“What of you, Dahken? Will you join me in finishing the Purns?” he asks.
“Finish them? I think you have.”
“I will slay the rest of their warriors and burn their village to the ground.”
“And slaughter their women and children?” Rael asks, hoping Kryjek will hear the evil in such an action.
“If they fight us, or they will join the Jeks in bonds.”
“Slaves,” Rael clarifies. “No, I will not be a party to it.”
“Then stay here with the old women,” replies Kryjek with a sneer, the first emotion he has shown in the months since Rael’s return, and he stalks away.
“Kryjek,” Rael calls after him, causing the Northman to stop and turn. “Would you want the same for your people? For your daughter?”
“It’s the world we live in Dahken. If we are not strong enough, we deserve to live so,” Kryjek replies, and he turns to consult with his gathering warriors.
After Kryjek leaves with a party of warriors only perhaps two dozen strong, Rael sets to helping any way he can. He knows nothing of bandaging and stitching wounds, for he has never needed such care himself, so he helps separate the dead. The Jeks are carried or pulled further into the village where a funeral pyre will be built, and the Purns are thrown into wagons. Once the grisly work is done, he helps hitch donkey teams up to the wagons to pull them down the sloping road away from the village. As they go, they pick up more Purn warriors – those that were killed by the rolling of boulders down the incline. The dead Purns are left to rot in the early winter sun. The season is not so far gone that the ice bears have gone into their caves to sleep, and vultures still fly overhead.
The next morning, a great plume of black smoke is spotted in the distance past the nearby mountains to the northeast. The people chatter amongst themselves, gawking and pointing in that direction, and there is some prideful thumping of chests. None of the adults will speak to Rael, so he tracks down Lorina as she tends to some of the wounded.
“The Purn village is that direction through the mountains,” she explains.
Late in the afternoon, lookouts announce the return of the raid with at least three score other persons. The wounded warriors, women and children who stayed behind crowd the wall and the gate to be the first to glimpse their warriors’ triumphant return, but there is no pride or joy on the faces of those who approach. As the party files through the gate, all can see that only four Jek warriors are among them, and none of them is their chief, Kryjek. The rest is Purns – two badly wounded men and dozens of women and children. Two Purn women and the Jek warriors separate from the group, and Lorina translates, whispering in Rael’s ear as conversation erupts.
“The attack went bad,” she says, and Rael only nods. “Almost all the warriors died, except these here. Kryjek died on a spear. That woman stopped the fighting. They burned the village down and came here to join us.”
“The Purns want to join the Jeks?” Rael asks.
Lorina nods. “She says it’s time to end the fighting. Almost none of us are left.”
“She has some sense then,” Rael agrees
“But Kryjek is dead, and a woman cannot lead.”
“Why not?” Rael asks, and then he answers his own question, “Leaders are chosen by their accomplishments in battle, and women are not given such opportunities. Who would they choose?”
Lorina does not answer, and Rael straightens his back to watch the goings on. There is still a good deal of talking amongst the assembled villagers of both clans, but he sees that a number of the Jeks, both men and women, silently peer his direction. Wordlessly, Rael turns his back on them and slowly treads back to his meager home.
17.
Rael only leaves his home to find Lorina and ask her for whatever supplies he needs, whether they be food, water or items to maintain his house. He speaks to no one else and bothers no one for anything, but whispers circulate behind him every time he is seen about the village. People point as he walks by, and warriors watch him as he drills himself every morning, hoping to glean something important in the technique of this gray skinned man who killed an ice bear single handedly. Even as people grow older and some die, the legend of Dahken Rael does not abate. In fact, it only seems to grow.
He is not ignorant of the goings on around the Jek village, and it is a Jek village, for it would seem that the Purns wholly gave up their lineage. Even with the addition of the Purns, there were less people about for a number of years. The new chief, a Jek whose name Rael did not bother to learn, decreed that the men should spread their seed as much as possible to rebuild their numbers. This led to a great deal of fucking and debauchery for a solid year. It was a most pragmatic decision, though Rael wondered if anyone could keep track of who was whose kin anymore. Regardless, the number of pregnancies among younger girls exploded, and before long the entire village was kept up all night by the screams of newborns.
Even the little girl Lorina, gave birth to her first boy somewhere into her mid-teens. This shocked Rael to a degree, for while he watched her grow taller and saw that her body had changed, she always seems to be a little girl to him. Rael really didn’t know how old she was; for that matter, he’d lost track of his own age since the Northmen do not use the Cleansing calendar. Lorina, like everyone around him, grew older, and she ended up marrying a quiet warrior who was several years younger than she. They had two more children before he died of an infected wound, leaving Lorina on her own.
Rael wakes on a summer morning to the sound of birds singing. The summer in the North is little different from the rest of the West, though it is shorter and cooler. He rises and stands naked before a large, dirty mirror that merely leans against the north wall of his house. Rael bought it from a merchant that he met on a highway in Aquis during a trip back to Sanctum for more gold. He never knew why, for it was exorbitantly priced, but for some odd reason he seems drawn to the thing.
