow and rocky, but clean.  She climbed eagerly down and then followed it upstream until she was sure it was fresh enough.  The sandy bottom was bright and the reeds on the banks grew high.  She had to cut through them so she could reach the water and wade in.

It was warmer than the sea, and had that different, lighter feel of fresh water.  She stooped down and drank and drank, careful to stop before her belly felt swollen.  Looking around she saw no sign of anyone or any animal, so she untied her belt and placed her sword on a stone and sank herself into the water, came up shaking her hair free.  She scrubbed the dried salt streaks from her skin and rinsed her locks until they stopped feeling like braided grass.

When she came up, she heard voices.  She held still, listening, and she thought she heard a woman, and a child, so she slipped out of the stream and belted on her loincloth and her sheath, took her sword in hand and hefted it.  She was not looking for violence, but she could not sheathe her blade without rusting it in the damp scabbard.  Held at her side, the sword was not too noticeable.

She made her way along the stream, wading in the shallows.  The reeds were tall and obscured her view, so she did not see the people until she was upon them.  All at once she was around a corner and there were two women and three children by the shore.  The women were on the bank, washing clothes, while the small ones played in the water, splashing and laughing.

Jaya froze for a moment, unsure what to say, how she might speak to them so she would not make them afraid.  She was glad now that the sea had washed away the Ekwa war paint and the colors in her braids.  She moved again and the sun glinted on her sword and one of the women turned her head and saw her.  She gasped and the other woman looked at her and they both went still as stone.  Two of the children – both girls – turned and looked at her mutely, while the younger boy squealed as he chased after a frog.

Jaya lifted her empty hand, fingers open.  “Please.  I am a stranger who means no harm to you.”

The women started, half-stood from where they sat, fear on their faces, but also something else.  “Who are you?” one of them said, her accent rounded and strange.  “You who speak with the tongue of a noble-born.  Where have you come from?”

Jaya blinked, not certain what the woman meant.  “I am Jaya, of the Tau’ta.  I am child of Undun, who was son of Amida, back and back the many years to Kashyan the Three-Hearted and his sister-bride Shagati.”  She saw the women staring at her, their eyes wide and shocked.  “I have come seeking vengeance upon the giants who have invaded the islands, for they sent raiders to my island and slew my brother and my father.  I bring my sword bright, seeking blood, but not yours.”

The women stared at her, and then they knelt down in the water and bowed to her.  “If it is as you speak, then you are come to deliver us from evils we have swelled under for far too long.”  The other one gathered in the young boy, held the children close as they stared at her.  “We had not known that the Tau’ta survived.  They all vanished long ago.”

“We did,” Jaya said.  “We sailed out of the world and over the edge of the horizon to leave the islands to their fate, but time has brought change, and we can no longer remain apart.”  She stepped closer and held out her hand.  “Please, rise and be comforted.  I come not to harm you.  My ship was wrecked in the storm and I do not know where I have landed.  I am alone, and in need of food and shelter.”

The woman leaped up and grasped her hand in both of hers.  “Then come with us!  We will take you to our village, where you may find all you need.”  She looked at Jaya’s tattoos admiringly, but also searchingly.  Jaya saw the women had only their clan lineages marked on their forearms, without other signs of deeds or honors.  Of course, these were common women, not of a noble lineage such as her own.  She had grown up among the children of heroes and kings.

The other woman looked uneasy.  “Dewi, we cannot be sure this is the right path.”

“Hush,” the first woman said.  “This is all as has been foretold.”  She smiled at Jaya.  “I am Indah.  Come with me.  You are awaited, daughter of kings.  You have long been awaited.”

o0o

They led her up from the stream, and there was a path worn by the passage of feet.  The women carried their washing on long branches slung over their shoulders, and the children ran behind, stopping to stare at Jaya before they went racing off again.  The trees rose up on either side, and Jaya felt almost at home again as the sun dappled down between the shadows of the leaves.  Birds sang in the treetops, some strange, some familiar, and she saw flowers she recognized.  She was not certain what kind of village she would find, but then they emerged from the forest and into the sun and she saw the vista spread before her.

It was a wide, flat valley set between emerald-green hills, the stream meandering through it to a shallow lake at the center.  Beside the lake stood a host of lodges on stilts to raise them above the floodwaters, and they were so familiar to her she found herself choked with emotion.  She had been away from home for many weeks, and she felt it keenly now.

