“Yes, monsters, demons. Now I can see them.”
That was the one thing I wanted to hear. Now Zeria knew too. I was right—the demons were real. Saim closed his eyes and started raving like a man possessed in a dream of crazygrass.
Zeria brought his words whenever he stopped. “I see the bloodthirsty monsters. They’ve dwelled here since ancient times. They are the first demons whose empty skulls the blind prophets filled with their magic. And then they multiplied and gave birth to the drakons, the wolfmen, the undead, and the bloodeaters.”
Saim pulled a waterskin out of his sack and gave it to me.
I brought it cautiously to my lips. It was water. Crystal, cold spring water. Nothing else. He spoke loud and close to me, his words spitting my face through two rows of yellow teeth, and Zeria unraveled them, “You drink the truth; you will not puke the lies.”
I was still thirsty.
“Ask him more. How do I find the lair of the monsters? I must avenge him.” I said, shaking her shoulder to make her listen to me.
Zeria’s eyes were veiled with worry.
She said the words in her tongue, and Saim’s answer came again through her beautiful bow-curved lips.
“Go back to Sirol. Find them. The men. They are the only monsters. Ancient and eternal.”
The shields of the Forest trees had stopped the arrows of the sun. Her blue eyes grew dark.
The old man stopped. He motioned with a repeating flip of his left hand for me to leave. He then turned his back on me and started crawling on the grass playing with a yellow-black hopper that had jumped from the leaves up to his arm. Zeria rose. I did the same.
But I still hadn’t found the truth I sought.
“Ask him. I want to know my destiny. Is there a brave ending to my Story?”
Zeria didn’t want to, but I pushed her into it.
Saim turned to listen to Zeria’s words with his head held down as if he were tired and asleep. He answered her, his incomprehensible words coming out angrily for the first time. Still, her voice brought them full of promise and wildflower honey.
“Why does the end concern you, Da-Ren? Find the beginning first. Go back, to the pond.”
I didn’t know if these were Zeria’s words or his, but they were the words that I sought, even for one night. “Back to the pond.” That was the one magic I longed for. Zeria led forward and we made for the pond before the evening light died completely. The blue of her eyes, the black of her hair, the veiling night found us there.
Zeria took off her dress and dove into the moonlit water. Our nights together were coming to an end. I dove too, swimming after her, her feet beating and splashing water on my face. I pulled her from the calf, she laughed and screamed playfully and laughed louder. Selene listened and came closer to golden her skin and silver her hair. I pulled her toward me with both arms, our lips separated by a few playful drops of water. Her tongue moved once in and out through smiling, lively lips. I kissed forcefully like someone who had never kissed before. She kissed me back softer than the dying wind. I entered her forcefully like someone who had never kissed before. The damnation of those eyes I could never escape. It was a complete and soulful embrace. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just stayed inside of her. It wasn’t burning desire yet. I just wanted to be inside of her. As much as I wanted and as much as I knew. The first time. I was still a child inside her wetness, surrounded by her scent of ripe berries and evergreen shrubs. Two children, hand in hand. It didn’t last long. It never faded.
She stepped out of the pond and put on her dress. She came and sat close to me again.
“My mother was not a Dasal. She had lived with your tribe, and she taught me your tongue.”
“You do not look like the women of the Tribe.”
“She wasn’t born of your tribe. She was a slave from the North. She had blue eyes. After she was passed to many brave warriors…and her womb remained empty, they threw her to the dogs in your Great Slaughter Feast of the spring full moon. But the dogs did not dare go near her.”
This I could not believe. The maulers never hesitated. But I didn’t tell her that.
She continued. “Then the Ouna-Mas exiled her to the Forest. But before she died, she spoke to me of those Reekaal.” She shook her hair, and the water drops woke up my skin and my senses.
“I have to know.”
“My mother said the Ouna-Mas had given birth to male monsters with long heads, just like theirs. They are their sons and their servants, and they raise them secretly. They train them to murder the Khun’s enemies. But they are mad and bloodthirsty, so the Ouna-Mas had to rip out their hearts. They tied and locked them with silver chains. And so the sons of the Ouna-Mas cannot leave their mothers’ tents for very long. They must return before daybreak. Or else they will die away from the beating of their own hearts. They hunted you all the way here. Veker says so. He has seen them more times than I have.”
