The Crucible of the Dragon God (22 page)

What did last was the gnawing and grunting that could be heard beneath the chanting.

And the smell of roasting flesh.

"
UNKA-CHAKKA-UNKA-CHAKKA-OH-OH-OH!

UNKA-CHAKKA-UNKA-CHAKKA-OH-OH-OH!"

Yes, yes, all right, enough already!
Kali thought.
Will you please, for just one farking minute, shut up

She sighed heavily, and rattled the chains that bound her. She reckoned it had been about eight hours since the sting on her neck, and it was only now that the effects of whatever the tiny dart had been coated with were starting to wear off. Starting, mind, because although her paralysis had gone it had left her feeling distinctly betwattled. A condition she was not unfamiliar with but would have preferred to have enjoyed slumped in the
Flagons
rather than here, chained to a pillar and dressed in nothing but three strategically draped strips of animal hide. It was a development she had to admit had caught her a tad by surprise. Steaming pits of bloody Kerberos, it could only happen to her.

A sacrificial virgin!

Kali pouted.

Okay, then, sacrificial... offering.

Where the hells was she? Who were these people? And most of all, why was she dressed in this stupid, farking costume?

She frowned. The fact was, there were other, more serious questions. Specifically, what had happened to Aldrededor and Dolorosa? There was no doubt that the couple
had
been captured with her because she had caught glimpses of them, by her side, slung beneath the same kind of pole on which she herself had been tied and carried here. Those glimpses had been fleeting and utterly random, however, as her inability to move her eyes, let alone the rest of her body, during the enforced journey had left her with no choice but to see only what the twists, turns and ups and downs of her unexpected excursion had thrust before her frozen eyes. It hadn't helped that she had been lapsing in and out of consciousness, also.

What she
did
remember was that their captors seemed to have taken them higher into the mountains, and that the route had begun in the passage at the rear of the cave where they had sheltered. From there on in, it had become confusing - one minute exposed on the mountainside, the next travelling through rock, snatches of fur-hooded faces leering in both the light and the dark - leaving her with the impression that, far from being deserted as she had thought, the Drakengrats were riddled with a warren of caves and tunnels which were clearly inhabited. She remembered wondering whether she was in the hands of ogur, but then ogur would hardly dress her in a skimpy outfit as it would only stick in their teeth when they ate her. Besides, ogur would have downed her with club not dart, and she would have been in no position to wonder anything at all.

Also, her captors didn't smell anywhere near as bad - let's face it, nothing did. They just smelled... odd, actually.

Kali looked about the cave, gleaning what she could about her captors. Various skulls and other pieces of skeleton were hung on the walls. Animal skins were draped across the floor and littered across them were various implements and tools, bowls, cups and the like, all of which appeared to have been carved from bone. One thing was immediately clear. Everything here was designed or scaled for human use, though she had never come across a human settlement as primitive as this. What were they doing here in the Drakengrats, and why was their culture so stagnated? It was as if
nothing
had changed here since the days of Thunderlungs Cry.

She needed answers - especially if these people knew anything about the Crucible - and she wasn't going to get them bound to this farking pillar. Again, Kali rattled her chains, pulling with wrists and ankles to test for signs of weakness, but all her struggles achieved was to dislodge the strips of hide from where they had been strategically placed and, cursing, she tried to jiggle them back. As she did, the chanting from the other cave suddenly stopped, and she snapped a look at the passage. Shadows loomed again, and this time they didn't go away

"Shit" she said, and jiggled harder.

She succeeded just in time. Four figures dressed in skins entered the cave and stood in silence by the passage, just staring at her. She could barely make them out, silhouetted as they were, but they appeared to be human from what she could see. Human, if a little on the beefy side.

Kali swallowed, thinking:
One step and, I promise, you will regret it.

The figures did not move towards her. Instead, a moment later, they stood aside to allow the entrance of a fifth figure - one who was more surreally dressed than they. It wore a loincloth, a plethora of dangling fetishes and, worst of all, a mask that covered its head and shoulders and made its upper half resemble that of an exploded chicken.

