Black Sea Gods: Chronicles of Fu Xi

by Braden, Brian

  Aizarg considered the two Scythians. “What of them, Setenay?”

  “Throw him in,” she commanded.

  Ghalen pinned the man’s arms behind his back while Levidi cut his bonds. Then, with considerable effort, they tossed in the Scythian.

  He bolted upright, shivering in the knee deep water. “A-ahh h-ha!” he laughed through his shivers. “I am wet! Y-you will h-have to do b-better than that, Lo dogs.”

  Levidi lifted his spear. “Shall I kill him?”

  “Hold your spear,” Setenay commanded.

  The Scythian began to turn blue and shivered uncontrollably as the strange hissing returned and grew louder.

  “Something moves in the water!” Okta shouted.

  Setenay turned to Okta, surprised. “You can see them?”

  “I see them, too,” Ghalen said in awe.

  The Scythian woman screamed as several pairs of black hands shot out of the water and dug into the man’s legs. He screamed, fell face-first into the water and vanished below the surface. The murky water swirled and then lay flat without a ripple, as if it were a heavy blanket. A thin crust of black ice formed with an evil, cracking sound, and then broke apart in the current.

  The Scythian woman screamed again.

  “What were those, Setenay?” Levidi gasped.

  “Water demons!” Okta said. “I’ve heard of them, but never seen one.”

  Setenay stood before the Scythian woman. By the look of the beads on her red cherkesska, she is a princess. Setenay looked the tall, slender girl up and down. She has both her breasts and is not yet a woman. Scythian maidens sliced off one of their breasts during the rights of womanhood to better wield a bow.

  She fights like a woman, though. Setenay recognized something familiar in the girl’s eyes.

  “Death or life?” Setenay asked.

  “Do not throw me to the demons!” the terrified girl pleaded.

  “Then obey.”

  “I will obey.”

  Setenay put her hands on her hips and straightened, looking down on the girl. Then she held out her hand. “A proper Scythian woman carries four daggers. Give me the one called Death.”

  A quizzical look briefly crossed the Scythian girl’s face, and then her eyes narrowed. Slowly, she reached into her cherkesska and withdrew a small, but wickedly crooked knife with an antler handle and handed it hilt-first to Setenay.

  “What is your name?” Setenay asked as she turned the black blade in her hands.

  “Sana.”

  “Sana.” Setenay chewed on the name. “The dead prince was your brother, wasn’t he? You are the granddaughter of mighty King Sosa, daughter of Sawseruquo?”

  Sana nodded, mouth agape at the old woman’s knowledge of her people. Suddenly, Sana gasped and held her hand to her mouth. “You are the Lady of the Water!”

  “The past is dead and the white bloom will soon be washed away,” Setenay said, the edge in her voice replaced with weariness. “Sana, Princess of Scythia, your tribe will soon perish. Forsake the name ‘Scythian’ forever.” Setenay turned to Ghalen and handed him the knife. “Never return this knife to her. Never. She has three others hidden on her body, but she will not raise them against you. Place her on the raft.”

  “Setenay!” Ghalen held up his hands. “She helped kill our friends. This is madness! Let us slay her now. I will kill her mercifully.”

  Sana trembled, teeth clenched, and glared at Ghalen.

  Setenay looked from the Scythian to Ghalen and remembered last night’s bittersweet joy. She touched Ghalen’s cheek and whispered, “Out of darkness, mercy.”

  Setenay then spoke again to Sana. “You will obey this man. He is Ghalen of the Turtle Clan and is responsible for you until his patesi-le can figure out what to do with you. Remember, one push and you join the demons.”

  Ghalen picked her up and dropped her roughly in the middle of the raft.

  Through clenched teeth, Sana looked past him to where the water encroached on the bodies of her tribesmen. Her eyes misted, but the black-haired woman did not cry.

  She is strong, Setenay thought. I would only expect as much from my granddaughter.

  Setenay turned to Aizarg. “If men can see the water demons, then the evil spirits have grown powerful indeed. The God of the Narim has unchained them from the icy pit to ensure none survive the deluge. There will be more. They will pour into the seas to feed on the dead and the living. Boats and rafts will not be safe.”

  “Our people!” Levidi’s face paled. “My wife.”

