Darhul led them to the deepest of the caves, and there the hunted became the hunter, the hunters became pray, in the darkest and remotest of the caverns of the earth. The Demon ensnared them behind cold stone walls, shutting all entry and exit forever, imprisoning the proud Ancients in darkness; the red of their eyes the only beaming light.
A hundred winters passed; the Ancients despaired and awaited death. Two hundred winters passed. Darhul would open the gates only once every hundred winters to allow fresh air and the scents of the past to come in, for he didn’t want them to suffocate and die; he wished to keep them alive and tortured forever. The boldest of the Ancients would beat their wings and make for the gate, but it would seal shut before they could escape. Nothing could escape the caves, not even their desperate screams.
And as Enaka forgot them forevermore, they were consumed by fear and agony and started praying again. But nobody could listen to them now, save the filthy gray rats and the slimy worms who shared the same dark caves.
Their women died first, all of them to the last one, as their skin wrinkled, their wings shriveled, and their teeth and hair fell, unable to feed on the bright light of the Sun. For they were used to flying high and close to him and enjoy the lustful pleasures under Selene’s light. When Enaka ignored their prayers, the women fell upon the pearly salt-spears that grow in ominous shapes on the caves, and bled themselves to death. And the men prayed harder, alone now, not even knowing who they prayed to until Darhul listened to them.
“I’ll grant your wish,” hissed the Demon. “But you will become of my likeness, not of Enaka’s. Your women bled away, and I command you to mate with the rats and the worms. You will become one with them, you’ll keep your wings and the red coal of your eyes, but you will take the face and the bodies of the rats, the slime of the worm upon your wings. And in exchange once every hundred springs I’ll let you out of the caves. Only at night. Only for a few nights. So you can feast on the blood of your revenge.
And the Ancients refused.
And Darhul repeated those same words a hundred winters later.
And the Ancients refused again.
And another hundred winters passed. And another.
Until the Ancients accepted, as it made no difference anymore, for they didn’t wish for salvation but only for blood now.
They mated with the rat and the worm under the roar of Darhul and the Ancients were no more. In their place now rose the Bats, the ones with wings in their arms, the Chiropteroi, the night swarmers, the Nychterides.
The ones who awake every hundred winters, for a brief time, and their revenge is the dread of all the living. But Darhul has tricked them, for they can’t stand the Sun’s light anymore. They can’t stay long outside the cave, for they have become one with it.
The only Sky they know now is the dark mantle of their slimy skin as they hang on the cave walls, the only stars they see are the red-rimmed beads of their folk.
This is the fate of the Ancients, the Bats, the fate of those who fly and defy the Goddess.
Beware of my last words, for the First Witch has warned us.
You must never venture near the caves of darkness. For you might open the fateful gates and then no one can save us from the wrath of the Bats. They wait for no other purpose but to take their revenge on Enaka’s faithful. And those who count, know that the hundred winters of restless sleep are coming to their end. The Bats will rise thirstier than ever. Soon; they will.
Thus warned us the Ouna-Mas, the Voices of the Unending Sky.
It was late dusk when the Reghen finished his tale. It had been forever since I had last heard it, and I had forgotten that ever-present lust for blood that existed in every Legend of the Tribe I was born into. A tribe I was now exiled from. Vile gods demanding prayer, sacrifice, and repentance, else they’d just torture those who defied them to eternity.
I turned to Vani.
“So that’s your favorite Story. Because you sure came out of the cunt of a rat mother,” I said.
“You think this is funny, Da-Ren? You don’t believe?”
“Believe in what? Flaxen-haired rat-fucking ancient flying giants?”
“Oh, you are so wise, Da-Ren. You think you are because you spent a night in Sapul, and then many more with that Baagh sorcerer, betraying your tribe. You think the Legend of the Bats is false?”
Baagh. Was Baagh still alive? Had they captured him too?
“You tell me where Zeria is and I’ll join you to talk about your bats all night,” I said.
Vani ignored my question, his eyes ablaze. He sprang to his feet and continued talking next to the fire.
