David: Savakerrva, Book 1

by L. Brown

  “Too close, I’m sure you’d agree,” answered Logaht, stepping into the clear. “But though they took Dahkaa’s memory, mine remains intact, and since it was I who sailed the King across the stars, I was there to witness the birth of his son. And without doubt, Dahkaa speaks the truth.”

  Standing between Logaht and the General, Garth watched the soiled face wrap meet the mask. Not just eye contact, it was more a clash of mutual contempt.

  “You’re G’mach,” the General said.

  “I was.”

  “And by all appalling appearance, still are. There’s a reason we let you live?”

  Logaht replied with his unblinking eye.

  “Logaht,” said Dahkaa, “is my friend.” Saying no more, he clapped Logaht’s shoulder and held it fast. A hold, Garth noticed, that finally made the yellow eye blink.

  “Your friends are your concern,” the General summed. “Killing G’mach is mine.”

  “Mine as well,” added Logaht. “General.” The edge to Logaht’s voice narrowed the eyes behind the mask, but the General instead turned to Garth.

  “And you?” he challenged, striding ahead. “What is your concern; has the Son of Kel Vek finally come to help us, save us? That’s why you came?”

  Garth swallowed. “I—”

  “But if so, then why does Atta Ra seek you alive; you know he offered a reward?”

  Garth wondered what he meant. “He did?”

  “The G’mach,” the General went on, now pacing around Garth, “have published a message, a guarantee of passage to another world for whoever brings you to Hala. You didn’t know?”

  “No, I didn’t, but—”

  “But perhaps you know something else,” the General mused. “And since you came to save us, you of course brought a plan, a way to kill the J’kel?”

  Arching back from the mask, Garth wondered how best to confess the only plan he’d considered was how to escape.

  “Your plan, boy,” hissed the General of Blood. “Is that not that why you came?”

  “General, please, he—”

  “His words, Dahkaa! I asked the boy, your Son of a—”

  “I came because I had to!” shouted Garth. “Because I had no choice!”

  Dahkaa winced. A direct hit amidships, Garth just sunk years of work with a petulant shout, and now, to the warriors all round, the Son of the King was just a draftee.

  “He had no choice—” Logaht stepped forward. “Because with fate, you never do.”

  Startled by the amendment, by his sinking cause rising back up, Dahkaa shot a subtle nod to his quick-witted friend.

  “Agreed!” came a new voice, and as new steps clattered the flagship pier, three more Generals approached. Each wore a metal mask, and though the details differed, the same warlike expressions remained. And just like the General of the Clan of Blood, each also wore a cloak; blue for the first General, gray for the second, and the last sported a two-tone, violet and orange.

  “I agree with the G’mach,” continued the blue-cloaked General, leader of the Clan of the Blade. “And who fate sends, she will also confirm, so therefore, we sail for Retta Dahz!”

  “No!” Dahkaa yelled, a gasp-inducing retort suggesting not just a breech of protocol, but soon, also Dahkaa’s skull. “I apologize, General, but with all respect, this boy’s father was our king! Does the son, by birth, not have the right to lead?”

  “His father, Dahkaa, is not in doubt.” Leader of the Clan of Ice, the gray-cloaked General eyed Garth with unimpressed disdain, a master cobbler beholding a Croc. “But as for his son — in these times, even a Savakerrva needs proving, we need—”

  “We need to know his might!” interjected the next General, head of the Clan of Moons. “And if he fails Retta Dahz, then fate will have spoken, the gods must be heard!”

  Warriors mumbled, seemed to agree, but all Garth felt was the itch of trickling sweat.

  “What we must hear, Generals—” Dahkaa addressed the masks. “Is how he’ll lead us, how the son of Kel Vek will defeat Atta Ra and stop his J’kel. But until then, do we not give him time, do we not follow the Law?”

  “And what Law is that,” challenged the General of Blood. “The Law you shame by befriending a G’mach, the Law you mock by bedding a slave of the Tribes?”

  Dahkaa said nothing, but Garth did notice his neck, the tightening ropes of sinew and vein.

  “A slave,” Blood continued, “who not only bore you a son, but lost him as well?”

  Dahkaa quivered, seemed ready to charge.

