Blood of Fire

by Marlow York

  I shook the feeling away as best I could and struggled to my feet, determined to stay vigilant around the unpredictable Grakkir man and his massive wolf companion. It was early morning, the atmosphere tinted blue and the air still cool from the night. It was difficult to gain any sense of direction with so many trees surrounding us.

  I looked at my captor, but he wasn’t paying any attention to me. He looked the part of a warrior, someone who had spent their life fighting. His large hands and arms were deeply scarred. Most notably, however, was a long scar carved into the right side of his face. The thick, red skin started just below his right eye, twisted `down his cheek, and ended just before his chin. Had the enemy stabbed just half an inch higher, he likely would have lost his eye.

  He looked at me suddenly and caught me staring. I quickly looked down, but it was obvious I had been watching him. Just like the wolf, something about his eyes forced you to look away. They were so similar they could have been brothers.

  The man spoke a few words of his own language, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was saying. I looked at him blankly. “Um…”

  Without another word, the man spun on his heel and entered the house. Was I expected to follow?

  I took a step towards the house, and the wolf growled. I froze and looked over my shoulder. The wolf walked between myself and the house and sat down in front of the doorway. He wasn’t being outwardly aggressive, like an animal guarding its territory. His stance simply said, “No. You stay there.”

  A moment later, the door opened again and a woman appeared. Her skin was lightly tanned, and her long hair was pulled back into a long braid of such a pale blonde color it almost appeared white. She was older than me, but probably younger than the man. They didn’t look related. Was she his wife? Another slave?

  She peered into my hazel eyes with her kind blue ones. She spoke under her breath in their strange language, her expression that of someone who was seeing something very interesting for the first time. She was so close to me that I could see a small, circular scar in the middle of her forehead, just between her eyebrows. She had a pair of thin metal piercings through the center of her chest in an “X” shape. The fact that these people willingly gave themselves painful, permanent ornamentation only emphasized their uncivilized, reckless culture. If they gladly caused themselves pain in the name of vain beauty, what would they do to an enemy or outsider they despised?

  I wrinkled my brow as she continued to scrutinize my face.

  “You certainly are not from the City, are you?”

  I gasped. “You speak my language?”

  “I do,” she replied simply. “The men had hoped the City was under attack. Much to steal behind those walls, I am sure.” She chuckled, but I gaped at her, appalled she could find humor in the destruction of the most powerful city in the world. As though stealing from the dead and kidnapping were things to be excited about.

  Sensing my discomfort, she continued. “My apologies. You must be very shaken by these events.” She took my hands and removed the bindings. I rubbed my chafed wrists. Though her accent was thick and her choice of words were odd, she spoke more eloquently than I expected from a savage.

  “I am Sarrenke. Your master’s name is Tarek. What do they call you?”

  I struggled to find my voice with the word “master” ringing in my ears. “Valieri.” I hesitated before adding, “of the Fiero clan. Please, do you know what’s going on? Why did the City attack us? Did your men find any other survivors? Someone told me my sister escaped. Jenassa is her name. Have you—”

  Sarrenke put her hands out. “Please, calm yourself. Too many questions.” She chuckled, which only added to my frustration. She grabbed my arm and led me towards the canvas tent beside the house. “I do not yet know why the City attacked your people, or who your sister is. Perhaps when the next group of Scouts return, we will know more.” She gestured to the tent. “This is where you will sleep from now on.”

  When she opened the flap, I could finally see the few supplies that were inside—buckets, hand-woven fishing nets and baskets, a few gardening tools, the small nest of hay I had used as a bed, and a few hay bales stacked in a neat pile.

  “Will I be tied up every night?” I asked harshly.

  “Tied up?” Sarrenke asked, surprise in her voice. “No, of course not.”

  “Then how do you know I won’t escape?” I challenged.

  “You have the option,” she said in a low voice. “But it would be a poor choice. Khero will find you.”

  “Khero?” I asked.