“So, if you have become so wise, Da-Ren, tell me this. Cross yourself ten times as Baagh does and tell me. You know of birds? Eagle and hawk, robin and nightingale, wild duck and seagull. A bird has wings and can fly; a bird lays many eggs. An animal of the land can’t fly, it gives birth to a few, or just to one child, and feeds it with its milk. But a bat. Tell me what a bat does?”
“I don’t know.”
And I don’t care. I care only for my child. Where are you, Aneria?
“No, you don’t. A bat flies but lays no eggs. A bat flies but feeds its young with milk. A bat has only one child. And yet it flies! It is not of the sky or the land. Explain that.”
“You have feathers in your head, but you can’t fly,” I said.
I was trembling with cold in agony. My tongue had loosened; my urge to curse that man was unstoppable. I was trying to make him mad, hoping that he’d make the mistake of coming closer to me. Maybe if I made him mad enough to fight me, I could steal his blade.
“You can’t explain because you don’t believe,” Vani said. “You ask me why I betrayed you? Because you betrayed us first long ago. You were a Firstblade of the Tribe; you had the burden of defending the Goddess. But you defy her. You mock her, us. Now you finally learn what happens to those who think they can fly and defy.”
“You planned this all along, you worm,” I said.
“Since the first day I rode with you east to Kapoukia,” he said.
“You fought with your comrades for twelve winters, just to find a chance to betray them?”
“It was only when you escaped to the Forest, abandoning the Tribe, that I understood you for what you are. Someone who never cared for us, the ones of faith. You think, you, your comrades, you think you matter, Da-Ren. As if the gods chose you to live in eternity. You think I don’t know you for the ninestar you are. Sah-Ouna had warned us long ago.”
Sah-Ouna? How long since I heard that name. Was this her doing? It had to be; those men were too stupid to plan this end to end.
I turned to Sani who was also there but silent throughout all this.
“Has Sah-Ouna spoken to you?” I asked.
“Many times. Face to face,” he said. “Only half a moon ago, before she passed the Blackvein from the south. One more night, Da-Ren. We’ll catch up with them tomorrow. They all wait for you. They know what you did. What you all did. I told you long ago: Everyone will be judged.”
Everyone will be judged?
Zeria was still alive.
LXXXVII.
All the Ghosts
Thirty-Second Spring. The night of the Poppy Flower Moon
The two Archers riding left and right of me were not eager to exchange words. I guessed that Sani had ordered them not to. I still tried to learn more, especially when I saw the smoke and dust of the camp rising in the east.
“We are not going to Sirol,” I said.
The one to my left just snorted, under his thin black mustache which made him look a couple of winters older. When I repeated my question three times he finally replied:
“I don’t know.”
“You do know. This is where you’re taking me, right? This is not Sirol.”
“I haven’t been to Sirol in I don’t know how long,” he said. “They tell me I was born there, but I don’t remember.”
We have kept north since we’ve been out
in the open valley. I guessed we were a few days north of the Garol farms.
“Why did you stop?” asked the younger one to my left. I had halted the horse and dismounted.
“I am stopping until you tell me where we’re going.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he squeezed his horse to a trot forward. He returned with Vani a few moments later.
“What is it, Da-Ren?” asked Vani.
“Where are you taking us? This is not Sirol,” I said.
My hands were still tied in front, and I was too exhausted even to try to escape.
“Next time you see Sirol, you’ll stand in the arena of Wolfhowl to face punishment. If I were you, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to get there,” he said, and then he nodded to the Guardian behind me.
That was the last thing I remember.
When I found my senses again, it was dark past dusk, and I was tied to a pole with my hands behind my back in the center of a withy-fenced. The drizzling rain was falling on my face; my clothes were covered in mud.
I heard someone calling me from ten paces away. I turned to see a few men tied to the pole in the square pen next to mine.
“Da-Ren? Is that you?”
“Leke?”
“It’s you. I had you for dead. Sani’s men chained us and brought us here. Why?”
I peered around until I found the Guardians who were on vigil.
