Rohant folded his arms across his chest, his dreadlocks bushed out in threat-response, the papillae of his scalp erecting like gooseflesh on an icy day; his eyes narrowed and brightened as the pupils shrank until his stare became hot gold. "Bluff," he said. "Maybe you can throw a fool to the eels without consequences, you can't do us without joining us."
"Perhaps not now, but the march to the Holy Ground is less than four weeks off. Ten days on the Pilgrim Road, three more of ceremony and rite until the Culmination. Count the days, Hunter. Less than fifty, yes?"
"So?"
"The Pakoseo Year ends with the Culmination. After that your value is nil. After that, who cares what happens to you. Do you understand what one is saying?"
Rohant bared his tearing teeth in a broad grin. "So we take our chances. The Wheel turns."
The Nish'mok nodded. "One expected that." Gelid marmalade eyes moved over Shadith, touched Kikun, moved back to her. "Do you concur? Does the Hunter speak for you, Dancer? Singer?'
Kikun hissed, laughed as he saw the Kiscaid flinch. Shadith stared back at the Nish'mok, her mouth set in a stubborn line.
"I see." He swung the chair around, flicked a switch on the corn. "Nahwac, time is." He swiveled back and stood. "It is apparent one must give you further reason for acquiescence. Come."
They emerged from the empty door-lined corridors into the whip of a wind heavy with rain and the salt tang from the sea. They were on a covered walkway that circled three stories above a barren stony court, a pit without shelter from rain or sun or anything else the weather provided. The Nish'mok waved the guards back, pointed at an arcaded overlook. "Stand there, the three of you. Watch."
Down in the pit a door opened. In groups of two, three, five, prodded by unseen kanaweh, a number of locals, men, women, children, came blinking into the watery daylight like revenants from a graveyard-which they might as well have been. Hostages or rebels, whatever they were, what life was left to them was most probably going to be short and painful.
One of the last arrivals was a youngish woman with a kitkew tied to her back. Her legs were cut off at mid-thigh, she had a black patch over one eye and wild black hair twisted into dreadlocks much like Rohant's. A guard more impatient than the rest booted her out of the doorway, then stood watching as she crawled along on stumps and elbows till she reached the north end of the pit-court where there was fractionally more shelter from the rain.
Several young boys separated from the rest and crossed to the woman, moving with a peculiar sliding, sidling gait-prepubescent, thin and ragged, archetypal street urchins. "Miowee." It was almost a song one boy made of her name. The sound came lightly to the listeners despite the wind, clear and sharp, even amplified a little. "Sing for us, Miowee."
About a third of the adults seemed horrified by this turn; they walked away and clustered in a tight knot at the far end of the court. The rest gathered into a ragged arc about the woman, squatting patiently, waiting for her to begin. It probably would have been more politic if she'd refused them, more prudent to keep quiet and refrain from baiting her captors, but even three stories above her, Shadith could see that she was a woman for whom prudence would always be a second choice.
Miowee looked up at Makwahkik and laughed, an unrepentant, irrepressible sound that mocked him and all he represented. Swinging the kitskew around, she bent over it a moment, tuning it, then she swept a cord and threw back her head, fixing her eyes on the watchers above, challenging them to do their worst. She played a complicated effervescent tune that settled quickly to simplicity, the pit acting like a gigantic sound horn.
Forgetting anger in delight, Shadith clutched the rail and leaned into the sound as far as she dared, shivered with pleasure as the streetsinger's rough contralto filled the horn. "Fire in the streets," Miowee sang: There's fire in the streets The streets fill with dead children Children fight your killers with stones Stones and bones build our revolution Revolution burns in our blood Our blood rises in a drowning tide The tide sweeps away the murderers of our souls Our souls burn with Oppla's fire…
Miowee interrupted the chainsong for a passionate cadenza on the kitskew, singing vowel sounds around and through the voice of the instrument, an endless outflow of pain and anguish with an edge of fury. Shadith vibrated to the anger and the artistry, felt an answering passion rise in her. She sang softly with the singer below, not trying to compete with her, following her lead, then stopped to listen as Miowee reclaimed the chain: There's fire in the streets The streets rise against the thieves of our strength Our strength fuels the revolution Revolution builds in our hands Our hands reach out and take hold of life The life your stranglers steal We steal back with steel and stones Stones and children's bones fuel our fury Our fury rages through the streets The streets burn with holy fire
Once again Miowee let the chain slide; she played and crooned, fantasies of pluck and strum, of soaring wordless song that was attack and assertion of her self and cause-and Shadith opened her throat and sang with her, wordless wondrous play and passion, her soprano lifting up and up, echoing, mirroring, plaiting distant harmonies… until Miowee stopped the interplay, stilled the strings with a sudden, powerful dissonance. After a beat of silence, she took up the chain… There's fire in the palaces and factories The factories fill with the stilled breath of dead men Dead men rise and cry out for retribution Retribution rides the winds of revolution Revolution burns with holy fire There's fire in the streets…
"Enough!" Amplified and colder than the rain, the Nish'mok's shout drowned instrument and voice both.
Shadith swung round, furious at the interruption; she opened her mouth to excoriate him-and a laugh was startled out of her as Miowee complied but got in a small dig, a slide down a string, a clown's pratfall in sound.
Makwahkik ignored both of them. "You at the far end, stand with your backs against the wall, the rest of you join the singer. Quickly." The handheld bullhorn filled the space without effort. He wasn't shouting any more. He didn't need to. "Kimeesit."
A kana stepped through the door, touched his chest and bowed, a lean, gray-haired man taller than most. "Move them."
The man bowed again and stepped back inside.
The next several minutes were noisy confusion and deliberate brutality, the meanness of the kanaweh gnawing at Shadith all the more because it was so unnecessary, these people were starvling skeletons with barely enough energy to stand; only the boys were offering any resistance and even that was passive rather than active-they clustered around Miowee, taking on their own bodies the shoves and kicks that were aimed at her, the cuts from the limber, slitted canes.
When the confusion was sorted out, around a dozen prisoners were pressed against the southwall, the rest (about twice the number) were regimented in three rows back against the northwall; eight kanaweh were arranged in a line across the middle, four facing south, four north. Kimeesit stood in the doorway looking up.