“Da-Ren, no! What are you doing?” Sani screamed behind me.
Noki was all over Sani, wrestling him to the ground. Sani kept kicking with his legs, trying to get closer to me, but Noki’s head-grip was too strong. I smashed the young man’s head, again and again, over twenty times—he was dead by the fifth— until I drowned all other sounds except his skull bouncing off the oak trunk. Fresh brains and blood stained the sides of the table once more. I had killed him with my left hand, the one I had broken in Apelo.
I turned with eyes rimmed red with rage to the left and right, holding the dead man’s blade. Over forty men had gathered by then, Blades and others, to entertain themselves with the spectacle of the blue-eyed witch. I shouted to all who watched in shocked silence before they had time to think and react.
“War, you dogs! Everywhere. War! North and south, east and west. The monsters of Darhul are coming…”
No one uttered a word. They didn’t know what they were looking at. Except for Sani; the rage in his eyes reflected mine.
“What are you doing, you stupid fucks? What is the one rule of the Blades?”
No one answered.
“What is the one rule I brought to the Blades? The one rule? When you’re spreading the othertriber bitches?”
“Never…” Leke started to whimper to show that he stood by me but he couldn’t finish. Baagh was next to him watching, trying to ease his way closer to the front. Baagh was still alive. And so was she.
The faraway howling of a mauler broke the silence under the darkened autumn sky, and a distant thunder followed. The woman had coiled sideways on the mud. She turned to look at me and then went back to sobbing silently and shivering. The rage had weakened my knees, but I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Never what? Speak, you dogs! You never fuck a woman if you need two hands to keep her down. Why? Why? You! Son of the black mule. Speak.”
“Because…one hand…always on the blade,” mumbled Leke.
I was a despicable snake. For her. Never before had I spewed out so many lies, so quickly and to so many. I spat on the crushed head and kicked the naked ass of the dead man. Leke and Baagh jumped out of the crowd and stood next to me as I stumbled away. Noki had released Sani from the head-grip. Sani stood still—didn’t even get up from the dirt—staring at the bloody mess that used to be Ilan. The flasks of wine that I had downed in the last two days were pumping through my head and body. Baagh took off his cloak and wrapped it around her. He knew before I even said anything. I showed him the woman who hadn’t raised her head from the mud and whispered to him.
“Take her in my tent. Now.”
“You have no tent, Da-Ren. Where have you been? A whole moon,” Leke said.
“Go to my tent. It is at the edge of the camp, next to the horse pens,” said Baagh.
“Take her there.”
“Is she? Zeria?” he whispered.
My jaw was shaking.
The men scattered quickly as I walked away with Leke supporting my weight. The earth was trembling lightly under my feet, but I thought it was the wine.
I waited outside Baagh’s tent as he took care of her. Five times I tried to enter that night, but as soon as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I jumped back out as if I was treading on sacred ground, dirty and bloodstained. What could I say to her? That I had left her alone? That I was the Firstblade and commanded all of Sirol? And I couldn’t save her even from my own men? I stood vigil all night, and no one dared to approach. I would hear her screams for a few breaths, piercing my mind like burning needles, and then silence again.
“Leke, you make a circle around this tent and put guards.”
“Da-Ren, why, what has come over to you?”
“She is a Dasal witch and knows the paths. We need to keep her alive. No one goes near her,” I said.
Leke shook his head. I could hear more of Leke’s thoughts, the ones he kept silent. At least don’t mock me, after so long. Not me. It was a while before he spoke. “That man, Ilan, they say he was an Uncarved only one winter back. Sani says he was the best young Blade.”
Later, deep in the sleepless night, Baagh came outside to let me know. “She should be fine. Her body anyway. Go in and see her.”
I crawled into the tent. She was sleeping on the hides, close to the fire. I couldn’t tell with the glowing embers between us if her eyes were shut. I didn’t want to wake her or hear her words. Suddenly she raised her hand, and her two empty eyes stared at me wide-open, like a blind woman who couldn’t see in front of her.
