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Jolted from my sleep, I lay as still as stone, afraid even to breathe. Eyes wide in the fading light of the smoldering fire, I struggled to make sense of the sounds beyond the felt walls. A muffled rustling stirred the dry grass like the grazing of sheep. Should I wake Aric? If it was nothing, he would be angry. But my instincts cried out to be wary. I peered across the dimly lit tent, and Antisthenes was not in his bed. Reaching over the sword stretched between our beds, I gently but firmly gripped Aric’s wrist. He slowly turned his head toward me, blinking. I clutched my dagger and rolled my eyes in the direction of the sound. He nodded, slowly pulling his own blade to his chest and curling his fingers around the handle of the sword between us.
Something scraped against the felt. My heart pounded furiously. Blood rushed in my ears, and I could no longer hear. Awaiting a sign, I fixed my eyes on Aric. Would he raise the alarm? Rush out to fight? Or wait for it to come to us? Maybe it was nothing: a deer or loose horse.
He held up three fingers close to his chest. He could hear three prowlers. Fuck.
There was only one way into—and out of—the tent: through the door. Going through the felt and lattice walls would alert us and others. Our advantage was in knowing of their presence and getting to the door first. Aric placed his finger over his lips, then pointed to himself and the door’s left side, then to me and the right side of the door. I followed his lead as we crept on our bellies to the door, crouched with weapons drawn, and waited. Aric, I knew, could handle himself even if we were outnumbered, but I wasn’t prepared for close combat. Where the fuck had Antisthenes gone?
When the assassins entered, they came softly. The first one through the door, Aric pounced upon like a leopard. Seized him from behind with an arm around his neck and, with one swift motion, cut his throat. It was not what I imagined killing would be. He did not linger, or whimper, or gaze at us in dread like the heroes’ tales all told. He simply gasped and fell dead across the doorsill in a spout of blood.
The next followed fast on his heels, stumbling over the body as I thrust my long dagger hard under his ribs. This one did not die quickly. He turned and fell on me as we both crashed to the ground. I seized his wrist as he stabbed with his own dagger, diverting it into the mats beside my head. He thrashed, unable to pull free, trying to punch and claw at me with his free hand. Aric rushed to pull him off me. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, he pulled back the man’s head and sliced open his throat, spraying me with a shower of hot blood.
The third man rushed in. Wrestling the surprisingly weighty dead man from atop me, I pulled myself free from the corpse, but my dagger remained stuck under his ribs. Aric’s akinaka in his hand, the stabbing point down, he spun around and braced in the confined space. The walls close, the man circled the hearth, stepping over the bodies already littering the floor. On my feet but weaponless, I readied myself to pounce. The third man lunged at Aric before I could move.
He charged, avoiding Aric’s sword, knocking him to the wall and pinning him there. Aric fought to wrestle the dagger away, the man’s wrist locked in his grip. I leapt upon the beast’s back and grabbed at his throat but could gain no hold on his strained and bulging neck, thick and sweating as it was. I wrapped both my arms around his windpipe, squeezing with all my might to choke his breath from him. I felt a strange, sharp pinch in my left forearm, and I realized with horror that the man’s teeth were sunk deep into my flesh. Releasing my hold, I instead reached for his face and dug my fingers into his eyes. I clawed with all the ferocity in me. With horror, I saw the assassin’s dagger was stuck in Aric’s ribs. My fingers burrowed into his eye sockets, his bulging eyes squishing like boiled eggs in my angry grip. I probed and scraped until he screeched like a woman and abandoned his assault, releasing Aric to pry my hands from his face.
This gave Aric the chance he needed to push the beast back, toppling him over on me and driving his sword down through the assassin’s body, the point piercing his side.
I relaxed my clutching hands but did not move until I was sure he was dead. With my last remaining strength, I shoved his bulk aside and struggled to my feet, wiping my hands on the thighs of my trousers.
Aric stood, his back to the wall and both hands upon the grip of his drawn sword. As blood streamed down his brow and into his eye, he blinked furiously and stared, unseeing, into the shadows of the tent. I stepped toward him, and he braced the sword and made a threatening cut. “Name yourself!” he demanded, his voice strained but controlled.
