Authors: Brian Braden
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness the raindrops pouring off her pale face became visible.
We’re all pale now. No matter, I never much cared for the sun anyway.
An odd thought crossed his mind.
Has she been crying?
“If you invited me here to kill me, please get on with it. I’m cold and wet. I’d rather be cold and wet in my boat. Otherwise, I’m leaving.” He turned to go.
“What would our dear Uros think if I told him why you had those wedding barges?”
Ah, so it begins.
He turned to face her. She now stood tall, balanced on the edge of a barrier boat, waves sloshing over her calves.
She’s trying to show me she’s in charge, comfortable on her turf, flaunting her power.
Virag grudgingly admired her. He mentally kicked himself for even entertaining the thought she’d been crying.
“I think he’d be none too happy, witch. And I believe he’d be equally interested in your role.”
She caressed the blades lined up across her right thigh, aching close to her magical place, each so slender and delicate and lethal. “Do you think I need these to slay you? You are only a push away from the edge and unable to swim.”
“But I thought you were also of the g’an? Or have you finally accepted the humble ways of a Lo woman,
Marsh Flower?
” He used the last words as a dagger of his own, hoping they would reveal his suspicions. Anger flashed in her eyes and he knew still mourned.
For Bal-eeb or the power she lost?
“You better hide those daggers or you’ll betray your true nature. Virag turned his
back again. “You’re wasting my time. I’m going back to my canoe before someone sees us together.”
“No one will see us. I doubt anyone will notice our absence.”
She paused. “I want to make a bargain.”
He thought he heard a twinge of desperation in her voice.
He turned his head slightly, “A bargain? For what commodity? Unless you can wrest food from Aizarg’s bitch you have damn little to bargain with.”
“You keep our secret and I spare your life.”
Virag laughed. “That is not a bargain, it’s a truce. I hold your life in every bit as much peril as you hold mine. The same stone will sink us both.” Virag shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. “Fine, a truce. Though I don’t believe that’s why you drew me here. Killing me would have kept you secret safe, and I know you would have enjoyed that immensely.”
The Snake approached, her smile betraying a renewed confidence.
So dangerous and so beautiful. Yet, so predictable.
“The food will soon run out. He...” she paused. “
She
who controls the food will control the arun-ki.”
“I’m listening.”
Lighting flashed from the belly of a fresh storm far beyond the sea anchor.
In the language of killers, there is no word for “fair.”
– Scythian Proverb
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
He rolled off her into the soft grass. They lay side by side, both heaving for air. Dragonflies buzzed overhead in a narrow window of pale blue, framed by a high wall of reeds.
Her pleasure tingled far deeper than the physical warmth slowly receding in her belly. She rolled onto her side, supporting her head with her hand, and watched him.
Eyes closed, chiseled features relaxed, she wanted to touch him, but was afraid....afraid he’d vanish in a puff of smoke, like everything else she cared about - like her grandmother, her real brother, and her innocence.
She knew he wasn’t asleep. Living gods never slept. She plucked a blade of grass and ran it lightly over his abdomen, tracing the lines of his fading battle scars, each only serving to heighten his beauty. Her fingernails left several new ones on his back.
The smell of their drying lovemaking mixed with the breeze and sweet smell of crushed grass. Underneath it all lingered his scent: sweat, iron and the exotic oils rubbed over his hair and muscles. She had no reference for the scent other than it was
him
.
This was
her
man, the deliverer given to her by the dark gods in return for a promise she’d soon fulfill.
“Tell me again, my prince. About Hur-ar. What does my palace look like?”
He scowled mockingly. “It’s big, just like I told you before. Too damn big, and drafty. You’d hate it.”
She pouted and slapped his belly. “Stop that! Tell me again. Tell me about the gold.”
“As you wish,” Bal-eeb put his hands under his head and stared up at the sky. “The walls are the finest alabaster. Two giant bronze doors open from the Avenue of Kings to a courtyard garden as lush and peaceful as the legendary Paradise of the Narim. A cool fountain, carved like a roaring lion, lords over the courtyard, fed by an ice-cold spring. Beyond, double doorways, gilded by the Royal Smith himself open to...”
She laid her head on his chest, listening to his voice reverberate deep in his chest to mix with his heartbeat. She closed her eyes and tried to image everything he described, though she had no idea what things like ‘alabaster’ and ‘avenue’ meant. She only knew they were grand and powerful things and would soon all be hers.
Bal-eeb ran his fingers through her hair as he spoke, as if the act seemingly hypnotizing both of them. After a few moments she noticed he’d stopped talking. She opened her eyes and found him staring at her with an uncertain expression.
She looked at him sideways, eyes narrowing. “You want to tell me something, but you fear to speak it.”