“The children, Da-Ren. Did they kill the children?”
I froze.
They killed the children of Varazam. All of them. I couldn’t save even one.
“No. What children?”
A scream escaped her mouth and lasted for many agonizing breaths. Baagh rushed inside and pushed me away from her. He gave her to drink and hid her face from mine.
I crawled out of the tent, and he followed a bit later.
“Don’t bother her with words. Not tonight.”
“I didn’t. I don’t want to; just to protect her now.”
“Whatever you say those men of yours won’t understand why you did this,” he said.
“We have to hide her, Baagh, they have never before seen a woman with blue eyes around here. They’ll keep fucking her night and day. And if the Ouna-Mas find her before the next moon…”
“Hide what? All of Sirol is talking about today. You never tried to hide it.”
“For so long I’ve tried to keep two worlds apart. But I can’t stop every damned one of them,” I said to Baagh, snapping an arrow in two with my hands, and then another one and another one.
There wasn’t a worthy warrior who would ever break a perfectly good arrow. It was as if I were breaking my father’s bones.
Baagh passed me a bowl of watery soup.
“Pig’s tripe and blood stew. A cure for drunks. And madmen,” he said.
“I was disgraced today. That dog I killed had done nothing wrong. He was fucking an othertriber slave. I had no right to kill him. The Ouna-Mas and the Reghen will come, they will ask and make their claim on her.”
Baagh took the wineskin from my hand and gave me the bowl again.
“I told you that I came here to find the monsters, Da-Ren. I didn’t know till now.”
He threw the broken reeds into the fire, and they crackled in front of us. Under the starless sky, Sirol had become a cauldron and would boil us all alive in the coming days. And then winter would fall like a white cloak of punishing silence. In what dark cave could we hide? How would I cover our tracks?
“I suspected, when you insisted on coming back here, when you didn’t take Carpus’ bait at Thalassopolis, when you left for the Forest alone, but I didn’t know till now,” he repeated.
“You didn’t know what?” I asked.
“That you are truly a Drakon.”
LXXI.
A Braver Day
Twenty-Fourth Autumn. “Firstblade”
The Truth of the Seed
In the twentieth winter of the reign of our Fifth Leader, the Great Khun-Taa, the First Witch, Sah-Ouna, said:
“A grave fate will befall us. Our wombs are poisoned by the waters of the Demon, the seed weak, bringing more girls than boys.
The young ones are born dead, and of those who survive most are females. The Tribe weeps, thirsty for warriors. From now on every son born will be raised as one of the Tribe, even if his mother was an othertriber slave. And any slave who gives birth to two sons or more will become a woman of the Tribe equal to all the others.
“The Seed of the Man is the seal of the Tribe, and the woman is the vessel. The children you will bear will have black hair and black eyes, even if their slave mothers were hay or brown-haired, even if their eyes were green. And if a child is born with green eyes or red hair from a brown-eyed slave, you will deliver it to the tents of the Ouna-Mas, together with the othertriber witch that bore it and tainted the Se
ed. Only the Ouna-Mas can end these curses.
“But you will never fill the belly of a damned blue-eyed. They are witches of the dark water, the loathsome servants of Darhul. For them, there is only death.”
Thus declares Sah-Ouna, the Voice of Enaka
I waited for Sani to visit me the next day but to my surprise, he didn’t. I got word that he left for the Northeast to inspect the crops and the farmers there.
But those I feared most did—three Reghen joined by three Ouna-Mas. They came on horseback from the main path, raising dust and commotion. They dismounted at the horse pen in front of my tent and walked toward me. Baagh and Zeria had stayed hidden inside, and I stood guard at the tent’s entrance. I recognized Raven from her slender build among the veiled witches, walking half a step behind the others. She swerved her horse around a couple of times, searching, but Noki was not there; he had gone south to patrol the river.
The three Reghen removed their hoods, and the oldest asked me: “Is it true that you are hiding a woman with blue eyes here?”
“We are not hiding her. All of Sirol knows,” I said.
