“Celebrate tonight, Da-Ren, and ride tomorrow for the Blades camp. I will send you another Redveil tonight. We have to see if your famous cock will be as potent again.”
Our gazes passed over the few Ouna-Mas who were mourning above the dead body of their sister. I looked again at the one who had not covered her face, and I remembered her from a long time ago, from the rituals of the Sieve. Razoreyes, the one Ouna-Ma I always found more beautiful than all the others.
“Her,” I said to Malan pointing to Razoreyes. “Send her to me.”
He laughed again. He was drunk in the middle of the day; that I could tell. From the wine or the power. That I couldn’t tell.
The strong brown horse was waiting for me outside. It was mine, a gift from the new Great Khun. It was not a gray-white as those of the greatest Leaders of the Tribe. Its left ear had a short straight cut and his right a bigger one. The common mark of the Blades’ animals. They had marked this horse a long time ago. It had never been a choice, no matter what I would have asked of him.
I tried to fish what I already guessed out of the Rod.
“This animal is half dead. Did you just run it here from the Blades?”
He was stupid enough to fall for it. Or he didn’t care.
“No, they brought it yesterday. It has rested all day. We fed it and stroked it for you, Chief.”
Chief!
Malan had marked me for the Blades long before I had entered his tent that morning. I descended the hill of the Khun’s tent, the flagons strapped on the horse’s sides. I, too, was now a leader of men, a Chief. I would lead forty men. He would lead more than thirty thousand. He was grateful enough to reward me for my loyalty.
But I would discover the inescapable truth on the next evening, when I passed the gate with the emblem of the two uneven-sized crossed blades welded together and I arrived at the small and filthy camp of the Blades. Malan had sentenced me, quickly and decisively.
To death.
XXXVI.
It Led Me to Both
Island of the Holy Monastery, Thirty-fifth winter.
According to the Monk Eusebius.
“Why did the Ouna-Ma call you Drakon? Drakons are cursed creatures in our faith, Da-Ren.”
“I am sure. Almost everything is cursed in your faith. But it matters not what monster you were born, Eusebius—only what you become.”
“And when did you decide what you would become?”
“No one decides. When the time comes, the false skin sheds and the true one is revealed.”
I broke the rules a bit and took a sip of the wine he had poured into my cup. It helped. He had mocked me recently, asking me what I knew about women.
“What do you know about women, Da-Ren?” I asked him, reversing the roles.
“A lot more than a monk, for sure.”
“That may be, but I am not sure you know enough either.”
He may have lain with the Ouna-Mas and other common women and slaves, but was that enough?
“How many women have you spoken to, Da-Ren?”
“Many.”
“Did you exchange more than a few words with them? How many did you sit with at sunset, to break bread and talk, as you are speaking with me now?”
“With one,” he revealed to me as I now began to unravel the labyrinth. “But even with her, I didn’t speak enough.”
The Ouna-Mas did not speak, and he didn’t speak with the slaves or the women Archers. He had never been married like the faithful and pious people. Had he fallen in love with Zeria because she had been the only one to give him the gift of a true smile? Or just because God intended it to be so?
I was searching for that answer that did not have a why. The why of the mad passion of love.
“When did you fall in love? The moment you first fell for that one woman?”
“A warming question for wintertime,” he said. He went to the window and breathed in the violent breeze. “Look at the sea, Eusebius. Cold, unforgiving, blue, unending. Do you love her or hate her?”
“I mean when did you first fall—”
“I understand your question. But what difference does it make which is the first moment, Eusebius? We rarely choose the first of anything that will befall us. The only thing that matters is what the last one will be. What will be our last word when this Story ends?”
He gave me no other answer that day. But two nights later, he did.
“I am still looking for the answer to your question. I don’t know. Was it the first time I saw her in the Forest? The second in the pond when I was inside of her?”
“The night when Sah-Ouna poisoned you in her tent?”
“Are you asking me about the love that conquers the soul or the hunger of the flesh, Eusebius?”
“Either. Whatever first means to you.”
“Then the first times are many, Eusebius. The calling of Sah-Ouna, Zeria, the Ouna-Ma who rode me for the first time, even the twenty-first night of the Sieve, when Elbia lay next to me and our fingers…when I saw Aneria for the first time, a different love…”
“Can you choose one?”
“Choose? How?”
“I don’t know. The most important one?”
“I don’t think I can.”
I insisted.
“I know only of the love of our God. For us, the one moment that defines this ultimate act of love is His sacrifice on the Cross, the moment of life-giving death,” I said.
He let out a sigh and looked away from me as if to remember.
“Life-giving death, huh? That I know,” he said and paused for two breaths. “That was when the arrow pierced me in the Forest and Zeria took me into her hut. Because I died at that moment and came back only to see her.”
“The moment you were hit by the arrow…” I murmured. An ancient myth fluttered for an instant in my mind. “So strange, I’ve read something exactly like this in the old scrolls.”
During the next few weeks, I searched for days and nights to locate the papyrus in our library. When I finally discovered the unique manuscript, I flew up the stairs into Da-Ren’s castle-wall cell triumphantly.
