Outlaw. Part 10

Another armed group had gathered on the opposite slope, standing, and I saw immediately that these "fighting men," as Lela had called them, belonged to Kirutu because he stood before them, not fifteen paces from me.

There was no sign of Wilam, only several of his guards, now standing near the mat.

All eyes watched me. Only some of the Impirum children who were jumping around and somersaulting at the top of the knoll were distracted. Otherwise I was the sole focus of the valley.

A call went out over the valley, delivered by a man whose face and chest were covered in ash, running back and forth in front of the Impirum warriors. He stopped and began to hop up and down as if he were on a pogo stick, crying out, "Wege, wege, wege!"

As one the Impirum stood. I followed their stares to my left. Wilam had arrived.

He was flanked by four armed warriors who, like Wilam, wore feathered headdresses and were heavily appointed with golden bands. Mud or paint colored their jaws and brows in wide swaths of red and white. I felt hands on my shoulders, pushing me to my knees next to Lela, who was trembling.

Wilam stopped opposite Kirutu without giving us a glance. He gestured with two fingers down by his side and the Impirum on the hill all squatted, followed by the Warik warriors when Kirutu nodded once. Only the guards remained standing next to the two princes, who had come to conduct their business.

What was spoken next I later gathered from a nearly hysterical Lela. Though I can't be certain as to the exact words chosen for the exchange between Wilam and Kirutu, I am confident that what follows captures its full essence.

"You have what is mine," Kirutu said, eyes steady on his adversary. Wilam was the only threat to his taking power when the current chief, Isaka, pa.s.sed.

Wilam seemed cordial enough. "So you have said." He looked at the Warik leader's warriors on the hill beyond Kirutu. "And yet I see no trade. What have you brought me?"

Kirutu didn't immediately respond. The air changed with Wilam's demand for payment. My and Lela's lives were at stake, but these two were negotiating for their own power, like two challenging lions.

"There is no trade for what is already mine," Kirutu said evenly. I saw the tension in his taut belly muscles, marred by that single scar running up to his chest.

"How can something not in your grasp be yours?" Wilam asked. "How did this wam come to me if she was in your hands?"

"You took her by force," Kirutu snapped, spitting on the ground.

"And which of my warriors used this force to kill your guards?"

"Your little pig cut the woman free."

Wilam looked at Lela, eyebrow raised. "You expect me to believe that a young girl fooled your guard and plucked this wam from your grasp? My warriors found the white wam free, on the hill with that old white fool you keep."

"That old fool is dead."

"And the white woman is not."

The skilled politician in Wilam had already backed Kirutu into a corner. If the Warik prince admitted that Lela had foiled him, he would look weak before the people. But Kirutu was no less practiced in the ways of power.

A cynical smile twisted Kirutu's lips and he stepped toward the people and addressed the entire gathering. "So now Wilam will play games with his words to make me look weak before you all. The matter is simple. I found this white woman in the sea four days ago. It is said that some white wam are as fertile as mice. So I took her."

They watched the Warik leader lay out his case.

"But white wam are forbidden without the full consent of the council. So I took this one before Wilam and Butos, and it was Wilam who rejected my payment to the great Isaka. It was he who condemned her."

His voice was steady, with little emotion. This was not a man easily ruffled or compelled to impress.

"Naturally I agreed. Wilam was right. Bringing this ugly wam to the Tulim was wasted effort. I agreed to put her to death on the cliff, as required by our laws."

Four hundred Impirum warriors stood as one, glares fixed on the Warik warriors. I was certain then that I was to be caught between two armies in full battle.

Kirutu faced Wilam. "The law requires that what you take without permission must be returned with payment," he said. "I have come to collect what is mine. The men who guarded this wam have been put to death. What more trade do you require?"

"Ten boars," Wilam said.

A murmur went through the crowd. The question had been rhetorical, but Wilam hadn't even hesitated to state his price.

Kirutu grinned. "Ten boars? For two wam whose heads will be smashed within the hour?"

"Nevertheless, I will have ten boars for the trouble to my men. Let this be a lesson to you. Keep what is yours close and do not blame me if you lose it."

"The girl took what was mine."

"Then all Tulim know how weak your guard is. Give me ten boars and you may take them both to kill before sunset."

The entire hill had stilled once again. Somewhere a baby cried and was immediately quieted. Beside me Lela gawked at Kirutu, whose grin had softened.

The Warik leader slowly raked his piercing glare over the tribes awaiting his decision. His was the look of someone resolved to take what was his. It was a beginning, not an ending. Surely it took Kirutu's full strength to restrain himself, knowing that he'd been outwitted not merely by Wilam but by Lela, the runt wam who'd sneaked past his guards to set me free.

Kirutu's eyes settled on Wilam. "Then I will play your game, son of Isaka. You would do well to remember that his blood is no thinner in my veins. You may make your play for this floating fish I found in the sea, but the council has judged." He spat the last word. "She must die."

"You will not pay ten boars for my troubles?"

"No more than I would pay ten boars for a fly."

Wilam stared at his adversary. "Then I will take these flies you cannot hold as payment enough."

"You will kill them as agreed."

Wilam dipped his head. "As I see fit."

A cry went up from the back of the Impirum tribe, not one of objection or agreement, but one of abject fear. As one they all turned and looked up the hill.

There on the crest a hundred yards away stood a man with furs about his waist and ankles, leaning on a spear. I could see immediately that the man was from a different stock than any I'd seen in the Tulim valley.

