The Tiger's Daughter

by K Arsenault Rivera

  So the story goes.

  And while my mother was busy meditating, I chose to pluck a livid flower from the earth and tuck it away within my deel. I did this knowing some of my ancestors are buried on this mountain. I did this knowing my mother would’ve slain anyone who dared to alter Gurkhan Khalsar in any way.

  I did it because I thought you deserved it.

  I hope the flower arrived intact. In your return letter, you wrote that it was still fragrant when it arrived. What did you think when you held it in your hands—this sacred object? If I had stolen a prayer tag from a temple and sent it to you, it would’ve been less sacrilegious. When you pressed it to your nose, what did you smell? For my people believe the soul of a person is in their scent, in their hair. On the mountain, there are dozens of banners made from the mane of Kharsaqs, Kharsas, and their horses. The wind whips through them and carries their souls forever across the great plains. One day I will take you to the mountain and you shall see them, all lined up, all swaying like dancers, and you will think of the flower I gave you when we were children.

  WINTER LONELINESS IN A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE

  I wrote to you of the things I saw, the places I’d traveled. There weren’t many. At least, not many different ones. The steppes enthrall me, Shizuka, and they always have—but there are only so many times I can write about endless silver grass before it gets boring.

  I wrote about it anyway. Anything I could think of—how Otgar’s new bows were coming along, a long rant about where a saddle should sit on a horse’s back, my Uncle Ganzorig’s latest stew recipe—went into those letters. Otgar hated transcribing them. She must have gotten used to it, though, since we did it every day for two years straight.

  Seven hundred and twenty letters. When I was writing them, they all felt like one long conversation. Your replies always found us within a reasonable span—my mother enlisted four messengers dedicated only to our correspondence—until we reached the northern forests.

  The Qorin there almost looked like Hokkarans, their skin was so pale—but their hair was lighter than mine was, and they still greeted us with kumaq and old war songs.

  The chief of the northern tribes was, at the time, a man named Surenqalan. Old and graying, with as many scars as a dappled mare has spots, he greeted us from horseback. Only three pale braids circled his head, tied from the hair at the base of his crown. Across the flat of his bald head was a nasty streak of scarred flesh.

  We shared his fire that first night, and stayed in his ger for the customary meal. On the first night of my mother’s visits, she does not discuss business. Instead, Surenqalan spoke to us of his daughters and his sons, of marriages and funerals. I listened though I knew none of the people being discussed. Otgar translated for my mother, and gave me summaries of the people. I had distant cousins here, too, thanks to my absurd number of aunts.

  But the reason I remember this night so well—the reason I can still picture old Surenqalan poking at the fire, the reason I can feel the tip of my nose go numb when I think about that night, is what happened after we left to our own ger.

  I saw something out of the corner of my eye, dashing between the gers. Tall, slender, cloaked in black and red; it moved as quickly as a shadow flickering between trees.

  Wolves sometimes attack us, but they would not do so this far north. And they would not get so close to the camps, when they know we’d shoot them on sight. Nor could I say the figure looked Qorin—it did not wear a deel, or any winter clothing at all.

  I froze in place. My mother turned toward me, one hand on the hilt of her scimitar. She wrinkled her nose and bared her teeth. I pointed where I’d seen the figure, and my mother made a few more gestures.

  “Search the area,” Otgar said.

  The riders scrambled off. I watched them go, opening and closing my fists. I had the sinking feeling they were not going to find anything. What if this, like the glimmer near the dying, was something only I could see?

  I strung my bow and pulled an arrow from my quiver.

  “Shefali,” Otgar said, “what are you doing?”

  I started walking between the gers. That thing was somewhere around here, lurking near my people, and I would not allow it to continue stalking us.

  “Has it occured to you,” Otgar said, “that you are ten years old?”

  I continued. No use arguing; I did not have the time. Black and red, black and red … there! I saw it—her—clearly now, a living darkness against the pure white ger.

