“What? Why? Who ordered this?”
“They don’t wait for orders.”
It was their own matter if the sacred rules had been broken. And Raven had broken them every night with the same man. Raven’s body was leaning forward, her pretty, shaved head bowing to the ground. I had seen this image before, the lowered graceful head, the long neck. Where? The swan. The swan carved into the stern of the ship of her love, the swan who softly kissed the salt water of the Black Sea. The swan and the Raven lowering their heads to escape the rage of the gods.
Rhee-Lor, the Archer who had warned me of Sani, was there, watching next to me.
“Too many omens, Firstblade. The nights are gray and vengeful. We did something wrong, by the Goddess.”
“You’re right.”
So many things we did wrong.
“I heard that she had lain with the same man every night since she got back. They say something about one of yours. One called Noki,” Rhee-Lor said, turning to ask me. “Can you believe it?”
“No.”
Leke looked at me and repeated. “No.”
I just couldn’t fathom this impossible passion, this bond of love that was even sadder, more heroic and hopeless, than my own.
“They say she had been possessed by Darhul. They saw her three or four nights ago gathering children from the orphans’ tents and taking them to the Forest.”
“Four nights ago…” I mumbled.
I was saving one, only to kill another. I rode back to my camp, my ears burning and my body sweating cold. Noki would be back soon, maybe that same night. What would I tell him?
Under the autumn mist, Sirol bubbled like a seething cauldron. I could hear the children of the Dasal crying in the tent.
Baagh was waiting for me, and I told him all that happened.
“No one can hide in this camp. Soon they’ll come for you,” he said.
“I must take Zeria away from here, Baagh.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you from the beginning. This is not a home, but a feast for ravenous monsters. The Reghen cannot be stopped now; they‘ll come back.”
I told Zeria to prepare herself. We had to get out of there as fast as we could even if I didn’t know where to. I still hadn’t even kissed her on the lips since the day I had found her. But I had to face Noki before I left.
Noki returned earlier than I hoped, long before dusk, tired but not wounded.
“I didn’t fight in his battle. I am not mad,” he said. “Sani was eager to join Enaka in the stars. I am surprised any of those Guardians of his survived. They charge head-on, and they’re not even good with the bow.”
I couldn’t even mumble a response, biting tongue and cheeks to keep quiet.
“Sani believes the Ouna-Mas will save him,” Leke said.
“He didn’t even bring Ouna-Mas,” said Noki, who had already downed a wineskin in the few moments since he dismounted. He asked Leke for more.
“I guess the Ouna-Mas were busy here,” said Leke.
I turned my head in surprise but Leke was right, we couldn’t delay it any longer.
Unless Noki knew already. Did he pass by Wolfhowl? Did he know what had happened and who was to blame? It was enough that I knew. Yet another innocent ghost waiting in my tent, its breath frozen. Another Ouna-Ma had died silently whispering the name: ‘Drakon.’
“Did you capture anyone, Noki?” Leke asked him.
“Yeah, I was lucky. We neckroped a few of those hay-haired. Men. One woman too.”
“Keep her. So they stop spreading all these crazy rumors about you,” Leke said.
“What crazy rumors?”
Noki didn’t know…
He listened to Leke’s grim recount, but stared at me, with unblinking eyes, his jaw twitching. His hair had started to grow back but was still shorter than the old days. As the words ended and silence fell, I turned and walked away. For a brave Firstblade, sometimes I was just a spineless coward.
Noki ran behind me and pulled my arm.
“Uncarved comrade, I must speak with you. Only you,” he said. “We ride to Wolfhowl, together.”
He was not a man in mourning. There was a dark determination in his voice and gaze as if he had something to do immediately.
“Your curse is on me. I messed up,” I said.
His face was now only three fingers away from mine, and his fingers tapped on the sheath, but I didn’t move away to protect myself.
“You? No, Firstblade. The Reghen and the Witches killed her.”
“I am to blame.”
“Yeah, you are to blame, Da-Ren, for what they did yesterday. If you were not, they would have killed her tomorrow.”