  “The wolf.”

  I pictured the massive wolf with his piercing eyes and dagger teeth. Surely he was as good a tracker as any hunting dog, and probably more capable of deadly harm. My arms prickled with goosebumps despite the warm summer air trapped inside the tent.

  Sarrenke took me back outside. “You should be grateful we found you instead of the City.”

  “Grateful?” I snapped. “I should be grateful I was kidnapped by a bunch of savages? Grateful I’ll live the rest of my life a slave to a horrible—”

  The door to the house opened, and my captor, Tarek, stepped out into the rising sun. His dark eyes fell on me, and I found myself tongue-tied under his powerful gaze. He turned to Sarrenke and they spoke in their native language, an odd mix of consonants and vowels that should have died centuries ago with the other languages, or at least that’s what we were taught in school.

  “We speak only one language in this region,” Juliano had said to my class years ago. “In the past, there were hundreds of languages. Some had died gradually, but others were spoken by nearly every race of people on the planet. They even had language classes in school. It was all terribly confusing, and in many cases, it caused disagreements and misunderstandings.”

  “Why don’t we still teach different languages now?” someone asked.

  “Because we don’t need to,” Juliano answered. “Eventually, everyone learned the same language, and the others gradually died out. Long ago, it was an impressive feat to know many languages; it made you an important person, in some instances. Now, thanks to the leaders of our great City, we have need for no other language except the one we are speaking right now. Certainly makes things less complicated, don’t you think?” Juliano chuckled while the class nodded in agreement.

  Perhaps it was a consequence of being so wild and isolated to the forests that prevented the Grakkir from learning our language, and so they were limited only to speak their own strange tongue. Sarrenke must have been an anomaly among her people for knowing my language as well as her own, or perhaps Tarek knew my language but refused to speak it. Such secrecy would never be permitted by the City, and my kidnapping was an obvious side effect of their disobedience to the City. They weren’t just savage thieves and killers, but rebellious and independent; an extremely dangerous combination.

  Tarek approached me with a thick band of leather with a buckle on one end. I pulled back as he reached around my neck. Did he intend to strangle me to death?

  “Do not fight,” Sarrenke said quietly, her eyes stern.

  My choices were limited. Fight and be beaten, or submit and behave like the slave I now was. It wasn’t much of a choice, but I opted for the outcome that would cause me less physical harm, though my face and hands burned with anger.

  I’d begun to suspect that the X-shaped piercing on Sarrenke’s chest was likely more than just for looks, but it couldn’t have had any practical use. Much like Tarek’s tattoos, it must have symbolized something. The leather collar around my neck was an obvious symbol. I was a slave, a servant, a dog. And like a dog, I was owned. By Tarek. The thought made anger and bile rise in my throat.

  Tarek tightened the collar and slipped the end through the buckle, tight enough that I couldn’t slip a finger through it, but loose enough to breathe. When he turned and disappeared into the house again, I began to wonder about the village. I’d heard that the Grakkir were a large clan. The guards told us there were ea
sily several hundred people in the clan, but I hadn’t seen anyone else since the other riders disappeared into the forest.

  “Follow me,” Sarrenke said. She turned and led me around the side of the house, past the canvas tent. Tarek’s powerful horse stood in a small, crudely constructed paddock just along the edge of the northern forest.

  “Sarrenke,” I asked quietly. Her name felt strange in my mouth. “Where are the other villagers?”

  She placed her hands on the rough, untreated wood. “In the village, just up the path to the east of the house. We will go there someday soon for goods.”

  Part of me felt like I shouldn’t ask too many questions, otherwise they’d become angry at me for knowing too much. However, another part of me thought about things reasonably. If I was now an unofficial “resident” of this village—a term best used loosely—it was my responsibility to learn the ways of the village, which included asking questions about the culture and location.

  If I knew where danger was, surely there would be a chance for escape as well.

  “Are the villagers all spread out like we are?”

