“A second chance,” said Matsa.
The Guides didn’t stop in the middle of the field. They kept dragging him toward the red tent. His legs were now in the air. He was kicking and screaming, trying to walk backward as they dragged him.
A Reghen shouted, “Three.”
All the Reghen together shouted around the field, “Three.”
The children around me were breathing hard. The Guides threw him into the tent but stayed outside.
I heard Urak scream three times far and across from the other side of the foggy field. The first scream was sudden as if he had just seen a Wolfman in front of him, the second was a short shrill like a trapped bird, and the third was a drawn-out bleat like a lamb in slaughter.
We heard, we didn’t see. Then silence.
Danaka had come next to me. She squeezed my hand.
“They bring the piss-carrying orphans to have meat for the dogs,” she had said to Elbia on the second night. I pulled my hand away from hers.
They brought four more children, one by one, for the same trial. Some I didn’t even know. Sheep or Carrier were the only names I called them. They had the advantage of knowing beforehand what was in the sack. They had a knife. But they all failed to do the simplest thing in the world. Some didn’t even manage to catch the animal, and none managed to break its neck, skin, and disembowel it. That’s what we had to do, what Sah-Ouna did the night before. Everyone tried to do that without asking, without being asked to. They had given us a knife, we had to kill something. Something weak. Knife, prey, kill. Simple. Wrong.
The Reghen were shouting after each failure: “Three,” or “Four.”
Kuran was sixth in line. Everyone knew he was born ill-fated. He’d come out of the womb with a dense black tuft of hair growing on the palm of his hand. Maybe they were right about him. He picked his sack, put his hand in fast, and pulled it out faster. There was no rabbit, only a black scorpion walking away from the sack. Kuran was holding his hand, screaming in agony, his face between his knees, crying in the middle of the field.
The Reghen shouted, “Four.”
They dragged him to the red tent.
“Shit! Now I have to worry about which sack to pick.”
I was still talking to myself, but at least I was fully awake now and making sense. I had to keep my head clear. Knife, prey, kill. That was all.
Another doomed child chose the scorpion later, and then it was Matsa’s turn. He was the first who succeeded in breaking the rabbit’s neck but failed at skinning the animal. His hands were trembling so much that he couldn’t skin the thing. He grabbed the knife and started hacking at the rabbit until it became a bloody, hairy mess. The Guides grabbed him.
The Reghen shouted, “Two.”
I looked at Malan. He had a grin and made a helpless gesture with both hands open. Matsa had lost it. Malan was enjoying this. The screams from the tent continued, always coming from the last child. We never heard more than one child at once. As if all the previous losers had been silenced forever.
Danaka spoke to me. “Do you think we all end this way?”
“No, I don’t,” was the only thing I said.
Six times the fingers on my hand I counted the children who had gone before me, and all of them failed and disappeared amid the terrible screams of the red tent. Everyone else around us—Guides, Ouna-Mas, Reghen, rabbits, and scorpions—remained silent.
That was how Danaka too was lost from my side.
When Bako failed, we heard his screams louder than any other, even before he entered the tent. And a little after.
Malan and I were the last. Sah-Ouna, who until then remained invisible, approached the fence, and the space opened around her.
I suspected then that we were not given our turns at random. Malan, Bako, and I were the strongest. We had feasted more than anyone else in the Wolves’ tent. Elbia would have been with us too if she were alive.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, not silently.
I was ready and angry as a bowstring pulled. If I could just keep my hand from shaking. If she could help me choose the right sack. I’d seen her only that morning among the firs. Dead-white skin. If only I could forget all the other losers before me, their screams piercing my skull. They made it seem so much harder than it was.
I cast a last glance around and saw that many more warriors had gathered. The Ouna-Mas were around Sah-Ouna. Their black robes all clustered together looked like a great beast, their veils adorning it with a garland of red flowers. And there was Khun-Taa, our Leader, on his long-necked warhorse. I had seen him once before, and it was enough to remember him. My legs sank into the ground as if all these horsemen were standing on my shoulders.