“Aric,” I said calmly as I could manage, “it’s me, Anaiti. They’re all dead.” He blinked hard, but his eye still had not focused on me. I stepped closer, approaching slowly, speaking softly. “I am here,” I said, reaching out to touch him and placing my hand on his quivering arm. He didn’t flinch but relaxed and lowered his sword, releasing a hand from the hilt to wipe the blood from his eye. Blinking furiously to clear his vision, he looked at me as if for the first time, exhaled deeply, thrust an arm around my back, and crushed me against him, his hand resting softly on my head.
“Ho! We heard a struggle,” Olgas shouted through the closed door.
Aric released me with a brusque shove.
“Help us!” I called to Olgas, and he rushed in, sword drawn.
“Oh, fuck.” Stormai stood beside him, eyes wide, mouth gaping. “The Man-Eaters have come.” He ducked his head back outside and shouted an order for the vazarka to rally around the tent and the other men to disperse and search the surrounding fields for more hostiles.
I turned to see if Aric was all right. He braced the fingers of his left hand flat against his ribs around the dagger and slowly withdrew it with his right. The blade seemed to have glanced off the bones themselves and lodged beneath the muscle. He sneered at the knife and tossed it toward the dead man at his feet.
“Ana, are you hurt?” Aric asked.
“No,” I said. “But one of the bastards bit me.” I pulled up my sleeve and showed him my arm.
“Ha! Your worst fear! You were eaten by a cannibal,” he teased and eased himself back against the post for support.
“The white crow has claws,” Olgas said.
“What?” I asked, confused once again by their odd expressions. “You’re a bit late. But now you have three Mokhsa scalps you can wipe your ass with,” I said as I placed my foot against the dead man’s ribs and yanked my dagger free. Strange how readily flesh accepted iron and how unwillingly it released it.
“Did you kill any?” Stormai asked.
“Strictly speaking, Aric slew them all,” I noted. “You’re bleeding badly,” I said to Aric, eyeing his wound. “Sit, let me look at that.”
“I’m fine,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, and promptly collapsed where he stood.
I fell to my knees over him and used my tunic sleeve to wipe away the blood so I could examine the place where the short, narrow blade had pierced his side. The wound was not terribly deep, but it bled a lot. I wasn’t sure, studying the weapon more closely, but I thought I could smell something off.
“Stormai!” I shrieked, unaware he was already beside me.
“I’m here,” he said in his deep monotone, but the worry was written on his creased brow.
“Please, sit with him. Put pressure on this cloth—as hard as he can bear—and I’ll return with water and salve to clean this.”
Twenty more man-eaters were killed in the fields before they could inflict any more harm or steal any stock. Their bodies we burned on the opposite bank of the river, and we buried their ashes under a pile of black stones. They’d never harm the Skythai again, in this world or the next. A raiding party immediately set out for the Mard-Khwaar territory to finish what perhaps should have been done that very first night. The Man-Eaters would now fall under the terrible vengeance of the Skythai warriors. Many would die, and the rest would be driven from their lands forever when the Skythai laid claim to their territory.
I wished that I could have ridden with them, but I was determined to remain with Aric, helping to tend to his wound. Antisthenes rushed back to the tent when he got word of the attack, though he said nothing of where he’d been. We spent an entire day scrubbing the walls and carpets clean and replacing the mats soiled with blood until no trace of the invaders remained.
No trace but one.
Unsurprisingly, Aric was a terrible patient. He’d allowed the camp’s healer—a vazarka called Galati—to anoint the blade of the Man-Eater’s dagger with a healing balm and then recite verses over him to exorcise the spirit introduced into his body on the point of the blade. The healer was a good-looking man of middle years, tall and slender with long flaxen hair and beard, and dusky blue eyes. A savage-looking scar ran the length of his face on the left, from his temple to his chin. Galati banished us from the tent for an entire day and night while he performed a clamorous rite with a drum and cast various sweet and noxious herbs onto the fire, chanting all the while. I peered through the cracks from time to time to observe the rites, which I didn’t understand. He moved quickly for a tall man, but not hurriedly. With a smooth grace, each long, slim limb rose and fell with the fierce, sharp precision of a whip’s lash.
