Cold Steel (Page 28)
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
He looked me up and down suggestively. “Do you play with the sword attached? Like a man? It will only get in your way.”
“I will not give the sword into anyone’s hand except my brother’s.” Although I looked around the central area, I could not see Rory. “If you bring him to me and let him watch, then I will let him hold it for me.”
“You do not ask what will happen if you do not score a point.”
“I see no need to ask,” I said.
He laughed. A second laugh echoed him in a mist of rain. At the other end of the ballcourt rose another platform. There another man sat cross-legged. He had skin the color of waves and hair like long brown seaweed: It was Thunder’s brother, Flood, he who had almost drowned me when I had been trapped beneath an overturned boat.
Vai had saved me from the flood.
Resolve steeled my heart. I would not let them intimidate me. “There’s no reason for me to play if I don’t know my brother is safe.”
“I agree,” said Thunder with a suspiciously amused smile. I scarcely had time to blink before a bedraggled saber-toothed cat appeared under the ceiba tree’s lofty roots. With amber eyes fixed on me, he limped the long painful way to the platform. When he arrived, I examined his shoulder. Like my injuries, the wounds were healing unnaturally fast. I pressed a cheek into the coarse black fur of his head, stroking behind his ears.
“I give my sword into your care until I come back for it. Wait for my signal. We may have to retreat quickly.”
I lashed the sword to his body, took a swig of the potent ginger beer, and rubbed my nose against his dry one. At last, I descended onto the ballcourt.
The stone risers, where onlookers sat, swarmed with people and spirits and creatures, some wearing the same form and others shifting through faces as if they had no face of their own. The force of all those gazes made me tremendously uncomfortable, for I preferred the shadows. The players had gathered along the walls of the ballcourt. Most looked as human as I did, but some had the heads of animals or had claws or paws or furled wings. The crowd roared as I looked around to see who would play with me, for alone I could not possibly score. Maybe this was the trick by which Thunder meant to defeat me.
A man strode out to greet me. “Reckon yee don’ know me, gal. Yee saved me from under a boat.”
I’d only briefly caught a glimpse of the frail old man I’d helped rescue from beneath a boathouse during a hurricane. This man was younger, all sinewy flesh and muscle. He looked like a person who might know how to play batey.
He grinned in a likable way, then whistled. More men and women trotted out from the shadows to join us. One introduced himself as Aunty Djeneba’s deceased husband; others were the deceased relatives of the household or kin of people I had a friendly relationship with in Expedition. They were all the spirits of dead ancestors. I knew it because they had no navels. I thanked them and shook their hands in the radical manner. The more recently dead received the gesture with smiles while the older ones were puzzled, for it was a manner of greeting they’d never before seen.
The opposing team assembled. A man pushed to the front like a captain coming to lead his troops. He looked exactly as my husband would have if he had been stripped down to the short cotton loin-skirt worn for batey by men. I stared, my mouth gone quite dry.
He had no navel. Could he be my sire? Was that the trick?
I whispered into the ear of the dead boatman. “He can’t be the opia of my husband, for my husband isn’t dead. Is he a maku?”
“He smell of cohoba and tobacco, like a Taino lord might. I know not who he is. Peradventure he have taken a dislike to yee and mean to distract yee.”
I could play that game! I took a moment to admire how well the opia had transformed himself into Vai’s skin, for his bare shoulders and chest and thighs really were quite admirable, so I admired them with a lift of my eyebrows that made his lovely eyes narrow as if he were bracing for me to cast a spear that he must bat aside.
“You don’t frighten me,” I said. “Quite the contrary.”
He grinned a challenge.
Thunder raised a feathered scepter. A ball dropped into the game. The spirit lord who appeared in the form of Vai tapped it up and down on his knees, never letting it touch the dirt. It was no rubber ball. It was a head with black hair tied into a club. Its waxy features stared.
We were playing batey with the head of the cacica, Queen Anacaona, the mother of the twins Prince Caonabo and the exiled Prince Haübey, called Juba.
But I was the hunter’s daughter. I had to admire their ruthless maneuvering.
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260