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BOOK III: FIRSTBLADE
“Red was their white. Red was their blue.”
www.caskabel.com
XLVI.
Forward O’Ren
Twentieth Spring. Firstblade
Forward, O’Ren.
Out of the woods you ride now, free upon the grasslands where you were born and raised; you are strong now my brother, ten summers hardened your muscles, ready to ride the verdant plain and the golden steppe, to crush the iron soil under your hooves, the earth fed you and waited for you, to ravage her, rape her, conquer her. Forward; we are out of the Forest now, I kept you safe there, I didn’t ride you through the narrow trails, I walked you through the sneaky rivulets, the stony paths and when I found the light of day among the trees I removed the thorny rocks that wedged and tortured your steps, I took care of you for three nights now, you fed on fresh grass among the glades, you drank the crystal, spring water of the forest lakes, the same lakes that water the roots of the beech and the oak, and will give birth to them again this spring. You are strong now, O’Ren, and you must not fail me, this is life or death now, my brother, we ride, we ride faster than ever before, it is our thirteenth moon together, and you are my best, I chose you among all the other proud and brave stallions, the many that were gelded early. See them, your brothers and sisters they gallop with us, and my comrades ride them, brave Leke to our left, Temin, the young boy, by his side, all my best Blades, Noki, Rikan, fifty of them raising a cloud of fury behind us, we are first among them, O’Ren, Khun-Malan named me Firstblade to lead them all. I left Sani in charge back at Sirol, always leave a worthy Leader behind. Be faster than the arrow, the eagle and the starling, be fierce as the molosser, the Tribe is leaving, O’Ren, the Ouna-Mas and the Reghen sent us to the Forest to bring belladonna, the eye of the blind witch, but we are late, O’Ren, the Tribe, the warriors, the wagons and the packhorses are marching on to the North, for the campaign, the largest ever, we need to get back to Sirol before the sun sets a third time, so they said. Gallop till death, O’Ren, I hear your hooves pounding, your heart beating like the battle kettledrum, I smell and feel your sweat dripping from your gray back, my thighs rubbing hot against your ribs and I turn to look back at the Forest, O’Ren, but it is too late now, there is nothing left there for us, nothing left in the Iron Valley of Sirol either, no woman, no witch, no father and never was a mother…
Gallop to your death, to my life, O’Ren, I chose the soft and lightweight saddle, the iron stirrups, your long mane I banded with a cloth, another rein to hold tight. The Forest is gone, maybe forever, do you remember, no, you don’t, it was a different stallion, one as brave and gray-speckled as you, long ago, your brother, my brother, O’Ren was his name too, I named you after him, he died in the Forest, he gave his life to save me; they pushed him down with strong hands and screams, dragging him from his ashen mane. Was he afraid? I don’t know, O’Ren, I say no, but I lie to myself, I lie more and more every winter I grow older. The Dasal held him down and the dirk shone under his long neck, he whinnied and screamed, the white of his eye, the fear, as they opened up the neck vein, a cataract the black blood of O’Ren gushing. I was pierced, my brother, by an arrow, it was the evening they killed Rouba, I was dying too, cold and young, unloved and betrayed, they slaughtered my horse, O’Ren, ripped apart his insides with their arms red elbow high, and pulled the entrails out; the Dasal women put me in its warm carcass to rest, to heal in the cocoon before my heart stopped forever. I was freezing, O’Ren, I descended with your brother, and as we were riding down to the caves of Darhul, his hide turned black as coals, I froze—my body, heart, and my mind. Death is a cold embrace, that’s all it is, I felt it; children were there, my friend—children with black pebbles for eyes—and she was there. Elbia. She didn’t want to keep me in the darkness. She sent me back to Zeria.
Elbia is long gone.
