“We camp here, where they can’t see our fires,” I said. “We need a plan. Get Noki here.”
Noki had disappeared with the Ouna-Ma again.
“Why did you come alone?” I asked him when he finally returned.
“You want the Ouna-Ma here?” he asked me in disbelief.
“This Ouna-Ma, yes, I do. She has broken all vows,” I repeated.
And she is in love with you, Noki.
Noki smirked as if he had heard my thoughts.
Maybe she could help. I had brought her back alive after only one moon. She too had decided to defy the law of the Tribe, letting her hair grow long like the beautiful women of the Empire, the sea wind steal away the red veil of her Goddess. I never touched her; I saw the way she looked at Noki. The sea had changed most of us; it had washed away the horseshit tales that had long stuffed our brains. My Story is not the only one worth singing. I wish I could sing the Story of Raven and Noki, of Sah-Ouna and Malan. But how can I know the untold dreams and the nightmares of anyone else, even those who rode next to me for all my nights and days? To know the deeds is not the same as to listen to the heart. I only know the heart of my Story, and that’s the only one I can truly tell.
“Yes, I want the Ouna-Ma here too. Better yet, wake them all up and bring everyone here.”
Soon thirty men and one woman gathered around me.
“I have brought you back. As I promised I would,” I said. “Hear me now. Before we left, Khun-Malan asked me to be his Firstblade in Sirol. I will rule over all of the Iron Valley and the outposts around us until Khun-Malan returns.” And if there is still a goddess you believe in, pray to her that Malan never returns. “Tomorrow we need to take control of Sirol, and we need to be one fist to do that. That means you too.”
I looked at her. The Ouna-Ma would do whatever she wanted whether I knelt in front of her or cut her with a knife. She didn’t answer me. I saw her fingers entwined with Noki’s as she stared at me with her pitch-black eyes. That was the only answer I needed.
“I follow the Firstblade,” said Leke.
Noki nodded in agreement. The rest had more than two carvings, and I had regained their loyalty and gratitude the moment we stepped safe on land, and they got fresh horses.
“All of us together and each one alone will tell only one Story, the same exact one,” I said. “Or else we’ll meet our death tomorrow.”
The Ouna-Ma chanted the words of the song of the Blades, staring at the fire, uniting our fates.
“The true Firstblade returns to Sirol!” shouted Noki.
All I had to do was take over Sirol, and I would be free for the first time in my life. No one could order me to do anything. I didn’t even try to sleep; the anticipation of Sirol and the Forest had filled me like opion. I stayed vigilant next to the fire all night.
Baagh approached me with two wineskins and said: “In Thalassopolis we had to lie to save our skin, but here, among your tribe, you cannot declare yourself as Firstblade.”
“I know.”
“This lie will catch up with you. You know that.”
“We will know only if Malan ever returns from the other end of the world. Even if he starts riding today, I will still be the Firstblade for a summer, maybe two. All I need is for those who stayed behind to believe me for now.”
“No one can endure the desert for very long. Malan will return soon.”
“Then we will know soon, Baagh. But now I care only about tomorrow.”
“Will you go to find Zeria?” he asked me.
I didn’t answer. My mind had already gone in search of her a thousand times after the battle of Apelo. Every night I saw Zeria in front of me repeating the last words I’d heard from her mouth: “I know you will come back. The branches of our lives have been growing on the same tree since we were children.”
“A long time has passed in this valley of death. Don’t hope,” said Baagh.
I knew that I might not find her, but I had never stopped hoping.
“Maybe they fled the forest and settled back in the Western Empire,” he said.
“The Dasal do not cross the Forest, Baagh. They fear the West.”
“You don’t know what you see, Da-Ren. My guess is that the Dasal hid there to escape the Western Empire. But they belong to it. Zeria was wearing a dress with embroidered designs and wide sleeves. Isn’t that what you told me?”
We had talked about a lot during the long nights of the campaign. I was always the one telling the tales. But I had learned nothing about Baagh.