In the morning when he emerged, Aric looked brighter. But after that, he could not be persuaded to rest nor let us summon a healer from court. Instead, he salved the dagger’s blade several times a day and never let it from his sight. Soon, the cut was severely inflamed, rimmed with traces of blue-black rot from the evil. Galati continued to feed him a cure of herbs and fermented fruits. It smelled sweet, and he said it would counter the venom.
“Perhaps I should have taken my father’s advice,” Aric chuckled listlessly to himself as he propped his back against a freshly scrubbed post, “and let the anarei poison me.” His eye looked almost bruised, so dark was the shadow that encircled it now.
“Why would he do that?”
“The king has Erman poison him each day with every manner of toxin, in small amounts, to harden his flesh against their effects. He claims to have built a tolerance for every venom and disease known to the Agari, the greatest sorcerers and poisoners in the world.”
“And how does Erman come to possess this skill?”
“He was born of their tribe. They learn to harvest deadly plants from the moment they can walk.”
His head lolled back against the post, and he closed his eye.
All warriors feared—and decried—poison as treacherous and cowardly. It was a double death, for it took both life and honor. Yet few shunned it entirely. The Mard-Khwaar, I learned, were known to dip their arrows and blades in venom, feces, noxious weeds, and corpses before attacking their enemies—which, to be fair, we had done before our raid as well. Unlike the poisons used in hunting, which killed instantly, these brought a slow, horrific death meant to instill weakness, inflict torment, inspire fear. Instead of defiantly facing down the jaws of an enemy’s weapons on the battlefield, poison’s lingering incapacity bestowed a shameful death upon the proud warrior. There was no telling what kind of rot was now coursing through Aric’s blood. I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from trembling. Much as we all respected Galati’s craft, I feared his intercession with the spirits might not be enough. Though what I could possibly do, I had no idea. Perhaps only stand and watch as Aric’s chest heaved with labored breaths or listen to the wheezing that rasped past his dry lips like the wind rattling through the door of an abandoned house. I was glad he closed his eye so he could not see the panic on my face.
He succumbed to a fever in the night, and his limbs swelled. At least in his weakness, he had no choice but to allow us to care for him, though now we feared it might be too late. Antisthenes mixed a potion of willow powder and Apia’s Tears—the poppy’s amber resin—to help him sleep and ease his pain. With nothing to lose in trying, I mixed a warm poultice of mashed plantain leaves to draw the poison. Then, in the morning, I soaked some bread in buttermilk, left it to curdle in the sun, and then applied this poultice to the wound. For two days, it seemed to slow the rot. The blackness ceased to spread, and his condition improved. Then suddenly, the fever returned.
His skin burned, and he lay in a puddle of sweat and soaked rags. His thirst was terrible, though he wouldn’t eat. His pale skin clung to his bones like wet cloth to a rail. Nothing we tried to feed him—not any potions or nourishment—stayed in his stomach long. He slept, seeming to remember nothing.
When his fever worsened and his skin went dry and hot like an iron stove, the men wanted to call a priest to perform divination and offer sacrifice. Galati and several others said I was killing him. And maybe they were right. I was no healer. The only medicine I knew was for horses. It was a foolish risk to take if he should die. But how could I not try? In his few waking moments, I begged Aric to let them summon help. He refused.
When I demanded to know why, Antisthenes explained that—even if Aric would tolerate such healing, which surely he would not—we were far from a friendly village or farmstead of any substance. With the court a hundred or more miles away this time of year, finding a trusted healer with these arts—or getting one to make the long, slow journey by cart, as they did not ride—was impossible. And he was far too sick to travel.
We were stranded, then. Abandoned like a boat without oars. But I would be damned if I would stand and watch him suffer another day. Listen to him mumble in his delirium. Feel him convulse with fever under my hands as I sponged the sweat from his burning flesh. Look into his fierce but weary eye and wonder when the fire would finally burn out.
