Kingdom of Monsters - Empire of Sand Series

Chapter 2.1

All through the long night and the pale day and the following night and day, a flurry of black snow drove them from their lands like a blizzard of acid, stinging their eyes and tasting of death.

Her fat aunt's overstuffed, under-woven pack broke over and over again. While her aunt furiously rebraided it with thin roadside reeds, frustrated tears dripping unnoticed down her dirty cheeks, Lunsa staggered under the weight of her cousin-ka's twins.

She missed the clover on its drying hook, ready to be powdered for relieving their sniffles, and the long-necked pot at the back of the house, which she could have used to scoop water for her sweating, sick aunt. She missed the grand pillar her father-ka had raised to extend the veranda for her proud mother-ka, so luxurious a veranda for their bursting-full family . . . And then her own ragged breathing would fill her ears, and she would think of nothing at all.

Their village rested for short periods and slept less, caught the Deep Riverbend tribe, and fell behind into the black flurries again.

Once, her cousin Calufray had prodded an old, grizzled peccari too hard, and it ran, screaming, into a fast tributary. Calufray had screamed after it, "Peccari! Peccari, come back!" But she hadn't known its true name, and it disappeared into furious whirlpools, thrown down the cliffs toward the Hundred Strokes River, to an unknown destiny.

The other peccari rustled ominously, but her aunt named them in sharp staccato, and they settled again.

And yet, flight filled Lunsa with god-ordained exhilaration. Lightness danced her feet and giddiness wiggled her fingers while her body daylight-dozed. Her elder had been right. Her family's misfortunes were over. She should have left long ago.

At the end of the third sleepless day, her village rested in a field overlooking the descent to the Hundred Strokes River. Well over the cliff, out of sight, rested the Stone Bridge uniting their banks.

She had crossed the Stone Bridge once before. Then, she had visited the Blue Fin tribe for the becoming-a-woman ceremony, to see if she would prefer a life as a fishwife. Lunsa had not smiled at the Blue Fin men as her older sister once had, and their disappointment cloaked her in comparative ugliness.

That had been lifetimes ago.

Lunsa's aunt groaned and rubbed swollen calves; others of her village settled for their last rest with similar groans and muffled cries. Lunsa released the baby ties and let down her cousin-ka's twins, her own back aching from unfamiliar child weight. From her pack, she removed her athame and mortar to transform a wild mustard patch into a quick muscle-ache remedy.

She exhausted the roadside plants with this exercise and scanned the hillside for more; mustard was often seeded at tall hills or at crossroads. Her eyes instead picked out thatches of blue corpse flowers.

Somewhere along here, her father-ka was buried.

Lunsa plucked three sprays, braided the stems, and placed them in a tree cleft. An honor offering.

Most of her village sat, dull and numb. Two old men who had survived their forced military service to the King twitched and scratched. They were crippled from wounds that had addled their minds or cut their strength to shreds, but left them alive. Now, under threat from soldiers once more, they scratched at imaginary itches, unable to be still or silent.

"Soldiers travel on stomachs hungry for meat," one elder said, scratching at an invisible sore. He accepted Lunsa's spoon of mustard-mash with a bare nod and rubbed it on his bent, toe-less feet. "Mercenaries of the Sand Empire drink the blood of the dead. They boiled a companda right in front of the man who cried for it."

The other old man grunted. "I knew a man . . . They grilled his companda and forced him to eat it."

"Sand soldiers, they're all forsaken. The King's army now, they're led by monsters just as bad."

A dead-exhausted aunt hugged her own limp companda closer.

Lunsa was mashing another mortar-full of mustard to dole to her resting kin when her village elder approached.

A Deep Riverbend girl walked beside him—No. Lunsa recognized the girl with a start.

It was her cousin Ayala, one of their own tribe, who had left with Lunsa's sister Mara for the Great Hunt, and remained after Mara's marriage in Twin Rivers.

Ayala's journey had obviously been less successful; she still wore their crimson-indigo strip and wound her brown hair in the seven braids of unmarried youths. Her long-journey pack sagged, her braided boots frayed, and worry peaked her thin cheekbones. Her companda clutched her backpack. Both looked wrung like a damp cloth, expecting to rest in the Hollow Tree village but, instead, finding themselves running, running harder in fact, the opposite direction.

Ayala started speaking. "Lunsa—"

Their elder cleared his throat.

Ayala caught herself. She touched her lips and her forehead, the appropriate respect. "Honored Herbaline. You are needed."

Lunsa offered the mortar to her cousin.

She shook her head, although her eyes glazed and her legs trembled. "Your sister calls for you. She's powerful sick."

Lunsa's heart slowed. "How bad?"

"Her companda has died."

A companda mirrored one's heart. If Mara's companda had already succumbed, then Mara was deadly sick.