In the Land of the Vultures

By Paula C. Scardamalia

Samara dreams of a man to love her and give her children. But while she serves as priestess to the goddess of death that will never happen. No man would dare to touch her. No one, that is, until she is rescued from the desert by a man who compels her to lie about what she is.

For Darouk, as Maker for the realm of Nehmir, death is his enemy. He's lost too many of his family too soon, including his infant nephew. He'd rather give his care and attention to building roads and buildings that last. He won't risk loving and losing a wife and family.

But in order to save the king, the queen, and their chance at happiness, both Samara and Darouk must honor death, then choose love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Dec 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781509223503

Paula C. Scardamalia

Paula Chaffee Scardamalia uses myth and fairy tale, tarot and dreams for her own fiction and nonfiction, as well as tools for helping her book coaching clients. Since 1999, Paula's taught writers at regional and national conferences, like RWA and the International Women’s Writing Guild, how to write stories from the deepest part of their imaginations. She is the award-winning author of the nonfiction book, "Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Lessons from the Loom", and the former dream consultant for PEOPLE Country Magazine. Paula also publishes a newsletter on writing, creativity, tarot and dreams.

Book preview

loss.

Chapter One

From the Desert

Samara blinked against the sun’s unrelenting glare. Its merciless regard evaporated the small beads of sweat that gathered at the edge of the white woven scarf she wore wrapped over her hair and around her face. Unlike the women of her village, who walked many paces ahead of her, her scarf had no stripes or other tribal markings. As priestess to Atiya, she belonged to no one, only the Goddess of Death.

Which isolated her on this exodus as it had in the village. She walked many paces back, at the end of the line of people that stretched across the dry, arid land before her, like a herd of unruly goats seeking greener pastures. After generations of living by the River Zsara, the tribe was on the move, parallel to the almost dry riverbed, in search of water and a place to relocate. They had trekked one day and night, stopping only in the middle of the cool night to rest. The heat and abrasion of the sand scraped thin the soles of her sandals, blistering her feet. She would not complain. Others limped, too.

She licked her lips with a parched tongue. Even the muddy water in her water pouch would taste good now, but she must endure without for as long as possible. She distracted herself by imagining she was somewhere else, that she was someone else, and living her dream. She was one of the village women, raised by caring parents, married to a man who loved her and worked hard to feed her and their many dark-haired children. Together, they denied themselves food and drink so the children, who clung to her skirts or were carried by him, were nourished during the long trek through the desert.

She winced as she stepped on a small rock in the path. This was her reality, not the other. No man desired a woman who served Death. She was still young, having seen only eighteen rainy seasons, but it was foolish to hope for love or marriage or children. She should be grateful for what she had but what was that really? Respect—and fear. Not love. Not even friendship. Again, she wondered what life would have been like if her parents had not abandoned her in the desert as an infant, squalling her plight to an empty sky. Sometimes, Samara found it hard to be grateful to the old priestess who had rescued and raised her to take her place.

Limping, she forced one foot in front of the other. Breathe. Another foot. Another. Until suddenly, other feet blocked hers. She halted and raised her head, surprised to find someone so close to her. Before her stood the headman and a woman whose husband’s bones she’d buried before the journey. Just one more victim of the drought. The woman held the motionless body of a young girl clothed in a simple tunic muddy with age and dirt, while two small children, a little boy who would not look at her and a younger girl with too-big eyes, clung to the woman’s skirts. The woman’s face was drawn into the familiar lines of grief.

Please, the woman begged from behind her own head scarf with the village’s distinguishing three red stripes. She held out the child to Samara. Please, you are the priestess. My child, my Lina is dying. Will you, please… You must… A sob broke loose but the woman automatically blinked back her tears as the other two children buried their faces in her robe.

The headman spoke up. You must do your duty, Priestess. See to this child’s body.

The mother flinched, cradling the child closer to her. I beg you, Priestess, to care for my Lina. Please, stay with her until…until after it is done and her spirit has crossed to the Land of Rivers. Please? She pushed the child at Samara.

She put her arms behind her and stepped back. The child was still alive? Why did the mother want Samara to take her? But… Samara protested. The headman held up his hand and she swallowed the rest of her words.

Do this, Priestess, please, the head man said, though he looked over her shoulder and not at her.

