One of the cannibals pushed Celty, then Isao and Khalem, forward into the yawning mouth of the cave.

The air within smelled brackish. It surrounded the captives in a chilly embrace as water dripped down the dark walls. The light from the outside dissipated the further in they went, as the tribe of cannibals clicked and talked around them.

Just when Celty thought the tunnel would narrow into an impassable passage – likely funneling them right to a massive rotating spit and a cauldron of boiling death – the cannibals stopped them with a rough clasp on their shoulders.

Celty blinked, disoriented. A massive fire as tall and wide as a horse roared in the middle of an enormous room. The cavern here soared at least ten paces overhead, with rock deposits hanging from the ceiling of the cave and dripping water onto them. Brightly colored depictions of faces – similar in appearance to those on the obscene-looking masks the cannibals wore – decorated the walls.

Nestled in the stone were several buildings carved into the walls with windows, jagged doorways, and strange paintings on the outside. What appeared to be skins and furs stretched over windows and walls, forming tents along the outside of several houses.

A shudder went down Celty’s spine. She glanced at her captors – and hoped those weren't human skins she saw.

The tribe that brought them here split into two groups. All the broad-shouldered, towering cannibals moved off to the left, shuffling onto a path that became a thin trail. The remaining cannibals – slender enough to seem like they might be females beneath those terrifying masks – marched Celty, Isao and Khalem off to the right. They moved in silence, only the distant trickle of water and small rocks falling breaking the quiet.

A few minutes later, Celty recoiled instinctively as bright rays of sunshine streamed in through holes. A few steps more, and the group stepped into another open space.

Steep walls made of a sheer rock shot up until they abruptly ended, leaving a wide hole across the top of the space – the only escape route Celty had seen since she had entered the cave.

She swallowed back a scream. There would be no climbing out of this place unless she could kill her guards and run all the way back through the dark, complicated maze. Unlikely.

The cannibals shoved her farther into the space. She stumbled, caught herself, and scowled. A wooden cage sat in the middle of the space. Old hay filled the floor, limp and moldering from age. Pieces of wood, both fresh and charred, littered the ground around it in a semicircle. Dried leaves were scattered across the stone floor.

A rise of hot bile filled the back of Celty’s throat as she watched a leaf blow across the ground – and land in an empty skull.

Skulls set on top of stakes stood on the floor at random intervals. Dried blood stained an empty eye socket on the one closest to Celty. A path of skulls lead to a tall drum with skin – again, Celty hoped it was an animal’s – stretched over its top. Smaller drums lay on the floor around it.

Behind her, Isao sucked in a sharp breath. Celty ignored him, the hair on the back of her neck standing up, her heart beating fast and hard in her chest.

The cannibal holding her wrists yelled something, then thrust her forward, pushing her toward the cage. Celty pushed back, leaning against the cannibal, determined not to be forced in. Would she ever come out of it if she was?

But now a few grabbed her by both arms and pitched her inside. She fell to her knees, then her side, into the disgusting hay. Out of the corner of her eye she saw them feeling Isao and Khalem for weapons before discarding tossing their swords on the ground next to a velvety bag, a black hat with a speckled gray feather, and a mandolin.

Isao and Khalem were shoved inside moments later, their hands still tied, just like hers. She rolled out of their way of their falling bodies just in time. The tribesmen slammed the door to the cage shut. Celty struggled to her feet, glaring at the assembled tribesmen leering at them through grotesque masks.

"Swine," she spat. "Filthy, heathen pigs that feast on the flesh of humans. You pieces of – "

"Silence," Khalem barked in a sharp tone.

Several men advanced, armed with long staffs with sharp rocks at the end. They stood close outside of the cage, growling at Celty from deep within their throats, the sounds emanating forth alternating between clicking and strange, foreign words. They waved their spears, and bared their teeth at her.

Celty growled back. "They're slime," she hissed. "Foul humans – "

"Silence!" Khalem warned. "They don't want you to talk; can't you tell? Keep talking and they'll kill you."

The sight of the cannibals poking their spears through the bars made her believe Khalem’s words. Doing something hotheaded and getting them killed now wouldn't serve anything.

