by Brian Braden
Vi-nair’s sobbing abated as he peered at the approaching barge. Two shadows stood side-by-side at the front; one large, and obviously a warrior, the other slender and diminutive.
“It was no twist of fate my men captured her last spring,” Virag continued. “She’s a careful, clever girl, but she had a weakness.
“You Lo and your custom of mercy! It seems your father’s fascination with that Scythian witch you called your mother has come back to haunt you. I guess she never truly accepted the Lo ways and filled her granddaughter’s head with romantic images of the steppe.”
Virag jerked Vi-nair’s head toward the approaching barge. The sco-lo-ti’s eyes widened with dawning horror.
“I was more than happy to exploit her illusions, her fantasies.” Virag looked into the distance, his eyes focusing on a place of pain and pleasure and licked his lips. “It’s easier to twist someone to your will when they hate you. Oh, does your daughter hate me! But, my friend, she hates you so much more.
“The little Marsh Flower I captured two summers ago was not the same girl I returned to you. I twisted her into a beautiful and deadly snake.”
Virag drank in the horror on the sco-lo-ti’s face when he recognized the form of Kus-ge on the front of the raft. “Your daughter approaches, sco-lo-ti. She comes to collect her reward for this night’s bloody work. It is time for me to collect my payment as well.”
Virag snatched back the sco-lo-ti’s head and pried open his mouth. He knelt in front of Vi-nair, dagger in hand, blocking his view of the approaching barge.
“She thinks you abandoned her to my clutches, she thinks you were too weak to fight for her. I worked hard to make her believe you abandoned her because of her Scythian blood, because she wasn’t a son.” He looked over his shoulder at the approaching barge. “I imagine her feelings would be vastly different if she knew the barge she rides was paid as ransom. Lies are always sufficient to make one hate, but stronger magic is required to induce betrayal.
With a lightning cut, he sliced out the sco-lo-ti’s tongue. Vi-nair lurched in agony, blood spurting from his mouth.
“The Captain did something even worse, he made Kus-ge think he loves her. For love, Vi-nair, your daughter has betrayed you.”
Virag dangled the bloody organ. “I collected my payment, now it’s safe for your daughter to collect hers. Can’t let her know the truth, can we? That would ruin everything.”
Virag considered the tongue for a briefest of moment before tossing it in the water next to the patesi-le’s corpse.
“Truly important tasks should never be left to someone you trust. They should only be given to someone you’ve twisted.”
Kus-ge leapt the remaining few feet from the barge to the dock. “Where is he?” she demanded.
***
She pulled a long, thin dagger from the band around her thigh. “There is another beside Atamoda we must eliminate,” she said, toying with the blade tip. “Sana must die.”
Virag raised an eyebrow at this unexpected turn. He’d considered approaching the Scythian as a potential ally.
“The Scythian girl is dangerous,” Kus-ge said. “The longer she lives among the Lo, the closer she gravitates to Atamoda. She will only grow stronger among them.”
Virag’s eyes narrowed. “You fear her?”
“No.” Kus-ge snapped too quickly. “But she has power, and she’s too close to Ghalen.
“Ghalen hates her.”
She barked a short laugh, “Men know nothing! He hates the way she makes him feel. She twists him, and he twists her. Soon, they will be entwined and it will be too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“The cutting.”
Virag held his face up to the downpour. “Dawn approaches. We must slip back to expected places.
“One enemy at a time,” Virag said as he turned to make his way back through the sea wall. “Leave the Scythian alone for now. Raise no suspicion. Proceed with our plan.”
***
Virag stepped out of her way as Kus-ge halted a few paces, face blank as she considered her father.
“What did you do to him?”
Virag shrugged. “He insulted me, so I cut out his tongue.”
“He was mine. You lied!” she fell upon Virag, slashing at him with a straight iron blade.
“You bitch,” he dodged backwards. “I only promised he’d be alive and conscious. Put that knife away or I’ll cut your tongue out with it!”
Bal-eeb snatched Kus-ge back. She struggled, but only briefly. Bal-eeb considered Virag as if deciding whether or not to kill him. “We had a deal, slaver. Why do you break it?”
