The Blacktongue Thief

59 In the Cave

The cave was dark, lit at first only by the light from outside, which spilled in from the entrance with us. I carried Norrigal’s shoulders, Galva had her broken legs bound in a shirt. My moon-wife was awake now, unfortunately. She panted with pain, blowing a lock of hair in and out of her mouth, hurting too badly even to crack wise about how poorly I was carrying her. Yorbez took up the rear, watching to make sure nothing and no one followed us up from the rocky pass.

I peeked back that way.

One last dead giant lay quite near the cave’s mouth. We hadn’t seen him at first for a stand of bushes, but there he lay as we made for the cave, a swarm of flies worthy of the world’s end around him. His blackened face seemed to be caught mid-sneeze, his hairy, tattooed arm pointed toward the entrance, his treelike legs tangled behind him toward the pass. Whatever had killed him and his fellows might well be in this cave with us. Norrigal had the best eyes for darkness, what with the cat’s eye sigils on her lids, but she was a bit distracted at the moment. Galva and I laid her down on the flattest bit we could find. Yorbez came in now.

A woman’s voice, barely more than a whisper, fell from the darkness slightly above us.

“Varatt!” it said. “Datt eer Jeten.”

Accented Gunnish.

Beware. There is a giant.

My eyes were adjusting, helped by some patches of dying-coals witchmoss on the walls and floor. Yes, there was a giant. A female. Lying against the far wall with tent cloth around her and her massive, blood-crusted hands closed around something she didn’t seem to want to let go of. She looked ill. She looked banged up. Old blood embrowned her forearms and legs, what I could see of them. She was covered in tattoos I could not make out. She watched us with heavy-lidded eyes, her face moist with sweat despite the cold.

How had she got here? The frown-mouth of the cave was too narrow for the likes of her.

Galva moved forward as if in a trance—she recognized that voice. Even in another language. Even on the farthest end of Manreach.

“Infanta Mireya?” Galva said, her voice cracking.

“Non,” said the voice from above, now in Ispanthian. Very weak. “Raena Mireya.”

No. Queen Mireya.

“Holy knaps, that’s a big one,” Norrigal managed, in Galtish, more awake now, having made out the giantess against the wall.

The giantess spoke.

“I am the smallest of my family”

I understood her because although what she said wasn’t precisely Galtish, it was damned close. And Galva’s princess-queen was somewhere in the cave. Too much was happening at once.

The Spanth went toward the sound of Mireya’s voice.

“You do see that, don’t you?” I said to her in Holtish, meaning the giant. I knew as I said it that she wouldn’t care. I put my bow together, got an arrow ready. I only had three left. I hadn’t any idea what good my arrow would do against the giant should she decide to start chucking rocks at us. Not that she looked like she had the strength to chuck anything. She was covered in nasty lacerations like her skin had split in places.

“We won’t hurt you,” I said to the giant, not knowing if it was true.

“Good,” she said. “I am hurt enough.”

What was she holding?

I realized I was still hearing flies even though we’d left the giant outside.

As my eyes adjusted, I became aware of dead kynd in the cave. One very fat one in fine sage-green robes stared at the ceiling. Looked to have been dead a day. Two more dead lay toward the back, smashed so flat there would be no separating them from their saffron robes.

Galva was beginning to realize she couldn’t climb the rocks up the shelf from which the voice of the infanta came—they were steep, sharp, slick, and cruel. It would take a bird to get over them.

The knight asked her a question in Ispanthian, probably, “How did you get up there?”

“Voilei.”

I flew.

“So fly down,” she Spanthed at her.

“I can’t,” Mireya Spanthed back.

“Why?”

“I’m not a bird anymore.”

See? It did take a bird to get up there.

Now she said, “Galva?”

“Yes,” she said. Os.

“I knew it would be you,” she said, and by the way she said it, I knew they had been lovers. I’m not especially keen. I just knew, and you would have, too, if you’d heard it. Galva had been the lover of the infanta Mireya, the queen of Oustrim.

I looked again at the sweating giant, the dead men.

Various trunks and traveling packs.

The ruins of a small, painted cage.

I stroked Norrigal’s hair.

“What by the right tit of any goddess happened in here?” she managed, in Galtish, through her pain-breathing.

“I will tell you,” the giantess said. “If you will hear it as my death-song.”

“Your death-song?” I said.

“Yes. The dead cannot speak until they are given back their tongues. Only the truthful may speak, and they speak in songs in the valley of fruit and flowers. Those who lie walk tongueless down to the valley of smoking hills and mudded water and grunt and moan like torn beasts. If I speak my death-song to you, the Father of Stars will come to you in dreams and ask what I said to you. If I tell it truly, I will grow a tongue of gold.”

“So, wait, giantkind aren’t supposed to lie?”

“Some do. Not my tribe.”

That figured. Leave it to giants to get holy about the truth. It’s always the big, thick wankers saying, “Don’t lie,” isn’t it?

Only the strong, the rich, and the dying think truth is a necessity; the rest of us know it for a luxury.

“I will hear your song and speak for you in my dream,” I said, taking care she didn’t see the black, black tongue in me.