  Setenay held up her hand. “The spirit in the mist showed me what is to come. She also bestowed a gift, one I already possess, but now a thousand-fold more powerful.” She closed her eyes and placed her hands over the orb on Aizarg’s staff. The red metal began to glow a ruddy red until heat radiated off its surface. Setenay’s hands fell away and she opened her eyes.

  It is done. Her breathing became more labored. Dizzy, she almost fell until Aizarg caught her under her arm.

  “Aizarg, give your staff to Levidi,” she said.

  Aizarg did as Setenay commanded. Levidi hefted the staff awkwardly.

  “Levidi, step to the edge and stretch the staff over the water.”

  Everyone now saw the demons writhing under the surface. “There are so many!” Levidi said. He motioned the orb over the water and, instantly the demons streaked away. Thin tendrils of mist danced on the water’s surface, as if the water suddenly warmed.

  “I think I heard them shriek!” Okta said. To Setenay, the cry shook her soul.

  Pay the price, old witch! The demons screamed at her.

  “No, they only fled,” she said. “They will not approach the staff. Levidi, give the staff back to Aizarg. It is his to carry, but you will wield it on his behalf.”

  “Why can I not wield it?” Aizarg asked.

  “Levidi was chosen to wield it to remind you that the power within the staff comes from the God of the Narim, not you.” She turned to Levidi. “Serve your Uros well.”

  Levidi nodded and gave the staff back to Aizarg.

  “The raft floats,” Okta said. “We have no mast for our sail.”

  “The current will carry you to your destiny,” Setenay said. “Uros, lead them.”

  Aizarg nodded. “To the raft, let us save our people.”

  Okta anchored the raft with a long pole while everyone climbed aboard. Aizarg stepped aboard with Ezra and showed him where to sit. Ghalen and Levidi prepared to shove off.

  Setenay came to the side of the raft where Ba-lok sat. He wouldn’t look at her.

  “All of you abandoned me,” he seethed.

  “Grandson,” she said with resignation and bitter sorrow. “May you become the man your father wanted you to be, the man I know you can be.”

  Something in her voice seemed to connect with Ba-lok. He gave her an uneasy look. “Grandmother...?”

  A rumble echoed to the north as one of the remaining hilltops crumbled and thundered into the water. It spawned a deep wave, which grew as it raced towards them.

  Ghalen saw the approaching wave and pushed Levidi onto the raft. He jumped up and held out his arm. “Hurry, Setenay, take my hand.”

  Setenay stepped back. “Goodbye, Ghalen.”

  Aizarg turned around. “Setenay, get in the raft!”

  “No, Uros. I cannot.” She backed up against the zhaqa. “The God of the Narim promised the demons the flesh of all creatures beyond the walls of the ark. They are the vultures and maggots of the coming deluge. There is a price to turn away their claws. The power I placed into the staff did not come without a price.”

  Aizarg handed his staff to Levidi and lunged toward Setenay. “Get onto the raft!”

  One last duty, one last task and I can rest. Setenay spoke the words from her vision, the message from the God of the Narim.

  “The Lo will not be forgotten, Aizarg! We will be remembered!”

  The heavy, rolling wave swept across the shore and hit the raft, lurching it hard to the
right. Aizarg almost spilled over the side before Okta pulled him back.

  The wave pushed Setenay over the zhaqa then quickly receded, sweeping the raft away from the shore and downstream.

  “Setenay!” Ghalen prepared to dive into the water. Levidi grabbed him and pulled him back. Ghalen fought him, but Aizarg helped Levidi hold him as the raft quickly accelerated downstream.

  “Do not jump in!” Levidi screamed. “The demons will rip you to pieces.”

  A black tide of demons flowed in a wide arc around the raft, giving them a considerable berth and shot toward the shore in front of Setenay like a squirt of ink. She crawled on top of Sarah and Ood-i’s burial mound and sat calmly. Ice formed and reformed along the shore, now only inches from the stones. They squirmed over one another in a frenzy to reach the last Isp of the Lo people. Black claws dug into the clay, breaking and reforming the ice in a dark, angry froth.

  Setenay crossed her legs and waited for her icy death. She watched the raft float away as the first stones of the zhaqa crumbled into the water.

  “Farewell, my fishermen.”