“I didn’t break it. She gets to take her father’s head while he still lives. You promised me one item of booty of my choice, which I took. I wanted his tongue. She gets her prize, and I get mine.”
Bal-eeb nudged her forward. “The slaver kept his bargain, I keep mine. Take your vengeance, and let us be off before dawn to finds us here.”
He turned to one of his men. “Fish out the rest of the bodies. Drag them deep into the marsh and bury them. Leave no arrows. Not one trace, we can neither give Prince Tuma nor the Lo any idea who did this.”
The warrior nodded and returned to the barge.
Virag looked on intently as Kus-ge knelt before her father.
She held up the long knife inches from her father’s face. “This is one of the five knives Grandmother bestowed to me in secret, after Mother refused to take them. She called it Vengeance. Grandmother did not give it lightly, making me swear an oath to one day to slay one of her enemies. This, I will do. But before it can feast on old hate, it must taste new hate...the hate I carried for you since you abandoned me.”
Kus-ge lightly traced the tip across her father’s neck. Tears filled Vi-nair’s eyes. He shook his head and groaned.
She doesn’t see her father’s sorrow.
“I dreamt of asking you why...why you let me suffer at Virag’s hands, and why you sent me off to that fool Ba-lok so soon after I escaped.” Kus-ge scowled up at Virag. “I will add this insult to the long list for which you will one day pay.”
The Hur soldiers looked on with lustful gazes, anticipating the evening’s final bloodsport.
Bal-eeb considered the events with iron impassivity.
“I cannot ask why,” Kus-ge traced the blade down Vi-nair’s chest until it rested against his abdomen. “But I can make you suffer.”
The blade darted and her father’s innards spilled on the dock.
Bal-eeb grasped her arm. “It is done. We must leave.”
“I must watch him suffer.”
“He will die in agony. That must be enough.”
Kus-ge pulled away only for a moment before succumbing to Bal-eeb’s will. They turned and stepped back onto the barge. In a moment it drifted away across the darkening lagoon as the fires finally reached the water line.
Before Virag turned to enter his own boat along with his henchmen, he knelt down next to the sco-lo-ti one last time. His dagger flashed, ending a father’s pain.
***
Virag cautiously made his way to his boat, finding his footing easier this time. He slipped into the boat and curled up, listening to wind and rain between Spako’s snores. The slaver contemplated his new alliance, and the Snake’s strange hatred of the Scythian girl.
She seeks control of the food for power. I seek power to control the food. She’s always been an ambitious girl.
Tomorrow he would get out of this boat and walk the deck. Much needed to be done.
30. The Second Council of Boats
The Lo refer to those times aboard the arun-ki as “when sea and sky became one.”
Some days wind and waves assaulted the arun-ki, and the rain pelted the canopy like a cloud of stinging hornets. In those times, the Crane and Minnow became one and fought the sea together. During the Days of Waves, the Lo were strong.
Other times the sea rested flat and lifeless under a heavy blanket of rain. Duri
ng the Days of Rain, the Crane and Minnow bickered and were weak.
The Uros hoped for Days of Rain, but Atamoda prayed for Days of Waves.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
The rain pounded so hard against the canopy, Atamoda thought it would crush it flat. The deck lay still enough she might have thought her feet rested on solid ground. The brazier burned too hot, and the air felt thick and fetid. She almost hoped for a storm to stir the suffocating air.
Crowded on the Köy-lo-hely, they watched intently as the Uros and his council discussed the future. Ba-lok and Kus-ge knelt on the right side of the Spine, their clan behind them. Xva and the Crane sat opposite. All faced inward, toward the brazier and the staff resting in its hole. Atamoda knelt to Aizarg’s immediate right, next to Levidi, the Staff Bearer. This had become the order, the new way of things. Across from them, Okta sat with Ezra and Ghalen, with Sana kneeling in the shadows behind them. Atamoda sensed danger hidden deep in this arrangement, and in the hearts of those gathered around the brazier.
