Hamartia - the Singing Dagger | #NaNoWriMo2019

Chapter 3.1: Unsheathed

"You were right!"

Caelem yelled to her above the pressure of the wind as they plunged up lightning-fast above the trees.

Mahani squirmed as she was held fast by the stranger. "Ouch! What was that?"

"Those were my talons." And truly then Mahani saw the little violet talons on the tips of his...wings?

"What?"

"What, what?"

"What everything! What are you? What is this? And exactly what was I right about?" Mahani breathed in small, fast breaths, trying to contain her anger. She looked indignantly at the creature that had kidnapped her.

Caelem continued. "You were right that I knew that hissing was the way you Selahins got each others' attention."

"I mean, how did you know I was thinking that?" Wait a minute, I must be going crazy.

Not because of this, you aren't. But maybe you were already crazy to begin with.

"Was that you? Oh, my battaras! Plus, rude."

I can never tell with you humans. Well, I can hear your thoughts, and you can hear mine. From now on we have to wind-speak. I have no idea why you know it. Try it again.

I don't take orders from you. Then Mahani realized she did exactly what she wanted him to do. Touche.

I am one of the Wind People. We capture the thoughts that humans let go on the wind.

Mahani wriggled under his grasp and snapped a glare at the winged creature. If you had planned on kidnapping me from the start, why did you lie to me about being an Indramurim warrior-slave?

I wasn't lying. It was a complicated, semi-true backstory to hide my identity from some of my human enemies.

What a way to make me feel safe.

Moreover, I am not kidnapping you. I'm saving your human hide.

Caelem swooped back down and perched on an old ironwood tree, Mahani still snugged in his vast purple wings. He sent gently on a sturdy branch. Look down.

Just where they had been heartbeats earlier, two people had slithered in from both sides of the forest.

Where are our clothes?

With the wind. Just keep looking.

Peering closer, Mahani saw the black scarves hiding their faces. The Reaper's men. The piyasa lenders who've been terrorizing Selahins for weeks now.

Caelem nodded. The scoundrels who beat up your husband.

Then Mahani saw the person on the left unsheathe a sword with a hilt that curved sharply like a snake on its bearer's hand.

For a heartbeat, Mahani was worried that the masked people would start stabbing themselves then and there. Instead, the sword-bearer returned the blade back to its scabbard.

The masked one who had come from the right then nodded and likewise unsheathed a similar sword from his waist, twirling around the hilt for the other to see.

Suddenly, the masked person whistled into the woods and then dozens of masked people crept in slowly into the clearing.

The leader of the group on the right then chopped his hand sharply into the wind, startling Mahani into grabbing Caelem's wings for balance.

A large black bag thumped on the ground. The unmistakable thump of piyasas. Lips started moving, hands waving. They could hear nothing from here.

I could change that. Caelem rolled his fingers, a gesture that looked like he was pulling their thoughts from the wind. Suddenly, she heard wafts of their thoughts.

Idol's Feast. Tonight. Yummy pork. Filthy Selahins. Cheating wife. Steal their souls.

Caelem looked at her. Well, I guess you know which parts were not inner dialogue.

Yeah. I love it when something humanizes my enemies. Mahani grinned.

Then I feel more justified in torturing them.

As the masked congregation dissolved into the jungle, the two soared once again into the air.

Something about this Wind Person, spirit, creator or whatever, made Mahani trust him. And she always trusted her instincts.
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Meanwhile...

The Selah Riverside. Mahani's Cottage.

"No, that isn't your bunch, Juna. Both of them are mine." Ikaro crossed his arms, hugging the bananas tight. "Mahani said so."

"Ha, I caught you, you big bully! Mahani hasn't been here since yesterday!"

"Listen, Juna." Ikaro placed his arm reassuringly on Juna's shoulder, cradling the bananas in his other arm. "Don't you think that instead of fighting about bananas... we should be worrying about Mahani instead?"

Ikaro pressed his arm down, forcing them both to sit cross-legged on the red clay floor. "You're right, Ikaro. How inconsiderate of us. Let's just both sit here and conjure up a plan to find Mahani. While eating bananas."

As Juna reached out to pick a banana, Ikaro bent backwards and let out a fiery glare. "These are my bananas! Mine! If you want to eat some, I'm going to make you munch on the peels too."

Juna pounced on Ikaro, and they wrestled on the floor. Bananas breaking put from the bunch, a stray few getting mushed in the process.

Suddenly, Ikaro pinned Juna down. "Do you hear that, Ikaro?"

"Don't even try to distract me." Ikaro's eyes glinted as he kept Juna down.

"No, really that."

Then they could hear a frail voice in the room. "Me."

"It's Burkon." Running to his side, the two left their bananas behind.

"You're speaking now, Burkon?"

Ikaro's slap came hard on Juna's head. "Way to always state the obvious. What is it, Burkon?"

"Voices. Inside. Want. Bananas."

While the two bickering co-spouses thought Burkon undoubtedly meant that he wanted bananas, they failed to splice the two parts of his speech into halves. And as the battered man lay lying, he heard a soft, honey-like voice stirring in his ear.

Just sleep off your hunger and pain. Sleep it away. To dreams and submerged desires.

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