“Where do you think she got that from? Did you give it to her or did she go to the marketplace of Thalassopolis herself to buy it?” he continued.
Baagh was a torch in my darkness.
“In the West. I have seen merchants selling such dresses in the markets of Varazam. The Dasal trade with all sides and if I am to guess they trade more with the West because that’s where they came from. They are the last pagan tribes, the worshippers of trees and false gods who hid in there. And you already told me that they know the passages to the Western Empire, the ones that you are afraid of finding.”
“I haven’t seen any passages,” I said.
“Believe me, they know them, and they are close to them.”
“I’ve walked those lands. The mountains block everything to the West,” I said.
“Mountains are what you see,” he was waving his index finger back and forth, pretty certain of his words.
I had seen the entire world and yet, still, I had so much to learn.
“What do you know of the Western Empire?” I asked.
“As much as I do about the Eastern. Below what you call the Blackvein, they used to be united as one but broke in two. They speak the same tongue, and they both serve the same god.”
“Is this true? Do you mean that they are like the Crossers?”
“There is only One God,” he said.
“That will be a great disappointment for my Tribe. They believe that the Final Battle awaits us in the West against the monsters.”
“You, Da-Ren, of all men should know that the monsters are everywhere.”
With those words Baagh got up to go rest, leaving me as lone guard by the fire.
I shut my weary eyes for a while. The smell of the horse was there, but there was also a second scent that of the westerly forest wind, the breath of the firs that invaded my nostrils. I opened my eyes certain that she’d appear in front of me. A slender feminine shadow was approaching the flames, tall and dark as the night.
“Raven,” I whispered, but she didn’t even look at me.
The Ouna-Ma sat next to me. She was holding a small carved razor—one of those with a bronze handle that Antia’s merchants sold—with two fingers on its grasping rings. She started shaving her head with small, slow movements. Come dawn, her lies and her dreams would end, and we would all be back in Sirol. I stared and waited for her to finish in silence, while she avoided my eyes. I had found a red cloth in the harbor and took it out of my saddlebag to give to her. She was dressed as a Witch again, and until I found Zeria, I craved the Witch’s truths.
“Tell me, Voice of the Sky, my Story…”
She froze her brows and lips in anger and then just shook her head no, succumbing to her old rules of silence in front of common men. Selene was not even half full, and she was too close to Sirol once again.
“Two words only. That’s all I want.”
She got up to walk away, but I grasped her arm and didn’t let her go.
“No one will harm you, I’ll rule over Sirol now. Da-Ren does not fall,” I said, to ease her mind. The fire was consuming the last branches, and they hissed like vengeful ghosts. “Speak,” I shouted. With my fingers clutched around her thin arm, I shook her, and she let out a muffled shriek.
She turned and dug her nails into my forearm, her eyes so close our lips almost touched. A bead of blood trembling slowly down her brow, cut by her razor, a tear down her cheek.
“Two words?” she
asked.
“Tell me. What do I find tomorrow?”
“Run away, Da-Ren. Run away.”
LXIX.
The Earth Is Sleeping with Seed
Twenty-Fourth Autumn. “Firstblade”
In the middle of the night, brave Leke saddled his horse and secretly left on his own for Sirol. He told only young Temin about it, and he was the one who brought us the news, shaking from cold or fear around the rooster’s second crow.
“Leke left all alone. He wanted to see what awaits us over the hill. He said we should run away if he is not back by noon.”
We saddled the horses and waited in hiding.
They came before noon; dozens of galloping horses trotting down the hill from the side of Sirol, their hooves raising clouds of dust, the riders’ hides flapping left and right as they broke to a gallop. They spread wide and surrounded us, taking the last steps carefully. Their bow strings were nocked.
“Keep your blades sheathed,” I shouted to my men.
I recognized Leke among them unarmed as was the man next to him. A familiar face.
Sani was thinner than I remembered him, but he looked strong. His temples were gray, and his hair was cut at mid-neck. He didn’t tie them in a ponytail anymore, but neither did we, after Apelo.
