“Where were you? Who is she?” I asked. “Are you mad?”
“I had to warn someone,” she said. “An old friend.”
“Do I know that woman?” I asked. “I’ve seen her before.”
“You do,” she said.
“Was that Drusa, that slave who escaped six winters ago?”
Zeria took a step back startled as she heard me.
“Yes. You remember. But we must go now,” she said, and immediately pointed to Baagh who had stormed out of the tavern.
“All good,” Baagh said. “I got all we need. Cow’s bile, fennel, even olive oil. Time to go.”
“The last three days…I don’t understand a thing,” I said.
“You’re tired, Da-Ren. We got to go; we have to save our child,” she said. “Give me your dirk.”
Zeria cut her dress to the knee to move faster, and we hurried behind Baagh and out the city walls, striding to the horses in haste. Before long we were riding back to the gorge and the cave’s entrance, and I had the chance to see the landscape of the White Doe in detail from the opposite side.
Where the gorge met the vale of Sirol, there was a narrow strip of woodland, wide enough for horses to hide. Malan could unleash thousands of men through the White Doe cave, ride down the gorge, hide in the woodland and storm the valley before anyone could react.
On my left side, a few thousand steps north, I could see the dust rising from the carts of Lenos’s army. As night came, they lit the first torches, and I saw exactly where they entered the wood.
“That path they opened in the Forest, it is very close,” I said to Baagh.
“I’d say four thousand steps not more,” Baagh said.
“And once they are in there, will they be close to New Kar-Tioo?”
“You saw the fires, Da-Ren. How far away were they from the outpost?”
“Far. At least two days Forest walk. Maybe three.”
“Makes sense, they have to swerve north into the Forest to avoid the mountain.”
“Still, they are only two days away from our camp,” said Zeria. “We must hurry.”
I shut my mouth, trying not to say the obvious. Baagh had seen it too. Two paths out of the Forest, one through the caves, one through the wood, both leading to the valley of Lenos. Only a brief time for the horses to cover the distance in a gallop. Malan could set the perfect trap if he met Lenos’ army in this valley. And Lenos couldn’t hide behind its walls; they were no match for our machines. It would be a great trap, yet it was too late. The Empire’s army was already approaching the Forest, bringing the war to the East, and closer to our hideaway.
When we reached Vani and the Dasal guides at the mouth of the cave, it was deep night, and they were already asleep except for the old man.
“No time,” I said. “We must make it back to New Kar-Tioo before dawn.”
Under the torchlight, I tried to mark and remember the path through the caves in case I was to travel back again. I marveled again at the countless bats, the bluefires, the stalactites.
“God’s wonders,” Baagh said.
“Faster, Da-Ren,” Zeria cried, trying to take me out of my daze.
God’s wonders, Aneria, life, death. The chill of the cave reaching my heart and freezing my deepest thoughts. I hadn’t shut my eyes for three days. For someone who believed in no goddess or demon, I was suddenly filled with an urge to do the most peculiar thing.
I prayed.
“Enaka, help Aneria, help us with what is to come, keep me strong. I’ll bring as sacrifice…”
The songprayers, I forget. I didn’t remember the words anymore.
I mumbled the words, ashamed at the same time that I had reverted to praying, laughing at myself, lamenting, waiting for a higher power to bring justice. There was some power, somewhere that would do justice to Aneria, to those of New Kar-Tioo. They were innocent and shouldn’t suffer for our evil doing.
We reached New Kar-Tioo before dawn. It had been the longest day of my life. Baagh prepared the mix and Zeria ran to the children, while I tried to gather my men.
I collapsed in my hut till noon when Zeria came to wake me up.
“How is Aneria?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet. I hope the potion works. But she has not worsened,” she said.
“You shouldn’t let me sleep.”
“You haven’t slept for days. Go outside; they’re waiting for you,” she said.