The figure approached then slapped both its palms onto its thighs. Then it suddenly squatted down, sticking its tongue out as far as it would go, which was quite some way, and waddled its head from side to side.

"
Wadaladalla!"
It shouted - or something like that. A curious sound that made even its companions look at him askance.

"Hey!" Kali shouted. "Unless
wadaladalla
means 'release the girl
right
now,' I am going to be very pitsed off!"

Everything went silent. The figure stared at her, and both hands suddenly produced ominous looking objects not unlike the goblin death rattles Merrit Moon dealt in and shook them violently in her general direction. Then it stomped gradually nearer, like some wrestler at the Scholten carnival, until it came face to face, whereupon it shook the rattles again and its tongue flicked at her nose.

There was just enough give in the chains for Kali to knee him in the groin.

"
Ohooooooo... huuuurrrr... Gods and farking pits!"
A man then.

As he staggered back cradling himself, Kali ignored the disturbed murmurs from his friends and stared at her victim hard. Something wasn't right here, she suddenly realised. For one thing, it had occurred to her that all that
unka-chaka
stuff reminded her very much of a song she'd once hated and, for another, it had only just clicked that this strange man wasn't anywhere near as hairy as his mates. Not at all, in fact. Above all else, though, there was the matter of a couple of familiar tattoos she could make out between the fetishes he wore - those and one she
wasn't
familiar with on his muscular left bicep. A declaration of love for someone called, of all things,
Endless Passion
.

Only one man would wear a tattoo like that, Kali knew.

"Slowhand?"

"
Guhhhhng
... h-hi, Hooper, how you doing?"

"How am I doing? Oh, you know, shot with a paralysing dart, kidnapped, stripped, chained to a sacrificial altar,
you
?"

The exploded chicken mask bobbed back and forth. "Oh, you know," he said, and paused to cup his lower regions once more. "
Hoooooo, hells
... fine, fine."

"Whatever you're doing wearing that farking thing, take it off!
What the hells are you doing here?
"

Slowhand slapped his palm over her mouth. "Trying to get you out of here. So will you please keep your voice
down
?"

Kali's eyes narrowed and, for a second, she debated kneeing him again. Instead, she spoke quietly. "
Whyfmychayndupwifnocloffson?
"

Slowhand withdrew his hand. "What?"

"Why am I chained up with no clothes on?"

"Oh, yes. Bit of a long story. Seems these people are having a problem with their god. Think it's angry because strangers invaded its - invaded
their
- holy ground."

"Strangers?"

"The Filth, from what I've pieced together." Slowhand said. He noticed the figures standing in the cave were regarding their lengthy and hushed conversation with some suspicion and, to appease them, did a little dance. Then, he frowned. "Led by my sister, as it happens."

Kali was already beginning to suspect that this 'holy ground' was the discovery Jenna had mentioned in her recordings - but that someone was
worshipping
it came as a surprise. Despite her current predicament, this was becoming more and more interesting.

"I know about Jenna. Aldrededor, Dolorosa and I found a bracelet."

Now it was Slowhand's turn to be surprised. "I
lost
that bracelet. She gave it to me before I fell out of the sky."

"You were on one of their airships?"

"Yes and no. Another long story." Slowhand glanced over at his companions, and shook one of his rattles for effect. "But now isn't the time."

"I'd go with that. So, exactly
how
are you getting me out of here?"

"I'm not."

"Excuse me?"

Slowhand hesitated. "Thing is, these people think a sign of their God's anger is the k'nid. That they're demons whose release into the world is a punishment which can only halted by the sacrifice of one of the strangers. They had their eyes on me when they found me but... I managed to persuade them otherwise."

"Don't tell me, you beguiled them by summoning balloon animals. Pits, Slowhand, you
still
carry balloons?"

He shrugged. "Well, they weren't
balloons
exactly, but..."

"I do not want to know!"