“If I wasn’t—”
“Yes, if it weren't for you, then they wouldn’t have killed her ever. Because I’d never have met her.”
A few words of gratitude and absolution coming from a man destroyed forever. This was the only moment in my life that I felt actually being in the presence of a god. One who had the right to judge me, to punish me, to forgive my sin or curse me forever. One who chose forgiveness, in the moment of his darkest sorrow. He was holding his head high, pulling the unbearable weight for both of us.
Night had fallen but for a couple of trembling torch flames when we made it to Wolfhowl. Her body was still there, and it was meant to remain unburned for a long time. A cawing crow careened above our heads and descended on the pole next to Raven.
“I betrayed you,” I said.
“You cannot take upon you all the Tribe’s murders. You cannot stop them all. I’ve told you that even back in Kapoukia. But I will.”
He didn’t want to accept that I had betrayed him. I was his Legend, the one good Story he had left, and he didn’t want to taint it. But it was my fault; I knew that. I had only thought of myself, an unworthy Firstblade.
“How many Reghen are left?” he asked me.
“About five. One tent. The Ouna-Mas murdered her, not the Reghen,” I said.
“Tonight, I am going to kill all of them. Reghen and Ouna-Mas,” he said. “If you try to stop me, I’ll start with you, now.”
“But Sani and his Guardians protect them. You’ll start a war.”
“They are not back yet. Not for another couple of days. It has to happen tonight.”
My mind moved fast.
“You said you captured Northerners,” I said. “Are they still alive?”
“They should be.”
“And you have their clothes and weapons?”
“Whatever they use, axes, swords.”
“Hides, hoods?”
“Why are you asking all this, Da-Ren? I said tonight I am going—”
“You know what to do.”
He didn’t. I was the one who had become a monster.
“So, this is what you do, Noki. You kill the Northerners, now. Take their clothes…”
I explained my plan slowly.
This was a road with no return and a crime we would both pay for. Or rather I would. Noki had already paid. His eyes were filled with crows, the crows descending on Wolfhowl, to pay tribute to the unburned Raven. As a young man he had found pleasure in women and blades, but never took anything seriously. Until the day that she embraced him in Agathon’s boat and the blood started boiling through his veins.
In the middle of Sirol, near Malan’s abandoned palace, were the red-striped tents of the Reghen and the Ouna-Mas. Five Reghen and four Ouna-Mas were still alive, unarmed and unguarded. There were no Rods. Malan had left only a handful behind, but they had all died from the mosquito fever, Sani had said. A couple of Guardians standing tall, proud, too young, outside the tent of the Redveils. They were an unavoidable sacrifice and Noki didn’t care.
He did it all by himself, that’s what he wanted. He dressed as a Northerner, mounted his horse. When he got there, he greeted the Guardians then opened both of them with his blade. He walked in the tent of the Redveils and slit the throats of all five. He crushed the skulls of the four elderl
y Reghen with the Northerner’s battleax. Then he hacked the last one to bleed slowly and hit him on the head to leave him unconscious. He hoped that Reghen would survive, but not for long. I am sure there were a couple of screams through the night, but only Noki was there to hear them. He did everything, just as I had advised him to do.
There was no doubt that a Northerner’s battleax had killed the Ouna-Mas. Even the dying Reghen said it; he was ambushed by Northerners. That he was certain about. Everyone believed the last words of the Truthsayer.
Blackvein was cold, but Noki insisted he had to go and wash. Alone. He returned at sunset the next day and headed for the Wolfhowl. He walked in and out of that arena a hundred times carrying wood. He asked the Blades who guarded the place to step away, and he untied Raven from the pole. He carried her for the last time in his arms into the pyre in the west end of the arena. The flames and the smoke chased away the crows that had nested around her. Under a bleeding sun, the arena was drowning in the blood of the Reghen, the Northerners, and Raven’s. Noki was looking at the pyre, himself the demon of revenge in his last glorious moment on earth. The first wind of winter lashed at my face and froze my head as I watched all of this from a distance. This blood was all on my hands.