“You just followed orders. You just found out I am a traitor. You say nothing else to them. You listen?”
“But—”
“Shut up. Not another word.”
Silence fell for a few breaths and then I heard Leke and his men singing. A word for the ashen wolf, then the double-curved bow, the long-necked horse, the Iron Valley. It was the song they’d sang when we had first seen the Blackvein’s shores from Agathon’s ship. Their way of telling me “we’ll be by your side.”
Above our heads the sky was dark, but at the eastmost horizon, a full Selene was rising, blurry and pale. The drizzle was persisting, enough to annoy and freeze us but not to wash the mud away. The exhaustion took Zeria’s thought away from my mind for a few breaths, and I fell asleep. When they woke me up, the clouds were thinning, and the drizzle had stopped. Vani and four of his guards came and put me on the back of an open horse cart.
“They’re waiting,” he said.
We passed through this new camp I’d never seen before. It was a war camp that they had put up in haste, something that they’d spend a few days in, but not a winter. Anvils and whetstones shouting and screaming in the middle of the night, othertriber soldiers walking in file of two in garrisons, Archers of the Tribe, passing by, riding fast. No one was sleeping, dancing or eating. Those men were preparing as if war was upon them the next morning. As we rode uphill, I saw thousands of campfires extending in every direction. Only Malan could have such a force assembled. Those were the Khun’s hordes, all of them, as many and different as I remembered them from the last time he had paraded in Sirol, six springs ago. In a couple of turns where the cart slowed down, and others could see me clearly, they’d turn and throw a stone, or a curse toward me though most seemed too busy to care.
As we kept moving, the tents became bigger and fewer. At every corner, every fifty paces Rods stood on horseback wearing their bearskins. The path had almost emptied of all other traffic, and it was now only my cart, Vani, and his Guardians riding close. I saw a bright strip of light, flicking white and red, and as we got closer, it separated into many torches. Rods were holding them and defining a half circle.
“Move it, Da-Ren,” said Vani, and I jumped out of the cart. We walked up to the torches.
Men everywhere. Not a single woman.
The torches were close enough to illuminate the faces in front of me.
“My Khun, here he is,” said Vani.
“Untie him,” I heard the voice.
There was a figure sitting on a platform, four-five steps higher than the men to his left and right, a dark figure with no light shining upon him. I didn’t have to see him to know. Two of the Ssons, Crazyeyes and Ironbleed up in the platform, Blue and Skullface lower down, closer to me.
I also counted four Reghen; at least a half-dozen warlords. A couple of them wore chains of gold and armbands of copper, the rest of their attire similar to Leaders of the Tribe. Then there was Irhan, the First Tracker I hadn’t seen for some time, Sani, and Karat in a deer skin, the Leader of the Archers. Two more, one hay-haired with tall boots, and a man with long brown braids in scale armor who had the noble face of a general of the Eastern Empire.
Rods, at least two dozen of them, in their black bearskins were surrounding everyone, closing the circle.
Not a single woman around, but that would change soon.
“Come closer, Da-Ren.”
I took three steps forward, but I still couldn’t make the face of the seated man talking to me clearly. The voice and its tone were unmistakable, though.
“Is that you, Malan? Khun?”
“King Malan,” shouted the Rod next to me.
Skullface’s torch lowered and brightened the face of the seated man who moved forward. His hair was long and falling back plain without shaved patterns on any side. He looked noble but also weak, the virality I’d expect of a Khun replaced by a pale sadness.
“Da-Ren, once again, I find you alive and well. Looking better than all of us who ventured to Sapul. Those Reekaal of the Forest, they don’t seem to be much of a threat for you.”
“Why am I in chains, Malan? I have been fighting our enemies for days now. I stopped a legion of the Western Empire. Burned all their supplies. Didn’t they tell you? Ask those who brought me here. All my men fought. Brave to the last one.”
Malan made a sign, and a Rod went up the steps and filled the large cup he was holding. He drank it whole and threw it away before he talked to me again.
“I wonder the same. Never had you for a traitor, Da-Ren. A fool, sure, but not a traitor.” He then turned toward Sani: “Maybe you can tell us.”
