The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  The other tulwar behind the heavy one called Gowaa, also clad in purple and black, let out a rumble of discontent. He held up a hand to silence them.

  “We Tho Thu Bhu Clan take great pride in our craftsmanship,” Gowaa replied. “Food and wine, as much as any blade or bow. It would insult us to reject our skill.”

  “Enough.” A bitter hiss came from the fourth and final member of the circle. This one looked lean and haggard, hair in sparse patches, eyes sharp, body wiry beneath a green-and-brown chota. “If I died and came back in my next life, you still wouldn’t have begun without me to cajole you.”

  “Very well.” The powerful-looking Rua Tong tulwar raised his head and his voice. “Humn Tul Naa is called. The saan and Humn are gathered here today to speak of the clans, on behalf of the clans, for the clans. Let the clans be recognized.” He raised his right hand, drew a circle in the air with his finger. “Dugu Humn Rua Tong.”

  The orange-and-red-clad tulwar who stood in a cluster behind the one called Dugu echoed his gesture, Daaru included. There were nearly twice as many here as in any other clan present, Gariath observed. Perhaps that was why they took the lead in speaking.

  “Gowaa Humn Tho Thu Bhu,” the fat tulwar said, making the same gesture. His clan mimicked it.

  “Sagar Humn Yengu Thuun,” the woman said. Her clan, dressed in brown and white, made the same gesture with her.

  “Dekuu Humn Chee Chree,” the lean one muttered. His clan was the smallest, but all held the same wary liveliness in their eyes as their chieftain.

  All eyes drifted to one side of the circle, where two empty cushions sat. Behind one of them were a pair of tulwar dressed in simple gray robes. They made the gesture, all the same.

  “So noted is the absence of Mototaru Humn Muusa Gon,” Dugu said. He looked to the other cushion, behind which there was a very noticeable gap that the other tulwar seemed reluctant to fill. “So noted, with gratitude to Tul, is the absence of Chakaa Humn Mak Lak Kai.”

  “Much gratitude,” Gowaa added.

  The other tulwar muttered agreement. The gesture was repeated once more, a complete circle drawn with the right hand from the right to the left. The Chee Chree clan and their patron, though, remained still and silent.

  “Shall I come back once the ceremonies are completed?” Dekuu grunted, folding his long arms over his chest. “The Mak Lak Kai are a problem which the Chee Chree have no interest in discussing.”

  “Nor the Yengu Thuun,” Sagar added. She scratched a stray itch beneath her chins. “My clan asks me to come before you today to speak of the situation of living space.”

  “Again,” Gowaa added, rolling his eyes.

  “Yes, again,” Sagar snapped back. “We have no room for our gaambols. The other clans crowd us when it is our turn to get drinking water, which always comes last, I note.”

  “It is true,” Dugu said, scratching his beard. “But your gaambols require quite a bit of water, no? Is it not fair that they drink after families and children have drunk first?”

  “At the very least,” Gowaa muttered, “it is just as unfair as the other clans being forced to endure their smell.”

  “Families and children are one thing,” Sagar replied sharply. “But Tho Thu Bhu take more and more water each day for their metals.”

  “We need weapons and tools,” Gowaa replied. “We need to cool the metal. What would you have us do?”

  Murmurs of discontent rose from the assembled clans, a canvas upon which accusations were painted and condemnations spattered. Every now and then, one of the Humn would say something to cause one clan or another to raise its voices in agreement or outrage. And every now and then, another would retort with an equally outrageous word.

  They all spoke the human tongue, but it all sounded like so much gibberish to Gariath. The scene would have reminded him of vultures squabbling over a corpse, save that he had seen enough of that to know that carrion-gobbling squabs had a touch more diplomacy.

  Gariath flashed a decidedly unimpressed sneer across the circle at Daaru.

  “Enough.” Dekuu spoke through bared teeth, worn and dull and yellow. “The Chee Chree did not come to your city to hear you bicker like children over the biggest piece of meat.” He narrowed his eyes. “Yet only the Chee Chree seem to have noticed that we are dying.”

  “I see plenty of you standing here now,” Gowaa replied, eyeing the assembled tulwar behind Dekuu. “Many saan, hale and hardy. Certainly enough to take up space in Shaab Sahaar.”

