Drakon Omnibus by C A Caskabel

Author:C A Caskabel [Caskabel, C A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781533476784
Published: 2019-03-27T22:00:00+00:00

LI.

Cypress and Oliban

Twenty-First Spring. Firstblade

In the darkness of the night, we gathered the men in the open, in front of the dung fires, red-eyed and dazed. Black-bearded, grimy and long-haired, wearing their dark dog hides they looked like a pack of beasts ready to devour man’s flesh. I only had to give the right signal. I climbed onto a boulder three feet tall and gave my hand to the Ouna-Ma to join me up there to face the bravest of the Blades. The Reghen stood next to us, but at the ground. At first, I didn’t say a word; I wanted them to start.

“Let’s go back, Firstblade.”

“This place is cursed. To Sirol!”

I didn’t need any of that cowardice.

“It’s always the Archers. We want to fight, Firstblade. We came for this.”

That was the one I was waiting for.

“Do you want to fight? Do you want to fight for the Goddess?” I shouted staring down at them.

Half of them bellowed eager, and that was enough. I continued.

“Men, tomorrow is the day. We come out victorious, or we starve all the way back to Sirol!”

“What does the Ouna-Ma say, Firstblade? What are the omens?”

The Ouna-Ma and her omens—I expected that. I had dreamed her omens.

I brought my lips next to the ear of the Ouna-Ma, slowly inhaled her scent of cypress and oliban, and whispered senseless words of gibberish to her. If only I could get every man here to smell the perfume from her neck. She stared at me with blank eyes.

“The Ouna-Ma says: ‘A Legend of fire and death, a Story for the brightest stars, the Age of the Blades is dawning.’”

The men, fully awake now, started raising their voices.

“Men, I need twenty of you to move in front, next to me. Tomorrow, we will ride first before the Archers. Step forward, the strongest armed who can carry on their backs a pole that can hold four full pails.”

I stopped and turned again to the Ouna-Ma. I spoke to her away from other ears, and this time she answered back. Her red veil had taken the fir-honey amber glow of the torch fire.

“Pails filled with black oil and pine resin,” I said. “This is our final battle tomorrow. We’ll bring fire and death to the Cross, even if we burn together. Your Story awaits you. The Goddess is summoning you to sleep the night next to her, up there. We’ll throw our bodies and our horses ablaze into the Crossers, and when the next night falls, we’ll rest forever among the stars.”

The men were still silent. No one had moved.

“And thus decreed the Voice of Enaka.”

The Ouna-Ma stepped forward and without warning started singing, “O Goddess, sweet and beautiful.” She raised her palms to greet Selene as she was emerging from a lonely patch of gray clouds. She took off her veil and kept her song going “…and I will bring as sacrifice…” The night wind cooled the sweat on the brows and the tears on the cheeks of the warriors. Still no one moving.

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