She sank back, glowering, although she kicked at the bars for good measure and muttered under her breath, "Foul excuses for humans."

Khalem cast her a heated glare, but the tribesmen backed off. Celty forced her rage to cool.

Freedom had been so close. The moment she had it, it was snatched away. She kept moving from one disaster to the next. Stupid bars.

The tribesman backed away, but glowered at them menacingly from where they stood at the face of the sheer rock. Celty analyzed the area again, but saw nothing new. Nothing to bring her any hope of escape.

A long silence ensued. She sighed and leaned against the wall of the cage.

The sound of shuffling floated over to Celty’s ears, and she glanced up, straightening, as two more tribal men stepped into view from the shadows.

"Oy! You brought me neighbors," called a jovial voice.

Another person was being held prisoner between the two guards.

One of the tribesman rapped the captive on the back of his head, knocking him forward in the direction of the cage. He grinned insolently, but fell silent.

Like theirs, the new prisoner's wrists were tied together with thin rope made of twine. The man couldn't be older than forty years old, and was of normal height. Dirty blond hair was half-braided against the right side of his head, while a long drape of filthy hair fell over his left eye. Strands from a straggly goatee trailed down his chin, drawing attention to the scarred skin running along the right side of his neck, hand, and shoulder.

"Aw," the newcomer murmured, glancing at the cage’s interior. "You shouldn't have made such elegant arrangements for me."

The tribesmen smacked him on the back of his head again, but he didn't seem to notice, so intent was he on studying the three of them.

Celty's eyes narrowed to slits. He mimicked her motion with his one eye, then winked at her. She scowled.

The guards barked something, clicked at him, and pushed him inside the cage too. They dropped his belongings – a mandolin and a hunting knife – next to Khalem and Isao’s swords. The man caught himself and stayed upright, moving like a dancer despite his bonds. Then he gracefully lowered himself to the straw, crossed his legs, and leaned back against the bars.

His eyes flickered to Celty, then to Isao and Khalem, then back to Celty.

Bright, flowing colors clothed his body. The screaming yellow and orange on his legs made Celty want to squint. A ruby shirt, split in half with a streak of bronze, covered his chest.

Celty eyed the gargantuan bronze rings on his hands with suspicion, then certainty. A traveling minstrel. He had to be. Why else carry a mandolin?

It had been a while since she'd seen one, having mostly heard about their strange, vagabond-like ways and outlandish means of dressing. Celty scowled when he locked her in his gaze again.

"Why so sad?" he drawled, tilting his head back to look at the sky through the bars of the cage. "Beautiful day, no?"

Isao glanced at him from the corner of his eye, but said nothing. Khalem stared straight ahead, ignoring him entirely. Celty growled.

"Oh ho!" he called. "This one's a tiger. Fierce one, I can tell. How about I call you, ‘tiger girl?’"

Celty made as if to lunge at him, but Isao leaned back, stopping her with his shoulder. "Celty, n –"

The whack of wooden spears on their new prison interrupted Isao’s words. Celty tipped her head back to see the tribal guards surrounding their structure and beating upon it with wooden sticks.

The sound made her ears ache. The cannibals screamed in the strange, clicking language, bellowing deep from within their chests. The new prisoner watched them with a bright gaze, as if drinking in every word. He glanced over to Celty.

"You may want to quiet down," he whispered, grinning. "They're saying if you don't stop being aggressive, they'll cut your head off. They don't like it."

“And how do you know what they’re saying?” she challenged.

“Everyone in this area knows the dialect.”

“Not everyone, surely,” she hissed.

“They speak in the Bhasay tribal language,” the minstrel said.

Celty met Isao's gaze, saw a pleading look there, and forced herself to relax. She nodded, and drew in a deep breath. She had to stay calm. No matter how angry she was to be stuck here, she couldn't get herself EATEN just because of her displays of anger.

But anyway, who were they to talk about aggressiveness?!

The new prisoner winked at one of the tribesmen, who faked a lunge at him with a spear. He didn't flinch. Celty leaned back, curiously studying him again.

