“You should have known these things from your tenth winter,” he said.
He took a closer look at me, and his hand passed through my hair.
“Ninestar? In the Uncarved? What demon spat on me this winter? To freeze my ass in the snow for a ninestar.”
He spat on the ground with disgust. When he saw that I wasn’t moved or the least bit scared, he smiled and parted his hair with his hand to reveal the hollow triangle behind his ear.
“Yep, I am a ninestar too. My name is Bera,” he said. “Well, I never became Khun, or even made Chief of a Pack, but I’m still alive.”
“Can you tell me where to aim?” I asked him again.
I should have learned these things from my eighth winter, but Greentooth, the old crone who had raised us at the orphans, had not cared to teach me anything more than to carry the sweet-smelling piss buckets.
“Do you see the clearing before the trees and after the stream? Aim at that. Between the two banners. There.”
“You mean the whole field?”
“You see a field in front of you, right? No grass, no rocks. Sixty paces ahead? It is a hundred paces wide and fifty deep. I am sure you can see it.”
“But I can hit that blindfolded.”
“Good for you. Because when you ride to battle in the dust storm or under the thundering rain, you will be as good as blindfolded.”
The Guide took my bow and the quiver and loaded five arrows between the fingers of the bowgrip hand and one in the bowstring hand.
“Redin, shoot. Malan, shoot. Gunna, shoot. Lebo, shoot. Anak, shoot. Noki, shoot.”
He shouted the six names, exhaled quickly six times, and shot all six arrows, one after each name.
“You will grab six arrows at a time—one on the string, three between pointer and middle fingers, and two between middle and third fingers.”
He continued with the next six names. After he said all twelve children’s names three times, he had emptied a whole quiver. One quiver which had more arrows than three times the fingers on my two hands. And every single one of them had gone into the target field. None in the stream—or left, right, or beyond the trees.
“Three Packs of Archer riders. Forty men in each Pack. By the time they shout a dozen names three times, each of them empties one quiver. There, in that field. Count them if you can.
“They shoot half of the half of those arrows galloping backward, away from the enemy. As the Archers fall back still throwing arrows, three new Packs come in. Each rider empties one more quiver. Yet another three Packs refill all the way back to attack again. Nine Packs altogether. They’ll ride back and forth nine times, never too close to the enemy, always changing direction.
“The othertribers stand in the clearing. Eighty men wide, twenty deep. They have wood and leather shields, and they stand in formation. They want a man-to-man, blade-on-blade battle. They will never get it. How many othertribers will survive the rainfall of arrows until you can say nine times the names of the three-times-three Packs?”
Bera was funny.
“None?”
“None will survive. They shot six dozen arrows, two quivers on each othertriber. How many of our Archers will die?”
“None?”
“None. And when you learn to count—because you will learn to count Packs and men here—you will know that in this Story you just heard, the othertribers were four times more than our Archers,” added Bera.
“And why don’t the othertribers shoot back at us?”
“They don’t have this bow, they don’t have stirrups, they can’t ride and shoot holding shaft to ear with both hands. They can throw a spear, but not far enough to reach a horse.”
“Got it.”
“Rain of arrows from the sky. Rain without mercy. Master the bow this spring. Nothing else. Blades and horses are for later.”
“I aim straight ahead, on that field.”
“And learn the twelve names of the others by sundown.”
I was a miserable sight when I tried to grab the arrows and nock them with the same speed as Bera. The first days, I couldn’t even shoot half of the arrows into the target field, even though it was right in front of me. Some fell on the trees, others in the stream, and others didn’t even make it that far.
As soon as we shot, we had to run and gather the arrows. If they fell into the stream, then we had to dive in. The closer we came to the afternoon, the harder it became as I lost my strength. My fingers would bend like iron claws, and I would pull them open one by one when the day was over. Some boys were better than I. And some were worse, thankfully. But I kept getting better. Every day, one day at a time.
