“Our Goddess fights with the bow,” one of the Reghen shouted.
“So said the scared Reghen who has lost faith in his Goddess. Shut up, Reghen, and listen to the old man. He demands so,” Malan said in a softer voice. “Do not worry, priest of the Crossers. Our man will not bring a bow,” said Malan. He looked at me—no one else, not even the envoys—as he spoke the words. “No shield either, we never carry them, the brave need no shield. And to make it more interesting, I’ll tell you now that our champion will come without sword either. But make sure yours brings a sword. Because he’ll die by his own sword.”
With that, Malan sent the envoys back to the city. The Khun disappeared behind a curtain farther back in his tent without saying a word to me.
The rest of us stepped outside, and the words started coming from everyone. A buzzing swarm of men gathered quickly around me.
“He meant you, right?”
“Yes, he was looking at Da-Ren. A great honor for the Blades!” Leke shouted for all the Archers and the rest to hear.
“By Enaka, Da-Ren, stand strong tomorrow,” said Rikan.
“Did you see their first sword? A beast!”
“You can take him, Firstblade. He’s got two legs and two arms, just like you,” I heard another voice. They were the words of someone who did not believe in me. His voice was the most helpful because it filled me with desire and anticipation to prove him wrong.
“What did Khun-Malan mean when he said that you won’t need a sword? How can you fight without even one blade?”
“Cut his throat and end this siege. Save us!” That was what most of them said.
I had to kill this othertriber. For me. For the stars and my Story. Not to save them. The siege would not end. Neither Malan nor Varazam would keep their promise if they were on the losing side of the duel. Two tribes that had never met till then had no respect or honor to share with each other. I had to win for my Story, to find her again.
“Why did the Khun accept this challenge?” I asked the old Reghen.
“Both sides are certain of their victory. They need it to break the other’s morale,” he answered.
The greatest weight had come to rest upon my shoulders. I was no longer man. I had become spirit, the one who would breathe victory into the chest of each Blade and Archer and whisper defeat to the besieged. I carried the entire Tribe, its hunger, and its desire, our Goddess herself, upon my blade. My Story, my ninestar prophecy, the glorious one, was unraveling before me. There was no fear in me. Zeria’s silver wolf’s teeth were firmly tied with a leather strap around my neck.
“Death will never touch you with this amulet,” Zeria had told me.
But even I had the same question: What did Malan mean that I would fight without a blade? As I turned to mount my horse and leave, three Rods approached me and ordered me to return to the tent.
“Khun-Malan wants to speak with you about tomorrow,” said the Chief of the Rods. “Alone.”
Inside the Khun’s tent, I listened to Malan’s orders without saying a word. When I walked out again, I went to search for the opion.
LVII.
May God Preserve You
Island of the Holy Monastery, Thirty-Third year,
According to the Monk Eusebius
I, Eusebius, must reveal now, for those who will come upon this manuscript that I have undertaken the burden of keeping two separate versions of Da-Ren’s story; one known to him, which includes his tales in impressive detail and a separate one which I transcribe in solitude in the library, a sanctuary he is not allowed to enter. The second, the crypton manuscript, is the one that Evagus directed me to prepare for delivery to Thalassopolis. The first, the prototypon manuscript, I intend to bury in the deepest dungeons of the monastery under the arranged bones of the departed monks, as a tribute to Da-Ren and the only burial ritual he would ever agree to.
A significant dissimilarity exists between the two manuscripts as the chapters describing the events at the Castlemonastery are not included in the prototypon manuscript, therefore Da-Ren is not aware of them. For I consider them my own story, rather than his. Similarly, some of the most profligate and barbarous chapters of Da-Ren’s story are not included in the crypton manuscript as per my judgment and the commands of Monk Evagus.