Sani raised his hand and then lowered it, ordering his men to do the same with the bows.
“Da-Ren! By Enaka, it’s really you!”
“Sani! I am so…”
I am so…relieved. But he deserved more than that.
“Noki! Is that you? You look like shit.”
“Sani, you old rat. Didn’t they throw you to the Guides?”
“I rule this land now, Noki!”
“Not for long.”
Sani’s lips stiffened, and he remained still for a couple of breaths. For a moment, I couldn’t tell if we were going to embrace or kill each other.
“Oh, I bless the Sun and Selene, we are back!” I broke the silence.
“The rest?” he said.
“They are following by land,” I said.
Sani loosened into a silent smile.
“By Enaka, this a blessing!” he said.
Second time he said “by Enaka” already.
His men dismounted, and that was enough of a sign of trust for us to follow. We crossed arms and hands cheering each other. A new day had dawned in glory for both, and it would be followed by one of those nights that even the bitter milk spirit tasted good.
“To Sirol, we ride,” I said, and the men mounted.
Sani kept staring at Noki. Raven was riding along with him on the same horse. “What are you doing, Noki? Under the Sky, she sees,” said Sani, pointing to the clouds as if there was someone there looking down at us. “Here, I’ll deliver you to the Redveils myself,” Sani said to Raven and ordered two of his men to spare a horse for her.
Everyone started riding and bellowing. Only Raven and Noki rode in silence, looking more and more alike with bloodshot sleepless eyes and pale face. Noki had even cut his hair short, in mourning.
Sirol, swallowed us fast, like a spider who opened its mouth to feed on the flies. The camp was smaller and colder, even darker than I remembered it. The tents, the smaller camps of the Tanners and the Blades and the rest, were all in their place. But everything was a skeleton of its old self, a shadow of desolation, without warriors or sounds. Most of the tents had been stripped and ripped from the ground only the marks and a couple of rotting poles left stuck in the muddy soil. A few men and women cheered us as we got closer, but their faces betrayed the lack of strength and hope.
“It’s like a camp of ghosts,” I whispered to Leke.
He lifted his head, his eyes staring up as if he was trying to tell me something. I gazed up. Corpses in iron cages were hanging from gibbet poles, dangling left and right of our path.
“What is all this?” I asked Sani.
“Unbelievers. Those who lost faith in the Goddess,” he said. “A reminder for the rest.”
I kept peering at him, but he didn’t seem eager to offer more detail.
“Seems like too many have lost faith here,” Baagh said, to my right with a smirk on his face.
Sani looked at him and then back to me, shaking his head disapprovingly.
When we reached the tents of the Blades, my comrades fell to the ground, kissed the soil, and raised their arms to praise Enaka. Whatever praise Baagh, Agathon or I deserved would be hidden inside them silent. Hundreds of men from all Banners came by that same night to greet us and so did the Reghen. They spoke with Sani for a while before approaching me.
“Tell us right away, what are Malan’s orders?” one of them asked.
“We died a hundred times to make it back alive. I am going to rest now and then get a wineskin and a woman,” I said. Every word coming out of my mouth was but a lie to cover other lies. “There are winter moons ahead of us for all the Stories. I have too many.”
My first instinct was to tell them as little as possible.
“You seem too close, to those…” I said, turning to Sani.
Those snakes.
“You must tell the Stories you bring. That’s the way of the Tribe, Da-Ren, our way. There will be a gathering at the Wolfhowl, tomorrow night,” said Sani.
For a moment I wanted to grab a horse and head right away to the Forest, but I knew I had to learn more. I had to make sure my men and Baagh were safe. I spent another sleepless night. The scents brought up the past faster than the images. The dung fire, the horse’s sweat, the gruel, all smelled different in my homeland. This was not another opion dream that I had fallen into, this was Sirol, the camp of my Tribe, a few days ride from the Forest. I gulped down another wineskin and crashed face down on the ground, and I slept through the whole day.
