“We have to decide what to do with these creatures.”
“You know what I think.”
“I do.” He sat back in his chair. “I’ll need your list before tomorrow.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Right. Tomorrow, then.”
“Night, Tony.”
And the screen disappeared, returning the room to its familiar and comforting darkness. He turned his attention to the grids. Mountains and plains, cities and ruins, and he grunted again. All covered in a beautiful, deadly, mocking blanket of white.
And not for the first time, he cursed the contradictions of the snow.
***
Village of Khumul,
Steppes of Gobay, Lower Kingdom
Year of the Dragon
Fresh snowfall covered the ground, wood smoke rose up from the roofs of the gars and the smell of roasting tsaa buga hung sweet on the air. It was moonrise and the backs of the People were painted in silver as they waited for the udgan outside her gar. She had facilitated a difficult delivery tonight and no one knew whose cries had been worse – the mother’s or the udgan’s. Finally after several hours, she emerged from the tent, held up the birth sac – payment from an exhausted mother – and uttered one sentence that had stirred the entire village.
“The Oracles of Blood have come to Khumul.”
With that one pronouncement, she disappeared into her own gar and soon, the scent of burning flesh rose from the open peak. Now it was quiet but no one in the village could sleep. Their breathing had quickened, their hearts like a drum.
Oracles of Blood had come to Khumul.
Tales of the Magic and the Army of Blood. Stories of a battle on a Field of One Hundred Stones. For weeks, runners had brought whispers and rumour but no one could believe that a lion had defeated the Khan of Khans. It had to be false but they had no Oracle to ask. The udgan had chased him into the mountains months ago, claiming the Legions would spare the village if they had no Oracle. It made no sense at the time but now, everyone looked to the udgan for guidance, so maybe it did.
“Come out, woman!” called Tuuv Sarangaral, alpha of the village. “You’ve caused enough nightmares tonight. Tell us what you mean.”
“Go away! I’m making peace with the tngri.”
“She’s drinking,” grunted Raan Altenbayan.
“I say again,” called Tuuv. “Tell us what you mean by the Oracles of Blood!”
The leather door flapped open and the People stepped back as the udgan staggered into the light. She was a woman of middling years, with bones braided into her wild hair and the feet of crows gummed into her thick pelt. No one wanted to touch her. She was a caller of the black tngri, and therefore, unclean. The People of the village never knew what to think. She was always moving when out of her gar, always convulsing, always moaning, but those who had been brave enough to peek inside the flaps would see her sitting with her wotchka and pipes, knitting like a normal woman. It was a mystery and the People were not fond of mysteries
“They come,” she moaned, waving her hands in the air. “The Khargan is dead! The Khargan is dead, killed by the Khanmaker and his Army of Blood.”
The village formed a circle around her.
“The runners have been sharing these stories for weeks,” said Tuuv. “Tell us something new, woman.”
“You know nothing!” Her bony finger snapped up, pointing directly at his face. An offence. He could have killed her but he didn’t dare. “They are coming to turn the world upside down. Your archers should shoot them before they enter the village!”
“My archers should have shot you last year,” said Tuuv. “Then we might have had peaceful days and quiet nights.”
The men laughed but she went on, unhearing.
“Granddaughter of the Blue Wolf,” she moaned. “Lover of the Yellow Cat! They will turn the People upside down and inside out. They will steal our only Oracle and your archers will not defend us!”
“We have no Oracle, woman. But my archers,” said Tuuv. “My archers are the best of all the Chanyu.”
He turned to the men.
“Am I right, men of Khumul?”
The men cheered, the women clapped, even the children, who had stayed up past moonrise, agreed.
“Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat,” moaned the udgan and she stiffened, closed her eyes as if frozen. “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”
The village fell silent.
“She’s calling the black tngri,” whispered Raan Altenbayan.
“She’s acting,” hissed Tuula Enkhjargal. “She’s always acting. She just wants attention.”
“And wotchka,” said Bol Odeseteg.