I had fewer than a hundred men in the Forest, half of them old Blades, and the rest Dasal. They had all gathered in a circle, waiting for my commands.
“Everyone. Listen,” I said. “War is here. Those who can shoot an arrow as fast as the Tribe’s Archers, you follow me. Pack quivers and pine’s blood and we ride north. The rest stay here and guard all paths to the north. The Empire’s army is close. If it’s not us returning, flee to the caves.”
I cut my eyes at Leke standing next to Temin.
“Gather the men, Leke. You know best who we should take with us,” I said.
“You want me to follow you, Da-Ren?” said Leke.
“You’d better.”
LXXXIII.
Fight for the Tribe
Thirty-Second Spring. Seven days before the Poppy Flower Moon
“Elk’s Horn crest to scout the north. Peles crest for the south. Only two Dasal boys can climb them,” said Leke. “I sent both of them out there, once I heard of the West’s legions. The boy from Peles is back.”
“And?” I said.
“It’s true. Malan has crossed the Blackvein, and they are riding north. Must be all of them, their lines are about fifteen miles long,” said Leke.
“Miles? Legions?”
“I learn. Baagh taught me a few things too, all those years.”
Miles. Years. Legions.
“What else?”
“The first of Malan’s Archers are already way north of the Garol farms. They must have come out of Sirol. I guess Sani is leading those.”
“So, they are going against the legions of the West. Maybe we should wait here.”
“Let them fight it out?”
“I…I don’t know.”
We were staring at each other. What was the right thing to do? If only I could have a sign. I started pacing impatiently next to the horse pen, waiting for the scout from Elk’s Horn to return.
Vani walked up to me. “The men are ready, Firstblade,” he said.
Vani was an older man, dark-haired and low-browed with a full mustache that reached down to the jaw.
“Are you ready? You’re hobbling.” He favored one leg.
“Nah, it’s the weather. I broke that one back in Kapoukia.”
“How many we got?”
“Twenty Blades, twenty of the others,” he said, pointing to the Dasal.
The Dasal and the Blades had mixed around the campfires, painting their faces. They were all painting the Dasal way.
“What are they chanting?” asked Vani.
“For battle, for death, for no evil eye to see me again,” I said. The two graybeards of the Dasal, one tending to each fire, repeated the words as they spread the paint on their cheeks and brows. Everyone was painted the same way, the skin above the lips brown, below them a dark green. They wore their usual hides and trousers, covered with twine and bronze leaves. Only from the white of the eye, could you tell they were men.
“Go now, prepare for battle,” I said to Vani.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he said.
“Have you seen Baagh?” I asked.
“Yeah, he was waiting outside your hut. He is not coming with us, Firstblade. Is he?” Vani’s face was stiff and pained as if he were trying to crap blades out of his ass.
“You don’t trust him.”
“Do you?”
“No. And he is not coming,” I said.
Vani left to join the others, and I went to find Baagh. He was praying on his knees under an old oak. When he heard my steps, he stopped and beckoned me silently. He d
idn’t seem eager to get up, so I gave him my hand.
“You are getting old, Sorcerer,” I said.
“Those caves were too much to cross back and forth in two days.”
“Tell me. How is Aneria?”
“I gave her the potion. She should get better in a couple of days. God’s will,” he said.
“Pray for both of us.”
“Everyone is,” he said. “Those men you gathered slaughtered a lamb and drained its blood on a wooden bowl to mark their faces.”
“I saw them.”
We walked together to the campfires.
“You know, they sacrificed together, but they pray to three different gods. Some to the White Doe, some to Enaka, and I even managed to have a few pray to the One God. Took me a few years of preaching.”
“None of that will do them any good. Their enemies pray to the same gods,” I said.
“Always the rebel, Da-Ren.”
“I was. I am not sure anymore. I prayed last night in the caves. Can’t remember the words.”
“Do you remember who you prayed to?”
“Gods. They’re all the same, up there. They talk to each other.”
