Drakon Book I: The Sieve by C.A. Caskabel

Author:C.A. Caskabel [Caskabel, C.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: C.A. Caskabel
Published: 2016-09-13T06:00:00+00:00

XII.

The Twenty-First Day

Thirteenth Winter. The Sieve. Twenty-First Day.

Death could not rest and sent his Redveils. The Ouna-Mas slid into our tent and, after a short while, pointed at me while whispering with the Reghen.

I was sitting with Elbia next to the fire.

“Can I see your mark?” I asked, and she lifted her hair to reveal the lucky sevenstar sign, the black circle behind her ear.

“I will tell you a secret.” I spoke to her loudly so that the Guides, the Ouna-Mas, and the Reghen would hear me. “This isn’t my twelfth but my thirteenth winter. They had forgotten me at the orphans. How can they know what day I was born when they don’t even remember which winter? I was wrongly marked.”

My voice had to reach the ears of the Redveils for my luck to change.

“You will be a great warrior, whatever mark you carry. We will ride the war horses together, Da-Ren,” Elbia answered.

There was no Story that night. We lay next to each other to sleep. I opened my eyes. She was looking straight at me. I smiled. My fingers meshed with hers, and the fire burnt warmer and deeper than ever. She didn’t pull her hand away. Our fingers touched and moved, slowly rubbing together for countless breaths, my heart racing, our eyes closed.

I dreamed of the Endless Forest. It was green and gold.

I awoke in a cold sweat.

I dressed slowly, I ate slowly. I wanted to just stop time. To not face the dawn of the twenty-first day.

“It’s time to go out,” Rouba said to me when I was the last one left in the tent.

I want to throw up. The words didn’t come out.

“It matters not when we will leave this place, Da-Ren. Only that we tell our best Stories when we meet Enaka in the Unending Sky.”

With those words, old Rouba led me out of the tent on the longest winter’s night. The Reghen told us it was the longest when they woke us at daybreak.

“We won’t leave here alive,” I said to Elbia as we stepped into the frigid air.

“What’s got into you? Stop searching for your ruin, and it will not find you,” she said, her voice angry for the first time.

I was not the one searching. Death was upon us, stealing the children away, his night fires spread across Sirol to consume the corpses. If it wasn’t the maulers, it was the plague, or the ninestar curse, the heads of Darhul, there were nine of them too, and the thousand teeth of the Drakon. It was always something.

When we arrived at the field, everyone knew that this day would be different. Elbia swallowed hard when she saw the Archers riding, the hooves raising a cloud of dust that blended with the morning mist.

Standing in front of the warriors were five Reghen and several Ouna-Mas. More than ten, standing in their robes like a black forest of firs.

Six massive men on foot surrounded the strongest horse I had ever seen and were holding the banners of Khun, the One Leader of the Tribe.

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