What had they come to do? To watch children who can’t kill a rabbit?
But my turn had come, and there was no breath left for another thought. I searched for Rouba and found his gaze. He clenched his fist to give me courage. He wouldn’t talk, but his lips whispered, “Nothing.”
Nothing to fear. Nothing would stop me.
Keko pushed me into the field. I was walking toward the sacks, and the earth was hard under my boots. I wore boots, unlike the previous days. I reached the sacks, and right away, at an impulse, kicked the one to the left. I had learned that much in the Sieve: a cunning mind was rewarded. I kicked something softer than a rock, probably the body of an animal. A cry, like a baby suffering. I had found the right sack.
I turned to see if anyone would stop me, but no one made a move. So many Redveils, Archers, Reghen. Malan was the only child left to watch me. He was looking at me, grinning and moving his fists up and down in rhythm. As if he were cheering me on.
I let out a deep breath and tried to keep a clear head. “I must not lose the rabbit.” I opened the sack only slightly enough for my hand to slip inside. Even if it cut my fingers off, I wasn’t going to let go. I took it out of the bag. It was soft and white as snow. I held its warm neck for a few breaths. I heard a purring sound and its teeth clicking. We were calm now. Happy. Both of us. I squeezed. It scratched me a couple of times, but I couldn’t break it.
It turned out afterward that it’s really easy to break the rabbit’s neck. Hold it belly down with one hand on its neck, grab its hind legs and pull them back in one fast move with the other hand. If only I had watched her more closely. She was a witch. I thought she could break the neck with her eyes only. That’s what witches do. They fool us. But I didn’t know how to break its neck. I needed something else—a club, a knife. I had a knife. For skinning.
I knelt, grabbed my knife, and held it under the rabbit’s head. My blade was cold. The rabbit made a funny growl. Its eyes were blood red. It knew; it was time. I slit its throat. A brief tremor. My hands warmed red.
The evil beast, the little snow rabbit, was dead. Life became prey, warmth became trophy, pouring became food, fear became victory.
I had to skin it now, but that was easy. It was food. Food doesn’t make any sound or movement. I started to skin it first from its blood-red belly and then along its back. I had dressed and undressed many small children in the orphans’ tents. I threw out the entrails. The animal, skinned, was slimy, and the morning’s vomit taste came back at the bottom of my throat. I carried on with a frozen mind. I had forgotten all about the tent. It wouldn’t see me. I thought only of the animal and how I would devour it roasted that night.
Just as I was about to finish, I heard murmuring. Next to the gate was Rouba standing, staring at me tight-lipped and disapproving. The Ouna-Mas were under their veils. The warriors were shaking their heads. I had done something wrong, but what?
I stopped looking at them and fixed my eyes on the rabbit. It took a few breaths for me to figure it out. I had thrown away the entrails, I had a skinned rabbit, but I did not have a heart. I stuck my knife into the guts and nailed the heart up with the knife. With my other hand, I grabbed the skinned rabbit and then lifted my arms in the air.
Cheers and battle cries rose around the f
ield, loud enough to reach all the way up to the Unending Sky.
Did she hear them?
The rabbit’s heart was small and dark as a ripe olive.
“Bring me a fire to throw this heart into!”
I said that with the thunderous voice of a thirteen-wintered boy who had conquered the whole world. They were still cheering. There, with my two arms raised in the air, victory’s cry coming out of my very soul, I let out the first of only two tears of joy that I was ever to shed in my entire life. I made it. Even if the stars had foretold otherwise. Even if she couldn’t see me anymore. At least she would hear me.
I took my rabbit, and with one push I thrust it onto one of the two spears that marked the fence’s gate. The Guides let me walk out of the field. Rouba’s hand slapped me on my back and threw me to the ground. A wide smile carved deep wrinkles on his face, deeper than ever.