  ***

  Ghalen sat cross-legged with his face in his hands, racked with uncontrollable sobs. Levidi put his arm around him, tears filling his eyes. Everyone sat down as close to the middle of the raft as possible except for Okta and Aizarg. Okta stood on the back of the raft, trying to use his pole to keep them straight. Soon the water was too deep.

  “We are at the mercy of the current,” Okta said through his tears.

  Aizarg’s tears were spent. He stood at the front and could not bring himself to look back at Setenay. Without Sarah and Setenay, he felt like both his arms had just been severed.

  I am alone.

  “So be it,” Aizarg said at last. “Let the current carry us. We are in the hands of the God of the Narim now.”

  The shore fell away and disappeared into an endless horizon. The Black River became a sea in its own right, relentlessly hurtling toward the Great Sea beyond the southern horizon.

  Will it devour the Great Sea? Will our beloved home become a cold, sterile Black Sea?

  “Look!” Ezra pointed up at the thin white veil expanding across the entire sky. Through it, bright sheets of shooting stars streaked from the southern horizon.

  Aizarg didn’t look, transfixed on the dark wall of clouds boiling up from the south like the coils of a giant black serpent rising from the sea.

  Epilogue

  As his mother had commanded, Fu Xi rode Huise relentlessly for days until they came to the mountains called The Roof of the World. The gray mare had no more to give. Yet the brave horse, found the strength to go on. Pride and love for her swirled in Fu Xi’s heart.

  I am killing her, he thought as his tears quickly dried in the dry, thin air. Guilt tore at the god’s soul. This gentle, majestic creature is suffering for me.

  They cleared the alpine trees before dawn and still he gave her no rest. He sensed the doom his mother spoke of approaching like a wolf at their heels. The horses seemed to sense it, too. Salvation meant reaching the top of the narrow pass wedged between two glaciers, still a thousand feet above them.

  They trudged up the dry canyon, narrow and steep, toward the bare rock outcropping marking the top of the pass. To the north and south jagged ice covered peaks towered in the starry pre-dawn.

  It was difficult to breathe up here, even for a god. Heise, the black stallion, struggled to follow at the end of his tether, though he had no rider and only a light load.

  When Fu Xi’s gentle chiding and praises no longer stirred the mare forward he lashed her, kicked her sides and drove her at a gallop up the steep mountainside. He could sense her heart on the edge of bursting, but still the god drove her on.

  Her hooves slipped and clawed to find traction in the loose gravel and shale. Then, without warning, sweet, gentle Huise had no more to give. She collapsed, throwing Fu Xi forward onto the slope.

  Heise stood over the mare, gently nuzzling his companion, trying to get her to rise. The mare’s eyes were wide and glazed. Thick, bloody foam bubbled from her snout, mottled gray coat well lathered.

  Fu Xi crawled to her and cradled Huise’s head in his lap. He ran his hand gently over her neck, trying to impart some comfort to his dying friend. She felt as cold as the icy air at the top of the world.

  “I am sorry,” he whispered over and over.

  The sky suddenly flashed in a brilliant glow. Fu Xi marveled at the tremendous fireball arcing across the western sky to the south. In it he saw the hand of Nuwa.

  “It has begun.”

  A sharp crack issued from above. Fu Xi looked up at the peak in time to see the glaciers on either side of the canyon begin to slowly slide down towards him, as if releasing their grip on the earth at some unheard command.

  With nowhere to run, he would be crushed. He stood and snatched Heise’s harness to keep the horse from bolting in terror. But Heise stood calmly next to him, as if soothed by an invisible hand in the face of the overwhelming natural violence.

  In a matter of seconds, thousands of tons of ice gently slid to either side of Fu Xi and his horses. With very little sound except for the occasional snap or pop, the walls of the ice canyons passed them by with only inches to spare. The glaciers picked up speed and began to crumble in a deafening crescendo, shattering into enormous white boulders tumbling into the valley thousands of feet below. Suddenly, the glaciers on the peaks to his immediate south and north gave way and thundered into the barren valley from whence they rode last night. Avalanches of rock and mud followed the ice, making the valley impassable.

  Had Huise collapsed only a few paces down the slope we would be buried below that ice.

