Tears of the Dead

by Brian Braden

  With their sco-lo-ti gone on the quest, discord immediately descended on the two clans. Many of the Minnow’s men and elders were killed under the ice floes. After Atta’s death, the Crane naturally fell under Xva’s leadership, but Kus-ge stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. The two patesi-le stood face to face in the center of the flotilla, the fate of their people resting in their hands.

  Kus-ge adamantly argued they continue west along the vanishing coast looking for survivors from other clans, or perhaps even sailing east to seek the shelter of the distant Adyghe Mountains. Xva and Atamoda told the assembled people the coast would likely soon vanish under the floodwaters and they would become hopelessly lost in the powerful current. If they allowed themselves to be swept to sea, the Uros may never find them, and death would surely be their reward. As the sun rose, so did the heated words.

  And then the fireball cut the sky in two.

  As if waiting for the fiery signal, the demons rose in force from the depths. A black slick of ice and hate encircled the flotilla, ripping boats’ hulls and dragging screaming victims into the depths. Men hurled spears into the water with no effect. Women grabbed children and fled to the center of the flotilla.

  The two patesi-le formed a hasty strategy to employ ancient warding magic passed down to both of them by Setenay. Atamoda took the northern flank where the ropes secured the floating island to the submerged köy-lo-hely. Kus-ge positioned herself on the southern end of the flotilla. Atamoda’s and Kus-ge’s combined magic protected most of the flotilla from the unrelenting demonic attacks, but only if they focused all their attention on the warding chants. Any time either one of them lost concentration, the demons swirled in and claimed another boat, another victim.

  Atamoda hadn’t left her boat or talked to Kus-ge since the assault began. Her world shrank to the stretch of water immediately in front of her. Her only news of her people was carried to her by Xva, who wandered the flotilla and tried to keep order.

  Most of the time the demons turned away, but sometimes they didn’t. While the majority of boats were lost during the nights, some were snatched when Atamoda tried to eat or drink or even relieve herself, deepening her sense of guilt. Between the horrible screams of her people being dragged to their doom, and the constant crackling of the demon ice, Atamoda’s sanity began to slip away.

  The demons sensed Atamoda’s exhaustion, and took delight in tormenting her. In her heart, she knew the demons could take them anytime. The flotilla became their plaything, something to be toyed with until they found other sport. Knowing the demons would take Kol-ok and Bat-or if she failed, kept her fighting.

  During the long, terrible nights, the patesi-le blindly chanted into the starless void, arms extended, for hour after grueling hour. The crackling of ice and occasional scream painfully reminded Atamoda that her magic was too weak to protect everyone.

  The demons relented briefly at dawn. That’s when Xva returned to their boat bearing the grim tally of the dead and number of boats lost.

  Now Atamoda scanned the surrounding boats, searching the weary faces of her tribesmen for Xva. A gnawing fear burned through the numbness in her spirit.

  “Get some sleep, Atamoda,” Su-gar repeated.

  “I will, when Xva and Kol-ok return,”

  “What if they don’t come back?” Su-gar fretted.

  “They will!” Atamoda snapped. “They will! And so will my husband!”

  Su-gar shrank back. “I am sorry.”

  Tears welling, Atamoda shook her head and waved her hand. Pressing fingers against eyelids, she willed the emotion and despair back into the dark recesses.

  How many are already dead? The voice in her mind whispered again.

  She took several deep breaths and opened her eyes as control returned.

  “He will return, and so will Aizarg. I know this,” Atamoda said. “Xva must also attend to Sahti.” Xva’s pregnant young wife, helped care for the children in the center of the flotilla.

  Since Atta’s death at the hands of the demons, young Xva stepped into the role as leader of the arun-ki, a role surprisingly unchallenged by the older men. Perhaps it was the trust Atta once placed in the young man, or the overwhelming fear generated by the demons. Perhaps it was the hard look in Xva’s eyes since Atamoda pulled him from the demons’ clutches. Something in the young man’s spirit demanded others follow. For that, Atamoda was thankful.

