“The island’s got trees,” Teng said. “That means it’s got water.”
Shang nodded. Their water casks were almost empty, their food supplies practically gone, and the men were desperate for relief from the blazing tropical sun. “Then it could be the storm was our gods’ way of bringing us here,” the warlord said.
“That storm was a warrior god’s bellow, all right,” Teng agreed. He nodded contemptuously at the statues. “Not the whimper of them.”
“Of course,” Shang said. They had barely escaped with their lives after Shang’s rebellion failed, but now they had a means to repair their ship, resupply it and return to finish the battle. The men, his most loyal warriors, would see that their leader could turn defeat into victory, and was so strong even the gods conspired to help him. Once they returned and word spread of his power, even more would rally to his standard. The old king wouldn’t stand a chance. “Get the men to the oars and let’s make landfall.”
Teng nodded. The crew were testy, short-tempered and starving, and he looked forward to leading them through the streets of any villages that might be unlucky enough to be on the island. He yelled orders, and the men hurried to obey because they knew it would get them off the ship that much sooner.
Shang stood in the center of the village, pacing before the male captives. The women were locked in one of the few remaining, pathetic huts, awaiting his men’s pleasure. That would come tonight, along with drink from the jugs of whatever these savages fermented. But for now, he wanted them to understand how beaten they truly were.
Smoke filled the air from the other burning huts. The village held about a hundred people, but most of the children had run off into the surrounding jungle. The warlord did not worry about them; children were useful only as hostages, and he had no need for them now. He could wipe out every human on the island with a word.
“Bring me the leader,” he said.
Shang’s men pushed an old man, his hands bound tightly before him, out of the crowd and to his knees before the warlord. Like the rest of these vermin, the elder wore a long loin cloth, and his dark, reddish skin was painted with elaborate designs. Some of them were smeared where he’d been manhandled.
Shang glared down at him and said, “You speak my language, I understand.”
The old man nodded. “A sailor from your people lived with my family for years. He washed up here and we gave him shelter. He lived and died as one of us.”
“That’s lucky. Otherwise, I’d have no use for you. What’s your name, old man?”
“Arto.”
“I want you to tell your people what I say to you, Arto.”
“I think you’ve made yourself clear,” the old man said.
Shang slapped him hard, and he fell to the dirt. The other tribal men, bound painfully and tightly together, glared at Shang but kept silent. They had been completely unprepared for the attack, so secure in their isolation that they had weapons only useful for hunting birds. The battle had taken mere minutes.
“I am Shang. I am a warrior, and you are either allies or enemies.” Then to the old man, he barked, “Tell them!”
Arto rose painfully to his knees and repeated the words in his own language.
“We have no intention of staying on this miserable island any longer than necessary. We will repair our ship, fill it with food and water, and then return to civilization. While we are here, you are our slaves. Some of you will resist, but I’m not speaking to them right now. To the ones sensible enough to understand your new roles, I will only say this once: disobey or hesitate when I give you an order, and I will castrate you. Do it a second time, I will take your tongue. A third time, your eyes.” He smiled as the old man relayed the information, and enjoyed the change in the prisoners’ faces.
One young man, clearly the defiant kind, said something. The warlord looked at Arto, who said, “He asks how many times they must fail before you kill them.”
“I won’t,” Shang said. “I’ll just keep lopping off pieces of you until you cease to amuse me.”
Arto translated, and the men looked even more terrified.
Shang continued, “Soon we will return to our kingdom, and some of you will come with us. The strongest men…and the most beautiful women. The rest of you, if you’re lucky, may remain here with your lives. If you cause us difficulty, I will leave this island a smoking husk. That is your only warning.”
The men cowered away from Shang, and pressed tightly together. A couple of them began to cry.
The warlord shook his head. He despised men who blubbered like women or children. “Whip them,” he said to one of his men. “Give them something to cry about.”
As his commands were obeyed, Teng joined him and said, “They won’t make warriors.”
“Perhaps not, but we can use their muscles just the same. And the wombs of their women will produce a fresh generation, one we can teach in the ways of the sword. I expect the belly of every woman in that hut to swell with our seed. Am I clear?”
“As the sky after a storm,” Teng said.
“That’s my father,” Rito whispered. She was thirteen years old, tall for her age but still thin and wiry with youth. She hunched in the bushes at the edge of the village and watched the stranger whip the men where they knelt. Her father had been the one who asked when they would be killed.
“My father is in there, too,” her best friend Eru said. He was twelve, shorter, muscular, and yet preferred to practice painting on rocks rather than play any games or learn the skills of the hunter. Rito was far better versed in the tasks adults would need, but their friendship survived despite this; their parents assumed they would one day marry.
“And our mothers and sisters are in that hut, waiting to be taken,” Rito hissed angrily. Her fists clenched in fury. “I would rather die trying to rescue them than watch that happen.”
“If you rush in there like a silly furo bird, then you’ll get your wish,” Eru said. “Or you’ll be forced to join them.”
“So we should just do nothing, then?” she almost yelled.
“Quiet! If they hear us, they’ll come after us, and we have no weapons to kill anything bigger than a dakulo.” He held up the little stone knife he used to carve figures from wood. “This is all I have. Do you have anything?”
Rito shook with the effort of controlling her anger. She knew Eru was right. She blinked away the hot tears that burned their way from her eyes with every distant crack of the whip.
At last, the whipping stopped. The bound men lay on the ground, bloodied and whimpering. No one moved to help them. In fact, the invaders laughed. From within the hut women sobbed, and the children too small to run away cried as they sensed their mothers’ terror.
Rito could barely contain her rage. Only the certainty that she’d be cut down within moments of showing herself kept her from charging out of her hiding place. Then she felt Eru’s hand on her shoulder.
“We have to get away from here,” he said into her ear.
“I can’t—”
“I have something important to tell you, but not here.”
She turned and looked into his eyes. They were dark and kind, without the arrogance of the other boys. Eru had never done stupid things to impress her, the way the rest had done; he’d never attempted to steal a kiss or watched her bathe from the jungle shadows. Perhaps for that reason, Rito never really thought of him as a boy, just as her friend, despite her parents’ knowing smiles and chuckles. But now there was a stern determination in his eyes, a new glimmer of manhood. She nodded.
One of Shang’s men caught a hint of movement, and strode over to jab a spear into the bushes where they’d been hiding. When nothing emerged or cried out in pain, he rejoined the others.