Drakon Omnibus

by C. A. Caskabel

  “Wolfhowl,” mumbled Gunna. Balam, Akrani, and Lebo did the same.

  The sound of the word took me back to the arena, with naked, barefoot, twelve-wintered ghosts around me. “You will join the Goddess’s Feast, along with thousands of other warriors, Ouna-Mas, Sah-Ouna, and Khun-Taa. Together with the men and the Witches,” added Chaka.

  The next morning, Rouba said to me, “Things are not good. I fear for my Tribe, boy.”

  I knew his fears. They were spread around Sirol, slithering like Darhul’s snake heads, poisoning every man’s words.

  “We have to leave this place. Everyone talks about it,” I answered.

  “Yes! By Enaka, yes! You, the young ones, don’t feel it but we the old have known it for long. We always traveled, since the age of the first Khun. But you have been trapped since birth. In this iron valley,” said Rouba.

  Sirol itself meant “iron valley,” a name to honor the red, iron-rich soil which gave birth to our blades.

  “Where will we go, Rouba?” I asked.

  “That I don’t know,” he said. Rouba went on his right knee and started drawing with an arrowhead on the dirt. He took all the time to explain. “West and northwest is the Endless Forest. South, the Blackvein. And farther south the cities of the Empire.”

  “Can’t we go there?” I said.

  “We have; many times, we went as far as we could. We reached Sapul, the untrodden city. To the northeast; the vast meadows. They lead back to the steppe, the sacred soil we came from.”

  “Why don’t we go back to the steppe?”

  “Sacred soil, but barren now. What’s left? Nothing. Oh, here, to the southeast, the Black Sea.”

  I had heard all this from the Reghen many times, but I liked to listen to Rouba explain it in his own way. The Black Sea, the slimy lair of Darhul and his nine heads.

  “The curse is, we are too many. It would take a moon to cross even the Blackvein; all fast horses and oxen carts.”

  “It is the Forest then,” I said. “That’s what the Ouna-Mas say. The West is our destiny.”

  “Is that so? The Ouna-Mas haven’t spent a night in the Forest. Ride for two moons north; keep the wood to your left. The wall of trees will not end. It goes on forever. And if I am right, it is that way to the west, once you are in there.”

  “Have you been…in there?” I asked.

  He lifted his eyes, and looked to the west while he kept talking.

  “One whole moon on foot into the wood. I kept going west. I found just rocks and trees. And more of them.”

  “Did you see the Reekaal?” I asked.

  “Huh, no, none of those bloodeaters. But I saw the Dasal. Many times.”

  I had never heard much about the Dasal.

  “They are savages, they live in the Forest in small settlements,” Rouba said.

  “Are they a big Tribe?”

  “No big Tribe can survive in the Forest. They are scavengers, only a handful, and useless as warriors. I’ve seen them, unlike the Reekaal. The Forest hunters, the Dasal, are real,” Rouba told me. He was the first one ever to speak to me about the Forest without repeating Legends.

  We had settled in Sirol, where grass and water were abundant for the horses and there was enough iron in the earth for making weapons and tools. The warriors kept raiding the surrounding areas, in the fall, always away from the Forest, but things became more difficult with each passing winter.

  That same night we had all gathered to listen to Chaka about the Feast of Wolfhowl.

  “This is unheard of,” said Bera, looking around for others to agree. “How long have we been stuck in the same valley?”

  “Summers and winters come and go,” said another.

  “Without a campaign, we’ll crawl starving and naked of glory to our deaths,” added Chaka.

  All agreed. They were cursing because the meat slices were carved thinner and there were no fresh horses to replace the dying. They kept looking at the hut’s entrance to make sure that none of the Reghen’s two hundred ears and eyes were close and continued.

  “Khun-Taa is too old for new campaigns,” mumbled the venomous tongues, especially those of the fivecarved Guides who were the same age as the aging One Leader of the Tribe.

  “We have waited long enough for Khun-Taa to die. The time has come for Sah-Ouna to bless a new beginning. Now, at the Feast of the First Moon of Spring,” said Chaka. “But first, you will join the Blades tomorrow. They leave for the Forest.”

  “To the West?” I asked.