The Goddess of Spring finally awakened in a dazzling brightness, as if she hadn’t heard anything about the countless deaths that had marked the winter. Spring didn’t care about Elbia, or the plague, or anyone else. Spring came and warmed the Blackvein, greened the fields. The lands rejoiced. The maulers rode the bitches, and the stallions mounted the mares in the camp. Life would no longer mourn. The Endless Forest had begun to burst into color. The red flowers in the tree branches were trying to lure me into the Forest, the demons’ lair. But it was so dense and vast that from a distance, it still looked black most of the time.
We celebrated the full moon by roasting lambs outside, in front of our huts, together with the older boys and the Guides. They had placed sticks around the fire to make small fences. The fences surrounded the fire, and we skewered the lamb pieces on them to grill slowly.
My training to become a man and a warrior would last five times spring, and that was the first day that I saw everyone at the Uncarved camp together, their faces not hiding under thick fur hats and hides. The older boys were fewer.
My Pack were all in their thirteenth spring, but I was one winter older, although no one else remembered except me. I had entered my fourteenth spring.
Our Pack was the one with the youngest Uncarved, and they called us Starlings.
Our closest elders, in their fourteenth spring, were nine children, and they were called Owls.
Those in their fifteenth spring were eight, the Maulers. May they die a terrible death.
In the next Pack, there were only six left, and they were called Eagles.
And the last, those in their seventeenth spring, were called Wolves. Only four of them were still Uncarved. If our Khun died that spring, one of the four of them would take his place.
We were the many, the thirteen, the greenhorn, the frail Starlings.
“Why do they call us that?” I asked.
“Because you still fly together as a flock,” said the Reghen.
“Because the Eagles are hungry!” Bera roared.
All of us together were exactly forty children, and that was as far as I could count back then. At night, when we finished with the bows and arrows, the Reghen would teach us how to count.
“I seek only One,” whispered Malan. He was looking at me, pointing, and counting heads instead of caring about the sticks with the roasting lamb cuts.
“And the others? What do you think will become of them?” I asked.
“Pack Chiefs, Archers…” Lebo jumped in.
“Blackvein’s vultures need to feed.”
“All true.” Chaka, who was standing behind us, said only that and waited for us to put down our cups and listen to him carefully. The lamb’s juices were feeding my belly.
“Those who survive the five winters of training will become something. Ask what happened to those who aren’t here anymore.” Chaka pointed toward the four older boys who were eating. “You see those Wolves there? A few winters back, they were thirteen. Proud and tall. Now four are left.”
Anak was staring at them.
“Don’t stare,” Lebo said.
It was too late. The Wolf had smelled the prey.
“Time to pluck their feathers,” shouted one of the Wolves as he came and sat next to us. He grabbed the cup of Anak the Oaf. The hunt had begun, and we were the prey. When Anak tried to push him away, th
e Wolf emptied the cup of milk onto his head and then grabbed him by the neck with one hand and locked Anak’s wet head. The Wolf’s knuckles struck and repeatedly rubbed like a flint rock against Anak’s skull. It might have hurt a little but it made Anak suffer much more in humiliation. Anak knew he wouldn’t make Khun ever. Right then, right there.
“Don’t eat so much. The horse will die carrying you. Do you want to be Khun, you swine?” the Wolf said loudly for all to hear. “Listen, little Starlings, and clear your little bird heads. To become the Khun of the whole Tribe…” He made the biggest circle with his hands and roared a laugh. He stopped with his hands still in the air so we could all swallow his truth. “The whooooole…” He dragged the o every time. “Sah-Ouna must name you the First Wolf of your piss-poor hut. And that might be easy with the weaklings like you that they brought this winter. But you will have to be a Wolf standing, on the last Pack, the oldest in the Uncarved, on that one winter when Khun-Taa finally dies. Not one winter before or one after. Khun-Taa has to die when your moment comes. And that just won’t happen. It hasn’t happened for thirty winters. And before that, another thirty winters passed with the same Khun. So…never. And something even more difficult has to happen: you have to stay alive till then.”