Malan is leaving, Zeria left, Rouba left, Elbia left, it was a pale morning that one, my thirteenth winter, seven vile arrowfangs of the Witch flew out of the mist and drained my Elbia’s blood, not a glorious spring day like this one. Elbia was a rider; I saw her ride only once when she was eleven-wintered, she promised me in the Sieve that we’d ride the war horses together. Do you ever see her riding with us when the sun falls and the cursed awake? I used to, sometimes, long time ago, before Zeria, when the dawn’s mist was thick—crazygrass brings her back—but I haven’t drunk that poison for ages, now I only see her at night, up there, among the first evening stars. Night fell already my friend, and we rode all day, go feed, walk, rest, I’ll wait for you here. I need to feed too, O’Ren, but we didn’t stop to hunt, no time, we are hungry, all the men, they quarrel over some milk powder and water, and yet in my hunger, I think only of her.
We must rest the night, my brother, till dawn.
Another dawn rises. Have you rested, my brother? Are you ready to gallop for me? Faster, O’Ren, we are leaving, the Reghen and the Khun said we’ll ride to the land of our ancestors, north and then east we’ll dive into the steppe, before we turn south, three times spring and even more will take to make a great circle, unless we go by ship over the Black Sea, the lair of the ninehead Demon, and we cannot do that, we don’t sail the dark waters, no, the Tribe of the horse and Enaka cannot do that.
The Khun.
Khun-Malan leads they all say. In blood and sweat I was immersed for so many winters in the Uncarved, O’Ren, but I wasn’t worthy, I didn’t become Khun, my brother, it was not my fate and I shouldn’t have, I’d never make a fierce and godlike Khun. Malan, you see he is different, he is always hiding in his tent day and night, scheming, planning, drinking wine, and ordering those he has never even laid eyes on how to live and die. But we are riders, O’Ren, he is pale-faced, and we are dark, we need to swallow the sun’s warmth and feel the cool night kiss of Selene, the stars bestud our nights and our skin, as we ride to Sirol; we leave her, we leave the Forest behind, it is just a black sliver of yesterday in the west now.
Zeria.
I can’t have her; we are born the Sun and the Selene, she shines blue when I set, I feed on blood where she fades. She is earth and birth, and only among the oak, the beech, the bracken, and the fir she blossoms, her roots wide and deep, her offspring sleeps and awaits spring under the moist soil. Did you see her, on the ceremony of rings and knots, holding that man with one hand, a blue-eyed newborn with the other?
Forward, O’Ren.
You grazed all night, you fed strong but I haven’t had a morsel of meat for days now, nothing, I gave my share of milk to the weakest men and I kept only water, we have to make it back to Sirol by tomorrow’s sunset, the Reghen warned us before we left:
“Be back by the ninth night, or we leave for Sapul without you.”
Sapul!
We leave to fight the battles, O’Ren, find the other men, the other tribes, and end them forever. We need their blood, their women, and their horse and their meat, their children, need to be our children, or they’ll grow countless. The Ouna-Mas say that the othertribers of the Southeastern Empire are Deadwalkers, they await half-asleep with restless skeleton fingers holding cold blades in their graves, to rise again as rotting flesh and bones, abominable monsters, commanded by the Sorcerers of the Cross, but you know what I fear, O’Ren, they might not be monsters, they never are, they might be worse, men, women. And children. Children like those of the Sieve. “Promise me you won’t harm the children,” Zeria said.
Zeria. If I could only embrace her one more time in Kar-Tioo’s water. Water, I am thirsty. Let’s stop here by this small river—another vein of the earth—that feeds the Blackvein.
“No, no, my Blades.” Listen to them, O’Ren, the men are mad from hunger, we nev
er stopped to hunt, three nights in the Forest, and two in the open plain. “Slaughter a horse,” they say, but I cannot waste time to kill it, skin it, roast the meat, eat, no.
Forward, O’Ren.
Bright and cloudless dawned our final day riding, and we are close now. You smell the Tribe’s stench already, don’t you, you smell the mares you’ll ride them hard again, but, damn, I am weak, O’Ren, you are galloping to your death, and I am weak, my tongue is stuck in my mouth, as my ass on this saddle, bitter and dry my mouth, I taste only bile and anguish, I am losing my mind, brother, my skin turns hard and cracks, I’ll fall, the hunger is a dagger in my bowels now my head pounding, and if I fall it is our end.
I am stopping, O’Ren. I need something from you, my brave one.