“She’ll come with us. Right away!”
“Who orders that?”
“No one needs to order it, Da-Ren.”
“Firstblade, you will call me Firstblade,” I said the word slowly and clearly with any confidence I could fake.
“Yes…Firstblade. You know the Truths of Sah-Ouna. They never change, and I don’t have to explain anything to you,” said the Reghen.
He walked past me and made a move to enter through the ox hide flaps of Zeria’s tent. I grabbed his wrist and twisted it pulling him back. He screamed in pain. The presence of the Ouna-Mas had drawn a crowd, and they watched with anticipation.
“Were you lost for too long in the Forest, Da-Ren? Did you sleep under a cursed walnut tree again? Like your father?” The Reghen mocked me rubbing his aching wrist with the other hand.
“The Dasal woman stays here. I am Firstblade, and I decided.”
“The Ouna-Mas claim her. Get out of the way.”
“I will deliver her to Sah-Ouna. Those are my orders,” I replied.
“Who gave you such orders?”
He was a brave and resolute Reghen, maybe because he was too old and had waited many winters in Sirol for something of significance to happen. He kept challenging me without fear, even when he saw that I was ready to cut him to pieces. Autumn’s raindrops began to fall again, and the mud started whispering around our boots. The rain came down harder, and the images of the Reghen and the rest of his entourage started to blur. The one image that was still clear to me was that from the previous afternoon, that half-naked man, his sweat dripping from his temples onto Zeria’s back, his purple brains sliding down the butcher table.
I kept my thoughts to myself. Talk a little more Reghen. Say just one more word. Give me a reason to crush one more skull. I clenched my fists, my fingers itching to go for the blade, and gave him another chance: “Now turn around and go back to where you came from.”
The Reghen made a half circle with his eyes to see who was going to side with him. But those men around me were the ones from Apelo, from my ship, always loyal. He gave the signal, and all six, Reghen and Ouna-Mas, mounted their horses.
“If you find any other blue-eyed witches send for us immediately. A great evil will befall us—” said the Reghen.
He was cut short by a gaunt Ouna-Ma who walked her mare forward. She lowered her veil and let the rain fall on her skull. The henna ornaments on her face and hands had not dried yet, and the raindrops smudged her in horrifying rivulets of red dripping down her scrawny cheeks, as her voice ripped through the hearts of my men.
“Know that you brought the curse upon us. Death is the night descending; it will not be long now! The earth will shake and unleash the Monster from its bowels.” She started her prophecy with a hiss and ended it with a thunder. “You ungrateful fools will suffer alone, and Enaka will scorn you. Boil in your fear and beg for redemption.”
An Ouna-Ma never opened her mouth to speak to so many men in the middle of the day. She sowed the seed of terror and trotted away. Raven was following them last, slower than the rest. She looked back, her gaze searching. Two times. Then three.
The Blades around me started mumbling among themselves. Baagh made a worrisome grimace toward me; Leke started shouting to the men to carry the hay bushels in the storage sheds, to divert their thoughts.
I walked with Baagh into Leke’s tent to protect myself from the rain, the peering eyes, and the curious ears.
“Damn those bitches…” I said.
The Reghen didn’t scare anybody, but the Ouna-Ma had uttered a prophecy, and her few words were enough to crush the Blades’ spirit and their faith in me.
“Your plan is falling apart, Da-Ren. Everyone is gathering outside the Drakon’s lair, and they’ll soon ask for your blood.”
“My plan? I have no plan, Baagh. A few days ago, I was lost in the Forest. I never had time for a plan.”
Or a clear head to think one up.
“Drakons always hide in dark, unreachable caves. You can’t keep your treasure under the sun in a flat valley where all can see from a thousand paces away.”
“I can’t go anywhere else now. My power is here, Baagh. How is she?”
“As I had guessed Da-Ren, those Dasal are of the West. They didn’t grow in the Forest. Their tongue is similar, and I can talk to her. She even speaks your tongue, so—”
“I asked you how she is.”