  As if in answer to a prayer, Xva and Kol-ok stumbled from beyond the huddled mounds and collapsed into the boat between Atamoda and Su-gar. Atamoda threw her arms around Kol-ok’s neck.

  Xva laid his spear across the bottom of the boat, closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath. Sugar leaned over and handed him a water skin and a piece of dried fish. Xva inhaled the food and gulped down the water.

  Xva looked years older. His long sandy hair fell lank over his brow, obscuring what were once piercing hazel eyes. Dark shadows below his eyes mirrored the sky.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked Atamoda.

  “I fight until the Uros returns.” It was the only answer she could give without breaking down again. “What of the flotilla?”

  “With first light I tallied seventy-three boats and rafts.”

  Su-gar gasped and pulled sleeping Ba-tor protectively to her bosom.

  “How many of us remain?” Atamoda whispered.

  “Eighty-five.”

  Atamoda turned away, overwhelmed by a staggering sense of failure.

  “The children?” she finally found the courage to ask.

  “Safe on the center rafts. We lost only men last night; Minnow Clan mostly, from the southern flank. The demons ravaged the outer boats until almost dawn. Without your magic, patesi-le, all would be lost...” Xva opened his mouth to say something else, but held back. Atamoda saw fear behind his exhausted expression.

  “What is it you fear to say?” Atamoda demanded. “Why only the Minnow Clan? Tell me.”

  “Kus-ge collapsed before dawn. We cannot revive her. Her magic no longer shields our people.”

  Atamoda slumped down into the boat.

  Sleep. I just want to sleep.

  She caught a faint odor wafting from the north.

  Venom.

  Xva sat up and looked about. He pressed his hand against the bottom of the boat. “Did you feel that?”

  Atamoda’s heart sank.

  Kol-ok looked over the side where the ropes anchored the flotilla to the Köy-lo-hely.

  “They’re gnawing the ropes again.”

  10. Giant Rising

  Wise men will one day dismiss those dark days as myth. Such things could never be, they will say. Their doubt will be understandable. When the inevitable Age of Disbelief comes to pass, I will not condemn mortals for their ignorance.

  I will rejoice in it.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  The day wore on and so did the wailing from the masses packed on Hur-ar’s rooftops.

  The water, choked with all manner of debris, relentlessly inched up walls and turned the streets into muddy rivers and the Grand Market into a lake.

  The King and his court surveyed the disaster from the palace balconies. The last regent of the City of Gold ran from one edge of the lush rooftop gardens to the other, staring in disbelief at his forsaken city.

  Black claws yanked under all who swam or waded through the muck. Those who tried to row through the streets on makeshift rafts fashioned from doors and tables capsized and vanished.

  On a few rooftops, warriors tried to establish some semblance of order. In most places, however, the strongest preyed on the weak, as the city spasmed in its final moments of life.

  Yet, even in Hur-ar the last bright sparks of love glowed brightly. In isolated pockets, husbands reassured wives, mothers comforted children, and lovers embraced against the coming doom. Beggars and feral children, the forgotten of Hur-ar, clung to high stairwells. Some succumbed to the black claws, while merciful hands pulled others up to their last refuge
.

  Along the city’s edges the strongest struggled to scale the cliffs which, for centuries, shielded the City of Gold. Now those cliffs formed prison walls, confining the damned to their tomb. Above it all, the Black Fortress stood impassively, offering neither judgment nor hope.

  The survivors felt the glacial wave before they saw it. A bass pulse throbbed through the mountains, felt more in the bones than with the ears. Rocks jiggled loose and tumbled down the cliffs, hurling the climbers to their deaths. The vibration strengthened to tremors and tremors swelled to a roar. The roar transformed into a shock wave ripping the roots of the earth from their foundations.

  All of Hur-ar turned west and witnessed the end of all things. Beyond the city parapets and newly formed Black Sea, a sinister line piled above the horizon. It thickened into a wall and merged with the clouds. A sudden blast of cold wind swept the city as if the atmosphere fled in terror.