I knew of only one more thing to try. It was an ancient cure I learned from an old hamazon healer and once used on a horse that had become trapped in a swamp and tore the skin from its leg. I’d seen wild garlic in the meadows, but it was still early for onions. I might find some, but they wouldn’t be ready to harvest. I would have to gather what I could and hope for the best. I spent the better part of an afternoon wandering the fields collecting the bulbs I would need. Crushing equal amounts in a mortar, I mixed the mash with a cup of undiluted wine. This mixture was then to be steeped in a cow’s stomach for three days while suspended in a cool, flowing river. I only prayed he had three more days.
While I waited, we carried water from the river for cooling cloths to bathe him, and I sat with him almost night and day—vigilant, though for what I couldn’t say. Sitting cross-legged at the head of his bed, I looked upon his grey skin in dismay and watched his breast’s laborious rise and fall. Day and night, he lay in a state more like death than sleep. When he roused, I would take his hand in mine and speak softly to him, gently combing my fingers through his damp hair until he grew quiet. I’d never cursed an entire people, but I cursed the Mard-Khwaar. Man, woman, and child, I cursed them.
Each day as I sat vigil, some of the vazarka would come in shifts to sit with me or take my place while I slept. We still feared another strike while Aric was in his weakened state, so guards were posted day and night.
Bornon came and sat with me one day outside the felt-house, and we spent the better part of the afternoon brushing up my technique with daggers. I was determined that I should never again be caught off my guard. When the lesson was through, we sat to refresh ourselves with kumis and sharpen our blades. A stolid man, he was unusually chatty as we sat together plying our whetstones. Dawdling about camp was getting to everyone.
“Were you really eaten by a Mard-Khwaar?” he asked, screwing up his face in revulsion.
“Well, just a bit.”
His expression transformed into childlike curiosity. “Can I see?”
I pulled up my sleeve to show him the wound. Two neat semi-circles cut into my forearm in the unmistakable shape of human teeth. He cringed.
“Is it bad?” I asked him, my well-concealed worry rising to the surface. “Will I become like them now?” With bigger concerns, I’d tried to put it from my mind.
His face contorted as he worked to suppress a smile. Then he burst out with a hearty laugh. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” he said, slapping his thigh with amusement.
“Well, I don’t know how they get like that.”
“And you thought being bitten…?”
“Don’t laugh! I worried it was like when a rabid animal bites another, and it goes mad.”
“Have you been troubled about that all this time?”
“Maybe a little….”
He erupted with laughter again.
“I’m glad this amuses you.”
He snorted and caught his breath. He stopped sharpening his blade and looked at me in earnest. “Did you really pull out the man’s eyes?” He blinked his own soft brown eyes at me in disbelief.
The memory of it still sickened me.
He grinned and gripped my shoulder, shaking me gently. “Next time we train, I will teach you proper grappling. If you like.”
“I would. Very much.”
He nodded his shaggy brown head and went back to polishing the nicks from the edge of his sword. “You’ve been standing watch every day since?
“If they want him, they’ll have to fight me.”
“I’d not tangle with you,” he nudged me with his elbow and smiled. “Did I ever tell you that my old tribe used to cross the Hamazon River to trade with the Aorsi for horses?”
“I think I heard you mention it. Did you know many hamazon?”
“A few. There was a girl… Leimeia. You remind me of her. Tall, blonde, stubborn. A smart mouth on that one, too,” he grinned.
“I like her already,” I kidded and gave him a playful shove.
“She tamed horses, too. They have a way with horses, the hamazon. They can pacify them with a word or a touch like I saw you do with that bay gelding of yours. I never saw horses like that anywhere else, and I would go on festival days to trade for them with the band. We’d meet up, Leimeia and I, after the fairs and ride into the fields. After long, we even talked about leaving our bands behind to join our houses. We were both rich enough in stock. We argued, though. We just couldn’t decide which side of the Tanais we’d settle on. She couldn’t imagine leaving her homeland. And my people thought it a disgrace for a man to settle in the home of his wife. But I decided I didn’t care. One year, for Midsummer, I crossed the river, determined I would come to her side if she’d have me. But she was gone. Killed in a raid that spring.”
