“A hundred and fifty.”
“So I’ll lose four Packs.” Three summers on the campaign, I had lost less than one Pack.
Selene was dark a few nights later, and the fatal moment arrived. I didn’t draw reeds to see who would go this time. I kept the bravest and the best away from the tower.
“What are the orders?” asked the Chiefs of the three Packs I was sending. I replaced as many of their men with the slaves I had left.
“One order only: if the tower collapses, run to save yourselves.”
“How can it collapse? It’s a monster.”
“I don’t know. But I suspect it is easier to destroy it than it was to build. You will be on the lower levels. Jump and run back here.”
In the middle of the night, the slaves moved under a tortoise and plunged the pulleys into the ground. By dawn, the oxen were moaning hard in their struggle to carry the nine-story monster. They pulled all day. At sunset, the tower approached the walls at their lowest point. As long as the tower was not ablaze, I had hope for my men. The screams came deep in the nightfall, and they were moving closer as the few survivors, burned and wounded, were crawling back toward our line. The First Craftsman’s wooden wonder cost me fifty-three men in one night, more than I had ever lost before. We lost more than two hundred Archers who came crashing to the ground when the tower broke in two.
“Huge rocks, each one heavy as a man, fell from the sky,” the survivors told us.
The sky was not dropping stones.
“No man can throw stones to cut the tower in half. They fell from the sky,” they insisted.
“Or from giant catapults that they built behind their walls,” said the First Craftsman.
“I am telling you, huge stones,” said the Chief of one of the Packs who had survived. “And then fire.”
“They have made stronger catapults than us. One tower was not enough, I told you,” said the First Craftsman. “But if we attack with ten such towers from all sides, then they will not be able to stop us.”
“If you build ten more towers like that, there will be no man left alive in the Tribe,” I told him.
“You are a coward,” he said.
I wanted to rip the veins out of his neck. Instead, I bit my lip and clenched my fists. It was not his fault that it had come to that. The First Craftsman knew how to work the wood, and that was all he could do. The walls were not coming down. The Reghen next to him was one I had never seen before, not the old man who spoke to me about heroes.
“They won’t call us heroes if we all burn in a meaningless sacrifice. They’ll just call us stupid,” I said. “Ask the Reghen.”
They were the same old words of the old Reghen. Whatever one Reghen knew, the other ninety-nine knew as well. Whatever one believed, they all believed.
Malan didn’t build any more towers, but instead, he asked for stronger catapults. The Craftsmen constructed stone throwers and called them onagers, because that is what the captured othertriber craftsmen called them. They kicked stones the way a wild donkey does with its two hind legs. Each one was as heavy as fifty men and could throw stones the weight of a twelve-wintered boy. They tried sling and spoon onagers, but the rocks shot with the sling would drive faster and harder. They dragged them on wheel platforms, but the force of the throw would crush the wheeled platform after a few throws. They had to place them on rigid platforms without wheels, and that made them much harder to move. The stone throwers proved a much better weapon against these walls than the reed arrows.
“They’re building those walls thicker from behind. But if we keep slinging at them for two more summers, they’ll come down!”
“Two or three,” said Malan, his voice quick with irony.
Varazam was not breaking, and its master, comfortable behind his walls, was mocking us.
“What do we do?” asked the Reghen.
Malan lifted his gaze high as if to listen to Enaka’s answer, his black mane falling backward. His beard was shaved, and so was the left side of his head, which had a painted pattern of jagged lines, but the top and right side were covered with long dark hair. He looked across the table, and his eyes traveled to the men one by one, waiting for answers. No one said a thing, and he didn’t really need their answers. It was his decision.
“Nothing. We do nothing. There is even a Reghen Legend by that name. The Legend of Nothing. You’ve all heard it, right?” asked Malan.
The Reghen coughed and started with a husky voice, his eyes solemnly looking at the fire:
“There was once a Drakon, blue as icy death, and gray as…”
Malan looked at me between the fingers of his open palms that covered most of his face but couldn’t hide the bitter smile of his desperation. There were times like this when he was looking at me as if I were his comrade and equal, the only one who could understand him, almost a friend. Rare times.
