by P. K. Lentz
The walls felt imprisoning and the sheer immobility of the entire palace made Arixa long for sunlight and open plains.
How had she ever suffered to live in such a place as this?
At Arixa’s left and right stood Matas and Ivar, the latter of whom had been disarmed and searched on account of his foreign appearance. Orik had two bodyguards, whom he presently dismissed. As that pair left, another figure appeared in the doorway.
Skulis, like his father, wore an embroidered tunic, trousers and cloak. A dagger in a jeweled scabbard hung from silver-buckled belt.
“Hello, Arixa,” Skulis said with some awkwardness, barely meeting her gaze. “It’s good to see you.”
Arixa answered after a pause, “And you.”
“We’ve heard news of you over the years,” Skulis went on. “You and the Dawn have done great things.”
He walked to Ivar and offered his hand, which the Sviar tentatively clasped.
“You must be Shieldbreaker. Welcome. The North’s loss is our gain.”
Ivar grinned and clapped Skulis’s shoulder. “I like him. Who is he?”
“Skulis,” Arixa said, erasing Ivar’s grin.
Ivar knew that name. Arixa had oft spoken of the brother for whom she had been passed over for command of the Shath’s Guard. The language she tended to use with Ivar in speaking of Skulis was less than civil.
“It’s all right, Ivar,” she said. “You can like him. He’s not all bad.”
Skulis chuckled unsurely. “Thank you, sister.”
He extended his right arm toward her.
Arixa let it hover there for a few beats before taking it, at which point Skulis leaned in and kissed both of her cheeks. Disengaging, he shut the door to the chamber and took up a position at Orik’s right, where it appeared he intended to remain.
“So what is your grave matter?” the king asked.
Here was the other encounter she had dreaded. Thus far, no part of her visit to Roxinaki had gone as imagined; instead, it had gone better. Perhaps the trend would continue.
“A horde is coming,” Arixa began. And she waited.
“A horde?” Orik asked without alarm. “Of what sort? From where?”
“We’ve had no reports,” Skulis added.
“I am reporting it,” Arixa replied. “This horde belongs to a people previously unknown to us. They are called Jirmaken.”
“Jirmaken,” Skulis echoed. “Never heard the name.”
“I said they were unknown to us. But the threat is real. It has destroyed countless capitals already. Within the year, it will devastate Roxinaki. There is no stopping it.”
“If such a threat exists,” Skulis said, “surely we can raise a horde to match any—”
Arixa cut him off sternly: “I address the Shath, Skulis.”
Her half-brother frowned faintly and hung his head.
“Skulis speaks my mind,” Orik said. “From what direction is this horde meant to fall upon us?”
“The east and south,” Arixa dissembled.
“Yet, unless it is a seaborne horde, it must make final approach to Roxinaki from the north, over the isthmus, which is easily defended. Arix did not choose Roxinaki as his capital for no reason.”
“I know that, Father.” Arixa battled to keep her tone calm. Orik’s resistance was understandable and expected. A wise leader doubted all and trusted few. “It’s difficult to convey the magnitude of this enemy. Its numbers and its weapons are such that even all the might of Scythia would be crushed before it without inflicting harm. An isthmus will not stop it, nor a sea.”
“You have seen this horde?” Orik demanded.
“I have.”
Arixa began to consider whether she might just get on with the truth, or at least the version of it she intended to give, rather than waiting for it to be forced from her.
She opted for bluntness: “I have seen the devastation of this city in a vision sent to me by Tagimasad.”
She saw a sudden change then in the way that both men looked at her. She had made herself the equivalent in their eyes of the yellow-robed Ishpakian street preachers who had always been a tolerated annoyance in the capital.
“You’re right to be skeptical,” Arixa said. “But I will convince you as I have convinced the Dawn. The god did not leave me entirely without evidence to support my claim. Did he, Uncle?”
Matas confirmed to the king, “Arixa has changed, Shath. Four days ago, in battle, she slew fifty Khazars single-handedly. Perhaps more.”
