Drakon Book II: Uncarved

by C. A. Caskabel

  Alian sneaked into my hut at dawn, drawn by my screams.

  “Are you in pain?” he asked in a worried voice.

  “My bowels,” I said. I was burning up.

  “Boiled water and salt,” he said. “I’ll bring them now.”

  He had long brown hair, Elbia’s brown hair. That I remember of him. He brought a cup of hot salt water. I drank it and spent the whole morning on my knees throwing up until there was nothing left inside me. I started to feel better slowly. I boiled herbs I had taken from the Forest and drank.

  I stayed in my hut alone for days. Bera sent Alian every day with water and boiled meat. He was the only one who dared come close. He would leave them outside the entrance and disappear without saying much.

  “The others say you got the sickness. Do you?” he asked me once.

  “I wish.”

  When I had enough strength to stand on my feet again, I stepped out of the hut for the first time to let them know. I was alive, strong. I was also carved once. Finished.

  It was time for me to leave the Uncarved, but no one had given me orders. I walked aimlessly around Sirol and looked among the hide covers and the tents, where the dogs mounted the bitches and the warriors took the women. Those acts were not sacred or hidden in our Tribe. Every woman belonged to everyone. That was our upbringing. I had seen it many times, and no one cared who watched or walked by. At some of the Banners, like the Blades, especially in winter, it was on public display and the main entertainment for the men. I went there to watch the warriors and the slave girls.

  Because now I had questions.

  Had I done something wrong? Was I made differently? Why had there been so much fear in the eyes of the Ouna-Ma? Was it so obvious, when I was naked, that I was cursed? As much as I watched men and women sweat and rub against each other like animals in front of me, I couldn’t see anything on the men that was different on me. I saw female slaves riding warriors, and I saw men salivating rabidly and taking common women from behind. The older warriors were more experienced than I, as with everything else, but that was all. But I had questions and no one to answer them.

  Why had she uttered that word? Drakon?

  I had a lot of time every day to be concerned with things like that, abandoned in my hut, alone, without any idea of what fate Malan was carving for me.

  Drakon, her iron ring slicing my arm, disgrace, lust, the Ouna-Ma’s fear, pain, the solitude of the hut as my only cloak, Khun-Malan, the Leader, the death of Rouba, the wolves tearing the flesh of brave Gunna, the screams of Keral’s warriors as the stakes tore through their asses, the decorative horse tails hanging outside of the Khun’s six-sided tent, a poisoned arrow stuck underneath my ribs in Kar-Tioo, Zeria putting me to sleep inside my slaughtered horse to keep my heart warm, another brutal winter descending, Archers, Blades, Rods, leeches sucking blood and giving me the kiss of life, the Ouna-Ma on top of me, falling almost dead afterward, her eyes red and black in fear, the Unending Sky of Enaka colored like the eyes of Zeria, Drakon.

  The Guides of the Uncarved had nothing more to do for me, and Bera said, “I can’t keep you here any longer. Chaka is gone, but I have sent word with the Reghen to Khun-Malan asking about your fate. I hope that luck will be on your side, Da-Ren.”

  “Why won’t you look at me?”

  “It could have been you. But for your mark.”

  The mark of the ninestar. As if the mark had had a will of its own and had bewitched me to disappear for two moons into the Forest. As if the mark had decided by itself to abandon the Tribe and had sent me to search for a Dasal girl. The excuses of the weak, that’s what the birthmarks were.

  Almost half a moon passed after the night of the Ouna-Ma until Malan finally decided. He sent four proud and strong-muscled Rods to summon me. They rode up to my hut, at midday under a hazy winter sun, and told me to follow them to the tent of the Khun.

  I didn’t recognize Malan’s camp when we reached it. The new Khun had raised, in a matter of a few days and nights, a new six-sided tent on a hundred-feet-tall hill. It was visible from a long distance in the flat valley of Sirol. All the animals and their smell were missing from the camp of the Khun, except for the horses. I had been in Khun-Taa’s tent only once before, a few moons ago, when he had thrown us out with the certainty that he would not die anytime soon. The Guides used to say to us, “Enaka gave you a short tongue and a long blade.”