The child is almost gone…and I must, I must care for my other little ones if we are to keep up with the others. The mother wept, nodding down at the small children beside her.

And once she is gone… The headman shrugged, looking at the girl then back at the line of slow-moving people. We cannot travel with her in this heat and we cannot leave her body untended or—he licked his lips—or her spirit will wander, perhaps follow us. He threw back his shoulders. Besides, it is your duty to do this.

Eyes downcast, the mother held out her beloved burden once again. Samara’s throat tightened against the protest she wanted to yell at both of them. How could they? They were not just asking her to do her duty but to do it knowing she too might die here with the child, beneath the unblinking sun. But she shoved the thought and the accompanying desire to cry aside. After all, perhaps death was the better path. But still… A child? Numbly, she raised her arms. The mother slowly shifted her child into them and, face twisted with grief, brushed dark strands of hair back from the girl’s cheek.

You will bury her bones then——and care for her spirit?

Samara shifted and settled the child in her arms.

Yes, she answered the mother, then looked at the headman, her chin raised, but how will I find you when it is done? Only one of the vultures followed us. It could take many hours for Shadow Wing to clean…

We will mark our path. The head man jerked a bow, placing a small water bag at her feet along with a strip of dried goat, and backed away saying, This is all we can give you, Priestess. Be sparing with it.

As if she hadn’t already eked out every bite of meat and every drop of water in the last few days.

His problem solved, the headman turned from the mother and her, and strode back to his place at the head of the tribe, where he tucked his hand under his wife’s elbow and led her away. The people walked after him, eager to find a new source of water, a more welcoming place to call home. The mother looked back at the line of people then down at her dying child.

Please, Priestess, the mother said, catching a rebellious tear that had escaped down her cheek and setting it to her child’s lips.

The love in the mother’s eyes as she touched the precious fluid to her dying daughter’s lips, stirred up long-buried emotions. Oh, that someone would love her in that way.

I’ll take care of her, Samara whispered, feeling the heat that radiated from the small form. Dark lashes feathered the hollow cheeks. The girl’s lips were dry and cracked; the hair against Samara’s arms, dry and thin. How could she say no? She was priestess to Atiya. The headman was right. It was her duty to care for the bodies of the dead, guard them while the sacred vultures consumed flesh and sinew at the Table of Death, and to escort the spirits to the Land of Rivers if the vultures didn’t. No one wanted a spirit wandering alone in the land of the living.

She looked from the mother to the retreating backs of the tribe. The headman had to know he was sentencing her to death, but no one in the village would miss her until someone else died. Sighing, she said, And I will bury her bones and care for her spirit.

The mother nodded back, her lips pressed closed. She looked down at her daughter’s face and, with another sob, turned. Lifting the small girl clinging to her robe into her arms, she gripped the hand of the little boy and scurried across the baked ground to take her place at the end of the line of villagers.

No one turned to give Samara a last glance or wave. In the same way, she imagined, her own parents had left her. The same way Micah, her only friend, had left her when she made her first journey to the Land of Rivers, with his spirit.

She pushed the memory from her just as the people pushed her and the dying child from them. The girl’s body was so light, so frail. Hunger had scoured away every childish curve and dimple. Would the bones feel hollow as well? Samara turned in place, searching for some shade where she could tend the child. In the distance stood a scraggly fig tree. She knelt, gripping the child to her, and grabbed up the pouch of water and the strip of goat meat. Straightening, she headed toward the tree, refusing to look back at the line of people that would soon disappear over the horizon, the people she had served but never belonged to.

Beneath the tree, she sank to the ground, still cradling the child. Samara put her cheek to the girl’s nose to feel for the slightest movement of air. Maybe the girl was merely asleep…deeply asleep. Maybe all she needed was food and water. Samara picked up her water skin and tilted it to the girl’s lips. The water slipped along the seam of her lips and trickled down the side of her cheek to land on Samara’s arm. The cool drops spread over her skin. Samara bent her head and lapped up the precious liquid.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Trying to give the child some of the precious water was a waste. But she could not help herself, so she dribbled a few more drops on the girl’s lips where they sat for a breath before following the path of the others. She slumped back against the tree. She couldn’t change what she was, priestess to Atiya, Goddess of Death. Her job was not to save this child but to bury her bones.

