I was close enough to the Ouna-Mas that I could touch them now, and they all turned their eyes away except for the one who was holding the knife above the dead body. She moved her lips, glanced at me, and murmured the word “Drakon,” while the rest covered their ears. I struggled to remember her face from long ago but before I did a Rod pulled me by the arm and pointed to the center of the tent.
“The Khun is waiting,” he said.
Two rows of skulls defined the corridor that led to the throne. Skulls from big-sized oxen, bears, and wolves. They were all impressive in their own way, but the most fearsome were the two skulls at the end of the corridor, closest to the throne. They were almost human, narrow and long like that of the Ouna-Mas, but larger. Those had goat-like horns and the teeth of some wild animal. Wolf. Bear. Maybe both. Those were skulls from creatures of another world. They were not on the ground as the rest but atop waist-high columns, usually used to hold urns. There, in between the horned humanlike skulls, the Rod motioned for me to stop.
“When you address the Khun, keep your head high. When you bow, keep it low,” he said.
“Wise advice,” I said, trying to laugh at my own words. I shivered for a breath at the thought that I might join the Rods before the night was over.
I stared again at the long skulls with the horns and dog teeth.
The Rod came closer, eager to share his wisdom. “Reekaal.” He whispered the word hastily as if the skulls were listening. A hand touched me on the shoulder from behind. I turned and saw Malan.
I hadn’t seen him but for a few moments since the night I had fought next to him and saved his skin from the warriors of that usurper Keral. He wore a dark leather coat and had shaved short the sides of his head, except for two small ponytails that rose upward one in front of the other. The hair on the back of his head fell oily and straight almost reaching his shoulders. His short black beard had started to thicken, making him look older than I, maybe even five summers older.
“Don’t you know the Reekaal, Da-Ren? Legend says that you have killed some of them.”
“Yes, what…” I wasn’t ready for this encounter.
I was still looking at the otherworldly skulls.
“Do you like them? I made them myself,” he said with a smirk.
He walked up the steps that led to his throne. I remembered Khun-Taa’s throne; an unremarkable carved single piece of wood with a narrow, straight back. Khun-Malan’s throne was of othertribal craftsmanship. Its back was wide and unnecessarily tall, painted crimson to stand out from the animal skins hanging on the walls behind. It was framed by three curved bows connecting. Each arm ended in enormous mauler’s heads, shiny black with jaws open and gleaming hazelnut eyes. The wooden beasts were carved to be almost twice their real size; their bodies strong and wide were forming the legs of the throne.
Sah-Ouna was right next to him. No, she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. Rods, Ouna-Mas, and Reghen, four from each craft, followed and filled the steps leading to the throne left and right.
The horse-dung reek that fell heavy in the other tents was missing, as if the fire burned only wood and lard. Behind the throne and around the tent hung hides with drawings of dogs, bears, lions, and other hunters of the wild in thick, straight lines without too much detail. The animals were outlined in black lines, and their teeth, jagged and sharp, were in white. The Sun and Selene behind the throne were painted in blood red on the earth-colored hides. The Rods held spears taller than themselves at their sides. I knelt.
“You don’t have to kneel yet,” said Malan, sitting on his throne.
I had knelt to look at the skulls more closely. They were looking back.
Their dark and empty eye sockets whispered to me: “Kneel for the Khun.”
Bone, glue, and horn, this is how we made our bows. Those fourcarved Craftsmen knew how to handle them well in my Tribe. That was the secret of these skulls unless I had really found the monsters that had killed Er-Ren, my father, Rouba, and me in the Forest. Before Zeria pulled me out of the caves of the dead. Bone, glue, and horn.
Malan was not resting on the back of his throne. He was sitting down but leaning forward, alert and ready to speak. Whatever he had had to drink that morning had done something to him. As I got up closer to him, I noticed that his eyes were cloudy and almost gray.
“I’ve missed you, Da-Ren. How long has it been since we had meat and milk-spirit together? Since the night you gave Gunna an Iron End?”
