Chapter 3
“I remember little of the Dessert Snakes,” Cuatal said calmly, as he offered his waterskin to the warrior. He was just waking up, dragged under the shade of the crevice, as the noon sun pierced the dusty air of the Longpath and heated everything and everyone.
It had been over quickly. Few Braves were capable of facing a Warbred and Pokkal proved less than an average Brave, as far as Cuatal could tell. And even if he had been better, even if Shukuan’s muscled body somehow had not proven enough, her skill would have finished the job. The dazed warrior eyed her cautiously as she casually walked barefoot on the scorching stones of the Longpath, walking away with her brother.
“And you don’t seem like their champion,” Bhokali jumped in, before he had a chance to respond. “Why would you present yourself as one?” To Cuatal’s surprise, Pokkal seemed neither offended or challenged by her words.
“I never claimed to be,” he said instead meekly, rubbing the back of his head.
“You were not sent by your Tribe to make the pilgrimage then?” Cuatal asked and the warrior shook his head.
“No. I decided to take it for myself.”
“Ah…” Bhokali nodded, knowingly. “You failed the trial. You were to be bound. You run away, trying to prove them wrong.” Again, he neither challenged nor seemed offended by her words. He simply nodded and Bhokali turned calmly to Cuatal.
“A traitor to his Tribe,” she said bluntly.
“No!” for the first time, Pokkal fired up, his brown eyes flaring with anger and his olive skin blushing in grey, as Bhokali turned to look at him, almost annoyed. “I am no traitor. I simply…” Ignoring him and cutting him off, Bhokali turned to Cuatal once more.
“We offered water but cannot spare the food,” she said bluntly. “Send him on his way. The Path will claim him.”
“Are we traitors too, then, Bhokali?” he asked. “Our path, I think, is not that different from his.” She sighed, angrily, but kept quiet. Turning to Pokkal, Cuatal went on. “Do you know the way to Talethirst, Pokkal of the Dessert Snakes? Through the Wastelands? A way with water wells and game?”
“I… I do,” he said, hesitantly.
“He lies to remain,” Bhokali scoffed.
“No, I do!” Pokkal repeated.
“You said it yourself, Bhokali,” Cuatal said. “These paths are not known to you. He could help if his tribe travels here.”
“We do,” Pokkal rushed to cut in, with urgency. “We walk the middle Longpath, from Omgorahuly to the Second Step. I know the paths well.”
“He lies, Cuatal,” she said again. “And we cannot spare the food. Be wise.”
View on the Living World!
Prelude
“At it again, I see, Cuatal.”
He nodded, even smiled a little but did not answer. Even a tribe’s mistress had to make allowances to the Cult. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the piece of iron before him. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. The hammer kept falling, the iron twisting and denting under his skillful hands. Aatta sighed.
“Or rather I hear. We all hear. No, I listen. I listen to your relentless smithing and to the tribe’s complaints about not sleeping.”
He paused for the first time but did not turn to face her, swiping his forehead with the bear back of his forearm, then, in a soft, mechanical gesture, rubbed his pierced ears. “I remember not how this conversation went last time,” he said. “Something about enduring the sounds of the Forge, I think,” he said with a sigh as he caught his breath, then looked up to face her, smiling.
“Fitting that we do not repeat the same conversation,” the Mistress said. “Your smithing is different too,” she added, motioning with her head towards the anvil. “It has not improved, perhaps” she went on, chuckling, “but it is different.”
“That it is,” he said laughing himself. “I am not forging anything. I do not fail at it either. I simply talk with the metal. Rather, it talks. I try to learn how to listen.”
“Aha…” Aatta exclaimed, unimpressed. He smiled. “We reach the Forge tomorrow. I am sure your Cult will appreciate your findings and the tales of your adventures. And of course your singing metals.”
Cuatal’s smile faded, little by little.
“I doubt all will like it, Mistress Aatta. I doubt it very much,” he said.
* * *
Go, the hand signal said and Cuatal moved, his head low, hidden under the brown hood of the light cloak he had been given. It was not hard to move stealthily around the Forge. The forges clanged and banged at all hours and the fires roared and spilled fumes, dipping the streets in constant haze, a mist smelling of coal and heated metal. Usually, it did not matter. The way of the Cult of War did not favor clandestine dealings. But an escape, by default, demanded secrecy.
