“The moment you were hit by the arrow…” I murmured. An ancient myth fluttered for an instant in my mind. “So strange, I’ve read something exactly like this in the old scrolls.”
During the next few weeks, I searched for days and nights to locate the papyrus in our library. When I finally discovered the unique manuscript, I flew up the stairs into Da-Ren’s castle-wall cell triumphantly.
I unraveled carefully the papyrus that I had hidden under my robe. The books of the Faith were written in codex, bound together sheet by sheet. I was creating one codex book for each chapter we finished. But the myth I had found seemed to be truly archaic—a rolled scroll. It sang forgotten poems of solitude and abandonment as I opened it. It was only a few decades old, already succumbing to the damp. It had been copied many times by other monks, and even by me as well.
“I was granted permission from the First Elder to reread the forbidden texts of the ancients of the south, the idol worshippers. I had copied on this scroll, some years ago, a myth that I think I must read to you. I didn’t pay much attention to it then, but yesterday, when I finally found it again, I had a revelation.”
“A revelation? From the scrolls of the pagans?”
“Well, I don’t believe any of this, Da-Ren. But it is so strange the…the similarity.”
I began to read with a smile on my face and eyes wide open, as if I had discovered something incredibly joyful. It took me a long time to read under the scant light of the single candle. I wanted to enjoy it slowly. The wooden shutters were closed tightly against the screaming winds of winter, and the room stank of smoke and oil. I threw the woolen cape over my back and shoulders before beginning. These words could be read aloud only during winter or when it rained. Under the bright summer sun, all of this would sound frivolous: the conversations, the cell, our writings, and love.
As I read, Da-Ren lowered his eyes and sat motionless, his body bent as if frozen. Maybe because he had given me his cape. Maybe because he wanted only his ears to remain within the room. I read to him from the ancient gods.
“In the beginning, there were only two: Chaos and Gaea. And from them, Erebos, the Deep Darkness, was born. Deep within him, Nyx, the Night Goddess, left her egg, and from their dark and silent union came to be the God of Love, Eros, his wings sparkling silver and gold. The God of Love carries a bow. If his arrow strikes a mortal, he falls into passionate ecstasy. And then, as Love triumphs and conquers, it leads that man down to one of two paths. To Virtue or to Misery.”
Da-Ren lifted his gaze and spoke the last words of the wintry day. “As for me, it led me to both.”
XXXVII.
The Merciless Rain
Eighteenth winter. Chief of the First.
Not from a barren field afar
or from the fiery Sky above,
not as a coward in the dark,
or with the arrow’s deathly mark.
I see the white fear of his eye,
the demon’s heart when I pierce,
the sound of fury in crimson dreams,
the flesh that parries iron screams.
Sun, come and harden my long blade
to shine and burn in the dawn’s raid.
Selene, lead me into the night
so I bring death under your sight.
O stars, I’ll join your golden sands
with two red blades in my hands.
The Song of the Blades
Soaked in the sweat of a brave fight and a young man’s sexual passion. Not in the blood of a beardless boy. That was how my five-wintered term with the Uncarved came to an end. It was not the end I had always dreamed of. But it could have been far worse. Gunna, Redin, Urdan, Akrani, Lebo, and the others. Sometimes, even defeat deserves to be celebrated. Especially when most of my comrades and adversaries were now but ashes swirling among the clouds.
I had become one of the most dangerous men of the Tribe, and that would make me for the winters to come one of the most desirable to the Ouna-Mas. For those who had fire beneath their waists and not ice in their heads, anyway. They were the She-Wolves of the Legends that bore us. For them, I was an otherworldly demon, a touch of death, and an insurmountable power. Not because I had some special gift of nature or talent—I had seen greater stallions in the tents—but because I had the word Drakon carved inside of me.