"Shush! Okay, forget the balloons. If you must know, I trained them in the making and use of bows, as well. They'd never seen such a weapon before and, with the scarcity of wildlife up here, believe me, they come in handy."

Kali sighed. "That explains the gnawing out there."

"Aha. Before, they sustained themselves mainly on mountain fungus and
vegetables
."

"Oh, Gods."

"I know. Anyway, Hooper, the point is, I survived. But they still needed to sacrifice
someone
."

"Aldrededor!" Kali said, concerned. "Dolorosa!"

"No, no. They're
fine
. Because I suggested you."

"
What
?"

"I figured the only way to get us all out of this was to convince them we're
not
strangers, that we're like them. And our best chance of doing that was with you..."

"What are you talking about?"

"One of the first things I noticed about these people - they call themselves the yazan, by the way - is that they're different."

"Different?"

"Look, there's no time to explain," Slowhand said, and produced a vicious looking knife from beneath his fetishes. "Just be grateful I managed to persuade them to let me perform the sacrifice, my way."

Kali stared at Slowhand in disbelief as he placed the point of the knife on her sternum, then hissed in shock as she felt it penetrate the skin.

"Ow! Liam, what the hells do you think you're doi -"

"Don't move!"

"Don't move?! The hells I'm not going to move!"

Slowhand gripped her arm firmly and unexpectedly winked. "Trust me, Hooper, all right? The Death of A Thousand Cuts is the only way out of this."

"The Death of A Thousand Cuts!?"

"Will you please calm down."

"Slowhand, you're sticking a farking knife in my chest!"

The archer paused, leaning in and whispering in Kali's ear. "Hooper, I cannot tell you how good I felt when I saw you were still alive." He shrugged. "Do you really think I'd spoil that by slicing you open now?"

"It does seem a little odd, even for you."

"Fine, then trust me.
Please
."

Slowhand's grip on the gutting knife tightened. And Kali felt its tip being held against her measuredly.

"Do what you have to." Kali said, staring him in the eyes.

Slowhand nodded, and then drew the tip of the knife down her sternum, scoring a shallow red line about six inches in length, and she moaned softly as it began to ooze blood. As it did, Slowhand span around to face the yazan, throwing his hands in the air to reveal the wound - what Kali fervently hoped was the first and last cut. But then the yazan stared at it and, to her discomfort, nodded. Their meaning was clear -
continue
.

"
Wadaladalla!"
the archer cried and span dramatically toward her, knife raised. Then - rather too theatrically, Kali thought, he suddenly leapt back and pointed at her wound, uttering a shocked variation on his usual cry that sounded like: "
Wululadadalula?"

The yazan stared where he pointed, and then moved forward to crowd around her.

What?
Kali thought.
What?

Had she suddenly grown a second head in her cleavage? Had the cloth come loose from her bits? Then she looked down to where Slowhand pointed, and gasped. She guessed that she'd never really thought too much about her recuperative abilities - just wondered at their presence - and, as a result, she'd never really studied them in action, but now she realised for the first time just how
dramatic
they were. Right in front of her eyes, the shallow wound that Slowhand had inflicted was sealing itself, healing in seconds.

Not for the first time, Kali thought,
what am I?

But her concerns about her own abnormality were immediately replaced by a more pressing one. Namely, the implications of what had just happened for her current predicament. Slowhand had pulled a surprise card from up his sleeve, that was for sure, but the question was, how was he going to play it? Was he going to try to pass her off to these yazan as some kind of God? She sure as hells hoped not, because Twilight's mythology was littered with cautionary tales of why that kind of hubris was really,
really
not a good idea.

Slowly, she looked up at the faces of the yazan, and gasped again. For a second she wondered whether it was a trick of the light, but Slowhand's words seemed to suggest otherwise.

"That's why it had to be you, Hooper," he said. "Because you're
different
... like them."

Her mind reeling, Kali was only dimly aware that the yazan were backing off, gesturing to Slowhand in a way she guessed meant 'release her'. But, as momentous as what she had just seen had been, something else niggled at her as Slowhand freed her from her chains.