by Sam Ferguson
Samek rose to his feet and offered a slight bow of his head. “Akuhn bless the hands that feed us,” he said.
Halsten returned the customary greeting. “Akuhn bless the hands that feed us,” he said. “I hear you slew a boar, surely that is a fine feat for any man.”
Samek smiled and nodded. “They are as deadly as they are stubborn.”
“Tell him how you jumped on it and drove your knife into the boar’s skull, Samek!”
Samek smiled and puffed a bit of air.
Halsten smiled and nodded. “I bet Samek could have won with even his bare hands,” he said. “Samek has arms strong as birch trees.”
Samek took the compliment with a laugh and shook his head. “I am not the one who wrestled a black bear upon my twenty-first birthday.”
Halsten smiled wide. Everyone in the village knew that story, and they liked to remind him of it often. “It was the ale; it gave me a bit more strength than usual,” Halsten said.
“Perhaps a bit more courage than usual, but strength is not something you have ever lacked,” Samek replied. His smile then faded and he pointed over Halsten’s shoulder. “Your wife is coming.”
Halsten turned to see the most beautiful woman in the entire village. She was of sturdy stock, tough enough to work or fight beside him, but she had curves in all the right places. Her auburn hair shone in the light of the sun, with traces of black and red showing through. Her dark, brown eyes always seemed to twinkle when Halsten gazed upon them. Some couples in the village had let their fires cool over time, but not Halsten and Agatha. No, even after nine years of marriage, the fire still burned strong between them. She offered a smile, and then quickly shook her head.
“Sarkis, go and play, I need to speak with your father.”
Halsten leaned to the side and gently set his son on the ground. He then moved toward his wife and the two embraced and shared a kiss, lips pressed together hard and her body rising up to meet his. As she stepped back from him and let her hands slide back down his arms, he watched her and marveled at how favorably Akuhn had treated him when she had made their union. Surely the Wolf Goddess knew something Halsten didn’t, for he never would have expected to be so lucky.
Agatha came from a neighboring tribe. Born and raised a chief’s daughter, she could have chosen any Varvarr prince for her husband. By a fortunate twist of fate, she had chosen Halsten.
“Father slew a deer today,” Sarkis cut in.
Agatha looked down and nodded at her son. “Yes, I can see that.” She reached up and picked a patch of bloodied fur off of Halsten’s shoulder. “I’ll have your clothes washed tomorrow,” she said. “Come, I want to discuss something with you.”
“Can I come?” Sarkis asked.
“Not this time,” Halsten said quickly. “We have grown-up things to talk about. Go on and play, dinner will be ready soon. We’ll join you then.”
“I don’t know about that,” Agatha said, her voice taking on a slight air of sternness that wiped Sarkis’ smile from his face.
“All right,” Sarkis said as he turned and went back to Samek.
Agatha looked back to Halsten, her eyes beaming at him. “You have been gone all day, and we have much to discuss. You might miss dinner.”
“I see.” Halsten smiled wide and the two moved toward their home. No sooner had they entered the log house and bolted the door shut than Agatha grabbed Halsten by the front of his shirt and pulled him close for another kiss. This one was longer and hard at first, then gradually softened. Halsten reached down, sliding his hands over her and then scooping her up into his arms. He carried his wife to the bed for their ‘discussion.’
CHAPTER TWO
Kamal sat atop a rocky hill overlooking a field of wild grasses and large juniper trees. His knees were tucked up close to his chest with his arms wrapped around his legs. His teeth nervously chewed at his lower lip as he watched the scene unfold in the field below.
There were two hundred dwarves, led by Reu their chieftain. Even from this distance Kamal knew which dwarf was Reu due to the lavish gold and platinum embellishments on the armor. The other dwarves wore sets of steel plate mail, which didn’t even come close to shining as brilliantly as Reu’s suit of armor. The dwarves stood in a rectangular formation, four rows of fifty dwarves each, with Reu in the front.
Opposite the dwarves was an even larger force of Tarthun warriors. Kamal had already counted them and found that they outnumbered the dwarves two to one.