Her husband and his staff lorded over all. Elevated upon a low stool fashioned from driftwood and cloaked in fox furs, Aizarg’s shoulders looked too large, too a’gan.
Aizarg rose and addressed the council. “Let us begin this Council of Boats with thanks to the Nameless God for delivering us from the flood.”
“Are we truly delivered, Uros?” Kus-ge asked with sharp tongue and innocent eyes.
“We live, and carry hope in our hearts. That is enough. There is much to be done before we see the sun again. The sea comes first, so let us now hear from the Master of Boats.”
Aizarg resumed his place upon the stool. Okta entered the council center and dropped a section of badly stained rope onto the deck.
“Rope, we’ve plenty. Canopy...” Okta waved over his head. “The arun-ki is covered from end to end. The sea anchor holds, and we reinforce the storm wall whenever we can. The water isn’t as choked with driftwood and logs as it was only a day or two ago, but the flood has provided almost all we need to reinforce the arun-ki.”
“Almost?” Aizarg asked.
“We’ve worked miracles in seven days, Uros. No doubt of that. We’ve found plenty of reed and pine floating in the sea, but what we can’t do is boil pitch. Your clans boil pitch in the shore camps, mine in a giant bronze pan constructed in the center of our Köy-lo-hely. These tiny braziers won’t work, not even close.”
Levidi frowned. “Our boats are already pitched, as are our rafts.”
“Pitched, but damaged. We’ve made repairs, but none of it is sealed. Chunks of unprotected wood and reed now lay bare to this filthy water.”
He picked up the rope and held it high over his head with both hands. Okta turned to the crowd. “This is the line from the old sea anchor.” With a quick snap, Okta yanked it in two.
A gasp went up.
Okta shook both ends. “This is pitched Minnow rope, fresh and strong when we put it in the water three weeks ago.”
“The sea reeks like swamp water, and every fisherman knows swamp water rots unpitched hulls. This water rots everything, pitch or no pitch.”
“How long?” Aizarg said.
“The outer boats, the ones along the storm wall, will waterlog first. Those are heavily patched or rebuilt from crushed hulls. As for the family boats along the rim,” he paused as if calculating something in his mind, “I give them two weeks before they won’t support weight. Those families will have to shift to the inner rafts.”
“The inner rafts weren’t as heavily damaged,” Ghalen added.
Okta shook his head. “No, they weren’t. The wedding barges are as stout as I’ve ever seen. They’ll float almost forever. The other rafts are in various stages of seaworthiness.”
Okta paused and rubbed his beard. He knelt down and tapped the thickly corded ropes banding the deck logs together. “These are the weak points. We’ll have to keep a close eye on our ropes. They’ll break before the logs sink. All our new rope isn’t pitched, so whatever we use to mend will break in a week or two.”
“So we inspect,” Ba-lok shrugged. “We inspect and replace every day until we make landfall.”
Okta shook his head slowly.
“It’s not that easy,” Okta said. “When the great wave struck, when the storms were their worst, our boats were strong. While we’ve reinforced the arun-ki in periods of relative calm, our underbelly is weak. One good wave and rafts could disintegrate without warning.
“It’s the water, Uros!” Okta threw his hands up. “And all the while this infernal rain isn’t helping. We’re rotting from the top and the bottom!”
Atamoda thought about how she’d noticed their skins and flaxen weaves starting to rot under the unrelenting moisture. Even with the canopy, the water penetrated everything. Her thoughts drifted again to their food supply. Atamoda sensed a rot beginning to settle in their hearts, too.
“What do you propose?” Aizarg asked.
“As Ba-lok said, inspect, every day. And not just the decks, we need to dive under and look at the bottoms. From the rib gaps, we can dive under and inspect the inner vessels, while inspecting the outer vessels from the rim.
“The seas and rain seem to be their lightest at dawn, so, with your permission Uros, I’ll organize inspection parties each morning once we have sufficient light.”
Aizarg nodded. “Thank you, Master of Boats. Do what you must. Ba-lok, you will assist him in this.