“I have been eighteen summers with the Tribe and I have never heard of this Legend.”
“No legend. My mother told me she had seen them too. I saw them too. You did too. Only a few days ago. Believe your eyes.”
“But you kept telling me that you don’t believe in monsters.”
“I believe my mother. She said they are men, not monsters. Maybe they are hiding. How many times have you entered the tent of a birthing Ouna-Ma?”
“Ouna-Mas don’t have children. I have been to their settlement once. I saw no one.”
And yet I had seen, even though I never quite believed it. I had seen two giant shadows in Sah-Ouna’s tent, standing still like wooden statues. And I had heard from Gunna. Of those huge Reekaal who had attacked him in the Forest.
That was the last thing I needed. Longhead murderers on my trail with orders from Sah-Ouna. And it was the only thing that made sense. Much more sense than the mythical Reekaal and the Legend of Er-Ren. The sons of the Ouna-Mas. Monsters. Men. In the Witch’s tent. In Gunna’s nightmare. In Zeria’s tales.
Zeria’s next words pierced me like ice blades between the ribs. “You will leave tomorrow, Da-Ren.”
She was right. There was no more magic to find in the Forest.
“I have to find out who came after me. I am the First Uncarved.”
The First Uncarved.
I took a long look around me. There was nothing else I wanted from this Forest. Except her. And I have had her, already. As if I had just woken from a deep stupor that had lasted a whole moon and more, I said the words that I had forgotten, the words that had been lost in the wood.
Run away. Gallop free again. Conquer her, conquer fate, conquer Enaka. Rule the Tribe.
I was growing weak next to the invincible Forest Witch.
Wield the Blade. Avenge. Rule. Ride with men again. Leave this forest.
“I don’t want you to leave, Da-Ren. I see only death where you go.”
The night had still not settled around us. Half the animals sought shelter, and the other half sought their prey. I saw sparkling dark-yellow eyes following me and heard the hoot of an owl very close. The rustling sounds of men’s feet were close behind us. Veker was already in front of me. His men had surrounded me with axes and cudgels. There were more than ten of them.
“Your time here is long past. We are going to get you out of the forest. You won’t make it on your own,” said Veker.
My fingers were around the blade’s grip, but I couldn’t take all of them. The time had come for me to leave.
I had entered Zeria. She had kissed me. Her magic had rejuvenated me as if she had dipped me whole into a jar of honey. A horse and the open sky. The stars that the canopy had mantled. Any horse. I had to get back to the Tribe’s warriors. I was the First Uncarved. I would let no one hunt me like a helpless deer.
Zeria was hitting Veker on the chest with her fists. She wrapped herself around her father’s knees.
“No, let him stay.”
“If he stays, he will bring death to all of us,” said Veker. “Listen t
o Saim.”
Zeria turned to me. “Throw down your blades. Plead on your knees to stay here,” she said. “Stay here.” Those were her last words for a long time to come.
I dropped my blades, but I did not know how to plead on my knees. It was time. I turned to Veker. “Fear not, Dasal. I will leave tomorrow. But you must first take me to Saim. We will go together, only the two of us.”
I didn’t want to go with Zeria. I wanted to hear the true prophecy.
The sleep of the last night was cold. The cold of late autumn, the cold away from her skin. I dreamed of the chained hearts of the sons of the Ouna-Mas, beating alone and bleeding in their mothers’ tents.
Veker and his men woke me at first light and gave me my blades, my bow, and Rouba’s horse. He took me deep into the Forest through untrodden paths. The Forest was bleeding autumn. A bronze leaf tangled in my long hair. I had stayed there too long. His men followed from a distance. I was not afraid. If he wanted to kill me, he wouldn’t have given me my blades.
I spotted a shadow appearing and disappearing like a spirit through the trees as we kept walking.
“Don’t be afraid,” Veker said.
I wasn’t.