“Fifty?” Skulis echoed incredulously.
“Ask any man or woman of the Dawn,” Ivar attested. “They’ll swear to it. Just as they’ll swear that she received wounds in that battle that have already healed, leaving no scar.”
“Arixa vanished,” Matas explained, “and returned to us forty days later possessed of traits which cannot be explained by earthly means.”
“Show us,” Skulis challenged. He sounded more intrigued than doubtful.
Orik’s silence indicated that his son again spoke for him.
Arixa looked about her. Her eyes settled on a shoulder-high iron stand, a Parthian relic, on which rested an unlit oil lamp. Walking over to it, Arixa set aside the lamp and placed a boot over one of the three legs which extended from the base. With one hand she gripped the center of the inch-thick shaft. Placing the other near the top, she pushed.
It was not easy, but after a few moments the metal gave way, and from there it became easier. She stopped when the iron had nearly the curvature of a bowstaff.
She was glad to wreck the thing. Delivered to a weaponsmith, the artifact’s metal could be put to much better use than decoration.
Arixa’s father and half-brother didn’t wear their astonishment openly, but she could see it in eyes that remained fixed on the bent lamp-stand.
They were convinced.
“Do you wish to see more?” Arixa would have taken pleasure from destroying half the objects in this room, but that seemed no way to win approval.
“That will not be necessary,” her father said in a low voice. She had unsettled him. That, too, gave her pleasure.
“You’ve given us food for thought, daughter,” Orik said. He blinked frequently and suddenly seemed to have difficulty looking directly at her.
“Food for thought?” Arixa echoed. “I told you that Roxinaki will be destroyed. I hope that is more than just ‘food for thought.’”
“I will look into the existence of this horde,” he said. “Most urgently. And when the danger is confirmed, the best course will be consi—”
“When the danger is confirmed, it will be too late!” Arixa knew the folly of interrupting a king, even or especially when he was also one’s father, but she could not help herself.
Orik smiled condescendingly. “Even if I accept the truth of your vision, a horde cannot hide, Arixa. A horde cannot creep up on one in the night.”
“This one can.”
Matas set a gentle hand on her arm in a reminder to remain calm. Arixa disregarded it. The survival of Scythia was not a subject suited to tact and reserve.
Skulis smiled, perhaps at the mental image of a horde creeping across the steppe hidden behind blades of grass.
His smile faded when Arixa said, “The Jirmaken are not men.” Lest they imagine a horde of females, she corrected, “They aren’t human.”
“What, then?” The preceding minutes had hardened Orik’s voice and expression.
“Monsters?” Skulis asked, clearly not taking the suggestion seriously.
“Of a kind,” Arixa said. “That or false gods. They are beings not of our world.”
Skulis, infuriatingly, adopted a look of pity or disappointment. Orik’s tight lips suggested anger.
“And I suppose they are invisible, too?” Skulis suggested.
“No,” Arixa said, although for all she knew, they did possess that power. “We will have no warning of the Jirmaken’s approach because they shall descend on us from the sky, as they have done
countless times in the past. As they did when they destroyed the capitals of the Parthians and the Persians and other nations more powerful than ours. When they come, they will capture some and exterminate the rest without warning or mercy. Every man, woman and child in Roxinaki will die or else be carried off to wretched fates among the stars.”
Arixa knew what her father and brother must think of her by now. She knew that they discounted her every word, whatever demonstration she had given. Yet the warning had to be delivered, and so she went on.
“The sky-horde will strike within the year,” she went on. “The only hope of escaping devastation is to evacuate this city and scatter its inhabitants across the plains. In this way, Scythia will escape notice, and the Jir will lay waste to other places instead. At which point, Shath...” she addressed pointedly him by his title, since her next point was particularly meant to appeal to him in that capacity, “those other lands would be ripe for conquest. But only if Scythia itself escapes unscathed.”