He rested his head on his arms and stared up at the sun, perhaps thinking how he could conquer it. “My campaign against Scythia begins tonight. It will take many months. I will be away from Hur-ar several times until the snow falls on the Black Fortress.”
“You aren’t taking me to the golden palace? I am not to be your queen?”
“You are not ready to enter Hur-ar,” he said flatly.
Her stomach dropped as her world, and hope, crumbled. She raised her chin defiantly and crossed her arms. “I have served my purpose? Is that it?”
Bal-eeb turned his head and cracked a devious smile. He held her chin. “Did I not buy you from the slaver? Did I not release you?”
She nodded.
“The Lion of Hur-ar keeps his promises. Come with me on my conquest of the world. Keep my tent warm. Share my bed and I will heap Scythian treasure around you each night. We will enter Hur-ar together, side-by-side on a golden chariot. No one will dare oppose me, no one will dare touch you. No one.”
She lowered her head, unable to hide her disappointment.
Alabaster, it sounds so magical. I want to see it!
He tenderly lifted her chin. “Understand this. If I leave you in Hur-ar alone, I cannot protect you.”
She scrambled over to her knives lying in the grass beside her meager strips of clothing. Clenching them all in one fist, she shook them at her lover. “I can protect myself!”
He wrapped his big hand around her fist and gently lowered it. “To rule in Hur-ar one must spear the shadow, slay the whisper, dance with the lie. You must learn the ways of court before you can hunt the gilded halls. The Scythians call it the Place of Mazes for good reason.” He took her knives and tossed on top of his breastplate with a clang. “Your wits must be your armor, your tongue a dagger coated in honey. My enemies are legion, but my allies present an even greater danger. They will seek to destroy you. You will become lost among a thousand smiling faces, a blade behind every back.”
Bal-eeb propped himself up on one arm and paused, searching her face. She once again saw conflict swimming in her lover’s eyes where’d she’d only seen unshakable confidence before.
He leaned over to his waist wrap crumpled next to them. From some hidden compartment, he retrieved something small and jingling. He turned his hand upside down and let a long, sparkling chain dangle before her eyes.
The golden chain’s etched pattern twisted like diamond teardrops encircling a tendril of sunlight. A coiled pendent, shaped as a snake-like beast and forged from a strange red metal, hung on the end. A delicate lattice of etched gold crisscrossed obsidian wings as black as midnight. Sunlight reflecting off the dragon’s ruby eyes peppered her face with flecks of bloody light.
“This is the
Kerubim
, a handsome gift from the High Priest of Ba’al himself. He said two powerful dragons forged it ages ago in the act of love. The red metal is love’s flame eternally captured. The obsidian wings, forbidden passion. The sparkling gold represents the seed of creation, infused with starlight stolen from heaven itself by Ba’al, the Light Bringer.”
Mesmerized, she reached for the pendent, but he pulled it back, snapping her from the trance.
“Shellbaz gave this me knowing I will one day be king. Two dragons made one, a god born to rule.”
Her mind reeled. She straddled her man’s chest, inching closer to the treasure, but he kept it just out of reach
“The Lion of Hur-ar takes what he wants. The Narim once said, ‘That which is most pleasing is not what is taken, but given.’” Bal-eeb gently lowered the chain over her head. It fell across her skin, the dragon pendent settling between her breasts.
He touched her belly. “From your womb will come my son, his spirit wild and free like his mother’s. A king born to rule.”
She felt her spirit bounding free and joyful in her chest, as glorious as the dragon over her heart. She placed her hand over his.
“From your seed will come my son, his spirit as strong and unyielding as his father’s. A god born to rule.”
She mounted him again, filled and complete. She imagined herself drawing power from the pendent and prayed silently to the dark gods for him to plant a seed within her.
In a tiny glade, buried in the deep grass and hidden from view, the Lion and the Snake took refuge from their own ambition, content in each other’s arms.
***
Between the arun-ki and the endless midnight sea, the Snake and the Fox birthed a conspiracy. As they talked on the stormy bow, Virag’s unease ebbed as he grew accustomed to the rhythm of the waves. He didn’t feel as cold, the waves didn’t loom so ominously.
Virag meticulously laid out his plans, and the Snake’s role in them. She listened without a word until he finished.
“Aizarg isn’t ruthless. He won’t do it,” she scoffed.
Virag smiled. “Oh, he will. He must. If he doesn’t, not even his god can help him. Fear festers among the Lo, something these once sheltered, gentle people are unaccustomed to. I manipulate fear like the blacksmith works in bronze. It will only take a nudge to heat it, cunning to bend it to open rebellion.”
“The Uros commands loyalty. His inner circle is strong.”
“We will isolate him with whispers.”
“You cannot isolate him from Atamoda.”