  “To be clear, Dahkaa,” the Blood General concluded, “if your knowledge of the Law matches your judgement, then say no more, you’ve said enough.” His damage done, the General turned.

  “And the J’kel?” Dahkaa persisted, his tone barely restrained. “In just seventeen moons, the G’mach will lay its last mile, but instead of planning our attack, we’ll waste time — on a test?”

  His trickling sweat now a hot sheen — test? — Garth wondered what kind and for whom.

  “He’s right, brothers.” Raspy and scratched, a solitary voice like a tumbleweed wind turned heads toward the flagship, to another General in a black cloak and mask. But unlike the others, this one appeared brittle and bent, an old captain of war now relegated to the stands. “We have no time,” declared the General of the Clan of the Dead, “for a test of Retta Dahz.”

  Understanding little, Garth nevertheless unwound, relaxed at the sound of ‘no time for a test.’

  “And yet—” Aged but agile, the General of the Dead now fastened a ragged flag to a line, a length of rope hung from the flagship’s center V-mast. “Though it’s true our world may end in just seventeen moons, that very fact demands we make no mistake, we have to be sure. Therefore—” The black flag slowly unfurling, it exposed its faded design, something stitched in thread once gold. “Even though we have no time for Retta Dahz, we also have no choice.”

  Dizzy at the reversal, Garth looked at Dahkaa. But instead of resolve, his jaw invincibly set, Dahkaa suddenly looked upended, a statue pulled down.

  “And now—” Raising the flag hand-over-hand, the General of the Dead nodded to the flagship’s captain, to Tusk once more at the helm. “Just as we have spoken, our gods will speak through Retta Dahz, through this test of a boy — in the Cave of the Beast!”

  Horns and drums erupted, electric arcs danced up flagship V-masts, and pivoting from melancholy to mirth, warriors and villagers broke into song. But though the ancient melody stirred, though it tossed the soul of Flower of Scotland into the swell of The Sacred War, Garth heard only the General of the Dead, his last bewildering word.

  Beast?

  Hours later and somewhere up the coast, the spyglass from the river swept the underworld sea, the wakes plowed by a hundred boats. The ‘glass steadied on the flagship, then focused on its peculiar black flag. Not a rectangle, it bore the shape of a spade; and gleamed, under the sky of ice, with a gold design, two crossed blades.

  Destination no longer in doubt, the Stalker stowed his spyglass with scorched-tile gloves. He then turned to an oval boulder, a rock three feet across, then pushed until he trembled, until the tilted rock uncorked a shrieking exhale of wind.

  But miles away on the Zahlen flagship, Garth heard only waves. Hunched on a narrow platform, a ledge for a cannon divorced of its gun, he occupied the vessel’s most isolated spot. And yet, he wasn’t alone.

  Crowded by thoughts, by jostling anxieties of beasts and caves and what now and what next, he wondered, yet again, how he got here. Could life have devolved into anything more surreal, had he done something to deserve this wet, leaden view? More important, was there no way to quit?

  Should have run, he sighed once more. Recalling the moment, his opportunity to escape down Dahkaa’s hillside path, he wished he would have run. Yet had he left, would he ever have found it, the thing so slight it hardly had mass? But it did, it was real, and though he never imagined such a proof could exist, he not only discovered it, he
held it in his hand.

  Just a note, some handwritten words torn from a book, but right now, it was everything, his last safe harbor between madness and the depths. Did she know this would happen, had his mother sensed how desperate he’d someday become? Doubtful. But right now, everything was in doubt, where they were headed and to what end; was this really a test? Could a more miserable destination exist? But what, exactly, would be tested; would there be questions on history, on science and math, didn’t they know he was schooled in Detroit?

  Yet Dahkaa caused the most anxiety, his reaction redoubled the churn. He ignored all queries, no word escaped the clench of his jaw, and though silence had its advocates, though the reticence of monks could apparently calm, Dahkaa’s quiet seemed less a cloistered bliss and more a fuse, the last hissing inch. He gave no answers, suggested nothing to hope for or against, so alone on the ledge, Garth’s only solace lay folded in his fist. And forever replayed, his moments with Eylahn, every dance on the ice or laugh in the nets.

