Drakon Omnibus

by C. A. Caskabel

  “Is this Enaka’s will, or yours?”

  “Everyone.”

  “You didn’t dare say this in front of all the men. Didn’t Khun-Malan order to leave the old and the useless behind?”

  “Yes, but that was not meant for you. Most of the Blades must stay behind.”

  These Reghen, who had never touched a bow or blade in their lives, they would scratch on their parchments the fates of everyone in the campaign.

  “Enaka spoke to me many times, Reghen, and she says you are lying. I think Enaka wants me in battle. Your calfskins don’t.”

  “Those are the orders, Da-Ren.”

  “Do you want me to stay behind too, Reghen?”

  “By Pelor, you thickheaded man, that’s what I’m saying. You are to send only a few Blades, assign them a Chief for the campaign. The hundred Reghen—”

  The blood was throbbing in my temples now, and my lower lip slid slowly between my teeth. I gripped the blade handle. The Rods were startled and didn’t do much more than move a step closer around the Reghen. I approached him and spoke only for his ear.

  “You leave now, or I’m going to make a hundred Reghen pieces out of you alone,” I said.

  “Are these your words to us, Da-Ren, to the Reghen?” he asked, stepping backward.

  No one had ever spoken like that to a Reghen. They wore the robes of gray, the sacred ones, and they brought the Truths of the Sky and the Khun. Many times, they even made them up themselves. No one ever opposed them because someone called Reghen, who lived six generations ago, killed, according to the Legend, a Drakon—a Drakon that had a thousand descriptions, one for each night, freezing or hot.

  I spoke up for the Rods and everyone else to hear.

  “As you wish! I’ll follow the Truths you bring now, Reghen. I’ll leave two of my Packs behind, and I’ll lead the rest to the campaign myself. Get out of here. We will draw among us and decide. Pack your calfskins and go.”

  I had taken in new recruits and now had nineteen Packs altogether. It was always a choice to leave the younger ones and the disobedient Chiefs behind. A choice for another day. I had ridden hard back and forth for days now, and my limbs were breaking up. I crawled into the first tent I could find and hit the ground. Enough was said and done for one night. My heart and my head were still pounding as if O’Ren hadn’t stopped galloping. It was a sleep filled with longskull robes billowing, hammers falling, and maulers growling.

  I awoke, and as soon as I crawled back onto two feet, my men had encircled me and brought their fears and their questions.

  “What did you mean we’ll draw, Firstblade? Are you going to leave us? We’ve never betrayed you. Don’t do this to us,” Sani said.

  “And who can I leave, Sani? This is Sirol, our birthplace. If we come back one day, who do you want in charge here? Pigface?”

  I gathered the Chiefs of all the Packs around me before sunset.

  “Irons high!” Leke shouted. Twenty pairs of arms crossed in salute.

  Irons high was the new salute I had imposed upon all my Blades, words to bind them as one in loyalty. The Archers and the Reghen all had good Legends, so we had to find some of our own. Our own words for our own Stories.

  Irons high, forearms making an uneven x-shaped cross in front of the chest, two fists as if they’re holding the two blades. The blades in salute remained sheathed. The left wrist crossed just below the right elbow, the right fist higher as if it were heaving a long blade, thumbs looking toward the face, knuckles upward. Only the Blades saluted in this way, and only for other Blades. But I still hadn’t managed to unite them all. Some cared only about their own pelts. Pigface of the Fourteenth lowered his arms first and spoke.

  “We’re not staying behind. My men will not die here with the old crones and the cripples,” he said.

  “But you don’t care if your comrades of the other Packs take on this burden? We will draw. All of us. Even me!”

  “Firstblade, not you. You can’t,” said Rikan.

  I tried to push back the old Blacksmith. He didn’t move much.

  “All of you, shut up and listen. Two Packs, whichever ones come out in the draw, will remain to guard Sirol, even if I have to stake each man alive, here, tonight. We all share the same fate, and we let the Sky decide. I’ll draw as if I were still Chief of the First.”

  I had told Noki to prepare the reeds for the draw. The men were staring at him now, fingers trembling, eyes cursing, hands sweating.

