Authors: Brian Braden
“Evil calculates what is probable, while goodness dreams of what is possible.” –
Conversations with the Uros
Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
“Lying bitch!” Atamoda lunged at Kus-ge, but Sana held her back.
“She laid a trap,” Sana whispered urgently. “Do not fall into it.”
“Ro-xandra is your son’s accuser, not I,” Kus-ge countered coolly. “Tell us, woman, what proof you have against the son of the Uros.”
“Father, I...” Kol-ok entered the circle.
“My son is no thief! Ro-xandra lies. This is Kus-ge’s deceit.”
“Quiet!” Aizarg shouted. “Son, approach. Did you steal food? Yes or no.”
“I did not.”
“Ro-xandra, what proof do you have?”
“I saw him with my own eyes, several nights ago.”
“Are there any other witnesses?”
“No,” Ro-xandra turned up her nose. “I was alone, everyone else slept deeply after battling the storm.”
“What were you doing on the Supply Barge late at night?” Atamoda said.
“I heard voices, perhaps in distress. I followed them. I saw Kol-ok rummaging through the fish.”
“I slept on the barge, yet I heard nothing,” Atamoda glared at Ro-xandra.
“We should search his mat,” Ba-lok said.
His words are rehearsed.
Okta stepped toward the Supply Barge. “I will search his mat, with the Uros’s permission of course.”
Aizarg nodded.
“And I’m sure I’ll find nothing!” he sneered at Ro-xandra.
It didn’t take long for Okta to return, empty handed. “As I suspected, only his belongings. Aizarg, let’s stop this foolishness and get on with the wedding.”
A chorus of cheers answered him.
“Yes, of course. I knew he was innocent the whole time,” Kus-ge said and turned her attention to Ro-xandra. “We will discuss this after the wedding.”
Ro-xandra shrank back, and Atamoda’s heart began to slow again.
“Oh,” Kus-ge said, as if just remembering something. “One more thing, Ro-xandra; you said you heard voices. Was Kol-ok alone?”
Atamoda looked at her son, who had turned pale as ice.
“I think I might have seen someone with him,” Ro-xandra let the words come out slowly, as if twisting a knife.
“Tell us, Kol-ok; were you alone by the fish pile?” Kus-ge asked too innocently, too smoothly.
Kol-ok turned to his father. “Ro-xandra speaks truthfully. I stole the food.”
“No!” Atamoda screamed.
“Kol-ok,” Aizarg held him close. “Why did you say that?”
Kol-ok didn’t answer, looking apprehensively over his shoulder at the crowd, as if looking for someone.
Alaya fainted.
Sana pointed to Su-gar. “Take her and the children to Levidi’s raft.”
“He confessed!” Virag pushed his way to the front, wagging his finger. “He should share the same punishment as Alad.”
“The same punishment as Alad!” several of the Minnow shouted.
The cry of “Exile!” rippled across the Minnow.
“There will be no judgment until I decree it!” Aizarg shouted.
“Is the son of the Uros above the law?” Virag cried out again.
The clans began to separate, stepping over the Spine to their respective sides. Kus-ge and Ba-lok joined their people, flanked by Virag and Ro-xandra.
“He confessed,” Ba-lok said.
“He didn’t steal!” Atamoda teetered on hysteria.
“As I said, there will be no judgment until I decree it!” Aizarg shouted again, but Atamoda sensed his control slipping.
Kus-ge further stoked the fires. “Ba-lok surrendered Alad immediately. If I remember, that judgment came swiftly. Is there one set of laws for Crane and another for Minnow?”
“My child starves, and the son of the Uros steals?” A Minnow woman raised her fist.
“Atamoda has always given more rations to the Crane than the Minnow!” another cried.
Okta slapped Ghalen on the back and whispered something. They grabbed Levidi’s arm, and all three vanished from the barge.
Virag smugly tucked his thumbs into the rope securing the tunic around his waist. “Perhaps we cannot trust the Uros to deal fairly in these matters. The Second has already demonstrated his impartiality. Alad met justice. Alad is dead.”