Their Stories claimed that I breathed fire from my mouth, released lava from my dick, and had saber-long blades for teeth that tore them apart at the moment of orgasm. I was carved only after the Tribe had a new Khun; I killed a Reekaal in close weapon combat in front of ten thousand men; I survived in the Forest alone for more than a moon and didn’t die from a black fate’s arrow or any other poison poured down my throat. It didn’t matter if only half of that was true; they believed it all. When they entered my tent, they melted like white-hot iron at the blacksmith’s forge before I even touched them. Or so I liked to think, and that had the same effect, at least on me.
The Blades whom I came to command knew a few things about women and would tell me the same. They claimed that the first ones to get with child were those they took by force in the heat of the raids.
“With the blade at their throat and the blood of their kin on the ground.”
The fearless women didn’t become pregnant easily. Those who felt secure were also impregnable. The ones who trembled were the ones who opened up first like roses.
Razoreyes, the Redveil, came that night as Malan had promised, and she did not meet death. Quite the opposite. She lived, even though I forced her to taste a drop of my blood to be completely sure. It might have cost me my life had she told Sah-Ouna or if she had died, but absolutely nothing happened to her. First thing I did was to turn her over. I didn’t want these women to have their way on top of me anymore. I moved behind her and put her on all fours as I had seen the warriors do to the slave girls. I stuck her hot and sweaty buttocks to me and went inside her. She released a cry of surprise when she lost control. Many more moans of pleasure followed before she was to find it again.
When we finished, I realized that I hadn’t really taken Zeria in the pond that night. She may have taken my mind from the very first moment, but I had never taken her as I took these red-veiled Witches. Nor did I even think that Zeria, with the eyes of the Sky and the hair of the black night, was the same as the Ouna-Mas. I didn’t desire to mount her like a dog. I could wander through the Forest for seven nights just to be able to look at Zeria’s eyes for a few breaths and hear her voice again.
In the morning, just after the Ouna-Ma left my tent, I strapped my blades, bow, and quivers and packed my clothes onto the horse that the Rods gave me. I left the small settlement of the Uncarved without any farewells and passed through the Archers’ endless fields and tent camps where the young ones were being trained, the Tribe’s greatest warriors.
I then turned east and took the wide road that cut Sirol in two. The road became busier with Rods riding and carts pulling supplies of hay and wheat as I got closer to the Khun’s tent. I always wondered where the grain came from since there were no farmers in my Tribe. Not one.
I kept my head turned toward the north most of the day. Toward the south was the hill where Malan’s tent rose magnificently, surrounded by all of his faithful and none of mine. I passed the few tents of the Trackers and finally reached the meeting point. It was a gated entrance that led to the camp of the Blades. A few more had gathered outside of it to report to their new Packs. Not Chiefs. Thrice carved.
“And here is Da-Ren, the young Chief of the First Pack, finally,” said the Reghen.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“We have been waiting for you to honor us with your presence all morning. I am to take you all to your new camp,” said the Reghen, who approached me on horseback so close that our horses were sniffing each other’s sweat.
“I didn’t know.”
“Now you’ll have to do the waiting. We’ll take all others to their new Packs first and drop you last.”
<
br /> He had a faint grin on his face, as if that would be some kind of punishment for me.
“Yes,” was all I said and even that reluctantly.
“But first things first. You can’t go like that into the Blades’ camp,” said the Reghen.
I was still wearing the skins of the Uncarved. The Reghen gave me a black ribbon to tie around my arm and show that I was a Pack Chief, leader of forty men. What a strange thing it was—the eyes of the others embracing me with admiration while I was choking on my own defeat. I took off the heavy familiar wolfskin that shielded me from the cold. The Reghen gave me a new, worse skin, like those worn by the Chiefs of each Pack, made of squirrel fur. Many squirrels. Archer warriors wore goatskins or sheepskins, Blades wore dog, and so did the Guides. The Uncarved wore wolf, the Rods bear, and the Leader of all the Archers was the most impressive, donning his deerskin.
