But now a few grabbed her by both arms and pitched her inside. She fell to her knees, then her side, into the disgusting hay. Out of the corner of her eye she saw them feeling Isao and Khalem for weapons before discarding tossing their swords on the ground next to a velvety bag, a black hat with a speckled gray feather, and a mandolin.
Isao and Khalem were shoved inside moments later, their hands still tied, just like hers. She rolled out of their way of their falling bodies just in time. The tribesmen slammed the door to the cage shut. Celty struggled to her feet, glaring at the assembled tribesmen leering at them through grotesque masks.
"Swine," she spat. "Filthy, heathen pigs that feast on the flesh of humans. You pieces of – "
"Silence," Khalem barked in a sharp tone.
Several men advanced, armed with long staffs with sharp rocks at the end. They stood close outside of the cage, growling at Celty from deep within their throats, the sounds emanating forth alternating between clicking and strange, foreign words. They waved their spears, and bared their teeth at her.
Celty growled back. "They're slime," she hissed. "Foul humans – "
"Silence!" Khalem warned. "They don't want you to talk; can't you tell? Keep talking and they'll kill you."
The sight of the cannibals poking their spears through the bars made her believe Khalem’s words. Doing something hotheaded and getting them killed now wouldn't serve anything.
She sank back, glowering, although she kicked at the bars for good measure and muttered under her breath, "Foul excuses for humans."
Khalem cast her a heated glare, but the tribesmen backed off. Celty forced her rage to cool.
Freedom had been so close. The moment she had it, it was snatched away. She kept moving from one disaster to the next. Stupid bars.
The tribesman backed away, but glowered at them menacingly from where they stood at the face of the sheer rock. Celty analyzed the area again, but saw nothing new. Nothing to bring her any hope of escape.
A long silence ensued. She sighed and leaned against the wall of the cage.
The sound of shuffling floated over to Celty’s ears, and she glanced up, straightening, as two more tribal men stepped into view from the shadows.
"Oy! You brought me neighbors," called a jovial voice.
Another person was being held prisoner between the two guards.
One of the tribesman rapped the captive on the back of his head, knocking him forward in the direction of the cage. He grinned insolently, but fell silent.
Like theirs, the new prisoner's wrists were tied together with thin rope made of twine. The man couldn't be older than forty years old, and was of normal height. Dirty blond hair was half-braided against the right side of his head, while a long drape of filthy hair fell over his left eye. Strands from a straggly goatee trailed down his chin, drawing attention to the scarred skin running along the right side of his neck, hand, and shoulder.
"Aw," the newcomer murmured, glancing at the cage’s interior. "You shouldn't have made such elegant arrangements for me."
The tribesmen smacked him on the back of his head again, but he didn't seem to notice, so intent was he on studying the three of them.
Celty's eyes narrowed to slits. He mimicked her motion with his one eye, then winked at her. She scowled.
The guards barked something, clicked at him, and pushed him inside the cage too. They dropped his belongings – a mandolin and a hunting knife – next to Khalem and Isao’s swords. The man caught himself and stayed upright, moving like a dancer despite his bonds. Then he gracefully lowered himself to the straw, crossed his legs, and leaned back against the bars.
His eyes flickered to Celty, then to Isao and Khalem, then back to Celty.
Bright, flowing colors clothed his body. The screaming yellow and orange on his legs made Celty want to squint. A ruby shirt, split in half with a streak of bronze, covered his chest.
Celty eyed the gargantuan bronze rings on his hands with suspicion, then certainty. A traveling minstrel. He had to be. Why else carry a mandolin?
It had been a while since she'd seen one, having mostly heard about their strange, vagabond-like ways and outlandish means of dressing. Celty scowled when he locked her in his gaze again.
"Why so sad?" he drawled, tilting his head back to look at the sky through the bars of the cage. "Beautiful day, no?"
Isao glanced at him from the corner of his eye, but said nothing. Khalem stared straight ahead, ignoring him entirely. Celty growled.
"Oh ho!" he called. "This one's a tiger. Fierce one, I can tell. How about I call you, ‘tiger girl?’"
Celty made as if to lunge at him, but Isao leaned back, stopping her with his shoulder. "Celty, n –"
The whack of wooden spears on their new prison interrupted Isao’s words. Celty tipped her head back to see the tribal guards surrounding their structure and beating upon it with wooden sticks.
The sound made her ears ache. The cannibals screamed in the strange, clicking language, bellowing deep from within their chests. The new prisoner watched them with a bright gaze, as if drinking in every word. He glanced over to Celty.
"You may want to quiet down," he whispered, grinning. "They're saying if you don't stop being aggressive, they'll cut your head off. They don't like it."
“And how do you know what they’re saying?” she challenged.
“Everyone in this area knows the dialect.”
“Not everyone, surely,” she hissed.
“They speak in the Bhasay tribal language,” the minstrel said.
Celty met Isao's gaze, saw a pleading look there, and forced herself to relax. She nodded, and drew in a deep breath. She had to stay calm. No matter how angry she was to be stuck here, she couldn't get herself EATEN just because of her displays of anger.
But anyway, who were they to talk about aggressiveness?!
The new prisoner winked at one of the tribesmen, who faked a lunge at him with a spear. He didn't flinch. Celty leaned back, curiously studying him again.
Outside of his outlandish clothes, he also had a tattoo on his right forearm. The bluish lines of the tattoo showed a jackal holding a big fish it its mouth. The man caught her gaze and she quickly looked away.
"Can we speak?" Khalem asked quietly.
The man nodded. "Yes. But stay as quiet as possible."
"Who are you?" Khalem asked, his eyes darting around the circular rock walls. "Where are we?"
The man put a hand to his chest and leaned forward, barely speaking above a whisper. "I am Ranbelt Smart Mouth, a wandering minstrel."
Celty smirked. She'd known it all along.
"I'm originally from the nation of Lubeng."
"In the east?" Isao asked.
Ranbelt nodded. "Yes. I was attempting to cross the Shonin Pass on my way to the Hima village in the Sunsan nation before I was captured. And here we die for attempting to climb higher in life, eh?" He chortled quietly before nodding in their direction. “And you? Who are you, and where were you going?"
Khalem shifted, his nostrils flaring. "That doesn't really matter. We’re travelers, that’s all.”
“Right,” he snorted. “And the feisty tiger girl is a slave.”
Celty’s nostrils flared again.
Khalem said nothing at first, finally snapping out, “Who we are means nothing to you. Just accept that my son and I are traveling and mean harm to no one.”
Ranbelt laughed, a light trilling sound. "Ah ha. Of course. Well, keep your secrets. What does it matter anyway? We'll go to the grave with them!"
Celty studied him, waiting to feel the usual foreboding or uncertainty, but not getting it. He didn't seem to be a bad man, just . . . odd. He knew the strange, no doubt rare, tribal language, and seemed to be without fear. Or aggression. Which meant that he wasn't likely to be just a traveling minstrel. Something more lurked beneath the brightly colored swaths of fabric.
And that strange tattoo.
Perceiving nothing inherently dangerous about this strange man helped her relax a little. She ignored him as he launched into a story about a bird that tried to eat his nose while he was sleeping.