No. Since the night I fought at your side and saved your life.
The words still wouldn’t come out. It choked me that we could no longer speak as equals.
“Da-Ren, the Witches here have marked you as a Drakon of the North. They have discovered the omen of your mark, the ninestar, they say. Your mother, rumor has it, was a filthy slave from up there. Your hair is the color of hay at the ends.”
I should have cut it, but the truth was that I never took notice of my reflection on the crystal waters. Everyone else could see my hair and wonder.
“I don’t know what my mother was. We both grew up in a tent with orphans. You know that. But if you want, I can tell you about my father, who—”
“I have heard the Legend of Er-Ren,” he said. “Chilled my spine! Couldn’t sleep.” He showed me the two skulls of the…Reekaal to the right and left of me. “The Cyanous? You dared talk of the Cyanous Reekal in your tale.”
“It is a Legend, not a tale,” I said.
Sah-Ouna, the maulers, Malan, they all fixed their dark stares on me. I lowered my eyes. Sah-Ouna whispered words to one of the Ouna-Mas and the young girl descended the steps. She came next to me and she spoke softly in my ear.
“Be careful with your tales, Da-Ren. Speak them thrice and they’ll find their own skin and bones. And then they’ll rise alive.”
I had spoken them exactly three times in the Forest.
Malan wasn’t in the mood for fairy tales that morning.
“Enough with this. Do you want to serve your Khun, Da-Ren? You showed courage the last time. I have not forgotten. You know, if those jackals had killed me, then you would have been the only Uncarved Wolf and the next Khun of the Tribe.”
“For a few breaths only. Until they killed me too.”
“Oh, yes, yes, that’s right,” he said and burst out laughing so hard that he had to lean over and embrace the wooden armrest of his throne. “If Sah-Ouna had not sent the Rods, we would have all died.”
Everything is funny when you’re talking from your throne high above.
He asked if I wanted to serve the Khun. There was no other choice, not because they would slaughter me at once if I said no, but because I didn’t know how else to respond. For a moment, I was filled with shame, watching my twelve-wintered self cheering with a skinned rabbit, a terrible and formidable beast. As much as it pained me, I was not the One, the undisputed Leader. But I had no urge to die.
“Yes!” I answered.
“Are you sure that you will be able to do it without betraying me? Otherwise, I will send you to the far-off outpost in the East and never see you again.”
The far-off outpost of the East was on the other side of the world from the Forest of Zeria.
“No, great Khun, I will do it; I want to fight here.”
“And what Banner fits you best, Da-Ren? What glory do you dream of?”
The Forest, the Trackers.
My thoughts almost escaped to the open. The Trackers were the only ones who dared explore the Forest, but they were not warriors. My mind returned to the dead Ouna-Ma who tried to poison me. I saw the corner of Sah-Ouna’s eye watching me.
I won’t tell you what I want.
“So?” he asked again when his patience was spent.
“Wherever you decide, my Leader. I had hoped to join the Rods, but—”
“Can’t do that. I’ve already chosen my personal guard. They are far better warriors, even better than you.”
I was tempted for a moment to say, “Bring any one of them here
and now. Let’s see who is better.” But I didn’t want to be in his personal guard. I could think of nothing worse than watching every night to see if some murderer was hiding outside of the tent or if he had poisoned the Khun’s milk-spirit.
“You will go to the Blades. Chief! Hear that, everyone! I told you that you would be rewarded. Chief of the First Pack. Their last Chief died on one of the campaigns in the South about a moon ago, and they must get a new one as soon as possible. Your serpent cock’s reputation will make it there before you do. It’s not often that a Witch falls down helpless like this. She was green from pain, from the moment she left your hut. So they tell me. She coughed up bloody vomit to her end.”
I wanted to tell him that I too had been in pain and vomiting and that it had been she who had brought the poison, but it would have done me no good. I thought that the rumors had more to do with my strong stomach than with what I had in my trousers.