  But without fail, anxiety always returned. It filled every gap, and as thoughts of Atta Ra mixed horrors of the past with those to come, the mess just compressed, just whirled into iceboats and warriors and Firefly and Shark, into widows and children and the General of the Dead, that old man in black; did he really say beast?

  “It likes to wound.”

  Angst interrupted, Garth looked back. And though it was only Dahkaa, he was backlit by sparks, by a V-mast wild with electric arcs more suited to the arrival of apparitions, a bearer of ominous news. Yet instead of ominous, the clench of his jaw had relaxed, and by the look of his platter, he also brought food.

  “Most predators simply kill,” Dahkaa continued, now nibbling a fish on a stick, “but the Beast may torture its prey for weeks, keep it alive to preserve the meat. Less rot, I suppose.” Offering the platter, he displayed a deep sea sampler of twitching gill, fin, and tail.

  Garth was famished, but the mention of ‘Beast’ stuffed his stomach with fright.

  “Eat, David, you’ll need all strength,” said Dahkaa, and tossing his stick into the waves, he raided the platter for something else, a treat resembling a ball of worms. “Try some mulk?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “No, well, the trick with mulk is speed, just swallow them fast before they can—”

  “I said, no.”

  “No mulk?”

  “No to everything and especially the test, I refuse!”

  Dahkaa said nothing, just gulped the mulk. Then, “Since we’re already under the flag of Rhetta Dahz, it’s too late, you can’t refuse.”

  “I can and I will, and actually, I just did. No test.”

  Dahkaa considered, then spit out a worm. “Fear not, David, fate makes no mistakes.”

  “There’s no such thing as fate. Luck, maybe. But—”

  “But did luck save you from Atta Ra? First on your world, then again here?” Dahkaa chose another stick on the platter, a small turtle that snapped. “Perhaps, but—” A lover of turtles, he bit off its head. “If it was fate? Then by all appearance, fate wants you alive,” he concluded, relishing his chew. “And who knows, you might even enjoy this test; don’t you like to hunt?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’ve never hunted, alright? I’ve never killed a thing!”

  Dahkaa stopped chewing, tried to comprehend. “But your food, how did you eat?”

  “Honeybee’s.”

  The scarred brow wrinkled. “Bees?”

  “It’s a store, Dahkaa, my world shops! All I’ve ever hunted are frogs!”

  Suddenly impressed, Dahkaa wondered at these alien brutes. “They were big?”

  Garth sighed, could do nothing more. “No Retta Dahz.”

  “And if ‘no’ is your answer, do you know what will happen, what Clan Law demands?”

  “I don’t know, let me guess; I’ll be tortured and killed, cut in half?”

  “Worse,” said Dahkaa, setting the platter near a vaalik pen. “Much worse, because if you refuse Retta Dahz, you’ll not only lose all claim to ‘Savakerrva,’ you’ll condemn this world to death. And while everyone else will die with honor, you—”

  His meaning clear, Dahkaa said nothing more. But neither did Garth, what was the use.

  “So, as for the rules—” Dahkaa reached under his coat. “By Law, I can’t tell you much, but I can define your task; and once you leave this ship, you’ll have twenty hours to enter the caves, find a bull Beast — the bigger the horns, the better — then kill it with these.”

  Retrieving a leather bundle from under his coat, Dahkaa flipped it open to a shimmering pair of X-blades.

  “Perfect balance, pure Zahlen steel—” Dahkaa offered them to Garth. “They were forged by a Master in the Clan of the Blade, the best I could afford. Do they fit?”

  Trying to ignore, but intrigued by the glint, Garth accepted the bundle, then touched the straight blade and curved. Power, the feel, yet the engravings in black and gold elevated the pair from mere tools of violence to objets d’ art, weapons fit for a king. But as he glimpsed himself in the steel, the silver mirrored sheen, he saw only a fraud, a boy destined to fail.

  “Good,” said Dahkaa, apparently content. “And they’re loaded, of course, I packed the hilts with enough radiance to melt your weight in ice. However—”

  “Huh?”

  “Yes, well, unfortunately, they’ll fade in the caves.”

  Garth looked up. “Fade?”

