An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  “She’s awake again.” The unnatural quality of Dai’s voice, spoken from the dark, made the hair on her arms stand on end.

  Kefier didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. “Go back to sleep, Dai. We have a long day tomorrow.”

  Dai pulled back at the blankets around his feet. “Did you try patting her back? My mother always patted the baby’s back when she was fussy. She said it helped settle her stomach.”

  “Dai,” Sume said. “Your mother didn’t have another baby.”

  Dai turned to her, brows furrowed. “She had loads, after me. Four. There were the twins, and then the little one…”

  “Dai.”

  The boy stopped. He was starting to learn that talking about his past—or whatever he thought it was—upset her. He rubbed his fingers together, knotted his shoulders, and turned to Kefier. “Is…is Sang Narani coming with us? The guards said they were keeping her.”

  “She will,” Kefier assured him. “I’m not leaving without her.”

  “And Jang?”

  “Yes, the horse, too.”

  That seemed to reassure him. He nodded and returned to his pallet. Sume came up to him to draw the blankets around him and wondered when on earth he’d gotten so big. His clothes already looked too short—she ought to get him properly measured by a tailor.

  He glanced at her, dark eyes framed by thick lashes, before gazing up at the ceiling. “I miss my mother.”

  “We’ll find Hana as soon as…” She swallowed. “As soon as we figure things out.”

  He didn’t bother to correct her and smiled. Not Dai’s smile, but it was a sweet boy’s, all the same. She drew her fingers over his curls, smoothing them from his face, and found herself wondering about this memory of this mother. The way he spoke of her was not how the old Dai would have. Hana had done the best she could, but she had kept her emotions guarded, which Dai had not always taken well. Sume couldn’t blame her. She had the boy under less than ideal circumstances.

  She noticed that Kefier had been watching her and remembered the baby. A tinge of heat touched her cheeks. She reached for her daughter; Kefier hesitated before giving her up.

  “You need your own,” she said, smiling. Kefier did not return the gesture.

  “Do you want me gone?”

  She sighed. He sometimes took the things she said far too seriously. “It’s a joke. I only meant that perhaps...don’t you have a girl waiting for you somewhere?”

  “Once,” he murmured. “I thought I did. That was long before I met you for the first time. I was too young to know any better.”

  “Tell me about her, anyway.”

  “What’s there to tell?” But he sat down, arms crossed over his legs, and the shadows lifted from his face. “She was Kag. Dark hair, clear eyes. She had a big family somewhere in the farms east of Cairntown. Told me, once, that she’d like to take me there to meet them. She had two sisters and three little brothers. The youngest was…I think his name was Haras. He sang during festivals in the village.”

  “You said had. Is she—”

  “What? Oh, no. But I suppose she might as well be.” He scratched his jaw. “I can never go back there.”

  “Why not? Gaven’s dead. And the men who wanted you dead probably don’t care anymore.”

  “That’s not why. I’m not afraid for myself. But that part of my life is over now—has been for many years. My place is here with you. With Dai. With Rosha.” She opened her mouth, but he held out his hand. “I know what you’re going to say. If your man returns, then I’ll decide. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

  “That’s not what I meant at all.” She bit her lip. “What I was going to say was that you’re not at all what I expected from someone like you.”

  “Like someone who grew up in the squallor of Cairntown, you mean? I wasn’t always from there.”

  “Don’t take offense.”

  “I won’t.”

  “This is my uncultured way of saying thank you, you know.”

  He snorted. “I know.”

  “That I’m saying thank you? Or that I’m uncultured?”

  “Yes, to both. Go back to sleep, Sume. Your head’s in the clouds.”

  “I just had a baby. I’m allowed.” But she smiled up at him again and this time, he returned it. A shiver ran through her. I really am tired, she thought, closing her eyes and trying to shut out the image of Kefier, and how she thought he was Enosh in the dark.

  Kefier waited until he was sure all three had fallen asleep before he took his sword from behind the door and tiptoed out of the room.

