A Dagger In The Winds by Brendan Noble

Author:Brendan Noble [Noble, Brendan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eight-One-Five Publishing
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31 – Otylia

He’s not telling me something.

MOST GIRLS THOUGHT WACŁAW WAS SIMPLE. He was anything but, yet after years spent with him growing up, I could still see past his lies. Yuliya had frozen me for a reason. I intended to find out why.

The work of cremating bodies was never easy nor enjoyable, but it had to be done. And as the closest thing to a priest in the group, it had been my responsibility to provide the final rituals while the light fled the earth. Not that their souls’ journeys were over.

If given a proper cremation, souls wandered Jawia for forty days before they flowed with the rivers to Nawia. I’d never liked most of the foolish boys who had marched with us, but they deserved for their souls to be free, not trapped in their body as a demon. Soon, Nawia would greet them with its rolling plains of cattle and grain. Never again would they have to fight or toil.

I’d thought often of Mother’s forty days and wondered if she’d visited me as a bird during that time—if she’d been proud. As we burned the warriors, I recited the same words that Father had said during her funeral, “May your souls fly like the raven through the skies of Jawia. May you soar to Prawia’s edge and glimpse the glory of the gods, if only for a moment. May you taste the bountiful fruits of the south, smell the salted oceans of the north, hear the thunderous mountains of the east, and feel the kind western winds as you set with the sun. Then, when your forty days have passed, may you visit us one last time before you follow the waters to paradise.”

Tears stung my eyes when I finished. Whether they were for Mother or the dead warriors didn’t matter. I swore I would make Marzanna pay for all she’d taken from me. For Mother. For Dziewanna. And for my tribe.

No one else spoke as the fires burned away the bodies. Only Xobas didn’t flee from the smell of burning flesh. He just stood with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the flames. Every now and then, his thumb would rub the scar on his forearm, but no emotion showed on his face.

I didn’t know what terrors the Simukie general had seen in his life. But if that day’s events had left him unfazed, I decided it was best if I never found out.

When I finished the ritual, we grabbed the gear we could in makeshift packs: our sleeping cloaks, spare clothes, a hatchet to chop wood, a pot for soup, as much water as our canteens could hold, and what little remained of our food.

The night’s chill hung over us as we entered the woods, nothing but the crunching of our boots in the snow to distract us from the destruction we left behind. Xobas picked a spot for us to camp once we reached a safe distance from the village and declared he would take first watch.

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