There had been many battles of late, much more than Kamal could remember. The Tarthuns pressed southward into the valley below the Inner Sea. They had already slain nearly four hundred Krilo in the last three months since the spring thaw had fallen upon the valley. Each time the Tarthuns marauded a town or village, they pushed the Krilo further south. In return, the dwarves would come out from the hills and push the Tarthuns back to the north. It was a terribly costly game in which little territory was ultimately won.
Kamal, as with the others of his kind, could not fight in the battles. Krilo followed the Way of Wisdom, as taught by the Ancient dragon Interis Aruhat. The Way of Wisdom dictated that all life was precious, and disciples of Interis Aruhat could not take up the sword against other life, not even to defend themselves.
Many decades ago, when the Krilo had first come to this valley, pushed out of Kushmin Forest by the locals there who had reviled them and persecuted them, the dwarves had taken pity upon the Krilo and offered to protect them. The Krilo accepted, and in return they offered the dwarves half of their harvest of grains, fruits, and vegetables. Both races provided the other with a service they could not perform for themselves. The dwarves were terrible farmers, and preferred to stay inside their caves in any case, but they were excellent fighters, and their weapons and armor made them a most formidable foe.
However, there was another part of the agreement between the peoples that was far more significant than just offering food as tribute to the dwarves. The chief of the dwarf clan had told the Krilo of a great temple complex in the valley. They said that it was of great importance to them, but because it had been dedicated to the Old Gods, they could not enter the temple of protect the artifacts inside. So, as the Krilo could not fight, but relished knowledge, and the dwarves relished fighting but could not enter the temple and protect or reclaim the artifacts, the two struck a mutually beneficial accord. The dwarves protected the Krilo, and the Krilo would work to rebuild the temple.
Still, no matter how many times the dwarves beat the Tarthuns back, the raiders always returned. They always pressed deeper into Krilo territory. The Krilo had been pressed to the southernmost reaches of the valley where the lush, verdant fields meet the brown, sterile rock of the great mountains that surrounded the valley and the Inner Sea. Now only one settlement of the Krilo remained unharmed. Toelvug. It was a great city by Krilo standards, but of little complexity or splendor when compared to the larger cities erected by the other human races beyond the mountains. Many miles to the north of Toelvug stood a building most sacred to Kamal and his people.
A temple dedicated to Interis Aruhat.
Kamal had watched the Tarthuns long enough over the last several years to realize that they wanted the temple, though he wasn’t sure why. According to Kamal’s father, the temple had been overrun with weeds and was in heavy disrepair when the Krilo settled Toelvug. It was the Krilo people who had rebuilt over the standing foundation, and turned it into the splendor that it was now. It was the Krilo who had cut the stone, polished it, and carved it. It was the Krilo who had stocked the shelves with books.
The Tarthuns had never been spotted until more than a year after the temple had been in use by the Krilo.
From what Kamal knew of Tarthuns, and from what history Reu had told him during their infrequent meetings, the Tarthuns were an agnostic people, refusing to adhere to any religion at all. Furthermore, there had been no treasures found in the temple site, or useful items of any kind actually.
So what was it th
ey wanted?
Kamal sighed as a cry went up among the Tarthun army, and warriors held their weapons high in the air. He could see that the negotiations had failed. There would be much blood today.
A voice entered Kamal’s head.
“This has been building for some time now,”
Kamal knew it was his brother speaking to him telepathically. He responded without turning to regard his brother. “Have you come to watch as well, Weys?”
“I have,” Weys replied. He sat down next to Kamal and made a faint whistle through his teeth. “Such a waste of life,” Weys said aloud.
Kamal nodded. His brother spoke out loud more often than other Krilo. Most Krilo considered audible speech to be a baser form of expression, often given to misinterpretation and sowing the seeds of argument and discord between people. For this reason, and for the sake of tradition, most Krilo spoke only using telepathy.
The gift of telepathy was as much an enigma to Kamal as the question of what the Tarthuns wanted from the temple. On the one hand, telepathy enabled the Krilo to converse very easily with one another and expand their wisdom, which was their ultimate aim in life as disciples of Interis Aruhat. On the other, it was the very reason they had been so persecuted over the years.