They went on slowly and cautiously for a good quarter of a watch. His speech had caused a stir and his confinement had caused tension, so patrols, usually a rare site, were this night numerous and diligent. Still, little by little, they were reaching the southern gate, where apparently they were expected but he grew nervous that ‘little by little’ would prove too slow. It would not be long before his escape was discovered and then they’d be trapped. Unable to do much, he steeled his nerves and went on, corner by corner, street by street, until the gate was reached and was opened for them by a man he had never seen before. Behind it, four raptors were waiting, led by one with a rider on top. Before he had a chance to thank him, he saw who the rider was.
“Bhokali!” he exclaimed, surprised.
“Heard you are in a bit of a spot,” the huntress smiled slyly. “Again.”
“And you just can’t stay away,” he teased back, as he and his companions rushed to the raptors, the gate already closing silently behind them. She shrugged and soon they rode off.
As the Forge kept growing smaller behind them, Cuatal rode to Bhokali’s side.
“Why are you here?” he said.
“Why are they?” she answered, motioning with her head towards his Cult-brothers who had helped him escape. “Because we know you have something to tell worth listening,” she said before he had a chance to answer. “And unlike them, I was there when it was first said. Even if I couldn’t understand it.”
“You will be hunted,” he said. “It was made clear to me that the Ukunfazane will not take kindly to my tale.”
She gave no response. Behind them, the alarm bells rang frantically and the Forge sprung to life.
Chapter 1
“No fires,” Bhokali said and the Cultists turned to look at Cuatal, as if waiting for him to confirm the order. Unaccustomed to such a reaction, Bhokali frowned and allowed herself to weigh her company once more; a Warbred named Shukuan, her brother Antekki and an old, greyed Chosen of War named Luttu, who could shame any warrior or hunter Bhokali had ever met with his speed and might. Perhaps a hunter’s voice to one such as them bore little weight, she thought; or perhaps Cuatal’s voice weighed a little too much, her thoughts went on as she saw him sitting alone a little way away the forming campfire, not paying attention. Annoyed, she threw dirt over the fire herself, ignoring the looks of her company, and walked purposefully to Cuatal. He simply turned, smiled at her, and bid her to sit. Deflating, she did exactly that, offering dry meat, which he accepted.
It was a quiet, dark night, with no moon to glow over the majesty of stars and dark clouds hovering over the dark mass of the Claustrine in the western horizon. Clouds rarely passed without emptying their life-giving bowels on the mountain slopes first, though. Almost no sounds but for those the company and their raptors made disturbed the wasteland’s peace. They had ridden as hard as they dared for two days, before Bhokali declared they had escaped their pursuers and sent all but her raptors and one more back. Then, it had been a week of walking, and already the empty tundra of the northern wastelands was turning into rocky, barren wastelands proper, adorned with the odd cactus and little else. The pair looked at the stars in silence, quietly munching their rations.
“We’ll need to resupply soon,” she said, in the end, after his stomach growled. “Meeting anyone in the Wastelands without a tribe is risky but we might not have a choice. We didn’t have time to properly gather provisions.”
“Where are we?” he asked. “Are we close to any paths?”
“A day’s walk from the Gecko Steps in the west. I tried to keep us heading south and close to it, thinking we could take food from the Sky Farms if needed.”
“No,” he said. “Not west. Our destination is east.”
“Destination and path to get there can at times be in very different directions in the Wastelands,” she said but added shrugging. “But as you wish. We’re a couple of days north of the third Gecko Step. Some comes and goes there, after the Sky Farms, but not a guarantee. Three days or more from the Longpath in the east. There’s usually traffic there. That increases our chances of meeting a tribe or group to trade with or, if they refuse, steal from. Now, any Path will be risky, and the Longpath more so; it is patrolled, as much as it can be, at least. There is also no guarantee we will find trade on the Longpath – even less so on the Step – and not a fight or nothing at all. But we’ll need to cross it anyway so we might as well try and wait for trade. It could be some wait.”
“Do we have to trade?” he asked.