He takes a clean linen cloth and dips it into a bucket of water so that he may wipe away the dirt and dust obscuring his view. He creates a clean smear across it, in which he can see just his eyes, and then he begins to clear away more grime in a circular pattern. Eventually he can see his entire head, though the glass is streaked brown and gray from all of the dirt. Rael uses a dry part of the cloth to wipe down the entire mirror, pushing all of the excess to the ground, and this creates choking clouds of gray.
He breathes some of this in, and it catches in his throat. He coughs a few times to clear it unsuccessfully, and then his Dahken curse takes effect. Set upon his task, he ignores the coughs that wrack his chest, even when bloody spittle sprays the mirror. Rael lifts his water bucket and hefts its contents at his mirror, washing away the rest of the dirt, dust and the product of his Dahken coughs. He uses a dry wool towel to wipe the mirror clean and dry.
As his coughs subside, Rael looks over himself. Despite daily practicing, his body has grown soft without foes to battle. His armor still fits of course, but he doubts he would be able to wear it long without becoming exhausted. His black hair, filthy and stringy, reaches down to his waist, a length it has been for years, and he pushes it all back behind his shoulders so that he can see his face. Rael’s gray eyes stare at a face that he does not recognize. Black whiskers and a matching beard cover his face so that only his nose and up are visible. The carpet-like hair is thick and luxurious near his face, but becomes matted and scraggily as it reaches down to the middle of his chest.
Rael thinks back on his words to Dahk so many years ago and in this very room, and even as he does so, he feels the blood burning within his veins. Every time his heart beats, it feels as if it might burst. He has heard of such things killing persons younger than he, yet he knows that is not the issue.
Rael wraps the wet and somewhat dirty wool towel around his waist to provide some degree of modesty, and throws open the door to his hovel. As he steps into the warm summer air, a number of villagers shoot him glances, though few stop their tasks altogether. He looks ar
ound as if seeing the village for the first time, and he realizes that it is almost a bustling town. The active attempts at breeding seem to have been successful, for Rael sees that the village extends well beyond the stockade wall.
Snow stays atop the highest mountains throughout summer here, but as the weather warms, it begins to recede upward. Ignoring the puzzled looks of the Northmen, Rael marches buckets in hand to one of the many fresh streams that trickle down from the melting snows. He fills both to the brim and stomps his way back to his home, drops of water sloshing out as he does so.
Once inside, he sets the bucket on a rickety table that he had fashioned some years ago and reaches both hands in to cup the water. He finds splashing it upon his face to be grossly ineffective, and the water just runs off his matted beard to the hard packed dirt floor. Rael sighs and lowers his entire face down to the bucket, submerging the beard and whiskers as he does so, and he realizes with some indignance how ridiculous he must look, assuming there was anyone there to watch him. Satisfied, he straightens his back and looks into the mirror, the weight of the water pulling his beard straight to the floor. Water runs from the hair and splashes his feet; it mixes with his dirt floor, but he ignores the mud that begins to work between his toes.
Rael takes his old knife from its place on the table and inspects it closely. It has long grown dull from the day that he blinded a monstrous bear with it, and he knows this is going to hurt. He grasps his beard to keep it taught and begins to saw away through the coarse black hair, and it must be the most uncomfortable thing he has ever felt as it yanks the skin on his face to and fro. When he is finished, he has a huge clump of black beard in his left hand, some of which had been cut by the knife and some of which had been simply pulled painfully from his face.
Realizing that he cannot possibly continue with the blade in such condition, Rael finds an old whetstone. He spends the better part of an hour returning the knife’s edge to a level of sharpness that satisfies him, and then he returns to his work. He puts the blade right up against his skin just above and in front of his right ear and begins to swipe it downward. He hears the gravelly sound of hundreds of hairs being cut, and they fall and float to the ground. When done, he repeats this on the other side of his face, his upper lip, chin and neck.
Rael stops shaving for a moment to again appraise his image, and the man he sees looking back is starting to look like someone he remembers. He returns to his work, moving the knife up and down against his face in short, aggressive strokes, and he ignores the near constant pain of nicks and cuts on his face. Rael gathers as much of his long black hair into one hand as he can manage and begins to cut his way through it. He cares not for the aesthetics of it, so long as it is all about the same length.
When he is finished, Rael cups the water from the second bucket in both hands and brings it up to his face over and over again, washing away blood and any remaining shaved hair. He then lifts the bucket over his head and, looking up towards it, spills its contents onto his head and face, heedless of the mess it will make on the floor. The cold water washes over him, pushing away the rest of what he has cut away. Setting the bucket on his table, Rael looks into the mirror one more time, and his eyes settle on the image of the girl, the woman Lorina standing in his doorway. He suddenly realizes that the wool towel he’d wrapped about himself had long fallen to the floor.
“Now you’re starting to look like a man I once knew,” Lorina says in perfect Western. Over the years, her skill with the language had become invaluable to the clan as they set up peaceful relations with Western merchants. As Rael begins to reach for his fallen towel, wet and covered in hair and mud, she laughs and adds, “You don’t need to hide from me. I have seen a man more than once.”