To demonstrate this difference further, I must reveal to you that Da-Ren proceeded at this point, during the chronicling of the siege of Varazam, to describe to me in vivid detail a blasphemous opium-induced dream he suffered that night after Malan called him in his tent. Da-Ren had become particularly enthralled with this dream of licentious acts, ghostly bloodthirsty maidens, amaranth flowers, and whitewashed bones. I deemed the chronicling of such hallucinations as not only irrelevant to our story but also greatly disconcerting for any judicious and pious reader. For the reader is singularly concerned with the events of the fabled siege of Varazam rather than the elucidation of the darkest caverns of a barbarian’s soul as they are exposed through an excessive dosage of opioids and wine.
As you are aware now, you are reading the crypton manuscript, whereas I have decided to remove Da-Ren’s narration of another opium dream and to instead provide you the formal exchange of letters between Evagus, the one Da-Ren knew as Baaghushai, and Carpus Asinas, the most prominent and powerful Eunuch of Thalassopolis, the one who carried the title of Protospathos at the time of the siege of Varazam. For Carpus was the most trusted advisor to the Emperor and the Eunuch who has guided and employed Evagus throughout all these years.
These letters were given to me by Evagus himself to read and safecopy, on the night before he left again, and I remained alone with Da-Ren at Hieros. I believe Evagus’ goal was to kindle the fire of necessitous action in my soul and assure me that the mission I had undertaken—the scribing of Da-Ren’s story—is of grave importance.
To that effect, Evagus provided me with a multitude of epistles exchanged between himself and Carpus. The two I present below refer to the events of the siege of Varazam.
“Scribed by the Protospathos Carpus Asinas, to be delivered to the revered Evagus the Anchorite.
On the fifth month of the twenty-fifth year of the reign of our Emperor and seven months before the Holy Night of our Faith.
I. May God preserve you and guide you, beloved Evagus, as I scribe with fervent interest this epistle to inquire of your mission.
II. I am only to assume that these written words find you safe within the towering walls of Varazam. I have received your epistle where you inform me of a tribe of infidel barbarians descending upon the city and the eastern far lands.
III. For our messengers of the eastern borders have ascertained that a few thousand, unarmored archers, riding beasts that wouldn’t even be used as packhorses for our soldiery, a wild horde of idolatrous dogs, has caused great strife on the bordering regions of the Holy Empire.
IV. Yet, I am well assured that you are under no grave danger, as the servants of Satan have repeatedly raided those far lands only to be crushed every time under the sandals of the Almighty, succumbing to the heavenly power of our salutary emblem.
IV. And thus, I must admonish you that the avoidance of such inevitable calamities are not the primary concern of your mission, as the far lands of the Empire can be explained in parallel to the hair and the nails of a man. And the cutting of hair or nails will not cause one pain, as they are to regrow, inasmuch the man is healthy and his blood flows strong.
V. For it is well known, that blood flows in a body only if the heart is strong and you must never forget that the heart of the Empire is Thalassopolis, and the soul of the Empire is the Holy Faith. Therefore, you must remain steadfast in your true mission which is serving God and our Church of Wisdom.
VI. And I must remind you that you have been recruited by God, the Emperor and finally by myself, their pious servant, for a different undertaking.
VII. For, through your previous reports, we can ascertain now that the lord of Varazam has been promoting for years a heresy, a most blas
phemous act against our Faith, causing strife and tumult among the local folk. He and the proconsuls around him have fallen in sin, proclaiming false doctrines, comparable only to those of pagan idolatrous tribes, proceeding as far as to debate the true time and day of the Celebration of Spring and Resurrection. And your mission in Varazam is to find allies of the orthodox faith within the city’s walls, to identify the serpentine heads of the heresy and ultimately to overthrow the impious, rapacious, and gluttonous lord.
VIII. Henceforth, I must regretfully inform you that our Empire’s soldiery will not descend to assist the heretic-laden cities of Varazam, Antia nor even the sacred soil of Noria itself. For if the Emperor had chosen so, he would have encircled and crushed any barbarous horde. But the high priests of the Church of Wisdom have instructed the Emperor that the tribe that descended on Varazam is nothing but the true scourge of God, aimed to purge the far lands of the Empire from the heretics. And against the God’s will, no Emperor can stand, even one who has repeatedly opted for clemency to matters involving heresy.
