Legs. I had trained the Blades to outrun the enemy in any terrain.
“That’s why Khun-Malan chose you. Your men are swift-footed,” the Reghen told me just before he left.
That, too, was a truth. The truth of a coward and a two-faced Reghen.
I turned to look back. They were still coming. The distance was more than a thousand feet between me and the heavily armored othertribers. Another cloud, larger than the first, was approaching from the northwest side. This was no infantry army; the earth was shaking. Their cavalry was charging to cut off our retreat and encircle us. Our end had now been sealed. I knew this was going to happen. Their riders would join the chase, especially when they saw that ours wasn’t there.
I stopped running, turned, and with one movement unsheathed both of my blades from my back. I yelled “Irons high.” Dozens next to me yelled the same as they had been ordered to do, and hundreds more ignored me, also following orders to continue their retreat. Leke and Noki were to lead the ones escaping.
Four hundred of us turned to take on the othertribers’ cavalry, running to meet head-on the horses of the Crossers. It would give the other thousand a chance to survive. They were the ten Packs of Blades whom I had ordered to follow me the previous night after I got the Truths from the Reghen. Four hundred men. Fifteen of us survived, buried under horses, dust, and corpses.
“Follow me!” I shouted as I ran holding both blades.
Their horses swallowed up the distance between us quickly, and I weighed the iron to bring it down hard. A mass of armored galloping beasts and warriors side by side was now just a few feet in front of me. The desert sun shone brightly upon the golden crosses of their shields and on their two-headed eagles. Hundreds of two-headed eagles. Sah-Ouna had sent only one gold-beaked hawk.
Strike hard even once, before you fall. I can’t see anything. Ignore the dust. I hear thousands; I face death alone. I am talking to myself.
The white head of the fastest horse emerged from the dust only a few breaths before it reached me. Hundreds more behind and next to it. I heaved the long blade and brought it down hard. Its beautiful neck milky-white, the fury of the blade a screaming red. A second scream as I pierced the leg of a second rider to my left. Two horses coming right at me, a mace, a spear flying over my shoulder. My Blades battling charging riders. No hope, no escape. I turned to my right to strike again, and the blow came from the left side as if someone had brought a cudgel down onto my skull. A massive body—horse, man, something—crashed on my left side and threw me down. Sand filled my mouth and eyes. The dust had covered me in a golden darkness, but suddenly it all went black. The stomping and the battle screams drowned out in a deathly silence in one breath. I don’t remember anything else.
In the greatest battle of my life, I ordered my men to run away, following Malan’s commands. All the Blades who had turned to fight next to me, to charge against the enemy’s cavalry, were lost. Except for fifteen men, not even half a Pack. Maybe I had killed an othertriber, maybe not. I couldn’t remember, and I would never learn.
That was where they found me—buried under slaughtered horses, immortal Blades, and cross shields smeared with blood. Fallen angels among two-headed eagles and painted Holy Mothers wailing silently. With my back on the ground, my eyes shut, just as the Ouna-Ma had finished me, under the desert stars.
LXI.
White Cloth
Twenty-Fourth Summer. Hero
He sinks into the darkness once again. The dust of the battlefield becomes a gray fog, the shadows of the bleeding warriors crawl like the children of Darhul. They reach out their limp skeleton hands to claim him; the Firstblade. Their skin as black as caked blood. But, no, he is a hero of our Tribe, not a traitor, and the Goddess shines her light to save him. Blinding sun rays pierce the fog; the ghosts scatter away, screaming.
I see him. Here comes Da-Ren.
He is ascending to the light, floating above the dunes of Apelo, escaping all pain and torment of the living. Here he comes, walking among the clouds, he enters the narrow green glade, a pathway covered by the arched branches. Enaka is waiting for him, at the end of the path, in a white dress, its intricate folds singing his glory. Gold is her hair; gold are her eyes as she stands upon her chariot. We gather all around her the immortals, the heroes, and the Storymakers; myself, once known to the living by the name of Rouba. We are the old warriors shining radiant, gazing at Da-Ren, my son, from the whitest horses, a few resting on liquid gold shields speckled with honey topaz stones. I am riding the tallest deer, its antlers as bright as lightning, for I am Er-Ren, the only father he knew. Everything is melting down to become the one color of the sun in the noon’s heat and haze. At night, we will scatter once again across the Sky. Each one of us will gleam as a single star celebrating its glorious death. But Da-Ren has fallen early in the day, so young, and now there is light everywhere.
