Sorcerous Sea (Island Warrior Book 3) by Carol Severance

Author:Carol Severance [Severance, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

A killing song? Vatu sent a quick glance toward the place where Pala had disappeared into the jungle.

Huluhulu nodded. “I can fix your hands, drummer girl. I can even repair most of the damage to your skin—I know that's important to you. But in exchange, you must use your drummers’ magic to help me escape this place.”

Vatu felt a sudden hot surge of hope. She feared this hair-covered healer. She trembled with terror. She was much more afraid of Huluhulu than she was of Pala, because it was clear that at least Pala was human.

But she would do anything to regain the use of her hands.

She lifted her chin and flicked her brows in acknowledgment.

“Vatu kill good,” she said.

She forced her wrists to relax in the healer's grip. She doubted she could actually kill Pala, but she wasn't going to tell the healer that. She knew the death songs well enough. She knew two of them—every beat and every tone. She had practiced them in her mind every day since she had come to this place.

But she had no drum. Not even a simple one. To be truly effective, a killing rhythm had to be beaten on a drum stretched with the skin of the species it was intended to kill. She might be able to get some fish skins here, or maybe even small swamp animals, skagrats, or spider-snakes. Maybe even a piece of shark skin. But there was no way to get human—

Vatu turned suddenly to stare across the clearing. The girl with the burn scars was on her knees in the sand, wrapping the shark-torn meat in ti leaves.

“What is it?” Huluhulu asked. “What is she doing?”

Vatu licked her lips. Her fingers twitched in excitement. She winced.

“Cook,” she said.

Huluhulu's look snapped back to Vatu. “Cook! Do you mean she's going to cook those remains?”

Vatu nodded.

“Pala feeds you with human flesh?”

Vatu pulled carefully against the healer's restraining hands. Huluhulu let her go.

“No eat.”

“Why cook it then?”

Vatu shrugged. She had no idea what Pala did with the meat once it was taken from the underground oven. She remembered being driven to ravenous hunger more than once by the odor of roasting flesh. Usually it was wilihound or some swamp creature, but more than once it had been human. As far as she knew, the meat had never been offered to any of the children to eat. At Pala's order, Toni'i and some of the others carried it, still steaming, back into the jungle. Vatu had never seen it again.

She turned her look back across the clearing. Did she dare to ask...

“Ahh, ahh, of course,” Huluhulu said softly. “You want what's left of that child's skin, don't you? You need the skin to make a killing drum. Gods, but this is an evil place.”

Vatu met the healer's look.

She remembered suddenly that Pala had called Huluhulu a girl, a female. For just an instant, she wondered again if it might be true, but then decided it wasn't. No female, not even her mother Kahaki'i, would be brave enough to try to kill so powerful a sorcerer.

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