She saw men wading in the shallows, casting fishing nets, but beyond that the ground was planted with green shoots in long rows, and when she looked up to the hills she saw the steep sides had been cut and terraced into layers for yet more planting.  She had never seen anything like it before, and the smell of the fields was heavy and pungent.  She saw women and men out working among the rows, and some of them had immense, horned beasts beside them to pull weight, and she realized these were the river cows she had been told of in legends of the elder days.

Jaya found her sheath was dry enough to use, and she was glad to be able to put away her sword.  They passed other people on the road, and she drew stares from them, heard them mutter to one another as they watched her pass.  The women wore longer, heavier skirts than her own breechcloth, and some of them bound their breasts with strips of fabric.  She remembered that among the giants women did not go unclothed, were there giants here as well?

The men wore wide, loose shirts of white cloth and short loinclouts beneath.  Most of them wore coils of fabric wrapped around their heads, and she remembered this was a thing that her people had rejected.  It was fit for a commoner to cover his head, but not for the children of kings.  They must show their unshorn hair so that all may know their power.

They reached the village and people stopped what they were doing and gathered around.  She saw wrinkle-faced old men and women, young girls and straight-backed young men.  A man came down from a long lodge, and he had a red cloth around his head and a long, white beard.  He climbed to the ground and stood and looked at her.  Jaya did not wait, but went to meet him, hands open and empty.

“I am Jaya, of the Tau’ta.  I come to visit with you from across the eastern sea.  I mean to harm to you, and I seek only shelter for a night and some food.  My ship was wrecked upon the shore, and I am a stranger here.  I do not even know what land this is.”

The man looked at her, and then he slowly, reverently bowed his head.  “Call on the gods to give signs and portents.  Light fires and give praise and beg for mercy.”  He rose and put his hands together before him.  “Welcome, most high.  Though your return be an ill sign, and blood will flow like a river from your hand, I knew this day would come, though I prayed I would not live to see it.”

She heard mutterings behind her and turned, saw people looking at the tattoos of her lineage upon her back.  Slowly, she drew her hair forward over her shoulder so that they all might see, and she heard gasps and whispers.  In a wave they began to bow to her, kneeling upon the earth, hands raised before them in supplication.

The headman also bent to his knee.  “You have returned to us, daughter of the gods.  You bring a blood age with you.  That has been promised, and so has the destruction of our enemies.”  He lowered his eyes as she turned to face him once more.  “We pray that your advent presages liberation.  Yet woe be to us who dwell here in this age, when a child of the Tau’ta once more sets foot upon Tarakan.”

o0o

They brought her into the lodge of the headman, and there she was glad to be fed good food – roasted roots and fresh berries, fruit cold from the water and meat cooked on skewers.  She had never eaten red meat before and was pleased by the taste of blood that lingered on it.  After, they brought her to a hot spring to bathe and a trio of young girls gathered and picked her hair from the braids that had become knotted and salt-dried.  It took them a long time before they could run their shell combs cleanly through her hair.

Then she was joined at the fire in the longhouse by the headman and his clan, and they asked her to tell them of her people, and what had become of them in the time since they had left the world behind.  She saw some were uneasy in her presence, some seemed to turn away when she looked at them.  Not all were pleased at the return of the bloodline of the Tau’ta.  She remembered that her people, the line of kings, had been driven from their homeland by those who had risen up against their power, and she wondered if these people were descended from those enemies, in whole or in part.

Tarakan.  That was a name out of legend, and she could hardly believe she stood upon the soil of her people’s most sacred land.  In legend this was not the island where their power had come to fruition, but where they had been born.  It had been a holy place, and people such as this had been forbidden to set foot upon it.  Northward, in the central highlands, there was said to have been the city of Kahashya, where her race had first been born upon the earth.  Only heirs to the throne had been set upon the shore to make their way into the secret mountain realm – a pilgrimage to the place of the beginning.

And now she was here, and time had changed this land.  Now farmers and fisherman tilled and labored on the sacred soil of the island.  Though she was grateful for the hospitality she enjoyed, a holy rage was boiling deep inside her, and she tried not to show it, but she sought answers to her questions.

“How came you to live here, on the shores of Tarakan?” she said, seeking to mask her offense.  “This was sacred land, not to be touched by those not of the bloodline.”  She sensed the people around her stilling, looking at one another, felt unease thicken the air around her.  “How did that change?”

The headman looked afraid for a moment, the expression flickering across his face.  “Forgive us, daughter of kings, but we were not given choice in this matter.  For long this land lay undisturbed, and none would dare to set foot here.  We feared the ghosts of the ancient kings, and the spirits of the gods who guarded them.  But that was before the Mordani came to our islands, and made themselves overlords.”