Outside of his outlandish clothes, he also had a tattoo on his right forearm. The bluish lines of the tattoo showed a jackal holding a big fish it its mouth. The man caught her gaze and she quickly looked away.

"Can we speak?" Khalem asked quietly.

The man nodded. "Yes. But stay as quiet as possible."

"Who are you?" Khalem asked, his eyes darting around the circular rock walls. "Where are we?"

The man put a hand to his chest and leaned forward, barely speaking above a whisper. "I am Ranbelt Smart Mouth, a wandering minstrel."

Celty smirked. She'd known it all along.

"I'm originally from the nation of Lubeng."

"In the east?" Isao asked.

Ranbelt nodded. "Yes. I was attempting to cross the Shonin Pass on my way to the Hima village in the Sunsan nation before I was captured. And here we die for attempting to climb higher in life, eh?" He chortled quietly before nodding in their direction. “And you? Who are you, and where were you going?"

Khalem shifted, his nostrils flaring. "That doesn't really matter. We’re travelers, that’s all.”

“Right,” he snorted. “And the feisty tiger girl is a slave.”

Celty’s nostrils flared again.

Khalem said nothing at first, finally snapping out, “Who we are means nothing to you. Just accept that my son and I are traveling and mean harm to no one.”

Ranbelt laughed, a light trilling sound. "Ah ha. Of course. Well, keep your secrets. What does it matter anyway? We'll go to the grave with them!"

Celty studied him, waiting to feel the usual foreboding or uncertainty, but not getting it. He didn't seem to be a bad man, just . . . odd. He knew the strange, no doubt rare, tribal language, and seemed to be without fear. Or aggression. Which meant that he wasn't likely to be just a traveling minstrel. Something more lurked beneath the brightly colored swaths of fabric.

And that strange tattoo.

Perceiving nothing inherently dangerous about this strange man helped her relax a little. She ignored him as he launched into a story about a bird that tried to eat his nose while he was sleeping.

"So quiet, all of you!" he said, shaking his head when no one offered up a story of their own. "Are you dreaming, boy?" he asked Isao, who had been staring at the ground in deep concentration for several minutes. "You have been living in the clouds of your mind for a while."

Isao frowned, the dark shadows of his eyes lined with something like grief. Celty wanted to snap at Ranbelt to shut up, but then he eyed Khalem, and she kept quiet. What would he saw about the towering general? She couldn’t deny herself the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity.

"And you?" Ranbelt said. "So serious! The unsmiling man, I believe I shall call you. Have you never faced death before? She's a fickle mistress, you know. Keep that in mind."

Khalem scowled, his nostrils flaring.

"Instead of making jokes about people you know nothing about," Celty said, "how about you tell us whether we're about to be eaten by these people? Your entertainment is rather biting, notwithstanding."

Ranbelt's smile broadened. A chuckle welled up from deep in his chest, and he tried to push it back down, after darting a quick glance at the nearby guards. His laughter bubbled up anyway, overtaking him. "Cannibals?" he rasped, still chuckling. "Unh unh! Those aren't cannibals."

Isao frowned. "But …the skulls! And the rumors!"

"Rumors are just that: rumors. These people are not cannibals." His voice dropped to a whisper. "These are savage people, for sure. You can't live in the mountains and be entirely civilized. But they first started farther away. They call themselves the Asanka Tribe. They lived in a small forest close to the imperial capital of An Wan."

"The Bataq Grove?" Khalem asked.

Ranbelt nodded once. "The very one. They were always a peaceful people, but were treated…like monkeys by the other people there. One day, Betega, an explorer for a guild of hunters, found a silver mine inside their forest. Easy money, right? Betega and some of his people chased the Asanka Tribe off their own land in order to get to the silver."

"Did some of them die?" Celty asked.

"Of course. The couple that resisted, anyway. The others were beaten, harassed, raped, tortured – that kind of thing. The Asanka had to leave their own land in order to keep themselves alive." He leaned back against the wooden walls. "So they wandered the countryside for a while, then finally reached this mountain. After exploring and climbing, they found this complex cave system."

“And how do you know everything?” Celty asked with a cool gaze.