“Da-Ren, all you have to do is ask for sanctuary at Lenos. Take your family there, help the Empire.”
A few paces away Vani, Lebas, Leke, Temin, and about twenty more Blades were eating, mending the horses. A couple of them were looking our way, maybe trying to figure out what we said. Once they were children of the Sieve, some in the same tents with me.
“Nah, too late for treachery, Baagh. Can’t follow, can’t betray.”
“This is your only chance to get out of this.”
“I’ve seen Lenos, Baagh. I’ll be dead in a few days if I try to hide there. Zeria too. And if you ask me, Lenos is doomed, no tall walls for defense. Its infantry doesn’t stand a chance against the Tribe’s horsemen. Those legions can’t fight in forest or valley. Their armors are too heavy.”
“The problem with you barbarians, is that you always overestimate yourselves,” said Baagh. “You made an unwise choice.”
“A choice? Do I have one? Let me ask you, Baagh. Do you know why the Dasal paint their faces? It is not for disguise.”
“So that the evil eye doesn’t see them.”
“No. They wear the colors of the Forest when they’re about to face death. Green and brown. They cover themselves in twine and leaves. It is preparation, a ritual. When they fall, they want to be accepted by the wood. To be one. Their words of prayer are: ‘I was earth before I was song, I was bark before I was blood, I was wind then, and wind I’ll become again.’”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“We are all men. Dasal, Blades, even your Crossers and priests. And our death must honor our lives. Can’t become weasels and jackals just to live one more day.”
“But Lenos, the children—”
Baagh was interrupted by Leke’s shouts as he ran toward me with a Dasal by his side.
“Da-Ren, hear this. Tor-Ba here is the best climber. I sent him to Elk’s Horn to scout the north. They are coming.”
“Who?”
“The Empire’s men. They split in two. He says a few hundred, maybe a thousand have turned south. They are not following the path east.”
“Which way are they heading?”
“Straight for here. A day away, maybe two if they stop and camp to rest. Do you think their scouts have told’em about us?”
“Their scouts what? If their scouts were worth anything they’d know we are only fifty men here, why would they care? Doesn’t make sense to split a thousand men here. Unless…”
I looked around for Baagh but couldn’t find him. I had been betrayed.
“Wait here,” I said.
I went to find Zeria who was in her hut with Aneria. Zeria had packed everything of use—pots, hides, clothes—and arranged them outside the door, next to the horses. The hut was cold brown earth like the first moment I had built it, except for the corner where Aneria was resting next to the hearth. The girl lay with eyes trembling, half-shut. The skin on her cheeks was the yellow of death.
“She is better,” said Zeria. “She coughs, but Baagh says that’s good.”
I knelt next to her and held her hand. She moved her eyelids up, and I pulled my hand away.
“I know you,” she said.
“Aren’t you chasing butterflies anymore?” I asked her.
She tried to get up, and Zeria came to help her and give her water.
“My mother says that they have gone to sleep.”
“They’ll wake up when you’re ready.”
“Mother says we’re leaving. Soon.”
“Yes, we are. It’s getting cold here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Wherever we go, south, east, I promise you, it will be better than here. Bright sun and many butterflies.”
“I believe you.”
She always believed me.
I got up and walked to Zeria so that the girl wouldn’t listen.
“They’re coming here, the legions,” I said.
“I heard. I’m ready.”
“Baagh asked me to join them, go to Lenos.”
“If we go to Lenos as unbelievers, we burn on a cross or at best survive as slaves in their ratholes. No. Don’t trust Baagh.”
“Do you think that he—”
“Yes, I think he betrayed us in Lenos. When he left you alone. He told them of the White Doe, and that’s why the Crossers are coming. If you kill Baagh, they may not find it.”
Kill Baagh.
“I must stop them.”
“You cannot. Kill him and flee south.”
“In two days. I must stop them first. We can’t run away with sick children and women.”
