The knives have twice the rage when they strike within their own Tribe. I would fight with othertribers many times later in life. There were battles. Bloody and savage, but my mind was there. I knew. I knew that I had been born for this. It was what I prepared for every day: to slaughter the unbelievers in the name of our Goddess.
But that morning in the fog, I had to bring down my own. Brothers. The men of my Tribe. Children of the Sieve and Blades. “By Enaka!” screamed the First, as our short blades went straight for the throats of the traitors.
My enemies claimed the same Story. “Glory to Enaka!” The Fifth was charging against us with their long blades.
Only pure hatred remained, glittering in the fog, adorning it with red. Everyone struck their brothers without mercy. In the face, until that face of the enemy came to look like something totally different. Othertriber. Monster.
We had the four Ssons among us. It was easy for the loathing to blossom at their sight.
We, of the First, had made it a custom to tie our hair in ponytails and that proved a wise trick. That girlish mark distinguished us from the traitors.
I fought shoulder to shoulder with the Ssons, so close that I smelled their skin, a smell of forest and freshly skinned meat. I saw one of them bleeding from the arm. Just a scratch, but his blood was the same as mine. They were nothing more than tall, fearsome men, those Ssons. They were not Reekaal.
Not a single traitor survived to be put on the stake that day.
The whole Fifth, every one of the forty traitors, were slaughtered there as a spontaneous sacrifice to the Ceremony of the Brave. Eight of Malan’s Rods fell, as did two of my men. None of the Ssons. Two of my men lay bleeding to death on the day of my greatest glory. One throat, one kidney. Not even two moons ago, I had promised them that no one would ever fall under my command. We say foolish things in our youth, as if there are thousands of autumn rains left to wash them away, winter snowstorms to cover them—to hide the skeletons of our foolishness so that they don’t gawk at us with terror.
Malan was trembling behind us. Fear. Shock. Rage. Everything. What difference did it make? He was trembling. He hadn’t raised his own blade. He was holding it cleaner and shinier than all the others. And that was exactly how it remained. Spotless.
Sable! Finally, I had found the answer to my question. The Khun’s winter coat was made of sable. A rare animal living by the rivers beyond the steppe. It was a thick golden-brown fur with blue undertones. I remember the Hunters had brought such skins to the Uncarved a couple of summers ago. Sable, spotless without a speck of blood. The Khun stood stronger than ever before as the Ssons knelt before him. My men knelt too. Before him.
Enaka parted the mist to throw ample light on the bravest and the traitors. Who was who? Who was looking at me? Who was praising me? No one. Even my own men had turned their stares toward the four blood-covered Ssons. The monsters were chopping and tearing the heads of the traitors with raging fury and throwing them high into the air. More and more men from other Banners and Packs were gathering in the Wolfhowl to witness the spectacle. Darhul’s Reekaal had finally risen from the bowels of the darkest caves and now stood only a few feet away from us.
Reghen, Ouna-Mas. They would weave new Legends for this morning. What would their Story say? That night, the fires trembled and sang about this day, the first time that the Ssons appeared before us. The Reghen ran all afternoon, after the Ceremony, from fire to fire to spread the Stories before the warriors made Legends on their own.
“Were they Reekaal?” my warriors had asked that afternoon when we had gone back to our camp.
The Reghen had the answers: “No, they are our best, the sons of the Ouna-Mas. For many winters now, Sah-Ouna secretly chose a handful of children, the most beautiful girls and the biggest boys, immediately after they came out of their mother’s bellies, to be raised by the Ouna-Mas. They breastfed on crazygrass, that we know. Very few have survived.”
“Do you believe that, Chief?” Noki asked.
“Do you want Zeria’s tale or Rouba’s?” I answered.
“Who are they?”
My men had gathered closer; everyone wanted to learn more.
“Rouba’s it is. Do you know why they have those long heads? The Ouna-Mas, the Ssons?” I asked, looking at all faces for an answer.
“Who can know the ways of the Goddess? To see the—” Sani replied.
