Drakon Book II: Uncarved Read online

  DRAKON

  Book II

  UNCARVED

  C. A. CASKABEL

  Copyright © 2017 C.A. Caskabel

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1541163713 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-9906150-1-9 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  XVII. I Seek Only One

  XVIII. Archers We Need in the Thousands

  XIX. Now I Am Ready

  XX. Born Only to Die

  XXI. A Woman

  XXII. Blue

  XXIII. I Dreamed of Redbreast Robins

  XXIV.Skeleton

  XXV. The Final Battle

  XXVI. The Calling

  XXVII. The Legend of Er-Ren

  XXVIII. Children Hand in Hand

  XXIX. Kar-Tioo

  XXX. Iron End

  XXXI. The Witch, the Amazon, the Cow

  XXXII. Stake and Lard

  XXXIII. Yes, My Leader

  XXXIV. My Iron, Your Fate

  XXXV. To Death

  XXXVI. It Led Me to Both

  XXXVII. The Merciless Rain

  XXXVIII. Behind Me

  XXXIX. Silent, Holy Night

  XL. Armor

  XLI. Rowan

  XLII. Brown

  XLIII. Legs

  XLIV. The Ssons

  XLV. Hunger

  About Drakon

  About the Author

  BOOK II: UNCARVED

  “And the day dawned blue.”

  www.caskabel.com

  XVII.

  I Seek Only One

  Fourteenth spring. Uncarved—Starling.

  This I know, now that I am older and have seen many winters come and go: there are some wounds that never heal. Even when the flesh breathes again, the head keeps rotting. Tormenting memories crawl back every night and consume it.

  During my winters with the Uncarved, the Guides would give me the only cure: the next brutal trial. Every new trial that awaited me was so much worse that the mind had no time to get stuck in the mud of the past. The nose smelled; the head obeyed and moved arms and legs to save my life. Only now that I am alone with the monks in the Castlemonastery, most of the time within four stone walls, only now can I ponder the wounds of my soul, all day.

  The Sieve ended on the fortieth morning. Reghen and Keko were leading us northwest. The night was descending fast, and we were much closer to the Endless Forest.

  “Where in the Demon’s name are we going?” I asked.

  Defeat had loosened my tongue, and I was in no mood to obey anyone.

  “We’ve passed all the grazing meadows and training fields of the warriors and the young Archers. We’ll deliver you to the camp of the Uncarved. It is in the northwest corner of Sirol.”

  “Is it deep in the Forest?”

  “No, next to it. You will hear the wolves sing,” said the Reghen.

  “And the Reekaal…but they don’t sing,” added Keko.

  That was his last word. Sing. A word so out of step with the murky-eyed, shit-mouthed Guide. When we arrived at the camp of the Uncarved, Keko turned around and started galloping fast back to where we had come from before the Reekaal caught his scent. He said no goodbyes, and I never saw him again. Much later, I heard that he died of the plague, though I believe that the rose-colored worms were eating his body for a long time from within. His mouth always smelled of death, whether he was talking or breathing.

  “Two more youths from this winter’s Sieve,” said the Reghen, pointing to Malan and me. Across from us stood a tall and broad-shouldered man, not as old as our Guides, with deep scars on his cheeks.

  “This is Chaka, Leader of the Guides of the Uncarved. For five winters, you will be in his hands,” added the Reghen.

  Five winters. What was this? In forty days of the Sieve, almost half the children I knew had died. I couldn’t even imagine my bare bones in five winters.

  At his heels were four more children I had never seen in the Sieve. Three of them were my height. One of them was huge, at least two palms taller than I.

  “Stand next to them,” Chaka told us.

  “We will bring seven more,” the Reghen said to Chaka. “That makes thirteen in all for this spring.”

  “I seek only One.”

  That was the only thing Chaka said to welcome us. He said it first looking at me and then at Malan, not the Reghen. And that was enough.

  “How many Khuns does the Tribe have?” the young Reghen turned and asked me with wide eyes.

  Another fool to torment me, that’s all he was. I didn’t answer. I’d had enough for one day.

  I knew all this already. Only one Khun. He was seeking only One Leader. I wouldn’t have any friends or brothers here. If I wanted any, I should have gotten a carving on my left arm.

  Chaka smacked me hard, a suitable greeting for the next five winters.

  “You rat, you answer when the Reghen asks you something. Are you the one who dared go into the wolves’ tent? The two rabbits?”

  Malan’s brave deeds had traveled faster than we had. I was not the one. I exhaled again, bored stiff. He smacked me again on the same cheek. It was a strong one this time.

  More twelve-wintered Uncarved boys kept coming from the other packs of the Sieve over the next few days, and I met them all with a bruised right cheek. When all thirteen of us arrived, Chaka and the rest of the Guides called us in the middle of the camp to speak to us.

  “Starting tonight and till next spring you will sleep in that hut,” Chaka said, pointing to a wooden structure at the eastmost corner. “Go in there, wear the clothes of the Uncarved and come back, I have a lot more to say.”

  We all ran to the hut, pushing and shoving to make it there first. We rushed in like a herd of animals, searching for the clothes, each one of us wanting to grab the best pieces. A Guide was waiting there for us, and we stopped at our heels when we saw him in front of the thirteen piles.