I wondered what Malan wore. Khun-Taa had chosen wolf throughout his reign, but Malan could have changed even that.
Wrapped in dead squirrels, I entered the camp of the Blades on horseback. The man who rode next to me, dressed in dog, was named Ogan and had just finished his training with the young Blades after five winters. He had known for a long time where he would end up. But he talked too much. He had so many questions. He would die early, without answers.
I knew that the Blades were about twenty Packs. Each one had fewer than forty warriors.
“Eighteen. They die faster than we can train them,” the Reghen said. “We had to cut the Packs by two.”
Still, the camp of the Blades seemed much larger.
Ogan kept his horse next to mine and never stopped talking. Sometimes he had useful things to say: “Slaves, Carriers, women they brought for this moon, their brats, old crones for cooking, Blacksmiths—”
“They have their own Blacksmiths here?” I asked.
“Yes, we do. We need many blades.”
“How many altogether?”
“Huh. A lot.” He didn’t know how to count and just shrugged his strong young shoulders. “If we start now on foot to go fence by fence around the whole camp, we will be back here by sunset.”
I looked at the sun and then started speaking as I was counting: “About five hundred tents. Six men to a tent, give or take. Not even a thousand Blades for battle. The rest for everything else.”
The Reghen smiled. Ogan looked at me, lowered his head to one side, and squinted hard, as if that would make his head work faster. He didn’t understand a word I said. I would see that empty stare in the common men I would lead from now on. I would speak plainly, using simple words, and they would understand nothing of what I said. One more thing the Guides had not taught me at the Uncarved, the best of the best: all the others had not been raised the same way. As I grew older, the stupid seemed to multiply around me. They died quickly, but they sprouted even faster.
We arrived at the tents of the First Pack.
The Blade warriors, those whom I would have under my command, were just returning.
“Training ended for today,” the Reghen told me. We continued a slow trot on horseback in between a bunch of busy warriors, slaves, and women who were watering horses, carrying the wounded, yelling, and moving in a hurry.
“Did something happen today?” I asked.
“No, this is how it is every day.”
I dismounted and walked my thirsty horse to the trunk-carved trough. I cut my eyes left and right watching everyone shouting and fighting over stupid things. These menial tasks that had never bothered me—cooking, watering, caring for the wounded—seemed so important to those around me. Somebody pushed me.
“You’re blocking the path, kid. Move.”
“Yes,” was all I said.
“Are you a Squirrel?” he asked with a look of surprise. He left, shaking his head and mumbling before I had a chance to answer.
I am no squirrel.
There were no old men around. Everyone was young, but I was the youngest, and it showed. I was clean, better dressed, and moving more slowly than they were.
“Don’t worry. I will help you during your first days. You have been sent here by Khun-Malan; they will obey you,” the Reghen told me.
I wasn’t at all worried. I had the cool composure of someone who had never thought, didn’t expect, and was not afraid of being there. I was swimming in another man’s dream. A bit curious I was, and that was all.
The First Pack, the one I was to command, camped in the southeastern corner of the settlement, near the river. At the edge of the fence. I had known that fence well since I was a boy, many winters ago. Across from there, if I continued toward the east, I would fall upon the first tents of the orphans. That was where Malan had sent me—across from the tents of the piss-carrying boys where we had grown up. So that I could see it every morning and smell it every night when the easterly wind blew all the way into my tent.
The Reghen gathered all of the men of the First in front of the evening fire and announced who I was. I received many hard looks and a few lifeless cheers.
“A worthy Chief! A worthy Chief!”
Whatever words the tradition dictated. The cheers faded fast.
I knew two of them. One was an unwelcome and forgotten face from the Sieve, Urak. No longer a twelve-wintered, he was bearded, grimy, and uglier than I cared to remember him. He lowered his eyes as soon as he saw me. The other was Ogan, who had just arrived with me and wouldn’t stop turning his head in every direction and talking.
