“The far lands of damnation. That is why our ancestors never came farther south,” said the men. When one of the volcanoes spit flames as tall as one hundred men into the sky, the Ouna-Mas began to appear more frequently among us, singing more often around bonfires and standing close by the men to keep them from losing their minds.
“This might be the end of the world, the edges of Darhul’s valley, but we will soon enter the Empire and find fertile lands again,” the Reghen assured me.
Contrary to their own hopeful words, the Reghen soon brought orders to reduce the rations. We still had plenty of supplies, but no one knew what we would face later. We survived by eating the sun-dried meat of the horses that had broken their legs riding a whole moon on the bare mountains and the cracked mud. We found holes that gushed black stinking oil that we could put neither into our mouths nor over a wound. We could only burn it, but even then it smelled like the rotting livers of the dead.
“We have to turn back. Don’t they see that? Those Ouna-Mas,” my men started asking.
“You want to go back empty-handed, the same way we just came?” was my answer to all of them.
After twelve moons on this slow journey of oxen, dust, and mud, we had made it to the end of the world. In my utter ignorance, I was certain of that.
“Whatever we find ahead will be better. It can’t be worse,” I said.
Unbelievable ignorance.
Not everyone was angry and scared. Rikan, the Blacksmith I had taken into the Blades, had passed most his life in the darkness bending metal. Now, he was always the first to wake at dawn. It was Rikan’s snout that woke up his horse. He wanted to see the East and the sunrise every morning.
The wheat fields were long gone, and my amulet now lay shriveled against my chest. The ghosts of the past, those with the blue eyes, and the first ones, the twelve-wintered with the rosy lips, came back to me in the night.
I would ask the Reghen, whenever I was losing faith. “Where are you taking us, Reghen? Why are we here in this gray desert of the demons?”
“It won’t be long now before we arrive in the mythical cities of the Empire, and we’ll find so much gold to cover each and every one of us.”
Gold?
He told me of the giant buildings of stone—palaces, he called them—and he tried to describe the marble and the temples, their wealth and splendor, things that he had never seen but had just heard from the Trackers. He spoke to me of the power of gold, the power it had to change the world, and how it made every man who held it a powerful ruler.
“The whole world is promised to us. We will find so much gold that every Leader will afford to buy great power, the kind only Malan has now. Remember all these places that we pass by. Choose which one you’ll want to rule as Khun.”
It was a tough choice. I wanted none of what I’d seen, and I had never dreamed of gold. Even when he described gold as the giver of freedom and power, I remained suspicious. None of the Stories of Enaka or Zeria praised gold or those who had it.
It was a clear evening two nights after the first full moon of spring when we left the last salt lake behind, an endless shallow waterland home to gulls, storks, and pelicans. We had hunted the birds until they escaped to safety in the center islands of the lake. Malan and Sah-Ouna had celebrated the Great Feast of Spring farther north, but my Blades and many Archers were ordered to march south and search for the hidden othertribers. My men were angry that they wouldn’t join in the Feast, and I was desperate for anything to change. Forward, back, anything that was not simply traveling, packing, and sleeping. I had drowned myself in bronze-colored wine before Noki and Rikan arrived with the news at sunset.
“We captured some othertribers. They’re riding strange, ugly beasts that I haven’t seen before. One of the men speaks our tongue,” Noki said as he found me sitting on a stump half-drunk.
“Bring them. I want to talk to him before the Reghen come and take them,” I said.
The othertribers were dark-skinned and curly-haired, most of them of slim frame without weapons, other than small knives. Their animals were more interesting, some kind of hairy sheep-deer, each one with two humps on their backs, taller than our biggest horses. I looked for the one who could speak our tongue.
“Who speaks here for you?” I asked.
“I do. Khormi is my name, young master. Welcome to the western-lands.”
So, these were not the ends of the world, for some people this was—the West. As I wondered about these strange creatures, men and animals, he asked me.
