Bloodsongs by Robin W Bailey Page A

scarlet spray fountained as he fell to the ground, and an obscene hissing was heard as the air in his lungs escaped through the ruin of his throat. Yorul’s mouth rounded in a silent scream; one hand scraped spasmodically in the dirt. Then he was still.
    An angry roar went up around the compound.
    Samidar faced Riothamus, unable to repress the strange grin that spread over her face. A dizzy, light-headed sensation rushed through her. She raised her dripping weapon and her blood-spattered hands. “An old thirst is quenched,” she shouted at the Keled king. “Kirigi is revenged, and that dancing bear”—she looked at Yorul’s body and spat on it—“will dance no more.”
    Riothamus stared back, pale and disbelieving, his eyes full of accusation.
    The sacred rite of Zha-Nakred Salah Veh meant nothing to her. She had avenged her son. His spirit could rest easier. But another thought came to her even as she stood there. What of Kel? Her firstborn was as guilty of Kirigi’s death as Yorul.
    The sword tumbled from fingers gone suddenly numb.   As it hit the ground it raised the tiniest cloud of dust that quickly settled again on the length of bloody steel. Just as suddenly, laughter exploded from her and tears of hysteria gushed down her face.
    â€œHang her!” Riothamus raged. “Take her to the gate and hang her! Leave her there until the flesh drips from her bones! Honorless whore!”
    Hands seized her, dragged her unresisting across the compound. Her mouth seemed beyond her control, and words flowed forth in a torrent as she heaped curses on Yorul’s corpse. That he was dead was not enough. She damned him in every language she knew, to every hell she had ever heard of, in the name of every conceivable god, until she could no longer see his hated body for the soldiers that surrounded her.
    They dragged her to the compound gate, then through.
    It was over. She could do nothing more for Kirigi. Somehow, she got her feet beneath her and managed to walk with a peculiar calm. Her arms were twisted cruelly behind her, but she felt no pain. She felt nothing but a sweet detachment. The streets seemed familiar, and familiar faces leaned from windows and doors. She smiled at them, friends and neighbors, men she had done business with.
    The city gate loomed. A broad wooden beam spanned the opening. They would toss the rope over that, she knew, and haul her up. But what would they anchor it to? She saw nothing that would serve. Would they hold the end themselves? No, surely not till the flesh dripped from her bones.
    She gazed beyond the gate. Down the road she could see her inn, closed, no one at home.
    The rope sailed upward, uncoiling, and draped like a strand of silk over the blunt, rough bar. She waited, filled with an eerie calm, for someone to tie it around her neck.
    Then a short gasp sounded in her ear, and the hands upon her relaxed. She turned. Sun glinted on sword steel. For an impossible instant she was back in the compound facing Yorul. Sword sliced through soft throat, rose and fell again. Metal clanged on metal, a blow thwarted, then blood.
    It ended very swiftly.
    â€œFour,” she said dimly, staring at the bodies of her guards. Two lay with their backs slashed open, swords undrawn. One of them gripped the end of the rope. Another lay bleeding from a throat wound. The last was split from groin to breastbone.
    Someone grabbed her hand. “Come on!” a voice whispered urgently. “Hurry, damn ye!”
    She let herself be pulled back into the city, around a corner, and down an alley. Someone will find the bodies , she thought to herself. They won’t be left to rot until the flesh drips from their bones .
    She stopped suddenly, jerked to a halt by her sleeve. Something was forced into her hands. Someone was pushing and shoving, trying to lift her, touching where they shouldn’t touch. She didn’t like it. Not at all. The guards had pushed her