The men were gathered and waiting, looking at me, their meat, and the fire.
“Say something,” the Reghen told me.
Say what? I didn’t care to say anything.
“At daybreak, we’ll have words, men,” I said. A heavyset, long-bearded man greeted me with a drawn-out belch before I finished my words and brought a round of laughter.
It hadn’t started well.
I didn’t know what to do, and everyone could see it. The older ones were chuckling. I took a cup of the milky mush and sat next to the only one who had put a little spirit into his cheers.
“What’s your name, warrior?
“Leke, three carvings, Chief.”
I had already seen his carvings—thick, old, swollen, deep, unmistakable.
“And how long have you been here, Leke?”
“This will be my eighth winter. I am already a rusty iron.”
He looked young and strong, but his words said his better days were behind him.
“Who is the Leader of all the Blades Packs here? I have to go and meet him in the morning.”
“We don’t have a Leader of all the Blades yet. The last one who tried to—”
“Yes, I remember. Keral. I was there. And still, there is no one?”
“They said that Khun-Malan will choose a new Leader for all eighteen Packs of the Blades before the winter is out. They are in no hurry since the raids have ended till next summer.”
“Winter we rest. Spring is the fresh beginning,” I said in a loud voice.
My head started to thaw, and I was beginning to think. I couldn’t handle any damned Leader over me.
“Let’s hope the Khun chooses a brave one,” Leke said.
Oh, that he will, Leke, I promise.
I would be the next Leader of all the Blades, even if I had to swallow blades and shit them from my asshole.
I stood up to say some words worthy of a Leader. I passed my eyes for a breath over each warrior there. I took off my squirrel skin. I was alert for the first time that day because now I had a purpose, even if it was not a great one. I took out both blades, raised them into the air and crossed them over my head to honor the Blades banner. I lowered them ready to begin my first speech.
It wasn’t necessary. Almost all of the men slowly stood up before I had uttered a word, and about forty pairs of eyes fixed straight at me. A few came closer, three or four paces away. They weren’t looking me straight in the eye, but rather at my naked left arm. The mark of the ninestar triangle wasn’t vi
sible. My long hair hid it well. They would find it soon, but it didn’t have to be on the first night.
With everything that had happened over the past couple of days, I had forgotten one strange detail. Above the black ribbon of the Chief, there should have been a deep carving—the one the Ouna-Ma had given me with her ring half a moon ago. As I looked at my arm, I could see the carving, but it wasn’t deep. It had healed and looked more like a scratch. The carvings of our Tribe were scars that could not be missed. They ate through the flesh and swelled to a flush of pink, and hair no longer grew there. Not mine. Ten feet away from the nearest warrior, I looked as if I were completely…
“Uncarved!”
The word came out of a few mouths. It would no longer protect me. It would only bring death.
The Reghen rushed to end our first gathering.
“Tomorrow, men, the Chief will speak to you. Go and rest now.”
Murmuring among themselves, the warriors started to make for their tents. The night was freezing, and it was best for everyone.
“Now be careful, Chief,” Leke said to me, grabbing my arm softly just beneath the black ribbon.
“Careful with what?”
But he had already disappeared among the others.
Before I left for my new tent, the Reghen pulled me aside.
“I’ll stay the first three days to guide you till you settle in.”
“Yeah, but—”
“It is what the Truths require when a fresh Chief starts.”
My new tent was small, the hides old and stinking of horse dung and made for someone much shorter. Every Rod, even if he wasn’t a Chief, had a better tent. The hole where Khun-Malan pissed was bigger and probably smelled better. The Chief’s tent was an angry slap in the face for an Uncarved. At least it was mine, I said to myself that night when I looked for more hides to guard myself against the frost. My little squirrels were shivering. But I was a Chief, and I had my own tent. I didn’t go, like Leke and Urak, to sleep side by side with other men.
Drakon Omnibus Page 39
