In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

There was too much. And she barely glimpsed the streets where foodstuffs were sold: cactus fruit and delicate squash flowers just starting to wilt, birds plucked and hung while others fluttered in cages, rabbits, dogs, bees, eggs, and so many fish of such variegated types that she was amazed so many existed.

And all this seen and gawked at before they brought her to the central square of the market house where this mass of commerce was overseen by a bundle of judges, each in their own cubicle. In fact, the market came under the jurisdiction of a local authority, but her presence was acknowledged and feted with a series of speeches and poems deemed appropriate to the occasion. The sacrifices, all those delicious quail, would come later.

Yet she wished she could set foot on the earth and just walk through the market, taking her time, taking in smells and sounds. She wept a little, to see such riches, although the judges assured her with the greatest embarrassment that if only the gods favored them, then in a few years the terrible poverty of today’s fledgling market would be replaced by a decent selection as in the days before, and folk would have cacao beans and folded cloth with which to trade properly.

How could they not recognize how life flourished here, even if it seemed poor to them. There were so many people. There were so many children!

It was hard to concentrate, and doubly so when a parade of mask warriors chivvied a mixed herd of sheep and goats into view.

This was too much! She got to her knees, rocking the litter so that her bearers staggered. As the blood knives cried complaint, she swung down, let fall, and walked over to examine the beasts, who bawled and ba’aahed from the shelter of a makeshift corral over against the arcade leading to the street of live animals. Many folk gathered to stare, and especially she noted among them the wasted bodies and thin faces of those who had survived exile, yet they were only a few compared to their brethren who had come out of the shadows.

White Feather accompanied her, to protect her from the nattering of the blood knives, and a pair of judges came up quickly to ascertain what manner of trading was to go on.

It was Cat Mask, after all, who was leader of the group. He had a fresh scar on his left thigh but looked otherwise entirely pleased with himself.

“We have been tracking beyond the White Road,” he explained to the market judges, “and brought these here, our prizes, to the market.”

“For sacrifice!” cried the blood knives.

“Two of them,” said Feather Cloak. “Let two suffice, two males. The rest must be sold for breeding stock.”

Oh, they did not like to hear it, and some of the folk gathered to stare murmured in favor of the blood knives, while others murmured in favor of her decree.

“If we do not maintain the balance,” said the blood knives, “then He-Who-Burns will darken.”

“Clouds cover the sun in the north,” said Cat Mask. “But He-Who-Burns shines on us here in our own country. It is the fault of the human sorcerers. Everyone knows that they are the ones who wove the spell. Now it has rebounded against them.”

“You babble like a Pale Dog,” cried the blood knives. “How long will our good fortune, if that is what you call it, last, if we do not restore order. How soon will He-Who-Burns turn his bright face away from us in anger and despair?”

“Two is enough, until there is plenty,” said Feather Cloak, but they muttered and scowled to hear her speak. They were fighting her now for no other reason than to test her authority; she did not know how to counter them.

“See what else we brought,” said Cat Mask, dismissing this as he might the whine of a mosquito. Like all the young adults who had grown up in exile, he had never seen or conversed with one of the blood knives. “See, what we have brought from the lands beyond!” He and his mask warriors preened, being proud of themselves. “This herd is not the only one we captured.”

There came in a line, dressed in wooden slave collars, a bundle of children: four infants, eight of toddling age, seven very young, and one older girl of nine or ten years of age who looked glassy-eyed with shock, staring only straight ahead. They looked nothing like the Bright One, having a different complexion and broader features and black hair more like to that of the Ashioi than Liathano’s mass of fire-gold hair. They were not handsome children, not like those of her kind, but they were very young and there were so many in that one group. After so long in exile, she was still astonished by the sight of children.

“Brought you no captives?” asked the blood knives. “No warriors taken in honorable combat?”

Cat Mask shrugged. “The adults we killed were not warriors. It was too much trouble to bring them, so we killed them.” He looked at his companions, and they shared winks and nods. “And we were very hungry, so we ate them.”

Everyone laughed, since it was disgusting to think of eating a stranger, and one with sour flesh, at that.

“We thought it worthwhile to bring these children. A bundle plus two.”

“I only count a bundle,” said the eldest of the blood knives.

“Oh, that’s right,” remarked Cat Mask, scratching his chin. “When we came through High-Hill we met with Lizard Mask’s sister, who has settled there. She just lost her little son to the coughing sickness, so she took a pair of little boys thinking that, if she raised them, she might forget her grief over the other one.”

“Very well,” said the blood knives. “A bundle will be enough. But you who raid into the lands beyond the White Road must bring us strong captives as tribute for the gods.”

“If we can find any!” said Cat Mask with another laugh. “They looked pretty scrawny and weak. We had to fatten these little ones up on goat’s milk.”

“It is their blood we need,” said the blood knives, “not their flesh.”

They stepped forward to take the children, but before they could lay hands on them White Feather pushed past them and scooped up one of the toddlers.

“I claim this one for mine, to raise as my own!”

Her voice was loud, and her tone harsh, and the child hiccuped and sniveled into the growing silence as the blood knives opened and closed their hands and folk pressed forward to see what was going on.