“Come light and wrap him with summery warmth, whisper words to end his pain.”
He still walks slowly in the narrow glade; he wants to see the Forest one last time. Enaka awaits at its end, one hand extending, waiting for him to take it. She doesn’t open her mouth, but all hear her voice clearly:
“My son, don’t look back. Don’t wander around. Rest your eyes. It’s over.”
I whisper to him:
“Da-Ren, my son, just walk to her.” But I fear.
She opens her arms awaiting the embrace.
Dream, sleep, or death, whatever you are, I am here.
“I see you, Rouba, I see you, Enaka. I am Da-Ren, the First Blade of the Tribe.”
Enaka shouts again; her rage bleeds the clouds into sunset:
“Don’t you dare!”
Water drops land on my face; the forest wind tries to wake me up. “Drink, Da-Ren!”
I am looking back. The pond, the hoopoes, bluebells twinkling in the breeze, an owl brings the night, careens among the oaks, children’s bodies face down, gadflies around them.
“Walk to me, Da-Ren!” I hear Enaka’s command again.
I am barely dragging my feet, as if to delay. My hands, my boots, my blades, are all dripping blood. Where my footprints bleed the forest soil, poppy flowers sprout behind me. I feel the dew dropping again on my face and lips. I turn and look toward the left; I see two blue fires burning cold.
“Zeria!”
They are all calling to me. I have almost reached Enaka. Her arms covered in a gold fire, and she thunders once more:
“Da-Ren, forget her. It’s over. You have fallen. Come to me!”
A few more steps and I will be outside of the Forest and inside the warm light. Rouba is waiting behind the Goddess.
“I see you, Rouba.”
He turns his back as if he knows already. I will not make it.
“Forgive me, Rouba, but I cannot. No hero’s death, no gold or glory of the stars, not even a Goddess’ voice can pacify my heart. It’s still beating hard.”
I don’t even dare to beg the Goddess for forgiveness. She will not.
I turn left and run back toward the blue fires. The poppy blossoms have carpeted the forest glade, whispering softly:
“Run faster, boy.”
Boy. I am still young, my father, I know it now. I see you, Rouba.
The Goddess aims, the iron arrow strikes me in the back, under my left shoulder blade, and rips through my arm. The pain—I wake up from the pain.
So ends the dream, but the pain remains.
I was neither in the caveworld of Darhul nor the arms of Enaka. I was in a tent, and it was dark except for a small smoke hole; the horse dung was burning, and the smell was heavy. I heard the voice again:
“Don’t you dare! Don’t die. Drink, Da-Ren!” A man was on his knees looking straight at me, but I didn’t recognize him at first. As he leaned right to fill the water cup, two sun rays escaped through the smoke hole and lit his face. He smiled with difficulty, but his face brought me terror. A scar, deep as an arrow reed, started from his lips and pulled his smile al
l the way to his ear. It was Leke.
I was burning inside as if someone had forced the smoldering horse dung down my throat. My lips tried to form a word, and Leke understood. Water.
He tried to lift me to give me water, but I screamed from the pain and fell back again. Thousands of tiny blades stabbing my back. He put a small stick between my teeth and told me to bite down hard. He placed two goatskins behind me and propped me up, then gave me the water, drop by drop.
“Eat, Firstblade, so many days, you must—”
I didn’t even understand what he was saying. Eat?
As I lay there flat, I moved my head only slightly to look for the iron arrow of Enaka. I had to take it out. But there was no arrow. My left arm was tightly wrapped in a white cloth and tied to my side. Where the cloth was torn, I saw the thick paste of baked mud and the tree bark splint.
With my right thumb trembling, I showed him my left hand. I couldn’t speak a word.