Pressure built in her chest and throat. She swallowed it back. Why? Why had she been born? Goddess knows, Damitra, the old priestess, in all the eighteen rainy seasons of raising and training her, had considered her nothing more than a tool, a servant. Surely death would have been better.

She tried to stop the tears that welled, to blink them back, but still they flowed. More wasted water. She caught them, sipped some from her fingers and pressed others to the girl’s lips. There was nothing more for her to do for this child, probably the only child she would ever cradle in her arms. Atiya was indeed cruel.

Samara shivered as she sensed the goddess’s implacable approach. Nothing, as Damitra had oft repeated, halted the steps of the goddess. Nor could Samara ignore the scent and the press of bones against skin of the child in her arms, a child who lay dying without her mother. So, she would be her mother in this moment. The words and tune of a lullaby rose to her lips, a lullaby the women sang to their children. Singing quietly, she rocked the girl, Lina, back and forth. Watching the girl’s face, she thought of Micah. She’d sung this lullaby to him once, before Damitra discovered them. He had not been afraid to play with Samara, though as a spirit, he couldn’t pile rocks or move the simple dollies she’d made from sticks and bits of feathers and goat hair.

The sun rose in the sky while Samara sang and burned in the heat of sun. She took a small sip of water, moistened her fingers with more water, and touched their dampness once again to the child’s lips. No breath cooled Samara’s damp fingers. She lowered her hand to the small chest. No drum of life beat within.

She sighed and sat back, thinking of the grieving mother, of the many grieving mothers and wives among the tribe. The drought and the loss of the river meant too many visits from Atiya in the last few moons. Looking down, she stroked a finger over the child’s brow and down the side of her face. She shifted and settled the small body on the ground a short distance from the overhang of the tree. Time to create a circle.

There weren’t enough stones of any size to make a circle large enough, so she stood and walked a circle two arm-lengths from the small body, scuffing her feet so as to draw the boundary of a make-do Table of Death. No stones. No altar.

She laid the child’s body in the center of the circle and removed the ill-fitting dusty tunic.

Samara raised the carved bone whistle from where it hung around her neck on a leather cord, put it to her lips and blew three high notes. As she had too many times recently, she raised her arms and sang out the first notes, the words of the call to the Goddess of Death.

Shadow Wing, the vulture, the Goddess’s sacred bird, came to her call, circled over her three times, and spiraled down.

****

Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

No, not here. Darouk moved his small hammer to another position on the large rock marked for the new barracks and tapped again. There. A tone resonated so deep no one heard it but him. He stood back in satisfaction. Rocks talked, or rather sang to him, and this one’s song said that it was solid and strong enough to be a foundation stone.

Can you not stop playing in the rocks like a small boy? The king orders you to return to the city immediately.

Darouk’s hand clenched around the hammer. He drew a deep breath then slid the hammer into a pouch that hung at his waist over his shendyt, the length of linen belted about his waist, before slipping out a piece of chalkstone that lay at the bottom of the pouch. He marked a straight vertical line on the rock and crossed it with a horizontal one. The mark would tell his chief mason where to use the block of granite once it was chiseled from the mountainside and delivered to the site of the new barracks.

Only then did he turn to Bardir, who stood, feet spread, arms crossed, his hair and beard combed, his tunic as clean and neat as if making an appearance at court. In contrast, Darouk was sweaty, dirty, and bare-chested.

And I will return, as soon we cut and load this last rock. You’ve delivered the king’s message. You can go.

Bardir scowled. Leave it to these men. You are to return now.

Darouk tensed, wanting to tell the king’s bastard brother to go rot in the sun, but there was no sense in engaging the man in a battle of words. The king might have ordered Bardir to deliver the message, but Bardir had no power over Darouk. Not only because he was Maker of the realm of Nehmir, but because he was also brother to the queen. He answered only to her and to his king, a fact he knew irritated Bardir like sand beneath his tunic.

Calmly, he said, So you said. Thank you.

He turned his back to Bardir and beckoned his chief mason forward so he and his men could get that last rock free. He pulled the hammer out and tapped the rock one more time and was reassured when he heard the same answering tone. To the men on his crew, what he did seemed odd, he knew. After all, they only heard a thunk or tink with each hammer tap, but to Darouk, if the block was sound and strong, the taps set off a ringing deep in the stone. A music only he heard and an ability that served him well as Maker of the realm. Whatever he designed, engineered and built, was solid and endured.

