Marrok still lay where he had fallen. The loud scrape of Moon Man’s weapon on the ground reached me before he was dropped beside me.
“His fingers are frozen around the handle,” one of the men said.
“A lot of good it will do him,” another joked.
Listening to their voices, I counted five men. Two against five. Not bad odds unless my legs remained numb. Then Moon Man would be on his own.
Once the men brought Leif and Tauno to the bank, the leader of the attackers dropped the null shield. It felt as if a curtain had been yanked back, revealing what lurked behind. All five men’s thoughts were open to me now.
Their leader shouted orders. “Prepare the prisoners for the Kirakawa ritual,” he said.
“We should not feed these men to it,” Rough Voice said. “We should use their blood for ourselves. You should stay.”
My gaze met Moon Man’s. We needed to act soon. I suppressed the desire to make mental contact with the Story Weaver. Their leader had to be a strong Warper to have created such a subtle null shield. There was a chance he would “hear” us.
The crunch of gravel under boots neared. My stomach tightened.
“I have orders to bring the woman to Jal,” the leader said from above me. “Jal has special plans for her.”
Without warning, the arrow in my back was yanked out. I bit my tongue to keep from yelling. The leader knelt next to me. He held the arrow, examining the weapon. My blood stained the smooth metal tip. At least the tip wasn’t barbed. Strange I should worry about that.
“Too bad,” Rough Voice said. “Think of the power you could have if you performed Kirakawa on her. You might become stronger than Jal. You could lead our clan.”
My lower back pulsed with pain. The Theobroma was working. Another minute and I should regain the use of my legs.
“She is powerful,” the leader agreed. “But I do not know the binding rite yet. Once I bring her to Jal, I hope to be rewarded and allowed to ascend to the next level.”
He smoothed tendrils of hair from my face. I made a conscious effort not to flinch as his fingers caressed my cheek.
“Are the rumors true? Are you really a Soulfinder?” he whispered to me. He stroked my arm in a possessive way. “Perhaps I can siphon a cup of your blood before I deliver you to Jal.” He reached for the knife hanging from his belt.
I moved. Pulling my switchblade from my pocket, I triggered the blade and rolled over, slicing his stomach open. But instead of falling back in surprise, he leaned forward and wrapped his hands around my neck.
A blur of motion beside me, and Moon Man leaped to his feet, swinging his scimitar in a deadly arc through Rough Voice.
I struggled with the leader. His weight trapped my arms. The pressure from his thumbs closed my windpipe. He attempted to connect with my mind, and would have succeeded with his magical attack if the Curare on my switchblade hadn’t worked so fast to paralyze his power.
One problem remained. Trapped under the frozen Vermin, I couldn’t breathe.
Moon Man, I called. Help!
One minute. The clang of weapons split the air.
I’ll be dead in a minute. Just push him off. A brief flurry of steel hitting steel was followed by silence. The man on me fell to the side. I freed my arms and pried his hands from my neck.
Moon Man reengaged in the battle. He fought three men. One man’s decapitated head rested next to me. Lovely.
My short blade wouldn’t last against their long scimitars and my bow was in the jungle with my pack. Gathering power, I sent a light touch to one man’s mind. Relieved he wasn’t a Warper, I sent him puzzling images to distract him.
He dropped out of the fight with Moon Man and stared at my approach with a baffled expression. The man raised his sword a second too late. I stepped close to him and nicked his arm with my switchblade, hoping Curare still clung to my blade. Unable to use his sword, the man dropped his weapon and lunged. His intent to subdue me rang clear in his mind, but I deepened my mental connection and forced him to sleep.
With only two attackers left, Moon Man had both their heads off in short order. He strode over to the man sleeping at my feet and raised his scimitar.
“Stop,” I said. “When he wakes, we can question him about Cahil’s plans.”
“The other?”
“Paralyzed.”
Moon Man rolled the leader over. The blood from his stomach wound had pooled on the rocks. After touching the man’s neck and face, Moon Man said, “He is gone.”
The cut was deeper than I thought. A felt a tinge of guilt as I scowled at the body. The leader probably had more information than the other man.
“It is a good thing. He was a Warper. We would not have gotten anything from him except trouble.”
I looked at the scattered carnage. The headless bodies cast macabre shadows in the pale moonlight. The side of my face and the wound in my back throbbed. The cool night air felt icy on my wet clothes. Tauno and Marrok both needed medical attention, and we couldn’t go anywhere until the Curare wore off. And the thought of spending the night surrounded by corpses…
“I will take care of them,” Moon Man said, reading my thoughts. “And I will build a fire. You take care of the wounded. Including you.”
Pulling the arrows from Marrok’s thigh and Tauno’s shoulder, I gathered power but couldn’t assume their injuries. The Curare in their bodies blocked my magic. An interesting discovery. It seemed when under the influence of the drug, a person couldn’t do magic or be affected by it.