  “There were more,” Dekuu growled. “So many more. More saan, more duwun, more tulwar. Our villages sprawled to the edges of the forests of the Forbidden East.” He thrust a finger at Gowaa. “You know this, Tho Thu Bhu, for it was our lumber you used to make your bows, your houses, your boats.”

  “Which we shared—which we still share—with the Chee Chree.”

  “You give us bows long after our enemies are gone, you open your houses long after ours are burned.” Dekuu swept his gaze about the assembled clans. “You speak of cramped quarters, scarce water, sharing food when there is too little. Let us speak of the cause.”

  A collective tension coursed through the assembled clans, as though they knew what he was going to say next. Even Dekuu seemed to speak with some reluctance, and when the words came, they came heavy.

  “Let us speak of the shicts.”

  The murmurs died down. Glances were exchanged, as though they spoke of ghosts instead of pointy-eared vermin.

  “Even the Chee Chree have heard of the strife in Cier’Djaal,” Dekuu continued. “And the humans’ problems have made the shicts bolder. They’re beginning their raids well ahead of the season. We were not prepared for them.”

  “Nor were the Yengu Thuun,” Sagar said. “The Chee Chree share a border with them. Raids are inevitable. But for them to range so far south, into our lands, is unheard of.” She narrowed her eyes. “There is talk that this is not just raiding. There is talk that this is—”

  “I have heard,” Dugu said, rubbing his eyes. “I have heard of their new leader, this… Shekune. I have heard how many tulwar she has killed.” He looked to his fellow elders. “What would you have us do, then? There is room for the Chee Chree in Shaab Sahaar. Here we are safe.”

  “Here is not home,” Dekuu said. “And without the Chee Chree in the forests, we will not have the lumber to keep your wooden houses up and your tools crafted. The shicts are animals. If they sense weakness, they will attack.”

  “If they are animals, let them root around in the trash,” Gowaa said. “We have seen this before. They will glut themselves, vomit, and move on.”

  “This is not like before,” Sagar said, shaking her head. “Not at all.”

  “Perhaps they are out of season, perhaps this is not like before.” Dugu made a sound low in his chest, scratched his chin. “But I do not think the shicts have changed their tactics.” He eyed Dekuu. “Have they?”

  The Chee Chree’s lips stiffened before he shook his head. Dugu sighed wearily and nodded.

  “We have fought the shicts before,” he said. “Always it is the same. They watch from the shadows and wait until the strong leave to hunt, then come in and attack the weak. They shoot at our backs and then run away when we turn around. They are always there, and never there. To fight a shict is to fight a bad dream. It cannot be done.”

  Dekuu narrowed his eyes. “Mak Lak Kai fights.”

  “Mak Lak Kai belongs in the trash with the shicts,” Gowaa growled. “Chakaa and her clan are walking disasters. Malaa, all of them. Better they die out there than be trapped in here with us.”

  “They are tulwar,” Dekuu snarled. “They are clan. And they fight for their homes.”

  “Without restraint, sense, or regard for anything beyond their own bloodlust,” Sagar said. “They are malaa, outside the Tul. Gowaa is right.”

  “Then perhaps he was also right about everything else!” Dekuu snapped. “Maybe we don’t need to worry about Chee Chree being slaughtered like
animals by shicts! Maybe Yengu Thuun’s reek is our biggest problem!”

  “We have all lost to the shicts, Dekuu,” Sagar growled. “Do not presume that you speak to a coward.”

  “I do not presume I speak to a coward.” He leapt to his feet. Color flooded his face. “I presume I speak to three cowards!”

  And then things got a little interesting, at least.

  The Chee Chree clan surged forward in a shouting mass, their faces bright with red, yellow, and blue. The Yengu Thuun replied in shrieks not so unlike those of the gaambols they rode. The Tho Thu Bhu beat their chests and howled as the Rua Tong raised their fists and roared to be heard over everyone else.

  Eventually their rage overtook their senses. Their speech slid into different tongues and the gibberish of their argument was compounded. Perhaps this, as Daaru said, was why they spoke the human tongue. It was simply more efficient.