“She doesn’t sleep much, yet she lies there with eyes shut. She is not well. I cannot say if she will find her wits again.”
“Isn’t there anything you can give her?”
“The potions alone will not cure her. She needs to get away from this valley of hell. And until then make sure she stays invisible.”
And go where?
“You too have to leave, Baagh,” I said.
“I am a sorcerer, Da-Ren,” he chuckled. “I can disappear whenever I want.”
I smirked, but as I looked at Leke his face was sour and worried.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Sani, Da-Ren. Sani is the Guardian of the Ouna-Mas. If they claimed the blue-eyed woman, he’d bring her to them.”
No, Sani wouldn’t do that.
But it was my face that had turned sour now.
“Maybe there is another way to make her invisible. I saw a couple of the Northerner prisoners, their eyes… There are more blue-eyed around us, Da-Ren. We spotted the campfires of those invaders only a quarter-moon from here. They’re descending south in hordes. If we go and grab a few—”
Yes, maybe if we captured many blue-eyed the men of the Tribe could rape them instead of Zeria, day and night.
“We give a few to the men and a couple to the Ouna-Mas, and they’ll leave us alone? Is that what you’re saying, Leke?”
The rain was pelting the hides of Leke’s small tent and drowning every word. He looked at me wrinkling his brow and shouted.
“Damn it, Firstblade, that’s what I’m saying. Am I wrong? The Northerners are raiding the outposts. We’ll have to get rid of them anyway. You have to.”
“You’re right,” I mumbled.
They weren’t used to me admitting when I was wrong.
“Firstblade, I don’t know what it is that ties you to that othertriber witch in there, or where you’ve been for so long, forest or what, but things here are looking grim. For all of us.”
“Will you betray me, Leke?”
“Betray what? That you have lain with her? No, Da-Ren, we have been through too much together.”
I kept staring at him as if I needed reassurance. I could have asked him to promise in the name of the Goddess, but I was the one who had never kept my promises to her.
“We have given our lives and our days for the Tribe,” Leke continued. He had let his beard grow wild lately to hide the ugly scar; he was marked by the blades of Apelo forever. “But the nights
…who we share our tent with, belong to us.” The rain had died down to a drizzle, but he kept his voice loud. “You understand what I am saying, Firstblade?”
“I do.”
But I didn’t. Not yet, my brother. Was I blind or a coward to ask?
I walked out of the tent with Baagh. Temin, the young boy, was waiting there, stroking the mane of his horse, tied next to Leke’s. His hair was soaked in the rain, falling heavily on his back, his handsome face pale. He greeted me with the faintest bow and smile. Was he waiting for us to leave? He was not a boy anymore; he never was much younger than me. I always called him a boy.
The autumn night sky was a hazy black as Darhul’s cloudbreaths cloaked Sirol. Selene was in hiding, sleeping in the embrace of some dark god she had secretly chosen as a companion. The questions had to wait for a brighter day, a braver day.
LXXII.
I Should Have Listened
Twenty-Fourth Autumn. “Firstblade”
“Your comrade is very brave,” said Baagh, as we were walking the horses back to the tent.
I didn’t want to talk about Leke. I was not thinking clearly. I kept staring at the rain-filled puddles each one reflecting a different threat and fear.
“Can you go check on her?” I asked.
“You, on the other hand, need to become braver. You have to go and face her yourself.”
There was a man inside her, Baagh. One of my men. I was not there on time. I failed her.
“Whatever happened is in the past. And the future will be very unkind if you don’t face it first,” continued Baagh.
He was right.
“You are right, Sorcerer. But it is not her I must face.”
I turned my horse around and whispered in his ear.
“We have to get to Sani’s tent tonight. I know you are tired, but we must ride.”
The Chief of the Archers had warned me too, but Sani was one of the old comrades, those who had fought by my side to make me Firstblade. He was the one I had betrayed, the one I abandoned so he could guard Sirol. Noki had warned me winters ago and then again before I’d left for the Forest.
Drakon Book IV: Butterfly Page 5