  “Boots, hides, trousers,” he said. “Undress, wear them, and then we go back outside for weapons. Keep the breeches, and this thing for later.”

  This thing was a linen tunic, one of the rarest that only the othertribers south of the Blackvein could make. It was the softest thing I touched until I embraced a naked woman.

  When we all dressed, I started looking around the hut more carefully. Wooden poles, holding hide covers, began from the top of the log-built walls and joined only at the center, making a tall roof. I had never slept in anything other than a tent. We stepped out of the hut where four more Guides were waiting for us in a row, each one in front of a pile.

  “Form a line and go to each one of them one by one.”

  Once more we started to push and shove to get ahead of the others.

  “Short blade,” said the first Guide and gave me a sword the size of my forearm.

  “Long blade,” said the next and gave me a sheathed sword almost twice the size of the small one.

  “Double-curved bow. The rage of Enaka.”

  “Rider’s quiver, hunter’s quiver.”

  We started talking about all these precious gifts with eyes wide open.

  “Hey, we’ll go hunting! I grew up with the Hunters,” said the one called Balam. He was cocky, strong, and stupid.

  “Rider’s quiver, we are going riding!” said Anak. That one was as much a hairy, ugly oaf as any twelve-wintered could be. But he proved to be a great rider later.

  “No one is go
ing riding for another two springs,” said Chaka. “If you lose any of these weapons, you will sleep with the fish guts or the Tanners. Got it?”

  Each boy strapped his blades tighter and gripped the bow with all his strength.

  The kid next to me was sweating in the middle of winter. Fear does that. “Redin…from the Archers,” he whispered to me. He was holding his shaking left hand with the right one.

  You shouldn’t be here, Redin. It was my only silent thought.

  Chaka was facing all of us. He grabbed a boy by the back of the neck and pulled him closer.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “Urdan,” the boy said. He was my height, with oily hair.

  “Urdan of what?” an angry Chaka asked.

  “Urdan of the Archers,” he said.

  “Archers? Urdan of what?” Chaka asked again hitting the boy in the head.

  “Urdan of…the Uncarved,” the boy said.

  “You’re smart, Urdan. How smart are you?”

  The boy didn’t reply.

  “If you are very smart, you’ll leave the Uncarved now. Those hands of yours… They are not warrior hands. You’ll have better luck at the Tanners, seaming the hides,” Chaka lifted the boy’s hand. He had long, delicate fingers.

  “I want to stay,” the boy said.

  Chaka was towering above the boy. He pointed with his fat arrow finger at Urdan and said to the rest of the Guides. “Brave, not smart.” He then turned to Urdan. “We’ll keep you. Here, you will have meat almost every night, more than in the Sieve. You’ll need stronger bones,” said Chaka slapping Urdan in the back of the head one last time.

  Meat every night.

  “When do we eat?” asked Gunna to my left. He was a head taller than all of us.

  “The Carriers will bring meat,” said one of the Guides.

  “So, listen carefully, this is the rider’s quiver. The true Archers call it Skyrain.” Chaka lifted the large, deep bag over his head. It didn’t look like a quiver. “You put the reed arrows in here, those with the narrow-shoulder head. And this one with the clasp is the hunter’s quiver. Or Selene. You fill it with the birch arrows, those with the hooked-shoulder head. Got it?”

  Thirteen heads nodded, uncertain.

  “I know all this. Reed to travel far and fast, birch with wide head to kill. You try to pull one of those out of the guts, it makes a mess,” said Lebo. He had the hungry eyes of a mauler.

  There were six more around me. Three not even worth mentioning; they would join Enaka early. Malan the only one I knew from before. And two more who were talking and laughing in a corner.

  “And who are you two, shitheads?” said Chaka. He had the same question as me. “Let me guess; you are the best of the Blades’ children,” he said.

  “Yes, I am Akrani,” said the first. He ended up being a coward, but it would take me a long time to find out. He didn’t even know it.

  “Noki,” said the second. That one had caught my eye from the first moment because he didn’t run or push anyone to get first in line. He moved around us all day, calm and smooth, as if he had been there for many winters.

  “Akrani the shithead, and Noki the featherbrain,” said Chaka. “I seek only One, and you, scum of the Blades, are not going to be that One. This camp here is a nest. One Khun to nourish, One Leader to hatch. The rest are his food, the eggshells, and bird shit. So, you two, enjoy the meat, learn to shoot a bow, unlike your fathers who ended up Blades, and don’t give me any trouble. Now, you can go eat.”

  Our own quivers, bows, and meat. This was too good to believe.

  “The Carriers couldn’t find enough meat,” said one of the Guides with a grin. The rest of the Guides curled up laughing.

  “You’ll eat later, boys. Some of you. Undress, you know the trial,” said Chaka joining the others in roaring laughter.

  Oh, not again.