  “Why do we draw last? The others will choose the long reeds,” said Eightfinger.

  I turned to Noki:

  “Hide those reeds in a bag. You’ll draw one for each Pack, Noki. Fast now!”

  The whole thing was over before more could complain, and the Chiefs of the Fourteenth and the Nineteenth ended up getting the shortest reeds. Pigface and Sani. They would stay behind.

  “This is Enaka’s will, and you are not to disobey. You leave and start the preparations at dawn.”

  The Chiefs turned their backs. Except for Pigface. His left hand remained hidden below the squirrel coat that covered his blades and his enormous body. He didn’t make a move, though I was certain he would before this was over.

  “If I see you do anything, Pigface, I will bury you in your own pig shit,” Noki yelled at the unlucky man.

  Pigface, of the unlucky Fourteenth, spat his green, thick pulp toward me before he disappeared.

  Sani was the only one still waiting. I had made him Chief of the Nineteenth only two moons earlier. His fate was to stay behind. He was not uttering a word, but his left hand was shaking next to the sheath, ready to charge. His eyes were pleading with me.

  “Speak, brother.”

  “Da-Ren, don’t do this to me. Ask the Reghen to take all of us. Why should I stay behind?”

  “You’ve heard their Truth, Sani. They won’t change their minds. You can find a great Story here, as the new Leader of Sirol. But I will speak to the Reghen.”

  I took Noki and Leke only, none of the others, and went to the Reghen’s camp the next morning. I pretended to plead with him, but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew the Truthsayer was right about that. Some had to stay and guard Sirol. And they had to be capable and trustworthy. The Reghen repeated himself, trying to sound wiser than he was.

  “Do you know why we didn’t want you in the campaign, Da-Ren? It’s exactly this.”

  I shook my head, eyes wide and lips tight, waiting for him to explain. What do you mean, stupid man, who never held a blade?

  “You question the Truths. You always doubt. There is no time for that in a campaign. You slow us down. It’s for the same reason that Khun-Malan doesn’t want the old and the sick.”

  “Am I old and sick?”

  “No, but your questions are a drag upon us. Like the sick and the old who have forgotten to die and don’t deserve our meat and milk. You don’t need to count to understand that we can’t carry and feed eighty thousand people to the ends of the world.”

  “You know my men are fierce fighters, not sick. You condemn them to die here of hunger, an unworthy death. Wouldn’t it be better if they were killing othertribers with us?”

  A second Reghen jumped in:

  “No. We have enough Archers with us. We don’t need useless mouths to feed. Men have to stay behind to keep order in Sirol. The women and the old can die. They’re worthless. If we weren’t leaving for the campaign, we would be forced to send them into the Endless Forest to die on their own there.”

  The second Reghen was older and slender, with bony cheeks and a short gray stubble. He approached me, opened a saddlebag, and took out three round white stones, each one the size of my fist.

  “Here, for those who will stay behind. From the Ouna-Mas,” he said. “A powerful amulet!”

  White stones! He’d offered me white stones. So powerful. One blow and I could crush his skull with the white stone.

  “We will do as the Khun commands. I have already chosen two Packs to stay behind, and they are the best m
en,” I lied before jumping onto my horse. I hadn’t given him a name yet, but I was sure he wasn’t worthy to be called O’Ren.

  We galloped away from the Reghen camp and when we slowed down again I asked Leke:

  “So, these pebbles—,” I mumbled. “Remind me.”

  “They protect a man from the demons. They are the teardrops of Pelor the White, and as the Ouna-Mas say—”

  I did remember the Legend, but differently.

  “I thought they protected a dead man’s soul from the demons,” I said.

  Leke didn’t answer.

  “I am not giving them to Sani.”

  Back at the camp, the Blacksmiths were sweating over the anvils, and the slaves were driving the carts and the wagons to the Craftsmen for final repairs. I gave one more order:

  “Go and cut up our best meat, Noki. We will honor Sani and eat with the old comrades from the First tonight after the sun falls. Bring as many skins of milk spirit as I have.”