Virag turned to the crowd and raised his arms. “Perhaps it is time for a new Uros!”
The Minnow cheered, and to Atamoda’s horror, sticks and clubs began to circulate behind Ba-lok and Kus-ge.
Sana stepped between where Aizarg stood with his son and the restless Minnow.
“Stop this!” Aizarg raised his staff. “We are one people. Justice will be served, but only after all the facts are heard.”
But the Minnow weren’t listening, and the Crane were unarmed. Aizarg and the Crane slowly began to back away.
“Take the flotilla!” Virag shouted. “Take the food!”
Brandishing fishing spears, Okta and the men reappeared and stood side by side with Sana.
Behind them, Spako loomed, log in hand.
“We will not let you take Kol-ok or the food. Aizarg is Uros. You pledged your spears,” Okta shouted.
“Treachery,” Ghalen extended his spear toward the Minnow.
“I see. It is all clear now,” Kus-ge hissed. “Conspiracies, alliances...this wedding was nothing more than a plot to neutralize the Minnow and take our food.” She reached between her legs and withdrew a black dagger.
Sana drew
Vengeance
.
Aizarg pushed his way between the clans. “Enough!” He lowered Ghalen’s spear tip. “This is madness. Lower your weapons and let sanity prevail.”
“Liar!” Virag brandished a club.
“No!” shouted another voice, a man’s voice. She turned to see Kol-ok step into the center beside his father, dragging the boat he and Aizarg had crafted together.
“I am guilty. I accept exile.”
Atamoda pushed Sana and Okta aside and embraced her son. “Tell them you didn’t do it! You’re not a thief.”
Kol-ok gently pushed aside her hands, Aizarg’s determination in his eyes.
“No. Mother, you must let me go.”
She turned to Aizarg. “Husband?”
Aizarg lowered his head.
“Aizarg?”
Gently but firmly, Sana came between Atamoda and Kol-ok. “Atamoda,” she whispered where none could hear. “You son is saving his people. You must put aside the mother and become patesi-le.”
“I cannot,” she sobbed.
“You must.”
Sana’s heart ached for Atamoda and the Lo as she witnessed them changing, becoming like those she left behind. Yet, Kol-ok’s sacrifice gave her hope. One day, Atamoda would rejoice in her son’s courage, but that day lingered far away.
Atamoda sagged to the deck, sobbing into her hands. Sana knelt over her, glancing back at the Minnow.
Clubs and spears began to lower, as disappointment painted Kus-ge and Virag’s faces.
I should have killed her.
“Ghalen.” Sana tried to get her betrothed’s attention. She would be strong for Atamoda, but he needed to be strong for Aizarg.
Ghalen nodded and then lowered his weapon. “The Uros has spoken. Justice is served. Everyone put down your weapons, go back to your rafts while we do what is necessary to prepare for Kol-ok’s exile.”
Ghalen snatched Ba-lok by the tunic and slammed him against the mast. “I’m watching you and that snake you call a wife.”
“Get your hands off...!”
Ghalen lifted him off the deck, shoving him hard into the mast again. “You are now my enemy.”
Ghalen threw him to the deck. Ba-lok slunk away, rubbing his shoulder.
“Okta, look over Kol-ok’s vessel, make sure he has what he needs.” Ghalen turned to Sana. “We will stay with Aizarg and Atamoda.”
Kol-ok faced his father, but Aizarg would not look at him. The Uros leaned heavily on his staff, looking suddenly old. For a while, they said nothing while Okta and Ezra solemnly prepared the boat.
Okta stood close to Kol-ok and whispered, but Sana heard every word. “There are six fish cakes in there, Ezra and I donated our rations in addition to the three allocated. A sail and a paddle are hidden under the blanket. I’ve placed a net in the boat, too. Cast whenever you can. Once you are out of sight, catch the full wind and let it carry you. If you can see the stars, then sail south, Kol-ok. Always south.”