“You wouldn’t even be alive to see your kingdom get devoured, Shath,” Ivar spoke out of turn. “Khazars on one side, Goths on the other. Camel-riders and such to the south. Once they found out, my people would come from the north in a heartbeat to claim their share. Then I would have to fight berserkers and be called a traitor, and those things I can do without. You should listen to Arixa.”
After regarding the fair-haired Ivar briefly with a look of forbearance, Orik asked, “Matas, are you, too, party to this... apparent madness?”
“You know me well, Shath,” Matas answered. “In the thirty years I served you, I never deceived you. I never shall. What Arixa asks is extreme. But I do accept that she received a warning which we ignore at our peril. Perhaps, as an alternative to vacating Roxinaki, you might consider removing yourself, your family, some treasure and key personnel to another location, just for a year. If devastation comes, you will have minimized the damage. And if nothing happens, the move will have done no harm.”
Glaring at a stout, gilt-edged, overstuffed couch set against one stone wall, Arixa suppressed anger at what she could not help but see as her uncle’s betrayal. She understood Matas’s reasoning in offering her father a more moderate proposal that he may be more likely to accept. Still, it stung to hear him even raise the possibility that her fears might amount to nothing.
“Shath, if you—” she started.
Orik raised a palm. Arixa chose diplomatically to heed it, even if she had to bite her cheek to do so.
“As I said, it is food for thought,” Orik proclaimed. “I thank you, Arixa, for bringing us this warning of danger. I thank you and the Dawn for all you have done and will continue to do for the good of our people. Your duty is discharged. Warning is given and will not be taken lightly. In this, you have my word as Shath. Now...” Orik smiled and looked at Arixa warmly, once again making her his child instead of the captain of a war band. “Please fulfill another duty by delaying no longer your mother’s joy.”
Arixa exhaled heavily, looking about her at the furnishings she halfway considered smashing on her way out. Instead, she clenched her fists and swallowed bitter-tasting defeat.
She would not justify her father in treating her as a child by behaving like one. Bowing to him, she left the room swiftly and with dignity, Ivar in tow. Matas remained behind in the room, perhaps to further Arixa’s argument privately, perhaps to undermine it with the best of intentions, or perhaps only to visit with his brother-in-law.
It didn’t matter. Orik would not save his city.
Someone else would have to.
In the courtyard, Ivar asked, “What next, princess? Here, of all places, I can call you that.”
“I’ll see my mother,” Arixa answered. “You go pillage the city or whatever you like. I’ll find you later at the campground. We are not done. Not nearly.”
* * *
Chieftains in the ancient Scythian tradition were permitted to maintain three wives. Most chiefs chose not to, but Shath Arix and his descendants down to Orik always had. The Agathyr picked and chose which steppe traditions they wished to uphold in their city, while abandoning any they found inconvenient.
More children meant a larger and longer-lived dynasty. Marriages also solidified ties between tribes, with kings typically choosing their three wives from three separate tribes. Arixa’s mother was of Katiars clan and had birthed three children of which Arixa was the first.
From her audience with Orik, Arixa went to top of the east wing of Agathyr Palace, where her mother Patia dwelt with an array of friends and cousins and servants. When she rounded the last flight of stairs—a contrivance Arixa had scarcely used in six years—there, looking down on her from above, was Patia.
Without intending to, without wanting to, Arixa broke into a tearful laugh. She quickened her pace to complete the ascent.
She promptly tripped, breaking her fall with hands on the edge of the second-to-last stone step.
A stupid invention, stairs.
“My mighty warrior,” Patia teased gently. As Arixa stood up she found her mother’s veined, unweathered hands on her tattooed arm, lending aid. Half laughing and half crying, Arixa let herself become enfolded in the dark red softness of her mother’s dress, burying her head at the nape of Patia’s smooth neck, in soft, long hair that was still dark despite the odd strand of gray, and she smelled of spices Arixa didn’t know names for. The only spice ever to touch Arixa’s food, or her hair for that matter, back when she had much more of it, was smoke.
