Tears of the Dead

by Brian Braden

  With a spinning kick I struck at his neck, but missed. He whirled about, and I felt the blade kiss upon my thigh. I leapt backwards in a somersault, my wound sealing before I touched the sand. Crouched beneath his next slash, my sword thrust up and found his right forearm. Shocked, he withdrew and examined the wound. It sealed in seconds, his blood evaporating off the sand in a barely discernible sizzle.

  He flexed his hand several times in amazement, perhaps shocked. The red warriors exchanged worried glances as they stepped back a few paces.

  Had they ever seen their god bleed?

  The black god lunged again, fueled by careless rage.

  Another opportunity presented itself, and I thrust my blade into a gap below his armpit. He pivoted at the last moment as the tip snapped away with a hot spark, my sword deflected downward.

  Off balance for only a blink of an eye, I fell forward, and he slashed at my neck. I yanked up my sword to block, but the red metal cut through the bronze as a scythe slices through the harvest wheat. My sword lay in two pieces on the sand, its edges glowing and molten.

  His red blade halted a hair’s breadth from my neck.

  The black god didn’t press his attack. Instead, he sheathed his sword, pulled me up, and hugged me as if we were long-lost friends, laughing the whole time.

  With questioning brow, he tapped my chest.

  “Fu Xi,” I answered.

  “Foo-Zi...” My name rolled off his lips slowly, as if he tested it, perhaps searching his thoughts for any glimmer he had heard it spoken before.

  The black god slapped his chest and proclaimed his own name, each syllable dripping with glorious pride and power.

  “Leviathan!”

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Fu Xi tossed the cured goat hide pot full of cooked human flesh over the cliff.

  Bandits and cannibals, I should have guessed.

  Fu Xi felt his wounds close and then reopen as he searched the Donkey Men’s camp for food and supplies. He touched the gashes and sniffed.

  Poison.

  Already weakened, his body could not fully reject the poison and seal his wounds.

  Perhaps it will take longer than usual. Fu Xi pressed on through the pain and continued to search the camp. Leather bags full of rotted leather, furs, bone trinkets, and primitive tools comprised their meager treasures. Keeping a bag and a few of the most promising furs and scraps for himself, he left the rest. Other than a crusty, green copper knife, he found nothing of use.

  A pile of human bones, some freshly picked, sat just under the ledge and out of the rain. A few looked as if they’d been gnawed on. Too exhausted to feel outraged, Fu Xi simply used a stick to sweep the remains over the edge as well. Soon, only the brush pile and fire remained.

  He knew by the relative absence of refuse, this wasn’t the Donkey Men’s normal hideout. The flood likely pushed them into the mountains, as it had Fu Xi, where they preyed on other refugees.

  Fu Xi conducted a cursory search of the cave’s edges and found the narrow goat path the Donkey Men took up the cliff to the cave. If any more of this vile band lingered in the storm, they’d have to approach from this direction. Satisfied, Fu Xi returned to the fire and took off his lion skin, laying it as close to the fire as he dared to dry it out.

  He pulled a few large branches off the pile. The wood, completely dry and desiccated, almost crumbled in his grip.

  This is beyond dry rot. Old, perhaps even ancient, the dry mountain air had preserved the timber from decomposition.

  Jabbing pain penetrated his side. Fu Xi examined his abdomen where a trickle of blood still leaked from one of the knife wounds. It wasn’t healing as fast as usual.

  He dabbed his finger in the blood and sniffed it.

  I’m not familiar with this kind of poison.

  He needed to rest. His immortality could only sustain flesh for so long. Without food he may cease healing at all.

  He broke off a few more pieces of wood, light as the papyrus he’d seen in Wu, and laid them on the fire. The limbs blazed brilliantly and were gone in moments. Thankfully, they created a lasting coal bed.

  Fu Xi’s eyes soon grew heavy. Eventually, the lion skin dried out. He wrapped himself in its warm embrace and laid down his head on the smooth, bare rock.

  It’s so smooth, like a river stone. Something about the brush pile and cave floor gnawed at Fu Xi, but the nagging thought lost to his weariness.

  “’Nyah’...what the hell does that mean, anyway?” the demigod whispered before sleep finally found him.