  Rouba, who until then had been listening silently to the others, spoke: “Don’t send them in the Forest; they cannot fight there. Archers are useless there; even horses are not much good.”

  “They are not going deep. One day, in and out. I’ve got my orders and that’s how it’s gonna be. The Reghen ordered a manhunt. They want the Uncarved to join,” said Chaka. “The Great Feast is upon us.”

  “And Sah-Ouna needs fresh lives to sacrifice,” added Bera. “I’ll go with them and the warriors to guide them.” He didn’t look excited about the hunt.

  At dawn, the childhood Stories of the most carefree era of my life and my training with the Uncarved came to an end. There was no ceremony. I swallowed the cold gruel, strapped the scabbards and the bow onto my back, and jumped onto my horse. By nightfall, I had fallen into the black-and-blue waters of life where only grown men swam.

  I was to find out at last.

  The one thing that turns a boy into a man in just one day.

  It was so simple.

  The one thing that lifts him up in the air like a baby and throws him to the ground like a puppy.

  No one had told me till then.

  XXII.

  Blue

  Eighteenth spring. Uncarved—

  A few days before I became a Wolf.

  “A woman. Othertriber, young, soft, the one with eyes of color. We fetch her; we bring her back for the Great Feast of Spring. Then we come back,” said the Chief of the Blades. These were his only words before he put boot on stirrup to lead our pack forward.

  The one with eyes of color? He was on horseback and had no time for my questions.

  Cloudy but windless dawned the day of my first manhunt. The kindred spirits of the wolf, the mauler, the eagle, and the owl were on our side as we marched out of the camp. We would hunt together. A dozen Blades led and paid little attention to us. Two Guides and whatever was left of my pack, the six Uncarved, were riding farther back, next to the oxen-pulled cages.

  The Blades were chewing on dried meat, and most of them were talking and joking around while their Chief rode first, sulky and quiet. Everyone would steal glances toward the Forest, which rose to the left of us. A lifeless brown-and-gray wall.

  “We’re not going to fight pumpkins today,” said the ninestar Bera.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Half a day’s ride, toward the north. We will enter the Endless Forest by afternoon. The Blades will hunt the Dasal. It’s where the Trackers saw them a few days ago. They’ve come south for the winter.”

  “The Dasal are evil spirits. Shouldn’t we bring more men?” asked Lebo.

  “They’re flesh and blood. All you have to do is put them in the cages after the Blades capture them. And watch that they don’t escape.”

  “But the Legends—”

  “We all know the Legends, kid. Any othertriber who lives in the Forest is a demon. The Dasal are not Reekaal, but they dwell in there too.”

  The horses continued their course on the outskirts of the Forest, without entering. The Blades told us that the oxen and the heavy carts couldn’t move through the dense tree branches and the rough paths and we should stay out of the Forest as long as possible. Maybe it really was that way. The Blades were not the greatest warriors of the Tribe, and the horses were useless in the deep wood.

  All my fellow Uncarved had come: Gunna, Lebo, Malan, Akrani, and Balam. Chaka had tied the red ribbon on Malan’s arm, and the pale-faced boy was First among us.r />
  Gunna was repeating the Stories we had all heard from the Reghen about the Reekaal. He hadn’t stopped doing that since the night he had seen them. Or whatever it was that he had seen. The Stories sounded even more frightening because the giant recited them.

  “Lidless, red eyes, never close. They skin alive any who enters the wood. Their nails, long as blades.” He pointed at the scars on his arm. “They hang their prey from the branches and rip open at the neck. Suck out the blood and marrow while life still twitches… The Reekaal bewitch the trees and can enter the bodies of the Dasal. Every living thing in there, tree or man is their servant.”

  “Nonsense for seven-wintered children,” mumbled the arrogant Balam, riding next to me with his head high. “I’ll kill the first one I see.”

  “Have you ever been inside the Forest, you featherbrain?” Gunna asked him.

  “Don’t talk to me that way. Soon I will be the Khun.”

  “Like shit you will be! Just step in there first. Come on, go fetch us a kill.”

  “We won’t see Reekaal; they only come out at night,” said the Ninestar.

  “Tell them about the Dasal, Ninestar,” said Lebo.