“If Khun-Taa dies tomorrow, only one of those four Wolves could become Leader of the Tribe. No one else from the whole Tribe. Not you,” said the Reghen, who had also come to stand by us.
“But if Khun-Taa dies the next winter, none of those four will be able to become Khun anymore,” said Malan, probably talking to himself.
“Yes, so it is. All four will get their carving as soon as they pass their seventeenth winter.”
“So,” continued the Wolf, who had understood long ago that he would never become Khun, “forget it.”
He remained quiet for a while so the words could sink deep inside our souls. But only for a while—he just couldn’t stop. He enjoyed this so much that he wanted to soak our heads into whole winters of blind misery.
“None of you will become Khun. Not one. But many will burn in the fire like those lambs in front of you,” added the Wolf.
“What happened to the other nine of you?” asked Gunna.
“Two were carved early by the Guides and left for other camps.”
“And the rest?”
“Like the lambs.”
‘How did they die?” asked Malan.
“Bleeding. They bled to death. All of them.” The Wolf who had smelled us first started to laugh loudly again and added his tale, his eyes fixed on Anak. “Wait for the night of the Bear’s Sleep full moon. Then we’ll hang the fattest and slowest Starling from a tree upside down, and the dogs will pull bloody chunks from his face and tear him apart before the sun rises,” he said.
Wolves and Maulers drowned out other sounds with their barking laughter. The Eagles and the young Owls were screaming and hooting.
“Don’t listen to nonsense, Starlings. Neither the Reghen nor I would allow any such torture here,” Chaka said, with a serious tone in his voice.
The Guides had strict rules for everything—what we trained on, when we rode horses, where we went and didn’t, when we slept. There was a Truth for everything, and we had to follow it blindly. The children had only one rule among themselves: the strong beats the weak wherever he finds him. This change was the hardest. One moment, I had to be an obedient and brave dog; the next, a devious, quick, ruthless snake.
When the older children left, and we were alone in our hut, Bera the ninestar Guide told us: “Beware of the older boys more than anything else. They will beat you to death just because they can if we are not around.”
Anak turned his head around uneasily as if he were already upside down on that tree, a rope tightening around his neck.
Bera continued. “Hey, don’t be afraid. They don’t often hang someone from the oak’s branch. There are countless ways to die in the Uncarved.”
“Tell us a few,” said Gunna.
“If I do, we’ll be here all night. But the Wolf was true about one thing. They always bleed to death.”
XVIII.
Archers We Need in the Thousands
Fifteenth spring. Uncarved—Owl.
The Greentooth was always certain that I wouldn’t survive even nine nights in the Sieve. I had already passed nine moons Uncarved. The trials grew tougher each day, but I grew stronger and taller every night.
Until the winter came again, the first truly ruthless trial. The nights fell cold, and everyone stayed near the fire. The mind had time to think and suffer, restless. I could smell it. Only a few thousand paces to the east of us, a new Sieve was seething in its frozen rage. Rain or snow would take my mind back there every night.
The Guides spoke of a ghost with long brown hair and snow-white skin. They said it had been seen on a frosty, moonlit night, riding among the weeping willows that kissed the Blackvein. I wasn’t allowed to go to the Blackvein, but I too had seen the ghost, on one of the few nights that the Ouna-Ma brought the gift of crazygrass. She came in my sleep, a pale girl on horseback, and touched my hand. Cold skin. Her dark lips, rosy no more, whispered to me: “I am riding, Da-Ren. War horses. Down by the Blackvein. Come find me.”
We managed to become Owls that spring without losing anyone to bleeding or burning in the pyre. No one got a carving either. New Starlings joined from a fresh Sieve.
The one thing we didn’t miss was the Stories. The Reghen and the Ouna-Mas came often and had a Legend for every death. We were closed up in the same camp and the surrounding fields. We hadn’t been anywhere else in Sirol.