  The Hur-po spent their last moments in astonishment, possessing no context for what they now witnessed. The world to the west became blackness and simply ceased to exist. For those brave enough to gaze upon it, details of the approaching mile-high wave became discernible in the last seconds. The impossibly black water carried in its vertical face the shattered remains of a scoured continent.

  The glacial wave slammed against the face of the Adyghe Mountains, instantly flattening millions of acres of forest, before exploding into the canyon.

  In seconds, filthy, boiling froth piled against the Cliff Road and transformed Hur Canyon into a lagoon. Beyond the lagoon’s mouth, the glacial wave rampaged south, a ravenous beast flattening, shredding, and submerging anything in its path. Inside the lagoon, the water rose and swirled about, robbed of much of its energy.

  Hur-ar vanished under tons of debris and mud, eternally lost to history.

  Water, the enemy for which the Black Wall had been truly built, climbed higher and higher up the Cliff Road until it sloshed against the outer gate. The bronze bell clunked dully in the current before falling silent forever. The flood pressed against the outer gate’s pitch-sealed kupar logs. Reinforced by a massive interior ramp constructed from layers of Lo reed bags filled with sand, the wall didn’t budge under the intense pressure. Only a trickle penetrated into the holding area between the gates. Tamed by the Black Wall, the flood slowly filled the holding area between the gates. Finally, it crested the inner gate as a gentle waterfall and streamed into the Black Fortress. Repelled by an unseen force, no water demons slipped over the wall into the compound.

  The Black Wall transformed into a dam, the double gates into a lock. The Black Fortress bent the floodwater to the will of the Nameless God.

  A tranquil pool rose around the silent, sealed Ark. The morning’s cooking fire hissed into extinction. Water filled Noah’s stone cottage and covered the wooden supports beneath the Ark. As the water crept up, weight shifted until the Ark’s side boards creaked and popped.

  Almost imperceptibly, the giant rose.

  Borne on the shoulders of the Deluge, the Ark floated higher and higher until the Black Wall itself vanished under the waves. Without so much as bumping the canyon walls, the giant drifted into the lagoon. With seven slow, lazy spins, the Ark passed beyond the two islands that were once the tops of the canyon walls, to join the Black Sea. The current snatched the Ark and carried it swiftly south to its fate.

  Ahead, the clouds thickened.

  11. Demon Dawn

  In the time before my immortal body attained manhood, Mother led me deep into the evergreen forest beyond the Lotus Bridge. On a gray winter day we ventured beyond her domain. After many hours wandering the fern-carpeted eternal twilight, Mother took my hand. Ahead of us sinister growls echoed among ancient the ancient forest, as burly shadows darted beyond the trees.

  She casually spoke, as if we strolled through Nushen’s market, “Do not be afraid. As long as you hold my hand, you are hidden from all harm.”

  We emerged into a bright clearing where a pack of gray wolves cornered a doe and her fawn. They paid us no mind, though we stood in plain view at the edge of the forest.

  Instinctively I pulled away, but she held me there, her face impassively locked on the unfolding drama.

  The doe’s wide, unblinking eyes are forever burned in my memory. Pinned against a cliff, she shielded the trembling fawn behind her. Ragged wounds painted her fur crimson. She darted about, striking out with her front hooves. The doe still possessed the strength to run, but she held her ground, prepared to give her life for her offspring.

  The pack could have taken them both at any time, but they seemed to take pleasure in tormenting the doe. My stomach knotted at the inevitable outcome.

  The wolves withdrew and began to circle in unison, preparing for the final assault. Their almost sexual excitement permeated the clearing like the prickling heat before a thunderstorm. On some unheard signal from the pack leader, the hunters plunged inward like a bolt of lightning.

  Guttural, wet, ripping echoes haunted our footsteps as we slipped away.

  “Why did you bring me to see this?” I asked.

  “To witness the power of a mother’s love, and to know evil lives in all things, not just man.”