  He had half-expected it, but it still caught him by surprise to see Narani squatting out in the hall, several paces away from the door. She looked at him, eyes red.

  “You’re awake,” she said. Her voice was low and raspy.

  “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No. I would never dream of hurting them.” She rubbed her face. There were red streaks over her jaw, where her fingers touched them. They smelled like blood. “You’ve talked to Yeshin, of course. What am I saying? We shouldn’t have stayed here so long.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself over. Not with your little family to care for.” She shook her head. “I would never hurt them. You know that, right? How could I? I’ve hurt no one for a long, long time.”

  “So Yeshin was right about you.” He felt strangely calm about it, though he allowed his grip on the sword to tighten.

  Narani snorted. “I don’t know what you mean about right. That I tear off into the sky, my entrails hanging out for all the world to see? Please.” She rubbed her mouth on her sleeve. “I’m better than those savages. Are you just going to stand there with your mouth open? If I had wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it by now.”

  “That blood—”

  “A pig. There was a celebration down at the guardhouse. Didn’t think they’d miss the liver.” She smiled. “Or maybe they will. I think Yeshin had me followed. I was hungry. I don’t care.”

  “What are you supposed to be?”

  “Idiot boy. That’s the least of your concerns. More importantly—do you care? I’m very old, child, and I left the comforts of my home and came out here for the sake of your family. Am I still under your protection?”

  His eyes darted down to the dark hallway and then back. She was still sitting there, looking up at him expectantly. He felt his throat tighten, and he nodded, sheathing the sword. “Hurt Rosha and I’ll kill you myself.”

  He glanced through the window and noted two guards out in the alley below. “They’d be too scared to confront you before dawn. I could get you out now and come back for them later.”

  “I don’t think it’s wise to leave them.”

  “Yeshin has given his word that we may leave safely. I’m sure if he decides to do otherwise, Sume would have something to say.” He tightened his belt and bent over to offer her his arm.

  She waved him off. “I can walk by myself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped.

  “I could go outside and cut you a cane…”

  She smacked him. “Your mother ought to have beaten some good sense into you.”

  He rubbed the spot where she hit him. “I’m starting to see why your son ran away.”

  “I’m changing my mind about not hurting you, at least.”

  “You won’t be able to, old woman. Can’t hobble fast enough.” He noted that the guards did not seem to notice them and motioned to her. She followed him, looking even frailer than when he had seen her last.

  Kefier led her to the stables. The fences there were lower, easier to hop over. She took his arm to steady herself; her fingers curled over his skin like a leafless branch and her touch felt like ice. He gave an involuntary shudder, and for a moment, he considered yelling for the guards and having it all done with.

  But by the time he could breathe again, she was gone. “I’ll
meet you on the way out,” he remembered her saying. He could still feel the draft on his arm, clinging to him like the smell of a corpse.

  “Thought that was you,” he heard a voice behind him. “You making water back there?”

  He stepped back under the torch-lights to meet one of the guards and pretended to fix his shirt. “The baby finally fell asleep.” He yawned and scratched the side of his cheek. He glanced back out on the street and thought he saw a shadow dart into the trees.

  The guard must have read something on his face. “Is everything all right?”

  “What? Yes. It’s just—”

  “I guess it can’t hurt to tell you. We’re keeping the old woman here. We caught her sneaking around—she’s in a room right now, under lock and key. No windows. Can’t see her flying out of that any time soon.”

  Kefier swallowed. “Are you sure?”

  “I locked the door myself.” He smiled, as if what he’d done was some sort of accomplishment, and patted Kefier’s shoulder. “You should get some shut-eye.”

  “You’re not planning to hurt her, are you?”

  “That all depends on what we learn about her.”

  “Because she’s been kind to my family. I hope you remember that.”

  “I don’t want to frighten you, but she was probably waiting for the baby to be born.”