Two breaths later Saim suddenly appeared in front of us like a wind-ghost emerging from a tree’s trunk. He looked at me without saying a word and only made a grimace to Veker. And yet Veker translated to me.
“Saim asks, ‘Why have you returned?’” Veker said.
“I want to know. About my future. Am I cursed by my ninestar mark? Will I bring darkness and blood to my Tribe?”
Veker looked at me, but the fear gave his face the color of the yellow-green leaves.
“What madness is this? Is that what you came here to learn? Tribe of mad beasts!” he shouted.
Saim hissed his next words, his palms covering his temples as if he saw the end of all living things and his despair flowed into Veker’s words.
“Blood first, then darkness; that is the end of all of us. Cursed or not, Da-Ren.”
“The end of my Story, I mean. Is it glorious or bitter?” I asked again.
“Yes!” Saim looked at me and uttered the word in my tongue.
“Yes, what?” I asked, my hands raised impatiently with clawed fingers, ready to grab his throat.
He didn’t say another word.
I looked back at the rest of the Dasal. Zeria had come and was standing among them, her hand raised and unmoving. A last goodbye.
I pointed to the sky.
“I’ll come back soon. By the next moon. One moon, Zeria.”
There would never be many words between Zeria and me. The first time I saw her, I saved her life. As soon as I found her again, she saved mine. From the first moment, without thinking or deciding, like blind servants of a forbidden faith, we wove our lives and our death into the same wreath. Words were precious.
It was the only way I could leave. They would have to peel me off the trunks with force, like the Reekaal who had been forever trapped there. I held her last gaze and turned my back on her. My legs were walking fast; the Dasal were dragging my soul. They took me out of the Forest in haste. The next nightfall, they left me alone with my horse under the moonlight, at the clearing of the Forest’s eastern end. I held onto the horse’s mane and started my journey back to Sirol. The stars, the glowing dust of Enaka’s body, startled, recognized me and in all their brightness asked me, “Is it you, Da-Ren? Do you live?”
I asked them to slide through the dense branches and find her for me. Only the stars could now see both of us at the same moment. The wind whipped me, like a Guide’s forgotten punishment in the Sieve. I had days to gallop and nights to pray to the stars ahead of me. I had to find who had killed Rouba. Who had tried to kill me. If the Ouna-Mas had given birth to male monsters. If these monsters had been sent to kill me. If the Reghen did touch the Tribe’s condemned on the shoulder.
If there was still a chance for me to become the next Khun, then all these snakes would be under my boot. I’d crush them all. I had tied the red cloth of the First Uncarved on my arm again. Maybe I could still make it. I had been away from the camp of the Uncarved two whole moons. Not more. Couldn’t be sure. Blue was their color. But, if I managed to fool Sah-Ouna, if I could convince her that I had passed the trial, if Chaka believed me, and if Khun-Taa granted me audience, then there was still hope.
Too many ifs gathered, one for each dead star up there.
When I arrived at Sirol, it was already too late.
XXX.
Iron End
Eighteenth autumn. Uncarved—Wolf.
I dismounted outside the camp of the Uncarved at midday. The wind was howling, lifting and rolling the hay bushels from the ground. It brought all the curses of the Ouna-Mas, all the questions of the Guides upon me. Young Starlings and Owls, children of our camp, saw me first and ran ahead to spread the word. By the time I had reached the hut I shared with Malan and Gunna, everyone knew. They avoided my eyes as if I were a ghost. My weapons and my clothes were gone.
“Everybody said that you were dead for sure,” Chaka said bluntly.
“Everybody who? I was alone.”
He had nothing else to say. The red band of the First Uncarved was tied again around Malan’s arm. Chaka didn’t even bother to untie mine. He just looked at it for a breath, and I knew I had to cut it away. I was given new clothes, but they were old and worn; whatever had been left behind by the dead and the unfit Uncarved who had been sent away.
It was not the clothes or the red band or the second bow I’d left behind and was now gone. No, I didn’t miss any of these. Not even her eyes. It was the Guides and the Uncarved whom I couldn’t stand to look at anymore—those, staring at me as if I were a man condemned. Any moment I expected them to come in with their knives and carve my terrible end.
