“Terrible? We are Norukai. This is what we do.” He scratched his hideously scarred chest. “Would you have us be different?”
“Yes!” Bannon wasn’t sure how he could get through to the odd man. “The Norukai tried to capture me when I was a boy, but I got away. They took my friend Ian instead, sold him to Ildakar as a slave for the combat arena. He spent all his life being tortured and trained.”
“Ah, a champion,” Chalk said.
“A slave!”
The shaman remained perplexed. “If he was captured, why do you feel sorry for him? That means he was weak. If he fought in a combat arena, he must have had a glorious life. I know about Ildakar. Yes, yes, Ildakar! Gone now.” He frowned, tugged on his scarred lip. “What did your friend expect?”
“Ian expected a life!”
Chalk scratched his straggly white hair. “A life? If he was a champion, what better life is there? Maybe he could have been a Norukai warrior instead. Would that have been a better life?”
“No! He could have lived on Chiriya Island. He could have married, had a wife, children, a nice home.” Bannon sighed with the sadness of lost hopes for his friend.
Chalk made a rude noise. “Weak. Sounds weak. I think he must have been strong.”
“If he had stayed home, he would have been loved,” Bannon said. “I loved him. He was my friend, and the Norukai took all that away. He would have had a much better life.”
“Love?.?.?.” Chalk frowned. “Not everyone has love. Not poor Chalk. Do we all deserve love?”
“Yes, we all deserve love,” Bannon said, “even if someone else takes it away.”
“I have never known love. I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t understand a lot of things.”
The shaman found that hilariously funny and said in a singsong voice, “Love, love! Grieve, Grieve! You’ll all grieve. No love for me, I’ve seen it. No love for me.”
Chalk seemed entirely convinced, and Bannon felt an odd moment of twisted sympathy. The countless bite marks and rough scars on the smooth white skin made the shaman repulsive. In frustration, Bannon asked, “Why do you keep bothering me? Why am I special?”
“The axe cleaves the wood. The sword cleaves the bone!” Chalk tapped his temple. “Because you’re in my head and maybe by talking to you I can get you out.” He paused to consider. “You’ll all grieve. Sailing, sailing, sailing!” As if he heard some hidden whistle, Chalk bounced off the bench. “Talk later. For now, row, row, row! Soon, we’ll be out on the shining sea again.”
Leaving Bannon baffled, the albino scrambled along the underdeck, ducking low even though he was much shorter than the beams. He climbed the ladder to the open air, while the slaves looked longingly after him.
CHAPTER 21
As Adessa continued north along the river, the channel widened to create a maze of marshes, tall reeds interspersed with sluggish rivulets and stagnant pools.
Carrying her stained sack, she splashed along, stepping on grassy hummocks or sliding into loose muck. Once, she sank up to her waist in a slurry of silt, but she hauled herself out, disappointed in her clumsiness. If she wasn’t careful, she might lose her trophy. She had carried the wizard commander’s head for many miles and many days. Adessa was eager to see the expression of warm gratitude on Thora’s face when she opened the sack and pulled out the rotting horror.
As she made her way through the marsh, she felt the bloated burden at her hip. By now, Maxim’s head was growing softer, squishier. The marsh was full of unpleasant odors, but the sweet nauseating stench of decay hung like a cloud. She skirted several fishing towns at bends in the river, not wanting questions or company. The closer she got to Ildakar, the more threatening the swamps would be, the deadlier the predators. For now, she wanted to make good time.
She pressed her fingers against the sack to feel her victim’s clumped hair, the oozing skin. Liquid seeped through the fabric, making a new stain of pus and spoiled blood.
“Do you remember these marshes?” she asked aloud. “That town where you thought you were safe? Tarada, I think it was called. I killed your followers there, and you ran.” She paused, expecting his mouth to move and speak. “What? No reply?”
Sure that she had not imagined it the first time, she kept trying to provoke the wizard commander’s spirit to come again. She knew for certain that Maxim’s eyes had opened, that he had truly spoken to her. Since then, she had kept the head tied inside the sack to stifle his reanimation.
But Maxim could not speak to her because he was dead! It must have been her imagination. And even if the wizard commander did utter words, he was defeated. He had nothing to say to her.
That night Adessa made a solitary camp on a hummock of brown grass and peat, where she could sleep. Setting the sack in the matted grass, she found a dead swamp oak with wood rotten enough that she could break off the branches. She piled the twigs and dry grasses to start a fire. The orange flames were the only light for as far as she could see. Adessa heard the constant buzzing of marsh insects, night birds, and slithering creatures that hunted in the darkness. She sat cross-legged on a mossy rock that was solid, if not comfortable. Adessa needed no comfort.
She peeled thick reeds and roasted the bland but edible pulp. She had found berries during the day, even killed a small marsh hare with a thrown knife, which she now skinned and roasted. It was enough to satisfy.
Maxim’s head remained wrapped in the sack, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from it. She saw only the lumpy outline inside the fabric, but she knew that he was staring at her with jellied eyes. His puffy purplish lips would be twisted in a mocking smile.
She heard a whispered voice above the undertone of swamp sounds. “You can’t hide from me by keeping me in this sack.”
“You cannot speak.”
“Then why are you answering me?”
“You’re dead.”
“I don’t dispute that fact.”
“Then stop talking to me!” She bit into the roasted rabbit leg so viciously that she broke t
he bone between her teeth. She spat out the hard shards.
“I am still the wizard commander.” Maxim’s voice was muffled by the sack. “You tricked me, surprised me. That was the only way you were able to kill me, but I still have great powers you can’t understand.”
Adessa lurched over to yank open the sack. She pulled out the head. “Be quiet!”
His blackened skin sagged in all the wrong places, and his oozing eyes came bright and alive, turning toward her. “I merely thought you might like some conversation. No need to be rude. It’s lonely out here in the swamps, and you don’t have any company.” His gruesome face grinned at her. One of his loose teeth fell from his gums and dropped into the grass. “My many lovers have told me I’m very good company.”
“I don’t want your conversation.”
“I know what you fear, dear Adessa. You’re afraid that you might be going mad.”
“I’m not mad!”
Maxim’s lips parted. “Would a sane woman talk to a rotting head in the middle of a swamp?” His smile broadened so that the decaying skin cracked and yellowish pus ran down into his goatee. “Would a sane woman hear him answer?”
She carried her grisly trophy to a stagnant eddy at the edge of the hummock and submerged the head. “Now I don’t have to hear you.” She stood up, smug.
Through the still water she could see Maxim’s eyes looking up at her, but his mouth made no sound.
Satisfied, she went back to her meal, finished the rabbit with a handful of berries, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her trophy. She worried about the decomposing head under the water. What if the current was stronger than she expected? What if he drifted away?
She knelt on the edge of the grasses to check on the head. She was alarmed to see half a dozen brown fingerlings nibbling on the decaying face. The little fish darted in to peck at the open eyes, to eat flakes of putrid flesh. If the fish devoured what was left of the wizard commander, Adessa would have nothing more than a skull to show Sovrena Thora!