  The sun’s warmth was dying out, and we were once again suffering the usual standing trial of the Sieve. They did it only that first day, once, to mock us. To remind us. To laugh. To suck the air out of us before we got too full of ourselves. Once was enough. They left us standing in the soupy mist. The Forest demons, hanging from the naked branches, were our only companion. They came to watch the ones who never fall. Deep in the night, we were all still standing. The Guides took us all back to our hut, and Chaka said we were all winners. No one slept a winner that night.

  Each one of the thirteen of us, or maybe twelve, was boiling hard in his chest, restless, certain that he was already the chosen One Leader of the Tribe. Each one of us. Balam, Lebo, Gunna, Malan. Any day now, he thought, they would carry him to his wooden throne to rule. Victory sneaks in and becomes a curse when it fills a young head.

  There was only one problem: the other twelve boys were certain of the same destiny. Maybe eleven. There was a smart one among us, one who didn’t care to be Khun. Not I. Noki.

  “How can we ever beat Gunna?” Akrani asked when the giant boy went out of the hut to take a piss.

  “He can bring down a horse with one punch,” Lebo said.

  Redin had fallen exhausted in his corner and was sleeping.

  “I heard that Redin is the son of Druug, the Leader of all the Archer warriors,” said Anak.

  That was the first thing that worried Malan.

  “No one knows his father,” said Malan the orphan.

  “Almost no one. They say that Redin would fall many times before sundown during the Sieve but would get up in the middle of the night, go back outside, and stand alone. His father told him that if he didn’t become the next One Leader, he would skewer him alive on the stake if he ever saw him again,” said Lebo.

  “I see a stake that has his name already,” said Gunna.

  “Don’t say that. All the Guides keep an eye on him and protect him. Druug commands all the Archers. He is the most powerful man of the Tribe after the Khun.”

  Malan was moving his clenched fists up and down. He talked with slow, clear words, staring at the dirt. “No one knows his father,” he repeated as if he wanted to drive a stake through his fear.

  “As I said. Almost no one. Sometimes the powerful escape the rules,” said Lebo.

  Someone must have told him that word for word. Lebo didn’t look so smart.

  Those first days of training were the last and worst of the winter. We rarely went outside and had endless time for Stories. A snowstorm started soon after we got our bows and lasted for four nights. The snow covered all of Sirol and was up to my waist outside our wooden hut.

  “I have never seen this before. The end of the world,” Chaka mumbled to himself, angered that we couldn’t begin our training.

  The rumor I liked the best was the one about Noki. Noki didn’t care about any of us. He was the most handsome, with a long mane of the blackest hair. The sun had baked his skin darker, and he was the fastest of all of us. I believed that Noki was a more difficult opponent than Gunna.

  “He’s a mad stallion, that one. Don’t fear him. He will never be Khun,” said Lebo the windbag.

  Akrani, who had gone through the Sieve with Noki, told another Story from their old camp.

  “Noki never fell on the Sieve. One night, he was the last one left and started to mock the Guides by dancing around while everyone else was already as dead as a log. He sang to the stars to bring the rain to wash him. The Guides became furious. Instead of taking him to the winners’ tent, they left him out all night with a mauler for company.”

  Akrani would have continued, but I stopped him.

  “And he remained standing all night,” I said.

  “How did you know?”

  “I just did.”

  I dreamed that same dream once in the Sieve. It was a clear night, so many stars, not a single Guide or kid around. Silence. Only the two of them were watching from above as I endured throughout the night. Enaka. Elbia.

  “Yes, that’s how it happened, and it is no lie. He was still standing in the morning when we went back outside. Bu
t now here is the really crazy thing: he kept standing all the second day too, and that afternoon he finally got his meat.”

  Never did I dare dream that.

  “What tents did he come from?” asked Redin.

  “The Blades.”

  “Shitheads and vultures, all of them!” said Redin, the son of Druug, the Leader of the Archers.

  Noki had just walked into the hut, but Redin had his back on him and hadn’t seen him.

  “What were you saying, Redin?” Lebo asked with a grin.

  “Rats, jackals, Blades. This whole bunch of scum.”

  Everyone looked at Noki for a reply, but he didn’t care.

  I stayed silent, with pursed lips after the end of the Story. I would beat everyone in the end, I knew that much, but it wouldn’t be easy. It was those first nights that I was so certain before I saw the older boys of the Uncarved.

  It was a small camp, with few horses that we were not supposed to ride for two more springs. It seemed larger because we had to move around on foot. It was enough for the forty Uncarved, the thirteen of us and the older ones who had spent winters there. They lived in huts close by. Smaller huts, as there were fewer children from the previous winters. The Guides, a few tents farther down, had five carvings and wouldn’t dare sleep in a hut. During the first days, they kept us away from the older boys, to protect us. Later, when we started mixing, the beatings became heavy and frequent.

  The snow melted when the cursed day of my ninestar birthday came. I was one of the few who knew the exact date of his birth: nine days after the first full moon of spring. They took us out for training the next morning, and from then on, it was the same ordeal day in and day out. We would go out in the clearing before the Endless Forest and empty quivers of arrows one by one into the targets, as fast as we could. I carried bow and quivers until nightfall.

  “Where do we aim?” I asked the Guide on the first day. Across from me was only a lifeless meadow.

  “Straight ahead.”

  I waited for him to stop teasing me. He waited too.