  It was a great time for starting a long journey. The rains had stopped, and spring was unveiling along the Blackvein’s banks. The poplars wobbled at the breeze and the willows flowered with the colors of sunset. The meat—horse and lamb—was roasted on the spit, but it took a lot of milk spirit to hear the first roaring laughter. Everyone was looking at Sani with a heavy heart. As if it would be the last time.

  “Enaka’s eye never sleeps. Do you believe that the Fourteenth was drawn in the lot? After the ruckus Pigface had raised, he got what he deserved,” Kuran, the unlucky, said as we devoured the roast under the last light of the day.

  “That was not Enaka’s doing, Kuran. I arranged it; that lout. I kept the shortest reed under my hide and—well, it was dark already. I made sure everything happened fast,” said Noki. The milk spirit dripped from his jaw to his forearm as he laughed.

  Sani stared at me, then back at Noki. He wasn’t laughing.

  “No, not you. It wasn’t me. The Goddess wanted you here, Sani,” said Noki.

  We remained quiet for a few breaths. Sani emptied his milk-spirit skin and broke the silence.

  “Ha! We really stuck it to Pigface!”

  We all burst into laughter, and Sani’s roar was the loudest of all.

  Noki gave me two piercing looks with tightened lips as the others were cheering, raising their milk skins, and imitating Pigface. Only he and I knew. It wasn’t the fate of Enaka for Sani to remain in Sirol. It was the fate of Da-Ren. I had decided to leave Noki, someone I could trust, behind. As for Pigface I had no idea, Noki chose him out of spite, or maybe he was afraid that my own name would come out.

  The others crawled drunk in the darkness to find cover and sleep, and I was alone with Leke. I had to ask him.

  “This meat you brought—is it?”

  Unlike the sheep, it was hard and tasteless.

  “It was a brave horse, Da-Ren. You shouldn’t leave it for the crows to feast on.”

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  “All our men deserved this.”

  “Yes, O’Ren did. Yes…” I had to say it many times to make myself believe. “Brave O’Ren is coming with us. His blood, his flesh.” A horse has the sweetest meat, but not a young war horse like O’Ren. His meat was bitter, more bitter than the milk spirit.

  Pigface met an unexpected death a few days before the second moon of spring that marked our departure. An arrow lost its way in the training field, and instead of following the others, it turned and nailed him, right in his back. He, too, met the fate of Da-Ren. I declared Sani Chief of both Packs and of all the Blades, slaves, women, and children who would stay behind.

  “I don’t fear death in battle, but I shiver at the thought of dying one day, not on my horse but on my knees, weak from hunger,” Sani told me the day I made him Firstblade of Sirol.

  “What are you afraid of? You’ll have plenty of meat,” said one of the men next to me, pointing toward the slaves’ tents.

  I hit him with my sheathed blade like a cudgel and knocked him off his horse.

  “If you ever dare to eat woman’s flesh, even a slave’s, I promise you that I will have the Ssons flay you alive when I get back,” I shouted to all, but looking at Sani. “This I carve into your heads, and you’d better remember it. If you eat a woman’s flesh, her bones will rise and tear you apart from within. It is the words of Sah-Ouna I speak now. All the Uncarved have heard this Legend.”

  I talked more than I should have. Lies.

  “There are many horses left behind, Sani. Sheep. Hunt! Go into the Forest, south of the Blackvein. Never to the north. You’ll find only death and Reekaal there. Those are my orders.”

  Don’t ever go to Kar-Tioo, Sani.

  “You’re right. They’re leaving many animals in Sirol, many horses,” said Sani. “Do you know why?”

  “No, but Malan has summoned me to the Leaders’ Council, so I’ll find out tonight.”

  It took a longer time than usual to reach Malan’s tent even after sunset. Not a single man or animal was resting in Sirol, and the main road that led to his tent was crowded with five and six times the wagons and carts I’d seen the last time I came that way.