“Are you the master of this endless horde?” he asked.
“I am all the masters you’ll see tonight. Who are you, and how come you speak our tongue?”
“We are traders. We have roamed these lands, back to the old ages, on our camels, even before the Empire. But now, we trade with the believers of the Cross.” He stopped for a breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. “And everyone else who can pay. Gold is best.”
Gold.
“Our tongue?”
“You are not the first to come here. You are riders from the North, from the icy wastelands, aren’t you? We know your horses and your faces. Men of your tribe settled farther east from here a long time ago. I’ve been there, not so far away, in villages that speak your tongue. Bought one of my wives from there. Long gone, now. Peaceful people. Poor. They weave the most magnificent carpets there. If you want, I could—”
“I don’t believe a word you say, and your tongue sounds strange,” I said.
My peace-loving ancestors were weaving carpets.
“Yes, I am sure you noticed. You talk a bit different than them. Angrier, I say. You are a warrior tribe?”
I could still understand him quite well.
Some of the worst of the Blades had gathered there. Urak’s Pack, Urak of the Sieve, was the one who had first found the traders. That man had not cut his hair from back when I first remembered him, he was grimy as a hog, only two mad eyes betraying he was man. His short blade was always naked, on hand.
“Kill them all here. Those animals they carry. Demon’s seed!” Urak said.
Khormi’s olive eyes opened wide with terror, and he waved his hands through his short-sleeved kaftan anxiously.
“No, no, master warrior, don’t do that. I hold magic. I mean no harm to you. I have good magic. I’ll give you as gift; I promise—”
Urak was already moving in on the man, and the others came closer to Khormi’s comrades, their blades unsheathed.
“No, wait,” I said. I had to. “What magic?”
A stupid smile of forced confidence returned to Khormi’s face.
“I have the dust of the otherworld, the seed of the redflower. It steals your worries away. I see you are weary, master. This journey has harmed your spirit. Take the redflower dust. It steals the pain and brings joy from your head to your legs.”
“You have a magic dust that steals my mind?” I turned to my men. “Urak, you jackal, I think this one time you’re right.”
The othertriber trader started talking faster. He was good at that.
“No, no, not only forget. Remember too. Forget the pain; remember the dream. The powder of joy, mix in your wineskin, drink, and you’ll fall in the sweetest sleep. A bliss like no other.”
Noki frowned when Khormi started talking but his face softened slowly to a smile. He raised his long blade and stopped Urak from getting closer to the traders. “Might as well try it,” Noki whispered to me.
“Don’t kill us, master. We can trade with you. We have traded with the Empire for a long time now. We don’t take sides. You go to war, you need the traders. Everyone knows that.”
I didn’t, but I was certain that the Reghen did, and they would want to talk to him. I had to send these men to the Reghen and Malan, but before I did I asked, “Tell me first, how far away are the soldiers of the Empire? How many moons to their cities?”
“What do you mean?”
“What is you don’t understand? How far is th
e Empire’s army?”
“Well, master, I think you are mocking me. If you go over those hills, not even a day’s ride, you’ll see their camps, the first guards of the Cross, and the redflower poppy fields. That’s where the dust of joy comes from. They’re just over those hills, they are…here. And they are many more gathering lately.”
“If you speak the truth, you will stay alive,” I said.
I nodded to Leke to take them to the Reghen along with the news they brought. I signaled with a quick move of my hand to the bearded tradesman to pass me the dust before he left.
The dust to forget and to remember.
“What do you call this poison?” was my last question to him.
“Opion.”
That same night, Malan’s orders came. We were to stop riding, camp, and wait for the Packs of the Archers to reach us. I mixed the brown dust into the wine as he had told me. First time. The trader wasn’t lying. The drink of the redflower flowed down my veins like warm water, numbing my head and easing my heartbeat. My breathing slowed. My blood stopped pumping hard and turned into honey that coated my ribs and my spine. My eyes half-shut, and I forgot all the pain of the journey. I forgot, and I tried to remember. The pain that had brought me here. Remember her.