“Before he died, a Guide told me that he had seen such babies, girls. Early after one of them was born, the Ouna-Mas wrapped cloths around its head tightly. The baby slept and sucked from the tit with the cloth always tied. Every few nights, they changed the cloth and washed the skin. After many moons, the soft skulls had become long like our quivers for the rest of their lives.”
“I don’t understand. What are you saying?” asked one of my warriors. A couple more who were listening had turned to their most sour face.
“I’m saying that this is why their heads are shaped like snake eggs. The Witches tied them that way when they were babies. They’re not born like that.”
More shook their heads as if I were a liar or a drunk. Some started walking away.
It was a simple truth. So simple, it made them feel stupid. Few believed it. Nobody opposed it, yet their silence said a lot more.
Lead us, torture us, rule us, but don’t take away our monsters. Because when our monsters die, so does our Goddess and our Story.
Give us Witches who dream Enaka’s whispers. Not mad, plain mortals with banded heads.
My men needed the monsters. No one liked my Story.
The Reghen did not stop me. He didn’t even need to say that my Story was false.
“If those creatures are sons of the Ouna-Mas, then they should be wise. But to me they look like the sons of a drunken Witch fucked by a pack of maulers,” said Noki, his stare fixed on the Reghen.
It took the Reghen a few breaths to believe what he heard before he replied. “The females with the long heads are wise. The Ssons have the spirit of the She-Wolves and the strength of the Tribe’s bravest warriors.”
My men wouldn’t let the Reghen leave. They kept attacking him with questions.
“Will they go into battle with us?” asked Leke.
“They are a handful and take orders only from the Khun of the Tribe,” the Reghen said.
They wouldn’t.
“What Pack do they belong to?”
“These men are very few, and they have been raised in the Forest. That was where they hunted, living off the meat of the deer and protecting us from the Forest demons.”
The Reghen said the word “men” with great difficulty.
“Who gave them orders? Did they kill many demons?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He knew.
“How long have they been hunting?”
Still no answer.
“How come no one spoke of them for so many winters?”
“Most of them died. Some would not obey, and some went crazy. The Rods took care of those. The ones today are the four who made it to twenty winters. Sah-Ouna trusts them, and they will serve Khun-Malan.”
Khun-Malan. I had saved his life.
“And how is the great Khun?” I asked.
“He is stronger than ever. I came for you, Da-Ren. He ordered that you go to him after sunset.”
I left most of my men behind whispering tales about the Ssons. I rode around Sirol for a while before going to Malan’s tent. Noki and Rikan rode next to me. Passing through the training fields, we fell upon a handful of women Archers who were returning to their camp. With them was Danaka from the Sieve. She recognized me and called out to me.
“They want to know. Let’s stop and talk to them,” I said to Noki.
The women had gathered proudly on horseback around me. I ached to tell them the Story of the day. My eyes searched in vain for Elbia among them. I had heard her ghost once more, after such a long time, only that morning.
“Were you there today?” asked the woman with t
he Chief’s ribbon around her arm.
“Yes, we fought alongside Khun-Malan. We—”
She cut me off.
“Did you see them? The Ssons? Are they what everyone says?”
“Who says what?”
“They say that the four of them brought down forty men,” she said.
I exhaled too tired and angry to say anything more.
“They are strong warriors. Almost as strong as we are!” Noki shot out.
I bade them goodbye and signaled to my men that we were leaving. Noki stayed with them. He wanted to tell them other Stories.
“I have to explain a few things to these Archers here,” he said.
I reached the tents of the Sieve. I had not returned to my first brutal winter camp since the day I had left it. The Guide in charge tried to stop me.
“We came to bring the Stories of the Ssons,” I said, and he let us inside. Rikan started talking to him about the Ssons. I approached the tent of the winners and took a peek inside. Four twelve-wintered children were chewing meat around the fire. They were mumbling, and I heard them uttering the word “Ssons.” One of them was a girl. She was drawing with her rosy lips the smile that I had lost in the Sieve. She turned, and I thought she looked at me. Her lips were shut, I could hear her. “So, you saved him. Him! Not me.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Rikan.