“Travelers can learn all sorts of information.” His eye cut right through her annoyance. “If they learn how to listen, that is.”

"Oh," she murmured quietly.

"That's not all," Ranbelt said with a grin. "Once they found this cave complex, they met their guide."

"Guide?" Isao asked.

"A mysterious Chief who wore a white mask."

"And then what?"

Ranbelt shrugged. "Dunno. That's the last I know about their history."

His sudden lack of information led Celty to become suspicious. Something lingered in this man’s eyes. He knew far more than he was telling them, and not even his easy nonchalance could hide that.

"Then how did you know about the masked Chief?" she snapped.

Ranbelt tipped his head back toward the caves. "Just met the Chief."

"What?" she breathed.

"Yes. They brought me before their leader. I talked, and then I was – " he paused, glancing at all of them. Then he lunged forward and said, “ – sentenced to death!"

Celty and Isao both reared back; Khalem scowled. Ranbelt laughed again, although this time it reminded Celty of a choking bird.

"Do you care?" Isao asked, a relaxed and easy expression on his face. "For a man sentenced to death by a wild clan of mountain tribesmen, you seem quite unperturbed."

Celty couldn't help but agree. Hundreds of suspicions ran through her mind, but she quelled them. A wild mind was an uncontrollable thing.

"Well . . . maybe it's all true," Ranbelt drawled, his eyes sparkling, "and maybe it isn't."

Khalem scowled and looked away. Isao rolled his eyes. Only Celty studied the minstrel more, convinced he knew something.

His act had to be some kind of show. A facade. No one so foolish could know the tribal language, or the tribe’s history, to that depth. And the emotion of fear hid behind all kinds of expressions.

"You're mad, aren't you?" Khalem asked in a strangely calm way. "A little…unhinged."

Ranbelt only laughed harder.

"Leave it alone, Khalem," Isao said. "It's not – "

The tinkle of something that sounded like bones rattling together interrupted them. Moments later one of the guards moved out of the walkway. Out of the darkness of the cave strode in another figure clad in the same kind of freakish mask. The newcomer simply stood there, studying the prisoners for a moment before nodding at the guards.

The guards stepped up to the cage, barked out some commands in their strange language, and then pulled Khalem, Isao, and Celty out. They slammed the door shut on Ranbelt, who waved at them with a bright smile on his face.

Celty cast one last look at him, annoyed by his cheerful expression and stupid whistling, as they were taken back into the darkness of the caves.

A little relief settled in her stomach. At least these people weren’t cannibals – although that didn't mean they were out of danger yet. These savage people clearly had reason for hard feelings against anyone who hailed from the Imperial City, or anywhere near it. They'd be lucky to escape alive at this rate, especially if they knew who Isao and Khalem were.

For once, being an unknown slave had its perks.

Celty longed to kick at her captors as they were herded them down a new passageway, but refrained out of sheer survival instinct. Khalem and Isao stumbled along just ahead of her, their concern visible every time they looked over their shoulders, no doubt to make sure all three of them were still together.

A creeping, dark feeling extinguished the feeling of relief in her stomach.

She didn't like this one bit. Where were they being taken?

Several minutes later, they stumbled to a stop in front of another sprawling cave system. Thick furs – clearly animal furs this time – covered most of the space, hanging in ragged curtains near the rock floor.

One of the guards pushed aside a portion of the curtains, revealing a sprawling space in the granite rock. Torches flickered along the very edges of the space, filling the area with light and warmth.

At the far end sat a stone throne. It glittered due to reflecting gemstones in its rock. A fur carpet formed a pathway to the edge of the throne platform. Tribesmen were kneeling on either side of the carpet, facing the throne.

A lean figure wrapped in black fur sat on the great chair. The figure wore a stark white mask with a demonic face – one infinitely more grotesque than any Celty had seen so far. A long nose straightened out from it, giving way to a leering smile and squinting eyes.

Two burly men with heavy wooden clubs flanked the figure on either side and pointed at the ground. The guards beside Celty shoved her to her knees. She winced, barely able to stomach the resulting impact on the hard rock.