And when all that was real faded, I dreamed.
I dreamed of my palace, the one the Reghen promised me. It was at the northernmost edge of the steppe, distant but shining, a color of apricot and bloodied sand. It stood like an enormous mountain that ended the golden plains, and I was trying to reach it. For countless days, I galloped over rivers and across the barren land. I breathed the sand out of my mouth and nostrils, and its grains turned into gold-flecked cobblestones that bridged the rivers and paved the rock fields.
No man, no witch, was with me, not even at the palace when I finally arrived. No othertribers, nor any of my fellow brothers of the Tribe. The palace guards were beasts of a Legend, ashen-gray wolves, looking fierce and standing on two legs, covered neck to knee in silver armor, pointy ears sticking out of the wolfhead-shaped helms, holding upright long speared battle-axes. They lowered their dark-yellow eyes, saluted me, irons high, and opened the gate without another word. They followed me as we crossed the red sand of the courtyard and entered the palace. Many slaves, more than two Packs, were waiting for me lined up on either side of a staircase made up of dead trunks and glowing moss. The slaves had the bodies of young boys and the heads of antlered deer. They wore silken bronze-colored garments and gold-embroidered belts. Solemn eyes of solid black. Only one slave, the one waiting alone at the top of the staircase, had a mouth. He curtsied silently and moved a few steps back when I reached him.
“Where is she?” I asked, grabbing his ice-cold hand.
He looked at me with the deer’s eyes and pointed to a long hall to the right side of the staircase. At the end of it, Zeria was standing still, silently waiting for me in front of the throne. I ran toward her and kissed her on the mouth as if I wanted to drink her whole. Just one kiss, without taking a breath, but I don’t remember how long it lasted. At first touch, her lips had the coolness of the Kar-Tioo lake. Mine were frozen like the steppe.
“Why doesn’t she speak?” I asked the deer slave.
“She has no need to anymore. Here in the steppe; there’s no one to listen, no matter how loud you scream. You will never speak again.”
“Her eyes, Deer—they are no longer blue. They are glowing like the wolf’s, gold and hungry.”
“The eyes change. You paint them in the color of your dream. Are you sure that they were once blue, Da-Ren? Or did the Forest enchant you? Or did the steppe paint them over again?”
The costumes of the deer slaves darkened into a bright red like fresh blood. Two more guardian wolves entered the hall. They bowed on one knee together; one of them kept his gaze at the dead leaves that blanketed the floor, and the second looked at me and said with a thundering voice:
“Firstblade Master, they have risen in the steppe. The white dust is gathering together. The skeletons are marching, armed, and even now approach the castle.”
The wooden walls and the billowing fabrics that covered the roof were on fire. A blazing sun above our heads unleashed streams of gold and they came down on the walls and on top of Zeria and me. The liquid gold bound us as one body like horse glue from the cauldrons until I couldn’t separate myself from her, even if I wanted to. I didn’t want to. Our mouths and the gold had formed into a kiss, and her lips melted into mine. We were burning together in the fire. Until there was no flesh or bone left, only an amulet glowing in the fire. The dream ended in scalding pain.
Leke and Temin found me unconscious under the sun. I woke to scorching heat burning my brow, while my hands were freezing. It was almost noon. I had wandered off alone in the night with the brown dust and the wineskin. My head was pounding, and I splashed my face with cold water to recover. Leke passed me his waterskin and then asked.
“Sly thing, this opion. Feeling better, Firstblade?”
“Better?” Hammering nails on my skull. “Better than what? I can’t even stand up.”
“You’d better stand up. They found us. The Crossers. That’s what the Trackers say.”
I heard the ruckus rising from our makeshift camp, the riders shouting. Archers and Blades in hundreds, no woman or slave anywhere.