“It’s broken above the elbow,” said Leke, but the tremor in his voice and his eyes betrayed much more.
“Take them off,” I whispered, gasping from the pain.
“No, the Ouna-Mas tied them with spells. They cut the cloth with the blackhorn knife. They made the mud with rainwater of a full-moon night. If you take them off, you will die.”
I tried to lift the fingers of my left hand, but I had no feeling in them. I raised my head from the hide where I was lying to look at them. They were still there. Whatever skin remained uncovered by the bandages was bruised purple. There were no yellow-green blotches. I hadn’t slept for many days. The two smaller fingers were black and blue and white—many colors, none of them mine.
“Off,” I whispered.
Whatever was under the cloth burned me like the icy tongue of the Demon every moment and even more so since I regained consciousness. I wanted to scratch it—cut it off; give it to the mauler to bite off clean.
“They put on alum dust and honey and tied it tightly with white cloth. ‘It hurts but will heal,’ they said.”
“Pain—” was the first half of a word that I uttered.
“Willow bark. To bite. I sent for it. The Ouna-Mas won’t let us use back at Sirol, you know, willows. But the camel traders said they can bring it, they said it’s the miracle of the South. It will stop the pain, they promised.”
It was a miracle. Not that I came back from the dead once again, but that I had managed to remain unconscious. For days and nights, I was told. The blow to the head left me senseless, but it didn’t kill me. A spear had injured my thigh, and I had lost a lot of blood. But the leg would heal. They said I was delirious, screaming, whispering, and hallucinating in the night. I had not opened my eyes for days, but they had occasionally put a few drops of wine and opion into my mouth to stop the pain. They had run out of opion, and that was why I woke up. When they lost hope, they left me under the Sun, its fire pouring over me, for the son of the Goddess to heal me. Even the blazing Sun didn’t wake me. The pain did. A pain as sharp and unbearable as if a burning iron arrow had gone through my eye and ear, down my left arm and my rib cage, and all the way to my lower back.
I was crying. A whole day went by, and still I had no strength to ask. What happened? How did I live? Who else made it? Nothing. The only thing I cared about was getting that willow bark. They raised me onto my knees so I could piss. For the first time, I knew what it felt like to be put on the stake. Or that first night of torture on the cross. No one deserved such pain. Almost no one.
That was how the two most tormenting days of my life passed. With my mind melting slowly in the white-hot cauldron of pain, not being able to do anything but remember, expect, and suffer the pain. They brought the willow bark, and for a while, my hopes lifted. So deep was my despair that I believed it would banish the pain forever. I managed to breathe for a while.
“Where?”
With half-words barely spoken, I began to ask for explanations.
“At the camp, where we were before Khun-Malan left,” answered Leke.
“Quiet…”
“It’s quiet, yes. The men have gone to the feast.”
“What?”
Fucking willow bark, useless miracle of the South. I bit it again and again, like a rabid dog, until my gums bled. Blood and wood mixed inside my parched mouth.
“A feast for Khun-Malan’s triumph. The great pyre for the heroes, to honor the dead, the offerings to Enaka—the spoils to the living.”
Only half of what Leke was saying reached my cloudy mind. He sat there, on his knees, never leaving my side. He opened his mangled mouth with difficulty to speak. He was not eating. Broth and water were the only things he could sip.
“Apelo. The greatest victory of the Tribe,” he added.
“You? Arrow?” I asked.
“A narrow-head. Bless Enaka. Ours. As we were running back. It will heal. They are all scared of me now. Even the Reghen lower their eyes.”
I rolled over to my side and sank my teeth into the hide.
“Noki went to bring opion for you, Firstblade. To help you.”
I had made Noki, before Varazam even, Chief of the Second. In the First I had placed Rikan, the Blacksmith, as Chief in my place, to make the Reghen furious every time they looked at the four carvings on his arm.
“Ouna?”
“They bandaged you. They brought this little clay idol here. Looks like you. They said they’ve kept another one like this under the sun outside Sah-Ouna’s tent. Enaka will bless it. And we should boil marjoram-bush herb to drink hot, they said. That will help.”