“The arun-ki must have a sound foundation if we are to weather the storms to come. This is not only a foundation of wood and reed, of rope and sail. We must also attend to the needs of the flesh, and these questions are not so easily resolved.
“Most of us are Minnow or Crane, but all of us are Lo. As Lo we are unified. Ba-lok is my second; should I fall, he will take my place. Levidi is my Staff Bearer, chosen by the Nameless God to wield the symbol of His promise. Among us sits the brother of Ma-sok, sco-lo-ti of the Turtle. Ghalen, rise and come forward.”
Ghalen stood, and entered the circle.
He’s changed so much, like the rest of the men who ventured on the quest. The playful twinkle in his eye vanished with the sun, replaced with hard-edge seriousness. Ghalen became their lion, their warrior, leading the daily fight for survival. The Uros had come to count on Ghalen to carry out his edicts, including the unpopular policy of confiscating all the food and storing it on the Supply Barge.
“In times before, a man’s catch was his, to share or not to share,” Ghalen began. “No one, not even the sco-lo-ti, could take what a man caught or hunted. Now, the world is different. At the Uros’ command, I collected all the food shortly after the great wave.” Ghalen gestured to Atamoda and Kus-ge. “Our patesi-le inspected and rewrapped all the food and stored it aboard the Supply Barge. Thanks to their efforts, we salvaged more food than I expected, but it is still woefully inadequate.”
Ghalen paused, crossed his arms, and continued. “I know your bellies ache, but we must cut the rations by a third.”
A collective groan went up.
Sahti went pale and bowed her head. Xva put his arm around his wife.
Ghalen continued undeterred. “We must stretch our meager resources until we make landfall or until the fish return. When the seas allow, Ba-lok and Xva will lead men throwing nets along the rim. But I suspect, wherever they may have gone, the fish will not return until the debris and silt settle out.” Ghalen nodded to Atamoda.
She rose and addressed the council. “Except for the children and Sahti, we will no longer issue a morning ration. Our expecting mother and the children will receive half a hand in the morning and at sunset. Women and elders will receive half a hand at sunset; men, one and a half.”
“What of the a’gan?” Ba-lok said. “They are worse than children, totally worthless.”
“Sana will receive a woman’s portion. Virag and his giant will receive an elder’s portion,” Atamoda said.
“Ezra will receive a man’s portion,” Okta int
erjected, arms crossed and eyeing the crowd as if daring anyone to challenge him.
Dissatisfied murmurs floated about the barge as she sat down.
Ghalen continued. “Someone will be on the Supply Barge at all times to guard the food.”
Aizarg stood again and motioned for Ghalen to resume his place. “The fish will return. The Nameless God did not bring us this far to abandon us to starvation. Until the seas yield their bounty again, Ghalen speaks for me in all matters regarding our common stores.”
A shadow passed over Aizarg’s face. “Until that time, we will be hungry. Be warned, if anyone is caught stealing food, or hording...that person will be exiled.”
Atamoda’s heart caught in her throat.
Why does he say this? To exile one here, afloat in the Black Sea carries a sentence of death. To sentence one to death, even for murder, was forbidden.
Levidi leaned in, “Uros, what you say...”
“I know what I say. To steal from one is to steal from us all, as it is to horde.”
The Lo sat in silence, the Uros’s words falling heavier than the rain. Atamoda knew each searched their soul. She expected Ba-lok to protest, but he only stared at the deck.
“The Uros is most wise,” Kus-ge purred and bowed her head.
The Lo dispersed to their respective sides of the Spine, talking quietly of the council events. Atamoda held Aizarg’s arm. “We must speak.”
31. Flutterings
“How can a leader listen to the hearts of his people if he is deaf to his own?” – Conversations with the Uros
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
“Why?” Atamoda shouted above the roar.
“If we cannot control our food, we cannot survive.” Aizarg gripped his staff as if the wind would steal it away.
A fresh storm rolled in from the north, and with it a spectacular lightning display raged overhead. They leaned into the wind, enduring the pelting rain aboard the bow raft. She insisted they talk here, the only place in the arun-ki they could speak privately.
