The Burning Ground

2. Farewell to all we knew

As she huddled among boulders deep in a thicket of thornbush, Wintshikan tried to ignore the horror below, but the breeze climbing the mountains from the ixis camp brought her the smell of roasting meat and screams from one of the women they’d caught, brought Impix laughter and broken bits of words.

Zell was shaking all over, xe’s tears hot as they touched her arm. She freed the arm, laid it about xe’s shoulders and pulled xe close, wrapping the Shawl about xe to keep away the sounds and as much of the smell as she could. She couldn’t do anything about Zell’s thinta and tried not to think about the emotions Zell shared with the dying anyas.

The awful thing whispered by her sister Hekan was true. Impix phelas ate Pixa anyas. Ate their flesh as the flesh of a beast, not with honor and sorrow at a funeral feast. Butchered them and ate them. She thought about the empty eyes of the Pixa leader and it came to her that Pixa phelas were no better, that they also ate anyas when they could. Her mouth flooded, her stomach heaved, but she clamped her lips shut, swallowed hard, and barely breathed as she waited for this terrible night to end.

The Impix phela left before dawn.

They were so noisy in their departure that Wintshikan was afraid of ambush and clutched Zell tight when the anya tried to get to xe’s feet. “Wait,” she whispered. “Wait till I’m sure they’re gone.”

The sky grayed in the east, a line of pink touched the bit of peak Wintshikan could see through the tangle of branches and vines. Below, at the stopping ground, a sicul whistled and chirruped, then half a dozen others joined in. In the distance a wild chal barked, then ran yipping from something big enough to scare it but too slow to catch it.

The light strengthened.

Shadows crept along the ground.

+It is thne.+

Weary to the bone and sick at what she knew she was going to see, Wintshikan put her hand on the boulder she crouched against and levered herself onto her feet. “Zell, stay here.”

The anya shook xe’s head, but xe stayed very close to Wintshikan as the Heka worked through the thornbush onto the more open slope under the muweh trees. The growing light wasn’t kind to xe, putting hollows in xe’s cheeks and deepening the lines in xe’s dark and gracile face.

The tents lay in rags. Everything the Impix couldn’t carry off that could be broken was shattered; what they couldn’t destroy, they urinated and defecated on. Eggs were stomped into smears, the embryos inside unrecognizable as anything but a scribble on the ground. Anya bones were scattered about, broken, the marrow sucked from them. All mixed together. Who could tell how many were gone. Seven of the Ixis women were sprawled on the trail, stakes driven through them. They’d died hard, but not from the stakes. Blind Bukh and Oldmal Yancik were tossed in a heap with three smaller bodies, the two mints and one femlit who couldn’t run fast enough but were too big to carry. Throats cut.

Zell thrust xe’s fingers in xe’s mouth, curled xe’s tongue and let out the loud warbling whistle which was the emergency summons that was supposed to bring the ixis together.

One by one those still alive came back. Four womenXaca, Nyen, Luca, Patal. Two anyas-Wann and Hidan, neither of them in egg nor yet in bond. Two young fernlits, the last of the ixis children-Kanilli who was Xaca’s daughter and Zaro whose mother had a stake through her heart, whose anya was bones with the others.

They came separately from under the trees but stood huddled together near the blackened spot where the Praise fire had been. They were silent, even Luca, standing with eyes down, looking uncertain, fear stronger than grief.

Wintshikan left the pile of the dead and came to stand with her arm about Zell’s shoulders. She drew in a breath, let it out. “Xaca, see if you can find a knife, a pot that’s usable. We need to bless the dead.”

Luca lifted her head. “We’ve got to get out of here, they’re going to come back this way. You know that. You have to know that.”

“We will keep as much hold on the decencies as we can, Luca. You did well to warn us before. Would you keep watch for us again?”

Luca brdshed at the hair falling across her face; it was as if she brushed a shadow away. She nodded and trotted off, vanishing up the trail in the direction the hnpix had taken when they left.

“Nyen, Patal, help me carry the dead into the trees and lay them out. The rest of you bring wood for the Eating Fire and look through what’s left of the tents, see what we can still use.”

Wintshikan lifted the small bowl that Kanilli had found among the rubble, a twisty line of steam rising from the bits of brain and marrow inside it. “The Prophet says the body is borrowed from earth and returns to earth when the spirit departs. Brother, Sister, Anya, we call you into ourselves, into the Remnant of Shishim.”

She lowered the bowl, dipped into it with thumb and forefinger. “Blind Bah, you were a good mal and true, following the Right Way with a whole heart and a good head.” She ate the bit of brain, passed the bowl to Zell, who dipped and signed Praise for another of the dead, and so it went, round the small circle till all the dead were remembered and the remnants consumed.

The bodies and fragments of the dead were laid out in the forest, the possessions of the ixis that were unusable were burned or left to rot like the dead, away from the camp and the trail; what remained was sorted into piles for cleaning and dividing up among the living.

Zell’s whistle brought the ixis together an hour after the ritual eating. Even Luca came running.

Wintshikan stroked her hand along the Shawl; then, to the gasps of the others she took it from her shoulders, folded it, and set it on the ground before her feet. She straightened, lifted her head. It was a moment before she could force the words out. “I am not fit to be Heka. I am hohekil. I find this war unGodly, and I will no longer be a part of it.”

Xaca snapped her fingers and leaped across the ground to stand beside Wintshikan. “I, too. Him who took me to my tent, took me like I was nothing, gave no heed to my needs or my joy, only pleasured himself. And are the others any different, Imp or Pixa, does it matter any more? When did this change? When did we become less than a hole in the ground?”

Luca stepped from the shadows. “They knew they were followed. I heard them talking when they left. That’s why I watched. Heka Wintshikan, did the Phelmal warn you about this? Did any of that phela warn anyone that there was danger? I see they didn’t. They didn’t care what happened to us. No, it’s worse. They used us to give them time to get away. They knew the Impix would do what they did. They had to know.”

Nyen came forward, lifted the Shawl, shook it free of leaves and twigs and held it out to Wintshikan. “Don’t walk away from us, Heka. We need you. Tell us what to do.”

Wann and Hidan whistled distress, signed agreement with large emphatic gestures.

Kanilli and Zaro ran to Xaca, stood beside her.

Patal was the last. She looked around at the camp; it was clean now, the bodies gone, even the bloodstains were brushed away. “It’s hard,” she said. “You throw away a thousand years when you leave the Round. I can’t do it. I’m not as strong as the rest of you. I wish you well. I think you’re wrong. In the morning I’ll go down the mountain to Shaleywa. It’s Meeting Time, there’ll be others there. I… wish I could stay with you, you’re my family. I can’t.”

Wintshikan sighed, took the Shawl and snapped it round her shoulders. “We’ll go north to Linojin. Peddlers say there’s peace there still. Not even the unGodly touch the quiet of the Holy City. Patal, I won’t force another’s truth to match my own. God keep you safe and well.”