One night, Lebo asked the Reghen: “When will we mount war horses? We’ve been cooped up here so long.”
“You have summers in front of you for everything. You have to master the bow without being on a saddle first,” the Reghen said.
“What kind of Leaders will we be? We’ve forgotten what other boys look like,” said Malan.
“Girls too,” added Noki.
Noki was too smart to want to become a Khun. Sooner or later, he’d make it a point to carve his arm by himself.
“You are trained better than all the others.”
“How? Everyone trains with bows everywhere. We just do the same,” Malan said.
Chaka stepped in and raised his voice in anger. “Do you want me to send you all through another Sieve? That should straighten you out! Do you know how many tents with Archers are training south of here?”
“A hundred?” asked Malan.
“Five times that many. Countless. Six Archer boys to every tent. Do you think that you are the best Archers? Thirty of those tents are just girl Archers.”
“What did he say? Girls with bows? Ha!” said Gunna.
Noki came closer to the fire with unexpected interest. The only other time he had had a spark was when an Ouna-Ma had come into our hut.
“And some of the girls shoot better than you,” said Chaka.
“So, what makes our training the best?” I asked the Reghen.
The Guides gathered around, and each one said a different thing.
“You listen to more Stories. Many more.”
“Every morning, you face only the best, the other Uncarved.”
“You train with the next Khun, whoever that will be.”
“It’s the best training because we tell you so,” said Bera.
“You are fewer and can train more. You don’t wait in lines behind hundreds of others.”
“And, most importantly, Darhul is at your heels all day long because you know that we seek only One. Archers we need in the thousands,” said Chaka.
Bera was right.
The one I felt sorry for that second spring was Redin. Whether or not he was the son of Druug, the Leader of ten thousand Archers and three thousand more Archers in training, made no difference. Everyone treated him as if he didn’t deserve to be; because he didn’t. He was slower and weaker, and he had to sweat a lot more just to keep up with the rest of us. He was good only
at sweating.
The older Uncarved knew right away.
“If that boy is Druug’s son, then his mother was not a She Wolf.”
“Maybe a kitten.”
“The Legend of the Kitten. That’s a good Story.”
“Son of Druug, meow, meow.” Everyone laughed and clawed their fingers like little paws.
The Uncarved boys had little to do after sunset, so everyone kept adding to Redin’s misery. It was the best pastime for those few moons until he left for good. The strong ones found a weakling and tore him to shreds like the eagles do to the pigeon. The worse the humiliation, the funnier it was.
“I can’t go back if I don’t become Khun,” he would say to Noki and me, the only ones who still cared to listen to him.
I shook my head without answering. I believed that he would see it in the stars, he would see it in the Blackvein, if he looked long enough. He would see his face mirrored there sooner or later. He would see that he wasn’t the next Khun.
Redin finally met his fate on a spring day of clear sky and bright light when we had a bow contest. He struggled hard from the first round, always last, to gather his arrows that had fallen over the field and the shallow stream. The one who had the quiver with the fewest arrows at the end of the day got jeers from the boys and slaps from the Guides. Chaka called three times for him to come back, but Redin either didn’t hear or pretended he didn’t to win time. This had happened so many times before.
Chaka looked at the ninestar Guide, and Bera gave the command without hesitation: “Owls, aim your arrows. Rain from the sky!”
In the beginning, no one obeyed. We all just looked at one another.
“Last time. Come back, you fool, now!” Chaka shouted to Redin.
Redin didn’t even turn to look at us; he was knee-deep in the stream. He wasn’t even searching for arrows. His fists punched the water again and again, and he was swirling around like a madman. He knew. The spring water was crystal clear that day. He probably saw his face in there. He saw a Fisherman. Not a Khun. It was time. Even Druug, if he was his real father, would have agreed that it was the only honorable thing to do. He, more than anyone else, would have agreed. There is a stream that no man can cross and still keep his dignity.
Drakon Book II: Uncarved Page 2