The Krilo race had been born in the city of Jovuhn at the beginning of the Era of Kings. Legend said that as the Old Gods retired from Terramyr, pulling away and sealing off the rainbow bridge to Volganor, the Krilo were created when Interis Aruhat, the Ancient Patron of Wisdom, selected seven families from Jovuhn and gave them the gift of telepathy. The new race was charged with developing intellectually and growing in wisdom, because of all the humans, those in the city of Jovuhn had proven to be the most wise. Or so the story said. Kamal didn’t think his peers any wiser than the dwarves currently shouting in the field below, about to go to war on their behalf.
Whether the stories were true or not, the other inhabitants of Jovuhn ran the Krilo out of the city, accusing the Krilo of using their telepathy to gain advantages in trading and politics. The Krilo had moved northward and settled the town of Typlle, but after seventy years, they were run out of there by immigrants who came to the town and set up a vast fishing trade. After bouncing to several other cities, the Krilo were eventually able to settle in Delyk, a very large city within Kushmin Forest, on the southwestern coast of Emerald Lake. Unfortunately, the Krilo had little happiness there. Their telepathy had been discovered shortly after their arrival. Mobs formed and killed some of the Krilo scholars. When the governor became involved, he ruled in favor of the others, and ordered the extermination of the Krilo.
The Krilo ran for their lives, but many did not escape. Some were hung. Others were beaten to death or enslaved and forced to testify against other Krilo, making up stories of Krilo spies and assassins to justify the governor’s extermination order. Many more Krilo died traveling through Kushmin Forest as they became prey for orcs, goblins, and wild beasts.
The Krilo had eventually found a large cave with a river running out of it. Out of desperation to find safety, the Krilo made their way through that cave and lucked into finding the Inner Sea. They sailed across it as soon as they could build boats, some starving along the way because they did not have the time or the means to pack sufficient grains or fruits. Kamal had always wondered if Interis Aruhat would have truly been angry with the Krilo for fishing in the Inner Sea in order to survive. He had not been alive then, so it was only a question of religious theory, but still one he thought about often when he contemplated how his people had arrived in this valley.
When they found the wild figs, olives, and other fruit trees on the southern side of the Inner Sea, the Krilo feasted and erected a small village which they had named Eeraandie Draak, which meant glory to the dragon. The Krilo lived there for several months before the first Tarthuns came and attacked the village. The Krilo ran toward the mountains then, many scores dying in the wake of the marauding Tarthuns hounding them. Only by the grace of the dwarves were the Krilo saved.
The dwarves fought the Tarthuns then, and helped the Krilo rebuild further to the south. The dwarves offered protection in exchange for the Krilo raising crops for them as well. It was a workable system, and surely one that had given the Krilo more stability than they had had for a long time. Still, it felt wrong to Kamal.
Interis Aruhat decreed that all life was precious. That even to hunt game was not ideal. The Krilo were to take their meat from the fruit of trees and the grains of the fields and the roots of the dirt, but never from the flesh of a living thing.
But as Kamal watched the Tarthuns and dwarves charge toward each other, he couldn’t help but feel shame. If all life was precious, then how was it acceptable for the Krilo to allow others to die for them. Was that not as bad as hunting to eat?
No, it wasn’t the same to Kamal. Allowing someone else to fight for him was worse.
He cringed when the dwarves and Tarthuns collided on the field below. The shouts and cries of battle rose up into the air above the cacophony of clanking armor and weapons. The Tarthuns had more soldiers, but none of them had anything more substantial than leather hauberks, and many didn’t even have that. The heavily armored dwarves cut through them methodically, losing one dwarf for every five or six Tarthuns. The battle lasted a little under an hour, tearing up the field and littering it with broken bodies.
Reu fought valiantly at the front of his army, slaying at least two score Tarthuns by his own blade. His once polished armor now had lost its luster, covered in a distinct layer of blood. Then, as the last Tarthun fell, the field grew quiet.