One day, Maker…

He looked back at Bardir, who stood with his hand on his sword. Would the man dare?

Yes?

Bardir gripped his sword but turned away. No, he didn’t dare, not with so many witnesses. Darouk raised his hammer to the rock, lower this time.

He’d never been able to explain his strange ability to others, how he heard tones in the rocks, different tones for different minerals and ores. His mother had smiled at his ability, always delighted when he brought her a beautiful stone like riverlyte. She admired it and placed it on a special shelf with his other gifts. His father, on the other hand, had frowned when Darouk brought him an interesting rock, telling the small boy that was enough nonsense before dragging him outside for lessons on swordplay and riding.

But his skill wasn’t nonsense. Choosing rocks that were internally sound was important. He rolled his shoulders to ease tired muscles and exhaustion. Not just physical fatigue but an inner fatigue as well. Yes, they needed more rocks for the barracks but the truth was, he had needed to get away. Away from the miasma that hung over the palace suffocating him. He’d hoped that, under the stars at the end of each day of hard work, he’d sleep deeply and well. Instead, every night brought him a dream of a woman, a dream that left him aroused, frustrated and curious. He couldn’t even relieve the sexual tension the dream brought since he slept on the ground in the midst of his crew.

Careful, watch where you set your chisels, he called up to the mason.

He liked working with his crew, doing an honest day’s labor beneath the open sky that resulted in shelter and protection for others. Experience had shown him that the men performed better when he worked with them instead of just directing them. The hard labor and the accompanying sweat usually left him relaxed and at ease with himself and with life.

But not this time.

He made the trip, knowing the king wouldn’t be happy. The king’s priority was the completion of the aviary for hummingbirds in the queen’s garden. He and a few of his crew had made a start, measuring off distances for the supports and gathering materials. But the soldiers needed a new barracks before the rainy season arrived…if it arrived. It was later than in the past. They had been trying to complete the new structure since the end of the last rainy season. Meanwhile, the soldiers resided in the old barracks, built before Darouk was appointed Maker, and they complained regularly about the windblown sand and bugs that snuck in through every crack and crevasse in the walls of old fired-clay bricks.

Stovek, he called to his cattle man as he tucked the hammer back into his pouch, get the oxen hooked up to the loaded wagons and send them back to Nehmir. I’ll follow with this last one after we cut and load this last block.

The cattle man yelled to his two boys who came running to help back the teams of oxen corralled beneath the small grove of old laurels, into the traces of the other two wagons. Darouk noted the condition of the large animals. Their coats of long hair were still thick even under the dust, and their eyes were bright. He circled the carts, checking for cracks in the thick axles and wide-rimmed wheels. He wanted no accidents to the heavily-laden carts on the winding journey down the mountain road and through the desert back to the city.

He scanned the area for Bardir who had disappeared, thankfully. He looked for the cart drivers. Stovek, where are the drivers?

Stovek shrugged and looked away. Scanning the site again, Darouk walked around an outcropping of rock and bit back a curse. Bardir and the two drivers squatted around a spill of polished bone dice and coins.

Bardir!

The drivers jumped up, eyes still on the coins on the ground, until Bardir scooped them up with the dice and tucked them into the pouch at his waist.

He took a breath and nodded to the drivers. The oxen are hooked up to the wagons and ready to go. Stovek looks for you.

The men dashed off. He looked at Bardir, who raised a brow. He shook his head. Are you in such dire need that you must gamble with my men?

Bardir laughed. Need money? No, but I did need some entertainment while I waited for you to finish, since you seem determined to work instead of follow the King’s order.

If you were bored, you should have left instead of distracting men from my crew. And you know the king frowns on gambling.

Bardir barked another laugh. Your men and I decided to relieve our boredom is all. As for the king, all he does is frown. He pays no attention to the realm so why would he take note of my gambling?

Bardir strolled off past the wagons. In this, at least, he was right. The king had little time or energy for anything other than worrying about how to bring a smile back to the queen’s face.