And they laughed again. It had been a hard winter with the Khargan stealing men for his army of Ten Thousand. Khumul had struggled to hunt enough tsaa buga to feed them all. The antlered herds had passed on and now with another month left of deep cold and snow, all they could look forward to was hare, grouse and mice dug up from the banks.
“Go to bed, people,” said Tuuv. “The udgan is drunk. You can smell it on her breath.”
Suddenly, the woman’s brown eyes snapped open and she swung her finger to the gate of the village. The sound of the sentry horn carried over the gars and they could hear snow crunching as a runner burst into the circle, torch in one hand, bow in the other.
“A horse!” he cried. “A horse is coming to Khumul!”
The udgan began to laugh. Tuuv stepped forward.
“If her tngri is bringing a horse to us,” he began, “then perhaps our luck is changing. Men, to the bow! Women, to the fires. We dine on horse tonight.”
“But not just a horse, Lord,” said the runner as men dispersed to fetch their weapons. “A group led by…”
The words dried on his tongue.
“Led by?” said Tuuv.
“I can’t say for certain, Lord. The sky is dark.”
“The moon is not. Led by what?”
“A cat, Lord,” said the runner. “A cat rides with a girl of the People.”
A murmur rippled through the village, an uneasy quiet broken only by the laughing of the udgan. Not for the first time Tuuv Sarangaral wished he had killed her months ago.
An owl swept above their heads on silent wings. It dropped the body of a hare at Tuuv’s feet before disappearing into the night sky once again.
“A gift,” called a voice from outside the gate.
In the darkness beyond, eyes could be seen shining in the torchlight. Many eyes moved in, through, and out of the trees toward the village. At the gate, a large dark shape with three pairs of eyes.
“People of Khumul,” came the voice. No, thought Tuuv, two voices speaking almost in tandem, one a heartbeat behind the other. “We come in peace at the command of our new Khargan, Khan Sumalbaykhan, Khan of Khans, Son of the White Wolf, Father of the Jackal. Ruler of the Chanyu and all the People of the Moon.”
His archers emerged from the shadows of the gars, bows drawn, arrows nocked and the village spread wide as a horse with two riders stepped through the gate. They were followed a ragged band of walkers but all attention was on the horse and the pair upon his back.
“Shar Ma’uul,” wailed the udgan. “Yellow Cat, lover of the Blue Wolf.”
It was indeed a yellow cat, and in the torchlight, Tuuv could see his hair as white as the moon. On his shoulder sat the owl, staring at them with unblinking eyes.
“A white tngri,” whispered Tuula Enkhjargal. “How could the udgan call a white spirit?”
“How can a cat be a good spirit?” asked Bol Odeseteg.
“It’s the udgan,” growled Raan Altenbayan. “She’s called a curse on Khumul!”
“Silence,” hissed Tuuv. “What do you want with Khumul, tanikhgüi?”
He was surprised to see a girl swing to the ground, leaving the yellow cat astride his terrifying mount. The horse snorted and pawed at the snow and the archers immediately trained their sights on it.
“We come in peace, Lord,” said the girl an
d he saw the blue eye that marked her as an Oracle. “I am Jalair Naransetseg, Granddaughter of the Blue Wolf and first Oracle of the Army of Nine Thousand Dragons.”
“Nine Thousand Dragons,” repeated the cat and the bows swung to target him next. He had white eyes. Unnatural.
She raised her hand to the rider.
“This is Shar Ma’uul, Alchemist and Seer of Sha’Hadin.”
The owl bobbed its head but the cat said nothing more.
“The enemy!” wailed the udgan. “She brings an enemy into our camp!”
“What is this army?” asked Tuuv. “Is it the Khan’s Ten Thousand? Why do you ride with the enemy?”
“Kill them,” wailed the udgan. “Kill them all!”
The girl waved her hand at the rabbit.
“We have brought you an offering,” she said. “Will you hear your Khan’s orders over a fire and a meal?”
The village of Khumul murmured again but Tuuv raised his hand and they were silenced.
“Leave your horse and your cat outside,” he said. “Only people are welcome to join our hearths.”