I unraveled carefully the papyrus that I had hidden under my robe. The books of the Faith were written in codex, bound together sheet by sheet. I was creating one codex book for each chapter we finished. But the myth I had found seemed to be truly archaic—a rolled scroll. It sang forgotten poems of solitude and abandonment as I opened it. It was only a few decades old, already succumbing to the damp. It had been copied many times by other monks, and even by me as well.
“I was granted permission from the First Elder to reread the forbidden texts of the ancients of the south, the idol worshippers. I had copied on this scroll, some years ago, a myth that I think I must read to you. I didn’t pay much attention to it then, but yesterday, when I finally found it again, I had a revelation.”
“A revelation? From the scrolls of the pagans?”
“Well, I don’t believe any of this, Da-Ren. But it is so strange the…the similarity.”
I began to read with a smile on my face and eyes wide open, as if I had discovered something incredibly joyful. It took me a long time to read under the scant light of the single candle. I wanted to enjoy it slowly. The wooden shutters were closed tightly against the screaming winds of winter, and the room stank of smoke and oil. I threw the woolen cape over my back and shoulders before beginning. These words could be read aloud only during winter or when it rained. Under the bright summer sun, all of this would sound frivolous: the conversations, the cell, our writings, and love.
As I read, Da-Ren lowered his eyes and sat motionless, his body bent as if frozen. Maybe because he had given me his cape. Maybe because he wanted only his ears to remain within the room. I read to him from the ancient gods.
“In the beginning, there were only two: Chaos and Gaea. And from them, Erebos, the Deep Darkness, was born. Deep within him, Nyx, the Night Goddess, left her egg, and from their dark and silent union came to be the Go
d of Love, Eros, his wings sparkling silver and gold. The God of Love carries a bow. If his arrow strikes a mortal, he falls into passionate ecstasy. And then, as Love triumphs and conquers, it leads that man down to one of two paths. To Virtue or to Misery.”
Da-Ren lifted his gaze and spoke the last words of the wintry day. “As for me, it led me to both.”
XXXVII.
The Merciless Rain
Eighteenth winter. Chief of the First.
Not from a barren field afar
or from the fiery Sky above,
not as a coward in the dark,
or with the arrow’s deathly mark.
I see the white fear of his eye,
the demon’s heart when I pierce,
the sound of fury in crimson dreams,
the flesh that parries iron screams.
Sun, come and harden my long blade
to shine and burn in the dawn’s raid.
Selene, lead me into the night
so I bring death under your sight.
O stars, I’ll join your golden sands
with two red blades in my hands.
The Song of the Blades
Soaked in the sweat of a brave fight and a young man’s sexual passion. Not in the blood of a beardless boy. That was how my five-wintered term with the Uncarved came to an end. It was not the end I had always dreamed of. But it could have been far worse. Gunna, Redin, Urdan, Akrani, Lebo, and the others. Sometimes, even defeat deserves to be celebrated. Especially when most of my comrades and adversaries were now but ashes swirling among the clouds.
I had become one of the most dangerous men of the Tribe, and that would make me for the winters to come one of the most desirable to the Ouna-Mas. For those who had fire beneath their waists and not ice in their heads, anyway. They were the She Wolves of the Legends that bore us. For them, I was an otherworldly demon, a touch of death, and an insurmountable power. Not because I had some special gift of nature or talent—I had seen greater stallions in the tents—but because I had the word Drakon carved inside of me.
Their Stories claimed that I breathed fire from my mouth, released lava from my dick, and had saber-long blades for teeth that tore them apart at the moment of orgasm. I was carved only after the Tribe had a new Khun; I killed a Reekaal in man-to-man combat in front of ten thousand men; I survived in the Forest alone for more than a moon and didn’t die from a black fate’s arrow or any other poison poured down my throat. It didn’t matter if only half of that was true; they believed it all. When they entered my tent, they melted like white-hot iron at the blacksmith’s forge before I even touched them. Or so I liked to think, and that had the same effect, at least on me.
The Blades whom I came to command knew a few things about women and would tell me the same. They claimed that the first ones to get with child were those they took by force in the heat of the raids.
“With the blade at their throat and the blood of their kin on the ground.”
The fearless women didn’t become pregnant easily. Those who felt secure were also impregnable. The ones who trembled were the ones who opened up first like roses.
Razoreyes, the Redveil, came that night as Malan had promised, and she did not meet death. Quite the opposite. She lived, even though I forced her to taste a drop of my blood to be completely sure. It might have cost me my life if she had told Sah-Ouna or if she had died, but absolutely nothing happened to her. First thing I did was to turn her over. I didn’t want these women to have their way on top of me anymore. I moved behind her and put her on all fours as I had seen the warriors do to the slave girls. I stuck her hot and sweaty buttocks to me and went inside her. She released a cry of surprise when she lost control. Many more moans of pleasure followed before she was to find it again.