“Damn you, Reghen, I know the stupid Legend,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it again. He who endures even when all hope is lost will win.”
Our failures brought a deceptive air of hope, and it filled the streets of Varazam. But their masters had learned very little about us. This was not just a casual campaign to loot, to succeed or fail, to grow tired, and turn back. The whole Tribe had come into the desert, and there was nowhere to return to unless we were victorious and rich in gold. They hadn’t considered our greatest weapon—our desperation. We learned that the next cities had similar walls, some even larger. Malan was left with no choice other than to continue with the siege. If he failed in a second campaign, it would be his last. We had yet to find any gold. Only olives, slaves, children, and corpses.
We did learn a few things about those othertribers, though. They believed that when the unworthy die, they descend to a burning wasteland called hell. So we set fire to everything for thousands of paces around the city walls. We brought hell around Varazam and made sure that hell was the only sight they would wake up to every morning. The first autumn rains came, but there were no crops or groves left to water—only the ashen fields and the horse-dung fires. Malan ordered the men to load the stone throwers with rotting cadavers of sick animals, half-dead bleeding captives, mutilated bodies, wasp hives, even sacks of shit, and we threw them over the walls. They wouldn’t crush the stone, but they could crush the spirit of the besieged. A boy, a monster bred to be a Sson, died before entering Malan’s guard. They threw him over the walls, hoping his gruesome head would rob the besieged of precious sleep.
The autumn rains grew heavier, and the piles of horse shit, mixed with the mud and the dead, rose higher, mussy, green, and unburned. That reek was the only thing that we managed to pass inside the walls and through the heads of the entrenched Crossers. We weren’t leaving. More supplies were reaching us, though many times we faked empty wagons arriving just to break their spirit. They finally realized that whatever god they believed in had abandoned them. The Trackers told us that a plague had befallen the city, and that strong and weak alike were dying like flies. It could be the poisoned water or the curse of Enaka, but it mattered little.
After ten moons, the master of Varazam was forced one morning to raise the white flag and send his envoys out to meet us. Malan wanted to learn what the situation was like inside the city, but the othertribers did not allow our Reghen to enter their city. Their ambassadors were lowered from the wall in a wooden cage with ropes and walked to Malan’s tent. I was there. Two of the envoys were fat, with puffy faces and soft hands, their plump figures bringing the message that they had plenty of food behind the walls. At least some of them did. They were followed by a towering warrior with a clean-shaved head and chestnut skin who was supposed to frighten us. Six servants carrying colorful fabrics and sparkling jewels accompanied them. The envoys were soaked in sweat, and their eyes and necks were turning nervously in all directions.
There was a third envoy, standing last in the group. He was not sweating, and his eyes were calm. It was Baaghushai. The one man, monk, and magus, sent by th
eir unknown god to change my destiny, and that of all the tribes he met. That was the first time I laid eyes on him. Baaghushai was different from the rest of them. He had the colors and the features of my Tribe rather than theirs. But he was old with grayed hair, and he wore a cloak made of rich fabric, and none of that was common among my people. And there was something else distinctive about Baaghushai when the two sides met in Malan’s tent. He spoke our tongue.
The envoys of Varazam and the Reghen exchanged a couple of empty threats in the beginning. Then Baaghushai, the man I came to call Baagh and even Evagus at the Castlemonastery, stepped forward. As he uttered his first words, speaking directly to Malan, everyone in the tent gasped.
“Great King of the North.” To everyone’s shock, he spoke in our own tongue. He was the first person who would ever call Malan King. “We are all children of the same Sky, whether it is the One God or Enaka that rules it.” A murmur and a few shouting curses came from our men as he mentioned the Goddess. “It serves no purpose to let everyone perish for a few gold gewgaws that we could offer you in any case.”