  Kefier returned to the room, feeling for all the world as if he’d been running for an hour. He bolted the door and was about to settle on his pallet on the floor when he thought the better of it. He found the spot near Sume’s arm, so close to Kirosha that he could almost touch her forehead with his nose, and looked at her until he fell asleep, his sword on his shoulder.

  Nothing came to attack them in the night. His dreams were a different matter altogether. In them, he strolled through the beaches of his childhood before standing face-to-face with a fanged giant that looked oddly like Yn Garr. And then he was snatching Kirosha from the hands of a winged creature with ribs that stuck out like fans and bulbous eyes.

  When he awakened, Sume was already up, the baby in her arms, and was directing Dai on the proper way to fold their clothes and blankets. She turned to him. “We had breakfast already. I didn’t want to disturb you, but I asked them to save a plate for you. Cabbage pancakes—done right, the cook claims. An Oren-yaro thing. You should hurry before it gets cold. It’s only a little past dawn.”

  He tried to gather his thoughts. Was that part of his dreams, when he spoke with Narani and helped her escape last night? He held Kirosha for a minute while Sume packed the rest of their things, and then he went downstairs to eat. Cabbage pancakes with shrimp paste. The cook was adamant it was the only way to make them. And then he went outside to load their wagon, glancing only once at the windows where they said—still said—they were holding Narani captive, and then they strode out of the Warlord Yeshin’s compound.

  He really didn’t breathe properly until they were way out into the road, the city of Oren-yaro a fading silhouette behind them. He was starting to think that perhaps the whole sequence of events from last night was a dream when he saw a hunched figure at the side of the road. He drew the reins. Narani grabbed the edge of the seat, and he helped her up.

  “Aren’t you tired, Sang?” Sume asked, peering out from inside the wagon. “Herb picking so far from town? Honestly. Couldn’t you have asked one of the girls to help? We could’ve waited for you.”

  Kefier gave her a look, and Narani, catching his unsaid explanation, nodded. “I apologize for worrying you,” she said. “How are the children?”

  “Well enough. Rosha’s eyes are a little teary.”

  “I’ll look at them later. Here now, what are you doing? Don’t you know how to drive a horse?” And she reached forward to yank the reins from his hands. She looked for all the world like the same old woman they had left the village with.

  The first time Kefier had heard of Shirrokaru, he had been a boy in Gorent, sitting across the edge of the docks at Sen’senal. It had been two moons after his father’s death. The boy Ing Vahn, a self-proclaimed scholar of Jin-Sayeng, had dropped by Gorent on his way to Dageis with the intent of spreading the prophet Kibouri’s teachings. The villagers had found Ing Vahn a little strange, but he was accompanied by a silent retinue of armed men, so nobody said otherwise.

  For Enosh, though, it was like seeing a Jinsein version of himself in a mirror, and for the few weeks Ing Vahn was in Gorent, they were inseparable. Kefier often tagged along, though he found their talks of grandeur tiresome. The only exception came when Ing Vahn told them of Shirrokaru, city of dragons. To a boy whose only idea of an organized community was the handful of hovels around the docks at Sen’senal, the stories of Shirrokaru’s towers, sky-bridges, and horseless carriages powered by dragon-fire were more than fascinating.

  “When the Ikessar family took over, they found a way to harness the power of the dragons through the dragon-towers, making Shirrokaru the most powerful city in all of Jin-Sayeng...even more powerful than some of the cities in Dageis, if you can believe it. Those were glorious times. Dragon-fire would light up the streets at night, or heat the houses in the winter.

  “Little boys could train to handle dragons, if they should so choose. It was a difficult, often dangerous task, but there was nothing—I tell you, nothing—more glorious than riding a dragon through the sky, navigating the sky-bridges to ensure everything was working as it should. The sky-bridges allowed connections to be made from the mountains, where dragon eggs are kept, to the towers and people’s homes. Dragon eggs, you understand, are covered in their mother’s dragon-fire for the ten or twenty years before they hatch, and these are stronger than any fire a dragon can produce in its lifetime. They made everything run.