“I don’t know how that…”
Malan rose, walked down the steps, and approached me.
“Follow me,” he said, and we walked down the skull path, away from everyone else. He stopped before we reached the exit, stretched his arm and grabbed my head in a lock and whispered into my ear.
“I don’t know what happened either, but I will find out. Oh, believe me, I will. Enough for now with these bitches. We don’t always have to listen to them. Now tell me, what did she tell you?”
“Who?”
“That Ouna-Ma, Sah-Ouna. What did she whisper to you?”
My Khun! You don’t trust the Witches either.
It was the first thing I had found amusing since I had entered his tent.
“Nothing, some warning.”
“You tell me right away.” He was persisting and he had grabbed my arm.
I repeated the Ouna-Ma’s words and his face softened.
“That’s all?” he asked again.
I nodded with eyes wide to make him believe me. It was the first time I realized that the Witches were sacred to most, but for Malan, they were simply useful. The demon mania and witch faith would never rule over him. He would consult them and use them whenever the sheep had to be guided, but they wouldn’t dictate his fate. And that would make him an invincible Leader.
I had become Chief of a Pack. Forty men. I still had only one carving, and that meant that I could one day be the Leader of all the Blades. About twenty Packs of them, all their Chiefs would kneel to me. I could climb to that onecarved honor. Not higher.
I wouldn’t be forced to kneel every day. I had to kneel only now. The ritual was clear to us from many winters before. To be named a leader of men, I had to kneel and swear before the One Leader. Malan himself had knelt before Sah-Ouna to accept the ultimate honor.
I knelt before him, removed my blade and thrust it into the ground to speak the heavy words we knew.
“I swear to the Goddess, the Sun, and Selene to serve my Tribe and my Leader, Khun-Malan, to be a Blade, a worthy Chief, to tear through the othertribers till the end of the Final Battle.”
The words were the same for every Chief. The words were easy. I had already betrayed the Goddess, the Sun, and Selene. I could swear anything, and their punishment would come someday. I had uttered many lies already. But now I had to say them kneeling before him. That was the difficult part. We were away from the others, the two of us, and somehow that made it even worse. It wasn’t a ritual; this was a man to man battle I could not even fight. My head was at the level of his waist. I was naked of my Uncarved pride. At that moment, he was the second one of power to ride me in a period of only a few days. Instead of the fiery sweetness of the first time with the iron-eyed Ouna-Ma, the second time was shame and humiliation that strangled my throat.
“Go now, Da-Ren. The Rods have arranged a new horse for you.”
He shouted once and the two Rods standing behind the first of the three entrances walked in to hear his commands. “The Chief’s horse. And give him two flagons. Not wineskins, the bronze ones. From the new spirit that they brought from the South.” My blood was boiling like bubbling hot wine. Wine was new and hard to find in the Tribe. The old men knew only the milk-spirit, and the boys knew nothing. I honored both flagons that night, my last night with the Uncarved, until I forgot my fate.
“Celebrate tonight, Da-Ren, and ride tomorrow for the Blades camp. I will send you another Redveil tonight. We have to see if your famous cock will be as potent again.”
Our gazes drifted toward the few Ouna-Mas who were mourning over the dead body of their sister. I looked again at the one who had not covered her face, and I remembered her from a long time ago, from the rituals of the Sieve. Razoreyes, the one Ouna-Ma I’d always found more beautiful than all the others.
“Her,” I said to Malan pointing to Razoreyes. “Send her to me.”
He laughed again. He was drunk in the middle of the day; that I could tell. From the wine or the power, I couldn’t tell.
The strong brown horse was waiting for me outside. It was mine, a gift from the new Great Khun. It was not a gray-white as those of the greatest Leaders of the Tribe. Its left ear had a short straight cut and his right a bigger one. The common mark of the Blades’ animals. They had marked this horse a long time ago. It had never been a choice, no matter what I would have asked of him.
