“Do you know who Sani fucks?” Noki had asked me.
“I don’t keep track,” I said.
“You cannot. He doesn’t. Ever.”
“What are you saying?”
“You can tell a lot about a man from those he fucks. Slave girl, Archer girl, Ouna-Ma, goat, common woman. Another man. Whatever. You and I go for Ouna-Mas, we prefer women who are strong, in here.” His arrow finger tapped his temple, “and here.” His palm patted his heart. “Others, jackals and cowards, go for the weak ones, the slaves, the whimpering orphans. But Sani? He doesn’t fuck! Ever.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Those who care to observe, know. A Firstblade should know,” Noki replied.
“You mean I don’t?”
“No, you don’t care anymore. You don’t look around you, you only look inside, or far away. You are not the same man after Apelo and Varazam. You don’t care for us, Sani, Leke, the others. You don’t see them. Everyone has known that about Sani for a long time now,” said Noki. He shook his head slowly and grimaced.
“So?”
“I don’t like him. He has become ‘one with the Goddess,’ he says, ‘was chosen by Her to remain here, to guard Her favorite daughters,’ he waits an eternity for Enaka to embrace him between her bare breasts when he ascends there. That’s enough for him he says.”
“Maybe it is.”
“No. All men fuck. Even those that don’t, do. They find something else to fuck. Fuck you up, try to fuck everything and everyone else up. Those who don’t fuck are very dangerous. They are fucked up.”
My instinctive reaction was to chuckle. All that sounded funny to me and the fact that Noki had said it with such worry made it funnier. Later that night when I reached Sani’s tent, those words I had exchanged with Noki came back. My laughter would soon disappear. One of the reasons was what I saw there. The other was that Noki’s words had grown slowly and pierced like a needle near my heart. I hadn’t fucked anyone for a long time.
At least a hundred men had gathered chanting in a wide circle outside Sani’s tent. They all wore robes like the Reghen, except for the red circle of the Truthsayers, and were on their knees, holding with both hands the long blade above their head. Sani was in the middle, leading them like a priest.
“What is this?” I asked the ones closer to me, but no one turned to reply as if they were in a trance. I spotted an old and hunched slave woman outside Sani’s tent and asked her, but she turned and disappeared.
The chanting finished much later with a triumphant song for the Goddess, but I waited for the crowd to break up. Sani walked up to me, slowly, his face and gestures revealing nothing.
‘Where did those men come from?”
“They are not men yet. Most are seventeen and sixteen-wintered. They are the Guardians. They protect the faith.”
“Protect what from who, Sani?”
“Come with me. I’ll show you.”
He was walking ahead already and signaled for me to follow. After a while, we entered a long wooden structure, a storage building. I was pretty sure that it didn’t exist before the campaign. We walked down the mid-corridor, which was arched and supported by wooden beams. On our right side, there were shelves filled with weapons and hides. Long blades, short blades, bows, and quivers. On the left side, the men I had seen chanting earlier were getting ready to rest for the night.
“Where did you find all these men?” I asked. “They are not Blades or Archers.”
They were staring at me silently, but it was not their eyes I noticed. Most of them had painted their faces to look like the Ssons. Not so elaborate and fearsome but resembling some of the confusing face-paint of the otherworldly monsters. White Fangs. Sabretooths. Jaws painted to look fleshless.
“That’s not even half of them. I command three hundred Guardians, not just the old Blades you left here. They are the young who stayed. They grew up. Those who abandoned us called them weak, but I trained them to be strong. We guard and protect the faith, and they sleep here next to the Ouna-Mas and the Reghen. We prepare for tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” Gooseflesh ran across my skin as I spoke my words.
“Nothing you need to worry about. We march north; we have to take care of those raiding thieves.”
“What if there are more than a few thieves? You’ll march with boys? You better bring the Archers with you.”
He was staring somewhere high above all of us. In his own world.
