Something in me leaped to that name, something billowed like a banner of bright scarlet in the wind, something sang like trumpets. I felt a wild whirl of exaltation, a madly singing, strutting, capering joy. I was the Boss, I was the Man in Charge, I gave the orders round here – and don’t You forget it!
These bokor bastards! They’d thought –
They’d had the nerve to think –
They’d dared to believe they could ride the Invisibles as the Invisibles rode men.
They’d dared try to compel me to help them! Me!
Me –
Me –
Me –
Me –
Me –
Me –
Me!
They’d thought they could sacrifice my friends –
My friends –
To shackle them in iron –
My iron!
And they’d dared to deny Me rum!
RUM!
The rum that was My right. My sign. My lifeblood – they DARED –
I roared. This time I really roared. And the sound went crackling out across the darkness, the guttural thunder of a stalking lion. The flames bent before it. The crowd shrieked, the acolytes dropped their halters and scuttled back, one snatching awkwardly at a cutlass in his belt. The drums stuttered, faltered, failed. They didn’t start again.
My heart was pounding so hard I shook with every beat. Like a tidal wave a red haze swept down on the night – and I went for the nearest Wolf. He lashed out at me barehanded. I caught the arm, wrenched it, seized the bottle from his other hand and hurled him aside. He sprang up, spitting blue murder, and caught me by the throat. With my free hand I seized his wrist, but it was huge – my grip slipped. Something else faltered, something inside. Then behind me I heard Le Stryge rasping out
I heard. I heard –
Very right and proper, too. With a great shout I tilted the bottle to my lips and drained it in one glugging draught. The Wolf boggled. The hot spirit seemed to burst straight from my throat into my veins and suffuse them in a flash, threading my body with tiny lines of tingling fire. I clamped my fingers down on that huge wrist, and felt the squeak and crack of bone. The Wolf yelled, gaped – then crossed his green eyes as I brought the empty bottle smashing down on his half-shaven pate. More Wolves raced at me, maybe three. I threw him sprawling at one, punched another’s nose into pulp and kicked the last in the stomach, because he had a bottle. He whooped and folded, I caught it in mid-air and swigged at it – almost full! I laughed for sheer joy, loud and thunderous, a laugh of liberation. The chains laughed with me and leaped in the air. With an answering chatter all the other shackles flew apart. Jyp and the others fell sprawling, but Le Stryge, still bound, shuffled himself to his knees, hair wild, eyes blazing.
The crowd was a churning mess, the ones at the front trying to get back, the ones at the back pressing forward to see what the fuss was. The Carib guards couldn’t get near us. Through the milling figures the acolyte burst, swinging a cutlass at my head. I chirruped a greeting. The steel blade jerked to a stop in the air before it touched me. The man’s jaw dropped, and I caught his outstretched wrist, shook him like a whipcrack and flung him away in a cartwheel of limbs. He hit a stone and crumpled. Jyp shouted to me; the Caribs were circling around, forcing a way through the crush. I reached down, hoisted him to his feet and tore the ropes off his wrist. A Wolf lunged at me, dirk in hand, bottle in his waistband; he met my own empty coming the other way. I swigged at his, vaguely aware of Jyp seizing the dirk and cutting his feet free, then turning to the rest.
There had to be more rum somewhere –
I saw a bottle and went for whoever was holding it; but a gaggle of Wolves ploughed through panicking humans and barged in on me, trying to snatch me, stab me and generally getting in my way. I damned their nerve, and whistled to the discarded chains. Leaping and nuzzling up to my hands they came, and I grabbed them in my fists and swung them in great loops around my head. Up went the chains with a whistle and whirr, whirling about like a circular saw, scattering my attackers left and right as I advanced. A spear arced over my head, touched that spinning curtain and shattered to matchwood. Those bloody Caribs! I lashed out an arm. The chain went humming off like a bolas and whipped around the leaders, scything the legs from them and catching them up into a screaming tangle of limbs. The others tripped over them, and with a shout Jyp and the men he’d freed were on them, snatching their spears and clubs and returning them with interest.
They were obviously managing, so I looked around hopefully for more rum. And something else I didn’t have, something I couldn’t quite remember – but it was preying on my mind, like an itch I couldn’t scratch. Meanwhile I wanted rum. Most of the humans in the crowd were unarmed, or had only light weapons, and after I felled a few who pulled knives they were only too ready to get out of my way. One tugged a long-barreled pistol out of his robe, got the hammer snagged for a second and didn’t live to regret it. But up on the altar a high thin voice was shrieking out orders or invocations or both, calling his real fighters to heel. Against the fires I saw Wolves mustering there in answer, handing round swords and other weapons they must have had laid by in case of trouble.
Swords! That’s what the itch was! My fingers clamped shut where a hilt had been. Of course! Those lousy bastards – they’d taken it! Chained me in iron – rum denied me – stolen my sword – my sword – I’d show them, the scumbags!
I took one howling breath, and smelt on it the special savour of the steel. I blew the breath out in a shivering, blasting whistle, thin and sharp as starlight. The flames blew flat, the air quivered, men threw themselves down and clutched their ears – and up above the altar something leaped high into the blackness, with a bejewelled hand snatching vainly after it, Don Pedro’s. In the night it hung, spinning madly about its axis like some crazy airscrew, growing larger – larger – closer – until there was the stinging smack of the shark-skin grip in my palm, and the sudden glorious weight. I held it up and howled with delight – till I saw the gore that caked it. That little prick! Slaughtering his foul mangés with my sword –
Mine –
Mine –
Mine –
I howled again. Not with delight, this time. The main group of Wolves were beginning to press through the crowd, but it stopped them in their tracks. Behind me I was vaguely aware of Jyp protesting to Stryge as he cut him loose ‘What the hell’s happened to him? What’ve you done? You get him back, you hear, you goddam’ old vulture? Or if Don Pedro don’t settle your hash I swear to God I will!’
‘I did nothing!’ brayed the old man contemptuously. ‘He did it himself! The one thing Don Pedro wouldn’t have bargained for – that the idiot boy had belly enough left to try and kill himself! As I meant him to! Only he tried it at the right time – when they were calling down a loa! Spilling the blood of others – but he was spilling his own! And to help others, not himself! There’s no sacrifice stronger than that – no offering you can make greater than yourself!’