What if the questions came? What happened to Rouba? Why I left the Pack? How I survived so long in the Forest? Did I kill him? What happened to my horse? Why had I returned with Rouba’s horse? Did I steal it? Some of this was going on in their minds for sure. If I started telling a Story about a girl and a pond, the true Story, it would be even worse.
“You drink the truth; you can’t puke the lies,” were Saim’s words. He had poisoned me with crystal water. I didn’t want to lie or defend myself.
But there were neither lashes nor carvings. I had one bitter end only: their cold indifference. I told them little. Chaka avoided asking anything, and he wanted to hear even less. He was relieved. His search for the One had ended, and at last he was on the same side as Sah-Ouna. He didn’t have to bother with me anymore.
The ninestar Bera didn’t lose any time; he walked toward me shouting, immediately when he saw me: “You had no reason to leave the Archer Packs and go search for the Dasal. Who asked you to do that?”
“The men.”
Lies.
“The Leader tells his men where to go; they don’t tell him. But you are a ninestar. You would have found some way to drown in pigshit in the end.”
I said nothing. I had become nothing, and they didn’t even allow me to demand anything. I was just relieved that they were not asking.
If Sah-Ouna demanded it, I would be carved. But the First Witch didn’t even bother herself with me. She had sent me on the campaign but never once cared to learn whether I had returned or what I had done there. She would never again call me to her tent. Chaka went to speak to the Reghen about my fate, and the two of them returned with Sah-Ouna’s answer.
“The Reghen says not to carve you.” That was all Chaka said and then he stood stiff-lipped and shook his head left and right.
The Reghen wanted to erase any hope I still had: “There are only three of you Uncarved Wolves remaining, and so it should be. We must have at least two to choose from till the final night. But the way you are all dying out lately, we are safer with three rather than two.”
I was finished. What in the demon’s curse was I thinking? How could I still expect to be First after being los
t in the Forest for so long? I had thrown it all away to find Kar-Tioo.
On the fourth afternoon of my return, Malan and Gunna were to compete on the bow. Chaka didn’t even let me mount my horse. I watched together with the younger Uncarved—my arms crossed and useless.
It was late in the evening. The day’s light was fading, and the horses were tired from galloping back and forth in the field all day. Malan and Gunna continued to aim with their bows at the pumpkin heads that stood on stakes, looking like the servants of the Demon. Harmless, unarmed, and motionless servants were those pumpkins.
Malan had kept up all day with Gunna, but now he was losing. His horse had slowed down and was coming in second. As the sun was setting, he stopped completely and approached Chaka and the Reghen who were watching next to me.
“This field is beaten badly, and there is no light. Let’s move to that one,” said Malan pointing to his right.
Chaka agreed.
“Da-Ren, get the Starlings and go fetch torches. Put them around the stakes on that field,” he said.
I did as I was told and as night was falling the trial continued in the new field but without any change. Malan was still losing. He seemed to be holding back sometimes, as if he didn’t want to follow. Gunna’s arrows always reached first. He made his rounds faster and aimed better, while all the others were beginning to mock Malan the First with long boos and jeers.
“Gunna will take the red band,” I heard someone next to me say.
Gunna was unstoppable and continued to crush the pumpkins and all doubts about who was the best warrior. As if that would mean anything.
I could beat them. I had beaten them not long ago when I was First. Just two moons had passed since I had fought in a bloody campaign. Bearded warriors and Archers had shivered listening to me telling Er-Ren’s Story in the Forest. Now I was nobody.
Chaka sent me to put new pumpkins on top of each man-tall stake for one final round, and so I did. I was walking backward instead of running as Gunna and Malan were approaching the targets on horseback. I didn’t want to miss the spectacle. Gunna was galloping way ahead, already aiming, and I would be in real danger if he were not a great archer. I didn’t know if he’d ever make Khun but I was certain he’d be one of the greatest warriors of the Tribe in the battlefield for many winters to come.
Drakon Book II: Uncarved Page 16