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Atamoda focused to her right, where four heavy ropes anchored the flotilla to the submerged köy-lo-hely. The current streamlined the flotilla toward the south and out to sea. One of the lines vibrated heavily, like a fishing line with a carp just starting to nibble the bait. A moment later it popped, went limp, and floated to the surface. If the demons cut the remaining lines the flotilla would quickly drift to sea...

  ...and away from Aizarg. He will never find us.

  Rage exploded in Atamoda’s heart, reinvigorating her will.

  “Damn you, hideous spawn of heli-dar!” She shouted. The patesi-le waved her arms over the water and uttered the ancient warding chant taught to her by Setenay all those years ago; a chant she’d almost forgotten, a chant she’d thought she’d never need.

  Like falling leaves, the submerged shadows drifted away, but not before another line fell limp. The demons lazily fluttered about until they gathered about two dozen yards from the flotilla. There, they massed.

  The reek of venom became overpowering as the surface flattened into an oily sheen. The water seemed to thicken before it hardened into ice. This time, it wasn’t the usual thin crust which often formed wherever the demons swam. Instead, it formed a thick, icy callous that warped the water to their will.

  “What are they doing?” Su-gar whispered.

  “Massing,” Xva said as he grasped his spear and stood in the boat. He turned to the flotilla and shouted. “Here they come!”

  Screams rippled through the flotilla.

  Tears welled in Su-gar’s eyes. Ba-tor woke up and began to cry. Su-gar pulled the little boy closer and reached out to encircle Kol-ok’s neck, but he gently pulled away.

  Su-gar reached out again, but the boy picked up his makeshift spear; the same crude stick he carried everywhere since Aizarg departed on the quest. He considered the demons and then turned to Su-gar.

  “I am the son of a sco-lo-ti, son of the Uros.”

  “You know that spear will do no good!” she cried as the building fear finally overwhelmed her.

  “I know,” Kol-ok replied.

  At that moment Atamoda saw Aizarg standing upon the köy-lo-hely, defiantly shouting No! into the darkness.

  Before I perish, I see my husband’s spirit dwelling in my son.

  Through her pain and exhaustion Atamoda smiled. Pride and love flooded the spaces in her heart hollowed by despair.

  Kol-ok met his mother’s eyes and smiled tenderly. He leaned over and kissed Atamoda on the forehead. He then straightened, hefted his spear, and turned to Xva.

  Xva merely nodded as an unspoken understanding passed between the boy and the man.

  “Men to the perimeter!” Xva shouted. “Women and children to this side of the flotilla
, where Atamoda can protect them!”

  A sense of doom and determination simultaneously gripped the remnants of the Lo nation. Spears clattered and bristled as men dashed from boat to boat towards the perimeter. The last few days had taught that the Lo spears were useless against the demons, but, like Kol-ok, they prepared to fight nevertheless.

  Atamoda’s boat rocked back and forth from the activity on the flotilla behind her. The waves slowly rippled outward toward the ring of ice. Despite the rocking, Xva and Kol-ok stood tall, spears cocked at the ready, in the center of the boat.

  Su-gar clutched Bat-or tightly and pressed herself all the way to the stern, while Atamoda knelt over the bow.

  One woman stood between the Lo and annihilation.

  The patesi-le shook her arms vigorously and prepared to begin her chants anew. Without Kus-ge she could not protect the entire flotilla. She knew that those on the other side would surely die. As she watched the building ice only a few yards away, she doubted she could protect any of them for very long.

  The demons massed under the ice like fish gathering under a dock. Now there were thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. They twisted, slithered, and intertwined in a knotted frenzy, as if waiting for a signal to plunge inward. Pulled along by the demonic undercurrent, the noose of ice groaned and began to rotate.

  They are gathering power.

  Atamoda began her chant, slowly at first and then faster, with more inflection. Grim resolve reinforced her will.

  I will not die in fear.

  As if in response, cracks suddenly formed in the ice ring. Shards splintered and drifted away. Several demons shrank farther back under the rotating rim.

  Atamoda suddenly remembered a sunny day so long ago, when an old patesi-le instructed a young girl on a warm dock over a friendly sea. Setenay made her recite the ancient chants over and over until they were seared into her mind.