IX. I, for myself, am not of such an opinion and would wish wholeheartedly that such idolatrous tribes are annihilated, rather than be left unpunished to ravage the tax-paying provinces of the Empire. Yet, my opinion on this matter is not one of majority in the Great Palace of Thalassopolis.
X. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, I am convinced that no imminent danger exists for you, as I have myself heard of the impenetrable walls of Varazam, which have stood against the heathen for centuries.
XI. Henceforth, I expect you to provide me with recent tidings of your mission in Varazam, and a full account of the heads of the heresy, the true danger to our Empire and our Faith.
XII. May God guide you and preserve you, beloved brethren.
Delivered by the Protospathos Carpus Asinas, to the revered Evagus the Anchorite.”
In response to this letter, Evagus provided me with his reply to Carpus, one illuminating in great detail the events that took place inside the walls of Varazam. The fact that Evagus was in possession of these letters further proves that he had met Carpus in person, most probably in Thalassopolis, before returning to Hieros Island.
“Scribed by Evagus the Anchorite, to be delivered to his Prudence, the Protospathos Carpus Asinas.
On the ninth month of the twenty-fifth year of the reign of our Emperor and three months before the Holy Night of our Faith.
I. May God guide you, my brother Carpus. I must scribe with haste and agony, and the last of my strength this epistle, forasmuch I fear it will be the final one that I manage to deliver to you.
II. I pray that my messenger escapes the strangling siege of the heathen dogs who have surrounded our walls, and finds his way to the Palace, for this might be our only chance of salvation.
III. As you are aware, I ceased my endeavors as an Anchorite monk and was recruited by yourself to roam over the Empire on the most secretive of missions. And yet, despite your urgent concerns I must inform you that you have misplaced your fears, and from the depth of my soul I proclaim: Fear not the heretics, as they are perishing in Varazam, Carpus, but reserve your anguish for the barbarian horde that has descended upon us.
IV. For your informants have gravely underrepresented the true magnitude of the manifold calamities that have befallen our Empire. The East is razed, my brother, the flock of our Savior has been extirpated. From the northern snow-covered mountains to the scorching deserts of the southern borders, the hordes of the infidels have spread fire, and drowned the faithful in blood, ravaged the villages and the lands, reserving no mercy even for child or wool-haired.
V. Across Kapoukia the belfries are gaping silenced, and have become the nests of the flesh-eating ravens. Varazam is the last bastion that stands before the great cities of Antia and Noria, yet I am afraid our days are ending like sparrows on a snow-winter night, unless the Emperor descends immediately with the greatest of the armies to our assistance.
VI. And as you correctly assumed, it was by happenstance that I was trapped in Varazam, unable to escape, when the hordes of the one they call Khun Malan surrounded the city with maddening speed, a few nights before the sacred evening of winter. And it is an even more calamitous coincidence that Malan’s barbarous invaders were of a brethren tribe of my own, men of the deep eastern steppe, the most bloodthirsty faction that my forefathers had denounced and separated from; yet in blood and skin tone, hair and eye color identical to myself. I was enraged twice as much for those reasons, and the unfortunate turn of events and I hoped that the siege would end soon, as our safety was guaranteed—we believed then—by the fabled impenetrable walls of Varazam.
VII. Understand now, Carpus, that I have journeyed back and forth to the four corners of the earth, I have survived with drops of water and a piece of stale unleavened bread for a fortnight in the most desolate lands, yet nothing in my life prepared me for the terrors I am currently witnessing in Varazam during this siege. You are correct claiming that the heretics abandoned the true Faith, but the perilous famine and the subsequent plague that ravaged the city is not a just punishment for the God-fearing folk who were never in favor of the lord of Varazam. The common folk of Varazam has been unjustly ensnared between an incompetent and self-serving lord, a tribe of bloodhounds descending upon them, and the Empire’s capital indifference for their grave fate.