  Why they chose to also bicker and squabble like humans, Gariath already knew. One could not be surrounded by human amenities, human goods, human tongue, and not pick up their weakness, their greed, their disease.

  As he watched the tulwar continue to bicker and spit, he saw them transform in his mind. He saw pointy ears, lips spewing sanctimony, a gangly stoop, lips curled upward in arrogance, a mop of silver hair. He saw them, all of the humans. His humans. And the memory of them became real, felt real in the clenching of his fists and the flaring of his nostrils.

  Them, with their greed and lust for gold. Them, with their selfishness and cowardice. How they’d always hid behind him when it came time to kill. How they’d run screaming from the messes he would clean up. How they’d needed him.

  Right up until they had left him.

  “What of the human city?”

  Perhaps that memory was what caused him to speak up.

  “What of Cier’Djaal?”

  Or perhaps he just had grown tired of the tulwar prattle.

  Either way, his voice boomed over theirs. Slowly they fell silent. Slowly they turned their eyes to him. Some with shock, surprised that he had spoken. Others with horror, having not even seen him before. Daaru, though, shot him a look rife with concern.

  A gracious guest probably would have respected his host enough to retract his query.

  “You sit and whine like children while they feast on flesh and spit the bones at you.”

  Or at least have been less of an asshole about it.

  “You need more space?” He pointed westward. “It’s there. You need more water? They sit on a river and pull water from the earth. You need steel? Wood? Stone? They have everything.” He looked down his snout at them. “And you have a square full of shit.”

  The assembled Humn exchanged glances. Dugu was the first to speak. “You, dragonman, are a guest of Daaru, yes? Of Rua Tong?” He held up a hand. “It is forgivable, then, that you do not know the ways of the tulwar. Humn Tul Naa is where the Humn speak for their clans.”

  “Until they start speaking for themselves,” Gariath replied. “Or did I see some other group of tulwar just screaming at each other like infants?”

  “If they do not have Humn where you are from, do they not at least have manners?” Dekuu snarled. “Who are you to speak to us?”

  “I have heard tales,” Gowaa hummed, eyeing Gariath carefully. “There are tulwar who have journeyed to Cier’Djaal and returned with stories of you, creature. Tell me… is it true that you defeated the fasha’s pets? The dragonmen?”

  “His name was Kharga,” Gariath said sternly. “He was Drokha, not ‘dragonman,’ and nobody’s pet.” He snorted. “And I beat the shit out of him.”

  He knew the silence that fell over the tulwar.

  It was the silence in the hesitation of a prayer. It was the silence that hung in the air for a breath before a sword left sheath and entered flesh. It was the silence that came before the last words a dead man spoke.

  It was the silence of change.

  And he had not felt it for a very long time.

  When it was broken, it was by Dugu’s low rumble, somewhere between the growl of a great warrior and the weariness of an old man.

  “You have been among us for some time,” he said, “and as Daaru is saan, you are welcome. If you know of the… Drokha, did you call them?” He nodded, scratched his beard. “If you know of them, do you also know of the Uprising?”

  “I have heard the word,” Gariath said.

  “Mm. The word. Sometimes it feels like just that. A word.” Dugu leaned back, settled on his cushion, closed his eyes. “But when it was first spoken, it was more. It was starving children, forgotten honor, and hungry blades. It took us across the desert, through the armies of Cier’Djaal, all the way to the very heart of their city.

  “Then Uprising was the stone under our feet, the silk over our heads, the blood on our hands, and the humans cowering in their houses. Then Uprising was Tul and the two were the same.”

  He opened his eyes. His face was grim and gray.

  “That was a moment. Then the dragonmen came.”

  “A sea of them, from wall to wall,” Gowaa said, “they came pouring from every crack and gap in the house.”

  “You exaggerate,” Sagar said. “There were maybe only a thousand.”

  “Fifty.” Dekuu’s face was twisted into a frown. “There were fifty. And they slaughtered over a thousand tulwar. Chee Chree arrows could not pierce their hides.”

  “Yengu Thuun beasts could not climb high enough,” Sagar added.

  “Tho Thu Bhu shields shattered under their axes,” Gowaa sighed.