  Sarrenke grew quiet for a moment. “No,” she said slowly. “The rest of them live very closely together. We are what you would call…an unusual circumstance.”

  I watched her face for a moment, her icy blue eyes not betraying any information. I stared at the perfectly round scar in the middle of her brows, wondering briefly if it had been caused by an old piercing, and if so, why didn’t she have it anymore? If everyone else in the Grakkir lived close together, then what was so different about Tarek and Sarrenke that they couldn’t live with the rest of the village? What was wrong with them?

  “This is Zani,” Sarrenke’s voice interrupted my thoughts. She gestured to Tarek’s powerful horse, peacefully munching on the short grass in his paddock. “He is a warhorse. Very important to Grakkir Warriors. Very loyal. Tarek raised him from a newborn foal, and so he seldom listens to anyone else. Do not ever approach him by yourself. He may harm you.”

  I wasn’t sure if “he” meant the horse, or Tarek. It was possible she meant both, considering how valuable the horse seemed to be.

  When I was a young girl, I remember listening to Juliano’s lectures on the Grakkir and how their animals were trained to be fearsome and extremely loyal.

  “If, for some reason, you ever find yourself to be in the unfortunate position of encountering someone from the Grakkir clan, do not make any sudden movements,” Juliano had said. “Even their horses are trained to be aggressive and will attack you if ordered by their masters.”

  My heart ached as I thought of Juliano, but then I remembered what he’d said as he lay dying. “The teachings are a lie.” Which teachings? Everything he had taught us? How could that be true? He’d taught us about geography, the weather, and about how the City rose to power after other cities wiped each other out during the Great Wars. Had that been a lie too?

  As I watched Zani, I began to wonder if not everything he’d taught us was completely true. I fully believed this horse could harm me, and that it was completely loyal and obedient to Tarek, but his lectures suggested more violence than this horse appeared capable of. In fact, it seemed no more violent than the horses we’d used in our village, which could also be extremely loyal and capable of hurting someone, even by accident.

  “I will now show you the garden,” Sarrenke said. “It will be part of your daily chores.”

  We left Zani to continue nibbling grass in the shade of the pine trees and walked farther away from the house. The garden was larger than I expected, much larger than two people could eat by themselves. At this point in the season, the vegetables were beginning to ripen, but they would still require a lot of attention. Even from where I stood I could see some weeds that needed to be plucked, vines that needed to be redirected, and tall stalks that needed support before they broke and killed the fruit before it could ripen.

  “It will be nice to finally have help. It takes me many hours to do all of the work by myself,” Sarrenke chuckled.

  “Do you eat it all yourselves, just the two of you?” I asked.

  “There are three of us living here. Now, four. Tarek’s wife is inside the house, but she eats very little. What we do not save for ourselves, we sell in the village for things we need,” Sarrenke explained.

  So, Tarek did have a wife. Though I had considered the possibility of Sarrenke being Tarek’s wife, I couldn’t quite picture a man like him being married. But I suppose it made sense. We were always taught that the Grakkir were violent, uncivilized, and dangerous, including the women and children. In comparison to the City, they definitely were uncivilized. I’m sure they were violent and dangerous too, and I feared for the moment I’d see it firsthand. However, Sarrenke didn’t seem violent at all. In fact, there was an aura of calmness about her. She seemed more nurturing than violent, but that was no reason to let my guard down.

  I pictured Tarek: tall, powerful, commanding. He looked exactly like what I’d envisioned during my lessons about the Grakkir. Surely a man like that would have a wife as savage and powerful as he was. I shivered when I pictured what she would look like.

  “I thought you were his wife,” I said quietly, a little embarrassed.

  To my surprise, Sarrenke laughed. “No, no. I am not a wife. I am the sister of his first wife. A sister-in-law, as your people would call it. She went to live with the spirits and gods, many years ago.”