Jaya’s eyes narrowed.  “The giants.  You are subject to them?”

“Since the time of my father’s father,” he said.  “After the fall of. . . after the Tau’ta left the world, there was great strife.  The lords who had risen up against you fought among themselves and there were years of war and burning and death.  None could make himself greater than the others, and the islands split apart into lesser realms.”

He looked into the fire.  “It was in this time of weakness and division that the Mordani came from the far west.  At first there were few of them – a handful of ships that sailed among the islands and traded with us for food and supplies.  Sometimes they raided villages, but not many, and then they sailed away and we thought they had left and would not return.  It was years later that they came in many ships, bearing their weapons of fire and smoke.  They built fortresses of wood and stone, and when the kings tried to drive them away they were defeated.”

He closed his eyes, and his face was drawn with lines of sorrow.  “More of them came, and more.  Their soldiers wear coats of iron and wield long swords.  Their ships are as large as castles and can shatter stone with their weapons of fire and thunder.  They moved against the lesser kingdoms, and none were strong enough to prevent them.  They seized the great city of Sinasekan – the old imperial capital, and though the remaining heir to the kingdom retreated to the city of Kungai, they pursued him and took it as well.”

He spread his hands.  “Now there is no place that is not subject to them.  They take our people as slaves, and they rule us as they wish.  We are no longer the proud heirs to the old kingdoms, now they call us only Utan – the serpent people.  For to them, the marks of the serpent are a sign of evil, and they believe us to be children of a foul and lesser god than their own.”  He looked at her.  “Now we are all Utani, and we all are subject to the foreign lords.  They took my clan in the times of my father’s father, and they brought us here to work the soil for them.  They do not care that Tarakan is sacred.  They ride into the uplands and seek for the buried treasures of the old empire, for to them things of gold are more precious than life itself.”

Jaya sat silent for a long time, listening to the flames hissing in the quiet.  She thought of the giants digging in the soil of her homeland, hunting for gold, and she clenched her teeth with fury.  Part of her was satisfied that those who had defied and overthrown her race had suffered a grim fate, but she would not allow this sacrilege to continue, she could not.

The headman looked at her, and she felt the weight of the attention of everyone in the room.  “Have you come to free us from this bondage?” he said.

She did not take her eyes from the fire.  In her mind she saw her father dead, her brother cut down, her kindred carried away by these crude, hairy, stinking beasts from beyond the west, and she knew this was the path set for her by the gods.  Lozonarre and his crimes had led her here, but this was what she had been sent to do.  She touched her sword hilt and met the headman’s gaze.  “Yes, I have.”

o0o

They came in the middle morning.  Jaya had slept long and risen late, feeling rested and yet taut with expectation.  She braided her hair loosely and gathered the knots behind her to keep them out of her way.  She took one of the wide, loose shirts of the men and drew it over her head, belted it with her old cord and hung her sword at her side.  She sat on the open front of the longhouse and looked out over the valley as the sun rose through the morning mists.  She saw the light shining on the stream and the wide lake.  She saw the people already in the fields, bent over their work, and she saw the light climb the terraced hills, turning them to gold.  She saw the smoke that appeared at the edge of the forest, and she heard the first screams.

She stood and stared into the haze as a line of shapes appeared, and she saw they were men mounted upon some kind of beast that she had never seen before.  They were four-legged animals with wild, flowing manes and hooves that tore the earth, and the giants on their backs laughed and shouted and brandished their long swords.  Jaya saw the people who had welcomed her flee from them, crying out for deliverance, and fire filled up her veins.

One her feet, unhurried, she turned to the wall and took down three fishing spears.  They were long and light, with barbed heads and iron rings with lines affixed.  She hefted them and nodded.  This would be all she needed.  Below, the raiders were coming in disorder, a dozen of them riding their snorting, screaming beasts, and Jaya sprang to the ground below and ran into the morning mists.  She smelled smoke, and she knew something was burning.

She slipped through the haze, and then one of the giants were there before her, its steed rearing up, slashing their air with sharp hooves and screaming, flashing teeth like a skull in the half-light.  The rider saw her and rose up, sword raised high, and she dropped two of the spears and hurled the third one, the line unspooling behind it.  Her throw pierced the man’s upraised arm and she pulled hard on the cord, dragged him off-balance so that he yelled and lost his seat fell hard to the muddy earth.

The beast reared again and then went running away, hooves thundering, and Jaya threw herself on the man before he could rise.  The barbed spear trapped his sword arm and she wrapped it around him, pinned it in place while she drew the long dagger from his belt and then sank it into his neck just over the rim of his armor.  He gagged and thrashed, blood rushing from the wound.