Malan was the last one, but there was no glory left for him. I had stolen the thunder of the day. At most, he would just do whatever I had done. Maybe he would kill the rabbit with his hands like the First Witch had, but what more could he do? I didn’t know what the victor would win. Another piece of meat or his life outside of the red tent? But I was the one.
Malan passed two steps away from me and walked slowly, head down into the field. Not once did he look around him, his eyes fixed on the sacks. He grabbed one sack, without hesitation. I saw something move inside and knew that it was the rabbit sack, but he didn’t seem at all concerned with it. With his knife, he stabbed the other sack and walked away, leaving scorpion and blade behind.
He turned around and came back toward the fence, where I had speared my rabbit. I was right there.
As he came face to face with me, he whispered, “Oh no, Da-Ren! You killed it.”
“What?”
He had the eyes of a Reghen, naked of fear or joy. He pulled my rabbit, dead and skinned, out of the spear and threw it into the same sack with the other one. The skinned rabbit embraced the living one in the darkness. I still remember this as the most savage moment of the entire Sieve. If they’d had souls, those rabbits would search for him in the nights.
“I do not take the life from this rabbit,” Malan whispered only for me to hear.
I did not understand what he was mumbling, but I was already seeing his back. He was walking away from me with the sack. From the spear to the red tent on the other side of the ring, he made steady steps, eight times the fingers on both my hands. He didn’t look to the left or to the right, he didn’t gaze at the sky nor at the ground. He reached the entrance of the red-painted tent holding only a sack with two rabbits and no knife.
The warriors were murmuring again. And it was louder now. Khun-Taa was too far for me to hear him, but he kept pointing to the red tent and Malan and talking to the Rods around him. Some Ouna-Mas lifted their veils. A medley of whispers and cheers grew with each of Malan’s last steps, as if Darhul were rising from the waters of the dark sea.
I turned my gaze to Sah-Ouna. She had lifted her black veil. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Malan, who was almost outside the red tent of the Wolfmen. The Witch was trembling like a child, and tears ran down her pale-white cheeks.
Malan pulled the hide flap away and went into the red tent.
“What was that? What did he do?” I asked loudly, but no one was paying attention to me anymore.
The warriors’ horses came closer to see that which their riders couldn’t believe, and I held from one of the poles so they wouldn’t trample on me. I was the only little one there.
No matter what I did or how loud I was asking, no one noticed. I looked for Rouba. He was looking away from me, toward the tent. From Sah-Ouna to Khun-Taa himself and the Guides, all cheered and pointed, wide-eyed. As if they had seen a demon walking on earth.
Sah-Ouna made a signal for silence. Everyone obeyed. The wind came sharper and colder. Not a sound was heard, nor any screams coming from the tent, though I thought I heard a wild roaring laughter. Reghen and Rods were pushing me backward as they moved in front. I couldn’t see anything. I slipped from in between the horses and got to the front again.
“You—what are you doing here? Get back in the field.” A Guide was talking to me.
Then I saw them coming from the opposite end of the field, in one line, like a sad herd of sheep that the mist had spat out. Urak, Matsa, Bako, Danaka. And all the others. Keko was leading them. I ran toward them.
They had bloodied rags wrapped around their arms, but none of them was bleeding badly. They were walking on their own. All were still alive. Very much alive. They passed in front of me and looked at me, one by one, with a questioning look as if they were asking why I wasn’t with them. Why did I not have a bloodied rag tied to my left arm? Their eyes kept looking backward as they passed me. They aligned next to me on the fence within the ring. Only one was missing.
Malan came out of the red tent. His hands were empty, no sack, and he was walking slowly with his head held high toward us. He reached us and took his place next to me. No Guide stopped him. His left arm was not bloodied. He wore no rag like all the other kids. We were the only two still uncut.