“Oh, Bornon…” I knew no words. “I am so sad for you,” I said clumsily. I wanted to put an arm around him and pull him close, but he kept working at his blade with steady, even strokes. I studied him as he worked. Beneath his bristly beard, his face was deeply scarred. Rows of scars lined both his cheeks, crossing the bridge of his nose and his forehead. He was missing half of his left ear and his left hand’s last finger at the second joint. “You’ve seen so much fighting,” I said. “More than I ever will. May I ask… if it isn’t out of line? Who could have done such terrible things to you?”
He set down his whetstone and looked me squarely in the face. “My lady, may you never know the thing that has done this to me.”
I shook my head in regret. “I meant no offense.”
“I’ve taken none. I will tell you this much. Before I came here, I was a karik in the Warband of another tribe. My beloved Lord was slain. When the moment came, I could neither save him nor follow him to the grave as I had sworn. I had other vows yet to keep. But this life—and my Lord Aric—promised me vengeance.”
“Did you get it?”
He looked wistful, his eyes going glassy as he stared at something inside his mind. “A thousand times over.”
“Yet, you remain.”
“What else is there for me?” He tested his blade with a piece of leather thong. It sliced through like an oar through water. “All these men are here because they could not find satisfaction in the world. They’re exiles, by chance or by choice. We remain in pursuit of something. Honor. Justice. Purpose. Redemption. Gold and cattle can’t buy these things.” He nicked his arm, drawing blood, then sheathed the sword. “What do wealth, rank, kin—even survival—mean in the face of service to this? To the Lord we serve?”
“Aric?”
“Goetosura.”
Though more disturbing than deadly, my wounds were mostly healed. Though eager to help, Antisthenes seemed preoccupied with maintaining order in Aric’s stead. As his steward, it was his duty to take command in Aric’s absence. But he’d been acting strangely since that night, and more than once, I stopped myself from asking why he wasn’t in his bed when the assassins came. I assumed he had gotten up to take a piss. Was there more? It wasn’t my place to question, and we both had more important concerns just now, but I kept a close watch on the Hellene as we went about our tasks, unsure what I was even looking for.
The time had come to try my potion. I knew it wouldn’t work instantly. I just hoped it would work. The blackening around the wound’s edges, indicating the presence of poison, had subsided, but a feverishness and ooze had lingered. Soaking some clean bandages, I pressed the mixture into Aric’s festering wound. Holding the flat of my palm over the soaked cloth and gazing down at his listless form, dread filled my breast. What if this should fail? Unwilling to entertain that possibility, I lifted the bandage and poured some of the potion into the open wound. Then soaked another clean cloth and held it again to his rattling ribs.
What would become of me in a place like this if he were gone? And what of these men? What would become of the Warband? He was the tent pole at the center of the felt-house keeping the whole structure aloft; if he fell, it all fell.
Antisthenes left the tent to fetch more butter from the larder wagons for our breakfast, and I was alone with Aric. Tentatively, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his burning brow. “Aric, don’t you dare die,” I whispered to him. “I know you are weary. Rest. But don’t go. Please don’t go.”
Then Antisthenes tapped his brief signal on the doorframe and slipped back through the door. I bolted up straight and still, staring at the wall until I heard him settle into chores behind me. Closing my eyes, I exhaled slowly, and a word formed itself in my mind. Please. Over and over, I chanted it like a prayer. Please.
The following morning Aric’s fever broke. As I laid my hand on his cool brow, the clenched fist within my chest relaxed, and I let the weariness rise. My touch awakened him with a scowl.
“Woman, don’t fuss over me,” he grunted and swatted away my hand.
“Fine, go to the crows then!” Ungrateful bastard.
“I’ll hardly die,” he grumbled.
“It’s true, Aric,” Antisthenes chided him. “You’ve been very ill. Anaiti’s skill has healed you.” He was busying himself over the hearth, cooking barley cakes and mild millet porridge. Aric hadn’t eaten in days.
Aric frowned, bewildered. “How long have I been sleeping?” his voice was raspy and thin.
“Nearly a week,” Antisthenes replied as he lifted a barley cake from the fire and set it aside to cool. He came and knelt beside Aric’s bed, his manner tense and his tone solemn. “When they came, I was not there for you, my lord, because I was not thinking of my duty. I am humiliated.” He bowed his head.
