Outlaw. Part 31

He could feel. The worn gra.s.s under his feet. The still, humid air pressing into his skin, filling his nostrils.

The slight tremble in his right hand.

Father, save me.

He could see some things more clearly now. The bodies of the two naked natives-one an elderly man, the other a young woman-dead on their perches on either side of the gate. He found that he couldn't process this madness with reason, so he released his attempt to do so and walked on.

Down the hill. All the way to the gate, keeping his eyes forward so that he wouldn't have to look at the dead body on either side.

He was wondering how he would enter the village when the gates began to swing out, each pushed by a warrior. Like a blossoming flower, the Warik stronghold opened to him.

And yet there was no beauty here that he could see.

Still he walked, arms limp by his sides, breathing deliberately as he pa.s.sed through the gate and into the village.

The wide path was packed down the center, muddy along the edges. Round huts had been built on stilts in rows set back ten or fifteen paces. At least one human skull bleached by the sun hung above the entrance to each hut.

A long line of warriors had stationed themselves on either side of the path. All were armed with spears or axes, some with steel machetes. Their faces were painted in blacks and reds and they wore bands on their foreheads, arms, and legs. To a man they stared at Stephen with round, white eyes, as though dead.

They didn't show any signs of hostility. They did not scowl or shout or lift their weapons. These were warriors enslaved by fear and uncaring of all but their own survival. They were only funneling him toward the one he'd come to see.

Kirutu.

And his mother.

Slave of Kirutu.

He was seeing a part of himself, he thought. This place was only a much larger version of his own costume, determined to protect what it understood as life.

This was darkness. And yet he couldn't identify with the darkness. He felt misplaced. A bird in the sea.

Villagers stripped of hope were exiting their huts and loitering, watching. Hugging their bodies, as if this too might offer them some protection.

Did they know who he was? Had they seen other white men or women in the eighteen years since his mother had given her son to Shaka and herself to Kirutu?

Stephen wasn't sure what he was meant to do, so he did nothing but walk. Forward. Headed directly for a second fence that surrounded a tall structure at the end of this long warrior-lined path.

Lela had been right, he thought. They'd known he was coming.

A small naked child hanging on to the thigh of one of the warriors pointed her stubby finger up at Stephen and asked a question, which the man ignored. Several other children were hurrying through the village behind the warriors, eyes wide with wonder. They were too young to realize that they were enslaved.

Like a child, Stephen, Shaka said. Always, like a child.

These were the first he'd ever seen. Such wonder in tiny bodies, clinging to innocence, still unaware of the madness lurking in their own minds, waiting to overtake them.

He walked on feet of clay now, separate from all that his eyes saw. Many women of all shapes and heights gathered, some supporting children hanging off their bodies, others peering around huts, afraid.

An older man with graying hair and a toothless smile squatted between two huts. Stephen stopped. Here he felt a momentary bond. The man's grin was, like Stephen, an anomaly.

One of the warriors grunted and waved his ax at the looming fence fifty paces on. They wanted him to keep moving. He was expected.

He resumed his walk, feeling more disconnected from the strange forms around him with each step. And he began to understand why Shaka had said this would be his most difficult test.

To walk among men. For this task Stephen suddenly felt unequipped.

A dead body hung from a tree limb-a young man, limp at the end of a rope that had been tied around his neck and pulled over a thick branch high above.

At the base of that tree sat a man who was missing an arm. The stump was wrapped in bloodied leaves. And yet the children near him paid neither the wounded man nor the limp body any mind. They were interested only in Stephen.

He swallowed back a flood of emotions and walked on.

The s.p.a.ce between the huts began to fill with more onlookers staring dumbly at him, the white man dressed in a lap-lap, bearing no weapons, walking freely to his fate at Kirutu's hand.

But Stephen did not belong to their master-he had his own. And Kirutu had no power over his.

The Tulim village his mother had written of had been orderly and beautiful, abounding with laughter and song, clean and ornate. That world was gone.

Instead he was surrounded by death, the smell of feces and rotting flesh ripe in the air. Somewhere deep within his mind, the sound of distant screaming returned and with it a single, simple question.

What if I do forget?

And then another question, even as he approached the second fence that circled Kirutu's stronghold.

Forget what exactly? Which part?

Because suddenly there was so much to remember.

The gate to the second fence swung open, and Stephen was greeted by the sight of a wide, manicured courtyard. It surrounded an expansive rectangular structure built of hardwoods, roofed with thatched palm leaves.

These were the grounds of royalty.

No fewer than two hundred warriors stood around the footing of what could only be Kirutu's palace. Another twenty lined each side of the path leading up to the structure.

Stephen walked through the gate, heard it latch behind him, and stopped. Ornate carvings of faces and spirits, many stained in reds and blacks with touches of yellow, covered the building's hewn timber walls. A dark entrance opened into the structure at the top of sweeping steps.

All of this Stephen saw at a glance, but it was the warriors who drew his attention. To a man these were stronger than those outside the courtyard. The red and black markings on their bodies and faces had been drawn with more care, and many wore colorful feathers in their headbands.