  The three Leaders of the Archers, the Craftsmen, and the Trackers were waiting. The Reghen had unfolded a vellum on the table and were looking at it. Malan, wearing the sable coat, was on his throne. The dogs and the Ssons were at his side, and a slave girl was filling his cup from a flagon. It wasn’t a cold night, but the sable coat made Malan more imposing. He didn’t speak much that night, we learned all we needed by listening to one another. Malan’s silence was another show of strength. A few moons ago, when we were freezing hopeless in Sirol, Malan seemed weaker than ever, but now, at the dawn of the great campaign, at the advent of war, everyone bowed to the Khun. One word of his could bring the deaths of thousands.

  The Archers’ Leader said that he would march his ten thousand men with him and leave only a few behind. That was good news for Sani because it would be easy for him to take control of Sirol. The Craftsmen bragged that they had assembled tall siege machines that they would bring along. The Reghen raised objections, but Malan waved for the quarrel to stop. I had only a few words to report. My Blades were the least important part of the campaign.

  The Reghen agreed that we had left many animals behind, mostly horses and sheep. They had planned our journey to the cities of the South after gathering information from the slaves and the merchants and the Trackers, who had reached the Southeastern Empire’s lands. The Reghen measured how much food we would need and how fast we could move, when to spread the riders wide or pack close across the lands, and what was necessary for survival and in what amount. They said we had to assemble close as one marching army when we faced the enemies but spread wide most of the time because we needed many grazing meadows. We were to take only one horse each and a few more for mating.

  “Why can’t we take all the horses?” the Archers’ Leader asked, and I, for once, was with him.

  “Where will we find grazing meadows for thirty thousand horses? We leave some of them here, and you’ll find new animals when we march north. There are plenty of strong horses there,” the Reghen said.

  “And if we don’t?”

  “We will, even before we reach the great cities of the South, the ones that are filled with gold, women, and horses. And our mares will birth in the meantime.”

  “Newborn fillies? Their bones are not strong enough for war. And it will take winters to train them,” I said.

  “We will have many winters,” the Reghen said without looking at me.

  “How long will we be away?” I asked and dreaded the answer at the same moment.

  “Who knows? Three winters? For sure. And more. I hope you brought enough belladonna from the Forest.”

  “As much as I could find in the dead of winter.”

  There was no wine or meat as in the previous councils. Everyone was hungry and ready to march into battle, or at least I was.

  “Well, since you know your w
ays around there, the Ouna-Mas have a ceremony three nights from now at Wolfhowl. They have asked for the young. Those who have the eyes of color.”

  A ceremony, he said.

  “And what do you want of me?” I asked.

  “You are the Blades. You go fetch what Sah-Ouna ordered.”

  I didn’t speak, and Malan, still resting on his throne, one arm supporting his head, was not slow to see through me.

  “Is your mind still at the Sieve, Da-Ren?”

  “The what? The Sieve?”

  “I have no patience for the weak in this campaign.”

  A couple of the other Leaders turned to me with wide grins, ready to laugh. They probably thought that would please the Khun.

  “No, it will be done, Khun,” I said.

  “Sacrifice, Da-Ren. I need the flesh and the blood of each man in this campaign; the head and the heart. Sacrifice. It is our Truth, our Legend, and our Story.” He said these words while he rose to his feet, his gaze moving patiently from one Leader to another. “We leave on the seventh dawn from now.”

  “But we must have Sah-Ouna’s auguries first. In the Wolfhowl, three nights,” the Reghen said.

  Sacrifice it was.

  Everyone shouted in praise of sacrifice, honor, glory, and by Enaka this and that, and I turned to slip away into the night. It was the next dawn that scared me most.

  “And there is one more thing, Da-Ren. Another sacrifice, a smaller one,” Malan said.

  Before I had the chance to ask what, he took his gaze away from me, as if he didn’t want to bring the news himself.

  “The Reghen will let you know.”

  I walked out of the Khun’s tent with the Reghen and joined Leke who was waiting for me there.

  “What is it?” I asked the Reghen. He was looking everywhere around him, except for my eyes, trying to find the right words. I was trembling at his silence, expecting the worst.

  “Yes, so, as the Khun ordered…” He cleared his throat one more time. “Where is that…that horse of yours?”

  “Here it is, you can see my horse.”

  “Not this one. The other one, that stallion you got from the Archers.”