As he spoke the name of Enaka, Sah-Ouna moved for the first time from her corner and approached Malan. I kept my eye on Baaghushai and saw that he completely avoided hers.
“Great King of the North. End the siege now, and the master of Varazam will give you a wagon full of gold and two more each summer that follows,” said Baaghushai, opening his arms at the end of his speech. There was a peaceful smile of confidence on his face as if he really believed he wouldn’t have to add anything else. Malan lifted his hand asking for silence, but he didn’t reply or break the silence. Baaghushai continued talking alone.
“And guarantees. Varazam offers three high-ranking officials as hostages so you may be certain that we will keep our promise. Finally, our master offers his second daughter for you to take as your wife, Great King.”
When Baaghushai uttered his last proposal, even the Rods laughed. Malan did not laugh. He bit his lips and pleaded silently with his hands for silence.
“We will consider your offer,” said Malan, turning to Baaghushai, “and we’ll answer tomorrow morning.”
He sent the envoys to rest elsewhere, called a council for late that night, and walked away from his throne with Sah-Ouna. He had been calling councils often lately, but he never took anyone’s advice to action. It seemed to me that he wanted to listen to the stupid just to add confidence to his own opinion.
I went to the council half-drunk, heavy on my feet and light in the head.
“What do you propose we do?” he asked me.
I couldn’t care at all for gold or Varazam anymore. I just wanted to get far away from the desert. I gave no answer. I just shrugged, seeing the disapproval in Sah-Ouna’s narrow eyes. I wasn’t even sure we should be there anymore. There was nothing I wanted from all the things I’d seen during this endless journey.
Karat said something brave, stupid, and meaningless:
“The Archers are ready to spill the blood of the othertribers whenever you call on us, Khun. We are not cowards.” By now, he knew his Archers were useless and wouldn’t be needed to bring down the walls. He could say anything, and it cost him nothing.
The Reghen was more specific:
“If we can manage to draw their army out, we will destroy them, but we have no chance against those walls. Let’s take the gold they offer and leave.”
Malan listened with little interest. As if he already knew what to do.
“They have run out of food. They are desperate,” he said.
“How do you know that?” asked the Reghen.
“They wouldn’t be here otherwise. It is the stupidest move, showing weakness, unless they are desperate. You see, the one thing that neither us nor them care about anymore is gold. If we are to turn back, we’ll need supplies and horses. Yet they offer gold because that’s probably the only thing they have left. But they can’t eat gold, and they can’t trade from in there.”
“But those envoys are fat.”
“Those envoys would boil even their own babies to stay fat. They will before this is all over. Talk to each one of them alone, and you’ll find a traitor or at least a listening ear among them.”
“So you will not accept their offer. Should we give them different terms?” asked the Reghen.
“The only thing we should give them is more despair,” said Malan.
The following morning, Malan called back the envoys and gave his answer:
“If you do not open your gates at once, I promise that I will skin and burn alive even the last rat, and I will gut even the last living thing in the city. We won’t take any slaves. I will build giant towers with your heads, walls of headless bodies, taller even than the ones you have now. Open your gates now, and I’ll offer to your masters and their envoys and priests their lives and freedom. You will fill four wagons with gold and give us another two hundred carts with meat and barley and a thousand strong horses.”
Baaghushai lowered his eyes like a seer who had seen a dark omen. I had heard from the slaves that the priests of the Cross didn’t care for auguries and omens. They already knew the future, for it was all written down for them in stories their god and his prophets had spoken long ago.
“And a thousand strong horses!” Malan shouted again, louder this time. It was not even an offer. Even if they had two hundred carts with supplies and a thousand horses to give us, Malan offered no guarantees for the lives of the many.
“They will never trust us to open their gates,” whispered Irhan the Tracker standing next to me. He had become First Tracker a few moons back.
One of the envoys turned to leave; the other, the fatter one, was arguing with Baaghushai. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but Baaghushai was gesturing like he was strongly disagreeing. The envoy shouted last and loudest. Baaghushai, outmaneuvered or probably outranked, turned toward us.