I mulled over the implications as I searched in my pack. Finding a few lumps of Theobroma, I gave it to Moon Man to melt over the fire and feed to our paralyzed companions. From my own experience with Curare, I knew the drug didn’t affect the body’s ability to swallow, breathe and hear. So I told them what I planned to do.
The last of my energy faded after healing my own wound. I curled into a ball on the ground and fell asleep.
When I woke, watery streaks of color painted the sky. Moon Man sat cross-legged next to a fire, cooking a divine-smelling hunk of meat. My stomach grumbled in anticipation.
I checked on the others. Marrok, Leif and Tauno still slept. Leif’s cut had scabbed over, but I would need to heal Marrok’s and Tauno’s wounds. Moon Man had tied the Daviian prisoner’s arms and legs with some jungle vines even though the Vermin remained unconscious.
Moon Man gestured for me to join him. “Eat first before you heal them.” He handed me a sliver of meat speared on a stick. When I sniffed at the offering, he said, “Do not analyze it. It is hot and nourishing. That is all you need to know.”
“Why do you get to decide what I need to know? Why can’t you just give me the information I ask for?” My frustration extended beyond the mystery meat.
“That would be too easy.”
“What’s wrong with easy? I can understand if the most stressful aspect of my life was worrying about Bain’s next history test, but lives are at stake. Ferde could be stealing another’s soul and I might have the power to stop him.”
“What do you want? For me to tell you to do this or do that and wa-lah!” Moon Man flourished his hand in the air. “Instant success!”
“Yes. That is exactly what I want. Please, tell me.”
A thoughtful expression settled on his face. “When you were training to be the Commander’s food taster, would you know what the poison My Love tasted like if Valek had just described it to you?”
“Yes.” There was no mistaking the sour-apple taste.
“Would you trust your life on that knowledge? Or others?”
I opened my mouth to reply but paused. Now I couldn’t remember the poisons I hadn’t tasted or smelled. But I’ll never forget the tartness of My Love, the rancid orange flavor of Butterfly’s Dust, and the bitter thickness of White Fright.
“I’m talking about magic. Testing food for poisons is different.”
“Is it?”
I pounded my fist on the ground. “Do Story Weavers sign a contract or make a blood oath to be difficult and stubborn and a pain in the ass?”
A serene smile spread on his face. “No. Each Story Weaver chooses how he will guide his charges. Think about it, Yelena. You do not respond well to orders. Now eat your meat before it gets cold.”
Stifling my desire to fling the food into the fire and prove the insufferably smug Story Weaver right about my inability to take orders, I bit off a large chunk.
Spiced with pepper, the oily meat tasted like duck. Moon Man fed me two more pieces before he would let me return to the sleeping men and heal them. Tired, I snoozed by the fire.
When everyone had roused and gathered around the campfire to eat, we discussed our next move.
“Do you think they would set more ambushes in the jungle? Leave more Warpers in our path?” I asked Moon Man.
He considered my question. “It is possible. They left one at the camp who sacrificed himself. This one was supposed to come back. Our spies have determined the Daviian Vermin have about ten Warpers—eight now. Two are very powerful, and the rest have various lesser talents.”
“The ambush leader had enough magic to create and hold a null shield.”
Moon Man turned the meat roasting over the fire. “A valid and alarming point. Which means they might have been performing Kirakawa for some time.”
“What’s Kirakawa?” Leif asked.
“It is an ancient ritual. It has many steps and rites. When done correctly, it transfers the life energy of one person to another. All living beings have the ability to use magic, but most cannot connect to the power source. A person performing Kirakawa will either increase their magical power or gain the ability to connect with the power source, and therefore become a Warper.
“Their leader mentioned levels and a binding rite. They are probably using the Kirakawa to grant certain members magical abilities and increase certain Warpers’ powers. Their leader would not want all the clan members to be equally powerful.”
“How is the Kirakawa different than the Efe ritual Ferde used?” Leif rubbed the cut on his cheek.
“The Efe ritual binds a person’s soul to the practitioner, increasing their power. While blood is needed, it isn’t the medium holding the power in Efe. The soul carries the power. And the person performing the ritual must be a magician.”
“It sounds like anyone can use this Kirakawa to gain power,” Leif said.
“If they knew the proper steps. With the Kirakawa, the victim’s soul is trapped in blood. It is gruesome, too. The victim’s stomach is cut open and the heart is removed while the victim is still living. The Kirakawa is also more complex than the Efe ritual.”
“Could any magician use Efe? Or just the Soulstealer?” I asked.
“A Soulfinder could, but no one else. Is that a straight enough answer for you, Yelena?”
I didn’t dignify his comment with a reply. Instead, I asked about Mogkan, Alea’s brother. In Ixia, he had captured over thirty people, turning them into mindless slaves so he could siphon their power and augment his own. Valek and I had eventually stopped him from gaining control of Ixia, which explained Alea’s desire for revenge.
“Mogkan tortured them both physically and mentally until they could no longer bear to be aware of their surroundings. They retreated within themselves and just became a conduit for him to exploit. Their magic remained in their bodies.”