“Don’t need them. I have all I need. But I could use that woman you saved. If you can bring her. They say she is an othertriber witch.”
And if you sacrifice her, her blood will make you a stronger man. One who doesn’t fuck much.
“She is a Dasal. She’s not from the north,” I said.
“You’re wrong, Firstblade. The blue eyes are from the north. The Dasal have green and brown eyes.”
“She’s a Dasal.”
“How can you be sure?” Sani asked.
“I too know how to question a woman. Where were the last raids?” I asked, trying to change the matter.
“They raided the wheat harvesting villages by the smaller north river, half a moon’s ride north. The men of our guard, only six of them, were all killed. But the Trackers who just arrived say they saw campfires only three days from here.”
“I know the villages. I went through them on the first spring of the campaign.”
“They are savage beasts with axes, but they know nothing of fighting. They’ve become bolder and are moving farther south, and it’s about time we put a stop to them. More will descend for looting after this winter if we don’t stop them. Hay-haired, blue-eyed most of them. They burn, pillage, and leave.”
“I still think you should take the Archers with you. I’ll send Noki with a few of my men.”
Sani shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care. That man never smiled, but what scared me more was that he never showed his anger. It was hidden somewhere deep.
Pairs of boys around me were painting each other’s faces, murmuring battle songs. Many had the same symbol painted on their arm, a black blade slicing through a full red Selene. I vaguely remembered that the man I killed had a similar mark on his back. The image came back to me once I saw it again. I asked Sani.
“That man I punished—”
“Punished… Yes. He was one of them. Of us.”
“He broke my one rule.”
Sani refused to look at me, raise or lower his voice or betray any feeling.
“One rule, yes. Right. I don’t remember any such rule, but you should know my one rule. All the Guardians here are sworn not to lay with a woman. Ever. So, it is very unfortunate what happened. It’s not the death he deserved, to be killed because of that bitch. I trust in the Ouna-Mas, I am not to judge. When Sah-Ouna is back, we’ll hear the Voice of the Sky. She can judge you. And that witch. Whatever she is. I cannot.”
Noki was right. Sani had bells and feathers in his head.
“You don’t make sense. He was fucking a woman when I killed him.”
“Not a woman; she was a slave, an othertriber witch. That was punishment. The Guardians can punish a slave but not spend the night with her. You understand?”
“Did you make up all these rules, Sani?”
“The Goddess did. I just listen and serve. You understand?”
I understand you are a crazy fucker, Sani.
It was about time to whistle for my horse.
“And what do you plan to do with all these blades?”
“I don’t plan. When She speaks, I listen.”
Crazy and fucked up. Noki had warned me.
I mounted and cantered away in the early light of dawn. The maddening thoughts tangled my weary mind. Zeria, I still hadn’t spoken to her. The children, she said. Noki. Raven. Sani with three hundred men of his own, waiting for the commands of the Ouna-Mas. What had this man suffered for so many winters here alone? With neither hope nor Story? Was I responsible f
or his madness? I sure was responsible for mine. One maddening thought invading, before the previous one had left me. I should take Zeria out of here, run far away. A gray-white owl, eyes liquid gold, hooting to my right. A warning. The last thought was the one that scared me most. Maybe Sani was right after all. What if there was a Goddess who spoke and the Witches listened?
Raven’s warning to me was so clear.
“Run away, Da-Ren.”
The Ouna-Ma had spoken. I should have listened.
LXXIII.
The Swan and the Raven
Twenty-Fourth Autumn. “Firstblade”
“I fear you were right, Noki,” I said once I was back in the Blades camp. “I want you to take ten men and follow Sani. Not tomorrow though. Stay one day behind.”
“I can’t do much with ten Blades.”
“I don’t want you to do much. Just follow him. Someone must always watch him. You’re better at observing, you said, so it will be you.”
“Last time I open my mouth.”
“And, if you find a chance, capture a couple of Northerners and bring them back. Better if they’re women.”