  ***

  A cheer went up from the red men. Leviathan motioned me to come with him back across the sea. I acquiesced, my curiosity piqued.

  In truth, I willingly succumbed to his spell, fully and without reservation. Euphoric from the battle, I climbed aboard Leviathan’s great ship. I only looked back long enough to witness the red men stripping their dead and abandoning the bodies on the beach.

  Thus began my long, self-induced blindness.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  17. Arun-ki

  “My men may have bravely rearranged the vessels in treacherous seas, but it was the Lo women who stitched them together. On that day, we ceased being a flotilla and truly became an arun-ki, if only for a little while.” – Conversations with the Uros.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Wind whipping his soaked tunic, the Uros leaned into the gale upon the bow raft. He stared out across the water, as if oblivious to the flurry of activity transpiring behind him. Atamoda knew the wind pushed them backwards, but the wind and waves painted the illusion that they plowed headlong into the waves with great speed, as if the hand of the Nameless God drove them onward.

  The Uros grasped the top of the anchor pylon, the thick cypress log lashed to the bow raft’s deck by seemingly endless rope loops. Two ropes, both thicker than a man’s bicep, led away from the pylon. One trailed a few feet to where Ghalen busily organized a team of men around the new sea anchor; Ba-lok, Ezra, Levidi, and Kol-ok among them.

  A collapsed bag, wider than two men were tall, ruggedly constructed of tightly woven reeds, and reinforced with rings of thickly twisted ropes, Okta promised this sea anchor would grip the waters like a mighty claw.

  By contrast, the old sea anchor, barely managed to keep the flotilla pointed into the wind. A temporary collection of stitched sails, its thin and knotted line had broken numerous times, sending the flotilla floundering dangerously and forcing Ghalen to take a boat to retrieve it.

  The team would haul in the old anchor immediately before deploying the new anchor. Both could not be simultaneously deployed, Okta warned, lest they tangle and collapse. The transition would be perilous and must go exactly as planned, or the flotilla could turn broadside into the waves.

  The other cable secured to the anchor pylon ran in the opposite direction, straight down the center of the flotilla.

  The Spine.

  My rope. Atamoda allowed herself a brief, self-satisfied smile as she admired the women’s handiwork. She waited under a meager line of canopies with the rest of the Lo women, including Sana, looking on as the men prepared to fulfill Okta’s vision.

  “Where is he?” Kus-ge huffed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Atamoda peered over her shoulder, searching for the Master of Boats beneath the patchwork of reed canopies erected over the center rafts. “Okta had business to attend to at the stern. He’ll be along shortly.”

  “Why can’t they just toss it in?” Su-gar asked.

  “Aizarg wanted the Master of Boats here for this moment,” Atamoda responded.

  “This moment is cold and wet,” Kus-ge said. “I want to dry off.”

  “The sooner the bow is reliably pointed into the wind, the sooner we can raise the remainder of the canopies. Until that time, we can’t start a fire in our braziers,” the old Minnow woman Ro-xandra said from Kus-ge’s right.

  Except for those tending the childre
n on the Supply Barge, all the women were present. Atamoda studied the line of faces she’d worked shoulder-to-shoulder with since the council meeting. In that time, the flotilla had transformed from a collection of logs and reeds into a floating village, an arun-ki. She shook her head, amazed at how much had changed in only a short time.

  It feels like an eternity.

  To Atamoda, the mighty cable they called the Spine symbolized the Lo’s salvation. For two straight weeks the women had labored, at first under driving rain, and then under hastily erected reed canopies. Day and night, Okta paced the decks shouting like a Sammujad slave master, “More cords!”; “Make it thicker!”; “More, more, more!” Only the constant lightning and pitching decks kept the women from outright mutiny. They feared the sea more than the Master of Boats. Slowly, they transformed heaps of reeds, scooped from the sea, into fiber cords. In turn, they bound and wrapped the cords into the mighty cable, perhaps the strongest rope ever woven, which now lay at her feet.

  Now her knees throbbed, and her hands and joints were swollen to the point she could barely bend them. Weariness filled every inch of her aching bones, but only pride and satisfaction mattered now.