They did not look at him, they glared. They did not merely stand, they were poised, tall, with deeply defined muscles. They did not speak, they screamed, not with their throats, but with their hearts.

They screamed fear. And hatred.

This challenge could break you, Stephen.

The thought surprised him. Nothing could break him, of course, and yet he felt that this challenge might, and this more than anything disturbed him.

Do not forget, Stephen.

Forget what?

Who he was...but who was he here? A boy in a man's body, momentarily lost in a sea of rage and insanity. Why had Shaka sent him here?

To find his mother. She would know what to do.

Or was he to tell her what to do?

Stephen took three more steps before a warrior to his right stepped out of line, closed the distance between them, and struck him on the shoulder with a club, jarring his bones.

He staggered to the side and righted himself, momentarily stunned. The man glared at him as if expecting him to speak.

But to speak what?

Another blow struck him-a warrior from behind had swung a stick at his lower back. Pain swept up his spine.

He turned to the man, wondering why they were hitting him. Was he doing something they disapproved of? He posed no threat to them.

"Do you stand like a G.o.d in his courtyard?" the second man who'd struck him yelled.

Another stick slammed into the backs of his legs, just below his knees, and this time Stephen's instincts got the better of him. He leaped forward, spinning to ward off any further blows, thinking the next one might snap his bones.

They reacted to his movement immediately, ten or more of them leaping forward, clubs swinging already. The impulse to defend himself loomed large for an instant before his training kicked in. To resist would only bring greater force to bear against him.

So he let the blows fall, a pounding of staffs and clubs that thudded against his back and shoulders and head, forcing him to his knees. They were yelling, crying out his insubordination and threatening to kill him, the wam, the worm dragged from the jungle to be fed to their pigs.

Shaka had taught him to disa.s.sociate from physical pain, thereby robbing its power to control his body, and he was able to do so now.

But he was aware of another impulse that lapped at his mind-offense at being so forcefully rejected by others of his kind. He was human, they were human, and yet they clearly did not want him.

Was he not acceptable to them? His skin was the wrong color, perhaps, or his presence threatened them, though he meant them no harm. He'd only come to meet his mother.

A single hard blow landed on the back of his head and the world started to fade. He felt his body toppling forward but broke his fall with his right forearm. All that remained was a throbbing pain that spread down his neck, fueled by those screaming demons of fear that taunted him.

If the warriors had wanted to kill him, why hadn't they done so in the field? Instead they'd attacked Lela. His mind swam in a sea of confusion.

"Bring him!"

He lifted his head and stared up the path. Slowly his eyes found focus.

There at the bottom of the steps that lead to the darkened entrance stood a man. A tall warrior with sharply defined muscles, older than some, more powerful, even in his harsh eyes, than any of the others.

This was Kirutu, ruler of all Tulim. Stephen knew it immediately by the scar running down his chest, described by his mother.

Hands dug under his arms and pulled him to his feet. But he didn't need their help. His strength had returned as quickly as the blows had robbed him of it.

They shoved him forward, cuffing at his shoulders and his ears with cupped palms, quiet now in the presence of their leader.

"Release him."

They let him go and backed away, leaving Stephen to stand three paces from Kirutu, who studied him with dark eyes set deeply in the shadows of a chiseled face. Here Stephen did not see fear. Only rejection.

For a long time the man didn't speak.

Don't forget, Stephen.

His mind was vacant. Perhaps his mother would know what to do.

"Who are you?" Kirutu asked in a low voice.

"My name is Stephen."

Kirutu stared at him.

"Answer my question. Who are you?"

He hadn't heard? Or didn't understand the word-Stephen wasn't a Tulim name.

"I'm the son of Julian, the woman you took as your own," Stephen said.

The ruler's face darkened.

"You refuse to speak the truth in my presence? When I ask who you are, you will speak only what is true."

Stephen hesitated, then said what he thought the man wanted to hear.

"I am Outlaw."

"You are nothing!" Kirutu hissed. He stepped forward, circling to Stephen's left, speaking in a low, gravelly tone that was neither gentle nor accusing, like a man simply reporting the truth.

"You have no place...no home...you do not belong to anyone."

He walked behind, rounding him, speaking matter-of-factly.

"In this way you are lower than the wam, viler than the serpents who slither in the gra.s.s. An outcast who dares enter the Tulim valley with hopes of finding a home. So then I will help you understand."

When he came to a stop he was only a pace from Stephen. His skin smelled freshly washed and rubbed with oil from the angalo flower, which offered a sweet scent. When he spoke, the scent of rapina bark carried to Stephen on his breath.

"You are Outlaw and dead to this world. Tell me this is so."

He thought about it and found the words true.

"I am Outlaw and I am dead to this world."

"It is the only reason I am bound to let you live. You are dead to me. Knowing this you come. Why?"

"To speak to my mother."

The brow over Kirutu's right eye rose and a smile slowly twisted his face.

"And yet you have no mother. You are alone, never to belong. If you were not dead already, I would kill you now."