Kamal watched as several dwarves rushed about. The wounded dwarves were seen to, and the dead were numbered. Any Tarthun remaining alive was put to death on the spot. The dwarves did not take prisoners, and the two races had moved beyond second chances.
“Look there!” Weys said in Kamal’s mind.
Kamal looked to the spot Weys was watching. His brother had no need to point out the area, for Kamal had seen it in Weys’ mind. A large Tarthun jumped up from the ground and ran a spear through the neck of a nearby dwarf, and then he sprinted to the north. Many dwarves gave chase, but with his long legs the Tarthun easily outpaced all of them and soon disappeared beyond a grassy hill.
“Think he’ll cause trouble?” Weys asked.
Kamal nodded. “Likely,” he answered aloud. The brothers watched the dwarves collect their dead and wounded and then return to the mountain. Reu did look up to the hillside once and wave at Kamal. Kamal signaled back.
The second part of the agreement called for the Krilo to bury the Tarthun dead.
Kamal had just been given the signal to fulfill this duty.
“Go and tell the others it is time,” Kamal told his brother telepathically.
“They are close, I won’t be long.”
Kamal nodded. He knew that Weys would only need to see another Krilo to relay the message. Distance was no obstacle so long as you could see the person you wanted to communicate with. It was another reason the elders believed telepathy to be superior.
Kamal waited for about twenty minutes and then he was joined by two hundred young Krilo males, all about the same age as himself. They were a group known as the Genverbond, meaning they had not yet taken their sacred vows to follow Interis Aruhat’s higher laws. Technically, this meant that these young men could eat flesh without being condemned by the Patron of Wisdom, but realistically that would never be allowed by the elders. Functionally speaking, the only real freedom it gave the young men was the ability to touch the dead. While it was a rule originally designed to allow for some portion of the Krilo society to bury their own dead, it also meant that burying the Tarthun casualties fell to them. Those who had already made their covenants upon reaching their twenty-first birthday could no longer touch the dead, for it would make them unclean. There were many rules once somebody became a Hetdieverbond by swearing their vows to Interis Aruhat, but the elders extolled the higher law as the singular path to
enlightenment.
All Kamal could see from it was that by next summer, he could finally stop digging graves.
He led the others down to the field. They spent many hours digging large pits to bury the bodies as groups. It was a bit slower and harder work, but Kamal and Weys worked in a pair by themselves. That way they didn’t have to stop any time they found a worm squirming in the dirt. An accidental chopping of a worm was not considered a grave sin, but it did require a prayer from everyone in the pit in order to apologize to the worm and to Interis Aruhat. Weys and Kamal happily traded the few pairs of extra hands that would normally have worked with them in order to overlook a worm or two here and there.
It wasn’t that Kamal didn’t believe in Interis Aruhat and her wisdom, for he most certainly did. He just didn’t cling to the rules that seemed most obnoxious. A worm cut or squished during the duty of grave digging was not something he thought he would be punished for. Ever.
The digging lasted until dusk. Dragging the bodies and placing them in the pits took a couple more hours beyond that. Had they scavenged the bodies, it would have been well beyond midnight by the time they finished, but Krilo did not scavenge from the dead. The dead were to be buried as they were, whether they were dressed, naked, wrapped in gold or barely covered with sack cloth. One did not handle a corpse any longer than was necessary to accomplish the burial.
Once the graves were filled with bodies and covered with dirt, the young Genverbonds all gathered together and lit fires atop each of the large graves. Some of the young men stepped forward to speak the cleansing prayers for those who had touched the dead. Others came afterward and spoke prayers for the dead.
Kamal didn’t listen to the prayers that were spoken. He knew them by heart and could recite them in his sleep if needed. So, instead he concentrated on the flame over the grave he and his brother had dug. The fire symbolized death, cleansing, and life to the Krilo. When placed upon a grave, it helped sanctify the Genverbonds after their burial duties, but more importantly it served as a monument for the deceased. The bright flames represented the light and knowledge each of the deceased Tarthuns had possessed in life.