Darouk turned as a cry went up from the crew. The last granite block was pried from the mountainside. Others rushed forward to wind ropes as thick as their wrists around the stone and raised it on pulleys to swing it forward and lower it into the waiting wagon.

The chief mason turned to him, brows raised. He nodded and the mason shouted out orders that sent some of the men scurrying to climb into the wagon, some sitting on the rails, others finding seats on the stack of cut stones for the ride back to the city. They gulped water from the last barrels on the wagon, and dipped chunks of now stale bread into sun-warmed honey.

Darouk whistled shrilly. Men scrambled as his stallion, Kumir, galloped up to him. The horse was named after the night winds that often blew through the desert. Stroking the stallion’s neck, he looked around for Bardir and found him with arms crossed, keeping cool in the shade of an outcropping of rock.

Are you finished here…Maker?

His hesitation about his title was intended to insult, but Darouk nodded and reached for the tunic folded neatly in the bag hanging behind his saddle. It was the deep blue one with finely-embroidered designs of triangles within circles that marked his status as both a member of the royal family and as Maker and Builder for the realm of Nehmir. He wiped the sweat and dust from his body with a rag and slipped the tunic over his head. Bardir watched him, his hand once again at his sword. His tunic bore only triangles without circles as one related to but outside the formal royal family.

Lord Bardir, will you ride ahead with the carts that have left and supervise them until this last one gets moving? The animals will be eager to return to their barns but keep the carts moving at a slow, steady pace down the mountainside. Otherwise, the beasts will kill themselves in this heat. I’ll catch up with you shortly.

Bardir didn’t answer, just frowned, and turned to a man standing behind him, gulping from a ladle of water dipped from a water barrel. You there! Fetch my horse, and be quick.

Darouk clenched his jaw as the man, streaked with sweat and dust, lowered the ladle, wiped a hand across his mouth and trotted over to where the horses had shared shade with the oxen. The man was a skilled mason, not a servant to be ordered about for any purpose.

As if catching his thoughts, Bardir grinned at him, his teeth white below the dark shadow of his precisely groomed mustache. Darouk blew out a breath and swung himself up onto Kumir’s back. Say nothing. Say nothing. Not now. Not to the king’s brother, even if he was a bastard by both bent and birth.

Bardir threw himself onto the back of his own stallion, as unpredictable and bad-tempered as its owner, and rode off down the side of the hill. Darouk settled himself, taking up the reins, every muscle in his back and legs protesting after the three days of hard work. But at least for those days, he hadn’t wondered if there was something he should have done to change the past.

What would it be like to ride home now to a wife and a few children waiting to greet him? A wife who would remove his sandals and bathe his hot feet, offer him a cooling drink of fermented honey, and sit with him in the garden as he drank it. He ruthlessly shoved the picture out of his mind. As attractive as it might seem, that dream brought with it its own nightmare. Make yourself vulnerable to love and you make yourself vulnerable to loss and death. And he vowed never to give death that power over him again.

****

Dust whirled up in a cloud as Shadow Wing lifted heavily from Samara’s makeshift Table of Death. The vulture winged up into a branch of the fig tree that had shaded her while she waited for the bird to do its sacred work. What would she have done with Lina’s body if the bird had stayed behind with the other sacred vultures? She’d raised Shadow Wing from a hatchling, which might explain why he had followed her and the villagers as they left their homes to seek water.

Once, long ago, the sight of a vulture eating the flesh of a human, especially a child, would have had her fighting back the urge to retch. Damitra, the old priestess to Death, lectured to her over and over how important the vultures were to the dead and to Atiya. But watching them do their work was not easy. They went for the soft tissues first, the eyes and lips, the belly. As a small child, forced to sit with the old priestess, witnessing the vultures consume the flesh and sinew of the dead, she had grasped their purpose, but it had taken a long time for her to stop throwing up her last meal every time she had to sit at the Table of Death.

Eventually, she could sit unmoved—except for the children. When their small bodies lay on the Table of Death, she closed her eyes and imagined a different life in a different place. Even now, she couldn’t watch. There was something terribly wrong about children lying helpless and unmoving beneath the ravaging talons and beaks of the vultures. Atiya had never given her any sign of rebuke for her closed eyes, so she continued to close them. The sound of wings taking to air always told her that the vultures had finished their