Rael slowly, and with some degree of trepidation, turns to face the little girl that he was certain to be Kryjek’s daughter, though neither of them ever said so. She is perhaps five and a half feet tall and completely full figured, as happens after a woman bears several children. Freckles cover her face, which is lined from worry, and a few gray hairs streak her curly red hair. Rael also sees lines around her mouth from smiles and laughter as she approaches closer.
“I have ignored what I am for far too long,” Rael says. “My blood burns within me. I must leave.”
“To go where?” she asks.
“I do not know,” the Dahken answers as he gazes out his open door. “South somewhere, then east I think.”
“I’d rather you stay,” she says, moving even closer.
Rael evades her, moving to his left to find the linens he wears under his armor, and he realizes that he does not remember the last time he felt the touch of a woman. Still naked, he says only, “I cannot,” and busies himself with arranging his things. He suddenly feels her body pressed up against his from behind, and her arms wrap around his waist. She feels her lips, warm against the middle of his back which is cold from the water, and it feels like lightning shooting through his body.
“I would have been yours, you know,” she says, resting the side of her face against his back. “I’m nearly forty and too old now to give you sons, but you can still stay with us. My daughter is still pure and would make you a fine wife.”
“But I would be a poor husband,” Rael argues as he disengages her arms form him. “You do not understand. I do not age as you do, and I will always be pulled away, for my blood always calls me elsewhere. That is no life for a young woman or a family. I cannot protect them while I am away, and I cannot take them with me into danger. Also, I have no wish to watch them grow old and die.”
“As you will watch me if you stay,” Lorina concludes in defeat. “How long will you be gone? Will I still live when you return?”
Rael sighs heavily as he stops fumbling with his undergarments for just a moment. “I cannot say.”
“Then promise me one thing,” she demands, her voice almost a whisper.
“What is it?”
“Promise me that you’ll always come back to the Jeks. As long as you make that promise, my children and grandchildren will always care for your home.”
Rael looks from her face to stare silently at the floor, and then he closes his eyes with an almost imperceptible nod. When he looks back up at her, he sees that her eyes are wet, but no tears run down her cheeks. “Will you help me put on my armor? It has been too long since I have done it myself.”
When it is done, Rael stands resplendent in his armor that still shines despite that he has ignored it for years. He buckles his sword belt about his waist after inspecting the weapon; it has remained sharp, though he has never taken a whetstone to it. He puts a leather strap through his shield’s handle and hangs it over his back, to which he adds a heavy pack.
Lorina only stands quietly and watches, and Rael finally turns to kiss her firmly on the mouth. She leans hard into the kiss, pushing her body heavily against his body, but he cannot feel it for the shining steel that encases him. When it is done, Rael wordlessly marches out the door and then through the village’s stockade walls, ignorant of the sobbing behind him.
18.
Rael sits on a large rock, chewing on dried jerky while he gazes at the great, white walled city in the distance at least several miles away. He finds that he cannot look directly at the city for too long before the reflecting sunlight threatens to blind him, placing great dark spots in his vision that turn bright when he closes his eyes. He has never seen Byrverus before, having made a point of avoiding any place where Garod’s power is well felt since his flight from Martherus, but there is no mistaking the largest city in the Shining West. Towns, villages and farms sprawl outward from the city for miles around, almost as far as where he sits.
Rael stands and wanders over to where his horse grazes peacefully. The journey out of the North and into Aquis had been long and arduous, and he cursed himself for not taking a mount from the Jek village when he had left, for surely Lorina would have made certain he had one. He had gone only a few miles south through the mountains
before he had to stop to rest. By the end of the second day, Rael had nasty blisters on his feet from the rubbing of his boots, which made the following days even slower and more painful. When he saw the first Western village, he immediately stopped and paid a farmer well for the old stallion. He is no fighting animal, but he is well mannered.
The farmer showed a pointed interest in Rael’s ashen skin, so the Dahken left immediately upon concluding his business. At the first opportunity, he purchased a long, wool hooded cloak that was frighteningly hot over his armor in the summer sun, even in northern Aquis. He added to the hood some wool scraps in which to wrap his face and hands for when he would need to come near others in the hopes that he would appear as an uninteresting pilgrim. With any luck, onlookers may even think him a leper and avoid him altogether. A fighting man in Aquis is not the most uncommon thing to be seen, but Rael has never acquired a helm to hide his face.
“Boy, I think it would be better if I went in alone,” Rael says, patting the horse’s shoulder. The animal simply snorts as it grazes. He mounts the animal and turns him toward Byrverus, and it is a short ride of minutes before they reach the first outlying farms. Rael dismounts and, reins in hand, approaches a farmhouse that he has chosen for no particular reason. A young girl spies him and speeds off behind the house shouting, “Father!”
Rael stops to wait for whatever manner of man may appear, and it’s only minutes before a rather unimpressive Westerner with short, labor style dark hair appears from behind the house. As he approaches, Rael sizes the man up and determines that though he appears average in size, his muscles are lean and strong from years of hard labor.
Blood Loss: The Chronicle of Rael Page 12