“I can find us food to keep us alive, sure, and we still have some rations left. But they won’t stave off the hunger properly,” she answered. “You would be surprised how fast people’s loyalties begin wavering when hunger takes over,” she went on, eyeing the rest of their company over her shoulder.
He grimaced but said nothing and they fell into silence again.
“You know, I always wondered,” Bhokali said after a while. “Mistress Aatta kept calling you Scion. Soon enough we were all in the tribe calling you Scion. But there are no Scions of War. There are no Scions but of the Ukunfazane and yet you never tried to stop her or us.”
“You think I never tried to stop her? For the first month of our travelling together, that’s all I was telling her. She told me it wasn’t meant as an honorific, but as a tease; such was the tragedy I was going through, one would think I carried the Goddess’ burdens themselves, like her Scions, she said. In the end, I think I just accepted it as such. Or maybe I just got used to it, flattered even.”
“Well… They might call you one now,” she nudged him, teasingly.
“I intend to champion for more independence for the Cults and their pursuits,” he said. “I very much doubt Scion is the word I will be remembered by,” he said.
“Maybe not by them,” she muttered.
Choice
- The group will move south, to join the path of the Gecko Step.
- The group will move East, to join the Longpath.
- The group will stick to the Wastelands proper.
Chapter 2
They found a roaming Tribe already on their first day on the Longpath. Kiikri their name was, announced their drums as was custom on the Longpath, named after a small rodent of the Huenantli, and in the name was their whole history as far as Cuatal could tell. A small tribe, perhaps great once but no longer, edged out long ago from the Mother Oasis, during the Time of Absence, when the Ukunfazane had left to know the world and learn how to carve a place for her people. Bhokali suggested the tribe was too small to risk making them Bound; they were too few to be of benefit compared to the resources they would need and a small roaming tribe could spare. Antekki disagreed, claiming a Bound Warbred was always of benefit, but Shukuan simply grunted she would cost in lives more than in resources. So, they stayed on the road and did not flee from them and the Kiirki simply passed them by, even as they eyed hesitantly at Shukuan.
On the second day, they found a monument on the side of the path. It was a carving of a featherless bird, carved on the side of the path as it traversed a crevice, put there by a tribe called Shakaa’Ti, which none among the company had heard of before. It marked the day of the tribe’s first passing through the wastelands, again during the Time of Absence, only to be swallowed by the Wastelands or be destroyed by another tribe, most likely remembered today probably only by this monument and the tales of the Cult of Famine. He’d ask about it, thought Cuatal, when they reached Talethirst, partly out of a feeling of reverence for an entire tribe lost and partly out of sheer curiosity. They camped around the stone bird that night for there was a well-hole on the rock. The next day, Bhokali started leaving early and roaming in the Wastelands proper, scavenging for scraps to keep them going.
Until the fifth day the path had been empty, and tension had begun to rise among the company. Everyone was hungry, fed barely enough to be sustained. Bhokali, as she had expected, was the first target of everyone’s frustration, with Antekki accusing her of eating more before she brought back food. No one commented, least of all Bhokali, and the matter rest, but Cuatal began to share Bhokali’s concerns about hunger. Luckily, the next day, game was found, or at least Wastelands game, some few dozen dust mice that Bhokali brought, ululating with joy.
On the seventh day, they found Pokkal. He saw them before they saw him, as they were sitting under a rock’s shade in midday. He stood in the middle of the path, sword drawn and ready, but eyes hollow and dark with hunger and thirst. Still, he screamed his name with might when he saw them appear, his voice travelling like thunder over the Longpath.
“The tribe’s champion,” Bhokali said. “Many tribes still abide to the old custom of travelling the Longpath once per generation, even if by sending a champion to do it in the Tribes name. He must be starving. He will challenge us for food and water. One of us, at least.”
Cuatal nodded and sure enough the challenge came.
“Stand still, for I am Pokkal of the Dessert Snakes!” the warrior shouted. “Spare your food or spill your blood, as the Longpath demands!”
Shukuan shrugged, drawing her great club as she got up, but Cuatal sighed, seeing the warrior’s posture deflate. To his surprise, the Warbred paused, looking at him.
Choice
- Let Shukuan fight him.
- “Don’t kill him.”
- “I will go.”