  The Khun’s tent had a three-level entrance, three sheets of rippling fabric falling heavy, each one five yards after the other. They were rich, othertriber spoils from the South and I had to push them aside with both hands. Two Rods were standing guard in front of each entrance. I finally found myself in the largest hall I had ever seen in my life. I was at the beginning of a corridor, at least a hundred feet long, across from Malan’s empty throne on the opposite side. I looked so short and small inside this tent. Broad wooden beams supported a vast structure that rose twenty feet high. It was built as if the Craftsmen had connected many traditional tents together. Lighter beams notched into the top of the vertical ones and meshed to form the skeleton of the hide-covered roofs. The hides were sewn together, leaving smoke holes open. Torches resting on iron sconces illuminated the tent, but there were also many side openings for air and light, half-covered with horsehide flaps.

  To the right end of the hall, the torch flames trembled above their red veils. A few Ouna-Mas were in a circle, their knees on the hides, and singing. The animal skins hanging behind them were drawn with their unique henna patterns. I walked toward them. An unveiled girl rose to her bare feet and started swinging a black-horn knife, slicing the tallow smoke, over a body lying flat on the hides. The resting body was covered with a robe, and under the scant light, it looked like a black goat to be sacrificed or a giant coiled snake. It was neither. I had tasted her. She was the same Ouna-Ma, the first, the one who had mounted me a few days earlier. She was staring at me with glassy eyes, her body frozen. Her soul had left forever.

  I was close enough to the Ouna-Mas that I could touch them now, and they all turned their eyes away except for the one who was holding the knife above the dead body. She moved her lips, glanced at me, and murmured the word “Drakon,” while the rest covered their ears. I struggled to remember her face from long ago but before I did a Rod pulled me from the arm and pointed to the center of the tent.

  “The Khun is waiting,” he said.

  Two rows of skulls defined the corridor that led to the throne. Skulls from big-sized oxen, bears, and wolves. They were all impressive in their own way, but the most fearsome were the two skulls at the end of the corridor, closest to the throne. They were almost human, narrow and long like that of the Ouna-Mas, but larger. Those had goat-like horns and the teeth of some wild animal. Wolf. Bear. Maybe both. Those were skulls from creatures of another world. They were not on the ground as the rest but on top of urn columns that came up to my waist. Instead of an urn, a skull was resting on each column. There, in between the horned humanlike skulls, the Rod motioned for me to stop.

  “When you address the Khun, keep your head high. When you bow, keep it low,” he said.

  “Wise advice,” I said, trying to laugh at my own words. I shivered for a breath at the thought that I might join the Rods before the night was over.

  I stared again at the long skulls with the horns and dog teeth.

  The Rod came closer, eager to share his wisdom. “Reekaal.” He whispered the word hastily as if the skulls were listening. A hand touched me on the shoulder from behind. I turned and saw Malan.

  I hadn’t seen him but for a few moments since the night I had fought next to him and saved his skin from the warriors of that usurper Keral. He wore a dark leather coat and had shaved short the sides of his head, except for two small ponytails that rose upward one in front of the other. The hair on the back of his head fell oily and straight almost reaching his shoulders. His short black beard had started to thicken, making him look older than I, maybe even five summers older.


  “Don’t you know the Reekaal, Da-Ren? Legend says that you have killed some of them.”

  “Yes, what…” I wasn’t ready for this encounter.

  I was still looking at the otherworldly skulls.

  “Do you like them? I made them myself,” he said with a smirk.

  He walked up the steps that led to his throne. I remembered Khun-Taa’s throne; an unremarkable carved single piece of wood with a narrow, straight back. Khun-Malan’s throne was of othertribal craftsmanship. Its back was wide and unnecessarily tall, painted crimson to stand out from the animal skins hanging on the walls behind. It was framed by three curved bows connecting. Each arm ended in enormous mauler’s heads, shiny black with jaws open and gleaming hazelnut eyes. The wooden beasts were carved to be almost twice their real size; their bodies strong and wide were forming the legs of the throne.

  Sah-Ouna was right next to him. No, she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. Rods, Ouna-Mas, and Reghen, four from each craft, followed and filled the steps leading to the throne left and right.