“I’d rather—”
He’d rather stay in Sirol. I had seen Raven slip into his tent the previous night. This was madness. The Reghen would see them sooner or later. I had to send him away.
“I’d rather you listen to the Firstblade as you swore you’d do, Noki.”
“I’ll go, but not tomorrow,” he said.
I spent the next day inspecting the Craftsmen and ordered them to hurry up, make more arrows and more bows. I went anywhere I could to get away. Anything would do as long as I didn’t have to go back to my tent and face her. I hadn’t seen her again after the first night—not even one word, one glance, one breath. I hadn’t asked anyone for details. When did they capture her, how many days had she stayed in their hands, I didn’t want to know.
Baagh warned me. “There were two Reghen here just this morning. They will get to her,” he said.
“How is she, Baagh?”
“You can’t go on living as a coward, Da-Ren. Go inside, she asked for you.”
The gold and red of the hearth was the only light in the tent. The flaps were kept down like a grave from an opion nightmare I had tried to forget. Zeria was awake with her back turned toward me, her body rocking as if she was soothing a child that wasn’t there. Her dress was torn, and she was barefoot and grimy. She turned slowly, her head kept down, one eye staring at me like a vengeful wraith of the Forest.
“Make your wish, and I’ll do it,” I told her.
She crawled toward me on her knees, too weak or disturbed to get up and my spine tensed.
“Da-Ren, you’re alive. You fought among the wolves and made it back. I knew you would return. The amulet. But you’re too late.”
“I was looking for you in the Forest. I went to Kar-Tioo.”
There was terror in the white of her eyes and the way her arms clutched around her body.
“There is nothing left there. Nothing. My father is dead,” She shook her head left and right as if she didn’t want to believe it, her eyes naked of any warmth, like those of a woman touched by unimaginable evil. “Your brave warriors slaughtered him. And the men, the fathers. Few survived and made it to the north. They took the children. The children, Da-Ren. Did they kill the children?”
There were blood soup and bread in front of her, but she hadn’t touched it. I tried to pass the bowl to her.
“The children,” she said once more.
“No, what children, no.”
“Did you kill ’em?”
“No, no I’ll find them. What children?”
Those words raised her on her feet and woke her up from the nightmare.
“If I had been here they would have never hurt you.” I tried to embrace her, but she moved two steps back. She was trembling. With a sudden move, she tore the sackcloth dress that Baagh had given her and stood before me with bare breasts and bloodshot eyes.
“Go on then; you are the one, Da-Ren. You are the strongest; you can do with me as you please. Your fierce Tribe can take all of us. Isn’t that what you want?”
I kept staring at her breasts. I wanted to lose myself in her, but not like this.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I said.
I don’t want to touch you.
“You can have me, Da-Ren. Right now. Take me!”
She wrapped her hands around my neck and embraced me, but I pushed her away. It was the feeling of grasping something cold or dead like a rotting branch, a corpse at Varazam, the opposite of all I’d dreamed for so long.
“I crossed black water for a whole moon, and the deserts for five summers, to return to you.”
Death had sucked away her spirit. My words were lost.
“And I have lost. All of them,” she said.
I had seen many such women on the campaign, frightened little birds caught in a snare. Most of them had seen their men’s blood spilled in front of them, their souls already snuffed out, when they brought them to me. Some offered their body willingly, faced with the fear of death. I only took pleasure when I lay with the Ouna-Mas, once every full moon, those bloodthirsty bitches who craved to empty me of all life. A good hard fuck with them made me stronger. The others, the living corpses, left me sad and emptier than before the couple of times I’d tried. I hadn’t lain with any such women, trembling birds, in Varazam, and I hadn’t traveled the whole world over, just to see Zeria like this.
“There is only one thing I want, great warrior. The children. Save the children of Dasal, and I am yours.”
It was my good fortune that she still had a reason to live. And even though that reason was not me, it still fed the last embers of hope.
