Blood Rain — Chapter 1

Darkness and starlight held sway over the sky. Not a cloud marred the expanse over the vast jungle clearing, but that would change soon enough.

Ka Lu took his blade from the altar and held it aloft, letting the starlight glint across its edge. He spoke the words of transformation and looked down at the first victim sprawled across the Blood Rock, arms and legs secured at the four quarters of the wheel of Cree stone.

"Are you prepared to give your essence?" Ka Lu asked. His eyes were black behind the mask of the Blood Priest.

The victim looked up, failing to find those eyes within the intricate lines of the mask. There was fear in his look, but there was also determination.

"I am ready," the young warrior said. "By right of conquest I forfeit my blood to the sky."

Ka Lu nodded. "You have strong words and a strong heart."

He placed his foot on the white stone, which lay at an angle atop a fulcrum. The warrior’s head rested at its highest point. Ka Lu pressed his weight on the stone, tipping it the other direction on its fulcrum. Now the victim's head faced downhill. The young man glanced at the base of the totem towering over both of them directly behind his head. Color rose in his cheeks as the blood in his body flowed toward the totem.

Ka Lu stared up to the top of the Chani Clan totem, a formidable pillar. Eighteen rings of carved Cree, crafted by twenty four generations of carvers. Then he stole a glance at Ver Nahi, the clan chief, waiting with the elder warriors on the dais beside the altar.

“Ver Nahi,” Ka Lu whispered behind his mask. “You would never guess my treachery. I pray the gods will know and not punish you for my sin.”

Ka Lu's blade still hung in the air, waiting for the moment, waiting for the warrior to fully know his destiny. The magic was stronger that way. Then, with the speed of a panther, his arm flashed. The blade fell. It glided over the victim’s throat with a silky smoothness that hardly seemed enough to separate the states of living and death. But it was enough. It was more than enough. The blood flowed down along grooves in the rock. The smell of it grew thick in his nostrils. He could almost hear it trickling across the Blood Stone.When it reached the base of the totem, the white pillar began to blush with a rosy glow in the night.

Ka Lu watched through the slits in his mask. He had seen it so many times before. He had grown used to the awe of the act, the horror of it that would never quite go away, though he knew the Blood Magic fed the sky and the skies rains fed the jungle.

But on this night Ka Lu’s horror felt stronger. He would play the thief, a despicable role. And he would do it in plain sight, for there would be no way to hide his blasphemy from the watching eyes of the clan leaders.

The last of the young warrior’s blood trailed down the Blood stone as Ka Lu reached a hand beneath his robe. He drew forth a tiny cloth doll. The doll was wrapped in a bracelet of beads, carved from the same white stone as the Chani totem. He looked once more at Ver Nahi, noting the confusion in the Chief's eyes. Then, without another thought he cast the doll down onto the Blood Stone, soaking it with the final, and most potent essence of the sacrifice.

Before anyone on the dais could react to his crime, a shriek broke from one of the buildings that dotted the clanhold. Ka Lu did not wait to be certain of the source of the scream. He flung himself from the altar and tore the sacred mask of the Blood Priest from his face. He dropped it in the dirt as he rushed past the stunned warriors holding two other prisoners awaiting sacrifice.

“Ka Lu,” Ver Nahi screamed after him as he ran. “What is the meaning of this?”

“My child.” It was all he could get out as his heart twisted with fear. He could think only of reaching the source of that shriek, the building where his wife had been caring for their dying infant daughter. Where poor little Kiri lay with a sickness only a Blood Priest could hope to cure, though he had to steal magic from the gods to do it.

But what had his magic wrought? What had the gods given him for his sin?