Don’t fear the knife.
I’ll open a vein of yours here a small one, not your neck vein, only a smaller one.
I’ll drink your blood as we ride forward, we won’t stop.
I’ll drink very slowly.
Rouba taught me that—never done it before, but he showed me—he said a stallion like you could fill four pails with its blood, I can suck on your vein slowly, even one pail, across days and nights and you will survive this, once he said he was alone in the steppe and he did suck his horse’s vein for half of half a moon, slowly, very slowly, you’ll become weaker, by evening you’ll fall but we’ll be back then, to Sirol, easy, son of Pelor, don’t be scared.
I open the vein now. I drink, and it’s boiling on my tongue, and down my throat, it fills my belly red. So warm you are, so thirsty I am, it is our only chance, we do this, and we’ll both make it. Leke, Temin, Rikan, Kuran, they follow me, their faces smeared red with their geldings’ lives. We thought we would make it without food, no, but see, listen, it’s over, here they come the evening sky stars like kindling fires, O’Ren, we are almost there, from the hilltop you will see all the fires of Sirol, we made it. The campfires dance like naked women welcoming us, once we are back, we feed, we rest, I find a woman, I need the warm skin of her legs as much as I needed your blood, O’Ren, you need a mare, you need to rest, to find strength again.
But why do you stumble my brother, are you so tired, it’s downhill now, and you stumble more and more, I drink slower now my friend, no, I’ll stop sucking your life, your blood on my face and my belly, and my jerkin, we made it, over one more hill and we are there, do not trip now my friend, do not slow your pace, is your heart bursting, stand strong, don’t be afraid, it is only blood you lost, not your soul, not your Story, you’ll be fine, strong as before in a few days, we are back now, once we reach the first hut of the camp we stop, I take milk for me, hay for you and bandage your vein, I’ll stop the bleeding, I’ll rest you and feed you, I am not leaving without you; we made it back.
Sirol.
See the Wolfhowl and Malan’s camp, O’Ren. Night has fallen, but they are all awake there, shouting and running around, all the Archers’ tents we passed, packing the meat and the milk spirit, loading the hides and the tents on the wagons, sharpening the blades on the whetstone, filling the quivers and wrapping the unstrung bows in soft cloth, brave shadows among the dust clouds dance around the torch lights. Why do you stumble more and more, my brother, stay brave, we are almost there, the Blades camp is in front of us, I can see it. I am grateful to you, stallion of the Firstblade. “Da-Ren, the Firstblade is back,” they shout and bellow, O’Ren, my Blades, six hundred and more I command now, Malan made me Firstblade the day I saved him in the Wolfhowl, I saved him, not those longhead monsters, the Ssons, I did, as you saved me with your last dying heartbeat.
Dying.
Go rest now, O’Ren, as the old warriors rest up in the sky, each one a shining star, go with them, there is Pelor your father, his chariot, the evening star, the brightest, rest now, O’Ren. Pelor, your father, awaits you, so proud he is. How great is the Story of our fathers. I am grateful for your blood, O’Ren, the strength of a thousand stallions streams in me forever now, and I’ll take you to the campaign and the battle inside me, I’ll honor and remember you.
Never forget you.
Rest now; the night is cold.
The eternal night.
XLVII.
The Fate of Da-Ren
Twentieth Spring. Firstblade
Night had covered the Iron Valley like a tattered raven cloak, pierced by the burning torches of the riders who couldn’t sleep. Blackvein’s southern breeze was whistling strong and steady among the hide covers and the tents, giving one more push to move us faster to the North. I was back.
In the middle of the Blades camp, the Reghen was on horseback, and my men assembled on foot before him. Eight Rods accompanied the hooded Truthsayer and gathered around him, holding their tall spears. It was an unusual entourage for a Reghen; unless he was bringing bad news.
I pushed through the bodies, and the way opened up as my men spotted me and started shouting, “Da-Ren, the Firstblade, is back,” and saluting “irons high.” It took me only a few breaths to get to the front of the crowd. The Reghen did not welcome me but instead hurried his words, as if I had come a bit earlier than he wanted. He opened his palms toward the Sky, as Malan had done in the Wolfhowl nine nights before when he announced the campaign and spoke:
“This is the Truth of the great campaign and we bring it tonight to the Archers, Rods, Blades, Craftsmen, Blacksmiths, Trackers, and all the rest.