When we finished, I realized that I hadn’t really taken Zeria in the pond that night. She may have taken my mind from the very first moment, but I had never taken her as I took these red-veiled Witches. Nor did I even think that Zeria, with the eyes of the Sky and the hair of the black night, was the same as the Ouna-Mas. I didn’t desire to mount her like a dog. I could wander through the Forest for seven nights just to be able to look at Zeria’s eyes for a few breaths and hear her voice again.
In the morning, just after the Ouna-Ma left my tent, I strapped my blades, bow, and quivers and packed my clothes onto the horse that the Rods gave me. I left the small settlement of the Uncarved without any farewells and passed through the Archers’ endless fields and tent camps where the young ones were being trained, the Tribe’s greatest warriors.
I then turned east and took the wide road that cut Sirol in two. The road became busier with Rods riding and carts pulling supplies of hay and wheat as I got closer to the Khun’s tent. I always wondered where the grain came from since there were no farmers in my Tribe. Not one.
I kept my head turned toward the north most of the day. Toward the south was the hill where Malan’s tent rose magnificently, surrounded by all of his faithful and none of mine. I passed the few tents of the Trackers and finally reached the meeting point. It was a gated entrance that led to the camp of the Blades. A few more had gathered outside of it to report to their new Packs. Not Chiefs. Thrice carved.
“And here is Da-Ren, the young Chief of the First Pack, finally,” said the Reghen.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“We have been waiting for you to honor us with your presence all morning. I am to take you all to your new camp,” said the Reghen, who approached me on horseback so close that our horses were sniffing each other’s sweat.
“I didn’t know.”
“Now you’ll have to do the waiting. We’ll take all others to their new Packs first and drop you last.”
He had a faint grin on his face, as if that would be some kind of punishment for me.
“Yes,” was all I said and even that reluctantly.
“But first things first. You can’t go like that into the Blades’ camp,” said the Reghen.
I was still wearing the skins of the Uncarved. The Reghen gave me a black ribbon to tie around my arm and show that I was a Pack Chief, leader of forty men. What a strange thing it was—the eyes of the others embracing me with admiration while I was choking on my own defeat. I took off the heavy familiar wolfskin that shielded me from the cold. The Reghen gave me a new, worse skin, like those worn by the Chiefs of each Pack, made of squirrel fur. Many squirrels. Archer warriors wore goatskins or sheepskins, Blades wore dog, and so did the Guides. The Uncarved wore wolf, the Rods bear, and the Leader of all the Archers was the most impressive, donning his deerskin.
I wondered what Malan wore. Khun-Taa had chosen wolf throughout his reign, but Malan could have changed even that.
Wrapped in dead squirrels, I entered the camp of the Blades on horseback. The man who rode next to me, dressed in dog, was named Ogan and had just finished his training with the young Blades after five winters. He had known for a long time where he would end up. But he talked too much. He had so many questions. He would die early, without answers.
I knew that the Blades were about twenty Packs. Each one had less than forty warriors.
“Eighteen. They die faster than we can train them,” the Reghen said. “We had to cut the Packs by two.”
Still, the camp of the Blades seemed much larger.
Ogan kept his horse next to mine and never stopped talking. Sometimes he had useful things to say: “Slaves, Carriers, women they brought for this moon, their brats, old crones for cooking, Blacksmiths—”
“They have their own Blacksmiths here?” I asked.
“Yes, we do. We need many blades.”
“How many altogether?”
“Huh. A lot.” He didn’t know how to count and just shrugged his strong young shoulders. “If we start now on foot to go fence by fence around the whole camp, we will be back here by sunset.”
I looked at the sun and then started speaking as I was counting: “About five hundred tents. Six men to a tent, give or take
. Not even a thousand Blades for battle. The rest for everything else.”
The Reghen smiled. Ogan looked at me, lowered his head to one side, and squinted hard, as if that would make his head work faster. He didn’t understand a word I said. I would see that empty stare in the common men I would lead from now on. I would speak plainly, using simple words, and they would understand nothing of what I said. One more thing the Guides had not taught me at the Uncarved, the best of the best: all the others had not been raised the same way. As I grew older, the stupid seemed to multiply around me. They died quickly, but they sprouted even faster.
We arrived at the tents of the First Pack.
The Blade warriors, those whom I would have under my command, were just returning.
“Training ended for today,” the Reghen told me. We continued a slow trot on horseback in between a bunch of busy warriors, slaves, and women who were watering horses, carrying the wounded, yelling, and moving in a hurry.
“Did something happen today?” I asked.
“No, this is how it is every day.”
I dismounted and walked my thirsty horse to the trunk-carved trough. I cut my eyes left and right watching everyone shouting and fighting over stupid things. These menial tasks that had never bothered me—cooking, watering, caring for the wounded—seemed so important to those around me. Somebody pushed me.
“You’re blocking the path, kid. Move.”
“Yes,” was all I said.
“Are you a Squirrel?” he asked with a look of surprise. He left, shaking his head and mumbling before I had a chance to answer.
I am no squirrel.
There were no old men around. Everyone was young, but I was the youngest, and it showed. I was clean, better dressed, and moving more slowly than they were.
Drakon Book II: Uncarved Page 22