  Fu Xi looked down at Huise. Her eyes were lifeless, her suffering over. He removed his gear and supplies from her body and loaded them on the black stallion.

  He gave her cold flank one more pat. “Thank you.”

  Looking back to the east and the rising sun, Fu Xi allowed himself a brief thought of Nushen.

  “There is no way back. Home is forever gone,” he whispered. Heise gave him a gentle nuzzle. Fu Xi rubbed the horse’s neck as he turned to consider the barren pass, now devoid of ice. When he crossed over to the west he would enter unknown lands. Somewhere beyond dwelt the man with white hair, the man he must help, and a half-brother he never knew he had.

  Fu Xi slowly turned and led his horse up the mountain.

  “Come, Heise. The only way back home is forward.”

  To Be Continued in The Chronicle of Fu Xi Book II: Tears of the Dead.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Brian L. Braden is the author of the novelette Carson’s Love. His articles have been featured in a variety of defense magazines and websites, to include the Military Times and Air Power Journal. He is a founder and assistant editor at Underground Book Reviews.

  Please support indie literature. If you enjoyed this novel, please rate this book on Amazon.

  TEARS OF THE DEAD Sneak Peak

  Prologue: The Lion and the Snake.

  “In Hur-ar it was said, the Narim were the gods of the poor, Ba’al god of the rich. But the only true god in Hur-ar was gold.” -Conversations with the Uros.

  - Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Before the Cataclysm

  Head held high, chest puffed with pride, the Lion of Hur-ar marched to glory. The crimson glow silhouetting the mountains announced dawn’s imminent arrival, ushering in his ascendency as one of Hur-ar’s most powerful men. He only need ensure nothing went wrong during this morning’s routine ceremony.

  He gazed up at the Black Fortress only a few yards ahead, its darkness untouched by the rose-colored rays chasing the stars from the sky. Bal-eeb, Captain of the Wall, sidestepped to the Cliff Road’s edge and inspected the procession as it passed. The ceremonial guard marched by two abreast, sandaled feet crunching the gravel in unison. Eyes locked forward, their misty breath floated on the chilly autumn air. Highly polished bronze chest plates cli
nked softly against chainmail and provided an eerie music to accompany the trade delegation.

  Behind the warriors, six muscled slaves, nude and sweating in the morning chill, struggled under the gilded litter’s weight. They bore lounging Norrufi, Supreme Royal Trader and second cousin to the King. Rolls of perfumed fat spilled from underneath an ornate blanket, jiggling in rhythm with the jostling litter. His threadbare beard hung under a perpetually dour expression and did nothing to conceal the eunuch’s many chins.

  Bal-eeb nodded in deference as the litter passed by, trying not to wrinkle his nose in disgust.

  He smells like a woman. Suitable, I suppose, for someone who traded his balls for power.

  Men possessing such power and wealth could not be trusted with an heir to challenge the King. Nevertheless, the Supreme Royal Trader held significant influence in court and Bal-eeb suffered the fat fool’s insolence. He needed Norrufi’s well-placed whispers if he were to depose the Captain of the Palace Guard. The man reclining on the golden litter assured Bal-eeb this morning’s duties played no small part in advancing this goal.

  In many ways Norrufi’s opposite, Bal-eeb stood half a head taller than most men, in the prime of youth and well-muscled. Powerful, wealthy, and brutally ambitious, the city idolized the man they called the Lion of Hur-ar.

  The warriors crested the cliff overlooking the city just as dawn’s first rays crept over the mountain beyond the Black Gate. They split into two ranks of five and formed a wide opening for Norrufi’s litter and the wagons.

  “Look sharp, lions of Hur!” Bal-eeb barked.

  A simple assignment, yes, but there could be no mistakes this morning.

  Three massive ox-drawn wagons, almost too wide to negotiate the narrow Cliff Road, rumbled close behind Norrufi’s litter. Goods from Hur-ar’s vast trading empire, iron tools and bags stuffed with grain, packed each cart to the breaking point. With mouths foaming and eyes wide in agony, the oxen struggled up the mountain. A small army of slaves, scribes, and functionaries from the royal houses and trading guild, trudged in the caravan’s dusty wake. Each man played a small part; from carrying the Supreme Trader’s piss pot to interpreting the clay tablets left by the Narim.