predators.”
Leif crossed his arms over his broad chest. But he knew I made sense, so he
couldn’t argue.
“I need to question our prisoner before I go. There could be a chance the other
Vermin might not be targeting my family.”
The man groaned and blinked at me when I woke him from his deep sleep. Moon
Man had been right to tie his arms. There hadn’t been enough Curare left on my
blade to paralyze him.
The Vermin’s tunic and pants had been ripped, and I glimpsed portions of
blackish-red tattoos on his brown skin. Moon Man reached over and ripped the
man’s right sleeve off.
The Story Weaver pointed to the symbols on the man’s arm. “He has made the
proper blood sacrifice to prepare for the Kirakawa ritual. That ink in his skin has
been mixed with blood.” Moon Man’s shoulders dropped as if he grieved. “The
Sandseeds were wise to banish the old rituals.”
“You were misguided and fooled into following the teachings of Guyan,” the
prisoner said. “Not wise but weak and pitiful, giving up your power to become
docile pathetic Story Weavers instead of—”
Moon Man grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him off the ground. Docile
and weak were not words I would have used to describe the Story Weaver.
“Where did you get the instructions?” Moon Man asked, shaking him.
The man smiled. “I am not telling you.”
“Instructions?” I asked.
“The details for the old rituals had been lost to time. At one point in history, we
knew how to perform many different rituals to increase our power. Our clan passes
information down to our children through teaching stories. Once Guyan became our
leader, the evil ones who knew the required steps were killed. The information
should have died with them.” He dropped the Daviian to the ground.
I remembered Dax reading a bunch of ancient tomes when we had tried to
interpret Ferde’s tattoos to discover why Ferde had been raping and killing those
girls.
“There were a few books in the Magician’s Keep. A Sandseed might have written
the instructions and symbols down before they died. Perhaps there is another copy
that the Vermin are using.” I turned to the man. “I guess you’re not going to tell us
what the Vermin’s plans are either?”
He met my gaze and sneered. It was all I needed. My family could be in danger. I
sent a rope of power toward his mind and rifled through his thoughts and memories,
extracting the information I needed. I suppressed the pang of guilt and my
recollections of when Roze Featherstone had tried to examine my mind in a similar
fashion. She had thought I was a spy from Ixia, and the Ethical Code didn’t apply to
spies or criminals. I could argue the same in my defense. Did that make me the same
as Roze? Perhaps. The thought made me uncomfortable.
Besides a few horrid memories of watching an initial level of the Kirakawa ritual,
the man knew almost nothing. Ordered to stay behind and ambush anyone who
came out of the caves, his small unit had scheduled a rendezvous with the larger
jungle group at a later time. Where and when the meeting would be, he had no idea.
And, more important, he didn’t know what the others planned to do.
He had a few tidbits of information. I confirmed that both Cahil and Ferde had
come this way and they traveled with a group of twelve Vermin.
“Fourteen is not enough to win in an attack on the Zaltanas,” Leif said, pride in
his voice.
I agreed. “But winning isn’t everything.”
My anxiety to leave increased a hundredfold. A group of Vermin had entered the
jungle and my clan could be in trouble. Images of my father and mother being
captured and staked to the ground replayed in my mind. The thought of my cousin
Nutty climbing without care through the trees and falling into a trap, hurried my
preparations.
I shouldered my pack, threading my bow through its holder. “What about our
prisoner?” I asked Moon Man.
“I will take care of