I went back to my camp and sat outside Zeria’s tent, keeping guard. All our greatest enemies slaughtered.
I wrapped myself in my hide, and with my head between my knees and my blades close, I fell asleep. The dogs were brutally howling as if they had gone mad that we couldn’t understand their warning. In my deepest sleep, I felt strong hands reaching up from under the earth. They took hold of me and shook me hard.
“What did you do, Da-Ren? You ninestar traitor, you coward; you brought treachery and murder over Sirol. The daughters of the Goddess were slain.” I heard the voice of the beast from the bowels of the earth. Darhul was coming for me with a great roar, and I opened my eyes to face him.
The camp was buzzing with men and women awake around me. I thought for a moment that they were still mourning the death of the Ouna-Mas. Everyone knew by now, everyone had heard. But it was no dream. Under my feet, the earth was truly trembling and roaring. I stood up, took two steps and fell down again. Men and women ran out of their tents into the darkness, panic-stricken and screaming. They were looking up at the Sky, but he was calm and clear but for a crescent moon. No clouds or thunderbolts. Enaka was asleep; it wasn’t she who had brought the shaking of the earth.
“Earthshake. Darhul awake! We are alone!”
“The blood of the slain Ouna-Mas will drown us…”
“That blue-eyed witch brought this on. Burn them all!”
It was the fearless and the brave who were screaming those words. The rest, the meek, were wailing, beating the earth with their hands and raking their nails across their faces in terror. It had been many winters, since I was a child, before the Sieve even, that the ground had tremored so violently. The earth shook again from underneath, for a second and a third time.
I crept into Zeria’s tent. She was sleeping with a childish expression of bliss on her face. Baagh told me that he had given her a potion to keep the nightmares away. The children next to her were also peaceful as if the motion of the earth had lulled them as if the scent of Zeria intoxicated them all. Her lips glistened in the light of my torch, more beautiful and desirable than ever. I bent to kiss her cheek softly. She opened her eyes just then.
She stared at me in silence, curled under the goat skins, not getting up. She laced her fingers through mine.
“We must go. Now,” I said.
The earth stopped shaking; peace had returned.
“A thousand summers have passed,” she said.
“Since we were alone.”
“Since Kar-Tioo.”
I lifted her up slowly and kissed her on the lips until I ran out of breath. Her hands were warm again. The children were with her. My heart found a shred of peace in its first blue night after thousands of black and red ones.
For the Tribe, it was the blackest night, and black came the dawn, as the gaunt Ouna-Ma had prophesied when I defied her. The news about the murdered Witches and the Reghen traveled through Sirol and shattered its spirit into a thousand pieces. Two twin five-wintered girls, their long heads still banded, had survived hidden in the red striped tents, but they could not guide anyone. They didn’t have the sight yet.
“We are blind. No one has Truth or Story.”
I had never seen more clearly.
“Send messengers to Khun-Malan. To bring back the Truths before you are doomed,” were the dying Reghen’s last words.
Mourning, lamentation, and despair rose to the Sky in the sacred pyre of the twilight, along with the ashes of dried logs drenched in pine’s blood. The nine corpses burned wrapped in gray and black tattered robes. Thousands had come from all the Banners to witness the funeral ceremony of Wolfhowl. The last sacrifice I’d ever see was that of the Ouna-Mas and the Reghen. I had seen Elbia’s sacrifice. I would descend into the black snake caves and kiss forked tongues, as long as I never had to see Zeria’s sacrifice.
Sani made it back the same night. He was watching about fifty paces to my right with his armed Guardians. They gazed silently at the pyre of the Ouna-Mas. I was quite certain that everything would end that night. He had about a hundred boys with him. I had close to fifty men. It would be bloody, but at least it would be the last battle.
To my surprise, nothing happened. Maybe Sani didn’t dare to draw more blood on such a sacred night. Maybe it was that the hundreds of Archers—Rhee-Lor leading them—stood behind my men and me when they entered the Wolfhowl. Sani and his Guardians were all alone as if they carried the plague.