“The All Powerful and Eternally Uncarved, our sixth Khun, Khun-Malan, commands this: Drakonfire has melted the ice rivers, and the servants of Darhul have flooded the riverbanks to the north. We must offer a worthy sacrifice to Enaka, wait for the floods to recede, and delay the campaign for half a moon. Still, hear me now; for we must hurry.”
Another moon of hunger awaited us. The men were jeering and asking questions all at the same time, their voices boiling in anger. The Reghen stopped, fixed an insistent eye of disapproval on me, and waited for the warriors to quiet down. I was standing first, two steps away from him between Sani and Leke. I turned to Leke.
“Send a man to take care of my horse, he is—”
O’Ren’s blood. All for nothing. Another moon to wait in Sirol.
“Did already,” Leke said, “but—”
I turned to Sani and had to nudge him to draw his attention away from the Reghen.
“You’re late, Firstblade,” Sani said.
“Three days to go to Kar-Tioo, three there, and three to return. It can’t be done in less than nine.”
“If you’d been gone one day longer, they would have forced on us a fresh Firstblade,” Sani told me, pointing to the Reghen. “They are here all the time, recording on their parchments, counting.”
“What did you tell them?” I asked.
“They sent you to the Forest in the first place, and that was all I said.”
“You did well.”
I raised a hand, the clamor behind me faded, and the Reghen continued:
“On this campaign, you will bring only the younger and the stronger and leave behind the old, sick, and weak.
“You will leave behind one young man in ten, one old man in two, one horse in three, one in ten sheep, pigs, and other livestock, one slave in ten, and five women and children in ten.
“All the rest, the strongest, will follow our Khun and Sah-Ouna on the campaign to the Southeast. Be prepared to march before the second moon of spring.
“This is the will of Enaka and thus declare the Ouna-Mas, the Voices of the Unending Sky.”
Sani pushed me far away from the shouts and the men.
“You need to know, Da-Ren. While you were away, knives were drawn.”
“Who?”
“The Thirteenth and the Fourteenth Pack. Eightfinger and Pigface.”
I recognized the nicknames of the two old Chiefs I hadn’t yet gotten rid of.
“Let’s leave those two behind,” Sani said.
“I need to eat first, else I am going to be the one left behind forever,” I replied.
&nbs
p; They brought me a cup of watered millet mush to keep up my strength. The men had scattered, still waiting for my orders, and the Reghen and the Rods had dismounted. The hooded man was sitting on a rock, scribing something in his parchment under the torchlight. I moved closer to him, and he lifted his eyes to meet mine only for a breath.
“Oh, you are back. Finally,” he said, looking back at his markings.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my finger pressing on the parchment.
“Don’t touch that. We’re counting. We have to—”
“You count my Packs? Ask me. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
I had learned to count hundreds, even thousands, with the Uncarved. The Reghen was marking the calfskins with symbols that Malan had established for counting from the first moon of his reign. A straight line “I”, an arrow, would count for one, a “U” quiver for forty, a “D” bow for ten, and two crossed blades, “X” for a hundred. I didn’t remember what was the symbol for a thousand, but I didn’t have a thousand men to rule. Most of my Blades, those with three carvings, couldn’t count at all. They simply knew if one of their comrades or horses was missing in the morning. They knew because they didn’t see them.
The men around me were yelling at horses, whipping the oxen to move in the darkness, fighting, and a few even dancing around the dung fires. No one was sleeping. Everyone was running in haste, fearing Enaka would abandon them in Sirol. The Reghen rose and looked at me with a grim face.
“Listen, Da-Ren,” he said. “You’re Blades, not Archers.”
I stared, puzzled for a moment, and then came close to bursting into laughter.
“Yes, we know that,” I answered.
“So, you will have to…to leave the strongest behind to hold Sirol. The Archers are the ones who will bring victory to the campaign.”
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