The Godspeaker Trilogy Read Online Free PDF

wish to travel there again, Aba. Make a note.”
    “We travel where the god desires,” said Abajai. “Now let us do our duty to the godpost, then seek a pleasant place to camp.”
    There was a godpost, Hekat saw, a little further along the road. Tall and grim and scorpion-carved, with a white stone crow at its top. No godbowl for offerings at its base, but a craggy lump of blue crystal. Abajai and Yagji halted their camels and the slave train, and Hekat watched as Abajai went to the godpost, took two small carved cylinders from his robe’s pocket and pressed them to the unremarkable stone. Bright light flared, brief as a falling star. Surprised, she looked at Yagji.
    “The warlord guards the borders of his lands,” said Yagji. “Traders travel wherever they please, but still we must announce our presence and prove we have paid our road-right taxes.”
    She did not know what a warlord was, or understand what Yagji meant or how Abajai had made the light flare from the stone.
    “Tchut tchut,” Yagji said, impatient with her not knowing. “Let Aba explain if he wishes. I couldn’t care less what you know and what you do not.”
    But Abajai wasn’t interested in talking of stones and warlords when he returned to his camel. He only cared for making camp. As they rode on, looking for the best place to spend the night, she saw small grey animals with long ears in the grass on either side of them. Abajai gave his word and Obid killed the bounding creatures with a slingshot. Every time he stuffed a limp body into the sack slung over his shoulder he flashed Abajai a broad smile.
    “Rabbits,” said Abajai, seeing her confusion. “You do not know rabbits?”
    She shook her head. “No rabbits village.”
    “You are far from your village now, Hekat. Forget that place, it does not exist.”
    She nodded. “Yes, Abajai. How far Todorok village?”
    “We will reach it a finger or two past highsun tomorrow.”
    “More honey there?” she asked him hopefully.
    That made him laugh. “Perhaps. Slaves, too.”
    She felt a moment’s prickling. If he found a she-brat more precious than her . . . “Many slaves now.”
    “There is no such thing as too many slaves, Hekat.”
    They should talk of something else. She frowned, and carefully put her words together in the way he told her she must. “How far is Et-Raklion?”
    He made a pleased sound in his throat. “Many godmoons caravanning still. Your village lies at the doorstep of The Anvil, Hekat. The Anvil. You know it?”
    She nodded. The Anvil was the fierce forever desert one highsun’s ride from the village godpost. She’d never seen it, of course, but knew of men and boys lured into it hunting sandcats, who were never seen again. She used to wish the man would be so foolish.
    “Et-Raklion sits at the far side of Mijak. Et-Raklion city, where the warlord lives, where we live, lies close to the Mijaki border, half a godmoon’s swift travel from the Sand River.”
    Bewildered, she wriggled around to look at him. “Border? Sand River?”
    He shook his head. “Your world would fit in a stunted nutshell. Hekat. The border is where Mijak ends. The Sand River is a desert, like The Anvil, though not as vast. You understand?”
    Beside them, Yagji roused. “Save your breath, Aba. It doesn’t need geography. Teach it a dozen ways to spread its legs and it’ll know more than enough for our purpose.”
    She struggled to untangle his meaning. “Mijak ends?”
    “Yes.” Abajai rested his warm hand on the back of her neck. “At the Sand River. Beyond the Sand River lie other lands. We do not go to those places, the people there are dead to us.”
    “Why?”
    Abajai shrugged. “Because the god has said it.”
    “Why?”
    Yagji squealed and kissed his lizard-foot amulet. Abajai’s fingers closed around her neck, painted nails biting her throat, and his lips touched her ear. “You wish to live, Hekat?”
    Heart pounding, she nodded. Abajai’s voice had turned dark and cold.