  I drew back my bow and aimed.

  “What are you firing at?” Otgar asked.

  I was right; she couldn’t see the dark thing! More reason to let fly!

  Except … well, there were people in that ger, and if my arrow pierced through its walls, they might be hurt.

  A moment’s hesitation doomed me.

  Because the figure noticed that I’d noticed her.

  It is difficult to say that a shadow smiled. If you imagine a silhouette in darkest ink against finest paper, that was the figure I saw. No features, no light, nothing to indicate she had any expression at all. Yet I knew she was looking at me, and my bones rattled with her amusement.

  “Hello, Steel-Eye.”

  Ice ran through my veins.

  Who was Steel-Eye? For I’d earned my name already. Tiger-Striped, I was, with my mother’s viper-green eyes.

  And yet in my chest I felt a rightness. That, more than the voice itself, terrified me.

  I wanted to run. I wanted, more than anything, to run.

  But I was Barsalai Shefali now, an adult of the Burqila clan. And the Burqila clan did not become dominant by running from their enemies.

  So I thought at this thing clearly and loudly: Whatever you are, you are not welcome in my lands.

  “They are not your lands yet, Steel-Eye,” she said. “And you are still a child. You cannot stop me.”

  I can, I thought.

  Again, I raised my bow. Otgar squeezed my forearm, her face wrought with concern. “Shefali,” she said, “there is nothing there. You’re staring at a blank patch of the ger.”

  Laughter, if you could call it that. The sound of a lump of coal shattering.

  “See how they doubt you? So they will for years and years. It would be much easier if you joined us now,” it said.

  Its words triggered a roiling anger within me. I no longer cared if anyone was hurt; I fired. The shadow peeled away from the ger. Arrow met felt. That sound of breaking coal rang through the air. The figure slipped inside, I took a step forward—

  Otgar blocked my path.

  “Shefali,” she said in a level voice, “listen to me. Whatever you saw, don’t let it affect you like this. You are going to be Kharsa one day. You cannot let the shadows rule you.”

  By then my mother returned with her empty-handed riders. She saw the arrow sticking out from the ger—saw it was mine—and frowned. When she sharply gestured that I should apologize to the inhabitants, I was not surprised.

  I looked from her to Otgar. My cousin was fourteen then. In a few more years, she’d be ready to marry. She was not a pretty girl, but she was smart as a whip. Someone would be coming to stay with her soon—some boy working off his bride-price.

  And she was looking at me like I was a child who ran off from camp and nearly got eaten by wolves.

  I lowered my bow and shrank about three sizes.

  I knew what I saw.

  And I knew it had a name, the same way I knew your name from the moment I could speak.

  Shao. Her name was Shao.

  My mother forced me to apologize, and I did that as curtly as I could. A small family lived inside that ger. A man, his wife, his grandmother. Very small. No doubt the man’s brothers died off before my mother came to power, during the wars. So many of us died to the blackblood that we were trying to make up for it. Each family was encouraged to have as many children as they could, and then sanvaartains got involved. Did you know, Shizuka, that many of the Qorin children you see these days are
fatherless? Given the proper rituals, sanvaartains can induce pregnancy—but still, I saw no children here.

  Otgar did her best to calm me. She told me the story of Tumenbayar again—the Kharsa who used the moon as her bow, with hair of shining silver and skin like rich clay.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT I listened to another of Otgar’s stories and pretended to take an interest in it. Tumenbayar saddled her golden mare and rode to the north. Friendly winds told her of a clan in danger there. When she arrived, she found demons rampaging through the camp, scooping up horses and snapping into them like jerky. Dozens of them, the largest horde anyone had ever seen up to that point—and this Ages ago, when demons did not roam the countryside as they do now. An entire clan could not hope to defeat this many.

  But Tumenbayar and her golden mare were worth twenty clans together. So she strung her crescent-moon bow and fired her windcutter arrows. As she fired at the beasts, she rode in a circle around them, faster and faster each time. The demons caught on to this and threw people at her, threw horses at her, threw anything they could to try to slow her down.