Sah-Ouna entered the ring of trial. Once again, I thought she was coming for me. Once again, I was wrong. She was close enough for me to feel her breath, but it was not blowing on my face. She wouldn’t turn her eyes toward me. She put her hands on Malan’s cheeks. They were both shaking as if they were burning coals and Malan was an Ice Drakon. She knelt and her hands extended to touch his face and begged to the Sky:
Sun, come out to see your offspring.
Brave, our blood has tamed the night.
Wolf, hunger, Selene, arrow.
One will lead. All will fall.
Farther away, from the direction of the red tent, unnoticed by most, came two strangely dressed men, laughing. They were wearing wolfskins on their heads and their backs and around their waists. They even had two bushy tails tied behind their waists, and each was carrying a rabbit in his hands. One skinned, my rabbit, the other freshly killed. The two rabbits Malan had brought them. They took off their wolf hides and looked the same as all the other Guides.
I pointed to Bako so he could see them.
“Your Wolfmen. There!”
He saw them long before I did. He already knew there weren’t any Wolfmen. They were the men who had bled his arm in the red-painted tent.
The Guides and the Reghen had taken care all these many winters of the Sieve to create this deception. The last day, a foggy day, always foggy. The Wolfmen standing on the other side, next to the red tent, far away. They were walking and crouching in a strange way that confused me more than the skins they wore. Howling. Dressed as Wolfmen were two towering Guides, taller than any man we had ever seen before.
The First Witch walked past me, ignoring me completely, and stepped out of the field. I knew I had lost then, because Sah-Ouna did not sing for me. It would take me many winters to understand what was at stake that day. “My whole life’s Story,” Rouba said at dawn.
“All the children of the Sieve, move to the center of the ring field. You will now meet your fate!” shouted the Reghen.
No one had left. All warriors were still watching from their horses.
The Reghen began to recite his last words:
The Truth of the Last Day of the Sieve
Listen all to the commands of the Goddess of the Unending Sky. This is the last Truth of the Sieve, and you will henceforth carry it on this land until you return to the stars.
Through the trees of the misty Forest crept the eternal Demon Darhul and reached the field of the Sieve. His talons big as fir branches; his green breath fouled the air. He smelled the fear of the weak and carved them deep twice and thrice, some even four times.
The carvings of the Demon and of your shame are on your left arm tonight. Other carvings will come in your life, and each will mark your cowardice.
The weakest of you will leave here now, the last day of the Sieve,
with four straight marks carved. You will never be warriors. You will become Hunters, Fishermen, Blacksmiths, Tanners, Craftsmen. You too are men of the Tribe. You too shall be worthy because the Goddess wants everyone at her side. But you are not warriors.
If you leave here with three lines carved, take care not to receive a fourth. You must remain throughout your further training and life with three carvings. And if you do so, you’ll become warriors, honored and star-born. But you will always obey those who have fewer carvings.
The few of you who will remain with two carvings after your training of five springs are worthy and strong enough to become Pack Chiefs. You may one day have forty warriors behind your horse at your command.
Those with only one carving, you are proud sons of Selene, fierce leaders of men tomorrow, counted on the fingers of one hand, and Enaka favors you. If you remain this way through your next training, you can become Leaders of a Banner and command many Packs and all their Chiefs. The Banners of battle are only five, and you are one of a kind. With only one carving, you may lead all the Archers, or Blades, or Rods, or Craftsmen, or Trackers.
Listen, all. In battle you will give your blood under the banner that Enaka has chosen for you. If you live to become so old that you can’t carry your blades to the battle and need to rest your weary bones at your glory’s winter, you will get five carvings and join the old Guides.
Thus declared the Ouna-Mas, the Voices of the Unending Sky.
Khun-Taa on horseback came nearer and stood silent next to the Reghen. Up close he looked old. Old like Rouba. His eyes were sunk deep into the cave of his skull, his left arm bare and uncarved, a gray wolf’s fur covering his back and the right arm. There was the mark of an awful gash on his face underneath his left eye. He had escaped Darhul’s talons, but some othertriber’s sword had found his flesh. Countless winters ago, he was a child walking in the same Sieve.
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