They had one last, even more outrageous, proposal. His words came out as a mumbling noise at first, but he soon found his confidence:
“Great King. No matter what god you believe in, there is a sacred custom in our parts so that we avoid unnecessary bloodshed. If you honor bravery in the stories of your tribe, then this is what we ask: our first swordsmen, one from each side, will fight in a duel, with the sun and sky and our one true God as witnesses. If your champion is victorious, we will do as you ask, but if our man prevails, you will accept our offer and leave.”
The Reghen waved an arm in disagreement, trying to warn Malan not to accept.
Baaghushai continued before the Reghen had a chance to speak:
“Do not ignore the sacred customs of the land you seek to conquer. If you do, God will cover the sun with a black cloud. If your goddess, Enaka, is stronger, she will send her chosen one to the duel tomorrow; otherwise, the wrath of God will fall upon you this coming winter just as it did a long time ago back at the steppe.”
So, they too had spies, and through them had learned of our Stories. Outside, the autumn sky was filled with black clouds raging to break into a thunderstorm. But the one thing that made Baaghusai’s words believable was that he spoke them in our tongue. He spoke in a strange manner, similar to that of the caravan trader I’d met. He knew the right words, but they were coming out of his mouth as if he had rarely spoken them aloud.
Baaghushai turned to the Ouna-Mas to challenge them. He made the sign of the Cross and spoke more words, prayers, or curses I couldn’t understand. He had uttered the name of Enaka and knew of the Legends of the Tribe, and they had to answer for that. The Rods drew their knives, and I was certain that the envoys’ heads would soon be staked next to the beautiful horsetails at the entrance of Malan’s tent.
“Don’t you have even one brave man?” he asked.
Malan nodded to me to move next to his throne, but when I did he said nothing. There were no Ssons and only a couple of Rods in the tent. Baaghushai looked at me as if he were challenging me too. The shaved warrior behind him was a giant, his
arms thick and strong like iron trees. My blood got warmer when his eyes met mine. Compared with the Archers, I was taller and surely looked more menacing and suitable for this duel than any of them. The Ouna-Mas were hissing among themselves, a whisper of worms squirming at our feet. Sah-Ouna took off her black veil. Her face was painted with deep red vertical lines. She joined four fingers forming a triangle in front of her and put a curse on Baaghushai. She approached Malan and whispered something into his ear, and she then fixed her eyes on me.
“Bring us their blood and their death, Da-Ren,” she whispered. Only Malan and I were close enough to hear her words, but they would do.
It had all changed in a few breaths. I could be the one to carve with my blade the future of the Tribe. It should have been so, long ago. I would have been the one if not for the ninestar mark. If I hadn’t been frightened by a rabbit in the Sieve. If I hadn’t betrayed the Tribe the first evening I saw Zeria. If I hadn’t been lost in Kar-Tioo for a whole moon after Chaka the Guide had named me First Uncarved. Chaka had died during the campaign. The mosquitoes found him, and he rotted yellow and frail with disease. Mosquitoes—the only invincible monster in every campaign. Rouba had fallen from the poisoned arrows of the Ssons in the Forest.
Malan rose from his throne for the first time that day, gave his dog a soft and friendly kick, and burst out in roaring laughter. He laughed from the depths of his chest, so loud, that he had to support himself on his throne with both hands so he wouldn’t fall over. When he stopped, he replied to Baaghushai:
“Priest of the doomed city, we are not trying to avoid bloodshed. Bloodshed is the reason we are here. What my warriors live for. Is this really what your one and only god wants?” Malan looked at me for a moment and continued, “Two men in a duel? Let it be so. Because I am a generous man, we will have it so that you see which side the Sky favors. I cannot deny everyone such an amusing spectacle. Tomorrow, when the sun is half-high.”
Baaghushai replied in a serious tone, “I demand a duel for the brave with sword and shield, not bow and arrow. Man facing man up close, as in the old age.”
Drakon Omnibus Page 64