  The horse-dung reek that fell heavy in the other tents was missing as if the fire burned only wood and lard. Behind the throne and around the tent hung hides with drawings of dogs, bears, lions, and other hunters of the wild in thick, straight lines without too much detail. The animals were outlined in black lines, and their teeth, jagged and sharp, were in white. The Sun and Selene behind the throne were painted in blood red on the earth-colored hides. The Rods held spears taller than themselves at their sides. I knelt.

  “You don’t have to kneel yet,” said Malan, sitting on his throne.

  I had knelt to look at the skulls more closely. They were looking back.

  Their dark and empty eye sockets whispered to me: “Kneel for the Khun.”

  Bone, glue, and horn, this is how we made our bows. Those fourcarved Craftsmen knew how to handle them well in my Tribe. That was the secret of these skulls unless I had really found the monsters that had killed Er-Ren, my father, Rouba, and me in the Forest. Before Zeria pulled me out of the caves of the dead. Bone, glue, and horn.

  Malan was not resting on the back of his throne. He was sitting down but leaning forward, alert and ready to speak. Whatever he had had to drink that morning had done something to him. As I got up closer to him, I noticed that his eyes were cloudy and almost gray.

  “I’ve missed you, Da-Ren. How long has it been since we had meat and spirit together? Since the night you gave Gunna an Iron End?”

  No. Since the night I fought next to you and saved your life.

  The words still wouldn’t come out. It choked me that we could no longer speak as equals.

  “Da-Ren, the Witches here have marked you as a Drakon of the North. They have discovered the omen of your mark, the ninestar, they say. Your mother, rumor has it, was a filthy slave from up there. Your hair is the color of hay at the ends.”

  I should have cut it, but the truth was that I never took notice of my reflection on the crystal waters. Everyone else could see my hair and wonder.

  “I don’t know what my mother was. We both grew up in a tent with orphans. You know that. But if you want, I can tell you about my father, who—”

  “I have heard the Legend of Er-Ren,” he said. “Chilled my spine! Couldn’t sleep.” He showed me the two skulls of the…Reekaal to the right and left of me. “The Cyanous? You dared talk of the Cyanous Reekal in your tale.”

  “It is a Legend, not a tale,” I said.

  Sah-Ouna, the carved maulers, Malan, they all fixed their dark stares on me. I lowered my eyes. Sah-Ouna whispered words to one of the Ouna-Mas and the young girl descended the steps. She came next to me and she spoke softly in my ear.

  “Be careful with your tales, Da-Ren. Speak them thrice and they’ll find their own skin and bones. And then they’ll rise alive.”

  I had spoken them exactly three times in the Forest.

  Malan wasn’t in the mood for fairy tales that morning.

  “Enough with this. Do you want to serve your Khun, Da-Ren? You showed courage the last time. I have not forgotten. You know, if those jackals had killed me, then you would have been the only Uncarved Wolf and the next Khun of the Tribe.”

  “For a few breaths only. Until they killed me too.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, that’s right,” he said and burst out laughing so hard that he had to lean over and embrace the wooden armrest of his throne. “If Sah-Ouna had not sent the Rods, we would have all died.”

  Everything is funny when you’re talking from your throne high above.

  He asked if I wanted to serve the Khun. There was no other choice, not because they would slaughter me at once if I said no, but because I didn’t know how else to respond. For a moment, I was filled with shame, watching my twelve-wintered self cheering with a skinned rabbit, a terrible and formidable beast. As much as it pained me, I was not the One, the undisputed Leader. But I had no urge to die.

  “Yes!” I answered.

  “Are you sure that you will be able to do it without betraying me? Otherwise, I will send you to the far-off outpost in the East and never see you again.”

  The far-off outpost of the East was on the other side of the world from the Forest of Zeria.

  “No, great Khun, I will do it; I want to fight here.”

  “And what Banner fits you best, Da-Ren? What glory do you dream of?”

  The Forest, the Trackers.

  My thoughts almost escaped to the open. The Trackers were the only ones who dared explore the Forest, but they were not warriors. My mind returned to the dead Ouna-Ma who tried to poison me. I saw the corner of Sah-Ouna’s eye watching me.