  “Something about the rock, an impurity in the caves weakens their shock,” Dahkaa explained, taking back the blades and checking each edge. “They’ll flash, certainly, make some light, but to kill, you’ll need to rely less on spark and more on steel. And regarding the Beast—” He leaned in close. “You’d like to know its weakness?”

  Suddenly attentive, Garth nodded yes.

  “Huh, wouldn’t we all,” Dahkaa sighed, now returning the blades to their leather wrap. “Fast, cunning, a creature without peer — some call it a demon, others a ghost, so our legends called it both; and named it golech.”

  Repelled by the sound, that crusty overhang of ech, Garth fought a feeling, a deep-rooted sense this golech-ish thing would rip out his lungs.

  “But everything alive can also be killed,” said Dahkaa with cheer. “And sometimes, there’s no greater weakness than the pride of the strong. Understand?”

  Understanding only the unvarnished facts, this lucid insanity of sailing toward a horned bull beast he needed to slay, Garth looked again at the blades. Ineffectual in the caves, they would, in his cold, dead hands, at least be nicely engraved.

  “Believe,” said Dahkaa, ending his visit with a clap to Garth’s back. “If you believe in the Promise, in who you are and why you’re here—”

  “I’m here because of you, Dahkaa! Because you took me away like they took your son!” Garth shouted, and before the warrior could react, before his scars went taut and eyes went cold, the son of Kel Vek regretted every word. “I’m sorry, I—?”

  Dahkaa stood. “Your cabin awaits,” he said, then nodded to the flagship’s stairwell, steps leading below. “Look for golech.”

  “Dahkaa, please, I didn’t mean it, I—?”

  Already walking, Dahkaa strode toward the bow, toward the gathering Generals and their chattering staff.

  Shot with remorse and dizzy with fear, Garth turned from the bow and back toward the waves, those dismal peaks and cadaverous troughs. He sunk back to his spot, his hidden spit of ledge, then rested his chin between the v of his knees. Then he just shivered, quaked from crazed imaginings of horned demons and ghosts, of golechs in the dark. Advancing every moment toward his nightmarish end, Garth lost his gaze in the waves, the lapping, sedating calm.

  Then wondered, his pulse picking up, if the waves weren’t as calm as he thought.

  Trailing bubbles, a shadow appeared, rose his way with unfathomed intent. Garth wanted to retreat, leap back aboard, but the upcoming enigma bound him, seized w
ith an Ahab-like awe of what monster is this?

  Twenty feet long and maybe quite more, the horror ascending knifed from the waves in smooth, black skin. It resembled a killer whale cousin, a mammal strung with catfish whiskers, ropelike reins held, incredibly, by someone on its back.

  A vision of Vargas inspired by Verne, the whale rider arrived with curves. Female, Garth’s first lucid thought; and clad in a wetsuit, some clingy second skin, this sea-borne sprite steered her mount alongside. Then without pause, acting as if this fantastical arrival was just her next stop, she released the whiskers and swiped for the hull.

  But the iron was slick, besotted with slime, and her gloves found no purchase, did nothing but slip. So she flailed elsewhere, tried another spot, but as the bow-split waves relentlessly lashed, she ripped her gloves and bloodied her hands. Immobilized by the drama — was this creature from the deep out of her element, had the rise from the depths bubbled her veins? — Garth watched her fade from deep-sea wonder to failure-to-board; for despite all desperate claw, the woman from below began to fall back.

  Maybe empathy struck, a kindred spirit to weakness and slide, but regardless of reason and disregarding all risk, Garth secured his perch with his right hand, then swung out his left, a shoulder-wrenching extension that reached, barely, her wrist. Then tugging and grimacing, nearly falling in, he pulled her onto his ledge.

  Neither spoke, not the boy nor his catch, both just sprawled and gasped. The woman had come from the sea, but now, with violent retch, she gave some back. But this seemed to improve her, and though she still shivered face-down, at least she held on, didn’t slide off.

  “You okay?” asked Garth. The dullest of openings, but his intent was to rouse, to discover what catch he’d hauled up beside.

  Wheezing, her response, the woman chased her breath with coughs and rasp until, with effort, she tugged back her hood. And when a mess of black hair spilled with a splash and her marvelous visage appeared through her locks, Garth knew he was mistaken, it just couldn’t be.

  “Ioso?” he gasped.