After many kisses, Patia’s hand went to the back of her daughter’s scalp and ran through the barely two-inch-long locks.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Mother,” Arixa whispered wearily.
The hand kindly slid down her back, abandoning the subject.
“Get out of this armor,” Patia said. “You need a bath. You smell like death and horses.”
Eleven
Arixa spent three hours in her mother’s quarters surrendering to whatever the Katiars women and their attendants wanted to do to her. It began with a bath in water that had already been heated in anticipation of her arrival.
City people did get a few things right, it turned out, and warm baths in hugely immobile tubs did beat dunking oneself a river when it came to bathing—even if the girls’ scrubbing was harsher than anything Arixa had subjected herself to.
When she was deemed clean, they forced her to wear brightly colored, impractical and uncomfortable dresses like she often had as a young girl. She hardly dared to look in the mirror, such a ridiculous sight she made in such attire with her short hair and inked skin. Her bravery didn’t extend nearly so far as to let her consider wearing such garments outside of these quarters. Thank the gods, at least, that she now lacked long hair for them to groom and style.
These women and girls of the palace were silly and frivolous, her mother included. Like anyone, they were what their lives had made of them. For a short while, their company helped Arixa to forget heavy matters, except for those moments when she couldn’t stop herself imagining every one of them dragged aboard a Jir god-ship or reduced to a withered shell or burnt alive inside this palace.
Then her mood would grow grim again, and the women had to work harder to lighten it.
After a while, the time came for an end to respite. Arixa insisted on leaving, which itself took an additional hour. Her armor was delivered back to her cleaned and polished along with fresh replacements for the plain linen she wore underneath. After dressing in these, or rather letting some girls dress her, she bid her goodbyes, avoiding promises of a long stay or a return visit, for her as she had told Ivar, her future was uncertain. She would see them at the feast tomorrow in her honor, she said. It was an empty pledge.
Leaving the palace, she went to the Dawn’s campground hoping that no one there would notice that she smelled like a fresh-cut flower.
* * *
When Arixa arrived close to sunset, the camp wa
s made and Ivar was waiting. Naturally, he noticed the difference in her. Instead of mentioning it, he only smirked.
“Shut up!” Arixa told him.
“Did I say anything?” he protested, without removing the smirk. He smelled faintly of beer.
Rather, not so faintly.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Of course.”
“Get my cloak,” Arixa said. “And yours. We’re going out.”
“Get your own—” Ivar started, then groaned and ran off. Returning a minute later, he thrust Arixa’s cloak at her and said, “I’m Captain, you know.”
“Sure you are,” Arixa humored him, fastening the cloak on her shoulders and raising the hood. She wished to cover her hair and tattoos so as not to be accosted at every turn in the streets.
“Where are we going?” Ivar asked. He had donned his own cloak without drawing the hood.
“Cover your hair, Norther. We’re going for a walk.”
“Walk?” Ivar questioned. But he abandoned resistance before it began. Raising his hood, he set a hand on the head of the ax at his waist and sighed, “Lead on.”
Arixa led him in the direction of the nearest marketplace, finding that the city had changed little in the six years of her absence. Perhaps it was more crowded.
She asked Ivar, “Did you see any yellow robes today?”
“You mean Ishpakians? One, I think. Why?”
“Take me to where you saw him.”
Ten minutes later, in the fading light, they strode the streets of the marketplace in search of telltale yellow robes. All around, vendors were closing shops, packing wares and heading home. Civil slaves swept trash-strewn paving stones and lit high-hanging oil lamps installed by Orik to discourage urban banditry.
“Down here, I think,” Ivar said, leading the way. “There!”
Glimpsing yellow, Arixa quickened her pace.
“What do we want with him?” Ivar asked. He half-ran to keep up.
“Just to talk.”
Ivar scoffed and let himself fall behind. “I’ll catch up.”
Alone, Arixa reached the yellow-robed Ishpakian. In her youth there had always been such a preacher in every marketplace, railing against the vice and dangers of city-life and the impending wrath of disapproving gods.