  Tumenbayar reached into her thousand-pocket saddlebags. She pulled out her skin of mare’s milk, and with the tip of her arrow, she slit it open. Milk dripped along her path. Tumenbayar, raised by a cadre of sanvaartain, spoke holy words as she rode.

  Demons charged at her, but could not pass the barrier of the milk. Tumenbayar rode just outside their grasp. In an hour’s time, no more, she felled all the demons. When they were dead, she herself set fire to their bodies, so that their foul blood could not corrupt Grandfather Earth. She did this wearing the deel given to her by Grandmother Sky herself, which protected her from all manner of harm.

  It was a good story. Not the best Tumenbayar story, but good. Enough to get my mind off things, if it were any other night, or any other thing I’d seen. Otgar did her best to lend the tale more weight. One day, you shall hear her Tumenbayar voice, and you will laugh loud and long.

  Tumenbayar is something like your ancestor Shiori to us. I’ve heard a thousand stories about her, and despite my better judgment, I believe every one. For who is to say whether or not Tumenbayar really did fire arrows of wind, or if the ridge of mountains north of the Rokhon really are her horse’s footprints? These things are legends. In their own way, all legends are true.

  You must be laughing now. I’m certain you’ve heard a few legends about us. Those are true, as well, but true in a different way. I’ve begun to think of the Barsalai my clan whispers about as a different person. Did you know, Shizuka; I’ve heard children telling Tumenbayar stories, but with me instead of her?

  * * *

  SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT, Otgar gave in to sleep. I stayed up awhile later. If Shao returned, I wanted to be ready. This time, I told myself, I would not hesitate.

  So I told myself. In reality, we’d been riding most of the day, and most of the day before that. Exhaustion gripped me, and try as I might, I could not fight it. I, too, fell asleep.

  I awoke to women screaming.

  “Burqila! Burqila, save us!”

  As I scrambled to my feet, my mother was dashing out our door with sword in hand. Ringing pain split my ears; I reached for my bow and followed her out. My chest ached. Without looking, I knew which ger we’d be going to.

  The one I saw Shao outside of.

  A dozen Qorin clustered outside its red door. Color drained from dark faces. An old grandmother sank to her knees in the snow weeping, raking her cheeks and pulling her hair. She was the one screaming for my mother.

  Alshara pushed her way to the door, then pushed her way past that. I saw her go in and I tried to follow—only to find crossed swords barring my path.

  “Barsalai,” said the taller woman. “A demon visited us last night. That ger is no place for a child.”

  I pointed to my braid. My one braid. The woman I was speaking to had three.

  “Braid or no, name or no,” she said, “you are ten. I cannot let you pass.”

  I knew this woman, though not by name. She rode in my mother’s personal guard. Short for a Qorin, she had short hair the color of hay and a scar on her chin. On her left hand, she was missing one finger. Years she’d been with us. I remember seeing her when I still had to be strapped into my horse. A good, loyal guard is hard to find.

  At that moment, I wished she were a bit less loyal. I could not strike her down. I was not you—I could not command her. I was not even Otgar.

  Where was Otgar?

  Bounding up toward the ger, hastily fastening her deel with one hand and holding her hat to her head with the other. The guard looked to her and crossed her arms.

  “Dorbentei, until I receive orders otherwise, I cannot allow you to enter—”

  “Who is going to give you the orders?” Otgar said. “Burqila? She is not going to break her oath of silence to speak to you.”

  The guard pressed her lips into a line. “Dorbentei, the body might be corrupt.”

  “Burqila does not fear corruption and neither do I,” said Otgar. “I do not intend to touch the corpse. We will be fine.”

  But I did not want to wait for her to negotiate. While Otgar spoke to the guard, I slipped in.

  My mother stood at the western side of the ger. At her feet, a corpse. Calling it a “corpse” is, perhaps, exaggerating.