A frail white-haired Reghen jumped in before Sani spoke. He was the one who had traveled the Thousand Island Pelago with me, the one who joined Baagh and myself in Thalassopolis. He wasn’t much older than me, yet his face was that of a dying man.
“We Reghen have had our eye on him for a long time. That man, Da-Ren, has been talking to your enemies since he left Antia. He is in a close bond with an othertriber priest, who we believe to be more than a priest, an informant.”
“That’s all?” Malan asked.
“No, we know that he was in Lenos only a fortnight ago. With that priest.”
They know. Because of Vani.
The Reghen pointed and about five paces to my right I saw Baagh’s face. Two men were holding him, but he looked fine, without signs of torture.
“And that woman.”
Zeria?
I shut my eyes and bit my lower lip hard. I exhaled and opened my eyes to see her, only a few paces away. She wore the dress she had made from the fabric I’d brought from Antia, a dark blue with red ornamental patterns. It was torn and tattered on the hem. The only gift I brought her. Her face was smudged and tired, but there were no bruises or scars.
I tried to smile to give her strength, and she nodded with a face of bravery. Vani was next to her, and he pushed her head down so that she couldn’t see me. A river of wrath came to my mouth. I wanted to scream; I wanted to rip his neck veins.
“Hey, Da-Ren, here. Wake up! Look at me. My Uncarved friend, I always had you for a fool, but you have outdone yourself,” said Malan.
“This is all lies,” I said.
“Do you claim that you didn’t go to Lenos?”
“I did, but that was not to betray you.”
“Why did you go then?”
“I went for…” I couldn’t tell them about a child. Not a child. “I went…for supplies.”
Malan’s right leg and hand were shaking, but his other leg was still. There was something unnatural about that. Skullfa
ce was holding the torch close to him, illuminating only half of him.
“Oh, I see. You ventured on the northern path among a few legions of enemies, to go…for supplies. With a few othertribers for company. Even you cannot be such a fool,” said Malan.
“You ventured on the northern path?” Didn’t Malan know? I looked over at Vani, and he immediately pulled his gaze away from me. They didn’t know. No, Vani wouldn’t tell them. It was a curse to talk about the caves, and Vani had decided to protect the Tribe, keep them out of the caves.
Baagh shook his head and spoke for the first time, looking at me.
“Don’t do it, Da-Ren.”
Don’t do what?
A Rod punched him hard, and the old man fell to his knees, bleeding from his mouth.
“I didn’t take the northern path,” I said.
“Then?”
“Untie me, and I’ll show you.”
Despite Sani’s complaints Malan ordered them to untie me.
“I never had you for a fool either, Malan, to believe all those three-carved cowards around you,” I said.
“Watch your words, Da-Ren.”
I won’t watch them. I have a plan.
“They say it’s the wine. Too much for you?”
“How dare you?”
“Oh, I dare. To those fuckers here, you are God and King. But I know you. To me you are a kid from the Uncarved. One who couldn’t even beat Gunna without trickery. Or me.”
Malan supported himself on the arms of the chair and tried to stand, but he moved too fast and lost his step. He would have rolled down the platform steps had the Ssons not grabbed him. With Ironbleed and Crazyeyes holding his arms, he screamed with rage, facing the sky. His left leg was not moving at all, as if he was paralyzed and couldn’t walk.
Everyone was petrified, looking at the screaming Khun, supported by the two tall, monstrous figures. He was trying to get down the steps to reach me. I moved back a bit and was now where I wanted. It took only half a breath, as the Rod was only a step away from me, and he had lost his focus, staring at Malan. With one quick move, I pulled the dirk from its sheath, lifted it, and aimed. The Ssons fell over Malan trying to protect him, but he wasn’t my target. I aimed the blade at Vani’s throat, and it found the soft of his neck above the wishbone. He held his throat with both hands, and dropped to his knees, blood gurgling out. Sani was over him screaming; the Rods pushed my face into the mud, one pulled his blade and started to bring it down upon me.
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