“You are pale, Chief.”
“Last night, I had a sip of crazygrass. Haven’t tasted that demon for a long time. Only a taste, but that’s all it takes. It’s been a strange day, today.”
“Crazygrass! Ha, give it to me next time.”
We rode side by side.
I preferred to have him next to me rather than the Ssons. A loyal man with iron heart and arms.
“How did you end up with four carvings? You can bring down four Blades on your own,” I asked him.
“Leave it. I have never talked about this.”
“You never had a Chief who gave you a horse before. Tell me.”
“The first five nights of the Sieve, I was in the winners’ tent every time. And then I caught the sickness. They had me for dead; I didn’t even leave the sick children’s tent. I puked my guts out every morning and night. I wouldn’t eat anything for days,” he said.
“And you survived.”
“A miracle before the end of the Sieve. When the Witch came and made me swallow the crazygrass. That thing cured me. No one could believe it. I crawled back out again on the last day, to the trial with the rabbits.”
“Yes, I know.”
“They gave me four carvings. What else could they have done? They were right. Bad luck.”
“You don’t look sickly to me.”
“No. I never got sick again.”
“Your luck has changed now.”
I entered Malan’s tent unarmed. The Rods had really gone mad after that morning’s attack. They searched us until they found and removed every weapon we carried. The bodies of their comrades had been laid to rest on the funeral pyres to the right of Malan’s hill.
Malan was drinking. Neither men nor women were with him in the vast room. Only lifeless skulls and the monsters that guarded him. I approached, and he put his hand on my shoulder.
“Da-Ren, you really proved your worth today. No one else moved.”
“Maybe they couldn’t see in the fog, Khun.”
“Yes, right. Some saw only what they wanted to see. Our days are numbered, Da-Ren. We have to leave for a campaign; else they will slaughter us all soon.”
Sah-Ouna was not there, and Malan and I had become we and us.
“This is your big day, Da-Ren,” he said.
“I don’t deserve your mockery,” I told him.
“What do you mean?”
“You are high up on your hill here, but you don’t see around you, Khun. You are too far away to hear. Everyone, everywhere, is talking about them. Only them.” I gestured to the two Ssons who were standing still as leafless trunks on each side of his throne. They were Malan’s only companions in the tent.
“The Ssons never utter a word,” the Reghen had said. For the rest of my days and theirs, I would never see them eat, drink or touch a woman. And yet their presence next to the throne felt stronger than a hundred bellowing Rods.
Malan offered me a wooden cup full of wine. I touched my lips to it but didn’t drink.
“The Tribe will sing about you, Da-Ren. You will find your Story when our campaign begins. You will lead first among the brave. I promise it. We will both find our Story. Our Legends are going to be unveiled together.”
“The Goddess despises warriors who grow old,” I said.
“Yes, Chaka used to tell us so in the Uncarved. Remember? Not even two winters have passed,” Malan said.
“I will die in a few moons anyway, Khun-Malan. I have seen it on the pegs the Blades hang outside my tent,” I said. “There is only one thing I fear: that I will not live in even one Story. My ashes will scatter in the darkest corners of the night sky, and no star will warm me with its light. I can’t breathe here.”
I was gasping for air without Zeria, without glory. My failure had simmered too long in the cauldron of the Witches, the Reghen, and the Ssons.
“We are leaving,” Malan said.
“When?”
“Soon. Very soon. The greatest campaign that ever was.”
“I will come. I will no longer stay here.”
“As of now, you are the Leader of all of the Blades. All eighteen Packs will be under your command. You will kneel only before me,” said Malan.
“Seventeen.”
The Fifth was no more.
“First thing you’ll do, change all the Chiefs who were in the field today and did not fight by my side. And whoever else you suspect. Carve them, Da-Ren. Send them to the Guides. Clean them out. From now on, you are my Firstblade.”
I must find a new Chief for the First to take my place.
“And take a wineskin. Celebrate tonight!” Those were his last words.
And so it was.