  The Spine formed the flotilla’s centerline, binding and aligning the five largest rafts, the core rafts, end to end. At the heart of these rested the two wedding barges, the Supply Barge, and the Köy-lo-hely. Heavy rope joints secured the Spine at three points on each raft, while normal mooring lines attached all the rafts along the corners. The Spine bore the brunt of the sea’s assault, while distributing the waves’ violent jolts evenly across the length of the flotilla.

  The men, including Aizarg, were shocked when Okta, contrary to all the Lo knew of seamanship, demanded small gaps, slightly less than a man’s stride, between the rafts’ fore and aft sides. Okta carried the day, but only after reluctantly agreeing to Ba-lok’s demands that tightly bound reed bundles be secured to each raft’s corners. Okta insisted these bumpers were unnecessary but wouldn’t interfere with his design.

  Seven slightly less robust cables ran perpendicular to the Spine, attached along its axis at the rope joints. Okta dubbed these “ribs.” They linked seven rows of rafts, radiating laterally from the Spine. Each rib consisted of three to seven rafts, largest toward the core with the smaller rafts at the edges. This arrangement gave the flotilla a roughly oval appearance. Okta insisted the ribs must run centerline across each row, and the gaps in each row must align, even if it meant excessive gaps between rafts.

  Atamoda remembered how Okta explained it to the council. “The sea anchor aligns the Spine with the sea. The Spine binds the core and lessens the sea’s anger. The ribs wrap the flotilla to the Spine.” He held his palm up flat and then bent his knuckles. “The hand’s joints work as one, fingers aligned for strength and unity. If the joints and ribs are not aligned, they work in opposition.”

  Atamoda couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that it was all for naught. She could not see the fruition of Okta’s vision, and suspected, neither did the men. Yes, perhaps the flotilla crested the waves with slightly less whiplash, but now the water sloshed excessively up through the gaps, spreading silt and flotsam across all the decks, not just the periphery. Also, now that the flotilla had more of an oval shape, it wanted to spin atop the waves, as opposed to aligning with them. This put tremendous stress on the spine, corner mooring lines, and even the wedding barges.

  While perhaps the strongest rope ever fashioned by the Lo, the Spine jerked uncomfortably left and right against the attachment knots. Sometimes it bunched up with too much play, only to suddenly snap tight when a large wave rolled beneath the decks. Even Atamoda knew, after a few more days of this unrelenting lateral motion, the Spine would begin to fray and inevitably snap. In fact, the obvious progress Atamoda saw in Okta’s design lay in the flotilla’s prow, which absorbed the brunt of the sea’s fury.

  The prow consisted of three large rafts and one common raft, arranged into a curved bow. Unoccupied barrier boats, turned sideways and firmly lashed to the rafts’ leading edges, were piled head high with tightly cinched driftwood. The barrier boats, in turn, were protected by a line of heavy driftwood logs, tied two deep to the windward flank. Together, the logs, boats, and wall formed a crude barrier Okta called the storm wall. Ideally, all the boats secured along the flotilla’s flanks would be shielded in the storm wall’s shadow.

  But so far the flotilla wallowed too much for the storm wall to serve as an effective shield.

  And now they waited for Okta, the Master of Boats, before deploying the sea anchor.

  “How much longer will Aizarg wait?” Levidi’s wife, Alaya, asked. “Shouldn’t someone fetch Okta?”

  Pale and drawn, Sahti stood next to Alaya, rubbing her swollen belly nervously. Atamoda told Xva’s expecting wife to wait under the canopies, but she insisted on seeing the sea anchor’s deployment. Sahti’s baby, and their dwindling food supply, had become constant sources of worry for the patesi-le.

  Sahti, a meek girl who rarely spoke, seemed to read Atamoda’s thoughts. “I am well, patesi-le. Do not worry.”

  Atamoda pushed the uncomfortable thought from her mind and once again looked to the stern. “If the Uros can wait, we can wait.”

  ***

  “There! It’s done.” Okta beamed as he finished lashing the tiny boat to the flotilla’s stern, straddling the boundary between the Crane and Minnow Clans.

  “What are you so happy about, Marsh Man?” Virag croaked, fighting not to vomit again.