I tried to fish what I already guessed out of the Rod.
“This animal is half dead. Did you just run it here from the Blades?”
He was stupid enough to fall for it. Or he didn’t care.
“No, they brought it yesterday. It has rested all day. We fed it and stroked it for you, Chief.”
Chief!
Malan had marked me for the Blades long before I had entered his tent that morning. I descended the hill of the Khun’s tent, the flagons strapped on the horse’s sides. I, too, was now a leader of men, a Chief. I would lead forty men. He would lead more than thirty thousand. He was grateful enough to reward me for my loyalty.
But I would discover the inescapable truth on the next evening, when I passed the gate with the emblem of the two uneven-sized crossed blades welded together and I arrived at the small and filthy camp of the Blades. Malan had sentenced me, quickly and decisively.
To death.
XXXVI.
It Led Me to Both
Island of the Holy Monastery, Thirty-fifth winter.
According to the Monk Eusebius.
“Why did the Ouna-Ma call you Drakon? Drakons are cursed creatures in our faith, Da-Ren.”
“I am sure. Almost everything is cursed in your faith. But it matters not what monster you were born, Eusebius—only what you become.”
“And when did you decide what you would become?”
“No one decides. When the time comes, the false skin sheds and the true one is revealed.”
I broke the rules a bit and took a sip of the wine he had poured into my cup. It helped. He had mocked me recently, asking me what I knew about women.
“What do you know about women, Da-Ren?” I asked him, reversing the roles.
“A lot more than a monk, for sure.”
“That may be, but I am not sure you know enough either.”
He may have lain with the Ouna-Mas and other common women and slaves, but was that enough?
“How many women have you spoken to, Da-Ren?”
“Many.”
“Did you exchange more than a few words with them? How many did you sit with at sunset, to break bread and talk, as you are speaking with me now?”
“With one,” he revealed to me as I now began to unravel the labyrinth. “But even with her, I didn’t speak enough.”
The Ouna-Mas did not speak, and he didn’t speak with the slaves or the women Archers. He had never been married like the faithful and pious people. Had he fallen in love with Zeria because she had been the only one to give him the gift of a true smile? Or just because God intended it to be so?
I was searching for that answer that did not have a why. The why of the mad pass
ion of love.
“When did you fall in love? The moment you first fell for that one woman?”
“A warming question for wintertime,” he said. He went to the window and breathed in the violent breeze. “Look at the sea, Eusebius. Cold, unforgiving, blue, unending. Do you love her or hate her?”
“I mean when did you first fall—”
“I understand your question. But what difference does it make which is the first moment, Eusebius? We rarely choose the first of anything that will befall us. The only thing that matters is what the last one will be. What will be our last word when this Story ends?”
He gave me no other answer that day. But two nights later, he did.
“I am still looking for the answer to your question. I don’t know. Was it the first time I saw her in the Forest? The second in the pond when I was inside of her?”
“The night when Sah-Ouna poisoned you in her tent?”
“Are you asking me about the love that conquers the soul or the hunger of the flesh, Eusebius?”
“Either. Whatever first means to you.”
“Then the first times are many, Eusebius. The calling of Sah-Ouna, Zeria, the Ouna-Ma who rode me for the first time, even the twenty-first night of the Sieve, when Elbia lay next to me and our fingers…when I saw Aneria for the first time, a different love…”
“Can you choose one?”
“Choose? How?”
“I don’t know. The most important one?”
“I don’t think I can.”
I insisted.
“I know only of the love of our God. For us, the one moment that defines this ultimate act of love is His sacrifice on the Cross, the moment of life-giving death,” I said.
He let out a sigh and looked away from me as if to remember.
“Life-giving death, huh? That I know,” he said and paused for two breaths. “That was when the arrow pierced me in the Forest and Zeria took me into her hut. Because I died at that moment and came back only to see her.”
Drakon Omnibus Page 38