Virag smiled. “Patience. The sea is deep, the night is dark. Opportunities will present themselves soon enough to neutralize Aizarg’s woman.”
“She’s like Setenay, she sees.”
“Setenay is dead.”
“The Uros also wields the power of the God of the Narim.”
“Gods are crutches for desperate fools and luxuries for the rich. They do not fill bellies or bring back the dead. Simply do what we agreed upon and the flotilla will be firmly in our control in a manner of weeks.”
***
The towering flames illuminated the entire lagoon as if it were high noon, affording the Lo no place to hide, no escape. Virag would have never believed it would have been this easy.
He sat cross-legged on the dock and watched in morbid fascination as the two enormous wedding barges drifted to and fro, silhouetted against the backdrop of flaming huts. Out of the original fifteen huts in this arun-ki, only this one remained unburned.
Fourteen stilted torches.
The stench of burning reeds and pitch stung his nostrils. Heat rippled across the lagoon as the flames licked the sky. Burning arrows blossomed from the barges like shooting stars as well-pitched boats erupted into flames. Lo bodies drifted everywhere, floating pincushions riddled with Hur arrows. In the distance, Virag saw the glint of armor as the warriors strolled up and down the narrow beach, killing or capturing those who made it to shore.
Less than an hour ago, the screams were deafening. Now the only screams Virag heard was that of the sco-lo-ti’s wife in the hut next to him.
The Hur soldiers were having their fun.
The heap of bloody flesh next to him moaned and began to stir. The Sco-lo-ti of what only an hour ago was the Gar Clan, opened swollen eyes at the carnage. The chieftain groaned.
“Ah, he’s awake. Prop him up,” Virag commanded the Hur warriors looming behind them.
They lifted the nude, blood streaked sco-lo-ti and shoved him down on his knees. His arms and shoulders drooped at a sickeningly low angle, broken in several places. That didn’t preclude the Hur from tying them behind his back. His blackened limbs had swollen to the point the skin began to split.
“I’m glad you’re awake, Vi-nair,” Virag said in a chummy tone, as if they were old friends taking the night air on the dock. “There is still business to attend to.”
Virag looked back at the two Hur warriors standing behind them. “Go into the hut with your friends and enjoy yourselves. I want to take the air with my old friend.”
They men looked at one another, unsure if they should follow the slaver’s orders.
“He’s harmless now. If you don’t get in on the festivities in the hut, your friends probably won’t leave anything for you.”
One of them grinned at the other and motioned to the ladder leading to the hut’s entrance. A moment later, Virag and Vi-nair were alone.
The low cries coming from the hut suddenly intensified, mixed with guttural laughter.
“Why?” Vi-nair croaked through a swollen jaw.
Virag said nothing for what seemed an eternity while the broken man beside him softly cried. The slaver’s head cocked to one side, legs casually crossed and arms resting in his lap as if watching a macabre festival across the lagoon.
Finally, Virag took a deep breath, drinking deep the stink of slaughter. “They call him the Lion of Hur-ar, you know. When a lion hunts the Boundary, wolves and foxes go to ground. He approached me in the Grand Market, knowing of my relationship with Lo chieftains. I made a choice that fateful day, serve the Lion and prosper, or go to ground and die.”
Virag considered the man suffering next to him. The hardness drained from his face, transforming into something that could be taken as pity. He gently patted the sco-lo-ti’s back, careful not to touch his shattered limbs.
“I’m going to tell you something I’ve always wanted to say. If I could have lived as one of you, I would have. Your sheltered isolation, free to eat and make love and raise babies without fear, protected by a stretch of water no conquer has been able to breach...ahh! But I regret your way of life will soon come to a brutal end, especially when your people have been my best trading partners.”
The slaver paused to gather his thoughts, and then continued, “You ask why this happened; because a Lion has strolled into our world. Like an antelope on the outside of the herd, yours is the most easterly arun-ki, far removed from the rest of your nation.
Conveniently
isolated.
“You monster!” Vi-nair spit, struggling to free himself despite the agony. But his shattered arms would not obey.
Virag leaned back as his veil of pity evaporated. “Blame me if you wish, but this isn’t my handiwork. I’m a trader, not a conqueror. It really doesn’t matter if I helped him or not, the Lion would have found someone else to give him what he needed, most likely one of your very own. Gold is like the sun, it blinds men to the light of their own conscious.
“One at a time, from east to west, the Lion of Hur-ar will quietly conquer the Lo villages. His army will leave no evidence, do nothing to raise the suspicions of the horse clans. Once your people are enslaved he can move on to his true objective, the Scythians. Unimpeded, his armies will sweep north from the marshes and crush the horsemen. He intends nothing less than ruling the world. I intend to make a healthy profit.”