VIII. Know that even as I write these words, my lungs fill with pestilential odors of the dead. For the miasma has strangled the city walls from the first month and never clears not even in the high winds of winter.
IX. I beseech you to be merciful to the men and women of this once proud and pious city. For its people have reverted to even devour rats and worms and I watched the mothers boiling their leather sandals with salt and their children gnawing on them slowly, in silent tears for days and nights as their only sustenance.
X. I can provide accounts of manifold afflictive calamities that have befallen us but I cannot afford the time and strength to do so, my brother. But I will record only a singular account of events, if you are kind enough to suffer it, the story of Akritus the most valiant of military officers of Varazam. A man who during the pinnacle of the early summer raids, did not abandon the northwest tower for eleven nights and days in a row, and defended it along with his spearmen against the most violent attacks of the barbarians when they raised their monstrous siege machines. For that man had a wife named Aelia and two sons, a two-year-old and a newborn, who were also trapped in Varazam. Aelia fell sick during his absence, and she came begging the lord and the nobles for milk and barley, yet she was thrown out of the palace gates, not even admitted to explicate who she was. When she insisted, and returned there in desperation, the guards served her with bloody stripes on her back, treating her as a sinful slave, even though she was holding in her frail arms Akritus’ suckling son. I can tell you—because I am usually among his guests—that the lord of Varazam has in possession quite a few of the fastest well-fed horses, and he has retained in abundance bread, wine, dried fruit, oil, and olives, but doesn’t burden to share them even with his most valiant soldiery.
XI. This all transpired only a month ago. And so—as one would expect—Aelia, the wife of Akritus suffered but not for long, for her breast milk soon turned to watery poison. First her newborn died with silent convulsions, and then she died in wailing grief, and finally her firstborn two-year-old son died of terror in the darkest corner of their abode, as his father defended night and day us, the city and the lord of Varazam, as his mother’s flesh decayed before his own eyes and exuded the vilest of odors.
XII. And they say that Akritus when he learned all this, didn’t cry or curse anyone, but chose the most despicable of deeds. He ventured from a secret gate outside the walls of our city at night. It is a gate sealed with the heaviest stones and opened from inside only for a few breaths for our messengers to escape. Akritus, hiding in the deep darkness of a starless night, approached a barbarian rider, killed him, and brought the horse back inside
the inner bailey. Fast before dawn, when most were still asleep, he built a great fire, burning down even the pillars of his own house, and in that fire, he roasted the slaughtered horse. Then, pushing the tumbril himself he delivered with pain, sweat and bloodied feet, the roasted animal to the palace as a gift to the lord. And the lord marveled, not knowing anything about the merciless fate that had struck Akritus, and he asked for a feasting banquet to honor him, inviting the nobles and the proconsuls, forasmuch meat had not been seen for days and nights at Varazam. And I was there, only a few nights ago, observing the most ignominious of feasts, as the servants tried to butcher down the roasted horse carcass only to find in its empty belly, the most unspeakable of terrors. For—cover your ears in despair—but Akritus had roasted the tender body of his own firstborn and placed it within the horse to serve it to the ungrateful lord. At the sight of that abomination, the patrons erupted with incessant shouts of anger and lamentation, yet Akritus addressed calmly the lord with red-rimmed eyes and words of inconsolable pain:
“I have offered my heart and soul to protect our church and the lands of our forefathers from the infidels, yet, you lord, demand more and wouldn’t even spare a piece of stale bread for my son. So here it is, I deliver him to you, my offspring, my damnation, and my flesh, all that I have left.”
XIII. And at the sound of those words, I irreversibly realized that Varazam has become a foreground of Hell, a city ensnared by Satan. Yet, I cannot believe that God’s justice is served by delivering even the pious and the brave defenders of our Faith to the most heinous of tribes to ever walk this earth.
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