Chapter 129 - Exodus of the Neirie, 23,000 Years Ago part 7

"No!" I cried. "Ancestors, no!"

The Neirie men had prostrated themselves. They were pressing their foreheads to the ground with their arms stretched out before them. I could not understand the words they were babbling, but the intent was obvious. They were chanting, praying to me, as if I were some incarnate deity.

I strode toward the emaciated men, shouting, "Stand up! What are you doing? Do you really wish to trade one master for another?"

The men nearest to me moaned, trembling at the fury in my voice, but none rose. I realized that, in my outrage, I had shouted at them in my native tongue, the language of the River People. I switched to the tongue of the Denghoi, the language spoken by Ilio's tribe, which the slave woman Aioa had known. Surely some of these Neirie must speak Denghoi.

"Stand! Stand! Up on your feet! You are not slaves! You are free men! Do not grovel in the dirt, you fools!"

A few of the men seemed to understand. They raised their foreheads from the ground, blinking at me in fear and confusion.

"Up!" I cried, gesturing with my arms. "I said 'up'! Would you trade one master for another?"

The few who understood Denghoi rose haltingly. They stared at me in disbelief, then called out to their brothers. I smiled and nodded my head as the rest of the Neirie men clambered one by one to their feet.

I recognized one of the men from the Oombai festival Ilio and I had attended. It was the giant with the curly red hair. The one who had been forced to mate publicly for the entertainment of the Oombai. I could tell from his bold gaze that he was the leader of these men… or would be soon, when they looked for one to command them.

"You there. What is your name?" I asked him.

"Tapas," he said. His voice was a deep baritone.

He stood two heads taller than I… and I was an unusually tall man. Nearly a head taller than most of my peers.

It was strange looking up at someone rather than down, as I was accustomed to doing. If I were a mortal, I might have been intimidated.

"Tell your men that I am no god, Tapas," I said.

I consciously softened my voice. I did not want them to worship me, but I did not want to sound as if I were giving orders either. I wanted them to regard me as an equal… or as near to an equal as a mortal can feel standing in the presence of a powerful blood drinker.

Tapas had a long, squarish face with crude, ugly features, his flesh riddled with scars, but his eyes were bright and intelligent. He called out to the others.

They crept forward uncertainly, looking to him for guidance.

Tapas talked to them in a rapid, sharp-sounding tongue. One of the men shouted out a question, and he replied sternly. 

The one who had shouted glared at me with hostility, or perhaps it was simply hatred for my kind. He would try to kill me some time later, this man, but he was a stranger to me that day. At the time, I only thought it odd that he should glare at me so venomously, considering I'd most likely saved his life.

Tapas returned his attention to me.

"You are T'sukuru," he said.

It was the Oombai word for "blood drinker".

I nodded. "I am called Thest."

The red-headed giant bowed his head. "I saw you sitting at the festival with Bhulloch and the other Elders."

"I was not there willingly," I told him.

"We suspected as much," Tapas said. "Though I was not there during the battle which ensued, there was much talk among the slave caste concerning the melee. It was said that the Elders slew your companion...?"

"My son yet lives," I said, and the giant looked surprised.

He absorbed that information for a moment, then leaned toward me with a grin. "I was watching from my pen two nights later when you flew down from the tree and killed the ancient one called Y'vort. It was quite entertaining."

"The Oombai Elders offended me greatly. I could not let such a transgression go unpunished."

One of the men standing nearby tapped Tapas on the shoulder. The giant leaned down and the bearded man whispered into his ear. He needn't have covered his lips with his hand, however. His words were a mystery to me… though his language sounded oddly familiar.

Tapas nodded to the whisperer, then stood straight again. 

"This man says the name 'Thest' is known to his people," Tapas said, regarding me with keen interest. "He says it is the name of one of their gods."

The bearded whisperer ogled me with religious awe.

"A Neirie god?" I asked, confused.

"Do not call us Neirie!" Tapas snapped, anger flushing his cheeks. He wrestled with his temper, then smiled at me contritely. "I apologize, but Neirie is the Oombai word for 'taken'. I am from a tribe called the Vis'hantu. There are Pruss and Tanti and also Grell among our numbers. We were stolen from our homelands by those Oombai whoremasters, but we are no longer 'taken'. We are free men!"

"It was not my intent to offend," I bowed. "I am a stranger to this region. Neirie was the only word I knew to call you."

Tapas spread his open palms, a gesture of acceptance.

I placed my hands on my hips, looked past Tapas to the wounded and dead lying sprawled across the field. "I can help your fallen, if they are not too badly injured," I said. "My T'sukuru blood has healing properties."

Tapas looked suddenly appalled. I think he was ashamed he hadn't thought of it himself. "Yes… yes, of course! If you would grant us such a favor--!"

Of the two dozen men who had engaged the Oombai in battle, nearly half that number had fallen before I joined the fray. Of those, only three were strong enough to recover from their injuries. The rest were either dead or too far gone into the ghost world to be summoned back to the land of the living.

I moved from man to man, hunkering down over the wounded so that I could examine them. I was no medicine man, but I could tell the living from the dead, especially with my enhanced senses. If I did not hear the heart beating inside a man, I moved on. There was nothing I could do for them. Those I found still clinging to life, no matter how grievous their injuries, I tried to heal.

To do this, I summoned the living blood up from the pit of my stomach, then spat it onto my fingers and smeared the glistening fluid onto their wounds. I had learned the trick of it from the Oombai. It is always painful to summon up the Strix. It is easier to slice my tongue with my teeth, but that only renders a few drops of the precious liquid, and the injuries I tried to heal that day required more than just a drop or two. I was trying to heal men who had been gutted, their throats slashed, their heads bashed in. I worked my way across the field of battle as the Neirie observed with superstitious awe, anointing the injuries of their wounded with my blood, then waiting to see if the flesh would respond.

Sometimes it did. If they were not too far gone, their injuries melted away. Vitality returned to their bodies with shocking abruptness, and then they rose, grinning and blinking in disbelief, their compatriots rushing in to embrace them.

One man fell to his knees and began to kiss my feet, sobbing, "Thest! Thest!" over and over.

The awed whispers of the Neirie circled the open field like a swarm of buzzing insects, a low susurration of worshipful voices.

And the carcasses of the Oombai who'd attacked them?

Already the vultures were circling.