  Okta shot him an evil look. “Your new home was the final boat I had to secure. The flotilla is complete.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Virag sneered.

  Okta ignored him and rattled off a series of instructions on basic seamanship, most of which Virag ignored. With white knuckles, the once mighty Sammujad slaver gripped the raft’s mast as the rain pelted him unmercifully. Okta quickly secured a tattered reed mat over the little boat to keep Virag and Spako somewhat dry.

  Spako, the only surviving remnant of Virag’s Sammujad body guard, knelt on all fours at the edge of the raft, heaving his breakfast into the water. The giant man’s back arched like a cat.

  Okta casually stepped around Spako and continued to issue instructions. He handed Virag a clay jar. “Use this to bail out the boat. Keep the canopy tight and the sides cinched down, or the wind will get under it and blow it away. Remember, the canopy will not only keep out the rain, but most of the sea. The vessel is now your responsibility.”

  “Answer me this, how are the both of us supposed to fit in there?”

  “This arrangement is the Uros’ will, not mine. A proper Lo man must learn to build a boat before he can command one. If this vessel sinks, you’ll have to sleep exposed on a periphery raft with nothing to protect you from the elements.” Okta’s barely suppressed grin infuriated Virag even more.

  Virag leaned against the mast, fighting to control his lurching stomach. He watched horrified as the frail craft repeatedly slammed the adjacent raft.

  “We’ll be smashed to bits! That toy won’t last an hour.”

  “We’re about to deploy a larger sea anchor. If the line holds, it will dampen most of the whiplash here at the stern. You’re...” Okta flashed that damn grin again, “...downstream. It’s the safest place in the entire flotilla. Trust me.”

  Virag grew suspicious.

  That bastard is playing me for a fool.

  He wanted to complain, but lacked the will. Clinging to a mast day after day in fear of being swept overboard, continuously pelted by sea and rain, drained him of the strength to fight.

  Okta nudged Spako with his foot and pointed to the boat. “Get in,” he commanded.

  Like a beast, Spako crawled the few remaining feet and slid his enormous bulk under the canopy. The boat sank several inches.

  Okta lifted part of the canopy and motioned for Virag to enter. The slaver felt like a piece of livestock being led to the slaughter pen. The little vessel would either be a sanct
uary or a coffin. Right now he was too tired to care which.

  Resigned, Virag crawled in after Spako.

  Spako’s enormous bulk raised Virag’s end several inches. Up and down, side to side, Virag’s head snapped sideways in an unending whiplash. He’d once seen a Scythian break a wild horse, and he’d wondered how the warrior stayed atop the bucking beast without breaking his neck. Now Virag rode the bucking horse, but gripping the boat’s sides did nothing to stabilize the world.

  Again and again, he lifted the tarp and vomited over the side. He cursed Okta. He cursed Aizarg. He cursed Spako, now blissfully asleep. Virag cursed the entire Lo nation and his mother for bringing him into this world.

  ***

  “Here comes a big one!” Ghalen shouted and pointed off the bow. A rogue wave poked above the line of storm-driven crests. Everyone braced as it slammed against the storm wall. Spray washed across the entire flotilla. Water gushed over the sticks and drained away between logs and boats. The Spine twisted back and forth with creaks and pops as rafts slammed against one another. Atamoda felt the flotilla lurch sideways down the backside of the wave, almost ninety degrees to the wind. Only with agonizing slowness did the old sea anchor slowly draw the bow back into the wind.

  Ghalen marched to Atamoda, “Where is Okta? We’re sliding around like a pig in the mud.” Ghalen kicked the Spine. “If we get hit like that again, the only thing this will be good for is tangling us up.”

  “Okta said he needed to finish some work at the stern. He will be here,” Atamoda said.

  Ghalen exhaled and turned to rejoin the men on the bow raft. Aizarg hadn’t budged, even with the wave. He still guarded the narrow gap in the storm wall, grasping the pylon, staring out to sea.

  “Let’s deploy it without him,” she heard one of the men say.

  “Yes, deploy the anchor,” Kus-ge shouted through cupped hands. Soon, other Minnow women joined her in a chorus of frustration.

  “We wait for the Master of Boats.” Aizarg called over his shoulder.