  “But now…”

  The look on Ing Vahn’s face always changed every time he said those words. It was only later, when Kefier met Oji Kaggawa and saw the same expression on him, that he understood: it was the look of someone who had been robbed of his birthright. The dragons were gone, and had been gone for many, many years.

  “The royals were too greedy,” was Oji’s explanation for it. “The Ikessars and their philosophies gave us a chance to live above what we were born with, but they would rather we have nothing at all.” He was a merchant’s son, and with that carried the hatred the rest of the merchant class held for Jin-Sayeng royals outside of the Ikessar clan.

  Kefier opened his eyes and looked around him. The dragon-towers stood there just like in Ing Vahn’s stories, but what had been described as polished, white marble were now grey, withered, and crumbling. A guard directed them to a road with more holes than a slice of bread. Sections of the city, along the outskirts, reminded him of the slums in Cairntown, complete with mud and stench. He glanced at Sume. Her face was blank, unreadable.

  “Being Jinsein is a complicated thing, isn’t it?” he asked.

  She gazed down at the baby. “What do you have in Gorent?”

  “A semblance of what you did. We had shiar—what the Kags call mages—running the temples, keeping the streets of Gentigen clean. The Dageians drove us to the isles that are now what you call Gorent, and our people became fishermen, hunters, and foragers. It’s—it’s not a bad life, you know.”

  He reached forward to tickle Kirosha under the jaw. “The sky was always pretty. And we learned to do those things. To feed ourselves from the land and not to rely on the agan to live. Jin-Sayeng ought to have learned the same when the dragons went away. Found a way to move forward instead of squabbling amongst yourselves.”

  “People are stuck on the old ways,” Sume said. She glanced out towards the street and smiled. “Not all of it is bad. Those, for instance! Stop the horse. Dai, they’re selling steamed rice cakes! He used to love those when we were kids. I wonder if they sell blood stew, too.”

  She climbed from the seat and sauntered over to the vendor. Narani poked her head out of the wagon and gave a snort, but she said nothing.

  The vendor sold them the swe
etest, green-coloured rice cakes Kefier had ever eaten. They tasted of toasted coconut and each had half a salted egg inside. Incidentally, the man also knew a place they could rent a room not far from there. However, the landlord required a fee upfront and would not have room for a horse.

  So they sold Jang in the market. And there, under that grey sky and with about half a dozen onlookers, Dai, whom Kefier had come to know as a sullen, silent boy, broke down and sobbed. Even Sume looked baffled. They stood there, not quite sure what to do, and watched as tears rolled down the boy’s face. And then, as abruptly as it started, it stopped. Dai looked up at them and muttered a short apology.

  “Don’t tell me you grieve for the old beast,” Sume said, after a moment. She looked very tired. “I don’t know what’s come over you, Dai. Honestly…”

  Kefier grabbed her arm before she could say anything else. “Leave him alone. He’s upset enough as it is.”

  She sighed. “Please tell me your son can fix him.”

  Narani curled her lips. “If we find him. That won’t happen standing around here, causing the kind of ruckus we are. He’s certainly not in that gutter.”

  “Dai’s fine. Breathing. We have other things to worry about.”

  Sume drew up next to Kefier. “Tell me what you really think, Kefier. I promise I won’t get mad.” Despite her words, she sounded a touch irritated.

  He eyed her. Over the last few months, he had come to know the after-effects of her temper. He had not known then if they were the result of a woman’s pregnancy—he was woefully inadequate when it came to those matters—and he did not know now what she wanted him to say. A wild boar must feel the same, walking into a band of hunters. “I—”

  “Because it sounds like you don’t think he’s ill at all. That you allowed me to lead us here, and brought Narani along with you, just to appease the both of us.”

  There it was. He closed his mouth, scratched his head, and kept walking.

  She sighed. “I told you before, Kefier. You don’t have to go with us. You were free to walk away, even back in Enji.”