They stared up at him in gripping silence, as one might stare at G.o.d himself if he suddenly appeared. I felt a chill wash down my spine, more from their reaction to him than from the man's appearance.

For several long seconds no one moved.

"Leave us!" Wilam snapped.

Immediately the gathered tribes, both Warik and Impirum, began to scatter toward the cover of the trees. They ran without a cry, like a thousand spooked horses.

I watched in amazement as the hills emptied, leaving only Kirutu, Wilam, and four guards each alone with Lela and me. Both of the princes had their eyes fixed on the crest.

When I looked back up, the man was walking toward us with even strides, spear held lightly in his hand. No other weapons, no body paint or adornments, just that one spear made of wood and bone.

The air seemed to still. Even the birdcalls stopped. I couldn't know whether the princes saw the man as a threat or whether this was Isaka, their chief, but there could be no doubt that he commanded a respect they dared not challenge.

The man walked toward us in no hurry, eyes not on the two princes but on me. My heart hammered and I found myself wondering if he'd come to execute me.

But as he drew within ten paces, I saw that he didn't have the eyes of a killer. His were a deep brown and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with mystery. I found myself immediately put at ease.

When I looked up at Wilam and Kirutu, my hope surged. They were clearly uncomfortable. Which meant the stranger held some power over them, and any man with such an understanding gaze might be a benefactor.

Beside me Lela was trembling. Not Isaka, then, I thought. She'd spoken of the chief with pride, not fear.

The man stopped five feet from me and for a minute he searched my eyes. He shifted his gaze first to Wilam and then to Kirutu.

He stepped up to the prince of the Warik. Slowly lifted his right hand and laid his fingers on the man's scar. He slid his hand up, tracing the scar, tsking softly.

His back was to me so I couldn't see his face, but I watched Kirutu's reaction. Saw the bitterness in his dark eyes. The trembling in his fingers.

The man's hand left Kirutu's chest and rose to his face. Followed the lines of the prince's cheek to the back of his head. The stranger's strong hands gripped Kirutu's neck and pulled his head forward so that they were cheek to cheek.

He whispered something into Kirutu's ear and I watched the prince's face quiver as if he was resisting and terrified at once.

The man slowly drew back from Kirutu, gave him a barely perceptible nod, and, without ceremony, turned from us and walked back the way he'd come, in no hurry.

I watched him go, stunned by the strange exchange, struck by how little I understood of what was happening in this mysterious dark valley.

Only then did I see the silhouette of a lone figure behind Kirutu on the slope. I couldn't mistake the man coated in black. The shaman I'd seen at the council, Sawim. The one who'd struck such fear into my soul.

Two shamans? If so, they were not of the same character.

The black one, Lela had called him.

The fur-clothed stranger paid him no mind. He simply walked away as if he had no care in the world.

When I looked back to where Sawim stood, he'd already turned and was walking away, beyond the hill's crest.

Michael had said there was a war brewing in the valley, but it was a contest for more than Isaka's throne, I thought. There was a deeper struggle at hand-one that stirred the same unspoken cry to G.o.d that I had been uttering since waking in the bottom of that canoe.

Save me. Please, I beg you. Save me!

A cry that he had not yet heard. If he was even listening.

"So be it," Kirutu said.

He turned his back on us and walked south with his guards.

"So be it," Wilam said. He nodded at his guards and headed west, toward the Impirum village.

Two of the men who'd remained by his side hauled Lela and me to our feet. Shoved us down the path.

"Who was that?" I asked, hurrying to keep pace. "What's happening?"

"This Kugi," she said. "Evil spirit man."

"A shaman?"

"More maybe."

But her face was lit with hope.

"We're free?" I asked, hurrying to keep pace.

"No, miss," Lela said. "This Wilam our master now. But we not die, I think."

I prayed that she was right. That whereas Kirutu had not been able to hold me captive, Wilam would now show the whole valley that he could.

He'd kept me to spite Kirutu publicly. Kirutu had just as publicly called for my death. What this Kugi had said to Kirutu, I didn't know, but I wouldn't argue with the outcome.

A new hope swept through my mind.

And then I remembered where I was.

I remembered the people I was with-the nakedness of their bodies, the savagery of their ways.

I remembered that I was still in h.e.l.l, and my heart sank.

Chapter Eleven.

I LEARNED that night who the stranger was, and my confusion deepened. Not because of what Lela shared with me, but because of what she didn't.

They called him Kugi Meli, which means "evil spirit," a name they gave to many things of a spiritual nature, I learned. The man had appeared from the mountains two years earlier and walked into the chief's hut without being seen by the guard. He'd told Isaka that he would be dead in less than three years' time. The valley would embrace a new king who would tear down all that was sacred. And then he'd left.

Filled with fear, the Tulim had immediately set out to kill him, but the man had proven impossible to track down. Why? Because he was an evil spirit-there was no other explanation.

Word spread that killing the man would anger the evil spirits. The man was untouchable. No one knew where he lived or came from. After that he was seen every few moons, usually at a distance, watching. Then vanishing. Like a ghost.

"What about the shaman?" I asked.

"Sawim," she whispered. It was clear that she wasn't comfortable speaking of these matters.

"Is Sawim evil as well?"

She grabbed my arm, eyes wide. "No, miss! You must not say this evil!"

"They are enemies?"