He had a fire weapon hooked on his shoulder-strap and she took it, remembering what Bastar had taught her.  She checked that it was loaded and properly ready, and then she hooked it in her own belt.  She took up the two spears and ran into the tumult, seeking her enemies by the sound of their shouts and the screams of those they pursued.

She came into the open and saw two more of them riding hard.  As she looked one of them swept down his sword and cut the arm from a fleeing old woman, who fell screaming into the dirt.  He laughed and drew up on his reins, turning his steed to trample her as the other man rode past him.

Jaya hurled her spear with deadly accuracy, and the barbed point pierced his throat and split his tongue as it embedded in the roof of his mouth.  Jaya caught the cord and held it with both hands as the second man rode into the line at full speed and it caught him across the face.  The force of it pulled Jaya off her feet even as it flipped the rider from the saddle, and the spearpoint ripped free in a geyser of blood.

She was on her feet quickly, sword in her hand, and she caught the groaning man before he could rise and cut down, slashing open his neck.  He gagged and clawed at the wound and she put her foot on his head, drove his face into the mud as she hacked through his spine and left his head to roll free.

More shouts, and three more riders closed on her.  She drew the pistol with her left hand, cocked it with the hilt of her sword, and turned to face the giants as they rode down on her.  She did not try to hit the man, instead she aimed at the chest of the center beast and pulled the trigger.  There was the snap and spark, and then the explosion and the cloud of smoke rushing out.

Blood splashed across the animal’s chest and it screamed as it went down, legs flailing and snapping with the force of the fall.  The one on the left tripped over it and went down as well, thrashing, throwing its rider from his seat.  The last man veered away, and Jaya dropped her pistol and caught up the last spear, hurled it through the animal’s neck and pulled until it reared up and came crashing down on its side.

The first rider was before her, staggering up, dazed, and she cut his leg and caught his hair as he fell.  One pull drew his head back and then she cut through his neck with one swing, the clean, bright steel sure in her hand.  She turned as the second rider struggled to his feet, and she hit him in the face with the bleeding head of his friend, knocked him back.  He slashed at her with his sword and she beat it down and cut his wrist, then his arm.  He yelled and she cut through his mouth, taking off his head from the teeth up and leaving only the bottom.

She turned to the last man, and saw the fall of his beast had broken his leg, and he was immobile on the ground, clutching his thigh and moaning.  She took up a fallen sword and went to him, stepped on his knee to make him scream, and then fed the sword through his mouth until it fixed in the ground beneath him.

She heard more riders and she quickly gathered the pistols from the fallen men.  Two were loaded, and when the next trio of riders came for her she shot the first beast in the head and brought it down.  The rider leaped from his saddle and slashed at her savagely, but she parried his stroke, put the second pistol in his mouth, and blew his skull apart.

Shots came for her, the sound of them humming past her head, and she turned to meet another attacker on foot.  Their blades rang together three times, four, and then he scored her shoulder with his sword, then her hip, then she bound his next attack and clubbed him with the fire weapon in her left hand.  He staggered and she cut off his hand, then chopped into his neck and let him drop to the dirt, blood pouring out of him.

The last man rode away, howling, and Jaya stood there, bloodied and gasping for breath.  Seven men lay around her, dead or dying, staining the ground with their blood.  Deliberately she went from body to body, taking the heads, until she could make a pile of them there in the road.  Utani began to emerge from the smoke, looking in horror and amazement at the carnage.  At what she had done.

The headman came, wounded and leaning on one of his sons.  He looked at the heads and his face was pale.  “They will destroy us for what you have done today.”

“I will destroy them first,” she said.  She pointed her blood-dripping sword at the pile of heads.  “Where do they come from?  Where is their fortress?”

He pointed west with a trembling hand.  “Along the road.  You will come to the city beside the sea.  Jinan, they call it.  Follow the road and you will find it.”  He shook his head.  “There are too many of them.  You cannot prevail.”

“Fewer of them now,” she said.  She cleaned her sword and sheathed it, took two of the pistols and the materials to load them.  From the dirt she took a wide, three-cornered hat and put it on.  It would keep the sun from her neck.  “I will hunt them down and show them what it is to face the wrath of the Tau’ta.  That is my oath.”  She touched the pooled blood and marked her face with it, so that all might know she sought revenge.

She would not stay.  She left them then, walking along the bloodied road, seeing the slain Utani scattered where they had fallen.  The sun began to burn through the mist, but by then she was beneath the shadows of the forest, following the road into the dark.