Leke was holding a small clay figure of a man in his hand and showed it to me. It had two little twigs stuck into it like it was holding blades. On both hands.
“Honor Enaka, they said, and worship her. She protected you. Only you.”
“What?”
The opion, Noki. Stop piercing my arm, Demon. How much longer? Would the pain stop if I cut it off? Tears of pain, nothing else, ran down my cheek. More would come.
“Only you, Da-Ren. And fifteen others, but most of them are badly wounded.”
“What?”
“From the four hundred who followed you against their horses. Only fifteen are still alive.”
He was speaking slowly so that I could understand it, swallow it, and cry. I wanted him to say it again.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
Malan never sent thirteen Trackers with white flags on their spears to ask for a truce. I always thought it odd. If he wanted to negotiate, he wouldn’t send thirteen Trackers, but one Reghen. He needed the Trackers to mark the blind spots when they were riding back toward our camp. They had the same view as the enemies would have, and they could mark all the sand hills where our Archers could hide. He ordered that the camp be moved according to those marks so that I would retreat head on to the east. So that the sun would blind our foes. Malan sent the riders to raise a cloud of dust with the palm branches. The Archers on horseback waited behind the hills and the light of the rising sun. The othertribers wouldn’t see them until it was too late.
“It was a trap,” said Leke, trying to smile.
Even the Archers’ attack on my men in the morning, before Malan’s retreat, was a part of the plan. The prisoners who escaped. All of it. “They had to believe that we were divided among ourselves; that they had abandoned us. He let them escape, to go back and tell the others. To fall into the trap,” Leke said.
Noki returned with the opion. He nodded and looked at me, saying my name just once. He kept staring as if I wasn’t supposed to be there. I would lose my mind as soon as I drank the powder. He stirred it into the wine, but I didn’t touch it. I signaled for him to wait so that I could learn all that had happened.
Leke continued.
When the enemy’s cavalry and infantry charged out of formation against us, when we had lost all hope and over half of my men, that was when the real battle began. A whirlwind of dust rose from the northeast. It was the first wave of Archers. Much farthe
r away on the southeast, from a golden sea of sand, emerged another darkness like a raging beast that had been asleep forever and had just woken to feed. It covered the distance to their infantry fast. These were the remaining Archers, the many, the ones who had retreated with Malan. They charged, spewing arrows by the thousands.
“As if Enaka herself had borne them that very instant. I saw them coming as I was panting with my last breath. First time I saw our Archers together from the opposite side coming toward me. Oh, our Tribe is beautiful, Da-Ren. Invincible!”
“And us?”
“The bait.”
Malan had never planned for the Blades to hold any line or defend the moats. He wanted only our blood, our fresh meat, to lure the blind animal into the direction of the hunter. We were there for the beast to smell and hunt, a beast blinded by the dust.
“What are they saying?”
“About us? About you? Heroes!”
I was no hero. I had not died, as every hero should. That cursed talisman, Zeria’s silver wolf teeth, spread its magic and saved me.
The enemy’s cavalry, sword-carrying othertribers with heavy armor, couldn’t outride our Archers on horseback. They turned to retreat and regroup when they saw the trap, but it only added to their panic and made them easier targets for our Archers. The bravest cavalry of the three cities was buried in the sand, bloodied by the thousands of arrows that had fallen upon them like…
“Like gold-beaked hawks,” Leke continued, at a hurried pace.
I fixed my eyes on the wine cup with the powder.
Malan ordered an attack on the remaining army of the three cities that had now been cut to half its size. They had lost their best warriors and all their morale. The attack was short and reserved, just long enough for their generals to see our Archers from up close and hear the song of the double-curved bows.
Our Archers were charging and retreating; the defending othertribers were reduced after every attack until the sun fell. Malan had returned with all his men and camped again across from the decimated army of the three cities. It was all the same as a couple of days before, only now they were no longer three times our size. There were still more of them, but we had brought them to their knees for good. We knew it, and they knew it better. Their finest, their cavalry, had fallen. The worst of them would run like scared rabbits the moment they saw us again in battle. The Trackers spotted a lot of them deserting the same night.
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