“The cat goes where I go,” she said. “We are joined.”
“Abomination!” cried the udgan. “Abomination! Kill all the Oracles! Kill the—”
The woman gasped and gurgled, clutched at her throat but no sound came out.
“Thank you, Shar,” called the girl and the cat smiled at her. “We trade peace for peace. My Oracles are weary. Are we welcome to share your gars for the story of our new Khargan?”
“Does the horse sleep with you as well?”
“He is warm and makes a very good pillow.”
And she smiled at him.
There was something about the girl that Tuuv admired. Her boldness, her strength, her lack of fear or deference. She could easily be the daughter of a Khan, had she not one blue eye and a cat for a lover. He looked past her at the faces lingering outside the gate. Oracles, a few adults but most were children. Tattered, thin children.
He looked to his betas. Tuula shook her head, as did Bol and Raan and his heart sank. If there was one thing the People hated more than mysteries, it was Oracles.
He reached down to take the hare at his feet, turned it over and over in his hands. He looked at the udgan, shaking the crow’s feet at the cat in a curse but unable to utter a single word. He looked at his people, the archers with their bows drawn, fingers taut on the strings. He looked back at the girl, to the cat on the horse and the starving band of Oracles at the gate.
It was madness.
He tossed the hare back to the girl.
“Leave,” he said. “My archers will spare you tonight but if we see you again, we will kill you all.”
She raised her chin and her blue eye flashed in the torchlight.
“When Khan Sumalbaykhan learns of your disrespect, he will trample your entire village into the snow.”
“We will wait for Khan Sumalbaykhan himself, not a girl who beds the enemy. Leave and take your Oracles with you.”
The udgan shook the crow’s feet again at the girl, at the cat, at the Oracles by the gate.
Slowly, the girl picked up the hare, studied its soft pelt and glassy eyes.
“They are the Khargan’s Oracles,” she said softly.
The cat reached a hand for her from the back of his wild horse.
“Setse,” he said. “Come.”
Tuuv was shocked to hear him speak in the Language of the People. It sounded wrong coming out of his mouth.
“The Ancestors are rising,” she said, eyes fixed on the hare. “And the Chanyu are unprepared. I see it now.”
“Setse, please. Their minds are closed like a fist.”
“I see it, Shar,” said the girl. “We will never be able to save ourselves. Not without a vision.”
“We have a vision,” said the cat. “We see. They do not. Come now. Please. The children are tired.”
And he reached down to take her hand.
Yes, thought Tuuv. It was all wrong.
As if hearing his thoughts, the udgan lunged at the nearest archer and an arrow left its nock, whistling across the short distance toward the cat. He rocked back across the saddle in a swirl of brown robes and long white hair, but he did not fall. As he slowly righted himself, Tuuv saw that he had caught the arrow in his gloved hand. He stared at it with odd white eyes when suddenly, it burst into flame, turning to ash in his grip and floating away on the night air. The udgan stomped her feet and another arrow was released, this time plucked out of the sky by the owl and carried off into the night.
“Kill them,” growled Tuuv but all the arrows burst into flames before the words left his mouth. The archers dropped their bows into the snow and backed away, shaking their heads at the witchcraft.
The udgan snaked toward the girl, shaking the crow’s foot but that too, caught fire, filling the night with the smell of burning bone. She held onto it as long as she could before dropping it into the snow at the Oracle’s feet. Both the snow and the udgan hissed.
The girl raised a hand toward the woman.
“I curse you, Nagaran Altanareg, udgan of Khumul. There is a flesh-worm within you that is squeezing the breath from your chest. You will die in agony before the summer and the crows will carry off your feet to feed their hatchlings.”
The udgan dropped to her knees, clawed at her matted head. The girl turned, slowly raised both hands to the village.
“Tuuv Sarangaral, you have three wives but the children they have borne you are not yours. Soon, your favourite will leave you because of her fear. You will die alone, diseased and shunned by the People. The village of Khumul will be trampled by the Bones of the Ancestors and razed by the Breath of the Maiden. None shall survive to see the New World, not even the Oracle born in your gars.”