  You are out in your Imperial Garden enjoying a plum. Suddenly business calls you away—you leave the plum on a bench and tend to your affairs. Hours later when you return home, the plum is forgotten. Days pass into weeks. When you next sit on the bench, the plum is still there, but it is a dry, withered thing, and you mistake it for a stone.

  So it was with the corpse. Once it might’ve been a man. Now it was simply skin and bones. No meat. No substance. On its face an eternal scream. Dark pits where its eyes should’ve been, dark pits for nostrils. Any hair the man had was gone, too, as well as any clothing.

  Worst of all, I saw no glimmering near him.

  My stomach churned. I tasted bile at the back of my throat. A Kharsa cannot retch at the sight of a body; I tried my best to conceal it. Still I let out a small noise.

  My mother sheathed her sword. She stomped on the ground once, to catch my attention. When she saw I looked at her, she pointed to the corpse, then the door. I nodded and left and tried not to think of the shadow I’d seen the night before.

  When I left the ger, Otgar and the guard were still talking. Both turned toward me.

  “Barsalai!” said the guard. “I told you not to go in there!”

  The old woman continued her wailing, her screaming. Burqila, save us. Over and over again. As if my mother could bring her dead son back to life. I screwed my eyes shut against the sound, and waved for Otgar to come closer.

  “Burn the body,” I whispered to her. “Remove it. Burn it.”

  Otgar nodded. Orders were passed along. I did not stay to watch it all happen. No need to. Instead, I followed my mother and Otgar as they made their way to Surenqalan’s ger. The old man was already awake. My mother did not bother taking off her boots, and so neither did we.

  As he bowed to us, the old chief shook.

  My mother made three sharp gestures.

  “Surenqalan,” said Otgar. “How long has this been happening?”

  The man’s ger was empty. Completely empty. I cannot remember another time I’ve seen something like it—stark white felt walls, with no furniture to speak of save the door and the frame keeping everything up. After seeing the corpse of that man from earlier, I shivered.

  Something was very wrong with this clan.

  “Great Kharsa,” said Surenqalan, tapping his forehead against my mother’s boots. “Wall-breaker, slayer of men, Burqila Alshara, I am unworthy to be in your presence.”

  Otgar rolled her eyes. My mother tapped her lips, then held her fingers out.

  “Get to the point,” Otgar said.

  The old man took fistfuls of the rug at his feet. Shaking, he looked up at my mother. D
id he see a woman, I wonder, or a legend? Did he see the Uncrowned Kharsa, the woman who breathed Dragon’s Fire? Or did he see something darker—perhaps the woman who killed her own brothers rather than submit to their authority? For my mother was all those things and more, and sometimes I had trouble figuring out which woman I spoke to.

  But from his eyes wide as pebbles and his cheeks paler than the walls of the ger, I had an idea what he saw.

  The Destroyer.

  “Burqila,” he said with a trembling voice, “I fear the Generals have come for my clan.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Otgar said. My mother’s hands were still; this was Otgar’s opinion alone. “Of the six remaining clans, yours is the smallest. One of the Generals would never bother coming all the way up north unless they wanted a fine fur coat. We cannot be dealing with a General.”

  I nodded. The Generals—four demon lords in the service of the Traitor—made appearances only in the most dire of times. When armies of blackbloods marched, a General led them. When the Traitor’s forces tore through old Shiseiki as an arrow through paper, the Generals strung their bows.

  But for a few hundred Qorin up near the mountains, barely scraping by on whatever food they could scavenge?

  It made no sense. What would a General want with this clan?

  Not to mention the remaining three were trapped beyond the Wall of Flowers. Everyone knew that. The Daughter’s creation kept them from rampaging through the rest of Shiseiki Province, kept them sealed within the borders of northern Hokkaro. The last time actual demons set foot on the steppes was when Tumenbayar was Grand Kharsa.

  Blackbloods would not be surprising.