“Sani didn’t take us north with him,” hissed Rhee-Lor. “He couldn’t even defeat those hay-haired thieves. He couldn’t protect the Ouna-Mas. What are we to do, Firstblade? Enough of this. You have to lead us until Malan returns.”
Raising my eyebrow, I stared at him. He went to answer my question before I uttered it.
“Malan chose you. I can’t lead. Not with Malan coming back any day now. You fought there, with our Khun. Just stop this madman from destroying Sirol. We’ll follow your rule, Firstblade.”
Embers glowing and rising, women ululating a piercing mourning, silent men wearing the darkness of the new winter’s sky, all waiting for a sign from Enaka. The Goddess finally sent her sign, thick raindrops to wash off the burnt long skulls of the last Ouna-Mas and the charred frail bones of the Reghen, at the end of the day. A fitting tribute.
The Firstblade Da-Ren was finally completely free.
“You are free now, Da-Ren. Without Reghen, Ouna-Mas, Rods or Ssons, away from Sah-Ouna and Malan,” Baagh said.
I was free now.
Firstblade with no one over me. All powerful.
Free to smash the head of the unsuspecting young Ilan who had raped Zeria.
Free to steal Raven’s clothes and give them to Zeria.
Free to send Noki on a stupid mission to bring back more blue-eyed witches so I could save Zeria.
Free to save the Dasal children because it was the only thing that Zeria asked of me.
Free to run a blade through every Reghen and Ouna-Ma without staining mine.
“You are free now, Da-Ren,” Baagh said again as if I hadn’t heard him the first time.
“I am mad,” I answered.
Hanging over my head, Selene had seen everything, even when I was hiding in the Forest. Here in the Great Valley, there was no shelter, and I could never escape. Enaka had no forgiveness for my crimes.
“Without the sacred and eternal law of God, the weak will go mad; they will tear their own flesh. The strong will go blind, they will rip the hearts of their children out,” said Baagh.
He joined three fingers again and touched his forehead, then his navel and across both sides of his chest, forming the shape of the cross over himself.
“Freedom is a heavy burden, Baagh.”
“That’s why the priests
exist, even the Ouna-Mas. To steal men’s freedom before they eat each other alive. To pacify and guide their souls.”
The priests and the witches had been asking for Zeria’s life since the day I’d met her.
“I’ll send all the witches straight to Darhul.”
Baagh shook his head in disappointment.
“Maybe you are not ready for the One True God, but you must find your own god, Da-Ren. Before it’s too late.”
These were his final words of wisdom. But I hardly heard them. All I could hear was Raven’s warning, that night before we reached Sirol.
“Run away, Da-Ren. Run away.”
LXXIV.
One Day of Bliss
Island of the Holy Monastery, Thirty-Sixth Spring,
According to the Monk Eusebius
“This is my sole advice, Eusebius. Run away from this island. Or it will become your tomb,” Da-Ren said to me.
“This is the only home I know, that of God.”
“Your god surely isn’t here. Neither yours nor mine. If you don’t leave, you won’t find him.”
It was the third year of manuscript revision, and the fourth after his arrival on the island. Da-Ren’s story had invaded my mind and pushed everything else back to a little insignificant corner. They were months—many harsh winter nights—when we made little progress, and yet I could feel the story, coiling and waiting in a corner of my cell, like a resting snake that was bound to wake again. And then other months, usually in springtime when the story was unstoppable, rising like dark growing ivy, expanding tendrils which I never imagined.
But Da-Ren’s advice about my own life was of little use to me.
Where could I go? Abandon God? Him? The story?
“You should go to Thalassopolis, see the palaces, the bazaar, the church,” he said. “Then head for Kar-Tioo, sleep and wake up inside the Forest. Go everywhere. Sail the sea, cross the desert. Embrace people, smell them, lick them, fuck them, and if it is your fate even kill someone. Get stabbed, not very deeply, enough to feel you’re dying and then you can rejoice in being alive. Fall in love, fall down, fall apart, despair in your greatest dream, fail in your own myth. Then you will find your gods when you are finally certain that they don’t exist.”
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