“Everyone is at the Wolfhowl already,” said Leke when he woke me up.
When I made it there, it was too late. My men had not resisted the temptation. The Reghen had surrounded them and had them recite our Stories, the hooded men repeating them for all to hear. There were more than three hundred men in the arena, and many more pushing to get in. I approached the crowd and nodded at the Blade who spoke to continue. Every now and then another one would jump in and add more details of our Story. Their faces glowed to the sound of their words.
“We traveled to the ends of the earth. We unearthed the Deadwalkers and burned them. The Ssons drank blood in the shade of Varazam’s walls. The sacrifice of the Blades at Apelo. They fell upon the horses of the othertribers on foot. Irons high! The invincible warlord, Khun-Malan, conquered the entire world.”
They spoke excited and gesticulating, and the men listened drunk. I left them to ramble on; they were much better at paying homage to me. For each name they uttered for the first time, ten questions flew out. The Chiefs were the ones closest to them, listening carefully to the tales of the campaign. An Archer Chief stood next to me and welcomed me with slanted looks, his eyes yellow with jealousy. He bit hard on his lips, as he heard of my deeds. A couple of times the Archers tried to laugh and cheer, but mostly they knew that they had lost their life’s only Story forever.
“Will you say a Story, Firstblade?” asked Sani.
“Let the men do it; they remember them better than I. I was drunk most of the nights,” I said trying to fake a smile.
Only for the heroes of Apelo did I have a few words to say.
“These tales are your power as long as you tell them yourself,” Baagh whispered in my ear as we walked away from Wolfhowl at the end of the night.
“I remember these tales differently,” I answered back.
“If you let the others sing your story you’ll soon lose your past forever,” Baagh insisted.
“Better that way.”
“Watch out for that man; he is dangerous,” Baagh said, pointing carefully at Sani, as the men broke away from the main gate.
“He thinks the same of you. We go back a long way. He is loyal.”
“That he is. But to whom?”<
br />
Sani had long since won the command of Sirol, and now he had my men on his side. It was the Archers and the Reghen that I feared. The rest didn’t have a say or a fate under the Sun.
It was about time I had a word with Sani. Not to tell him tales but to listen. What was this place that we had returned to? This was not the Sirol of old; I could feel the gloomy mist of a dying Tribe, surrounding me. There were no feasts, some bread but no meat, but what struck me more was the absence of the powerful. A handful of Reghen, in threadbare robes, had come to the gathering. No Ouna-Mas had appeared. A camp without a Khun. I didn’t care to take control of Sirol from Sani, but I needed to know about the Forest. I visited him the next evening, in his tent. He had moved his Blades next to the Ouna-Mas and the Reghen, away from our old camp. The tent was small, but it had the hexagonal shape that reminded everyone of the great tent of the Khun. I rode there with Baagh and Leke and left them to wait outside. Sani greeted me. He was wearing a robe identical to those of the Reghen, save for the red circle in the middle.
“What are you wearing?” I asked.
“The Reghen have appointed me Guardian of the Goddess, Da-Ren. That’s how I rule over this land. How do you think I got a thousand Archers to obey a hundred Blades? I had to ask for the Voice of Enaka,” he said.
“And she spoke.”
“She did, Da-Ren, and she still does.”
You must tell me about the Dasal.
“You’ve done well, Sani. I feared I would return to a camp of death and hunger.”
“Your fears are not far from the truth. We lost many. The old, the children. The first winter was mild, but you didn’t leave many supplies behind. That first summer was the coming of Darhul himself. Our darkest time, but I praise Enaka for the mosquitos. The fever purged the camp of the weaklings and the old. And the Rods. We didn’t stop burning bodies. Those few Rods who were left behind are all dead. Then I offered myself as Guardian to the Ouna-Mas.”
“How many are still alive?”
“Half maybe. Barely twenty thousand. And there are more enemies now. Northmen that we’ve never seen before.”
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