“You have never failed me before. And you are here now,” Aric said weakly, “and so am I,” placing his pale hand over Antisthenes’.
“I prayed, and the gods were merciful,” Antisthenes nearly whispered, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat. “I thank the gods: you shall survive.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” Aric attempted to chuckle and clasped his side, his face contorted in agony.
“You had a fever,” I said in understatement.
He just shook his head. “And your wounds?”
“It turns out being eaten by cannibals sounds worse than it is,” I forced a smile. “Do you think you can eat a little?”
Antisthenes retreated to fetch the cooled cakes and porridge.
“I owe you a great debt,” Aric said.
“You’d have done the same for me,” I boldly assumed.
“I owe my life to you twice over—when the Man-Eaters overcame me and again when his foul poison nearly did. With Antisthenes as our witness, by Goetosura and all the gods, and on this day, whatever day this is, I pledge you, Anaiti, daughter of Arianta of the Bastarnai, two lives.” He pointed to a wicker chest on the back wall beside the altar. “Fetch me that chest.”
He winced as he struggled to prop himself upright, wheezing harshly with the effort. Antisthenes, seeming eager to be of use, rushed him the chest, and Aric rooted through it until finally drawing out a fist-sized leather pouch. From it, he pulled two golden arm rings, each made of three thin bands of gold twisted into a rope.
“My pledge.” Aric held the rings out to me on the palm of his hand.
“But I would do it again freely.”
“Take them, my lady,” Antisthenes urged.
“What does it mean?” I glanced between them, confused.
“They are yours. As is my gratitude. And I owe you two lives—your own or any others of your choosing.”
Aric needed to see the Sun rise, he said. And I saw no harm in it. Indeed, it would probably do him good.
He dressed just before daybreak. Moving slowly, he managed to get into his trousers, though Antisthenes and I had to help him into his tunic and caftan. At the door, he slipped on his boots and grabbed his cap. In the face of some heavy frowning, I insisted that he leave his warbelt behind. We made no mention to any of the others that he’d be venturing out so there’d be no crowd of well-wishers.
I held the door-flap for him just as the first hints of gold glowed in the east. Facing toward the Dawn, before the door of the felt-house, he took his cap from his head and pressed it to his chest, then waited for the Sun to break over the horizon.
As the disc came into view, he began quietly, almost to himself, to chant an incantation to the rising Sun: 1
“Eye of the Great God, Eye of the God of Glory, Eye of the King of Hosts, Eye of the Lord of the Living, Pouring upon us at every season, Pouring upon us gently and generously, Glory to Thee, thou noble Sun, Glory to Thee, face of the God of Life.”
As he finished, the great disc of the Sun cleared the horizon. No longer able to look on the brightness of it, I turned to face him, and he smiled gently, the red-gold glow of first light emblazoned across his joyful face.
Chapter Seventeen: Hamazon
This incantation is adapted from one published in Indo-European Poetry and Myth, by M.L. West, Oxford University Press, 2009
So happy Aric pulled through. Thanks, Ana, for your special potion! They make a good team. Great chapter.
Harrowing opening to this scene! I like the subtle gesture of the guy holding up 3 fingers to alert the others in the tent of how many people were outside.
I was just thinking of something. Do you think they might have covered the felt tents with animal hides? A few years ago I read a book about the ill-fated Franklin expedition. One of the things the author highlighted was that the members of the expedition only had felt coats which were evidently not terribly effective in arctic conditions. I think the Mongols’ yurts were smeared with animal fat to help keep the wind out. Did you ever see the Russian film, “Mongol” that came out in 2007. That film has quite a few spectacular scenes in Mongol tents. I Genghis Khan is centuries removed from your story, but it does a good job capturing the awesomeness of the Eurasian Steppes and the mysteriousness of the shamanistic and totemic practices of the people.
By the way, Winston showed me in the Substack where you can group poetry lines together as they would appear in a book of poetry by using the “poetry quotation” menu option in the edit mode. At the moment, the incantation at the end of this chapter has a space in between each line.