But the captain had barely begun speaking when the old priest let out a cry of anguish, then turned and threw himself across the bones where they lay on their bed of sand, shielding them with his scrawny body. Makho stared at him, then looked at the other priests and acolytes now shoving in through the door, their faces dark with anger.
Makho had his sword in his hand so quickly that Nezeru did not see him draw it; a moment later it swept out and the ancient priest’s head rolled to one side. Before the severed neck had pumped twice, Makho used his foot to shove the body away from the bones so that the blood only seeped onto the stones and into the crevices between them. The old priest’s comrades cried out in horror.
“Singer, gather noble Hakatri’s remains,” Makho ordered. “We return to the ship.”
Even as Saomeji hurried to comply, the nearest of the dead priest’s helpers leaped at Makho with a shout of fury, only to be sliced through to the backbone by an offhand flick of Cold Root, the chieftain’s witchwood blade. More priests began streaming into the temple-house, screaming as if they had lost their minds, grabbing at the Norns with the clear purpose of tearing them to pieces. Kemme immediately killed two with one thrust of his spear, spitting them like meat on a skewer.
“Some of those outside are running for help,” Ibi-Khai called from the doorway.
Nezeru felt something tighten around her neck and yank her backward. One of the shaven-headed priests, small but wiry and strong, had pulled Nezeru’s own bow across her shoulder and over her head and was now trying to strangle her with the string. She got one hand between the bowstring and her neck at the last moment, but the mortal had his knee in her back and was pulling as hard as he could. She was separated from the rest of her comrades by the swirl of attackers, and could not get leverage on the string to loosen it, so she groped for her knife with her free hand and cut the string. As the bow fell uselessly to the floor, Nezeru spun and slashed through the priets’s sacklike garment, opening his belly. He sagged, a look of surprise and disappointment in his suddenly mild eyes.
Three more dead priests now lay at Makho’s feet, but he seemed almost oblivious to the grief-maddened mob. “Nezeru, Kemme, go after those who fled,” he directed them. “Do not let them reach the village or they will raise the alarm and the rest will swarm us like ants. Saomeji, you must keep the bones safe as we go. We may have to fight our way down to the water.”
“Rayu ata na’ara,” Nezeru replied, the ancient phrase that signified “I hear the Queen in your voice.” She had to leap over one of Kemme’s fallen victims, who writhed in the doorway, trying to lift himself up with both of his arms gone and the severed ends gushing blood like a mountain cataract.
Outside, Kemme had drawn his bow; as Nezeru emerged from the building she saw him let the first arrow fly. One of the fleeing mortal priests stumbled, fell, and did not get up. A scant moment later Kemme loosed a second shaft and another escaping priest stumbled, then dropped.
Only a few of the fleeing priests were still visible on the side of the hilltop Kemme had already chosen as his field of fire, so she left them to him and headed after the others. She no longer had a bow of her own, just her sword and knife, but that only meant she would have to outrun them, something that should not be difficult for one of the queen’s death-sung Sacrifices. Following them would be even easier: The scent of the escaping mortals hung in the air, animal clouds of terror and exertion.
She sprinted swiftly down the slope, her feet barely touching earth, and ran down the first fleeing priest within a hundred paces. He was mature and larger than Nezeru, but nowhere near as fit as a Queen’s Talon. When he stopped to gasp for breath he saw her coming, grimaced in resignation, and snatched up a large deadfall branch. From the way he held it he was no stranger to a fight, and the last thing Nezeru wanted was to waste time trading blows with him, because she could smell another mortal farther down the hill. A long struggle with this one might allow time for the other to get to the village and tell his people what had happened.
“Blood of the Garden, guide my arm,” she prayed quietly, balancing her dagger. Then, before she was close enough for the big priest to swing his makeshift club, she let it fly. The priest dropped the branch and sank to his knees, clawing at the knife that now stood in his throat; by the time she had taken three more steps he was on his face, barely squirming, his blood matting the grassy earth. Nezeru put her foot on his head and shoved it to one side, freeing a last, rattling gasp from his torn throat. Then she retrieved her knife and hurried down the mountainside after her other quarry.
The scent of the next mortal’s terror was strong, but his sweat smelled curiously sweet. It also took a longer time than she had expected before she could finally hear him crashing through the undergrowth a few dozen yards below her. The fugitive was moving with surprising speed, which gave her a moment of worry. No mortal priest could have been trained and strengthened in all the ways Nezeru had been during her years in the Order of Sacrifice, so how could this one pass through the tangled brush and close-standing trees so easily?
Then, as she emerged into the open and could look out over the expanse of mountainside below her, she finally saw her quarry’s shaved head glinting in the sunshine like a raindrop on a leaf. It was a child—one of the young acolytes. Nezeru knew little of mortals, but thought this one could not have been much past the age when boys first left their mothers to follow their fathers into the field or forest.
A moment later the boy vanished behind trees once more, bounding down the sloping hillside. Nezeru sped her pace, but could see that he was far enough ahead that if she did not reach a clear spot quickly where she could take him down, he would be in shouting distance of the village before she could stop him.
She hurried toward the next open view, risking several falls that would have ended the pursuit entirely, but at last reached a place that overlooked a large part of the slope beneath her. She held a knife behind her ear waiting for the boy to appear, watching a gap as wide as a door frame between two trees. Nezeru had been one of the best in her entire rank with a throwing knife, and these blades had been a gift from her father—a beautifully balanced pair of antique daggers forged by Tinukeda’ya craftsmen. Now all she had to do was wait.
It did not take long. The child made enough noise as he hurried downward that she could almost have hit him with her eyes closed. When he appeared in the opening between the two trees Nezeru let out a loud cry of triumph, calculated to freeze him for a sufficient instant.
It did: at her shout the boy stumbled and almost fell, turning a look of blind terror toward the hillside above him as he fought to regain his balance. He was indeed small, his legs still too short for adulthood, his shaved head too large. In the fractional instant he swayed there between the framing trunks she could even see the curve of his childish belly and his eyes full of tears. Perfect. All she had to do was let her blade fly.
But she did not throw it.
A moment later the little acolyte regained his footing and was gone again, racing down the path. She heard his footsteps grow fainter even as his scent began to fade on the breeze.
Nezeru was astonished at herself. She had failed—she had not even tried! Why had she let down her comrades and betrayed her queen? She didn’t know, but something about the child—his small size, his . . . realness—had shocked her in a way she had not foreseen.
I’ve betrayed my people. That was all she could think. She could have killed the boy easily, ended the threat of his escape, but she had not done it. It was as though her own body had turned traitor without explanation.
Nezeru could not understand what had happened. All she could do was climb back up the hill to join Makho and the others. She was a traitor, and deserved death, that was the simple truth.
But Nezeru did not want to die.
? ? ?
“But if you saw his eyes, how could you fail your shot?” Makho was furious, as well he should have been. The five Talons were hurrying down the mountainside now, the mortal captain following them as best he could, although the sound of his cursing was already nearly too weak to hear.
“I told you, my knife struck a vine and went astray.” Nezeru had never lied to her fellow Sacrifices before. It was a bizarre sensation, like discovering that despite what everyone said, she could actually walk upon thin air. But as with walking on air, she could not believe it would last, and the knowledge of what would happen when the truth of things reasserted itself terrified her. It is bad enough that I failed—but to evade punishment like a coward by lying to my hand chieftain . . . ? She felt as though she, not the wrinkled mortal priest, had been the one whose head had been cut off. Everything she had thought, everything she had believed, had been dashed to pieces in an instant.