The tribesmen and the guards chanted the strange refrains from earlier: the guttural sounds filled with intermittent clicking. Celty could recognize the strange sort of sing-song in it now, filtering the word Mukh from in between chants.

Mukh.

The word made her shift uncomfortably. That was the name of their leader, no doubt. The Chief of this untamed race. Or perhaps even their heathen god.

A grating noise broke through the cave, silencing the chants. Celty's neck prickled when she heard Saman words coming from the figure. "You have come into my kingdom."

Khalem and Isao stiffened. Celty glanced into the horrid eyes of that terrible mask.

The grating voice continued, "We do not welcome outsiders. We do not welcome strangers. You are trespassing on our holy land and we cannot allow it. Tell me who you are."

Khalem straightened slightly. "We are but travelers."

"That is not enough. Your names."

A slight hesitation, barely discernible, slipped into Khalem’s voice before he said, "My name is Eiichi. This is my son, Kosho, and our servant girl, Yae."

Celty growled. Of course she would be the servant. Although, thanks to her violet eyes, she likely couldn't pass off as a direct family member in the same way.

Still.

The figure on the throne paused, as if assessing them. The voice was slightly higher pitched, like a woman, despite attempts to conceal it. "You lie."

Khalem frowned. "Of course I do not."

"I can tell that you are lying. Tell me who you are, and why you come here? What do you seek? Why do you trespass on our lands?"

"I have told you."

Celty swallowed. Her heart thudded in her chest. Although she couldn't be sure because of the mask, she often felt the gaze of the strange figure upon her.

"You will say no more?"

Khalem shook his head once. " I have told you the truth. I have no more to say."

"Death, then. Take them away and kill them."

Numerous hands were on Celty all at once, dragging her back to her feet and taking her back down the path. She struggled, yelling, cursing, and gnashing her teeth in any attempt to bite whatever hand she could.

They held her firm, bearing her back to the open space with its surrounding sheer rock walls. The sound of beating drums welcomed them the closer they approached. Chanting seemed to come from everywhere – ahead, behind, around – in the cave system.

They stepped into the prison area to find Ranbelt already tied to a stake in the middle of the area. A new collection of firewood surrounded his feet. Celty fought back the urge of vomit.

So they'd be burned to death. Maybe they were cannibals after all.

"Hello!" Ranbelt sang in greeting.

Tribesmen danced in a circle, in time with the drums. The furs and skins stretching across their bodies flapped with every movement.

Celty's heart banged to a different tune….and a strange, somewhat hazy, recollection….

One of the tribesmen shoved her toward Ranbelt. She snarled as they grabbed up a stake, but despite her flailing they were able to tie her to it, rendering her totally immobile. The other tribesman threw rocks, sticks and leaves at her feet. Celty would have kicked the mess away, but they tied her feet together as well.

The beats of the drum continued to resonate throughout her chest. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Once the tribesmen finished preparing the materials for the fires that would burn them alive, they stepped away. A hush fell over the wild people as the lean figure from the throne appeared. The guards fell to their knees.

"And now," the god-like figure said, "you shall die by fire. You shall burn the way our people burned when they were sent away from our home. You shall be consumed by flames, and never trespass here again." The figure spread its arms and called out, "Benki wit!"

The tribe began repeating these words, turning them into a chant. They rose from their knees, shouting the words again and again into the air.

Celty struggled against her bonds, glancing over to Ranbelt. "What did she say?"

Ranbelt glanced over with a wry smile. "She said, ‘Burn them!’"

"Now!" the figure cried, pointing to them.

Isao, Khalem, and Celty fell into a renewed fit for freedom as four figure with torches advanced from the belly of the cave, heading straight for them.

When the tribesmen were only a few paces away, Ranbelt tossed his head back and started to laugh. It rolled out from deep within his belly. He laughed without taking any breaks, letting the merriment flow from his throat in long strands of amusement.

Isao and Celty locked confused gazes.

He is mad after all, Celty thought.

The tribesmen were in front of them now. Celty wasn't sure what was more terrifying: the fact that she would soon burn alive, or Ranbelt's ringing, horrifying laughter being the chant that would accompany her death.