  Went to live with the spirits and gods? I thought. That must be what they call it when someone dies. It was customary to say, “I’m sorry” when hearing about someone’s death, but I found that I didn’t care much. After all the lives I’d just lost—friends, family, clan members—how could I possibly care about the loss of a life in my captor’s family?

  “I have a treat for you,” Sarrenke said suddenly.

  I crinkled my nose. What on earth could possibly be considered a “treat” to these people? A hunk of raw meat, freshly killed? A small jewel to hang from my collar? Or perhaps a ratty old apron to wear while I clean their house?

  “I want to show you something.”

  I followed her away from the house, towards the forest. I sensed we were being watched, and sure enough, Khero padded along behind us at a short distance. It was likely that Tarek had ordered him to keep an eye on me, and there was no need to be secretive about it. In fact, if I could see the massive wolf following me everywhere, then it would deter me from running away. That was easy logic to understand.

  Just past the edge of the forest, the ground tilted downward. At the bottom of the hill was a small pool of clear spring water. The water bubbled up from beneath the ground and was carried away by the twisting stream.

  “One good thing about living far away from the village is private access to the spring. Here, you won’t need to worry about the prying eyes of curious children or the ridicule of others within the village.” Sarrenke crouched beside the spring and dipped her long fingers into the water. “It’s cold, but clean and refreshing. At the other end you will find the most beautiful lake in the world.”

  She smiled up at me, but I found it difficult to smile back at her. I didn’t understand why she was being so nice to me, a slave. Shouldn’t she be ordering me around and forcing me to do all sorts of hard manual labor? Why did they care if I got dirty and smelled bad, or if others could see me naked when I bathed? I was secretly grateful for the private spring, but I wouldn’t let on. Instead, I merely pressed my lips together and gave a single nod to show I understood what she’d said.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Khero, sitting just at the edge of the forest. He panted slightly as the day grew warmer, but his eyes were calm and cold as always. That’s when another one of Juliano’s lectures flitted through my brain.

  “The Grakkir believe they have a strong relationship with animals. In their culture, they believe in imaginary ‘Animal Gods’ who have blessed them with control over more powerful creatures. While it may be true that the
ir pets are extremely loyal, the rest, as we now know, is utter nonsense. Animals can be trained to be obedient and loyal, just like ours are, but there are no gods, and praying to them is a waste of time. It is nothing but foolish, savage magic.”

  What I’d seen of the Grakkir’s animals so far had proven Juliano half-correct. They were extremely loyal; however, there was something strange about Khero. We’d been taught that fearsome beasts live in the forests, but none of our textbooks mentioned anything as large and intelligent as Khero.

  “Would you like to wash up tonight?” Sarrenke was saying.

  I snapped out of my daydream. “Oh, um, sure. Yes, I’d like to do that.”

  Sarrenke squinted up at Khero, then back at me. “Do not be too frightened of him. If you do what we tell you to, he will never cause you harm. He has very good judgement and can be very reasonable.”

  Reasonable? I looked again at Khero and found myself mesmerized by his eyes. Again, he didn’t growl at me or shrink away. I noticed, instead, a very subtle curl of his lip, a wrinkle of the brow. It was the same annoyed expression one gives when they are tired and irritated by the persistence of a small child.

  And that’s when I wondered, could it be possible that Khero was one of the creatures the mythical “Animal Gods” had given Tarek the power to control? Juliano had never taught us anything about what they were supposed to look like or how they acted. Instead, the focus of the lecture was that they didn’t exist at all, period. Whether those creatures were capable of reasonable judgement or making facial expressions like humans had never come up in our classroom lecture.

  “I will come back down here with you later this evening, and we can wash up together,” Sarrenke said. “For now, we must get to work. It is nearly time for breakfast.”

  As we headed back up the hill, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end when I passed by Khero. I felt a sudden pang of pressure against my entire left side, like a heavy pillow pushing against me. The sensation lasted so briefly I had to stop in my tracks and wonder if I had actually felt a physical presence, or if it was just in my head.