  Balam let the reins and pretended to jump on him with his two arms stretched out. “Boooooh Dasal!” he yelled.

  Drops of sweat were shining above Lebo’s lip and his first young beard. The veins of his neck were pulsating, pumping the blood to feed his first warrior Story.

  Midday came, but the sun was still hiding behind a patch of faint clouds. We were late, but the Blades continued at a trot. Night was going to catch up with us.

  “I’ve seen the Dasal many times. They live in small settlements, huts, in the deep of the wood. They don’t have horses or strong bows like ours,” said Bera.

  “How do they fight?”

  “They don’t. Not us, they can’t. They hunt, gather mushrooms, and dig for roots. We’ll catch a few for Sah-Ouna’s sacrifices and go back.”

  “But do they have eyes of fire, red and yellow? Like Gunna claims?” asked Akrani.

  A loud raspy sound, like the sharpening of long knives, flew out of the thick bushes. Everyone froze.

  “What…what was that?” cried Lebo.

  “Shhhh, demon’s howl,” said Gunna.

  “Pheasant,” said Malan, calm as an old Guide who had been there many times.

  Not much later, two of the Blades came out of the bushes holding the pheasants pierced by their arrow shafts.

  Bera turned to us and continued. “Eyes of fire? The Dasal? No, they aren’t owls.”

  Lebo jumped in. “The Dasal have green eyes. I was raised in the Trackers’ tents before the Sieve, and I heard all the tales. One thing they all said, is that the trees themselves were the Dasal. Man is tree and tree is man.”

  There was a grin on Malan’s face as he turned and whispered to the rest: “Pheasant is demon and demon is pheasant.” Balam tried to muffle his laughter.

  “Keep speaking, Lebo,” I encouraged him.

  “The branches come alive and grab you; their tips get under your nails and into your nostrils. The Dasal don’t kill with an ax. The tree holds on the living for entire moons, melting their bodies, emptying the blood. It takes many winters for a man to die this death until all warm life is sucked out and he wrinkles like a one-hundred-wintered, rotten corpse. The Trackers used to say that they saw warriors, still trapped within trunks, after tens of winters, living dead.”

  “That is stupid talk, Lebo,” Balam said.

  “Those Trackers have some crazygrass Stories,” said Malan.

  “Yeah? Ask the Blades who have come here before. They will tell you what they’ve seen. Dasal with blue eyes, the color of the sky. That is why we are here. Sah-Ouna has ordered them to find a blue-eyed or a green-eyed one for the sacrifice. She craves for the eye that has the gift of the Sky and can see into the future, even after she rips it out of the head.”

  “There are no people with blue eyes, stupid.”

  The Chief of the Blades heard our senseless words and joined in. I expected him to say there were no such creatures.

  “The Dasal are just men, but when you catch them with the neckrope, they know they’re going to die and will fight like wolves. If you’re not quick enough, they’ll bring their ax down on your head or stab your chest with a hunting knife. They are strong men. They hunt in the Forest all day, living next to the Reekaal, and are not afraid. You strike to kill. No fear or hesitation if you are in danger.”

  We had come far north, and the wood in front of us thickened and darkened a bit more every time I looked at it. Milk-colored fumes were rising above the treetops, and it wasn’t fog.

  “Campfire,” whispered the Chief. He motioned silently for us to dismount and wait. “Grab your cudgels—no blades or bows. I don’t want holes in them. Open the cages, and wait here.”

  At once we were all on foot, except from Balam, the featherbrain who dreamed of being the next Khun. He waited frozen still on his horse.

  “Are you afraid, Balam?” the Ninestar asked.

  “No, but—”

  “The Blades are not our best warriors, and they aren’t afraid. You are an Uncarved. Get off your horse now!”

  It was the beginning of spring, before the first moon, and the land had not blossomed. The trunks of the first oaks stood out dark and motionless in front of me, but farther back the naked branches and the dead leaves mixed into one dense gray cloud. That was where the Blades and the Guides disappeared, on foot, with knives and neckropes in hand.