  I won’t tell you what I want.

  “So?” he asked again when his patience was spent.

  “Wherever you decide, my Leader. I had hoped to join the Rods, but—”

  “Can’t do that. I’ve already chosen my personal guard. They are far better warriors, even better than you.”

  I was tempted for a moment to say, “Bring any one of them here and now. Let’s see who is better.” But I didn’t want to be in his personal guard. I could think of nothing worse than watching every night to see if some murderer was hiding outside of the tent or if he had poisoned the Khun’s milk spirit.

  “You will go to the Blades. Chief! Hear that, everyone! I told you that you would be rewarded. Chief of the First Pack. Their last Chief died on one of the campaigns in the South about a moon ago, and they must get a new one as soon as possible. Your serpent cock’s reputation will make it there before you do. It’s not often that a Witch falls down helpless like this. She was green from pain, from the moment she left your hut. So they tell me. She coughed up bloody vomit to her end.”

  I wanted to tell him that I, too, had been in pain and vomiting and that it had been she who had brought the poison, but it would have done me no good. I thought that the rumors had more to do with my strong stomach than with what I had in my trousers.

  “I don’t know how that…”

  Malan rose, walked down the steps, and approached me.

  “Follow me,” he said, and we walked down the corridor and away from everyone else. He stopped before we reached the exit, stretched his arm and grabbed my head in a lock and whispered into my ear.

  “I don’t know what happened either, but I will find out. Oh, believe me, I will. Enough for now with these bitches. We don’t always have to listen to them. Now tell me, what did she tell you?”

  “Who?”

  “That Ouna-Ma, Sah-Ouna. What did she whisper to you?”

  My Khun! You don’t trust the Witches either.

  It was the first thing I had found amusing since I had entered his tent.

  “Nothing, some warning.”

  “You tell me right away.” He was persisting and he had grabbed my arm.

  I repeated the Ouna-Ma’s words and his face softened.

  “That’s all?” he asked again.

  I nodded with eyes wide to make him believe me. It was the
first time I realized that the Witches could be sacred for most, but for Malan, they were simply useful. The demon mania and witch faith would never rule over him. He would consult them and use them whenever the sheep had to be guided, but they wouldn’t dictate his fate. And that would make him an invincible Leader.

  I had become Chief. Even of one Pack. Forty men. I still had only one carving, and that meant that I could one day be the Leader of all the Blades. About twenty Packs of them, all their Chiefs would kneel to me. I could climb to that onecarved honor. Not higher.

  I wouldn’t be forced to kneel every day. I had to kneel only now. The ritual was clear to us from many winters before. To be named a leader of men, I had to kneel and swear before the One Leader. Malan himself had knelt before Sah-Ouna to accept the ultimate honor.

  I knelt before him, removed my blade and thrust it into the ground to speak the heavy words we knew.

  “I swear to the Goddess, the Sun, and Selene to serve my Tribe and my Leader, Khun-Malan, to be a Blade, a worthy Chief, to tear through the othertribers till the end of the Final Battle.”

  The words were the same for every Chief. The words were easy. I had already betrayed the Goddess, the Sun, and Selene. I could swear anything, and their punishment would come someday. I had uttered many lies already. But now I had to say them kneeling before him. That was the difficult part. We were away from the others, the two of us, and somehow that made it even worse. It wasn’t a ritual; this was a man to man battle I could not even fight. My head was at the level of his waist. I was naked of my Uncarved pride. At that moment, he was the second one of power to ride me in a period of only a few days. Instead of the fiery sweetness of the first time with the iron-eyed Ouna-Ma, the second time was shame and humiliation that strangled my throat.

  “Go now, Da-Ren. The Rods have arranged a new horse for you.”

  He shouted once and the two Rods standing behind the first of the three entrances walked in to hear his commands. “The Chief’s horse. And give him two flagons. Not wineskins, the bronze ones. From the new spirit that they brought from the South.” My blood was boiling like bubbling hot wine. Wine was new and hard to find in the Tribe. The old men knew only the milk spirit, and the boys knew nothing. I honored both flagons that night, my last night with the Uncarved, until I forgot my fate.