I held her hands and shut my eyes for a kiss that lasted only a breath.
“Go,” she said.
How could I know when it was going to be the last kiss, the last chance to embrace the one woman I came to love? I kissed her again. All I could do was kiss her every time as if it were my last breath.
“Time to go. No horses,” I said to Leke and the others as I came out of the hut. “Baagh, come with me. We must talk.”
I approached him, not even sure if I’d run him through with the blade. It had been seven winters and more since I killed anyone.
“I know what you did. But my blade is rusty, old man.”
He didn’t say anything waiting with palms open toward me, taunting me to strike him.
“You won’t hurt me, Da-Ren. Your heart has softened. Accept what you’ve become.”
“You saved Aneria. I owe you that. As long as she’s alive, I won’t hurt you. But when I get back, you better be gone. Through the caves, south, north, I don’t care. If I see you here, you’ll see that my blade hasn’t softened.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing for you, Da-Ren.”
“You had to serve your people and your god. I understand. And so do I, whatever mine is.”
“Where are you going, Da-Ren? This is madness; you can’t stop the legions.”
But I can and I will.
“The problem with you Crossers is that you always underestimate the barbarians,” I answered.
Night or day, rain or sun, the Dasal move in the woodland, fast and silent as the wind. Even that description doesn’t do them justice because when the wind gets angry, he screams and howls. You don’t hear a sound out of the Dasal. They don’t care for the horse. They hop stealthily over the rivulets and the gullies, run like the shadow through the bush and the oaks, they know each step before they take it. From a distance they look like giant spiders, balancing on eight legs that can manage any fall or ascent.
“Da-Ren, we’ll reach the legion by dawn,” said Leke. “If we don’t rest.”
“We don’t rest,” I said.
The Blades carried bow and quivers, and the Dasal carried sealed skins with oil and pine’s blood. Most of the Dasal couldn’t shoot the double-cur
ved bow. I chose only the fastest; I needed speed more than hands.
As night covered us in its cold embrace, we rested for a brief time, waiting for the Dasal trailblazers Leke had sent in front. There was no fire and no praying anymore. The faces were painted brown and green; death could be only a breath away. When the two scouts returned, I recognized one of them.
His eyes were a familiar blue, too bright and annoying for a boy, his face young as fourteen-winters. He had long straight hair and was tall and strong-boned. I couldn’t stand to look at him.
“You are Zeria’s boy,” I said.
He nodded, yet he didn’t seem eager to look me in the eyes either. I was the man who lay with his mother each night.
“Speak,” Leke broke the silence.
The older scout next to Zeria’s son stepped forward: “They’ve camped close by. They sent patrols out, but only a couple. If we head east and not light any fire, we’ll surprise them. But they are many.”
“How many?” I asked.
“As many as the leaves of the oak,” he said.
To the Dasal that phrase maybe meant something, but to me it was nonsense.
“No, they’re not. Not even a branch of the oak,” I said.
“They are about three cohorts,” said the boy.
“Cohorts? Are you learning from Baagh as well?” I asked.
He nodded, keeping his gaze down.
“Three of soldiers or three all together?” I asked.
“All together.”
“So, that’s less than a thousand fighting men, about two hundred pack mules, forty wagons?”
“Couldn’t count from up there, but I guess so.”
“A baby oak,” I said.
“We can’t stop them, Da-Ren,” said Leke. “Even if they’re a thousand, we’re not even a hundred.”
“The more leaves the oak has, the faster it burns,” I said with a smirk.
“What are you saying?”
“Whatever they are it’s their weakness. They are about fifteen hundred men. They are well fed. They have heavy armor. That’s their weakness,” I said. “We need to get in shooting range of their supply wagons. I don’t care for their cohorts. We just need to burn the forty wagons. Flaming arrows. If they lose their supplies, they’ll have to turn back. Can’t live on forest berries, a thousand men.”
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