Shaman's Crossing (The Soldier Son Trilogy #1)

We saw the reptile man with his scaled body, and the tattooed lady whose skin was covered in images of flowers. A pincushion man drove long needles through his cheeks and then stuck a nail far up his nose. I had to look away from that. Twin boys ate fire. In a murky tank, a mermaid surfaced briefly, waved her webbed hands, flipped her tail at us, and then vanished again beneath the greenish water. An albino girl blinked red eyes at us within her hooded cape. A man swallowed a sword and drew it out again.

On and on we trudged, past wonder after wonder. Three tall warriors from distant Marrea danced in a circle as they flung knives at one another, plucking them out of the air before the blades could reach their targets. In the next cage, a bear-boy snuffled and snorted through his feed. Hair was thick on his arms and down his back, and his little black eyes were devoid of human intelligence.

In the next enclosure, three Specks from the distant mountains huddled together under a blanket inside a large wooden crate turned on its side. At first, I could see only their mottled faces and oddly striped hands as they peered out at us from the crate’s shelter. They all had long, unevenly colored hair that hung untended around their shoulders. They looked cold and uncomfortable, and showed no signs of enjoying displaying themselves as the mermaid and skeleton man had. It was only when Rory took a plug of chewing tobacco from his pocket that they stirred to life. Then they threw aside their blanket and raced to the edge of their cage, thrusting their hands out through the bars beseechingly. There were two men, one of them old, and a woman. The men wore rags about their loins, the woman nothing at all. The old man moaned piteously, but the woman spoke clearly. “Tobacco, tobacco. Give some to me. Please, please, please. Tobacco, tobacco!”

She smiled sweetly as she spoke, her voice reminding me of a clamoring child. It was an unsettling contrast to the way she shamelessly pressed her body against the bars of the enclosure to enable her to reach toward us. We stared, transfixed. Her breasts were full and round, her haunches sleek. The markings on her skin wrapped her flesh and were echoed in her multicolored hair. From where I stood, I could see the dark stripe that ran up her spine, and the mottled stripes that radiated from it. She was not piebald like a horse, not spotted like a jungle cat. The stripes varied in color from pale yellow to almost black, yet were obviously the pigments of her own skin, not an applied cosmetic. Black lined her eyes as if she had applied kohl, but when she licked her lips eagerly, I saw that her tongue was also banded with color. An extraordinary thrill ran through me; she was woman and wild animal, all in one, and the abrupt desire I felt shamed me. Her childish begging seemed innocent and natural in contrast to her tempting body. Rory held the tobacco out of her reach; with his free hand, he reached through the bars to stroke her haunch. She made no objection, but only giggled and tried to reach the tobacco in his other hand. He laughed drunkenly, as focused on her as if they were alone. I watched fascinated by desire as he slipped his hand over her knee and began to slide it up her inner thigh. She grew very still; her lips parted and she breathed through her mouth.

The keeper, who had been sitting bored on an upended keg beside the cage, stood suddenly. He was a scraggly fellow in a soiled striped shirt and rough canvas trousers. He hurried over to us, pushing his way through the crowd. He elbowed Rory back and jabbed at the Speck woman with a prod, ordering her angrily, “Back, back!” Then he turned on us and commanded us, “Step back from the bars. Don’t give them ’baccy, fella! It’s how we train them. Don’t you reward them for actin’ up. Get back, Princess. Gimpy, get back!”

The young female had completely captured my attention. For the first time, I noticed that the younger male had a shattered foot. Gimpy drew back warily from the keeper’s prod. He had not spoken a word. But when the keeper jabbed Princess, she turned on him, hissing. Then, in unaccented passion, she unleashed a stream of the foulest invective I’d ever heard. She finished it with, “A worm crawled up your mother’s hole and laid an egg in her womb, and that was you! Your trees have no roots and your dead do not speak to you! You lick yourself and think your vermin a fine meal! You-”

Before she could mouth another insult, the uncrippled male slapped her. “Quiet, quiet, quiet! Be good. Show the gennlemun your breasts.” Then, as she staggered back from the blow, he turned to the keeper. “I’m good. I’m good. ’Baccy, ’baccy? Some for good Beggar?”

“A bit,” the keeper conceded. From his pocket he took a black plug of crude leaf. I could smell the molasses mixed with it. He broke off a tiny crumble and put it into Beggar’s hand. Before he could carry it to his mouth, Princess attacked him. They tumbled to the straw on the floor of the cage, wrestling over the prize. The crippled Speck looked on, rocking from his good foot to his sound one, but not intervening. The surrounding crowd gave up a mixture of cries of alarm and applause. The keeper gauged it as general approval and let them fight. The male seemed intent mostly on getting his hand up to his mouth and wriggled away from the female’s blows and scratches. The sight of the two, near naked and struggling supine, was both disturbing and arousing.