A decision. A sip of crazygrass, a whispering ghost, a man consumed by love lost, a man running in the fog of Wolfhowl. Choosing sides. The blue-painted ornaments on the arms of the tallest Sson. Had I seen those or did I dream them? One battle cry.
“Save the Khun.”
Without ceremonies or any other kinds of celebrations, in the nineteenth winter of my life, all the Packs of the Blades had come under my command. The worst cutthroats of all the world would ride behind me, even into the belly of Darhul.
Firstblade.
When I reached my tent, I wondered for the first time. I would never know why Malan had called the whole First Pack that morning. Had he been planning to carve me three times and dispose of me, or to give me the leadership of the Blades anyway?
I had no answers. Only a new title. And a wineskin.
XLV.
Hunger
Twentieth spring. Firstblade.
The Legend of the Annihilation
The Fourth Season of the World
Darkness. First. Light. Birth. Enaka. Battle. Demon. Darhul. Sun. Men. Victory. Domination. Birth. Tribe.
All this came and passed, and then began the Third Luminous Season, that of Birth.
From the fragments of the Goddess, the first-ever men and women were born. They were not warriors; they had no enemies. They lived off the hunt, and the food was plentiful, always from the hand of the Goddess.
Until the Black Autumn of the Annihilation, when Darhul came to take his revenge. There in the black sea depths, he had hidden for hundreds of winters. He emerged stronger than ever. With vengeful fury, he cut and unleashed his most gruesome head, the Cloudarken.
It was the beginning of autumn, only six generations before, and it all came down on midday so fast. The Cloudarken, a white-headed snake with a red tail of fire, tore the Sky with ominous speed. A tiny speck at first, it grew as high as the tallest mountain before it crashed into the land. The E
arth shook and trembled for countless breaths. Valleys opened in half and became desolate crags of fire and dust.
And then the Sun was gone.
The Cloudarken had covered him with a cloak of ash and poison.
Blind and blinded, the first male Sorcerers of the Tribe scarred their faces with knives in the faint light of the torches and called him back, but the son of the Goddess was lost, wounded for ten and five moons. A thick black cloud, which rained death, soot, and brimstone, swallowed him. As the Sun, so Enaka too was lost.
Thus began the Fourth Season, that of the Annihilation, which lasted only ten and five moons but was the deathliest of all. The Season that Enaka abandoned us.
It took only a few nights for the sun-orphaned autumn to turn into black winter and frozen death. The frost burned the grass. With cudgels, fists, and the warm entrails of the dead, the people tried to break the ice in the dark, if only to uncover a little grass for the animals.
The animals died first. In the beginning, only those that were to be eaten. Then in the days to come, our ancestors were forced to slaughter most of the horses as well and eat them on their way south. The raging warriors stoned to death the powerless male Sorcerers and abolished them forever. Never again would our Tribe honor a false Sorcerer.
Few of our Tribe saved themselves by fleeing south. From countless thousands, only three times a thousand were left alive. Some say fewer. They wandered around like demented wind-ghosts. Some began to beg for mercy in the name of the cursed Darhul, forgetting the Goddess. Ten and five moons passed traveling under the clouds of darkness. But the day and the night had become one, so no one could know how long the Season lasted.
The Goddess had not abandoned us. One night, she rushed with the chariot upon the celestial cloudbreaths of Darhul and separated day from night once more with lightning fire. Then another bright star appeared—hers, next to the Sun and Selene. Day and night, the star ran furiously toward the West with a tail of fire. Our warlords followed this first sign of Enaka and so were saved, leaving the black cloud back in the East.
It was six generations ago when the first men of the Tribe burned their lifeless children, women, elders, and mothers, all who had perished. And they gathered close around the fire, to savor the heat of the dead. The living continued until they finally came upon the other tribes of the South. That was the beginning of the next and greatest misery. Hunger was the agony that had prevailed until then, but it was followed by despair and rage. Because the othertribers they came upon were servants of Darhul. They had taken control of the lands of the South, where the fertile soil could still feed many. This was the only way open to them, as Darhul had placed the Reekaal in the West and the Drakons in the North as guardians.
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