  We alone, the Uncarved, stayed behind, guarding the cages and trying to make no noise. The Blades had been away for some time, and there was no sign of them. There at the Forest’s edge, I hung from the fangs of the gray monster, just outside its mouth, but still, it made no move to devour me. A sun I couldn’t see was setting behind the wood when a medley of cries and moving shadows came through the trees. The second Guide appeared and called us to get deeper into the trees.

  “Move. The Forest won’t eat you.”

  Everyone moved slowly, cursing the boots and the cracking leaves.

  “Don’t wake anything up,” said Gunna.

  The branches started to come alive, moving, dancing, embracing, whispering. I tried to listen to their calling. This was where I had last seen her, Elbia, the girl with the brown hair, her ghost among the oaks. She was hiding from me, for a long time now. I missed her.

  “What comes out?” Gunna asked when he heard the leaves crackling.

  “Kill it first, ask later,” answered Malan.

  Cries and other sounds grew louder. Shadows first, then figures of men were emerging from the wood.

  Balam, shaking, held Malan’s hand. Malan pushed him hard.

  “Are you fucking stupid?”

  A handful of Blades were yelling and running toward us, one of them pulling a rope. Behind him followed the first Dasal, with the rope wrapped around his neck, trying not to choke to death. He tripped twice over fallen branches, and the grip tightened even more. The prey was tied up and thrown at our feet. Gunna tried to grab him, but the Dasal started kicking hard.

  “Use your cudgel, kid. Don’t kill him,” shouted Bera.

  We hit the bearded rag-covered man a few times to weaken his legs and threw him into a cage. Another followed, and another, until we filled two cages with Dasal. They were covered in mud and growled like wounded bears. Some were still kicking to break the cage. Lebo, Gunna, and Akrani were sticking their blades into any arm or leg that moved. Lebo had wounded a man deeply, and his leg was bleeding badly all over the others in the small cage.

  “Let’s get out of here,” one of the Blades said as they brought in the last one.

  “It will get pitch-dark soon,” Bera said.

  “A woman; I saw one of color. She was with them. Bring her to me,” the Chief replied.

  Looking at the Dasal made me want to kill a man for the first time. They boiled my blood with just their mad stares of despair as they t
ried to escape.

  “Is this man or animal?” I wondered aloud.

  I hated them with a passion from the first moment. So weak; they disgusted me. No brave warrior would allow himself to be caught by a neckrope like a foal.

  “Wake up!” I heard the voice, and a loud blow woke me.

  I was still staring trancelike at the Dasal’s cage. The Blade who had hit me threw a body at my feet.

  “Wake up! Put her inside. I’m bringing the rest, and we leave,” he said. “In the third cage, by herself. That one goes to Sah-Ouna!” he yelled, already running to gather the others.

  A savage creature stirred at my feet, hair black as starless night, coiled with mud and dried leaves, fresh cuts and scratches bleeding on her elbow and knee. This wasn’t a man. The body was thin and delicate. I lifted the cudgel, ready to hit its back before it tried to get away. She lifted her head and I saw her eyes.

  My right hand froze in midair, and my left gripped her arm tightly. Her blue stare of agony flowed ice-cold up to my head and down my knees. My hand wouldn’t come down to strike her. My heart beat like a hundred hooves. My eyes watered warm.

  There she was, Enaka herself, the Great Mother, she who bore the bright stars, appearing before me for the very first time.

  The one of color.

  The Goddess was unjust with me. From that day and beyond, I would encounter many women with eyes the color of the sky. But when I saw her that evening, First, otherworldly, she was the Only woman in the world. And the Last.

  There I saw for the first time the black star, the one that had fallen from the Unending Sky and frozen the steppe. In the black of her hair.

  There I saw the Blue Drakon, the Crystaleyed who guarded the rivers of the North. I saw him unleashing the waters and flooding the Iron Valley. In the blue of her eyes.

  There I saw my Legends, those that would haunt me forevermore.

  She was slim, with skin as smooth as my blade. She struggled and screamed, kicking me in vain. Another scream to my right, a different one. A boy slaughtered, boots crushing wooden planks. I turned my head; men running. Blood was gushing out of Lebo’s neck; his own blade stuck there. The Dasal had broken open one of the cages and were running away. The fastest were already lost behind the trees. Gunna, Malan, and the other two were chasing them.