“You are wrong, foolish girl who lies with cats,” said Tuuv. “We have no Oracle. He left the village months ago.”
“You have one but do not have him.” She reached up to take the cat’s hand and he swung her up behind him on the horse. She peered around him, blue eye flashing. “If you send more arrows, we will burn your entire village.”
“Leave, Oracle,” growled the alpha. “And take your lover with you. The smell of him is worse than the udgan.”
A tug of the rein and the horse wheeled in the snow, springing out of the gate and taking its riders off into the darkness. Tattered shapes staggered after them, the last Oracles of the Chanyu. Tuuv Sarangaral and the people of Khumul watched them go, closing the gate after all sight of them was gone.
They did not see a woman slip out under the skins and through the fence, clutching her new baby to her chest. She ran into the trees, following the tracks of the Oracles across the snow.
***
Celestial Mountain Gate,
Lha’Lhasa, Shibeth, Eastern Kingdom
Year of the Dragon
She is with child.
Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu, Matriarch of Pol’Lhasa and Most Blessed Ruler of the Upper Kingdom, whom I have been allowed to call Ling, is with child.
My child.
What was I thinking?
I confess, here and now, that I was not, in fact, thinking at all. I was acting out of despair and gratitude and relief and profound, eternal love, which I suppose is understandable all things considered. But I am a thinking man. I abandoned all that I am for one sweet week in her prayer room and now, she will pay for my recklessness. I can pray that she miscarries, but that would only compound her grief. I owe everything to her and her alone. I would be dead if it were not for her.
I am afraid for her life. There are spies everywhere in the Palace. Surely, they would not kill an Empress, but a widowed Empress newly pregnant is a scandal and a liability and a tempting target for such as Ho. To this day, Ling still believes her mother was poisoned. I wish the Seer was here – I would have him send his falcon to warn Smith-Honshu, the Captain of her Imperial Guard. He would redouble her watch and urge the ladies-in-waiting to stri
ctest vigilance. But the Seer has a mission of a very different sort. I hope he survives it.
I find myself remembering her dream, the one where she takes my hand and we flee from the palace and live forever among the common people in the city but I dream we run further. I dream I take her far away to Kha’Bull or Shiriya or Aegyp, somewhere so far that no one would ever recognize her, somewhere no one would care that we were a lion and a Sacred raising a mongrel child together.
It will not be my first child. I still marvel to know I have a son.
Kylan. It means Kirin in Namyanese.
It twists my heart to think of him, of his mother now married to a dog, but I am proud of her – the woman I should have killed, the woman I could have loved. She has made a strategic choice, but then again, she always did. I hope one day she loves him as I love Ling.
I wonder if I should return. Even now, so close to the Celestial Mountain Gate of Lha’Lhasa, I resist the urge to turn my horse and race back across the high plateau of Shibeth to the Wall. I would protect her with my life. I will. But I am here, at the foot of the Celestial Mountain Gate of Lha’Lhasa and the Capuchin Council of the Rising Suns with Kerris and his wife and Khan Sumalbaykan and his wife and my heart is far, far away in a palace with peacocks and painted glass and Ling.
Bushido is my master, and I live by its edicts. Duty, Respect, Curiosity, Certainty, Discipline, Honesty, Destiny, Courage, Integrity, Mercy, Hope, Honour. These Twelve Virtues guide my life. I cannot afford to abandon them now.
I am feeling the effects of this journey. My knee threatens to give out every morning, and the wound in my back from the Bear’s kushagamak has become hot. I only hope I have the strength do what needs to be done. While I have an Army of Nine Thousand Dragons, we need the support of the Rising Suns behind us. We can still fall, even with so many warriors. We need all the kingdoms united. We need the Gifts and the Arts united. We need strength and conviction and magic to keep our place in the world. Once the Ancestors have a claw-hold, they will not give up easily.
Indeed, I fear they will not give up at all.
- an excerpt from the journal of Kirin Wynegarde-Grey
Snow in the Year of the Dragon Page 2