Kol-ok nodded. “Thank you.”
Ezra held out his metal knife. “I always liked your flint knife. Want to trade?”
Kol-ok swapped knives. “Thanks, Ezra.”
“If you don’t like it, we’ll swap back when I see you again.”
Okta and Ezra stepped away, leaving Kol-ok with his mother and father.
“Ba-tor...” Kol-ok choked. “He won’t understand. Just tell him I went looking for the fish.”
Aizarg nodded. Sana feared this could break the Uros. If he broke, they would all break. Sana grew up among warriors desperate to prove their bravery. She’d witnessed great feats of courage the way others watch the sun rise and set. Scythian bravery was born in blood, but she’d never witnessed courage such as this.
Silent tears rolled down Sana’s cheeks as she leaned over and brushed Atamoda’s hair and kissed her head. Words came out of her mouth, though they seemed like someone else’s. “Go to him. Give him love and strength, the way you once suckled him to your breast. Gird him. When your grief ebbs, and the desolation that rends your heart is no more, remember this: The greatest courage is that born in love, and the greatest love is that which lays down its life for another.”
Atmoda rose and approached her firstborn.
“Why?”
“Because I must.”
“But...”
“I need you to accept this. Trust me, Mother. Please, I beg you.”
Heart breaking, Sana watched Atamoda embrace her son for the last time. Atamoda sniffled and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“When did you get taller than me?” she laughed through her tears. “I don’t understand, but I will trust. I will serve. I will wait until we see one another again. And I will always love you.”
The canopy fluttered as warm, moist wind swept unexpectedly over the arun-ki. The decks groaned and popped, and the Spine went limp.
“The wind and tide have shifted!” Okta raced for the flotilla’s edge.
Confused, Sana looked at Ghalen. His worried expression told her everything.
“I’ll be right back,” she told Atamoda and followed Ghalen after Okta. The decks began to buck before they even reached Okta’s raft, where Okta and Ghalen peered south.
Warm rainwater pelted them as the horizon pulsated with lightning. Thunder began to boom like war drums.
In the thunder Sana though she heard something else, though her mind told her it could not be.
Upon the gale, a beast roared.
“Uros!” Okta shouted as he leapt onto the Wedding Barge, followed by Ghalen and Sana. “A storm bears down from the south, and I don’t like the looks of it. The wind, the current, everything has changed. We don’t have much time.”
“Everyone to the center barges,” Aizarg commanded.
Atamoda leapt to her feet, grief pushed aside as lightning began to strobe around them. “Sana, help me move the children to the Supply Barge.”
“We must complete the exile!” Kus-ge screamed.
“One more word out of you and I will place
you
in exile,” Aizarg said. “Get the Minnow to the barges, now!”
The rafts began to bump and bang into one another as the flotilla lurched sideways, slowly rotating about its axis to face the wind and current.
The Lo streamed onto the Supply and Wedding Barges, as Okta arranged them to best balance the rafts.
The decks started bucking and pitching as Ghalen ran ropes across the decks for the woman and children to cling to.
“We’ve endured many storms,” Atamoda tried to comfort the crying children. “We’ll be fine.”
Sana knelt next to her, helping Alaya secure Ba-tor and the twins to the line. “Do you hear it, Atamoda?”
“What?”
“In the thunder, do you hear it?” Sana’s eyes darted about.
“I don’t understand.”
A violent wave swept over the deck, almost washing Atamoda away. Hanging onto the line with one arm, she sputtered and tried to clear her stinging eyes. The warm water tasted like sweat.
Where only minutes ago, the Minnow and Crane prepared to fight, they now united in battle against the maelstrom. She heard Aizarg’s voice above the rattling canopies, “We’re riding too low!”
“The storm wall is gone!” Okta shouted back. “The bow rafts are breaching.”
One moment, the overhead canopy protected them. The next second, it simply vanished. In quick order, the gale stripped away every canopy from the arun-ki. The Lo huddled against the decks, as naked against the Deluge as they were the first day.