“I will do whatever you ask Zeria, I told you.”
“Do you promise me? Will you be the only man among those wolves around you?”
She fell before my knees half-naked. She embraced my leg with icy fingers, crying. She lifted her hand to touch me farther up between my legs, to show me her gratitude. I pushed her hard as far away from me as I could.
She raised her eyes, still on her knees and said: “Save the children, Da-Ren. Even if it is the only thing you do.”
I went outside for a while and walked around like a guarding dog patrolling the area. A starless night had covered Sirol. As I stood by the horse pen, caring for my stallion, I saw Raven’s figure entering Noki’s tent. In the morning, he’d leave for the mission I’d ordered.
Bring me more blue-eyed, Noki. I must hide her.
I walked into his tent against my better judgment. The two lovers lay naked in a passionate embrace, their fingers entwined, her legs wrapped around his waist. Noki flew up and brought the blade close to my chest, but when he saw who I was, he stopped. I slowly pushed his blade away and grabbed the robe and veil of the Ouna-Ma.
“Where are the children of the Dasal?” I asked her. “Do the Ouna-Mas have them?”
She whispered “No,” but I wasn’t sure if she was answering or trying to stop me from taking her clothes.
“Where are they?”
I insisted, repeating my words until she decided to speak.
“The orphan othertribers are at the camp you grew up, Da-Ren. Where they always are.”
“I will bring her clothes back before sunrise,” I said to Noki.
The naked Ouna-Ma was up, trying to stop me. She had a wiry body with small tight breasts. A muffled scream escaped her mouth as Noki tried to keep her quiet and I walked out of the tent.
“Let’s go find those children,” I said to Zeria. “I think we will.”
Zeria wore the Raven’s robe and covered her face with the red veil. The Sky was mercifully dark but still without rain, and we took on our search for the children of the Dasal. She mounted behind me, embracing me for the first time, and we rode to the camp of the orphans. Zeria did as I told her, pretending to check the children for marks, just as the Ouna-Mas did, hiding behind the
veil. They were all in three different tents, and we tried to keep them quiet when a couple of them recognized Zeria. A girl who barely reached my waist. Another seven-wintered with sparkling green eyes holding the hand of her little brother.
Children. I always avoided them. All of them. The Tribe’s, othertriber. Weak, toothless pups, needing someone to feed them, carry them, protect them. It was a great wonder how they managed to survive with us, even for one winter.
The fourth and last child we found was a boy with long brown locks. He could have been my blue-eyed son, but he wasn’t. Zeria burst into tears and covered him under her arms and kissed him all over his face. She grabbed him and ran out of the tent, and I chased after her before the maulers got their scent. She fell to her knees and kissed my hands crying. Her eyes were alive again. I didn’t ask her if the boy was hers. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need to know. I didn’t need to ask. Never had I cared in my life whose child was whose. There were few things that my Tribe had arranged wisely. Our strong children carried blade and bow. The weak ones died, and no one mourned them. All the strong, only the strong, were children of the Tribe. Our children. None of the dead were ours.
I harnessed a two-wheel tumbril to the horse and loaded the children there, leaving Zeria to ride my horse next to me.
In the morning, I brought Drusa, a mid-aged slave woman, into my tent. Baagh had found her days ago, and he asked that we keep her close. He had told me that Sani brought her from one of his first raids in the West and she spoke Zeria’s tongue. Drusa had the soft hands and gentle face of someone who once had slaves of her own. I commanded her to help Zeria with the four children. I brought pails to gather the rainwater outside the tent, then took my blades and weapons away from women and children, and moved to a second tent next to theirs. Enaka decided to help me, if only for a short while. Heavy gray veils the rain was falling upon Sirol, slowing the riders, drowning the sounds. Blades and Witches stayed away from evil doing. I went to sleep alone, and Zeria didn’t ask for me. That night or the next. And a third. Peace before the next storm.
Drakon Book IV: Butterfly Page 6