“Finally, praise Enaka!” I said. “I couldn’t take this much longer. I would give my soul to fight a battle for a change.”
The moment had come. The moment to win my gold, my palace, my Story, and Zeria.
“You haven’t been in many raids or battles, Firstblade. Don’t take what I’ll say the wrong way.”
He hesitated.
“Speak, Leke.”
“I remember those campaigns south of Blackvein, with Khun-Taa many summers ago. We didn’t journey for many moons, but they were much bloodier than what we’ve seen so far.”
“And?
“I’ll tell you one thing. When the bloodshed starts, the Blades are the first to lose their souls.”
“I have trained you hard for this, Leke. We will not fall so easily.”
“You don’t listen, Da-Ren. Those who remain alive lose their souls.”
L.
Horsehair and Ox Tendons
Twenty-First Spring. Firstblade
A brilliant spring dawned over the eastmost hills of the Empire, and the poppies sparkled on the battlefield like myriad blood puddles, one for each arrow we carried.
“How many are they?” Malan asked the Tracker.
“We’ve sneaked as swift night snakes past their guards. We’ve climbed to the hilltops and crawled through the thickets—”
“I have no patience for snakes and your tales. How many?”
“We haven’t found any more of them in hiding. Hear me, but pity me if I am wrong, for we are still searching.”
“Speak now, man!”
“They sent only fifty Packs of men.”
“Packs? Do they fight in Packs as well?” asked Karat, the Leader of all the Archers, who was also at the council. Druug, the old Leader I met when I was still Uncarved, the one who had betrayed Malan, had long gone to Enaka.
“No, they march in what they call cohorts, and each one is the size of ten Packs. And more—twelve, I’d guess. Two cohorts on foot, one spearmen, one archers, and two more on horseback.”
“You say that they are two thousand men, half of them without horses?” I asked.
“That’s what we counted.”
“Weapons?”
“Sword and a pear-shaped shield. Some of those on foot carry long, heavy spears. So heavy and long that it takes two men to carry each one. They can’t throw them far or even lift them high.”
“Horse slayers. Armor?”
“Helm, shield, chainmail, or scalemail.”
“Iron plate?”
“No.”
“Are you certain that this is the Empire’s army? The Crossers?”
“Yes, the emblem of
the cross everywhere, three tails on each banner, crimson, gold, and black.”
“Well, they are either fearless or stupid!” said Karat.
“Or both.”
“Or—it is a trap!”
“Then we will send only two thousand men to meet them. The rest will retreat until we know what we’re up against,” said Malan.
“Have they camped in the plain across?” asked the Reghen.
“Yes, across the red valley of the poppies.”
“Do they have bows?”
“A few, but not double-curved. They are like the ancient bows. You have to plant two feet on the ground to stretch shaft to ear. Their riders do not carry bows.”
“This is too easy,” I said.
“Crush them, but capture a few alive so they can talk. And keep those traders away from harm, so they can translate,” said Malan.
“Shall we let a few escape? To go back and spread fear to the rest?” asked Karat.
Malan frowned, looked at the black mauler pacing restlessly by his side, and shook his head no.
“We don’t do that, do we?” he said, still looking at the mauler. “Why scare them? Let them sleep and wonder about their two thousand warriors. Let no one live. Except a few to tell us what we want to know.”
The next morning, I led two hundred of my men, five Packs, together with the Archers, who were seven times as many. The two armies lined up across from the flowery plain, about fifteen hundred paces away from each other and closing the distance slowly. The othertribers had spread across a width of one thousand paces, cavalry left and right, spearmen and swordsmen on foot at the center, and their archers behind them. Our Archers spread to match their width, while my Blades stayed at the back with the slaves who were to reload the quivers.
A group of four horsemen emerged from their side, the one in front carrying a plain white banner, followed by two white-bearded, black-robed men, each carrying a flag with a cross. As they approached, Karat ordered his Archers to release their arrows. The Crossers were far away and turned back unharmed.
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