  “Rua Tong corpses choked the streets. And Muusa Gon…” Dugu looked to the two gray-clad tulwar, who observed the retelling stoically. He shook his head. “Many tulwar died that day. Many more died in the days that followed as we marched back to Shaab Sahaar. And here we stayed.”

  “Here we built,” Gowaa said.

  “Here we live,” Sagar said.

  “Here we die,” Dekuu muttered.

  “Why?” Gariath growled. “I have been to Cier’Djaal. It is in chaos. It is ready to be destroyed. It begs for it. A thousand warriors—”

  “Would be a thousand fewer fathers and mothers,” Dugu said. “Perhaps you have heard the wrong things of our people, dragonman. We are tulwar. We are of the Tul. Our god is dead, and so we are eternal. This life is fleeting, and so is its suffering. We will die, we will return, and the problems of this life will be forgotten to all but the oldest of Humn.

  “Cities of men will fall, shicts will come and go. But Tul is eternal.”

  He raised his right hand, drew a circle in the air from right to left. The gesture was taken up, first by Humn, then by saan, until all did it. All but Gariath, who merely stood there, scowling across the circle as Daaru looked back and smiled.

  The streets of Shaab Sahaar were empty of bodies that night. But as Gariath stalked down its dusty streets in the shadows cast by its towering spires, he noted that did not mean it was rid of stench.

  Yet the reek that tormented him that night was not the same as the one that had greeted him when he arrived. Now his nostrils quivered and took in scents he had not noticed before: hides that smelled of shicts, bottles that smelled of couthi, and everywhere, in the wood and steel and dirt, the smell of human.

  This city reeked of them. Their greed. Their weakness.

  How could it have come to this? In Cier’Djaal, Daaru had been rife with anger. In the desert he had faced down the shicts with no fear on his face at all. He was bold, fearless—annoying, also, but no more than the average human. Gariath had hoped all tulwar were like that, so full of fire and fury.

  But now?

  Now he didn’t even know what the tulwar were. Their voices sounded so whiny in his memory now, so full of weakness and excuses to avoid what needed to be done. They were no warriors. They were fathers to mewling whelps, old men sitting on cushions and waiting to die, women cleaning up after gaambols.

  He couldn’t even smell the gaambol shit anymore, so strong
was the reek of—

  He paused. His nostrils twitched. A familiar scent tinged the air.

  Pipe smoke?

  “How are you finding the city, shkainai?”

  Gariath forgave himself for not having noticed the tulwar until he spoke. He had, at a glance, thought the creature to be another pile of refuse. But now he saw the plume of smoke, the gray flesh, the round body.

  He recognized this tulwar from only a few days ago. The old one who smelled of nothing but smoke. The tulwar was dirty, sitting beside a wall in unwashed and tattered robes. His lips and teeth were stained from years of puffing on the pipe that hung from the corner of his mouth.

  Yet through the veil of smoke, Gariath could see that the tulwar’s eyes were keen, bright, and full of something that had been dead in the stares of the tulwar at the Humn Tul Naa.

  “I liked it better when I first got here,” Gariath finally answered.

  “Time with the Humn will do that.” The old tulwar chuckled. “With so many garbage-heaped alleys and filthy streets to behold, who has time to spend discussing the intricacies of the Tul?”

  “I have heard of heaven from humans,” Gariath grunted. “Their living gods are stupid enough. A dead one seems less than useless.”

  “It’s too easy to call the Tul a dead god. But the Rua Tong could be forgiven, seeing as they have never been interested in thinking about things they can’t hit with big metal sticks.”

  The old tulwar rose with a groan and the pop of vertebrae. He walked stooped, a muscular body now paying the price for all its weight, as he approached Gariath.

  “There are only so many tulwar in the world at any one time,” he said. “No one is quite sure of the number, but there are never more nor less than this number. When an old man in the Rua Tong dies, a breath later, a baby girl in the Chee Chree is born. Different bodies, same Tul. Tul is the individual and the collective. This, they say, is what makes the tulwar eternal. What is not finished in this life will be finished in the next.”

  He looked up at Gariath. Those keen eyes lingered on him for a long moment. Then he puffed a cloud of smoke and turned to walk away.